One Is Enough

January 29, 2011 Leave a comment

When a person is born, he or she comes wired with certain talents, skills, and natural abilities. Obviously, these must be recognized and honed as the individual grows, but the point is that these things are inside the person even in infancy.

Well, the New Testament teaches that when a person believes in Christ as Savior and is thus “born again” (John 3:1-21) God the Holy Spirit comes to dwell inside that person’s body (Romans 8:9-11). And among other things He does, the indwelling Holy Spirit imparts to the person at least one “spiritual gift” (Romans 12:3-8; 1 Corinthians 12:1-31; Ephesians 4:7-11).

What is a spiritual gift? It is a talent, skill, or ability that the person did not have before becoming a Christian. As with natural talents, skills, and abilities, it might take the new Christian (who is called a babe in Christ: 1 Corinthians 3:1; 1 Peter 2:2) a while to identify the gift and hone it, but the gift is present from the moment of salvation. Some Christians are given more than one spiritual gift, but every Christian is given at least one (1 Corinthians 12:7). And trust me when I say that one is plenty by which to serve Christ in great and mighty ways.     

A young man who lost his left arm in an automobile accident wanted to learn judo. His family, delighted that he wasn’t letting his disability keep him down, hired an old Japanese master to teach him judo’s throws. After three months had passed, the master had taught the young man only one throw, but that throw had been mastered. Surprisingly, the master felt that it was time for the young man to enter his first competition. Even more suprisingly, the young man actually won the event, defeating the defending champion in the finals.

After the finals, the young man asked the master the question that had been on his mind: “Why did you teach me only one throw?” The master replied, “There are two reasons. First, by mastering that one throw you have mastered one of the most difficult throws in all of judo. Second, the only known defense for that throw is for your opponent to grab your left arm.”

You see, that young man knew only one throw, but one was enough. Likewise, Christian, God the Holy Spirit may have imparted to you only one spiritual gift, but that one is enough. So use it, use it, use it, over and over again in service to Christ. And here’s the good news: Satan won’t have a defense for it.

Filed under Adversity, Attitude, Doing Good, God's Provision, salvation, Satan, spiritual gifts, The Devil, The Holy Spirit Tagged with , , , , ,

Is There Life On Other Planets?

August 3, 2009 Leave a comment

Each Sunday morning at Disciples Road Church I take about five minutes and answer any Bible question someone has. My folks really enjoy this part of our service, and they ask some good questions. Yesterday the question was, “Does the Bible say anything about life on other planets?” (By the way, the person who asked it was very careful to say, “We’re talking about E.T. phone home here, not just a living organism.”)  

The short answer to the question is, no, the Bible doesn’t say anything about life on other planets. Some people have tried to make the case that the four living creatures of Ezekiel chapter 1 are aliens. Clearly, however, they are angels. Other people read the stories of how Enoch (Genesis 5:21-24) and Elijah (2 Kings 2:1-11) were taken up to heaven and say, “Maybe they were carried away by spaceships.” No way. Each story makes a point of saying that it was God who did the taking. A handful of others run wild with the fact that Jesus said, “And other sheep I have which are not of this fold” (John 10:16). But there’s absoutely no doubt that the “other sheep” were the Gentiles, not aliens on other planets.

Rather than hinting that there is life on other planets, the Bible lays out a pretty clear case that there isn’t. Let me give you a few thoughts to consider on this issue. Mull these over in your mind and just let the Bible say what it says.

First, Genesis 1:1 says: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” That word “heavens” covers all the other planets out there in space. This means, then, that all those other planets were created on the same day (day 1 of the creation week) as the earth. So much for aliens being more advanced than us because their planets have been around so much longer than our’s.

