The Proper Christian Response To The Nalid Malik Husan Terror Attack: Concentrate On The Gospel!

With regards to the crime and tragedy of Nalid Malik Husan’s attack at Ford Hood, Texas, where he shot at least 31 people, killing at least 12 people including women and civilians while screaming Allahu Akbar (and motivated by his desire not to be deployed against Iraq (or Afghanistan) as part of a force invading a fellow Muslim and Arab nation) allow me to propose a proper Christian response.

1. Prayer. We must pray for those wounded. We must pray for the families and loved ones of the wounded and deceased. We must pray for those who witnessed or responded to this horrific event, especially police officers, firefighters, ambulance personnel, nurses and doctors. We must pray for the counselors and therapists, both Christian and non-Christian, who will aid people deal with the physical, mental and emotional aftermath of this carnage. And yes, we must pray for the loved ones of Nalid Malik Husan and – presuming that he survives – Husan himself for his conversion to Christianity. Finally, we must pray that the body of Christ responds in a wise, Biblical manner to this event. We must pray that Christians discipline those who fail to respond in such a manner, and that we reject those who respond in a manner that does not honor Jesus Christ.

2. Evangelism. This is the primary way that the New Testament teaches Christians to deal with the non-Christian world, which is sharing the faith of Jesus Christ. This terror attack may cause an increase in fear, hatred and government action. Or it may cause people’s hearts to be desensitized and grow cold. With either reaction, the appropriate Biblical response is to go out and tell as many people as we can, or more accurately as many people as God leads us to, about the kingdom of heaven. Whether Jew, Gentile, Muslim, atheist, Hindu or a person involved in a false expression of Christianity, we must tell people that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who is God, that He is the only way to heaven, that His sacrifice on the cross is the once and for all payment of sins, and there is salvation in no other. This evangelism should not be event-driven, as some attempt to exploit this event or the fear that comes as a result of it. We should not indulge in the sort of “this is why Christianity is better than Islam” triumphalism, for that is a political and cultural worldview argument engaged in by people whose heart is with this world, not those who consider themselves pilgrims, for whom the world and the evils and hardships thereof are not worthy to be compared to the glory of eternity with Jesus Christ. Also, such a message is more useful to preaching to the false Christian cultural chauvinist choir than winning any converts, whether Muslim or non-Muslim. Instead, this tragedy should serve is a reminder that this is truly a wicked, fallen world that we live in, one ruled by the evil one, the prince of the power of the air who is Satan, and that evil and death and judgment are the fate of the world and the people not redeemed from it through Jesus Christ’s blood. Events like this one, wars, famines, floods, wildfires, earthquakes, oppressive political regimes etc. should all remind us of this fact, they should remind us of the teachings of Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, the Olivet discourse, the parables on the kingdom of heaven, his teachings on last things (New Jerusalem and the lake of fire), and serve as a burning fire shut up in our bones to go forth and obey the commandment of Jesus Christ given in the great commandments, to go and make disciples of all men, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. If we go forth and keep this great commission commandment, then God will use us to save whom He will, and we will be as drink offerings poured out before God, and by our evangelism God will be praised, honored and glorified.

3. Resist temptation. For many, the temptation to indulge in an improper and non-Christian response will be very strong. Many quarters will use this as an excuse to fan the flames of hate against Muslims. Others will use it as an attempt to attack Biblical Christianity with its stand that Jesus Christ as the only way to heaven as well. However, for many the primary temptation will be a political and cultural one, the opportunity to assert Christianity’s superiority over Islam because of western culture and politics, because it is a superior worldview. Well, the west will come under the judgment of Jesus Christ along with the rest of the sinful world, and on that day the western cultural and political systems will be judged as part of Babylon and fall with the rest, including but not limited to the Arabic cultural and political systems. Further, even if the western worldview is superior, it is still a WORLDview, making it worldly, not holy, not of God, and not something that will last forever in New Jerusalem, but instead is something that will be consumed with this world when it is destroyed with fire. The western worldview will have no part in the new heaven and the new earth that Christians inherit. Further, incidents like this should remind Christians that true followers of Jesus Christ do not give themselves over to passions of revenge, hate, or reprisal. Christians are not to get involved in those things directly, nor in the indirect channels that the political debate allows us to. Where in the past, reprisal to incidents such as this may have been lynch mobs, the current political context allows us to simply demand a toughening and extension of the Patriot Act, profiling, immigration crackdowns, gun control, invading etc. While those issues may have their merits, the fact is that they have nothing to do with Christianity. Read the New Testament, especially the teachings of Jesus Christ. The church was never promised peace, prosperity or an easy time, but rather only conflict, warfare and persecution at the hands of the world that has rejected Jesus Christ. Christians have often forgotten that message by walking in agreement with the world. So Christians should reject the foolish idea that by taking political actions we can somehow make this country and world safe and better for Christians and the spread of the gospel. Take, for instance, the war on terrorism: it has been a disaster for Christians all throughout the Muslim wolrd, especially in Iraq.

