My Family Tree

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! 
        What a rich season it is. The chill in the air this month has often made me want to complain, but every time I take a dive out into the frigid air, I'm reminded of how much God wants to wake His people up. I want to continue this journey of sharing what I'm learning with you. I cannot tell you how beneficial my time in studying God's Word has been this year. I could tell you story upon story, so please, if you want to know more or have any questions at all, let me know!

        This week we had the privilege of hearing from my favorite teachers, Chad Hampsch, about the incredibly rich and complicated 2,000 years of church history that have come since the writing of the Bible was completed. Rather than list information about epochs of time, I'd rather talk about some themes I saw in our history and how God has worked through all of it. But why study church history? Why not just know the Bible and be done with it? I see several reasons for devoting one's time to studying those who have gone before us in faith. 

• First, we need to know our family tree. 

• Just as most people know what kind of biological heritage they came from, so the Christian must be aware of the heritage they have in faith in the family of Christ. The Bible says that our family in Christ is of a higher priority than our earthly family and it is also eternal. This is not to say that God doesn't place us where we are in time in the family we are in for a distinct purpose, but it is to say that Christ is the priority over any human relationship or commitment. 
• If we know where we have come from, we can see how God has been working over thousands of years to bring a sinful and broken people back to the knowledge of Him.
• The Bible wasn't even translated into the common language of the people until about 500 years ago. We have to recognize the immense privilege it is to have the entire completed word of God in our own language and give honor to those who gave their entire lives, even unto death, to make this possible. 
• Second, we need to understand why the world is the way it is.

• If we can put our finger on the pulse of Church history, we can put our finger on the history of the world. The institutions of the Western world are deeply rooted in Christian tradition. Not only this, the problems in the Western world are problems that began due to frustration with the church and a departure from absolute truth- that is, the gospel of Jesus Christ. I could overwhelm you with example upon example of how we have seen error in the Church turn into a tidal wave of hurt in society. This rippling effect of the breakdown of truth and compromise upon and adding to the gospel of Jesus Christ has created a culture in which absolute truth is rejected absolutely. Spirituality is praised, relativism glorified and religion rejected as archaic and nonsensical. Yet the inherent logical error is this- postmodernism says "My truth is my truth. Your truth is your truth. There are many ways to understanding." But if everything is true, then nothing is. The essence of truth is that it stands no matter who speaks it. Jesus Christ is the only way to understanding and the only way to truth. We have 2,000 years of millions of men and women who have died for a faith that glorifies man not at all and places each of us under the loving sovereignty of the God who loves us. What an honor to die in such service. 

• Our teacher, Chad, said, "Man couldn't write the Bible if he tried, and he wouldn't if he could." There is no way that people would invent a religion that asks you to take up your cross (instrument of torture), abandon selfishness, love others, reject the comfort and the sin of your life and place total trust in God. It rides against everything our flesh has to say, everything that is natural and common to people. Christians must be able to defend from historical evidence and the attestation of thousands of accurate Bible manuscripts that our faith has both meat and veracity! 

Here are just a few of the many ways I see that God has worked in Church history:

• Where persecution abounds, the church only grows. We see this in the book of Acts when the Jewish authorities are befuddled at the fact that killing Jesus Christ did not kill His message. In fact, thousands of converts were added to the kingdom of God in just a few short years. His message spread across the world, and touched peoples and continents that were absolutely pagan and should never have come to a knowledge of God. 
• We see this later in the time of the Reformation, where a hunger for the truth of God's word motivated Martin Luther to decry the Catholic tradition that men need mediators other than Christ. The works that Luther published, commentaries on Scripture were read by common men and women across Europe, and the message of the gospel exploded and created the Evangelical faith as we know it. 
• We see John Wycliffe, committed to the printing of Bible's in every person's language, who was killed for his faith, and yet today, the Wycliffe Bible Translators have helped to accomplish the translation of scriptures into 1,300 languages. 
• With the dawn of the Age of Reason, philosophers and thinkers such as Voltaire predicted that Christianity would die within the next hundred years. (Today, the French Bible Society prints and distributes every Bible in France from Voltaire's home. Talk about God's sense of humor!) 
• In countries where Christianity has long been declared illegal, the church only grows. There are an estimated 200 million believers in China. It is said that the Communist government will have to declare Christianity to be legal in the next ten years, lest it take over the nation. 

