markchanski

Here’s a sweet video. We hope to sing this hymn at Harbor Church this Sunday. Original lyrics written by John Newton; alternate lyrics and music by Bob Kauflin.

VERSE 1
I saw one hanging on a tree
In agony and blood
Who fixed His loving eyes on me
As near His cross I stood
And never till my dying breath
Will I forget that look
It seemed to charge me with His death
Though not a word He spoke

VERSE 2
My conscience felt and owned the guilt
And plunged me in despair
I saw my sins His blood had spilt
And helped to nail Him there
But with a second look He said
“I freely all forgive
This blood is for your ransom paid
I died that you might live”

CHORUS
Forever etched upon my mind
Is the look of Him who died
The Lamb I crucified
And now my life will sing the praise
Of pure atoning grace
That looked on me and gladly took my place

VERSE 3
Thus while His death my sin displays
For all the world to view
Such is the mystery of grace
It seals my pardon too
With pleasing grief and mournful joy
My spirit now is filled
That I should such a life destroy
Yet live by Him I killed

Matt Wallace is a personal trainer from Maine.  He’s written an excellent article on over-eating and its spiritual implications.  He calls it, “How the Gospel Overcomes Gluttony”.

Here are some highlights:

Having worked professionally as a personal trainer for over 15 years, I know millions of people resolve each year to get control of the overeating that has haunted them and perhaps threatens their health. And I’m not talking about enjoying an occasional dessert, but rather a desperate dependence upon food.

In attempt to fix the problem, millions of dollars are poured into the fitness industry, gym memberships expand, and every manner of diet book and fitness product. No doubt these books will be full of easy-to-follow principles. Nevertheless, a month or so later we learn the five easy principles are anything but easy. The constant failure reveals that the problem with chronic overeating goes deeper than we have ever imagined.

Turning to the Scriptures, we see a diagnosis of the human condition that goes to the root of all our problems. What we see is that the real problem isn’t food, or weak willpower, but the affections of our hearts. In Genesis 3, we see the root of every sin is a disaffection for God, based in unbelief.  Satan used the fruit to sell a grand story of how food would impart to Adam and Eve a better identity than being God’s children and reflectors of his glory. As the story was sold, the fruit would give knowledge that would make them not merely image bearers of God, but gods.

Because Adam and Eve didn’t trust in their exalted status, approval, and security in God, they sought to establish their own righteousness. It was the forbidden fruit that promised salvation. So, in rebellion, they ate to satisfy their deepest longings. Although they had plenty of food in the garden, it wasn’t enough. Their hope was that food would give them a better existence than being loved by God. That is the root of gluttony. It is a deep seated rebellious affection based on the lie that food is more pleasurable than God. Gluttony is not merely a lack will power, it is religious in nature as it is service, devotion, and worship of the pleasure of food instead of God. In short, gluttony is idolatry.

As Richard Baxter explains, “Gluttony is a sin so exceedingly contrary to the love of God: it is idolatry. It hath the heart which God should have . . . because that love, that care, that delight, that service and diligence which God should have, is given by the glutton to his belly and to his throat.”

Paul underscores the severity and end of trusting in food as a god. “Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things” (Phil. 3:19).

For the glutton, food is more pleasing, more alluring, more enthralling, more satisfying, and more beautiful than God. The glutton has covenanted with overeating to be their comfort, security, approval. In doing so, the glutton has become his own savior, eating his means of grace as a sacrifice on the altar of pleasure. If this is true, then we need to assess overeating with new eyes. We must say plainly, “I treasure food more than I treasure God.” Gluttony exposes how we really feel about God.

That is why our resolutions are powerless to change the heart. We need more than principles and personal trainers. The good news for the glutton is that acceptance and change aren’t based on our resolutions and effort (Gal. 2:15–21), but on God’s gracious resolution and effort to make us his workmanship in Christ (Eph. 2:8–10). The only resolution that matters is God’s gracious resolution to give sinners himself through the blood-stained cross and empty tomb. The gospel of Christ offers us all we need to satisfy the hungry soul, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger” (John 6:35). . .

Thomas Chalmers called it “the expulsive power of a new affection” that uproots and dethrones gluttony. The vain and fleeting pleasures of gluttony are replaced by our union and communion with the breathtaking loveliness of the blessed Trinity. So to the degree that the glutton sees the contrast between what we justly deserve and what we are freely given, new affections take over and we “taste and see that the LORD is good” (Psalm 34:8), that in God there is, “fullness of joy” and “pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).

