Abortion And The Mercy Of God

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Abortion and the Mercy of God

By Dr. Jim Denison

Every year, approximately 40,000 people die on American highways. Every ten days, that many abortions are performed in America. Doctors conduct 1.5 million abortions every year in the United States, more than the total of all America’s war dead across our history.

Since the U. S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion in January of 1973, more than 48 million abortions have been performed in America. This is a number larger than the combined populations of Kentucky, Oregon, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Iowa, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kansas, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, West Virginia, Nebraska, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming.

Depending on the year, an abortion occurs for every three or four live births in our country. Abortion is the moral issue of our time. It seems impossible to wrestle with the difficult issues of our day without addressing this crucial debate. Most conservative Christians believe that life begins at conception and abortion is therefore wrong. But are we sure? Is this a biblical fact? If the answer is clear, why have so many denominational leaders taken pro-choice positions? Is there a biblical, cohesive, practical position on this difficult subject?

I began this essay with the conviction that the pro-life position is most biblical. But I did not know much about the legal issues involved, or the theological arguments for a woman’s right to choose abortion. As you will see, the debate is much more complex than either side’s rhetoric might indicate. But I believe that there is an ethical position which even our relativistic society might embrace.

Choosing sides

An “abortion” occurs when a “conceptus” is caused to die. To clarify vocabulary, “conceptus” is a general term for pre-born life growing in the mother’s womb. More specifically, doctors often speak of the union of a sperm and an ovum as a “zygote.” A growing zygote is an “embryo.” When the embryo reaches around seven weeks of age, it is called a “fetus.” However, “fetus” is usually used in the abortion debate to describe all pre-born life.

A “miscarriage” is a spontaneous, natural abortion. An “indirect abortion” occurs when actions taken to cure the mother’s illness cause the unintended death of the fetus. A “direct abortion” occurs when action is taken to cause the intended death of the fetus.

Why do so many people in America believe that a mother should have the right to choose direct abortion?

In 1973, the Supreme Court issued Roe v. Wade, its landmark abortion ruling. In essence, the Court overturned state laws limiting a woman’s right to abortion. Its decision was largely based on the argument that the Constitution nowhere defines a fetus as a person, or protects the rights of the unborn.

Rather, the Court determined that an unborn baby possesses only “potential life” and is not yet a “human being” or “person.” It argued that every constitutional reference to “person” relates to those already born. The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees protections and rights to individuals, but the Court ruled that the amendment does not include the unborn.

The Court further determined that a woman’s “right to privacy” extends to her ability to make her own choices regarding her health and body. Just as she has the right to choose to become pregnant, she has the right to end that pregnancy.

The Court suggested several specific reasons why she might choose abortion: “specific and direct harm” may come to her; “maternity, or additional offspring, may force upon the woman a distressful life and future”; “psychological harm may be imminent”; “mental and physical health may be taxed by child care”; problems may occur associated with bearing unwanted children; and “the additional difficulties and continuing stigma of unwed motherhood” should be considered.

Since 1973, four positions have been taken in the abortion debate:

•There should be no right to an abortion, even to save the life of the mother. This has been the Catholic Church’s usual position.

•Therapeutic abortions can be performed to save the mother’s life.

•Extreme case abortions can be permitted in cases of rape, incest, or severe deformation of the fetus. Most pro-life advocates would accept therapeutic and extreme case abortions.

•Abortion should be available to any woman who chooses it. This is the typical “pro-choice” position.

Moral arguments for abortion

“Pro-choice” advocates make five basic claims: (1) no one can say when a fetus becomes a person, so the mother is the most appropriate person to make decisions regarding it; (2) abortion must be protected so a woman who is the victim of rape or incest does not have to bear a child resulting from such an attack; (3) no unwanted child should be brought into the world; (4) the state has no right to legislate personal morality; and (5) a woman must be permitted to make pregnancy decisions in light of her life circumstances. Many theologians, pastors, and denominational leaders consider these claims to be both biblical and moral.

First, “pro-choice” proponents argue that a fetus is not legally a “person.” They agree with the Supreme Court’s finding that the Constitution nowhere grants legal standing to a pre-born life. Only 40 to 50 percent of fetuses survive to become persons in the full sense. A fetus belongs to the mother until it attains personhood, and is morally subject to any action she wishes to take with it.

Second, abortion must be protected as an alternative for women who are the victims of rape or incest. While this number is admittedly small in this country (approximately one percent of all abortions), it is growing in many countries around the world. As many as one in three women may become the victim of such an attack. They must be spared the further trauma of pregnancy and childbirth.

Third, no unwanted children should be brought into the world. If a woman does not wish to bear a child, she clearly will not be an appropriate or effective mother if the child is born. Given the population explosion occurring in many countries of the world, abortion is a necessary option for women who do not want children. The woman is more closely involved with the fetus than any other individual, and is the best person to determine whether or not this child is wanted and will receive proper care.

Fourth, the state has no right to legislate our personal moral decisions. The government has no authority to restrict homosexuality, consensual sex, cigarette consumption, or other individual decisions which many people consider to be wrong. Since there is no constitutional standard for when life begins, decisions made regarding a fetus are likewise a matter for individual morality.

The state should impose legislation on moral questions only when this legislation expresses the clear moral consensus of the community, and when it prevents conduct which obviously threatens the public welfare. Nearly everyone condemns murder, for instance, and believes that it threatens us all. But Americans are divided on the morality of abortion. It is hard to see how aborting a fetus threatens the rest of the community.

And so abortion should not be subject to governmental control. It is better to allow a mother to make this decision than to legislate it through governmental action. Many who personally consider abortion to be wrong are persuaded by this argument and thus support the “pro-choice” position.

Fifth, the rights and concerns of the mother must take precedence over those of the fetus. Even if we grant fetuses limited rights, they must not supersede the rights of mothers, as the latter are clearly persons under the Constitution. If we allow abortion to protect her physical life, we should do so to protect her emotional health or quality of life as well.

This was one of the Court’s most significant arguments, as it sought to protect the mother’s mental and physical health. Many “pro-choice” advocates are especially persuaded by this argument, and view the abortion debate within the context of a woman’s right to control her own life.

Moral arguments against abortion

“Pro-life” advocates counter each of these claims with their own ethical arguments. First, they assert that a fetus is a human life and should be granted the full protection of the law. The fetus carries its parents’ genetic code and is a distinct person. It does not yet possess self-consciousness, reasoning ability, or moral awareness (the usual descriptions of a “person”), but neither do newborns or young children. As this is the central issue of the debate, we’ll say more about it in a moment.

Second, most “pro-life” advocates are willing to permit abortion in cases of rape or incest, or to protect the life of the mother. Since such cases typically account for only one to four percent of abortions performed, limiting abortion to these conditions would prevent the vast majority of abortions occurring in America.

Third, “pro-life” advocates agree that all children should be wanted, so they argue strongly for adoption as an alternative to abortion. They also assert that an unwanted child would rather live than die. By “pro-choice” logic, it would be possible to argue for infanticide and all forms of euthanasia as well as abortion.

Fourth, “pro-life” supporters do not see abortion legislation as an intrusion into areas of private morality. Protecting the rights of the individual is the state’s first responsibility. No moral state can overlook murder, whatever the personal opinions of those who commit it. The state is especially obligated to protect the rights of those who cannot defend themselves.

But what of the claim that legislation must always reflect the clear will of the majority and protect the public welfare? The collective will of the culture must never supersede what is right and wrong. For instance, marijuana is so popular that as many as 100 million Americans say they’ve tried it at least once. Nonetheless, we ban it because its harmful effects are clear to medical science. The effects of abortion on a fetus are obviously much more disastrous to the fetus. And just because society is unclear as to when life begins does not mean that the question is unknowable.

If more of the public understood the physical and ethical issues involved in abortion, the large majority would consider abortion to be a threat to public welfare. Abortion threatens the entire community in three ways: (1) it ends the lives of millions, on a level exceeding all wars and disasters combined; (2) it encourages sexual promiscuity; and (3) it permits women to make a choice which will plague many of them with guilt for years to come. And so abortion meets the standard for legislative relevance, and must be addressed and limited or abolished by the state.

Fifth, “pro-life” advocates want to encourage the health of both the mother and the child, and do not believe that we must choose between the two. As the rights of a mother are no more important than those of her newborn infant, so they are no more important than those of her pre-born child.

The stress, guilt, and long-term mental anguish reported by many who abort their children must be considered. The legal right to abortion subjects a woman to pressure from her husband or sexual partner to end her pregnancy. Killing the fetus for the sake of the mother’s health is like remedying paranoia by killing all the imagined persecutors. For these reasons, “pro-life” advocates argue that a moral state must limit or prevent abortion.

When does life begin?

This is obviously the crucial question in the abortion debate. If life does not begin until the fetus is viable or the child is born, one can argue that the “right to life” does not extend to the pre-born and abortion should be considered both legal and moral. But if life begins at conception, there can be no moral justification for abortion, since this action kills an innocent person.

There are essentially three answers to our question. “Functionalism” states that the fetus is a “person” when it can act personally as a moral, intellectual, and spiritual agent. (Note that by this definition, some question whether a newborn infant would be considered a “person.”)

“Actualism” is the position that a fetus is a person if it possesses the potential for developing self-conscious, personal life. This definition would permit abortion when the fetus clearly does not possess the capacity for functional life.

“Essentialism” argues that the fetus is a person from conception, whatever its health or potential. It is an individual in the earliest stages of development, and deserves all the protections afforded to other persons by our society.

Our Declaration of Independence begins, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” If an unborn child is considered a person, it possesses the “inalienable” right to life as well.

So, can we determine when life begins? Our answer depends on the definition of “life.” A “pro-choice” advocate recognizes that the fetus is alive in the sense that it is a biological entity. But so is every other part of a woman’s body. Some consider the fetus to be a “growth” and liken it to a tumor or other unwanted tissue. Biology alone is not enough to settle the issue.

What about capacity? Many ethicists define a “person” as someone able to respond to stimuli, interact with others, and make individual decisions. A fetus meets the first two standards from almost the moment of its conception, and clearly cannot fulfill the third only because it is enclosed in its mother’s body. Would a newborn baby fulfill these three conditions?

What about individuality? If we view a fetus as a “growth” within the mother’s body, it would be easier to sanction her choice to remove that growth if she wishes. But a fetus is distinct from its mother from the moment of its conception. It is alive–it reacts to stimuli, and can produce its own cells and develop them into a specific pattern of maturity.

It is human, completely distinguishable from all other living organisms, possessing all 46 human chromosomes, able to develop only into a human being. And it is complete–nothing new will be added except the growth and development of what exists from the moment of conception.

It is a scientific fact that every abortion performed in the United States is performed on a being so fully formed that its heart is beating and its brain activity can be measured on an EEG machine. At 12 weeks, the unborn baby is only about two inches long, yet every organ of the human body is clearly in place.

Theologian Karl Barth described the fetus well:

The embryo has its own autonomy, its own brain, its own nervous system, its own blood circulation. If its life is affected by that of the mother, it also affects hers. It can have its own illnesses in which the mother has no part. Conversely, it may be quite healthy even though the mother is seriously ill. It may die while the mother continues to live. It may also continue to live after its mother’s death, and be eventually saved by a timely operation on her dead body. In short, it is a human being in its own right.

And note that you did not come from a fetus–you were a fetus. A “fetus” is simply a human life in the womb. It becomes a “baby” outside the womb. But it is the same physical entity in either place.

For these reasons, “pro-life” advocates believe that the U. S. Supreme Court was wrong in deciding that a fetus is not a person entitled to the full protections of the law. Apart from spiritual or moral concerns, it is a simple fact of biology that the fetus possesses every attribute of human life we find in a newborn infant, with the exception of independent physical viability. Left unharmed, it will soon develop this capacity as well. If a life must be independently viable to be viewed as a person, a young child might well fail this standard, as would those of any age facing severe physical challenges.

