Dr. Lawson presents the Gospel

This is an incredible Gospel Presentation. I would encourage you to watch it. If you are an unbeliever, I pray that you put your faith in Christ. If you are a believer, I pray that you would be encouraged in your faith.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JQOBMi4QS8

Frontline

A lot needs to happen in Afghanistan for us to be successful. We must win in Afghanistan! Otherwise, it will only become a stronghold again for Islam and their launching point for attacks. This video is enlightening for what needs to happen. It also has some great clips of Marines.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/obamaswar/view/

The Primacy of the Cross of Christ Pt. 1

Christianity is becoming more and more obsolete in America today. The simple faith of Christianity has been relegated to the sideline, especially in urban areas and intellectual communities. Now practical atheism is the most practiced religion in America (practical atheism exists when people simply live like there is no God even though they may intellectually believe in a "higher power"). Many have lost sight of the fact that one day they will each have to give an account to the King of the Universe. In Japan, where less than 1% of the population is Christian, the cross is not understood nor appreciated. But yet, the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross is the most important event of history.

But how do we share these important truths with a world that doesn't understand? I think that we must start by highlighting the absolute primacy and necessity of the cross of Christ! The cross was not just a possibility that God chose out of a list. Some think, that since God is omnipotent that He could forgive anyone's sin if He wanted to. In fact many rest in this assumption without placing their faith in Christ. They believe that since God is a loving God, and that since they have been "good people," that when they die, God will simply weigh their deeds on a balance scale and if the good outweigh the bad, than God will sweep their sins under the rug. The truth however is that God is just and no sin will go unpunished! The Psalmist says, "For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you (Ps. 5:4)." A sinner can not be in the presence of a holy God. Furthermore, the Apostle Paul said that the "wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 6:23)." Everyone who has committed the smallest sin deserves death and can not be in the presence of a Holy God! So for us to enter into the presence of God, we must not only be sinless, but God must see us as perfect. This is an impossibility for us! We are hopeless in our own standing. We not only need our sins forgiven, but we also need to be perfect. That is the beauty of the horrid, gruesome cross of Christ! When God the Son came to earth and lived a perfect life as a humble servant and then gave His own life on the cross as a penalty for sins, it allowed God to see those that believe in the cross for their salvation as pure, sinless people who have inherited the righteousness of Christ!

The following verses stress the absolute necessity of the cross of Jesus Christ:

Leviticus 17:11 "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life."

Hebrews 9:22 "Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins."

Hebrews 2:10-11 "For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source."

John 3:14-17 "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."

You Might Be a Redneck If...

Instead of tying down the limbs you carry in your truck, you choose to lay on them instead.
You can't see your home because of the Halloween decorations.

Both of these pics were taken by GA and me in Arizona.

UNDERSTANDING CREATION FROM SCRIPTURE

This afternoon, I listened to an incredible address that John MacArthur gave to the cadets at West Point. During the address, not only did he share the Gospel, but he discussed the importance of upholding God's Word. The Bible is the only infallible word on Planet Earth. It is the blueprint for how we should work, function in relationship with God and others, and how we should engage every area of life. Pilate asked Jesus "What is truth?" Jesus is truth, and so is His Word. All of it.

The next account describes what God said about how He created the earth. Many try to explain away God's account of creation, but it is paramount that we understand our beginnings Biblically! I know it is long and technical, but if you are interested in understanding Creation rightly in light of Scripture, then I think you will be interested.

The pictures above contrast the differences between God's incredible Creation. Within 150 miles of each other are the Imperial San Dunes in the desert of Southern Arizona/California, and beautiful San Diego Harbor. Not only is God awesome, He's creative!

In understanding the Bible rightly, it is paramount that we understand the first three chapters of Genesis as God’s literal story of creation. Many, even within the church, have claimed that the first three chapters of Genesis are poetic or even mythical. In response to that, the late James Montgomery Boice replies:

The starting point for answering whether Genesis is fact or fiction-though it does not settle everything-is that Genesis is a part of Holy Scripture and has therefore been given to us by God and speaks with his authority. We think here of 2 Timothy 3:16: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” When Paul wrote those words he had Genesis in mind as much as any other portion of Scripture. So if we accept his teaching, as all Christians should and must, this will have bearing on how we view Genesis.[1]

Others, especially at the turn of the last century, tried to modify the Creation account in light of the false, changing theories of evolution. We must not make the same mistake! Douglas Kelly, in his outstanding volume on the Creation, Creation and Change, states the point very bluntly.

