Hymnsights from the Past - Amazing Love

Yes, I have another "hymnsight" from worship, but bear with me--I'm trying to catch up from the last couple of weeks. Earlier this week, a couple of songs after we had sung "I Will Enter His Gates", we sang "Amazing Love" (aka "You Are My King"). The hymn began with this:

"I'm forgiven, because You were forsaken;
 I'm accepted, You were condemned;
 I'm alive and well, Your Spirit is within me
 Because You died and rose again."

Again, I had a moment of spiritual clarity. As we sang, it just really hit me about the contrast here--I was given a pardon by God, while He Himself was condemned and killed on my behalf. The finite was given infinitely long life, while the infinite was contained within a mere finite body. The guilty were granted righteousness through a divine sacrifce, while the Righteous One was made into that same sacrifice. The ultimate rags to riches story was only made possible by the rich becoming rags. Wow. Can I get an amen for that?

Another Hymnsight from the Past

The other week, while I was at my interning church, we were singing hymns (as usual). While I am still adjusting to singing older songs (and even beginning to enjoy them), already I am being taught by God how He can use anything to help us realize His great truths. This time, we sang this chorus:

"I will enter His gates with thanksgiving in my heart,
 I will enter His courts with praise,
 I will say this is the day that the Lord has made,
 I will rejoice for He has made me glad."

"He has made me glad, He has made me glad,
 I will rejoice for He has made me glad.
 He has made me glad, He has made me glad,
 I will rejoice for He has made me glad."

As we sang this, I realized the importance of the Christian to always be joyful in Christ. How often do I go about my life in a miserable or depressed manner? I understand that it is unreasonable to expect myself to be bursting with euphoria 24/7, but that is not equate with joy. Not only are we to be active in in our gladness by rejoicing, though, but we are also to passively rejoice in being glad. As a redeemed person, I can rejoice knowing that I am now no longer in danger of hell; additionally, I can rejoice that I am no longer separated from God's holiness and goodness.

So how can I apply this to my spiritual walk with God? Well, ultimately, I should pray that God would work within my heart, and change me more and more to be filled with a consistant joy in Him, regardless of my circumstances.

Hymnsight from the Past

At the church where I am interning, we regularly sing hymns. This is something that I'm not really used to; where I'm from, hymns are treated as ancient songs--we have a more "contemporary" service. So, adjusting to hymns has been a bit of an experience for me. However, my opinion of these old songs has been changing now. While I used to wonder if the hymn-writers used to have way too much time on their hands, now I am beginning to appriciate these same hymns. In fact, last week as I was at church, one of the hymns we sang stood out to me in particular:

"My faith has found a resting place
 Not in device nor creed;
 I trust in the Ever-living One."

It hit me there that my faith, and the faith of all us Christians, are to rest only in Jesus' atoning sacrifice--NOT in "device or creed". But how often do we Christians call ourselves "Baptists", "Catholics", "Pentecostals", or something else? How often do we use our creeds to define ourselves instead of our faith? I understand that there are sometimes differences in faith that require us to form different creeds, and thus we need to identify ourselves by our creeds, but how often do we consider our creed to be more important that our faith? That day in the service, I realized the importance of me personally doing what I can to avoid ever having my faith being weakened or misguided to such a degree that I would place my faith in the Apostles' Creed, a statement of beliefs or mere works.

A creed is a statement of beliefs. It is that, and just that: a statement of beliefs. Ultimately, our creeds are an indication of our faith, but they are not greater than our faith. A statement of belief cannot save us--only belief can.

Journaling in Genesis 1-3

This last year in college, I took an Old Testament History class. As part of the homework for this class, I had to read through and comment on sections of the Old Testament. Below are some of my summaries of and reflections on the first three chapters of Genesis:

Gen. 1—God creates the entire universe and all that is in it over a period of six literal days, during which He demonstrates thoughtful planning and the intention of setting an example for the human race to emulate (ruling over creation on earth). Ultimately, He finishes His ex niliho creative acts by carefully crafting Adam out of the dirt (as compared to merely speaking him into existence) and breathing “the breath of life” into him.

