The new containment cap has been installed, but for some unspecified reason the integrity testing has been delayed. I hope and pray that this cap will stop the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. I know I've been focused on this disaster for a while now, but I do remain very concerned that this crisis is not being taken seriously enough, especially in the Christian community. The water is becoming toxic, ocean life is being killed, and livelihoods are being devastated. Human folly is wreaking havoc with God's good creation. And look at the rate at which it is happening. Watch above to see how the oil is flowing according to the conservative estimate. Start moving the slider to see what the more realistic numbers look like.
Please join me in praying that the oil will stop gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. I'm hoping for the best with this new containment cap, but concerned that testing on Tuesday was delayed. God have mercy! Here is a suggested prayer:
We pray today for the preservation of the Gulf of Mexico and the lands and waters it touches: Please stop the oil from gushing into the ocean; Give them success with this new containment cap. Guide those who labour to contain the oil that endangers the creatures of sea and land; Strengthen those who work to protect them; Have mercy on those whose livelihoods are suffering; Forgive us for our carelessness in using the resources of nature, and give us wisdom and reverence so to manage them in the future, that no one may suffer from our abuse of them, and that generations yet to come may praise you in the beauty of your creation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Previously, I expressed how surprised I was at how little of a Christian response there was to the oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, at least based on what I could find on the Internet.
Recently, someone pointed me to a video circulating on the net in which a pastor from Florida claims that the oil spill catastrophe is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy! To be fair, Pastor Carl Gallups would probably say that he does not claim this, but rather asks if it could be the judgment of God and fulfillment of prophecy. (I've invited Pastor Gallups to reply to this posting, and I will post any reply I receive from him. I am very open to debating this with him so that we can arrive at truth.) Let's be clear, to ask a leading question like this is to imply the answer. Most people viewing the video or listening to the original radio broadcast would conclude that Gallups believes the oil spill disaster is God's judgement on the US for turning against Israel. But see for yourself...
The conclusion Pastor Gallups gives in the video sums it up nicely: "April the 19th, Israel celebrates its independence in 2010. On April the 19th, Fox News reports that the U.S. will no longer automatically support Israel in the United Nations. The next day, on April the 20th, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explodes. Coincidence? Or the hand and judgment of God?" World Net Daily interviewed Pastor Gallups and they got Bible prophecy heavyweight Hal Lindsey (author of The Late Great Planet Earth) to back him up, "I believe this is evidence that when you turn your back on Israel, especially when you've been a supporter, you're gonna see judgments come from God." Really? I object to Lindsey and to Pastor Gallups.
There are at least three good reasons why this horrible disaster is NOT God's judgment on the US: (1) God gave no warning, (2) Fox News isn't presenting actual facts about the US and (3) the Genesis prophecy ultimately concerns the children of Abraham by faith not by land.
1. God gave no warning. Here's how biblical prophecy about judgment works: (1) God decides he must judge the people's sin so He sends a prophet, (2) if the people listen and repent He does not judge them, (3) but if they continue in sin, having been warned, they are then judged. Think about the Ninevites, for example. God sends the prophet Jonah and even though his prophetic message is, "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown," when the people repent, God does not overthrow their city. If you think this through, the judgment-punishment must be clearly connected to wrong behaviour if it is to be effective. Philip Yancey illustrates this very well: "Think of a parent who punishes a young child. It would do little good for that parent to sneak up at odd times during a day and whack the child with no explanation. Such tactics would produce a neurotic, not an obedient, child." So regarding the oil spill crisis, where was the warning? How is the US to know that they are being punished for their policy towards Israel if God has not warned them? Wasn't it clear to the Pharaoh of Egypt why the plagues came upon his land? Why wouldn't God warn President Obama? As Amos 3:7 says:
Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing
without revealing his plan
to his servants the prophets.
