Never Forget . . .

I had the honor and privilege recently of having a long, tear-filled conversation with someone who has struggled with same-sex attraction. They have literally taken a bullet, and watched a friend die by the bullet, of someone who simply hated gays. They shared how, without a legal commitment of relationship, the family of someone they loved (and had loved for decades) could cut them off from even seeing that person in the hospital if that person was unconscious. They shared how they couldn't find the depth of love in someone of the opposite sex they found in someone of the same. They shared their deep longing to love and be loved and to not grow old alone.

We talked. We listened to one another. We honored one another with listening and trying to hear one another's hearts. It was an amazing experience.

I still believe the Bible is clear about God's stand on homosexuality. I still believe that we, as Christians, can't legitimatize by law something we believe God says is sin. But it was a powerful reminder to me—one I hope I never forget—that this whole battle (or any battle, for that matter, be it abortion, etc.) is not about "them." The "them" are (granted there are extremists on both sides who make a genuine discussion hard), but the "them" are people with feelings, people who love, people who often want to please God, people who are hurt. They are real people and if we ever forget that, and walk not in love (which doesn't mean compromise), then no matter how correct our theology is, we will not be representing God.

I talked extensively about this with our fellowship yesterday, and I felt God bring two questions to my mind. They are questions the church must grapple with if we want God to wash this nation with His Holy Spirit (and I believe that is the only answer for us, that the individuals in this nation choose to love and obey Him above all else). Those two questions were:

1. I, who am so passionate and patriotic about America, am I even more passionate and "patriotic" about the true nation I am a citizen of, the eternal nation, the holy nation, that is God's Kingdom, His body, and about the eternal effects of it expanding and reigning or not?

2. I, who am so indignant about our nation's laws and direction, am I even more indignant and passionate and vocal about God's laws in my own life and within the church?

I do not believe God will pour out the only true answer—His Holy Spirit that draws men unto Jesus—if the church is not passionate about Him, about eternity, about holiness and purity in our own lives and ranks first. Why would He?

Nothing  I am saying here is a call to compromise on what we believe is true and right before God, who does declare some things as true and right. But it is a call to never forget. To never, ever forget. That our enemy is not flesh and blood. That the "them" are real people whom God loves, with hurts and hopes and needs that are real and deep, with tears that flow like ours do, and hearts that hurt like ours do. May we live and love like Jesus. May we be humble and broken in our hearts toward our own sins and violations of God's laws, and living toward others as one saved only by the grace of God to another.

May we never forget the tears. God doesn't, and won't. Rather, it says, He will one day Himself wipe them from our eyes.

I am deeply concerned about this nation, and the nation I will hand my children and their children. I am deeply concerned it not longer puts God or His heart as the top of its list. I am concerned by it, and grieved by it, and I intend to continue to teach and live what I believe is truth. But as I do, in these days ahead, if I ever have to error, may it be on the side of love. May I love with a passion born of God's love for me and my love for Him. May I love in a way that the lost, the hurting, the confused find in me such a picture of His love that they run into His arms, and find their a Holy Spirit willing and ready and eager to lead and guide them down the road into His truth.

May I never forget the tears.

"In the Sight of the Lord . . ."

I have been teaching in recent Sundays on ways we can evaluate who our audience is—whether we are living in the big picture (and in individual moments) for an Audience of One, or for an audience of someone(s) else. Maybe that is why this morning in my reading through the Bible it jumped out to me so much when I came to Judges 13:1 which says, "And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord gave them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years" (ESV).

I thought, "in the sight of the Lord—that says it all. That is what (and all) that matters." I did a quick search in the ESV for that exact expression and found it occurs 71 times. My guess is that if you looked for slight variations you'd find that concept expressed many, many more times. Of the 71 it included many instance of doing what was wicked or evil in the sight of the Lord, as well as examples of things being "precious" in the sight of the Lord (a very appropriate one for today's news is Psalm 116:15 which says, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints"), and multiple verses similar to Deuteronomy 6:18–19 which says:

And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may go well with you, and that you may go in and take possession of the good land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers by thrusting out all your enemies from before you, as the Lord has promised.

