JUSTICE IN BACKWARD CANADA

Red Deer Advocate, October 8th, 2011 and November 26th, 2011. These two clippings considered together will give us a fair sense of what passes for justice in backward Canada. First clip: A man gets 60 days more jail time than the thief he defended his property against. Second clip: A stay of execution is granted to a couple of mangy, mauling dogs. So in Canada, justice goes like so: Punish the hero who defended his right to his own property; but protect the dangerous beasts who attacked the defenseless. Punish the righteous; protect the dangerous. Punish upstanding citizens; protect rampaging dogs.

We should use our immigration policy to some good purpose: exchange a few of our Canadian judges for ones from Texas or Singapore. That way, we would get some real justice over here, while our backward judges could receive some on-the-job training over there to learn what real justice looks like and how to execute it. 

If we were to steer our judicial system just a little in the direction of our good, old, neglected Bible, the thief caught stealing would have to make restitution; that is, if the owner didn’t righteously kill him first (Exodus 22.) And as for the dogs, they would be put down without argument and delay, and their owners would be made to pay for all the injuries and trauma their dogs caused to the victims (Exodus 21.) And if dogs, like oxen of old, be not hemmed in, and end up killing someone, then the owner should pay with his life (Exodus 21.29.) A society must protect innocent lives. Otherwise it is unjust. A society requires a robust law so that you can go for a safe walk. Otherwise its freedom is impaired. When justice is not enforced, freedom is cut back. Some people balk and squawk at the mention of the Bible for a guideline on justice, as if it implies that those appealing to the Bible must want to enact all the civil laws (like stoning for adultery) that the LORD gave to the Israelites. That’s the common accusation. But it is far better to pick and choose among laws from God’s holy book than to rely on the ideas that come from our philosophers and out of our universities! It is better to live in a society where the law is rigid enough that you are on edge just a bit, than to live in one where a man can just come and take what’s yours.   

There is an outcry for justice from the public concerning both of these unjust rulings. There is a natural law in the spirit of man, and it leans toward common sense justice and restitution (Romans 2.14, 15.) For example, in the case of Mr. Knight, who shared some honest buckshot with his thief, “many people believe what he did was right and totally justified,” says his lawyer. Moreover, “people from across the country contributed several thousand dollars to Knight’s defence fund.” Intuitively, the people know what’s right and wrong, at least when it comes down to a basic issue like stealing. Without realizing it, segments of the public agree in principle with biblical justice. Judges are not so reasonable and moral. It is only after a bad dose of liberal schooling that persons, like judges, lose their common sense radar and then get these seared spirits that no longer care to make righteous rulings.

What part of the legal curriculum could surpass the training that the Bible would provide would-be judges? “Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates, which the LORD thy God giveth thee, throughout thy tribes: and they shall judge the people with just judgment. Thou shalt not wrest judgment” (Deuteronomy 16.18, 19.) In particular, this part of the curriculum should be what the judges are made to abide by from the powers of parliament. And laws ought to be in place to enforce punishment upon judges who ‘wrest judgment.’

The judges named in these clippings, and who ‘wrested judgment,’ must be known by someone. They have to live somewhere. If you know one of them, or a judge like them, one who ‘wrests judgment,’ express your disapproval when you see him or her about town. Or maybe write a public letter expressing your disagreement. But be very gentle and law-abiding when you speak, or else judgment may be wrested upon you! Do not forget to be civil, meek, and soft-spoken with spineless, backward judges. Judges like these are very quick on the draw when their space is invaded. Judges like these are paranoid with fear for all the wrongs they have done. Judges like these will suffer criminals gladly; but law-abiding citizens who challenge them with a word of correction they will suffer not at all. Be sweet-tempered and wise in all your dealings with unjust, pampered people who occupy positions of power. But still, be firm; it is still possible to be firm if you are careful and discreet with your words.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF MOLESTATION