Simply stated, the writer of Genesis meant to say what the historic Christian Church (until the mid-nineteenth century) believed he said. That is, he intended to speak factually of what happened at the beginning, with no less historical reality than the Chronicler speaks of Hezekiah or Luke speaks of the Virgin Birth of Christ.[2]

If we cannot believe the first three chapters of Genesis, then how are we supposed to believe the rest of the Bible? If we cannot take Moses’ account of God’s Creation literally, then how can we take the rest of the Bible literally? As Henry Morris points out so aptly, if the other writers of Scripture took the first few chapters of Genesis literally, then we must take it literally as well:

The New Testament is, if anything, even more dependent on Genesis than the Old. There are at least 165 passages in Genesis that are either directly quoted or clearly referred to in the New Testament. Many of them are alluded to more than once, so that there are at least two hundred quotations or allusions to Genesis in the New Testament.

It is significant that the portion of Genesis which has been the object of the greatest attacks of skepticism and unbelief, the first eleven chapters, is the portion which had the greatest influence on the New Testament. Yet there exist over one hundred quotations or direct references to Genesis 1-11 in the New Testament. Furthermore, every one of these eleven chapters is alluded to somewhere in the New Testament, and every one of the New Testament authors refers somewhere in his writings to Genesis 1-11. On at least six different occasions, Jesus Christ Himself quoted from or referred to something or someone in one of these chapters, including specific reference to each of the first seven chapters.[3]

There is also much debate among evangelicals about the interpretation of the word ‘day’ in the first two chapters of Genesis. Many have tried to interpret the Hebrew word, yom (Hebrew for day), to mean something other than a twenty-four hour period of time in order to try to bring Scripture into compliance with scientific theory. This is a dangerous exegesis because ultimately, it is holding a theory developed by man as more reliable than Holy Scripture. There is abounding evidence that the days of Creation are twenty-four hour periods of time. The first, and most obvious, is that when each of the first six days of Creation is completed in the first chapter of Genesis, the author says, “And there was evening and there was morning.” To understand this expression of something other than twenty-four hours is stretching the text. Probably one of the most compelling arguments for a literal twenty-four hour day is found in Exodus 20:11 when God said to Moses, “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” When God created the universe, He did it in such a way to model for us how to live our lives. He modeled how to Sabbath for us as an example! Clearly to understand the word ‘day’ in this verse as something other than twenty-four hours is to distort the meaning of the text.

When God created the universe, He created it with the appearance of age. Adam and Eve were not children when they were created; they were mature adults. Likewise, when the stars were created on Day Four, they were created so that their light was already reaching our planet. Everything was originally created like this. Genesis 1:22 points to this fact, “And God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” For birds and fish to be able to multiply, they must be mature adults that are able to reproduce.

Some evangelicals argue that the days in Genesis could have been longer than twenty-four hours based on 2 Peter 3:8, “But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” They argue that this verse allows that the days in Genesis could be interpreted as longer periods of time. Of course it is true that God is outside of time, and time is something He created and is not confined by. A thousand years to Him is like a day and vice-versa, but to read 2 Peter 3:8 into the first two chapters of Genesis is unallowable because there is too much Scriptural evidence (as seen earlier) that points to the days of Creation as being twenty-four hour periods. Another argument is made for the first three days being extended periods of time because the Sun and stars were not created until Day Four. This theory can be negated based on the fact that the completion of the first six days of Creation is described the same way. Only on Day Seven, does the writer not say, “And there was evening and there was morning.” Some have tried to find a loophole in this omission by claiming that Day Seven is an indefinite period of time, and since that is the case, the other days of Creation can also be seen as indefinite periods of time. This, like the other theories, seems like an extremely difficult stretch that is based on a very small thread of Scripture. The last theory that I will mention is the ‘Framework’ theory. The theory has gained ground recently in some Reformed circles. Its basic hypothesis is that the days of Creation should be seen as figurative and not literal. The days are simply figurative boundaries separating God’s order in creating. This hermeneutic is dangerous because it immediately starts to interpret the Bible figuratively from the very start. This sets up a disastrous hermeneutic for the reading and understanding of the rest of Scripture. It is a shame that evangelicals have adopted the ‘Framework’ theory because it is a serious compromise of Scripture.

