Come and Die

444 years ago today…

Dirk Willem was a Christian who opposed infant baptism, believing people should only be baptized on confession of faith.  In those days which were dark and dangerous to Europe’s Anabaptists, the law caught up with Willem in his home town in the Netherlands.  In prison knowing his inevitable fate, Dirk tied strips of cloth together into a rope and escaped.  Crossing the moat’s thin ice surrounding the prison, he made it safely to the other side.  The guard chasing him was not as fortunate.  As the frigid waters pulled him under, he shouted for help.  Freedom was within his grasp but Dirk believed a Christian helped his enemies.  He turned back and pulled the struggling man to safety.  Grateful, the drenched man lay on shore and was prepared to permit Dirk to flee.  But a sheriff on the other side brusquely reminded him of his oath and duty.  The guard reluctantly prodded Willem back to the prison.

For being rebaptized, holding secret church services in his home, and for allowing rebaptisms there, Dirk Willem was condemned to the stake by the judges.  On this day, May 16 in 1569, he died in the flames for his faith.  As Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds believers, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

Some Clarity about Homosexuality, Fabrics, and Diverse Crops

In a sermon several weeks ago I denounced all Christian harshness towards homosexual people.  Because it exposes a blindness to the fact that sinners of any kind and all kinds are saved in exactly the same way: grace through faith.  In other words, sin is sin is sin, and for sinners of any kind, arrogance towards other sinners of any kind is outrageous.
I find it just as outrageous that some Christians are accepting homosexual conduct/marriage as just “another way” instead of sinful.  For decades, gay apologists have been relentlessly twisting the Bible’s plain criticism of same-sex relationships.  They’ve had little success explaining away Romans 1: 26-27, but their attacks on the Old Testament are now paying off–especially among Christians who don’t know their Bibles well.  When they hear that the church is inconsistent in endorsing Old Testament sexual practices, but not its dietary and farming practices, some believers think, “You know, that doesn’t sound right.”
It’s true that the OT says you can’t wear clothes made out of different types of cloth like cotton and polyester, that men aren’t to trim their beards, and farmers aren’t to plant two different crops like corn and wheat, in one field.  But every Christian needs to understand the nature of the OT–and not just to answer homosexual activists.  A gospel will be garbled without a grasp of what changed between the testaments; and we’ll remain confused about the nature of sanctification (are we to keep the law or not, and if so, what does it do for us?).  In the article below, Redeemer Presbyterian pastor Tim Keller brilliantly and simply explains why we practice some of what the OT says, but not all.
by Tim Keller  [June 2012]

Abraham’s School of Prayer

If God is sovereign and directing every affair in His vast universe, are we just passive robots?  Incidental machines programmed to perform like lifeless marionettes?  Since puppets have no sway over their handlers, maybe we should just forget prayer–or at least not be too hopeful about it.  Maybe just casually and passively say in our best French, C’est la vie?  Abraham might have responded with something like this: “You can’t be serious!”

Listening to what was ahead, horror twisted Abraham’s stomach into knots.  It was his nephew’s home–and home to the nephew’s married daughters.  Sodom was an evil place and Abraham knew it.  But dear God, his nephew!

Speaking of “Dear God”, Abraham was face to face with Him.  Appearing as a man that day, God was traveling with 2 angels and the three had dropped in unexpectedly for a visit.  Following a fine lunch Sarah that had hurriedly prepared for them, God confided that Sodom and Gomorrah were in His cross-hairs.  Fighting nervous cramps, Abraham asked if the city could get a second chance if God discovered 50 people there who worshiped Him.  “Yes.”  What about 45, would 45 righteous people be enough to avert your justice?  “Yes.”  Ok, what about 40?  “Yes.”  Uhm…, what about 30?  “Yes.”  20?  “Yes.”  Even 10?  “Yes, even 10 would change things.”

In Genesis 18, the difference between Abraham and the customer negotiating with the used car dealer, was that Abraham knew exactly who he was dealing with: he was asking a just God to be just (“Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”).  As his suggested numbers got lower and lower, Abraham began pleading with a merciful God to be merciful.

God listened to Abraham–not a robot, but a man of faith whom God had chosen to bless the entire world.  James says, “You do not have because you do not ask” (4:2).  Isn’t that true?  At times we don’t think to ask for something because of a bad memory: last time God didn’t answer.  We gave up then and don’t want to be disappointed again.  Yet this is the very spirit Jesus says to run from (Lk.18:1).  If we don’t bother to pray, Satan wins the day.  We ask God to be good, because He is.  We ask Him to be merciful, because He is.  We ask Him to be generous, because He is.

Ask God.  Pray big, bold prayers.  No, not the prosperity gospel kind (You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.  James 4:3), but the kind that only He can do, that are perfectly suited to His nature, and are the kind of things daddies love to do (Matt.7:11) for their children.