For the Record

Spiritual Lessons

For the record –

God's primary purpose in saving us in NOT to unfold His wonderful plan for our lives.

Jesus is not the way out of life's problems.

Christianity is not the answer to our unhappiness.

We do not need to accept Christ in our life to find peace and joy.

Depression is not of the devil.

Jesus does not save the righteous from less sorrows than the wicked.


I needed to get that off my chest. If you listen long enough you find that the popular Christian message seems to say otherwise. And it's despicably wrong.

It sounds nice to imply that sinners will find better lives if they trust Jesus as their savior, but it's simply not true. It doesn't matter how many times it's promised from the pulpit or guaranteed in a tract, or taught from a life coach. Reality shatters every delusion.

In my own very short life I have experienced grief. I've watched others face tragedies. I've heard nightmarish accounts. And I've wept with heartbroken people. Christians – all of them.

And yet “a life of happiness” and a “wonderful plan” is still what is offered to the unsaved. If only they will believe on Jesus.

We'd better hide the Foxe Book of Martyrs then. And it would be a good idea to ignore how the disciple's lives ended. Better stop our ears when the prayer requests are read at church. Smile when we are actually hurting inside. Disfellowship with the depressed Christian.

I'll never forget the homeless man in Portland that I talked to.
As soon as I brought up “Jesus” he stopped me and smiled wanly – “Don't tell me Jesus is the cure. Don't talk to ME of happiness and joy. Don't give me promises. I've seen it all. If Jesus is escape from suffering why does He allow suffering in “the saved”? Why does the Pastor have cancer? Why was that little child abused? Why are they homeless?”
He was bitter from all the hollow promises he had heard over and over from Christians.

And he's right. Why do Christians promise something they themselves don't have?

History proves Christianity to be a cost, not a self-help program. All you have to do is look at the suffering of the underground church today to know that Christianity isn't a bed of roses.

Instead, all have fallen short of the glory of God. All are guilty enemies of God in need of righteousness. Mankind is condemned to Hell. The wages of your sin is death. But God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to die in your place. The only way to accept such forgiveness and payment is to repent and believe. You won't find an experience; a way out of your problems; or a life of happiness. But you will be given a new life restored to your Creator. You will still have heartache. Still have tragedies. Struggles and sorrow. Just like the rest of the world. But unlike the world, you will have His mercy, and He can work your heartache for good.

Give the true gospel and you won't have bitter unbelievers who spit at your hypocrisy.
Share the truth and you won't have disillusioned Christians falling on the wayside when persecution comes.

Stop making false promises and you won't have false conversions.
Get off the conventional Christian bandwagon. It will only lead you to misery and lead unbelievers to Hell.


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A Broken Roof

A Broken Roof

“ In the second chapter of Mark we read the interesting and instructive story of four men who brought a paralytic to the Lord Jesus Christ by breaking the roof of a house. Jesus had been teaching in a home in Capernaum. A great crowd soon assembled until they filled the house, and were crowded around the outside, making it impossible for anyone to get near the door to see and hear Him. But in Capernaum there was a man who, because of a sinful life, was afflicted with a dreadful disease. He was humanly speaking, hopeless. He could not walk. He had no means of getting to the Lord Jesus, but he did have four friends who were interested in him. The other folk had all flocked to hear the Lord Jesus for themselves, and had forgotten about the poor man who had no way of enjoying the same blessing. I fear that in these days there are many similar situations. There are many people who are so busy learning theology and feeding upon the blessed truth of the Lord Jesus Christ that they forget their duty toward the poor sinners round about who have never gazed in faith upon His blessed face.

Can you not see them coming down the dusty road? They had made an improvised ambulance, probably similar to a stretcher, and on this the poor fellow lay. But, as they came to the house, they found so many folk crowded around the Lord Jesus that there was no room to bring the poor sinner to Him. What a tragedy! There were so many people who wanted to hear teaching that there was no room for a poor sinner to come to Christ! We are living in a day similar to that, I fear. Amid all the divisions and separations among believers, both in and out of the denominations, we are so busy defending the Book and discussing fine points of doctrine that we have forgotten the greatest desire and commission of the Lord Jesus. That this interpretation is not incorrect is clearly borne out by the fact that Jesus immediately stopped teaching the crowd and applied Himself to the more important business of saving and healing this poor paralytic. Again the story emphasizes the need of our bringing men to Christ if they are ever going to come. The Lord has so ordered the plan of salvation that men and women are saved only as we bring them to the Lord. Man by nature is not sick. He is dead! He is impotent and as unable to find Christ without help as a dead man is to come forth from the grave. 