The last distortion that I will mention, that is made by more liberal theologians, in the first two chapters of Genesis is much more severe. The theory is that chapter one and chapter two are completely different Creation accounts. They base this on the literary shift that takes place in Genesis 2:4, “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day and the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.” This exegesis wreaks havoc on the Creation account and really is an attack on Biblical inerrancy. Chapter two is simply the commentary and details of the Creation account that describe what happened in chapter one. It is given to focus our attention our God’s magnificent plan of redemption that is unveiled in Genesis 3:15!

Ultimately, anything less than a literal understanding of the first few chapters of Genesis account will derail our understanding of the important truths that God wants us to glean from its pages. As the church today, we must not compromise our understanding of God’s Word to fit new, “scientific” claims. On the contrary, the Bible should be our guide to interpreting everything around us, including scientific theory.

---

[1] Boice, op. cit., 21.

[2] Douglas F. Kelly, Creation and Change (Ross-shire: Christian Focus, 1997), 39.

[3] Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Record: A Scientific and Devotional Commentary on the Book of Beginnings. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1976), 17-18.

[4] Kelly, op. cit., 85.

CREATION MANDATE

Two months ago, GraceAnna and I had the pleasure of visiting Alaska together. These incredible pictures, that GraceAnna took, were on the drive from Seward to Anchorage. Notice the glacier in the second picture! Seeing Alaska filled my heart with awe for our Creator. God really is incredible! To think He could envision such beauty and then create us with eyes to experience His grandeur. WOW!

Seeing this beauty got me thinking about the creation account found in the first two chapters of Genesis. I felt God wanting me to dig a little bit deeper into the Word. My next few posts will be the fruit of that study. I hope you enjoy it.

One of the most important, transformational truths that is critically overlooked in the church today is found in the first three chapters of Genesis. I am talking about the Creation Mandate, or as some call it, the Cultural Mandate. I would be willing to bet that most Christians have not even heard either term. Although obscured, I believe it is paramount to how we are supposed to live our lives. Before the fall, God created man to work. He created man to have dominion over creation. Genesis 1:28 says, “And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” This dominion includes the culture that we live, work, and play in. What is culture? Andy Crouch says it is “what human beings make of the world.”[1] Unfortunately, the god of this world, Satan, has already formed much of the culture of the world. D.A. Carson points out how hostile the American culture is to Christianity in Christ and Culture Revisited:

In much of the Western world, despite the fact that Christianity was one of the forces that shaped what the West became (along with the Enlightenment, and a host of less dominant powers), culture is not only moving away from Christianity, it is frequently openly hostile toward it. Christianity can be tolerated, provided it is entirely private: Christian belief that intrudes itself into the public square, especially if it is trying to influence public policy, is most often taken, without examination, as prima facie evidence for bigotry and intolerance.[2]

Christians on the whole have reacted to secular culture in one of two ways. They have either completely withdrawn from it and isolated themselves from the world, or they have simply copied and modeled their lives, including their faith, after secular culture. One of these two postures can be clearly seen in the majority of churches across America. Which way is right? Neither! This is where the Great Commission comes into play. I believe that the Great Commission and the Creation Mandate go hand-in-hand. As believers, we must go to the World with the Gospel and “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age (Mt 28:19-20).” Jesus commanded us to teach the world to observe what He taught! To break it down, He told us that we must take dominion of the cultures of the world with the Gospel. And we must teach the people of the world to live the way that Christ commanded. The Creation Mandate was not nullified by the New Covenant! It is still in effect. If Christians thought this way, their lives would be radically changed. They would no longer look at their house and property as simply the place where they live, but as the place that God has placed them to cultivate and subdue for the Gospel. Their families would be culture-forming with the Gospel and would start to transform the neighborhoods around them. Christians would see their children not as a hindrance, but as a blessing from God that have been given to further expand the Kingdom of Christ (His culture). Christians would fight the evil culture around them and the people that are doing it like David did (Psalm 101). I think all too often, Christians are very passive towards evil. We forget that God has given us a sword with which to fight with (Eph 6:17). We must stand up and engage evil where it is present. This means that we must stand up against abortion with a renewed vigor. We must fight against same-sex marriage and pornography. And we must fight with Scripture and prayer. We need to engage evil with the Gospel, because only God can regenerate hearts, and ultimately, I believe, only revival in our land will create a culture that submits to Christ’s authority.