The Bible and abortion

These statements are based on moral claims and legal arguments. They are intended to persuade society regardless of a person’s religious persuasion. But many in our culture also want to know what the Bible says on this crucial subject.

Silent on the issue?

“Abortion” appears nowhere in the Bible. No one in the Bible is ever described as having an abortion, encouraging one, or even dealing with one. The Bible says nothing which specifically addresses our subject, so many have concluded that the issue is not a biblical concern but a private matter. They say that we should be silent where the Bible is silent.

“Pro-life” advocates counter that by this logic we should be silent regarding the “Trinity,” since the word never appears in Scripture. Or “marijuana” and “cocaine,” since they are not in a biblical concordance. However, these issues came after the biblical era, while abortion was common in the ancient world. So this argument doesn’t seem relevant.

If abortion is a biblical issue, why doesn’t the Bible address it specifically? The answer is simple: the Jewish people and first Christians needed no such guidance. It was an undeniable fact of their faith and culture that abortion was wrong. How do we know?

Consider early statements on the subject. The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides are a book of Jewish wisdom written between 50 B.C. and A.D. 50. They state that “a woman should not destroy the unborn babe in her belly, nor after its birth throw it before the dogs and vultures as a prey.”

The Sibylline Oracles are an ancient work of Jewish theology. They include among the wicked two groups: women who “produce abortions and unlawfully cast their offspring away” and sorcerers who dispense materials which cause abortions (2:339-42).

The Mishnah (“instruction”) was the written record of Jewish oral teachings transmitted since the time of Moses. These teachings were committed to writing around 200 B.C. In the Mishnah tractate Sanhedrin we read: “We infer the death penalty for killing an embryo from the text, He who sheds the blood of a man within a man, his blood shall be shed; what is ‘a man within a man’? An embryo” (Sanhedrin 57b, quoting Genesis 9:6).

An abortion was permitted only to save the life of the mother:

If a woman was in hard travail [life-threatening labor], the child must be cut up while it is in the womb and brought out member by member, since the life of the mother has priority over the life of the child; but if the great part of it was already born, it may not be touched, since the claim of one life cannot override the claim of another life (Oholoth 7:6).

The Jews in the Old and New Testaments did not need to address the issue of abortion, since no one considered it a moral option. In a similar vein, I have never preached a sermon against cigarette smoking or plagiarism. The Bible does not specifically speak to these subjects, and they are legal within certain limits, but no one in our congregation would consider them to be moral or healthy choices.

When the Christian church moved out of its Jewish context, it encountered a culture which accepted the practice of abortion. And so, after the New Testament, Christians began speaking specifically to the subject.

For instance, the Didache (the earliest theological treatise after the Bible) states: “thou shalt not procure abortion, nor commit infanticide.” And the Epistle of Barnabas (early second century) adds, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor more than thy own life. Thou shalt not procure abortion, thou shalt not commit infanticide.” These books were widely read and accepted in the first centuries of the Christian church.

Important biblical passages

While the Bible does not use the word “abortion,” it contains a number of texts which relate directly to the beginning of life and the value of all persons. Let’s look briefly at the most pertinent passages.

Exodus 21:22

“Pro-choice” scholars usually begin the discussion with this statement in Exodus:

When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined what the woman’s husband demands, paying as much as the judges determine.  If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe (Ex. 21:22-25).

The ancient Jewish historian Flavius Josephus commented on this text:

He that kicks a woman with child, so that the woman miscarry, let him pay a fine in money, as the judges shall determine, as having diminished the multitude by the destruction of what was in her womb; and let money also be given to the woman’s husband by him that kicked her; but if she die of the stroke, let him also be put to death, the law judging it equitable that life should go for life.” (Antiquities of the Jews 4:8:33).

But notice the translator’s note: “The law seems rather to mean, that if the infant be killed, though the mother escape, the offender must be put to death; and not only when the mother is killed, as Josephus understood it.” And note this later statement by Josephus:

The law, moreover, enjoins us to bring up all our offspring, and forbids women to cause abortion of what is begotten, or to destroy it afterward; and if any woman appears to have done so, she will be a murderer of her child, by destroying a living creature, and diminishing human kind.

If this text does indeed teach that a person causing a miscarriage is only to be fined, while one causing “harm” is to receive severe punishment, we would have an important indication that the fetus is not as valuable as its mother. Is this what the text clearly teaches?

The New Revised Standard renders the text, “so that there is a miscarriage.” The New American Standard follows suit, as does the New Jerusalem Bible. But the New International Version translates the text, “she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury.” The New Living Translation similarly states, “they hurt a pregnant woman so that her child is born prematurely. If no further harm results . . .” The English Standard Version renders the phrase, “so that her children come out, but there is no harm.” Why this crucial difference in translation?

The Hebrew phrase is literally rendered, “And they come forth children of her.” “Children” is the plural of yeled, the usual Hebrew word for child or offspring (the Hebrew language has no separate word for “fetus” or the pre-born). “Come forth” translates yatsa, a word which does not specify whether the child is alive or dead, only that it leaves the womb. And so the Hebrew of Exodus 21:22 does not indicate whether the woman suffered a miscarriage (NRSV, NASB, NJB) or experienced a premature healthy birth (NIV, NLT, ESV). But it does refer to the fetus as a “child.” And it is important to note that the text does not use shachol, the Hebrew word for “miscarriage” (this word is found in Exodus 23:26 and Hosea 9:14 among other occurrences).

Verse 23 settles the issue for me: “But if there is serious injury…” (NIV), implying that no serious injury occurred in verse 22. In other words, both the mother and her child survived the attack and were healthy. And so this passage does not devalue the pre-born life or speak specifically to the issue of abortion.

Genesis 2:7

The Bible describes man’s creation in this way:

In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up–for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground–then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being (Gen 2:4-7).

It seems that Adam did not become a “living being” until he could breathe. And so some believe that a fetus is not a “living being” until it can breathe outside the mother’s womb. Until this time it is not yet a person. President Bill Clinton explained his pro-choice position as based significantly on this logic. He said that his pastor, W. O. Vaught, former pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Little Rock, Arkansas, told him that this was the literal meaning of the text.

There are three problems with this argument. First, Adam was an inanimate object until God breathed into him “the breath of life,” but we know conclusively that a fetus is animate from the moment of conception. Second, the fetus breathes in the womb, exchanging amniotic fluid for air after birth. Third, Adam in Genesis 2:7 was a potential life even before he became a human being. By any definition, a fetus is at the very least a potential human being. We’ll say more about this fact in a moment.

Psalm 139

One of David’s best-loved psalms contains this affirmation:

For it was you who formed my inward parts;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made

Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.

My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.

In your book were written

     all the days that were formed for me,

     when none of them as yet existed (Psalm 139:13-16).

David clearly believed that God created him in his mother’s womb and “beheld my unformed substance” before he was born. “Pro-life” theologians point to this declaration as proof that life is created by God and begins at conception.

Of course, those who do not accept the authority of Scripture will not be persuaded by this argument. And some who do believe that David’s statement is poetic symbolism rather than scientific description. He is simply stating that he is God’s creation, without speaking specifically to the status of a fetus.

Jeremiah 1:5

As part of God’s call to the prophet Jeremiah, the Lord issued this declaration: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations” (Jeremiah 1:5). God clearly formed Jeremiah in the womb and “knew” him even before that time. He “consecrated” or called him to special service even before he was born. God’s plan for Jeremiah began before his conception and his birth.

It’s hard for me to see how those who accept biblical authority could make a “pro-choice” response to this statement. I suppose they could claim that the verse is symbolic and spiritual, not scientific, that it is a metaphorical description of God’s eternal plan for Jeremiah. But the text seems to be specifically related to Jeremiah’s conception and gestation.

Luke 1:39-45

Luke’s gospel records the visit of the pregnant Mary to the pregnant Elizabeth:

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.  When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.  And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?  For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy.  And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord” (Luke 1:39-45).

When Elizabeth said that “the child in my womb leaped for joy” (v. 44), she made clear the fact that her “fetus” was a fully-responding being. She used the word brephos, the Greek term for baby, embryo, fetus, newborn child, young child, or nursing child. It is the same word used to describe Jesus in the manger, where the shepherds “went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger” (Luke 2:16).

Paul used the word in reminding Timothy “how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15). The Bible makes no linguistic distinction between the personhood of a human being, whether before or after its birth.

The rights of the innocent

The Bible consistently defends the rights of those who are innocent and undeserving of punishment or death. For instance:

•”Do not kill the innocent and those in the right, for I will not acquit the guilty” (Exodus 23:7).

•”There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry to run to evil, a lying witness who testifies falsely, and one who sows discord in a family” (Proverbs 6:16-19).

•The Babylonians attacked Jerusalem “for the sins of Manasseh, for all that he had committed, and also for the innocent blood that he had shed; for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord was not willing to pardon” (2 Kings 24:3-4).

It is clear that God cares for the innocent and defenseless of the world. Children, whether before their birth or after, would be among his most valued creations.

The witness of Christian history

How has the Church viewed the issue of abortion across its history? Are “pro-choice” religious leaders in step with traditional Christian thinking on this subject? Or has the Church even spoken with a unified voice when addressing the question?

Early church fathers were clear in their opposition to abortion. Athenagoras (ca. AD 150), Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-215), Tertullian (ca. 155-225), St. Hippolytus (ca. 170-236), St. Basil the Great (ca. 330-79), St. Ambrose (ca. 339-97), St. John Chrysostom (ca. 340-407), and St. Jerome (ca. 342-420) all issued strong condemnations of this practice.

However, these theologians did not specifically say when the body receives a soul. This is the process called “animation” or “ensoulment” by early philosophers. Many in the ancient world followed the thinking of Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) on the issue. He believed that “ensoulment” occurred 40 days after conception in males and 90 days in females, and taught that abortion prior to this time was not murder.

St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), arguably the greatest theological mind after Paul, can be quoted on both sides of the issue. As regards whether souls are given to bodies at conception, Augustine said, “He…who formed them, knows whether He formed them with the soul, or gave the soul to them after they had been formed…I have no certain knowledge how it came into my body; for it was not I who gave it to myself.” He was critical of a theologian who was too dogmatic on this issue, claiming, “how much better it is for him to share my hesitation about the soul’s origin.” He did not believe that we can know when people “obtain their souls.”

And yet Augustine was convinced that those who die in the womb will be resurrected with the rest of humanity and given perfect bodies in heaven. If they died, they must have lived; if they lived, they will be resurrected. Babies deformed at birth will be given perfect bodies in paradise as well. It would seem that Augustine believed life to begin at conception, as the moment the fetus can die, it must have been alive.

Theologians, popes, and church councils in the centuries to follow would continue to debate this issue. St. Jerome (ca. 342-420) could speak of the “murder of an unborn child” (Letter 22:13), and yet he could state that abortion is not killing until the fetus acquires limbs and shape (Letter 121:4). Pope Innocent III (ca. 1161-1216) stated that the soul enters the body of the fetus when the woman feels the first movement of the fetus (the “quickening”). After such “ensoulment,” abortion is murder; previously it is a less serious sin, as it ends only potential human life.

Thomas Aquinas (1224-74) condemned abortion for any and all reasons. However, he agreed with Aristotle’s conclusion that a male child was formed enough to be judged human at 40 days, a female at 80. Only when the fetus could be considered human could it have a soul.

On the other hand, Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) issued a decree in 1886 which prohibited all procedures which directly kill the fetus, even to save the life of the mother. He also required excommunication for abortions at any stage of pregnancy.

To summarize, Christian leaders across church history have been uniform in their condemnation of abortion once the fetus was considered to be a “person.” Many in the ancient and medieval world were influenced by Aristotle’s beliefs regarding the time when this occurred.

