The Fundamental Blog

“Test everything. Hold on to the good.” 1Thessalonians 5:21. If ever there was a time to test, this is it! I call for urgent prayer that the Lord may yet open the ears of the pastor in Florida who is intent on burning copies of the Quran as a tribute to the memory of the September 11th atrocities committed by those who claim the dictates of radical Islam as justification for the murder of thousands of civilians. You know that I’ve had a go at the Roman Catholic church and before too long I’m liable to go off on the Mormons and I could certainly make a compelling case against the teachings of Islam but that is not what I want to discuss. I want to suggest that we need to examine ourselves!

I claim to be a fundamental Christian, that is, one who believes in a fundamental interpretation of the Bible. Now the fundamental believer is likely to catch some flack because the soft and fuzzy crowd of arena Christians think that a fundamental view is too harsh and antiquated to be of any use in today’s post-modern society. I contend that there is nothing wrong with a fundamental viewpoint as long as that, which one is being fundamental about, is the truth. This is not to say there aren’t times when the Bible needs to be correctly understood as figurative or that every parable is supposed to be received as though the subjects were all literal people, but there does need to be some testing in the interpretations being passed around today.

Was Job a real person? I can’t say for sure, though I have no reason to conclude that he was absolutely not a real person, this is simply mincing. But when we have clear instructive doctrine and the pastorate is fleeing from it to satisfy themselves, we need to draw a line. To take an action, or merely suggest an action, that violates the teaching of scripture is something that should never come from the lips of the lay-Christian, much less the leader of a congregation. But we now see a leader of a small Florida church, (50 or so), getting ready to commit an act which will only serve to anger an entire faith for no good reason.

The logic is that since the radical Muslim has no qualms about burning our American flag, or even our Bible, there is no reason that we should restrain from doing unto them the same as they do unto us. This is the height of absurdity! Because we can not endure the actions that an enemy undertakes, are we are now going to use the same tactics against them and then justify it by saying, “Well, they did it first?” We are ambassadors of the Lord Jesus Christ and though we may face enemies, we are to respond differently than other people.

This supposed Christian pastor in Florida is not Christian if we can know him by his fruit. Where is his doctrine? Jesus said, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” Luke 6:46. And what He says is that we are to love our enemies and pray for them and do good to them. This can be found in Matthew 5:44, Luke 6:27 and other places as well. By example, Jesus did not antagonize those who were against Him but offered forgiveness to them. But is Islam our enemy? This ought to be the first question we decide before we even begin to consider how we should respond to those who follow Muhammad.

The Bible tells us that if a thing is not of God then it is of the Devil; and if it is of the Devil, then it would have to be considered an enemy of Christianity. All religions do NOT teach the same thing so if there is a difference then it must be decided which is true and which is false. Even simple logic will show that Islam is wrong, here’s how I got there… Christianity shows Jesus Christ to be the Son of God, God incarnate, but Islam says that God, (Allah), has no children and that Christ is no more than a prophet. Still, Islam esteems all the prophets of God equally. So if Islam says Christ is a liar because God has no children then Muhammad, (an equally esteemed prophet), is also a liar. Islam defeats Islam! So now, since Christ is God and Islam is counter to this biblical truth, the only conclusion is that Islam must be of the Devil and therefore an enemy of Christianity.

Now that we have reached that conclusion, all that remains is to see how we are to deal with our enemies. We are definitely not supposed to incite the enemy to violence. This is counter-productive on so many different levels. First, it has the potential of increasing hostilities between the faiths, it also makes it much harder to approach them with the truth and it certainly does not glorify God. We are absolutely not called to sink to their level and use their own tactics against them. When that happens, what makes the Christian any different than them? Who is going to be likely to seek Christ when we have posers in public sticking out their tongues saying, “I know you are, but what am I?” Are we a bunch of 6 year olds on the playground?

Christians, it disgusts me to see this type of behavior cloaked in the robes of Christianity. It should be obvious to anyone who is a true believer that this is only a sham gathering of pseudo-Christians acting out in a destructive manner because the evil sides of themselves feel good knowing that they are stirring up trouble for no good reason. But to the worldlings, this is going to look like what Christianity is all about. They don’t know any better and if this does anything, it is sure to drive people away from the church in droves! We are supposed to be loving the lost into the church, not hating them away and this message needs to be ringing out from every pulpit throughout Christendom.

I am not saying that we should bargain away the truth of our faith, never! But neither can I condone the ravings of a lunatic who defies the Word of God for the supposed sake of promoting God. This is not about doing something extreme and claiming that God is in it, as Christians, real genuine Christians, we must remember that it is not about having God on our side, its about us being on God’s side and that can not happen if Scripture is being defended by violating Scripture.

“Father, I pray that by the power of Your Holy Spirit, truth and sensible action may yet prevail in that small Florida church. I ask that you might convict those involved that there is a better way and that the ways which may seem right to them are foolishness bound to bring more problems than they solve. That what they hope to be a statement of righteous indignation will only be seen for what it is; a dangerous, feeble attempt at self glorification. Lord, we know that though this may be the natural inclination of the hearts of men, guide them in the ways which are right and glorifying to You. Help them to see that the ways of man are not Your ways and that the thoughts they entertain are far from Your thoughts. By the authority of Your Son Jesus Christ, Amen.”