So instead of trying to take revenge (or the offensive) against Muslims through political means, we should remember that Jesus Christ alone is to whom judgment was given, that God alone is the one capable of executing vengeance, and that Jesus Christ alone will conquer and rule the nations with a rod of iron, and that Christians cannot and should not perform judgment, vengeance, or rule in Jesus Christ’s place. (Of course, this does not preclude civil governments from doing what is necessary to punish crimes and defend its citizens from criminals and aggression from other nations, see Romans 13 with regards to that issue, but instead those actions are at best the just and necessary ones and should not be viewed as Christian in any sense.) Our job is not to pretend to be Jesus Christ and to usurp His place, but instead to obey and serve Jesus Christ so that He will act through us as His Body.

So in summary, the Christian response to this event is prayer, evangelism, and resisting temptation. Please realize that this should be the Christian response to all events. Thank you.

Is Evangelicalism Confusion By Design?

There are a lot of criticisms of evangelical Christianity. Some are legitimate issues aired by those motivated by or searching for doctrinal truth – particularly those which come from current or former evangelicals – but others represent sniping by agenda motivated or ill informed sectarians. I admit that in my criticisms of “evangelicalism” (to employ the derisive term, at least when it is wielded by sectarians that is) I was the latter of the latter: an ill-informed sectarian. I am still sectarian, but I would hope that I am now better informed.

My issue: evangelicalism’s melting pot nature. You have free will Christians and predestinarians. Pentecostals and cessationists. Premillennials and amillennials. Believer-immersers and baby-sprinklers. State churchers and free churchers. Baptists and Methodists and Presbyterians and Lutherans and Anglicans oh my, and now even a Quaker or Messianic Jew or two!

Of course, this primarily exists for unity in the Body of Christ, fellowship and cooperation among all Bible-believing born again Christians. And that is very good. However, we should never forget that these denominations, for all their merits and good works, exist for a reason.

Now I am not talking about such things as denominational splits over whether to use electric instruments or not. Instead, these various Christian groups and movements all represent serious differences on very important areas of doctrine. Maybe they are not quite what Al Mohler calls the theological triage (http://www.albertmohler.com/?cat=Commentary&cdate=2004-05-20) but instead real differences that can have significant implications on what Christians believe and how we live out the faith.

Recall the “melting pot” analogy. In a nation of diverse cultures, that is a good thing, as it results in a blending of peoples that makes the whole more vibrant and cohesive. However, in religion it is not so good. Among different religions, it is the snare (to Christians anyway) of syncretism. But even among disparate Christian traditions – which again have legitimate reasons for existing – it results in a sort of leveling, a settling to the bottom (if not quite a race to the bottom) that shifts and pushes out whatever it was that made these disparate traditions special in the first place. Compare it to eating at restaurants. Instead of a really good Italian, Chinese or American restaurant that serves excellent and near authentic meals, you get this greasy buffet or cafeteria style cuisine where you can mash your spaghetti, french fries and stir-fried vegetables all onto the same platter without knowing or caring that they really don’t belong together so long as it goes down easy with your soft drink and your antacids keep it from coming back up again later.

I suppose that if you want to remain on the externals of the faith, the basics, or even if you penetrate somewhat deeper, that is fine. But if you really want to delve into the faith, then you are really in for it! On one hand, you have the teachers, preachers and theologians who simply want to stay “in the evangelical mainstream”, so they simply avoid topics that may offend the Methodists (or the Lutherans or the Baptists etc.) However, even those who maintain their distinctiveness can tie you in knots. You may attend a Presbyterian church, read a Baptist devotional, listen to a Methodist radio show, subscribe to an Anglican podcast and hear all of these doctrines, theologies, interpretations, systems etc. and it is a mishmash. No coherency of thought, no unity of message, but rather you start on one path, pick up another denominational thought mid-stream, then you hop on the other boat that you have no idea where it is taking you or why, and you wind up trapped in a labyrinth of religious ideas that is impossible to organize. The problem isn’t that you have all the pieces of a puzzle that you have to put together, for that is a challenge that, while daunting, is still achievable. The problem is also not that you have all the pieces of several puzzles that you have to put together to make several pictures, because even though the degree of difficulty may be several magnitudes greater, it is still theoretically feasible.