So when the soul is depressed about the future, when failure breaks into our lives, when the break up happens, when the loneliness shows its teeth, when grief will not relent, when the daily rhythms of existence seem lifeless and bleak, when our dreams crash, it is not to the kitchen we go, but to Christ and recount his heroic exploits on our behalf. We must learn to rely on his gospel on the spot. The gospel with all of its flavors are to be savored and enjoyed drawing down nourishment and delight in the soul. So the gospel of Christ is the sole ground of the glutton’s approval, but it is also the ground upon which gluttony is put to death and where renewal and change take place until the work is finished. . . .

Fighting against gluttony will be a daily battle. The world, flesh, and the devil will allure, entice, and try to convince the soul through hardships and enchantments that food is more beautiful than God. To persevere, the soul will need to learn by the Spirit to daily feed on the gospel.

Read the whole thing.  It’s excellent:

http://theresurgence.com/2012/04/27/how-the-gospel-overcomes-gluttony

Hurt Locker is a 2008 American war film depicting the adventures of an American bomb disposal team stationed in 2004 Iraq.  Bravo Company is patrolling the stress filled streets of Baghdad.

Specialist Eldridge confides in the camp psychiatrist Colonel Cambridge that he’s terrified of being killed during the closing weeks of his combat stint.  The naive colonel, who’s never been “outside the wire”, encourages Eldridge to view the remaining weeks as “fun”, and to avoid viewing the Iraqis as enemies, but as friends who, when treated kindly, will reciprocate back with kindness.

One afternoon, the psychiatrist colonel, who has a wife and children waiting back home, requests to tag along with Eldridge on a patrol mission.  When he observes Eldridge’s anxiety  level rising, he seeks to “show him the way” of sober calmness by speaking kindly and friendly with the Iraqis.  Colonel Cambridge boldly wanders away from the team’s safety orbit to make friends with a civilian by handing out candy.  But instead of finding a pal, the naive psychiatrist is blown to bits when a cunning suicide bomber is detonated in his presence.

You fool, Cambridge!  Didn’t you realize that you were dealing with mighty forces of hatred and hostility that won’t be overcome simply with a charming voice and a Hershey bar?

Sometimes in this great spiritual warfare against spiritual forces of wickedness, I must admit that I occasionally slip into the naive mindset of the camp psychiatrist.  I’m a soldier for Christ, and I sometimes think that if we use just the right technique, if we get friendly enough, the citizens of this world will be warmed to us, our message, and our ministry.   “We’ve just got to meet them where they are, love them self -sacrificially, empathize sincerely and contextualize wisely.  Surely we’ll win them wholesale over to our camp!”

That’s just what Jesus did.  His ministry was picture perfect, and they crucified Him.  Paul’s ministry was ideally contextualized (circumcised Timothy, shaved his head, ate unclean food, etc.), and they beat, imprisoned, persecuted, stoned, and sought to assassinate him.  Why?  Because there was a mighty underlying hatred and hostility between The Dragon and The Lamb that wouldn’t be overcome by a cool haircut, a cutting edge diet, a charming voice, or a Hershey bar.

More than Islamic terrorism hates the USA, do sinners hate Christ and His gospel.

So we shouldn’t continuously beat ourselves up when we face hard-hearted opposition to the truth, as if we’re necessarily “doing it wrong”.  Such twisted thinking can intimidate us into morphing our message of “the bread of life” into “the candy of like-ability”.

Captain Jesus gave us wise basic training on Crucifixion Eve:

If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.  If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.  Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’  If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; . . . He who hates Me hates My Father also. . . they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well. . . But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their law, ‘THEY HATED ME WITHOUT A CAUSE’  (John 15:18-25).

Matthew Henry: “Christ’s followers cannot expect better treatment in the world than their master had.”

John Flavel: “Who is more innocent than Christ?  And who is more persecuted?  The world is still the world.”

May the Lord visit our “becoming all things to all men” ministries with resurrection power, and new birth breath.  May spiritual suicide bombers unstrap The Dragon’s backpacks, and come over to the camp of The Lamb.  His yoke is easy, and His burden is light!

No unwelcome tasks become any the less unwelcome by putting them off till tomorrow. It is only when they are behind us and done, that we begin to find that there is a sweetness to be tasted afterwards, and that the remembrance of unwelcome duties unhesitatingly done is welcome and pleasant. Accomplished, they are full of blessing, and there is a smile on their faces as they leave us. Undone, they stand threatening and disturbing our tranquility, and hindering our communion with God. If there be lying before you any bit of work from which you shrink, go straight up to it, and do it at once. The only way to get rid of it is to do it.

