Why I am a Christian (16)

The Bible Has Withstood and Overcome Centuries of Unparalleled Attack

In 2012 I jotted down all the reasons I could think of why I am a Christian. I found 26 so I decided to serialise them in a blog every fortnight for a year.

I have so far covered themes linked with science, philosophy and theology before looking at five different facets of Jesus (I could have explored many more). Now I am looking at the Bible.

Having marvelled at the extraordinary unity of its message in Reason 15, I want to write about its almost miraculous durability.

In July 1994 I travelled up a long and winding road in the wild and beautiful Cévennes in Southern France. There is a museum at the end of the road - in the middle of nowhere - called le Musée du Désert. It bears testimony to the large community of Huguenots who fled and hid in that rugged terrain following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 by Louis XIV, ending a period of tolerance towards Protestants. One of the features of the museum is a display of tiny Bibles that were printed at that time, some small enough to be successfully concealed in a woman’s hair. The Bible was absolutely forbidden in those days and, in peril of their lives, many people made inordinate efforts to safeguard it from obliteration.

It has occurred to me many times since that visit that the Bible must easily be the most consistently and passionately opposed book of all time.

As A.W. Pink noted in The Divine Inspiration of the Bible; “For two thousand years man’s hatred of the Bible has been persistent, determined, relentless and murderous. Every possible effort has been made to undermine faith in the inspiration and authority of the Bible and innumerable enterprises have been undertaken with the determination to consign it to oblivion.”

No army has ever gone into action to either impose it on unwilling readers or defend it by force. Its principal endorsement and sole defence have been the love and esteem in which it is held by ordinary people who have read it and been transformed by its message.

There are billions of us. It is easily the best-selling and most translated book in world history. At least one book of the Bible has been translated into over 2,500 languages. As an indication of the scale of that achievement, the publishing phenomenon that is J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter has been translated into less than 70.

And yet, despite its popularity, the Bible is surely the most banned, burned, ridiculed and smeared book ever published. Why does the Bible polarise opinion like no other publication? I'll offer an answer at the end of this piece, but first of all I want to trace the extraordinary history of hatred towards the Christian Scriptures.

It started in the Roman Empire. On 24th February 303, the Emperor Diocletian published his Edict Against the Christians ordering the burning of Bibles, the demolition of places of worship and issuing a blanket ban on Christians assembling to pray. This was the last great wave of Roman persecution against Christians but the first to explicitly target the Bible itself as well as those who read it. 

Of course the Christian Scriptures in those days were all painstakingly copied by hand. There were no printing presses so the production of even one Bible would take many months. But despite Diocletian's bonfires, the Bible prevailed.

After the Roman Empire declined, the Bible was zealously censored by a lamentable, political corruption of Christianity we call Christendom. The period we now call the European Dark Ages lasted for about a thousand years (5th - 15th Centuries). During this time learning was stifled, the arts were suffocated, social progress ground to a snail’s pace and, with Christianity sick and separated from its main source of inspiration, Islam was born.

(As an aside, I would argue that, had the Bible been available to ordinary Christians during the Dark Ages, none of the above would have happened; education would have been encouraged, the arts would have flourished, social progress would have accelerated and Islam would never have filled the vacuum left by a corrupt and ailing church, unrecognisable from that of the 1st Century. Incidentally, it’s also worth pointing out that the crusades occurred at a time when the Bible was not publicly available. So people were denied the opportunity to read plainly that taking up the sword to spread faith, or even defend it, is contrary to the teaching of Jesus).

The American sociologist, author and pastor Tony Campolo once mused about how Christendom had been a bad idea. "Mixing the church and state" he said, "is like mixing ice cream with cow manure. It may not do much to the manure, but it sure messes up the ice cream!"

Various Councils from the time of Christendom stamped on calls for the Bible to be made available to the masses. They expressly forbade the translation of the Bible from Latin, thereby limiting its readership to the rich and powerful, who were eager to preserve their privileges at all costs. Canon 14 of the Council of Toulouse (1229), Canon 2 of the Council of Tarragona (1234) and Rules on Prohibited Books from the Council of Trent (1545-63) are three examples of this. In fact, even priests were usually denied access to the Scriptures for personal study.

But towards the end of the Dark Ages, people rose up to reclaim the Bible. Dissenters began to argue that God's Word should be available to everyone, unshackled from Latin, and rendered in the language of the marketplace. At that time, restrictive suppression of the Scriptures gave way to violent attack on them.

John Wycliffe (c.1320–1384) was the first to attempt to translate the Bible into English, though it was from the Latin and not from the Hebrew and Greek source texts. The Council of Constance (1414-1418) later declared Wycliffe a heretic, banned his writings and trashed his work. His remains were exhumed and burned. Wycliffe’s followers, called Lollards, were also burned at the stake with their Bibles hanging round their necks.

The scholarly William Tyndale (c.1494–1536) worked painstakingly, and at great personal cost, to produce the first English-language Bible translated directly from the original Hebrew and Greek. In his day it was a capital offence not only to translate the Scriptures into English but even to read or own such a translation or any part of it. He spent many months of his life in hiding, having to travel clandestinely around Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany to evade arrest and arrange for Bibles to be printed. They were smuggled into Britain hidden in bails of wool. In the end, Tyndale was betrayed, captured, tried and strangled to death before his remains were burned at the stake. His last words were "Lord, open the King of England's eyes!"

Many others were publicly executed at this time; most were burned alive. But the Bible was now available all over England and throughout Continental Europe on the black market. The lion was out of the cage!

Fierce opposition to the Bible spread like a rash all over Europe. But little by little, Bibles became available in more and more languages as the Reformation took hold. The long and severe intellectual, artistic, cultural and social winter of the Dark Ages started to thaw as the Bible began to influence culture once again.