Because four men were more interested in this poor man than they were in hearing Jesus, this fellow was saved. Humanly speaking, the poor man would have died in his sin and disease were it not for the interest these four men had in his condition. 

God can make a bumper crop of wheat grow on the pavement of Fifth Avenue in New York City without help from man, but He has never done it, and He never will. God’s way of raising a crop of wheat depends upon man. It is only as the farmer plows and drags and sows and cares for his acre that the Lord gives the increase, though He is omnipotent and needs no help from man. So, too, it is in the spiritual realm. God could save every human being without the help or aid of His children, without a tract, a dollar or a missionary. But God does not do things that way. It is God’s plan that man will be saved only through the instrumentality of others. His commission is ‘Go ye, go ye, and preach the Gospel.’ ‘Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.’ God has given us the commission and placed at our disposal the only two necessities for soul-winning: the Word and the Holy Spirit, and if men are not saved, it will not be His fault, but ours, and our alone.

A broken roof was the only means of getting this man to the Lord Jesus. These men were in earnest. The matter was not a side issue with them; they forgot everything else in their eagerness to help the man. They could not get through the door. Evidently a window was not available, either. What could they do? Necessity is the mother of invention, so these men made their way to the roof and the friend was lifted; then they began to break the roof. Can you imagine the effect on the crowd? Can you no hear a grumbler demand that someone make ‘that bunch of maniacs quit disturbing the meeting’? But not a word from the Lord. He must have been pleased. Notice the conduct of Jesus. Not a word of surprise. Not a rebuke for breaking up a Bible class to save a soul. Not a word because the decorum of the meeting had been disturbed. But Mark tells us: ‘When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.’ (Mark 2:5) Two words need special consideration here: ‘Their faith’. Not the sick man’s faith, but their faith. I know that men are saved by their own personal faith in Jesus Christ, and that you cannot be saved by my believing, and yet it is true as well that men and women are being lost because of our lack of faith. It is equally true that men do find Jesus through the faith of others. Men are perishing because we have not faith. 

Oh, God, make us dead in earnest! Set us on fire! Help us to break up our homes if need be to bring this paralyzed, dying word to Christ. Many of us have pleasant roofs over our heads. With much labor we have made a comfortable place for ourselves while the world is perishing for lack of Christ. Oh, for a zeal that will make us willing to ‘tear up the roof’ and forget all false propriety and selfish endeavor to bring the message to those who never heard it! Think of Christ. It was He who said, ‘This is my body, which is broken for you.’ He had a home in heaven, but He left it all and came and dwelt as a man despised and rejected, a friend of sinners, and went all the way to Calvary to die that you might live.
Here is what is wrong with the Church. We have lost our vision of the reality of the terribleness of the condition of lost man. Sin is real! Hell is real! The danger is real! Yet too often we are more concerned about the roof over our heads than the foundation under our feet.

Oh, God, help us to break the roof of materialism and worldly interest and open up the house to heaven until the answer comes down! We are not in earnest as we should be. Oh, God, break our hearts for Thee! Grant us visions of Thy compassion for the souls of men!
How richly these men were repaid. While some might have thought that Jesus would surely reprimand them for their clumsiness, He honored their faith and not only forgave the man’s sin but healed his body. When the Church of Jesus Christ gets so dead in earnest that it is willing to leave its beautiful self-made ritual and refinements of architecture and external worship and stop its quibbling about doctrine and let the ‘zeal of the house eat it up,’ we shall have the greatest revival the Church has ever seen.”

-M. R. DeHaan (“Broken Things” p. 61-66)

White Roses

White Roses

"Tonight, as I looked up for a moment from the general jolly merry-making, as I looked out through the window at the evening sky, through the bare trees at the yellow horizon, suddenly I remembered that it was Good Friday.  The sky seemed strangely far away and indifferent and it saddened me.  Or perhaps it was the people with their empty laughter, for whom the sky had no relevance.  I felt excluded from the merry party and from the unconcerned sky."  - Sophie Scholl

I read this from Sophie's diary and my heart resonated with her.  So often I've looked up from my own merry-making and the world suddenly seems to expand before me and my own isolated bubble is exposed to the imperative issues that will inevitably touch it.

It is so much easier, and altogether more comfortable, to live in seclusion and peace of our own homes, thoughts, churches and good fortune.

Once in a while we are accosted by today's troubles.  No matter how shielded we are, it is impossible to escape the atrocities of the dying unsaved souls, suicide victims, abortion and it's murdered innocents, the neglected elderly, the emotionally scarred children in foster homes that live unwanted and unhelped.  The homeless.  They helpless.  The hopeless.