Instead, the problem is that you have pieces of DIFFERENT puzzles that you have to assemble together TO MAKE ONE PICTURE! Further, you don’t even possess all of the pieces required to make a single picture. Instead, you have some pieces of Arminianism, some pieces of Wesleyanism, some pieces of Lutheranism, some pieces of dispensationalism, some pieces of Pentecostalism etc. that you have to fit together, a goal that is not so much impossible – for with God all things are possible – as it is suspect. It is confusion, and God is not the author of confusion. It results in our simply having to omit and not talk about things – important things! – for the sake of unity (or rather simply to avoid interminable arguments), and because of the gaps and discontinuities, so little deep and wide Bible knowledge exists. Instead, there are just fragments, pieces – and a lot of them! – that float around unorganized. That may be precisely why political and cultural issues – worldly things – are such a draw, because they provide a structure, some sort of framework or interpretative filter, for all of these religious and doctrinal ideas that otherwise do not exist. (We may not be able to agree on sanctification or the atonement, but we can at least all agree to vote pro-family, because, hey, it is something that we can understand so that what really counts!)

Incidentally, many of our leading seminaries only add to this issue. So many are “interdenominational evangelical” by design. Still others profess denominational distinctives but think nothing of hiring faculty from other denominations (i.e. Albert Mohler’s Southern Baptist seminary hiring Presbyterians) or using the standard “evangelical” textbooks that are either shorn of doctrinal distinctives or present surface level summaries of all the “major and mainstream” evangelical viewpoints without endorsing one or the other. Result: the Presbyterian, Baptist, Anglican, Church of Christ etc. product of such a seminary will hardly be able to articulate why he adheres to a particular denominational tradition unless he was already firmly rooted in such convictions before he entered.

Now of course, no one denomination has a monopoly on the truth. So, my intent is not to promote my own particular tradition as the only true way and demand that all you heretics end your rebellious ways and join it lest you perish. Instead, I am forming the opinion that it is very important for a person to stick with a particular denomination or line of doctrinal thought and learn all the truth that he possibly can in the context of that one tradition. It is not that a person cannot learn truth from another tradition, but rather that if a person is not fully grounded in a single system, does not fully understand the great doctrines as presented in an organized coherent whole by one denomination or tradition, he won’t be so much as learning from another tradition as he is adding more layers to his religious patchwork hash. It is the equivalent of trying to teach French and Polish to a child that hasn’t mastered English yet.

And yes, there is a discernment angle, an apologetics angle, to this. With passing time I see more and more efforts by evangelicals to dialogue with and reach out to Roman Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Jehovah’s Witnesses (ok, Jehovah’s Witnesses not so much) etc. Interfaith exchanges, ecumenism, and so forth are the passion of the day, especially when the goals of such exchanges are cooperation in doing good works (and of course fighting political and cultural battles). Is it because we are so hesitant to unequivocably state our differences with each other that we also lose the courage to state our differences with other faiths?

Honestly, I say no. I am not at all stating that because evangelical Presbyterian hesitates in boldly telling an evangelical Episcopalian, Methodist and Baptist why he is Presbyterian that he is similarly unwilling to demarcate himself from a Mormon, Jew or Catholic. Instead, I am proposing that because of the evangelical melting pot, the evangelical homogeneity, the evangelical confusion such a Presbyterian may not comprehend the distinctive depths of his own tradition – and thereby be hindered from using tradition to interpret the Biblical faith – well enough to know why pursuing such endeavors as “Evangelicals And Catholics Together” or “Christians United For Israel” is insanity. There is a distinction between Presbyterians, Baptists and Pentecostals worshiping the same Jesus Christ a different way and Christians and Roman Catholics worshiping a different Jesus Christ altogether. You can have real fellowship and communion with the former, but you should have nothing to do with the latter except evangelism. That is one of the many areas that so many evangelicals do not understand because they don’t know enough about their own tradition, which is a real barrier to a deep and wide knowledge of Biblical Christianity.

