The VOM Voice Gone Silent

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The letter came today.

Voice of the Martyrs (Nancy and I receive their monthly newsletter and give as led to their ministry from time to time), fiercely devoted to serving the persecuted church across the globe since 1967, confirmed what I had already heard via the internet.

Executive Director, Tom White, took his own life last month. This husband, father, grandfather, and articulate voice for the persecuted (I know, I’ve read many an editorial by the man), himself once imprisoned for his faith in Cuba, did what to many, especially Christians, can only be described as the unthinkable. He committed suicide.

Not much is known about the circumstances. But, to VOM’s credit, they revealed that the day before his fatal choice, “allegations were made to authorities that Tom had inappropriate contact with a young girl.” Here’s what the writer of the letter speaking on behalf of VOM gave as his settled-upon explanation: “I personally believe that rather than face those allegations and the resulting fallout for his family and this ministry, Tom chose to end his life.”

What are we to make of this? How are we to respond?

I say let there be compassion. Only days ago I read in 1 Kings 19:4 of the great prophet Elijah’s plea, gripped with fear, for God to take his life as he fled into the wilderness to escape the threats of the evil Jezebel. God’s servants can and do know cavernous depths of depression. William Cowper, poet and hymn writer (he gave us, among others, God Moves in Mysterious Ways His Wonders to Perform) made multiple attempts on his angst-filled life. Believers do not escape the slough of despair.

I say let there be perspective. By that I mean providence perspective. I have no earthly idea if Tom White did anything untoward the girl in question. Of course that is possible. I admit, it doesn’t look good. But what if he didn’t? What if he was entirely innocent? What if the truth lies somewhere in between? Only eternity will tell.

But one thing is for sure. In interpreting the hard providence of dreadfully incriminating accusation, Tom White, who, from what I can tell, no one believes was a false professor of Christianity but rather a true believer, failed to count Romans 8:31 ultimately true for him – If God is for us, who can be against us?

Who knows how God was plotting for the man’s good through a Romans 8:28 kind of working out of things? And this cancer survivor and pastor of four churches over time does not say such a thing flippantly.

Naomi made the same mistake, an incomplete and inadequate interpreting of providence in her crushing circumstances in the book of Ruth. That is the subject of my Mother’s Day message this Sunday. I wish I didn’t have such a pertinent and recent illustration with which to work. But the truth is I do.

I trust the Lord will use it, the text, and my words somewhat to serve us all on the journey from bitter to blessed that will keep us from such a fate and oh so much more – deep, abiding, exquisite, even-in-the-hard-providences joy in Him.

Man-O-Manhole Cover!

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Strange way to intro this blog post, yes? It will make sense quite quickly, I’m afraid.

Wednesday saw us undergo a number of inspections on our property. We faired pretty well on the inside. We passed some items; others need a little more fixing. But overall things look good for the CO from that vantage point.

I wish I could say we got the same high grades on the outside. Turns out we have a problem with not just one manhole cover (we had some inkling about that already). Apparently we have multiple manhole cover issues, two to be exact. Something’s not quite right. Don’t ask me. I don’t even want to know. Smarter folks than I have got it covered (pun intended).

So what’s the bottom line? This I do understand. It will take seven to ten construction days to fix the problem. Best case scenario now for our first soft opening looks like May 20. Wish I had better news for us, but I simply don’t. All I can tell you is that we are doing all that we can and working every angle possible to get closure on this deal. Please pray for wisdom to that end. And of course, please continue to pray for favor with the city.

I thought about concluding by saying something spiritual about the virtue of patience from texts like Romans 2:6-7 and James 4:7-11. But I have to be honest. I’m not feeling particularly spiritual at this moment. Think I’ll go look for a working manhole cover and crawl inside for a pastoral pity party.

Just kidding . . . I think.

Why Now Was the Time to Build

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As we anxiously await the granting of a CO from the city so that we may occupy our new building (sorry, no green light as of this writing), it occurred to me this morning why, at least in part, in our twenty year history as a church, now was the time to get this project accomplished.

