I'm not sure I believe God exists anymore!
I would then be ordered by an LS church elder to dispose of the fountain. I'm not exaggerating. I have witnessed very similarly when an order was issued for the disposal of the TV from the homes of everyone under the leadership of one LS pastor. Never mind that this pastor was later defrocked for committing adultery, TVs were out! Or the case of getting rid of all rock and pop music records. I have heard about this one too.
Another example: I am a fan of the Sixties pop duet Simon & Garfunkel. One of their greatest songs is The Boxer, along with Bridge Over Troubled Waters and America. These, along with Mamas & Papas Go Where You Want To Go, Look Through My Window, and Twelve Thirty, as all these songs, and others, I can connect with what I call The American Dream, a series of solo backpacking trips across the States which I did in 1977, 1978, 1995, 1997, and 1998. Thus connecting music to personal experience enhances the ecstasy-enriched memories of such times.
Thus any order from an LS pastor or elder to throw away such records would be met with resistance along with my order for him to get out of our house! According to him, my attachment to both vinyl and the fountain would prove that I wasn't saved after all, for I would be guilty of the sin of idolatry. Not to mention the TV, going to the theatre, cinema, a restaurant, or enjoying a dance in a ballroom with my beloved.
It's that kind of organised religion that is so cramping of lifestyle rather than setting free the believer. A religion of works, enough to turn a potential believer into an atheist. But having said that, I do have sincere love for other Christians. I guess all these negative feelings I have been experiencing arises from an old adage which was written many years ago:
Two men imprisoned in the same cell. One is looking at mud whilst the other looks up to the stars.
A good psychological lesson here. One has his view of his present circumstance to make him wallow in his misery. The other prisoner, sharing in the same set of circumstances, looks out of the barred window at the night sky above and sees glory in the stars. I guess the apostle Paul when he was imprisoned, he looked up to the stars. He and Silas sang praises to God whilst locked up in prison without any crime committed and as they saw the stars, the jailer was convicted and saved (Acts 16.)
Both Jacob and Moses saw mud. Jacob, after losing his favourite son Joseph to what he thought was by a wild animal, he cried out:
No, in mourning I shall go down to the grave with my son. Genesis 37:35.
Moses too saw mud. On one occasion, he cried out to God:
Have I conceived all these people? Have I begotten them, that thou should say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom, as a sucking father beareth the sucking child, unto the land which thou swearest unto their fathers? Numbers 11:12.
My own natural temperament is to see mud. Therefore it comes as no great surprise that my view of this pandemic and how it affects our churches is with a negative tone, along with my views of Brexit and other current affairs issues. On the other hand, I know one church elder, a personal friend of mine, who sees stars. He is optimistic that no matter how long the effects of this pandemic will take, his confidence in God restoring our church at Ascot has given him an optimistic view which enables his family to praise and exalt the glory of God at an easier level than I can.
But could I ever return to a life of atheism?
All Creation likes to manifest itself in threes, which reflects the Holy Trinity - Solid, Liquid, Gas - Animal, Vegetable, Mineral - Land life, Birdlife, Marine life - Past, Present, Future - Length, Area, Volume; even the atom: Proton, Neutron, Electron.
And this trilogy applies to God's revelation to us: the Bible, Israel, Church. And even Israel, or Zion, is three-in-one: the Jew, Jerusalem, Land of Israel.
As for the Bible, the strongest proof of its divine inspiration is the accuracy of prophecy fulfilled. For example, Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, and Zacheriah 12:13 are just three examples relating to the crucifixion of Christ, each written between 600 and 1,000 BC. If I was to explain to an atheist that the mathematical probability of all these prophecies fulfilled to the exact place, time and event without any divine intervention and just by pure chance alone, the probability would be one chance in one, followed by 181 zeroes.** Yes, how would he react to that? Interesting thought.