We cannot learn the faith piecemeal, with bits and snippets assembled here and there. The faith must be presented and understood orderly and systematically. The best way – perhaps the only way – may well be to get out of the evangelical melting pot and committing oneself to studying the faith in an organized, coherent manner.

This is not to be confused as a manifesto for denominationalism, for it does not promote a particular denomination. Instead, this merely advocates finding a particular tradition that trains people in Biblical Christianity and learning all that one can through it.

Christians Beware Of The FBI Muslim Terrorist Arrests!

A series on persecution and suffering by the Desert Pastor’s Wife got me thinking about all of these arrests of alleged terrorists by the federal government. Let me tell you something: these arrests are shams. As a matter of fact, the whole “war on terror” thing is a sham. For instance, how can we be involved in a war on terror when Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s biggest sponsors of terrorism, is a key ally and trading partner? We have a base in Saudi Arabia, and we force our servicemen stationed there to obey shari’a law. Also, how can we be in a “war on terror” when we are pressuring Israel to give up half its land to terrorists, thereby rewarding the PLO, Hamas, Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad, Iran, Syria and all those other entities for their decades of slaughtering Israelis and Americans? One does not have to be a “dispensational Christian Zionist” to recognize that madness, or to ask ourselves why a nation committed to a “war on terror” is so bent on creating a nation in such a strategically vital area that will be governed by either the P.L.O. or Hamas. And those are just a few examples.

And that brings us to these domestic “Muslim terrorist” arrests. The issue is that the people that they are arresting aren’t terrorists. Oh, of course, I am not denying that there aren’t violent Muslim terrorist sleeper cells in this country. It is that the government isn’t going after them. Instead, in order to make it LOOK like they are doing something about terrorism, they are scouring the prisons and the Internet for disaffected Muslims, sending undercover government agents to fill their heads with ideas of jihad, even supplying them with terror plots, plans, weapons and materials that these fellows would have never had the ability or initiative to come up with on their own, keep prodding and pulling them when these ne’er do wells lose interest or get cold feet, and then once these government-recruited guys take their government-provided weapons to carry out their government-provided plans, the government arrests them. And these are “investigations” that take years of planning, huge sums of money, and a boatload of manpower to carry out, all to catch people who would have never gotten anywhere near committing a terrorist act were it not for their being strung along by the government, and this does nothing but divert law enforcement (and the media and the citizenry) from real threats, which includes but is not limited to the actual trained terrorists filtering across the Mexican border. So it is not only entrapment, but politically motivated and pernicious entrapment.

The worst part is that nobody cares about our entrapping Muslims that are no threats while ignoring Muslims that are. One side, I guess you can call them conservatives, is simply glad that we are arresting Muslims. Their goal is deporting as many of the several million Muslims from this country as possible and going to war with as many of the 1 billion Muslims in the world as is necessary to preserve western civilization. So, even though they know that these arrests are sham ones that ignore actual terrorists, they figure that the media publicity generated by each arrest brings us that much closer to electing politicians willing to wage a global war against Islam. The other side is strange. Under normal circumstances, liberals would protest entrapping even people who are likely to commit crimes, but in this instance they are largely silent concerning people who lack the ability, means or motivation to become a terrorist. Perhaps their silence is due to feelings that the Obama administration’s arresting these people helps undermine the idea that Obama is a Muslim plant sent to take over our country. I do notice when I peruse the left-oriented news sites more than a little bit of “see right wingers, Obama IS dedicated to fighting the war on terror!” whenever these arrests take place. It makes one wonder:  if Obama were anything other than a Democratic president accused of being a Muslim traitor, would the left be more vocal about these “law enforcement” practices, especially those targeting (religious and racial) minorities? In any event, the result is both the right and the left being silent in the face of the pervasive misuse of government power to suit their own agendas.

An even more revealing fact is that the government is not denying that they are practicing entrapment. Now when the government does things that they shouldn’t – whether by accident or policy – they instinctively lie, obfuscate, stonewall and cover up. But in several of these cases, including this one in particular, the government all but admitted going after people not so much for their crimes as their thoughts.

Not even the prosecutors contend that Sadequee was close to committing a terrorist act or that he ever joined a terrorist organization. The trial — like that of co-defendant Syed Haris Ahmed, who was convicted in June — illustrates prosecutors are focusing on potential threats as well as real ones, lawyers said.