We live in an imperfect world. But we must believe, if God was wise to set into motion what the world has become, that this imperfect world is the best way to a better world, the best world of all. Offences must happen in this world, said Jesus. And no doubt when he said this the offence of his own crucifixion was not out of his view, the greatest offence that must take place, and ordained by God as the Bridge to allow all to pass who would enter into this better world. What’s remarkable about Jesus’ statement on the necessity of offences is that they pertain even to little ones being offended, be they disciples or actual children. “It is impossible,” said Jesus, “but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come! It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones” (Luke 17.1, 2.) Only God can entirely understand why horrors like molestation and persecution must take place. But then, woe unto him, through whom they come! Jesus himself will punish those through whom these offences come. This prophetic certainty can be a mighty preventive against the victim being catapulted into a depression leading to suicide, if only someone would tell him about it before it’s too late! It is a fact needing to be thundered from judgment seats and pulpits everywhere! It would surely prevent many suicides and be a departure point from which to reverse the depression caused by the offence. The promise of Jesus is rendered all the more weighty and menacing if the offender be guilty of causing to his victim, not only an offence, but an unmentionable one, and not only that, but a suicide resulting from the offence, and then an immediate, permanent stay in hell because of that self-murder. What fierce punishment in hell will that person endure who is guilty of prompting another soul to suffer the same destiny?! Is the greater penalty the offender will receive an incentive for the victim to commit suicide? Hardly, for who wants to go to hell?

Informing victims of molestation that the Lord of the universe will yet take matters of judgment into his own hands, this is not liable to promote a spirit of vengeance. On the contrary, this knowledge tends to create peace of heart because the spirit of vengeance is turned over to God. Hurt ones must let the saying of God, then, sink down into their ears, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay” (Romans 12.19.) God does not pledge in vain! Lingering injustice that seems will go on indefinitely, this is what tends to cause bitterness and self-destruction.

Now, can it be wrong to comfort hurt souls with what Jesus and the Father promise? Jesus promises to crush the offenders! The Father promises to take vengeance! The Holy Spirit is a fire hotter than hell itself! Christendom has lately so misinterpreted the command to be inoffensive that it has become ashamed of some of the most precious promises that are just now most needing to be spoken into the ears of the most needy! Let’s not be afraid nor embarrassed of God’s own promise, ‘VENGEANCE IS MINE; I WILL REPAY.’ And let’s find our own selves under the cloak of Jesus’ blood, by faith, by trust, by confidence, in order that the almighty vengeance of God may pass over us without consequence. Look to Jesus and be forgiven of all your offences. This Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified God did raise from the dead, the Bible says. “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4.12.) Forget about suicide; don’t leap into hell but into Jesus’ arms instead.

GLOBAL WARMING

That some scientists actually believe or support articles like this one is no wonder. They either believe because they simply want no other point of view; or they support the cause for political purposes, which engenders monetary gain. Warming conditions have not caused ‘catastrophic flooding all over the world.’ How much, or even whether at all, this melting iceberg contributed to global warming may be impossible to tell. We just know that its feared effect must have been overrated. Whatever happened to it between 1995 and 2012, whether it has fully melted yet or whether some modern Titanic has run into it, we have not heard. The reason why this piece of ice so quickly drifted off the media map is likely because its ominous danger was soon realized to be nebulous, if not entirely erroneous. Like Y2K, the iceberg once loomed large. But it must have disintegrated without catastrophe like the common snow-bank does come spring. Many ice shelves have been lost since 1978, says another article from 1998 on the same subject (‘Antarctic Ice Sheet is Melting,’ Red Deer Advocate, April 23, 1998.) The ice chunk in our pasted article came from the Larsen B Ice Shelf, which was scheduled to begin ‘crumbling rapidly’ by 1999. Concerning this, Ted Scambos, research associate from the National Snow and Ice Center of the University of Colorado gave warning in 1998, “This may be the beginning of the end.” I admit that language is somewhat guarded in reports like this by the use of words like may and could. But the tone and drift are calculated to incline one to believe the speculation, to believe the worst.

