Crossward

May 22, 2011

Dear Harold Camping Exiles,

I am so sorry that you had to go through this.

Perhaps for years you have been listening to Mr. Camping on Family Radio and have been convinced by his teachings to leave (or not attend) a local congregation, and that you would be raptured, well, yesterday.  My intention with this letter is not to gloat but to emphasize, exhort, and encourage.  I can only imagine the anticipation you must have felt during the days, months, or years leading up to yesterday.  There is no higher anticipation that I can think of than to finally and permanently be rescued from this dying, sinful world and be ushered into the presence of Almighty God.  I also cannot even imagine the depths of despair you may have reached when that expectation was not met.  The immeasurable joy of the expectation of salvation can only be equaled by the immeasurable sadness when it doesn’t happen.  I am grieving with you, not rejoicing over Mr. Camping’s failed prophecy, for today is a sad day for many.

I am sure Mr. Camping is about to come out with all sorts of reasons as to why his prediction was incorrect.  Perhaps he is saying (or will say) that this was another miscalculation on his part, as he did when his 1994 prediction failed, too.  Perhaps he will say that God has postponed judgment a la Nineveh (Jonah 3:10) and he knows this because of some new insight/enlightenment.  I don’t know.  My hope and prayer is that this failed prophecy will awaken you to some truths about God and his methods.

But please do not despair.

You see, Jesus Christ is going to come back for his people.  One day, we will be raptured.  Mr. Camping’s failure is not a reflection on God.  God did not fail for his Word cannot fail (Rom 9:6).  Mr. Camping failed (Deut 18:21-22).  Acts 17:30-31 tells us that God “has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”  That Day of Judgment is immovable; it is fixed.  Mr. Camping was wrong and, as long as he continues to espouse and tweak his complicated date-projecting system, he always will be wrong.  Let God be true and every man a liar (Rom 3:4).  God will redeem his people at exactly the right time — his time.  It simply is not necessary to know when that time is.  It is not a central part of Scripture, let alone Jesus’ teachings.  The Bible is about who God is, who man is, how he sinned against God, and what God has done to reconcile us to him.

In truth, I pray you are thankful that Mr. Camping’s prediction did not happen.  Why?  Because God is bigger and better and holier than can be figured out by an elaborate system of numerology and mystical revelation.  His ways are higher and his thoughts are loftier than even Mr. Camping could imagine (Isa 55:8-9).  God is absolutely sovereign and his purpose will be accomplished (Isa 46:8-11).  Rejoice that he will keep promises and that his name will not be defamed by false prophets!  His council will stand.  He will return for his people, just like he promised Abraham he would redeem his descendants from Egypt before they were even there (Gen 15:13-16).  God is pure and holy and right.  He hates sin and rebellion is right to judge it.

This is why man is under his wrath.  We have sinned against him (Psa 51:4; Rom 3:9,23).  We have rejected his law and suppressed the truth of his power and wrath (Rom 1:18-22).  Our rebellion is so deep and so complete that God considers us “dead” in our transgressions (Eph 2:1, 5), unable to muster faith of our own accord (cf Jer 13:23; 17:9; John 3:5-8).  We are, by nature, idolaters and adulterers.  We not only need to be saved from this fallen earth, but to be saved from our sinful selves.  We are slaves to our sin and, without grace, we would have no hope (Rom 6:16-20).

The good news is that Jesus Christ died for us while we still these horrible rebels (Rom 5:8).  He took the judgment that was due us upon himself (Isa 53:5-6, 8, 11; Gal 3:13; Rom 4:25).  He alone extinguished God’s wrath (Rom 3:25; Heb 2:17).  He stood in our place.  He made atonement.  He purchased us and redeemed us.  We are his through the blood and work of Jesus Christ.  For those who do not repent of their sins and place their faith in the person and work Christ, only judgment and eternal punishment remain (John 3:18; Rev 20:11-15).

But this is not just forensic.  He actually saves us from our sins.  He has granted us repentance (cf 2 Tim 2:25) and given us new hearts with a new disposition (2 Cor 5:17).  He has given us a desire to flee sin and pursue righteousness (Rom 6).  And he promises to work this out until we are finally called home (Php 1:6; 1 Pet 1:5), never leaving nor forsaking us (Deut 31:6,8; Heb 13:5).  This promise stands and is as good as fulfilled (Rom 8:28-30).  We have his down payment (2 Cor 1:22; Eph 1:13; 4:30).  And our inheritance includes both the enjoyment of God in full and the eradication of sin completely (Rev 21:3-8, 27).

