Revival in the air

Yesterday, a cousin from California sent us the link to an article in time.com dated 17 April 2009. It was called The New Calvinism by David Van Biema.

The article speaks of Calvinism becoming popular again and describes it thus:

“Calvinism . . . offers a rock-steady deity who orchestrates absolutely everything, including illness (or home foreclosure!), by a logic we may not understand but don’t have to second-guess. Our satisfaction — and our purpose — is fulfilled simply by “glorifying” him.”

As committed Christians, the Lord Jesus has been our Master and Saviour and a faithful Guide for many many years. About five years ago this same cousin from California introduced us to Calvinism. At first we did not think much of it, but it grew on us and delighted us more and more. Today we love the reformed doctrines as well as the rich background and history. I am sure that many non Calvanists would also love this teaching if given the kind of gracious opportunity that we were given.

We have since had the privilege of helping many others from our old church, Evangelical Bible Assembly (EBA) in India, including their pastor, my father, who now lives with us in New Zealand, to understand this doctrine. So we have been feeling that we are experiencing a revival of sorts as far as the EBA family is concerned.

But this article seems to describe a much bigger revival, although it does not use the word ‘revival’. It must be big if the secular press comments on it. Revivals are good for us and bad for us.

They are good because the right preachers are not fighting hard to be heard. It is always the easy to do the popular thing. For a change it suddenly becomes easy to do what God wants us to do.

But there is another side that we have to watch out for. From what I have experienced of revivals, with revivals, come conversions on a much larger scale, and with this larger scale come many conversions that are not genuine. It is easy to acquire jargons, prayers, songs, and postures when revival is in the air without any accompanying change of heart. Associations of light with darkness are not that easy to prevent anymore.

Sadly, this article makes subtle mention of the lack of unity among Calvinists. Just this morning Philip was telling me about the polarisation of people over a particular issue that is evident in the comments made in Tim Challies’ post Missing the Forest for all the Trees. When men of God disagree, we need patient and godly people who wait on the Lord for help, without making evocative remarks.

The article ends with a thought-provoking comment:

“Calvin’s 500th birthday will be this July. It will be interesting to see whether Calvin’s latest legacy will be classic Protestant backbiting or whether, during these hard times, more Christians searching for security will submit their wills to the austerely demanding God of their country’s infancy.”

Heaven is nearer to Joni

Joni Eareckson Tada became a quadriplegic when she dived into shallow waters. Painful though the experience was, it turned her life around and made her lean on God more. The more she leaned on Him, the stronger she discovered He was.

Joni has been a great role model for me. I’ve known about her from 1979 when I read a book about her. I’ve since taught her story to Sunday School kids. I’ve read a couple of her books. Her life has helped me keep my miniscule problems in perspective.

She is an artist and paints with her mouth. She writes books. The proceeds from all this goes to Joni and Friends International Disability Center.

Oh, and does she sing! Our family loves listening to the hymns sung by the foursome— Joni, John MacArthur, and the Wolgemuths.  In New Zealand, you can order these from Grace to you, New Zealand.  The books that come with these CDs are well worth the price.

Joni has a beautiful voice. Many years ago I had one of Joni’s song tapes. Why even right now, after all these years I can still hear her sing Joni’s Waltz written by Nancy Honeytree.

Though I spend my mortal lifetime in this chair,
I refuse to waste it living in despair.
And though others may receive
Gifts of healing, I believe
That He has given me a gift beyond compare….
For heaven is nearer to me,
And at times it is all I can see.
Sweet music I hear
Coming down to my ear;
And I know that it’s playing for me.

For I am Christ the Savior’s own bride,
And redeemed I shall stand by His side.
He will say, “Shall we dance?”
And our endless romance
Will be worth all the tears I have cried.
I rejoice with him whose pain my Savior heals.
And I weep with him who still his anguish feels.
But earthly joys and earthly tears,
Are confined to earthly years.
And a greater good the Word of God reveals.

In this life we have a cross that we must bear;
A tiny part of Jesus’ death that we can share.
And one day we’ll lay it down,
For He has promised us a crown,
To which our suffering can never be compared

In an interview with Larry King on 3 August 2004, Joni said:

And I can’t wait go to Heaven, and I look forward to Heaven so much, because not only will I paint murals, but I’ll have back use of my hands, and I really will jump up, dance, kick, aerobics. And I hope I can take this wheelchair to Heaven with me. I know, if you had Pastor John MacArthur here, he’d say that’s not biblically correct. And it’s not. But if I could, I would take it with me and I would be standing next to my savior Jesus Christ, and I would say, “Lord, do you see this wheelchair? Well, before you send it to hell, I want to tell you something about it. You were right, when you said, in this world we would have trouble. And there’s a lot of trouble being a quadriplegic, but you know what, the weaker I was in that thing, the harder I leaned on you and the harder I leaned on you, the stronger I discovered you to be. Thank you for the bruising of a blessing it was, this severe mercy. Thank you.

And when asked about 9/11 in particular and bad things happening to us in general, she said:

That’s a tragedy, to be sure. And I look at that and I think: What has God done here? And when I look back at 9/11 — and I don’t know all — who am I? I don’t know reasons why.

