DECLARATIONS OF HOPE

On Sunday mornings we call the kids to come forward, and sit on the steps facing the congregation. We lay hands on their heads and  pray God's blessings over them.

On one of these mornings I asked the kids to share what God has been doing in them. One of our little boys spoke into the microphone and said, "This is the greatest day of my life!"

This child's statement stuck with me. It reminded me of a card I sometimes carry with me. The words apply to you, too. It is no accident that you are alive, in this time, in this place, "for such a time as this."

This truth brings great hope.

***

DECLARATIONS of HOPE (adapted from Steve Backlund)

• Today is the day that God is going to show off His favor on me.
• I speak to any worry, stress, or anxiety, and I say you cannot stay. Peace reigns in this temple.
• There is nothing I am facing that Scripture cannot speak into.
• I am not who my past experience says I am; I am who God says I am.
• Today is the day of my breakthrough — I am free!
• Because I trust in God, I am kept in perfect peace.
• My hope, my finances, my strategies, and my partnerships with others are causing great positive change in lives and nations.
• Tomorrow is going to be one of the best days of my life.
• I will wake up with strong faith, strong love, and strong hope in my heart.
• My past prayers will be working mightily today in every situation that concerns me.
• As I attach faith to what I am hearing, He will do far more than I could ever hope or imagine.

Physics and the Philosophy of Time

 

(I have aged. Linda has not.)

(I'm re-posting this for a friend.)

I am seventy-six years old. Where has the time gone!? And what, anyway, is "time?" 

Here are some thoughts. For more you might read Now: The Physics of Time, by Berkeley physicist Richard Muller, and Why Time Flies: A Mostly Scientific Investigation, by Alan Burdick. Especially helpful is God and Time: Four Views. 

Scientific American as published several essays on the nature of time -  A Question of Time: The Ultimate Paradox. One of my favorite physicists, Paul Davies, has an essay called "That Mysterious Flow." Here are some of his thoughts on time.

"Nothing in known physics corresponds to the passage of time. Indeed, physicists insist that time doesn’t flow at all; it merely is."

Our commonsense view is that time is "slipping away." It feels like there is a "flow" to time. However, Einstein said, “The past, present and future are only illusions, even if stubborn ones.”

Davies writes: "Physicists prefer to think of time as laid out in its entirety— a timescape, analogous to a landscape— with all past and future events located there together. It is a notion sometimes referred to as block time. Completely absent from this description of nature is anything that singles out a privileged, special moment as the present or any process that would systematically turn future events into present, then past, events. In short, the time of the physicist does not pass or flow."

Time is just as real as space, but "the flow of time" is unreal. 

Time is unidirectional. For example, an egg dropped on the floor will break into pieces. But the reverse process - a broken egg spontaneously assembling itself into an intact egg - is never witnessed. "Nature abounds with irreversible processes." But there is no "arrow of time." Yes, time is unidirectional, but...

..."this does not imply, however, that the arrow is moving toward the future, any more than a compass needle pointing north indicates that the compass is traveling north. Both arrows symbolize an asymmetry, not a movement. The arrow of time denotes an asymmetry of the world in time, not an asymmetry or flux of time. The labels “past” and “future” may legitimately be applied to temporal directions, just as “up” and “down” may be applied to spatial directions, but talk of the past or the future is as meaningless as referring to the up or the down."

Remember - this is physics. We may feel some flow of time, but in reality time is not something that moves or flows. 

Note this: We do not really observe the passage of time. "What we actually observe is that later states of the world differ from earlier states that we still remember. The fact that we remember the past, rather than the future, is an observation not of the passage of time but of the asymmetry of time." Think of individual movie frames. As we watch a movie we experience individual states of affairs that are different from previously experienced states of affairs. That's all.

Think again of the "broken egg" example. Imagine a movie of the egg being dropped on the floor and breaking. Then imagine the film sequence being run backwards. We would see that the backwards sequence was unreal, even though there would seem to be a "flow" to the backwards series. This shows the illusion of the "flow of time." Yes, time is asymmetrical, but "time’s asymmetry is actually a property of states of the world, not a property of time as such."