“The real issue in this case is where is the line between First Amendment speech, however disquieting, and real criminal activity,” said Jack Martin, who defended Ahmed and says the two cases are almost identical. “It is hard to say where that line is drawn. … There is always the issue in any conspiracy case of what is talk and what is an agreement to take action.”

U.S. Attorney David Nahmias said after Ahmed’s conviction that the case didn’t involve an imminent threat because the idea was to arrest terrorists before their attacks succeed.

“In the post-9/11 world we will not wait to disrupt terrorism-related activity until a bomb is built and ready to explode,” Nahmias said then. “The fuse that leads to an explosion of violence may be long but once it is lit — once individuals unlawfully agree to support terrorist acts at home or abroad — we will prosecute them to snuff that fuse out.”

That really is not much more than saying that this fellow was arrested for thought crimes, of having radical, violent views and inclinations. Because of the “war on terror”, it is now acceptable to bait people based solely on what they  believe – not because they pose any actual threat – and then arrest them. So what is going on here?

Realize that in this country, radical changes in government policy, including law enforcement, cannot happen quickly. (Or at least they cannot change quickly right now.) You have to spend years, decades even, laying the groundwork. So law enforcement has to be allowed to engage in a particular practice over a long period of time before it becomes accepted law enforcement procedure, and the courts similarly have to go along to establish precedents. However, the police and courts can’t do this uniformly against the general population, because A) it would cause a massive public outcry and B) the tactics would not withstand a legal challenge. Instead, the government has to use a tiny segment of the population to make certain police tactics acceptable and to establish precedents in the courts. Once that is done, they are basically free to use those tactics on the general population.

A good, recent example? Government seizure of private property. It was almost unheard of a mere few decades ago, now it is routine and goes on unchallenged. What happened? “The war on drugs.” After it became acceptable for law enforcement to routinely confiscate the private property of “suspected drug dealers” and the courts let them get away with it, now the government has wide latitude to grab or freeze land and assets. Now it is basically unconstitutional, but the crisis of drugs and drug crimes made it acceptable to set the constitution aside in order to fight the drug war, and after it was set aside with respect to suspected drug traffickers and the precedent established, it was set aside for everyone. As a result, the government can now seize or freeze mostly anyone’s property or assets at any time, and in many cases the person has no real recourse.

Now that the government has largely eliminated the existence of private property, private speech and thought are now on the agenda. We are now a few years into investigating and arresting Muslims who express hostility towards our government and its policies, and have also gotten the first batch of successful convictions. So, the “thought crime entrapment” law enforcement practices are already on their way to becoming accepted, and the successful convictions establish the precedent that despite the bill of rights,  it is acceptable to go after people solely based on their views. It will only take about a dozen or so of these convictions to be upheld on appeal for the legal and law enforcement precedents to be ironclad, and since the federal government is handling these cases from the beginning, that will make the appeals process even faster (as the cases won’t have to go from state court to federal court).

Again, once the precedents are set the targets will be no more limited to Muslims than government property and asset seizures are to drug kingpins. Instead, people with views that the government doesn’t like can easily be labeled “dangerous”, “radical”, “extremist”, “subversive”, “fundamentalist” etc. and prosecuted. How long would it take before Christians are viewed this way by the government? In order to answer that question, one only need to look at the Huffington Post’s article on the recent arrest and killing of a “suspected terrorist“:

Exactly. Anyone who thinks this behavior is limited to Muslims hasn’t looked at a newspaper lately. In our country we bend over backwards to “respect the Faith” of Evangelical Christians from the South who do precisely the same thing.

Now, if this had been a white Christian evangelist militia, would the FBI gone in, guns blazing? Have they done anything like that recently, despite the proliferation of such groups?

This guy if not identified as ” a radical black extremist Muslim” one might think he was part of the gun toting, separatist, white wing nuts who would impose a Biblical theocracy in the USA and celebrate it all at tea parties.

And those were just the comments on the first page. And this is WITHOUT the government, media and schools bombarding the nation with propaganda on how Christian ideas are evil and Christians are untrustworthy, unpatriotic, violent, a threat to national security and our freedoms etc. Personally, I don’t think that it is going to happen anytime soon. However, I am certain that it will happen. And please, no partisan/ideological nonsense. Both parties support this just like they do everything else, because both parties are part of the worldly system that rejects Jesus Christ and similarly hates the church.

Women Do Have The Holy Spirit Gift Of Teaching! And This Is How They Should Use It!

