Randy Alcorn's Blog, page 144

Do We Miss the Humor of Christ When We Read the Gospels?

Few of us are familiar with the culture Jesus lived in. In our culture, most humor is based on joke telling, verbal ambiguities, and physical comedy. Jewish humor often employed witty hyperbole—clever, startling, over-the-top statements—to get a laugh. Though some comedians today do this and we laugh, when we see Jesus use the technique in the Gospels, we usually don’t get it. Jesus certainly never employed the caustic humor of late-night comedians who ridicule the weak minded or the unfortunate. But He did make hypocrites in positions of power the brunt of his wit.

In The Humor of Christ, Elton Trueblood argued,

There are numerous passages . . . which are practically incomprehensible when regarded as sober prose, but which are luminous once we become liberated from the gratuitous assumption that Christ never joked. . . . Once we realize that Christ was not always engaged in pious talk, we have made an enormous step on the road to understanding.[i]

Did humor come into the universe as the result of sin? No. As I share in my book Happiness, we have a sense of humor because as His image bearers, we are similar to God, who enjoys laughter.

The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery says, “Jesus was a master of wordplay, irony and satire, often with an element of humor intermixed.”[ii] Jesus makes many serious points in humorous ways. “Are grapes gathered from thornbushes?” He asks, “or figs from thistles?” (Matthew 7:16). People who worked the ground in that culture surely smiled at the self-evident answers. When encountering a verse such as this one, which instructs us not to “cast your pearls before swine” (Matthew 7:6, NKJV), a modern reader might wonder why anyone would even think to do such an outlandish thing. But that’s the whole point—no sane person would! Therefore, Jesus was saying, don’t do the spiritual equivalent of that ridiculously stupid thing.

Jesus told people, “When you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others” (Matthew 6:2). No one would do anything so obviously self-promoting. Instead, they’d draw attention to themselves by walking slowly and piously, making their money clearly visible. These self-congratulatory actions, which Jesus characterized as “sounding a trumpet,” undoubtedly produced numerous smiles, smirks, and chuckles.

Can’t you imagine folks looking at each other with amazement and nervous glee when Jesus said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness” (Matthew 23:27)? Jesus was not telling jokes but painting mental pictures with a humorous, satirical sting. Think of the religious leaders’ outrage when Jesus said, “The harlots go into the kingdom of God before you” (Matthew 21:31, KJV). Then think of the approving smiles of the poor and oppressed in the crowds who finally saw someone unafraid to confront these pseudospiritual false shepherds.

Jesus referred to the shrewd and ruthless political leader Herod as “that fox” (Luke 13:32). Since a fox is cunning, this may appear to be a compliment, but it certainly wouldn’t have been lost on the crowd that those pointy-eared varmints were nuisances, not terrors. Jesus was poking fun at a vicious, immoral, murderous tyrant by comparing him not to a lion or a bear but to a fox! Imagine people going home and telling their friends, “You won’t believe what Jesus called Herod!”

Jesus said, “And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others” (Matthew 6:16). (“Do not look gloomy” would be a great memory verse for some churchgoers!) The self-righteous religionists of Jesus’ day liked to call attention to their fasting by rubbing ashes on their faces to make them look gaunt and deprived. The more miserable, the more spiritual—or so they supposed. Christ made fun of them for it, and they didn’t like it—but no doubt many of His listeners enjoyed hearing the self-righteous leaders taken to task.

Jesus said of the religious leaders, “They are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit” (Matthew 15:14). This graphic word picture might have prompted outright laughter. Of course, Jesus wasn’t making fun of the blind; He was critiquing the wealthy, powerful, influential people who prided themselves on their supposed clarity of spiritual vision.

Jesus also used exaggeration for comedic effect. Jesus told the religious leaders they were sightless, missing the whole point of following God: “You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!” (Matthew 23:24). Straining out a gnat would have been hard work for anyone—but impossible for the blind. And what could be more ridiculous than swallowing a camel? This odd and pithy statement undoubtedly caused laughter to erupt.

The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery says, “The most characteristic form of Jesus’ humor was the preposterous exaggeration.”[iii] It’s important to understand that this form of exaggeration is not falsehood in any sense, because the hearer knows it’s overstatement. The speaker is not misleading anyone; rather, He is appealing to the hearer’s humor to make his point.

Consider the parable of the talents in Matthew 25. Jesus depicts a wealthy man who hands over one to five talents to various servants. Five talents would have been the equivalent of nearly a hundred years’ wages.[iv] In a culture where many people lived hand to mouth, this extreme amount of money would equate to saying, “There was a man who ate one thousand gourds.” The storyteller deliberately paints an absurd picture, with a gleam in his eye, to emphasize his point.

Jesus took hyperbole—a rhetorical art form—to a new level in His story about the king who loaned one of his servants ten thousand talents (see Matthew 18:23-35), an amount so ludicrous it defied comprehension, since the average person made one talent every twenty years.[v] Imagine the listeners’ expressions when they tried to calculate the sum that the king forgave his servant.

Then Jesus said another servant owed the forgiven servant one hundred denarii (see Matthew 18:28). A denarius was a day’s wage, and although a hundred days’ wages was significant, it was the tiniest fraction compared to the forgiven servant’s debt. The parallel to each person’s debt to God, which is beyond measure, must have had a deep impact. It wasn’t stand-up comedy (which might not have been funny to them anyway), but Jesus’ humor certainly would have resonated with His original audience.

Consider when Jesus asked, “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? . . . You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:3, 5). Surely the ridiculous picture of a log sticking out of a man’s eye produced not only a sense of conviction but also broad smiles.

Elton Trueblood recounted how he noticed Christ’s humor for the first time. He was reading Matthew 7 aloud when his young son burst into laughter at Jesus’ words about a log in the eye. Until then, Trueblood had failed to see Christ’s obvious wit.[vi]

Those who heard Jesus speak knew His keen humor—and they were endeared to Him. The humor of Jesus is far more apparent if we understand His culture and engaging personality. There’s nothing disrespectful about noticing that many of Jesus’ statements are, by design, happily outrageous.

[i] Elton Trueblood, The Humor of Christ (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), 10.

[ii] Leland Ryken, James C. Wilhoit, and Tremper Longman III, eds., “Humor—Jesus as Humorist,” Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 410.