Soli Deo Gloria!

---

[1] Andy Crouch, Culture Making (Downers Grove: IVP Books, 2008). pg. 102.

[2] D.A. Carson, Christ and Culture Revisited (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008). pg. 6.

Marriage to the Girl of My Heart

I can't believe that in exactly three weeks that I'll be marrying the girl of my heart! I never dreamed that God would bring such an incredible woman into my life. NOT IN A MILLION YEARS! James 1:16-18 comes to mind as I think about how good God has been: "Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change."

The main thing that has been on my mind recently is preparing to be the right type of husband...as Dr. Broggi challenged me: "The Spiritual Leader of my Daughter." During the counseling session that I had with him and GraceAnna this week, he reminded me how important it is that the husband live by the Spirit. Because if I'm the spiritual leader in the relationship, and I'm not walking by the Spirit, then how am I supposed to lead a family to do that? It's impossible!

I would say that the biggest thing that I've learned this past year in my relationship with GraceAnna is what C.S. Lewis called The Principle of First and Second Things. Basically with every book Lewis ever wrote, he explained that when God is our primary love, then we can enjoy secondary gifts from God in a holy way (beautiful sunsets, barbecues, a beautiful wife in my case...in 21 days). But, as soon as we make a gift from God our primary love, then the joy is gone in it because only God can satisfy our hearts with joy. So I found this past year, that when I put my relationship with GraceAnna before my relationship with the Lord, that I was not the type of man GraceAnna needed me to be and the relationship suffered. But when my heart was pursuing the Lord, more than everything else, than rich, deep blessings would flow from the Lord in our relationship.

So, if you are reading this...and I would be surprised if you are since I haven't written in months, and my previous post was boring to say the least (GraceAnna and I were laughing about that the other day), I hope and pray that Psalm 62 would be the prayer of your heart. That you would pursue the Lord with every ounce of your heart before all the loves in your life. If you are coming to the wedding, I can't wait to see you. May the Lord bless you. I pray that your relationship with Him will be deep...

"For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God. Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us." Psalm 62:5-8

The Prayer of Pierre Viret: May God use it as a glorious light of grace in your life!

God has used the prayer of Swiss Reformer and friend of John Calvin, Pierre Viret, as an unbelievable light in my life. It has stirred my affections for Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit has used it to bring my life even further under His Lordship. May the Lord use it as a means of grace in your life! I would encourage you to pray through it before your time in the Word of God. I pray that your relationship with the Lord will be strengthened and encouraged brothers and sisters!

Recognizing our faults and imperfections, and that we have nothing of ourselves that we did not receive from above, we humble ourselves before the high majesty of our good God and Father, full of goodness and mercy, praying to Him that He would not enter into judgment with us so as to punish us and correct us in His anger and fury [Psalm 6] in regard to our faults and iniquities, but that instead he would look upon the innocence, righteousness and obedience of His Son, Jesus Christ, whom He gave over to death for us.

For the love with which He pleases His Father, may the Lord have mercy upon us all, and by His celestial light chase away all darkness, error and ignorance from our hearts, filling us with His grace and with His Holy Spirit. Thus, may He lead us into full confidence in all truth, and open to us the true understanding of His holy Word, so that it may not be corrupted by our carnal sense and understanding. Instead, may He give us the grace by which He spoke by His holy prophets and apostles, so that being led by the same Spirit, we may declare to His honour and glory and to the edification of all. And may we not listen only with carnal ears to our own judgment and condemnation like the infidels and hypocrites, but rather may we be enable to receive it in our hearts as true children  of God, by a true and living faith, which will be efficacious and active by love.

In this way may we learn to renounce ourselves, so that we no longer follow any idolatry, superstition or wicked carnal affections, so that we may fully place all our trust in Him, and consecrate ourselves and confirm ourselves completely to His holy will. Hence, may we know the favour of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that we may be found irreproachable and without spot before His face.

Together with all of these blessings, let us ask of this good God and Father all other things which He knows are necessary for us. Thus, as this great Saviour and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, His dear Son, our sovereign Master, has taught us all to pray with one heart: 'Our Father, which are in Heaven...'

