A Boomer in the Pew

Oral Roberts: God is the Ultimate Slot Machine Baby!

I will never forget, in the late 70's, reading Oral Robert's book The Miracle of Seed Faith.

I was 19 years old, attending a Christian liberal arts college, and one Sunday morning I happened across this man on television essentially telling me that God wants me rich.

I can still hear him taking 3 John 2 out of context:

"Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth."

From this, Robert's concocted the idea that if you gave God $10 (using seed faith), then God was obligated to significantly multiple your $10. Because God wants you rich, and healthy.

Furthermore, because God had taught this principle to Roberts, he worked the airwaves mightily to convince you to send your "seed faith" donations to him.  Through this deception Roberts raked in hundreds of millions.

I never bought into Robert's steaming pile of dog dung, but at the time I never really sought to understand why his teaching might be false.

Oral Roberts recently died at the age of 91.  As I look back on his legacy, I am saddened that his life was essentially that of a slot machine.  He would take your money, and promised that God would sound the slot machine bells with a promised reward.

From a practical point of view, I see no difference between Oral Roberts, and the lottery.  They both played on the same fallen desire.  Unfortunately for Roberts, he was messing with almighty God.

I will never forget hearing Robert's claim that if his television viewers didn't immediately send him millions of dollars, then God was going to take him to heaven on a particular day in the future.  I thought to myself, God take him, please!

ACK!  This man was deranged!

Unfortunately, one only needs to turn on Sunday morning television to find other charlatans following in his footsteps, and raking in millions of dollars.  Only now the message has a more post-modern twist. 

Now, it would seem, God wants me to have my best life now!

I don't know where Oral Roberts is today, and I am not going to speculate.  I do know that he is pushing up daisies, and he will stand before Messiah to account for his life. 

For those who treasure the beauty of Christ, and diligently seek to understand the Scripture's words, Oral Roberts left a wide swath of confused, and errant teaching.  He taught a path different from the Scripture's narrow path.

I sincerely hope that in his later years, he saw, and changed the error of his ways.

Jamie Rasmussen: Christmas is a Wonderful Time of Family and...Conflict?

The Christmas season is upon us, and a great many across our land are dreading this season because of unresolved conflicts that exist in their lives.

During Christmas, we might find ourselves in the same room with those with whom we harbor conflict, and this causes stress.  ACK!

In a most unusual Christmas-time message, Senior Pastor Jamie Rasmussen, of Scottsdale Bible Church, delivers a hard hitting, and instructive message on how to behave when we find conflict in our close relationships, and encourages us to observe the obedience of faith.

Please take 45 minutes to watch his video message, and see if you can't take the steam out of your conflict, and move towards healing, forgiveness, and love.  After all, these words of Christ are not merely nice suggestions, but commandments.

Jesus Christ: Born in a Barn and into Enormous Chaos

Contrary to our nation's post-modern proclivities, this nativity scene is not what Luke describes in the second chapter of his gospel.

Second century traditions put Jesus' likely birthplace in a barn, or perhaps even a cave. 

Furthermore, the time that God chose to send his Son couldn't have been more chaotic with Caesar Augustus at the helm of the Roman Empire proclaiming himself to be god.

Listen as Pastor Jamie Rasmussen describes how God, through Jesus Christ, entered into our public, and personal chaos and speaks peace and hope.

Immanuel, Angels Weeping Great Tears, and Joy to the World

Fragonard's manger scene, not unlike thousands of others such scenes, is a most common acquaintance during the Christmas season.

Are we not perhaps selfish to consider this scene from only our perspective?

What were the angels thinking as they gazed upon this most sacred manger scene? 

Certainly these heavenly beings watched, with bitter weeping, as Messiah stripped himself of his glory to become Immanuel.  The agony they must have felt as they had Gethsemane, and Calvary in view.

Armed with this frame of mind, their cries of "Glory to God in the Highest" presents significantly greater meaning.

Yes, this is the Babe that we love to sing about during Christmas.  But let us not forget why this Messiah is present.  He came to bear his Father's wrath.  He came to be rejected by his own.  He came to die.

Messiah is greatly worthy of our praise.  But, in order to understand all that is going on, we must only gaze upon heaven's angels.  There we will find great sorrow as their beloved Jesus comes to do his Father's will.

There is great, and sacred mystery here.  Work diligently to see, and understand all that Scriptures teach of this scene.

Forget not the angels most bitter tears.

It is only with angels tears upon our faces that we can truly sing Joy to the World.

J.I. Packer: We can Know a Great Deal About God yet not Know Him

One of the books I have been working my way through is J.I. Packer's Knowing God.

In his second chapter, Packer brings a most odious fact:  one can know a great deal about God, and even a great deal regarding godliness, and yet not even know God.

If you force upon yourself a prolonged rumination on this fact, it leaves a most uncomfortable feeling.

Imagine, if you will, a book about God, and God himself sitting in your study.  Packer is suggesting that many of us opt for the book about God, rather than building a relationship with God himself.

