Where
the rubber meets the road
Crucial truths we
need in our arsenal (arranged alphabetically)
ANGER - "My anger protected me only for a
short time; anger wearies itself out and truth comes in."
C.S. Lewis
"People who fly into a rage always make a
bad landing."
Will Rogers
ATHEISM: The world embarrasses me,
and I cannot think that this watch exists and has no
Watchmaker.
Christianity, if false, is of no
importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The
only thing it cannot be is moderately important.
Christianity is not just a mental
assent that certain doctrines are true -- not even that
the right doctrines are true. This is only the
beginning. This would be rather like a starving man
sitting in front of great heaps of food and saying, "I
believe the food exists; I believe it is real," and yet
never eating it. It is not enough merely to say, "I am a
Christian," and then in practice to live as if present
contact with the supernatural were something far off and
strange. Many Christians I know seem to act as though
they come in contact with the supernatural just twice --
once when they are justified and become a Christian and
once when they die. The rest of the time they act as
though they were sitting in the materialist's chair.
Death in the City (Downers Grove,
InterVarsity Press: 1969) 134
No one is so thoroughly superstitious
as the godless man. Life and death are to him haunted
grounds, filled with goblin forms of vague and shadowy
dread.
A man can no more diminish God's
glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put
out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the
walls of his cell.
Our twentieth century, far from being
notable for scientific scepticism, is one of the most
credulous eras in all history. It is not that people
believe in nothing - which would be bad enough - but
that they believe in anything - which is really
terrible.
If the whole universe has no meaning,
we should never have found out that it has no meaning:
just as, if there were no light in the universe and
therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know
it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.
BOLDNESS/FOCUS - "Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing
but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not whether they
be clergymen or laymen, they alone will shake the gates
of Hell and set up the kingdom of Heaven upon Earth."
--John
Wesley
It remains to be seen what God will do with a man who gives
himself up wholly to Him.
I will be that man.
This statement was quoted from Henry Varley, and the reply was
from none other than D.L.Moody, being one of the most famous
evangelists who has won souls for God with whatever ability he had.
DISCIPLING
- "The primary function of the church is not evangelism, but to
be a place for the dwelling of God on the earth. This requires
that people grow and receive God and occupy their place with
God. That would have a natural effect of evangelism. What we
want is not just evangelism that makes converts. We want
disciples...and if you are intent on making disciples and keep
on that track, evangelism will take care of itself."
The Divine Conspiracy, by Dallas Willard
"ENVY
- in Thomas Aquinas's famous definition - is 'sorrow at
another's good.' Envy enters when, seeing someone else's
happiness or success, we feel ourselves called into question.
Then, out of the hurt of our wounded self-esteem, we seek to
bring the other person down to our level by word or deed. They
belittle us by their success, we feel; we should bring them down
to their deserved level, envy helps us feel. Full-blown envy, in
short, is dejection plus disparagement plus destruction....My
grudge is not simply against the other person but against
God....As [journalist Henry] Fairlie concluded, in each case
envy is 'all the more tormenting because it springs from an
inordinate self-love.'....When Jesus calls, he calls us one by
one. Comparisons are idle, speculations about others a waste of
time and envy is silly as it is evil. We are called
individually, accountable to God alone...He is our Audience of
One."
The Call - Finding and fulfilling the central purpose of
your life, by Os Guinness
EVIL - Could there be any such thing as
horrifying wickedness [if there were no God and we just
evolved]? I don't see how. There can be such a thing only
if there is a way that rational creatures are supposed to
live, obliged to live....A [secular] way of looking
at the world has no place for genuine moral obligation of
any sort...and thus no way to say there is such a thing as
genuine and appalling wickedness. Accordingly, if you think
there really is such a thing as horrifying wickedness
(...and not just an illusion of some sort), then you have a
powerful...argument [for the reality of God]. Alvin
Plantinga,
cited in
The Reason for God
INTOLERANCE - "The 20th Century gave rise
to one of the greatest and most distressing paradoxes of
human history: that the greatest intolerance and violence of
that century were practiced by those who believed that
religion caused intolerance and violence."
Alister McGrath, cited in
The Reason for God
JUDGMENT:
God knows our situation; He will not judge us as if we had
no difficulties to overcome. What matters is the sincerity
and perseverance of our will
to overcome them.
I am
convinced that many men who preach the gospel and love the
Lord are really misunderstood. People make a "profession,"
but because they haven't understood the message, they are
not really saved. They feel a psychological need and they
want psychological relief, but they don't understand that
the Christian message is not talking only about
psychological relief (though it includes that) but is
talking about true moral guilt in the presence of a holy God
who exists. The real need is salvation from true moral
guilt, not just relief from guilt feelings. And I am certain
many men who make a profession go away still unsaved, having
not heard one word of the real gospel because they have
filtered the message through their own thought forms and
their own intellectual framework in which the word "guilt"
equals "guilt feelings."
Death in
the City (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 1969) 93
PERFORMANCE: "The biblical doctrine
of the universal image of God leads Christians to expect
non-believers will be better than any of their mistaken
beliefs could make them. The biblical doctrine of
universal sinfulness also leads Christians to expect
believers will be worse in practice than their orthodox
beliefs should make them....Christianity not only leads
its members to believe people of other faiths have
goodness and wisdom to offer, it also leads them to
expect that many will live lives morally superior to
their own. Most people in our culture believe that, if
there is a God, we can relate to him and go to heaven
through leading a good life. Let's call this the "moral
improvement view. Christianity teaches the very
opposite. In the Christian understanding, Jesus does not
tell us how to live so we can merit salvation. Rather,
he comes to forgive and save us through his life and
death in our place. God's grace does not come to people
who morally outperform others, but to those who admit
their failure to perform and who acknowledge their need
for a Savior. Christians, then, should expect to find
nonbelievers who are much nicer, kinder, wiser and
better than they are. Why? Christian believers are not
accepted by God because of their moral performance,
wisdom, or virtue, but because of Christ's work on their
behalf. Most religions and philosophies of life assume
that one's spiritual status depends on your religious
attainments. This naturally leads adherents to feel
superior to those who don't believe and behave as they
do. The Christian gospel, in any case, should not have
that effect."
