Wonderfully Made

There are many arguments in favour of the existence of God. Yet in a way we need look no further for evidence than the human body. We are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14 KJV).

Christians believe that creation was an immensely powerful and yet warmly personal act by the Creator. All of God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - was fully involved and fully committed. There was a definite end point to this glorious first phase of the divine work: we are told in Genesis 2:2

“By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work” (NIV).

The legacy of the original creation remains breathtaking to this very day.

At the beginning of each day I have a clear reminder of the differences in efficiency between humans created by God and artifacts created by man. Not everybody is instantly alert on waking up. Some are downright drowsy. They moan and groan and turn over, longing to snooze on. They resist getting up until the very last minute and take quite a while to get into the day. Others are morning people. They bounce out of bed, alert and ready for anything straight away. I am somewhere in between. When I wake up, I may not feel refreshed, but at least I still become quickly aware of myself and my surroundings.

With my mobile phone, however, it is quite different. I leave it switched off completely overnight. When I turn it back on in the morning, it takes ages to come into full operation again. Partly this is because its contents are encrypted for security’s sake. But basically, like any computer, it has to remind itself each and every time what it is, what its different parts are for, and how they all work together. Only then can it even begin to burst into life. You would think the computer marks a high point in human creative ingenuity. Yet compared to humans it is comically slow and stupid.

You will now understand why I smiled when I read this extract from an evangelistic booklet by John E. Davis:

Have you ever stopped and marvelled at the wonder of the human body? When was the last time you woke up and had to remind your heart to start beating or your wounds to start healing? The Bible says "… in him we live, and move, and have our being …" (Acts 17:28). Have you considered the workings of the human eye or the complexity of the human brain, which is far beyond the capabilities of any computer? The human body is truly amazing, beyond our comprehension, no wonder David in the Psalms wrote "I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works”.

(Remember, this is simply a comment on the first creation! It says nothing about how, in Jesus Christ, God has a long-term programme of re-creating us spiritually following the fall from grace of our first ancestors.)

Science goes on making amazing discoveries about the human body, some of which unfortunately lead a number of scientists to think they can “play God” with the physical matter that constitutes us. This has potentially disastrous consequences.

A bit of due humility is called for here. I once asked a scientist, a committed Christian  to address a church Men’s Supper Club gathering on Creation. I fear this audience was sceptical, even hostile. But what stuck with me was the faithful scientist's parting comment.

“The most we can do,” he affirmed in his closing sentence, “is think God’s thoughts after Him.”

Bible Man

Thinking back, I have always been a Bible man.

I once remember being quizzed by our church minister. I was probably not even converted by that time. “What do you believe?” he asked. “I believe in the Bible,” was my decided reply. An unmistakable frown of concern crossed his face. I have often wondered about it since. He surely wouldn’t have thought that I treated the Bible as God. Obviously, what I meant was, “My faith is based on the reliability of the Bible”.

So why would he have looked so troubled? Maybe his whole training led him to believe that there were flaws in the Bible, as in any other “human” book. He would have been warned that there were naive “fundamentalists” out there hoodwinking others into believing that the Bible was infallible. This supposed menace needed putting straight, along with the victims of such warped ideas.

This is guesswork, of course. The minister didn’t say why he looked worried. He may simply have found my prompt and clear answer to his question rather disconcerting. He would not want to let any faulty thinking I had go unchallenged. On the other hand, was it the right time to be putting roadblocks in the way of a young man starting out on Christian service? It was a dilemma for the clergyman, and no mistake.

It seems I carried on being a thorn in the side of the Bible’s liberal critics. I understand that, many years later, my old arch-liberal ex-college tutor commented ruefully, “I never was able to bring Timothy Demore round to my way of thinking”. I continue to believe today that the Bible is on a different plane from ordinary human writings.

I’ve been exposed in my time to the whole sweep of French literature. French is the language with probably the longest continuous literary output of any in the world. Yet nothing in it compares with the challenge, the riches and the truthfulness of the Bible. A single verse may say more than an entire book of secular writing. What book is there on earth that can communicate more than these twenty-four words:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 ESV)?

The work of the Gideons worldwide is greatly to be admired. This long-established organisation is named for the Biblical character Gideon, who won victory over the Midianites in Judges chapter 7. It is dedicated to distributing Bibles round the world. The count, amazingly, is now fast approaching two billion!

Sadly, this worthy cause finds itself battling opposition where there was none before. Schools, hospitals and other organisations are now frequently timid about the placing of Bibles on their premises and bold in placing obstacles in front of the Gideons. Sometimes opposition gives way in answer to much prayer and persistence, sometimes not.

The tragedy of this opposition is that lives may be lost that would otherwise have been saved! There are frequent stories of suicidal people in hotel rooms who have picked up the Gideon Bible and been transformed. One man climbed up onto the window sill in his room and prepared to leap to his death. He steadied himself by putting his hand on a wardrobe. That hand came down on a Bible which was perched up there. Reading God’s word, the man turned away from his intended self-destruction and accepted Christ.

