Category: Brother Al (Page 12 of 67)

This blog reflects on the personal journey of one who has tried to follow the Lord for the past 65 years.  At my age, one spends time looking back in the rearview mirror, even while yearning to finish strong.  The Psalmist reminds me, “Seventy years are given to us! Some even live to eighty.  But even the best years are filled with pain and trouble; soon they disappear, and we fly away.” (Ps. 90:10 NLT). I have now reached eighty, and am experiencing the swift passing of time.  The Psalmist then prays, “Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom” (v. 12).  My continual cry is to have wisdom to pass on to the next generation.

Elsewhere, the Psalmist prays, “Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered – how fleeting my life is.  You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand.   My entire lifetime is just a moment to you, at best, each of us is but a breath” (Ps. 39:4-5 NLT).  As I go to more funerals, I am more acutely aware of life’s brevity.  

My prayer is that I might finish strong.  God knows my numbered days: “You saw me before I was born.  Every day of my life was recorded in your book.  Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed” (Psalms 139:16).  At a recent funeral for a  Christian woman from our apartment building, I sat quietly meditating before the service.  I sensed the Lord giving me a three point directive for the rest of my days. 

Why share these with you? Perhaps because who I am becoming in “the fourth quarter” can be expressed in these three directives.  They are simple, not weighted down with obligation and detail, viewed more as being than doing. At my stage of the journey, I can give my emotional and spiritual energy to these three things.  I have learned that the older we get, the simpler life really becomes. 

1) “Cherish your wife.”  This advice was given to me many years ago by my mentor, James Houston.  Cherish means to “protect and care for; to keep in one’s mind.”  In my relationship with Judy, I am to cultivate our oneness in marriage with the utmost care and affection.  Ecclesiastes 9:9 – Message  encourages me to, “Relish life with the spouse you love each and every day of your precarious life.  Each day is God’s gift.”  God has given us 57 years together to grow in the Lord.  Cherish each day with your wife; there are not that many left.  

2) “Point people to Jesus.”  I take this second, direct, and simple point to mean my whole being.  Words, actions and attitude are meant to reflect the presence of Christ.  I desire for people to be ready to meet Jesus when they die.  Remember, I live with seniors and lead a study for “the gray hairs” – as I call us. May my life give off the aroma of Christ. “Now he uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume.  Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God” (II Cor. 2:14-15 NLT).  

3) “Act like a man.”  Wow.  When I was a young man, acting like a man was rather simple and straightforward.  Not anymore. There was general consensus about what is means to be a biological man, even with little awareness of the masculine soul.  My life as an “old man” is to reflect the “tough and tender” nature of Jesus – with a more mature understanding of the masculine soul.

Ronald Rolheiser has a chapter on Honest Anger in his book, The Fire Within.  In my opinion, this chapter speaks to a deep issue in the lives of men.  “We live and breathe within a culture and a church that are growing daily in sophistication, adultness, and criticalness,” writes Rolheiser.  “This is not always a bad thing, but it is helping  to spawn a polarization, anger, and despondency that is making it almost unfashionable to be happy.”  He then makes this insightful observation: “Much of this despondency has constellated around two centers: women’s anger and men’s grief.”  

When women face gender issues, anger usually follows, producing the image of “the angry feminist.”  As men face gender issues they tend to get sad and begin to grieve,  producing “the grieving male.”  However, Rolheiser points out that anger and grief are not that different. When love has been wounded there is opportunity for reconciliation.  Rolheiser suggests the opposite of love is not anger but hate.  Hatred breeds “frozen anger.” You become angry and hate when the soul is wounded. .

Anger and hatred in the beginning are a sure sign of love.  “The deeper the love, the deeper will be the anger and hatred if love is wounded and betrayed.”  Anger and hatred are “love’s grief.”  Most anger is a form of grief, while most grief is a form of anger. 

