Self-Deception Made Easy

Posted on March 11, 2012 by JohnJ


“Why then did you not obey the voice of the LORD, but rushed upon the spoil and did what was evil in the sight of the LORD?” Then Saul said to Samuel, “I did obey the voice of the LORD, and went on the mission on which the LORD sent me, and have brought back Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. “But the people took some of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the choicest of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the LORD your God at Gilgal.” Samuel said, “Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices As in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, And insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He has also rejected you from being king.”
1 Samuel 15:19-23

Saul started out so promising. Samuel told him about God’s plan for his life and the Lord even changed his heart and Saul, filled with the Spirit prophesied. (1Sam. 10:11) He would even prophesy again later on. (1 Sam. 11:6) It seemed sure that Saul would rise to fame as a mighty instrument of God and sit on the throne of Israel and usher in a great period of glory. Alas, things got out of hand very quickly. That has to surprise us. But I’m sure we all have had our own share of surprising turns of events leaving us wondering just how it could have happened.

All I can surmise is that even though Saul started out on God’s path he would meet events that put pressures on him he was not able to deal with. First of all the Philistines were a gathering storm headed his way, and Samuel had told him to wait for his arrival before proceeding. The time came, Saul waited as long as he could stand the pressure and then proceeded with a sacrifice on his own in direct disobedience to his instructions. (1 Sam. 13:8-13) And as happens so often when we give up hope, immediately Samuel arrived! If only Saul had waited probably a few more minutes. But he allowed himself to rely on his own powers of thought and deduction and discernment. And, naturally, failed miserably. He rationalized that he must disobey God’s instructions, because for some reason God was going to let him down, that Samuel was not going to keep his promise and meet him after seven days. So, reasoned Saul, if Samuel isn’t going to keep his word, then it is satisfactory for me to do what I feel I must.

We humans have a great capacity for self-deception. All of us. You, me, everybody. It is our responsibility as children of God, those of us born again by His Spirit, to trust in what He says, in what He has promised, as we read His Word and, filled by His Spirit, are guided by His grace. Quite naturally – emphasis on the “natural,” rather than the supernatural. Just as a friend of mine, Anne, once told me when she shared with her sister that she was anxious about a date she was about on which she was about to embark, her sister told her, “just do what comes naturally.” And overhearing that her father, very wisely countered, “you better not do what comes naturally, you better do what comes supernaturally.” We are prone to try to figure out by ourselves what we should do and think, what makes sense to us. It is incredibly tempting to rely on our own logic, rather than to surrender to His Spirit and discernment. That is how heresies begin, how strife occurs, how hatred is fostered, how sin flourishes. Even within the Church.

Let us not be deceived. Jesus promised to give us the Spirit as a Helper. (Acts 1:8) “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” He promises to guide us into all truth. (1 John 4:6) If we only have eyes to see and ears to hear we can surely without too much difficulty steer clear of the errors that run rampant in society, and sadly, even in the Church. Just read with what corrections Paul and John and other New Testament writers had to admonish the early gathering of Believers. That was because it is too easy for us to think for ourselves and not contemplatively rely on the Spirit of Truth to show us the light.

Saul’s own spiritual swings mimic the cycles of Israel during the Judges, the apostasy from God, then rescue by God. Saul loves David, then he hates David; he tries to kill David, then comes to his senses and realizes David is not his enemy. Back and forth, back and forth. Such is the vacillation of one not truly committed to following the Lord. Then you lose the path and the signposts set to keep you on the path. Like Saul, who, on his last night on earth, disobeyed his own statute outlawing fortunetellers under penalty of death, and visited one because he couldn’t get any reply form God Himself! Saul not only ignored the signposts but assisted in knocking them down himself!

