|
CHRISTIANITY" BY BILL JACK In a letter to a friend who was struggling with doubt about his faith, Key wrote, "I don't believe there are any new objections to be discovered to the truth of Christianity. Men may argue ingeniously against our faith, but what can they say in defense of their own?" That is the confidence a Christian should carry with him into the daily battle for the hearts and souls around him. We have the Truth - with a capital "T" - and should not cower in a corner of our culture in fear of the opposition's arguments against our faith. Instead we should be asking them for a reason for the hope they say they have. After all, the best defense is a good offense. We need to make Christianity the FAD that we can pass on to our children. Yes, fads come and go, and, yes, fads are fleeting. Christianity should not be a passing "fad" as in a fashion statement, but FAD. Christianity should not be just any fad; Christianity should be FAD. Christianity should not be "a fad" determined by high paid models; Christianity should be "the FAD" after which our children should want to model their lives. Sound confusing? Well, FAD can represent one of two mottoes for Christians in our culture. The first is what Christians should not make the FAD. That is Fear and Defeat. Christianity should not be the FAD - Fear and Defeat - which too often Christian parents do pass on to their children. Yet, too often, Christians do operate out of Fear and Defeat. Fear can be a powerful motivating force, but a terrible master. For example, do you recall as a child ever being terribly afraid perhaps while watching a frightening movie on television? Did you respond by running out of the room, hiding behind the furniture, climbing into your parent's lap? Or did you pull the covers over your head in bed because you were certain the drooling creature from outer space was camped out in your closet? Many of you, I'm certain, hid behind the couch with your hands over your eyes, but then occasionally you would lower one or two fingers from one eye and peak around the corner of the couch to catch a glimpse of that awe-inspiring monster on TV. Our fear repulses yet attracts us at the same time. We are drawn in awe as we tremble in fear. Fear has an amazing effect on people and can be a powerful weapon. You can probably recall a time when you discovered the power fear exercised over your younger siblings. If you have younger brothers or sisters, you know, hey can be gnats. Now gnats are little insects that don't bite or sting, they just buzz around your face and irritate you. You shoo them, you swat at them in vain, but they still hang around and bug you. When you were a child, your younger brothers or sisters at times could be like that especially when you were involved in that secret project in your backyard - digging a trap to catch the monster from TV. So, to shoo away the gnat you did what was efficient and effective, you punched him in the arm and said, "Go away!" He left, and you went back to finishing the ninth engineering marvel of the world. Then you heard The Sound. It began about halfway across the yard, and when it penetrated your brain, terror gripped your soul-more terror than any monster from the tiny TV screen could ever hope to generate. The Sound? - "I'm gonna tell MOM!!!" Immediately, you knew what must be done. You thought, "I must kill that person. If I do not kill that person, he will tell Mom, and Mom will kill me. Better for that one to die than me. I will bury him in the back yard in the monster trap, and Mom will never know. After all, she has several other children, she won't miss this one." So, you began chasing your younger brother across the backyard with the intent of doing serious bodily damage. However, your sneaky sibling started The Sound half way across the yard for a reason. He realized his legs were shorter, and he was slower than you. To compensate for this disadvantage, he began his insidious plot at the exact point in the yard from which it would be impossible for you to reach him before he reached the back screen door. You recall what had happened on previous occasions when little brother had reached the back screen door one step ahead of you, don't you? That's right, he had shut the door, turned and latched the little hook on the door. Then standing two inches from your face on the other side of the screen door, he had mocked you with, "Nana, nana, boo, boo! I'm gonna tell Mom!!!" The next scene: your funeral, because Mom killed you for punching little brother in the arm. Ah, but that was not going to be the case this time. You had grown so much more sophisticated than younger brother. This time you had a backup, contingency plan for just such an emergency. You probably called it Plan B. Plan B was thoroughly ingenious, and it was certain to work. You simply stood still, took a cleansing breath and half-shouted, half-growled some deep, guttural noise. Immediately, your little brother fell to the ground in a quivering heap of Jell-O, his hands over his head as he cried, "Don't hit me! Don't hit me." Why? When his hand was on the latch, and you were still ten feet away; when sanctuary was in his grasp, and you were a dead duck, why did he fall down? One little word: FEAR! When a person operates out of fear, he: Feels Overwhelmed Escapes Reality Accepts Defeat Runs Away. It is not just children who respond that way to fear, however. Entire civilizations have built their cultures around fear. The ancient Egyptians worshipped the crocodile. Why? They feared it. The crocodile would crawl up out of the Nile and eat their cattle and their children - not nec- essarily in that order. So, in order to control or to appease the crocodile, they made it into a god. Fear drove their culture. By the time of