But Rolheiser gives this caution: “There is honest anger and there is dishonest anger, there is honest grief and there is dishonest grief.”  He lists three cautions:

1. Anger and grief do not distort.  “Honest anger is real anger, it feels and points out what is wrong, but it doesn’t… lie about what is and what was good.  It lets the good remain good.” 
2. Anger does not rage.  “Honest anger… seeks to build up, to bring to a new wholeness, to reconcile something that is felt as fractured or broken… Rage wants only to bring down, to break apart, to utterly destroy.  Its wound is so deep that there is no more desire for unity and reconciliation. 
3. Honest anger has a time limit… [it] never sees itself as an end, a substitute for the lost love.” 

Andrew Comiskey believes most men live with an “ancient, deep well of grief and regret. It rumbles with the ache of unexpressed suffering.  And in our silence and isolation, the pain fuels our striving and addiction.  We thus live in the darkness of unexpressed affliction.  Rather than driving us toward relationships, the pain drives us back unto the wheel of striving.”  

It was during my midlife crisis that I could begin to admit that I had a  deep well of grief in my soul.  It was a cover for anger and resentment.  I kept it all inside, while it spilled out in relationship with those closest to me.  With my personality type, I continually found myself on the treadmill of people pleasing.  It exhausted me spiritually, so that my life became a “performance.”  Of course, as a pastor I had to be “good.”  But inside  I was grieving.

My testimony is this: I accepted my anger and resentment, learning over the years to cry out, “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner!” I continue to experience my own well of grief.  But I am learning: 1) to accept the reality of imperfect relationships, 2) to seek continued inner healing for my soul  and 3) to keep my heart open to love others, no matter what the cost. 

Remember, men: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit (Ps. 34:18).

In an article entitled “Common Good Men” (Touchstone), Nancy Pearcey asks, “How can Christians create a balanced view that stands against the outright male-bashing that is so common, yet also holds men responsible to a higher standard? ” She decides to “dig into the history of the idea that masculinity is toxic.”  

Throughout much of human history, people lived on family farms and in peasant villages.  Family and industry were not separate activities.  Fathers were “as comfortable in the kitchen as women, for they had responsibility for provisioning and managing the home.”  Both fathers and mothers were responsible to sacrifice individual interest for the common good.  But men began to surrender their traditional paternal role as the industrial revolution took them out of the home and into the factory.  And “rhetoric around masculinity began to focus on traits” such as ambition and self-assertiveness.  

The individual replaced the household as the basic unit of society, with fewer moral obligations.  Increasing numbers of men grew up as “mushroom men” emerging and growing up without many social obligations.  Pearcey asks, “If there was no common good, then a man’s duty could no longer be defined as responsibility for protecting the common good.”  Men could now pursue self-interest rather than to “be servants of one another” (Gal. 5:13). 

Removed from the private sphere, men lost an “active religious sense” of values meant for the private sphere. “The male character was redefined as coarse, pragmatic, and morally insensitive,” notes Pearsey.  Religious values became part of the private sphere, cultivated by the women in the home.  “Men were being told that they were naturally crude and brutish – and that they needed to learn virtue from their wives.” Women were now considered morally superior to men.  As Anthony Rotundo writes, “women took men’s place as the custodians of communal virtue.”  Masculinity was being “de-moralized.”

The church failed to stand against the demoralization of men, but rather started to appeal more and more to women – and became increasingly feminized.  Women became the custodians of virtue.  Men attended church less, often being described as morally hardened and spiritually insensitive.  “If men are repeatedly told they are naturally less religious,” Pearcey observes, “eventually they will begin to believe the cultural narrative.”

Women’s attempts to “tame men” began to focus more on public vices such as drunkenness and prostitution. Rotunbo saw this as “a plan for female government of male passions.”  “It gave men the freedom to be aggressive, greedy, ambitious, competitive, and self-interested, then it left women with the duty of curbing this behavior.”  

One can begin to see the emerging roots of toxic masculinity: “Men are inherently coarse and immoral – virtue is a womanly trait, imposed upon men only through great difficulty.”  The idea of being less spiritual and virtuous was insulting to men.  “When virtue is defined as a feminine quality instead of a human quality, then requiring men to be virtuous is seen as the imposition of a feminine standard.”

Concern developed over the “overcivilized” man becoming soft and effeminate.  Mothers filling the gap left by missing fathers created a “boy culture” in which boys became wild and rambunctious.  Attention was given to the wild, untamed masculine nature of men.  Now “manhood was redefined as crude and combative, governed by the biological instincts for lust and power.”  Churches began to teach about “Muscular Christianity.”  