Older Women Teaching Younger Women

Older Women Teaching Younger Women (Part 2)

Flee Fornication!

Pastor Foster’s outstanding efforts for justice on behalf of victims of church sexual abuse reminds me of 1 Corinthians 6:18. “Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.” This is relevant because sexual sin is rarely committed at the drop of a hat, almost at random. Going out and committing adultery, fornication, or homosexuality is not like tripping and falling down the stairs. It isn’t something that you do suddenly when you “snap”, “crack under the pressure”, or somehow lose control of your faculties, your ability to think and reason clearly or restrain yourself. It is rarely a sin that “just happens on the spur of the moment”, the result of a situation that rapidly spiral out of control.

Now perhaps there are sins that probably can happen that way, maybe including even murder, but they DO NOT include sexual sins. Instead, the idea that “it just happened” or “it was beyond my control” is a convenient reassuring lie that we often find refuge in after the fact. Truthfully, the only time that this explanation is even plausible is when abuse of alcohol or drugs are involved, and in those cases, rather than being excuses for sinful sexual behavior, drug and alcohol abuse are sins themselves. Instead, sexual sins are almost always sins committed after a time or incident of temptation, and the comission of said sin is thus the result of the failure of the Christian to remove himself from the temptation.

Let us be honest here. We aren’t simply walking down the street minding our own business when some unclean spirit seizes us and unwillingly forces us to do dishonor our bodies and abuse the bodies of others with this type of sinful behavior. And we also aren’t these naive souls that find ourselves manipulated and overcome by the wiles of a tempter or seductress. Plainly speaking, if it isn’t rape, then it is sexual sin. If it isn’t violent coercion, then it is sexual sin.

So why does it happen so often, even amongst the clergy? The reason is that we are like David as opposed to being like Joseph. Now consider Joseph. When Potiphar’s wife made her advance and grabbed hold of him, he didn’t trust his ability to resist the temptation or negotiate the situation. No, Joseph got out of there, leaving his clothes behind! And Joseph, being a very wise person, almost certainly knew that his running naked away from Potiphar’s wife and leaving her holding his clothes would leave him with absolutely no defense whatsoever. He knew that running off in that manner would result in any charge made against him being believed, and that any legal standing or credibility that he might have had – and being a Hebrew slave in Egypt he really had none to begin with – would have been forfeited. So in leaving his clothes behind, he was really abandoning all that he had. He was giving up every right, every privilege, every consideration that the world had to offer him. And why did he do so? Because obedience to God’s law was worth all the rights, privileges and recourses that the world had to offer. Joseph was going to obey YHWH even if it cost him everything, including his very life! Make no mistake, either way Joseph was going to be in a hard position. He either had to put himself in the position where he had to resist the seducing charms of Potiphar’s wife, or put himself in a position where he would have no defense against a false charge of attempted sexual assault by that same wife. As the Bible narrative tells us, Joseph chose the latter, and willingly bore the consequences! As was evident from the time that Cain slew Abel and was made manifest in the most supreme and extreme example by the rejection and death of the SINLESS Jesus Christ on the cross, true righteousness in this wicked world always comes at a price, and it was a price that Joseph was willing to pay.

But instead of being like Joseph, we are like David. David watched Bathsheba bathe. He could have easily avoided doing so. Some blame this on David’s not going out to battle, but one doesn’t even have to go that far. David could have simply closed or averted his eyes and gotten away from there as fast as he could; gone back inside his house. Instead, he allowed viewing the body of another man’s wife to please him, and from there it was simply James 1:14-15, which reads “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” So where Joseph fled fornication, David gave a place to the devil, and with the latter you saw the result. David “took Bathsheba and laid with her”, and it is still my opinion that the Bible does not state that David’s relations with Bathsheba were consensual on her part, but instead used language similar to Absalom’s rape of Tamar and Shechem’s rape of Dinah. In that light the contrast between Joseph and David becomes even more stark: where the former fled consensual sin with Potiphar’s wife,  the latter appears to have forced himself on Uriah’s wife.

So why are we so often more likely to choose the path of David over the path of Joseph? It appears to be a misunderstanding or misapplication of another verse from James, that being 4:7’s “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” Actually, that is 4:7b. 4:7a, which reads “Submit yourselves therefore to God” is often ignored and omitted, and 4:7b is often quoted in isolation, usually as sort of a “Christian cliche’”, which of course increases its potential to be misunderstood and misapplied.