When I remember the past and the many birthdays I have already celebrated, but do not remember the future birthdays that (hopefully) are forthcoming, this is "an observation not of the passage of time but of the asymmetry of time." Note: only conscious observers register the "flow of time." "Therefore, it appears that the flow of time is subjective, not objective."

I think the biblical distinction between chronos and kairos may help us here. Chronos is "clock time," and the experience of a flow of time. But kairos is more like a discrete, individual frame in a movie isolated from all other events. Kairos is the "right time," or the "appointed time." 

All of this is good news for me. Time has really not "passed me by." Time is not "slippin', slippin', slippin'... into the future."  

Davies writes: 

"What if science were able to explain away the flow of time? Perhaps we would no longer fret about the future or grieve for the past. Worries about death might become as irrelevant as worries about birth. Expectation and nostalgia might cease to be part of human vocabulary. Above all, the sense of urgency that attaches to so much of human activity might evaporate."


*** 
Here's a review of some philosophical ideas about time. (Special thanks to Manuel Velazquez's excellent Philosophy: A Text With Readings, 11th edition)

PLATO (Ancient Greek philosopher, 429-347 BCE)

• "Time" exists independently of events that occur in time.
• "Time is like an empty container into which things and events may be placed; but it is a container that exists independently of what (if anything) is placed in it." (SEP) 

ARISTOTLE (Ancient greek philosopher, 384-322 BCE)

• Time does not exist independently, contra Plato, of the events that occur in time.
• This view is called "Reductionism with Respect to Time."
• This means that "all talk that appears to be about time can somehow be reduced to talk about temporal relations among things and events." (SEP)
• The idea of a period of time without change is seen as incoherent.
• Thus "time" cannot exist independently of what is placed in it. Apart from events, no time exists.

AUGUSTINE (Augustine of Hippo, 354-430)

• Time, in a sense, does not exist.
• The past no longer exists.
• The future does not yet exist.
• Only the present moment is real.
• But the present moment has, in itself, neither a past nor a future.
• The present moment is timeless.
• "Time," from God's perspective, is different from our perspective.
• God is outside of time.
• Time is like a line of events stretched out before God.
• Every moment - past, present, and future - lies on this line. Everything on the "line of time" is fixed. This is God's perspective. (Cmp. C.S. Lewis who, in Mere Christianity, employed Augustine's view of time.)

McTAGGERT (British philosopher M.E. McTaggert, 1886-1925)

• Compare McTaggert to Davies, who cites McTaggert in his essay.
• The flow of time as we experience it is unreal.
• "Time" is a fixed series of moments, each moment either "before" or "after" the other moments. This is "objective time."
• We can also think of "time" as a sequence of flowing moments. Each moment changes or flows from "future" to "present" to "past." This is "subjective time."
• "Past," "present," and "future" are incompatible with each other. Therefore it is impossible for the same thing (viz., the same "moment") to be simultaneously future, present, and past.
• But if time did "flow," then every moment would have to be future, and then present, and then past.
• So the idea of subjective time as a sequence of flowing moments is unreal.
• Subjective time is unreal. Our experience of time as "passing" is an illusion.
• Following this McTaggert said, "I believe that nothing that exists can be temporal, and that therefore time [subjective] is unreal." (The Nature of Existence)
• "Time" is an unchanging, fixed series of events frozen onto the "line of time" that makes up the series. But this is not really time, because there is no flow or change here. And, since subjective time is unreal, time cannot be real.

KANT (German philosopher Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804)

• Time - whether subjective or objective - is simply a construct of the human mind.
• "Time" and "space" are categories of the mind that the mind uses to organize the flow of changing sensations.
• Kant said, "Time is therefore given a priori." "Time" as a mental category is "prior to experience" and organizes or categorizes experience.
• Time is not real but is a mental construct.