At this point, I pray that you will see that part of this “working out salvation” (cf Php 2:12) is that Christians are a special people.  We are the chosen ones.  We didn’t choose him; he chose us (John 15:16).  By grace we have been saved through faith (Eph 2:8-9).  We are the ones called out by God (Rom 8:28; 9:24; 1 Cor 1:9).  We are part and parcel the “called out ones.”  In fact, that is what the word “church” means in the New Testament.  It is the Greek word ekklesia, and it is an assembly of “called out ones.”  That is why it is impossible to be called out of the church, because the church itself is already “called out” from the world.  The entire New Testament presupposes the church and local assemblies of it.  Dear brothers and sisters, you must be in fellowship with your fellow believers.  It is the Lord’s command.  Heb 10:25 doesn’t just say to meet together, but all the more as we approach the Day of Judgment.  We are to meet more and encourage more – not less or not at all.  It protects against falling victim to those who espouse false prophecies and false gospels.  This fellowship protects against the wolves in sheep’s clothing.  1 John is an excellent epistle exemplifying this.  Yes, there are false and, plainly, bad churches out there but it is not as if God has left us without defense against their whims.  The Bereans wisely checked Paul’s teaching against Scripture (Acts 17:11).  In fact, churches are to hold their elders and teachers accountable.

Again, I am sorry you have had to go through this and my hope is that, in time, you will see God’s grace in allowing you to survive and reflect on your experience with Mr. Camping.  Embrace the gospel as it is revealed plainly in God’s word.  There is no Scripture that can support the notion that secret systems and prophetic revelation are needed to understand God’s purposes.  People do not accept the gospel because their hearts are hard (Rom 1:21), not because they lack special revelation.

I exhort you to resist the urge to let embarrassment or guilt for having believed Mr. Camping to cast God off all together.  God is calling you.  Today.

[6] Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, [7] again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” [8] For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. [9] So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, [10] for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. [11] Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.
(Heb 4:6-11)

In Christ
Tom

Recently my lovely wife and I were serving in the two-year old’s nursery.  We enjoy serving the body in this way and it gives us the opportunity to serve together, which is something that we’ve always wanted to do.

In our church, there is a Bible-saturated curriculum for students, which gets progressively more demanding as one progresses through grade levels.  At the two-year old level, this mostly consists of reading Bible stories, songs, prayer, and “in-the-flow” lessons about character.  Basic stuff, nothing earth-shattering.

Anyway, last Sunday I was reading the kids one of the stories out of one of those picture Bibles for children.  (I can’t remember the name or publisher offhand.)  The story I was reading was about David and Goliath.  The pictures were of a skinny little kid version of David, a big monster of Goliath, and an emphasis on David’s, er, lack of size.  When David tried on Saul’s armor, it was cartoonishly large, with his hands poking out of the armholes.

Overall this picture Bible is ok, but something struck me: this isn’t the Biblical version of the story of David and Goliath.  In fact, most child Bibles have the same or similar versions as this one.  Here’s the real exchange in 1 Sam:

31 When the words which David spoke were heard, they told them to Saul, and he sent for him. 32 David said to Saul, “Let no man’s heart fail on account of him; your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.” 33 Then Saul said to David, “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are but a youth while he has been a warrior from his youth.” 34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant was tending his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and took a lamb from the flock, 35 I went out after him and attacked him, and rescued it from his mouth ; and when he rose up against me, I seized him by his beard and struck him and killed him. 36 “Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear ; and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, since he has taunted the armies of the living God.” 37 And David said, “The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” And Saul said to David, “Go, and may the LORD be with you.” 38 Then Saul clothed David with his garments and put a bronze helmet on his head, and he clothed him with armor. 39 David girded his sword over his armor and tried to walk, for he had not tested them. So David said to Saul, “I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them.” And David took them off . 40 He took his stick in his hand and chose for himself five smooth stones from the brook, and put them in the shepherd’s bag which he had, even in his pouch, and his sling was in his hand ; and he approached the Philistine.
(1 Sam 17)

Now, look, David is called a youth but he was no little kid.  No little kid is going to be attacking lions and bears, grabbing their manes, and striking and killing him.  Further, no little kid is going to be described as “a mighty man of valor, a warrior, one prudent in speech, and a handsome man” (1 Sam 16:18), much less going to be Saul’s armor-bearer (1 Sam 16:21), a position which requires size and strength.  David was a strong, intelligent, formidable, grown young man.