Surely a book by which God spares even one life, for time and eternity, should be allowed into the spaces where people gather.

Trees

Somehow a number of meditations on trees have recently caught my eye. Trees are certainly important symbols in the Bible. Right at the start, God sets boundaries for our first ancestors by telling them not to eat the fruit of a certain tree.

The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." Genesis 2:15-17 NIV

Another significant tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden was the tree of life. Right at the end of the Bible this tree features again:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Revelation 22:1-2

As well as picking up on Genesis 2, this echoes Ezekiel 47, where water flows from the threshold of Ezekiel’s ideal temple and trees grow on both banks of the stream. There too, the fruits give nourishment month by month and the leaves healing. There are many other Bible references to the significance of trees besides.

Perhaps the most telling is Calvary’s tree where our Saviour gave up His life. A contributor to Our Daily Bread, Dave Branon, did a spot of tree felling and then pondered this.

“I thought about the first tree - the one on which hung the forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve just couldn't resist. God used that tree to test their loyalty and trust. Then there is the tree in Psalm 1 that reminds us of the fruitfulness of godly living. And in Proverbs 3:18, wisdom is personified as a tree of life.

“But it is a transplanted tree that is most important – the crude cross of Calvary that was hewn from a sturdy tree. There our Saviour hung between heaven and earth to bear every sin of every generation on his shoulders. It stands above all trees as a symbol of love, sacrifice and salvation.

“At Calvary, God’s only Son suffered a horrible death on a cross. That's the tree of life for us."

The trees of Eden and Calvary stand as a challenge to us, to our sin and rebellion against God. Calvary is also a place of hope, because the Son of God not only carried our sin there but also dealt with it for good and all. And then in many other ways trees are a comfort. A persecuted Lebanese Christian once considered the Cedar of Lebanon, the symbol of his native land. This species of tree is mentioned some twenty times in the Bible. This man was thinking of Psalm 92:12 “The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like the cedar of Lebanon."

"First, the cedar tree is ever green. It is always fresh throughout the changing seasons. And so is the believer who has received the overflowing life of Christ. His faith and joy are fresh as the Lord nurtures and looks after him.

"Second, the cedar tree grows on high altitudes and it opens its branches to the skies. So does the believer who is called to live on higher ground and who keeps his thoughts and affections in the heavenlies. He opens up his soul to heaven in worship and supplication. He generously receives grace and power. In turn, he becomes a blessing to others.

“Third, a cedar tree is deeply rooted and could live for thousands of years. So is the believer who is standing on the Rock of Ages and has received everlasting life from Christ.

"Fourth, the cedar tree spreads an elegant fragrance and its wood is very expensive. Likewise is the Christian, who was bought with an extremely precious price and was graciously brought into the family of God. Consequently, he is commissioned to spread the fragrance of Christ and to be an open letter of love, faith, and hope to all the nations of this earth.”

But perhaps we should return to Psalm 1 and let the Bible have the last word.

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.
But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. Psalm 1:1-3

The Patience of Job

The patience of Job has long been proverbial — "You must have the patience of Job to cope with that situation". The saying goes back at least 500 years in our language!

Job, you may remember, is the (human) hero of the Bible book of the same name. Blighted with loss and disease as the result of a fiendish test by Satan, he refuses to curse God for his situation. After a series of frustrating conversations with well-meaning but unhelpful friends, Job has his health and wealth restored by God.

"The patience of Job." The expression comes from the King James Version translation of James 5:10 and 11 — 

"Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy."

Yet Job under testing is anything but "patient" in the way we understand it today! He bemoans the fact that he was ever born. He berates God for not letting him have his day in court so he can plead his innocence. So what kind of patience is really in view?

Recently in the Our Daily Bread notes I found an article by Joe Stowell which isn't about Job, yet perfectly illustrates the Bible concept of patience — or "endurance" as we would put it today. 

As a lad, Stowell had a punchball that sprang back upright when hit. However hard he hit it, he could not make it stay down. "The secret? There was a lead weight in the bottom that always kept it upright. Sailboats operate by the same principle. The lead weights in their keels provide the ballast to keep them balanced and upright in strong winds."

Stowell comments,

"It’s like that in the life of a believer in Christ. Our power to survive challenges resides not in us but with God, who dwells within us. We’re not exempt from the punches that life throws at us nor from the storms that inevitably threaten our stability. But with full confidence in His power to sustain us, we can say with Paul, 

'We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed (2 Corinthians 4:8-9)'."

