Arise and Shine

I just finished reading through the book of Isaiah. I was struck with hope as I read of God's promised blessing for His people. Here is a sampling from Isaiah 60:

"Arise, shine, for you light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon. See, darkness covers the earth, and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you.

I will make you the everlasting pride and the joy of all generations. Then you will know that I, the LORD, am your Savior, your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob. Instead of bronze I will bring you gold, and silver in place of iron.

I will make peace you governor and righteousness your ruler.

The sun will no more be your light by day nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you, for the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun will never set again, and your moon will wane no more; the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of sorrow will end."


O Lord, I believe. I believe in the hope you have set before your people; those who trust in you. I am encouraged by your word of promise. I look around and see thick darkness but I know that everlasting joy is the future prospect. Let me never turn away from such hope by following after other gods. For I know there I will only find darkness and gloom.

My heart is saddened by my imperfect faith. Lord, I don't want to lose the fleeting opportunity to share this hope with my children. Forgive my neglegence, for you are good and your light is the true light.

Both Christian and Muslim?

Here in Seattle, there is a certain female Episcopal priest who is the center of controversy. She has recently declared herself to be both a Christian and a Muslim. At noon on Fridays, the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding puts on her head scarf and prays with her Muslim friends. On Sundays, she puts on a white collar and participates in the Episcopal service.

I was reading through various responses to the issue on the internet and I noticed that some of those who shared similar views as Ms. Redding seemed to sincerely wonder how this could not be something that both Muslims and Christians should embrace.

To be fair, I try to understand where holders of this view come from. Perhaps they see conflict in the world that is religiously motivated, and see this as a step toward peace. Or maybe they observe adherents in each religion who exude devotion in their various acts of worship and are attracted to the "best" of each religion. I am convinced that this viewpoint sees the aim of religion as personal. It is more about what works for the individual. And it is inherently agnostic. In other words, it rejects the idea that any religion can be deemed to be true or not in the ultimate, absolute sense. Therefore, religion becomes pragmatic rather than truth.

From the view point of biblical faith, true religion is more than practice. It is worship--worship of God. That means it is not just religious rules and rituals. It is the heart that is pledged to love, honor and revere God. It is a pledge of allegiance and loyalty to Christ to follow him at all costs. It is the desire and drive to please him. Biblical religion is not primarily about us. It's purpose is not primarily to enhance our lives, although it does have that effect. Rather it is about honoring God in truth. God has revealed himself that we might glorify him and enjoy him forever. It's ultimately about Him. That is what our faith teaches.

We, as believers, have been throughly convinced that Jesus' claims are the truth. We claim to have be changed dramatically by the Spirit of God and are committed to Christ in loyalty and trust. To adopt the viewpoint of Rev. Redding would be to break our pledge to Christ, to reject His unique Lordship and disown Him. It would be to deny that He died necessarily to take away our sins. From what the Bible teaches about God, from his viewpoint this would be a paramount sin and the rejection of His truth.

Some in Ms. Reddings camp might read my response and conclude that such a viewpoint as mine are what foster conflict. Conflict only comes when one group tries to oppress the other by acts of coercion. I believe all religions should reside side by side and be allowed to make their case peacefully. In that way, the truth will win out. However, those who reject the truth are often hostile to truth and resort to various means to supress it.

The testimony of Christ as recorded in the Bible is beyond comparison in my view. It is first of all historical. Second it is confirmed many times and in many ways by miracles and supernatural acts of God. Islam did not start supernaturally nor was it confirmed by miracles and it started over 5 centuries after Christ.

The True Way

Deuteronomy 4:
32 Ask now about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created man on the earth; ask from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of? 33 Has any other people heard the voice of God speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived? 34 Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by miraculous signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?

35 You were shown these things so that you might know that the LORD is God; besides him there is no other. 36 From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from out of the fire. 37 Because he loved your forefathers and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength, 38 to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today.

It struck me a I read this passage that the great and marvelous things God did for Moses and the people of Israel were written not just for them but for us as well. Search the religions, sects and faiths of the world. Where do we find a testimony of the truth so vivid as here? The children of Israel were assembled at the base of the mountain when the Ten Commandments were given to Moses by God. They heard the voice of God! The saw the miraculous judgements against their captors. They saw the water turn to blood. They saw the plagues. They saw the Red Sea split in two and walked through the middle. They saw Pharoah's army swallowed up when they tried to cross. And these are for us as well, so that we might know the true God and believe.

