“I was wishing that I came of a more honourable lineage,” said Caspian.
“You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve,” said Aslan. “And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth.”
C. S. Lewis, Prince Caspian
Then the Prince commanded that a herald should be called, and that he should, in the midst and throughout the camp of Emmanuel proclaim, and that with sound of trumpet, that the Prince, the Son of Shaddai, had, in his Father’s name, and for his Father’s glory, gotten a perfect conquest and victory over Mansoul.
John Bunyan, The Holy War
At 8:00 pm darkness quietly steals across the soccer field. But darkness isn’t the only thing stealing. A shouting woman from the raised platform blasts her voice via 10 four-foot-high speakers in English and Tsonga to a waiting crowd of several hundred. “Do you want a miracle?”
Crowd responds with roars and cheers.
“Then don’t give R10 ($1.50) and expect a R10,000 ($1,500) miracle!”
Crowd responds with mild, begrudging roar.
Holding up a stack of envelopes, she continues, “If you want me to pray for you, then come take an envelope. But these envelopes are only for people who will pay at least R100 ($15).” She then asked for translators to explain that to all the grandmothers who were there because they get a government pension of R700 every month. The “preaching” hasn’t even started yet. The offering went on for nearly an hour.
The platform has multi-colored lights and huge brightly painted signs saying, “Miracles!” and “Jesus”. I spotted at least 8 people I have witnessed to in the past who are not converted and know they are not. One of them was an usher at the crusade that week who lives with a woman he is not married to in a one-room shack. He gave money in the offering.
You might be tempted to think that some of my descriptions are exaggerated, but I think 9 out of 10 people would have called his platform motions and antics clown-like. He shouted for the entire time. His favorite pose was looking away from the people. He continually interrupted the translator. Several times he bent over to the ground shouting to his voice’s extremity.
For 10 days this white man openly lied (“I will not leave this city until no one has AIDS!” and “Everyone of you will get a job this week!”), twisted the Scripture (“Elijah killed the false prophet of poverty! He killed the false prophet of HIV!”), and perverted the Gospel (“You are all children of God! I don’t want to talk about Hell, I just want everyone to be happy!”).
But his message wasn’t wholly lacking in intellectual content. I learned that poverty is a demon that he could cast out. During one particularly memorable segment, he also assured us that if we had faith, then money would fill our pockets. Of course, he was a man of faith, because his 2008 Mercedes wasn’t hidden from view. He also closed his sermon by asking people to raise their hands if they love him and his ministry. He never asked the same question about Jesus or the Bible.
He began his “miracles” each night about 10:00 pm, 90% of which included causing people to collapse and pretending to throw the Holy Spirit like a baseball to other people. There wasn’t one word about the people’s sin, God’s anger, Hell, or faith alone in Christ alone. But they did have an “altar call.” Every night the crowd increased.
The day before the crusade started I had visited with the “preacher” who styled himself as an apostle and a prophet. “Hi, my name is Seth and I am a pastor here in the area. I was wondering if you could tell me what your goal is with this crusade?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, “Miracles, signs, and wonders,” he said with an edge in his voice.
He failed the first question. Let me make it easier. “I am a pastor who loves the Gospel. It’s my burden to explain the way of salvation to people. What will you be hoping to do this week?” I asked him for the second time not really because I thought he would have the right answer, but to make my point even clearer.
“Miracles from the Holy Spirit.” He failed the second question even after I gave him a hint. But at least he was honest that time. He didn’t say he would preach the Gospel, and he didn’t.
Crusades like this are the heart and soul of African Christianity in this region, and I suspect other areas are the same. Here are some of my musings on this mess that will hopefully provoke you to prayer for us.
[This was my report from March 2008, but it’s still entirely relevant.]
Salvation, then, does not come to sinners because they are inherently desirable, but because the Son is inherently worthy of the Father’s gift. After all, the purpose of redemption is that the Son might be eternally exalted by the redeemed—it is not for the honor of the sinner but the honor of the Son.
John MacArthur, forward to Foundations of Grace
Perhaps you can relate to an illustration gone awry.
Let me illustrate. Two conservatives are in a discussion, and one compares the other to a liberal. The friend who has been illustrated sees this as an unfitting epithet whereas the illustrator was merely trying to make a simple point.
Or a husband and wife are discussing some family matter, when one compares the other to another family friend whose name in that particular context may be a synonym for undue harshness and irrationality.
Much of my life’s calling is somehow bound up with communication, so I am constantly searching for the right illustration that can drive the point home more poignantly. But here’s the difficulty: Nearly every illustration can be interpreted such that the speaker would deny the conclusion derived from the illustration he personally chose.
