Tuning Fork Preachers

Tuning forks have no voice of its own, but resonate when struck or held near sounds to which they are tuned. Good pastors want nothing more than to be God's tuning forks. They pray to be struck with the Scripture; and when struck, to ring with the voice of Christ because they have been so tuned to his Word. Likewise, good preaching has a supernatural resonance. It reverberates at the pitch of the Spirit harmonizing with the minister's voice.

My Greatest Sin

Since becoming a Christian, I believe my greatest sin has been doubting the generosity of the Father to give his Spirit freely. More often I lean upon past graces for present duties. I seek strength by recalling previous success, instead of trusting him to supply fresh victory. My confidence turns to what I think I have become, instead of relying on the Spirit to transform me presently for Christ's sake. While I remember sanctification involves active faith, I constantly forget that faith is still always in another.

Wealth and Generosity

Seldom does God grant more than we need without revealing someone who could use more, too. He gives abundantly so that we might share his blessings with others, and thereby receive even greater blessedness. True wealth or poverty is displayed in how freely we give. A millionaire must be very poor if he cannot afford to be generous to those in need, while a widow is rich if she has but two coats and enough heart to clothe another. 

 I am praying for a bigger heart in light of all the gifts I have received this year.

AM Radio and the Claims of Atheists

I am always struck by the confidence with which atheists deny the existence of something they claim never to have experienced, in the face of countless others who say they have. Carl Sagan once said, “an atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence.” Nevertheless, atheistic arguments usually boil down to Ockham's razor or the "problem of evil."

Ockham's razor, the rule that the simplest explanation is usually the best one, is used to argue that believing in God adds an "extra step" to the account of origins. By removing God from the equation we have a more elegant process, they say. Yet there is nothing refined about believing, as atheists must eventually confess, that the universe at its limits is suspended in non-reality. This must be the case if the universe is finite, as modern science affirms, and it presents immense problems for naturalism: to say reality exists within non-reality is contradictory according to physical principles. Finite objects must be contained or suspended in something which exists. The fish is in the sea, which is on the earth, which is in the galaxy, within the universe. But the universe is itself finite. What is it in? How can something be nowhere?  It is as if to say thoughts may exist apart from minds to think them.

From time immemorial, brilliant mathematicians and philosophers have always recognized the difficulty of suspending finite objects in nothing. Ancient Greeks and Hebrews found religion to offer a better theory, one which is lofty beyond human conception but not contradictory in the way of atheism: the material universe is suspended in the fiat will of a higher Creator who transcends material existence. The Creator is infinite in being, and therefore without need of a "container" for its own reality.

Secondly, there is the "problem of evil," which is the question of how there can be both a good God and pain in the world. All this argument proves is that people impose a priori judgments on God's morality. Even before meeting God they seem to know what he should be like. But why must God reflect human values, or the values of particular humans? Perhaps some of what we regard as good is actually evil?

Reformed Christianity interprets pain with two propositions. First, mankind is guilty of valuing what God detests. Therefore suffering is a form of punishment for breaking the transcendent moral law. Second, God makes use of suffering for ultimately good ends, as doctors use painful procedures to restore health. Additionally, Christianity teaches that God entered into suffering himself by incarnation. God the Son lived as a poor, persecuted man and died as a criminal under the full weight of spiritual justice.

These answers do not "solve" the problem of pain, but they do provide interpretive models for living and even thriving with it. Atheism, however, says pain and suffering are psycho-biological constructs without any "ultimate" purpose than to preserve the species. This is of no great consolation to a person whose pain comes from the death of a loved one. Such meaningless pain, rather than helping people survive, makes them long for death. The Christian, however, has a system to say, "all things are working together for good."

Every time someone says, "I don't see it," I respond, "you are not picking up all the frequencies." Atheists are AM radios claiming FM doesn't exist. Understandably, that bothers people, but I didn't make the universe.

FAITH SEEKING UNDERSTANDING

I believe in God and the Word.

“How do you know?”

Because I see the truth of it by faith.

“This is circular reasoning.”

Perhaps. But truth is sometimes understood by personal intuition which cannot convince others. For instance, how do you know you see light outside of yourself?

“I know because I see it.”

You know you see light because you see light? This is circular, too. How do you know the image of light is not only in your mind?

