Randy Alcorn's Blog, page 15

Some people suppose happiness is uniquely human, unrelated to God’s nature: as He gave us a body and hunger, which He doesn’t have, He gave us a capacity for happiness, which He also doesn’t have. I believe something radically different—that God wants us happy because He’s happy! He treasures His happiness and treasures us, and therefore He treasures our happiness! Old Testament professor Brent Strawn writes, “In the Bible, God is happy, and God’s happiness affects and infects the rest of the non-God world, humans included.” The last part of the sentence hinges on the first: if God isn’t happy, he has no happiness with which to “infect” us.

To be godly is to resemble God. If God is unhappy, we’d need to pursue unhappiness, which is as likely as developing an appetite for gravel. If following Jesus means having to turn away from happiness, and we’re wired to want happiness, then we can only fail as Christians. Looking at Scripture carefully, we find a happy God who desires us to draw happiness from Him. Yet how many Christians have ever heard a sermon, read a book, had a discussion about, or meditated on God’s happiness?

Not once at church, Bible college, or seminary did I hear about God’s happiness. I have no doubt it would have been surprising, memorable, and encouraging. What better explanation for the flood of happiness that overwhelmed my life after coming to Christ than that my God, who created, redeemed, and indwelt me, was happy?

Though I studied the Bible continuously, somehow the hundreds of Scriptures indicating God’s pleasure, delight, and joy didn’t register. They were nullified by unbiblical statements I heard from pastors and authors, such as “God calls us to holiness, not happiness.” I’ve always been a voracious reader, inhaling books, including theological works, by the hundreds. But I didn’t read anything about the happiness of God until the late 1980s, after I’d been a pastor for ten years. John Piper’s books Desiring God and The Pleasures of God introduced me to a subject I should have heard about in my first few months attending church as a teenager.

Why did it take so long for me to hear what Scripture clearly teaches? Because God’s happiness simply wasn’t on my radar, nor that of my church or school. God’s love, mercy, and grace were affirmed—not just His justice and wrath—so perhaps I should have deduced that God was happy. But the thought never occurred to me.

I believe it’s vital that we not leave our children and future generations of Christians to figure out for themselves that God is happy. Most never will. How can they, unless their families and churches teach them and demonstrate God-centered happiness in their own lives? We need to tell them that sin, suffering, shame, and unhappiness are temporary conditions for God’s people. We’ll once and for all be righteous, healthy, shame free, and happy. Once we’re in His presence, we’ll never again experience the anger, judgment, and discipline of God we see in Scripture (all of which are appropriate and important, but even now do not nullify His happiness or love).

I’m convinced that in the new universe—called in Scripture the New Heaven and the New Earth—the attribute of God’s happiness will be apparent everywhere. Upon their deaths, Christ won’t say to His followers, “Go and submit to your master’s harshness” but “Come and share your master’s happiness!” (Matthew 25:21, NIV). Anticipating those amazing words can sustain us through every heartbreak and challenge in our present lives.

I share more in this video, answering the question, “Is God happy?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFRpqZaXqaE?si=MHob0XQJokqbsOUF

Photo: Unsplash

Denny Hartford, the founder and director of Vital Signs Ministries, and his wife Claire truly live to the glory of King Jesus. I was touched by this story he shared in a ministry update:

Early in March, I was talking to a fellow at the coffee shop, and I mentioned that Claire and I were heading down to Wichita later in the morning to visit my little sister Sherry for a couple of days. My little sister is dealing with an early and very severe dementia. I explained Sherry’s plight to him, and he asked, “Why do you go down to spend time with her if you realize she might not even recognize you?”

I smiled and kindly, but carefully, replied, “Because I recognize her!”

The point being that the key to experiencing the blessings of God in one’s relationships is to love, honor, and serve others unconditionally—not because of what someone can do for you or what arbitrary and utilitarian tests they can pass to “deserve” being treated with honor and kindness. Christians are commanded to love as Jesus loves us and that means with grace, humility, courage, a willingness to sacrifice, and a persevering spirit. Yes, I love my little sister because of who she has been. But I also love her for who she is right now, physical and mental illness notwithstanding, because she is worth every bit of tenderness and respect and service I can render her. And, thank the Lord, because Sherry has trusted in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross to pay for her sins, I also love her for who she will one day be! Maranatha—come, Lord Jesus.

Along with ministering to my sister (embraces, music, conversation, helping her with meals and desserts, time enjoying the scenery outside, including the fox who lives in the woods behind the facility), the Lord gave us opportunities there in Wichita to touch other lives as well. Millie and Bertie to whom we brought sweet treats, swapped stories, read poetry, and talked of the splendors of Heaven. The nursing home staff to whom we brought our thanks, compliments (and donuts). The overworked “care pastor” from a nearby church who we were able to encourage. Two local musicians. A bookstore manager. People at the hotel. The girls working at the non-profit coffee shop. As Francis Schaeffer would say, “No little people, no little places.” Everything God gives us to do is big and beautiful and of eternal significance. So let’s not miss out on the chances God gives us every single day to make a difference to someone.