2. Fox News is reporting gossip which cannot be substantiated. This article fails to meet the standard of journalistic credibility. Let's get real: there was no significant change in US policy toward Israel on April 19 and not even the Fox article is claiming any change took place on April 19. The only sources that Fox News refers to in this article actually deny that any policy change has occurred! Now, here's the real kicker: the Fox News articles claims that the US has a history of using its veto at the UN Security Council on votes against Israel making new settlements in the occupied territories. Examine the history for yourself and you'll see this is wrong. The US voted for UN Resolution 242 in 1967 which forbids Israeli settlements in the territories and so far as I know the US has consistently called on Israel to stop building these new settlements. Even if what Fox News is alleging about President Obama were true, I don't see how this would be a "major shift in policy" — it sounds rather like a consistent confirmation of ongoing US policy.
3. The Genesis prophecy is fulfilled in Jesus Christ and has nothing to do with the modern state of Israel. In Genesis 12, God made this promise to Abraham:
I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you. (Gen 12:2-3)
While many (dare I say dispensationalist?) Christians think a prosperous nation of Israel in the promised land is the fulfilment of this promise, they are at odds with the New Testament. (Personally I vote for the NT over and against dispensationalism.) Paul and the other apostles were quite aware of the promises made to Abraham and they saw them as being fulfilled through Jesus Christ, the seed of Abraham. In Galatians 3, explaining how this very promise made to Abraham is being fulfilled, the Apostle Paul declares:
Those who have faith are children of Abraham. Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you." So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. (Gal 3:7b-9)
The blessing of the good news that Jesus Christ is Lord is how God blesses the nations (ie. Gentiles) through Abraham. And as Christians today carry this message more nations and more Gentiles will be blessed. And, to continue Paul's thought into Genesis 12:3, those who bless Christians who are sharing the gospel will themselves be blessed, but those who curse Christians proclaiming that Jesus is Lord will themselves be cursed — well, Jesus changes our perspective on that, saying, "Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you" (Luke 6:28). Sorry, there's just no way that the Bible ever gives some kind of blanket promise of blessing to the nation of Israel (past or present). And I would argue that the US should certainly not automatically vote with Israel in the UN. It is a lousy interpretation of Genesis 12:3 to suggest otherwise. In conclusion, I want to underscore again what a horrible tragedy we are seeing in the Gulf of Mexico, worsened now by Hurricane Alex. It seems apparent that many mistakes were made, many "shortcuts" taken in the construction of the Deepwater Horizon. Human error, human greed and human arrogance are to blame for this disaster, not God. Pastor Gallups looks at the oil spill crisis and sees the righteous judgment of God; I look and cry for what we've done — clearly not what God has called us to do with this good earth and its resources. What we should be able to hear from the Gulf of Mexico and its beaches is creation groaning for redemption, having been subjected to frustration due to sin (Romans 8:18-25). God help us! Please, Lord, stop this oil from ruining sea and land. Have mercy on us.
Oil gushes into the Gulf of Mexico as I write today; it's been doing this for over a month now. And only now are some people becoming aware of the extent of this devastating crisis. The Exxon Valdez spilled 250,000 barrels of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound in 1989. On conservative estimates, U.S. government scientists indicate that at least twice as much oil as that has now gushed into the Gulf of Mexico, making it the largest oil spill in U.S. history.
Today we find out if the latest of many BP attempts, the "Top Kill," was effective in stopping (more likely slowing down) the oil. To date every attempt has failed and the human cause of this tragedy is clear. Are we praying for God to intervene in this horrible assault on his creation? I found surprisingly little of a Christian response on the Internet, so I offer this prayer which I used for leading in prayer in church last Sunday.
