He Must Increase, I Must Decrease
When the Bible says “God saw” or refers to “God’s eyes” what do you think that means? Is God like we are. I had an opportunity for a short devotion this Sunday at my church and decide to look into the “Eyes of God.”
Notably, I posted about Habakkuk 1:13 years ago here. That is one of the verses I teach about in the above audio.
If you enjoyed “The Eyes of God,” – check out “The Eyes of Man.”
We had an excellent night of fellowship and outreach to downtown Columbus last night after a really great day at a conference by Oikos Community Church where Emeal Zwayne was the keynote speaker.
Christopher Ledezma, Joe Conkle, Christian Duarte, Paul Martina and I traveled up and down High Street in the Short North and distributed hundreds of tracts, had several one on one conversations and the following open air where I used the fruit of the Spirit to try to bring sinners under conviction.
By now, anyone reading this post has likely heard of the passing of Fred Phelps. If you weren’t familiar with the name, he is most known for being the leader of Westboro Baptist Church (WBC).
Let me give you an example to help you see just how irrational and aberrant WBC is. My brother-in-law, (with whom I have almost no theological agreement), and I have a rule of engagement when we argue debate whereby we’ve each agreed to never compare the other to WBC. They are, effectively the new Nazi.
So the death of a man such as Fred Phelps elicits several responses. Sadly, but not unexpectedly considering the depravity of man, it appears many people who were most offended by Phelps have responded in kind: returning to him even in his death the hatred they so claim was wrong when he exercised it. And of course, there are groups who are shouting for compassion – even proposing the usual “deathbed conversion” argument to suppose possibly that Christ’s sacrifice was applied to the sins of Phelps.
And, as is usual when a wicked, God-hater dies, Christians and non Christians are posting Ezekiel 18:23 – as if God does not work all things to His own Good Pleasure.
Consider the following:
Carefully read Ezekiel 18 sometime and you will notice that God’s apparent lack of pleasure is contrasted with God’s desire to see Himself glorified through the exercise of His mercy to repentant sinners.
Ezekiel 18:23 isn’t an absolute statement of fact without context. Consider Luke 14:26 ESV, which, out of context implies an idea no true Scotsman Christian actually believes about following Christ.
26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
Both these scriptures are relative statements contrasting two ideas. Dig into the scripture yourself and consider if these things are so.
I have rounded up a few articles that I found noteworthy. They are all worth your time, IMO.
You can click each to open in a new tab and read.
God Hates Phelps? – This was the best article outlining the proper Christian response.
I really enjoyed this convicting post by my dear brother, Webster.
Al Mohler article – Al is always worth reading…even if he throws in a few opinions with which I cannot agree.
IMPRECATORY PSALMS AND FRED PHELPS A thoughtful post by Rhology.
Click the link in the tweet and read the main comment. Then save time and avoid reading the fast degradation of internet commenters by closing the tab!
Best response for how to "picket" Fred Phelps funeral, so far. http://t.co/3tC8wSz15w
— Alex Hayter (@alexhayter) March 21, 2014
The gospel was proclaimed loudly and often at the Arnold Schwarzenegger Classic in Columbus, OH on March 1, 2014. Here are some highlights:
We arrived later than hoped, about 11:40am. An interesting twist occurred when another man began preaching with a megaphone just 25 feet from where I set up to preach. I spoke to him briefly, confirmed he was preaching salvation by grace through faith alone and then wished him well.
He preached for an hour. Although we were happy about him, his preaching was … less than stellar. It wasn’t so much his presentation, but his theology. I also noticed that he rarely mentioned the resurrection of Jesus. You cannot consider yourself a gospel preacher if you do not speak of the resurrection (1 Cor 15:1-4).
During this time, Fred Triplett, Joe Conkle and I passed out the newly printed tracts my church, Berean Baptist Church, bought. The weather was great, about 14-15 degrees warmer than last year! Praise God for that. Joe, for the second year in a row, drove from over an hour away to help. What a lover of God!
Finally, at about 12:40, I saw Darius (the other preacher) taking a break. I asked him if I could preach, and he assented. I began by reading Psalm 47 and then proclaiming God’s goodness and grace in Christ. I didn’t stop preaching for 2 hours. I really had a fun time. After a short break I preached for another hour or hour and a half before we settled down and headed home around 5pm.
Click here for the best picture from the day. This is on Facebook, so you have to be friends with Rusty Beals to see it (Sorry!).