Denny mentioned Francis Schaeffer’s quote “No little people, no little places.” That was the title of a chapter in his book also titled No Little People, a collection of 16 of Francis’s sermons.

Schaeffer wrote, “Jesus commands Christians to seek consciously the lowest room. All of us—pastors, teachers, professional religious workers and nonprofessional included—are tempted to say, ‘I will take the larger place because it will give me more influence for Jesus Christ.’ … But according to the Scripture this is backwards: We should consciously take the lowest place unless the Lord himself extrudes us into a greater one.”

He continued:

We must remember throughout our lives that in God’s sight there are no little people and no little places. Only one thing is important: to be consecrated persons in God’s place for us, at each moment. Those who think of themselves as little people in little places, if committed to Christ and living under his Lordship in the whole of life, may, by God’s grace, change the flow of our generation. And as we get on a bit in our lives, knowing how weak we are, if we look back and see we have been somewhat used of God, then we should be…“surprised by joy.”

The humble willingness to help the needy and lowly has always set Christians apart, showing the world that we operate on a radically different value system. Christ says if we feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, invite in the stranger, give clothes to the needy, care for the sick, and visit the persecuted, we are doing those things to Him: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat” (Matthew 25:34-35).

As Denny put it, “Let’s not miss out on the chances God gives us every single day to make a difference to someone.”

Photo: Pexels

Note from Randy: Our hearts go out to the people of western North Carolina and in other communities who’ve suffered so much from the effects of Hurricane Helene. One of the ministries EPM supports and recommends is Samaritan’s Purse, which is based in Boone, North Carolina. It’s amazing that their organization, which is always responding to disasters around the world, is directly impacted by the disaster in this case. Franklin Graham, their president and CEO, has had wonderful opportunities to share with the media about their relief efforts, and also the hope found in Jesus. (See this video to get a glimpse into the devastation and the work Samaritan’s Purse is doing.) Pray for their staff and volunteers. Pray for open hearts in the people they minister to.

I was originally slated to speak at a retreat at the Cove, the Billy Graham Retreat Center in Asheville, North Carolina, later in October. Due to the disaster, they had to cancel all their October events. The staff member I spoke with told me they are making sack lunches daily for the state police whose usual places to eat have been destroyed or closed. It’s so sad, but I did tell the person who called me that we can get a small glimpse of Romans 8:28 by the fact that they are daily feeding the police, and that will not be forgotten when things return to normal. Some of the local skeptics will view them and the gospel differently after all the help they will receive from them.

In the following guest blog, Warren Cole Smith, president of MinistryWatch, shares about the faith-based response to Hurricane Helene. It’s a reminder that there’s a long track record of Christ-followers being the hands and feet of Jesus by serving the suffering, the needy, the poor. (Historically, what religions besides Christianity have established hospitals throughout the world, or networks of famine relief and development to help starving people, victims of disasters and refugees? Who has shown grace, bringing in tons of food, clothing, shelter, man-power, and medical supplies after every disaster?  It’s Christians. When Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus are suffering in far corners of the world, it’s Christians who come to help.)

May God’s people give generously and volunteer to help those in need. And may God use the church’s response to this terrible natural disaster to spread the knowledge of Him and to draw many hearts to Himself.

Gov't has a role, but churches & Christian ministries are “new paradigm” for disaster relief

October 4, 2024

The whole world is now seeing what the people of western North Carolina have lived through this past week. Those sights are generating shock and awe. The strength of the storm and the magnitude of the destruction are stunning. The scale of the devastation is now becoming clear. Western North Carolina will not be back to normal for months, perhaps years. It is also clear that whatever “normal” looked like, the new normal will be different. This storm has recalibrated where and how thousands of people will live from now on.

I live in Charlotte, two hours east of Asheville. We were spared the worst effects of the storm, but even here we see ripple effects. With I-40 and I-26 closed through the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, traffic has been diverted for hundreds of miles in all directions. Charlotte-area interstates are now clogged at most hours of the day or night. My own schedule has been altered. I planned to meet with MinistryWatch supporters in Asheville next week, but the restaurant in Biltmore Village where we planned to meet is now full of mud. That trip is now (obviously) not happening.

Tuesday night I sat outside with a friend, and our conversation was interrupted repeatedly by helicopters passing overhead, headed west with supplies. The shelves of the big-box stores here in Charlotte are mostly empty of bottled water and other essential items. These are, of course, minor inconveniences, mere trifles compared to what the people of western North Carolina are facing, but they have provided me with a reality check. It’s clear that Helene’s impact has been rippling out from western North Carolina.

There is also much heartache. This morning the death toll passed 200, most of them in North Carolina, and 72 in Buncombe County alone. That grim number will certainly increase. A childhood friend of my wife Missy has a second home near Saluda, N. C. Three people died on her street alone. I have heard stories from rescue workers who are recovering bodies, some of them ripped apart. The weeks ahead will be hard ones for police, fire, and rescue workers. It’s also important to note that in the rural communities affected, many of these first responders are volunteers. This is certainly not what they signed up for, but I have heard story after story of these men and women rushing in, not running away.

