Douglas Wilson’s Letter From Moscow

Natural Evil and the Classical Christian School

Blog and Mablog

Douglas Wilson

December 17, 2014

One of the central arguments that materialistic atheism offers against the Christian faith is that the reality and universality of suffering is inconsistent with the doctrine that we were created by, and are loved by, a gracious heavenly Father. If we intend to do our job in training our students to be able to defend their faith as they go out into the world, it seems to me that we ought not to begin by granting the foundational premise of unbelief.

Believe me, the pressing reality of natural evil is a major argument that the atheists use, and the theistic evolutionists will have to do a lot better than they have done thus far in mounting a reply.

If evolution was God’s means of creating, then this means that pain, struggle, suffering, agony, and torment were His means of creation, and He pronounced all of it “good.”

There are two kinds of evil that we have to consider — natural evil and moral evil. While moral evil is more horrendous, it is a little easier to handle because we are doing so much of it to ourselves. We can handle that another time. But natural evil is a different thing altogether, and on the theistic evolutionary account natural evil cannot be considered evil at all.

. . . the pain and suffering of sentient animals has to be simply dismissed with a wave of the hand. It is no longer the problem of evil, but rather “evil? no problem!”

Here we have to posit millions of years of death-dealing events — volcanoes, floods, tar pits, and so on — without anybody having done anything wrong such that it would bring this state of affairs about. This is just how God likes to do things.

This means that the pain and suffering of sentient animals has to be simply dismissed with a wave of the hand. It is no longer the problem of evil, but rather “evil? no problem!”

Having said this, I want to give two qualifications. The first is that the “absence of death” means the absence of agonistic death. I happily assume that when leaves fell to the forest floor in Eden, they rotted, and that when Adam and Eve ate the fruit that was permitted them, the fruit was broken down in their stomachs by enzymes. Is that not a form of “death?” Sure, if you always remember to use the scare quotes. The fall gave us deranged entropy, not the simple arrival of entropy. Could Adam have shuffled a deck of cards, or would he have gotten a royal flush every time?

The point I am making concerns sentient life, animals with a central nervous system, capable of experiencing excruciating pain. The atheist wants to say there is something wrong with that, but he cannot give an account for why it is wrong because he believes there is no God. The creationist wants to say that there is something wrong with it, that something has gone terribly wrong, but that the sin lies with man. The theistic evolutionist has to say that it is all good. That’s just how God rolls.

At the same time, given the reality of the fall, and granting a high view of God’s sovereignty, I am willing to grant that there is a grim and glittering beauty in the severity that is pervasive in the animal kingdom. “Who provideth for the raven his food? When his young ones cry unto God, They wander for lack of meat” (Job 38:41). “The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God” (Psalm 104:21). And who among us has not bowed the head to say grace over meat from the grill?

But it will not be this way forever. The place we are going tells us something about the place from which we came. Man did not become carnivorous until after the flood (Gen. 9:3), and a time is coming when there will be no carnivores at all. “And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: And the lion shall eat straw like the ox” (Is. 11:7) “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, And the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: And dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord” (Is. 65:25). This is an idyllic vision, and it is also a “return-to-Eden” vision.

But if there was no Eden, if Adam and Eve were the two lucky primates who got smarter than their ancestors, but who also died in exactly the same way as their ancestors, then we discover that what we have done is simply declare death a friend. This is instead of what Scripture does, which is to declare death an enemy.

Adam brought death into the world (Rom. 5:12). The theistic evolutionist has to say that millions of years of dying and death brought Adam into the world. But if that is the case, then why on earth would death — even human death — be considered an enemy? Why then should death be conquered? Why did Jesus bother to come back from the dead? What was the point?

The creationist has answers for these questions. People may not like the answers, but they are solid and defensible answers. Adam was established as the covenant head over all the created order. When he fell, the whole created order fell also. Since that time, the whole created order is longing for the day when everything will be put back to rights. When the children of God are finally revealed for who they are in Christ, then the created order will be restored. Restored to what? Restored to the Edenic glory, and then some.

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:18–23, ESV).

Calvin’s Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

August 09

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Republished from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
He withdraweth not his eyes from the righteous…. He openeth also their ear to discipline…. If they obey and serve him, they shall spend their days in prosperity…. But if they obey not, they shall perish by the sword…. —Job 36:7a, 1Oa, 11a, 12a

Devotional:
So then let us not murmur any longer when we see God sending such troubles into the world, neither let us be offended as though he had his eyes shut. For he well knows what he is doing, and he has an infinite wisdom which is not immediately apparent to us.

In the end we shall see that he has disposed all things in good order and measure. Let us learn not to be too greatly grieved when we are so afflicted, assuring ourselves that God by that means is furthering our salvation.

Besides, do we wish to be healed when we are in torment and pain? Do we want these things to have a favorable outcome? Then let us follow the way that is showed to us here, namely to hear and obey. How shall we hear? By being taught when God sends us to school, so that our afflictions may be like so many lessons to make us flee to him.

Then let us hear these things, and let them not go in one ear and out the other. And let us obey, that is to say, let us yield to God the obedience that we owe him; and let us not seek anything else than to be conformed to him.

What follows? We must not marvel when men linger in pain and are daily plunged deeper and deeper into misery; for which of them listens to God when he speaks? It is apparent how many are afflicted and tormented, and it is evident that God’s whips are occupied everywhere nowadays. But how few are there that reflect upon them!