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] See footnote on Matthew 25:15, ESV Study Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008).

[v] See note on Matthew 18:24, The NET Bible (Biblical Studies Press, 2006).

[vi] Trueblood, Humor of Christ, 9.

Photo: Pixabay

God’s Sovereign Grace in Timbuktu

As a child, Steve Saint thought of Timbuktu as a made-up name for “the ends of the earth.” In 1986, while traveling in western Africa for Missionary Aviation Fellowship, he found himself stranded in the real Timbuktu.

Steve decided to rent a truck to travel elsewhere, despite warnings that if it broke down, he wouldn’t survive in the Sahara Desert. Men armed with scimitars and knives watched him suspiciously. After he failed to find a truck, Steve’s thoughts ran to his father, Nate Saint, a former missionary in Ecuador. When Steve was only five, natives speared to death his dad and four other missionaries. Now, thirty years later, Steve found himself questioning his father’s death. “I couldn’t help but think the murders were capricious, an accident of bad timing.”

Steve asked for directions to a church. Some children led him to a tiny mud-brick house with a poster on the wall showing wounded hands covering a cross. A dark-skinned man in flowing robes approached and introduced himself as Nouh Af Infa Yatara.

Steve asked Nouh, through a translator, how he came to faith in Christ. Nouh said he had stolen vegetables from a missionary’s garden. The missionary gave him the vegetables and promised him an ink pen if he memorized some verses from the Bible. Nouh believed the verses he learned and came to Christ. Nouh’s parents threw him out of the home and pulled him out of school. Nouh’s mother even put a sorcerer’s poison in Nouh’s food at a family feast. Nouh ate the food but suffered no ill effects.

Steve asked Nouh, “Why is your faith so important to you that you’re willing to give up everything, even your life?”

“I know God loves me and I’ll live with him forever.”

“Where did your courage come from?” Steve asked.

“The missionary gave me books about Christians who’d suffered for their faith. My favorite was about five young men who risked their lives to take God’s good news to stone-age Indians in the jungles of South America. The book said they let themselves be speared to death, even though they had guns and could have killed their attackers!”

Stunned at these words, Steve said, “One of those men was my father.” “Your father?” Now Nouh felt stunned.

Steve assured Nouh of the truth of the story. And then Nouh assured Steve that God had used his father’s death, many years later, to help a young Muslim-turned-Christian hold on to his faith. Steve realized that if God could plan the death of his own Son, He could also plan and use the death of Steve’s dad, Nate Saint, to accomplish His sovereign purpose—including reaching one young Muslim for Christ and orchestrating this God-ordained meeting of two men at the ends of the earth.

Stories like this don’t apply only to the deaths of missionary martyrs. Over time, God has brought countless people to Christ through the lives and deaths of ordinary housewives, common laborers, farmers, factory workers, business people, teachers, and schoolchildren.

We won’t all, in this life, meet someone whose story will suddenly shed light on God’s purpose in our loved one’s suffering or death. But I think most of us will have that very experience one day, beyond the ends of this Earth, on that New Earth, where we, eyes wide, will hear countless jaw-dropping stories of God’s sovereign grace.

Photo: Pixabay

Experiencing Happiness in Christ, Even Through Depression and Sorrow

The following is a recent interview I did on the topic of happiness. I appreciated being able to address how someone who is depressed can still move toward experiencing a deep happiness and joy in Christ, which is a question I’ve been asked about frequently since my book was released.

Question:  When you look at happiness, is there a distinction between joy and happiness?

Randy: Interestingly, this has been taught as if it were fact for many years, and there have been many sermons that say joy and happiness are two different things. But we get them both wrong, because people end up saying things like “Joy is not an emotion” and “Joy is not really based on anything; it‘s some transcendental, vague sort of thing. But don‘t seek happiness, because that‘s from the world, and involves sin.”

Well, a lot of people do seek happiness in sin, just like they seek joy in sin. But God is the true source of happiness, delight, and joy. In my study for Happiness, I went back to the Hebrew and Greek words and saw how there are many of them that are translated in various versions as “joy,” “gladness,” “merriment,” “happiness,” “delight,” “pleasure.” These words all have overlapping meanings. Ninety percent of a Hebrew word that‘s translated “joy” overlaps with one that‘s translated “gladness” or “happiness.” (I’m including here a diagram from Happiness, illustrating this.)

There’s been a false and negative distinction that‘s been made between joy and happiness. Unfortunately, the message we send to those both inside and outside the church is, “Seeking happiness is superficial and shallow. Go out and get it in the world, but you won’t find happiness in God.” But all people seek happiness, and because they do, we’re basically telling them, “Stop seeking what God Himself wired you to seek.” What we should be saying is, “Seek your happiness in the right place—in God Himself.”

Question: Why did we begin to think of happiness as a sin, and if you’re a happy person, something’s wrong with you, because the life of a holy Christian should be one of burden? Can’t we see clearly in the Gospels that Jesus was criticized for going places where He supposedly shouldn‘t have gone, and attending parties He shouldn’t have?

Randy: That’s a great question. I think of Scripture such as Joel 2:21: “Be happy and full of joy, because the Lord has done a wonderful thing.” Or Psalm 40:16: “May all those who seek You be happy and rejoice in You,” as well as all the passages in the Psalms about “shout triumphantly; be happy; rejoice out loud.” These passages of Scripture, for some reason, don‘t resonate with us, because we have these preconceived notions.

And as you say, Jesus Himself was criticized. He wasn’t a glutton and drunkard, but He was accused of being those things. Why? Because He went to parties where people ate and drank, and some people probably were at those parties who were drunkards and gluttons. But you don’t have to be sinning just because you’re in in an environment of happiness.

Question: Someone once said to me, “You Christians look saved, except for your faces.” They meant that we look down and dejected. We’re fearful and don’t have confidence. Why is that? If we’re right with God, why wouldn’t our faces express happiness and joy?

Randy: That’s an important question, and something I addressed in the book. I often hear people say happiness is just based on circumstances. I know what they mean when they say that. But consider what our true circumstances in Christ are. How about Romans 8:35-39: “Nothing shall separate us from the love of Christ.” That’s an actual condition, so call that a “circumstance.” It’s an invisible circumstance, but it’s a real one. If you know Jesus, He went to the cross and purchased your eternal happiness. So, let’s frontload that to how we think and live today.