We pray today for the preservation of our natural environment,
especially the Gulf of Mexico and the lands and waters it touches:
Please stop the oil from gushing into the ocean;
Guide those who labour to contain the oil
that endangers the creatures of sea and land;
Strengthen those who work to protect them;
Have mercy on those whose livelihoods will suffer;
Forgive us for our carelessness in using the resources of nature,
and give us wisdom and reverence so to manage them in the future,
that no one may suffer from our abuse of them,
and that generations yet to come may continue to praise you
in the beauty of your creation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her. (John 20:18)
John's Gospel does not record the reaction of the disciples to Mary's news, but Luke tells us that "they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense" (Luke 24:11). I had a new thought about this during Easter this year, but first the old thoughts on Mary and the women who were the first witnesses on that first Easter morning.
"All four Gospels agree that the first primary witnesses to the resurrection were women," says NT scholar Craig Blomberg who goes on to explain the commonly held assumption, that this "detail [is] unlikely to have been invented, inasmuch as their testimony, because of their gender, would have been inadmissible in a court of law." In other words, if you were making this story up, you would not have made these women to be the first witnesses. Therefore, it is more likely that this is historically what really happened than something fabricated.
So here's the new thought: If the testimony of women could be so easily discounted in that culture and time, how much more so the testimony of the very first witness, "Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out" (Luke 8:2)? "Seven" is of course a numerical way of saying "complete"—that is to say, the demons were in complete control of her. She was likely crazy, suffering from some kind of mental defect, until Jesus set her free. In the movie The Miracle Maker, on that Sunday morning after the crucifixion, Mary excitedly keeps repeating the news that Jesus is alive and tries to get Peter to come to the tomb. Peter quite certain of what has happened to Mary responds to her saying, "The grief has made you mad." He raises an interesting point. Could Mary have gone crazy in her grief over Jesus?
Sure enough, doing a little research, I discovered that this point has been made before! The first known pagan written critique of Christianity includes this exact argument. Writing in A.D. 175,
Celsus... says that a hysterical female... was the witness to Jesus' resurrection, which Celsus then discounts.... Origen responds (c. A.D. 225) to Celsus by saying that there were other witnesses... and that the Gospels do not say she was hysterical (Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, 883-884).
If the accounts of the resurrection of Jesus in the Gospels had been fabricated, a fiction being sold to the public, it makes no sense to have women as your first witnesses. And it makes even less sense to have your very first witness to be a woman who could be accused of having gone mad in her grief. The best explanation for this is that the Gospel writers are capturing what truly what happened. Mary who had suffered a great deal in her life, being under the control of seven demons was set free by Jesus. She was loyal to him, staying with him through the trials and crucifixion, even when the male disciples had abandoned Jesus. And she becomes the first witness of Jesus' resurrection, commissioned by Jesus himself to go and tell the other disciples which it is claimed makes her "an apostle to the apostles." It is a true mark of Christianity that "God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.... God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are" (1 Corinthians 1:27-29). So, yes, of course, he chose Mary Magdalene to be the first witness of the resurrection of Jesus.
Related Sermons
By the way, I am available to preach! As I am no longer in full-time pastoral ministry, I do have opportunity to preach. This blog is a great place for me to explore the intersection between life today and our faithfulness to Christ. I hope it gives you a sampling of what I might preach; here is a sermon I've preached that examines what the Scriptures do say about Mary Magdalene.
Jesus, Mary and Da Vinci The bestselling book The Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction and even the claim it makes to be historically accurate is fiction. In particular the character of Mary Magdalene as presented in the novel is completely inaccurate. The New Testament (and even the Gnostic writings) present Mary as a premier, exemplary disciple of Jesus.
got milk? Masi Oka and Hayden Panettiere, stars of the TV show Heroes are just the latest of many celebrities to appear in these popular milk ads which over the years have featured everyone from Michael Jordan to Superman to Dr. Phil. Masi Oka's ad says drinking milk can make you leaner and help to build muscle. Is milk the answer to fitness? Milk may do the body good, but let's be serious, milk by itself is not enough if you want to be healthy and strong, certainly not enough if you want to be a hero!