Packer lists four evidences of knowing God in this chapter, but I think it might be well for us to consider them rather an action list:

1.  Those who know God have great energy for God.

Packer is going to bring out the heavy guns right off the bat.  Here he means for us to understand that knowing God will produce a great deal of energy, which is followed up with action in our lives.  But most of all, "people who know their God are before anything else people who pray.  I am also quite certain that he means not the few lines before we fall asleep each night, or even perhaps an ongoing dialog throughout the day.  I suspect Packer means for us to haul out two comfortable chairs, and invest ourselves in meaningful, thoughtful, and prolonged dialog.  This would look no different, perhaps, then spending an afternoon catching up with your best friend. 

2.  Those who know God have great thoughts of God.

As we study God's revealed word about himself in the Scriptures, we gain a completely different view of God than our post-modern culture would dream.  God is sovereign, holy, creator of all, infinitely powerful, and capable of absolutely anything.  He is not Bono in pink sunglasses, traveling along our lives as a genie who we might rub on the head when we find ourselves in need.

3.  Those who know God show great boldness for God.

This is fairly clear.  Packer points us to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  Understanding the potential loss of their lives, they refused to worship Nebuchadnezzar's image, and were subsequently thrown into a fiery furnace, where to Nebuchadnezzar's dismay, they merely enjoyed a conversation with  "a son of the gods".

4.  Those who know God have great contentment in God.

If our lives are filled with real relationship with God, then we will not be anxious like the 12 disciples in the storm.  We will fully understand that our God even commands the storm, and is in full control of every molecule in the universe.

I have been greatly challenged by this chapter.  Certainly knowing about God, his laws, and his revealed word is important, but clearly, far more important is the relationship.  To be honest, and with great shame, I must admit that I put considerably more time into knowing of God, then actually knowing God.

I am pleased that Packer has opened the eyes quickly, and look forward to where he might point as I continue the counsel found in his wildly successful text.

Why is the World all Gaga about Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Series?

Evidently, Stephenie Meyer lives within a stones through of our home, here in North Scottsdale.

I have been observing the Twilight phenomena for quite some time. 

This young vampire love story has no particular calling to me, but I have been greatly curious as to why it has made such an impact on our culture.

John Granger, in his article Mormon Vampires in the Garden of Eden, brings forth a most informative survey of these novels. 

After reading his thesis, he captured my attention for the whole article:

"I suggest that the Twilight series is something for thoughtful people to be aware of and to think seriously about, first, because of its remarkable hold on the imagination of American readers and movie-goers, but second, and more important, because of the reason these books are so popular: They meet a spiritual need. Mircea Eliade, in his book The Sacred and the Profane, suggests that popular entertainment, especially imaginative literature and film, serves a religious or mythic function in a secular culture. When God is driven to the periphery of the public square, the human spiritual capacity longs for exercise, and it often finds it in the “suspension of disbelief” and activity of the imagination that are available in novels and movies."

Granger goes on to detail how Stephenie Meyer, drinking deeply from her Mormon faith, has created nothing short of a brilliant allegory of Mormonism, with a post-modern twist.

Our culture can't get enough of this type of allegory.  Seemingly, it shows us that we were created to worship, and if we won't worship God, then we will find something else to put in his place.

If our desire to worship can't be filled with money, sex, beauty, or any number of other idols, perhaps we will find contentment in the bloody fangs of a Mormon vampire.

There is a great deal here to consider.  Think about it!

HT - Justin Taylor

Kewpie Doll Lamps, Of Mice and Men, and a John Steinbeck Reading Group

From Of Mice and Men:

"I've knew people that if they got a rag rug on the floor an' a Kewpie doll lamp on the phonograph they think they're running a parlor house."

I am currently involved with a small group of folks, through the wonder of the Internet, who are reading John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.

The book revolves around the lives of lonely, single ranch hands who are eking out a meager existence while working on a California depression-era ranch.

Steinbeck's novel is rich with symbolism, and one that caught my attention was the Kewpie doll lamp.  I can remember these dolls being around my grandmother's house when I was a child.

It is interesting to watch the interactions of this pack of predominantly single men in this novel.  For various reasons, they all seem to be stuck in this lonely, and isolated segment of society where they break their backs for $50/month, play cards, shoot horseshoes, fight, drink, visit parlor houses, all while dreaming of a better life.

When I was in my late-20s, I found myself undesirably divorced and traveling in just such a pack of single men.  In my daily work-a-day life, I essentially lived amongst a pack of 30 single men.

Like Steinbeck's characters, many of these men who those who, for some reason or other, found themselves on the fringe, and running on a track to nowhere.

Interestingly enough, the Kewpie doll lamp was also singing its siren song to us, "Hey boys, after your long day of labor, why not comfort yourself in all that I have to offer.  I will help you forget your problems.  I possess a balm that will bring you comfort, and remove all your pain."

Like a man under the possession of a hypnotist, we would all head to the bar, spend every single cent we had, thereby putting us right back in the captivity of our task-master as we sought enough money to spend more time with the Kewpie, and continue the cycle of our dependence on her spell.