God's sufficient grace, and His strength which is made perfect in our weakness, can be the ballast for our souls. Our plea is that the Lord Jesus Christ, who was hounded even to His death, rose again with power and now prepares a future reward and glory for all who believe in Him. That is the real story of Christian endurance and its outcome! Remember, as the article reminds us, 

"The power of God within you is greater than the pressure of troubles around you."

Indicators

It must surely come as a relief to know that you can measure "how you are doing" in the Christian life the way God sees it. Other people’s opinion is not always a good indicator. They can tell you that you are doing fine simply to please you. Or they can be brutally critical out of mere prejudice or ignorance. In any case it is not the Christian's primary job to keep other people happy - though your good and godly conduct should indeed bring joy to others.

We long for a test, an indicator, that is totally unbiased. It should act in the same way as lichens that indicate the quality of the air we breathe. A website called air-quality.org.uk recently put it this way:

"Lichens are widely used as environmental indicators or bio-indicators. If air is very badly polluted with sulphur dioxide there may be no lichens present, just green algae may be found. If the air is clean, shrubby, hairy and leafy lichens become abundant."

Take heart! There are tell-tale pointers to the state of your Christian life that are as sure and reliable as the lichen. They are found in the Bible. Particularly I have noticed them lately in the first letter of John. You may know that as well as the gospel bearing his name John wrote three letters which come near the end of the New Testament of our Bibles. He may also be responsible for the Book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible.

First John is full of helpful checklists by which you can gauge where you stand. Here are those I have picked out:

Four tests of true fellowship, 1 John 1:1 to 2:17
    • Affirming a proper view of Christ, 1:1-4
    • Affirming sin’s reality, 1:5-2:2
    • Obedience to God’s commands, 2:3-6
    • Love of the brethren, 2:7-17

Three characteristics of Antichrists, 2:19, 22-23, 26
    • they depart from the faithful, 19
    • they deny the faith, 22-23
    • they try to deceive the faithful, 26

 Two characteristics of true Christians, 2:20,21,27
    • the Holy Spirit guards them from error, 21
    • the Holy Spirit guides them into all knowledge, 20 and 27 

Five features of the believer’s hope, 2:18-3:3

• the believer abides in Christ, equivalent to finally persevering, 2:28
• the believer can’t help being righteous, 2:29
• Christians have a nature alien to the unsaved, 3:1
• God loves the believer so as to make him or her His child; we shall be like Him, 3:2
•  the Christian is purifying him- or herself, 3:3

Four reasons why true Christians cannot habitually practise sin, 1 John 3:4-10
    • Sin is incompatible with the law of God, 3:4
    • It is incompatible with the work of Christ, 3:5
    • Christ came to destroy the works of the arch-sinner, Satan, 3:8
    • It is incompatible with the ministry of the Holy Spirit, 3:9

    Three benefits of love, 3:11-24
    • Assurance of salvation, 3:14
    • Answered prayer, 3:22
    • The abiding presence and empowering of the Holy Spirit, 3:23-24   
 
Two tests of true teachers, 4:1-6 (for end of chapter 3 see next list)
    They affirm that Jesus is God incarnate come in human flesh, 4:2
    • They speak God’s word, following apostolic doctrine, 4:5-6

Five reasons why Christians love, 4:7-21
    • Because God is the essence of love, 4:7-8
    • To follow the supreme example of God’s sacrificial love in sending his Son for us, 4:9-11
    • Because love is the heart of Christian witness, 4:12
    • Because love is the Christian’s assurance, 4:13-16
    • Because love is the Christian’s confidence in judgment, 4:17-18

Five characteristics of overcomers, 5:1-5
    • Saving faith, 5:1
    • Love, 5:1
    • Obedience, 5:2-3
    • Belief in Jesus, 5:4
    • Dedication of one’s life to Him, 5:5

Five certainties, 5:13-21
    • Assurance of eternal life, 5:13
    • Answered prayer, 5:14-17
    • Victory over sin and Satan, 5:18
    • That Christians belong to God, 5:19
    • That Jesus Christ is the true God, 5:20

In the face of the unsettling influence of false teachers, John wanted his readers to be happy, holy and secure. They could only be that if three things were working together in their lives. They needed to be sound in the basics of the faith, obedient towards Jesus’ commands and loving towards God and their fellow believers.

Could this checklist help you to gauge where you stand?

Mis-speaking

Lately I have been revisiting some lovely little books penned by a wonderful, godly man I met during my ministry in Banbury (1984-1994). He was a Scripture Union children’s evangelist of long standing who retired during my time there. In Christian work, however, we never really retire, and Stephen English kept busy preaching, speaking at meetings and writing.

One such book was entitled “That’s not what I meant”. It was a humorous collection of things people said which were obviously kindly meant but framed in badly chosen words.

A fair few of these came from people who were chairing the meetings where Stephen used to speak. He tells this story about one of them. “She was in charge of the meeting so she was entitled to say whatever she wished. However, I was not ready for the words about to be spoken. To the somewhat astonished company, our host announced, ‘We will not sing extra choruses this week as we usually do, for we all know that Mr English has far too much to say.'

