Christianity is based, then, upon an account of something that happened, and the Christian worker is primarily a witness.  But if so, it is rather important that the Christian worker should tell the truth.  When a man takes his seat upon the witness stand, it makes little difference what the cut of his coat is, or whether his sentences are nicely turned.  The important thing is that he tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  If we are to be truly Christians, then, it does make a vast difference what our teachings are, and it is by no means aside from the point to set ford: the teachings of Christianity in contrast with the teachings of the chief modern rival of Christianity.

The chief modern rival of Christianity is “liberalism.” An examination of the teachings of liberalism in comparison with those of Christianity will show that at every point the two movements are in direct opposition.

Dr Albert Mohler has written an interesting article about liberalism that shows that history confirms Machen’s evaluation of it in 1923.  The article can be found here.

Later that same night we met two airmen from a remote radar site up in the rugged mountains of central Turkey.  They had come to Incirlik for R&R (rest and recreation).  They told us of their situation and we quickly concluded that compared to them we “had it made.”

It was all a matter of perspective.  I have thought about that this week in the furor of the University of Tennessee football coach leaving for greener pastures in Southern California.  It has been all over the news and from the comments left on blogs and Facebook has consumed the time and interest of millions of people, including me.

But again it is a matter of perspective.  Also in the news has been the devastating earthquake in Haiti.  This disaster is one of epic proportions and involves the suffering and deaths of hundreds of thousands of some of the poorest people on earth.

When the two events are juxtaposed, the wanderings of a young man already immensely overpaid for the job he does, seems trivial at best. 

It is inevitable that as Christians we will get caught up in the affairs of this world but we must always keep our eyes on the eternal perspective and on what really matters.

Tiger Woods , the Purpose of History, and the Message of Christmas

Christmas can be dangerous for Christians. I don’t mean the danger of putting up lights or the temptation to punch one of your relatives. Christmas can be dangerous because in our love for Christmas and our desire to see family we can forget what Christmas really is about. For many people, even Christian people, Christmas can become more about sentimentality and nostalgia than about Jesus Christ.  It has always struck me as odd that many non-believers have no trouble singing Christmas songs. I have often wondered why they seem to have no trouble belting out “Joy to the World” or “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” during the holiday season.  I think they sing not because they believe the words of the songs but because in singing they manage to conjure up the ghost of Christmas past, singing these songs reminds them of good times long ago. In this way the true message of Christmas becomes obscured by sentimentality and nostalgia.

I was reminded of the true meaning of Christmas in an odd place last week in the news of Tiger Wood’s sex scandal. Tiger Woods has for a long time been my favorite athlete. If the truth is known I have enjoyed watching a young African American male dominate a sport which has traditionally been played by rich white males. Tiger, for years, has appeared unstoppable maybe even superhuman. However, over the past week the world has discovered that he is in fact human.  We have found out over the past couple of weeks details of Tiger’s personal life that he had tried to keep private. The scandal is messy, shameful, ugly, and real.

With the revelation that one of my heroes was not who I thought I felt betrayed.  I found myself wondering how in the world Tiger could do such terrible things. Then I realized that what distinguishes me from Tiger Wood’s is the fact that he has money, fame, talent, and opportunity. The fact is that I am a desperately wicked sinner who is in need of God’s grace every day.  The Bible is clear that God in his great mercy has acted in history to deliver sinners like me and like Tiger Woods. He has done this in the sending of his Son Jesus Christ into the world in order to deliver us from this present evil age.

The Bible is clear that God is Sovereign over history. He created the world out of nothing and he perpetually sustains and cares for his creation. The flow of the Bible also tells us that history has a purpose. Though things may seem chaotic and disorderly God is in fact doing something in history. God’s purpose in history is glorifying himself through the redemption of a people.  This redemption is taking place through Jesus Christ.  The Bible tells us that “in the fullness of time God sent forth his Son” Gal. 4:4. God had so ordered events that at the time of Christ’s life a common language existed, a system of roads was in place, and relative peace existed in the empire.  All of these things happened by God’s plan in order to bring the Savior into the world and so that the Gospel would go forward.