Second, Romans 8:22 says: “For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.” This verse tells us that all of creation, not just the earth but also the other planets, was affected by Adam’s sin. Sin now had to be accounted for in God’s perfect creation. When God said to Adam, “Cursed is the ground for your sake” (Genesis 3:17), evidently that curse extended to all creation. Therefore, it seems unlikely that there are any pristine planets out there that are even more life-sustaining than the earth. Along these same lines, a friend of mine once pointed out to me that in view of all creation being fallen, it wouldn’t have been fair for God to punish other intelligent life simply because Adam sinned.      

Third, Jesus became a human and died in a human body. He arose from the dead in a resurrected, glorified human body. Even after that resurrection, He bore the marks of the death upon that body (John 20:24-29). Thus, Jesus is the eternal “God-man.” He is not the eternal “God-martian” or whatever. He has chosen to eternally align Himself with mankind by eternally existing in a glorified human body.

Fourth, the church, which consists of humans, is Christ’s eternal bride (Ephesians 5:22-32). If He has another bride, one that comes from some other planet, that makes Him a bigamist and an adulterer (Matthew 19:1-6). In light of this, if there are alien civilizations, are they without sin and without need of Christ’s redemption? To believe they are sinless is to believe that God gave them a better shot at remaining sinless than He gave Adam and Eve. Come on, do we really think that God played it that way?

You say, “But Russell, you just don’t know all the evidence for life on other planets.” Oh, yes, I do. You aren’t talking to a sci-fi novice here! I go all the way back to Leonard Nimoy’s “In Search Of” back in the 1970s. I know all about: Roswell, area 51, flying saucers, alien abductions, men in black, USOs (unidentified submerged objects), time travel, the loss of time, the Bermuda triangle, crop circles, and livestock mutilations. I’ve seen Star Trek, The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The X Files, Stargate, etc. Yes, preachers are allowed to watch that kind of stuff.

But my problem is simple: I can’t honestly make all the talk about aliens match up with the Bible. I’ve read the Book, and aliens just aren’t in there. It disappoints a lot of people that they aren’t, but I can’t help that.

What I try to do is come up with reasonable explanations for all the sci-fi stories. For example, it’s absurd to think that every last one of the thousands of people who claim to have seen alien spaceships is lying. Many of them really did see something. But what did they see? While I don’t claim to have all the answers, I feel extremely confident in saying that we don’t know half of what our government’s military complex has in the works. I’m sure that secret, government aircraft can explain some of the “spaceships.”

As for the sightings of actual aliens, again I don’t claim to have all the answers. But I don’t discount the activity of demons (fallen angels). Ephesians 6:12 says: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Likewise, Ephesians 2:2 calls Satan “the prince of the power of the air.” Who knows what appearances fallen angels can take? Revelation 12:9 says that Satan “deceives the whole world.” Could demons appear as aliens and deceive people into thinking those demons come from another planet? I’m not saying they have, but I’m sure saying they could.

But what about all the stories from ancient cultures of how the gods came down from the sky and advanced their cultures? Every time I hear one of those stories my mind immediately races to Genesis 6:1-4. There we find the record of how a group of fallen angels (called “the sons of God”, see Job 1:6 and Job 2:1) once interacted with mankind, even to the point of taking wives for themselves and producing human offspring through them.

I’ll guarantee you those fallen angels didn’t show up on earth one day and say, “Hi, we are demons who have been banished from our place in heaven. We’re here to perpetrate all kinds of wickedness and evil upon you. Let’s get started.” No, those demons would have been more than happy to let those people believe the demons were either gods who came down from the sky or aliens who came from far across the galaxy.

At the end of the day, I guess I would sum up my feelings by saying that if irrefutable evidence of life on other planets was ever presented (an alien spaceship landing on the White House lawn, etc.) I would revise my thinking and say, “Okay, aliens do exist and God, for whatever reason, just didn’t want them mentioned in the Bible.” But I don’t think that’s going to happen. If it does, I promise that I’ll write a follow-up blog. If I were you, though, I wouldn’t be racing to the computer every morning to look for it. That’s a little too sci-fi for even me.