Pearcey suggests a biblical view of God as servant leader, featuring gentleness, love and compassion as masculine virtues.  Many young believers learn just enough about headship and submission, but not enough about responsibility and sacrifice.  Rightly understood and practiced, “Christians have a practical answer to resolving the war between men and women… We should be bold about bringing it into the public square as a solution to the charge of toxic masculinity.”

The prophet Isaiah continually reminded God’s people of their calling to bring the news of God’s glorious reign to the whole world.  This still holds true in our day.  But why does the church seem so weak and ineffective, continually on the defensive, caving into the popular narrative of self-sufficiency?  Isaiah warns us: we are the problem – not God.  “Look! Listen! God’s arm is not amputated – he can still save.  God’s ears are not stopped up – he can still hear.  There’s nothing wrong with God; the wrong is in you” (Isaiah 59:1-2 – MSG).  The moral and spiritual condition of the people did not allow God to work through them. 

In verses 3-8 the prophet points out many social evils but more their relational sins: “cutthroat cruelty, wicked lies, unjust lawsuits, dishonest testimony, deliberately planned evils that do not even benefit the perpetrators (3-6a).”  “The eager malice with which God’s people can attack one another, and the destruction they can leave behind, creates nothing but human misery, worthy of condemnation by God” (6b-8 – Ortlund: Isaiah). It seems to breaks out like a deep infection, affecting all human relationships.

To their credit the people were realistic about to condition of their nation.  They could very well be describing our own nation. “So there is no justice among us, and we know nothing about right living.  We look for light but find only darkness. We look for bright skies but walk in gloom.  We grope like the blind along a wall, feeling our way like people without eyes” (Isaiah 59:10).  A nation groping, “like the blind along a wall, feeling our way like people without eyes” paints a picture for me of the aggressive national press corps peppering our elected leaders about national and world affairs. Our leaders are simple groping along a wall, hoping to find a way into the light.  They are not able to  accept that “even at brightest noontime, we stumble as though it were dark” (v. 10).  They can recite the latest “talking points” but have no certainty regarding the present narrative to bring peace and prosperity. 

Then the people acknowledge that “…our sins are piled up before God and testify against us.  Yes, we know what sinners we are.  We know we have rebelled and have denied the Lord.  We have turned our backs on our God… Truth stumbles in the streets, and honesty is gone, and anyone who renounces evil is attacked” (v. 12-15).  Those who speak out in our time are called “bigots” for pointing out truth. 

God, however, would not let himself be used by a disobedient people.  “He has withdrawn so that they may taste the full, bitter consequences of their sin” (Webb – Isaiah).  Then Isaiah describes God coming to help his people in an impossible situation. It is a picture of pure grace to those who are undeserving. “So he himself stepped in to save them with his strong arm, and his justice sustained him” (Isaiah 59:16).  In verse 17, we see the Lord getting ready for battle.  He puts on the garments of righteousness, salvation, vengeance and zeal.  “For he will come like a pent-up flood that the breath of the Lord drives along” (Isaiah 59:20).

“Taken as a whole, this powerful picture of God’s girding on his armor expresses the truth that he will not stand by while his people are destroyed; he is totally committed to saving them” (Bible Speaks Today).  Men, are you ever tempted to think that God does not care about you or his people?   He “will repay wrath to his enemies and retribution to his foes” (Is. 59: 18b). 

In 2021, the Institute for Family Studies conducted a survey to explore the supposed masculinity problem in our day.  It is very encouraging and uplifting in light of the mantra associated with “toxic masculinity.”   This survey gives me more incentive to call forth the true masculine within the soul of each man.  The survey’s report concludes by observing, “It’s a good thing so many men are comfortable and happy with being very masculine.  As a society, we would be wise to accept the positive power of masculinity and continue to channel its energy into productive outcomes.”

In the survey, 753 men were asked if they considered themselves very masculine on a 5-point scale.  “Fully 41% of men agree that they are very masculine… and another 30% consider themselves masculine… And when asked if they are happy with how masculine they are, 80% of men further reported being happy.”  The article asks, “If masculinity is a problem, then it would seem we are in big trouble given how many men gladly consider themselves masculine.” The survey went on to analyze three groups of men – very masculine, masculine, and all others.