When one abandons the knowledge of God’s truth and comes to believe that his own logic and reason is a better and more accurate guide to the things of life and the spirit than one quite naturally (again that word!) loses his way. (Romans 1:18-32) And when you lose your way you can’t tell the difference between what is right or wrong. What is sin and what is blessing. And you soon come to call sin a blessing, you call wrong right. And you really believe that the sin you are doing is the blessing God wants for you. And that is perverting God’s truth. Yes, it is very easy to do, it is quite natural. By we are called to do what is supernatural. Only then do we have the certainty of seeing the path in the proper light. But that takes a supernatural surrender to His lead, His Spirit. It takes living in the heart of God. (Ez. 36:26)

[Scriptures taken from the New American Standard Bible © 1995]

Posted in Deception | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Conversations from the Garden

Posted on March 10, 2012 by JohnJ

With apologies to Moses.

This is an expansion of a reply I wrote to a comment made by SeekerofTruth at Christian Post, Blogs, Disciple of Thecla, What Happened to Leviticus 18:20? in which he claims: “I disagree that homosexuality is a sin. If you look at it logically, it just doesn’t make sense–all harmful actions (sin) have really good reasons for why you shouldn’t do them. There is no good reason why being in a homosexual relationship, if you are gay, is harmful to either the individual or society. God does not make arbitrary rules–rules with no reason behind them. If there is no good reason behind a prohibition against homosexual romantic relationships, then the rule is arbitrary. It just doesn’t make sense.”

Scene 1 – In the Garden
Eve: (standing with Adam in front of a fruit tree) “It just doesn’t seem logical. I know God said not to eat the fruit, but, like the serpent says, it looks good, could make us wise, logically we should be able to make our own decision and eat what we want. How could such a little thing impact our lives or that of a future society?”
Adam: “I tend to agree with you. God doesn’t make arbitrary rules. We would be able to tell if there was some type of logic behind God’s telling us not to eat this fruit, and I just don’t see any. The way I see it, that command just doesn’t make sense! So, since we both concur that this command really doesn’t apply to us because it doesn’t make any sense, Let’s eat!”

Scene 2: – Later in the Garden
Adam: Hmm, Eve, do things seem a little out of focus or something after that bite we took?
Eve: Yeah, now that you mention it there seems to be a slight blur everywhere I look, barely perceptible, but now that you mention it!
God: Hey guys, what’s with the leaves?
Adam: Oh, well, I just got a sudden fashion urge.
God: Don’t lie to me, what have you done?
Adam: It wasn’t me, Eve did it!
Eve: It wasn’t me, your creature, what’s his name, made me do it!
God: Didn’t I tell you to stay away from that tree?
Adam: Well, we both thought about it and, you know, it didn’t seem reasonable. I mean, you gave us everything else in the garden that exists, it seemed a little weird and illogical that this one teentsy-weentsy thing would be verboten! We didn’t see how that made any sense!
God: Oh, it didn’t make any sense – TO YOU! So am I suppose to answer to you guys now? I didn’t much mind you giving some strange names to the animals, but you really have done it now!
Eve: Well, it seemed reasonable to us at the time! We thought what harm could it do?
God: Reasonable, eh? So you were the designer of everything that exist and the architect and the builder, right? So you have all the wealth of knowledge and the history to discern what makes sense and what doesn’t? How’s that working out for you now?
Adam and Eve: (sheepishly and in unison) It seemed pretty harmless at the time!