• God is serious about his plan to use the church as a the redemptive organization for the world. We need to be serious about getting behind what the church is doing. The only true change that can occur in people's lives is from the inner change the gospel brings- when we try to legislate morality, it doesn't matter because nothing truly changes. If church is a place where you sit for an hour each Sunday and listen to a man talk and listen to some other men sing and hear a list of do's and don'ts to make your life better- then we're attending a speaking function ora social club. If the church can reject this idea of moralistic therapeutic deism- the idea that God exists to give you a list of to-do's and to make you feel better- the gospel will explode on earth. Our brother, John Wycliffe said it well, 

“The gospel alone is sufficient to rule the lives of Christians everywhere...any additional rules made to govern men's conduct added nothing to the perfection already found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ” -John Wycliffe

        God doesn't need us to accomplish His purposes. He chooses to use us. He chooses to give us personal ownership in the process of making His kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. He chooses to give us the great task of making Him known as we learn to know Him. Don't run away from the Church, friends. Be a part of a local body that preaches the Word accurately. Be a part of a community where truth is declared and accountability to the Word of God is paramount. Be a part of the change we will see in people's lives and hearts when the love of God overtakes him. The battle for unity in the community of Christ is one of the greatest challenges of our time. But it's so worth it. He is coming back to judge and to rescue, let's declare His coming. 

"And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come."

Matthew 24:14

In Wrath, Remember Mercy

“The Bible contains the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners, and the happiness of believers. Its doctrines are holy, its precepts are binding, its histories are true, and its decisions are immutable. Read it to be wise, believe it to be safe and practice it to be holy. It contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you. It is the traveler’s map, the pilgrim’s staff, the pilot’s compass, the soldier’s sword, and the Christian’s charter. Here Paradise is restored, Heaven opened, and the gates of hell disclosed. Christ is its grand subject, our good the design, and the glory of God its end. It should fill the memory, rule the heart, and guide the feet. “Read it slowly, frequently, and prayerfully. It is a mine of wealth, a paradise of glory, and a river of pleasure. It is given to you in life, will be opened at the judgment, and be remembered forever. It involves the highest responsibility, will reward the greatest labor, and will condemn all who trifle with its sacred contexts.” --Gideons International pocket Bible

If you're like me, you've spent a great deal of your life reading the Bible and skipping through a certain section in the middle, known as the prophets. It wasn't until college that I really began to understand that God intended each part of His word to be relevant and resonant with His people across the centuries. The 17 men of God, called prophets, who cried out to the unrepentant Israel and Judah before the time came for them to be destroyed by conquering empires wrote words that are relevant to the church today. Why? Because the issue of man's sin and total depravity before God has never changed. Because God has never stopped pursuing His people and asking them to repent and turn back to Him. Because there are many words they spoke that have yet to be fulfilled.

Two weeks ago in class, we had the great privilege of hearing from Blake Holmes, a member of Watermark Church's staff, about the prophets of the Old Testament. This was definitely my favorite class topic so far because it's the one I've known least about. Blake gave us some great principles for interpreting the prophets, which I'll share at the end, and then went through an overview of each of the 17 prophets- who they wrote to, when they wrote, their main message, and where we see their prophecy quoted or fulfilled in the New Testament. It was nothing short of fascinating. My favorite part was that each time we finished a prophet, we paused to discuss how we would apply the message of the prophet to our situation today. For instance, Hosea is about God's unrelenting love for the nation of Israel despite their unfaithfulness, which is similar to that of a prostitute, or an unfaithful wife. So the question he asked was, who does this book minister to today? It ministers to anyone who feels they've messed up or gone so far away that they cannot be redeemed by God, like they're the exception to God's grace. We, like the people of Israel, all have 'prodigal' situations, where we're far from God, he pursues us, and we're redeemed and forgiven by him.

We see the purpose of the prophets in 2 Chronicles 2:18-19 “And they abandoned the house of the Lord, the God of their fathers, and served the Asherim and the idols. And wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this guilt of theirs.Yet he sent prophets among them to bring them back to the Lord. These testified against them, but they would not pay attention.” So the prophets were not just men of fire and brimstone, telling everyone they were condemned to hell- they were meant to bring people back to the Lord. The ministry of God's prophets was a frustrating one. We see very few examples of the people repenting, even when the Lord's word is made so clear to them? Why? They had abandoned God to worship other things and were consumed with sinful pride. I think their situation is very reflective of ours today. And though Christians in the West may not have an empire coming to conquer them (depending on which latest conspiracy theorist you ask), there is One who will come to judge the living and the dead and He will destroy evil once and for all. That includes the destruction of those who do not follow Him.

We have the privilege of having the whole word of God, the full counsel of His will revealed to us in a way that the prophets never did. Will we respond to God calling out to us, or will we cast out the prophets as an irrelevant part of God's word? We see across the prophetical books that in God's wrath He always remembers mercy. This is a hugely important thing about the character of God- His wrath and judgment are sure, but the moment we cry out to Him, He saves, and that salvation is irrevocable.