Indeed, the stories abound. A college friend, Paul Hanna, posted on Facebook the story of his son Ben. Let me share it with you:

My son, Ben Hanna and his wife, Mandy, live in Asheville. They have a natural gas generator. So they are the only ones with power in their area. He was able to borrow a StarLink setup from a neighbor with no power and set up an internet hotspot for his neighbors to communicate. They also hosted a street “eat your food before it spoils” party and hosted a movie night for the neighborhood in their front yard and driveway in between the downed trees.

Such grassroots efforts are springing up all round. Ed and Anne Stych are names that might be familiar to MinistryWatch readers. They are part of the team that posts stories to the MinistryWatch website, and Anne has written more than 100 stories for us over the past five years. They are a part of Good Shepherd Anglican Church in Cornelius, N.C., a northern suburb of Charlotte. This small church, working with others in the area, helped send more than 38 small aircraft loaded with supplies to western North Carolina – on Monday alone. Local businessmen Travis McVickers and Kevin Garrison organized these efforts. Garrison set up a GoFundMe page to finance the project. By Friday, he had raised more than $840,000 to pay for supplies, airplane fuel, hangar space, and airplane rentals.

Another member of Good Shepherd Anglican, Matt Creswell, drove up to Banner Elk on Tuesday with a 1,000-gallon tank of diesel. “This has turned into a three-day event,” Creswell texted Ed Stych. “On Wednesday we are cooking 1,000 hotdogs and hamburgers for a little hard-hit community about 45 minutes north of Boone. Sleep is overrated.”

The resourcefulness of some of these grassroots efforts are enough to bring a smile to your face. One example: A mule team hauled supplies to people in Black Mountain, N.C. who are completely cut off by severed roads. The supplies were purchased at Food Lion just outside the area affected, and the local Tractor Supply store donated feed for the mules.

Federal, state, and local governments are involved, of course. They will have to play a major role in what will likely be a years-long recovery effort. But the real story of the first few days after this storm is the scope and scale of these spontaneous, grassroots efforts. They have undoubtedly saved the lives of some and have given hope to many. My friend and long-time journalist Bobby Ross, Jr., said he has seen this phenomenon repeatedly in the disasters he has covered over the years. In fact, he has even coined a term to describe these Christian first responders: “Faith-Based FEMA.” Indeed, as Ross reports, even when the government is involved, it often uses churches as command centers and staging facilities.

These ideas are not new to anyone who has been paying attention. Marvin Olasky is a veteran journalist and a historian of American charity and philanthropic efforts. He wrote after Hurricane Katrina, “Big government didn’t work. And a new paradigm for responding to national crisis has emerged. Private and faith-based organizations have stepped in, and politics will never be the same.”

That new paradigm is now on full display. Ed Stych summarized these grassroots rescue and relief efforts now springing up like a thousand flowers all around North Carolina: “I don’t know if the state and federal governments are doing a good job or a bad job. I just know that we ‘civilians’ need to do what we can immediately to help people in urgent need. We can’t wait for the government to save people.”

This article originally appeared on MinistryWatch and is used with permission of the author.

Header photo: Bill McMannis, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

It’s bad enough to do evil and abstain from good. But God condemns the moral sleight of hand by which we confuse good and evil: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Isaiah 5:20).

Paul built on this when he wrote, “Hate what is evil; cling to what is good” (Romans 12:9). Passages like Amos 5:14–15; Romans 16:19; 1 Peter 3:11 and 3 John 11 all presume we know the difference between good and evil. But in a culture that so often switches the price tags so what’s valuable looks worthless and what’s cheap demands a high price, this doesn’t come naturally. We must regularly withdraw to Scripture and ask God’s Spirit to train our minds and consciences to recognize what’s truly good and what’s truly evil.

Most people today understand evil as anything that harms others. The more harm done, the more evil the action.

Evil is the fundamental and troubling departure from goodness. The Bible uses the word evil to describe that which violates God’s moral will. The first human evil occurred when Eve and Adam disobeyed God. From that original sin—a moral evil—came the consequence of suffering. Although suffering results from moral evil, it is distinguishable from it, just as an injury caused by drunken driving isn’t synonymous with the offense.

Evil could be defined as “the refusal to accept the true God as God.” For this very reason, the Bible treats idolatry as the ultimate sin.

Any attempt to liberate ourselves from God’s standards constitutes rebellion against God. In replacing His standards with our own, we not only deny God but affirm ourselves as God. Evil is always an attempted coup, an effort to usurp God’s throne.

Psalm 2 describes earthly kings standing against God and His anointed one and declaring, “Let us break their chains.” God scoffs at them and replies that He has installed His king on Zion—and they have no hope of conquering His Chosen One (see 2:2–6).

Evildoers not only reject God’s law and create their own; they attempt to take the moral high ground by calling God’s standards “unloving,” “intolerant,” and “evil.”

Moral evil comes in two forms—blatant evil that admits its hatred for goodness, and subtle evil that professes to love goodness while violating it.