Scene 3 – Outside the Garden
Cain: (standing next to a field with Abel) Man! This sun is so hot! I feel like I’m swimming in the ocean!
Abel: What’s an ocean? Hey, look at those crops of yours, so shrively! That’s pretty funny.
Cain: Shut up, I don’t laugh at those puny little animals of yours, do I?
Adam: (walking up) Hey, what’s happening?
Cain: Not much. This life stinks, I can’t believe this has to be so hard!
Adam: (remembering, almost to himself, looking aside) It wasn’t always like this . . . Oops!
Abel: What do you mean, “wasn’t always”?
Eve: (coming late into the conversation): Adam! We agreed not to mention those days! What are you thinking!
Cain: Come on, what are you talking about! Do you mean there was a time when things were less tough?
Adam: Well, I suppose we better tell them.
Abel: Tell us what?
Adam: (After a few minutes of Adam describing the events of the not too distant past) We’re really sorry about all that!
Cain: Aaugh! You mean you had EVERYTHING, except some stupid piece of fruit, and you just thought “what could be the harm”? Didn’t God give you a BRAIN!!!! Did you sleep-in the day those were handed out?
Eve: (embarrassed): How were we supposed to know what would happen?
Abel: Typical, only thinking of yourself.
Adam: Well, you do know there were just the two of us there.
Abel: What about God? Did you forget about Him. Obviously you did.

Later, back in the hut:
Eve: What happened out there – we agreed never to mention those days!
Adam: I don’t know, it just kind of came out – I couldn’t very well put the gene back in the bottle, could I?
Eve: I’d like to put you back in the bottle! You just never listen to me!
Adam: Well there was that one time I did listen to you . . . .
Eve: That’s right, you’ll never let it go will you. You’ll never let me hear the end of it will you? Keep rubbing it in my face!
Adam: I have this strange feeling that it will be a dominant memory in our genealogy.

Posted in Stories | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Conversations from the Garden

Torrey, What the Bible Teaches, Chapter 2

Posted on March 8, 2012 by JohnJ

Chapter 2. THE UNITY OF GOD
I. GOD’S UNITY, II. THE NATURE OF THE DIVINE UNITY

[See previous discussions at the Torrey Book Review link in the Menu bar above.]

After discussing God as Spirit Torrey excavates probably the deepest facet in the diamond of theology: the unity of God. There are plenty of Scriptures to show that there is only one God, there is only one entity worthy of the name GOD. Particularly the Deuteronomy verse used universally by Jews to this day: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord.” (Deut. 6:4) Even Jesus’ own words validate this. (Mark 12:2). Torrey correlates this Divine unity to the unity such as a man and wife becoming one, or Jew and Gentile being one in the Church, even pre-Tower of Babel peoples being one people group, but these seem a tad forced when applied to the person of God. Mentioning of the unity of God implies some concept of Godhead, and the topic of the Trinity is inescapably involved.

On the face of it it seems superfluous to discuss the unity of God. Most people, at least those who don’t worship trees or the sun and stars, understand the concept of one Supreme being, “one” being the operative word. Obviously there is only one God from Whom all things proceed. Of course, soon after Creation and the Fall, man’s divorce from his Maker left him without constraint, enabling him to believe anything he desired or could fabricate, worshiping a host of inanimate objects indiscriminately and with abandon.

But talking about God’s unity seems like discussing the unity of yourself. How many of you are there? Well, just one I hope! Although my personal favorite analogy of the concept of the Triune Godhead does use the principle of personhood: you are a physical body, you are a spiritual being, you have a mind and intelligence; three distinct entities make up your one being. But you are still one person. You have a body, a personality and intellect, and a spirit or soul. Of course, all human analogies ultimately fail when pressed too firmly, and Torrey acknowledges that “A perfectly satisfactory answer to this question is manifestly impossible from the very nature of the case.” Sounds like a cop out but it is recognizing man’s finite limitations; Torrey writes, “God is infinite and we are finite. He ‘dwells in the light no man can approach unto.'” Kind of like expecting ants to understand humans. Well, maybe not.

