The Devil and God's Authority

"But Jesus told him, "No! The Scriptures say, 'People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" -Matthew 4:4

Something I recently learned from a sermon by James Ford Jr. (pastor and author) is that when Jesus was tempted He did not rebuke Satan and turn him away by His own authority, but rather by using the written word of God. Why? Jesus is the living Word, who, in the Sermon on the Mount, repeatedly said "you have heard...but I say...", essentially saying "I am the authority!" But when tempted His approach was not to command with the authority that was His as God, but to appeal rather to what had already been written. Again, why? Certainly for our own sakes, as Jesus modeled for us the appropriate response to temptation and to demonic activity.

If you are faced with temptation or with oppression, I will even go so far as to say with direct demonic activity or possession, do not approach or answer the Devil in your own authority, because you don't have any. If I were to say to the devil "Leave me alone!" what good is that? I am not the Devil's master, and the one who seeks my destruction surely cares very little that I tell him to stop when he strikes me. And do not think that by mere invocation of the name of Jesus you can speak to him as you will, as though the Lord's name were some magic charm. Acts 19:13-17 tells of some unfortunate men who discovered the folly of such an idea. Consider that not everything you say, although you speak His name, is therefore His will.

No, when faced with temptation or any act of the Devil, do not approach it with your words and your will, but approach it instead with the written Word of God, for God's Word stands forever, is unchanging, unalterable, and it carries the weight and authority of the One who spoke it. If you find yourself face to face with Satan himself, speak not a word of your own, for what is your word? Instead, speak only the Word of God, for it is the authority to which the Devil is compelled and bound to submit, whether he like it or no. It carries the full authority of the One who shaped the heavens and called the earth, the stars, even Lucifer himself into being. It is the authority upon which the believer must stand, the authority which the believer is granted to wield as a sharp, two-edged sword.  It is our light in the darkness, our shield against the flaming darts of the Devil and our sword to compel his retreat. Whatever authority you think you possess, lay it down and take up instead the authority of God which is yours to know, to ponder, to study and to speak.

The Apostle Paul and the Worst of Sinners

“Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.  But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life.” – I Timothy 1:15,16

When we think of the apostle Paul, how often do our minds conjuring up a man who is fiercely self-righteous, a man who is murderous, filled with a mad religious zeal that compels him to persecute, torment, imprison and slay those who do not hold to his creed?

When we think of Paul, often what comes to mind is a far gentler soul, filled with love for mankind and a powerful  desire to point them toward a savior who reaches out to them with open arms, a man who wrote, in Romans 12:18, "If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”  It is right that we regard him so, because this is what God made of him.  But prior to that transformation, Paul, had he lived today, would have been branded a violent extremist, perhaps even a terrorist. In the above passage Paul brings to mind this reality of his past.  We may read his accusation that he was the "worst of sinners" as hyperbole springing from the heart of a man too humble to see himself as anything but wicked, but this is not so.

Paul was a fanatical Pharisee, zealous for the traditions of his order to such extend that he believed that in imprisoning and putting to death Christians, he was serving God and performing his righteous duty.  This is the same point of view held by Muslim terrorists who believe they are guaranteeing blessings for themselves by slaughtering "infidels". Paul knew all about this mindset, because he shared it.

But Paul notes that, as wicked and as blind as he was, God had mercy on Him. Not for Paul's sake, but so that the incredible patience and mercy of God could be seen for all time. If God could save a man like Paul, change and transform his life and turn him into a true missionary of God's love, then there is no one in this world who is beyond the saving reach of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I recall listening to a missionary, a native of Lebanon who was visiting my church, and he asked the congregation whether any of them prayed that God would bless Osama Bin Laden (this being only a short period after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center). When no one responded, he pronounced shame on us, noting that if God saved Osama, the world would have another Apostle Paul.  This stuck with me, and I began to pray that God would open Bin Laden's eyes to His truth.

Jesus Himself commanded us to pray for and to bless our enemies (Luke 6:28). Perhaps our difficulty with this is we assume that blessing means prospering them in their wicked ways, but this is by no means the case. God has no part in wickedness, and to bless the hard, unbelieving heart means nothing less that to soften it, to open its eyes to the truth and grant it the gift of faith in the God who “who wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth.” (I Timothy 2:4)

If a man like Bin Laden, or any other modern-day villain, comes to Christ, that same influence they wield for evil in this world would become a powerful testimony to the goodness and grace of the Almighty. Impossible that God could forgive and use someone like that?  Certainly not. Paul is the proof that God has both the power and the desire to bring about such change. Let us not harden our own hearts and pronounce judgment on those we are called to bless, but rather pray for the worst among us, that God will transform them into the best.

On Tithing

The Tithe, as established in the law, provided for the Levites, because they were not permitted to own land, but were dedicated entirely to the service of the lord, were solely entrusted with the priesthood and upkeep of the temple, and as such were provided for out of the produce and abundance of the other tribes (Numbers 18:19-21).  Tithing had a very practical and pragmatic purpose at its heart; it was God taking care of those whose given work was ministry.  It supported the workers and the upkeep of the temple.