We often interpret “resisting Satan” to placing ourselves in compromising and sinful situations. We think of ourselves as spiritual athletes or superheroes. We tell ourselves that there is some great merit in putting temptation before our face and resisting it, that it is some mark of spiritual maturity and upright character. We think that because we are Christians indwelt by the Holy Spirit, that it means that we can trust ourselves and that we can be trusted. And the feelings of attraction or tension that we might have? We tell ourselves that they don’t exist because we are born again, and born again Christians don’t have those problems! Or we tell ourselves that because we are so strong and mature and are experiencing such victory that we can handle them without acting on them. We can just sweep them under our emotional, mental and physical rugs, we tell us, and we further deceive ourselves by telling ourselves that God will make it stay there. After all, we delude ourselves because of bad theology and teachings: it’s His job! It is one of His promises! To be able to stare temptation right in the face hour after hour, day after day, week after week and year after year without falling is one of the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit!

And Christians who reject this form of (let us call it what it is) NEEDLESS SELF-TORTURE, SELF-ABUSE AND SELF-ENDANGERMENT? We call them “legalists.” We call them “fundamentalists.” We even question their own salvation and Bible knowledge. We say “if they were REALLY saved, if they REALLY UNDERSTOOD GRACE, if they REALLY UNDERSTOOD VICTORIOUS CHRISTIAN LIVING, if they REALLY HAD THE SELF-CONTROL THAT CHRISTIANS ARE SUPPOSED TO HAVE, then they wouldn’t need all these legalistic rules. They’d just trust themselves and each other, and above all trust God. Right?

Well, we see the result of this thinking. Having cast aside the rules designed to keep Christians pure as “old-fashioned”, “legalistic”,  “impediments to church growth” and “sexist”, we see that teen pregnancy, illegitimacy, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, divorce and pornography are huge problems in our churches, in some cases surpassing that of the general population, and that speaks nothing of the sex scandals among the clergy and other church leaders. And despite all this, we deceive ourselves as to the reasons why. Instead of separating from worldly practices and ideas, we tell ourselves that we can partake of those same practices, implement those same ideas and still not sin because we are Christians.

This is particularly absurd when the Bible itself explicitly calls it a lie. In a general sense, 1 John 1:8 says that any Christian who denies his capacity for sin deceives himself and rejects God’s truth. And in a specific sense, Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 promotes marriage as a way for Christians to avoid sexual sins. Again, 1 Corinthians 7 IS NOT DIRECTED AT UNBELIEVERS. Paul WAS NOT telling unbelievers to get married to avoid sexual sin! Paul was telling baptized, born again, Holy Spirit filled BELIEVERS to get married to avoid sexual sin! And of course, if avoiding fornication is an issue for single Christians, avoiding adultery is an issue for married ones. So if that was an issue for Christians in Paul’s time, what makes us think that it isn’t now? Is it because society has advanced? If so, in what way? Because we are so much more civilized thanks to our humanistic, rationalistic mindset that we are capable of more self-control than we could in Paul’s repressed, misogynistic social location? Such ideas are nonsense, a strong delusion.

So then, the mark of true Christian maturity is not to put temptation in your face so you can brag about how holy and righteous you are for not giving into it. Instead, the mark of true Christian maturity is to do whatever you can to avoid the temptation, and being willing to suffer the consequences. Again, consider Joseph. He was willing to go to prison – and he may well have been executed – over running away naked. But how many contemporary Christians are just as willing to turn down a situation at school, at work, or even at church that requires them to work long hours alone with an attractive member of the opposite sex? Or what about shunning the raunchy and prurient movies, TV shows and Internet websites, including those that may be harmless themselves but have racy advertiser content?

Again, that may sound anti-modern, antedeluvian, medieval, old-fashioned, legalistic, fundamentalist or whatever you want to call it. I call it not giving a place to the devil (Ephesians 4:27) and submitting yourself to God, of being more like Joseph and less like David. After all, what merit is there to imperiling yourself with temptation for its own sake? Does it make you a better witness for the gospel? Even if that were the case, when you contrast the high number of evangelical Christians who commit sexual sin (at least 60% and very likely higher) and the low number of Christians who actually evangelize (less than 10%) and being a better evangelist clearly isn’t the reason. Instead, being more like the world is the reason.