The insight came in the course of my through-the-Bible-in-a-year reading this morning from 1 Kings 5:1-6. Solomon has assumed the throne in the place of his father, David. He desired to build a temple for worship, a dream his father never got to realize. So in this chapter he writes Hiram, king of Tyre, with whom David enjoyed a close relationship, to request materials for the project. Here’s how he explained the circumstances that gave him the go ahead where his father experienced only disappointment:

Now Hiram king of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon when he heard that they had anointed him king in place of his father, for Hiram always loved David. And Solomon sent word to Hiram, “You know that David my father could not build a house for the name of the LORD his God because of the warfare with which his enemies surrounded him, until the LORD put them under the soles of his feet. But now the LORD my God has given me rest on every side. There is neither adversary nor misfortune. And so I intend to build a house for the name of the LORD my God, as the LORD said to David my father, ‘Your son, whom I will set on your throne in your place, shall build the house for my name.’ Now therefore command that cedars of Lebanon be cut for me. And my servants will join your servants, and I will pay you for your servants such wages as you set, for you know that there is no one among us who knows how to cut timber like the Sidonians (emphasis added).”
I found myself very grateful for a similar sentiment with respect to the last few years at OGC. God has given us rest. We have enjoyed peace. There has been neither adversary or misfortune, at least in terms of ministry-arresting plans for the advancement of the gospel through our work. Lord knows, we have had our share of that in the past. That kind of thing frustrated our building plans before. But God has blessed us as of late and for some time now so that we could actually get to the point of planning, building, and now soon occupying our own facility for executing the mission God has given us.
We have seized the opportunity afforded by fair winds and sought to make the most of it. Matthew Henry, the Puritan commentator would congratulate us to this end:
Satan does all he can to hinder temple work (1 Th. 2:18; Zec. 3:1), but when he is bound (Rev. 20:2) we should be busy. When there is no evil occurrent, then let us be vigorous and zealous in that which is good and get it forward. When the churches have rest let them be edified, Acts 9:31. Days of peace and prosperity present us with a fair gale, which we must account for if we improve not.
Let us not forget to give God much thanks for such days as these while we revel in the excitement and satisfaction of finally taking possession of our own church home.
As long as He gives us peace, let us give ourselves to improvement that results in great reward at the Last Day. God help us to sail on with the help of every fair gale.

All Is Precious

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Today’s message from John 14:25-31 is now on the web. You can listen to the audio here.

Jesus rebukes His own for their failure to enter into His joy of heading back to the Father in glory. They are far to self-absorbed with their own grief to see the bigger picture. He loves them even in the sting of rebuke. If you loved me, you would have rejoiced.

Do we consider everything from Christ’s hand, including His rebukes, as precious?

Octavius Winslow encourages us to do just that:

Receive as precious everything that flows from the government of Jesus. A precious Christ can give you nothing but what is precious. Welcome the rebuke – it may be humiliating; welcome the trial – it may be painful; welcome the lesson – it may be difficult; welcome the cup – it may be bitter; welcome everything that comes from Christ in your individual history. Everything is costly, salutary, and precious that Jesus sends. The rude tones of Joseph’s voice, when he spake to his brethren, were as much the echoes of his concealed affection, as the softest, gentlest accents that breathed from his lips. The most severe disciplinary dispensations in the government of Christ are as much the fruit of His eternal, redeeming love, as was the tenderest and most touching expression of that love uttered from the cross.

May we find everything that Jesus sends precious, even His rebukes of our beyond-what-is-necessary, self-absorbed grieving of loss.

An Opportunity We Simply Must Buy Up

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I just finished hemorrhaging over my latest message earlier today. I decided to study and write with a grand opening of our facility service in mind. I felt led to camp out in 1 Timothy 3:14-16. I entitled the message Why Church?: A Case for Christianity in a Many-Gods Age. I worked from the word pictures Paul employs for showing the true nature of the church and why it should compel our priority participation in its ministry.

We still don’t know when we will schedule such a service. It all depends on the granting of a CO by the city and the timetable for “soft openings” so we can get our act adequately together for a “hard opening” service likely to happen no earlier than sometime in June.

But mark my words. Whenever it does happen we have to determine to act intentionally and strategically with a Colossians 4:5 kind of mentality in mind. Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.

Paul actually uses the metaphor of walking in the original for the way we live our lives. He calls for us to walk in wisdom toward outsiders, those who have yet to embrace faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

What does that kind of wise walk look like? It involves making the best use of the time. This is an interesting phrase in the original. Literally it reads redeeming or buying up the time or opportunity.