Gen. 2—The account of the creation week begun in Chapter 1 is finished, ending with the establishment of the 6-day workweek and the day of rest. The chapter then goes into greater detail about the sixth day (before plants had become widespread) and describes the Garden of Eden and its location. God gives Adam His one command and later brings the animals to Adam to show him his need for a partner like himself. After Adam realizes that he is alone, God creates from him Eve, and brings her to him for the purpose of marriage. Chapter 2 ends with a declaration of the perfect state of the creation up to that point (by emphasizing the nature of the relationship between the man and his wife), thus setting up a sharp contrast for Chapter 3.

Gen. 3—The chapter begins in the Garden of Eden with the spontaneous appearance of Satan (as a snake), who craftily tempts Eve into crossing the boundaries that God set for her. Unfortunately, Adam follows her into sin, destroying their relationship with God and corrupting their innocent nature. (Note: Just because Adam was with Eve at the time of her temptation, yet did nothing to stop her, does not necessarily indicate a pre-sin failure to be there for Eve when she needed him. Adam could have simply stood aside so as to let Eve make her own choice, similar to what God did with Adam and Eve.) After drawing a confession out of the man and woman, God punishes them for their sin, banishing them from the garden. Despite this, God gave mankind a ray of hope, in that the Seed of Eve will eventually conquer Satan.

Happy Father's Day, Part 2

Yesterday, while I was at church, the pastor's children sermon prompted me to ask myself a hypothetical question: if someone were to ask me what about my father I most remember and enjoyed, how would I respond? After a few moments of thinking, the answer occurred to me: how my father treated (and still treats) my mother.

I will be honest: my dad loves my mom. They have been married for almost twenty-three years, and nineteen of those have involved raising their children. Now, I have heard it said that of all the lessons that a parent will teach their child, the ones most likely to be absorbed and emulated are the ones that the child sees their parents doing over and over again; I really hope that that is true, considering what I have seen.

As I said earlier, my dad loves my mom. Whether he's trying to give her a kiss after eating a jalapeño (mom hates "spicy kisses") kissing her right in front of my siblings and I, or simply looking for an excuse to spend time with her after dinner, I can tell that my dad still deeply loves my mom. On nights where my siblings and I go to home bible studies, my dad will sometimes say "Alright, I'll take your mother out to eat, since it's just the two of us." While he doesn't do anything fancy, simply the fact that dad will occasionally use his time alone with mom to eat out shows me that he still likes getting to spend special time alone with her.

Something else my dad likes to do is to sit next to mom and rest together on the couch. Whether it's during the morning, afternoon, or evening, and whether it's during a movie, watching a sport, or something else, dad will sit next to mom, and the two of them will rest. Mom and dad both enjoy simply spending time with each other, and even just sitting next to each other, to the point that they consider it a tradition (or at least a regular activity). They will even be playful with each other; dad might sometimes pretend that he has other "manly" things to do, but that he will "sacrifice" his time to be with mom. Mom, of course, knows that dad is only being silly, and she says that "spending time with his wife is one of the most manly things he can do."

What was the most important lesson my father ever taught me? How to love my spouse and let her know that I consider her to be so special. I can't wait until I get married. Happy late Father's Day, Dad.

Happy Father's Day, Part 1

While I was at church today, the children's sermon was on fathers, As part of his point, the pastor asked each of the children what they liked most about their father. That got me thinking: if I were asked what I liked most about my father, or what first came to mind when I think of my father, how would I respond? What would I say?

Initially, I wasn't sure of what I would have said, or how to approach the hypothetical answer. After all, I didn't go fishing with my father. We never had a "guy's day" or a regular "father-son" time; we didn't often share emotional moments, and we hadn't played together (wrestling or baseball, etc.) since I was in middle school. However, one thing stood out in my mind, with another incident occuring later to me.

The second thing I thought of was an incident of character with my father. After I accidentally crashed my car, I called my father to let him know what had happened. Even though he was almost home, he insisted on coming all the way back to my college to look at the damage and see if I was fine. When he got to the parking lot, he didn't even raise his voice at me. All he said was, "There's no point in yelling; it's fine."