If they could know what we know about the fetus from its earliest stages of life, I believe they would revise their opinion and condemn abortion from the moment of conception. But it is impossible to know their position on information they did not possess.

What about rape and incest?

The Bible makes rape a capital offense:

If the man meets the engaged woman in the open country, and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die.  You shall do nothing to the young woman; the young woman has not committed an offense punishable by death, because this case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbor (Deuteronomy. 22:25-26).

God’s word clearly condemns such a crime against women. “Pro-choice” advocates often point to this issue early in the debate, arguing that a woman should not continue to be victimized by bearing a child as the result of such a horrific crime.

Unprotected intercourse results in pregnancy about four percent of the time. If one in three women is likely to be raped in her lifetime, and incestuous relationships subject a woman to repeated sexual abuse, pregnancies resulting from rape and incest are so likely that abortion must be legal as a remedy for women subjected to such crime. Nearly all pro-life advocates concede the point, allowing for abortion in the case of rape and incest.

However, it has been established by numerous surveys over the years that rape and incest victims represent approximately one percent of the abortion cases recorded annually in this country. A decision to limit abortions to this exception would prevent the deaths of nearly all of the 1.5 million babies who are aborted each year. Only about three percent of the abortions performed each year in America relate to the health of the mother, and three percent relate to the health of the child. Ninety-three percent are elective.

To allow for abortion because of the very rare incidence of abortions performed because of rape and incest is something like suspending all marijuana laws because of the small number of patients who could benefit from its medicinal effects. We could stop the use of traffic lights because of the incidents when they slow a sick person’s rush to a hospital, but would we not cause more harm than we prevent?

At the same time, Americans must be conscious of the fact that rape and incest are far more common in some other countries and cultures. Rape in particular is a typical means of coercion and military control in some societies. There the percentage of abortions related to rape may be much higher than is the case in America.

This caveat stated, I’m not sure that even this decision is the moral choice. I must quickly admit that my status as an American, Anglo male makes it very difficult for me to commiserate with women who have experienced such trauma as rape and incest. But it is hard for me to understand how the child which is produced by this terrible crime does not deserve to live. Ethel Waters, the famous gospel singer, was the product of a rape. So was a student I taught at Southwestern Seminary, an evangelist with a global ministry today. I tread very lightly here, but would at the very least suggest that this issue is far from the primary cause of abortion in America today.

Conclusion: a way forward?

“Pro-life” advocates typically believe that life begins at conception, so that abortion is wrong. “Pro-choice” advocates typically belief that life begins when the fetus is viable independent of its mother or at birth, and that abortion should be a legal choice for the mother prior to that point. The framers of the Constitution did not address this issue. The Supreme Court in 1973 interpreted this silence to mean that constitutional rights to life do not extend to the pre-born. And yet the Bible speaks with a single voice in viewing the pre-born as the creation of God and as children deserving of protection and care. In light of these contradictory facts, is there a way to move forward?

Given that the participants in this debate come from a variety of religious and personal worldviews, it seems implausible to find common ground by beginning with biblical teachings or religious convictions. So I suggest the following non-religious, constitutional strategy.

First, we should build a consensus for permitting abortion to protect the life of the mother or in cases of rape and incest. These account for a small percentage of the 1.5 million abortions performed each year. Even though some (like me) question the morality of this position, most would concede the point in order to reduce the 93 percent of abortions which are elective in nature. Allowing for this exception removes the most obvious and emotional obstacle to the “pro-life” position.

Second, we should understand that the pre-born possess at least the potential for “life,” however it is defined. Many of us believe that a fetus is a human being by every definition of the term except independent viability, and note that the pre-born will attain this status unless harmed. But even those who disagree with this assertion will admit that every fetus is in the process of becoming a “person.”

Third, “pro-life” and “pro-choice” advocates should work together to fulfill President Clinton’s desire that abortion be “rare.” Even the most ardent “pro-choice” supporters surely would support an agenda intended to decrease the number of abortions performed each year.

One way to achieve this goal would be for both sides to promote adoption as the best answer to an unwanted pregnancy. Both sides could also support abstinence and birth control education. Many “pro-life” advocates view birth control measures as promoting sexual promiscuity, but we may have to choose between sexual activity or unintended pregnancy and a resulting abortion.

Both sides could join forces in educating the public about the actual characteristics of the fetus. It has been proven that women are far less likely to choose abortion when they see a sonogram of their unborn child or learn about its present capacities. Adoption would then become a more likely option for the mother to choose. Leaders from both sides could be asked to adopt a united agenda aimed at decreasing the number of abortions performed each year in our country. If this strategy is successful, it may change the public’s opinion regarding the morality of abortion.

Fourth, whatever the “pro-choice” position decides to do to help limit abortions, “pro-life” advocates must do all we can to care for both the unborn child and its mother. We must care for the mother and the father of the child, and do all we can to help those who have chosen abortion in the past. We must work hard to advocate adoption and to provide life necessities for at-risk families. We must be “pro-life,” not just “pro-birth.”

It may be that these steps would eventually help to change the legal status of abortion. A constitutional amendment extending legal protection to the fetus would be more likely to pass if more Americans were taught to view the fetus as a life. Alternately, it would be more likely that the courts would recognize the rising consensus against abortion and rule in light of this conventional wisdom.

Conclusion: choosing life

Mother Teresa, writing to the U. S. Supreme Court as it was considering petitions related to the abortion issue, stated boldly:

Your opinion [in Roe v. Wade] stated that you did not need to “resolve the difficult question of when life begins.” That question is inescapable. If the right to life is an inherent and inalienable right, it must surely obtain wherever human life exists. No one can deny that the unborn child is a distinct being, that it is human, and that it is alive. It is unjust, therefore, to deprive the unborn child of its fundamental right to life on the basis of its age, size, or condition of dependency. It was a sad infidelity to America’s highest ideals when this Court said that it did not matter, or could not be determined, when the inalienable right to life began for a child in its mother’s womb.

She has been widely quoted as stating, “It is a deep poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”

I attended my first National Prayer Breakfast in 1995, where I heard remarkable speakers address the president and other national leaders. Those attending were still talking about the previous year’s keynote speaker. Mother Teresa, 83 years old in 1994, had said to the 3,000 in the audience, “I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?”

Later in her speech she implored the gathering, “Please don’t kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child.” She received a standing ovation. After her speech, she approached President Clinton, pointed her finger at him, and said, “Stop killing babies.”

Would abortion be a moral choice when a family is very, very poor; they have 14 children, and another on the way? That child was John Wesley. What about a father who is ill and a mother with tuberculosis; their first child is blind, the second is deceased, the third is deaf, and the fourth has tuberculosis. Now she is pregnant again. Her son would be called Beethoven.

A white man rapes a 13-year-old black girl and she becomes pregnant. Her child is Ethel Waters. A teenage girl is pregnant, but her fiancée is not the father of the baby. Her baby is Jesus.

In a church I once pastored, a woman gave me her unsolicited testimony regarding an abortion she had chosen eleven years earlier. Here’s her story:

I cried tears of shame, tears of pain, tears of heartache. I cried for my sin so black I didn’t believe that there could ever be a way that I could make amends–ever be a way that I could atone for what I had done. That there could ever be a way that I could be clean again. For 11 years I cried for myself, because I couldn’t get away from what I had done.

But God blessed me. In the depths of my dark and lonely valley he was there. His grace and mercy are great–his love is so wonderful. He wooed me back to his side, saying to me, My child, my child, I love you. O my child I love you. Yes, I forgive you.

I am blessed. I know that I am forgiven. I have forgiven myself–God has healed me. But many are not so blessed–they never get to meet my Jesus; they never experience his love and forgiveness. For them, the crying goes on.

Are You Awed by God?

Written by

Are You Awed By God?

Exodus 3:1-6

James C. Denison

It was my first day on the faculty of Southwestern Seminary in Ft. Worth. I parked my pickup truck outside our church in Mansfield before driving to school. The only parking spot I could find was adjacent to President Russell Dilday’s car.

I happened to see Dr. Dilday come and go two or three times during the day; once it seemed that he looked in the back of my truck, but I thought nothing of it. When I came out at the end of the day, I saw what he might have seen: the empty 12-pack beer carton someone had thrown in the back of my truck when it was parked outside the church that morning. Not the best way to start a new career.

Most of us have been awed by someone we respect or fear. Your first meeting with the president of your college, or the CEO of your new company, or the famous athlete you happen to meet. The first president I ever met was Jimmy Carter. I would see him for five minutes one day at the Carter Center in Atlanta. I worried all week that I would do something to embarrass myself for the rest of my life.

When last were you awed by God? This summer we explored the church, the people of God. Now let’s meet the God of the church. Recent movies have brought us Bruce Almighty and Evan Almighty–now we’ll meet God Almighty. Each week we’ll be introduced by a person who met God and was never the same.

We start with a man who was awed by God. He is ready to show us that we have not experienced all God can do in and through our lives until the same thing happens to us. Where do you need divine power and presence today? What you need even more is to be awed by God.

Let me show you why.

Being awed by God

One of the most pivotal events in human history occurred in one of the most mundane settings imaginable. The region was known as “Horeb,” a Hebrew word meaning “desolation” or “desert.” The traditional site is called Gebel Musa, “Moses’ mountain,” an elevation of 7,467 feet. Here Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law when he heard the voice of God.

From within a burning bush, God called Moses by name (v. 4). It is an astounding thing to realize that the Lord of the universe knows your name and mine. He is watching as you listen to these words. He knows your thoughts and heart. And he loves and accepts you anyway.

He called Moses to venerate his holiness by removing his sandals. Slaves were typically barefoot; here Moses humbled himself to the lowest level of social importance. He bowed before this holy God in the reverence which is his due. And God revealed himself in greater detail than any human had yet known him. But it all started when Moses was awed by God.

Are you awed by God?

“Fear not” is the phrase God says to humans more often than any other in the Bible. He said it to Abram when he first called him: “Fear not, Abram–I am your shield and very great reward” (Genesis 15:1). He said it to Hagar in the desert (Genesis 21:17). He said it to Isaac: “Fear not, for I am with you” (Genesis 26:24). He said it to Jacob: “Fear not to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there” (Genesis 46:3).

He said it to Moses when he was afraid of his enemy (Numbers 21:34). Gabriel said it to Zacharias in announcing the coming of John the Baptist (Luke 1:13); he said it to Mary in announcing the coming of the Messiah (Luke 1:30); the angels said it to the shepherds in announcing the birth of Jesus (Luke 2:10).

Jesus said it to his disciples when he called them to fish for men (Luke 5:10). God said it to Paul before his shipwreck (Acts 27:24). The exalted Christ said it to John on Patmos: “Fear not” (Revelation 1:17).

All through the Old Testament we see the same pattern.

When Isaiah saw the Lord he cried out, “Woe to me! I am ruined!” (Isaiah 6:5). When Jeremiah heard his call he responded, “Ah, Sovereign Lord! I do not know how to speak–I am only a child” (Jeremiah 1:6).

When Ezekiel saw the Lord he fell facedown (Ezekiel 1:28). When Daniel received the vision of God, he says that his face “turned pale” (Daniel 7:28). When Hosea heard the word of the Lord he called the people to repent (Hosea 14:1-2).

Joel called the sinful nation to mourn and grieve in a solemn assembly before Almighty God (Joel 1:13-14). When God spoke to Amos, the prophet recorded, “The Lord roars from Zion and thunders from Jerusalem; the pastures of the shepherds dry up, and the top of Carmel withers” (Amos 1:2). Every prophet had the same message: repent before the God of the universe.

The Old Testament closes with these words from Malachi 4: “See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes.  He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse” (vs. 5-6).