Question:  I’ve talked to so many people lately who are really weighed down by life’s circumstances. Maybe they have cancer, or a family member who’s been in an auto accident, or a spouse who has lost a job. There are a lot of sad things that happen in this world, so how can I reconcile the truth you’re talking about with difficult present circumstances?

Randy: I think we should study what Paul said about being sorrowful, yet always rejoicing (2 Corinthians 6:10). That‘s how he describes the Christian life.

It’s not like bad things aren‘t happening to us. We do have sorrow. This world is full of things that make God sad, but He simultaneously has a happiness that is based in and flows out of Himself. So I think we need to not look at sorrow and happiness as opposites that cannot co-exist. They can and do co-exist. I have preached many memorial services where you see the sadness and the tears for those attending, and then you see how quick people are to laugh as they remember funny and happy things about their loved ones. And if the deceased knew Christ, those in attendance are able to rejoice as they anticipate the reunion that will one day come.

Question:  You talked about the longing that a human being has to feel joyful and happy. Because we don’t necessarily seek happiness in the right places, it seems that, particularly in Western culture, we medicate that longing by trying to find happiness through extramarital affairs, materialism, toys, or being busy. So what is the definition of true happiness, and where do we find it?

Randy:  We need to ask ourselves where this desire for happiness came from. Sometimes we act as if it came from the devil. Well, the devil knows nothing of true happiness. He once knew happiness in God’s presence, but he gave it up when he sinned and rebelled against God. Now he takes rat poison and wraps it up in happy-looking wrappers. That’s how he tempts us, by offering it to us, because he knows we have this innate desire for happiness.

But the reason we have this built-in desire for happiness is because we’re created in God‘s image. He wired us to want to be happy. Unfortunately, we sometimes disassociate happiness from its true source, which is God Himself.

Satan tempts us by offering us happiness, because he knows that’s what we want. But he offers it in the wrong places, at the wrong times, and in the wrong things. On the other hand, God, who is described in Scripture as the happy God (see 1 Timothy 1:11, 1 Timothy 6:15), says to us, “You can find your true happiness in me. I created all kinds of secondary sources of happiness that point back to Me, the primary source of happiness.”

Question: Was there a time when you had to move from not being happy to embracing happiness?

Randy: I was raised in an unbelieving home, and heard the Gospel for the first time when I was 15 years old. My dad was a tavern owner. My parents had both been previously divorced. They were good people, but they fought and had a lot of problems.

I was so unhappy as a child. In middle school, I was reasonably successful in athletics and was student body president, but I was not fulfilled. I had two jukeboxes in my bedroom because of my dad‘s business with taverns. I remember listening and honestly feeling a sense of both despair and urgency as John Lennon sang, “Help, I really need somebody.” In the pre-computer era, our house had foosball and pool tables, pinball and bowling machines, so it was a popular place to hang out with my friends! But despite having all of these happiness-related toys, and a swimming pool and a nice house, we were not a happy family.

I first heard the Gospel from the church I started attending, mostly to spend time with a girl. (That girl is now my wife. At the time she shouldn’t have been dating me, because I wasn’t a Christian, but I’m sure glad God used it all for good!) Eventually I came to faith in Christ through reading Scripture. When I did, I found in Christ a real happiness. It felt like a weight had been taken off of my heart.

After I’d been a Christian for a while, I noticed my pastor would always talk about Oswald Chambers and his book My Utmost for His Highest (truly a great book) . But in that book, Chambers said happiness has nothing to do with the Christian life, and that God doesn’t care about your happiness—He only cares about your holiness. Chamber actually says, “It is an insult to Jesus Christ to use the word happiness in connection with Him.”

As a young Christian, as I read and heard what he was saying, I thought, Well, it must be true, because he’s saying it. But I’m really much happier now that I know Jesus than I was before. Now, as I read those words, I realize what Oswald Chambers was doing. He was concerned as he saw people looking for happiness in sin. But unfortunately, by condemning happiness in general, he was throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Often when we think of Jesus saying, “You are the light of the world,” we think only of morality and ethics. Of course, that’s certainly part of it. But there‘s also the light of happiness, joy, and gladness. When we walk into a room, the darkness that should be pushed away is not only the darkness of sin, but the darkness of hopelessness, utter depression, and suicidal thoughts of “I don‘t want to live anymore, and I‘m so terribly unhappy.” That light draws people. It’s not simply the light of holiness that draws people to the Gospel. Sometimes the light of happiness is more successful in drawing people to the Gospel—the Good News.

Question: I know there have been times when you struggled with depression. When you’re in that dark place that you don‘t feel God‘s happiness, how do you reach up to Him?

Randy: I think we should begin by saying that God totally understands, and you don’t need to pretend. When you’re feeling depressed and profoundly unhappy, cry out to God like David did. He said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest” (Psalm 22:1–2). In essence he‘s saying, Lord, I just feel You‘re distant.

In other Psalms we see that David does self-talk. He’ll say, “Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God” (Psalm 42:11; 43:5). Sometimes we have a tendency to listen to ourselves more than talk to ourselves. We need to talk to ourselves based on Scripture and remind ourselves of the truth of what God’s word says.

One example of helpful self-talk may go something like this: “Yes, the reality is that I feel this way. However, God loves me. God is causing all things to work together for good (Romans 8:28). God has a purpose for everything in my life, including my sadness and depression. He can draw me out of it, but as long as I’m in it, He has a purpose in it.”

I wrote a series of blogs several years ago related to Charles Spurgeon’s depression. There was no man who talked more about happiness and joy (I quote him frequently in Happiness). Yet he experienced a vast amount of depression and melancholy. It seems like a contradiction, but it’s not, because he would speak of the joy and happiness of Christ to move his soul from the state of depression. He was honest and open about his struggles, and it gave him credibility with people.

One of the things I say to people in depression is this: acknowledge it, but realize that even if it lasted the rest of your life in this world (God forbid), that’s a tiny amount of time compared to the true rest of your life. Eternity with Jesus Christ awaits, in which we’ll experience utter and complete happiness, and where He promises, “I will wipe away the tears from every eye.”

Question: What are some things you would suggest someone who is depressed start doing?

