Kingdom Seeker

Our last Sunday at Harmony

I'm dead

When I was little kid and we would play games like cops and robbers, we would shoot our pretend guns at each other.  Whenever I was shot, I would fall to the ground and as my friend approached me to finish me off, I would say in a low voice, "I'm dead".   Oh, the silliness of a dead man informing others of his demise with a confirming voice.  It's silly because dead men don't whisper "I'm dead", they just are.  They don't whisper anything!
In the New Testament a guy named Lazarus was dead.  He didn't whisper "I'm dead" to his friends and family.  No, he was unable to do so. The bible makes it obvious when it reports that Lazarus was in a tomb for a few days and as the KJV eloquently puts it.  "He stinketh".   When Jesus arrived, as the rest of the story goes, Lazarus was resurrected from his tomb completely wrapped in his burial garment still emanating the stench of death.  How did he rise from the dead?  Simply by the word of God, namely the phrase "Lazaurus, come forth". 
You see, if Lazarus couldn't tell people he was dead, then he sure couldn't ask Jesus to bring him to life. It just wasn't in him. He was dead.  It's the same with spiritual birth. Dead in our sins, we carry its stench  upon us until one day uninvited grace comes upon us and our hearts are regenerated and our faith is awakened.  This is the greatest miracle God performs!  I don't understand it fully, I just believe it!

¹ And you were dead in the trespasses and sins ²in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following  the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— ³among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature  children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. ⁴But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, ⁵even  when we were dead in our trespasses,  made us alive together with Christ—  by grace you have been saved— ⁶and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable  riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. ⁸For by grace you have been saved  through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not a result of works, so that no one may boast.   - Ephesians 2:1-9

Even our faith is a gift from God!  If you are struggling with doubt, don't look back on some decision you made, whether you made it or not, if you followed some formula, or whether it was authentic.  Look to the mercy of God!  A.W. Tozer reminded us in "The Attributes of God", that God doesn't just have mercy, HE IS mercy!  That means His mercy is infinite! We need to stop listening to the accuser who wants us to look to ourselves, and listen to God's Word which states emphatically that salvation is from Him.  Not only do unbelievers need to hear that salvation is from God (the gospel), but believers likewise need to hear that their salvation was from God,(the gospel) not their own well meaning intentions!

Thank God He chose us before the foundation of the world! Thank God He still raises the dead!

What I don't know CAN hurt me!

Cancer is frightening!   It's often been said that the mere mention of the word in the context of a doctor's visit will sap the strength of the patient in knee-buckling fashion.  Why does the word have such a fearful effect?  The answer is simple if not obvious. It's because of knowledge.  It's because of the knowledge that informs us that this deadly disease has taken the lives of friends and family, and because we know about the destructive nature of cancer cells on the body.  A diagnosis of cancer strikes fear in us because our mortality is presented to us in an untimely and inhospitable manner, and because we know it breeds fear in the minds of our worried families.  The diagnosis of cancer is a knowledge I pray never to possess, yet it is one I need to possess if ever I am stricken by the disease.

The Remedy

Cancer is one of the many difficulties of our physical world!  But it also provides a striking parallel to the great difficulty of the spiritual world, namely the disease of sin.

The fundamental difference between cancer and sin is simple.  Not everyone will be diagnosed with cancer, but every living human has been already been diagnosed with the spiritual disease of sin.  (Romans 5:12 Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned; Romans 3:23 "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God")

The similarities, however, are astounding.  Both destroy life, usually in incremental stages, and can exist undetected for long periods of time.  They also have remedies with one major difference.  The treatments for cancer don't always work, but the remedy for sin is guaranteed and unfailing!  Cancer treatment usually consists of strong doses of chemicals or radiation, whereas the treatment for sin is an application of the Gospel!   Interestingly, knowledge is the common denominator in this parallel.  You have no chance to defeat cancer without applying the methods of treatment.  Moreover, you will not accept the treatment without some basis of knowledge to its effectiveness.  For example, if someone told you the way to get rid of your cancer was by sticking your finger in a light socket, you certainly wouldn't follow their advice.  Why?  Because there is no basis of knowledge to support such a crazy theory!  If there were, Oncologists everywhere would be writing prescriptions for electrocution to their patients.  Instead, thousands of people each year are submitting to chemotherapy and radiation as proven methods of fighting cancer. Why?  Because there is a basis of knowledge to support their limited but proven effectiveness. 