But this is the God of the Old Testament, a God of law and legalism and judgment, we often hear. The New Testament God of grace is different, some people say. Those people are wrong.

When Jesus first demonstrated his miraculous power to Peter, the burly fisherman pled with him, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8). At the Mount of Transfiguration, where Jesus revealed his heavenly glory to them, his disciples “did not know what to say, they were so frightened” (Mark 9:6).

When the battle-hardened soldiers came to arrest him in Gethsemane, Jesus “went out and asked them, ‘Who is it you want?’ ‘Jesus of Nazareth,’ they replied.” To which Jesus responded with the divine name of God, the Great I Am: “I am.” And “when Jesus said, ‘I am he,’ they drew back and fell to the ground” (John 18:4-6).

When Paul encountered the risen Christ he was thrown from his horse and blinded for three days (Acts 9:1-19). When John saw the glorified Jesus he “fell at his feet as though dead” (Revelation 1:17).

Do you see the pattern? Every time someone sees God as he is, that person responds in awe, fear, and reverence. The Bible says that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7). When we “fear” or reverence God, we approach him as he is. When we don’t, we don’t.

How can you be awed by God?

When last were you in awe of God? Why aren’t we awed more by him? If we see him as he is, we cannot help but feel our inadequacy and his superiority, our sin and his holiness, our need and his greatness. Why isn’t this more our experience of God?

Bad theology is one reason. If you see God as a benevolent grandfather watching us play in the yard, “gentle Jesus meek and mild,” a kind and gracious God who loves us all and would never judge our lives, you won’t be awed by God. If you see him as a Creator but nothing more, a kind of apathetic clockmaker who watches his world run down, you won’t be awed by him.

If you approach the God of the universe as someone who must account for his actions, who must explain himself to you before you’ll worship him, you’ll not be awed by him. If he’s a genie in your spiritual bottle, a God who exists to help you with your problems and make you feel better today, you won’t be awed by God.

But if you see him as he is–as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the One who gave you your life and your next breath, the One who rescued your soul from hell for heaven and has given you “every good and perfect gift” in your life (James 1:17), you’ll see him properly. When last did you get on your knees before the Lord? When last did you exalt him in your own heart? When last were you awed by God in worship?

Broken relationships are another reason. Sin blocks our fellowship with God. It keeps us from seeing him in his holiness. When our attitudes, thoughts, words, or actions are disobedient to his word and will, they distance us from the Lord.

And when we’re wrong with each other, it’s hard to be right with God. You cannot hurt my sons and love their father. It’s hard to be awed by someone you can barely see. When last did you spend time in confession and contrition before the holy God of the universe? When last were you awed by God in repentance?

Busy lives are another reason. The truism is true: if the devil can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy. Spend an hour on Sunday morning to check the religion box. Pray over meals and when you have a problem. Read the Bible when you get a moment. None of these are how to see God.

When last did you spend time listening to God? Time walking with God in his creation? Time waiting for his Spirit to speak from his word to your soul? The more time we spend with God, the more we’ll be awed by him. When last were you awed by God in prayer and Scripture?

The bottom line: do you want to be awed by God? Do you want all of God there is in your life today?

Do you want him to be as powerful in his body now and he was in his body 20 centuries ago? Do you want to see him do today what he did then? Do you want him to do in our church and community and lives what he is doing around the world?

He’s looking for another Moses to lead his people out of spiritual slavery to the Promised Land of his joy. He’s looking for someone else willing to throw down his rod and let it become the “rod of God.” He’s looking for someone who will stand up to the Pharaohs of our day and change history for his glory.

God wants people who are so awed by God that they believe he can use them for a greater purpose than they can see; people so awed by God that they trust him with their plans and future and lives; people so awed by God that they will settle for nothing less than being surrendered to him every day; people so awed by God that they want nothing more than to please and serve him with every part of their lives.

Conclusion

Do you want to be awed by God? Will you exalt him as your Lord, and repent of your sins against God and his children, and spend time in his presence, and surrender to his purpose? He can use and bless only the people who are close enough to him to be used and blessed. He cannot give what we will not receive. He cannot lead those who will not follow. But if we will pay the price to be awed by God, we will find in him all that our souls need and more.

Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light has been much in the news recently. The book makes available for the first time some very personal letters she wrote over 50 years of struggling with spiritual darkness and loneliness. Serving in one of the most impoverished, terrible places on earth, her discouragement is understandable.

Dealing with doubts and spiritual depression became part of her ministry to the Lord Jesus and to his people. But through this long “dark night of the soul,” she never lost her love for her Lord or her awe of his majesty.

For instance, she was hospitalized in 1983 after a fall. During her recovery she began to meditate on Jesus’ question we explored last week from Matthew 16: “Who do people say that I am?” She wrote her own answer. Discovering it this week was so moving that I learned it, and share it with you. I hope you’ll chose to be as awed by her God as was she:

“Who is Jesus to me? Jesus is the Word made Flesh. Jesus is the Bread of Life. Jesus is the Victim offered for our sins on the Cross. Jesus is the Word–to be spoken. Jesus is the Truth–to be told. Jesus is the Way–to be walked. Jesus is the Light–to be lit. Jesus is the Life–to be lived. Jesus is the Love–to be loved. Jesus is the Joy–to be shared. Jesus is the Sacrifice–to be offered. Jesus is the Peace–to be given. Jesus is the Hungry–to be fed. Jesus is the Thirsty–to be satiated. Jesus is the Naked–to be clothed. Jesus is the Homeless–to be taken in. Jesus is the Sick–to be healed. Jesus is the Lonely–to be loved. Jesus is the Unwanted–to be wanted. Jesus is the Leper–to wash his wounds. Jesus is the Beggar–to give him a smile. Jesus is the Drunkard–to listen to him. Jesus is the Little One–to embrace him. Jesus is the Blind–to lead him. Jesus is the Dumb–to speak for him. Jesus is the Crippled–to walk with him. Jesus is the Drug Addict–to befriend him. Jesus is the Prostitute–to remove from danger and befriend. Jesus is the Prisoner–to be visited. Jesus is the Old–to be served.

“To me–Jesus is my God. Jesus is my Life. Jesus is my only Love. Jesus is my All in All. Jesus is my Everything. Jesus, I love with my whole heart, with my whole being.”

Amen?

Hinduism and You

Written by

Hinduism and You

Dr. Jim Denison

Introduction

Hinduism is the most ancient religion in the world–there is no time in literature when there was not some form of this religion.

Most philosophical foundations are found in the Upanishads, a collection of treatises based on about 300 years (800-500 B.C.) of religious reflection by various sages. Under their religion, philosophy became paramount in Hinduism.

The principle underlying the Upanishads is that humanity’s spiritual problem is resolved neither by religious practices such as worship, nor by works or social service, but by life-changing knowledge of what is actual reality or truth.

Today Hinduism is the religion of 80% of India, a nation of 700 million people. Recent estimates of the number of Hindus worldwide put its population at approximately 650 million.

It is growing in influence in America:

Spiritual unity of all reality, and reincarnation leading to “enlightenment”–the basic premise of the New Age Movement

Baha’ism, rooted in Hinduism, with its pluralism

Personalized Nature in transcendental meditation

Darwin’s unity of humanity and animals–monism

Physical reality as “maya” (illusion); cf. Christian Science view of evil and physical suffering

Categories for comparison (taken from Woodfin 149-55):

View of God, gods, or ultimate reality

Basic understanding of humanity

Central focus or basic understanding of reality

Concept of redemption or “salvation”

Eschatology or interpretation of ultimate destiny

Ultimate reality–“Brahman”

According to Hinduism, Brahman is the “supreme soul of the universe,” without beginning or ending, unchanging and eternal, beyond all description.

Not the creator of the world, but the very essence of all reality.

Not to be “worshiped.”

The Many “gods” which Hindus worship as part of Brahman, include:

“Kali”–a threatening, near-demonic goddess

“Siva”–dynamic yet ascetic

“Vishnu”–glorious and gracious

“Krishna”–loving and invincible; incarnation or descent of Vishnu

Many others, from simple provincial deities to cultic gods which are approached through elaborate images, idols, and ritual. “Bhakti” is Hindu devotion to one of these gods as their personal god of worship.

View of humanity–“Atman”

Hindus see Atman as a “manifold conglomerated collection of changing finite phenomena” (Woodfin).

Not “real” in the sense of separate physical identity:

Is one with and part of Brahman

Only appears to be real because of “maya” (illusion)

The apparent world is a mere illusion; we should see the world as a spiritual unity, not a duality of body and spirit.

“Atman” is innermost, true being of mankind; like Brahman, it is eternal and unchanging.

Atman is simply part of Brahman, as the air inside a jug is the same as the air outside it.

Suffering and the need for “salvation” arise through our ignorance of this identity of Brahman and Atman.

Central focus–the identity of Brahman and Atman

Learning and living out this identity is the goal and purpose of Hinduism. This goal leads to belief in the commonality of all humans and, in fact, all reality. This worldview is “monistic”–it sees all reality as one.

Concept of “salvation”–“moksha,”

Hindus believe salvation comes from our understanding and experiencing the identity of Atman in Brahman. Our greatest burden is not sin but ignorance of the true nature of our identity with Brahman. We can overcome this ignorance only through properly understanding and experiencing this identity.

Moksha is available to us all through our own efforts; once we realize our Brahman consciousness and live it out, we will no longer be deluded by maya and will transcend all suffering and need. The goal:

“The highest state for a human is a waking trance in which the self is disciplined to such an extent that the world is not experienced and awareness of the One is complete. But even this experience is a foretaste of a still higher form of existence, when a person is released from the cycle of birth and rebirth and has immediate awareness of bliss (Newport, Life’s Ultimate Questions 385).

“Yoga” (“yoke” or “union”) is the spiritual discipline required to reach this goal of identification with Brahman.

In this discipline one yokes himself to a chosen deity to achieve enlightenment and union with Brahman.

Note that these three methods correspond to the three basic personality types or ways of knowledge (the pragmatic, rational, and intuitive):

Karma Yoga–stresses the importance of good works and self-less actions; pragmatic, emphasis on doing. One yokes himself or herself with Spirit through the chosen deity by disinterested good will and service; thus all deeds are holy deeds and acts of worship.

Jnana Yoga–for intellectual persons; stresses the path to oneness by yoking with the chosen deity through knowledge or contemplation; made up of the “Six Philosophies,” one of which the intellectual will choose to follow.

Bhakti Yoga–simplest form of yoga; emphasis on loving or feeling; places primary stress on emotion or devotion, unites with chosen deity through acts of love, and is closest to Christian worship.

According to most Hindus, Christianity is simply one of the Bhakti paths.

The “Four Goals” of the Hindu lifestyle are:

Material happiness

Loving and being loved

Doing one’s duty

Working to achieve liberation

Ultimate destiny–absorption into Brahman

The individual soul (“jiva”) is responsible for good works. According to the doctrine of “karma,” it will be rewarded with an exact equivalent of merit or demerit according to the nature of its deeds.

The soul is this subject to “samsara,” reincarnation, in keeping with the merit it obtained in the previous life.

This belief system leads to the caste structure, by which we are rewarded or punished for our previous deeds:

Priest

Warrior or leader

Worker or merchant

Servant

“Outcastes”–outside the system, with no caste rights whatsoever

The “Four Stages” of life through which a Hindu passes:

Student–training is accomplished

Householder–one earns a living and provides for family

Forest dweller–one leaves the family after providing for them adequately and attempts to learn religious wisdom

Renouncer–wisdom is achieved at a certain level and all material goods are renounced.

The ultimate goal: escape from the cycle of rebirth and karma and absorption into Brahman to whose essence we already belong.

Hinduism today

Followers of Shankara (9th century A.D.)–stress impersonal monism and need for self-less identity with Brahman.

