Married to Jesus, Faithful to Him (2)

 How To Biblically Read History

One of the heresies that is enveloping the professing church is a skewered way of reading history, including the history of our own nation, the U.S.A.  

The fundamental way to read and interpret history is through Romans 3:23, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” We simply do not want to believe this when it comes to our own nation, we want to read history through various lenses that support our nationalistic, political, social, or economic notions. Since followers of Jesus are supposed to be citizens of heaven (Philippians 3:20) and since we are supposed to be pilgrims and strangers on earth looking for our home City which God has prepared for us (Hebrews 11:8 – 16), when any lens other than Jesus Christ is promoted, within the church, as the way to view history we have heresy. It is heresy because our hearts are to belong to Jesus and only to Jesus, we are to be His faithful Bride (2 Cor. 11:2 – 3). There is no room in our marriage to Jesus for another husband, another suitor, another lover. When we gather as the Bride of Christ, do we really want to invite other lovers into our Divine Bedroom?

The primary image of unfaithfulness to God in the Bible is that of adultery, it is not idolatry per se, but spiritual adultery. How have we lost sight of this? Is it because our hearts no longer belong to our heavenly Bridegroom?

This makes movements such as Christian Nationalism and the New Apostolic Reformation especially egregious for it encourages us to give our hearts to a nation, rather than give them to Jesus; these movements have an affinity with past movements that have brought tragedy on their churches and nations. God’s People are called to serve others, not to dominate them. These movements are founded and perpetuated on a false reading of history, a reading that cares nothing for the truth and which spins false narratives to accomplish their own ends. (Yes, yes, to be sure there are other movements within the professing church that are also dangerous, but I am addressing those with whom I am more likely to have a shared history.)

Now, should you take offense at the above, I will ask you why you should be offended? Why would a married person take offense at someone encouraging them to be faithful to their spouse? Why would a married person take offense with someone encouraging them to love their spouse with all that they have and not to share marital love and conjugal relations with anyone other than his or her spouse? 

When we are told by our Father not to have other gods before Him, He means that there are to be no other gods in His Presence; yet often our “worship” is syncretistic as we introduce flags and patriotic songs and political agendas into the bedroom of the People of God, the Bride of Christ. Of course, in a sense these things, as they have normally been practiced, pale before the super-charged nationalism engulfing much of the professing church. We have all but wrapped the Cross in the flag, and thereby obscured the Cross of Christ and the Christ of the Cross. 

The above is only Biblical common sense. After all, Jesus says that His kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36), and the Scriptures are clear that the nations are opposed to the Father and the Son and that they will all be brought low as the Rock fills the earth (Psalm 2, Daniel 2). Just as we are prone to sin as individuals when we think we are exceptions to the Bible, so we are prone to sin collectively when we think our own nation, whichever nation that might be, is an exception to the Bible. 

So again we come to Romans 3:23, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. If this is true of an individual, it is certainly true of a collection of individuals. 

Now I’m going to ask you to think about a few more things before I close this reflection. I’d like to ask you to consider the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah lived in a time when the rulers, the government, the priests and most prophets were teaching the people, “Look at our foundation. God established us and we are His special people. God will preserve us. God favors us. We are exceptional people above all other nations.”

However, Jeremiah was saying just the opposite. He was saying, “This is what God is saying. Don’t look backwards at your forefathers and think that somehow God will overlook your wickedness. Judgment is coming on you in the form of the kingdom of Babylon. Surrender to Babylon and God will spare your lives and your cities. However, if you do not surrender then God will destroy you in judgment.”

Jeremiah was persecuted and imprisoned and almost lost his life because of his faithfulness to God. 

Let me ask you a question, Who was patriotic in this scenario? Were the rulers and priests and prophets who had a false and arrogant trust in Judah’s exceptionalism patriotic? Or was it Jeremiah who told the truth at the risk of his own life? O dear friends, what is popular is seldom the truth. 

I am reminded of G. K. Chesterton and his opposition to the Boer War. Chesterton argued that Britain betrayed its values in this war, and most certainly in its treatment of Boer civilians. Approximately 30,000 Boer women and children perished in British concentration camps - this is not a typo. When Chesterton was accused of not being patriotic, he countered by asking what a true patriot is. Is a true patriot someone who loves his country enough to speak the truth, even if it means rejection? 