The day was filled with encouragement. Christians were constantly approaching us to thank us and encourage us. One little girl even approached me while I preached and put a dollar in my tract box as a gift. There was another woman, clearly listening to the preaching whose family sorta dragged her across the street. I noticed this because she was really focused and listening, and then you could see her husband sorta get her attention.
A few minutes later I looked down and she and her son were standing in front of me. She said she just wanted to shake my hand and thank me and then said other kind things about me that I don’t deserve to hear as only the grace of Christ allows me to live, let alone serve him. Her son introduced himself and they each told me they were Christians and were glad I was doing what I was doing. This is very encouraging to a preacher and to anyone else out handing out tracts. Praise be to the most high God who died for me while I was yet a sinner.
I read the Bible in the open air frequently, pausing to explain passages periodically. By the end of the day I had read the following chapters publicly: Genesis 1, Psalm 47, Psalm 19, 1 John 1, John 10, selected parts of Matthew 5, portions of Isaiah 1, portions of Genesis 2, and portions of 1 John 2.
Dear Christian, I do not mean to be offensive, but will you consider if this is even too much for your own daily reading? Consider your own state of affairs if the Spirit brings conviction.
Rusty Beals also came and helped us most of the day. Praise God for Rusty who drove 8 hours round trip to be a part of our humble team. We also met up with several men from New Life Community Church, home of the 2014 Ohio Fire! Finally, thanks to Bill Adams who publicized our little outreach, we had 2 new friends appear, Steve and Daisy Rohr. What a blessing they were as they listened to the preaching and handed out tracts with us.
Throughout the day, homosexuality and a description of homosexuality as an abomination was only mentioned twice. Interestingly enough, I was not the person who shouted that. Two (I assume) gay men, on separate occasions, found it necessary to shout something concerning homosexuality. The first man stopped and yelled, “Isn’t homosexuality an abomination?” I don’t recall what he may have been responding to in my OA. But I replied, “All our sin is an abomination to a holy God and we are all hopeless without Christ.” He wasn’t happy with my response, but he didn’t stay to discuss it further.
Shortly after that a man walked by and shouted in his best “gay voice”:
Don’t forget to call homosexuality an abomination!
I supposed I didn’t need to, as he had just drawn enough attention to the topic himself. Not that I’m particularly shy about speaking concerning any certain sin, but I have never really focused on one sin. My preaching style, if I have one, is more of a proclamation of the goodness and grandeur of God and what He did for sinners in Christ. I make it my goal to constantly refer to the resurrection, the trinity, the deity of Christ and the grace and humility of Christ while reminding the hearers frequently of their pathetic and hopeless state in their sin and flesh. For more information on how to speak to homosexuals, click here for three short talks, all of which can be downloaded as pdf.
About a decade ago a friend gave me some advice. He said, “When someone shows you their true colors, thank them.” I’ve never forgotten this and I found it applicable to this next circumstance. As I was preaching, there was a man holding a young child. You know the scene, he’s about 10 feet in front of me, and the child is rear-facing over the man’s shoulder. Now what happened next was enough to shock me. What is important to understand is the actions of the next man I’m about to describe are a to-the-letter description of the old me.
A pretty large man walked by with a group of his friends. Tired of my preaching, he turned and shouted obscenities I will not type. But in the process, he effectively yelled the ‘f’ word about 3 feet from this little child. I was seriously disgusted. I reacted, not in the flesh but in the Spirit (I hope!) and called him a vile, wicked man and told him that he should shut his profane mouth. He followed that up with more cursing. I did not let up. I commanded him to repent of his wickedness and turn to Christ to be forgiven. But in the spirit of the earlier quote, I thank this man and God for him as he became my object lesson as I used him to describe for the remaining hearers a bit about the sorry state of man. I was not angry with him personally, but there were other hearers who had words for him. I was glad about that.
God is and was very good to me that day. One of the most remarkable and unpredictable ways was that I felt like reading Matthew 5. I like to believe it was the work of the Holy Spirit. I was reminded of the following verse as I proudly read God’s Word:
Matthew 5:11-12 ESV
11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
As I spent the day primarily being encouraged and feeling safe, surrounded by good brothers and righteous policemen, I still endured the reproach. People spat toward me (never on me), yelled cruel things and generally mocked and scoffed. No amount of ridicule or ‘suffering’ I could endure would ever compare to my Savior’s, but I do feel I get a little chance to identify with Him more fully through these circumstances. Praise God the most High!