The logic goes like this: There is no such thing as cold, only lower degrees of heat (or the complete lack of it). Darkness is not the opposite of light, but the absence of light. Death is not the opposite of life, but its privation. A cloth can exist without a hole, but that hole cannot exist without the cloth. Good can, did, and will exist without evil. But evil cannot exist without the good it opposes. A shadow is nothing but the obstruction of light—no light, no shadow. Augustine said in The City of God, “Evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name ‘evil.’”

New Testament vocabulary sometimes supports this concept. We see it in words such as unrighteous, unjust, ungodly, lawless, and godless. These suggest that we best understand evil as a departure from God’s goodness. However, while this definition contains helpful insights, it doesn’t go far enough.

The Holocaust was not “nothing.” The Killing Fields were not “nothing.” The 9/11 attacks were not “nothing.” All were real horrors, down to every emaciated corpse, bullet-riddled body, and person jumping out a window.

Perhaps we could better conceive of evil as a parasite on God’s good creation, since a parasite is something substantial. Without the living organism it uses as a host, the parasite cannot exist. As metal does not need rust, but rust needs metal, so good does not need evil, but evil needs good.

Grace and forgiveness, both expressions of God’s eternal character, are moral goods, but without evil they wouldn’t have become clearly evident. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit don’t need compassion, mercy, grace, or forgiveness. These qualities could only be fully expressed to finite and fallen creatures.

Some of God’s virtues will forever capture the spotlight that, without evil and suffering’s temporary hold on us, never would have taken the stage.

Scripture portrays moral evils of rebelling against God, and natural evils including disease and disasters.

Child abuse is evil, demonstrated by the harm it inflicts on the innocent victim. We consider cancer and earthquakes evils because they bring suffering. While the evils of cancer and earthquakes differ from the moral evil of rebellion against God, the two are related. Human rebellion led God to curse the earth, which brought severe physical consequences.

Diseases and disasters are in a sense unnatural because they result from evil, an unnatural condition.

Disobeying God, inseparable from the failure to trust God, was the original evil. From that sin—a moral evil—came the consequence of suffering. So suffering follows evil as a caboose follows an engine. Scripture sometimes refers to calamities and tragic events as evils. To distinguish these, we can call moral evil primary evil, and suffering secondary evil.

“But just as every good promise of the LORD your God has come true, so the LORD will bring on you all the evil he has threatened, until he has destroyed you from this good land he has given you” (Joshua 23:15). Note that the “evil” mentioned here is not moral evil. Rather, it’s a holy God bringing judgment upon guilty people.

In some cases God builds punishments into moral evils. Paul says of those committing sexual sins that they “received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion” (Romans 1:27).

Why do innocent people suffer? Although many secondary evils befall us even when we have not directly committed a sin that causes them, we would not have to deal with secondary evils if we didn’t belong to a sinful race. Short-term suffering serves as a warning and foretaste of eternal suffering. Without a taste of Hell, we would neither see its horrors nor feel much motivation to do everything possible to avoid it. Hence, the secondary evil of suffering can get our attention and prompt us to repent of our primary moral evil.

Jeremiah 11:17 uses the same Hebrew word for evil in both the primary sense (moral evil) and the secondary sense (adverse consequences of moral evil): “The LORD of hosts, who planted you, has pronounced evil against you because of the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have done to pro­voke Me by offering up sacrifices to Baal” (NASB).

Because our English word has a narrower meaning, most translators normally choose “evil” when used of people disobeying God, but “disaster” or “calamity” when used of God bringing judgment on sinful people.

After promising judgment, God also promised He would bring good to His people—good that ultimately would outweigh the evil. Note the repetition of the word “good” in the following. God says,

They will be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me. I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul. (Jeremiah 32:38–41)

God’s people endure temporary judgments for their sin. But God makes an “everlasting covenant,” promising, “I will never stop doing good to them.”

Evils, whether moral or natural, will not have the final say. God will replace both with everlasting good.

The surgeon inflicts suffering on the patient and the parent disciplines the child, but they do good, not evil. Likewise, God can permit and even bring suffering upon His children without being morally evil. God hates moral evil and is committed to utterly destroying it. Yet for now He allows evil and suffering, and can providentially use them for His own good purposes.

Photo: Unsplash

Acts 17:26 says, “From one human being he created all races of people and made them live throughout the whole earth. He himself fixed beforehand the exact times and the limits of the places where they would live” (GNT). Since God fixes the exact times and limits of where people live, doesn’t this suggest He also fixes the times and places we will be on any particular day? Sure, people have free will, but that doesn’t mean God can’t take into account your free will and mine (and everyone else’s), so He can schedule us for divine appointments with people at certain times and places.

The next verse tells us the beautiful purpose God has for fixing our exact times and places: “He did this so that they would look for him, and perhaps find him as they felt around for him. Yet God is actually not far from any one of us” (Acts 17:27, GNT, emphasis added). Part of our role in divine appointments is helping people look for and find the grace of Jesus. Perhaps having His followers everywhere is part of the way God is not far even from unbelievers. He touches others through us.