Also, let us have some consistency. Those of you who believe that you are such powerful, faithful bold victorious Christians that you can resist all this temptation, why limit it to that area? Expand your horizons. Go handle poisonous spiders and scorpions. Grab a rattlesnake by the tail. Make yourself a cocktail of household cleaners and drink it. Stand out in the middle of a freeway. Or take a boat out into deep water, the ocean or the middle of a swirling river, and step out and walk on water. You have faith, don’t you? You are a mature, strong Holy Spirit-filled Christian, aren’t you? Isn’t avoiding that behavior legalism? Fundamentalism? Old-fashioned? Is refusing to pick up a rattlesnake misunderstanding grace?

Of course, you won’t do that. Why? Because you value your life and health. And that is precisely the issue. You value your own safety and security over avoiding sin. You are much more willing to risk the chance that you might sin than you are to risk the chance that you might die. Therefore, you are willing to take a chance that you might sin and tell you that God will keep you from sinning, but you are unwilling to take the same chance with your life under the idea that God will save you from poison, drowning, or getting crushed by a car. But you might say “there’s no reason for doing those things.” Well, there was no reason for David to watch Bathsheba bathe, was it? The truth is that there is also no reason, no reason that will advance the kingdom of God, for Christians to sit around and unnecessarily tempt themselves with sin, and that is not just sexual sin but a great many other sins. But we actually have a Christian mainstream, an evangelical mainstream, that regards trying to separate from wickedness as sinful, hypocritical and Pharisaical, and the results are plainly exhibited before all. Many of the things that we tempt ourselves with we do so for no reason other than our own entertainment or to be like everyone else, and other times we do so because we are unwilling to make a real sacrifice to our lifestyles, to our comfort, to our aspirations. We don’t want to go to prison like Joseph. We don’t even want to miss out on a promotion, become a laughingstock at school, or be considered “extremist” by other churches. As a result of this carnality, this selfishness, we are much more willing to pollute our minds and bodies and offend God with our sin than we would ever be willing to put ourselves in harm’s way, and yes that does include put ourselves in harm’s way to actually spread the gospel. And the result is the Christian landscape in America that we see today.

Paul Washer does an excellent job of addressing this precise topic in the video below, which I really hope that you will view. In it he gives added emphasis to pastors who unnecessarily expose themselves to sexual sin, and that goes back to some of the topics that Pastor Foster regularly deals with on his site.

Mission Field America: You can live your whole life and die without hearing the gospel in New York City!

Church Planting in New York City

Roman Catholics Slowly Infiltrating The Evangelical Christian Publishing Industry

Please read

Is Your VBS Taking a Vacation from the Gospel?

How Willingly Do People Go to Hell?

Does Anyone Standing by the Lake of Fire Jump In? By John Piper

He Drank Your Hell

Five Views On Christian Sanctification: Which Is Yours?

Five Views on Sanctification: An In-Depth Analysis

Article On Eternal Justification

Eternal Justification by Berkhopf

New Testament Prayer: Acts 4:24-30

This appears to be a prayer for evangelism that perseveres and succeeds despite and in the face of persecution and adversity, both political and religious. Note that the prayer specifically asks that signs and wonders be done by God for the sake of evangelizing the lost. This prayer also centers around the truth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and how the coming, works and resurrection of Jesus Christ fulfilled Old Testament prophecies.

And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is: Who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word, By stretching forth thine hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus.

The results of this prayer are below, verses 31-34.

And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness. And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.

This would appear to be an empowering of the Holy Spirit – a filling of the Holy Spirit if you will (consider the empowerings or fillings of the Holy Spirit in the book of Judges that were not the indwelling Holy Spirit, but rather the empowering of the Holy Spirit that equips someone to serve God and perform His work) – that gave the believers the ability to share the gospel. The Holy Spirit gave them boldness to speak the gospel, and the words of the gospel message that were to be shared. It appears that the focal point of the true gospel message is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Another result of this prayer is that the believers began to behave as a corporate community. As a result, individualism – of which materialism and the desire to acquire, possess and retain worldly things – disappeared.

Let us consider this prayer, pray it in private and in gathered fellowship, and in the Name of Jesus Christ may this prayer have the same purpose and effect for us as it did for the believers in scripture! For we know that the word of God is true, and that it is the power of salvation for all who believe.

U.N. Considering Resolution That Would Create ‘Global Blasphemy Law’ Protecting Islam

I wonder how similar this is to the anti-evangelism laws (targeted towards Christians of course) that already exist in Israel.

Expert: U.N. Resolutions Would Create ‘Global Blasphemy Law’