Alexander Maclaren 

Procrastination, the thief of time, is one of the devil’s most potent weapons for defrauding us of eternal heritage. The habit of “putting off” is fatal to spiritual leadership. Its power resides in our natural reluctance to come to grips with important decisions. Making decisions, and acting on them, always requires moral energy. But the passing of time never makes action easier; quite the opposite. Most decisions are more difficult a day later, and you may also lose an advantage by such delay. The nettle will never be easier to grasp than now.

Oswald Sanders – Spiritual Leadership, Moody Publishers, 1967, p. 98.

How soon “not now” becomes “never.”

Martin Luther

Tomorrow is the devil’s day, but today is God’s. Satan does not care how spiritual your intentions are, or how holy your resolutions, if only they are determined to be done tomorrow.

J.C. Ryle – Thoughts for Young Men.

Whatever your hand finds to do, verily, do it with all your might; for there is no activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol where you are going.

Ecclesiastes 9:10

And as he (Paul) was discussing righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix became frightened and said, “Go away for the present, and when I find time, I will summon you.”

Acts 24:25

What’s a Christian to think about Women Warriors?

James Dao, New York Times, April 24: “The Marine Corps, the most male of the armed services, is taking its first steps toward integrating women into war-fighting units, starting with its infantry officer school at Quantico, Va., and ground combat battalions that had once been closed to women.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/us/marines-moving-women-toward-the-front-lines.html

A Scriptural and common sense analysis from the book WOMANLY DOMINION:

1. There are biblical concerns.  The Bible presents a comprehensive picture of differentiation between men and women that certainly extends to the battlefield.  Men are to protect women and children who are, generally speaking, not as physically strong and militarily brave.

“Your wives, your little ones, and your cattle shall remain in the land which Moses gave you beyond the Jordan, but you shall cross before your brothers in battle array, all your valiant warriors, and shall help them, until the LORD gives your brothers rest” (Joshua 1:14-15a, emphasis added).

 “Take a census of all the congregation of the sons of Israel, by their families, by their fathers’ households, according to the number of names, every male, head by head  from twenty years old and upward, whoever is able to go out to war in Israel, you and Aaron shall number them by their armies” (Numbers 1:2-3, emphasis added).

 “Thus Sarah obeyed Abraham, . . . and you have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear.  You husbands likewise, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker vessel, since she is a woman” (1 Peter 3:6-7a, emphasis added).

 “When you go out to battle against your enemies and see horses and chariots . . .  Then the officers shall speak further to the people, and they shall say, ‘Who is the man that is afraid and fainthearted? Let him depart and return to his house, so that he might not make his brothers’ hearts melt like his heart’” (Deuteronomy 20:1a, 8, emphasis added).

 “In that day the Egyptians will become like women, and they will tremble and be in dread because of the waving of the hand of the LORD of hosts, which He is going to wave over them” (Isaiah 19:16, emphasis added).

 “The mighty men of Babylon have ceased fighting, they stay in the strongholds; Their strength is exhausted.  They are becoming like women” (Jeremiah 51:30a, emphasis added).

2. There are physical concerns.  The Center for Military Readiness states: “Female soldiers are, on average, shorter and smaller than men, with 45-50% less upper body strength and 25-30% less aerobic capacity, which is essential for endurance. Even in current non-combat training, women suffer debilitating bone stress fractures and other injuries at rates double those of men.” [i]

This is relevant considering that the equipment a soldier carries into combat can easily approach 100 pounds (flak jacket, rucksack, weaponry, etc.), and that every soldier should have the capacity to carry his comrade (of 200 lbs.?) out of harm’s way.  Private Jessica Lynch, the soldier who was injured and captured in Iraq during 2003, was “five foot three and a wispy 100 pounds.”[ii]  Furthermore, menstruation cycles and pregnancy are also delicate facts of life.

3. There are psychological concerns.  Do women have an adequate killer instinct?  Does the presence of women with men damage a combat unit’s esprit de corps?  Do budding romantic relationships between men and women disrupt a unit’s fighting capability?  Does a man’s natural protective instinct toward women suspend a soldier’s ability to make wise battlefield decisions?  After 1948 Israel Defense Forces policy for many years withdrew women from combat after observing a male infantryman’s rage when he witnessed a wounded woman.  His uncontrollable, protective, instinctual aggression could have caused a massacre.[iii]  Real men instinctively run to a woman’s rescue, potentially endangering the larger military unit.

