CreatorWorship

The United States is not a Christian nation any more than the Northern Kingdom of Israel was a godly nation in the days of Elijah.  King Ahab and his father had made sure of that by not merely carelessness with God’s commands but actually having ”forsaken the commandments of the Lord” (I Kings 18:18).  As it says in Nehemiah 9:26, “they…cast Your law behind their backs.”

          So Elijah comes along to chide Israel, God’s people for turning godless, right?  No, hear what he said: “Elijah came near to all the people and said, ‘How long will you hesitate between two opinions?  If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.  But the people did not answer him a word.” (v.21)  The challenge that Elijah gives these wayward people is actually an idiom, or word picture, in the original language.  As Charles Ryrie conveys it the question should read literally, “How long are you hopping between two forks?”  Picture someone, who is not well endowed with balance high up in a tree, trying not to fall as he jumps between two branches, wanting to discover which is easier to perch upon.  Their choice was between the covenant keeping God, the Creator, Who was the Originator and Sustainer of Israel on the one hand.  On the other hand is Baal, whose name means ‘lord’, an idol who is the fertility god and rainmaker and highly favored in the palace to the risk of life and property if you did not worship him.  So the people ‘play both sides’ or ‘ride the fence’ as we say.  “The people did not answer him a word.”  What can they say?  He has described their procedure.  When you are desperate or needy apply to this God for help; when it’s safe and convenient declare for that one. 

And how is it different in America?  “I believe in God.  I go to church.  I’m a Christian.”  But all too frequently under the surface you will find a humanist, who is one who “upholds human [as opposed to God’s] reason, ethics, and justice, and rejects supernaturalism.”  Based on this stance they are apt to say things like the following. “If it’s an unwanted child wouldn’t everyone be better off if it were aborted?”  “God could have created using evolution.”  “How I dress is my own business.”  “I just couldn’t live with him/her.”  And in numerous other ways we ignore God’s Word for our own preference.  Elijah’s challenge to you, America, is declare for God and live for Him or stop pretending and live for your idol, yourself.  God hates vacillation, for He says, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot.  I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm…I will spit you out of My mouth” (Revelation 3:15-16). 

See where complete departure from God gets you.  Of course, many are refusing to acknowledge God and our society is coming apart at the seams, beginning with the family.  Elijah challenges those people as well:  “Elijah said to the people, “let them [the prophets of Baal] choose one ox for themselves and cut it up, and place it on the wood, but put no fire under it; and I will prepare the other ox and lay it on the wood, and I will not put a fire under it. Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the LORD, and the God who answers by fire, He is God.” And all the people said, ‘That is a good idea.’” (v.22-24)  The prophets of Baal dance and sing, pray and yell and cut themselves all day long, “but there was no voice and no one answered” (v.26).  The path we as a people are taking is failing as fast as the day comes to an end.  We will not succeed apart from God because there is no truth for living life there.  And we will not succeed in wavering between two opinions.

Americans, Burke County residents, “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord” (Acts 3:19).  It is a good way and a way of life and truth.

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A common thought and pronouncement in our culture is, “That’s not fair.”  But we don’t really want fair ultimately because then we would all be in a world of hurt.  And that world is called hell.  What we want is privilege. Privilege is offered to all who will accept it by admitting they have done wrong and trusting the Savior to rescue them from fairness, that is, hell.  Without hell there would be no need for a Savior.

          So why not choose to believe that there is no hell and no Savior?  There are several problems with that decision.  First of all, if there is no hell it is not fair or logical.  If there is no hell then God is not just because everyone who does bad things no matter how heinous gets away with it.  If you execute them they either go to heaven or cease to be.  This lack of belief in hell is one of the reasons I believe there is an ongoing occurrence of mass murders followed by suicides.  If someone kills a dozen people and then kills himself he thinks he has avoided all punishment while expressing his deep anger and controlling his own destiny.  We need to teach people about hell so they will have a vague sense of the torture that awaits those who neglect the Savior for control of their own destiny.  God says, “He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished” (Exodus 34:7) and “The soul that sins will die” (Ezekiel 18:4). 

          So how about having a Savior?  Is that fair?  Is that just?  An evil person does a horrendous crime to another individual or to a whole nation and later believes that “if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).  How can God be just to let this monster off the hook?  He is just because Jesus took the punishment on the cross by being “marred more than any man” (Isaiah 52:14) and by being “sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 6:21).  On the other hand, why should someone who told a “little white lie” be committed to hell?  It is because “whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all” (James 2:10).  So, if you want fairness you cannot eliminate hell and if you want privilege you cannot eliminate the Savior.

          Secondly, you cannot arbitrarily refuse the existence of hell and believe in God because God’s Word says it exists.  Jesus speaks of hell frequently in His great sermon as when He says that anyone who speaks to his brother “’you fool’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell” (Matthew 5:22).  Later in Matthew 10:28 Jesus warns us, “Do not fear those unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”  You may object that you do not believe the Bible or do not accept all parts of it.  Then you are creating your own god.  How do you know this god exists and what is your basis of authority for this belief?  My authority is the Bible.