the demise of the Egyptian civilization, because they rejected the one true God, their religion recognized over 3,000 different gods. On the headrests they used as pillows, the Egyptians had carved inscriptions to protect them from nightmares. These people lay down at night in fear of offending one of a myriad of gods. They were enslaved to fear, and fear drove their culture to extinction. The Mayans, too, had many gods. They made a god out of the jaguar. Why? They feared it. The jaguar would crawl out of the jungle and eat their cattle and their children - not necessarily in that order. So, in order to control or to appease the jaguar, they worshipped it. Their fears drove them to conquer and enslave neighboring peoples. Because they believed the sun-god would not rise every day unless appeased by human sacrifice, each morning four priests would drag a captive victim to the top of a pyramid, stretch him out on an altar while a fifth priest would cut out and hold up to the sun the victim's still-beating heart. It is reported that on one high, holy day, 20,000 victims were sacrificed. These people rose in fear every morning of offending one of a myriad of gods they feared. They, too, were enslaved to fear, and fear drove their culture to extinction. Now we moderns make fun of the Egyptians and the Mayans, but we are not that far removed from them. If we fear not having enough money, we make material things our gods. If we fear not having enough friends, we make people into our gods. In other words, what one fears is what one worships. What is it that just scares you spitless? Losing your hair? Losing your youth? Losing your job? Whatever it is that you fear the most is what you will worship. Interestingly, whenever surveys are taken of what people fear the most, the number one response is not death, not dentists, not an IRS audit. The number one fear people list is public speaking. People become self-conscious when standing before an audience. The solution to being self-conscious is found in John 12:24 when Jesus said, "ßUnless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself alone. He who wishes to save his life will lose it; he who loses his life for my sake will find it." When a person speaks in public, he must put aside all thoughts of the hundreds or even thousands of eyes focused on him, the irritating gestures he knows he has, the thought of failure, his unusual physical fea- tures, his nasally twang in his speaking voice. Instead, he must concentrate on conveying his message clearly and positively. In short, he must do what that grain of wheat does in order to reproduce. In the part of Illinois where I grew up cornfields abound. In the spring a farmer takes a single kernel of seed corn and plants it. In the fall in that same field that was so bare in the spring there are rows and rows of stalks of corn as high as the proverbial elephant's eye. Walk into that field and you will find several ears of corn on a single stalk. Pick one of those ears, peal back the shuck, and what do you see? Row upon row upon row upon row of corn. All that corn from one single little kernel that was willing to do what that grain of wheat did that Jesus mentioned in His illustration. The first thing a kernel of wheat or corn must do in order to reproduce is die. The same principle applies to people. Do you recall wanting to meet that special person who sat in your ninth grade biology class in the second seat, third row from the front? You may have been shy, self-conscious about the size of your ears or worried about your complexion, but finally you introduced yourself and a lifetime friendship resulted. How did you meet that person? You first had to die to yourself. If you had not died to yourself, you would have missed the friendship of a lifetime. That same principle applies to Christians. If a Christian is consumed with himself, he will never go out and proclaim the Good News because he is self-conscious. If Christians are to fulfill the Great Commission, we must first die to ourselves, give ourselves to the power of the Holy Spirit, and only then will Christians begin to make disciples as we are commanded to do. So, how does one overcome fear? In Luke 11:52 Jesus told the religious leaders of His day, "You have taken away the key of wisdom." What is the key of wisdom? Throughout scripture we read, "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." (Proverbs 1:7) If you want to be wise, fear God. Christians often translate "fear" God as "respect" or "awe." Because we emphasize God's love we reason, "How can God be loving when He expects us to fear Him?" So, the American church has tended to water down the concept of fearing God. In doing so, we have done a disservice to future generations of Christians who need to understand that fear - not just awe and respect - but fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. (See Proverbs 1:7 for example.) In Luke 5 Peter experienced the fear of God when Jesus was speaking to the crowds near the edge of Lake Genneseret. As the people pressed in on Him, Jesus turned, saw Peter's boat and asked Peter to row out a short distance so that Jesus could use the boat as a pulpit. After He finished speaking, Jesus told Peter to row out farther and cast out his nets. Now, Peter was a commercial fisherman. He had been fishing all night long and hadn't caught anything, but to his credit, he did as Jesus said. You know the results. Peter and his companions caught so many fish that they had to hail another boat to help them. They caught so many fish that both boats were overloaded. This was Peter's best business day of his life. He could pay off his mortgage, small business loan, his kid's private Hebrew school tuition, and buy the new carpet for his house his wife had longed