Too many of us are bored with our Christian lives, and the reason for that is largely because we don’t see life in terms of the daily opportunities for adventure granted us by our sovereign God. My best friend and I had a divine appointment not long ago—through a series of unusual circumstances. I told the person we met, “This is no accident that we are here talking with you. God had this planned. He does things like that. This is what we call a divine appointment.”

I’m a firm believer that many of life’s inconveniences or unusual circumstances involve divine appointments with people the Lord brings into our lives—if only we open our eyes to see them.

Evangelist Greg Stier, Founder/Visionary of Dare2Share, shared some great thoughts about a divine appointment he had, and explained how asking questions can lead to spiritual conversations. I love Greg, and this is how he really lives:

Yesterday as I was renewing my daughter’s gym membership, I asked Steve, the guy who was helping me at the front desk, about his tattoos, and it led to a spiritual conversation. He told me that growing up both his parents were agnostic and so was he. But he had just recently started reading the Bible and was interested in knowing more about spiritual things, but he didn’t know where to go to church.

As I rattled off a few ideas (he lived far from our church) and began to share the Gospel with him, a pastor friend of mine who has a church that is closer to where he lives walked up to check into the gym and said hello to me. I introduced Pastor Joel to my new friend, and they made a connection. As I was leaving, I told Steve, “This was no accident. God sent Pastor Joel at just the right time to connect with you.” He smiled and nodded, knowing that God was up to something. Pray for Steve to fully understand the Gospel and put his faith in Jesus. Pray for Steve to get connected to a solid church. He’s heard the Gospel and now knows a pastor who works out at his gym.

Fellow believers, I find most people willing to engage in spiritual conversations if we ASK-ADMIRE-ADMIT:

ASK questions about them, their lives, jobs, (tattoos 😊), and spiritual journeys.

ADMIRE what you can about their beliefs, like Paul did with the philosophers at the Areopagus in Acts 17.

ADMIT the reason you need Jesus and then share your testimony and then the GOSPEL. That’s what I did in 10 minutes at the front desk of a fitness center yesterday. That’s what you can do today, any day and every day.

God gave a big exclamation point to His divine intervention when He sent Pastor Joel to the front desk of the gym at just the right time. And stop saying to yourself, “Well, this kind of stuff happens all the time to Greg because he’s an evangelist.” That’s Satan’s lie whispering in your ear, trying to convince you that you can’t do the same thing.

You have the same Holy Spirit I do (Ephesians 1:13,14.).

You have the same anointing I do (1 John 2:20).

You have the same Gospel I do (Romans 1:16).

You have the same mission I do (Matthew 28:18-20).

So go for it!

Check out some of the great resources from Dare2Share, including an evangelism app and free ebooks.

Photo: Unsplash

There are many reasons to obey what God commands us in Scripture. Here are five of them I’ve reminded myself of over the years:

1) God said it.

2) God knows better than I do.

3) God is in charge, and I am not.

4) Whenever I have obeyed God, I and my family have ultimately benefited.

5) Whenever I have done it my way instead of God’s, with all my rationalizations and excuses that I’ve considered sound reasoning, it hasn’t been for His glory, for my good, or the good of others. To obey God is always in our ultimate self-interest. In a universe where God sets up the rules, what is right is also smart.

The living God says, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19). He offers us true life and, with it, blessing. But He warns us against sin and the curse that always comes with it. Just as He did in the Garden, God offers us the quality of life that comes from obeying Him. God says, “Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments, and live” (Proverbs 4:4).

Finally, we would do well to remember that God gives us the power and strength to obey Him. Scripture says that the grace of God “teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age” (Titus 2:12). God’s grace is not only for forgiveness of sin, but empowerment to live in holiness.

Photo: Pexels

My book It’s All About Jesus includes this great quote from Glen Scrivener, a British minister and evangelist: “Christians believe in the virgin birth of Jesus. Materialists believe in the virgin birth of the cosmos. Choose your miracle.”

Glen directs the evangelistic ministry Speak Life. He responded to an interview with atheist Richard Dawkins, and mentioned some similar things to the quote above:

Christians believe that Jesus emerged, alive again, from the tomb. But Richard Dawkins believes that *all* life emerged from non-life—and without a God of resurrection to work the wonder.

Choose your miracle.

Watch the full video: https://t.co/oer8Iq2uPc pic.twitter.com/GKygHJuTFk

— Speak Life (@SpeakLifeUK) April 2, 2024

Here’s the full video of Glen responding to Richard’s interview and declaration that he is a “cultural Christian”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzxBoMDNFng?si=U4VI1UcakVIyfzkf

Dawkins makes some moral judgments about Islam and its treatment of certain people groups. He, like all atheists in the Western world, lives in a culture influenced by a historic belief in God and the morality revealed in Scripture. This provides a residual basis for believing that moral categories are important, while the atheist worldview doesn’t.

Dawkins, Hitchens, and other atheists have emphasized the evils done in religion’s name. But they say virtually nothing about how modern education, science, and health care all emerged out of Christianity.