Do we love God enough to be faithful to Him? Do we love those around us, including those in our nation, enough to be a distinctive People in Christ as His Bride? Do we love our nation to the point where we will confess that it is sinful as all mankind is sinful? Will we read history through Romans 3:23? 

About the same time that Chesterton was speaking out on the Boer War, there were citizens of the United States speaking out about a military conquest our own government was engaged in. I am sure we have all read about it and were taught it in school. Of course I am speaking of our conquest of the Philippines. (You were taught it, right?) While Secretary of State John Hay called the Spanish – American War, “A splendid little war, begun with the highest motives” (a statement highly suspect), and while we have been taught about Teddy Roosevelt and San Juan Hill and Commodore Dewey and the Battle of Mobile Bay, I don’t recall being taught about our conquest of the Philippines. Were you taught about the Philippine – American War?  

How is it that we, people of the land of the free and the home of the brave, did not free the Filipino people after the war with Spain? How is it that we simply replaced the Spanish as lords of the Philippines? How is it that we, when the Filipino people sought their independence, in essence said, "Our own Declaration of Independence is window dressing, we don’t really believe it, and if you have any doubts, look down the barrels of our rifles.”  

According to the U.S. Department of State’s Historian, not only were about 4,200 American and over 20,000 Filipino combatants killed in the fighting, but as many as 200,000 Filipino civilians died from violence, famines, and disease. 

When we read history through Romans 3:23, we read all of history, and when we read all our history, we can say with the Bible, “There is none righteous, no not one.”

Would you be faithful to your spouse even if everyone around you was unfaithful to their spouses? Will you be faithful to Jesus even if everyone around you is seduced by “God and Country” or economic agendas and lovers or social agendas (whether from the right or left) or entertainment or sports spinning out of control or academia having lost it mind (including seminaries).

Will you have a monogamous and exclusive relationship with Jesus Christ? 

And here is what it seems we just will not see, even if all the lies being told were true (of course they are not, they are lies), they still would not be the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they would still be a false lover and a false god. Our hearts are to belong to Jesus and Jesus alone and the people of our home nation and all nations need Jesus Christ. 

To borrow an image from C. S. Lewis and The Last Battle, dead lion skins are being used to deceive much of the professing church, and because we are not looking at the real Aslan, we are being duped into worshipping false gods. 

Are we reading history through Romans 3:23? Psalm 2 and Daniel 2?

Is not Jesus Christ enough? 

Mark 8:34 – 38.

Married to Jesus, Faithful to Him (1)

Tension – What to Write? What to Say? A Dilemma. 

A friend once asked me, “What do you really enjoy writing about?”

I immediately replied, “The love of God.” 

I love sharing the love of God in Christ with others. I love pondering how much our dear Lord Jesus loves us. I have found that the greatest need in the world, and most certainly in the professing church (Ephesians 3:14–19), is for people to know the depths of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ. There is a reason John 3:16 was once the cornerstone of our message to the world and to one another within the professing church. I don’t think I ever heard Billy Graham preach without quoting John 3:16; there was a reason for that too. Yes, there is nothing like sharing the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

If my friend had also asked me, “What do you least like writing about? Is there anything you avoid writing about?” I would probably have responded, “False teaching, heresy, and teaching which I wouldn’t term “heresy,” but which is enough off-base to affect others negatively, obscuring Jesus and the fulness of His life in us and our life in Him.”  

Now if you have either listened to me or read much of what I’ve written you won’t be surprised when I talk about the fact that we are not sinners but saints in Christ, nor should it surprise you if I say that we tend to live under the Old Covenant and teach the Old Covenant even though Jesus Christ is our New Covenant High Priest. Nor will you be surprised when I write about our pragmatic approach to the Bible and church life as opposed to living as the sons and daughters of God, or when I speak of us being people who are 100 miles wide and an inch deep. 

Whether you agree with me on these things, whether or not you see them the way that I do, I hope you do know that I love Jesus with all of my heart and that I want to love Him today more than I did yesterday. Presumably if you are reading this there is something God has given me to pass on that is helpful in your relationship with Him and with your relationship to our brothers and sisters in Christ. 