Higher masculinity is associated with men being more aggressive, loving a good fight, and even taking advantage of others as well as taking charge.  The survey cautions against “following the lead of mainstream media and many large advertisers in shaming the masculinity out of manhood.”  “It’s clear that instead of shaming masculinity out of modern manhood, it might be better to support and strongly encourage men’s daily experiences of their masculinity – both feeling masculine and being happy about it – because masculinity lies at the heart of productive, contributive manhood.”  

What about healthy, nurturing relationships and masculine men?  The survey found that very masculine men are likely to marry and to report feeling loved in their marriages.  Unlike the image in our culture, “these very masculine men are more likely to see emotional closeness and friendship with their ideal partners.” The very masculine men make sacrifices for loved ones that bring joy and “agree that love is worth working hard to find, and to believe that others see them as giving, sharing, loving, and affectionate.” High masculine men are willing to take risks and exercise self-control, which translates into lower propensity for depression. 

The survey gives this summary: “The truth about masculinity is inescapable, according to these survey results. Far from being a problem, it brings with it exactly what individuals, couples, families and communities seek, perhaps especially in challenging times. As we’ve seen here, an internal sense of masculinity corresponds with men’s ability to be functional, stable, contributing members of their communities.”

What can we glean from this survey?   First, be committed to affirming the masculine soul of men.  Celebrate the positive energy that can be channeled for the good of others.   Second, by all means don’t shame men, but rather focus on the God-given motives in real masculine men.  Third, realize that intimate and caring relationships need to be nurtured.  Fourth, help men to explore their masculine soul, allowing them to make positive contributions in their relationships.  

Most of all, create an environment where men can share the story of their soul. God made men for a unique purpose and calling.  We live under layers of expectations, memories and images that are not healthy.  Help other men to share their story – the good, the bad and the ugly, in order to discover their true masculine soul.  

Romans 12:9-10 encourages us:  “Don’t just pretend to love others.  Really love them.  Hate what is wrong.  Hold rightly to what is good.  Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.”

Justin Lee, Associate Editor at First Things, got my attention with an article entitled, “Rewilding American Christianity.”  He references Umberto Eco, who maintains we are living in a New Middle Age.  Back in 1983, Eco saw the Pax Americana collapsing: “First of all, a great peace that is breaking down, a great international power that has unified the world in language, customs, ideologies, religions, art, and technology, and then at a certain point, thanks to its own ungovernable complexity, collapses.”  With the collapse of the great Pax, “crisis and insecurity ensue, different civilizations clash, and slowly the image of a new man is outlined.”  Can you visualize a new “Middle Age” on the horizon?  What is the new man like?

While Eco has a pessimist view of the New Middle Age, Eugene Vodolazkin believes we are entering “a period of deepening, integration, and refinement analogous to that which followed the collapse of the Roman Empire.”  He quotes Nikolai Berdyaev who divides epochs into days and nights.  “Days include antiquity and the modern age.”  These are moments of explosive display.  The Middle Ages “are outwardly muted but profounder than those of the day.  It is during the sleep of night that what has been perceived during the day can be assimilated.  A night epoch allows for insight into the essence of things and for concentrating strength.”  Are we to “slow down” so we can make spiritual sense of our day?  For example, do we discern the presence of evil in the events of our day?

Vodolazkin sees the image of a new man being shaped by the collapse: “Our dispersed and untrained souls need to be shaped and formed, attaining focus or concentration… Personal concentration works against the dispersing influences that might otherwise gain control of our souls.”  This concentration is not possible without a rediscovery of religious truth.  Is a new man being shaped by the events of our day?

Paul Kingsnorth points out the need for inner transformation.  “In a time when the temptation is always toward culture war rather than inner war,” the battle that is uninformed by inner transformation will soon eat itself, and those around it.” Kingsnorth encourages us to follow the example of the “wild saints,”  who sought unity with God, being made holy so that we can return to the world ready for battle.”  Do we pay attention to inner transformation first?

