Christianity and the Scales of Justice

The scales of justice, and the Lady depicted often with them is symbolic of weighing evidence against an accused person for committing a crime.  Often the statue is blindfolded which symbolizes impartiality, that the case would be weighed and measured by its merits only, not on appearances, wealth, status, etc.  So how does this relate to Christianity?

All religions world-wide except for orthodox Christianity have what is called a works-based salvation.  In order to be saved, you must do more good than bad.  They take this scales of justice and create a balance of good vs. bad (they were never meant to measure a criminals goodness vs. vileness...).  If you do more good than bad, you will be accepted into heaven.  I once asked a Muslim if he was going to heaven, and his answer was that there was no way of knowing, and that in itself was motivation to continue to "do good things."  He was content with finding out what God would say when he meets him after death.  I think he was being somewhat dishonest.  I think that he stopped thinking about his salvation because if he were to think about it, he would realize that he has a lot of work to do, and that in fact he'd be in a lot of trouble.  This is not just a Muslim problem, but one that has infected Christian circles as well.  

In our society of spirituality, there are many that think they are "good" people and that God, if He is in fact a loving God, HAS to let them into heaven on their merits.  They are looking to the scales of justice as a scale of "goodness" and they believe because they haven't killed anyone, they qualify as good.  Ask many church goers today and you will hear much of the same stuff.  Where does Jesus come in?  Let's look at what Jesus says about what is good.  He says in Mark 10:17-18: 17 uAnd as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and vknelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to winherit eternal life?” 18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.

If only God is good, then where does that leave us?  Jesus says to his followers in Matthew 7:11 "11 If you then, dwho are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will zyour Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!"  We are evil in all we do.  Even if we were to use the scales of justice incorrectly as a means of goodness, we would still be left wanting...badly.  Any deeds we do without the proper motive of glorifying God alone is wicked, and considered worthy of being called a filthy tampon.  (Isa. 64:6)  Imagine that.  We have no righteousness in anything we do apart from Christ.  When we meet God after death, we will be in front of the judgement seat of God (Heb. 9:27).  He will either declare you righteous in His eyes because of the person and work of Christ, or He will declare you guilty of breaking His Holy laws and your evil works on your own merit.

Can I implore you to consider your lawlessness and need for Christ, the One who took your punishment so that you can live for Him?

O Praise Him

Another of my favourites.  Have a listen.

Sunday service starts at 10am (coffee and fellowship), message at 10:30.  Come join us at Spray Lakes Sawmills Rec. Centre, Cochrane.

All for Jesus - Robin Mark

One of my favourites.  Have a listen.

Matt Chandler - Jesus wants the rose

A very powerful short clip from Matt Chandler.  Let's get the gospel right, shall we?

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Join us this Sunday for service at 10:30 at Spray Lakes Rec. Centre.  Coffee and fellowship 10am.  This week's sermon is John 1:29-35, the topic is the Lamb of God.  Please join us.

Pharisees and reformers

If you're a reformer for longer than 5 minutes, you've heard this term slung at you.  Pharisee!!!  Our message in John this week was on John 1:24-28.  In verse 24 John tells us that the Levites and Priests harassing John the Baptist were "sent by the Pharisees".  Considering we're a 'Reformed Baptist' church and we've been called "Pharisees", it seemed appropriate to dig in and find out more about these Pharisees.

Surprisingly, there isn't a ton of information that is considered reliable about this group of Jewish leaders.  We have the bible, and we have some outside sources from the historian Josephus and a couple of other minor sources, but overall we don't know a whole lot about them.  They may have started from the Hasideans that were opposed to the Hellenization policies of Antiochus Epiphanes.  The Hasideans were the "pious" ones, that fought to maintain the Jewish religion and laws in the Holy Land.  By the time of Christ, there were three major groups of Jewish sects (aside from your everyday Jew that didn't really consider themselves in any of these groups.)  The Pharisees (or "separate ones") were experts in Jewish law and were considered the religious elite.  The Sadducess made up the majority of the Jewish religious governing body called the Sanhedrin (Pharisees were the minority).  The Sadducees were less worried about the Hellenization policies of the time, and worried predominantly about the temple and issues regarding it.  The Sadducees and Pharisees were not friendly to one another.  The Essenes were the third group and predominantly separated themselves from society (similar to the modern day Hutterites although more ascetic in nature).

The Pharisess were a group that started out with apparently good intentions.  Under that changing society and the liberties of the governing body (Romans), the Pharisees were instrumental in keeping the Jewish laws and life as biblical as possible.  They originally cared deeply for the Word of God and the adherence to the Word.  Sounds great doesn't it?  So what happened?  If we read Matt. 23:23-24 it appears the number one problem with the Pharisees wasn't so much their zeal for God's Laws, but the lack of the Spirit of the Law.  They were hypocrites of the worst kind.  They knew themselves to be the religious elite, they looked down their noses at those that weren't Pharisees, were divisive in nature, and showed no love to the poor and needy.  They could quote entire books of the bible, they knew (academically) the scriptures inside and out.  The problem was that they hated anyone who was not them, and they thought very highly of themselves.

