The Slow Departure From Christ (July 31, 2005)

"Guard your heart."

I remember that admonition from a message given to a group of us pastors by the president of the Baptist General Conference some years ago. It is from Proverbs 4:23: "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." I don't remember much else of his sermon, except that he was concerned about Christian leaders who fall away, and he urged each of us to be vigilant about our own walk with Christ.

That phrase "guard your heart" came to mind after I tried to answer a missionary friend who asked me why another missionary had apostatized. I wrote, "I have no idea why she turned her back on God - any more than I know why Judas betrayed Christ, or why Hymenaeus and Alexander made shipwreck of their faith (1 Tim 1:19-20), or why Demas "loved this world" (2 Tim 4:10). I just know that it happens. Billy Graham's friend and fellow evangelist Charles Templeton became an atheist. I don't know why."

In the parable of the sower (Luke 8:5-15), Jesus said that some fall because the devil takes the word from their hearts; others because of trial and testing; and others because they care about life's "worries, riches and pleasures." Beyond that, I'm not sure the "why" question has an answer. Why do some succumb to the devil's attack, or break faith under pressure, or fall into temptation? God knows.

In one of his books C. S. Lewis notes that apostates never seem to reach their state of unbelief by careful reasoning and thought, or with decisive, conscious renunciations that are the reverse image of their conversions. Instead, they just gradually drift into their loss of faith. They find that they have rejected it almost by default, having crept away with slow, imperceptible steps that are inevitably joined to acts of disobedience. I think Lewis was right.

For the love of God, beware of those slow, imperceptible steps. Guard your heart. Read the Scriptures, pray daily, and don't even think about skipping church this Sunday. Do good and shun evil, and trust Jesus. I'm afraid my counsel is no more profound than that.

What Is The Biggest Problem? (July 24, 2005)

The Indian tribe that I worked with in Colombia had all kinds of problems, like alcoholism, chemical dependency, child sex abuse, malnutrition, recruitment into left-wing guerrilla causes and fearful reprisals from right-wing death squads. So it was with some surprise that I heard my 20-year-old Arhuaco friend comment on the issue that he thought to be the most urgent one facing his people. It was jealousy!

I thought he was laughably wrong about that, but it was easy to see why he felt that jealousy was the biggest thing his people had to overcome. It was because he regarded himself as a victim of their envy. He had just graduated from high school and wanted to go to college. Other tribesmen thought that further education would make him insufferably proud, and so they opposed his dream. Jealousy, he concluded, was a cancer eating away at the Arhuaco soul, and it had to be defeated so his people could make progress.

Well, his people had other things to worry about too. But I noticed in my friend a tendency that I've seen often in other people and that no doubt exists in me as well: the conviction that whatever concerns me most should most concern you. My problem is the problem and why aren't more people doing something about it?

A couple years ago I attended a Christian conference where a well-known speaker told us that the biggest evil facing America was racism. Really? Racism? I would have picked abortion. I am sure that the speaker, a black man, endured racial profiling every time he hailed a cab or stepped into an elevator with a white woman. That's a
bad break, I know, but when it comes to a hierarchy of moral outrages in America, the simple fact is that we haven't killed tens of millions of blacks lately - we've killed tens of millions of babies. That's worse.

My favorite answer to the question "What is wrong with the world?" comes from G. K. Chesterton, who responded simply, "I am." "I" is the person whose bad behavior I must labor to find most troubling. The biggest problem in the world today is neither Muslim terrorism nor third world debt nor abortion nor racism nor jealousy, but my sin.

The Bible says, "Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others" (Philippians 2:4). Your issue is not the world's biggest issue. Other people have problems too, and they're as urgent or more urgent than yours. Worry about their problems. And when it comes to yourself, the biggest thing
you really have to worry about is your own sin.

Strength In Weakness - Devastating Weakness (July 10, 2005)

Two quotes came to mind as I continue glorifying God for the faithful love of the people of Faith Bible Church. One quote is from Osama bin Laden and the other is from the Apostle Paul.