HUSSERL (German phenomenological philosopher, 1859-1938)

• See Husserl's The Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness.
• Husserl is in the Kantian stream of thinking. He is not interested in the metaphysical status of time, but time as transcendental, as lying at the base of consciousness, and giving shape to our experience. 
• Husserl "considers the present, past, and future as modes of appearing or modes by which we experience things and events as now, no longer (past) or not yet (future)." (IEP)

BERGSON (French philosopher Henri Bergson, 1859-1941)

• "Objective time," the "time" of the scientist, is just a conceptual abstraction, a construct of the mind.
• The image of time as a line is simply an image; the concept of objective time is only a concept. Neither images nor concepts can get at the reality.
• Only what we directly experience is real; viz., what we "intuit."
• We directly experience or intuit the flow of time. Bergson says we have the "intuition of duration."
• Real time is subjective time. This is the "flow of time" that I experience moving from future, through present, and into the past.
• Objective time is an intellectual reconstruction and thus is an illusion. "Time" does not actually exist "out there" in the world (it's not a reality transcendent to human subjectivity).

WILLIAM LANE CRAIG (Christian theist, 1947 - present)

• Apart from events time does not exist.
• Prior to creation time did not exist.
• A personal God need not experience a temporal succession of mental events. "God could know the content of all knowledge - past, present, and future - in a simultaneous and eternal intuition." (See Craig, "God, Time, and Eternity")
• "The proper understanding of God, time, and eternity would be that God exists changelessly and timelessly prior to creation and in time after creation."
• There are no "events" prior to creation. Therefore, since God exists prior to creation and is an "eventless" being, "time" does not exist prior to creation. At the creation of the universe time begins. On a relational view of time God now relates to the universe, "and God subjects himself to time by being related to changing things."

STEPHEN HAWKING (Physicist, author of A Brief History of Time, 1942-present)

• Time is understood in relation to events. Hawking writes: 
• 
  
• "Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory, and say that time began at the Big Bang. Events before the Big Bang are simply not defined, because there's no way one could measure what happened at them... [T]he universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago. The beginning of real time would have been a singularity at which the laws of physics would have broken down." (See here) 

(For diagram + explanation, see here.)

FOR MORE READING: God and Time: Four Views. 

And: W.L. Craig, "God, Time, and Eternity"

***


In my book Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God I write about hearing and discerning the voice of God and not much about time. But subjectively praying brings us into kairos moments, felt timeless experiences that are nondirectional because one's heart has arrived in the presence of God.

Grief, Remembered and Embraced

(Door, in Jerusalem)

 

Forty years ago I became a "man of sorrows, acquainted with grief." A son was born, and survived, for which I will always be grateful. His twin brother, whom Linda and I named David, died. 

David was fully formed, yet stillborn. I held the weight of his dead body in my arms. I never will forget that moment, nor do I want to. I have rarely, if ever, felt such inner pain. "Grief" is the word we use to describe the indescribable. I was "grieving."

I read from four devotional books every morning. One of them contains selections from the writings of C.S. Lewis (A Year With C.S. Lewis). Fifty-two years ago, when I became a Jesus-follower, Lewis was there to greet me. 

I went to a bookstore looking for Christian books, and purchased Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Ethics, and C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. I, the new Jesus-follower and philosophy major, had some powerful weapons in my hands. As I read Bonhoeffer I did not understand him. Later in life, I was finally ready to read The Cost of Discipleship, parts of which have never left me. Bonhoeffer's book renders most "discipleship" books written after him unnecessary.

It was Lewis that initially captivated me. Here was a brilliant scholar, a very good thinker, a convert from atheism to Christian theism, who also wrote for children. Lewis combined a sharp intellect with childlike wonder. He was introspective, perhaps too much so. Lewis lets us into his inner life, and I was drawn in to the working out of his salvation.

I read Mere Christianity, then the space trilogy (especially Perelandra), then the brilliant Till We Have Faces (I re-read it this summer), the Narnia books, and his books on miracles and pain and joy and so on.

Then I read A Grief Observed. It's about what's happening to Lewis's insides after his wife Joy died of cancer. Initially he published the book under a pseudonym, N.W. Clerk. (Sometimes I kick myself for not buying the N.W. Clerk edition for $20 I saw in a used bookstore in the early 1970s.) Lewis exposes all of himself in this grief journal; his pain, doubts, anguish, his awkwardness, loneliness, his fears, in an unforgettable architectonic of grief. 