You see a whole people oppressed with wars until they can endure no more; and yet we can hardly find a dozen men among a hundred thousand that hear God speak. Behold, the snapping of his whips do sound and echo in the air; there is horrible weeping and wailing everywhere; men cry out, “Alas, and woe is me!” And yet all the while they do not look at the hand that smites them.

So then is it any wonder that God sends incurable wounds and does what is said in the Prophet Isaiah; namely, that from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head there is not a drop of soundness in the people, but there is leprosy, so that they are all rotten and infected, and their sores are incurable?
Is this any wonder, seeing men are so thankless toward God that they shut him out of doors and will not listen to him, that they might obey him? —Sermons

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John Calvin was the premier theologian of the Reformation, but also a pious and godly Christian pastor who endeavored throughout his life to point men and women to Christ. We are grateful to Reformation Heritage Books for permission to use John Calvin’s Thine Is My Heart as our daily devotional for 2013 on the OPC Web site. You can currently obtain a printed copy of that book from Reformation Heritage Books.

Calvin’s Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

May 28

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Republished from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty: For he maketh sore, and bindeth up: he woundeth, and his hands make whole. —Job 5:17, 18

Devotional:
It would be greatly to be desired that men would come to God without being spurred, and that they would cling to him without any warning being given them of their faults, and without any rebukes. This, I say, would be a thing greatly to be desired, and also that we were without faults, and were as the angels, desiring nothing but to yield obedience to our Maker and to honor and love him as our Father.

But inasmuch as we are so perverse as not to cease to offend God; and besides that play the hypocrites with him, seeking to hide our faults from him; and inasmuch as there is such great pride in us that we would have God to let us alone and to uphold us in our lusts, and finally wish to be his judges rather than that he should be ours; considering, I say, how we are so perverse, it is necessary for God to use some violent remedy to draw us to him. For if he should handle us altogether gently, what would become of it?

We see this partly even in young children. For if their fathers and mothers do not chastise them, they send them to the gallows. It is true that they do not perceive it; but experience shows it, and we have common proverbs to express it, as, “The more the fathers pamper their children, the more they spoil them:” and the mothers do it still more, for they are fond of flattering them, and in the meantime bring them to naught.

Herein God shows us as it were small beams of the thing as it is in himself. For if he should handle us mildly, we should be utterly undone and past recovery. Therefore he must show himself a Father to us, and be rough with us, seeing we are of so sturdy a nature that if he should deal gently with us we would take no profit from it.

You see how we may understand the truth of this doctrine, that the man is happy whom God chastises. That is to say, considering what our nature is, namely how stubborn, how it resists being put in order, and how we would fail to profit if God never chastised us; therefore it is necessary that he should bring us up short and that he would give us so many lashes with his whip that we are forced to take notice of him whether we want to or not.

So we shall finally come to the conclusion that that man is happy whom God chastises; especially if he add to this the second grace, namely that he cause his rods and his corrections to be effective. —Sermons

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John Calvin was the premier theologian of the Reformation, but also a pious and godly Christian pastor who endeavored throughout his life to point men and women to Christ. We are grateful to Reformation Heritage Books for permission to use John Calvin’s Thine Is My Heart as our daily devotional for 2013 on the OPC Web site. You can currently obtain a printed copy of that book from Reformation Heritage Books.

Douglas Wilson’s Letter From America

Holy Theodicy Versus the Inane Variety

When successive earthquakes struck Canterbury, devastating parts of the City of Christchurch, some clerics hastened to assure us that it was not God’s doing.  Similar chatterers have been busy in the aftermath of the deadly Oklahoma tornado.

Douglas Wilson takes them to task.

Rachel Held Evans Denies the Cat

Wednesday, May 22, 2013 11:09 pm 

Douglas Wilson

 

In the aftermath of the Oklahoma tragedy, Rachel Held Evans took John Piper to task for claiming, right in line with the Bible, that if disaster befalls a city, it is from the hand of God (Amos 3:6). Not only is it from the hand of God, but it is from the hand of a holy God. But to know — as insurance companies do — that such things are classified as acts of God, is not to say that God is abusive.

This stance of Piper’s upsets Evans, and she went on at length about it, maintaining that this creates abusive church environments, etc. I don’t want to go point-by-point through her post here — I simply want to make one observation, in line with the great Chesterton:

“If it be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat, then the religious philosopher can only draw one of two deductions. He must either deny the existence of God, as all atheists do; or he must deny the present union between God and man, as all Christians do. The new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat.”

Here is the problem. Rachel Held Evans rebukes John Piper for answering the problem of evil as all orthodox Christians must, but then cops out herself. “We don’t know exactly why suffering happens in every situation . . .” Now of course this is quite right if we are maintaining that Henry got cancer because he cheated on his taxes three years ago. We don’t know that. But it is staggeringly wrong if we are talking about why our world is broken the way it is. We do know that. We have been told.

Evans goes on at length to tell victims of these and other disasters that they don’t deserve to have these things happen to them. But she does so while serenely neglecting her follow-up responsibility to explain why they are happening then. She says to victims everywhere, “You do not deserve to be abused.” Isn’t the next question obvious? “Why then am I abused?” Is God just or not? Is God in control or not?