Back in 1995, and even as late as 1998, I regarded articles like this with some respect. But I’ve since learned that many warnings of doom are nothing more than the ‘great swelling words’ of Jude 16. And just as was done by these huffers and puffers chided by Jude, scientism’s prognosticators utter their doomsday climate change prophecies ‘because of advantage.’ There’s money and glory in it.  Don’t get me wrong, though. It is naïve to insist that the way humans treat the planet is not negatively affecting it. But it is equally unwise to sound an apocalyptic trumpet because of something as innocuous as a melting chunk of ice, no matter how large it is. Do not exaggerate climate change like some Liberals and Democrats. But even more, do not stick your head in the sand like some Conservatives and Republicans. Global warming will indeed happen, and much more unexpectedly and extremely than all of us can imagine. “The elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (2 Peter 3.10.) Then your destiny, whether heaven or hellfire, will be confirmed by Jesus based on your faith in him, or your unbelief of him, before your death. Am I now guilty of what I just reprehended? Am I blowing an apocalyptic trumpet unnecessarily? No. There may be some kind of global warming trend. But there will be a fiery end to this world. Scientists frequently err. The Bible never errs. Jesus is coming back to judge. We better all get ready! 

NUDE POSES FOR BREAST CANCER

Red Deer Advocate, November 10^th, 2011. What does the modern-day feminist do when she gets breast cancer? She poses in the nude, of course. This is not the punch-line to a joke. The pictures were splayed all over our local paper! The article, the caption of which is pasted in here, is very careful to add the necessary details behind the nude photos: ‘The SCAR Project’—the ‘Breast Fest’—the women, ‘topless, scars exposed.’ This is all supposed to be okay because it’s ‘dedicated to breast cancer awareness.’ Who would dare say anything against that which has become the goddess of awarenesses? I would, and will.  

The following statistics off CBC radio from Karen Greve Young at Medical and Related Sciences (MaRS): Colorectal cancer kills 70% more Canadians than breast cancer does. But 36 times more money goes to fight breast cancer than colorectal cancer. Colorectal cancer is very screenable, and therefore often treatable through this measure, yet few persons are screened.

Feminist propaganda is gone so far into the gutter that breast cancer victims are solicited into posing nude in order to further the cause to fight the disease, even if it’s at the expense of victims of other forms of cancer. That is the sick nature of feminism: to first look after your great Self, and if the next person doesn’t happen to be in the right cancer camp, that’s just too bad! 

These are ‘heart-wrenching portraits,’ just as the article says (thankfully not titillating nor tempting, though the posers keep their chins up to put on a sexy front.) But they are heart-wrenching, not just because the black work of cancer is evident, but because the pictures reveal that the curse of disease has not yet accomplished its positive work on these women. It’s hard to put my finger on exactly why, but I have ten times more respect for women who pose for nude magazines than I have for these posers for cancer. Well, I guess it’s for this reason: the surprising revelation that women you would have shown respect to are as full of ‘dead men’s bones’ as those who’ve been posing for magazines like Playboy all along. And it’s for this reason: curses like cancer are poured out on us in order to turn us from our iniquities (Daniel 9.10-13), but these women invite even more judgment upon our people by adding sin to a sin-caused curse! What bad examples they are who rebel against God by sinning in the face of what he sends to cause them to repent!

Maybe you think that cancer is just random or environmental, and that therefore God has no hand in that gnawing plague. Dear reader, if you don’t yet understand that God can’t be God unless everything that happens be in his hand, then you’re probably in no better relationship to him than these posing hussies are. Cancer is a terrible weapon, a sharp scythe to cut through the toughest sinews and the most precious marrow. Whatever your disease or type of cancer, may it be used by the Spirit of God to cut through to your heart and turn it towards your Creator for mercy. Hell is worse than all forms of cancer combined. It is therefore imperative for disease to do a good work in you before you die. Consider the word ‘all’ in this Bible text: “All this evil is come upon us: yet made we not our prayer before the LORD our God, that we might turn from our iniquities” (Daniel 9.13.) May this frighten you to a change of heart and a turn from your many sins. “The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart” (Psalm 34.18.)