4. There are POW concerns.  Combat assignments place women at high risk of being captured, tortured, and sexually assaulted.  Unlike their male counterparts, women are almost always subjected to sexual abuse of varying degrees upon capture.  According to the American doctors who examined Pfc. Jessica Lynch after her 2003 rescue by Special Operations forces, she was brutally raped by Iraqi thugs during the three to four hours following her ambush and capture.[iv]

5. There are moral concerns.  It is not prudent to order married men and women to live in close quarters where they are tempted to adultery.  The same can be said about singles and fornication.

Summary Opinion

I believe that women should be removed from all combat situations and employed militarily only in non-threatening support roles.  This is not sexual discrimination.  It is privileged exemption.  Our nation should honorably dignify and exalt women by protecting them from cruelty and carnage.  Women should fight only as a last resort, when survival demands it, i.e., “when the Indians are circling the ranch and the men are dead and wounded.”[v]

My hearts beats with John Piper’s on this theme:

If I were the last man on the planet to think so, I would want the honor of saying that no woman should go before me into combat to defend my country.  A man who endorses women in combat is not pro-woman; he’s a wimp.  He should be ashamed.  For most of history, in most cultures, he would have been utterly scorned as a coward to promote such an idea.  Part of the meaning of manhood as God created us is the sense of responsibility for the safety and welfare of our women.[vi]

*Analysis from the book WOMANLY DOMINION, More than a Gentle and Quiet Spirit, by Mark Chanski (Calvary Press), pp. 210-213.

Mark Dever spoke on False Conversions — The Suicide of the Local Church:

Langston Hughes was a popular 20^th century American Author who recounted how he was saved, but not really saved:

I was saved from sin when I was going on 16, but not really saved.  There was a big revival going on in my Auntie Rita’s church.  Every night for weeks, there had been much preaching, praying, shouting.  Finally everyone had gone to the altar and been saved – except my friend and I. 

My friend’s name was named Westley.  Westley and I were surrounded by sisters and deacons praying. It was very hot in the church, and getting late now. Finally Westley said to me in a whisper: “I’m tired o’ sitting here. Let’s get up and be saved.” So he got up and was saved.

Then I was left all alone on the mourners’ bench. My aunt came and knelt at my knees and cried, while prayers and song swirled all around me in the little church. The whole congregation prayed for me alone, in a mighty wail of moans and voices.  And I kept waiting serenely for Jesus, waiting, waiting – but he didn’t come.  I wanted to see him, but nothing happened to me.  Nothing!  I wanted something to happen to me, but nothing happened. . .  God had not struck Westley dead for taking his name in vain or for lying in the temple.  So I decided that maybe to save further trouble, I’d better lie, too, and say that Jesus had come, and get up and be saved.

So I got up.

Suddenly the whole room broke into a sea of shouting, as they saw me rise.  Waves of rejoicing swept the place. Women leaped in the air.  I couldn’t bear to tell my Aunt that I had lied, that I’d deceived everybody in the church, that I hadn’t seen Jesus, and that now I didn’t believe there was a Jesus anymore.

False Conversions can come in all shapes and sizes.  Dever spoke about how in true conversion, sound doctrine will be accompanied by self sacrificial love:

Sound Doctrine is Good (Doctrines of Grace) – Dever: “Sound doctrine in a church is important.  But this may attract spiritual accountants and theological hobbyists who want nothing to do with the need to love one another. 

We have readers in our church — guys who love to read the Puritans, but won’t get up an hour early to help a 90-year-old man get to church.  To such I’ve said: ‘Perhaps you’re not a Christian.’  Demons are great theologians.  Demons could ace any class at Southern Seminary, getting a better grade than all of us.

And one more:

False teaching makes false converts.  And false converts hire false teachers.  There is a symbiotic relationship between false converts and false teachers.  Think of what this does to the future of your congregation.  If you want to make sure your successor doesn’t preach the gospel, just add false converts to your church.

Dr. John Donne was watching the caretaker digging a grave in the churchyard, when the workman’s shovel accidentally threw up a skull.  The Dr. took the skull in his hands to engage in serious meditation; and on looking at it, he found a headless nail sticking into the temple of the skull.  The Dr. secretly drew it out, and wrapped into the corner of his handkerchief.

He then asked the grave-digger if he knew whose skull it was.

He said he did very well know.  He declared that it belonged to a man who had been given to drink, who one morning, years earlier, was found dead in his bed after a night of drunkenness.

The Dr. asked: “Had he a wife?”

“Yes, a good one, only her neighbors have wondered about her since she married again, only a day after her husband was buried.”

This was enough for the Dr.  Soon, he visited this woman, asked her a number of personal questions, then suddenly opened his handkerchief, and cried: “Woman, do you know this nail?”  She was struck  with horror, instantly admitted that she’d murdered her husband, and was afterwards tried and executed.