John Piper lives in a universe where terrible things happen, but he knows that when we come to know the whole story, we will stop our mouths, and bow before a holy God in order to worship Him — and all manner of things shall be well. To acknowledge God’s sovereignty in such things does not keep our hearts from breaking in the midst of such devastation. The sovereignty of God is a hard shell case that carries and protects the tender heart.

Rachel Held Evans lives in a world where innocent people just get caught in the machinery, and God is terribly sorry about it.

Piper lives in a place where every apparent injustice will ultimately be revealed as part of a rich tapestry of means and ends, all culminating in that glorious Christlikeness that the “all things” in Romans 8:28 is yearning for. Evans lives in a place where our lives can be completely hosed, but at least God felt bad for us while He was making a hash of our little lives. “Don’t worry!” this kosmic klutz king says to us. “You didn’t deserve any of that!” These tornadoes are slippery.

But then, taking back with one hand what she just gave with the other, only a few lines later, Rachel Held Evans says that “God never fails.” Really? He protects the innocent from tornadoes, and tsunamis, and volcanoes, predatory ministers, and He never fails? Why, then, do they still happen?

That, in a nutshell, is how you deny the cat.

 

Measuring God by Human Dimensions

4 Lessons from God’s Interrogation of Job

Republished from Justin Taylor’s blog
Andy Naselli on Job 38:1—42:6, from his book From Typology to Doxology: Paul’s Use of Isaiah and Job in Romans 11:34-35:

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1. God is too small in Job’s eyes.
Prior to God’s interrogation of Job, Job’s perception of God is too soft, too tame, too domesticated. But God’s questions underscore his unshakable trustworthiness as uniquely and infinitely wise, sovereign, just, and good. God is not someone whom Job can drag into court so that he and God can argue their case before an impartial judge. The Almighty God is without peer. He himself is the judge, jury, executioner, and standard of justice.

2. Correspondingly, Job is too large in his own eyes.
God gives Job a theocentric view of the universe because Job cannot help viewing God’s world with himself at its center.
Job actually discredits God’s justice at the expense of his own innocence. So an effect of God’s piercing questions is that Job repents by humbling himself before God as insignificant, ceasing to question God’s ways with him, and submitting to God’s unthwartable sovereignty (40:4-5; 42:1-6). Job does not claim to understand why he is suffering, nor does he insist on his right to know why. Instead, he repents. But he does not repent of sins that he committed prior to his innocent suffering. Rather, he repents of his conceited perspective about God’s justice that he expressed in the midst of his suffering. Job’s maturity grows as he himself becomes smaller.

3. God is not obligated to give Job anything, not even answers to his questions.
So he changes the subject. He does not answer the main question that Job repeatedly asks: “Why am I suffering?” The closest God comes to answering it is rebuking Job for defending his own righteousness at
the expense of God’s righteousness (40:8). God does not answer Job’s “Why?” question because Job’s question, though sincere, is misguided. The narrator and reader know that God challenges Satan about Job’s integrity and gives Satan permission to make Job suffer, but Job never learns this. The point for Job—and the point that the narrator is making for the reader—is that God is not obligated to answer Job’s question. The reason is simple: God is infinite, and Job is finite. God himself is the answer. God as the Creator of the universe owns everything and owes nothing to anyone; a finite person cannot understand the inscrutable ways of the infinite God. . . .
4. Only God is all-wise.

By asking two series of imposing questions, God answers the question “Who is wise?” The answer is that God alone is wise. So rather than accusing God and doubting his integrity, the right response for Job is to trust God, who is supremely wise, sovereign, just, and good. God demonstrates that he sovereignly controls his universe and that he is not unjust and capriciously cruel. To the contrary, τὸ τέλος
κυριόυ [the purpose/goal/end of the Lord] with Job is to show “how the Lord is compassionate and merciful” (Jas 5:11).

Letter From America

Not Offending the World 

The Bible is pretty clear. It is our duty to be as inoffensive as possible. As far as it is possible, we are to live in peace with all men.

But–and it is a big but–the Bible is also clear that in this life we will likely suffer at the hands of Unbelieving men. It is de rigueur for the Christian life. The Gospel has its own offense, and in that offense we are to glory, not be ashamed.

When Paul and his colleagues went preaching the Gospel to Jews and Gentiles, the offense of the message transferred to umbrage against and rejection of the messengers. We are to glory in that transference: it means we are being honoured by God, allowed to follow in the footsteps of the Saviour of the world. David French writes an open letter about how he has came to realise this.

An Open Letter to Young, “Post-Partisan” Evangelicals

May 23, 2012 By David French

Dear fed-up idealists, I used to be you.
I know that’s hard to believe. After all, I’m pretty darn partisan. I’m a religious liberties lawyer, a pro-life activist, the founder of Evangelicals for Mitt, and the most recent winner of the American Conservative Union’s Ronald Reagan Award. I serve my country in uniform in the Army Reserves and am a veteran of the Iraq War. In other words, for a lot of you out there, I’m less role model than cautionary tale. I’m the guy you’re trying not to be — the guy you think is destroying our Christian witness. Heck, I’m the guy that even I used to hate.

How did this happen? Why did this happen? The short answer is that it happened because life happened — real life. So let’s take a trip back through time.

1991– Step 1: Despising my elders. 

