A Response to the News

The news.

The response.

Which Dragon?

Bernice,

You came to me with some struggles you are having. The fact that you brought them to me lets me know you recognize that God's Word has answers for problems like yours. I see that as positive and can give you great hope for the struggles you are in.

Let me list back to you some of the information you gave me and then I will attempt to "connect the dots" biblically.

• You are having trouble letting go of the unbeliever you were dating.
• Your relationship with the unbeliever you were dating put you at odds with some other women in your apartment building and now you want to move.
• You are involved in a non-Christian singles group.
• You are having trouble paying your bills and have filed for bankruptcy.
• You bought a car on credit when you were already having trouble paying your bills.
• You owe money to a number of creditors, but you admitted to having $900 saved in a lockbox to enable you to move.
  

I realize you gave me a lot more information, including your chronic depression, but let's start with what we have. As I look over this list I see a common thread to which I need to alert you. Based on your response to the circumstances in your life I am guessing you have not considered what I'm about to tell you.

Let me start by pointing out that our trouble as sinners begins with our desires. It has been that way since the Garden of Eden. When I ask you questions about what you really want, you respond by telling me that you want to get out of debt, get away from the gossips in your building and find a husband. Not one of these desires is an evil in and of itself. No one likes debt, slanderers or loneliness. What I want to point out to you is that you want each of these things so badly that you are willing to sin in order to get them. They have become idols in your life. Please consider these thoughts:

• God's Word says, "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers," yet you persist in pursuing relationships with unbelieving men in unwholesome places even though your conscience troubles you about it.
• God's Word says, "The wicked borrow and do not repay," yet you are pursuing a legal status that will release you from your obligations to your creditors and permit you to continue spending what you do not have.
• God's Word says, "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you." Rather than seek forgiveness for the ways you have wronged the other ladies in your building or refusing to be bitter toward them for their wrongs, you have set aside money you could have used to pay your debts in hopes of escaping your problems in another apartment building.

Bernice, what dragon are we trying to slay here? You claim to be a disciple of Christ, so I am guessing the cause of your depression is your troubled conscience rather than something chemical or genetic as you have been told.

The problem is not debt and old biddies and loneliness. It is the heart of a woman who has deceived herself into thinking that material possessions and men can bring more satisfaction than living a life that pleases God. If this sounds like a serious accusation to you, let me assure you that it is. Your two masters hate each other. Even if a very nice man with lots of money came and paid your debts, married you and took you away to a nice house with lots of things, the dragon would remain. I am asking you to give serious consideration to your need to repent and plead with God for victory.

I think we can talk about learning to replace old, bad habits with new, godly habits and investigate practical ways of reducing debt, but right now I want you to see our great God. I want you to recognize that you will never be satisfied with any earthly joy as long as you think there are joys better than following God and letting him decide what you need to be happy.

I'm looking forward to our next conversation.

Hope for a Depressed Thief, Part Two

Jordan...continued

I want you to consider God’s diagnosis of what is going on inside your heart. I know enough of your background to say that I would be surprised to read in the paper that you were arrested and charged with retail theft. I know that you would bristle at the thought of that. However there are other ways to steal.

Just like Jesus taught that hatred is heart murder and lust is heart adultery (Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28), he also taught that stealing is more than stuffing a DVD into your shirt at Wal-Mart. Listen:

For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification. So, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you. (1 Thessalonians 4:3-8, emphasis mine)

It is that word “defraud” that I want you to see. You could substitute the words “cheat” or “swindle” or “con.” I honestly think that you fall into this category for these reasons:

• You stole from your employer because he had to go without services he hired you to perform. Instead having you, a trained staff member, complete a task, he had to get a less-than-satisfactory job done when you were not there to carry your portion of the load.
• You stole from your girlfriend when you became “too physical.” You may claim that you did not go “all the way,” but any sexual pleasure you get from her robs her and her future husband (even if you think that future husband is you) of something that belongs only to them.
• You stole from your parents and your church because as a member of both of those families you selfishly kept back simple service that should have been theirs because you thought you were too busy to serve (busy playing games and doing what pleased you).
  

I do not intend to judge you, but God’s word is the best judge of any of us. What does this text say? Because you have repeatedly turned from the instruction you grew up with, I give you the words of the Holy Spirit written about Jordan through the apostle Paul: Jordan “is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.”