The issue with the armor in chapter 17 is that David had not “tested them” (v39).  Whether David was used to wearing armor or not, no soldier wants to go into battle with equipment he is not used to.  It wasn’t his stuff.  That was the issue. This story is one among many “popular” kid stories which are just told wrong.

But here’s the rub: misrepresentations such as this — even in a kiddie story — are actually folders in the “contexualization” file.  When we seek to make the Bible “relevant” in the sense of trying to make it “fit” a particular audience, we’re not doing anyone any favors.  In an effort to “reach” little kids, we don’t need to make David a little kid.  He was an adult, maybe close to the same age as some of these kids’ parents.  A child can understand daunting odds without needing to kidify the main character.

For one, it shows a lack of reverence for God’s Word and a lack of trust in its sufficiency.  The Bible is real history.  If you really think you need to change the stories to make them understandable, ultimately this is a lack of faith.  Scripture is sufficient.  We ought not be afraid to tell children what really happens.  God didn’t supply alternate, kid-friendly versions to history.  He commanded his children to teach his Law diligently to their children (Deut 6:6-7).

For two, I can imagine that this only adds a level of disillusionment.  When you grow up thinking David was some kind of child king, like the kid in The Last Emperor, you’re going to have to shake off a lot of excess baggage when it comes to reading the Bible for yourself and meditating on its lessons.  I didn’t grow up in the church but I had (or have) some of the same misconceptions about things in the Bible as many people who did.

All of that to say: parents, be diligent to show respect for your God by respecting his Word in front of your children.  We can respect his Word by teaching it accurately and unapologetically.  There’s nothing wrong with kid-friendly Bibles per se, but if there is something not true to Scripture in it, we need to either ditch it and find something more Bible-y, explain how the story is inaccurate, and/or make ad hoc edits to the story as we read.  We cannot compromise truth for the sake of contextualizing the Bible for our young’ns.  Might as well shoot yourself in the foot!

(By the way, if you’re looking for a solid picture Bible for children, I would recommend The Jesus Storybook Bible.  It maintains the integrity of stories and is probably more Christ-centric then most adult study Bibles.  Some of it will be over-the-heads of a two-year-old but I think they’ll get the gist of it.)

Blessings
Tom

In this mini-series, I’m taking a quick look at today’s altar call and its place in the corporate worship service.  While the altar call in its various forms has a biblical function — to call sinners to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ — its form can be confusing.  First, if the gospel is not proclaimed in and through the service itself, the altar call can be a deceptive and fruitless endeavor.  Second, the administration of the altar call can be wrought with danger.  Today we will take a closer look at these dangers.

1. The choice to place faith in Jesus Christ is first a deeply personal one, not necessarily a public one.  In Luke 14:28, Jesus likened the decision to be his disciple to one who counts the cost of building a house: one must first count the cost.  When a public confession is so quickly requested in the form of (for example) walking the aisle or raising the hand, hasty decisions rather than well thought-out ones can be made.  While a) there is certainly an urgency in the message, and b) people can certainly make sincere, informed decisions quickly, the method itself can discount the necessity of sitting with the gospel, endeavoring to understand it, and understanding the cost in believing it.  Calling for an immediate display of faith can be counter-productive (which I will discuss later).  It is one thing to demand a person’s reaction to the gospel; it is another to give them the impression that the public awaits.  In short, the command to repent and believe should not be conflated with the command to be baptized, which is the biblical means of identifying oneself publicly with Christ.  These are two separate functions.  Conflating them confuses and pressures the hearer.

2. Relatedly, the faith and repentance is a mental decision, not an emotional one. “Counting the cost” implies that one perform an evaluation.  Oftentimes altar calls are given over the span of a few minutes.  There is this kind of mounting urgency which says, “You only have a few minutes left to make this decision and then it’s too late… or you’ll just have to wait until next week.”  While music can (and should, wisely) be used to manipulate emotions in certain circumstances, a call to repentance isn’t one of them.  Repentance is a changing of one’s mind about sin.