Randy: In addition to meditating on Scripture, I would strongly encourage them to gather with people who love Jesus—especially happy people who love Jesus. Misery loves company, but happiness loves company too, and the company that you keep will affect you.

I would tell that person to stop listening to talk radio and step away from the television and smart phone, and instead, get out of the house and enjoy creation. Go outside to read good books and sit in the sunshine. Now I’m from Portland, Oregon, so there’s not always sunshine! But some days the sun breaks out, and those are great days to take a walk. My wife walks our dog, Maggie, and thoroughly enjoys it.

Enjoy God’s creation. Go to a waterfall. Go to the zoo. Take time to pet a dog. You know, there is a delight in animals. If you don’t have a pet, and you’ve never had one, consider getting one. God has used dogs to console me. There have been times where I’ve really been struggling, and it’s been difficult, but then I put my arms around our Golden Retriever, Maggie or our Dalmatian, Moses, who preceded her, or our Springer Spaniel, Champ, who preceded him. I’ve found God can use all of His secondary delights to draw us toward Him as the primary delight.

Go out to admire the night sky and look up at the stars. Take a walk on the beach. Go for a hike. Plant and grow flowers. Smell them! The small things of God’s creation can truly manifest His presence and remind you of His goodness and grace. Practice the habit of gratitude, and list the things you’re thankful for.

Finally, remind yourself that these afflictions may seem heavy and like they’re going to last forever, but the Apostle Paul, who knew a lot about afflictions, called them light and momentary (2 Corinthians 4:17). Remind yourself that God is achieving something through them. They‘re not pointless. For the child of God, there is no pointless suffering.

God is conforming you to the image of Christ and expanding your ministry. So look for the ways that your ministry can expand through prayer and reaching out to someone else who may be struggling with depression. Second Corinthians 1:4 says that God “comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction.”

Question: Talk about your research into the happiness of God. You believe that the Lord is not just a God of judgment, but that He is also happy.

Randy: In Happiness, I write about the happiness of Jesus, and in fact, in Hebrews 1, the writer quotes Psalm 45 in reference to Jesus, which says, “You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.” I believe His companions may refer to the entire human race.

Based on that passage, you could ask the question, “Who is the happiest person who has ever lived?” I think the proper answer to that, biblically, is Jesus Christ. When you say that, many people immediately say, “But wait, no. He‘s the Man of Sorrows.” Yes, Scripture calls Jesus the “Man of Sorrows” in Isaiah 52 and 53, describing His redemptive work. Gethsemane through suffering on the Cross? Man of Sorrows. Weeping over Jerusalem? Man of Sorrows.

But when Jesus walked the earth, He drew people to Himself, not because He only had sorrow in His life, but because I think His default state was one of happiness—happiness in His Father and His Father‘s plan. He had participated in the ancient happiness that far preceded the creation of the world itself: the happiness of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit delighting in each other. The incredible thing is that by His grace, He invites us into it: “Come and share your master's happiness!” (Matthew 25:23, NIV). 

Photo: Unsplash

Francis Chan on Thinking About Your Death

Death is life’s greatest certainty. Death will come, whether or not you’re prepared. But death is not an end—it’s a transition that will bring us face to face with our Creator. It’s the absolute certainty of our death gives the gospel its urgency.

I really appreciated this article from Francis Chan addressing why we need to be willing to pause and contemplate our deaths in light of eternity (and also be willing to have candid conversations with our loved ones). Let’s remember that Jesus came to deliver us from the fear of death, “so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Hebrews 2:14-15). With our confident hope of eternity in Christ, we can choose to live well in the “short today,” anticipating the joy of what A. W. Tozer called “the long tomorrow.”

Do You Think About Your Death?

I visited a man on his death bed yesterday. I left confused.

This man had no relationship with Jesus, no interest in the gospel, yet no fear of death. His only desire was to ease his physical pain and die without a struggle. I couldn’t understand it. Really? No fear of death at all?

The first time I remember seeing a dead body was when I was eight. I was terrified! It was my stepmother’s body in a casket. My mother died giving birth to me, so this was the woman that I knew as mom. Seeing her lifeless body scared me. The whole concept of death confused me and gave me a sick feeling. There was nothing casual about it.

Seeing my dad in a casket four years later brought the same kind of fear and sobriety.

Forty years later, I still get deeply disturbed at funerals. Whenever I see a dead body, I inevitably think, That will be me soon. Then all sorts of uncomfortable thoughts follow.

Wisdom Ponders Death

I understand that Christians should not fear death. Jesus died and rose from the grave, therefore death has lost its “sting” (1 Corinthians 15:55–56). But just because the fear subsides, it doesn’t mean we are left feeling indifferent. Death has a way of jolting us into seriousness. Don’t you still get an eerie or maybe even sick feeling when you think about your own death?

Some of it is just trying to grasp something so foreign to us: the separation of the soul from the body. We are unable to fathom existing apart from the only body we’ve known. The other troubling mystery is trying to imagine what we will first see and experience after death. What will it be like when we first see a heavenly being or God himself?

Death is not an easy thing to meditate on, but the wise person will think about death often.

Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:12)

When was the last time you prayed that prayer? A wise man thinks about his death often, and the fool ignores it. This is why the enemy keeps us from thinking and talking about death. And this is why we must work to keep the brevity of life on the forefront of our minds.

Next week, one of my friends is going to court. There is a chance that he will be sentenced to several years in prison. As you can imagine, it is hard for him to think about anything else. As much as he will try to have a “normal” week, I’m pretty sure his mind will be preoccupied with what the judge is going to say.

Shouldn’t we also be preoccupied with our upcoming day in God’s court? The Bible says that one day we will stand before a Judge who is referred to as a “Consuming Fire” (Hebrews 12:29). Unbelievably, some will go their whole lives without ever considering what this moment will be like.

Ignoring Death Leads to Ignorance

I can only imagine how you as a reader are responding at this point. This may be the first time someone has encouraged you to think deeply about death and judgment. We are unaccustomed to conversations about death. Our society goes to incredible lengths to hide the inevitable reality of death from us. It is considered intrusive or even rude to ask others to think about their deaths. Inevitably someone will quickly change the subject once it gets too serious or solemn. But should we?