Followers of Ramanuja (12th century A.D.)–taught the relative independence of nature and the human soul; allows for possibility of Bhakti personal devotion and “avatars” (holy men who are manifestations of Brahman).

Hare Krishna

Hare Krishna originated with Chaitanya Mahaprabha (16th century A.D.), who taught that direct love of Lord Krishna was the way to “burn off” ignorance and sin, overcome bad karma, and attain bliss.

Krishna is considered to have been an incarnation or avatar of the high god Vishnu.

The sect of Krishnaism has continued since that time in India, and was brought to America in the 1960’s. Now it has developed into the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, known popularly as Hare Krishna.Reasons for appeal to the West include:

Belief that we each share in the “divine”

No category for “sin”–all such wrong and suffering are “maya”

Reincarnation–no fear of death

Works and rewards as basis for happiness and ultimate destiny

Monism–strongly anti-materialistic

Responding to Hinduism

Christians should show that our faiths do not teach the same truths, but are mutually contradictory. Both claim exclusive truth. Hinduism tends to absorb all other religions, in the belief that we will eventually come to the right (their) perspective.

Understand the appeal of Hinduism to its followers:

Cultural issues

Family and traditional background

Worldview

Begin with common ground:

Common desire for union with “God” (cf. Galatians 2.20)

Common belief in ultimate unity and inner cohesion of all reality (cf. Colossians 1.16-17)

Finally:

Ask which approach is best supported by objective evidence, and which best meets its own goals.

Show the need for an answer to sin and forgiveness.

Contrast Hinduism’s works-righteousness with Christ’s offer of salvation by grace. Demonstrate the life-changing reality of Christ’s love in our own.

Sources consulted: Norman Anderson, ed., The World’s Religions (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975); Terry Muck, Alien Gods on American Turf (Wheaton, Illinois: Victor Books, 1990); Jacob Neusner, ed., World Religions in America: An Introduction (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994); John B. Noss, Mans’ Religions, 5th ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1974); Ninian Smart, The Religious Experience of Mankind, 2d ed. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1976); Smart, The World’s Religions (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1989); Ninian Smart and Richard Hecht, ed., Sacred Texts of the World: A Universal Anthology (New York: Crossroad, 1982).

Islam, 9-11, And You

Written by

Islam, 9-11, and you

Dr. Jim Denison

History

Islam was founded by Muhammad (A.D. 570-632), in the midst of religious pluralism, idolatry, and division among his Arab people in Mecca and the Arabian peninsula.

Muhammad’s hatred of idols led him to place an immense emphasis on the unity and transcendence of God. Islamic theology thus holds that God is too highly exalted to enter into any kind of relationship–he reveals only his will to us. Even in paradise, people will not know God as he is.

Muhammad’s day was characterized by tribal warfare, brutality, and promiscuity; he thus emphasized divine control, and opposed religious liberty and separation of church and state. Since Allah is Lord, he must be Lord of all. Thus Muhammad created a civilization, not merely a religion–a way of life for all people, governing personal autonomy and all morality. Islam attempts to provide the answers to every conceivable detail of belief and daily life.

The religion of the day was extremely complex and polytheistic; thus Muhammad constructed a faith which emphasizes simplicity. There is only one central idea: there is but one God, who is Maker and Absolute Controller of all things and people.

Sunnis and Shiites

Muhammad left no designated heirs. The “caliphs” (Arabic for “successors”) continued his movement, led first by Abu Bekr.

Soon, however, divisions began to emerge. Most Muslims followed the caliphs and their successors; these are known as Sunni’s today. But some believed that only the fourth caliph (Muhammad’s son-in-law) was the true successor Muhammad, and have supported his successors; they are the Shiites. 90% of Muslims are Sunnis; 10% are Shiites, living primarily in Iran.

Beliefs

Islam means “peace” or “surrender.” Muslims worship Allah, the Arabic name for “God.” It views mankind as free yet under the sovereignty of Allah. The Koran is the central focus of Islam. “Koran” means “the reading.”

View of God and ultimate reality: all reality is grounded ultimately in the one sovereign personal being of God who has created the world–Allah.

View of mankind: freedom, overshadowed by the sovereignty of God.

Central focus: the Koran, as Allah gave it through Muhammad. It was given over a period of 23 years in the Arabic language, and contains 114 Surahs (chapters) and 6236 verses.

In addition to the Koran, the Hadith (a collection of the “sayings” of Muhammad) and the Sunna (the record of the personal customs of Muhammad and his community) give guidance for Muslim life. But the Koran is the only divine revelation.

Salvation: “Islam” means “peace” or “surrender.” Salvation in this faith involves our submission to the sovereign will of God, along with an almost dominating emphasis on the necessity of good works. These words are detailed in the “five pillars of Islam,” found in the Koran:

The “witness” (“shahadah“): “La ilaha illal lah Muhammadur rasulul lah”–“There is no god but Allah, Muhammad is Allah’s messenger.” Every Muslim must declare this aloud at least once in his life very slowly, with deep meaning and full commitment; most Muslims repeat it many times each day.

Prayer (“salah“): with directed motions, five times a day, facing toward Mecca, the holy city.

Almsgiving (“zakah“): approximately 2 1/2% of all one’s income and permanent annual worth, to the poor. This is an act of worship.

Fasting (“sawm“): especially during the month of Ramadan, which commemorates the giving of the Koran. From dawn to sunset every day of Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, a Muslim refrains from eating, drinking, smoking and sexual relations.

Pilgrimage (“hajj”): to Mecca at least once from every believer who is physically and financially able to make the journey.

In addition, jihad (“holy war”) can be declared the unequivocal religious duty of the Muslim man, as the will of God.

Note that strict morality is a hallmark of Muslims. They obey strong prohibitions against drinking wine, eating pork, gambling, and practicing usury. They invoke the name of Allah at the slaughter of all animals. They also require a specific dress code: men–covering from navel to knees; women–covering of whole body except face and hands, with women above the age of puberty required to cover their face while going out and meeting strangers; pure silk and gold not allowed for men; prohibition of women’s clothes for men and vice versa; symbolic dress of other religions is not allowed.

Final destiny: a final day of judgment, consummation of history, and the assigning of heaven and hell to all persons on the basis of their acceptance or rejection of the message of God and their accompanying good works.

Allah is depicted as weighing the good and bad works on a delicate scale of balance which is accurate even to the weight of a grain of mustard seed (Koran 7:5-8; 21:48; 23:103-5; 101:6-8).

Those in heaven will be rewarded with sensual pleasure; those in hell will live forever in unspeakable pain.

Growth

Islam’s spread worldwide has been the fastest of any religion in history. Within a single decade, A.D. 622-632, Muhammad united the nomadic tribes of the Arabian peninsula into a single cohesive nation, gave them a monotheistic religion in place of their polytheistic, tribal faiths, organized a powerful society and state, and launched his world-wide movement.

Muhammad died in 632 and was succeeded by Abu Bekr. Under his reign and afterward Islam continued to spread, promoted by extensive military campaigns.

Within a century after the death of Muhammad, the Islamic empire stretched from Arabia west through North Africa, to Southern France and Spain; also north of Arabia through the Middle East and east throughout Central Asia, to the borders of China. In the process, Islamic expansion took in much of the oldest and strongest Christian territory.

The spread of Islam in western Europe was finally checked by Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours (in France) in A.D. 732, exactly a century after the death of Muhammad. Spain was later reclaimed for Christianity, but a wide belt of territory from Morocco to Pakistan and Indonesia remained Muslim, and has so to this day.

In the meantime a series of Crusades were conducted from A.D. 1095 to 1291, making the Christian mission to Muslims immeasurably more difficult.

Islam has dominated the Middle East for the last 12 centuries, threatening Europe during much of that time. Today it extends from the Atlantic to the Philippines. In Africa, south of the Sahara, it is currently making tremendous advances, far outstripping Christian expansion.

Islam in America

There are between 1.8 million (David Barrett’s estimate) and 4.6 million (Islamic Society of North America’s estimate) Muslims in this country. Most put the figure at between 3 and 4 million.

This is a “denomination” larger than either the Assemblies of God or the Episcopal Church in the United States. In the next thirty years Muslims will outnumber Jews to become the second-largest religion in our country.

Muslims have come to the U.S. in several migratory waves.

While there is no unified Islamic movement in America, there is an increasing effort to evangelize to the Muslim faith in our country. Saudi Arabia is leading the way in funding projects to promote Islam around the world.

Note also the growth of Black Muslims in the U.S., a movement which rejects Christianity as racist. This crusade began in 1931 among the Blacks in Harlem. One of the early leaders, Malcolm X, preached a gospel of black superiority; his heir, Elijah Muhammad, attempted to move the Black Muslims toward orthodox Islam. This movement is known today as The Nation of Islam, and comprises one-quarter to one-half of the total Muslim population in America.

Relation to Christianity

How do Muslims relate to the Christian faith? Because Islam began in the Middle East subsequent to Christianity, it has always had some reference to Christianity. Islam’s holy book, the Koran, maintains this reference to Christianity, speaking specifically of Jesus and the Christian religion.

However, Islam is completely independent of Christianity in faith and philosophy. There is almost no direct quotation in the Koran from either Testament. All we know for certain is that Muhammad was aware of Jews and Christians and knew something of their history. Tragically, the “Christianity” Muhammad encountered was heretical, and gave him an erroneous picture of Christ and his followers.

Muhammad claimed to be a biological heir of Abraham through Ishmael. Through this tie Muhammad saw himself as the establisher of the true religion of the one God in Arabia. He claimed that the religion Abraham bequeathed to the Arabs became corrupt. He claimed to receive direct revelation from God identical in content with the original revelations to Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, and thus claimed to be in direct succession with the Old and New Testament prophets.

Muslims have historically tolerated Christians and Jews as “people of the Book” in that they have a revelation related, though inferior, to that of Muslims. Nevertheless, various regulations are imposed on Christians in Muslim lands. One of the most difficult is the law against a Christian’s converting a Muslim, accompanied by an absolute prohibition against the Muslim’s accepting Christianity.

In addition, recent persecution of Christians has made tensions much greater between the two faiths. For instance, Saudi Arabia threatens to punish any Muslim who converts to Christianity with beheading.

Evangelizing Muslims

Begin with common ground:

We both believe in one God, and see Jesus as holy. Muslims believe that they worship the God of Abraham and Jesus. They deny the divinity of Christ and thus do not worship our Lord. But we share belief that there is one God of the universe.

We both emphasize personal morality. The difference is that Christians have a relationship with God based on his grace, while Muslims believe they must earn Allah’s acceptance. No Muslim can be sure that he or she will go to heaven. In Christ we have the forgiveness of our sins and the promise of eternal life with God.

Understand Islam’s view of Jesus:

Islam denies the divinity of Christ. Muhammad proclaimed that there is no God but God; thus Jesus cannot be divine. He was God’s messenger, not his Son.

Islam denies the crucifixion. When the Jewish leaders approached Jesus with the intent of crucifying him, God took him up to heaven to deliver him out of their hands; then he cast the likeness of Jesus on someone else, who was crucified by mistake in his place.

Islam ignores the sin nature which requires atonement, and therefore the need for Jesus’ death for us.

Islam holds that Jesus was one of God’s prophets. There were 313 messengers sent from God to man; of these, 25 must be remembered by every Muslim. Jesus is one of these. However, Muhammad is the last of all the prophets, and there will be no other.

Understand Islam’s view of the Koran:

The Muslim believes that the Koran has exited from all eternity with God in the Arabic language. In every particular it is the utterance of God himself, with no human element at all. The Koran is seen in purely verbal, propositional terms. Additionally, the Koran does not reveal Allah to us, but only his will. He remains hidden from all men.

Christianity has always seen the Bible as God’s self-revelation of himself to us, mediated through the instrumentality of human personality. Christ, not the Scriptures, is the central focus of our faith (cf. John 20:30-31).