Sophie and Hans Scholl also could not escape their time and their country's horrors.  Like all of us, they were not given the choice as to which time-period they were to be born into.  They happened to be young Germans in the 1940s.  And this was their firm conviction --

"...Which one of us can foretell the unspeakable shame that will be visited on us and our children when the scales fall from our eyes and the crimes, most horrible and infinitely beyond measure, come to light?  Is the German people, in its innermost soul, so corrupt and decayed?  Will it without lifting a finger, frivolously trusting questionable laws of history, surrender the most valuable thing mans own, that which raises him above all other creatures?  Will the German people surrender free will, man's freedom to help put a spoke in the wheel of history and subordinate it to his own reason, his own decision?  If Germans are so devoid of personal individuality, if they have become so irretrievably a mindless and craven mass -- then, indeed then they deserve to perish."  
The opening sentences of the White Roses' first leaflet.

The White Rose was first birthed by a group of students who were joined in their mutual "non-conformity" and love for freedom.  All held in high revere literature that had been banned and consigned to book burning.  Each of them held their dictator in disgust, and all had witnessed in various forms the terrors of Nazism.  They eventually grew impatient of simply talking of the issues and horrors and each determined to strongly resist.  Their solution?  Issuing leaflets calling for resistance to Hitler.

When the first leaflet was dispersed in Munich Germany, it created a sensation.  It was a daring trumpet blast in the mandatory silence of Nazism.  Some took the leaflets right away to the police.  Others disposed of it.  But some of them followed the leaflet's instructions and retyped the page with as many carbon copies and passed it on.  One such person said, "Today no one will believe how happy we are to do something against the regime at long last."

The next leaflets informed the German people of the atrocities of the Fuhrer and Nazism.  "The fact is that since the conquest of Poland 300,000 Jews have bestially murdered in that country."  The leaflet stated that anyone who watched such crimes without doing something about them could not possibly acquit himself of guilt.  Their last word?

"The White Rose will not leave you in peace!"

Hans once told his sister -- "It is high time that Christians, too, [not only Communist and Social-Democratic resistance fighters] start doing something.  Chrisitans have to set up a visiable sign of resistance.  When we are asked at the end of the war, 'What did you do?' shall we stand there empty handed?"  - Hans Scholl

The Scholl siblings along with the rest of the White Rose did do something.  They appealed to their fellow Germans.  They publicly protested.  They refused to prolong Hitler's war by donating to the Nazi "Winter Aid" clothing drive that was to benefit German soldiers in Russia.  They helped prisoners of war and foreign workers.  All things what their sister Inge called "...small scale resistance, practical and tangible, and potentiality contagious."

One story of a friend further demonstrates the Scholl's resistance.

"That evening, as we walked in the English Garden, Sophie seemed very nervous to me,  She said

"...one ought to do something, for instance, write on walls."

I said, "I have a pencil in my pocket."

Sophie: "It has to be done with tar-based paint."

I: "But that's insanely dangerous."

Sophie, evasively,: The night is a friend of the free."

Next morning I went with Sophie and Hans to the university to attend Professor Huber's class... There was a big crowd of students by the university entrance staring at the stone wall.  As we came closer we saw the word FREEDOM printed in black paint in three-foot-high letters.  Several cleaning women were busily trying to scrub off the writing.  An older student said to Sophie, "Those b*******."  Hans urged us to walk on -- "We don't want to be conspicuous."  As we left, Sophie said to me under her breath, "They have a long scrub ahead of them; that's tar-paint."

These young people dared to cry for freedom in a "state where all free expression has been ruthlessly gagged".  They admonished others to "Fight the Party!  Get out of the Party organizations where they silence you with 'No Polotics!'  Get out of the lecture rooms of SS leaders and SS chief leaders and Party toadies!  We are committed to true science and genuine freedom of thought!"

If the White Rose could courageously fight and even die for such a nobal cause, it should quicken our sense of justice and duty to fight our modern culture and atrocities.

At ages 22 and 24, Sophie and Hans Scholl shook their nation with their radical stance on freedom.  Especially after their brave martyrdom.