It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart. (Ecclesiastes 7:2)

It is better to go to a funeral than a party? The fact that you’ve never heard this expression in conversation reveals just how far our society is from biblical wisdom.

I have performed many funerals. It’s not uncommon to see crowds go out drinking immediately following the service. It is their way to “move on” and not dwell on the severity of the situation.

Others may not get drunk, but they find other ways to intoxicate themselves — heading back to work, going to a movie, laughing, talking, texting, getting on social media. People will do anything to avoid thinking about the only thing that matters. Reality is right there before their eyes, but they’ll desperately pursue any alternative to facing the facts.

The Bible shows that ignoring death leads to ignorance.

The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. (Ecclesiastes 7:4)

The wise man doesn’t quickly move past funerals. His heart lingers in a state of mourning. The fool tells jokes as soon as the funeral ends, not realizing the damage it does to his soul. Fools do whatever is easiest.

Eating pie is easy, but kale takes effort. The things that build us up require intentionality and work. Contemplating death takes work; watching a typical movie does not. The wise man makes time to think about serious issues. The hard work of mourning builds up the wisdom of the heart.

Linger in the House of Mourning

When I was in seminary, I learned that “the heart” refers to the mission-control center of our bodies. It is the seat of decision-making. This is why you and I make wiser decisions after our hearts spend time in the house of mourning. I tend to make good decisions at funerals and poor ones in restaurants. I have made wise financial decisions while surrounded by starving children, and poor decisions from the suburbs. We need to keep our hearts close to the house of mourning to avoid decisions we will regret.

As difficult as it is, we need to be mindful of death. We must make decisions with our day of death in mind. Please, please, please consider spending just ten minutes in solitude today, meditating about your own funeral. Imagine standing before a God who “dwells in unapproachable light” (1 Timothy 6:16).

But don’t stop there. Perhaps ponder some major life decisions after meditating on death. Your heart, the seat of decision-making, will then be better conditioned to decide where to live, what to drive, and which shoes to buy.

Article shared by permission of the author.

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To “Live and Die Serving and Honoring the Lord Jesus”: Missionary John G. Paton

John G. Paton (1824-1907) served as a missionary in the South Pacific’s New Hebrides islands. Less than twenty-five years earlier, natives clubbed to death the first two missionaries to visit the island, just fifteen minutes after they landed on the beach. The natives then cooked and ate the murdered men in sight of the ship that brought them there. No one dared return to the islands, until Paton did. His first weeks there, illness took his young wife; one week later, their infant died. He suffered intensely. But note Paton’s perspective as he looked back on this years later:

Oftentimes, while passing through the perils and defeats of my first years in the Mission field on Tanna, I wondered, and perhaps the reader hereof has wondered, why God permitted such things. But on looking back now, I already clearly perceive... that the Lord was thereby preparing me for doing... the best work of all my life: the kindling of the heart of Australian Presbyterianism with a living affection for these Islanders of their own Southern Seas... and in being the instrument under God of sending out missionary after missionary to the New Hebrides, to claim another island and still another for Jesus. That work, and all that may spring from it in time and Eternity, never could have been accomplished by me, but for first the sufferings and then the story of my Tanna enterprise! [1]

Because of Paton’s story, nearly one in six Presbyterian ministers in Australia left to serve God as missionaries. Only in eternity will we know the full effect of his sufferings.

Years earlier, as a successful young Scottish preacher, Paton determined to leave Glasgow to minister to this unreached people group. But most of his Christian friends urged him to do something more sensible with his life. Paton wrote,

Amongst many who sought to deter me, was one dear old Christian gentleman, whose crowning argument always was, “The Cannibals! You will be eaten by Cannibals!” At last I replied, “Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms; and in the Great Day my resurrection body will arise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer. [2]

Paton suffered much in his forty-three years in the New Hebrides, where he buried his wife and child, and endured grave illnesses, shipwreck, the betrayal of friends and some converts, and grief over martyred co-workers. On the other hand, John Paton lived to see Christ transform an entire culture, and to witness hundreds of missionaries follow behind him.

When he died, Paton could anticipate hearing words that would compensate for every evil and suffering he endured, words spoken by Jesus in Matthew 25:21: “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!”

[1] John Gibson Paton, John G. Paton, Missionary to the New Hebrides (Grand Rapids, MI: Fleming H. Revell, 1898) 359–60.

[2] Paton, John G. Paton, 91.

Looking Ahead to the Likelihood of Increased Persecution in America

Several months ago I was asked by World Magazine some questions about religious persecution. Here are my responses.

There’s a lot of talk in evangelical circles about the likelihood of increased persecution of believers in the years ahead. Do you think that forecast is on target?

Yes. However, I don’t believe we should live in fear and dread of persecution, but realize that God tells us to expect it (2 Timothy 3:12) and not to be surprised by it (1 Peter 4:12). He promises to use it to increase our perseverance and build our character (Romans 5:3-5), and increase our happiness in Christ (Luke 6:22-23). God will use persecution, as He always has, to thereby strengthen His church and extend the Gospel message, not destroy it. Persecution in America will probably never be as extreme as it has been in countless places throughout church history and as it is around the world today.

So, sure, let’s hang on to what liberties we can, but not whine and complain like a disgruntled special interest group. Instead let’s focus on sharing Jesus and the Gospel.

What form do you think such persecution is most likely to take?

Hate speech will be broadened to include any traditional or faithful teaching of Scripture dealing with homosexuality. Christians, pastors and biblical scholars who reinterpret the homosexuality passages to fit the modern worldview will be cited to argue that local church pastors are not really teaching the Bible but a particular primitive and hate-filled interpretation of the Bible, one that is fueling rage against gay citizens, resulting in disdain, discrimination and in some cases violence against them. It will be compared to the hateful oratory against Jews in some Christian congregations in Nazi Germany, which helped fuel the Holocaust.

Refusal to serve communion to, perform marriages of, or accept into membership legally married gay couples, and refusal to hire an otherwise qualified homosexual teacher in Christian schools and churches will result in lawsuits, the removal of tax-exempt status, and eventually perhaps the closure of some Christian schools and churches. Those who avoid teaching on the related biblical texts or reinterpret them in socially acceptable ways will thereby avoid persecution and gain praise and status. Countless churches across the country rent facilities from public schools on Sundays, which is good stewardship for the churches and provides needed income to the school districts. Many of these churches have wonderful relationships with school principals, and volunteer hundreds of hours annually to make improvements that benefit the schools. However, these churches and schools are on borrowed time. Eventually I believe schools renting their facilities to people whose worldview is considered discriminatory or hateful will not be permitted to do so.