The same chapter in Paul’s letter to the Galatians tells us the Christ was born of a woman, born under the law.  Two things here are note worthy. First the fact that Christ was born under the law. God’s law reveals his perfect holiness and righteousness. It also reveals the misery of humankind. We are unable and unwilling to keep God’s perfect law. Therefore we need someone who is able to keep God’s law for us. This is what Christ has done he has stood in our place as our substitute living the life that we could not live. He has done this in order to save us from the wrath of God.  The 2^nd noteworthy thing in this passage is the fact that Christ was “born of a woman.” We have a God who has entered into humanity with us therefore he is able to sympathize with us in our weakness because he was like us in every way yet without sin.

The message of Christmas is that God in his great mercy has entered into history.  He has done this for a specific purpose. The angel in the first chapter of Matthew told Joseph that he was to name the child Jesus because he would “save his people from their sins.” Because Christ has entered into history there is hope for sinful, stupid Southern Baptist Preachers and also for billionaire athletes. All those who recognize their sinfulness and utter helplessness find hope in the Christmas story. Hope not in anything that they have done but because the Sovereign God of history has sent his Son in order to redeem us from the wrath of a Holy God.  Joy at the Christmas season cannot be found in presents, trees, families, or sentimentality. Joy must be found in Jesus Christ alone,  in Him we hope!!

Soli Deo Gloria

These churches would preach morality, pietism and strong “family values.”  There would be an emphasis on patriotism, warnings about liberalism and above all, the sermon would be relevant.  What would be missing would be a crucified, resurrected Christ who came to save sinners from the wrath of a holy God.

Satan is known by many titles in the Bible, two of them are “a roaring lion” and a “transforming angel of light.”  In 21^st century America I think he is far more dangerous as the latter rather than the former.  He is much easier to recognize when he is being sinister than when he is being subtle.

Survey after survey shows that millions of Americans believe that God exists for the pleasure of humankind.  He is in heaven solely for our benefit and utility.

Eighty-two percent of Americans (and a majority of evangelicals) believe that Benjamin Franklin’s aphorism, “God helps those who help themselves,” is a biblical quotation.  A majority believe that “all people pray to the same god or spirit, no matter what name they use for that spiritual being” and that “if a person is generally good or does enough good things for others during their life, they will earn a place in heaven.”‘

It should not surprise us, then, when former President Bush said in an interview some years ago, “I believe that all the world, whether they be Muslim, Christian, or any other religion, prays to the same God.  That’s what I believe.”

The well known pollster George Barna says,

“…the spirituality of America is Christian in name only….We desire experience more than knowledge.  We prefer choices to absolutes.  We embrace preferences rather than truths. We seek comfort rather than growth. Faith must come on our terms or we reject it. We have enthroned ourselves as the final arbiters of righteousness, the ultimate rulers of our own experience and destiny. We are the Pharisees of the new millennium.”

We must be vigilant that we do not replace the gospel of Jesus Christ with a pietism that makes men moral but does not save them “…from the wrath to come.”

It is so easy to become like the Pharisees without even realizing it.  The Pharisees of the New Testament times were the true conservatives of their day and in many ways like much of the church of our day.  They were orthodox in their theology, politically lined up to the right and pious in their behavior.

The problem was that they had misunderstood theology, had an incorrect worldview and were legalistic in their daily lives.

How much of our Christianity is gospel based and gospel driven and how much of it is based on the cultural traditions of our time and driven by a political agenda that may or may not be Christ centered?

Answering these questions is far more complicated than they appear at first glance.  We all have a tendency to shy away from any self-examination that would challenge our cherished traditions and beliefs.  It is easy for me to examine someone else’s life and tell them where they are in step with the world but much more difficult for me to recognize my own tendency to compromise the gospel to keep my “sacred cows” from being made into hamburger.

Our gospel is safe.  The Gospel is dangerous and radical.  It is time that we cease to be gospel cowards.