"I remember meeting an acquaintance on the street one day, and he said to me, "Don't beam so!  They'll arrest you for beaming."  That is how it was.  We didn't have much of a chance to survive, but survival was not what counted.  Life counted.  Life itself touched our hearts through the death of Hans and Sophie Scholl and their friends. ... Hope.  That was what [they] gave us."  - Ilse Aichinger

I am not writing this to discourage or condemn.  But to inspire you as the Scholls did me.  The Bible mentions in 2 Corinthians how mortality can be swallowed up in life.  This is my desire.  And yet, to be mortal, to relish peace and security and to even grow weary of the battle and wish to close our eyes to the world and it's horrors is no condemnation.  It is our instinct.  But we can choose to be selfish mortals, or we can allow our mortality to be swallowed up in life.  His life.

I'm not saying we need to start a crusade.  I'm not saying we should sell our home and join a cause.  I'm not saying we now need to spend every 24 hours printing leaflets.

True hearted"small scale" resistance in our culture might be giving up a movie night to petition our Representatives. It might mean not pro-longing the "war" on innocents by refusing to support Pro-Choice businesses.  It might mean taking the risk of looking foolish by passing out a tract.  It might mean exercising our mind when we'd rather zone and entertain ourselves.

Many of us are busy.  Okay, all of us are insanely busy.  And that's not a condemnation.  Some of us might only realistically have 15 minutes a week to actively engage in our world's battle.  Some of us might have more.

But we will do nothing if we are convinced that we don't have any time.  If we have time to like posts on Facebook, watch a movie, play a game, email -- we have a few minutes.  We will do nothing if we are convinced that it's not our duty.  We will do nothing if we won't take it seriously.  We will do nothing if we are unconvinced at our nation's need.


But here are the facts:

Millions are on their way to Hell.
Approximately every 12.8 minutes someone dies from suicide in the U.S. alone.
3,500 babies are killed every year in the United States.
And this is just a few examples...


David asked, "Is there not a cause...?"  Absolutely.  And we can take his example to heart.  He went and did what he knew best.  He gathered stones for his sling shot.  And then he made himself available to his Strength and his Redeemer.

David had to throw off his brother's criticism.  We too must throw off criticism.  Low expectations of others.  In fact, our world expects it's young people to be self-absorbed, ignorant adolescents.
What has God gifted us with?  Of course we are weak earthen vessels, but we are the very vessels He has chosen.  God has all the power and knowledge -- He waits on us. We are not given the choice to be warriors.  We are in the midst of a battle.  But we are given the choice whether to be His warriors or not.

Every person God ever used had their own set-backs, their own weaknesses, their own hard circumstances.  But you are His warrior and He has given you life for a purpose.  What if we only have 22 years like Sophie?  Twenty two years from now even? I desire to be a White Rose in my nation and my time. I want to be able to face my death and say as  Sophie did --

"I would do everything again, exactly the same way."

Resources:

"The Short Life of Sophie Scholl" by Herman Vinke



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Compassion Part I

Three Davids

Spiritual Lessons

The David that Went in his Strength


Now the Philistines gathered together their armies to battle, and King Saul and the men of Israel were set in array against the Philistines.

And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines named Goliath, of Gath.  And he stood and cried unto the armies of Israel -- "I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we might fight together."

When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed, and greatly afraid.
Now David, the son of Jesse, ran into the army, and came and saluted his brethren.  And as he talked with them, behold, there came up the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name.  And all the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him and were sore afraid.

And they said -- "Have ye seen this man that is come up? surely to defy Israel is he come up: and it  shall be, that the man who killeth him, the king will enrich him with great riches, and will give him his daughter and make his father's house free in Israel."

And Eliab, David's eldest brother heard him speaking to the men, and his anger was kindled against David and he said, "Why camest thou down hither?  and with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness?  I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thine heart; for thou art come down that thou mightest see the battle. "

And from that moment David desired to prove himself to Eliab, and to the men of Israel and to be enriched with great riches and went straightway to the King.

And David said to Saul -- O King I will fight Israel's enemy, Goliath.
And the King said to David -- "Thou art not able to fight against this Philistine.  You are but a youth."
And David once more addressed the King -- "I have saved my father's flock from both a lion and a bear, and this Philistine shall be like unto them, for I am David, the son of Jesse."

And Saul armed David with his own armor, and girded David with his sword.  And David went before the men of Israel to show the honor of the King towards him.

And the Philistine came on and drew near unto David, and when he saw David he cursed him.
And then said David to the Philistine -- "Thou comest to me with a sword, but I come to revenge Israel and to prove the strength of David, son of Jesse, and I will defy you, and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcasses of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all of the earth may know the strength of an Israelite, and the valor of David!"

And it came to pass, when the Philistine arose, and drew near that David hasted and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine, in full confidence of both himself and Saul's sword.
And the Philistine drew his sword and prevailed against David, for David had trusted in his own strength and forgotten the Lord his God.