When I first read it, I thought Lewis, at times, was abandoning his Jesus-faith. Then I realized he's still fully a Jesus-follower who sounds like a 20th-century lament-psalmist, and who, in this journal, bears his entire heart and soul before the God he follows and the God he wonders about.

A Grief Observed was hard to read. I could not help but think of Linda, my young and beautiful wife, and what it would do to me should she die before I do. Or, conversely, the thought of her being alone, without me, was hard to entertain.

Lewis writes:

"Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel his claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him in gratitude and praise, you will be - or so it feels - welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence... There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited... Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?... Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him."

If you've never before heard such words come out of a God-believer, you've never read the Psalms. You've not internalized the cry of Jesus from the cross, "My God, why have you forsaken me." You've never understood Paul, who writes in Romans 8:18, "I consider these present sufferings not worthy of being compared to the glory that will be revealed in heaven." 

After reading Lewis on grief, I admired him more than ever. Following Jesus is not about being "happy" all the time. It is about advancing his Kingdom against the kingdom of evil and darkness and sin. As I write these words, in this moment, be assured there is a lot of grief out there. And rest assured that, in Jesus, the promised Messiah of Isaiah 53, we have "a man of sorrows who is acquainted with grief."

If you are grieving today, and are a lover of Jesus, do not be ashamed of your emotional anguish. In Jesus, you have a Redeemer who is well-acquainted with depths of anguish and the turbulent seas of your soul. While following Jesus has brought me the greatest joys in life, I have found him sympathetic to my every weakness, and that I can bring every part of me to him.

(Lewis published A Grief Observed in 1961. After that he wrote things like Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, and published Christian Reflections.)

Remembering (Combating Spiritual Alzheimer's Disease)

Del & Linda

Linda's mother suffered from Alzheimer's Disease for many years. This horrible illness caused her to slowly lose her memory. One result of her memory loss was an increase of fear.

One afternoon Linda, her mother Martha, her father Del, and I were shopping in a mall. At one point Linda and Del left to shop together while I stayed with Martha. We sat for a minute and then she looked at me, eyes filled with panic, and asked, "Where's Del?!"

"He's shopping with Linda. He'll be right back," I responded.

This put Martha at ease. But only for a few minutes. Forgetting what I had just said, Martha looked at me again and asked, "Where's Del?"

"He's with Linda. He'll be right back."

This happened several times in an hour, with Martha forgetting, me reminding her, she calming down, then forgetting and filled with fear, asking "Where's Del?", and me reminding her again. Martha not only had forgotten what I said to her, she forgot a more basic truth, which was: in Del, she had a husband who would never, ever leave her or forsake her. He was always by her side, Alzheimer's or not.

There is a "spiritual Alzheimer's disease" which results in forgetting the many times God has rescued and delivered us, provided for us, and been with us. Such forgetting breeds fear. The more one forgets the deeds of God in one's own life, the more one becomes fearful in the present moment.

The antidote to this is: remembering.

"Remembering" is huge in the Old Testament. The post-Exodus experience of Israel is grounded in remembrance. The Jewish festivals are remember-events, such as Passover, when the head of the household sits with his family and asks, "Why is this night different from all other nights?" In response, the past is recounted, how God delivered their people out of bondage in Egypt. Remembering, which reminds them of God's faithfulness, brings fresh hope.

My spiritual journal functions as a written memory of the voice and deeds of God in my life. I take time every year to re-ponder my journals. In doing so, I remember what God has done for me, how he has delivered me from bondage, and how he answered many prayers. I re-read of past times when I was afraid, or worried, and then re-read how God came through, and my worry dissipated.

I do not, I will not, forget the deeds of the Lord in my life. 

The spiritual discipline of remembering brings renewed hope in the present, defeating the onset of spiritual Alzheimer's disease.

***

My books are:

Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God.

Leading the Presence-Driven Church.

31 Letters To the Church on Praying

31 Letters To the Church on Discipleship

Deconstructing Progressive Christianity

Encounters With the Holy Spirit (Co-edited with Janice Trigg)

If Jesus Is the Only Way to God, What About Those Who Have Never Heard of Him?