It's the divine inspiration of the Bible, the reality of Israel where I have visited four times in my lifetime and the love I have for fellow Christians, despite our shortcomings, and despite I see mud all the time instead of stars, my faith in Christ will never fail.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* For full details of this incident, click here
**Henry M. Morris PhD, The Bible and Modern Science, 1951, 1968, Moody Press.
Thus, the confession I gave to nine other Zoomers at a morning virtual prayer meeting earlier this week. This daily twenty-minute session hosted by the team of Ascot Life Church took my confession in a very compassionate manner, totally unlike the shouty rebuke from a patronising, ivory-tower moralist at an outdoor Bible study precisely two weeks earlier.*
It has been a dark period of my life, that is, compared to normal living. For it was that morning when my beloved offered to get up, go downstairs and make me breakfast whilst I remain upstairs in bed. It's a duty which I normally perform every day for the whole of our twenty-plus years of marriage - for me to get up early, make breakfast for the two of us, then enjoy it together in bed. But this time, she wanted to have a turn. Not that it's her first time. Rather, she had prepared breakfast several times already in recent months. But this time, as she begins to make her way downstairs, her leg gives way in pain, immobilising her, a symptom of her neurotic disease she had suffered for the last six years.
Indeed, I took over, feeling bitter of heart, not directed at her but at our present set of circumstances which caused me to question the existence of God. After breakfast, I felt compelled to attend the virtual prayer meeting at our laptop terminal in the privacy of our lounge and pour out what was in my heart. This included Alex's ailment, the feeling of loss of church life - no meeting together, no greetings, no hugging, no edification, no corporate worship, no pre- or post-service coffee and fellowship. Instead, the feeling of loss, the detrimental effect exacerbated by the shouty rebuke by a moralist for losing my temper and swearing - which in itself was a sudden release of pent up emotions bottled up for months. This in addition to being lonely and unsupported, especially as a Creationist who is under an endless, constant flood of evolutionary propaganda whether I'm looking for it or not.
It is as if the Christian faith was a terrible let-down and the temptation to return to the atheism I held as a teenager was indeed endearing. It might be worth asking: Did this present coronavirus pandemic expose the true nature of my heart? Yet I look back and recall how I was badly treated by other Christians whilst I was a volunteer in Israel back in 1994 for not fitting into the model of English middle-class respectability. And the plethora of church-attending graduates whose denial of the literal Creation account of Genesis was for their support for Theistic Evolution - a worldview which at times embarrassing for one who insists that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, and thus, making me feel as idiotic as a Flat-Earth advocate. And these same graduates can be so self-reserved and cliquey that a few have refused to accept me as a Facebook friend, and even blocked me altogether.
And this attitude among us as Christians - as if I was the disease itself and being present in their midst posing a risk of any of them catching the virus - of self-distancing and wearing facemasks were the be-all-and-end-all of all physical meetings. Such conveying a strong message of fear, cowardice and lack of faith in God, and apparently not realising that God is bigger than the virus, and with an outdoor meeting as aforementioned, it would have been very unlikely any infection would have transferred with a greeting, or even a hug, that would have carried any detrimental consequences.
And the view of atheist You-Tubers. Yes, I do tune into their videos. I do this to dig into their background, to find out why they believe the way they do and what had brought them to this way of thinking and belief. One feature about them which stand out - they're all well educated, even attended the likes of Oxford University, and they know the Bible well. Therefore if I was to use Scripture as a Christian apologist, any one of these atheists would have run circles around me, and knock me out with an intellectual punch which would be enough to discredit the faith altogether.
It's one of these atheists, Drew McCoy,* who gave an insight into his background in one of his videos. He tells of his growing up in a family committed to a Southern Baptist church in the USA. Therefore its was most likely raised in an environment where personal holiness and abstention from all pleasurable pastimes could have been a principal doctrine taught there. But listening carefully between his lines, I have gotten an idea that he fell victim to a heresy of Lordship Salvation (LS.)
Wait! You might be thinking. Isn't making Jesus Christ Lord of your life is what the faith is all about?
Er, no. We are simply told to believe in Him. Understanding that Jesus Christ was crucified, buried and on the third day risen from the dead brings out that initial trust in Him. Since Jesus is the risen Christ, he is the only way to God through believing in Him.
Lordship Salvation is about putting Christ above everything in your life, including family members, as well as your life itself in order to be saved. Although at first, this looks noble, problems will arise on the practical level. For example, nearby there is a powered indoor fountain which I bought some eighteen years ago. When switched on, the gentle flow of the water over imitation rocks gives that therapeutic relaxing sensation, or to put it another way, the fountain can act as a de-stressor. But wait! Isn't that receiving relaxation or any form of ecstasy other than from God?
