Category: Reasons to Believe

Who wants to be happy?

2941204143_4280c3f48c_oWho wouldn’t?  Who doesn’t?

Well, too many.  Strange thing, indeed!  And yet it makes some sense, when we consider happiness as God defines it.  Happiness is keeping God’s law.

And that’s where pleasure-seekers draw the line.  “Time out!  You mean happiness lies in law-keeping?  Commandments?  That’s too restrictive.”  And yet, it’s precisely within the orbit of a devout and conscientious walk with God that true happiness is found.  Counter-intuitive, but true.

Hear the ancient wisdom-words of Psalm 34:

What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good?  Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile.  Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.  The eyes of the LORD are upon the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry.   The face of the LORD is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.

The pleasure-seeker fights the fences.  He tramples them down in defiance.  And yet O how we need fences to be happy!  Oddly enough, in God’s world (is there another?), boundaries bless.  They protect, they channel, they guide, they consecrate.  But remove them, and pleasure-seeking runs headlong from good, green pastures into the wilds of insecurity, anxiety, directionlessness, and depression.  And that’s just the beginning.

Who wants to be happy?  Then think outside the box.  Way outside.

* * *

This Lord’s day (Sunday), August 2, we will be treating this text, as it is quoted by the Apostle Peter.  You are very welcome to join us.

The immediate evidence of divine truth

220px-Jonathan_Edwards_engraving“A true sense of the divine excellency of the things of God’s word doth more directly and immediately convince of the truth of them; and that because the excellency of these things is so superlative. There is a beauty in them that is so divine and godlike, that is greatly and evidently distinguishing of them from things merely human, or that men are the inventors and authors of; a glory that is so high and great, that when clearly seen, commands assent to their divinity and reality. When there is an actual and lively discovery of this beauty and excellency, it will not allow of any such thought as that it is a human work, or the fruit of men’s invention. This evidence that they that are spiritually enlightened have of the truth of the things of religion, is a kind of intuitive and immediate evidence. They believe the doctrines of God’s word to be divine, because they see divinity in them; i.e., they see a divine, and transcendent, and most evidently distinguishing glory in them; such a glory as, if clearly seen, does not leave room to doubt of their being of God, and not of men.”

– Jonathan Edwards (1703-58)

The folly of the rod

Reason balks at paradox.  It only believes what it can see.  But it won’t venture out on thin ice.  And it certainly won’t rush forward where certain disappointment and destruction await.  Reason calls that folly.  Madness even.

Faith, on the other hand, revels in paradox.   Where reason fears to tread, faith just laughs and takes the plunge.  But true faith – biblical faith, that is  – is anything but irrational.  It may seem that faith’s ‘blind leap’ is the proof of insanity.  But faith has a little secret that reason doesn’t have.  The secret is the certain conviction of an unseen, yet no less true reality.  “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence [or conviction] of things unseen.”   Both reason and faith work the equation, both do the math.  But both get radically different results, precisely because faith has a secret.

Faith beholds the unseen God.  It hears His voice, inaudible to the natural man.   Faith perceives that He is Reason itself.  He is the One who sits in heaven and laughs at the folly of man’s wisdom and belittles his intellect by intentionally acting and speaking in paradox.  And to faith, that is just perfect.

A beautiful picture of this is Moses’ rod.  “And thou shalt take this rod in thine hand, wherewith thou shalt do signs” (Exodus 4:17).  God chooses a dead, lifeless stick.  Not a golden scepter, mind you.  Nor even a magician’s wand.  But just a plain, ordinary stick!  Pharaoh would laugh.  And he did.  But with that rod, in the hand of Moses’ simple faith, God did His wonders just as He said.  With that rod, He turned the Nile to blood, parted the Red Sea, and then closed its waters as the lid of a mighty crypt.  It sure wasn’t reason that laughed last that day.