“Now I admit, I cannot prove to others that I see light outside of myself. Yet it seems the most coherent explanation for the impression of many objects which I have in my mind's eye. Moreover, the light I perceive enables me to navigate between objects outside of myself, so accurately that I am persuaded these images I see are based on external light, not merely upon figures of my imagination. Finally, my experience aligns with that of many other people.”

Well enough. By faith you affirm the coherence of what you perceive and yet cannot prove conclusively to anyone else. I also cannot prove what I percieve by faith—the hand of God working in providence and the voice of the Spirit speaking in the Word. But faith receives their light as the most coherent explanation for impressions in my body and soul. Moreover, the Scriptural account of the world and of mankind, which I recieve by faith, guides my understanding and accords with experience so accurately that I am persuaded my faith is not delusional, but grasps what others are yet blind to.

“So you cannot convince me to believe?”

Not by natural reason alone. I believe sin has put our spiritual eyes out. The restoration of sight is the miracle of God. I can only boast of the glories which I behold in the Word and in the gospel so that you might begin yearning for faith of your own. As one gapes at master paintings, I can only rave of beauties unknown to the sightless, and in this way stir some to ask God for sight. He alone gives “eyes to see” the Kingdom.

“I want to see God's hand. Pray that I may see.”

If you wish to see, wash your eyes in the water of the Word and behold God in Christ. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. I pray he grants you faith to see what is not seen, but believed.

LOVE AND BEING IN LOVE

There is love and there is being "in love". When we love people we seek what is best for them. And when we are in love, we feel that one is best for us.

Love means finding satisfaction in the well-being of an object, and therefore seeking good on that one's behalf.

Being in love, however, means finding satisfaction in the very fact of another's being; rejoicing that someone or something "is" at all.

To the extent we seek another's good, we love. To the extent we value another's being, we are in love.

It is possible to love without being "in love", but then love remains imperfect because it witholds the fullest good which comes when we rejoice in another's being.

We may also be "in love" without loving, but then that person is less than what he or she could be, a loved one, and we have less to be in love with.

To love our neighbors "as ourselves" is to love them as we wish to be loved, or ought to wish. It is to seek their welfare and rejoice in their being as if our life was bound up with them. It is to use equal vigor promoting their good as ours, and the same ferocity to preserve their being as we would exert to save ourselves. To truly love others as ourselves is to be pleased at their existence as we are for our own.

None of us has done this, save Christ alone.

Dr. Seuss and Human Depravity

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...” [1]

Smack in the middle of his whimsical praise of human freedom, and without realizing it, Dr. Seuss expressed the crisis created by mankind's fall into sin and depravity. Man is naturally "on his own" to will the direction of his life.

How free are we? Free enough to be who we are, and no more. That is, humans can make genuine choices uncoerced by outside forces. However, no one, including God, is able to will contrary to his or her inward nature.

Choices are always made within a range that is strictly limited by our desires and abilities. For instance, physical limitations often prevent people from willing as they would, such as to fly without the aid of technology, or to see out of blind eyes. Likewise, God's nature as an unchangeable, holy being prevents any possibility of his ever willing to sin. His lack of "total freedom" of will constitutes the point at which God is most morally free—free even from the potential to sin.

Unlike God, man after Adam is conceived in sin and corrupt to the core. (Psm. 51:5) His fallen nature sets the range of his choices. Every thought and act is corrupted by self-worship and unbelief, so much that the Bible declares of that apart from the Spirit, "no one does good, no, not one." More than four times the Scripture says no one naturally seeks the true God. "The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit." (1 Cor. 2:14)

Yes, Dr. Seuss, we are free to be who we are, but we are by nature God-haters addicted to sin and captive to unbelief in God's promises in Christ. Left to our natural corruption, we would only choose the direction of death, because it is the only path our fallen hearts would find pleasing.

Man has sin in his soul. He's depraved to his shoes. He is bound by his nature to sinfully choose. Without grace he is lost, despite all that he knows, because all he decides is to forfeit his soul.

Therefore until God exerts the transformative power of grace, granting new hearts, new natures, new birth—we go the only way that makes sense to us, straight to hell. "No man comes to me unless the Father compels him." (John 6:44) Without the Spirit of regeneration, we are truly "on our own."

Thankfully, Christ does not ask us to have faith in our natural power to will. He bids us to trust that what is impossible for man is possible for God, and therefore simply to trust his promise: "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life." (John 6:36) Do not wait for power to believe. Believe and thank God for his saving power.

1. Oh the Places You'll Go, Dr. Seuss