Shipshewana, Indiana (photo by Linda Piippo)

How about some theological discussion? If Jesus is the only way to God, what about those who have never heard of him? (For in-depth see What About Those Who Have Never Heard? Three Views on the Destiny of the Unevangelized, John Sanders, ed.)

Imagine this story. John does not believe in Jesus. But Jason does. Jason tells John about Jesus, and John is interested. 

Jason feels God wants him to get back to John soon, but does not find time to get back to John. John dies without hearing more. What was John’s status before John died? To be saved, did he need more information about Jesus? 

Paul Copan asks: “Was his eternal destiny in the hands of [someone] who happened not to respond to an inner prompting? Could it be that God is more interested in a person’s spiritual direction or responsiveness than in his spiritual ‘location’ on a continuum?”

Theistic philosopher Copan does an excellent job of presenting the issues and suggesting answers to the question: what if someone has never had the opportunity to hear about Jesus? The points below are from Copan’s book True for You, But Not for Me: Overcoming Objections to Christian Faith. Read the book for more detail and explanation, especially regarding Copan’s “middle knowledge” position.

Here are the relevant points. 

1. God’s desire is that all be saved.

2. All who desire to be saved will have the opportunity to be saved.

3. We can trust that God is loving and just. We can trust that the eternal outcome of every person is in the hands of a loving and just God.

4. Persons who have self-inflicted “transworld depravity” will not want God, or God in Christ. So God is not unjust in applying eternal justice to them; viz., everlasting separation from his presence. (1 Thessalonians 1)

5. God has given persons free will. This is risky. Some will likely freely choose to reject God’s offer of salvation, and his revelation in creation and the moral law within (Romans 1 and 2). As C.S. Lewis wrote, re. this, there are two kinds of persons: one who says to God “Thy will be done,” and one to whom God says “Thy will be done.”

6. If God has middle-knowledge (knowledge of future choices) and knows that John will reject Him in any possible world, then God is not unjust in not presenting John with the opportunity to be saved.
 
Here are five views on the question "What about those who have never heard?"

1. The Agnostic View.

a. Alister McGrath and J.I. Packer are agnostic on the matter.

b. If God really loves the whole world, and if Christ died for all without exception, and if God commands all to repent, and if God does not want any to perish, “then it follows that his initiating grace, though resistible (Acts 7:51), is directed toward all without exception. This would include the unevangelized.” (Copan)

c. We can trust that God has the question of the unevangelized figured out.

d. Further, God has done so much to reach us all, even to suffer with us in a world filled with evil and misery, that we have good reason to believe the unevangelized are in excellent hands.

e. We can trust that God is loving and just. So God won’t condemn anyone for being born at the wrong time and place (viz., in a time and place where the message of the Gospel of Jesus was not known).

f. God is able to reach people in ways we don’t expect. For example, he can reveal himself – and has done so – through visions or angelic messengers. Copan cites examples of Jesus appearing to Muslims who had never heard of him.

g. In the end we can trust in a good God to do no wrong. “We should not think about the unevangelized apart from God’s character, motives, and good purposes.” (Copan)

2. The Inclusivist (Wider-Hope) View 

a. In Romans 2:7 Paul writes: “To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, [God] will give eternal life.”

b. Could some unevangelized people fit in this category?

c. Inclusivists say: Salvation is exclusive in its source – Christ alone as God’s full, final revelation. Salvation is available to every person – even those the missionary can’t reach.

d. One criticism of this view is that accepting it would diminish missionary zeal. Why bring Christ to the nations if the nations can be saved without hearing of Christ?

e. The inclusivist responds by asking why anyone’s fate should solely depend on evangelists who are not always available and/or faithful?

f. Belief in the sovereignty of God makes us think God will not really leave the destiny of unreached people in the hands of imperfect, fallible missionaries. Can’t God work beyond the boundaries of the gospel’s proclamation and our expectations?