If God told us the reasons why anyway, it would be like probably pouring million gallon truths into our one-ounce brains. We couldn’t contain it all. But when I look at national tragedies or even personal tragedies, sometimes I think these things are like God’s way of, like, wake-up calls, like yellow lights blinking, like red flags waving.

Like what are you doing with your life? Where are you going? Do you not know that this parade of life as you enjoy it is not going to last forever? And what will you do when you face the other side of your tombstone?

And it’s the — I think suffering is God’s way of sometimes waking us up out of our spiritual slumber with an ice-cold splash in the face and getting us seriously to consider his claims, who he is and where we’re going. (Click here for entire transcript)

Why Israel Is The Victim

David Horowitz, American writer and activist, writes for FrontPage Magazine.

I came across his article  ‘Why Israel Is The Victim And The Arabs Are The Indefensible Aggressors In the Middle East’ published in 2002. It was hard to chose one catchy excerpt to include here, because I found far too many. I will leave you with the last two on my list.

The Jews got a sliver of land without oil, and created abundant wealth and life in all its rich and diverse forms. The Arabs got nine times the acreage but all they have done with it is to sit on its aridity and nurture the poverty, resentments and hatreds of its inhabitants. Out of these dark elements they have created and perfected the most vile anti-human terrorism the world has ever seen:

For the Jews in the Middle East, the present conflict is a life and death struggle, yet every government in the UN with the exception of the United States and sometimes Britain regularly votes against Israel in the face of a terrorist enemy, who has no respect for the rights or lives of Jews.

The article is a great read and an enlightening one.

Amazing Grace

CNN reports today: Hundreds of people sang “Amazing Grace” and prayed Friday evening as they gathered at a City Hall in suburban St. Louis, Missouri, to mourn the victims of a shooting spree.

Great hymns, because of their beautiful verse, and apt and familiar tunes give people a sense of comfort, a sense of standing on something solid when everything else seems to totter and fall. This may be likened to the sense of comfort that one may experience in a cathedral with stained glass windows and pipe organ. The very wood of the ancient mahogany pews offers a sense of stability.

Americans are so fond of this hymn, Amazing Grace and invariably sing it in all solemn occasions. And yet the words would seem so out of place in most of these occasions, because they talk about the wretchedness of sinners without Christ and the grace that saves those who have been found. I cannot see how these words can offer any comfort in a public gathering where such sentiments are alien. I conclude that the main culprit in this anomaly is the beautiful tune.

The tune of this hymn is special to me too and brings with it many distracting memories that I could do without, struggling as I already do to worship God from my inner man in spirit and truth. Finding an alternate tune was not difficult as it follows the common meter. Singing to the tune of “The Lord’s my Shepherd” was a bit confusing because of the similarity of tunes. I thought the tune of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” was perfect.

Another such hymn is ‘Just as I am without one plea,’ where playing the introduction is enough to set off some into bursts of copious tears.

Building Up When A Bridge Collapses

The bridge across the Mississippi on Interstate Highway 35W, connecting twin cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, collapsed yesterday during the afternoon rush hour. It is a tragedy of historic proportions.

At such times:

• People, who have not understood the gospel, question the existence of God, saying, “If there was a God, this would not have happened.”
• Some, though not questioning God’s existence, may question His actions saying, “Where is God when we need Him most?” or “How can a loving God allow a tragedy like this?”
• Some preachers use this opportunity to say that this is God’s punishment on a sinful generation.
• Sure enough, you have others reacting to these preachers, making them look heartless and flippant.

I found the reaction of one good pastor very refreshing and edifying.

Link to: Putting My Daughter to Bed Two Hours After the Bridge Collapsed

Salt of the earth, preserve stall brake

Ultimately, without God nothing matters and nothing has meaning. As a race, we are on a trajectory of moving away from God.

In the West, so-called modern rational thinking has caused us to delete God and the Bible from our moral equations. Whether in science or archeology, or any other field, we have clung to whatever theory subscribes less to the facts contained in the Bible. In the East, we have clung to our three million gods, pet theories and mysticisms without the pain of having to explain a thing. Scientific temper is relegated to a mention or two by some rationalists in speeches once in a blue moon. Yet another of our great religions moves ahead in great strength driven by misguided zealots on a road cleared by misplaced political correctness and sheer fear. The sum and total of all our collective actions has placed us, as mentioned earlier, on a path moving away from the God of the Bible.

In a world of ever increasing chaos and moral entropy, God calls His chosen ones to hold aloft His standard in the world. In the old times, Jews were given the law and were expected to hold to that moral standard as lights in the world. As long as they adhered to the law and feared God, they were supreme among the nations. Whenever they lost that focus, which was repeatedly, they suffered under the hand of their enemies. But when they returned as a people to the Lord, their cries were heard and they were given the opportunity of upholding God’s moral standard again. Israel proved unfaithful again and again and again until God sent the Lord Jesus into the world.

The old order changed and the Lord Jesus now called for Christians to be a preservative, like salt slows down decay in a piece of meat.