to have. You would think that he would be rejoicing and doing cartwheels. Yet, notice how he responded. He fell down at Jesus feet and exclaimed, "'Please depart from me for I am a sinful man' for amazement (fear) had seized him." Like Peter when you encounter the power of the awesome living God, you will be on your face in fear and dread and trembling. Jesus emphasized that we are to fear God in Matthew 10:28 when He said, "Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul, but rather fear Him Who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Whom are we to fear? Not Satan, but rather God Almighty. There is a worldview of difference, however, between fearing as did the pagan Egyptians and Mayans and fearing as Christians. Once you fear the true Creator, the God of the Bible, He promises to remove fear of everything else. What were the first words the angels spoke to Mary, to Joseph, to the shepherds? "Fear not." What did Jesus say to the disciples as He walked across the water? "Do not be afraid." Even Paul wrote about this absence of fear of everything else once you fear the true God when he wrote in Romans 8:38-39, "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." We tend to look back at Paul and say that he was fearless, that he was a man of great courage and long to be like him. We have all read of great heroes of the faith such as Paul who have endured great trials and persecutions for the sake of Christ and have been encouraged by their fearlessness before people. Many Christians can recall thinking as children how noble they would be if martyred for the faith. Many Christians as children have thought, "I will never renounce my faith. The enemies of Christ can torture me or burn me at the stake, but I will be stoic and fearless to the end." We all need to be reminded that the mark of an immature Christian is that he is willing to die for Christ, whereas, the mark of a mature Christian is that he is willing to live for Him. Paul was such a Christian. He lived fully for Christ and appeared to be fearless before his enemies. He is an example of what a mature Christian should be. I can picture many such individuals who were examples of fearless, mature Christians in my life. However, most of those people who were examples of mature Christians were also mature, older people. What strikes me most are the times when those much younger than I have shown themselves to be "examples of those who believe." (I Timothy 4:12) I recall just such a young man, a high school senior, by the name of Hugh who exhibited great courage. Hugh and some of his friends wanted to start a Bible club on their high school campus in Southern Illinois. They met all the requirements for having a school-sponsored club and approached the principal with their request. He immediately said, "No." based on his faulty interpretation of separation of church and state. The students appealed his decision to the school board. Being a university town, the issue gained a great deal of press and generated quite a bit of interest. During a meeting of the students to plan strategy for the upcoming appeal before the school board, the students chose Hugh as their spokesman. After the planning meeting Hugh came over to us and stated that he was not certain that he could speak before the school board. When asked why, he explained that he wanted to be a medical missionary and to even begin his college education he had to have a scholarship. His father, although very wealthy, had abandoned the family, and Hugh needed that scholarship. He met all the requirements and had submitted all the necessary forms. All that was left was to secure the recommendation of guess whom The same principal who so vehemently opposed the formation of the Bible club. I could not take Hugh's future and crumple it up like a scrap piece of paper and toss it away by demanding Hugh speak at the board meeting. I did not know what Hugh would do. When the night of the school board meeting rolled around, hundreds of people packed the school library where the board had moved the meeting to accommodate the crowd. This issue generated so much interest that local television stations, newspapers and radio outlets were there to cover the story. When the Bible club issue came up on the agenda, a law professor from the university stood and very eloquently stated that Christian students did not have a Constitutional right to meet on the public school campus. He was followed by an attorney from the American Civil Liberties Union who echoed the same sentiments. Finally, a lawyer from the Jewish legal defense arm, the Binai B'rith, reiterated that Christian students should not be allowed to have a club on a public school campus. Then I watched as Hugh stood, and in five minutes destroyed all their arguments. I do not recall exactly what he said for I my attention was distracted by and fixed on his pants. That is correct; his pant legs fascinated me. I happened to be seated right behind Hugh, and when he stood to speak, I watched in amazement because the backs of Hugh's pant legs were shaking uncontrollably. His knees were literally knocking as he calmly dismantled every argument raised in objection to the Bible club being on campus. Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather courage is fear in its proper perspective. Once again, what you fear is what you will worship. If you want to be bold in sharing your faith, if you want to be fearless before people, there are only two words on which you must meditate and concentrate: Fear God. In Ecclesiastes 12:13 the wise man tells us, "The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person." Oswald Chambers put it this way, "If you fear God, you will fear nothing else. If you do not fear God, you will fear everything else." It was the courage of a high school student named Doug that moved me from living in fear to operating by faith. Doug forced me to face my responsibility as a Christian teacher in a pubic school high school setting. Doug was a mediocre student in the journalism class I taught. Mediocre might be a generous description; Doug was a poor student, but he was a talented graphic artist. I drilled my journalism students with their First Amendment liberty of free press. I would say, "The strongest right you have as a student on this campus is your freedom of press. Exercise your freedom of press." Well, Doug trusted Christ as the result of a student ministry called The Caleb Campaign, a creationist youth ministry designed to educate, encourage and equip high school students to share their faith on their campuses. He began to grow in his faith and began to think biblically in every area. We worked closely together since I was the advisor for the school newspaper, and he was the graphic artist. It was a small town, and Doug knew I was a Christian. However, because my new principal disliked Christians I was trying to separate my faith from my teaching. I was afraid. Well, I watched Doug as his grades and his art improved as the result of the biblical worldview training he was receiving. . .and Doug watched me. One day Doug came up to me and said, "Mr. Jack, I want to distribute to students on this campus a Christian newspaper, "Issues & Answers," published by The Caleb Campaign. Will you go with me to the principal when I tell him my plans?" I quickly looked around to see if Doug was talking to someone else. He wasn't, and suddenly I realized my dilemma. If I told Doug, "No," I could never walk back into my journalism class and tell my students, "You have freedom of press. Exercise your freedom of press." I would be a hypocrite. I took a deep breath and said, "Sure, Doug, I'll go with you," in a very shaky, high-pitched squeak. I can still see the scene: With me timidly walking beside him frantically looking for an escape route, Doug approached the principal in front of the trophy case in the hallway during a passing period. He said, "Hi, Mr. T_____, I'm going to be distributing this newspaper on the campus and just wanted you to have copy so that you would know where it originated." Notice that Doug never asked for permission - he never said, "Mother, May I." Why? He knew his liberties as a student on a public school campus. He learned those liberties from me, his teacher. The principal looked over the paper, looked up at Doug, and said, "No, you may not pass this out on this campus." At which point Doug turned to me and said, "Well, Mr. Jack, I do have the liberty to do so, don't I?" My breath caught in my throat because by this time my heart was crowding my Adam's apple. I was so afraid. The line had been very clearly drawn in my life at that moment. I suddenly realized that if I told Doug, "No," not only could I never walk back into my journalism class and tell my students to exercise their freedom of press, but I also would have to deny my very faith itself. I swallowed, took a deep breath and boldly squeaked, "Well, Mr. T____, he does have the liberty to do so." Doug and I went on to work together for the very ministry that produced that newspaper. Several years later Doug was visiting me in Denver and attended a meeting where I spoke. I shared that incident from years earlier with the audience and told them that Doug's call to step from Fear into Faith was the reason I was now in ministry. Afterwards Doug came up to me and said rather apologetically, "Bill, I never realized I put you through such turmoil. I just believed what you, my teacher, told me in journalism class." A scrawny junior in high school had called me to be consistent with what I said I believed because he had faith in his teacher. Christianity should not be the FAD of Fear and Defeat. II Timothy 1:7 states, "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love and discipline and a sound mind." Christians are to operate from faith not out of fear. God turns our fear into faith, but what about the defeat part? What do you want defeat to become? Victory would be wonderful, would it not? However, you know that I cannot guarantee victory. Yes, ultimately God turns apparent defeat into eternal victory, but what about the here and now? It often appears that victory is part of many Christians' experiences. Just read Hebrews 11, that great chapter on the Hall of Faith, and you will read about those faithful Christians who received back their dead, who shut the mouths of lions, who quenched fire. Hugh, by the way, did receive his scholarship, and Doug did distribute that Christian newspaper on campus as did other Christian students after him for several years. Such glorious victory is not always the case, however. Also listed in Hebrews 11 are those faithful Christians who lived in holes in the ground, who were sawn in two, who were persecuted unto death. We all know stories of brothers and sisters in Christ who have suffered humiliating defeats. Victory is not always apparent. Even though God is always faithful, we cannot say that we can always turn defeat into victory-and besides that, victory doesn't start with a "D" so it won't fit my acronym. Christians are to turn Fear into Faith, and we can turn Defeat into Duty. Christians should make their motto: Faith and Duty. Christians need to understand and exercise their duties as followers of Jesus Christ. Christians must operate out of Faith and Duty if America is to remain great and good and strong, if our people are to have a future, if our nation is to remain free. That will only happen if today's Christians make biblical Christianity the FAD to be handed down to the next generation. |