The price paid by the silent churches will be subjecting themselves to God’s judgment by failing to preach the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27); the price paid by the compromised churches will be embracing false and self-serving people-pleasing doctrine by twisting Scripture and ultimately undermining the Gospel itself (2 Timothy 4:3-4). Of course they will do this in the name of the love of Jesus, quoting Jesus’ words in John 8 “Neither do I condemn you,” while ignoring His words a few verses later, “Go and sin no more.”

Pastors and Bible teachers who reinterpret Scripture to make it popular will increasingly take the moral high ground as they portray real Bible-believers as bigots. Of course, some ARE bigots. But the kindest and most Christ-like and grace-centered believers will be marginalized and labeled hateful despite their loving actions.  They are the ones whose hearts break for gay and transgender people, and every other broken person including themselves and their loved ones, and who believe that love doesn’t mean refusal to tell the truth, but means acting in what God says are people’s true and ultimate best interests.

So what should we do?

Let’s not be surprised by this or talk about a “Christian America,” which never existed in full flower in the first place, and is today further from reality than ever….but not as far as it will be ten and twenty and thirty years from now. (Barring a sweeping transformation that seems highly unlikely.)

For the sake of the free proclamation of the Gospel and the continuance of the rights of belief and practice for churches and others, it’s good that some Christian organizations will continue to defend these rights in courts and elsewhere. The rights believers have today were won at great cost in previous generations, and it is irresponsible and unloving to passively look the other way to the detriment of future generations of Christ-followers, including our children and grandchildren. They are in danger of losing their legal rights to live and proclaim and assemble for the Gospel if we fail to speak up and do something to hold on to our rights that people shed blood to procure and defend.

But please, let’s stop portraying ourselves, who have lived most of our lives in unheard of religious liberty, as a whiny special interest group throwing a tantrum. Let’s happily draw attention to Jesus and the right to believe, teach, celebrate, and bring His Good News to all who will listen.

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Should Christians Be Spiritual Enough to Not Love God’s Created World?

A few years ago, I spoke at a Desiring God National Conference in a session titled “C.S. Lewis on Heaven and the New Earth: God's Eternal Remedy to the Problem of Evil and Suffering.” One of the things I shared is the irony that in a day when many people edit theology to fit their desires, they ignore biblical truths about eternity that are far more desirable than what they falsely believe.

Shouldn’t we embrace the true biblical teaching of the resurrection and the New Earth and let ourselves and our children be excited about them? First, because it’s true, but with the added plus that it’s wonderful, so much better than we could ever have imagined!

Recently I came across this response to the video:

Let’s just make it through this life and leave the rest to God. Sounds like a great passion for the least important thing you could find in the Bible. Confusing your children 101. Preaching about a New Earth and body would probably appeal to non-Christians that love this world.

This comment reflects the misguided idea that we should be “spiritual” enough as Christians to not love God's created world. Believers who embrace this philosophy mistake the sinful world affected by the curse and the devil for the world God created for beauty and wonder and worship. To call the New Earth, which is itself inseparable from the doctrine of resurrection, “the least important thing you could find in the Bible” is staggering.

One of my concerns with such thinking is that our failure to teach about the meaning of resurrection and the New Earth actually pushes children in Christian homes away from the gospel and the church. Why? Because they are, in essence, told to find their happiness in the present world, since this life (we make them suppose) is their only chance to enjoy beauty, pleasures, art, and culture. The secular world, it seems, offers an unending smorgasbord of promised happiness. Seekers move from one false promise to another, ending in ruins before they discover what Solomon learned—that all these promises of happiness are empty. They are wind and vapor, not substance and reality.

Suppose instead, that churches taught and Christians believed that God calls them to view work, play, music, food, and drink as gracious gifts from God’s hand to be responsibly enjoyed within the parameters of His commands. If this were the reality, perhaps less young people raised in believing homes would see the Christian life divorced from pleasure, and that a relationship with Christ is the best and true way to experience lasting happiness, both in this life and in the one to come.

Unfortunately, ever since some of the church fathers were heavily influenced by the Greek philosophers, a hyper-spiritualized approach to Scripture and the Christian life has infected segments of the Western church. It has crippled people’s ability to understand what Scripture says about the goodness of God’s creation, as well as the delight and happiness He intends for us in the physical dimension. (Once, after I preached about the Resurrection and New Earth, a fine Christian man said to me, “This idea of having bodies and eating food and living in an earthly place . . . it just sounds so unspiritual.”)

Though Christoplatonism frowns upon the pleasures of the physical world, mistaking asceticism for spirituality, Scripture says we’re to put our hope not in material things but “in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment” (1 Timothy 6:17).

Why did God make our taste buds for us to enjoy food and dopamine to be generated in the “pleasure centers” of our brains? Why did He give us our ability to find joy in a cool swim and a hot shower, in listening to music and audiobooks, in hitting a golf ball, skiing down a slope, or running through a park? Why did He give us physical senses if not to know Him better and to be far happier in Him than we ever could be if He had instead made us disembodied spirits who couldn’t enjoy physical pleasures?

If we believe the physical world is evil, inferior, or unspiritual, we’ll inevitably be suspicious of everything in it. We’ll look down our noses at good food and wine, art and music (unless explicitly Christian), sports and culture, hobbies and recreation, drama and amusements. We will berate the notion of happiness because, after all, happiness is “worldly.” We’ll come to the conclusion that God’s people should be concerned only about holiness and perhaps some unemotional, transcendent concept called “joy” that never makes its way to our faces. We’ll also inevitably reject or spiritualize any biblical revelation about bodily resurrection or finding joy in God’s physical creation.

But this isn’t consistent with a biblical worldview. Scripture is clear that physical pleasures and even temporal happiness, such as what we experience from a good meal, fine art, and adventure, are from God, not Satan. Paul says it is demons and liars who portray the physical realm as unspiritual, forbid people from the joys of marriage, including sex, and “order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer” (1 Timothy 4:3-5).