The New Bible Commentary makes this remark on the idea here noting that the word redeem or buy up suggests an intensive activity, a buying which exhausts the possibilities available because they recognize that their time is limited. Kind of like determining to purchase all the remaining copies of some print of a famous painting because you know its a limited edition.

May I suggest that the occasion for opening our facility and publicizing an inaugural service in that facility represents a unique opportunity for reaching out to those outside in a winsome and wise way that we as a congregation simply cannot afford to miss?
Thus I wrote a sermon specifically with this in mind. Thus we will do a mail out with this theme in mind. Thus we will provide printed  invitations that you can give to the folks where you live, work and play that you have been laboring to reach for the gospel that they might hear that gospel in a contextually crafted, biblically sound way (oh, Lord, I pray that’s what I have written in this message!) with this in mind. Thus we may determine on that Sunday to host a barbecue following the service to meet and greet those who come specifically because of the opening of our building.
So let me ask you to pray with me that God will work powerfully in this once-in-a-lifetime-of-our-church opportunity to acquaint many of those “outside” with the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is an opportunity we simply must buy up exhausting all the possibilities available because we recognize that the time is limited.

What Kind of Reader Are You?

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Hopefully you and I are readers, period.

That assumed, it remains to examine one’s approach to reading.

Unlike TV or movies, you can’t really go passive in the discipline of reading, especially works of nonfiction. You have to engage.

Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren argue in their book How to Read a Book: the Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading that reading more actively vs. less actively makes for the better reader who actually demands something of himself as he reads. Therefore he earns a higher return on his investment as opposed to the more passive type that coasts through a book or article.

Nowhere does this show itself more plainly than in tackling the work of a more demanding author. Case in point? William Wilberforce and his Practical View of Christianity. I saw that deer-in-the-headlights look from some of our men at Saturday’s Oxford Club meeting as we tried to make sense of the introduction. I likened the book to treasure to be mined, not at six feet under, but more like 600 feet under. It won’t give way to its rewards without a lot of digging.

In the interest of warding off attrition in our club meetings and in promoting the virtue of reading in a demanding kind of way, I pulled Adler and Van Doren’s book from the shelf looking for help.

Perhaps more insight will come in further posts, but let me start here with their simple prescription for active reading: Ask questions while you read–questions that you yourself must try to answer in the course of reading. What questions, you may ask? They suggest the following:

There are four main questions you must ask about any book.
1. What is the book about as a whole? You must try to discover the leading theme of the book, and how the author develops this theme in an orderly way by subdividing it into its essential subordinate themes or topics.
2. What is being said in detail, and how? You must try to discover the main ideas, assertions, and arguments that constitute the author’s particular message.
3. Is the book true, in whole or part? You cannot answer this question until you have answered the first two. You have to know what is being said before you can decide whether it is true or not When you understand a book, however, you are obligated, if you are reading seriously, to make up your own mind. Knowing the author’s mind is not enough.
4. What of it? If the book has given you information, you must ask about its significance. Why does the author think it is important to know these things? Is it important to you to know them? And if the book has not only informed you, but also enlightened you, it is necessary to seek further enlightenment by asking what else follows, what is further implied or suggested.

You don’t have to participate in the Oxford Club for Men to aspire toward becoming a demanding reader.

As for me and my house, the more demanding readers in our church, the better.

Why Read Old Books & How Often

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This Saturday our Oxford Club for Men dives into the introduction and first chapter of A Practical View of Christianity by William Wilberforce. For information on the meeting click here.

I confess I am eager to tackle such a challenging manuscript by someone long since gone to his heavenly reward for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is this counsel from another voice from the past, C. S. Lewis:

There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books…. Now this seems topsy-turvy. Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old…. A new book is still on its trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it. It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages, and all its hidden implications (often unsuspected by the author himself) have to be brought to light…. It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between…. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books (“Introduction” in On the Incarnation by Athanasisus, 3-5).

I can smell the salt air already. Hope to see many of the brothers on Saturday at 7.

Dealing with Delays

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You can see by the sign our latest thinking. Hopes are high for a CO by the end of April, CW – city willing. We should close out construction relatively soon. Then everything depends on passing all the necessary inspections. Please continue to pray for favor.

Even so, we don’t expect to publicize an official opening or hold a dedication service until we have a few weeks or so in the building to get established and work out the bugs. I suspect we may well draft a tentative schedule for soft opening dates leading up to an all-systems-go at our leadership team meeting set for the end of the month. We will keep you posted along the way.