The common theme of all these is, ". . . in the sight of the Lord" and it takes me back to a theme I have blogged on repeatedly. If there is not some uniform absolute for right and wrong (or true or false) we will live in a moral quagmire of relativism in which "truth" has no meaning, in which what is right for some is not for others, in which values and good and bad change with the times. Absent of some absolute standard for right and wrong there is no moral basis that carries any weight for saying one person's actions are right and another's wrong.

I was struck that it didn't matter if the people of Israel thought what they were doing was fine. What mattered is how it was received in the sight of the Lord.

Evil in the sight of the Lord. Precious in the sight of the Lord. Good and right in the sight of the Lord. It should be very encouraging to us on many levels:

1. It must mean God is watching us! He is present with us. He sees and knows our life! He is not a distant, deistic God who set it in motion then sits back uninvolved. He is active and involved in our lives. Praise Him for that! "I will never leave you or forsake you."
2. When we realize only one audience matters it helps us realize the futility and foolishness of living for other audiences.
3. Here is a huge one for Christians in this culture today: When we declare something right or wrong (or true or false) we are not the ones judging it, we are declaring what something is in the sight of the Lord. We can be encouraged when we start to feel beat up and doubt ourselves. We are not putting ourselves in the place of judge, we are witnesses to our holy and mighty God and what He declares. What we personally believe is irrelevant. It doesn't matter. Your opinion is as valid as mine. But what HE believes . . . that is everything, and by declaring it and standing for it we are being the most loving we can to others. Because whether or not they realize it, only One audience matters in the end, and only One definition of right and wrong and true and false is actually right and wrong, true and false. The rest will fall away, but He alone will stand.

May we live this week secure in the love of our Father in Heaven, deeply aware of the Holy Spirit's presence with us, and living for an Audience of One. Blessings to all of you. Thanks for sharing in my life.   —Erick

Monotheism and Gore Vidal

I have either written about, or alluded to, the arguments about moral relativism multiple times. Basically, either there are absolute truths and absolute rights and wrongs, or it is all relative and what is right for some is right for some, but not necessarily for others. This morning Albert Mohler published a very good blog on Gore Vidal and his war on monotheism called Gore Vidal and the Sky God. I would recommend reading it. You can see it by clicking here.

In his blog Mohler captures what Vidal realized—that the absolute of truth and right and wrong lies in monotheism. Apart from one god (I leave it lowercase because he is talking about multiple monotheistic religions) there is no case for absolute truth that says something is absolutely right and other things are absolutely wrong. I'll quote a few parts of the article below, but I recommend reading it and reflecting on it. I think this whole argument is also, probably, one of the reasons evolution is so appealing. If we take God out of the picture and deny His existence then we don't have to make our lives accountable to Him or to face the fact that what may seem right to us may, in fact, not be right to He who defines right and wrong.

In the blog Mohler writes:

In his essay, “Monotheism and its Discontents,” based on the lecture at Harvard, Vidal perceptively and blasphemously blamed the existence of a binding sexual morality on monotheism. "The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism,” Vidal asserted, “From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament three anti-human religions have evolved — Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These are sky-god religions.”

And later he says:

Christians should pay close attention to Gore Vidal’s argument, but the mainstream media have almost uniformly ignored it. The obituaries have celebrated his literary gifts and noted his radical political ideas and rejection of Christianity, but not his call for “all-out war on the monotheists.” We should realize that Vidal’s rejection of monotheism, though blasphemous, was truly perceptive. He was certainly correct that a binding and objective morality requires a monotheistic God who both exists and reveals himself. He was also correct in pointing to the fact that a secularized Europe has largely abandoned a biblical morality when it comes, most specifically, to sexual behavior.