“Oh no! I’m not that self-opinionated, am I? That is what she implied, didn't she? 'He has far too much to say.' I hope I know what she meant.”
Stephen goes on to talk about how any preacher worth his or her salt will have an endless supply of material that they could speak about - the Christian life, its joys and peace as well as its discipline and its responsibilities to others. “We are speaking about the inexhaustible riches of Christ,” he comments. “A hymn speaks of 'A deep, unfathomable mine’ of truth about him.”

"Yes, lady,” Stephen felt like saying to the woman chairing the meeting, “I am guilty of having too much to say, because of what God has done for us. There are not words enough for that."

At the same time, Stephen admits that preachers should keep reminding themselves of the basic simplicity of the good news about Jesus. After all, Jesus did announce, “Come to me … and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28 ESV).

Stephen closes with a prayer, “In all the words I speak may the name of Jesus have the preeminence."

I hope I am tolerant of people who unintentionally “mis-speak”, as the expression is. We rarely think of the intricate physiological processes of speech, but it is hard work bringing ideas from the brain, putting them into words and stringing them together in spoken sentences. All too often I become aware that the things I mean to say don’t come out quite right. That doesn’t excuse me for causing offence to someone. It may dawn on me that what I said was hurtful and may need to apologise. I may also have to appeal to the other person to be patient while I re-phrase the words that went wrong.

A young Christian couple once memorably impressed me. The husband had fertility issues. His wife felt, naturally, very frustrated: her instinct to start a family was being baulked by her husband’s inability. Cruel words kept coming to her mind that would have put him down and made him feel useless. Yet time and again she resisted saying them. She was quite open about this, and her husband bravely understood and appreciated her kindness. I'm delighted to be able to add that they now have children of their own.

“Let your conversation be always gracious, and never insipid; study how best to talk with each person you meet,” advises the apostle Paul (Colossians 4:6 NEB). As my friend Stephen counselled, in all the words I speak may the name of Jesus - and the nature of Jesus too - have the preeminence.

Christianity as Establishment

Is it a blessing or a curse to be the accepted religion of a country?

Jesus, while on earth, claimed that His knowledge was limited. Some aspects of the future were only known to His heavenly Father. At times it looks as though He never thought the world would last long enough for the Christian religion to become the established one in any country.

It seems clear that Jesus would have sat uneasily with His followers becoming part of the establishment. He saw how some of the Jewish leaders behaved with their establishment status ... and He was not impressed. The showmanship, the hypocrisy, the politicking all galled Him. These ugly behaviours were totally alien to what He wanted to see in His disciples.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,” He announced, “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:10-12 ESV).

Since the blessed day of Christ’s walking on earth, our Father God has shown centuries-long patience with the human race. It has persisted for 2000 years. During that time Christianity has spread dramatically – and with that spreading have come problems. These would hardly have been anticipated by the first generation of Christians, small, scattered and under pressure.

Later generations have had to handle the down side of being accepted as the establishment, and have not always done so well. Even if He did not know exactly what would happen after He left this earth, Jesus spoke truly when He exclaimed, 

“Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets” (Luke 6:26).

The rot began to set in when the Emperor Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century. Christians in high places began to imitate the splendour of imperial pomp and majesty. As the Empire fell and Christianity took over as the only cohesive force in Europe, it turned into that ugly power bloc known as Christendom. From this stemmed the bloodbath of the Crusades and, at home, the domination of priestcraft over the minds of men and women.

Even the Reformation could not free Christianity from the taint of establishment. True, it rightly brought to the fore the spiritual side of faith, where the Kingdom of God grew soul by soul as the individual dedicated his or her life to Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. But it also set out the distasteful doctrine of “cuius regio, eius religio”, which meant that a person’s brand of Christianity was supposedly determined by where he or she came from. A “loyal” Englishman would belong to the Church of England, while a “loyal” Scot would be a Presbyterian. You might not actually be persecuted for having other Christian convictions, but you were viewed as somehow unpatriotic and a second-class citizen. Doors open to others might be closed to you.

Sadly, overtones of this culture still exist today. It shows up, for instance, in the chameleon-like position of the Royal Family – Anglicans while in England, Presbyterians as soon as they set foot in Scotland. What a travesty of our Saviour’s purposes for us!

As spiritual winter and long-term decline have set in to the churches of this country, most of the big old denominations, established or semi-established, have seen their position eroded. While not usually being militantly anti-religious, most people now reject what they call “organised religion”.

In a way, a loss for one church stream is a loss for all, because the enemies of Christianity seize on such things. Yet in some ways I view the new minority status of the Church without regret. Small, admittedly, is not always beautiful – but Christianity as Establishment has not been Christianity at its best.