The Reason for God, by Timothy Keller
POWER:
Genuine love is so contrary to human nature that its
presence bears witness to an extraordinary power.
The chief
danger of the Church today is that it is trying to get on
the same side as the world, instead of turning the world
upside down. Our Master expects us to accomplish results,
even if they bring opposition and conflict. Anything is
better than compromise, apathy, and paralysis. God, give to
us an intense cry for the old-time power of the Gospel and
the Holy Ghost!
If we
fight the Lord's battles merely by duplicating the way the
world does its work, we are like little boys playing with
wooden swords pretending they are in the battle while their
big brothers are away in some distant bloody land.
Death in
the City (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 1969) 142
If Christ
seldom makes offers without demands, He also seldom makes
demands without offers. He offers His strength to enable us
to meet His demands.
What
Christ Thinks of the Church: An Exposition of Revelation 1 -
3 (Grand Rapids, Baker: 2003) 43
PUBLIC
SQUARE RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION - "Let's begin by asking what
religion is. Some say it is a form of belief in God. But
that would not fit Zen Buddhism, which does not believe in
God at all. Some say it is belief in the supernatural. But
that does not fit Hinduism, which does not believe in a
supernatural realm beyond the material world, but only a
spiritual reality within the empirical. What is religion
then? It is a set of beliefs that explain what life is
all about, who we are, and the most important things that
human beings should spend their time doing....it
contains a master narrative. Some call this a 'worldview'
while others call it a 'narrative identity.' In either case,
it is a set of faith-assumptions about the nature of
things....[such as trying to] find universally accessible,
'neutral and objective' arguments that would convince
everyone that we must not [allow all the poor to]
starve....an article of faith that people are more valuable
than rocks or trees - though [one] can't prove such a belief
scientifically....This leads a legal theorist, Michael J.
Perry, to conclude that it is 'quixotic, in any event, to
attempt to construct an airtight barrier between religiously
grounded moral discourse...and [secular] discourse in public
political argument'....secular grounds for moral positions
are no less controversial than religious grounds, and a very
strong case can be made that all moral positions are at
least implicitly religious. Ironically, insisting that
religious reasoning be excluded from the public square is
itself a controversial 'sectarian' point of view."
The Reason for God
SUFFERING:
Comfort and prosperity have never enriched the world as much
as adversity has.
Suffering
passes, but the fact of having suffered never leaves us.
Joy in
affliction is rooted in the hope of resurrection, but our
experience of suffering also deepens the root of that hope.
...Sufferings must be the Churches most ordinary lot, and
Christians indeed must be self-denying Cross-bearers, even
where there are none but formal nominal Christians to be the
Cross-makers...
Christ was
willing to suffer and be despised, and darest thou complain
of anything?
Where are
the marks of the cross in your life? Are there any points of
identification with your Lord? Alas, too many Christians
wear medals but carry no scars.
The
Christians are unhappy men who are persuaded that they will
survive death and live forever; in consequence, they despise
death and are willing to sacrifice their lives to their
faith.
Christianity is a battle - not a dream.
It
requires more courage to suffer than to die.
I do not
believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone
taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers.
To suffering must be added mourning, understanding,
patience, love, openness, and the willingness to remain
vulnerable.
This is
God's universal purpose for all Christian suffering: more
contentment in God and less satisfaction in the world.
Truly it
is a misery even to live upon the earth. The more spiritual
a man desires to be, the more bitter does his present life
become to him; because he sees more clearly and perceives
more sensibly the defects of human corruption.
Paul's
sufferings complete Christ's afflictions not by adding
anything to their worth, but by extending them to the people
they were meant to save.
God knows
our situation; He will not judge us as if we had no
difficulties to overcome. What matters is the sincerity and
perseverance of our will to overcome them.
TRUTH: "Jesus said that truth is precious. All of us agree with
this when we are being lied about. The most relativistic
professor in the university, who scoffs at the concept of truth
in the classroom, will be indignant if his electricity bill is
false to his disadvantage..."It's a mistake in your view but not
in our view."...Did the baby swallow the needle? Is this water
drinkable or isn't it? Will you keep your marriage vows to love
and cherish me, or are you only interested in money and sex? Do
we have enough fuel on this airplane to reach our destination or
should we turn back? Will this surgery leave me worse or better
than I was before?....Those who mock the concept of truth are
people with power who do not (at the moment) need to appeal to
truth for their lives. Totalitarian despots do not care about the
truth....But for most of the world, truth matters. And they know
it....Their lives depend on it....When others did not believe
what [Jesus] said, he did not consider changing the message to
win a better hearing. If the truth was met with unbelief, the
problem lay with the unbelieving heart, not the truth. 'Because
I tell you the truth, you do not believe me.' (John 8:45). Jesus
said that people turn away from the light not because they think
it's false, but because they love darkness" (John 3:19)."
What Jesus Demands from the
World, by John Piper. See
verses. As apologetics teacher Mark Rambo said, "So, it's an
absolute truth that there are no absolute truths?"