But there is no Theosis [participation in the life of God] without suffering.  Lee asks the question, “Are we in the West, so long accustomed to comfort and convenience, prepared to suffer?” Lee concludes with this comment regarding the saints of old. “They created markers of memory for future generations of believers.   America’s Christians are blessed with the opportunity for building their own markers.  I pray the Lord makes us equal to the task.”  Are we prepared for the coming days?  

As you can tell, I am intrigued by a New Middle Age.  Men, we need to be prepared for radical change in our nation.  The forces of darkness are descending upon us, causing anxiety, fear and uncertainty.  What will tomorrow bring?  Does the image  of a New Middle Age give us some direction?  I think so.   

Here are four points to consider:  1) First, God is calling men to step back and work on their inner life. 2)  Men are meeting for support and encouragement. 3) These small groups are serious about their calling to follow Jesus.  It is not a burden to endure, but a joy to know that we can make a difference in today’s world. 4) Encourage transformation in each other, using the Scriptures as your guide (II Tim. 3:16-17).   

I lead a Bible study in our apartment building.  We all have gray hair.  I encourage us to visualize the effects of our prayers for our loved ones as we experience “the rising up of the gray hairs.”  We read in Ps. 20:7-8, “Some nations boast of their chariots and horses, but we boast in the name of the Lord our God.  Those nations will fall down and collapse, but we will rise up and stand firm.”  Instead of lamenting about the state of the world, we will boast in the Lord.  We choose to see ourselves rising up and standing on solid ground.

We realize the culture is embracing a post-Christian narrative, putting the Good News in a negative light. As seniors, we grew up in a fairly positive environment. We know the difference.  Our prayer concerns can be expressed well in the words of the Psalmist in 71:17-18: “O God, you have taught me from my earliest childhood, and I constantly tell others about the wonderful things you do.  Now that I am old and gray, do not abandon me, O God.  Let me proclaim your power to this new generation, your mighty miracles to all who come after me.”

Recently I was sharing our Bible study’s corporate concern for our children and grandchildren with my son Kurt.  Seeing him as a good father, I asked what Judy and I as parents imparted to him that would encourage a group of gray hairs concerned for their families.  I have summarized what I gleaned from Kurt’s reflection in three principles noted below.  

Sowing the word of God as a seed that will grow and have its effect is a helpful image.  In Mark 4:26-27, Jesus tells us, “This is what the kingdom of God is like.  A man scatters seed on the ground.  Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.”  Our task is to sow the “living and enduring word of God” (I Peter 1:23).  Remember it is more than a memory.  It is living and enduring.

Instill – As believing grandparents, we cling to the Word of God that was sown in the lives of our loved ones. Isaiah 55:11 is a wonderful promise for parents and grandparents who have done this: “It is the same with my word.  I send it out, and it always produces fruit.  It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it.”  Our confidence is in Jesus, the light of the world, who is the Word incarnate (John 1:14). John assures us, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). 

Enhance – This implies daily prayer and remembrance of our loved ones.  Pray believing the seeds that were sown will bear fruit through the life of Jesus, as His Spirit bears witness to the heart and mind of a loved one.  Don’t give up: carry your loved ones in your heart. “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for.  Keep on seeking, and you will find.  Keep on knocking and the door will be opened to you” (Matt. 7:7 NLT).  

Trust – Believe in God’s sovereignty, knowing that nothing can separate us from the love of God: “Indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:39).   God can at any time intervene with his presence in the life of a loved one through an event, a person, a still, small voice, etc.   

This blog’s title is rather provocative amidst today’s debate regarding gender. It’s also the title of an article by Peter J. Leithart in First Things. After saying in Genesis 1 that creation was “very good,” God said in Gen. 2:18, “It is not good for the man to be alone.”  Pope John Paul II viewed “Adam’s solitude as an opportunity for self-discovery.” According to Leithart, in solitude Adam “learns his uniqueness… [and] distinguishes himself… with his first act of self-consciousness… He discovers himself as ‘person.'”  He is “a matchless being with a unique depth of subjectivity.”

Still, he is alone and incomplete. God created Adam for relationship. “The man alone is no more than a part, a limb without a body.” Adam is, as Paul later says, “head” of the woman. Leithart notes, however, “[a] bodiless head is as monstrous as a headless body. He’s an image of God only together with the woman.”