You may question what I am about to say, but I think I have your attention now. There is a solution to this problem. Jesus did not die for victims of other people’s sins. He died for sinners. If you think the things you are going through right now are the fault of someone else, I am not going to be able to help you. But if you are one of those sinners, I can offer you hope for a solution. Jesus died to rescue sinners from their sins. Thieves are sinners. Jesus died to rescue thieves from their stealing. Here is one text that gives the way out:

He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need. (Ephesians 4:28)

Here is the bottom line. You need to find your pleasure in a better place. Follow the logic of the text I just gave you:

• You do not stop being a thief when you stop stealing, but when you start doing something useful with your hands.
• You do not start doing something useful with your hands until you have an internal desire to share with those in need.
  

I will take you elsewhere in Scripture to show you that you will not have that internal desire until there is a fundamental internal transformation that only comes when you run from the judgment you deserve to the mercy provided by the one who died to rescue people like you from things like stealing.

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:16-21)

The gospel of the Redeemer who conquered sin and death turns thieves into givers. It makes you do useful things with your hands for the good of others who need what you do.

My call to you, Jordan: run to the only one who can not only rescue you from the judgment you deserve, but to the only one who can rescue you from yourself.

Hope for a Depressed Thief, Part One

Jordan:

You have given me a great deal of information and first let me say that I know you are hurting. I want to assure you that the kind of depression you are experiencing is all too common and that I have great hope to offer you.

Just to list some of the information you gave me about why you are so depressed:

• You were fired because you regularly decided not to show up for work. Aside from the legitimate excuses like your sudden illness and your car trouble, you admitted to skipping out on work numerous times to be with your girlfriend and sleep late because you stayed up watching TV and playing video games. This is not the first job you have lost because of this.
• Your girlfriend has broken up with you saying your relationship was “too physical.” You have threatened suicide in an attempt to get her back.
• Your parents want you out of their house because they say you do not help. Your church ministry and attendance is only because of house rules and even that has ceased despite pleas from your parents and pastor.
  
  

When I offer you hope, you should know that I am not talking about finding a place to live, landing another good job or getting your girlfriend back.

You claim to be a Christian. You certainly do have a good grasp of things that are in the Bible and can even point to a time when you prayed to ask Jesus into your heart.

Please follow through with what I am about to say. I am calling your profession of faith into question. I have one primary reason: Your life has shown a pattern of delighting most in the things that please you and you have consistently run from the consequences rather than turned from the sinful behavior.

Christians are not those who have prayed the right prayer but those who have turned from sin to Jesus Christ. That does not mean Christians are sinless but it does mean Christians do not live in sin. First John 1:5-8 says:

This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

In the Garden of Eden (a story you know very well) Adam and Eve had one main passion: delighting in the living God and what he had provided (food, home, family, fellowship…). The first time that main passion was replaced (by a piece of fruit), the whole problem started. The Bible calls it idolatry and it shows up in innumerable ways among Adam’s kids.

In your case, the guilt you are feeling right now is in part because you are guilty of a specific kind of idolatry. It is called stealing. Let me explain.

To be continued...

Rise, the Woman's Conquering Seed

The news on December 1, 2006 included a report that the city of St. Albans, West Virginia had decided to include in its holiday display a scene of a manger, a star, shepherds, camels and a palm tree. Missing because of concerns over “the separation of church and state,” according to an Associated Press report, were Mary, Joseph and the baby. The park superintendent who apparently ordered the unpopular omission argues that this is not “technically” a manger scene.

I can agree with him on that. What is a manger scene without Jesus? You can have your bath-robed herdsmen and your incandescent spotlight. But what kind of centerpiece can you have in a crèche without a Savior who is Christ, the Lord? Do you shine the light on the camels? The palm tree?

Stories like this irk traditionalists because they think secularists in our nation are trying to take away the familiar things we hold dear. But is liberal tampering with sentimental traditions the greatest reason to bristle at a baby-less manger scene? People might be just as angry if they tried to ban something of less consequence, like church spires over fifty feet tall or Easter egg hunts.

I make this contrast because I even wonder how many professing Christians understand why Jesus has to be at the center of Christmas. It is more than a story, you know. I fear that many treasure Jesus like they treasure drawing a “Get out of Jail Free” card in Monopoly—only this card says “Get out of Hell Free.” If the baby in the manger merely serves to stir my memories of flannelgraph stories or comes to serve my man-centered theology, then I take his removal personally. I might even start a war over it. The nerve of those liberals and secularists!