          Maurice Rawlings, an initially skeptical emergency room doctor, corroborates the evidence for hell in his book, “To Hell and Back”, by chronicling a number of near death experiences of those claiming to have been in hell.  Why do the popular accounts record “warm lights” but never include these horror stories?  Dr. Rawlings notes, “If the interview is delayed just a little bit…only the positive experiences will be found.  The negative experiences have long since been relegated to the painless portions of the memory, the victim apparently unable to coexist with this painful memory.” (p.33)  His most striking story is about a man whose treadmill test was shortened.  Several times he collapsed and was revived by Dr. Rawlings applying CPR.  He says, “I would reach over and start him up again.  But this time he was screaming the words, ‘Don’t stop! I’m in hell! I’m in hell!’  Hallucinations, I thought…But he was saying the opposite: ‘For God’s sake, don’t stop!  Don’t you understand?  Every time you let go I’m back in hell!’  When he asked me to pray for him, I felt downright insulted.  In fact, I told him to shut up…” (p.36-37).  After the patient’s pleading and the nurse’s “expectant look” he makes up a prayer, “Jesus Christ is the Son of God…keep me out of hell, and if I live, I’m on the hook. I’m yours.” (p.37)  Dr. Rawlings reports, “A religious conversion experience took place…He was no longer the wild-eyed, screaming, combative lunatic who had been fighting me for his life.  He was relaxed and calm and cooperative.  It frightened me.”  He confides that besides converting the patient “this miserable prayer of mine had opened the road to my own salvation.” (p.37)

          You can have fair if you like but I prefer the privilege of rescue from hell through my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

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Let me say it up front. I see most movies after they have gone DVD. I hear most news from a biweekly magazine.  I find out how the ball team did after the season.  By the time I try it out it’s gained the adjective “classic”. That way someone can tell me if it’s worth seeing or hearing or doing. So a friend prevailed upon me recently to read The Shack by Wm. Paul Young, saying it was so good and profoundly affected her (couldn’t stop crying or laughing).  I had intended not to read it after several unfavorable reviews.  But she sent it to me and I agreed to read it, so I decided I could evaluate it objectively given the positive and negative input I had received.

          I was struck early in the story with how compelling his tale is, so real and wrenching.  But my first and subsequent contacts with “God” in the story compelled me in a different way.  Mr. Young’s theology is atrocious, in a word, unbiblical. I believe his misrepresentation of the triune Godhead is deepened by the heart rending story and the excellent points he makes about relationship, reconciliation, restoration, and spiritual strongholds. Because he does such a good job of dealing with these ideas many people may be accepting of or overlooking his falsehoods about God. You cannot have a proper or full relationship with a God who does not exist, a figment of Mr. Young’s and perhaps American Christianity’s imagination.

          Consider the following quotes and how they align with Scripture. Papa (the name he uses for Father God) says to Mack, “I don’t need to punish people for sin” (p.120).  Scripture says, “Your sins have made a separation between you and your God” (Isaiah 59:2); “I will by no means clear the guilty” (Exodus 34:7).  Next he follows up by saying, “It is not my purpose to punish sin” (p.120).  It is His purpose for He is “the One forming light and darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these” (Isaiah 45:7).

          Young rejects authority structures as un-needed among Christians and nonexistent within the Godhead: There is “no need for hierarchy” (p.124).  Ephesians 1:10 says, “He purposed in Him [Jesus] with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times.”  Jesus said, “We must work the works of Him who sent me” (John 9:4).  Hebrews 5:8 instructs us that “although He was a Son He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.”  But Young has his Jesus saying, “We are submitted to you in the same way” (p.145), referring to sacrificial love.  But the Bible says, “He has put all things in subjection under His feet” (I Corinthians 15:27).  It is true that doing things for people out of a sense of obligation is not love but that does not negate roles and responsibilities.  As an example Young’s Jesus character says, “Fulfilling roles is the opposite of relationship” (p.148).  “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church” (Ephesians 5:25); “Wives be submissive to your own husbands…so that…they may be won without a word” (I Peter 3:1).  Proper fulfillment of roles is a sacrifice of love pleading for relationship.

          Previously my mind and heart have flown caution flags at the idea of representing God in visual images such as “The Passion of the Christ.” This view was suggested to me by a former elder who pointed out that the second commandment warns against idols or images in the likeness of God.  I had thought little of it at the time and even thought it did not apply since the actor was representing the second person of the Godhead faithfully in the form of a man which He was.  But having read this erroneous account, red flags went up and I began to question all representations of God apart from Scripture, from a crèche to Aslan.  Then Young limits Jesus to human needs (hunger) and mistakes (like dropping a bowl of batter).  Jesus is not so limited in Revelation 19 when “He judges and wages war” (v.11) and “from His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike the nations” (v.15).  And what of a mere human Jesus “when the doors were shut,…Jesus came and stood in their midst (John 20:19).  God is not represented as a Father and therefore a man as Young’s character suggests because “once the Creation was broken, true fathering would be much more lacking than mothering…an emphasis on fathering is necessary because of the enormity of its absence” (p.94).  Rather, it is in His nature because He is “Eternal Father” (Isaiah 9:6).  Jesus “was calling God his own Father” (John 5:18)  and that upset the Jews.  We are only a reflection of that, poor though we be, not the cause of it. Attempts toward gender neutrality destroy pictures God determined for both man and woman.  The woman is the picture of “His bride”, the Church, who “has made herself ready” (Revelation 19:7).  And picturing God the Father as a man or woman in flesh is mistaken for “God is spirit” (John 4:24). 

          So despite Young’s insights into relationship with God and among men the ultimate result I believe will not be closeness to God because people will be disappointed as they find God is not who they thought He was.  It results in a wrong view of ourselves as well so that his Jesus says, “I have no desire to make them Christian, but I do want to join them in their transformation into sons and daughters of my Papa, into my brothers and sisters, into my Beloved” (p.182).  Certainly much referred to as Christian today is not, but it is not something to be ashamed of and retreat from.  Tremendous progress of the Gospel in and from Antioch resulted in “the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch” (Acts 11:26).  Lord, do such a work in me that I am that kind of Christian.  Help us to be “seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence” (II Peter 1:3).  Oh, Lord, give us that “true knowledge of Him” so that we might catch a fuller glimpse of Him and His promises.

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