Atheists who have thought through the implications of their worldview occasionally admit its utter moral emptiness. Unbeliever William Provine put it this way in a debate: “Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear.... There are no gods, no purposes.... There is no life after death.... There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans.”

Notice his admission that there is no ultimate foundation for ethics. The naturalistic worldview has no basis for declaring some things good and others evil.

But surely something within Dr. Provine can look at good and rejoice, then look at evil and cry out, “This is wrong!” What is it that cries out? The Bible calls it the conscience, God’s law written on our hearts (see Romans 2:15). We have a moral code, a natural law built into us. That’s what allows us to step outside of what we see around us and call it good or evil.

William Lane Craig says, “If God does not exist, then life is objectively meaningless; but man cannot live consistently and happily knowing that life is meaningless; so in order to be happy he pretends that life has meaning.... In a universe without God, good and evil do not exist—there is only the bare valueless fact of existence, and there is no one to say that you are right and I am wrong.”

Even those who reject the claims of the Christian worldview should acknowledge that it does in fact offer a moral foundation upon which to discern good and evil. And they should ask themselves whether, without realizing it, they sometimes borrow from the Christian worldview because their own worldview cannot provide a foundation on which to judge good and evil.

Photo: Unsplash

Note from Randy: This is a great answer from Doreen Button, part of our EPM staff, in response to some questions about politics. Like many of you, I do not enjoy the political turmoil, including in the church, that will only get worse as the presidential election gets closer. On the one hand, there is much at stake and some issues are extremely important, not the least of them the right to life of unborn children. However, we should be trusting God no matter what happens. As Psalm 25:15 says, “My eyes are continually toward Yahweh.” May this be true of God’s people!

What advice does your ministry and Randy have at this time of political chaos with a major election coming up? I am trying to stay on point with issues as I talk with family and friends, but I can’t even have a conversation with them because they disagree with candidates I am choosing to vote for. I am looking for advice for me to stay calm and look at this upcoming election in the right way. How can I have the right approach?

The ways people handle election cycles is a great reminder of how fallen we are and how deeply we need God’s grace. I applaud your desire to converse calmly about things you seem to care deeply about. It can be discouraging when people you love don’t want to listen. And, as with any relationship, you are only responsible for your actions and reactions and cannot control outcomes involving other people and their choices.

My short answer to your question is to keep an eternal perspective and keep Jesus’ words about what’s most important always foremost in your thoughts. This is an important habit to build no matter what the circumstances and will serve to keep God first, and to promote servant-hearted love toward others as an outflow of God’s love working in and through you.

By eternal perspective I mean focusing on what lasts. You’re probably familiar with Randy’s example of our present lives as a tiny dot on eternity’s endless timeline. This election will certainly encompass important issues, but since God always has been and always will be sovereign over all He’s created, we neither need to worry about the outcome (in fact that would go directly against His stated will) nor risk disrupting the unity Jesus prayed so earnestly to the Father for us.

His Kingdom has and will come and His will is being done, because of and in spite of us and our stand on any given issue or candidate. (Meditate on 1 Timothy 2:1-6 and Titus chapters 2 and 3.) “It is better to take refuge in Yahweh than to trust in princes” (Psalm 118:9).

Randy has written several blogs which I believe can be applied to your situation. Here are links to two of my favorites: Are We Careful to Speak Words of Mercy and Grace, Especially When We Disagree? and Outrage Is Not a Fruit of the Spirit. Randy seeks to consistently blend both biblical truth and Christ-honoring grace. It’s one of many traits our EPM staff appreciate about him.

One last thought you might want to ponder. People are made in God’s image (even when we reflect that image poorly) and our relationships with each other are far more important—and among believers, far longer lasting—than being “right” (or even being heard). Jesus tells us to “Seek God’s Kingdom first, and His righteousness…” That’s our job. His job? “At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth” (Ephesians 1:10).

We have to be far more passionate about Jesus, and our unbelieving loved ones knowing Him, than we are about any political candidate. Before initiating or engaging in political conversations, particularly with those who don’t see things your way, pray! Then, ask yourself if you are fighting for your own ideals or are you genuinely interested in loving the other person well.

If and when a conversation happens, it may also help to diffuse strong feelings if you acknowledge their concerns over the candidate you are choosing to support and try to be understanding about them.  Your choice to share in a spirit of kindness and love will stand out in a culture of accusations and name calling.

In his article “Mercy Would Make America Great,” Vince Miller writes:

In conversations about candidates, policies, and platforms, we should follow Jesus’s example, and ask good questions to try and understand the reasons for our neighbors’ deeply held beliefs. Make an effort to understand how they came to their conclusions and convictions, and then reason with a respectful attitude.

…This political season is not about us. We kneel before the throne and submit our preferences, opinions, and purposes to Almighty God. It is all about him. Keep your focus on Christ because there is ultimately only one King and one kingdom.

God bless you as you make your way through this quagmire called politics. May you come out the other side looking more like Jesus!