Filed under Demons, Life On Other Planets, Scripture, The Bible, The Devil Tagged with , , ,

Let’s Get Real

July 7, 2009 1 Comment

I’ve always been particularly fascinated by the story found in Luke 13:10-17. It’s the story of a woman who was stricken with a “spirit of infirmity” for eighteen years. The result of this infirmity was that she was constantly stooped over and couldn’t straighten herself up at all. She was a walking cripple.  

What’s so fascinating to me is the stated source of this woman’s pitiful condition. When verse 4 speaks of that “spirit of infirmity,” it is saying that a demon (fallen angel) kept this woman in that state. In verse 16, Jesus even calls the woman, “a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound - think of it – for eighteen years.”

I’m not trying to be blasphemous, but it seems to me that the woman spent eighteen long years as a prisoner of war in Satan’s hands. Sure, Jesus healed her, but that didn’t take away the painful memories of those previous eighteen years. Why would an all-powerful God who despises the works of Satan sit up in heaven and watch one of Satan’s fallen angels afflict a decent woman for almost two decades? Someone responds, “It was because He knew that she would meet up with Jesus one day and He would cure her.” Well, that’s a nice little pat answer, but it doesn’t give that woman those eighteen years back.

Let’s just be honest and admit the obvious: Even though Satan is surely destined to lose the war, God lets him win a lot of battles. Think about Job. God won that war, but Satan left his scars on Job. Even if God completely healed those sore, running boils with which Satan struck Job from head to toe, He didn’t resurrect those seven sons and three daughters that Job lost. Yes, He gave Job seven more sons and three more daughters, but do you think that Job ever forgot the names and faces of all those kids that died?

I realize that we don’t usually speak this bluntly when we talk about God. I suppose we are scared to sound even remotely critical of Him. But God isn’t afraid of a straight word that seems to call His actions (or lack of them) into question. I offer Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, as proof. Each of them, on different occasions, pointedly said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:21,32). Jesus didn’t rebuke either of them for saying that. He simply continued along in His timing and plan to raise Lazarus from the dead.

Of course, that story has a happy ending. Furthermore, the delay until that ending is only four days. But what do we do with a delay of eighteen years? That’s how long the woman from Luke 13:10-17 had to wait for her miracle. You know, I’ve heard plenty of preaching in praise of Christ’s miracle-working power, but I want to hear a sermon on why Satan got to have his way with that woman for that many years.

You say, “Well, why don’t you preach it yourself?” I would, but there’s one thing that keeps me from doing it: I don’t have the answer to the question myself. You see, I’m not writing this blog to share some profound insight with you, an insight that nobody else has ever shared. I’m writing it to get you to be more real with God.   

The prophet Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh and preach. That’s what got him enrolled in “whale seminary.” Finally, after he had preached to Nineveh and Nineveh had repented to the point where God stayed their destruction, Jonah “got real” with God. With anger he prayed, “Lord, wasn’t this what I said when I was still in my country? I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm” (Jonah 4:1-2).

Basically, Jonah was saying, “God, I knew you would let these people off the hook. I even said it back in Israel. So why did you make me come all this way and go through the motions of prophesying destruction upon them when you and I both knew that You wouldn’t carry through with it?” Say what you will, but that kind of prayer inspires me. It inspires me to talk to God like I’m talking to a real person. It inspires me to dare question Him if I don’t agree with the way He is running the universe. It inspires me to show my anger and disillusionment over what He has done or hasn’t done.

Perhaps my favorite story from the book of Genesis is found in Genesis chapter 15. God comes to Abraham (Abram) and says, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.” That sounds good, doesn’t it? But Abraham, at that point in his life and walk with God, was tired of hearing such talk. The way he saw it, God had reneged on a promise to him. For over a decade, Abraham had been waiting on God to grant him a promised son, but his wife Sarah remained barren.