 We called ourselves “Solomon’s Colonnade” after the temple area where Jesus delivered one of his many stinging rebukes to the religious leaders of the day. There were only a few of us, friends from college, but we were determined to upend the silly, partisan hypocrisy of the religious right. I blame Bono, really. I attended a U2 concert during the 1987 “Joshua Tree” tour, and was enthralled as Bono (a real rock star!) not spoke openly about his love for Jesus, he wound up his rousing mini-sermon with a passionate condemnation of the televangelists who were then dominating public religious life. His words were both shocking and exhilarating: “Here’s my message to the televangelists: get the f**k off my TV screen!”

Well, that generation of televangelists did eventually “get the f**k off” the TV screen — doomed by their own insatiable appetites — but that wasn’t enough for me. Simply put, I was convinced we hadn’t been doing church right, and my friends in Solomon’s Colonnade were going to do what we could to reboot the whole thing. We spent hours talking late into the night, discussing everything from ideal church governance to the right way to engage politics and the culture. We didn’t reach any consensus other than the consensus that we could do it better — whatever “it” was. And we had to do better.

I graduated from college, Solomon’s Colonnade faded into oblivion, but my goals didn’t change. Oh, I was philosophically conservative — a biblical literalist, an admirer of Edmund Burke, and very deeply pro-life — but I was convinced that the core, life-affirming values of my faith were being wasted and squandered by partisans and charlatans. Shortly after law school, while reflecting on the latest media-reported “outrage” from Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson or James Dobson, I remember emailing my friends something like this: “There has to be a revolution in American Christianity. The old guard has to go, and we have to put Jesus at the center of all we do. I don’t have to lead the revolution, but at least let me drive the tank.”

How those words would come to haunt my conscience . . .

2004– Step 2: Encountering life. 

 I was living my dream. Sure, I was still pro-life (I co-founded Harvard Law School’s only pro-life student group), but you couldn’t categorize me! I had also written a then widely-read op-ed arguing that gay marriage was “inevitable” and that the state had forfeited any legal grounds for denying gay couples the “right” to marry. No labels for me! Shortly after publishing that op-ed, I found myself not only leading a nonpartisan free speech organization but also being profiled in a progressive Christian magazine (sadly defunct or I’d link the article) as an example of nonpartisan Christian leadership. My friends in Solomon’s Colonnade would have been so proud.

But I soon realized that my nonpartisanship had a steep price. I could be pro-life, but not too pro-life. You see, if you’re too pro-life; if you talk about too much, then you can’t be post-partisan. One political party is completely dedicated to legal protection of abortion on demand. The other political party is completely dedicated to repealing Roe v. Wade. If you talk too much about abortion, others will define you, and if you’re defined how can you be independent?

“No problem,” my hip inner voice said. Pro-life is really whole life. Anti-poverty programs, environmental advocacy — that’s all ‘pro-life’ in the broad sense, right? Can’t I be pro-life and maintain my independence?” But my rational inner voice quickly rebelled. If I’m “whole life” without talking about unborn children then I’m functionally pro-abortion, but if I’m “whole life” and bring unborn children into that conversation in any meaningful way, then I’m right back where I started. Besides, the effect on life of driving a Prius over a pickup truck can’t be measured with a (metaphorical) electron microscope. But if an abortion clinic shuts down or a young mom is persuaded not to abort, a real live human being is born — a person of incalculable worth.

Yes, I want them to grow and flourish in a just society, and yes I want them to have economic opportunity. But it’s tough to enjoy justice and opportunity when you’re dead. So I was pro-life. Firmly. Actively. I clung, however, to my marriage position — with even greater ferocity. But my rational voice rebelled once again against my hip inner voice. Didn’t no-fault divorce fly directly in the face of biblical marriage? Weren’t legal regimes that were focused entirely around adult self-actualization having measurable and devastating effects on our culture? Why then would we continue down the path of marriage as a legally recognized means of adult self-actualization rather than marriage as a legally-protected institution of cultural preservation?

Then, as a lawyer, I saw the catastrophic effects that normalization of same-sex relationships was having on religious liberty. And I realized I was wrong. As I decisively entered the “culture war” I discovered something shocking: there aren’t that many of us. (What’s that? Are you telling me that Christians aren’t obsessed with gays and abortion? That’s what all the polls say!) As I travelled around the country and spoke at churches, Tea Party rallies, and conferences, I realized that the number of Christians who truly fight the culture war is quite small. How small?

In 2011, I researched the budgets of the leading culture war organizations and compared them to the leading Christian anti-poverty organizations. Here’s what I found: How do those numbers stack up with leading Christian anti-poverty charities? Let’s look at just three: World Vision, Compassion International, and Samaritan’s Purse. Their total annual gross receipts (again, according to most recently available Form 990s) exceed $2.1 billion. The smallest of the three organizations (Samaritan’s Purse) has larger gross receipts than every major “pro-family” culture war organization in the United States combined. World Vision, the largest, not only takes in more than $1 billion per year, it also has more than 1,400 employees and 43,000 volunteers.

In other words, Christians are overwhelmingly focused with their money and their time on the poor, not on culture war issues. Then why are Christians portrayed differently? Because the media is obsessed with the sexual revolution and demonizes dissent. If news outlets focus on Christians only when engaged on culture war issues and ignores the much more extensive work we do for the poor in Africa, in Asia, and at home, then it’s no wonder the wider world sees us as politically-obsessed. Anyone who believes that Christians are in control of their own public image does not understand how public perceptions are created in this country. No one is in total control of their own image and reputation. Not even the President — and shame on me for not realizing that in my days of naive rage.