It is a truth we must realize to fully understand why the enemy attacks our faith so much—a faith that unashamedly declares itself to be the only way to truth. Because, if we are right, then everyone in the world is accountable to it, whether or not they like it or believe it. With that said, may you spend this week deeply aware of God's great love for you, and how mighty and powerful He is and how completely worthy He is of our standing for Him against all that comes our way. Thanks for reading!   —Erick

The Sum of it All

It is hard to believe that yesterday marked three years since I started this blog as a place to share thoughts, slices of my life, and things God is showing me. I wanted to keep it personal, not tied into my position as pastor, to give me freedom to share things separate from our fellowship—maybe thoughts on a candidate, etc. I had hoped for a "community" to form with lots of comments and sharing back and forth, but that hasn't happened, and that's OK. Now and then (often when I'm about to quit the blog) someone will tell me it really touched or helped them and I'll get a little fire to continue as I'll realize it is being read, and is doing some good. Well, this post is sort of a "sum of it all" for me. I know it's rather long but, hey, it's only once a year you get to "sum it all up" . . .

Reflecting on these three years and the things that have happened in them in the world, in my life, and on this blog, I think I am noticing something that is at the center of almost every issue we face. It is the absence of absolutes. It is really stunning in its simplicity, but that is the sum of it all, in a way. If you look around at the world and the issues in our nation and the lives of many Christians it can be summed up as revolving around absolutes, or the lack of.

Interestingly (and encouraging to me) is that as it seems the world is heading farther and farther from recognizing absolutes, and farther and farther into a realm of opinion and tolerance and relativism, I have noticed myself becoming even more firmly convinced of the absolute truth of Genesis (Creation and the Flood), and hence the Bible, and hence of God—to borrow an expression on a t-shirt I was given, "God said it. I believe it. That's settles it."

Whether the issue is gay marriage, abortion, adultery, fornication, how we use our time, how we use our resources, what we vote on, what purpose we find in our life, what we think about things like miracles today or spiritual warfare or the origin of life, or whatever, it really comes down to one of two things. Either everyone has a valid opinion, and everyone's opinion is equal, and we can argue into infinity with each other about our opinions . . . or God has something to say about something and what He says matters, and what we say doesn't. That's it, really. If God is real, and if His Word is trustworthy, then what He says defines right and wrong. President Obama (or anyone else) can express his stands on issues and give his opinions on them all he wants. If God is real, and the Bible is real, and the President's opinions don't line up with God's, then he is wrong. Plain and simple.

I hear way too much these days that begins with, "I think . . ." or "I feel . . ." or "In my opinion . . ." Honestly, it really doesn't matter to me. (I care about you, so what you think and feel is important to me to help me understand you, but not in affecting my views.) Why? Because Jesus said that God alone is good. Therefore if He is real then He alone can define good and right. So all that really matters is if I am aligned with Him or not. Even our evangelism is so wishy washy and arrogant. We "persuade" people to "try" Jesus. Either He is real, and He is holy, and galaxies are birthed in Him, and He speaks and worlds are created, and if we come into His presence our way and not His we are consumed .  . . or He's not. That's it. Period. If those things are true it is sheer arrogance and pride heading to damnation to "decide" if we are going to trust Him, or believe Him, or follow Him, or to decide on moral issues based on our opinion instead of what He says. And if He's not real, and not those things, then party on. Debate ad naseum your opinion against another's and realize in the end it doesn't matter because we'll all die and feed worms and that's the end. Or, as Paul wrote, "What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.' " (1 Corinthians 15:32)

I was really awakened the other day listening to an audio drama (Jonathan Park) that our family enjoys when they took quotes from Darwin's life chronicling his journey from religion to evolution and total rejection of Jesus. He rejected Genesis, then the Bible, then Jesus. It was a journey, and I see that happening all around us. It is sad, because if the evidence were simply shown, without the bias and tainting of scientists trying to squash and conform it into their millions and billions of years framework, it would clearly point to a literal Creation and flood as described in the Bible. But, we have made bad science our god, and from it rejected the Bible, and from that rejected absolutes. And, it is a rejection of absolutes, stemming from a rejection of the Bible, that has us exactly where we are now—a sea of opinions and a worship of college degrees that we call "enlightenment" but which are really journeys into darkness.