If you're growing in your Christian life, there comes a point at which drinking milk alone is not enough! It is to such a group of Christians that Hebrews 5:11–6:20 was written. The author is getting into some pretty serious teaching, about how Jesus learned obedience from what he suffered (5:8), but before he gets into how we too might learn obedience through what we suffer, he suddenly stops the sermon, saying:
We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature... (Hebrews 5:11–14a)
I take him seriously. The author is speaking to people not unlike us, people who have been Christians long enough now that they ought to be teachers, but instead they seem to need someone to go over the ABC's (elementary truths of God's word) all over again. What are the first things we learned as Christians? Verse 12: "You need milk, not solid food!" Do you really suppose this is a serious prescription for them? for us? Do we really need to relearn the ABC's? Is more milk the answer?
No, of course not! It's ironic: "You poor babies need milk, you're not ready for solid food." Hint: Just a moment before, the author said to them, "by this time you ought to be teachers." Too much milk is their problem, not the solution! What they need now is solid food and motivation to grow. It's too easy for us to become sluggish, slow down in our Christian lives, and settle for just drinking milk. Popular preaching promotes a perpetual pablum problem. But a milky diet is not enough! If we can see the author's irony, understand that it is actually a rebuke, then we can own the truth that we too have settled for milk instead of craving solid food.
Bring on the steak! Let's get beyond the ABC's of being a Christian. I want to grow. Hebrews urges us to stop drifting along (2:1), to really focus on Jesus who is our Hero and Champion (2:10, 3:1), and to recognize that if Jesus is our Forerunner (6:20), we better get moving! And it warns us what will happen if instead we choose to walk away (6:4–6).
Last week in the blog, I wrote about Hebrews 6:4–6 which warns us of the danger of walking away from Christ. And, yes, I said that John MacArthur does not believe that John Piper could ever lose his salvation, but I do. MacArthur and Piper do not believe Heb. 6:4–6 applies to Christians, but to those who are close to becoming believers. MacArthur fails to see the irony of Hebrews 5:12! I guess his Bible does not end the verse with an exclamation point! He writes, “The term [infant] in Hebrews 5:13 describes an unbeliever... who was hanging on to the ABC's... The mature person talked about in verse 14 is one who grows up by putting his faith in Jesus Christ...” By missing the irony, he misses the point! It makes no sense to call these immature Christians non-believers. These are Christians being addressed, Christians who have become sluggish, who have slowed down in their faith and who have settled for just drinking milk. Verse 12 is actually saying “Enough milk already!” You know the ABC's! That's why the author, including himself in the group says, “Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity” (6:1).
What is the milk we settle for? Devotional guides that give us a verse or two of Scripture per day but have us spend more time reading the guide itself? Sermons we can listen to rather than Bible studies we can do? [Why not post a comment on what you think is the milk we settle for?] I know the two basic ways to grow as a Christian: read Scripture and pray. And yet, today, I am not where I would like to be. Why? Too much milk has made me sluggish. I settle for getting by and drinking milk rather than craving solid food. My own experience confirms milk is not the answer. I'm ready to move on to maturity; it's time for some steak!
My men’s group is currently working through Hebrews which is really cool because it’s a great Biblical book for getting back on track in the journey of faith, following in the footsteps of our Hero and Champion, our Forerunner Jesus. But once again I have found myself drawn into the never ending debate about the meaning of Hebrews 6:4-6, “It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened... who have shared in the Holy Spirit... and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance....”
Does Hebrews 6:4–6 teach that true believers can lose their salvation?
John MacArthur and John Piper both say “No.” The way I see it Hebrews 6 says “Yes,” but we should do everything we can to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone. Hebrews is all about encouraging those who are drifting away to reset their focus on Jesus. It warns us to pay more care attention to faithfulness and inspires us to believe that we can follow in the footsteps of Jesus our Hero, Champion of Salvation and Forerunner in Faithfulness.