In total, our delay will have dragged on for two months. I thought my disappointment quotient might have run higher. Maybe it hasn’t because ever since that sign on the property went up we’ve included the initials LW at the end. Lord willing. For good reason. James says in chapter 4 of his epistle that we don’t have any idea about what will happen tomorrow. Life is nothing more than a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. His counsel in v. 15? You ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that. Opening new church buildings definitely falls under the broad category of this or that. Plan, but hold everything loosely.

Do you find yourself experiencing delay on some front? Remember who is in control. Our capacity to go anywhere, do anything, be any place, accomplish any objective either sooner or later rests ultimately not with any city or person(s) but with Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will (Eph. 1:11). He’s never late but always right on schedule. Wait on Him.

A Faith that Responds to the Word

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One could rightly summarize the Epistle of James in two words: “Faith works.” James argues for a kind of Christianity that acts on what it knows in terms of right speech and behavior.

An important transition occurs in vv. 19-27 of the first chapter. It revolves around the word of God. Just as God uses His word to regenerate us – he brought us forth by the word of truth (1:18) He continually affects our salvation by implanting the word in our hearts through effective teaching (1:21). True faith responds eagerly to the word of God. Such a response has three characteristics.

First, it humbly receives the word in the heart (19-21). Rather than react with anger, which rarely works the righteousness of God, James says to receive with meekness the implanted word. We are to have a receptive, humble, broken-hearted disposition when the word comes to us in any variety of formats. That will look like a quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger kind of reaction (v. 19).

Second, it faithfully applies the word in the life (22-25). Be doers of the word, and not hearers only. Yes, you need to hear and be attentive to the word, but if you stop there you are, as James puts it, deceiving yourself (v. 22). He uses a word picture in the rest of the paragraph to drive home his point. Hearing only and not doing is like gazing in a mirror only to walk away and not attend to the problems you saw with your face in that mirror! On the contrary, those who gaze into the word like a mirror for their lives and persevere in their obedience are blessed (v. 25). Blessed is far better than self-deceived!

Third, it zealously infuses the word in the religion (26-27). The word for religious refers to the outward ceremonies of the Christian life. Liturgy and its components are a meaningful part of the faith. But if that’s all there is to your experience as a Christian, you have a problem. James proposes a very different litmus test as to what comprises what he calls pure and undefiled religion before God (v. 27). It bridles the tongue. If it doesn’t, it’s worthless (v. 26). That hurts! You can’t get more basic than that. If your anger gives way to an out-of-control tongue as a rule, you don’t grasp true religion in the biblical sense. Furthermore, true religion visits widows and orphans and keeps oneself unstained by the world. It requires charity to the needy and purity in the world.

Now there’s a checklist by which to measure the validity of our Christian experience.

Why Does God Delay to Answer Prayer?

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Why does God delay to answer prayer?

Consider these thoughts by the Puritan Thomas Watson in his book The Body of Divinity.

  1. Because he loves to hear the voice of prayer. ‘The prayer of the upright is his delight.’ Prov 15: 8. You let the musician play a great while ere you throw him down money, because you love to hear his music. Cant 2: 14.
  2. God may delay prayer when he will not deny it, that he may humble us. He has spoken to us long in his word to leave our sins, but we would not hear him; therefore he lets us speak to him in prayer and seems not to hear us.
  3. He may delay to answer prayer when he will not deny it, because he sees we are not yet fit for the mercy we ask. Perhaps we pray for deliverance when we are not fit for it; our scum is not yet boiled away. We would have God swift to deliver, and we are slow to repent.
  4. God may delay to answer prayer, that the mercy we pray for may be more prized, and may be sweeter when it comes. The longer the merchant’s ships stay abroad, the more he rejoices when they come home laden with spices and jewels; therefore be not discouraged, but follow God with prayer. Though God delays, he will not deny. Prayer vincit invincibilem [conquers the invincible], it overcomes the Omnipotent. Hos 12: 4. The Syrians tied their god Hercules fast with a golden chain, that he should not remove. The Lord was held by Moses’ prayer as with a golden chain. ‘Let me alone;’ why, what did Moses? he only prayed. Exod 32:10- 11. Prayer ushers in mercy. Be thy case never so sad, if thou canst but pray thou needest not fear. Psa 10: 17. Therefore give thyself to prayer.

Dear ones. Don’t give up. Persevere in prayer.