“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. ” (Col 3:16)
Never been to the Holy Land? Well, Google’s Satellite maps can give you a bird’s eye view of just about anywhere in the world. Check out the following link that has a very good tour of Passion Week. The days from Palm Sunday through his resurrection. Zoom in to see the street level view and also click on each day on the left hand navigation area. It will take you through each day and give you a little summary of those locations and days.
Oprah has started a new series of shows on spirituality. One of the shows I had a chance to watch was going behind the scenes with “the secret” and other positive thinking authors. These teachers teach about the power of positive thinking to transform our lives and our reality. Jenn and I watched this and throughout the show, paused and reflected on a number of their teachings in light of what we understand as truth. Of course, we consider Scripture to be the truth revealed from God. Some of you may agree and find our notes interesting and helpful. Others may disagree, but I hope you can notice that the biblical truths do sounds much better, and there is good reason to prefer the biblical truths over the truths presented by positive thinkers.
They talked about putting out our positive thoughts into the universe as if the universe was listening to our thoughts. As a result it can returned to you double what you put out. This sounds spiritual at first, and especially in the way they deliver it. They’ll tell you, give it a try and see if it works. This is their way of confirming it. If you put out positive thoughts about something and it eventually happens, then they must be describing reality truthfully and it must be real. One of the teachers said it also has to do with quantum physics and the mysterious forms of energy which we have power to control. This has huge problems in a universe made by an all powerful God. First of all, the universe was created by God and the only intelligence it exhibits and displays is the intelligent design that God gave it. The universe does not think on it’s own or interact with us in intelligent ways. There are certainly natural responses to our human behaviors, and global warming is definitely a large scale example of that. However, the universe does not have the power to orchestrate events and coordinate the actions of a multitude of people to satisfy our positive thoughts. Only God has the power to make such amazing calculations and coordinations of events to plan and foresee all possible alternative outcomes and insure that one predetermined outcome occurs. This is only in the hands of a supreme being who is able to perceive all things and effect all things in a single instance and in every place at any time. It is a mistake to attribute this power to the universe and fail to acknowledge God. If people do indeed experience blessings from their positive thoughts, it is only because of God’s common grace, that he gives to believers and unbelievers freely and graciously.
“In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”” (Acts 14:16-17, ESV)
God is gracious to us that we should recognize this grace and give proper recognition, respect and adoration to him. However, these positive thinkers give the credit, adoration and respect to themselves, attributing the power to be all from within them, and praising themselves for their positive thoughts.
They teach positive thinking is a power that we can all harness to change our lives. This idea of using positive thinking completely ignores the ultimate authority and controller of the entire universe, God. It attempts to make us the people who are in control of our lives. We become the authority over what should happen in our lives. God no longer has his right place of authority to tell us what we should be doing. It also ignores the fact that bad things do happen to good people. For example, starving people in Africa continue to suffer. This is not because they have failed to think positive. On the hand, consider rich people do make lots of money. Greedy and evil people continue to exploit others and live in luxury with the money they make. Although they may think evil and negative continually, they still manage to make lots of money. The secret does not adequately address this reality. However, the Bible addresses this properly and explains why this all happens. Jesus is the perfect example of someone who was a man of hope, love and forgiveness, however, he did not live for the purpose of transforming his own life. He lived for God’s greater purpose and it was a plan that involved the salvation of our souls. The positive thinkers will teach you to make a vision board and put your visions there to make it a reality. I would challenge these positive thinkers to come up with the plan of salvation on their vision board! Who would ever dream of making a life like Jesus? Yet, there was no better life lived, than that of Jesus. And each one of us should not look to a vision board for guidance, but look to following Jesus and learning what God wants us to do. This is found in the Scriptures, not on a vision board.
Positive thinkers recast everything as a means of benefit the self. What is it that you want for yourself? Even forgiveness is for the purpose of letting something go in order for the benefit of yourself. Their idea of forgiveness is meant to have a benefit for yourself rather than a benefit of the person being forgiven. This is not true forgiveness. True forgiveness is meant to benefit the person being forgiven. The person being forgiven no longer has the weight of their sin as a burden that causes separation in their relationship with the person who forgave them. Sure, when we forgive others, there is a benefit in that we avoid bitterness that can harden and bitter our hearts. But it is more importantly meant to restore the relationship with the person being forgiven so that we no longer count those sins against them. The ultimate act of forgiveness is the forgiveness of sins which Jesus earned by his death on the cross. Jesus went even one step further by not only earning forgiveness for us and but also bearing the penalty of our sins upon himself. And let’s be reminded that this was not any small penalty but it was the wrath of God against all the sins of those who he saves. Although many of us know that he suffered crucifixion, which is the most horrible and painful way to die, we may never truly understand the immensity of the wrath of God that he bore for us. He welcomes us to receive the benefits of forgiveness in our lives today and into an eternity by escaping the wrath of God on ourselves. If God acted in the way these positive thinkers describe forgiveness, he would have forgot about our sins, went away on some other business and left us to die, followed by an eternity of separation from Himself and eternal punishment for ourselves. Now that sounds horrible compared to the Bible’s description of God’s forgiveness? I think the Bible’s description of forgiveness and especially the forgiveness exemplified in Christ is far superior to anything you will find in the world.