Want to weigh in? Check out MacArthur's “No” answer then read my “Yes” answer below and then post a comment and say what you think. This one is resolvable.
Does Hebrews 6:4–6 teach that true believers can lose their salvation?
Yes. In that passage, the writer of Hebrews is speaking to those who have “been enlightened,” “tasted the heavenly gift” and “shared in the Holy Spirit.” MacArthur sees tentativeness in these descriptions and says they “hesitated to embrace Christ,” but he is clearly mistaken because this same author uses these verbs elsewhere in Hebrews with no tentativeness: (1) Encouraging Christians to persevere, in 10:32 he says, “Remember those earlier days after you had received the light” or embraced Christ, (2) When Hebrews 2:9 says Jesus tasted death for everyone this obviously means he experienced it, and (3) In Hebrews 3, the author's “holy brothers and sisters” are said to “share in the heavenly calling” as well as to “share in Christ” (3:1,14). If we take his descriptions seriously, it is clear that the writer is addressing Christians who in spite of these real Christian experiences have also “fallen away”; after all this they have rejected Christ, a fatal sin.
Because John MacArthur believes the warning is addressed to the unsaved “who have hesitated to embrace Christ,” he holds that the passage teaches that the opportunity for receiving salvation can be lost, not salvation itself. If MacArthur's interpretation were true, however, the passage would teach that once a person comes close to Christ and refuses to believe, it becomes impossible for that person to come back say six months later and accept Christ as Saviour and Lord. Not only is that bizarre, but it’s also lacking in any other support from the New Testament, and flies in the face of the experience of many true believers in our churches who would claim that kind refusing-then-later-accepting Christ as their story. When Billy Graham encourages people to come forward and accept Christ, he tells them that they may not have another chance, but he would never subscribe to MacArthur's interpretation of Hebrews 6:4-6 and say, “You had better come to Christ now, for if you fall away it will be impossible for you to come again to the point of repentance.”
Believers will not fear losing their salvation if they heed the warning and move on to maturity in their faith which is exactly what the writer of Hebrews fully expects them to do (6:1,9). It may be unsettling but the bigger passage here, Hebrews 5:11–6:20, is telling us that any believer who refuses to grow up and continues to drink only milk, refusing solid food and the responsibilities of maturity should be worried. Jesus is our forerunner, how could it be acceptable not to run after him, growing in faithfulness?
If you are a Christian, rejoice! The Champion of your salvation (Heb 2:10) has set you on a journey of faithfulness and Jesus himself is our Forerunner, blazing the trail we are to follow.
Postscript
OK, John MacArthur's answer was shorter than mine. So what’s all this got to do with John Piper? Both MacArthur and Piper are Calvinists, holding that no true believer can lose their salvation, “once saved, always saved.” While it’s good to develop one's beliefs into a theology (like Calvinism), it can be a problem when we don’t allow Scripture to challenge our beliefs and sometimes reshape them. In this case, their belief in eternal security, prevents MacArthur and Piper from accepting the warning of Hebrews 6:4–6 as being applicable to Christians. To hold to their theology of eternal security, they must reinterpret the passage and make this incredible claim that these people who have been enlightened, tasted the heavenly gift and shared in the Holy Spirit are not Christians. We all have our preconceived ideas when we come to the Scriptures, so this is a question of authority. Do I have the authority to make Scripture say what I need it to say to support my beliefs? Or does the Word have authority over me and the power to challenge my beliefs and even reshape them? MacArthur and Piper’s teaching on eternal security stands in the way of hearing the clear warning of Hebrews 6:4–6, but just as I make this claim, I read the conclusion of Piper's sermon on this passage and he blows me away! John MacArthur may claim that no true believer (including John Piper) could lose their salvation, but John Piper has convinced me all the more that the Hebrews warning could apply to himself and to any other Christian who walks away.
If in the coming years I commit apostasy and fall away from Christ, it will not be because I have not tasted of the word of God and the Spirit of God and the miracles of God. I have drunk of his word. The Spirit has touched me. I have seen his miracles and I have been his instrument for a few.