Leithart explains, “…Man needs help so humanity can achieve what humanity is called to achieve.  Unless the unique powers of woman catalyze the powers of man, and vice versa, mankind cannot reach its destiny… The gift of the woman transforms the man… [Adam] needs a helper to complete the human task… he needs a woman to be fully human.”  Leithart then ends with this: “The woman rescues the man from his solitude so humanity can reach its full glory, because, as Paul says, the woman is the glory of man.”

Men need to remember that Eve was not just to help functionally and vocationally: “The man needs a helper so that the part he is can fit into a whole, the union of two as one flesh.” Adam needs a partner for his task, but he also needs the woman to be fully human. Leithart makes this observation: “Without the helper, the man is as half-finished as a chaotic, darkened earth, as fruitless as land without plants and water. Conversely, woman completes man as light, form and fullness complete the formless earth.” 

Men, here are four takeaways to consider. First, use your own solitude to discover your heavenly Father saying, “You are my beloved.”  Don’t expect a woman to affirm who you are. Affirmation comes from your Father in heaven. In solitude you learn you are a person, “a matchless being with a unique depth of subjectivity.”  “When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God.” (Gen. 5:1 NIV). 

Second, realize you are not complete. “As God supplies what’s lacking in creation’s deficiency, so he rescues man from his solitude.” We are all “no more than a part, a limb without a body.” Some remain single but find completeness in their relationship with the Lord, in being part of an extended family, and in being part of a church. Married people find wholeness not only in these relationships, but also in marriage itself.

Third, if God has led you into the covenant of marriage, you need your wife to finish the task God has given you. “Adam is created to be earth’s king, but he can’t become king unless he has a queen at his side. The woman rescues the man from inevitable frustration and mission-failure.” Men need to be rescued from their frail egos by a loving and supporting spouse.  Let her into your heart.

Fourth, remember that you are not a whole man in your solitude – you were created for relationship. If God leads you into the marriage relationship, he knows you need your wife to help you flourish on life’s journey. For many, “the gift of the woman transforms the man from a waterless waste into the human equivalent of the garden of God.”  

Tim Keller, a beloved pastor, preacher and teacher died recently at the age of 72.  After being diagnosed in 2020 with pancreatic cancer, he told the New York Times, “If the resurrection of Jesus Christ really happened, then ultimately, God is going to put everything right.  Suffering is going to go away.  Evil is going to go away.  Death is going to go away.  Aging is going to go away.  Pancreatic cancer is going to go away.  Now if the resurrection of Jesus Christ did not happen, then I guess all bets are off.  But if it actually happened, then there’s all the hope in the world.” 

Back in 2021, Keller said, “It is endlessly comforting to have a God who is both infinitely more wise and more loving than I am.  He has plenty of good reasons for everything He does and allows that I cannot know, and therein is my hope and strength.”  His final words were these: “There is no downside for me leaving, not in the slightest.” 

There is no doubt in my mind that Keller was very influential among evangelical pastors and leaders. Dale M. Coulter (a Pentecostal theologian) had this to say about Keller (who had a reformed background).   “Keller was winsome in his approach, but uncompromising on doctrine.  He focused on grace because he believed that most people understand how broken they are.  Keller’s approach of emphasizing grace and love in the context of offering the gospel to skeptics became the hallmark of his life.”

“Tim Keller,” wrote Pastor Ray Ortlund, “was the publicly prominent voice for Christ in my generation, who I trusted the most.  When he spoke or wrote I never had to brace myself for embarrassment.   He rang true again and again, because he was true to Christ.”   

Ortlund named three aspects of Keller’s ministry that I relate to as a follower of Jesus.  First, “Gospel Fullness” as “a principled sensitivity to the biblical gospel as the integrating center of everything that is truly Christian.”  For me, it’s always about Jesus.  Keller maintained, “The gospel changes everything… The gospel is not just the ABC’s but the A to Z of the Christian life.  It is inaccurate to think the gospel is what saves non-Christians, and then Christians mature by trying hard to live according to biblical principles.”  No, it’s all about the love, grace and mercy found in Jesus. Period!  