g. What about those in the Old Testament who didn’t know about the historical Jesus and his death and resurrection? “Clearly they were saved on the basis of what Jesus would eventually accomplish (Rom. 3:25; see Acts 17:30).

h. And what about infants and those who are mentally incapable of grasping the gospel message?

i. The inclusivist believes that human beings are guilty and helpless before God, separated from him, and cannot be saved apart from Christ.

j. The inclusivist believes that God wants all to be saved. This seems to imply that he makes salvation available to all.

k. The inclusivist claims that salvation through Jesus’ “name” doesn’t necessarily imply knowing the historical facts about Jesus of Nazareth. While Jesus is ontologically necessary for salvation, he is not epistemologically necessary.

l. Natural revelation may have a positive role and may be used by God’s Spirit to show the unevangelized their need for him. For example, Romans 1:20 and Romans 2:14-15 may give us two ways persons can be saved without hearing of the Jesus story. Here inclusivists are optimistic about the role of “general revelation” through the creation, and the moral law within each human heart. Millard Erickson, who is not an inclusivist, says: “If they [persons who know about God through his self-revelation in nature (cf. Romans 1:20) but still reject God] are condemnable because they have not trusted God through what they have, it must have been possible somehow to meet this requirement through this means. If not, responsibility and condemnation are meaningless… Perhaps there is room for acknowledging that God alone may know in every case exactly whose faith is sufficient for salvation.” (In Copan)

m. The Roman centurion Cornelius (Acts 10) seems to be an example of someone who seems to display the working of God’s Spirit and grace in is life.

n. John Stott summarizes the inclusivist argument: “What we do not know, however, is exactly how much knowledge and understanding of the Gospel people need before they can cry to God for mercy and be saved. In the Old Testament, people were certainly “justified by grace through faith,” even though they had little knowledge or no expectation of Christ. Perhaps there are others today in a somewhat similar position. They know they are sinful and guilty before God, and that they cannot do anything to win his favor, so in self-despair they call upon the God they dimly perceive to save them. If God does save such, as many evangelical Christians tentatively believe, their salvation is still only by grace, only by Christ, only by faith.” (In Copan)

Copan presents an argument against the inclusivist position.

a. Inclusivism can blur important distinctions, which can result in disastrous affirmations. For example, some inclusivists hold that Muslims whoa re seeking Allah can be saved.

b. Romans 1 seems to argue against the inclusivist position. Paul has a pessimistic view of humanity’s ability to turn to God because of God’s revelation in nature.

c. There are people who don’t respond to general revelation yet respond to the preaching of the gospel.

d. Inclusivism dampens concern for missions. “It seems doubtful that inclusivism would actually increase evangelistic fervor.”

3. The Accessibilist/Middle Knowledge View

a. God judges the unevangelized based on their response to natural revelation, which his Spirit can use to bring them to salvation. “Natural revelation doesn’t damn anyone without furnishing genuine opportunities to be saved (Romans 2:7) God’s initiative offers them prevenient (“preceding”) grace to respond. All they need to do is humble themselves before him and repent. God is not only just in his judgment, but also gracious in genuinely offering salvation.” (Copan)

b. God can’t make people freely choose to respond to the gospel. “Some might be like NYU philosopher Thomas Nagel, who said, ‘I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.’ Indeed, with every new indication of God’s reality, a person might come to resent or hate him even more.”

c. God knows all future possibilities and free choices of human beings, and whoever would want to be saved will find salvation. God knows all truths – even future ones. God knows all possible future events and human choices – what free creatures could do in various circumstance and what world-arrangements are feasible.” For example, Jesus knew (from the Father) that Peter would deny him three times. God knew that Peter would freely choose to deny Christ under certain circumstances.

d. God takes human free will seriously. Copan says: “No one will be condemned as the result of geographical or historical accident, lack of information, or failure of a missionary to “get there.” All who want – or would want – to be saved do find salvation. Those who would always refuse salvation get their way in the end.”