Because of this Abraham’s response to God’s good words were direct and to the point. He said, “Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus? Look, You have given me no offspring; indeed one born in my house is my heir!” Allow me to put that in Russell paraphrase. Abraham said, “Yes, Lord, that’s all well and good, but can we talk about the pink elephant in the room? You have given me no offspring.“

And how did God respond to that criticism? Did He get hysterical or mad? Did He launch into a fifty-point defense of Himself? No. He just calmly reiterated the promise one more time: “This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.” 

So, in closing, let me leave you with two thoughts. First, there are some things about God’s actions that we won’t understand until we get to heaven. Why did He let Satan hold sway over that woman for eighteen years? Why did He let Satan claim the lives of Job’s first ten children? Why did He let Lazarus die and put that family through all that grief? Why did He make Jonah go pronounce doom on a nation of people He was going to spare in the end? Why did He make Abraham and Sarah wait twenty-five years for their promised son? I don’t know. We can all ask Him when we get to heaven. Until then we’ll have to be content with Isaiah 55:8: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.

Second, let’s not shy away from being “real” with God when we talk to Him. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). If that statement means nothing else it must mean that God takes no pleasure in a dialogue that showcases half-truths and outright lies. He doesn’t want fake niceness. He doesn’t want fake contentment. He doesn’t want to listen to our typical prayers and think, “Why don’t you tell me how you are really feeling?!!!” And it is only when we speak with such honesty that we can enter into the deepest kind of prayer to Him.

Filed under prayer, The Devil Tagged with , , , , ,

That Old Serpent

June 1, 2009 Leave a comment

My brother, Richie, and his family have been renting an older house for about a year or so. Last summer he killed a huge blacksnake on the wooden deck of the place. A few days ago he looked out and saw what he said must have been that snake’s mate lying on the deck. He would have killed it too, but he is in the process of moving into a new home and didn’t have a hoe or shovel handy. He had to settle for scaring the thing off the deck. And, no, the blacksnakes aren’t the reason he is moving. If it was me in that house, though, it would be!    

When I saw Richie this past Thursday he showed me a cell-phone picture he had taken of the one that got away. We estimated the snake to be over six feet long. For some reason, the creature made me think of Satan, the one the Bible calls “the serpent of old” (Revelation 20:2). It was Satan who entered into the body of the garden of Eden’s serpent and tempted Eve (Genesis 3:1-5). If you don’t believe that a fallen angel (a demon) can enter into the body of a serpent, you had best read the story of how Jesus allowed a group of demons to enter into a herd of swine (Matthew 8:28-32; Mark 5:1-14; Luke 8:26-33). Certainly if those demons could have entered into those swine, Satan could have entered into that serpent.  

Count me among those who believe that the incident in Eden explains why snakes crawl on their bellies. God did say to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all livestock and every beast of the field. On your belly you shall go” (Genesis 3:14). That wouldn’t have been much of a punishment if the serpent had always slithered along on the ground. Evidently, the creature originally stood erect somehow.

But why did God punish that poor serpent? Wasn’t it just a pawn in the hands of a mighty fallen angel? What purpose is served by having a world full of snakes going around on their bellies rather than walking upright? Dare I say that God meant for every snake to be a constant reminder of what happened back in Eden. He doesn’t want us to ever forget that Satan deceived Eve, a deception which led to the fall of the human race.

Isaiah 14:3-23 and Ezekiel 28:1-19 are two of the more fascinating passages concerning Satan. In them we find him indelibly intertwined with the earthly kings of Babylon and Tyre. In each passage, much of the language fits Satan better than the earthly ruler. For example, Ezekiel 28:15 says, “You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you.” Also, Ezekiel 28:13 says, “You were in Eden, the garden of God.”

Some translations of Isaiah 14:12 even use the word “Lucifer,” which means “shining one” or “morning star.” Obviously, the point that Isaiah and Ezekiel are making is that Satan was the real power behind the thrones of Babylon and Tyre. Some parts of the passages apply to the earthly kings while other parts apply to Satan. It is as if God keeps crossing back and forth between the story of the two kings and the story of Satan.