When the Messiah came, He was a “root of out of a dry ground.”  He had “no form nor comeliness.”  When men saw Him, “there was no beauty that [they] should behold him.”  Reason was offended at the folly of such a rod.  But faith got the secret.  He was the very Branch of God.  And through Him, God would do wonders.  Just as He said.

Beyond Your Wildest Dreams

(from flickr.com)Human beings are greater imaginers. They dream big. What young person has never aspired to great things? To make something of himself? To invest, invent, exceed and excel?

Mankind has dreamed it, developed it, and done it. We dreamed electricity, and the dark nights shone. We dreamed, and the Model T rumbled off. We dreamed yet again and took flight. And then we dreamed once more, setting foot on the moon. “One small step for man” – the incarnation of our wildest dreams!

Yet, man’s imagination is actually quite meager. Yes, it is amazing when it comes to science and technology, music and the arts. But when it comes to things much higher, it’s actually quite, well, unimaginative.

Little does man imagine what he and his world could have been before sin. He can’t imagine history uncrippled by disease, death, and disaster, or unmarred by jealousy, envy, theft, and murder. Nor does he think of what this world could be. He dreams, but he’s so short-sighted. A dollar here, a trust fund there, a wife and two kids. He simply can’t dream of anything bigger than his own miniscule bottle, while all along it drifts on the ocean of eternity.

Even when many think of heaven, yet its just the best of this world times ten. It’s the big pie in the sky. Or for jihadists, it’s an orgy of wine, women, and song. Is that the afterlife? Just a big frat house up yonder? If so, I’d hate to experience the hangover!

Paradoxically, it was man’s very imagination that paralyzed his mind. The Devil told him to dream. ‘Think of the possibilities!’ he suggested. If only he ate the forbidden fruit, he would truly see – just like God. Tragically Adam, the father of our race, listened. He dreamed of something much greater and larger than God allowed him, and so disobeyed. God punished this sinful dreaming. Yes, Adam’s eyes opened. But instead of beholding something great, he only saw evil in all its starkness. That evil descended like a cloud over him, so that he could no longer envision truly great things. The best he could envision was a world stricken with the thorn and thistle, groaning under God’s curse. And finally, he and his world would be consumed in the fires of holy anger.

But then God, full of grand thoughts, stepped into man’s sin-shrinked mental world. He proposed something new, something truly big. Here are visions of what can be . . . what will be. And those who believe these promises will one day enjoy them.

Those who believed after that fateful fall of Adam, those who embraced these ideas, began to dream again. Abraham believed in God’s promise, that he would be the father of many nations. All peoples of the earth would be blessed in him. He, though his body was old and impotent, looked up to the stars and dreamed. His seed, his offspring would be just as numerous, God said. Moses, standing before Pharaoh, dreamed of Israel freed from oppression to serve God, according to the promise. And on the brink of death, he stood looking upon the land, flowing with milk and honey, and envisioned what could be – what would be.

Throughout their history, they dreamed of greater, bigger, and more glorious things, as God unfolded His ancient promise. And each and every time, the fulfillment of the promise was far beyond what their little minds could have conceived. That was especially the case when the Christ child was born to a poor virgin in Bethlehem. Yes, they had dreamed that God would come to be with them. But could they have imagined this? Immanuel was literally Immanuel – “God with us,” God in the flesh (Mat. 1:23)! This was truly beyond their wildest dreams: and yet there He was, quietly nursing at his mother’s breast. “When the LORD turned back the captivity of Zion, we were like those that dreamed” (Psa. 126:1).

But when Christ came, that wasn’t all. That was great, but there was something greater yet. The early Christians were given even more “exceedingly great and precious promises” (2 Pet. 1:4). The Christ who died, rose again (much to their initial disbelief!), and who visibly ascended into heaven, would one day come again in all His glory. He would come with fiery armies of angels, He would summon the dead from their graves, judge the wicked, acknowledge the righteous and usher them into the glorious and unending Kingdom of heaven on earth.