Secondly,  “Authentic Revival.”  Keller was consistent. “Since the gospel is about more than converting individuals but about renewing the world with outpouring of refreshment from above (Acts 3:20), authentic revival deserves to be an essential concern.”  Like Keller, I was deeply influenced back in the early 70’s by Richard Lovelace’s book, “Dynamics of Spiritual Life.”  I read it many times.  I was blessed to see a respected church leader like Keller implementing revival into his renewal for the church

Thirdly, “Missional Wisdom.”  “What we can do is take wiser advantage of our beliefs, with gentle awareness of the riches offered there for calling ‘post-everything’ people to Christ.”  Ortlund ponders, “Why muffle our theology in an effort to win a hearing, when our theology itself offers compelling insights into the burning issues of the day – if we will be humble and wise about it?”

Men, in plain language, here is a charge from Tim Keller as we desire to influence our culture:  1) It’s all about Jesus.  Keep your eyes always on him.   2) Pray for (and be open to) an outpouring of God’s spirit.  3) Don’t give up on the historic faith.  Through wisdom and humility, it can speak effectively to the issues of our day.

In Ezekiel 20, the leaders of Israel came to Ezekiel during their exile to inquire of the Lord. God tells them through the prophet, “How dare you come to ask me for a message?  As surely as I live… I will tell you nothing” (20:3 NLT).  Ezekiel brought instead a message of judgment and condemnation: “Make them realize how loathsome the actions of their ancestors really were” (v. 4). Through Ezekiel, God reminded the leaders of their ancestors’ behavior in Egypt, during their wilderness journey, and in the Promised Land:  “Their hearts were given to their idols” (v. 17). When they came into the Promised Land, they “continued to blaspheme and betray me “(v. 27). Sinful habits and attitudes were being passed  on through the generations. 

 Ezekiel warned the younger generation not to emulate their parents, “Then I warned their children and told them not to follow in their parents’ footsteps, defiling themselves with their idols” (Ezk. 20:18).  But they did not listen. “They refuse to keep my laws and follow my instructions, even though obeying them would have given them life” (Ezk. 20:21). They somehow thought they knew better than God.   

Each generation had rebelled against the Lord, refusing to obey the commandments given to them. God threatened to pour out his anger on them, but he relented. He withheld judgment “to protect the honor of my name among the nations who had seen my power in bringing them out of Egypt” (Ezk. 20:21). God withheld  his wrath out of concern for his reputation in faithfully leading his Israel and because he had pity on them:  “I pitied them and held back from destroying them in the wilderness” (Ezk. 20:7). Does God hold back his Judgment out of concern for his reputation and his loving kindness and  pity in our day.  I wonder!

God then told the people what he is doing in their day: “I gave them over to worthless customs and laws that would not lead to life.  I let them pollute themselves with the very gifts I had given them, and I allowed them to give their firstborn children as offerings to their gods – so I might devastate them to show them that I alone am the Lord” (Ezk. 20:25-26).  “Israel had turned God’s law upside down and rejected it, so that it became… a source of death, not life.  They had gone in for child sacrifice as if God had required it, perhaps even portrayed it as part of God’s law.  So Ezekiel portrays God as letting them do so – ending up in their own defilement and destruction” (Bible Speaks Today).  God gave them up to their persistent inversion of his law, resulting in their self-destruction.  

Paul describes something  similar in the New Testament, which should stand as a warning for our present generation.  In Romans 1, he speaks of God giving people over to “the sinful desires of their hearts” (v. 21), “to shameful lusts” (v. 26) and “to a depraved mind” (v. 28).  He concludes by saying, “They are fully aware of God’s death penalty for those who do these things, yet they go right ahead and do them anyway” (v. 32).  In II Thessalonians 2:10-11, Paul tells us, “He (Satan) will use every kind of wicked deception because they refuse to believe the truth that would save them. So God will send great deception upon them, and they will believe all these lies.”

My questions are these: Have we reached this point in our day?  Has God given us over and allowed a great deception? How long will God allow evil to spread as a cancer throughout our culture?  Ezekiel gives us a warning.  Men, we must defend against the lies of the enemy.