SUICIDE

Red Deer Advocate, November 17^th, 2007. I do not go out of my way to follow what’s going on in the Entertainment Industry, no, not any segment of it. I do read the newspaper occasionally though. Since the suicide of a national award-winning musician could no doubt cause many to reflect upon the moral issue involved in such a death, it is well to bring some wisdom to bear upon the subject. Suicides are becoming more acceptable these days on account of the growing sentiment in favor of killing for what many (not in this article) would call ‘mercy’s sake.’ This obliges us to speak out when we can in favor of preserving life and preventing the souls of would-be self-murderers from the curse of eternal ruin.

It is stated that Mr. Bourque killed himself because he was depressed. Close friends of his could probably tell us something more about why he was depressed. But really, only God knows what all the bullets and darts are that converge to pierce and despair the soul, and from where they come. Many of our deepest sorrows and regrets we keep wrapped up in secrecy, don’t we? The Bible records at least six cases of suicide. Saul and his armorbearer killed themselves to prevent the Philistines from falling upon them; Ahithophel suicided in a fit of self-pity after his counsel was rejected; Zimri did it after his coup d’etat disintegrated; Samson brought the house down upon himself and his enemies as a last ditch act of revenge upon the Philistines; and Judas hanged himself because, in his own words, “I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood” (Matthew 27.4.)

There is little question among wise men that a person unsaved at the moment of suicide is doomed to hell. The following questions come up in Christian company: Seeing there is no time for repentance, can a self-murderer be saved? What about the Christian suicide? Samson killed himself through God’s answer to his request for supernatural power to bring the Philistine palace down upon everyone present. This is the nearest thing to an affirmative answer to the question of whether the suicide of a saint, or Christian, can ever result in a happy, heavenly issue. But Samson’s circumstances are seldom, if ever, ours. And he is a fool who would be encouraged by an exception, if indeed the death of Samson even qualifies as one. How foolish and thoughtless, anyway, must any suicide be, when there is no absolute proof that any soul resorting to this measure is safe! Besides what may be deduced from the narrative portion of the Bible, we next resort to extra-biblical thoughts on this moral dilemma. Shakespeare and two 19^th century clerics called Colton and Mountford are all worth quoting. But the best thought I have found comes from William Perkins (1558-1602) in a Puritan exposition on spiritual depression by William Bridge in 1649. Regarding the Christian suicide, Perkins weighs in cautiously, “I dare not say they are damned because of their former life; and I dare not say they are saved, because of their sinful death.”

A SCARY COINCIDENCE

Red Deer Advocate, January 2008. When we do something wrong and then something bad happens to us, we wonder if God is judging. When the bad thing we do and the bad thing that follows upon us are of similar categories, we wonder all the more. Scary coincidences bring God into our thoughts because we intuitively know that our sin deserves a punishment that suits the sin.

For fear of causing offence or seeming harsh, today’s timid moralists would refrain from pointing out the correlation between the salacious singer’s pseudonymous name and the type of cancer she got. But so long as we are cautious in our choice of words, something may be said. God’s Providential control extends even to the falling of sparrows. “One of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father” (Matthew 10.29.) This teaches us that nothing is outside his government, coincidences included. I’m not saying that the coincidence in this article indicates a supernatural and direct instance of poetic justice by God. But it may be safely said that sometimes God appoints our sin to be followed by a malady that remarkably hints at what our sin deserves. “He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption” (Galatians 6.8.) Any justice that looks poetic is a signpost to take special notice of. It may be that God did not smite with cancer by his own hand. But he ordered it. We may fail to take a lesson from a rock star dying of old age. But when an indecent rocker called Bif Naked gets breast cancer, we are startled by a mysterious association of sin and sequel. 