Stores are laid out in such a way that makes their products look tantalizing to the consumer.  Skinny mannequins are dressed in attractive ensembles.  Music reflecting the “style” is played.  The temperature is warm to make you want to stay.  Clothes are accessible to allow for touching and seeing.  In short, stores and advertisers manipulate the senses to make the product more attractive.  It’s a subtly deceptive tactic and it relies on the naivety of the consumer.  But should we buy mortgages this way?  Or choose our careers?  Or our spouses?  By thinking with our senses rather than our minds?  Of course not; these are decisions with huge impacts on our lives.  Becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ is a weighty decision and it should be given its proper space, not influenced by the anticipation of public reception, music, or fear of being the only one not walking up to the front.  The call to Christ is a call to think about it.  We’ve all regretted decisions made in haste, when we didn’t get a chance to think about it; we should not be creating an environment that promotes making a hasty decision about the most important thing in his life.

3. Salvation is a process, not a point in time. I know I’m stepping on a least a few toes here.  Yes, at the moment one places his faith in Christ, it’s a done deal.  Rather, it’s as good as a done deal because of the security of God’s promise to complete it (cf Php 1:6).  That’s what Rom 8:28-30 is getting at.  But salvation entails justification, sanctification, and glorification.  We are saved, being saved, and will be saved, all in different senses.  If an altar call is conducted in such a way that it over-emphasizes the importance of the moment – rather than the importance of the life-long moments — it opens the door to danger.

Believers understand both that they have been saved from sin, but also that they are being saved from their sins.  Repentance is an attitude, a disposition — not a moment in time per se.  A proper call to repentance will communicate this, the general call to the hatred of sin, not a particular call to stop sinning.  A bad altar call will place the emphasis on the moment, which may leave the person relying on the fact that he took an action at a certain time — not that his disposition about God and sin changes.  This creates no less than a false convert, which puts the person in a worse position than he was before (cf 2 Pet 2:20-22)!  A person whose trust is in a moment in time and thinks he no longer needs saving is worse off than the person who realizes God changes his heart about sin over time.  His trust is ultimately in himself, not the person and work of Jesus.  Is the person placing his faith in Jesus and his redemption… or it is in the fact that walked an aisle, raised a hand, or said a prayer 20 years ago?  Faith isn’t a moment in time; it’s a ongoing trust in the redemptive promises of God.

Conclusion

There are, of course, many other factors that should be considered in whether or how an altar call is administered.  Above all, we need to trust that God is at work and is alone responsible for the salvation of sinners.  No one will be lost if a formal altar call is not offered at the closing of service; then again, if we do not charge our assembly to responding, we are failing in our own charge to make disciples.  Our churches ought to be environments where one is comfortable in approaching our pastors or laypersons and expressing their new-found faith in God or to ask questions.  But we must carefully weigh the supposed “pro” of the altar call, which provides a public mechanism of that, with the cons, which can have quite the opposite effect.  An altar call — if any formal time at all is set aside — ought to be administered in such a way that the gospel in its entirety is clear, and that the assembly understands what they are being called to repent of and believe in.  It ought not to be manipulative in any way and should respect the moving of the Spirit on one’s heart and mind.  Above all this, this starts with the service as a whole, not as some kind of obligatory add-on to the message.

Thoughts are welcome!

In Christ,
Tom

I’m taking a brief look at altar calls.  Last time, we saw that the altar calls in its purest form serves a biblical function in the context of the corporate worship service, namely to call sinners to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.  But there are also other ways that same function are fulfilled, both in and out of the worship service.  So we must discern whether or not the altar call — and how it is administered — is really the best way to fulfill that function.

Is It the Wisest Way to Fulfill that Function?

Depending on how this altar call is administered, the answer can be clearly yes, or clearly no.  Again, we need to look at the altar call in the greater context of the worship service itself.

The preaching especially ought to be giving attention to the gospel.  At the heart of exposition is the gospel.  An explanation of the text without having its context as the gospel is no explanation.  This is not to say that all passages in Scripture lend themselves naturally to an evangelistic sermon but, rather, the sermon itself ought to inherently be a call to repent and believe, and to live out that decision.  Put another way, the altar call should not be the first time the assembly is hearing the gospel, much less being charged with a response to it.

In short, when the service in general — and the sermon in particular — itself is a call to repent and believe, the altar call in its function should be redundant (which isn’t bad, by the way).  The charge to repent and believe should be the natural product of what the service has born witness to up until that point.  We ought to charge those in attendance to think and pray about what they have just heard and witnessed.