But if the baby in the manger set the aside the worship of angels to die and absorb in his body the full wrath of the Father that I deserve, his omission mainly sickens me rather than makes me angry. It is not only a reminder that I live in a world that fails to treasure Jesus, it is a reminder that I have also sought satisfaction in lesser treasures than Jesus. The people he came to save are not only those of European descent who go to church. The people he intended to rescue come from every tribe, tongue and nation and include liberals, secularists, Muslims and other enemies of God like me who can only find an end of the enmity by grace.

Maybe I get angry when I hear “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” at Walmart because it takes attention away from my own idolatry. It is a lot easier to question what happened to the plastic Jesus in the public park than it is to wonder why he has been replaced by a ballgame or a TV show or a good novel in my home.

Should We Give Sinners Proof Texts or Unfold a Bigger Picture?

It is difficult when people reject the truth. You deliver God's word as clearly as you can and still people persist in their rebellion. You wonder if you used the right texts or presented them in the right way. This believer is frustrated because he is trying to biblically admonish a friend who is planning to marry an unbeliever and is not responding to the confrontation. His statement reveals his dilemma: "I have already taken him to several places in the Bible that have something to say about this, to no avail. I'm wondering if I'm missing something that I should be reminding him of."

Guido:

Thank you for taking on this ministry. This is the way things are supposed to work: people in the church counseling other people and repentance hopefully happening privately before the matter ever has to be spoken to someone else or brought before the church. Sadly, I already know the situation and know that your friend is not a church member. Our hands are somewhat tied.

My job is to equip you and others to do just what you are doing, so please do not hesitate to ask questions.

I will give you an Old Testament command and a narrative that both underlie the New Testament commands not to become yoked to unbelievers:

When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than yourselves, and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. Deut. 7:1-4 (ESV)

Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, f rom the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, "You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods." Solomon clung to these in love. He had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart. For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. And so he did for all his foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods. And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods. But he did not keep what the Lord commanded. Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, "Since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant. Yet for the sake of David your father I will not do it in your days, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son. However, I will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son, for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem that I have chosen." 1 Kings 11:1-13 (ESV)

See also the life of Samson. The big issue, however, is not specific “proof texts,” but where your friend’s desires lie. This is less a matter of following biblical commands than it is a matter of a having a heart wants to follow biblical commands. What does he think he must have?

• A life that loves and glorifies the Savior?
• A trophy girl on his arm?
• A good time?
• Female attention?
• Sexual gratification?
  

Answer those questions and you will see the altar at which he worships. Why would a believer want to date an unbeliever? What fellowship does light have with darkness? Can he glorify God in the relationship? Assuming he understands that romantic male-female relationships lead to (pardon my bluntness) either married or unmarried sexual relationships, there are only a few options on this road:

• He is going to marry someone who absolutely cannot be God’s kind of wife and invite much long-term misery.
• He is going to become sexually immoral and invite much long-term misery.
• He is going to stir sexual feelings in a woman and in himself that cannot be satisfied in a holy way. He will then be stealing (“defrauding”) what belongs to God and her future husband.
  

Which one is he going to choose? Proverbs 13:15 says, “The way of the transgressor is hard.” Your friend is already miserable if he is a believer. Ask him why. Point out that the happiness he is seeking is only found in one place (and that place is not finding a girl).

Let me encourage you not to be afraid of making him angry. Love him enough to call him on his inconsistent claim to worship Jesus Christ and yet live apart from accountability to his church and obedience to his word. He needs to make a choice.

If he chooses to reject biblical counsel, you have fulfilled your responsibility. As much as it hurts to see people reject God’s word, it hurts far more to avoid confrontation and have an uneasy conscience because you did not give someone God’s word. Leave the door open, but make sure he knows that he cannot wean himself off of idols and onto Jesus. You have to cut idols down and run to Jesus for mercy.

Keep me posted.

Can You Be a Virgin and Have a Promiscuous Heart?

Dear Boris:

I have been brewing on the sexual abstinence rally at our local high school. I do not wish to take away from what was a needed and well-presented challenge, so I will not address the rally in particular.

My thinking relates more to our long-term strategy for challenging teens, particularly those who follow Christ, to remain sexually pure. The standard reason we are given from well-meaning evangelicals for remaining pure is that we are valuable. The biblical teaching is that we should remain pure because ­he is valuable. There is a radical difference between the two.

Christian teenagers need to hear that the very reason for their existence is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. You cannot adopt that worldview if your greatest pleasure in God is that he makes much of you. He created us to find pleasure in making much of him. Is it possible that we have youth-grouped a generation of children into theological ignorance?