We should not fail to see the mercy of God in this. He did not kill, but allows an extraordinary association in order to provoke Bif and her fans to fear, and perhaps someone to repentance, and faith in Jesus, who alone can save sinners from their final Just Deserts: the Torments of Hell. Scary coincidences ought to compel us to press into the kingdom of God without delay. That kingdom has been made accessible by the most conspicuous death in history, which involves the most signal case of poetic justice of all: Satan tried to foil God’s design to save sinners by killing God’s chosen Saviour; but faith in that death is the very way of salvation! “Through faith in his blood” (Romans 3.25.) This is poetic justice writ large!

The death of Christ is the event that reconciles sinners to God, for in Jesus’ death the wrath of God toward man was swallowed up; that is, the wrath of God toward those who would repent and believe. So this good news will do you no good at all unless you renounce the sins you feel God judging you for, and unless you receive Jesus as the Saviour from your sins. “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1.15.)

THE ACADEMY AWARDS

Out of this list of Best Pictures I have seen the following for sure: On the Waterfront; Ben-Hur; The Sound of Music; The Godfather; One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; Rocky; Platoon; Rain Man; Dances with Wolves; The Silence of the Lambs; Unforgiven; Shcindler’s List. That’s twelve out of sixty-six—way too many!

I am an aspiring minimalist. To own as little as possible with which to get by, and to clutter and vex my mind with no more useless information than necessary: these are two of my minimalist goals. My possessions are down to just a little more than what a small bedroom can contain; and my movie and program intake I have reduced to zero since about ten years ago, save one movie on the life of St. Francis of Assisi. Knowing the Bible, theology, pious biography, and fine literature must be better for the soul than knowing who’s who in the cinema world and what’s what on the television screen! An old friend of mine couldn’t get over the fact that I’d never seen a program called Trailer Park Boys. But would this program do me any good? I once talked to a holy man who had been in his prime during the pinup reign of Marilyn Munroe. She was the only star out of a large list of entertainers that he recognized the name of. ‘That Munroe girl,’ he called her. O, to be that innocent concerning evil! Wouldn’t that be nice?

Most Christians think they have a divine right to choke their minds with the smog of Theatre, Hollywood, and Television. Hank Hanegraaff even promotes a movie-watching scheme as a ‘springboard’ to speaking to non-Christians about the Faith. But the Bible asks, “Let us do evil, that good may come?” (Romans 3.8.) And David says, “I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes” (Psalm 101.3.) And Job tells us, “I made a covenant with mine eyes” (Job 31.1.) And the apostle Paul commands, “I would have you…simple concerning evil” (Romans 16.19.) Hank Hanegraaff ‘The Bible Answer Man’ has no good answer to mollify or gainsay these verses. There is no way one can watch a run-of-the-mill movie these days without snubbing biblical counsel, period.

Maybe you wish you could give up all your viewing amusements but you’re hesitating. Why not knock it off bit by bit? And listen, just reason like me. I’ve seen at least one movie of Oscar caliber in each department: be it a romance, a war film, a western, a musical, a gangster flick, a horror movie, a comedy, etc. What need is there to watch even one more, especially since nothing but a fleeting thrill may be gained by the experience? And what a mental liberation to know nothing about the program lineup and who the new actors are! What freedom not to care about the dregs and drivel of playacting! And how much vexation could I have saved myself by not hooking up to the internet? Regardless, it is high time for all sinners and saints to awake out of sleep, out of Make-Believe and into Reality, Truth, and Consequence. If not now, when? Fill your mind with the Academy of Truth, Knowledge, Wisdom, and Understanding before Time and Circumstance find you standing before God with nothing in your mind but mush! How will you answer for your Soul, then? Lay aside evil and take up what is good while time remains! Judgment will come. It must. We have to be ready!

THE FITNESS CRAZE

Oliver Huskinson began fitness training in 1918. (He was a little ahead of his time.) The fitness craze really began in the 1970’s alongside Participaction commercials on Canadian television. Training devices like the springs you see in the picture (or at the thrift store) were very popular then. What forty year old man doesn’t remember some lusty boy, maybe himself, busting his chops while trying to do curls with this booby-trapped invention?! Or maybe catching the skin of his chest in the springs?! But all of that’s beside my point.