I was completely blown away by my father's suprisingly gentle response to the incident. In fact, I had seen him get more upset over scratching the bumper. I realized that my father was more concerned about my safety than the car's safety, but he didn't even glare at me for damaging the left side of my car. Overall, my memory of my father that day reminds me not just of the importance of being able to control and simply release my anger, but also of being able to keep my priorities straight in life.

Defending Hell, Part 5: The Consequences of Denying Hell, Part 2: Also regarding sin

By removing the severity of sin, there is less of a need for God to forgive us of our constant sinning. If sin is not that big of a deal to God, then His punishment for it will also not be that important. That is the undermining of the forgiveness of sin. As an extension of this, if we are all going to end up in heaven because God will forgive us at no cost to Himself, then why should we even waste our time trying to reach others with the redemptive news of Christ? After all, we all end up in the same place (eternity in heaven with God). Thus, undermining the importance of the forgiveness of sin also leads to undermining the need for missions.

So, by rejecting hell, we are chipping away at the foundation for missionary work and spreading the Gospel. If we are going to go to heaven anyway, when why should we even bother repenting? Ultimately, if we deny the existence of hell, then we are giving a free license for sinning, as God will not truly punish us for what we have willfully done. Thus, undermining the forgiveness of sin also leads to undermining the restraint of sin and removes the need to repent from sin.

Additionally, this would also hold true for fallen angels. If hell does not exist, then demons will not get punished for their sins either. If hell does not really exist, then are demons to be reinstated as angels at the end of days? Is God going to pardon the unclean spirits for their evil and welcome them back into heaven? And what about Satan? Will he finally return to God as a prodigal son and rise once more as Lucifer? Well, if God is a God of love and forgiveness and nothing else, then that might be true. However, God is more than just love. He is also a God of anger.

This may come as a surprise to some, who might try to work around this free license for sinning and God's anger.

Defending Hell, Part 4: The Consequences of Denying Hell, Part 1: Regarding sin

"It's been clearly communicated to many that this belief (in hell as conscious, eternal torment) is a central truth of the Christian faith and to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus' message of love, peace, forgiveness and joy that our world desperately needs to hear." --Rob Bell

I don’t think that Rob Bell has thought through the logical implications of denying the existence of hell. To begin with, denying hell’s reality undermines other biblical doctrines; one of which is the severity of sin. By denying hell, one implies that sin is not so great as to completely alienate us from God; it is merely an obstacle that He will eventually remove from us. So if sin is not nearly as bad as it seems (that is, utterly offensive to God), then its respective punishment is not nearly as bad (that is, final and eternal). Thus, as an extension, the undermining of the severity of sin leads to the undermining of the consequences of sin. After all, if there is no such thing as hell, then there is no final and eternal punishment for sin; we have only the punishments God gives us in this life. God will not punish us in the next life, since He is "a loving God". Thus, undermining the consequences of sin also undermines the punishment of sin. But that is not all.

Logically, without hell, sin does not deserve eternal punishment. In fact, if hell is not real, then I (a Christian) and everyone else (Christian and not-Christian) can sin as much as we like without repentance in this life. We can lust and anger and hate and murder and torture and reject God in this life because we will eventually end up in heaven in the next one. (I am not sure if we even have to repent to get into heaven after we die.) Thus, the undermining of the severity of sin eventually leads to undermining the importance of the forgiveness of sin. But that is not all either.

Defending Hell, Part 3: Understanding Hell

Francis Chan speaks about Hell

In his video, Francis Chan also considers how we sometimes dismiss the reality of hell. Supposed Christians and blatant unbelievers might say, “Oh, well I don’t understand how God could do such a thing like condemning people to hell for eternity.” However, that is precisely the point: we do not understand God. And it is because of that incomplete understanding of God that leads us to misconstrue His actions, intents and purposes. God is not like man. Man naturally tries to cover his sins, and sweep the sins of others under the rug. God does not. Unfortunately, some men don’t seem to realize this.

Case in point: Rob Bell, in his recent book Love Wins, says: "It's been clearly communicated to many that this belief (in hell as conscious, eternal torment) is a central truth of the Christian faith and to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus' message of love, peace, forgiveness and joy that our world desperately needs to hear." Essentially, Bell is claiming that it is possible to reject the doctrine of hell as conscious, eternal torment and still accept Jesus’ teachings. This is where Bell is fundamentally and heretically wrong. Jesus Himself talked about hell, and described it as a place of conscious and eternal torment (Mark 9:43, 48; Luke 16:19-31).