— The European Magazine and London Review, 1820, Volume 77, p. 405.

“. . . be sure your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23b).

“Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; According to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions . . .  Against You, You only I have sinned, and done what is evil in Your sight” (Psalm 51:1, 4).

by Ross Douthat (New York Times)

THE Prophet Jonah was sent to Nineveh. St. Paul was sent to Athens, Macedonia, Rome. And now Tim Tebow has been sent to New York City.

There was a moment last week when it looked as if the trade shipping Tebow from the Denver Broncos to the New York Jets might somehow fall through — that Tebow might end up a Jacksonville Jaguar instead, with a guaranteed starting job, a heavily evangelical fan base, and none of the insanity involved in eclipsing Jeremy Lin as the most famous Christian athlete in Babylon-upon-the-Hudson.

O ye of little faith. Did you think that the Lord God of Hosts, having raised Tebow up as a Gideon of the gridiron, would pass up the opportunity to put his faithful servant to the test? Did you think that the angelic screenwriters responsible for scripting last year’s succession of Tebow-related improbabilities had nodded off after the Broncos were dispatched in the A.F.C. playoffs? Did you think that the archons and demiurges who preside over America’s culture war would be content to let Tebow fade into obscurity — some red-state-friendly endorsement deals, a few 6-10 finishes, and then early retirement and a lifetime of under-the-radar charity work?

Above all, did you think that Tebow himself, with his distinctive mix of missionary zeal and “give me the ball” confidence, would duck the Gotham opportunity? That he would pull a LeBron James and take his talents down to Florida instead?

No, this was where the Tebow story was always destined to end up. Denver was his Galilee; New York will be the Roman Colosseum. Or to be pop cultural rather than scriptural: Denver was District 12 in Suzanne Collins’s Panem, and the Meadowlands will be the Hunger Games arena.

New Yorkers are a sophisticated lot, and the Tebow hype will afford them plenty of opportunities for eye-rolling. The sophisticated football fan will tell you that Tebow is a bad-to-mediocre quarterback with a few unusual skills who rode a lucky streak to undeserved fame; the rest is just the standard media fantasy about “intangibles” and “grit” dressed up with spirituality. . . .

The sophisticated Christian, meanwhile, may be a little embarrassed by the whole Tebow business. A sophisticate’s God doesn’t care about trivia like who wins football games. A sophisticate’s theology doesn’t depend on what some musclehead does with the pigskin.

But let’s be unsophisticated for a moment. Why is Tim Tebow such a fascinating and polarizing figure? Not just because he claims to be religious; that claim is commonplace among football stars and ordinary Americans alike. Rather, it’s because his conduct — kind, charitable, chaste, guileless — seems to actually vindicate his claim to be in possession of a life-altering truth.

Nothing discredits religion quite like the gap that often yawns between what believers profess and how they live. With Tebow, that gap seems so narrow as to be invisible. (“There’s not an ounce of artifice or phoniness or Hollywood in this kid Tebow,” ESPN’s Rick Reilly wrote last year of the quarterback’s charitable works, “and I’ve looked everywhere for it.”) He fascinates, in part, because he behaves — at least in public, and at least for now — the way one would expect more Christians to behave if their faith were really true. . . .

So even the most pious of Jets fans shouldn’t expect a Super Bowl title. But if their new quarterback’s story really has an Author, they’re in for a pretty interesting ride.

Read the entire article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/opinion/sunday/douthat-tebow-in-babylon.html?_r=1&src=tp&smid=fb-share

Tony Payne: Speaking of discernment, one of the things I’ve always appreciated about your ministry was your willingness to disagree when that was necessary; to have a fight when there was a fight to be had. As you look back on your conflicts, what have you learnt?

Philip Jensen: I can think of several lessons. The first is that as a young man I enjoyed a fight too much. I grew up in a family of brothers. We fought a lot, and I grew up through debating and arguing, and I liked a good argument. A very kind senior academic came and talked to me years ago, and pointed out that when the Bible urges us to “flee the passions of youth”, it’s not talking about sex. It’s talking about argumentativeness, if you look at the context (in 2 Tim 2). The Lord’s servant must not be argumentative, but teach patiently and pray that God may change your heart. So as a young man, my own personality and argumentativeness was too strong. So that was a lesson to learn.

²² Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness,faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. ²³ But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels. ²⁴ The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, ²⁵ with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, ²⁶ and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will (2 Timothy 2:22-26).

Read the entire interview here.

http://matthiasmedia.com/briefing/2012/03/the-mistakes-of-phillip-jensen/