I think it is only by beholding Jesus that we are transformed into His image. Therefore, I want to focus on Jesus (1 John 3:2; 2 Cor. 3:17–18; Rom. 12:1–2; Col. 3:1–4).

Yet, what to do when false teaching and heresy permeate the church? What to do when dangerous thinking and practice deceive and tear down the People of God? What to do when these things are popularized? 

How to be faithful to our dear Lord Jesus in the midst of a tsunami of destruction? 

I would like to think that simply preaching the incredible love of Jesus Christ would bring professing Christians back to their senses, but the Bible does not teach this nor does experience demonstrate this. In the Gospels we witness conflict between Jesus and the religious establishment, with Jesus clearly denouncing the teaching and practice of the Pharisees (see Matthew 23). In the book of Acts there is conflict between legalists and those preaching the Gospel. Virtually all the New Testament letters address false teaching, some more than others. 

One of the benefits of preaching and teaching the books of the Bible is that we cannot avoid the hard passages about false teaching, we can’t cherry pick what we preach…well at least I hope we don’t. A steady diet of topical preaching and teaching eventually loses its way, Jesus is no longer its center and interpretive lens. Topical preaching seduces us into self-centeredness; our wants, our needs, our desires, our priorities. 

Why do I not care to write about false teaching? 

The first reason is that I want to focus on Jesus, always on Jesus. Again, it is in Jesus that we are transformed.

The second is that it is easy to get sucked up into negativity when thinking about false teaching and false teachers. I don’t want to be defined in terms of what I do not believe, I want to be defined in terms of what I do believe, I want Jesus and His love to define me. Another way to put it is that I want to be known for what I am for (Jesus Christ!) and not for what I am against. 

There are folks who style themselves as heresy hunters, always looking for what they think is error and being quick to criticize others. A steady diet of this distracts us from our Lord Jesus Christ, plus I think it sickens our souls. 

Then there is a very selfish reason why I avoid dealing with false teaching, it is a burden to me, it entails a heaviness. To ponder the works of darkness is hard, only a fool takes these things lightly. C. S. Lewis expressed relief when he completed The Screwtape Letters, and it took him a while to recover from the experience. Lewis paid a price for touching the realm of the enemy to help God’s People, that was the only way he could tell the story. 

Yet, to be faithful to Christ and His People we need to point out that the messengers of the enemy can transform themselves into apparent messengers of light (2 Cor. 11:13–15). O that it was not so.

I have tried both ways as a pastor. I have not said anything much about false teaching and practices and have hoped for the best, and then I have made a point of dealing with them in some measure (I can’t truly say that I have been completely straightforward – I tend to be oblique too often) and have also hoped for the best. I wish that I could say that one way or the other made a difference, but I can’t…I just don’t know. 

In the last church I attempted to pastor, there was such an ingrained heresy when I arrived that I wasn’t sure how to deal with it, other than keep pointing folks to Jesus and His Word. While toward the end of my time there I did try to illustrate the problem and point to Jesus as our Way out of it, the heresy was too ingrained. Jesus was simply a mascot, a tool of nationalism, there was no difference between the national flag and the Cross of Jesus Christ. Jesus was the spokesperson for a political agenda and He was the sanitizer for a nationalism where might makes right and we need not consider morals or ethics or the widow and orphan or stranger in the land. 

Above all else, the thought that Christians are citizens of heaven and that we are pilgrims and strangers on earth (Phil. 3:20; Heb. 11: 8–16) was a Biblical teaching stoutly rejected. 

From a young Christian I have known Ezekiel 33:1–9. This passage has been a burden to me, you could almost call it a “curse.” I can hear Paul say, “For if I preach the Gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do not preach the Gospel” (1 Cor. 9:16). 

So what am I saying and why am I writing this? I’m writing this to clarify my thoughts and seek direction, and I am saying that while these things are not easy and that they are fraught with tension, that for the sake of the Gospel I am going to write a thread dealing with false teaching and certain heresies. You see, dear friends, it truly must be all for Jesus or nothing for Jesus – are we not bought with a price? The blood of the precious Lamb of God.

So the Lord willing, on this blog we'll continue with the Upper Room, The Last Battle, and now this new thread, which I'm calling Married to Jesus, Faithful to Him. Much love! Bob