Today, the same principle applies.  Certainly God promises blessing when we are obedient and give.  He even goes so far as to invite testing on this point (Malachi 3:10)  But the point of giving, and its purpose, is not to receive anything; it is to take part in, support, and assist with the ministry of God’s Word.  Indeed, even in Malachi the reason for God’s insistence on tithing was not that people could be blessed, but because they had abandoned giving to God.  The people were neglecting God and disobeying His commandment to support the workers and the temple through their offerings, and as a result they were under a curse from God in discipline for their disobedience.  But God promised that if they would repent and do what they had been told, once more giving the offerings that God commanded, they would cease to be under discipline and would instead be blessed (Malachi 3:9-12).

This brings up an important point with regard the blessings of God: there is no “in-between” state between blessing and cursing.  A person is either being disciplined, so that they will learn obedience, or they are already exercising obedience and being blessed for it.  That God should bless an individual for tithing is not an extraordinary thing, for He blesses obedience in all forms, and will bring discipline when obedience is not present.

Should we give to God?  Absolutely we should.  What does that mean?  It means that, just as the Israelites did, we take our own abundance and give it freely to support the efforts and ministry of those who are reaching out to others with the Gospel, be they pastors, missionaries or teachers.  It means that we take part in and support the upkeep of the churches where the message is preached, and aid in the expenses of reaching out to those beyond the church walls.  In so doing, we become active participants in the ministry efforts of those we support.  When we do this, as an old song by Ray Boltz once said, we should not be at all be surprised if we arrive in Heaven and find ourselves meeting someone who will say to us “Thank you for giving to the Lord; I am a life that was changed”

A Few Thoughts on the Doctrine of Limited Atonement

One of the greatest obstacles for me personally in embracing what is commonly known as “Five-Point Calvinism” is the idea of Limited Atonement.  On the surface, the doctrine states that Christ died for the elect.  Which of course infers that He did not die for those who are “not elect”, aka, the lost who will find themselves in Hell.

Now, my first objection was that this depends on divine predestination, for if God does not predestine who is to be saved, there is no good talking of Christ dying “for the elect”.  But this issue of God’s sovereign predestination I have dealt with several times over the last few posts, so to that I will say nothing more here.  But the more specific objection is that it appears to go against scriptures that state that Christ died “for all” (2 Corinthians 5:15) and of course John 3:16, which states that God so loved “the world” that He gave His Son.

Now, a theologian might get into a long talk about context and Greek and such with regard to passages such as these, but I will simply lay out the my own reasoning behind why Limited Atonement in no way contradicts Scripture.  Whether the theologian would approve of these arguments I’m not qualified to say, seeing as I am not one myself.  But from my own, smaller mind, the chief principle that stands out is this:

All believers (with the exception of universalists) believe in Limited Atonement in some basic form, whether or not they describe it in this manner.

Now, before anyone gets too upset with the above statement, let me explain what I mean:

If a person who rejects Calvinism (in particular, predestination and limited atonement) asserts that Christ died for all, what they generally mean (unless they are universalists) is that Christ’s death was sufficient for the salvation of the whole world, not that all will necessarily be saved because of it.  Generally speaking, this would also be heartily affirmed by a Calvinist.  Thus, if I tell you, as a Five-Point Calvinist, that there is a thing called “limited atonement”, I do not mean that Christ’s death lacked the power to save the world, or was in any way deficient, but what I mean is that Christ’s death only secured the salvation of those whom God predestined to be saved.  To put it another way, although Christ’s death was sufficient for the salvation of all, not all are actually atoned thereby.  Only those who believe in Christ and bow to Him as Lord actually have their sins atoned for; the rest, by means of their unbelief and rejection of God, persist in their sin and will be condemned.

In this way, the common ground is easy to see.  Although you may reject the idea that those who come to accept Christ do so through the predestination of God, yet (unless you are a universalist) you will never argue that Christ’s death secured an effectual, active atonement for all.  If it did, no soul would ever see Hell.  Thus, “Limited Atonement” is simply a statement that when Christ died on the cross, though His death was sufficient for all, He knew who He was effectively dying for (those who would believe and be saved).

Thoughts on Free Will and God's Sovereignty

In almost every instance where I hear (or read) someone defending the "law of free will" I cannot escape the sense that they desire, very greatly, to say that they chose God themselves, as though they had done at least one good and wise thing that was their own. Certainly this is not so. I've heard many people explain the nature of sin by stating that "we're not all as bad as we could be, but we're as bad off as we could be". It would be more accurate, I think, to state that we're all as guilty as we could be because we're all just as enslaved to sin. The Bible doesn't make much of free-will...in fact, strictly speaking it is an un-Biblical idea. Your will is in bondage; you are either a slave to sin or a slave to Christ (see John 8:34 and Romans 6:19). If you have not, say, brought about a holocaust that resulted in the murder of millions, that is not to say that you are less sinful than Adolf Hitler, and only to say that by the mercy of God and sovereign outworking of his plan, you were given less opportunity and perhaps divinely held-back more than he. If you are free to choose, it is a one-sided freedom, for you are only free to choose evil. A vast set of choices may spread out before you, but all lead to damnation. Only the direct, divine and sovereign intervention of Christ can result in your righteousness: and if it comes from God, it's not really your righteousness, but His. That is the Gospel, after all.