But with the ministry of Jesus and statements He made about who He is and His relationship with the Father, and of the Helper who was to come after, there became a need right from the birth of the Church to understand exactly what all His these things meant. The Trinity was not an obvious theological concept in Old Testament studies so it became a big surprise after the Resurrection, a Biblical Easter Egg one might say. And the early Church was to find out that there were many ways to interpret these mysterious sayings of Jesus, as well as statements of the Apostles, particularly in the writings of Paul. Divisions and factions would challenge the early Church, heresies would run rampant, and it would take 300 years and the Council of Nicaea 1 to define an orthodox response to the questions, “who is God, who is Jesus, who is the Holy Spirit?” Torrey tries to summaries the issue of the Godhead in a scant three pages. But the subject is too vast for such a limited treatment. He barely scratches the surface, but this is a summary work after all. The doctrine of the Trinity is probably the largest theological concept to arise since the closing of the Old Testament canon (along with Atonement and the Resurrection). It is still a hot topic today. The Mormons don’t believe in it, Gnostics either, Jehovah’s Witnesses do not, neither Oneness Pentecostals. (I would mention Unitarians, but you can’t even call them a Christian sect!) The beliefs and heresy of 3rd century Arius (ca. AD 250–336) are very much alive today in these organizations.

But comprehending exactly who is Jesus Christ becomes the focal point of salvation history. Can you be a Christian, can you be born again, and not believe that Jesus is the visible representation of the invisible God? “And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.” (Heb. 1:3) That is the centuries old question, which underlies Torrey’s need to include this section in his book. There are reams and volumes opposing this single proposition since at least the second century. The Apostle John gives little doubt for anyone who genuinely has been born of God in the Spirit, and so Torrey includes this amazing declaration from the first line of John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” It seems clear to me that anyone who has been “born of the Spirit,” in John’s terms (John 3:5,6,8), would permit the Spirit to enlighten him in this truth, since “God is not a God of confusion.” (1Cor. 14:33) The identity of Christ was so important a point that all three Synoptic Gospels paint the scene of Jesus quizzing His own disciples, “who do you say that I am?” (Matt.16:15) Can one be a Christian and not believe that Jesus was God? I’d ultimately have to defer to the providence of our Lord on that judgement, but it is very hard to understand how a Believer could be so inclined considering what seems indisputable evidence: that it is indeed Jesus who is, was, and will be. After all, He did tell the Pharisees, “before Abraham was born, I AM.” (John 8:58) What else could that possibly mean?

1 Particularly enjoyable is reading Schaff’s description of the Counsel of Nicaea, in his History of the Christian Church, Volume 3, Nicene and Post-Nicene Christianity, A.D. 311-590, section 120.

Posted in What the Bible Teaches | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Grumbling about Wages

Posted on March 7, 2012 by JohnJ


“So the last shall be first, and the first last.”
Matthew 20:16

The recent death of a friend from cancer made me think again of the salvation and how it can be too late for someone to come to the knowledge of the truth. Not that he hadn’t, my wife pointedly asked him about it and he gave her an affirmative reply. Not that I ever saw the usual Believer’s fruit in him, but the closer he came to his final days I’ll bet the more thought he gave to the teaching of his church. But I’m praying for the salvation of a number of people that I think it would be wonderful if they would right now give their hearts to the Lord Jesus Christ and surrender to His grace. But, certainly, if not now, then hopefully before the time comes when they can’t.

I mean, right now would be great, “TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS” (Hebrews 3:15) because while you continue you have the joy of living this life in the blessing of His grace and the joy in His life. Why spend your years on this earth without that blessing and peace of having the knowledge of the things that are real and knowing the vanity of the things that only appear to be real? (2 Cor. 4:18)

But if a person’s salvation doesn’t come until the end does that mean their reward is any less? Does one get less out of salvation if a life is spent more in sin than in grace?

Jesus told a parable to the people that didn’t seem to make sense. A landowner hires laborers all throughout the day, from early morning until almost the end of the day. Working the fields in the hot sun, little time for breaks, keeping busy constantly, getting sweaty and dirty and exhausted. Those that spent the whole day working knew the wage they agreed upon, and I’m sure thought it worthwhile. He’d get a good day’s wage, but looking at those who hired late in the day must have made him think how they could live on the little they’d get paid at quitting time. That is only fair, right? You don’t get paid for working fifteen minutes as someone working 10 hours, right? Imagine the frustration when the short workers got paid the same as him, for far less time trouble and effort! Suddenly what had recently seemed a fair exchange now looked anything but. I’m certain I’d be more than a little steamed too, like those that, “When they received it, they grumbled at the landowner” thinking they should get a lot more. But the landowner’s reply was “Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own?” So of course it makes sense, if the gift is everything how could one be given less or more than another?