2007– Step 3: Becoming my elders.

I’ll never forget the day I met James Dobson. I was preparing to appear on a Focus on the Family broadcast highlighting a number of my cases on behalf of Christian students. In a very real way that broadcast would cement my transition (not that anyone cared about that but me) from “post-partisan” to firmly, completely “religious right.” I was joining Focus and many others in their long fight against cultural and legal trends that result in millions of aborted babies, millions of broken families, persistent poverty, and increasing inequality.

On that day, I was struck by Dr. Dobson’s humility and the humility of his staff. There was a palpable feeling that they were answering God’s call on their lives — serving their role in the Body of Christ, a role certainly no more important than that played by others but vital nonetheless.

Of course they’re not perfect. Of course I’m not perfect. Of course I’m in fact deeply flawed. But so are relief workers at World Vision. So is the pastor you may admire so much. So were each one of Jesus’ disciples and apostles. As we fight the culture war, we’re going to make mistakes, we’re not going to agree with each other, and sometimes I still get deeply frustrated at my own side. But I no longer believe the lie that there is a path for Christians through this culture that everyone will love — or even most people will love.

I no longer believe the lie that American Christians are “too political” and if we only spoke less about abortion we’d be more respected (the mainline denominations have taken that path for two generations, and they continue to lose members and cultural influence). So, “post-partisan” Christians, please ponder this:

First, as the price for your new path, are you willing to forego any effective voice at all for unborn children? Are you willing to keep silent when the secular world demands your silence? After all, that is the true price of non-partisanship — silence.

Second, if you believe that a more perfect imitation of Christ (more perfect than the elders you scorn) will lead to more love and regard for the Church, consider this: No one was more like Christ than Christ, and He wound up on a cross with only the tiniest handful of followers by His side. Follow Jesus, yes, but don’t think for a moment that will improve your image, and don’t be surprised if He takes you down much the same path He took the generation before you.

>Mediation on the Text of the Week

>Away with Peddlers of Prosperity and Wishful Thinking

For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake.
Philippians 1:29

Over the past week we watched some folk tell how they had donated disproportionately large sums of money to a particular church’s pastor, yet they were not wealthy and ended up going down to the food bank to feed their children. When asked why they replied that they had believed they were going to get back all the money they had donated up to one hundred fold. They were told God would do this for them. So, giving the money was a no-brainer. It was a sound investment.

The so-called “Prosperity Gospel” is an odious perversion of the Bible. It represents nothing more nor less than an evil attempt to test God whilst appealing to motives of avarice and greed. It was doubly scandalous that simple souls had been preyed upon by the unscrupulous. Insofar as the peddlers of Prosperity Gospel snakeoil are causing little ones to stumble they had better start preparing for the millstone to go around their neck with which they will be cast into the pond. (Matthew 18:6)

But there is a watered down version of the Prosperity Gospel widely abroad in Jerusalem today which, while less extreme, is equally misguided. It is the false view that true faith in God will always result in genuine direct divine intervention on one’s behalf. Since genuine Christianity is a religion of signs and wonders; true faith will “produce” such wonders. If you are sick, God will heal you miraculously. If you lack money, God will miraculously provide. Attending signs and wonders are proof of God and of the genuineness of one’s faith. This is just another variant upon the theme of the Prosperity Gospel.

When Paul was writing to the Philippians he was in prison, awaiting trial for the sake of Christ. Now, Paul had experienced miraculous releases from prison before—in fact, when he was in the very town of Philippi (Acts 16:25,26). So, the Philippian Christians knew all about direct, divine interventions. At least one of their households was of the jailer, whose life was wonderfully spared that night. But Paul is not looking for such a release from his prison in Rome this time. Rather, he is rejoicing that while in prison, the cause of the Gospel is moving ahead in leaps and bounds in the city of Rome (Philippians 1:12).

Nor does Paul encourage the Philippians to look for, nor expect, miraculous intervention in their lives. Rather he says they were actually really favoured and blessed because it had been granted to them that they suffer for Christ’s sake. God had ordained that they share in precisely the same sufferings that Paul himself was going through.

In the ambit of this terrible Prosperity Gospel there is no room for suffering. It is a sign that your faith is not strong enough. Or that you are not obeying God. Few things could be a greater perversion of the actual truth.

One of the favorite passages of the peddlers of the Prosperity Gospel is Hebrews 11—cut and pasted. As you come to the end of that chapter you can just sense the triumphant, “I told you so!” of the Prosperity peddlers. Paul has called the roll of honour of those who:

by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection. . . .
Hebrews 11:32—35.

“See what God will do you for”, says the Prosperity Peddler, “if you only believe or have enough faith! Look it’s in the Bible.” Well, it is if you “cut and paste”, for Paul goes on to say:

. . . and others were tortured, not accepting their release, in order that they might obtain a better resurrection; and others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, ill treated (men of whom the world was not worthy) wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they should not be made perfect.
Hebrews 11: 35—40.