They claim the purpose of us being here is to evolve our consciousness as spiritual beings. Although this sounds deeper than the shallow thinking of materialistic living, it still falls far short of finding truth. Where do they find the confirmation of this statement of our reason for existence. How can we humans, being the thing made, truly understand the reason for existing apart from the the Creator telling us. All our attempts at understanding the reason for our existence are going to amount to speculation. What could be better than God, our Creator explicitly telling us the purpose for our existence. And furthermore, he confirmed it over and over again through Scripture by performing miracles. However, what confirmation do these people on Oprah have? None of them have split the Red Sea, caused fire to come from heaven, raise the dead, resurrect from the dead, or heal leprous diseases. These are all examples of incredible miracles that confirmed the messages from God that we find in the Bible.
They don’t give credit to God as the person who has all things under his control. They think that they have power to better the planet with their positive thinking, however this grossly overestimates the influence they have on the world around them and the control they have of the world events that are far beyond their control. However, Christians have the benefit of knowing there is an all powerful ruler of the universe who has power infinitely stronger than all our positive thoughts put together. He tells us where history is going. One day, Jesus, His Son will return, judge the earth and redeem those who believe in him. I would much rather put my faith in a God with this sort of power than having faith that the sum total of a bunch of positive thoughts have some positive effect that is yet to even be determined. Christians should be thankful that God has determined what will happen, it is good for us and it is under his ability to carry it out. God has been faithful in the past, he has been faithful for us today, and we can trust in his faithfulness to continue into the future. And we can also be thankful that he does not depend on our thoughts to carry them out.
I would hope that no one takes this positive thinking seriously and that everyone seriously considers the message of the Bible. Christians have no business dabbling in this positive thinking. The Bible is sufficient to explain every rule of faith and practice. God provided all that we need in His Word and we should look no further. For non Christians, I hope that you can see the superiority of the Bible and if my notes here did not give you a glimpse of it’s superiority, I hope that you could spend some serious time evaluating it for yourself. Please feel free to send me any questions and open discussion in any way you like. I would love to hear form you.
In reading through Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, he made an observation about government and evil that I think is very important for people to recognize.
One of the primary means God uses to restrain evil in the world is human government. Human laws and police forces and judicial systems provide a powerful deterrent to evil actions, and these are necessary, for there is much evil in the world that is irrational and that can only be restrained by force, because it will not be deterred by reason or education.
First, we can be thankful that there is not more evil in the world than we currently have. R.C. Sproul had also commented on one of his sermons, that it is by the grace of God that we don’t have ten thousand guys with guns coming at us everyday. God does a work of restraining the conscience by writing his law on our hearts and by instituting government to restrain evil by force.
I’ve heard over and over again in the world, the philosophy that we could solve social evils by educating people. If people were simply smarter, there would be a lot less evil in the world. While it’s true that true wisdom and knowledge will lead to good, this overlooks the fact that ultimately, evil is irrational, and no amount of reasoning will cure this fact. If someone wants to persist in doing evil, they are simply deluded into following the course of actions which carry out their evil desires. Although evil deeds may be well planned and thought out and using impressive displays of intelligence, are ultimately irrational and does not cooperate with rational and wise thinking. It is not education, which will remedy the situation, it is government and human force that will put a stop to it.
While it is true that it often does not solve the irrational thinking, it provides a way to display the consequence of evil. When a person who steals is by force put in jail and forced to pay a fine, this is a real life judgment and consequence for the sin. Without such forceful measures, the person may benefit in their sin and their evil, irrational thinking will continue to entice them into further sin and perhaps more heinous sins. However when stopped by force, they are forced to pay consequence for their sin and if they are not totally hardened, there is the real possibility that they will in their hearts, turn from their sin. In this turning from sin, education is important to inform people of the right way to go and the right kind of thinking.