The David that Waited on the Lord.


Now the Philistines gathered together their armies to battle, and King Saul and the men of Israel were set in array against the Philistines.

And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines named Goliath, of Gath.  And he stood and cried unto the armies of Israel -- "I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we might fight together."

When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed, and greatly afraid.
Now David, the son of Jesse, ran into the army, and came and saluted his brethren.  And as he talked with them, behold, there came up the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name.  And all the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him and were sore afraid.

And they said -- "Have ye seen this man that is come up? surely to defy Israel is he come up: and it  shall be, that the man who killeth him, the king will enrich him with great riches, and will give him his daughter and make his father's house free in Israel."

And Eliab, David's eldest brother heard him speaking to the men, and his anger was kindled against David and he said, "Why camest thou down hither?  and with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness?  I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thine heart; for thou art come down that thou mightest see the battle. "

And from that moment David feared the pride of his heart and continually questioned the motive of his heart.  Nonetheless he sought audience with the King.

And David said to Saul -- O King I will fight Israel's enemy, Goliath.
And the King said to David -- "Thou art not able to fight against this Philistine.  You are but a youth."
And David once more addressed the King -- "You have spoken truly oh king, I am a worm and unworthy, but the Lord will deliver Israel from this Philistine."

And Saul armed David with his own armor, and girded David with his sword.  But David said unto Saul -- "I cannot go with these; I will go with no weapon so I may prove the Lord God.  I will wait on Him to defeat the enemy of Israel, for the Lord our God is stronger than man and He will fight for us.  Have no fear, but wait on the Lord God."

And the Philistine came on and drew near unto David, and when he saw David he cursed him and his God.

And then David sat peacefully before the Philistine and said -- "Thou comest to me with a sword, but I come in the rest of the Lord.  You defy me and curse God but I will wait on the Lord."

And it came to pass, when the Philistine arose, and drew near that David sat and prayed and the Philistine drew his sword and smote the Israelites, and the Israelites were brought under bondage to the Philistines, and Goliath of Gath gloried in his victory over God's people.

The Real David


Now the Philistines gathered together their armies to battle, and King Saul and the men of Israel were set in array against the Philistines.

And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines named Goliath, of Gath.  And he stood and cried unto the armies of Israel -- "I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we might fight together."

When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed, and greatly afraid.
Now David, the son of Jesse, ran into the army, and came and saluted his brethren.  And as he talked with them, behold, there came up the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name.  And all the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him and were sore afraid.

And they said -- "Have ye seen this man that is come up? surely to defy Israel is he come up: and it  shall be, that the man who killeth him, the king will enrich him with great riches, and will give him his daughter and make his father's house free in Israel."

And Eliab, David's eldest brother heard him speaking to the men, and his anger was kindled against David and he said, "Why camest thou down hither?  and with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness?  I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thine heart; for thou art come down that thou mightest see the battle. "

And David knew the pride of his own heart, but also knew not to expect everyone to understand the true motives of his heart and said, "What have I now done?  Is there not a cause?"  And David left the apathetic and fearful brethren and sought the king.

And David said to Saul -- "Let no man's heart fail because of Goliath, thy servant will fight him."
And the King said to David -- "Thou art not able to fight against this Philistine.  You are but a youth."
And David once more addressed the King -- " Thy servant slew both a lion and a bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God.  The LORD that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine."

And Saul armed David with his own armor, and girded David with his sword.  But David said unto Saul -- "I cannot go with these; for I have not proved them."  And David took his own familiar staff and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook and put them in his shepherds bag and took his sling which he had defeated the lion and bear with; for David knew the Lord God would use him and the things God had equipped him with.

And the Philistine came on and drew near unto David, and when he saw David he cursed him and his God.

And David said -- "Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou has defied.  This day will the LORD deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee; and I will give the carcasses of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.  And all the assembly shall know that the LORD saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the LORD's, and he will give you into our hands."

And it came to pass when the Philistine arose and drew night to meet David that David hasted and ran toward the army, in full confidence that the Lord would fight through him.

And David put his hand in his bag and took thence a stone and slang it, and the small stone sunk into his forehead and he fell upon his face to the earth.  So David prevailed in the strength of the Lord over the Philistine with a mere sling and a stone.  And the Philistines fled when they saw their champion was dead.  And the men of Israel and of Judah arose and shouted, and pursued the Philistines and were victorious.  And the assembly was convinced of God's faithfulness and strength and He was given glory.  All because one young man trusted in God and acted on it.



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