It is a man-centered theology which says that Jesus came and died because we are so special. This is error. Jesus came to please his Father and to rescue people who had no worth apart from him. You do not have to learn to love yourself in order to love others. The Bible says we very naturally love ourselves.

Our selfish generation must come to terms with the truth that we must be holy --different, entirely "other"-- not because we are valuable but because our Savior is valuable. We are called to be holy because he is holy. We are called to be holy because he is our greatest treasure. When he is not that treasure, young people are in bed in their hearts long before they violate their abstinence pledges.

How does this look in shoe leather for ministry to teens? For the promiscuous girl coming to our Crisis Pregnancy Center for a pregnancy test it means that her counselor points her to a Savior who is all about his own glory rather than about filling her emptiness. The picture to be painted is not of a pale, anemic Jesus waiting outside the door of her heart to be let in along with all her other gods (Revelation 3:20 is about a group of believers, not a sinner’s heart). The accurate picture is of a condemned sinner on the outside of the only ark of safety with a flood on the way. Sinners who repent do so because they recognize the worth of Jesus and their own corruption, not a Jesus who came to bring people personal fulfillment.

Can that message be delivered in the context of love? It has to be. For the abstinence instructor, giving the earthly “acceptable in public school” reasons for abstinence (avoiding STD’s, unwed pregnancies and disrespect) is helpful for public health. It is a good start at neighbor loving. Let’s do that, but not stop there. A God-centered theology demands that we present a Jesus who is glorified by those who give up the lusting that leads to fornication and the anger that leads to murder. We do our community a favor by promoting outward abstinence. We do our community an eternal favor by promoting a Savior who enables inward transformation.

Former drunk wants his wife back

Frank:

Having talked to Hilda today I am concerned that you be very careful and very humble in your approach to her. There is always enough sin to go around in any marriage conflict, but the greatest burden of proof is on you since you made it impossible for Hilda to live with you.

You are going to need to do these things to please God, not to get Hilda back:

1. You are going to have to prove that you can be trusted. This is understandably Hilda's biggest barrier. The serious physical damage you have done to her is on her mind every time she seriously considers ending the divorce. She knows the statistics about spousal abuse. She knows that people with life-dominating sins (like alcohol and drug abuse, self-injury, compulsive lying, compulsive gambling, compulsive spending, pedophilia, pornography and homosexuality just to name a few) learn to be con artists and will do anything—even be “good”—to get what their idolatrous hearts crave. She thinks your sudden change is another act and that you will go back to the controlling, the rage, the drugs and the abuse like you have every other time. Get into her head and apply Philippians 2:3-4 to your thinking and actions. She is asking, “What if I believe he has changed and I take him back and he does the same thing again?” The burden of proof is on you.
2. You are going to have to demonstrate your ability to be the kind of father God wants you to be. This is more than taking the kids to church. The kids need a dad who will spend time with them and give instruction as is modeled in Deuteronomy 6. Don’t think you have to be in the home to teach them. It is hard, but not as hard as the “way of the transgressor,” a road you know too well.
3. You are going to have wait. This means that you treat Hilda as you would want your little girl to be treated by a young man when she is eighteen. If she thinks you just want sex, you’re going to have to wait like you should have as a teenager. As I see it, even though you are legally married, you would be wise to come up with a courtship plan that begins your relationship over where you know it should have been years ago. I want a young man to watch my daughter from a safe distance and learn to love and respect her as a sister in Christ before he ever becomes involved with her romantically. I want him to determine not to arouse passions that cannot be righteously fulfilled. Yes, Hilda is your wife, but barely. I must say with love in my heart that you chose the “barely” part by your sinful treatment of her. Honest question: What if it takes a year? Is she worth the investment? Would you want a young man to marry your daughter who couldn’t say no for that long? Could you wait a year without touching her and spend that time (an agreement like 1 Corinthians 7) learning to know her and love her for who she is out of bed by writing letters and making phone calls and spending no time alone?
4. After all that is done—even if it takes a year—you have to be prepared for her to say, “Sorry.” Would your bubble be popped? Yes, but your ability to handle that kind of disappointment and stay passionate about your Savior would certainly be evidence that getting Hilda back is not your greatest passion.
   
   The big biblical questions that reveal the desires of your heart:

• What do you want so badly that you are willing to sin in order to get it? See Achan’s desire for stuff.
• How do you respond when you do not get what you want? See Saul’s treatment of David when his lust for control seemed threatened.
• What is it that you think you cannot be happy without? See Rachel’s desire for children.