Then when Jesus came, he performed miracle after miracle, healing the blind, turning water into wine, curing multitudes of sick, feeding 5000 with a few loafs of bread, walking on water, raising the dead and himself rising from the dead. This is what he said:

John 15:24 If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my Father.

He has done what no one else did. What I hear this saying is that there is no reason to choose any other religion or god. For the Truth has spoken and we are without cause to reject it or refuse to believe it.

John 20:30 Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Do we live in a God-forsaken land?

The other day I was driving down the freeway and heard on the radio a message by John MacArthur spoken on the national day of prayer. It aired on the Focus on the Family radio program and can be heard online at the following links:

A Nation Abandoned by God, Part 1

A Nation Abandoned by God, Part 2

What he spoke of brought silence to his listening audience and myself as well as I listened. His message can be summed up with this one quote:

"I am going say something. You are going to have to hold on to your seat a little bit: I am convinced beyond doubt, that in the same sense, God has abandoned America. I know that is a strong thing to say and I am going to show you why I believe you can see that clearly in Scripture..."

He gave examples in the Bible of God abandoning nations who had forsaken him. But the focus of his talk centered around a passage of Scripture found in the first chapter of the book of Romans. In this passage it speaks of God giving up a people in his wrath. The passage outlines a progression of steps that occur when God has had enough and gives a culture over to their own devices and does not restrain them from evil:

Romans 1:24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.

The first thing that happens when a nation is abandoned by God is a sexual revolution. We saw this begin in the 60's. Today our culture is obsessed with all kinds of sexual sin. There millions and millions of pornographic websites. It is a multi-billion dollar industry. Rape and child abuse are so common that most people have either been victimized or know someone who has. Adultery and other sex outside of marriage is so common that it is looked upon as normal behavior.

Romans 1:25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Secondly, the sign of abandonment is the wholesale rejection of truth. Our culture has abandoned the faith that was originally central to it. Prayer and Scripture were first barred from schools. Today there is litigation going on that seeks to remove God from every area of public life. It is relentless. Lawsuits for saying "Merry Christmas". Lawsuits against student led prayer at graduation. Lawsuits for even using color schemes of red and green in December school events. Instead evolution and other alternate explanations are mandated upon all. In our colleges and universities, the Christian faith is routinely mocked and laughed at by professors. Secular scientists are vehemently intolerant of any scientific theory that posits the existence of the Creator.

Romans 1:26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

Third, the sexual revolution takes on unnatural deviations. The next step in abandonment is that following a sexual revolution is a homosexual revolution. Today the homosexual movement is growing and at very fast rate and the pressure to accept it as normal is immense. The entertainment, news and political media relentlessly promote homosexuality as normal. Our culture embraces and celebrates it.

Romans 1:28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.

The next step is the culture is given over to a depraved mind. MacArthur points out that the word depraved means "non-functioning". The mind of the culture no longer thinks clearly in the moral sense. It no longer functions how God created to. In other words, the cultures' morality is turned upside down and no longer functions reasonably. Not matter how much misery, grief and disease the morality may cause, it goes forward with full force. The list of behavior resulting from this is described:

Romans 1:29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

Sounds like the evening news. The result of abandonment is a decaying morality. Even non-religious people admit that our morality is going the wrong way. A depraved (non-functioning) morality is infested in every part of our culture from the government to corporate America to our campuses and workplaces and worst of all to our families. Crime, violence, hate and deceit are everywhere. Our political system is full of slander, deceit and arrogance. Our television is full of shows on celebrity gossip, violent images, talk shows that celebrate perversion. Our corporations and institutions are fully of corruption and dishonesty. We hear about it daily.

Romans 1:32 Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

And finally, not only is the morality turned upside down, but it is heartedly accepted and promoted in the culture. What is right is deemed as wrong. What is wrong is deemed what is right. This will reach its culmination when the society starts punishing its people for doing right and excusing people for doing wrong. It will result in the persecution of those who hold to the righteous standards and beliefs of the Bible.

I know that with God all things are possible. I know that He can bring about a revival and turn our culture around. But what struck me is the stark claim of America's abondment. It is shocking because the unspoken assumption, even in the Church, is that God's blessing is upon America. This is the first time I have heard is such outspoken terms otherwise and it is making me think.

I leave it up to each one to search this out for themselves in their own hearts. But if God has abandoned this nation, then it will continue down the path it is heading UNTIL we acknowledge that God has abandoned us because of our evil; until we humble ourselves and confess it and call upon God for forgiveness and renewal:

2 Chronicles 7:14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.