This means that we can use these passages to glean several truths about Satan. When we do this, we come up with seven of them:

#1: God created Satan as perfect (Ezekiel 28:12,15).

#2: Satan was bright, shining, and indescribably beautiful (Ezekiel 28:12-13,17).

#3: Satan was a cherub angel (Ezekiel 28:14).

#4: Satan had a high rank in the angelic order, possibly even the highest (Ezekiel 28:14). 

#5: Satan became sinfully vain and proud of his beauty and rank (Isaiah 14:13-14, Ezekiel 28:16-18).

#6: Satan fell from heaven (Isaiah 14:12, Ezekiel 28:16).

#7: Satan has even more judgment in his future (Isaiah 14:16-17, Ezekiel 28:19).

Whereas the Isaiah and Ezekiel prophecies only hint at Satan’s future judgment, other passages paint in the full picture. The judgment’s order is as follows: 

-At the midway point of the coming seven-year Tribulation period, Satan and the other fallen angels (Revelation 12:3-4 indicates that one-third of all the angels fell with him) will make a second attempt at overthrowing God in heaven (Revelation 12:7). Again, though, they will lose and be cast out of God’s presence (Revelation 12:8-12).  

-At Christ’s Second Coming, Satan and the other fallen angels will be chained up and cast into that place described as “the bottomless pit” (Revelation 20:1-2; Matthew 8:28-29; Luke 8:26-31; Isaiah 24:21-22). They will remain incarcerated there for the one thousand years of Christ’s Millennial reign upon the earth (Revelation 20:2-3).

-Following that reign, Satan and the other fallen angels will be released to mount one last rebellion against the Lord (Revelation 20:7-9). God the Father will personally cast fire down from heaven to put an end to that rebellion (Revelation 20:9).

-Satan and the other fallen angels will then be banished to the lake of fire where they will spend eternity suffering in torment (Revelation 20:10, Matthew 25:41).     

And so, you see, unlike Richie’s blacksnake, Satan isn’t going to get away. His days are numbered. Surely he knows this, and this is why he works so diligently to get his desires done. But take heart, Christian. God is still on the throne and Satan must answer to Him. We want God to hurry up and deal with him, but God is always working from a predetermined plan. What we must do is trust Him and patiently await Satan’s demise. Oh, and in the meantime, let’s keep on the lookout for what Satan and his angels are up to in our lives. Let’s put on “the whole armor of God” so that we can “stand against the wiles of the devil” (Ephesians 6:10-20). And, as for me, I’m watching out for blacksnakes too!

Filed under Coming Judgment, Demons, Satan, The Devil Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Does Satan Exist?

March 27, 2009 1 Comment

I watched an interesting debate on “Nightline” last night. The topic was, “Does Satan Exist?” The debate was held at Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington and featured four speakers. Two argued for the existence of Satan and two argued against it.

Arguing for Satan’s existence were Mark Driscoll, the pastor of Mars Hill Church, and Annie Loberts, a former prostitute who now runs an organization that seeks to win prostitutes to Christ. Arguing against Satan’s existence were Deepak Chopra, a new-age spiritualist who has written several books on the subject of God, and Carlton Pearson, a former Pentecostal preacher who now teaches that the love of God is so all-encompassing that there is no eternal damnation for anyone.

All four speakers passionately expresed their viewpoints, and everyone was generally cordial. The audience members, for the most part, believed in the existence of Satan. This wasn’t surprising considering that the debate was held at Driscoll’s church. There were, however, some who cheered the remarks of Chopra and Pearson.

But what really struck me was that the core of the debate wasn’t so much about Satan, or even Jesus, as it was the Bible. You see, if the Bible really is the inspired, inerrant, authoritative word of God, then Satan is real. Why? Because the Bible says he is. Chopra and Pearson didn’t even attempt to back up their claims by using the Bible. Everyone in the debate knew it couldn’t be done. All the two had to say concerning the Bible was that it is not God’s book to man, but rather man’s book about God. Chopra characterized it as an ancient book that was written from superstitution and is, thus, now outdated and irrelevant. Pearson flatly stated that we can pick and choose what parts of the Bible we believe because the book isn’t so much God’s inspired word to man as it is man’s inspired word about God.    