Isn't it funny how many people reject an absolute standard of right and wrong, but are the first to cry out, "It's not fair" or "It's not right" or "this should be allowed and not that" or who profess to be right and that others are wrong? By what standard? Says who? Even more funny (because if I don't laugh, I'll get angry or cry) are the number of professing Christians who claim to believe in a God and absolutes, and then live (and speak) based on their opinions and sense of right and wrong, and not on His. I don't know. Maybe I'm getting cranky, but a person's opinion, including my own, matters less and less to me the older I get. I just want to know, "What does God say?" and then make that my own. His opinion is all that matters. He alone is good. And, I guess, that is the "sum of it all" for me. Life is too short to waste days and years of it chasing vain ideas and opinions. Let God be God, and don't try and be Him for Him. He alone is worthy and our lives are best spent worshipping Him, following Him, sharing Him, and standing for Him, no matter the cost in this world—we have all of eternity to share in the pleasures He has prepared for us.

Absolute Truth

I know that I have shared about an experience I had with a philosophy professor at West Point before, but it was brought back to my mind this weekend when Mary Ann and I were asked to share our testimony at another church. As we talked about it, and shared, I was struck that possibly my first real wake up to the fact that there might be absolute truth that was not dependent on my attitude toward it came in the halls of West Point . . .

I was concentrating in Philosophy, had no good thoughts or affection or belief toward God, and enjoyed tremendously studying the different philosophers, ideas about life, etc. I had dabbled in New Age in the past, and found intellectual discussions of different theories, ideas, etc., to be challenging and fun, but there was no urgency to them or any really conviction that any one might be right. It was fun, a game, a challenge to debate and see who was "smarter" or quicker. I loved it.

I remember, distinctly, studying moral relativism in one of my classes (which basically says that different morals and ethics are right for different people and cultures) and thinking, "That sounds fair/good/right." It made sense, each group or people should develop what was right for them, and that made it right for them . . . hence "right."

I shared my "conversion" to moral relativism with one of my professor and I will never forget the pit in my stomach when he, in all sincerity, talked to me in the hallway and said, basically, "Erick, if I truly believed you were a moral relativist I would do everything I could to get you removed from the academy." I was stunned. This wasn't a game, and it wasn't just about having fun debating ideas and philosophies. This guy was talking about something so real as being kicked out of the academy! Of having to go home to all my family and friends having been kicked out of West Point!

It was a true revelatory moment (though my surrender to Jesus was still years away) in which, maybe for the first time, I was confronted with the fact that there might not be "many truths" that were each right for those living them, but that there might be some truth that was absolute, and did not depend on my opinion or acceptance of it. Absolute truth . . . what a concept! This man was so convinced of the danger of a morally relativistic approach in the hands of someone who would be wielding power that he was prepared to put himself on the line and try and have me removed from West Point.

I have since found out that this man is a Christian, and I have since realized how right and "true" he was (and is). There are absolute truths and rights and wrongs—and truth defined by those in power, or the masses, is a "truly" scary concept . . . one that can justify about any horror or atrocity or abuse of power. Yet, in this day and age, how rare to find someone who is willing to put all they are on the line to stand up for truth, for a truth that is not relative, but that is true regardless of whether the whole world . . . or no one . . . believes it.

There is absolute truth, and we will all answer to it . . . and at that moment when we do our "opinions," or lack of opinions, will mean nothing. All that will matter is whether or not we embraced the truth. This applies to eternity—and to issues in life. It is not relative. There is no one good but God alone. All that matters is whether we embrace Him and His ways or not. All our best defenses, or procrastinations, or accomplishments will mean nothing if we aren't on the "right" side of truth. Call it intolerant. Call it unloving. Call it what you will. It doesn't change the fact that God is true, and His ways are right, and anything else is not. The most loving thing we can do is to stand for that fact, as servants of others, in love and humility and self sacrificing, no matter what it costs us, and in every area (Heaven, Hell, salvation, Scripture interpretation, lifestyle choices, habits, right, wrong, etc). We are dealing with far more than a few years here on earth. We are dealing with forever.