I hope you will join me in that simple prayer. Perhaps we might pass the test, perhaps the prayers of sincere hearts might yet do enough to result in a thing which is…


All for the Glory of Christ

“If anything is a mystery to you and is coming between you and God, never look for the explanation in your intellect, look for it in your disposition, it is that which is wrong.” (Oswald Chambers). The thought here is that God would love for there to be nothing in the way of perfect communion with us so whenever there is something in the way, it must be because of something in us, in our disposition, in the way we see things. This is also the case with a lot of the problems that non-believers have hearing and accepting the truth of God, their disposition gets in the way, their intellect has no explanation and they simply can not believe what makes no sense to them. When I am in discussions with non-believers, and even with believers who are struggling with difficult doctrines, the questions, comments and assaults generally form themselves around the same pattern; IF - THEN WHY?

IF God wants us all to be with Him in Heaven, THEN WHY doesn’t He just make it happen? IF God is a loving God, THEN WHY would He order the genocide of an entire people? IF God cares about us, THEN WHY would He kill children? IF God is perfect, THEN WHY do we have disease? IF blah, blah, blah, THEN WHY Yackity Smackity? In our study of the Bible we need to change the structure of the questions we ask to really appreciate what God is revealing to us. If the question starts with, “IF,” then we are already going the wrong direction. If the question has the word, “WHY,” in it then it will almost assuredly be an exercise in futility. God rarely ever answers the, “WHY,” questions and even were he to do it, we would never understand the answers. “’For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your, ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’” Isaiah 55:8-9.

So let’s dispense with the wanting to know, “WHY,” all the time and accept that though He does occasionally give a reason, the Word of God is to be accepted like the answer from your mother when you were two years old and asked, “WHY?” “Because!” That’s your answer, OK? This becomes much easier to accept if we work on changing the word, “IF,” to, “SINCE?” Whenever we ask, “IF…,” we are phrasing things in a manner that says we doubt what God is saying. If we use, “SINCE,” instead, we are accepting what we have been given as truth, even though we don’t necessarily understand the implications surrounding the issue at hand.

“If God is holy and unchanging then why was it OK for incest in the earlier parts of Genesis but not after the law was given through Moses?” This questions the holiness of God, “Is He really?” and also fires an accusation at the nature of God; “It was OK then but not now huh? I thought God couldn’t change! If the Bible can’t contradict itself then why does it?” When we change the, “If’s,” to, “Since’s,” then instead of accusing God of being a liar, we are indicting ourselves for being unknowing. This is were I come up with, “It’s OK to be stupid!” I have no problem accepting that God is smarter than we are and that there will always be questions to which we will never get an answer. I’m OK with that and I laughingly refer to those questions as being on the list I want answered when I get to Heaven. I’m sure that when I get there I won’t care about the answers anyway, but why, if they won’t matter when we enter eternity, should we be so hung up on them here?

Christianity will continue to be a bag of never-ending questions as long as we demand to understand everything. We need to begin with the realization that we, with our finite little brains, will never be able to fully comprehend the infinite! We are human and that’s the way humans are, we have to deal with it. But once we are able to say, “I don’t care what this book tells me, and even though I may not understand the how’s and why’s to everything it says, I WILL believe that it is the truth because Jesus Christ tells me it is true and the Spirit convicts me to believe it is the truth of God.”, then the light will begin to shine. Will it clear up all of our questions? Absolutely not! What it will do though is show us where we are limited. The Holy Spirit will lead us into the truth of God in Christ Jesus and that has to be enough, because that’s all we get.

The Spirit knows what, and how much we are able to receive and He will give us that much. To give us more than we are able to hold would be like pouring 12 ounces of water into a 10 ounce glass, part would be wasted and it would make a mess in the process. Do I understand the prophesies in Isaiah, with the wheels and the eyes and the wings and the ups and downs and all that? NO! I accept that I must not need it right now though or else the Spirit would have opened my eyes to it. This is exactly the reason we need to stay in the word though; what is not revealed with the first read may come in the next, or the 12th, or the 100th read. What we must understand is that the truthfulness of God’s Word does not depend on whether or not we understand or believe it. If the fact that children are going to bed hungry is something that we do not believe, it doesn’t make it any less true because of our disbelief. And because we don’t understand how God was able to part the Red Sea so that Israel could escape from Pharaoh doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen.

“IF,” is a word that will keep us bound to an explanation when there is no explanation to be had, and it will hinder our progression toward a deeper faith. Faith is all about believing; “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1 Faith is not a blind leap though, nor is it one without a net. Faith is reasonable when we begin to exercise it, faith grows faith and the faith that is as small as a mustard seed can become the largest thing in our lives if we will allow it to grow. Whenever we don’t, “Get It,” we have to make ourselves understand that either we are not ready to receive it, we don’t need to know just yet, or it’s a shortcoming on our part, we’re not applying ourselves to the task. Our failure to understand is never because God made a mistake. That’s one thing He can not do!

“SINCE,” is the new, “IF,” Christian. So if you’re ready to get serious… I mean, SINCE this is the most important thing in our lives, it’s time to stop doubting God and simply accept that there are plenty of good reasons to believe that the Bible is truth. If we are the ambassadors of our Lord here on earth… wait… SINCE we have received the command to spread the Gospel and SINCE we are the property of Jesus, bought at a price and not our own, then it’s time to quit fooling around with arguments against God and get in step with the Creator of the universe. It is not a matter of, “If God will judge the world.” It’s, “SINCE.” It’s not, “If Jesus is the only way,” it’s, “SINCE.” It is not whether our actions and testimony matter, it’s SINCE we live…


All for the Glory of Christ