Does this sound like reformers to you?  Maybe don't answer that...

As said, our church has been called Pharisees and legalists by those that aren't reformed.  I would argue we haven't been around long enough to earn that kind of reputation yet.  Do we want to know our scriptures?  Yes.  Do we love the Word of God?  Yes.  Do we tend to stand for the Word of God and the application of the Word?  Again, guilty.  But aren't we called to do this?  Jesus says in Matt. 23:3-4 essentially "do as they say, not as they do."  We are to be zealous for the gospel, zealous for the Word, defenders of the faith, so we make no apologies for that.  Where we want to make sure we don't go is to forget the more important issues of loving our neighbors as ourselves.

Far too many of our churches today preach more about the works of man and the love we need for one another, but neglect the first commandment which says "Love God with ALL of your heart, soul, MIND and strength."  The Pharisees were deceivers and hypocrites, for they "loved" the word (but loved themselves more), but didn't love those made in His image.  I cannot speak for other reformers, but this reformed church desperately wants to balance both the love of God and the love of people.  You cannot do one and ignore the other, for to do so is to put you and your church in peril.  Just look at the warning to the church in Ephesus in Revelation 2 if you don't believe me.

Tuesday night is community group.  If you would like information, please email us at hillcountryreformed@gmail.com.

A.W. Tozer and a kick in the head

This is A.W. Tozer.  While I have meant to read Tozer over the past few years, he's been one that has managed to escape me as I've been busy with other outstanding authors.  I was finally able to catch up to him this past week, and I wasn't able to even read one chapter without being absolutely kicked in the head with insight and truth that Tozer saw coming long before it ever got here.  In his book The Pursuit of God, chapter 1, he discusses the idea of following hard after God.  He wrote this back in 1948.  In chapter 1 he gets your attention by saying such provocative things as "The whole transaction of religious conversion has been made mechanical and spiritless.  Faith may now be exercised without a jar to the moral life and without embarrassment to the Adamic ego."  He goes on further saying "Christ may be 'received' without creating any special love for Him in the soul of the receiver...and is taught to be satisfied and encouraged to be content with little."  Does this sound like our churches today?  I would argue that unfortunately, it does.  Much of evangelicalism teaches and preaches a form of "decisionism", a means of 'receiving' Christ after uttering or allowing someone else to utter a prayer after them.  You make a decision to follow Christ, much like you would decide if you'll have fries or onion rings.

Tozer, however, looks at conversion in a vastly different, and dare I say biblical way.  Tozer opens the chapter by commenting on the theology of 'prevenient grace', which means that before man can seek God, God must first have sought after the man.  Man, in our fallen nature, doesn't have the moral capacity to choose God or search for the Kingdom, therefore our election is entirely dependent upon His grace and mercy to fulfill His purposes.  We can take no credit for our salvation, therefore we have no reason to boast.  We cannot look down our noses at lost people, frustrated with their lack of faith or understanding, because that would be equivalent to being angry at a blind man for being blind.  In order to see God and love Him for who He is, He must first give you the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Once we have the Spirit, we follow hard after Him, we cling to Him, we love Him in ways that we didn't know were possible.  The problem Tozer addresses is the complete lack of following hard after the very God who has so graciously saved us.  Our churches are full of warm bodies, that play church.  They generally have little interest in pursuing after Him, and can hardly be bothered to show up on Sunday's for service.  Here in the laughable "bible-belt" of Canada, we are worse off today than when Tozer wrote these words.  We have a gospel with no teeth, we have pulpits that preach philosophy and story-telling, and our general knowledge of the bible is sorely lacking, and has been for decades.

One of the intriguing questions I have is "Is Canada any better off than Western Europe?"  Western Europe is, and has been considered "post-Christian" for many years now.  I believe Canada was recently put into the same category.  This category generally means that Christianity is no longer a part of the fabric of everyday culture, and in some cases is considered irrelevant.  Where is the church in Canada?  Dr. Bibby from the University of Lethbridge recently released his findings on the importance of Christianity in Canada, and his numbers actually look positive.  The unfortunate thing I found with the article was the line of questioning used.  It was very general in nature, and had little pressing questions into what these people meant by their equally general answers.  You can find all sorts of "Christians" out there that hardly qualify when pressed.  George Barna's numbers show that less than 5% of evangelical Christians even have the basic understanding of the Christian faith.  I think our churches are in far worse shape than what many want to believe.

Thanks to Dr. Frankie Rainey for preaching at Hill Country while I was on holidays.  I will be back in the pulpit this weekend.  Come join us Sunday, October 16th at 10am for coffee, 10:30 for the service.  Also, there is an inter-denominational service being held at the Lutheran church in Cochrane on Saturday evening, 7:00pm, and the Helping Hands food drive is taking place Saturday morning.  Come and help or just donate food (or both!) to a good cause.