Although preoccupation with a God-given gift can turn into idolatry, enjoying that same gift with a grateful heart can draw us closer to God. In Heaven we’ll have no capacity to turn people or things into idols. When we find joy in God’s gifts, we’ll be finding our joy in Him.

C. S. Lewis wrote, “There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God. God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why He uses material things like bread and wine to put the new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it.”

Consider the old proverb, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” It assumes that the only earthly pleasures we’ll ever enjoy must be obtained now. As Christians, we should indeed eat, drink, and be merry—and also sacrifice, suffer, and die—all to the glory of God. In doing so, we’re preparing for an eternal life in which we’ll eat, drink, and be merry, but never again die. So this present life isn’t our last chance to eat, drink, and be merry—rather, it’s the last time our eating, drinking, and merrymaking can be corrupted by sin, death, and the Curse.

Every day we should see God in His creation: in the food we eat, the air we breathe, the friendships we enjoy, and the pleasures of family, work, and hobbies. Yes, we must sometimes forgo secondary pleasures, and we should never let them eclipse God. And we should avoid opulence and waste when others are needy. But we should happily thank God for all of life’s joys, large and small, and allow them to draw us to Him, and to point our hearts toward the coming New Earth.

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Is Joy Unemotional, and Is It More Spiritual Than Happiness?

A Christian writer says, “We don’t get joy by seeking a better emotional life, because joy is not an emotion. It is a settled certainty that God is in control.”[i] Another says, “Joy is not an emotion. It is a choice.”[ii]

The idea that “joy is not an emotion” promotes an unbiblical myth. Yet that statement appears online more than 17,000 times, virtually all of them by Christians. Most unbelievers rightly realize that happiness, gladness, and joy are synonyms, and they involve real emotions, which are not bad, but good.

A Bible study says, “Spiritual joy is not an emotion. It’s a response to a Spirit-filled life.”[iii] But if this response doesn’t involve emotions of happiness or gladness, what makes it joy? Some claim that joy is a fruit of the Spirit, not an emotion. But in Galatians 5:22, love and peace surround the word joy. If you love someone, don’t you feel something? What is peace if not something you feel?

Hannah Whitall Smith gave her son this advice:

Say night and morning, and whenever through the day you think of it, “Dear Lord make me happy in you,” and leave it there. All the rest will come out right when once you are happy in Him. And this happiness will be the beginning; remember; “love, joy and peace” are the first fruits mentioned.[iv]

A hundred years ago, every Christian knew the meaning of joy. Today, if you ask a group of Christians, “What does joy mean?” most will grope for words, with only one emphatic opinion: that joy is different from happiness. This is like saying that rain isn’t wet or ice isn’t cold. Scripture, dictionaries, and common language don’t support this separation.

I googled “define joy,” and the first result was this dictionary definition: “a feeling of great pleasure and happiness.” This definition harmonizes with other dictionaries and ordinary conversations, yet it contradicts countless Christian books and sermons. The church’s misguided distinction between joy and happiness has twisted the words. Christian psychiatrist George Vaillant says, “Happiness is secular, joy sacred.”[v] So we should be joyful but not happy when reading the Bible, praying, and worshiping? Is the Christian life really divided into the secular and sacred, or is every part of our lives, even the ordinary moments, to be centered in God?

I share more in this video interview with Faithlife's Daniel Di Bartolo.

[i] Greg Forster, The Joy of Calvinism: Knowing God’s Personal, Unconditional, Irresistible, Unbreakable Love (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 147–48.

[ii] Ricardo Sanchez, It’s Not Over (Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House Book Group, 2012), 144.

[iii] Elizabeth George, Walking with the Women of the Bible: A Devotional Journey through God’s Word (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1999), 28.

[iv] Hannah Whitall Smith, The Christian’s Secret of a Holy Life: The Unpublished Personal Writings of Hannah Whitall Smith, ed. Melvin E. Dieter (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, 1997).

[v] George Vaillant, “The Difference Joy Makes: Finding Contentment through Psychotherapy and Christian Faith,” Conference at the Institute of Religion, Houston, October 8–9, 1998.

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Facing Fear with Faith

Fear comes in many forms. We can fear making the wrong decision or disappointing our friends. We can also fear that our children will be snatched, the car brakes will fail, or the plane will crash. We may experience fear about our country’s future and the direction of the world around us.

Our immediate response to a threatening situation like a loud noise or a scream is usually a reflexive or involuntary fear. This initial fear is uncontrollable. What we allow to settle into our minds and emotions after our initial response, however, is controllable. If we do not exercise control over it, if we leave the initial fear untamed, it turns into long-term dread or even paranoia. 

Unhealthy fear can be a symptom of a lack of eternal perspective. Ed Welch writes, “Fears see only in part. They see that we might lose something dear to us, such as our money, our health or the health of someone we love. They see the potential for loss with microscopic acuity. But they don’t see God’s presence, they don’t see His faithfulness to His promises, they don’t fixate on unseen realities but are dominated by what is merely seen with the naked eye (2 Corinthians 4:18).”

We’re told that “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (2 Timothy 1:7).

Whether you suffer from specific phobias, a chronic fear of harm or death to yourself or loved ones, or any other fear, here are some suggestions for handling them.

Three Strategies for Fighting Fear

Face your fears by sharing them. Fear thrives most when it lurks in the shadows. Tell someone else and you’ll find that fears are more common than you think. Many people suffer from what could be called “fear phobia.” They’re afraid their fear means they are abnormal.

Sharing your fears with someone you trust, and finding out others struggle with similar issues, may bring you relief and help make them easier to handle.

Starve your fears—don’t feed them. Once a fear is shared, it should not be dwelt on. Talking too much about fears tends to feed or reinforce them, making it more difficult to shake them.

Another area to check is your viewing habits. What are you taking in through television, movies, the internet, and social media? We can’t fill our mind with what is evil and dreadful and expect to be at peace!

If you fear violence to yourself and your family, it’s better that you don’t watch violent movies and television programs that feed your fears. For that matter, you’d do better not to read the newspaper or watch the news on television since they major in violent crimes and catastrophes. Studies show that chronic television watchers see the world as being far more dangerous than it really is.