People do not like to believe that our futures are not in our own hands. Somehow we feel that if our destiny is not chosen beforehand by God, then we have more hope than if it were laid out before us. It's a bizarre view, one that puts more hope in what is out of God's hands, rather than what is in them. For my part, as my wife and I are bringing a child into the world, I find far more hope that my child's eternal destiny lies with God than in any idea that it lies within its own "free will". Why? Only for what seems to me to be the most reasonable of assumptions: that if my child's eternal destiny lies within the divine, unchangeable and absolutely sovereign will of God, there is far more hope for it than if it lies within its own broken and sinful nature, because I must conclude that if our destinies lie within the hands of ourselves, or anyone else on this planet, then the outcome is certain: we are all of us damned. There is hope in no one but God, in no will but His, and so I will raise my child to know Him, and pray that He will show it the same grace that He has shown to me and my wife, trusting that whatever takes place, takes place because it is His best.

The Importance of Theology

There are many schools of thought with regard to theology today; perhaps one of the most harmful is that theology is largely unimportant, or even a distraction from the reality of living out and experiencing the true and Biblical Christian faith. This is not so, because true theology is nothing less than true Christianity properly understood, and the study of theology is the study of the true Biblical faith.

If I say that I am a Calvinist, it is not to say, as happened at the church of Corinth, that I am a follower of Paul, while another claims to be a follower of Apollos (1 Corinthians 3:3-5), for the theological position which is commonly called Calvinism is not a personality-cult formed around the man John Calvin, but is an understanding of the Scriptures which is also known as "Reformed", and has at its very heart the goal, not of taking any particular side in an argument, except the side of Scripture itself. It is perhaps unfortunate that it came to be called by any name at all, except that people love to label things, and there are so many divisions that if I were to say that I believe in "sola Scriptura" it may still convey many things to many people, so for simplicity sake I may say that I am a Calvinist, knowing that this at least gives a brief, commonly known (if not commonly understood) outline of how I approach Scripture and its message. If I were to say that I am a proponent of Arminianism, it would have the same effect.

As it is I hold to Reformed tradition not because it is a particular tradition, or one which immediately appealed to my mind and thought (it did not) but one which, after long (and still ongoing) study, became apparent to my mind as being, not one of a varied number of systematic theologies, but simply the appropriate, true and rightly handled message of Scripture itself, so that for me to say that I am Reformed and that I believe in the Gospel is to say the very same thing. It is for this reason that I consider it especially important to study, promote and encourage theology, because rightly understood theology is the study of God's own truth, and in particular the truth of the Gospel, and it is critical that the Gospel be known and understood by all, or at least by all to whom God will grant the grace to know and to understand.

Video Games and the Sovereignty of God

One of thing things that first helped me really understand the issue of the "problem of pain" and God's sovereignty was a change in perspective I was given while playing the Super Nintendo game Actraiser. In it you play a divine being (called the "Master") in a kind of mythological battle with a demonic overlord. Part of the game involves a kind of "Sim City" game where you help your mortal followers build cities and grow food, and generally protect them from evil. Sometimes, however, helping their societies involves taking drastic measures that seem cruel on the outset. At one point I had a large, thriving city of devout followers, but needed to removing a mountain barrier cutting off a critical area. To do so, I had to cause an earthquake. This resulted in the almost complete destruction of the city and the death of most of the inhabitants. As I wiped them out, I felt a tinge of regret at killing my people. Yet it was at this very point that God taught me a lesson using what was a very simple scenario in a game: I considered that if I were God, and these my people, and if we assume a Christian afterlife, although the people below do not understand what is happening to them or why, I, looking down from above, see a bigger picture; I am not casting them out, I am bringing them to myself, where they will live in bliss forever, and meanwhile setting the stage for grander things on Earth. The people below, they will understand in time when they too come to be with me.

Now although you can accuse me of becoming over-involved in the course of the gameplay, it wasn't really about me justifying my actions in a game...it was the parallel, simplistic though it may be, that helped me to realize that sometimes things God may allow, or do, seem senseless and cruel to us down here, but if we could only glimpse things, for one moment, from God's perspective, our entire outlook would surely be changed and we would recognize that God does what is necessary and what is good, even when we do not understand the good He is accomplishing. I do not know why people have to die, or disasters have to take place. I know that the fault lies with sin, and our own guilt, but that God is gracious and merciful. I do not know why people go to Hell while God saves others, but I know that whatever happens, God "God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." (Romans 8:28).

I have no issue with the doctrine of God's complete sovereignty, with the idea that it is God who initiates our salvation, that He raises some up for glory, while others He purposes for wrath (Romans 9:17-20). I don't understand how it all works out, but I believe it, accept it, and I know that there is a good purpose behind it all.