Photo: Unsplash

The Puritans, Charles Spurgeon, John Wesley and a host of others constantly spoke of a God-made happiness. As I have traveled the world, I’ve met more suffering people who are happy in Jesus than I have ever found in America!

This is exactly what I talk about in my book Happiness, as I go through over twenty Hebrew words and fifteen Greek words used in Scripture that are part of the same semantic domain. They are happiness synonyms and can be readily translated not only joyful, but also glad, merry, happy, delighted, etc. For example, take any Hebrew dictionary and look up asher, or a Greek dictionary and look up makarios (both are translated as “blessed” in our Bible versions), and you will find that they mean happy.

Of course there is a false and godless happiness, just as there is a false and godless holiness! There is also godless “love” and “hope” and “holiness” (in religions that try to work their way to God). But the solution is not abandoning those words; rather, we can show how the biblical versions differ from the culture’s view of them. Since God has wired all people to want the happiness of Eden and the New Earth, and since He intended humans to be happy and secured His children’s eternal happiness on the cross, telling the world (and our children) to stop wanting happiness and that it is sinful to want to be happy is both futile and counterproductive! What we need to tell them is that they can find happiness/joy/gladness in Jesus.

Will they still suffer in this life? Of course! But the gladness and joy of God’s people has always been a happiness in Him that infuses them with hope and perspective in the midst of suffering. Trust me—countless Jesus-followers in prisons and hospitals all over the world experience this happiness in God in ways that we should learn from. May we follow their example and do the same!  

Sadly, the church's false and unbiblical distinctions between happiness and holiness, and between happiness and joy, contradict the “good news of happiness” we’re promised in the Messiah (see Isaiah 52:7, ESV and NASB, two of the most literal translations)!

Here’s my answer when I was asked, “Is it wrong to want to be happy?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcS4cQxOAkA?si=dUPsDLJcdw0hMBxe

Photo: Unsplash

Many today claim that abortion is just a political issue. But the abortion issue, at its core, is apolitical. It has everything to do with the worth of a human child. If I were to jump today in front of a car to rescue a child, it would not be to lodge a political protest against reckless driving. It would be to save the life of an innocent child. Abortion became “political” when the law was changed to justify the killing of children.

Long before it was ever a divisive political issue in our country, abortion was a moral issue, and one which God has a clear and emphatic position on. I encourage you to consider what God’s Word says about unborn children, and what the people of God throughout history have said about abortion.

Some maintain that “nowhere does the Bible prohibit abortion.” [1] Yet the Bible clearly prohibits the killing of innocent people (Exodus 20:13). All that is necessary to prove a biblical prohibition of abortion is to demonstrate that the Bible considers the unborn to be human beings.

A number of ancient societies opposed abortion, [2] but ancient Hebrew society had the clearest reasons for doing so because of its scriptural foundation. The Bible gives theological certainty to the biological evidence. It teaches that men and women are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). Throughout Scripture, personhood is never measured by age, stage of development, or mental, physical, or social skills. Personhood is endowed by God at the moment of creation. That moment of creation can be nothing other than the moment of conception.

The Hebrew word used in the Old Testament to refer to the unborn (Exodus 21:22–25) is yeled, a word that “generally indicates young children, but may refer to teens or even young adults.” [3] The Hebrews did not have or need a separate word for unborn children. They were just like any other children, only younger. In the Bible there are references to born children and unborn children, but there is no such thing as “potential,” “incipient,” or “almost” children.

Job graphically described the way God created him before he was born (Job 10:8–12). The person in the womb was not something that might become Job, but someone who was Job, just younger and smaller. God identifies Himself to Isaiah as, “he who made you, who formed you in the womb” (Isaiah 44:2). What each person is, not merely what he might become, was present in his mother’s womb.

Psalm 139:13–16 paints an intimate picture of God’s involvement with a preborn person. David says to his Creator, “You knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Each person has been personally knitted together by God. “All the days of his life have been planned out by God before any have come to be” (v. 16).

As a member of the human race that has rejected God, each person sinned “in Adam,” and is therefore a sinner from his very beginning (Romans 5:12–19). David says, “Surely I was sinful at birth.” Then he goes back even before birth to the actual beginning of his life, saying he was “sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5). Each person has a sin nature from the point of conception. Who but an actual person can have a moral nature? Rocks and trees and animals and human organs do not have moral natures, good or bad.

When Rebekah was pregnant with Jacob and Esau, Scripture says, “The babies jostled each other within her” (Genesis 25:22). The unborn are regarded as “babies” in the full sense of the term. God tells Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5). He could not know Jeremiah in his mother’s womb unless Jeremiah, the person, was present there.

In Luke 1:41 and 44 there are references to the unborn John the Baptist. The Greek word translated as “baby” in these verses is the word brephos. It is the same word used for the already born baby Jesus (Luke 2:12, 16) and for the babies brought to Jesus to receive His blessing (Luke 18:15–17). It is also the same word used in Acts 7:19 for the newborn babies killed by Pharaoh. To the writers of the New Testament, like the Old, a baby is simply a baby, whether born or unborn.