Emphasize the difference between grace vs. works:

While the Muslim believes that Allah can be merciful, he also accepts that he is responsible for his own salvation by faith and works. He does not believe that he can know his final destiny before his judgment before Allah.

Christianity offers grace, full pardon for sin, and salvation today.

Prove God’s love in yours:

Pray for Muslims, by name if possible.

Build relationships based on unconditional friendship. Look for ways to affirm and include them.

Seek opportunities to share what the living Lord Jesus has done in your life.

Invite the person to have the assurance of heaven through Christ.

Legions of the Unjazzed

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Legions of the Unjazzed

Jeremiah 1:4-10

James C. Denison

The number of text messages sent and received today will exceed the population of the planet. If MySpace were a country, it would be the eighth-largest in the world. 2.7 billion searches are performed on Google every month. More than 3,000 new books are published every day. China will soon become the number one English speaking country in the world. One hundred percent of the college graduates in India can speak English.

One out of every eight couples married in the US last year met online. By 2013 a supercomputer will be built which exceeds the computing power of the human brain. By 2023, it will cost less than $1,000. By 2049, that $1,000 computer will exceed the computational capacities of the entire human race.

No one knows where the future is going. I read Alan Greenspan’s new book this week, and was fascinated. As you know, he was the chairman of the Federal Reserve for nearly 20 years, working with four presidents. I had no idea that economists had so many tools at their disposal to use in predicting future financial trends.

But despite the greatest sophistication in human history, we still don’t know what the future will bring. Will there be a recession? Will the subprime mortgage crisis affect us all? Will the dollar hold its value against foreign currencies? No one knows.

There’s only one Chairman who can see tomorrow today. He is God Almighty, the awesome and holy Lord of the universe. But he is also intimately interested in you. Today we’ll learn how to return the favor–why you and I should pay the price to know this God more intimately than ever before. And we’ll see what happens when we do.

What God has done for us

God “knew” Jeremiah. The Hebrew word is a completed action: he knew all about him. Everything. Everything he would ever do, and say, and think, and feel. Before he made him at conception and brought him into the world. He knew the good–the achievements, the success, the faithfulness to God. He knew the bad–Jeremiah’s times of depression, of despair, of feeling rejected by God and his people. Jesus says that even the hairs on our heads are numbered by God. He knew him.

He formed him: “Before I formed you.” The same word is used in Jeremiah 18:4 for a potter making clay. It is used in Genesis 2:7 for God making of man from the earth. It means that he made him as he wished him to be. As a potter can make anything from clay, so God made Jeremiah. He formed him as he was and is.

He sanctified him: “before you were born I set you apart.” The word means to separate something for a job, a task, a purpose. The New Testament speaks of God’s people as “saints”–the “separated ones.” God made us for himself. We are a means to his end. We exist for his glory. He made us for his purposes.

And he called him: “I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” “Appointed” means to set apart for a task. For Jeremiah, it was to be a prophet to the nations. To speak and record the word of God for the people and for posterity. God clearly brought his plan to pass, as we are reading the words of that prophet today.

Why is this episode in Holy Scripture? Jeremiah obviously knew all of this. The Holy Spirit led him to record this for your sake and mine. So we could know that what God did for Jeremiah, he has done for every one of us as well. He “knew” you–everything you would ever do, before he “formed” you. He made you, then set you apart for himself. And he has called you to a purpose in his Kingdom. He has a plan for your life–a plan to prosper you and not harm you, a plan to give you hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). His plan is good, pleasing, and perfect (Romans 12:2).

All of this is what God has done for us. And he’s not done yet.

What God will do for us

Here’s what God will do for us. First, he plans our lives (v. 7). Jeremiah thinks that he cannot speak, that he is too inexperienced. God says: I have a plan, and you’re in it. I will send you, and I will tell you what to do. If you know where to go and what to do, you know all you need to know.

He protects us (v. 8): “Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you.” When you don’t want to follow his plan, to go where he sends and say what he says, remember that he will protect you when you are in his will. But only then–he cannot protect those who will not follow him, any more than a shepherd can protect a sheep which wanders from his care. The safest place in all the world to be is the center of the will of God.

He provides for us (v. 9): “Now, I have put my words in your mouth.” Why words? Because this is what a prophet would need. Jeremiah would need to say, “Thus says the Lord.” Whatever you need, God will give you as well. He equips the called–he does not call the equipped.

And he uses us (v. 10). God has a global purpose for our lives. Jeremiah could not imagine a use this great, but God could. He couldn’t imagine affecting nations and kingdoms–to uproot and tear down, destroy and overthrow, build and plant.

But this is what God did with Jeremiah. He used him to call his people to repentance. When they refused, he used him to call them to judgment and exile. Eventually they would return from their slavery in Babylon and never be the same again. No more idolatry–they would worship the one true God. And through their nation would come the Messiah for all the world.

What was true for Jeremiah is true for every one of us. He plans for us, protects us, provides for us, and uses us. There are no exceptions to this rule.

Abraham lied about his wife and slept with her maid. Jacob was named “deceiver” for a reason, as his cheated brother could attest. Judah fathered two sons by his daughter-in-law, but became the forefather of the Messiah. Moses murdered an Egyptian before becoming a fugitive for 40 years. On we could go: David and Bathsheba, Solomon with his 700 wives and 300 concubines, Peter’s three denials of Jesus, Saul of Tarsus and the persecution of Christians.

It’s been the same through Christian history. Augustine fathered a son with his girlfriend and prayed, “God, make me chaste but not yet.” Thomas Aquinas was nicknamed “the dumb ox” at school. Martin Luther suffered serious bouts with depression, as did Charles Spurgeon. Dwight Moody was nearly illiterate when he began preaching. Billy Graham grew up on a farm and never went to seminary. And these are just the names you know.

What we must do for God

What you don’t know is that every person used greatly by God has the same story. We all have sins we don’t want you to know about, mistakes and failures and guilt in our past. Anyone who has met God has been awed by him and felt like a child in his presence.

You see, such humility is a prerequisite to usefulness. God cannot do for us what we try to do for ourselves. Jesus’ first beatitude was clear: “Blessed are the poor in spirit”–those who know how desperately they need God.

Mother Teresa called herself a “little pencil in the hand of God,” and closed every one of her recently published letters with the request: “Pray for me.”

Billy Graham admitted in his autobiography: “I have often said that the first thing I am going to do when I get to Heaven is to ask, ‘Why me, Lord? Why did You choose a farmboy from North Carolina to preach to so many people, to have such a wonderful team of associates, and to have a part in what You were doing in the latter half of the twentieth century?’ I have thought about that question a great deal, but I know also that only God knows the answer.”

Self-sufficiency is the enemy of spiritual power. Working for God–doing what we can do to serve him–deciding what we want to do and asking him to bless our decisions–marshalling our experience and wisdom and using it to lead or serve the church–these are the ways to human success but not spiritual victory. These may be ways to build a bigger church, but not a bigger Kingdom.

Bill Hybels is the founder of Willow Creek Community Church, the largest church in America. He is also the founder and leader of the Willow Creek Association, a global network of Kingdom-building churches. When he encounters business leaders who think they can run their church just like their run their business, he always says, “It’s not the same, and it’s not that simple.” He’s right.

Andrew Murray says that the key to the spiritual life is admitting that it is impossible, that we cannot know God, please him, or serve him in our ability. Jesus was explicit: “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5, emphasis mine).

If we don’t seek the face of God, admitting that we don’t know what to do and cannot do anything spiritual or eternal, we will never have his word and will. We will never see souls saved and lives changed, families healed and homes blessed. We will never see the Kingdom grow so long as we are running the Kingdom.

Only when we humble ourselves as Jeremiah humbled himself can we be used as Jeremiah was used. But when we do, we are.

Conclusion

Today is the day to know that God knows you, and formed you, and sanctified you, and called you. He wants to plan your life, and protect you, and provide for you, and use you. But you must admit that you need what he can do. You must admit that you need his plan, and protection, and provision, and purpose. When last did you do that?

When we’re in charge, life grows stale and frustrating. When God is in charge, life is significant and exciting. We’re being used for something global. God is doing more with us than we could ever do with ourselves. If Jeremiah had refused to yield his life to the purpose of God, we would never have heard of him. Because he did, the world is not the same.

The late Bruce Thielemann, a Presbyterian minister, was one of my favorite preachers. He said that we live in a dull day, that we are “legions of the unjazzed.” I think he’s right. I think we settle for the easy, the routine, the complacent. I don’t think the church of Jesus Christ in America has a vision of what God wants to do with us, of what he can do with us. We’re legions of the unjazzed. Are you in that number?

Thielemann says there are a lot of folks who have their lives planned out very carefully. Nice little job. Nice little marriage. Two nice little kids. Nice little retirement plan. Nice little house with a nice little two-car garage with two nice little cars. You know what the end of that story is? It’s a nice little hill with a nice little mound upon it and a nice little stone at the top of the mound with your nice little name on it and a few nice little dates underneath. Mediocrity. The legions of the unjazzed.

Seek the dream of God for your life. Know that the God of the universe can use you in ways you cannot possibly comprehend. Surrender the day when it begins. Pray first, all through the day. Ask God to use your life to do more than you can imagine. And believe that he will.

Catholic cardinal John Henry Newman was right: “Fear not that you may try and fail, but rather that you may fail to try. Fear not that thy life shall come to an end, but rather fear that it shall never have a beginning.”

It begins where it began for Jeremiah. If you are “only a child” before God Almighty, you are the child of the God of the universe. What has your Father planned for you today?

Love in Four Tenses

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Love in Four Tenses

Jonah 4:1-11

James C. Denison, Ph.D.

Barry Bonds hit his 756th home run on August 7 of this year, surpassing Hank Aaron as the all-time home run hitter. The ball will soon land in the Baseball Hall of Fame. We learned this week that when the ball arrives, it will be branded with an asterisk. Marc Ecko, the fashion designer who bought the baseball for $752,467, asked fans to decide how he should treat the memento.

After 10 million online votes, an asterisk was the winner, reminding us of the steroids controversy which has surrounded Bonds for years. The Hall has agreed to accept the asterisked ball.

I don’t know what I think about Barry Bonds, but I do know what I think about myself. If every sermon I preached had to come from a sinless person, they’d all be asterisked. So would everything you’ll do this week, I would imagine. But God Almighty doesn’t use asterisks in his Lamb’s Book of Life. He forgives all we confess and forgets all he forgives. He buries our sins in the depths of the deepest seas and separates them from us as far as the East is from the West. That’s how much he loves us.

Today we’ll learn that the awesome, fearsome, holy God of the universe, the God who wants an intimate relationship with each of us, is the God of love. He is love all the time, whether we deserve his love or not. Whether our circumstances reflect his love or not. Whether we feel his love or not. This morning we’ll learn why that fact is the best gift you can receive today. And the best gift you can give tomorrow.

Who was Jonah?

Jonah was God’s prophet, his preacher, in the eighth century before Christ. He had earlier predicted that King Jeroboam of Israel would restore the nation’s borders and bring relative peace to the country (2 Kings 14:23-25). His was apparently a successful and faithful ministry. Until, that is, he was called to go to Nineveh (Jonah 1:1-2).

Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, the most wicked nation on earth. They were a conqueror nation, the Nazi Germany of their day, employing al-Qaeda-like terrorist tactics wherever they went. They would literally peel the skin from their victims and use it to paper their walls. And the nation they hated worst on earth was Israel.

You see, they wanted to control Egypt, the other superpower of the day. But Israel was in the middle, and Israel wouldn’t cooperate. So the Assyrians hated the Jews. One day, 30 or so years after Jonah, they would come and destroy Israel, the ten northern tribes. They would make them “the ten lost tribes of Israel.”