It is as if the Christian faith was a terrible let-down and the temptation to return to the atheism I held as a teenager was indeed endearing. It might be worth asking: Did this present coronavirus pandemic expose the true nature of my heart? Yet I look back and recall how I was badly treated by other Christians whilst I was a volunteer in Israel back in 1994 for not fitting into the model of English middle-class respectability. And the plethora of church-attending graduates whose denial of the literal Creation account of Genesis was for their support for Theistic Evolution - a worldview which at times embarrassing for one who insists that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, and thus, making me feel as idiotic as a Flat-Earth advocate. And these same graduates can be so self-reserved and cliquey that a few have refused to accept me as a Facebook friend, and even blocked me altogether.
And this attitude among us as Christians - as if I was the disease itself and being present in their midst posing a risk of any of them catching the virus - of self-distancing and wearing facemasks were the be-all-and-end-all of all physical meetings. Such conveying a strong message of fear, cowardice and lack of faith in God, and apparently not realising that God is bigger than the virus, and with an outdoor meeting as aforementioned, it would have been very unlikely any infection would have transferred with a greeting, or even a hug, that would have carried any detrimental consequences.
And the view of atheist You-Tubers. Yes, I do tune into their videos. I do this to dig into their background, to find out why they believe the way they do and what had brought them to this way of thinking and belief. One feature about them which stand out - they're all well educated, even attended the likes of Oxford University, and they know the Bible well. Therefore if I was to use Scripture as a Christian apologist, any one of these atheists would have run circles around me, and knock me out with an intellectual punch which would be enough to discredit the faith altogether.
It's one of these atheists, Drew McCoy,* who gave an insight into his background in one of his videos. He tells of his growing up in a family committed to a Southern Baptist church in the USA. Therefore its was most likely raised in an environment where personal holiness and abstention from all pleasurable pastimes could have been a principal doctrine taught there. But listening carefully between his lines, I have gotten an idea that he fell victim to a heresy of Lordship Salvation (LS.)
Wait! You might be thinking. Isn't making Jesus Christ Lord of your life is what the faith is all about?
Er, no. We are simply told to believe in Him. Understanding that Jesus Christ was crucified, buried and on the third day risen from the dead brings out that initial trust in Him. Since Jesus is the risen Christ, he is the only way to God through believing in Him.
Lordship Salvation is about putting Christ above everything in your life, including family members, as well as your life itself in order to be saved. Although at first, this looks noble, problems will arise on the practical level. For example, nearby there is a powered indoor fountain which I bought some eighteen years ago. When switched on, the gentle flow of the water over imitation rocks gives that therapeutic relaxing sensation, or to put it another way, the fountain can act as a de-stressor. But wait! Isn't that receiving relaxation or any form of ecstasy other than from God?
I would then be ordered by an LS church elder to dispose of the fountain. I'm not exaggerating. I have witnessed very similarly when an order was issued for the disposal of the TV from the homes of everyone under the leadership of one LS pastor. Never mind that this pastor was later defrocked for committing adultery, TVs were out! Or the case of getting rid of all rock and pop music records. I have heard about this one too.
Another example: I am a fan of the Sixties pop duet Simon & Garfunkel. One of their greatest songs is The Boxer, along with Bridge Over Troubled Waters and America. These, along with Mamas & Papas Go Where You Want To Go, Look Through My Window, and Twelve Thirty, as all these songs, and others, I can connect with what I call The American Dream, a series of solo backpacking trips across the States which I did in 1977, 1978, 1995, 1997, and 1998. Thus connecting music to personal experience enhances the ecstasy-enriched memories of such times.
Thus any order from an LS pastor or elder to throw away such records would be met with resistance along with my order for him to get out of our house! According to him, my attachment to both vinyl and the fountain would prove that I wasn't saved after all, for I would be guilty of the sin of idolatry. Not to mention the TV, going to the theatre, cinema, a restaurant, or enjoying a dance in a ballroom with my beloved.
It's that kind of organised religion that is so cramping of lifestyle rather than setting free the believer. A religion of works, enough to turn a potential believer into an atheist. But having said that, I do have sincere love for other Christians. I guess all these negative feelings I have been experiencing arises from an old adage which was written many years ago:
Two men imprisoned in the same cell. One is looking at mud whilst the other looks up to the stars.