e. Perhaps there’s no feasible world of persons who all freely choose Christ; this God creates a world containing an optimal balance of fewest lost and greatest number saved. Sometimes people ask: “Why didn’t God create world in which everyone freely chose to love him?” But if humans are truly free, then there’s guarantee they will use their free will to love him. Remember that God does not create out of any need. God desires that none perish; he wants us to embrace him and live. Copan writes: “So it’s reasonable to believe that he wants a maximal number of persons saved and a minimal number condemned. He wants his renewed creation – the new heaven and earth – to be as full as possible and hell as empty as possible. The only thing preventing hell’s being completely empty of people is the human will’s resistance to his loving and gracious initiative. God isn’t less loving because some people are condemned for rejecting him. So why couldn’t this world be the one that achieves this optimal balance?”

f. Some persons possess self-inflicted “transworld depravity” or “transworld damnation”; they would have been lost in any world in which they were placed.

g. Missions motivation isn’t diminished, since God has also providentially arranged fort human messengers to bring the gospel to those he knew would accept it if they heard it.

h. Some individuals may seem “so close” to salvation in the actual world without finding it. But perhaps this actual world is the very nearest the transworldly depraved ever come to salvation.

Dr John Piippo | How To Pray Effective Prayers!

 

Nine Things to Consider Before Marriage

(Cancun sunrise - 2/28/19)

Linda and I will celebrate 52 years of marriage this coming August. Here are some things we teach premarital couples, or persons who may one day be married.

1. Marriage is a lifelong commitment.  "So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." "Why then," they asked, "did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?" Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning." - Matthew 19:6ff. Marry someone who has "covenant" in their soul.

2. Your marriage will go through tough times. This is a lifelong commitment - "for better, for worse." There will be both. It is important to go through tough times before you are married. "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance." - James 1:2-3 

3. Be a servant to your spouse, putting his/her needs before your own. Lay down your own "rights" long before you stand at the altar and say "I do. "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs." - 1 Cor. 13:4-5

4. Learn to forgive. This is FOUNDATIONAL. Never marry someone who cannot let go of old wounds and holds on to grudges. "For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." - Matthew 6:14-15

5. Admit when you are wrong, and seek reconciliation with your spouse. NEVER marry someone who can't say the words "I was wrong." You need to find this out before you walk down the aisle. "Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift." - Matthew 5:23-24

6. Make plans together, but don't be surprised when things don't turn out the way you planned. "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." - Romans 12:2

7. Communicate often, but don't try to change your spouse. Instead, encourage and strengthen each other. You can't change the other, but you can be changed yourself. NEVER, EVER marry someone with the hope that you can change them and they will be different once you are married. "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." - Luke 6:41-42

8. Don't depend on your spouse to fill all your needs. Only God can do that. Marry someone who loves God and finds their life in God more than they love and find their life in you. "Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD." - Jeremiah 17:5

9. Mutually submit to one another. "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself." - Ephesians 5:22-28  

One more thing - for the person who says "But nobody's perfect!"

Correct. 

Aim higher than that.

Have a covenental soul.

Go through, not around, tough times. 

Serve others.

Forgive, as you have been forgiven.

When you are wrong, admit it. When the other person is wrong, relate to it.

Be flexible. Move with the Holy Spirit.

Focus on your own transformation into Christlikeness.

Make Jesus your everything, your all in all.

Humbly submit to one another.

Why Isn't Everyone Healed?

(Some of Redeemer's youth praying for someone.

Over the years I’ve seen people healed of emotional and physical illnesses. One of them was my grandmother. She lived with my family 6 months out of every year when we were growing up. When she was in her mid-80s she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She decided not to have it medically treated. The cancerous tumors in her breasts grew. My mother used to bathe her, and visually and physically saw and felt the hard, growing tumors.

Grandma knew she was going to die. She had lived a long life, and was ready to leave this world for another one. She even bought the dress she wanted to be buried in.

When Grandma had spent what we assumed would be her last 6 months in our home, she went to live with my aunt and uncle, who cared for her during the other 6 months. One day my aunt called. She told my mother that, while bathing Grandma, she noticed that the tumors did not appear to be there. My mother could not believe this, yet wanted to. Mom packed her bags and traveled 400 miles to visually inspect Grandma and confirm this.