Bin Laden, gloating over his 9/11 triumph, said to a room of supporters, "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse." This is true. Strength - animal or human, physical or abstract - is seductive. We gather around successful people and admire their power and hope to absorb some of it. The Bin Ladens and Hitlers of the world exploit this love of strength by their sheer brutal aggression. If they are strong and strike hard and win, they know that some people will like them and will follow them, and will only turn away if they become weak.

Christians, though, discipline themselves to be pleased with goodness no matter how weak its condition, and to be repelled by badness no matter how strong its form. Holiness, not power (or any other kind of success), must be that which delights and pleases and excites us - even if that holiness never seems to win any battle or finish first in any contest.

The Apostle Paul never would have been mistaken for one of bin Laden's "strong horses". Like Jesus he "had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him" (Isaiah 53:2). What could be appealing about a prison inmate in chains, dependent on others' charity and unable to control his judicial destiny? Who wants to get close to that? Well, a few saints were willing. In 2 Timothy 1:16 Paul writes, "May the Lord show mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains."

I have a fresh appreciation for those who are not ashamed of a man's “chains.” I know chains - at least metaphorical ones. I feel their weight dragging on me and their links constricting me, and I know how bad they make me look. But on Sunday mornings the iron grip lightens as faithful brothers and sisters in Christ gather with me and worship the Lord.

Thanks be to God for every noble soul who pities a weak horse, who delights to refresh a prisoner in chains. May our good God enrich you all with the rewards of Onesiphorus.

Christ, And Christ Alone (July 3, 2005)

One of my favorite verses is St. Paul's statement to the Corinthians: "For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2). Though I have always loved those words, I admit that one of them used to strike me as odd. Why did Paul say that he resolved to know nothing but Christ - didn't he really mean preach or proclaim or discuss nothing but Christ? He seemed to suggest that while with the Corinthians he governed not only his words but even his thoughts to exclude anything that wasn't about Jesus. Why was that?

Maybe I understand a little better now. Thoughts bleed into words, and out of the heart the mouth speaks. That which occupies the mind will come forth in one's message, and what a man mentally acknowledges or mentally ignores will carve the channels through which his words flow.

There were many things that Paul could have worried about when he first visited the pagan city of Corinth and tried to plant a church there. Would he be able to preach eloquently? He would not think about it. He wrote, "When I came to you brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom" (1 Corinthians 2:1). Would his emotional and physical health hold out? He would not bother about that either. As a matter of fact, he wasn't able to hold himself together too well: "I came to you in weakness and fear and with much trembling" (1 Corinthians 2:3).

But neither fear of failure nor desire for success nor any other concern - substantial or trivial - would budge Paul from his main thought, which was that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief" (1 Timothy 1:15). This was the conviction that he wanted to hold before his mind when all other thoughts conspired to exclude it. It was the thought that had to dictate and circumscribe his message to the Corinthian congregation, a church destined to experience a thousand distractions and a thousand temptations to dishonor the Lord.

Many of you who read this page will know about my own recent sorrows, that I too am "in weakness and fear and with much trembling," that the sun that now rises on my day seems cold and black. I embrace as my own Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 1:8: "We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life."

But I don't despair of eternal life. In my heart I know, if I know nothing else, that Jesus Christ was crucified for sinners, that he rose from the dead, and that - unworthy though I am - there is "laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me at that day - and not to me only, but to all who have loved his appearing" (2 Timothy 4:8).

Pray for me. And, for the sake of the gospel that I preach, pray that like my namesake I will, when clouds gather, know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified.

Should People Have The Power To Shake Your Faith?

(Note: On June 22, 2005, I answered the doorbell and was shocked to be served divorce papers. Neither my wife nor I had ever mentioned the possibility of divorce to the other. Later that day my wife informed me that she was no longer a Christian and that she was going to leave me and divorce me against my will. The next several Pastor's Pages reflect upon the tragedy.)