True faith means you entrust yourself to God and His promises, no matter what—despite the fact that everything, every empirical experience, may say otherwise. At times, it will please the Lord to grant a wonderful deliverance. At other times, for His greater purposes and His greater glory, He will not. Either way, we keep entrusted ourselves to Him. This is the undoubted Christian faith.

Let Prosperity Peddlers begone.

>Meditation on the Text of the Week

>The Light of His Countenance

For His anger is but for a moment; His favour is for a lifetime;
Weeping may last for the night, but a shout of joy comes in the morning
Psalm 30:5

Our text portrays the inequality of God’s wrath and favour. His anger is temporary, short-lived, soon over. His favour, however, is constant, abiding, and life-long. This means that for His people, the wrath of God occurs only within the context of an already established love and faithfulness. The love and faithfulness of God is the “deeper magic” of life.

The perfect analogy is the love of parents for a child. A parent’s love is both faithful and constant. It undergirds the entire relationship with the child. It shapes the way the household operates. It sets the household schedules, its preoccupations, the meals, the budgets, and the activities. It is the love of parents for children which shapes the household as a child-centred environment. A parent’s love for a child lasts the entire lifetime of the child—as long as the parent lives on the earth. Age does not diminish the love, it only changes its modes of expression.

It is interesting to find that as we have grown older and our children have become adults and parents in their own right, our thoughts and cares and concerns for our children (and now their spouses) have not lessened one wit. We find that our thoughts are constantly bent toward them, daily.

The favour of parents toward a child is for a lifetime. Consequently, the anger of parents towards their children is brief and fleeting. We refer here, of course, to the righteous anger of parents when they must chasten and discipline their children for their wrong doing. The ignominy of bad behaviour provokes the anger; faithfulness leads them to discipline the child. In this context, even the wrath becomes an expression of loyalty, love, and faithfulness.

But these realities of parental love are but a pale reflection of the intensity and the constancy of the love of our Father in heaven toward us. If we being evil are able to love our children in this way, how much more our Father, the Lord of glory.

This is why the people of God are characterised by a perpetual, irrepressible happiness. Clearly God’s people suffer—often terribly so—in this life. Sometimes our suffering is due to our own stupid actions. We bear painful consequences of foolish behaviour. But it passes. God’s people return again to have the light of God’s countenance lifted up upon them.

As our text says, in the most moving of images: weeping may last for the night, but with the morning comes the shout of joy. Most of us have spent more than a few harrowing nights. We have experienced the truth of the proverb that it is darkest just before the dawn. But as the dawn has broken and the sun has risen, the pains and anxieties lessen, and one knows yet again that underneath are the everlasting arms. We know that God will again turn our mourning into dancing and our sackcloth into gladness (verse 11).

The opposite is too fearsome to contemplate. To sense that the entire cosmos is against you and lives in sleepless malice towards you is too great to bear. But that is the essence of the circumstance in which all Unbelievers live. Suppressing the truth about God, they have carelessly sought to give Him the flick. The Bible describes the condition of life of the Unbeliever as one upon whom the wrath of God abides. (John 3:36) Therefore all experiences of love and joy are fleeting, temporary and chimerical. Children will end up hating parents. Parents come to despise and detest their children. Hell is the state where each hates all and all hate each. The implacable wrath of the entire cosmos is known and experienced without end.

This is what our Saviour experienced on the Cross in His descent into Hell. It is from this that our Saviour came to deliver us. While there is still time, while it is still today, we call upon all men to repent and turn from their evil ways, and believe upon Him, for, as the apostle declared, He is the only Name on earth, given by God, amongst men, by which we must be saved.

>Meditation on the Text of the Week

>And Where Were You . . . ?

Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped. And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.”
Job 1: 20—21

Last year a number of students and a teacher from Elim Christian School were drowned in a tragedy on the Mangatepopo River. In the aftermath of mourning and burials a number of commentators saw fit to comment on the way the school community and the parents were dealing with the tragedy. It was different from the norm.

Job, in our text, had likewise just endured a terrible tragedy which had both taken the lives of all his children and destroyed virtually all he owned. Like the grieving parents at Elim School, his life had changed, radically and drastically. But, as with those parents and that school, Job’s reaction was very different from the norm. Why?

In the first place, Job believed that what had happened to him was not due to extreme weather or to marauding bandits—they were merely second causes. The tragedy that had befallen him was due to God.
It was the Lord that had given to him in the first place, and it was the Lord that had taken away. Notice the active verbs. Thus, his affliction was the outcome of personal motives—in the sense that it had come about because of the deliberate plan, will, intent, and work of God Himself towards Job.

Job’s understanding of God is not like many in our day. Many now want to blur the distinction between the Creator and the creature by putting human, creaturely limitations upon God. They urge us to believe that things can happen, terrible things, over which God has no control. They mistakenly imagine that by making God more “human” they can help themselves and others draw closer to God. But God is not honoured by the lies and deceits of men.

Job knows and professes the truth: he knows that there is not one hair which could fall from his head apart from the will and command of God. Therefore, when calamity struck, he knew that it was the will and work of God. Since God had given him children in the first place, it was God who had taken them away when they tragically died.

Secondly, Job holds to a “minimalist rights” position before God. Naked he came into the world; naked he shall leave it. He has nothing that he did not receive in the first place. He has no position or rights to argue before God that entitle him to be treated in a certain way or be given certain things. True, God has promised to care for His people, to provide for them. This is something to which He has bound Himself, not something that we could demand.