 Maybe Mr. Huskinson’s story will encourage you to do some participaction. But you’ll probably not reach the age of 99 no matter what you do. And even if you did live for that long, and with vibrant health, so what? ‘He’s fit for life,’ it says. But how much longer can he have to live? What then? At the age of 130 Jacob told Pharaoh, “Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been” (Genesis 47.9.) The lesson I see there is that if Jacob the saint regarded his earthly pilgrimage as an evil one, how urgent it must be for the rest of us to get right with the God of Jacob? Jacob wrestled with the angel, and won the blessing. What does this teach us? That real blessings, like salvation, are had through wrestling with matters that are spiritual. How spiritual are your weights and your running shoes? Only a dumbbell will focus too much on these things.

Carnal man will always be obsessed with adding years to his body of sin. In vain he tries to beat death by improving a body that is programmed to die. “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass” (Isaiah 40.7.) If the ultimate cause of death is the LORD, then who can prevent it? A curse from the Almighty is what saps your strength. His curse is what sends you down that one way road to yonder cemetery. Does the LORD kill for nothing? The curse is in you because you are guilty of sin. Are you guilty of cursing the God who has cursed you? Do you lie, lust, steal, or sleep around? Then you are guilty. Death and hell are at the door. Death you cannot avoid. But Jesus Christ can help you miss hell. You have much to learn about this. You need a Bible, not another exercise gadget.

THE SALVATION ARMY

Red Deer Advocate, 2007. Now you might be thinking, “What a boring news clipping for someone to comment on!” But wait for it! What if I should take you right through this advertisement, as through a porthole or a door, and you come with me into this church for a glimpse at the goings on in there? It may be that we will see a sad spectacle, indeed so depressing as to be something of a melancholy marvel!

This is not to paint all Salvation Army churches with the same brush, though I think the wise man, if a wise man could be a gambler, would not bet that such a church could be entered into at random for the hearing of an actual salvation message on Sunday morning. I hold in my left hand, as I write this with my right, the recent titles, texts, and substance of what was preached by one of William Booth’s own denominational (I will not say spiritual) descendents. Here are the titles: Tomatoes & Tulips; God’s Desire in a Pile of Dishes; Richard Dawson, Hammers, Hatchets, & the Church; Jesus, the Wizard, & Toto; Life Lessons from a Coconut Cream Pie (the word ‘cream’ spelled in French); and Poultry, Prison, & Potty Training—Is Contentment Possible. Now what does 99% of this have to do with the Bible—with Salvation—with Jesus! Maybe the best thing that can be said is that some alliteration was used for effect. But what is that but a mere aesthetic element? The Bible texts that are meant to coincide with these titles, of course, have nothing to do with such silly, infantile musings. There is no mention, for instance, of coconut cream pie, not even a French one, in Ecclesiastes! I must grant that the sermon notes taken down by the saintly woman who allowed me to see them has the pastor quoted as saying a few things like, “Without God we would just be heading toward a hopeless eternity” (Jason.) But judging from her candid Christian testimony and the rest of the notes that she took on the sermons, this kind of statement from the man is empty of any real point, force, or meaning, for there is no definition nor method of salvation laid out in his messages. Most of her notes go something like this, “He had many laughing after telling about the Thanksgiving stuffing at his brother’s place when he was 18. After the laughter, how is it that the Holy Spirit can come forward in seriousness? Is this method of attracting people appropriate for a pastor behind a pulpit who should be reaching out to the souls of these people?”