Grandma lived for 12 more years. She bought two or three more dresses to be buried in. She died at age 97. What happened? How can we explain this? I, and my mother, knew this:

1. Grandma once was cancer-filled, and then one day the cancer was gone.
2.  God healed Grandma.

I’ve heard of, and personally seen, other things like this. (For some really good, current, encouraging stuff see Eric Metaxas's book Miracles. For simply the best academic presentation see Craig Keener's Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts.)

I’ve also prayed for people who have not been healed, at least as far as I can tell. Which raises the question: Why? Why do I not see everyone healed when I pray for them? 

I’ve thought long and hard about this over the years. I don’t have all the answers. I don’t think I can, given my quite-limited epistemic access, expect to have all the answers. Nonetheless, when I am asked this question, here’s how I respond.

1. Sickness and disease are not caused by God. God hates sickness and disease.
2. Sickness and disease are in this world because we live in, as Jesus referred to it, “this present evil age.” We live in a fallen world that’s ruled by Satan, who is called “the Prince of this world.”
3. Some diseases are part of living in this fallen world. The entire world is crying out for redemption (release) from this bondage.

4. The "age to come" in all its fullness is not our present reality. So, my physical body wastes away even as my spirit is being renewed.

5. See some of the resources I cite below.

Why did God create a world like this? Why a world where such suffering was even allowed? For me the answer is this:

- God is love. That is, God, in His essence, IS love. God cannot not-love.
- Therefore love is the highest value for God.
- God created persons (and spiritual beings) out of love.
- Genuine love is only possible if created agents have free will.
- Therefore God gave created agents free will.
- This is risky, since free will implies that one can choose to not love God.

From God’s end, giving his created agents (that's us) free will is worth it,. This is because God is love, and love is the highest value for God. Much of this world’s suffering happens because of people exercising free will to hurt themselves and others.

This is no mere theory, no abstraction from reality. It is an explanation of reality. As a pastor I’ve been around a lot of death and dying, to include in my own family, even my son David. How do I continue to find hope in such a world?

My understanding of what Jesus taught about the kingdom of God provides answers for me. Jesus talked about “the age to come” where will be no sickness, no struggle, no tears. When God invaded earth in the form of a Person, the “age to come” invaded this present evil age. Jesus once said that, “If you see me cast out demons by the finger of God, you can know that the kingdom of God is in your midst.” That is why I pray for the sick to be healed today, and will continue to do so.

I am part of a faith community. This makes a huge difference. I know people (even Christians) who would never pray for someone to be healed. In a faithless community one should not be shocked that healings are not seen.

Sometimes a deeper spiritual healing is needed. Some illnesses are, at root, spiritual and emotional. I have found that, for example, a person who lives for years with bitterness towards others and refuses to forgive others can be especially subject to physical illnesses. The account of Jesus' healing the lame man let down through the roof (Mark 2:1-12) implies that the forgiveness of the man's sins had some connection with his ability to pick up his mat and walk.

Don't lay blame on the person who is sick. When Jesus prayed for sick people he never blamed them for their sickness. For example, Jesus rejects his disciples’ assumption that the blind man in John 10 was blind because either he or his parents must have sinned.

Persist in prayer. When some sick people are not healed through prayer, it may simply be because we haven't prayed long enough to bring the healing to completion.

***

FOR FURTHER READING SEE:

Randy Clark, "Creating an Atmosphere for Healing."

In Francis MacNutt’s classic book Healing he is gives 11 reasons why people may not be healed:

1. Lack of faith
2. Redemptive suffering
3. False value attached to suffering
4. Sin
5. Not praying specifically
6. Faulty diagnosis (is it inner healing/ physical healing/ deliverance that is needed)
7. Refusal to see medicine as a way God heals
8. Not using natural means of preserving health
9. Now is not the time
10. Different person is to be instrument of healing
11. Social environment prevents healing taking place

J. Lee Grady, "When Christians Die of Cancer"

John Wimber, Power Healing. Chapter 8, "Not Everyone Is Healed."

Charles Kraft, Defeating Dark Angels: Breaking Demonic Oppression In the Believer's Life.