While Christians are reborn and can see things that others cannot (Jn. 3:3), yet still, they must admit that “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him” (1 Cor. 2:9). One writer has put it well, “Of these … promises we must have some intelligent apprehension. But the implications of his promises and the reaches of [God’s] mind and will surpass our understanding.” In that way, even believers after the coming of Christ are in many ways like those before them.

We dream like they dreamed, because the God who promised then still promises today.  But since the promise still awaits fulfillment, we yet dream of what shall be.  We are saved by hope unseen (Rom. 8:24).  While the believer must beware of wild speculation, yet he with pure longing, as a virgin anticipating her wedding day, wonders and imagines.  “Beloved,” writes the Apostle John, “now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn. 3:2).

Reader, God’s thoughts are much greater than yours.  “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:8, 9).  His thoughts for men and this world are truly lofty.  He has promised salvation to those who believe, beyond their wildest dreams.  Promised!  Deliverance from sin, both its guilt and power.  Promised!  The restoration of all things – of the body, of the world – and the very reunion of heaven and earth (Acts 3:21, Eph. 1:10).  On that day, under the reign of the Messiah, “the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them” (Isa. 11:6).

How long will you think so small?  How long will you imagine nothing but life darkened by sin and misery?  How long will you refuse to accept the vision of things truly great?  Won’t you turn, won’t you believe, and imagine?  Won’t you join those of us who have by grace relearned how to dream?

All for Nothing?

Archaeologists in Denmark had had made amazing discoveries. In the middle of bogs and lakes, they were finding all kinds of ancient artifacts – precious jewels, swords, and even the hulls of finely crafted warships. Many of them belonged to the fourth century A.D., several hundred years before the Vikings went on their rampages throughout Europe and ventured into the New World.

(from flickr.com)The amazing thing, however, is how they got there. These valuables were not lost, but thrown away. You see, in those days these people believed that powerful spirits lived in lakes, gods who controlled their lives. If they won a victory in battle, they would not ‘take the spoil,’ but would toss it all into the lake as an offering to the gods who lived there. It was all a kind of insurance policy. Toss in these valuables, and that respect earns you the good favor of the unseen water-dwellers. To pocket the goods just might seal your doom.

What a terrific waste, you might say! If, in fact, one of these ancient swords was worth, say, a new Camry in the modern day, then just imagine the power of that lie. Nothing demanded these costly jewels. Nothing was appeased by the enemies’ swords. And in return for these riches, nothing promised them protection from the next bloody raid.

We might laugh at such nonsense. And yet with all our education, degrees, careers, houses, cars, cell phones, and a thousand other trinkets of modern convenience, what is it all for? We’ve got to toss them away as we leave this life. Our earthly possessions will have to be left elsewhere for some other giddy archaeologist to dig up a thousand years later. So what is it all for? All for nothing?

And yet others  just might excuse these primitive folk with a polite, ‘Well, if it worked for them, it was worth it.’ We live in a time when everything is relative. Who is to look down on these ancient people for their beliefs? Everyone is entitled to his own opinions.

But did it really ‘work’ for them? Let’s not kid ourselves. These poor people wasted their hard-earned riches. And if we’re willing to be honest with ourselves, we are fast approaching the brink the next world only to toss – not just our goods – but our very lives into the abyss.

Beyond nothing, however, there is something. There is Someone. He has made you, given you “life, and breath, and all things” (Acts 17:25). But He does not ‘work for you,’ as those Danish lake gods worked for those who bought their protection. That’s the difference. With God, it is all a free gift. And He who has given you everything requires nothing short of your life. It is His!

So we don’t ask if God works for you; but do you work for God? “The LORD hath made all things for himself” (Prov. 16:4). Yes, to give yourself up to God is to lose everything.

But that loss is not a waste. It is a gain. “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Mat. 16:25). Cast it all into the hands of God.