 I remember these five titles in a book of Spurgeon’s Revival Sermons: The Story of God’s Mighty Acts; The Blood of the Everlasting Covenant; The Necessity of the Spirit’s Work; Predestination and Calling; and The Minister’s Farewell. Are these lofty themes not better (as the sky compares to the gutter) than tomatoes, hammers, Toto, pie, and potty training?! And are the acts of God and the blood of his Son not more saving and edifying to souls than gossipy drivel about game-show hosts, hockey, Britney Spears, and Paul Henderson?! Such potty-mouth topics ought to be too embarrassing for a clergyman’s ear, let alone his mouth! These are not sermons, but ditties of the lowest order among clergy of the most clownish sort! I recall being alarmed a bit at the tone sometimes taken by Spurgeon and Lloyd-Jones in their lectures on preaching. Both held up certain types of preachers to ridicule in order to discourage and prevent further blasphemy and buffoonery in the pulpit. But if a mocking tone in a Seminary could have prevented this Salvation Army Captain from uttering what these great preachers justly condemned, would it not have been worth the professor being thought of as a slanderer? Up until recently my acquaintance with the Salvation Army was almost nil. Now my happy ignorance has been replaced by a wretched knowledge of what passes for preaching in this odd branch of Christendom. That there are some genuine Christians in these pews I am certain of; that they can put up with jokers in the pulpit for more Sundays than one, I am in amazement about. Spurgeon did rightfully cast his verbal wrath upon a sermon he heard that was merely about whether an angel actually descended to stir the pool at Bethesda. “Dying men and women were assembled to hear the way of salvation, and they were put off with such vanity as this! They came for bread, and received a stone; the sheep looked up to the shepherd, and were not fed” (p. 79.) What would he say about these grubby, juvenile Salvation Army sermons?!

NAIVE CHRISTIAN ZEAL

From City Light News, October, 2007. When a sinner repents to follow Jesus he is at once perfectly right with the LORD whose wrath was set to turn him over to hell at the moment of death. The righteousness of Christ is laid to his account. But in the Christian’s practice, though his stony heart has been made alive to God by a divine regenerative act, perfection does not instantly follow in all his deeds. This is why the new Christian is called a ‘babe’ in the Bible. He has a lot of growing up to do now that he’s been born into God’s family. And like a literal babe, he’s fascinated by all that he sees, and out of genuine, instinctive zeal for growth, he puts a lot of stuff in his mouth besides milk: dangerous objects that he doesn’t comprehend are bad to eat. The babe is zealous. This is good, even wonderful. He is also naïve. This, in spite of new eyes that see spiritual matters old philosopher kings are utterly blind to. Many Christians, possibly the majority of them these days when shallow theology is the main course, remain babes their whole life long. At the very least, every Christian remains a babe in many things, no matter how big he may get in some.

There is a kind of zeal the Bible speaks of that is ‘not according to knowledge’ (Romans 10.2.) This refers to Judaizers who go about working in vain for a righteousness they instead might have declared to them if only they believed on Jesus. The Christian babe often exhibits a zeal, I will not say as ignorant as that, for by faith he knows Jesus, but one that more perfect knowledge would help guide in the right direction.

I take it that The Miracle Theatre in Tennessee took issue mainly with those words I have underlined in the article. Is this statement ‘blasphemy’? Is it not probable that the work performed by she who made the comment is something we would loathe to have Jesus’ name associated with anyway? She may have spoken roughly, but did she not speak truthfully? Would that more actors repeated her very words upon receiving a like award! Pretty much all Jesus has to do with Emmy-like shows and awards is the part he plays in the Agency of upholding the universe for the actors’ continuance in it.

So The Miracle Theatre sends a petition to Hollywood executives concerning this matter. If members of this Christian theatre group were ‘simple concerning the evil’ (Romans 16.19) going on in Hollywood and the Emmys like they’re supposed to be, they’d not know who Griffin is, what she played in, or how to contact movie execs in the ‘city of angels.’ Artsy Christians are far too familiar with what’s going on in the ‘liberal arts,’ if you get my meaning. Their eyes are fixed on the awards of this world more than they care to admit. And just imagine a first century Christian performing a spectacle rather than being made one! It just doesn’t fit. That said: zeal for the Lord is praiseworthy; defending his honor is brave-hearted; and because of the good intention involved, even that zeal which is misguided may sparkle in God’s eyes. But chiding someone for saying Jesus had nothing to do with an award, when the production that won it is not something Jesus would approve of in the first place, this is that kind of wild baby zeal that too often misses the mark.