It was in these times that you learned of many, and widely varied worldviews, dreams, problems, addictions, financial woes, broken relationships, and an overwhelming sense of doom.

After a few years of this nonsense, I realized that I needed to break free, I started to resist the call of the Kewpie, and forced myself to become involved with groups of people who refused to listen to her calling.

It was my straying from the pack that I happened upon my bride.  She awakened a completely new sense of purpose, and I have never looked back. 

I believe that God somehow uses these things in our lives. 

Don't get me wrong, I am not suggesting that God approved of my "Kewpie days", but I do possess a number of wonderful friends from those days, a certain amount of street smarts, and a few painful lessons from these scarred days of my life.

When I look back, I can now see a few things:

• I believe that God kept his hand on me during my days of rebellion, and refused to let me go.
• Being in this trough with a bunch of men, has created a few very deep, and treasured relationships.
• I see a few of the men who have never pulled themselves out.  Now, twenty-plus years later, their dreams have turned from hope to dismay.
• I pray that I might be a helping hand to a few young man who also find themselves in the spell of the Kewpie.

Our current economic climate has more than a normal amount of men in this trough.  Please now pray a silent prayer for them.

Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men is a very short 100 pages, and will be completed by our group next week.

Question: Why do Evangelicals Seemingly Ignore the Liturgical Calendar?

Last Sunday was the first Sunday in the Liturgical Year, and the first Sunday of Advent.

Growing up in a little country Baptist church, and then from 16 years of age on, in non-denominational churches, I find that these calendars, celebrations, feasts, and fasts are completely foreign to me.

Having now nearly completely my first annual reading of the Bible, I find that the Jews had feasts, and celebrations all throughout the year.

Yet, in my evangelical world, it seemed that my church only celebrates Easter, and Christmas.

Moreover, those in my evangelical world, will celebrate Valentines Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and all matter of other secular celebrations.

Here's my question:  Why is this?  And why has my evangelical experience provided more secular celebration, rather than providing for something such as the celebrations contained in the Liturgical Calendar?

I understand the evangelical world's disdain regarding feasts for saints, and many of the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church, but haven't we perchance swung the pendulum to far in the other direction?

Contemplating the Manhattan Declaration and the Chief end of Theology

I have been giving quite a bit of thought to the controversy over the Manhattan Declaration.

I have also given equal meditation to my behavioral response to it, as well as to many others.

It seems to me that many, perhaps myself included, have lost the forest for the trees.

I wonder, is it possible that some hold a higher view of the Gospel than a real tangible relationship with God?  Has presumed knowledge of God exceeded relationship with God?

It seems to me, and J.I.Packer, that the chief aim of theology is "to know and enjoy God himself".  This implies a relationship.

If you were my neighbor, and you wanted to get to know me, it would be weird for you to study my worldview, write the precepts down, attempt to live by them, and doggedly encourage others to do the same.  No, if you wanted to get to know me, you would delight to spend time with me, we would talk, and this is how you would get to know me.

When I used the strong word sanctimonious in my previous writings on this subject, it was this tendency that I was rebelling against.  Not that God's word isn't perfect, and greatly desirable to know, and follow. 

But, isn't the relationship what God is looking for?  Would he be proud if we spent all our life studying his laws, but spent no time with him?  God is clearly judge, but not all judge, he is also love.

Did he not adopt us as sons, because he desires to have a relationship?

From J.I.Packer's Knowing God:

"We need to ask ourselves:  What is my ultimate aim and object in occupying my mind with these things?  What do I intend to do with my knowledge about God, once I have it?  For the fact that we have to face is this:  If we pursue theological knowledge for its own sake, it is bound to go bad on us.  It will make us proud and conceited.  The very greatness of the subject matter will intoxicate us, and we shall come to think of ourselves as a cut above other Christians because of our interest in it and grasp of it; and we shall look down on those whose theological ideas seem to us crude and inadequate and dismiss them as very poor specimens. For as Paul told the conceited Corinthians, "Knowledge puffs up...The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know" (1 Cor 8:1-2)"

It seems to me that we have seen some of this conceit on display as we have considered the Manhattan Declaration.

Let us dispense with the inter-family squabbles, and get about the business of influencing our culture with God's true truth.  Abortion is bad.  Religious freedom is good, and marriage = one man, and one woman.

How to Understand God's Ultimate Will for Your Life

All of us have at the core of our being a desperate longing.  Furthermore, all of us act in ways to find the source, and the meaning of this longing.

The Scriptures teach us that this longing came from our separation from God in Eden.  Jesus Christ then came, as God incarnate, to teach us that God has an ultimate will for each of us.  And that will is to completely satisfy this longing that we all corporately share.

The most surprising thing is the way in which God has chosen to do this. 

Please set aside 45 minutes as Dr. John Piper unpacks incredible testimony, and points us towards the words of Jesus Christ, as Christ himself describes God's ultimate will for our lives.