Pierre Viret, Instruction Chretienne, Tome Premier, edition etable, presentee et annotee par Arthur-Louis Hofer (Lausanne: L'Age d'Homme, 2004), 365, 366.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer loved the grace of God!

One of the most influential books in my life outside of the Bible was Dietrich Bonhoeffer's, The Cost of Discipleship. In it, Bonhoeffer explains that Christ's call to discipleship is in fact a call to faith. All believers are disciples. The only reaction a believer could truly have after receiving the free grace of God is to give up everything to follow Christ. Any less of a response indicates a lack of saving faith. The following article promotes the "cheap grace" which Bonhoeffer warned about. The church I attended my freshman year in college at A&M taught a version of this gospel. This gospel is altogether different from what the Bible teaches and what Christianity has historically taught for the past two thousand years. 

The proponents of this "gospel" base the meaning of passages where the literal meaning seems to clearly indicate hell, to instead a "casting out" of believers during the Millennial Kingdom. They base this premise on the assumption that only believers were present when Jesus was teaching these truths. However, we know that this was never the case during Jesus' teaching ministry. Judas was an unbeliever and was present at the Sermon on the Mount and the other sermons Jesus preached. There were probably many other "false disciples" (like Judas) in the crowd when Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount (just like there are many false disciples in the church today), and Jesus knew that. His warnings about Hell were not for the believer, but for the unbeliever who had all the external qualities of a true Christian but lacked true faith. We know that Judas went to Hell, as do other false disciples. So to say that Jesus is referring to "hell" as a punishment for believers in the Millennial Kingdom based on this premise is wrong. 

The proponents of this "gospel" interpret "work-oriented" passages in Matthew differently from their most natural meaning so as to try and maintain their view of "free grace." They assert that these passages apply to the believer in the Millennial Kingdom instead of the nonbeliever in Hell. There is not one place in Scripture where I have seen it stated that believers that do not obey Christ will be cast out of the Millennial Kingdom to be refined later for Heaven. In fact, I do not see anywhere in Scripture where someone can claim to be a Christian and not obey Christ's commands. John said, "And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says "I know him" but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in Him (1 John 2:3-4)." Furthermore, Paul said that for believers he was sure that "neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:38-39)." So why would believers be separated from Christ in the Millennial Kingdom? Paul said, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him (Eph. 1:3-4)." So if believers have been given every spiritual blessing in Christ in the heavenly places, then why would a believer be cast aside in the Millennial Kingdom to a place of "weeping and gnashing of teeth?" That doesn't sound like a spiritual blessing. Again, in Colossians Paul writes, "We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven (Col. 3:3-5)." So how could believers have the assurance of a hope for their future in heaven if there is the possibility that they will be separated from God and be in a state of mourning for a thousand years? That doesn't sound hopeful.

Jesus did not teach a works salvation in passages such as Matthew 5 and Luke 9. He was teaching salvation by faith alone through grace alone (and this true faith does work and does give up everything for the sake of the gospel). So the proponents of this "free grace Gospel" are working with a hermeneutic that is skewed by trying to interpret what Jesus called true faith into something else entirely. The outcome of this hermeneutic is that all of Jesus' calls to discipleship (which are a call to faith) are understood as a call to strive for rewards and a position in His coming Millennial Kingdom. The natural outcome of this is that the gospel is reduced down to the point where faith is equated with merely believing the facts of the gospel intellectually. This gospel is called the "Kingdom Gospel" or "Free Grace" by its proponents. Dietrich Bonhoeffer simply called it "Cheap Grace." It makes Christ's high call for us to pick up our "cross daily and follow Him" a call for rewards and not a call for saving faith. It tries to make grace less than what it really is by focusing on an assurance of salvation instead of the means by which we enter into a relationship with God. In claiming to promote the true meaning of grace, grace becomes nothing more than a ticket to heaven instead of the life-giving, life-altering sanctification that it is. I'm simply saying that true faith, the type of faith that Jesus talked about, gives up everything to follow Him. In the following of Christ, and in knowing Christ and His sufferings we really begin to understand the greatness and the richness of the grace that we have been given in Christ! The grace that Dietrich Bonhoeffer talked about!