One source of this potential confusion comes from the nature of language as an analogy. Illustrations are lengthened forms of language’s many analogies that good communicators often use. God is a fortress, a rock, and a mother hen. (Psalm 18:2; 91:4) He rides on the clouds. (Psalm 104:3) He holds the oceans in His hand. (Psalm 95:4) The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer with seeds; a man finding a treasure; and a fisherman. (Matt. 13)
These uses of language are brief illustrations drawing pictures and making connections in our minds between two or more ideas. But no one expects these figures of speech to match on every point. When Luther wrote a “Mighty Fortress” he wasn’t trying to say that God is composed of bricks and mortar, or worse yet, that He had a beginning and an inevitable end like every fortress we’ve ever known has.
Rather, the illustration has a key similarity—at least one if it’s a good illustration—between the picture and the reality. Pictures don’t need to be the same at all points to communicate well. God’s “rockness” paints a picture of unshakeable durability, the ultimate standard for that which is classic. But it would be a great sin to apply the rock’s lack of personality to Jehovah.
To properly fit, illustrations do not need to match at every point. Indeed, if they did, they would be too close to the object to be dissimilar from what they were illustrating. It would be like saying, “I can best illustrate that chair with another similar chair.” Their needs to be some lack of sameness for an illustration to work.
But there must be at least one obvious similarity for an illustration to be effective. The problem comes with that word “obvious” because discussions employing illustrations often involve parties who disagree. Therefore, one party can take the most flattering similarities in the illustration and the other party will see the most irrelevant dissimilarities as the most obvious meaning.
So, who gets to decide which meaning goes with any given illustration? In may be a bit of oversimplification (but just a bit) to say that God does. Metaphors that have been inscripturated are right because God chose them as pictures of His meaning in any given statement. Of course, most of our communication and tension does not come from debates over what is the right interpretation of the parable of the Wheat and Tares. Scripture still speaks even to illustrative use in day-to-day life.
There are other principles that can be drawn out of the Bible, but at the most basic level it should be remembered that illustrations in general do not need to match the reality at every point. Usually, one main similarity will do. Usually. Like the way a wrench doesn’t have to loosen every bolt for it still to be a valid addition to the toolbox.
[William Carey] is most remarkable for his humility; he is a very superior man, and appears to know nothing about it.
The great man and the little child unite in him, and, as far as I can see, he has attained to the happy art of ruling and overruling in connection with the others mentioned, without his asserting his authority, or others feeling their subjection; and all is done without the least appearance of design on his part.
An E. Pritchett, missionary to Burma writing about Carey’s leadership of the mission team in 1811.
Keeping the Tyrants Straight, from a recent post by Amy.
Here’s a recent conversation at our house:
Seth: I have to go to a funeral tomorrow.
Amy: Oh! Who died?
Seth: Hitler’s mom.
Amy: Ohhh. That’s too bad.
Seth: No, not Hitler from church. The other Hitler. The man.
Amy: Do I know him?
Seth: I don’t think so. He worked on the road with me.
Pause.
Amy: Oh! Oops. I was thinking of Saddam Hussein’s mom.
Seth: Yeah, it’s hard keeping all those moms-of-tyrants straight.
One of Carey’s Indian language helpers said about him (when he was about 45),
What kind of body has Carey Sahib? I cannot understand him. He never seems hungry nor tired, and never leaves a thing till it’s finished.
As recorded by his teammate William Ward.
Here is the covenant that Carey wrote for the missionaries who served together with him at Serampore.
- To set an infinite value on men’s souls.
- To acquaint ourselves with the snares which hold the minds of the people.
- To abstain from whatever deepens India’s prejudice against the Gospel.
- To watch for every chance of doing the people good.
- To preach ‘Christ crucified’ as the grand means of conversions.
- To esteem and treat Indians always as our equals.
- To guard and build up ‘the hosts that may be gathered.’
- To cultivate their spiritual gifts, ever pressing upon them their missionary obligation–since Indians only can win India for Christ.
- To labour unceasingly in biblical translation.
- To be instant in the nurture of personal religion.
- To give ourselves without reserve to the cause, ‘not counting even the clothes we wear our own’.
A competent knowledge of the languages current where a missionary lives, a mild and winning temper, and a heart given up to God–these are the attainments, which, more than all other gifts, will fit us to become God’s instruments in the great work of human redemption.
I bolded my favorites. William Carey by S. Pearce Carey, page 240.
Striving for true doctrine, right action, and spiritual feeling amidst the mine fields on all sides.
I could wish that they had dealt with Rom. 7:2-3 in its own chapter. Also, the syllogism of Eph. 5:25:
1. A husband must be like Jesus Christ.
2. Jesus Christ never divorces His wife.
Conclus…
An interesting and perhaps important book which educates the citizen to vital factors about the region and country to which he is obligated to vote, pray, …
For its glorious and compelling presentation of Christ as well as intensity that comes straight from Scripture, this book deserves more honor than Pilgrim’s Progress.
Plot:
1….