But if, over the next ten or twenty years, John Piper begins to cool off spiritually and lose interest in spiritual things and become more fascinated with making money and writing Christless books; and I buy the lie that a new wife would be exhilarating and that the children can fend for themselves and that the church of Christ is a drag and that the incarnation is a myth and that there is one life to live so let us eat drink and be merry — if that happens, then know that the truth is this: John Piper was mightily deceived in the first fifty years of his life. His faith was an alien vestige of his father’s joy. His fidelity to his wife was a temporary passion and compliance with social pressure; his fatherhood the outworking of natural instincts. His preaching was driven by the love of words and crowds. His writing was a love affair with fame. And his praying was the deepest delusion of all — an attempt to get God to supply the resources of his vanity.
If this possibility does not make me serious and vigilant in the pursuit of everlasting joy, what will?
Amen! Let us all be warned about the danger of falling away and be diligent “in order to make our hope sure” (Heb 6:11).
Have you ever been given a "second chance"? A fresh opportunity to succeed after messing up badly? The truth is I wouldn't be writing this blog now if I hadn't been given some very significant second chances. I was encouraged last week by this news story:
[Ottawa] Mayor Larry O’Brien has hired a disgraced former communications staffer for a federal Tory minister as he revamps his office staff.
“We will soon be welcoming Jasmine MacDonnell as my new Communications Director,” [says] O’Brien. “Jasmine comes with excellent credentials and will be able to work closely with the media in both official languages.”
MacDonnell also comes with baggage. She resigned from Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt’s office in June after leaving sensitive briefing books in a television studio and, previously, leaving her audio recorder in a Parliament Hill washroom.
“That is not a résumé most of us around here would be jumping to,” said [one City Councillor].
[Later, O'Brien says,] “I have interviewed three highly qualified candidates and we chose Jasmine MacDonnell. We’re excited to have her join our staff.”
[Two Councillors] said the mayor seems different since his leave from office for his criminal trial. Upon resuming office after his acquittal, O’Brien said he’d been thinking the city needs to do a much better job communicating to residents.... he wants to “turn over a new leaf” and [he had a] conciliatory attitude toward other councillors at his first council meeting on Wednesday. (quoted and abridged from The Ottawa Citizen, Sept 3, 2009)
You see, Mayor Larry O'Brien was just last month acquitted of criminal charges (influence peddling, having allegedly bribed a rival candidate for Mayor). The acquittal has given O'Brien a second chance at being Mayor of Ottawa. I venture to believe that when a person is given a second chance, they may be changed by that experience and become the kind of person with the right mix of mercy, insight and courage so as to be able to give someone else the gift of a second chance. I find myself agreeing with O'Brien that Jasmine MacDonnell is one of the most qualified Communication Directors in Canada, and totally deserving of a second chance. MacDonnell has been trashed in the press, but very likely she chose to fall on her sword to protect the reputation of the Natural Resources Minister who is in fact the one guilty of saying inappropriate things and leaving behind sensitive material. If MacDonnell did anything wrong, she is very likely to have learned from that, and thus be even more qualified, not less. Even back in June when Jasmine MacDonnell resigned, I found myself wondering if anyone would do the right thing and give her the second chance I believe she deserved. O'Brien's decision made me very happy.
When you've been given a second chance, perhaps the most extraordinary thing you can do is to give a second chance to someone else still in the exile you've been rescued from. May the God of Second Chances bless Mayor O'Brien and Jasmine MacDonnell. Yes, we believe in a God of Second Chances. Think about King David after his fall into sexual sin, Moses after killing the Egyptian or Saul after persecuting Christians. God has proven himself to be merciful, forgiving and the giver of second chances. Redemption is about making all things right. I thank God not only for a second chance, but also for giving me the faith to believe that others deserve a second chance too.