The angel Gabriel told Mary that she would be “with child and give birth to a son” (Luke 1:31). In the first century, and in every century, to be pregnant is to be with child, not with that which might become a child.

Child sacrifice is condemned throughout Scripture. Only the most degraded societies tolerated such evil. Ancient dumping grounds have been found filled with the bones of hundreds of dismembered infants. This is strikingly similar to discoveries of thousands of dead babies discarded by modern abortion clinics. One scholar of the ancient Near East refers to infant sacrifice as “the Canaanite counterpart to abortion.” [4]

Scripture condemns the shedding of innocent blood (Deuteronomy 19:10; Proverbs 6:17; Isaiah 1:15; Jeremiah 22:17). While the killing of all innocent human beings is detestable, the Bible regards the killing of children as particularly heinous (Leviticus 18:21; 20:1–5; Deuteronomy 12:31).

Christians throughout church history have affirmed with a united voice the humanity of the preborn child. [5] The second-century Epistle of Barnabas speaks of “killers of the child, who abort the mold of God.” It treats the unborn child as any other human “neighbor” by saying, “You shall love your neighbor more than your own life. You shall not slay a child by abortion. You shall not kill that which has already been generated” (19.5).

The Didache, a second-century catechism for young converts, states, “Do not murder a child by abortion or kill a newborn infant” (2.2). Clement of Alexandria maintained that “those who use abortifacient medicines to hide their fornication cause not only the outright murder of the fetus, but of the whole human race as well” (Paedagogus 2.10.96.1).

Defending Christians before Marcus Aurelius in A.D. 177, Athenagoras argued, “What reason would we have to commit murder when we say that women who induce abortions are murderers, and will have to give account of it to God? . . . The fetus in the womb is a living being and therefore the object of God’s care” (A Plea for the Christians 35.137–138).

Tertullian said, “It does not matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to the birth. In both instances, destruction is murder” (Apology 9.4). Basil the Great affirmed, “Those who give abortifacients for the destruction of a child conceived in the womb are murderers themselves, along with those receiving the poisons” (Canons 188.2). Jerome called abortion “the murder of an unborn child” (Letter to Eustochium 22.13).

Augustine warned against the terrible crime of “the murder of an unborn child” (On Marriage 1.17.15). Origen, Cyprian, and Chrysostom were among the many other prominent theologians and church leaders who condemned abortion as the killing of children. New Testament scholar Bruce Metzger comments, “It is really remarkable how uniform and how pronounced was the early Christian opposition to abortion.” [6]

Throughout the centuries, Roman Catholic leaders have consistently upheld the sanctity of human life. Likewise, Protestant reformer John Calvin followed both the Scriptures and the historical position of the church when he affirmed:

The fetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being and it is a most monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man’s house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light. [7]

Modern theologians with a strong biblical orientation have normally agreed that abortion causes the death of a child. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who lost his life standing against Hitler’s murder of the innocent in Germany, argued that abortion is “nothing but murder.” [8]

Theologian Karl Barth stated, “The unborn child is from the very first a child . . . it is a man and not a thing, not a mere part of the mother’s body. . . . Those who live by mercy will always be disposed to practice mercy, especially to a human being which is so dependent on the mercy of others as the unborn child.” [9]

The Bible is clear that every child in the womb is created by God. Furthermore, Christ loves that child and proved it by becoming like him—He spent nine months in His mother’s womb. Finally, Christ died for that child, showing how precious He considers him to be.

The biblical view of children is that they are a gift from the Lord (Psalm 127:3–5). Yet society treats children more and more as liabilities. We must learn to see them as God does, and to act toward them as God commands us to act: “Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked” (Psalm 82:3–4).

Abortion and end-of-life issues aren’t “merely” about politics. They’re about the dignity and sanctity of human life.

I share more on the question of “Is abortion just a political issue?” in this video filmed many years ago, yet every bit as true now as it was then:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyA8zmT0CKs?si=FRkSWNFvZnpiZAyJ

[1] Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, “Reproductive Choice: Basic to Justice for Women,” Christian Scholar’s Review, March 1988, 291.

[2] James Hoffmeier, Abortion: A Christian Understanding and Response (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1987), 46, 50; Eugene Quay, “Abortion: Medical and Legal Foundations,” Georgetown Law Review, 1967, 395, 420; Meredith G. Kline, “Lex Talionis and the Human Fetus,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, September 1977, 200–201.

[3] Lawrence O. Richards, Expository Dictionary of Bible Words (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1985), 156–57.

[4] James Hoffmeier, Abortion, A Christian Understanding and Response (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1987), 53.

[5] See George Grant, Grand Illusions: The Legacy of Planned Parenthood (Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1988), 190–91.

[6] Quoted in Michael Gorman, Abortion and the Early Church (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1982), 9.

[7] John Calvin, Commentary on Pentateuch, cited in Crisis Pregnancy Center Volunteer Training Manual (Washington, DC: Christian Action Council, 1984), 7.

[8] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics (New York: Macmillan, 1955), 131.

[9] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, ed. Geoffrey Bromiley (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1961), 3:415, 3:418.

Photo: Pexels