No Jew would go to Nineveh any more than one would have wanted to preach in Hitler’s Berlin or an American preacher would be happy with a call from God to preach to the Taliban.

But that’s not why Jonah didn’t want to go there, as we’ll see in a moment. He wasn’t afraid of Nineveh. He had preached God’s word faithfully before a corrupt king in Israel. He would soon sacrifice himself in the storm to save the sailors. When God finally brought him to Nineveh he did not hesitate to preach to them. He didn’t flee Nineveh out of fear, as we’ll learn shortly. But he did flee Nineveh.

In fact, Jonah “ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish” (Jonah 1:3). Nineveh was directly to the east from Israel; Tarshish was directly to the west. In fact, since it was located in southwestern Spain, the city was as far west as their known world extended. In those pre-Columbus days, this was as far from Nineveh as a man could get. So Jonah went to Joppa, a Jewish port city on the Mediterranean coast, boarded a ship, and ran from God.

But that never works. When you run from God you run into him. That’s what happened to Jonah. God “threw” a storm at him (v. 4 in the literal Hebrew). The sailors threw their cargo back to lighten the ship and make a sacrifice to the god of the weather. But it didn’t work. So at his request they threw Jonah overboard, and turned their hearts to God (v. 16).

Then the same God who made the storm to catch Jonah made a “great fish” to save him. After the fish brought Jonah to Nineveh, he didn’t try to run again, for obvious reasons. Instead, he began doing what God told him to do: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned” (Jonah 3:4).

With this shocking outcome: “The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth” (v. 5). Even the king joined them, and required the nation to join him. This would be like Hitler converting to Judaism and requiring the entire German nation to join him. And “when God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened” (v. 10).

Who is your Nineveh?

But Jonah wasn’t happy: “O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity” (Jonah 4:2).

That’s why he didn’t want to go to Nineveh–not because he was afraid the Ninevites would reject his message, but because he was afraid they wouldn’t. He was afraid that they would repent and then God would forgive them. He was afraid that the Lord would love the mortal enemies of his people. And then he’d have to love them as well. And this Jonah would not do.

Do you remember Jeffrey Dahmer, the man who was convicted of torturing, murdering and then cannibalizing his victims, some of them children? A Church of Christ minister named Roy Ratcliff said that he baptized Dahmer in the penitentiary whirlpool in May of 1994, shortly before he was killed by other inmates. Does the idea that God could forgive Jeffrey Dahmer and bring him to heaven bother you?

Matias Reyes was a convicted murderer and rapist who converted to Christianity while in prison and confessed to other crimes for which he was never charged. Could God forgive and love him?

Manuel Noriega is a convicted international drug lord and the former dictator of Panama. In May of 1990 he was led to Christ by a prison chaplain. He completed a 16-week Bible training course. On October 24, 1992, he was baptized in prison. He was served the Lord’s Supper and allowed to give a brief testimony before he was returned to his maximum security cell. Here is part of that testimony:

“Before, Jesus to me was only an image of that which was learned from Catholicism, an historic being who worked miracles. All was transformed when on Tuesday, January the 16th, 1990, Dr. Clift asked me in a telephone conversation, he in Texas and I in a preventive prison of the court, “Do you know that Jesus loves you?”

“Today, this is what He means to me: He is the Son of God, who died on the cross for our sins, who arose from the grave and is at the right hand of God the Father and who above all things He is my Savior, and has mercy on me, a sinner.”

Who is Nineveh to you? Who hurt you the most deeply, or has stressed and distressed your spirit most recently? What person would you rather not love? Who would you rather not forgive? Where is the Nineveh you don’t want to visit?

Where are you with God?

God loves us when we run from him, as Jonah did in fleeing Nineveh. He loves us when we run to him, as Jonah did in the belly of the fish. He loves us when we run with him, as Jonah did in preaching to Nineveh. And he even loves us when we run behind him, as Jonah did in his anger over God’s forgiving love.

Which of these four tenses is yours today? Are you running from the will of God? Refusing to stop a sin or give your time and money, or take a step of faith? Are you running to God today in confession and contrition? Are you running with him in faithful obedience and service? Are you running behind him in bitterness and anger and resentment? Nothing we do changes the nature of God. And God is always love.

If you’re trying to earn his love, stop it. Stop coming to church so God will love you, and start coming to church because he loves you. Stop praying and reading the Bible and trying to be moral so God will bless you, and start praying and reading and obeying because he has blessed you. Stop serving him so that he will reward you, and start serving him because he has.

If you don’t believe he can really love you, change your mind today. If he could love Nineveh in their wickedness and sin, he has permission to love you. Either God keeps his promises or he doesn’t. Either the Bible is true or it is not. Either God wants all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4) or he doesn’t. Either he is faithful and just to forgive your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9) or he isn’t. Either he is love or he is not.

Decide that the Bible is true and that God is faithful. Give him whatever most plagues your soul today, whatever sin or failure most grieves your heart. And know that God Almighty is Love Almighty for you.

If you don’t believe that God can love the unlovely through you, know that you’re wrong. Know that God can love your Ninevite even when you can’t. Ask his help. Ask for his forgiving grace and love. Step out by faith. And know that if you’re simply willing to share his love with people who need it most, you’ll never lack for opportunity. If you’re available to give God’s love away, you’ll always be used by your Father.

I was sitting in a deacons meeting on Sunday night at our church in Mansfield when a deranged-looking man bolted through the door and said, “Who’s the preacher?” Our deacons, being supportive and protective of their pastor, all pointed their fingers at me.

It turned out that this man had set out that night in his car to do one of two things. Either he was going to find a church which was still open and give his life to Jesus, or he was going to commit suicide. He saw the light in our window and that night trusted Jesus as his Lord. It was the easiest evangelistic experience of my life.

God loves everyone you know. And he wants to love them through you.

Conclusion

If you’re running from God, he loves you and is waiting for you to come back to him. If you’re running to God, he loves you and welcomes you with joy. If you’re running with God, he loves you and will use you to give his love to the world. If you’re running behind God, he loves you and wants to love the person you cannot, through you.

All because God Almighty is Love Almighty. His Son proved it to the world. And with his death he separated our sins from us as far as the East is from the West. This is the word and the promise of God.

The contemporary Christian group “Casting Crowns” has a song on the radio which has greatly impressed me in recent days. Listen to the lyrics:

Here I am Lord, and I’m drowning in your sea of forgetfulness.

The chains of yesterday surround me; I yearn for peace and rest.

I don’t want to end up where you found me,

And it echoes in my mind, keeps me awake tonight.

I know you cast my sin as far as the east is from the west

And I stand before you now as thought I’ve never sinned.

But today I feel like I’m just one mistake away from you leaving me this way.

I start the day and the war begins, endless reminding me of my sin.

And time and time again your truth is drowned out by the storm I’m in.

Today I feel like I’m just one mistake away from you leaving me this way.

I know you’ve washed me white, turned my darkness into light.

I need your peace to get me through, to get me through this night.

Can’t live by what I feel, but by the Truth your work reveals.

I’m not holding on to you, but you’re holding on to me.

You’re holding on to me.

Jesus, can you show me just how far the East is from the West

‘Cause I can’t bear to see the man I’ve been come rising up in me again.

In the arms of your mercy I find rest ’cause you know

Just how far the East is from the West

From one scarred hand to the other.

Amen.

The Church God Can Bless

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The Church God Can Bless

Matthew 16:13-20

James C. Denison

The Dallas Cowboys begin their 48th season today. They have won five Super Bowls, tied for most in NFL history. They have 16 players in the NFL’s Hall of Fame in Canton, and will send another when Emmitt Smith becomes eligible in three years. They will soon occupy a $1 billion stadium, the most expensive ever built. They have a payroll of $82 million. But none of that matters when they play the New York Giants tonight, does it? They believe they can win the Super Bowl this year. If they don’t, nothing else they do will count.

Today we pause to celebrate all that God has given our family of faith. A $34.7 million facility, nearly paid for in full. We begin our fourth morning worship service today. We again ended the year with a giving surplus because of the faithfulness of our people. You’ve heard some of the good news from our summer ministries, as we have completed another successful season of Vacation Bible School, children’s sports and day camps, Youth Camp, and mission trips around the globe.

For what purpose? What is our Super Bowl? What is the victory which matters most? There is only one purpose God can bless, and therefore only one kind of church he can bless. If we want to be that church, we must fulfill that purpose. If we want God to bless our lives and our families, we must fulfill that purpose. In this league, there is no prize for second place.

Why to attack Hell

Let’s get the setting in our minds again.

Two years or so into his public ministry, Jesus and his disciples have taken some time to get away, retreating to Caesarea Philippi on the far northern edge of Galilee. This was the resort center of antiquity, the Vail or Jackson Hole of the first century. High in the hills, its climate is always cool.

Jesus and his friends were gathered in one of the most beautiful places in that part of the world. Surrounded by forests and hills, with a creek meandering at their side, they finally had some rest and quiet. I’ve been there twice–it is my favorite place to visit in the Holy Land.

Now they had time to reflect on their years together. Jesus asked them, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” (v. 13). They answered with the popular speculation. “But what about you?” he pressed the point. And Simon Peter, their impetuous, boastful, mercurial leader, got something right. He became the first person in history to utter the words, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (v. 16).

To this declaration Jesus replied, “On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it” (v. 18). When we began our summer series with this text, we emphasized the first part of Jesus’ proclamation: the fact that this is his church.

His Greek was emphatic: “I will build the church of me.” It is a genitive of possession: this church belongs to Jesus and to him alone. Not to Jesus and us, or Jesus and the deacons, or Jesus and the culture. This is his church, or it’s not a church.

If we’re calling the shots and running the show, we can build a wonderful benevolent organization, a religious society, a Rotary Club with a Bible study, but we cannot build a church. Only Jesus can build a church. And he builds only the church that is his. We are his, or we are not a church.

Today we need to emphasize the second half of his sentence: “and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” Literally, “the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” The word means “to have strength against,” “to stand up to.”

Gates do not attack–they defend. We put signs on our gates that say “Bad Dog” to warn people away. When last did you see a sign, “Bad Gate”? Who has a vicious gate at their house, a gate which attacks you when you come near?

We had to replace the backyard fence at our house a couple of years ago, and put up a new gate as well. It has since warped in the weather so that I’ve had to cut and saw and sand it several times. Try doing that to a Doberman. But my gate just sits there in silence. It opens and shuts, and does nothing else. That’s what gates do.

Here Jesus speaks of the “gates of Hades.” He was pointing to a cave high on the cliff overhead, a cave which leads to a cavern which bores down into the earth. The ancients called it the “gates of the underworld” or the “gates of Hades.” It’s still there today. It hasn’t moved. It doesn’t threaten anyone. You can look at it, and climb up to it, and say what you want about it, and it can’t strike back. It’s just a gate.

In Jesus’ metaphor, it’s the gate which leads to Hades, to the lair of the dead, to the realm of the enemy.

Everyone and everything on earth is on one side of that gate or the other. You either belong to God or you belong to Satan. You serve your Lord or you serve his enemy. There’s no middle ground, no neutral Switzerland of the soul, no demilitarized zone. Every person on earth is claimed either by God in Christ or by Satan and his demons.

It is our job to attack the gates of Hades so we can rescue those who are imprisoned on the other side. It is our job to reclaim souls from hell for heaven. This is why Jesus said he builds his church. It is our one reason for existing. It is the only purpose he will bless.

How to attack Hell

Everything we celebrate today has been built by God for this one purpose. How do we fulfill it? How do we win this victory? How can we be the church and the people God can bless?

First, we choose the same goal. Passionately, personally, collectively.

The Cowboys won’t have much success if they don’t all run the same plays. If Tony Romo fades back to pass and Julius Jones takes the ball from him so he can run with it, not much good will result. Imagine Terrell Owens swatting the ball down so Jason Witten can’t catch it. Unfortunately, you’re describing some of the churches and Christians I’ve watched over the years. I heard about a man who said he pastored one church and refereed two others.