But, at the same time, for His own purpose and reasons, such promises can be suspended or removed—as Job has just experienced. The noble and faithful response of Job to this is not to stand on rights but to acknowledge that all he had was a gift in the first place, to which he had no intrinsic right or title. Naked he came forth; naked he would leave.

Thirdly, Job worshiped God: he bowed his knee.

That is the spiritual context of Job’s sufferings. All else that follows occurs in that context. But what follows in the rest of the book is Job’s struggle to come to terms with God. He desperately wants to come before God and argue his case. He wants to argue his case on the basis of God’s faithfulness, promises, goodness, and greatness. He wants God to give account to him and explain why this has happened. What is the meaning and place and significance and intent and purpose of his suffering? But God is silent.

We learn from this that the Christian is not like the unfeeling stoic, who steels his heart so as to be removed from hurt. Rather, Job shows that he was deeply hurt and profoundly affected by what had happened to him. But his case was with God, not with man—it was God’s face that he sought. In so doing, he showed his love for God and trust in God. “Though He slay me, yet shall I trust Him,” was his cry. His suffering was in the context of a deep faith in God and Who He is.

In the end God came to him (and so to all who believe). God does not answer Job’s questions and his interrogatory. He, rather, changes the terms of the exchange. He changes the terms by reinforcing the distinction between the greatness of the Creator, and the consequent insignificance of Job. He simply asks Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” It is a question designed to put the hand on the mouth. It is one of the most humbling questions imaginable. In effect, He takes Job back to his original response in our text, and extends, deepens, and reinforces it.

Job has had his “day in court” as it were. God has spoken to him. And his response: “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now my eyes see Thee;
Therefore, I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes.”
Job 42: 5—6

This is the point to which God leads all His suffering children. It is the point of a deeper trust in Him, without understanding or knowing all the why’s and the wherefore’s of what has happened. God’s purposes are just too great, and we cannot hope to comprehend them. We, after all, were not there when He laid the foundations of the earth.

This is what was evident, we believe, in those terrible days at Elim Christian School.

>Meditation on the Text of the Week

>Responding to Calamities

I tell you, no, but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.
Luke 13:3

There has always been a strong tendency for the human heart to draw either a definitive or an implicit cause and effect connection between suffering and just desserts. When someone suffers (calamity, accident, sickness and so forth) all cultures with strongly defined codes of right and wrong are likely to reason that calamity implies punishment of some kind.

The book of Job deals substantially with this error. Job suffered terribly—clearly at the hands of focused and deliberate divine intervention. His three friends spent a good deal of time and energy trying to get him to own up to whatever it was that had provoked God to such terrible wrath. They argued from the calamity to an underlying cause of Job’s unknown and undefined evil. Job had to have done something terribly wrong, or God would not have dealt with him this way.

One of the crucial points of the book of Job is to demonstrate that one cannot draw such black and white conclusions from the sufferings of people. Things are a whole lot more complex and God’s purposes are far too mysterious and multi-dimensional and multi-purposive than to allow such simplistic connections.

In our text, our Lord takes this subject one step further. It turns out, notwithstanding the lessons from the book of Job that there is always one black and white conclusion which we can always draw from human calamity and suffering. He insists upon a deep consciousness of one’s own guilt and sinfulness when considering the suffering of others. Some people had come to him reporting that the Romans had slaughtered Jewish worshipers (“Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.”) Jesus asked the rhetorical question: “Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered this same fate?”

Well, it would appear so. Probably they were insurrectionists of some sort, maybe zealots or sicarri. At one level it would be perfectly reasonable to reason that this event would serve as a warning (but also a comforting reminder) that if one did not engage in rebellious activity against the Roman overlords, one would not suffer the fate of a criminal. I’m OK—I don’t do that kind of stuff.

But our Lord presses the matter far more profoundly than that. He says, “Unless you repent, you will perish along with them.” He draws upon a deeper, more fundamental unspoken premise. Between the Galilean executed and all men there is no difference—all alike are sinners, evil, wicked and immoral. Therefore, don’t think that because the sword has not fallen you are better or more ethical or more moral than the hapless Galileans. You will perish along with them if you do not repent of your own sin.

To drive the matter home more forcefully, our Lord repeats Himself:

Or do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem? I tell you, no, but, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
Luke 13: 4—5

Thus,the warning and admonition is clear. Whenever we see another person whose life is cut off due to accident or crime or foolishness, they serve as a message from God, a warning. It is a reminder that we, who are in principle no better than they, will perish along with them if we do not turn away from our own sin and evil living and turn to God, seeking His mercy and forgiveness.

One is reminded of the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisee stood before God and thanked Him that he was not like other men. He was better than they, more scrupulous, more holy, more dedicated. He fasted and tithed and did all that he thought he was supposed to. Meanwhile, the tax collector—a Roman stool pigeon who betrayed and oppressed his own people—beat his breast and cried out, “Lord, be merciful to me—as sinner.” The tax collector, said Jesus, left the Temple justified—declared righteous by God—while the Pharisee remained under the indictment and guilt of his sin.

The ancient Puritan oath, uttered as a notorious sinner passed, “There, but for God’s grace, go I” is far nearer the mark. When terrible calamity strikes the first response of the heart should be to remind ourselves that we deserve such a fate, whilst we continue in our own sins and repent not of them.