And indeed, how did the dying Jesus on the cross reply to the criminal crucified next to Him, when in repentance He was asked, “Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!” (Luke 23:42) Jesus didn’t reject him with a “why didn’t you come to Me sooner?” No, He said the most beautiful words a man could hear, “today you shall be with Me in Paradise.” Talk about your foxhole conversion, your deathbed conversion.

The last shall be first. All the blessings that are possibly available, from the first saved person to the last, is available to all. All the blessings and rewards. Come early or come late, you still stand with Him in glory. Just please come to Him before it is too late!

[Scriptures taken from the New American Standard Bible © 1995]

Posted in Rewards | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Grumbling about Wages

Kings Apply Here

Posted on March 5, 2012 by JohnJ


but I will instruct you in the good and right way. Only fear the LORD and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things He has done for you. But if you still do wickedly, both you and your king will be swept away.”
1 Samuel 12:23-25

It sounds like a broken record. Israel is falling away again. Surprise surprise! What is it this time? This time they want a king. They want to be like all the other nations around them (1 Sam. 8:19-20) Not satisfied with having the Lord of Creation as their leader and guide and protector. No they want to be like the other nations. Aaugh! After all He’s done for them, even rescuing them through the period of Judges time after time, they cap that all off and reject Him again this time for a King. And the gracious Lord says they can have their king. But He lists all of the pitfalls that will result, like curses. And their reply to these warnings? “No, but there shall be a king over us,” (1 Sam. 8:19)

Samuel’s life starts out very promising. As a lad, the Lord calls to him in the night and he thinks it is Eli calling. Three times this happens before they figure out that God is indeed calling Samuel. And Samuel follows that call becoming a great judge over Israel. But eventually the same evil that befell his mentor Eli, the problems of sons, none of them followed the teaching of the father, followed Samuel, his sons too were worthless. So Israel did not want these lazy louts as judges over them after Samuel’s death, which they must have thought immanent. Why is it great leaders of God can’t have enough influence on their sons so they follow accordingly in their footsteps?

Anyway, God picks out their first king for them. Again, a man with such great promise. Beautiful on the outside, Saul, God’s chosen, even becomes a changed man, filed with the Spirit, as he starts his his chosen profession. “God changed his heart;” (1 Sam. 10:9) which is what everyone should ultimately be asking for. Not a king, not for stuff, but for a changed heart. Wouldn’t that be fantastic? Too bad the nation of Israel wasn’t asking for that. They could have kicked the rest of the nations out of their territory instead of shriveling up and letting the pagans rule over them!

But they get their king. And Saul is confirmed into royalty with some great words from Samuel. Again a warning, just like Moses gave them before crossing the Jordan; but also a promise that he, Samuel, will never cease from praying for this wayward people. But that he “will instruct you in the good and right way. Only fear the LORD and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things He has done for you.” And that is what we should do daily, even moment by moment. “Consider what great things He has done for you.” Because, believe it or not, in dark times and in light, He continues to do marvelous things for us. If only we have eyes to see, and ears to hear, we wouldn’t keep asking for a king to make our lives go more smoothly and painlessly. We’d relish the guidance of the One who brought Israel out of Egypt with signs and wonders, and brought them into the Promised Land, and pushed stronger and larger nations out of their way. We should relish considering the things God has done for us. Which is why one writer tells us to keep our eyes on Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), the beginning and the end of faith. So that we don’t loose heart and want to be like everyone else.

[Scriptures taken from the New American Standard Bible © 1995]

Posted in Rejection | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Kings Apply Here