Defending Hell, Part 2: The Biblical Evidence for Hell

Francis Chan speaks about Hell

While the Bible speaks of hell by name only 14 times (per NIV, 1984), it also uses other terms for it, like outside, and darkness. In fact, Jesus used the term darkness to refer to hell specifically at least three times (Matt. 8:12; 22:13; 25: 30). Elsewhere, darkness is described as part of what hell is like (2 Pe. 2:17; Jude 6, 13).

However, that is not all; in fact, hell is described in far more graphic terms than simple darkness, or even “blackest darkness … reserved forever.” In Jude, fallen angels are described as being bound in “everlasting chains” in hell. Additionally, in all three of the accounts in Matthew (8:12, 22:13, 25:30), Jesus describes hell as “outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” All of these accounts portray hell as a location outside of God’s kingdom, where there will be those unfortunate enough to spend eternity in it.

In the Gospels, Jesus is very descriptive of hell, describing it as containing fire (Matt. 5:22; 18:9), a place where one’s entire body can be physically thrown (Matt. 5:29, 30; 18:9; Mark 9:45, 47; Luke 12:5), a place of condemnation (aka punishment, Matt. 23:33), a place where God can “destroy both soul and body,” (Matt. 10: 28, Luke 12:5 explains this), a place where there is "weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 8:12), a place where “the fire never goes out,” (Mark 9:43), a place of continual torment (Luke 16:23), and a place where “gloomy dungeons” are located. In Mark, Jesus quoted from Is. 66:24 three times in quick succession to illustrate the horrors of hell, where “‘their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.’” However, all of this imagery is meaningless if one does not consider it to be real.

Defending Hell, Part 1: The Question of Hell

Francis Chan speaks about Hell

Earlier today I got an e-mail from the pastor that I work under, pointing me to this video. Initially I thought, "Alright, this is probably important--I'll get around to watching it sometime today." However, when I actually began to watch it, this fact began to sink in: people are trying to convince other people that hell is not a real place. What does the Bible really say about this, though, and what happens if the people who teach against the reality of hell are wrong?

As I watched this video, something occurred to me: this video addresses the topic of hell, but not as a straightforward approach, such as "Hell is real, and the Bible teaches it--even Jesus taught about it!" Hardly; instead, this video is an apologetic defending the validity of the topic of hell.

Francis Chan spends some of his time emphasizing the importance of hell; as one of his points, hell is not a doctrine. It is a place--a place to which some people are condemned. To address hell as an abstract concept is about as wise as talking about heaven in such a manner. Would you want your family to be comforted by the fact that your dead relative is happily living in an abstract paradise for eternity?...No. I know I wouldn't. For that same reason, none of us should be satisfied with speaking of hell as an abstract reality, almost as if it didn't really exist. Hell is real, and the Bible speaks frequently about it in the New Testament.

Angry Birds Need a Soft Word

The other day as I was driving to church, I kept encountering idiots in cars. Fast idiots, slow idiots, idiots that clearly didn't know what they were doing... And you know what? All those "idiots" irritated me. By their disrespect for the traffic laws (and slowing me down), they made me angry. Then, in a moment of sudden clarity, I thought to myself, "I bet we're going to be talking about anger in our bible study today." In God's sovereignty, that is exactly what we talked about. Later, after I came home, I looked up my daily bible verse from Proverbs. As you might guess, it was this:

"A gentle answer turns away wrath,
but a harsh word stirs up anger." Pro. 15:1, NIV

That's when I stopped and thought about it. The Bible constantly commands us to control our anger. Obviously, if we could not control our anger, and never restrain it, then there would be no point in ordering us to control our anger. However, sometimes we just have so much trouble restraining ourselves (at least, I know I do). That's why this verse is so important to us as Christians: it shows us a way to defuse anger in others and even ourselves.

So next time you play Angry Birds, keep this in mind: maybe those birds just need a gentle answer from those pigs.