The church exists to attack Hell. If you’re not on board with that purpose, if you’re coming to church for any other purpose, you’re in the way. If you came not to worship God but to be seen; if you came not to give to God but only to get something from him, you’re not playing on his team. Jesus is building a church which will attack Hell. If you’re not committed to that purpose, if you’re running your own plays instead, you need to repent and submit to him as your King and Lord.

You exist to be his ambassador, his fisher of men, his salt and light. You exist to be his witness, to make disciples of all nations. That’s why you’re on earth. That’s why you have your job, or attend your school, or live in your community. That’s why you’re here. If you want a life God can bless, get on the team.

Second, we take Christ to the lost.

If the Cowboys are to have success this year, they’ll have to seize it. No one is going to give them a yard or a point. No one will care about their $1 billion stadium or $82 million payroll. You don’t score points by staying in the huddle. The team that takes the initiative is the team that wins.

That’s even more true spiritually. The people on the other side of the gates of Hades cannot get out. They cannot get to us. It’s not just that the lost people we know don’t want to come to Christ and to church. The Bible says that they are spiritually deceived (1 Corinthians 2:14).

Satan has convinced them that they can be as God, knowing good and evil (cf. Genesis 3:5). He has them believing that they have all of God they need, that they can go to heaven if they’re good and believe in God, that it doesn’t matter what you believe so long as you’re sincere and tolerant. He has convinced them that they don’t need what we have to give, any more than you think you need what a Buddhist temple offers.

And so we must go to them. A “fisher of men” goes where the fish are found. He doesn’t wait in the boat for the fish to jump in. He doesn’t fish when it’s convenient, or use the bait he most enjoys. He does whatever it takes to get to the fish.

In Dallas, Texas, you’re that bait. You are those fishers of men. You will talk to more unchurched people this week than I’ll see this month. You are the only Bible most will read, the only church they’ll attend. That’s why it is so crucial that you pray by name for lost people, and invite them to something spiritual.

We will give you every opportunity we can. We will give you four Sunday morning worship services and Bible studies and spiritual events all week long. We are putting ads in the North Park movie theater and using media across our community. But lost people are not sitting at home hoping that we will begin another worship service or a Bible study. They won’t come just because they saw an ad. If you’ll invite them, they’ll come. If you won’t, they won’t. Who do you know on the other side of the gates of Hades today?

Last, we fight until the victory is won. Here’s the incredible good news: if we attack, we will win. Jesus guarantees victory to his church’s assault: “the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” As you work, God works. When you speak his word by his Spirit’s leading, he empowers you and uses you. He saves souls and changes lives. He builds his Kingdom. And you get to be a part of the most exciting purpose in life.

Conclusion

We are meeting today so we can go marching tomorrow. The church God can bless is the church that is attacking Hell. The life God can bless is the life that is attacking Hell. Can God bless us? Can God bless you?

Martin Luther said, “The world does not need a definition of religion so much as it needs a demonstration.” Will you be that demonstration? Will you pray for those who are trapped on the other side of the gates of Hell? Will you ask God to use your life and time, your abilities and resources to help them? Will you volunteer for service? Will you surrender to his purpose and power? Will you live a life God can bless?

All over the world, God is using his people to assault the gates of Hell.

In 40 years, only about one-fifth of the world’s Christians will be Anglos. The number of Christians in Africa has grown from 10 million in 1900 to 360 million in 2000. Nearly half the continent is Christian. There are more Christians in Ethiopia than there are Methodists in North America. In South Korea, where there was not a single born-again Christian in 1900, nearly one half of the nation follows Jesus. They are sending more missionaries into the world than we are.

God is preparing for a day when we will say with John in Revelation, “there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:9). The church that wants that future, the church that attacks Hell to create that future is the church God can bless.

Will we be that church? Will you?

The Need for Speed

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The Need for Speed

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

James C. Denison

BlackBerries and other personal digital assistants are so much a fact of life that Hyatt hotels now offer a special hand, arm, and thumb massage called “BlackBerry Balm.” Google considered changing its search engine to show 30 results rather than 10, but people didn’t want to wait the extra half-second. Ninety one percent of us watch TV while we eat; 26 percent admit they “often eat while driving,” and 35 percent of us eat lunch at our desks while working. A “Labor Day” to rest from labor has never been a better idea.

Since 1955, our average income after inflation has tripled, while life expectancy has increased roughly 10 percent. So we have more to spend and do, but not more time to do it. The result is a world obsessed with speed, and filled with stress as a result.

Our problem began when we shifted from agriculture to industry. We migrated from the farm, where our work and our lives were intermingled, for the factory. We left home for work, and left work for home. But now technology follows us everywhere we go. And we feel incredibly stressed by the fact that we can never quit (The Age of Speed: Learning to thrive in a more-faster-now world).

The answer is not to work less, or work faster and harder. The answer is to work on purpose. It is to find a life purpose which gives you significance, direction, and joy. Then make everything you do serve that purpose, “work” and the rest of your day–when you’re at school, in the office, sitting at home. We will resolve our need for speed, our stress and struggle to survive in a breakneck world, when we have a simple, single purpose and align our lives with it.

Easy enough. What should that purpose be? Your Maker has an answer for that question.

Be reconciled to God

“Reconciliation,” the concept of restoring the relationship between God and humanity, was unknown to the Greco-Roman world before Christ. No Greek writer ever used the word in this way, for none had ever considered the possibility that we would want a personal relationship with the gods. You wanted to stay as far from Zeus and his thunderbolts as possible. A man on a sinking ship cried out to the gods for help, when a fellow sailor said, “Quiet! Better not to let them know where we are!”

But our King and Lord wants precisely this with us. He took the initiative. He made us right with himself “through Christ Jesus,” through his death on the cross. He paid our debt; he took our punishment; he died in our place. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (v. 21).

Then he “gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”

“Gave” means to bestow favor and privilege. It is the greatest possible privilege to be used in reconciling the human race to God. You and I did not earn or deserve this honor. We are no better than those we are sent to reach. Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven. We are beggars telling other beggars where we found bread.

Ours is the “ministry” or “service” of reconciliation. This is a service we perform, a ministry we provide. We are not pushing our beliefs on others. One of the reasons evangelism is hard for so many of us is that we don’t want to offend people. But the doctor isn’t being offensive when she prescribes the medicine you need; the pharmacist isn’t being offensive when he gives it to you. The coach who helps you play better golf; the mechanic who makes your car run; the IT person who fixes your computer are all performing a service. They’re not judging you–they’re helping you.

Our message is clear and simple. “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.” The “world,” for “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son” (John 3:16); God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9); God wants all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4).

God is doing this. You and I cannot convict a single person of a single sin, or save a single soul. We cannot get people from hell into heaven. This is not our job. Our job is to deliver the message, and trust God to use his word by the power of his Spirit.

God has “committed to us the message of reconciliation.” He has “committed” it to us–the word means to give over, to lay aside for another. God has given this message to us and to no other. We are the world’s only hope.

Invite the world to God

With this result: “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God” (v. 20).

If you were to be America’s ambassador to another country, which would you choose? I’d choose England hands down. If there were two of me, one would live in Dallas and one would live in London. Our Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Robert Holmes Tuttle, has my dream job. Let’s use him as an analogy for God’s call to us.

Ambassadors belong to the country they serve. Ambassador Tuttle serves at the sole discretion and pleasure of President Bush. He does not serve America and England, the president and the prime minister. He is an American citizen, living in American property. He retains his American citizenship all the time he lives in London.

In the same way, you and I are “Christ’s ambassadors”–the original is a genitive of possession, signifying that we belong to him and to no other. We do not serve Christ and our job, Christ and our school, Christ and our friends, Christ and our ambitions. We serve only Christ. We belong only to Christ. We live in his property, our lives at his disposal. We are his alone.

Ambassadors are told what to say. Ambassador Tuttle has no independent message to deliver. He does not negotiate with England of his own volition. He has no ability to sign a treaty in his name. He is the president’s spokesman, his instrument for conveying his message.

In the same way, we have been given our message “as though God were making his appeal through us.” When we speak the gospel, God speaks through us. When we share God’s word, God’s Spirit works with and through us. He communicates his truth. He convicts of sin and converts souls. He changes lives, heals marriages, shapes lives. He does his work by his word through us. As we work, God works.

We have but one message: “We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.” Accept his forgiveness and favor. Ask for the gift of eternal life. Ask him to reconcile you to himself, to return you to the relationship you had before sin destroyed everything. Ask to be restored, and you will be. The slate wiped clean, your past forgiven, your present in his hands, your future assured. This is our message. We have no other.

Serve your Lord

The only thing an ambassador can do wrong is refuse to submit to the authority of the president. So long as he goes where he is sent, says what he is told to say, and does what he is told to do, he will serve effectively and well. So with us. It’s not about us.

The problem is, this is not the version of Christianity you’ve heard most of your life. For more than century, popular Christianity has been made a self-help guide to happier living. Confess your sins so you can be forgiven and go to heaven–who wouldn’t want that? Come to church so we can help you with your marriage and money–who wouldn’t want that? Come for what you can get. If you don’t get what you want, go somewhere else. If we focused only on helping you find success without stress, our culture would like nothing more.

Is this the invitation of Jesus Christ? His message in a sentence was “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 4:17). He warned his followers, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). This is why Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

God has led me often in recent months to remind you that Christianity was never meant to be a Sunday morning, check-the-box religion, a bank where you go to get what you need for the week. No other religion works that way. Muslims pray five times a day, every day; Buddhists and Hindus live every moment by their religions; Orthodox Jews govern every detail of their lives by the Law.

But in the West we have divided Sunday from Monday, religion from the real world. This is the great heresy, the great lie–to believe we can serve God and ourselves, God and our plans, God and our friends or clients or colleagues, God and the world. Jesus was blunt: “you cannot serve God and wealth” (Matthew 6:23, NRSV).

So there must come the time when we make our choice. We belong to God. We are his children. He has sent us as his ambassadors to the foreign country of Dallas, to deliver his message of reconciliation in everything we do. This is the purpose with which our lives must be aligned. This is why we work at our jobs, and go to our schools, and live our lives. All to be the ambassador of Christ, bringing his love and grace to everyone we can influence. Everything is a means to this end.

But we can choose to abandon our Lord and calling. We can choose to serve England instead of America, to care more what our friends think than our Father wants, to live more for this place where we are temporarily assigned than for the eternal home to which we will one day go.

We can make prayer and Bible study one more task of the day, ministry one more responsibility we must fulfill. And we will go through life without direction, significance, or joy. When it is over, we will have missed it. Our lives will matter not at all.

The choice is ours.

Conclusion

Those used greatly by God have all come to this place of surrender, of aligning their lives with the one purpose of serving Jesus Christ every moment, in every way. The Chinese theologian Watchman Nee said it well:

“A day must come in our lives, as definite as the day of our conversion, when we give up all right to ourselves and submit to the absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ…there must be a day when, without reservation, we surrender everything to Him–ourselves, our families, our possessions, our business and our time. All we are and have becomes His, to be held henceforth entirely at His disposal.

“From that day we are no longer our own masters, but only stewards. Not until the Lordship of Jesus Christ is a settled thing in our hearts can the Holy Spirit really operate effectively in us. He cannot direct our lives effectively until all control of them is committed to Him. If we do not give Him absolute authority in our lives, He can be present, but He cannot be powerful. The power of the Spirit is stayed” (The Normal Christian Life 134-5).

Are you experiencing the power of the Spirit in your life? Power over temptation? Power to stand for Christ? To serve Christ? To share Christ? If not, is this the reason?

Andrew Murray said, “God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to him.” Will yours be that life today?