Within our borders, the police are meant to be the local restraint against evil. In the greater world, armies of nations are meant to be the global restraint against evil. Everyone would agree that the defeat of the Nazi’s were a successful display of forceful restraint. Our current conflict in Iraq is a little more difficult to judge. However, we should be careful in our judgment and recognize the dreadful consequences of sin and evil. It certainly causes death and destruction, and when the evil is on a large scale, the death and destruction are also on a large scale. Although none of us are truly innocent under the law of God, there are men and women who are innocent of any crime under the law of man, who will loose their lives as a result of the display of force that accompanies large scale war. And it is appropriate that none of us like it. But we must also remember, the solution is never going to be education. Our hope would be equally irrational and misguided to place our hope in educational as the savior from social evils.
We should take the time to be reminded of how evil, evil truly is. Our desire should be to turn to the one being in this universe who is the stable and perfect good. What was his solution to this problem? What is God’s remedy for evil? God sent his Son Jesus Christ to ultimately conquer evil once and for all. While he was being crucified and experiencing the consequence of our sins, onlookers didn’t think that he had obtained victory. However, later, he rose from the dead, displaying his power and victory over sin. He has ultimately overcome evil for all and making this victory commonly available to all who would believe and ultimately be saved from both the consequences of evil in this world and eternity.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” (John 3:16-21, ESV)
One wonderful thing that happens when becoming a Christian is that you join a body of believers that spans centuries of time. There are now approximately 2000 years where Christians have walked the same path towards a closer and deeper relationship with the God who sent His Son Jesus Christ to be our Savior. Throughout these years, God has raised men with extraordinarily gifts to teach. Although many of them have passed away since then, they have left their writings. However, their writing will be of no benefit to us unless someone publishes them. Fortunately, R.C. Sproul formed a publishing company called Reformation Trust and he also purchase Soli Deo Gloria publication and is continuing to keep some of these writing in circulation. In particular, he is republishing some of the great puritan writers. He has a very fascinating article that overviews the reasons to read the Puritans and he also published a book which is a guide to the Puritans.
Some of you may remember when National Geographic had produced some shows about the lost Gnostic gospel called the Gospel of Judas. I wouldn’t write about this if I didn’t think it was important, but in my very own family, I’ve heard my mother claim that they are discovering new scripture and the Bible is being rewritten. This is undoubtedly the influence of National Geographic’s work on the Gnostic gospel of Judas where the National Geographic Society put forward the idea that the Biblical text needs to be revised according to this new discovery.
Let’s first of all understand that the gnostic gospels are not a new discovery. During the early church, shortly after the death of Christ, a sect of people known as the Gnostics were already developing their own teachings that were contrary and opposed to the teachings of the Christians. They were known for their distortions and false teachings in the early church and it of course followed that none of their writings were considered to have any authority or claims to be God’s Word. It would be equivalent to taking the writings of some quack doctor who is clearly fraudulent to everyone in his midst and trying to get the medical professionals to adopt his methods. It just doesn’t happen. Yet we know very well, that nevertheless, people become victims of these quack doctors despite the obviousness to everyone else. So it is with the Gnostic gospels. The early church clearly recognized their fraudulent nature and they were never even considered for a moment for inclusion into the Bible.
So now we have National Geographic that finds this text and makes major headlines about it’s discovery, claiming that it contains hidden revelation that will shake the foundations of the Bible. Well, it turns out that this landmark discovery by National Geographic was never release for peer review by scholars near and far. They had kept it to themselves for translation and interpretation by only themselves. However, after they had aired their shows about the Gospel of Judas and after many of the public has already become convinced of their claims, the National Geographic has finally released the text for review by the public.
Now here’s the shocker (with a little sarcasm), the National Geographic society made previous errors in translating the text. Even people who are not Christians, but know the original languages are saying that Judas was not being portrayed as a hero in the text, but as a demon. And of course, the list of errors goes on. In short, National Geographic seems to have a bias against Christianity in this fiasco of attacking the credibility of the Bible using text that they did not allow for extensive review by professionals near and far. They released false information to the public, leading the public to believe them. I used to think National Geographic was a responsible organization that is good for education of our children, but it is clear that they cannot be trusted to give truthful information, especially when it comes to information about the most important truths relating to God and Jesus Christ. But Christian’s should not be surprised, these attacks on the Bible will continue.
I’m thankful that in the end, the information has been released and that the Bible once again comes out a victor against yet another attack. We can be thankful that God has preserved His Word for the generations and it will always prove itself as authentic and authoritative. And the proper response is to believe and trust in our Saviour Jesus Christ, take up our cross and follow Him.
For more on this story, click here to read Albert Mohler’s article.