The same is true of the Gospel!  The Gospel is knowledge, more specifically, "good news".  It is truly a miraculous reality that this knowledge is God's prescribed means to cure sin and all its hopelessness!  Let me be careful to note that is not just "any" knowledge! It is Gospel Knowledge!  

Where's the Knowledge?

In the past 200 years, the Bible has been relegated by the western world as "lacking knowledge" while science and mathematics are viewed as reliable sources of knowledge.  In our postmodern world, Christianity is considered one of many options in determining  how to live your life, but not as the basis of knowledge for how everyone should live their lives!

What if the medical community adopted this stance of knowledge? What if published medical journals heralded the freedoms of choosing any method of treatment you prefer to fight cancer, even if it did involve light sockets!  As thousands died because the treatment they preferred didn't work, there would be an uprising in this country to revolutionize the practice of medicine with a demand for a real basis of knowledge in the treatment of diseases!   Why? Because knowledge is essential to everything whether it be physical or spiritual.

Reclaiming Knowledge

As the church, we have retreated from our right standing as truth bearers when we separate faith from knowledge as if they were opposites. Actually, there is no such thing as faith apart from knowledge.  Although the Bible tells us that faith "is in that which is unseen", it never extracts knowledge from the equation.  While it is true that we have to exercise faith without knowing all the specifics involved, it is still based on a knowledge that God is who He has revealed Himself to be, and that we are not who we would like to be.   When the scriptures tell us that "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God", it is proclaiming the necessity of knowledge.  In other words, you can not have faith, much less a faith to overcome sin, unless you receive knowledge, namely, the Gospel! While the medical community would never sit put while thousands of people tried to cure their own cancer with their own preferred treatments, the church should not remain silent about what the gospel is and its necessity for the healing of the soul!   The lost are telling us that their lives would be better if we would just help them with their immediate felt needs, and we are obliging them by giving them what they prefer, not what they need.  We think we are loving them, but in fact we are not.  Perhaps driven by our need to eradicate legalistic approaches to evangelism, we have thrown the baby out with the bath water.  Like the western world, with our actions and even our words, we have proclaimed that truth is relative and we can not be depended upon as a reliable source of knowledge!  Does knowledge puff up? Yes!  So let's get rid of the pride, not the knowledge!

Deep beneath the surface, the world has rejected the gospel not because its failure as a reliable source of knowledge.  It is because a gospel accepted as knowledge, is one that must be submitted to!  (We see this evidenced in Islamic nations which recognize the Koran as the basis of knowledge and they respond accordingly.  Their whole way of life, though misguided, is a result in their perception of their religion as a reliable basis of knowledge.) 

The best way to evade submission to truth, as the world has demonstrated, is to discredit the source of truth.  This is certainly seen in the way of politics with the use of mud-slinging and thorough investigations of the private affairs of politicians.  In the political arena, if a man or woman can be made to look incompetent or immoral, then great damage is done to any truth they represent.  Likewise Christianity has been demoted from its once  authoritative perch of knowledge to a lower realm of entertainment, hobbies, and philosophies which are by nature subjective. 

In response to this demotion, has the church to some degree ceased to be truth-bearers (light and salt)?  In our zeal to attract unbelievers, have we have hidden the knowledge (Gospel) from those who need it? Have we have actually hidden the knowledge of the gospel in our attempts to soften it which ends up being a powerless gospel or no gospel at all? 

The Treatment Hurts then Heals

When it comes to cancer,  it's often been said that the treatment is worse than the disease, but the implication is that one feels sicker from the effects of the treatment than from the actual invasion or metastasizing.  In reality, if the treatments were worse than the disease, then no one would seek treatment.  We have seen cases where people refuse treatment because of its nauseating effects and tragically underestimate the seriousness of the disease.  Essentially, they have refused to act accordingly to the proven knowledge that various treatments can often eradicate cancer or send it into remission.

The intended natural effects of the knowledge of the Gospel will make us feel worse than the actual sickness of sin which is itself pleasurable for a season.  When we receive this dose of knowledge, we are sapped of our strength as our hearts buckle beneath the weighty revelation of our fatal condition, but then a remedy is offered in another dose of knowledge!  This gospel remedies our condition with the revelation that God has accepted us on the basis of Christ's righteousness!  Our malignancy turns benign in relation to the wrath of God and although we need lifelong gospel treatments of tumor shrinking, we rest in the knowledge that God has redeemed us and restored us to eternal wholeness!