Psalms 47:1-2 ESV
1 To the choirmaster. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. Clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of joy! 2 For the LORD, the Most High, is to be feared, a great king over all the earth.
What if you found out that a fetus has no heartbeat, doesn’t feel pain, nor even grows until 18 days after conception – would that change the way you believe about abortion?
Would it change the arguments you used against abortion, or how you would intend to persuade people concerning having an abortion?
Would it change which laws you would support?
Think about it.
Now – what if you found out that a fetus has no heartbeat, doesn’t feel pain, nor even grows until 8 months after conception – would that change the way you believe about abortion?
Here is an article I wrote a couple years ago which speaks to this issue.
To understand this post, you first need to watch this video
and you need to read Fred Butler’s post concerning the above video.
Fred –
It has taken me a few weeks to get to this due to general business, and I wanted to give it the attention I feel like it deserves. I am going to disagree with you and your commenters (generally speaking), and I have seen too many comment threads degenerate quickly so I wanted to formulate my thoughts and share them in a compassionate yet bold and I hope persuasive way. I trust you will read my entire response and evaluate each of the things I say on their own merit, not based on your poor opinion of an earlier statement I make or my inability to properly and lovingly communicate.
I’m going to start by looking at the things you said in your blog. Then I will offer my own interpretation of the video followed by a bit of disclosure.
As far as your point #1 goes, I agree. “I do not have a problem with the use of drama to illustrate spiritual truth.” I believe this is the crux of the issue. I surmise that you do not believe the “Everything” skit met these criteria: “I, however, am fine with drama as long as it does not detract from the centrality of the word being taught from the pulpit and the skits performed are theologically accurate, biblical, and tastefully done.” I will argue later that this video meets the criteria sufficiently.
Your point #2 made an odd comparison which, assuming you are correct about the futility of the video would be a valid point. My personal offense comes as I probably cry or weep 75% of the time I’ve watched the video. I found it sad, assuming I’m just a weaker brother that you would be appalled, rather than, at the least, have pity on me.
#3 was entertaining and brought back memories of my own junior high school and high school experiences. Wit is one of your strong suits and you usually use it effectively for God.
Point #4 has truth to it. But how many videos did you watch? In my internet search for more information about the skit, I was actually a bit surprised to find that there have been groups that have performed this skit with a male, as you suggest. There was thoughtful conversation about how to modify it to make it make sense in that context. In fact, I was pleased to see that the “dancing” was changed in those cases. Dancing between a man and a woman makes sense and is done tastefully in this case, in my opinion. There is nothing sensual or sexual, just fellowship. In fact, when I first read your point #4, all I could think is how much you would have had an even bigger problem if they had actually had a man dancing with Jesus.
I don’t think the fact that this particular youth group used a young woman in the skit should have any bearing on one’s judgment of the skit’s merit. In fact, I would question a youth group skit where the main character wasn’t a youth. I would find that odd. Whether less attractive or less nymph-like ladies were rejected, I don’t know. I thought the girl did a fine job in the role she was asked to play, so her relative nymph-i-ness seems to only be a stumbling block to you.
I wonder if it bothered you that Kirk Cameron was a good looking guy in Fireproof. Maybe they should get actors that look more like you and me and see how many people attend movies. 🙂
Your point #5, I believe is accurate and misplaced and incomplete.
I’ll stipulate that you will agree with me that your point is accurate. We become sober minded and more aware of sin – often at differing paces. In your case, you were saved from false conversion and had immediate knowledge of much of the things of God. People I’ve met like this seem to immediately see the error of so many of their ways and quickly understand concepts like Lordship. It seems, in many ways, that is the main thing you (false converts who get saved) lacked. You run from the “Jesus is my buddy mindset,” but I would argue that is more a reaction to the extreme of your past than a directed holiness.
I believe your point is misplaced, because, as I will show, I do not believe the girl gets saved in the song in the beginning as you seem to believe. I believe she is saved AFTER the point where the Jesus figure in the story takes on her sin and defeats it and she realized this. And frankly, I have no problem with the initial reaction of someone realizing God’s amazing love for them to be enraptured with Jesus and his friend-li-ness toward them. Jesus did, in fact, become my BEST FRIEND the day I was saved and I do not regret that fact, nor am I ashamed of it. I do not thing His love toward a believer and the believer’s desire and obligation to find joy in that love actually detracts from neither His Lordship nor holiness. I think you may be picking up on the fact that that is the only thing portrayed here, so if you want to say it is in some way an incomplete message, I won’t argue with that. But most messages are incomplete in some way, due to time limitations. The Sermon on the Mount isn’t the best explanation of the book of Esther – and that’s ok.