Should People Have The Power To Shake Your Faith? (June 26, 2005)

I received an email from a friend urging me to say nothing about an apostate former missionary who had embarked on a course of wickedness. In requesting my silence she wrote, "This will be a devastating blow to the faith of many people and will cause them to question themselves and their beliefs."

That may be right. We all have a habit of looking to others and adjusting our behavior in light of their example and our beliefs in light of their doctrine.

I can almost pinpoint the moment when I first began to think about the way that our faith affects other people. I was 15 and meeting with the deacon board of my home church after completing a catechism class with the pastor in preparation for baptism. I was knowledgeable (for my age) about the Bible and earnest in my faith. I had read C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity and Josh McDowell's Evidence That Demands a Verdict, had memorized scores of Bible verses, had gone to church all my life. I had no trouble expressing my faith to the board.

One of the deacons very graciously said that my testimony had strengthened his own faith. It was a humble and kind thing to say to an immature teenager, but I in my foolishness cringed inwardly and thought, "What in the world does your faith have to do with mine? Isn't your faith strong enough on its own? It should be. What I say or don't say, believe or don't believe, should have nothing to do with your personal trust in the Lord or your acknowledgment of the truth." Of course I did not mentally verbalize my feelings with those words at the time, but that is more or less what I felt.

Since then I have seen many times how our example can indeed "strengthen" or "weaken" the faith of others, and I now acknowledge the legitimate power of that influence. If you see a man whom you regard as wise and kind and right and firm and rational and good, then you are inclined to respect his moral philosophy, and maybe even adopt the doctrines that make him what he is. And if you already share his beliefs, then you delight and feel reassured in them.

But a bad example can have the same salutary effect, though by repulsion rather than attraction. You see the evil and say, "Oh no, no - whatever I do I must not become like that." My mother was the daughter of an alcoholic “rare-do-well” who died of cirrhosis; she responded by resolving never to drink at all. Thank God.

Receiving news of a formerly godly person who has turned away from the Lord and gone the way of the world is like getting hit in the face with a baseball bat. It is painful and stunning and awful and nothing else. But a faith-shaker? Why should it be? Just look at the terrible facts and see how cruel, how mean-spirited, how dishonest, how irrational is the one who "having tasted of the heavenly gift" (Hebrews 6:4 ) now spits it out. That example may shake your faith in people's permanency (a faith you were unwise to hold and should have discarded by now), but it should not hurt your faith in God at all. It should do the opposite. It should pound into your soul the eternal urgency of clinging to Jesus, and terrify you lest you take the smallest step away from him.

Evangelism Isn’t A Niceness Contest (June 19, 2005)

I heard a sermon where the pastor talked about a new member who became a Christian after she met some people from the church who were nice to her. Impressed with their kindness (they even helped her move into a new home), she trusted Christ and was baptized. Their kindness won her over.

Which is a great thing. We can be thankful for sincere believers whose faith is manifested in loving deeds that bring people to Christ. It is a biblical principle that sometimes our good works can have this effect. For example, St. Peter tells women who are married to non-Christians to submit to their husbands so that "they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives" (1 Peter 3:1-2).

Even so, we must be careful about leaning on niceness as our main means of evangelism. Other people can be nice too. If niceness determines the playing field for religious conversion, then Mormons, Buddhists, Wiccans and Zoroastrians can compete like champions and may even beat us. If we have sent the message, "Follow our faith because we're so nice," we risk being overtaken by even nicer atheists.

The other day I picked up a Jehovah's Witness publication and noticed how much that cult is now trumpeting niceness. Years ago JW literature emphasized doctrinal distinctions (Jesus is not divine, the Holy Spirit is an impersonal force, Jesus returned to earth invisibly in 1914 to usher in the last generation, etc.) Now they don't say a word about doctrine. Instead they talk about being kind and good and how this behavior leads others into their group. I’m sure it does. But it leaves me wondering, "Does truth even matter to you guys any more? Do you want it to matter to your converts?" I'm happy to debate every JW belief that differs from orthodox Christianity, but their literature suggests that they no longer have the heart for that kind of confrontation.

