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A Ministry of the Valley Forge Baptist Church |
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Good Morning!
The Jesus Most Christians Don't KnowIt’s amazing what one finds when one stops parroting others and reads the Bible for one’s self. A friend tells the story of how, when he and his wife began to discover the real truths of God’s character and who He really is, his wife proclaimed, “That was not in my Bible before!” I remember having that same epiphany myself some years back. But, I must sadly confess that the more people I talk to, the more I realize that the professing church is in a very sad state of affairs. It is one rooted in biblical illiteracy, and it results in people professing the name of Christ who do not really know the Jesus of Scripture. The god they worship is, sadly, a figment of their imagination. He exists only as an apparition in their minds. He has been conjured up out of thin air. In the words of Andy from Shawshank Redemption, “He’s a phantom, an apparition, second cousin to Harvey the rabbit…”. What I want to do in this post and maybe a couple of others is to display the real Jesus, the Jesus of Scripture. Quite honestly, I want to quash the jesus that is prevalent in so many minds and rules in so many churches. This will not be a comprehensive or exhaustive look at Christ, for the whole world would not be able to contain the books that would be required to do such an examination. My plan is simply to reveal some things that I am convinced people who profess faith in Jesus don’t even know or realize is true about Him. Who knows, even you may come away from this exclaiming, “That Jesus was not in my Bible before!” After Jesus was tempted in the wilderness by the devil, He begins His earthly ministry by returning to Galilee and the surrounding country, teaching in the synagogues and being “glorified by all”. When He comes to Nazareth, though, something different happens. As in all the surrounding areas, He goes to the synagogue and begins reading from the Scriptures and speaking to the people. One would think that He probably preached a message of hope and encouragement, or perhaps one of forgiveness and acceptance. No. Not here. In Nazareth, Jesus opens His mouth and preaches on the doctrine of election in two sentences. And what He says infuriates the people so much that they try to throw Him off a cliff! Here is what He said that made the people so mad: But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian. When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. – Luke 4:25-29 Why did the people get so angry at this? All He was doing was recounting a couple of Old Testament stories about Elijah and Elisha and how they each had healed someone. What’s the big deal? Demons on a LeashHaunted houses, ghosts, demons—our Western culture can’t seem to get enough of the spirit world. The latest Gallup poll indicates that 42% of Americans believe in demon possession, 37% believe in haunted houses, and 32% believe in ghosts. (Not just Americans are enthralled—40% of the British believe in haunted houses, too.) Though interest in the paranormal is widespread, the majority of people are skeptical. They discount all spirit activity, going so far as to deny the existence of Satan and demons. Atheists stated this view succinctly in a sign they planted next to a manger scene last Christmas at the capitol building in Olympia, Washington: “There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world.” What is the Christian position?Clearly, outright denial of Satan and demons is not the answer. That view rejects the revelation in the Bible and the phenomena witnessed clearly and broadly in many lands and societies. The first- and second-world countries, not just third-world countries, experience demonic powers, whether knowingly or unknowingly. As the former chairman of the theology department at Moody Bible Institute and author of Demon Possession & the Christian, I have carefully studied such topics. Demons are real and need to be taken seriously, even if many claims about evil spirits are fabricated or exaggerated. Unless we have a biblical view of God, mankind, and the spirit world, we will not have the perspective to understand the evil that plagues our world. [1] C. Fred Dickason is the former chairman of the theology department at Moody Bible Institute and is the author of numerous books on angels and demons. He holds a ThM in theology and a ThD in New Testament literature and Exegesis from Dallas Theological Seminary. "Being unable to cure death, wretchedness, and ignorance men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things." [2] Though writing hundreds of years ago, Blasé Pascal captured the spirit of our present age prophetically and profoundly. With the reality of suffering and the specter of death facing us all, most seek lives of distraction. Whether or not we recognize that the fear of death is an underlying, albeit unconscious, motivation, we nevertheless recognize that our lives are filled with distractions. Whether it is in the juggling of priorities, the relentless busyness of our age, or perpetual media noise, our lives are so full that we rarely give ourselves space or time to reflect. Particularly in Western societies, we fill our lives with mindless consumption that numbs us to the eventuality of our mortal condition and our finitude. The advertising industry is not unaware of our propensity to consumptive distraction. Marketers spent over 295 billion dollars in total media advertising in 2007.[3] Perhaps we mistakenly assume that our vitality is inextricably bound up in our ability to consume. It is easy to understand how our fear of death and suffering would compel human beings to live lives of distraction. Yet, the cost of that distraction is a pervasive and deadening apathy—apathy not simply as the inability to care about anything deeply, but the diminishment for engagement that comes from caring about the wrong things. Kathleen Norris laments: "It is indeed apathy's world when we have so many choices that we grow indifferent to them even as we hunger for still more novelty. We discard real relationships in favor of virtual ones and scarcely notice that being overly concerned with the thread count of cotton sheets and the exotic ingredients of gourmet meals can render us less able to care about those who scrounge for food and have no bed but the streets." [4] [1] Margaret Manning is a member of the writing and speaking team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Seattle, Washington. [2] Blasé Pascal, Pensees, (Penguin Books: New York, 1966), 37. [3] As referenced by Allan Sloan in "Fuzzy Bush Math" CNN Money, September 4, 2007, money.cnn.com/2007/08/31/magazines/fortune/deficit_sloan.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2007090408, accessed October 15, 2009. [4] Kathleen Norris, Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and A Writer's Life, (Riverhead Books: New York, 2008), 125.
Have a good and a godly day! Pastor Bill Farrow |
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