So your criticism is incomplete because you focus on only what is missing from the skit, rather than commending the truth and goodness portrayed. The fact that this skit didn’t represent your experience of salvation doesn’t make it inaccurate. It should be judged on its own merit and by the standard you set above: “theologically accurate, biblical, and tastefully done.”
#6 – I’d agree with you if I believed that this was a story of a sinning child of God. I do not. I believe this is a story of a person redeemed by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and, like the woman caught in adultery in John 8, is not condemned for her sin, just as no child of God is under condemnation according to Romans 8:1.
Now, hopefully you are not offended. I did not mean to be rude or harsh and I am open to correction. In cases where I judged you unrighteously, please forgive me and correct my opinions. I do not want you to think I’m attacking you, just having a conversation (in large chunks).
The video starts with the young lady wearing a black shirt. This is very important. The black shirt represents the stain of original sin. She spends the first minute and 27 seconds of the song being given life by the one who gives life, Jesus. She enjoys the wondrous beauty of the world He’s created as He provides movement, flowers, food and even some knowledge of Himself which all nonbelievers have. I would contend that she doesn’t truly feel grateful for God like it says in Romans 1:21.
Then at the minute and 27 seconds point in the song a young man representing sin enters. He represents lust and separates her from God even more tangibly. From this point there is a dramatic representation of many of the temptations that we encounter. A love for money, a desire for debauchery and drunkenness, the self-centered sin of comparing ourselves to others’ outsides leading to bulimia in order to be attractive to others. Finally, a demonic force enters and puts it on her mind to begin cutting. So many of these things are common to youth. I suppose sins like lying and stealing and disobedience could be portrayed as well with some creative choreography.
Ultimately, the weight of the sin drives this girl to simply want to die. By God’s grace, she hates her life so much that she can’t imagine living any longer in this way. It is the ultimate act of God hating though, to take one’s own life it to put oneself in the place of God and commit murder.
Now, at the moment of deepest despair, this lost and weary sinner remembers that there is a God who cares. She might not know much about Him, but she throws down the gun to look for him. It is at this point that the skit is unfortunately zoomed in. In my Calvinistic mind, I imagine Jesus calling her before she starts to run toward him. This is at the 3:48 mark. And you can see from that point that the Jesus figure is pulling her. She isn’t fighting by her own power. Her own will would have kept her in sin or killed herself. No, by His irresistible grace, Jesus pulls her to Him.
But her flesh and her sin will not let that happen easily. As much as she strives to reach God by her own strength, she cannot do it. Then at 4:32, the Jesus figure throws down the invisible rope he was using to pull her toward Himself and simply steps in and takes on all of her sin.
But it is not without a battle. The sin pounds on him and attacks him for 20 seconds of the song. You can see Him taking it all on and it has no power to even touch her anymore. At this point, you will notice a change. She is wearing a white garment. NOW, she’s been washed clean by Christ’s substitution. She is NOW a new creature and, methinks, realizing the depth of the sin from which she was saved, she reacts the way the Bible says she will react, with love toward the One who bought her with His own blood. There is a sense that I get from the video that once Jesus takes on and pays for your sin, it is dead!
This babe in Christ then shows him the proper gratitude and enjoys sweet fellowship with Him. I would propose to you that this interpretation is valid and meets the criteria you provided sufficiently. I think it tells a salvation story and does it well enough. I think if it is the only gospel someone hears…it would be insufficient, but for in and of itself, it does very well.
Finally, I will disclose that this video was effectively the first date of my bride and me. The day we met “on the phone,” we watching this video together. I reacted much like you, thinking it strange. I didn’t like a person portraying Jesus (which I now don’t believe he is). But my new girlfriend liked it, so I watched it a little. It grew on me and I came to like it, particularly because she enjoyed it with me. So I have some emotional attachment which I believe doesn’t taint my evaluation of the content.
Ultimately, I do not believe that the video is sinful, nor do I believe that it would cause someone to sin. I find it to be accurate enough to be considered a good representation of a biblical principle. I would not recommend it as an evangelistic tool, but for Christians who are saved to see a drama reminding them of the great salvation they’ve received through faith in Christ.