Shift your focus away from your fear and toward God. Read Scripture, memorize it, and pray about your fear. There are hundreds of “fear nots” in the Bible. The most common statement is, “Fear not, for I am with you” (Genesis 26:24). God knows our frailties and fears, and He is quick to reassure us:

Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go (Joshua 1:9, AMP).

God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” So we say with confidence,
“The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:5–6, NIV)

I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. (Psalm 34:4, NIV)

Charles Spurgeon said, “The fear of God is the death of every other fear; like a mighty lion, it chases all other fears before it.” Scripture is full of commands to fear God and it is also full of commands not to be afraid. If you fear God, you need fear no one and nothing else, even the devil. If you do not fear God, you will ultimately fear many things besides Him. We’re told that “In the fear of the LORD one has strong confidence” (Proverbs 14:26).

What If?

But what if your fears do happen or have already happened? Ed Welch put it this way: “Our worst fears may come upon us, but we cannot imagine the immense grace that God will pour out on us for them.”

It can help to remind yourself that even if one of your fears becomes reality, God has promised He will use it for your eternal good (Romans 8:28). Everything that comes into your life—yes, even evil and suffering—is Father-filtered. There is great comfort in meditating on your true, eternal circumstances: your Savior has come to deliver you, has secured your resurrection and eternal life, is for you and not against you, and never under any circumstances allows anything to separate you from His love.

We’re told that Christ intercedes for us (Romans 8:34). Since the prayers of a righteous man are effective (James 5:16), what could be more effective than Christ’s prayers for you? What an encouragement to know that even if no one else knows your needs, worries, and fears, and is praying for us, Christ does and is. Robert Murray M’Cheyne wrote, “If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me.”

God’s promise of His presence is a source of both comfort and courage: “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10). Jesus has promised us that no matter what, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20, NLT).

An Opportunity for Greater Dependence

In a time of dark suffering and dread, David affirmed, “The LORD is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?... Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then will I be confident.... Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me.... I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD” (Psalm 27:1, 3, 10, 13–14).

My wife Nanci suffered through what she calls her “year of fear and free-floating anxiety that made me fall in love with God.” Nanci knew God from childhood and trusted Him all through my lawsuits, arrests, and job loss, then through her mother’s death and other losses (and threatened ones). But that inexplicable year of her life, unrelated to any outside traumatic event, changed her. She coped by telling God, morning and night, how much she loved Him.

She has continued her habit of praise and intimacy with God that developed when daily fear and dread fell upon her. The crushing emotions of that time have departed; the sense of intimacy with her Savior remains. To this day Nanci rejoices in God’s love for her and her love for Him in ways she never would have known without that year she otherwise could describe as hellish.

Your struggle with fear can be an opportunity for greater dependence on your Savior, and an opportunity to fix your eyes on what is unseen. John Newton penned it well: “If the Lord be with us, we have no cause of fear. His eye is upon us, His arm over us, His ear open to our prayer—His grace sufficient, His promise unchangeable.”

Photo by Tirza van Dijk, vis Unsplash

Pray for Our Brothers and Sisters in Russia, As They’re Losing Their Liberties

In 1991, my friend Steve Keels and I traveled to the Soviet Union, where we had the opportunity to observe believers enjoying the new freedoms to exercise their faith. Lenin’s pictures on statues were everywhere, yet on “Lenin’s Day,” his birthday, we had the privilege of going into the public schools and sharing the gospel ten times in ten different schoolrooms, as well as passing out Bibles. We were told this had never happened in that Ukrainian city. Soviet children listened intently as we told them about the one who died for their sins and is coming to set up a kingdom that will not leave them where Lenin left them—empty, hungry, and without hope.

A city newspaper editor asked to interview us. He asked why we had come to their city, and we responded by giving him a Bible and sharing the gospel. He asked me, “What special words would you say to the people of our city?” He wrote down every word as I replied, “I would encourage them to look to Jesus Christ to fill the emptiness they have inside—and not look to material or political solutions to their ultimate needs, which are spiritual.” We were able in this interview to reach tens of thousands of people with the gospel through a paper that until recently was a propaganda tool of an atheist government.

While this happened in the Ukraine, we also widely distributed Bibles in Russia, not knowing that within eighteen months of our visit the USSR would collapse. At that same time the USA was becoming increasingly restrictive with religious liberties. I vividly recall thinking, “There is now more openness to the Gospel, and opportunity to share it publicly in the Soviet Union than in the United States of America!”

While the USA has seen its religious liberties continue to gradually erode, just twenty-five years after we saw the amazing emergence of freedom in Russia, things have taken a dramatic downward turn for believers there. WORLD reports that:

[On Thursday, July 7], Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law an “anti-terror” package that includes measures eviscerating religious freedom. The new law requires government permits to preach and teach the gospel, and restricts evangelism essentially to registered church building sites.

The law targets Protestant churches more directly than Orthodox ones. Also, in a gotcha clause, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists, “If the law produces any undesired outcomes, the government will introduce measures accordingly by presidential decree.”

A Russian pastor who is a friend of our ministry confirmed this to us, and made these further comments:

Considering that many evangelical churches do not own church buildings, are currently renting different culture houses for their meetings, while experiencing ongoing and ever strong resistance from the powers that be, all of their activities will soon be completely outlawed. Abiding by this law will bring our congregation to a sole purpose—to survive another Sunday. And the choice to exercise our God-given freedom will be considered a criminal offense.

…And, the epitome of it all is the requirement for anyone, who is aware of those “violations”, to REPORT on neighbors, friends or family. NON-ACTION will be viewed as another kind of criminal offense.

Christianity Today also reports that “Foreign visitors who violate the law face deportation. Russia has already moved to contain foreign missionaries. The ‘foreign agent’ law, adopted in 2012, requires groups from abroad to file detailed paperwork and be subject to government audits and raids. Since then, the NGO sector has shrunk by a third, according to government statistics.”

Our friend in Russia asks that we keep Russian believers in our prayers, and that we pray not just for their safety, but for courage to do what is right in the face of trials and tribulations. Though the Russian church may never enjoy the freedoms they’ve had the past two and a half decades, may they be encouraged that Christ’s gospel is bigger than every obstacle.  And may those of us in America—who also may continue to lose our religious liberties—be encouraged by the same.

“Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe” (Hebrews 12:28). 

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