However, there can be two dangers with the way altar calls take shape.  First, the problem with many altar calls in today’s churches is not necessarily that they happen — it’s that they are an afterthought.  The altar call makes no sense if all one has heard up until that point is any of today’s watered-down “sermons.”  Financial problems, wayward children, meaningless jobs, depression, crumbling marriages… these are all real problems all people face, including Christians.  And when the text or occasion lends itself to addressing these issues, then the issues should be addressed.  However, to address these issues (as many sermons do) without the backdrop of the gospel — including the bad news of the judgment of sin (Rom 1:18-Rom 3:20) — makes the typical altar call a useless and even deceptive exercise.  The gospel is the foundation, not the roof (cf 1 Cor 3:11).  When tacked on to the end of an impotent sermon like this the altar call is, at best, an undefined, ambiguous call to repentance or, at worst, the solution offered to temporal problems.  In both cases, the altar call winds up not fulfilling its theoretical function.  The danger in this is self-evident: it’s not actually proclaiming the imperative of the gospel and, thus, the hearer can’t be responding to the right thing.

Imagine hearing a sermon dedicated almost exclusively to how God can comfort you in your trials, and then being told to believe on Jesus.  Does this come across as an explanation of a holy and just God, a declaration of your damning sin, and a command to flee your sinful lifestyle and seek refuge in the propitiating sacrifice of Christ?  Or does it come across as simply describing Jesus as a solution to your temporary problems?  No wonder people flock to altar and produce false converts: they’ve just been told Jesus will fix their problems.  But that’s not the gospel, and that’s not fulfilling our charge to make true disciples that live out the gospel.

Second, even if the true gospel has been carefully explained up until this point, a danger lies in the administration of the altar call.  Here we need to think about what the response to repentance and faith is and should look like, and decide if the form of an altar call contradicts that.  There are three points I want to focus on:

1. The choice to place faith in Jesus Christ is first a deeply personal one, not necessarily a public one.

2. Relatedly, the faith and repentance is a mental decision, not an emotional one.

3. Salvation is a process, not a point in time.

I will flesh these out next time and wrap up the series.

In Christ
Tom

Initially I had just a few random thoughts on altar calls but it turned out I have more thoughts than I thought (?).  So this is going to be a mini-series, with a few quick-hitter posts.

Altar calls have garnered a lot of attention in the Christian world and have drawn some criticism particularly from the Reformed side of the camp.  What is the big deal?  Why should altar calls be (or not be) used?  I’m going to take a stab at exploring the issue a little bit here.

First a few disclaimers: 1) I am hardly the first person to look at this.  There’s plenty of good resources on ‘Net.  One good place to start is here. 2) As doctrinal priorities go, altar calls are fairly low on my totem pole.  Depending on the context and manner which they are administered, however, they can move up that pole.

Form vs. Function

Altar calls did not start in a vacuum.  Determining what to do with it needs to start much higher and placed in the context of the corporate worship service as a whole.  The basic questions are:

• What are the functions of the worship service?
• What are the biblical and wisest ways to perform those functions?

Only in that framework can the pros and cons of the altar call — and how it should be administered — be weighed.  So what is the function of the altar call?  Is it something that a corporate worship service should endeavor to do?  Let’s start there.

When we think of an altar call, we typically think of something that has one or more of the following characteristics:

• An invitation to come to the front of the assembly (e.g. “walk the aisle”) to accept Jesus.
• Praying the Sinner’s Prayer along with the preacher, out loud or “in your heart.”
• Music playing in the background.
• The preacher may ask people to raise their hands to identify who is praying.

In general, most folks will agree that the purpose of the altar call is to call people to Christ.  At its core, that is a biblical, evangelistic function.  The church — the people of God — are commanded to herald the name of Jesus Christ, his salvation, and to make disciples (Matt 28:19-20; Mark 1:15; 6:12; 16:15; Acts 17:30; etc.).  Even if you are adamantly against the practice of altar calls, you cannot call yourself a Bible-believing a rejects its function.  We would all do well to remember that.

However, the altar call is not the only form that fulfills this function.  The call to repent and believe is a charge, to be sure, and it should be happening all around us, in and out of the corporate worship service.  In reality, the entire worship service should, in some sense, be fulfilling this commission.  Jesus Christ and his gospel are the basis and foundation for all of our worship activities — prayer, reading, preaching, singing, giving, etc.

Thus, at least the function that the altar call is supposed to fulfill is a biblical one.  The question becomes, then, is the altar call as we know it today really the best way to be obedient to the command to call sinners to repentance?  We’ll take a look at that next time.

In Christ
Tom