Then, unlike Job’s comforters, we will be able to extend true love and support to those who suffer.

>Meditation on the Text of the Week

>Cries of Dereliction

But for Thy sake we are killed all day long;
We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.
Psalm 44:22

It has been truthfully said that the twentieth century was the most bloody in all human history. This was not due just to a higher global population, reflecting the same proportion of violent malevolent deaths. It was due to a greater outbreak of man’s inhumanity to man. Two world wars and three large malevolent totalitarian societies (the USSR and its “Eastern Bloc”, Nazi Germany, and Maoist China) along with many small tinpot dictatorships led to millions upon millions of people being exterminated. If the blood of Abel cried to God from the ground, how much more the blood of the millions killed unjustly in our days.

It was also the bloodiest century for Christian martyrdom. In all of these dictatorships and totalitarian terror states Christians were singled out for persecution and extermination. But while we have seen in recent history the passing of these hideously malformed and tyrannical governments, the persecution and martyrdom of Christians has not ceased. It is estimated that from the early 1990’s, approximately 150,000 Christians per year have been killed for their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a rising trend.

Our text is deeply relevant, therefore, for our age. Around the world, Christians are regarded as sheep in the holding paddocks awaiting the slaughterhouse.

The psalmist is speaking of a time when the faithful were being overwhelmed by lawlessness and being killed almost at will. Psalm 44 is a psalm of anguish—believing, faithful anguish. God’s people are regarded as fair game, yet not for one moment did the psalmist doubt that behind all this were the prerogatives and plans of the Almighty. None of these terrible things had occurred by accident, but by God’s express will and plan. See how he confesses the hand of God bringing the suffering about:

Thou hast given us as sheep to be eaten
And hast scattered us among the nations.
Thou dost sell Thy people cheaply,
And hast not profited by their sale.
Thou dost make us a reproach to our neighbours,
A scoffing and derision to those around us.
Thou dost make us a byword among the nations,
A laughing stock among the peoples.
Psalm 44: 11—14

Mark well the active verbs. The Lord has given His people over, scattered them, sold them, made them a reproach, a laughing stock and a derision. But not for an instant does the psalmist wonder whether the Lord does not exist. Not for an instant does he think of turning aside to “more powerful” gods. He is unwavering in his belief that the Lord alone is God, and beside Him there is no other. In obedience to the first commandment, he will not give credence to, nor acknowledgement of, any other god. Rather, behind all of the calamity falling upon him and his fellow believers, he sees the hand of God Himself. Hence the anguish.

He confesses the unwavering loyalty to the Lord amongst His people. “All this has come upon us, but we have not forgotten Thee, and we have not dealt falsely with Thy covenant.” (Psalm 44: 17) Despite their suffering, the people had not turned to a strange god in search of better things.

This cry of anguish—of the innocent people of God suffering at the hands of God without cause—was uttered most loudly and trenchantly by our Lord upon the Cross. It was the greatest cry of dereliction ever heard upon the earth or in heaven. “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Our psalmist, however, shows us that the cry of dereliction is not unknown amongst the saints. The experience of being forsaken by God, and left to face the marauding cruelty and spiteful hatred of the wicked had been known by God’s people before the Cross. It is known by the Lord’s people today, as thousands across the world are killed annually, mercilessly without cause.

But their cry of anguish and dereliction—while being of the same kind as the cry of the Lord Jesus—is nothing more than a faint echo of His. For He uttered His cry out of the depths of Hell itself as He bore the full brunt of God’s vengeance and wrath for the sins of His people. And like the psalmist, our Lord—even while in Hell—did not apostasize. He did not turn away. He did not stop believing or clinging to His heavenly Father. He still called Him, My God.

Because of our Lord, continuing to believe in God and cling to Him amidst His apparent desertion of us, is not only made possible, but more compelling. For in His dying and rising, Christ established a bond of eternal, impregnable, unbreakable love between God and us. Nothing in heaven or upon earth can ever, now, separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

So, the Apostle Paul, acknowledging the suffering of God’s people upon the earth which still remains while enemies are being put under our Lord’s feet, acknowledging that we will still utter from time to time the cries of anguish and dereliction as God allows us to be overrun for His greater purposes, quotes our text: “Just as it is written, ‘For Thy sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’” (Romans 8: 36)

If the psalmist had cause to trust and cling, to believe and to keep faith with the Lord, while God afflicted them without cause, how much more we. For God has now given the most extreme and unshakable testimony that despite our anguish we are not cut off from God’s love, but that it is ever extended to us, and will never be withdrawn. He has given unbreakable proof that our suffering is not due to God despising and rejecting us. He gave us His Son. Everything else is mere echo. Nothing, now, can ever separate us from the love of God.

The blood of the martyrs continues to flow. The cries of the faithful remonstrating with our Lord continue to be uttered today. And they are heard! For Jesus sake, they are heard louder than ever before. “Rise up, be our help, and redeem us for the sake of Thy lovingkindness,” cries the psalmist. (Psalm 44: 26)

In the light of our Lord Jesus, we can gloss this cry, so that it is now even more powerful and irresistible in the ears of our God: “Rise up, be our help, and redeem us for the sake of Thy lovingkindness in Christ Jesus, your Son, Who loved us and gave Himself for us.” This is a cry the Father cannot deny, for He cannot deny Himself.