But October 31^st is a far more important date in history than Halloween.  It was on this date in the year 1517 that a young Doctor of Theology by the name of Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany and sparked the Protestant Reformation.

Martin Luther was born on November 10, 1483, in the little town of Eisleben.  His father, who was of free peasant stock, had migrated from the ancestral home some distance from Eisleben.  He gained wealth from the copper mines of that area in which he had an interest and became a man of considerable wealth.  Although he owned shares in six copper mines and two smelters by 1511, times were still difficult for the family when Luther was born.  Luther was raised under the strict discipline of those times.  His peasant parents, particularly his pious but superstitious mother, inculcated many of the superstitions of their class in him.  Some of these terrors haunted him as he struggled so long in seeking salvation for his soul.

His father wished him to study law, but in 1505 Luther became frightened during a severe thunderstorm on the road near Stotternheim and promised Saint Anne that he would become a monk if he were spared.  About two weeks later he entered a monastery of the Augustinian order at Erfurt. 

In the monastery Luther was almost fanatical about pursuing holiness.  To find peace with God, Luther zealously confessed every sin he could think of.  He would confess every day, sometimes up to six hours a day.  In popular medieval thought, for every sin to be forgiven, there had to be confession.  Luther had been taught that the moment the priest whispered in the confessional “I now absolve thee,” all of his sins were forgiven.  But Luther was never certain that he had been fully forgiven.  Always present was the fear: have I confessed every sin? Then came a discovery even more startling and distressing to Luther-there are sins which people do that are not even known to them.  But how could these be confessed if they were not known? Luther re-doubled his efforts and threw himself into all-night vigils, great bouts of fasting-all to find forgiveness and peace with God. 

As he once said:  “I was indeed a pious monk and kept the rules of my order so strictly that I can say: If ever a monk gained heaven through monkery, it should have been I.  All my monastic brethren who knew me will testify to this.  I would have martyred myself to death with fasting, praying, reading, and other good works had I remained a monk much longer.”

Luther was finally transferred to Wittenberg in 1511.  Here, during the next year, he became a professor of Bible and received his doctor of theology degree.  He held the position of lecturer in biblical theology until his death.  At this time he was also given the office in the tower where he came to a realization of justification by faith alone. 

It was in this university that he and a loyal band of fellow professors and students accepted the faith that was to spread over Germany.  Luther began to lecture in the vernacular on the books of the Bible, and in order to do so intelligently he began to study the original languages of the Bible.  He gradually developed the idea that only in the Bible could true authority be found.  From 1513 to 1515 he lectured on the Psalms, from 1515 to 1517 on Romans, and, later, on Galatians and Hebrews. 

Between 1515 and 1519, while preparing these lectures, he found the peace of soul that he had not been able to find in rites, acts of asceticism, or in the famous German Theology of the mystics, which he published in German in 1516.  A reading of Romans 1:17 convinced him that only faith in Christ could make one just before God.  From that time on, Sola fide, or justification by faith, sola scriptura, the idea that the Scriptures are the only authority for sinful people in seeking salvation, and sola sacerdos, the priesthood of believers, became the main points in his theological system.

In 1517 a man by the name of Johann Tetzel began his sale of indulgences at Juterbock near Wittenberg.  The indulgences were being sold by Pope Leo X to help pay for the building of St.  Peter’s Cathedral in Rome.  Tetzel claimed that repentance was not necessary for the buyer of an indulgence and that the indulgence gave complete forgiveness of all sin. 

On October 31, 1517.  Luther posted his Ninety-five Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.  In them he condemned the abuses of the indulgence system and challenged all comers to a debate on the matter. 

A reading of the Ninety-five Theses’ will reveal that Luther was merely criticizing abuses of the indulgence system.  However, during the years between 1518 and 1521 he was forced to accept the idea of separation from the Roman system as the only way to get a reform that would involve a return to the ideal of the church revealed in the Scriptures.

There have been few men in the history of the Christian church as bold and courageous as Martin Luther.  While I would disagree with him at some points of his theology, it would be profitable for all believers to read about his life and to read his books.  As Christians we owe him a huge debt of gratitude.