But confrontations between truth and error are exactly what Christian evangelizers must seek out and press with rigor. A soul's eternal choices must not be allowed to rest on the pleasant but mushy ground of niceness - they must be moved onto the hard, unyielding ground of truth, and the sooner the better. Otherwise it won't be long before those converted through our niceness are asking themselves, "What if it had been a Hindu who had been nice to me - or a Mormon? Would I have adopted their religion instead? Have I been suckered into a lie by a smiling face and a helping hand?"

Niceness is good and very pleasing to God - but it should never be made to bear the weight of a man's faith. Our faith rests on no other ground than truth. Falsehoods remain falsehoods when taught by the sweetest souls on earth, and the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ remains true even when championed by the meanest bastard on the block.

“Affair-Proofing” A Marriage (June 5, 2005)

I visited a church and saw that the pastor is preaching a series of messages on questions submitted by his congregation. On July 17 (Lord willing) he'll preach on "How can I 'affair-proof' my marriage?"

The question seems to assume that a marriage can be "affair-proofed." I deny that it can. If someone were to ask me "Can I affair-proof my marriage?" I would answer no - not any more than you can murder-proof your life. There are two ways you could be directly involved in a murder: (1) you commit it or (2) you are the victim of it. It is very easy to murder-proof your life in the first sense: just don't kill anybody. It is the second part that is tricky. How do you keep other people from killing you? Certainly you can work to make your victimization less likely. Don't tick off violent people, don't loiter by yourself late at night in bad neighborhoods, don't be a cop, don’t be a third world missionary. These measures better your odds, but there is no way to guarantee that someone won't kill you. Jesus, St. Paul, and 10 of the 11 apostles were executed. Of all of them, only St. John really succeeded in "murder-proofing" his life.

It is the same with adulterous affairs. You can certainly control your own behavior: just don't cheat on your spouse. I think we pastors have done our flocks a terrible disservice by suggesting that this is difficult and fraught with hazards and we're wonderful people if we remain faithful. If we do fall, well so did King David and he was forgiven, etc etc. Now wait just a minute. In the Old Testament adulterers were supposed to be stoned to death, and in the New Testament it's even worse! They go to hell. Read 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; Galatians 5:19-21 and Revelation 21:8 concerning the damnation of unrepentant adulterers. It is not heroic to be faithful - it is soul-damning not to be. The truth that we can repent and be forgiven for any sin has been amplified in our day into a shout that drowns out God's commands concerning chastity and faithfulness, and prevents us from hearing that sexual misconduct invites his wrath. Do not commit adultery. Don't. Fear God. If you really want to be immoral, then convert to Buddhism or some permissive religion like that - and take your chances on judgment day that the Bible is wrong and Jesus Christ is not King of kings and Lord of lords.

So half of "affair-proofing" your marriage is under your complete control. It is really a matter of whether or not you love and fear God. But what about the other half? How do you keep your spouse from cheating on you?

Good luck with that. Sorry to be so cynical, but I'm afraid my cynicism is the product of real (though thankfully not personal) experience. I have known several adulterers, and every last one of them was a devious lying self-centered creep, and I am fully convinced that nothing their spouses could have done would have prevented them from wandering. They cheated on wives who were bright, beautiful, kind, godly and submissive; they cheated on husbands who were gentle, godly, loving and responsible. It is a revolting cruelty to say of the victims, Uh oh - I guess they didn't affair-proof their marriages! Please. The victims of adultery have suffered enough. Do not add to their burden.

Here is what you can do. Love God, obey his commands, do what is right concerning your spouse. Husbands, love your wives; wives, submit to your husbands. (Colossians 3:18-19). Maybe your goodness will influence them and you will rejoice; maybe it won't and you will grieve. But don't buy the lie that you can "affair-proof" your marriage. You can only "affair-proof" a person, and the only person you can do that to is yourself.