This morning, as I was thinking about the debate, I was reminded of Billy Graham. When he was a young preacher, he came to a moment of crisis in his ministry. The crisis involved the question of the Bible’s inspiration and inerrancy. Graham walked out into the woods one day, laid his Bible on a tree stump, and prayed. He came out of those woods with a deep-settled conviction that the Bible really is God’s written word to man. Out of that conviction came his dedication to preach the Bible to the best of his ability.

Do you know what the great problem is with Deepak Chopra’s and Carlton Pearson’s beliefs? It’s the fact that they have no authoritative basis upon which to rest them. Chopra contends that God is too big to be confined by the bounds of any religion, including Christianity. But that contention is merely his opinion. The only authority upon which he bases it is the authority of his own mind, a mind which, hopefully, even he would admit isn’t perfect. My mind isn’t perfect either, but let’s say that I hold the opinion that God is a big, green frog out in the middle of the universe. I’ve got just as much authority for that belief as Chopra does for his. It’s all personal opinion.  

The same can be said of Pearson. In his mind, who decides what parts of the Bible are true and what parts aren’t true? It’s him. He’s the judge. But his mind isn’t any more perfect than Chopra’s or mine. He would say that passages such as Matthew 4:1-11 shouldn’t be believed because they speak of a literal devil. But that’s just one man’s opinion. It’s merely a conclusion he has reached in his own mind. I can go around saying, with just as much human authority, that I have reached the conclusion that such passages should be believed. Do you see what I mean? When you throw out the authority of the Bible, anybody is free to believe anything.        

The limitations of the human mind must always be taken into account. It’s like that joke about the atheist who confidently proclaims, “There is no God.” A man says to him, “Sir, do you know everything?” The atheist answers, “Of course not. No one knows everything.” The man replies, “Then maybe God exists in that part you don’t know.” I could say to Deepak Chopra and Carlton Pearson, “Maybe Satan exists in that part you don’t know.”

You ask, “But how can we even know that what the Bible says about itself can be trusted? It claims to be God-inspired (2 Timothy 3:16), but can’t we just chalk that up to the book bragging on itself?” Well, that’s a valid point, but there is a comeback to it. First, we must establish the Bible’s trustworthiness from sources outside the Bible. This is done by using four distinct categories of evidence:     

1. Archaeological Finds: In scores of digs down through the years, archaeologists have unearthed evidence that verifies the Bible’s record of human history.

2. Fulfilled Prophecy: The Bible currently holds a perfect record in the fulfillment of its prophecies.

3. Internal Consistency: Even though the Bible was written over a period of fifteen hundred years, in two languages (Hebrew and Greek), by forty different writers, on three continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe), there is a remarkable consistency to its record that simply cannot be attributed to human genius.  

4. Changed Lives: No other book ever written has impacted lives the way the Bible has.

Then, after we have used these four categories of evidence to establish the trustworthiness of the Bible, we can go to the Bible and see what it says about itself. We read the 2 Timothy 3:16 verse: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” This gives us the authority of the Bible.

Deepak Chopra and Carlton Pearson need reliable doctrine. They need reprooof. They need correction. They need instruction in righteousness. But, unless they change their views concerning the Bible, they will never receive these things. They may attract audiences, sell books, and appear on t.v., but it will all be built upon their opinions. And you know that old line about opinions: Everybody’s got one. The only opinion that truly counts is God’s. Has He spoken? Has He laid down the rules? Has He put forth a standard? Has He given us a word about Satan, about hell, about damnation? Yes, He has. And where can we find it all? You know: in the pages of the Bible. So, I’ll finish up this post by asking you the obvious question that comes out of it, “How’s your Bible study these days?

Filed under Bible Study, Personal, Satan, Scripture, The Bible, The Devil Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

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