A good psychological lesson here. One has his view of his present circumstance to make him wallow in his misery. The other prisoner, sharing in the same set of circumstances, looks out of the barred window at the night sky above and sees glory in the stars. I guess the apostle Paul when he was imprisoned, he looked up to the stars. He and Silas sang praises to God whilst locked up in prison without any crime committed and as they saw the stars, the jailer was convicted and saved (Acts 16.)
Both Jacob and Moses saw mud. Jacob, after losing his favourite son Joseph to what he thought was by a wild animal, he cried out:
No, in mourning I shall go down to the grave with my son. Genesis 37:35.
Moses too saw mud. On one occasion, he cried out to God:
Have I conceived all these people? Have I begotten them, that thou should say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom, as a sucking father beareth the sucking child, unto the land which thou swearest unto their fathers? Numbers 11:12.
My own natural temperament is to see mud. Therefore it comes as no great surprise that my view of this pandemic and how it affects our churches is with a negative tone, along with my views of Brexit and other current affairs issues. On the other hand, I know one church elder, a personal friend of mine, who sees stars. He is optimistic that no matter how long the effects of this pandemic will take, his confidence in God restoring our church at Ascot has given him an optimistic view which enables his family to praise and exalt the glory of God at an easier level than I can.
But could I ever return to a life of atheism?
All Creation likes to manifest itself in threes, which reflects the Holy Trinity - Solid, Liquid, Gas - Animal, Vegetable, Mineral - Land life, Birdlife, Marine life - Past, Present, Future - Length, Area, Volume; even the atom: Proton, Neutron, Electron.
And this trilogy applies to God's revelation to us: the Bible, Israel, Church. And even Israel, or Zion, is three-in-one: the Jew, Jerusalem, Land of Israel.
 |
| 3 in 1: Jew, Jerusalem, Holy Land. |
As for the Bible, the strongest proof of its divine inspiration is the accuracy of prophecy fulfilled. For example, Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, and Zacheriah 12:13 are just three examples relating to the crucifixion of Christ, each written between 600 and 1,000 BC. If I was to explain to an atheist that the mathematical probability of all these prophecies fulfilled to the exact place, time and event without any divine intervention and just by pure chance alone, the probability would be one chance in one, followed by 181 zeroes.** Yes, how would he react to that? Interesting thought.
It's the divine inspiration of the Bible, the reality of Israel where I have visited four times in my lifetime and the love I have for fellow Christians, despite our shortcomings, and despite I see mud all the time instead of stars, my faith in Christ will never fail.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* For full details of this incident, click here
**Henry M. Morris PhD, The Bible and Modern Science, 1951, 1968, Moody Press.
Dear Frank,
ReplyDeleteI agree that any faith system relying on works is flawed, for we are saved only by grace through faith. And yet I have heard sermons by Paul Washer, who apparently espouses LS, and what I heard him say was filled with zeal and what appeared to b genuine love of Christ. Surely we all desire Christ to be Lord of our life, but as you say, the problem comes in if we try to be saved by renouncing all other good things in our life.
Thanks as always for the excellent, thought-provoking post. Prayers for you and Alex.
God bless,
Laurie
Hi Frank, I could never become an athiest, especially after my near death experience. Also, even though I have gone through many trials, because I have had healings and a miraculous healing during my time in the Lord, there is no way I could not believe in Him. The spiritual enemy tries to put negative thoughts in our minds, and that is sometimes why things we fear can come upon us. When the Lord showed me that I had to not go to the world for help after I asked Him to show me about sickness and healing he also pointed out the scripture where king Aza died because he went to the physician instead of the Lord. I believe absolutely that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of the Lord, and that if we endeavour to put our trust in that Word spoken to us we shall be brought through our trials. God bless you and Alex with ALL He has for us.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Frank
ReplyDeleteLike many other false doctrines , Lordship salvation causes a great deal of confusion. the adherents to it get the cart before the horse. Salvation leads to a change in our attitude by the power of the Holy Spirit. We lack the ability to make ourselves spiritual, and any attempt to make Christ Lord before salvation is doomed to failure and frustration. His being Lord is a result, not the cause of our salvation.
Thanks Frank. Sharing the words God give to me to "survive"through this hard times.
ReplyDeleteI come quickly: hold fast what thou hast, that no one take thy crown. He that overcomes, him will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more at all out; and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven, from my God, and my new name. He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. (Revelation 3)