But God's Word then came under another form of attack; an assault on its authority through higher criticism.

Enlightenment scholars in the universities and seminaries of the 18th and 19th Centuries began to erode confidence in the Bible’s divine inspiration and authority. It was dismissed as inaccurate, unreliable and exaggerated. It was patronised as primitive legend, fable, and myth. It was disparaged as a human fabrication and rejected as revelation from God. Such attacks continue to the present day.

Of course, selective reading of the Bible was nothing new. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) once said "If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself." But at this time in history higher criticism was a full-frontal attack on the authority of Scripture just as it was becoming freely available everywhere.

Christians who believe in the devil should be under no illusion why the Bible has been so ferociously opposed throughout history. It is in the interests of the enemies of Christ to keep the Holy Scriptures firmly shut. For wherever Christianity is vigorous, growing, mission-minded and healthy, the Bible tends to be held in high esteem and is centre stage. It is not for nothing that all the great revivals - from the Great Awakening in New England, to the Wesleyan movement that transformed 18th Century Britain, to the 1905 Welsh revival, to the Azusa Street Pentecostal outpouring in Los Angeles - all held tenaciously to the inspiration and authority of Scripture. Conversely, wherever the Bible is marginalised and scoffed at, the churches associated tend to slide into decline and irrelevance.

In more recent times, the Bible has been opposed and forbidden by atheist political dictatorships such as the former Soviet Union and present-day North Korea. It has been denounced and barred by Islamic theocracies such as Saudi Arabia, Yemen, the Maldives and Afghanistan. The Gideons list 18 countries where they are not allowed to operate at all. There are many other countries where severe (though not outright) restrictions are imposed. Increasingly, their work is resisted in Western nations (for example recent reports in Canada and the U.K.) to avoid "causing offence" to people of other faiths.

Has any other book in human history sparked as much opposition and antagonism? It's hard to think of anything that comes close. 

And yet the Bible not only survives, it prevails. Even in secular countries where the Bible’s obituary was written long ago, it refuses to go away. Just last month (June 2013), for example, it stormed back up the best-seller lists in Norway, knocking Fifty Shades of Grey off the top spot.

The Bible itself asserts its invincibility. 2,750 years ago the Prophet Isaiah said “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever” (Isaiah 40.8). And Jesus said “Heaven and Earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Matthew 24.35).

Like Daniel and his contemporaries emerging unscathed from Nebuchadnezzar's furnace without a hair singed or even the smell of fire on them (see Daniel 3), the Bible continues to stand unflinching, untainted and undiminished by every angry attack on it.

So why does the Bible divide opinion like no other book? 

I think it is uniquely hated and attacked because it tells the full, unpalatable truth about human nature. We are sinners in need of a Saviour. And human pride and ego rage against the very idea that we need to be saved from ourselves and from the folly of our rebellion against God.

Furthermore, no other book spells out so clearly the devil’s ultimate fate; he will be judged and thrown into a lake of fire prepared for him (Revelation 20.10) and he unleashes his fury against the book that affirms it. No wonder that virtually throughout the history of Christianity the Bible has been burned, suppressed, outlawed, belittled and undermined.

And, conversely, I think the Bible is loved and treasured like no other book because its central message of God's love and grace is such good news. It transforms millions of lives like no other book ever can, ever has done and ever will. I'll reflect more about this in two weeks' time (Reason 17).

The near miracle of its stubborn survival and ever-enduring popularity is the 16th reason that I am a Christian. I love it that God's Word is indestructible!

Job Done (Nehemiah 7.1-5a and 7.73-8.12)

Introduction

We had a letter this week that confirmed we have been awarded a grant of £2,000. That means we have met -and slightly surpassed- the £97,000 target we set for financing the roof project, 60% of which has come from the extraordinarily generous people of this church.

Jesus said, “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap.” We have seen that it is true. Glory to God.

Isn’t closure a great feeling? Do you know what I mean by that? When you get all the Christmas cards done or finish cutting the hedge, or put away that completed basket of ironing? You can put your feet up and enjoy a nice cup of tea and say “job done.”

After all the challenges Nehemiah faced, one by one, which we have been looking at over the past few weeks 6.15 says this: “So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God.”

Did you know that 25th of Elul corresponds roughly to late August, early September, which is when our roof project is due for completion?

But the bottom line is this; Nehemiah got the job done. And he got it done by covering each and every phase of his mission in specific, dependent, believing prayer. He successfully faced off every challenge and completed the work. Basically, he was a winner.

You’re a winner too! Did you know that? It’s true. When your parents got together and made you (which is a weird thought so let’s not dwell on it too long) but when they did it was your spermatozoon that fought off all the competition and got to the ovum before anyone else - unless you’re a twin, in which case it was an honourable draw. But did you know that the chances of you hitting the tape before all your challengers in that particular race were roughly one in two-hundred million! Never let anyone tell you otherwise, you make Usain Bolt look ordinary!

All Christians are winners. Romans 8.36-37 talks about trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger and deadly weapons before saying in all these things we are more than conquerors through Jesus - who gives a crown of life to those who keep going and don’t give up.

Well, as we’ve said already in this series, the first half of Nehemiah is about the building and the second half is about the people. We’re moving into the second phase of the book of Nehemiah now so the focus changes from the reconstruction of ramparts to the renewal of hearts.

God is interested in both. He is actually interested in the material repair of the roof above us; but he is also looking for spiritual renewal amongst us. And this morning’s passage (missing out all the names) sets the scene for God’s programme of spiritual renewal. And it sets out some key priorities for the spiritually renewed people God wants you and me to be. So this is of immediate and real concern to all of us.

Spiritually Renewed Worship

When you get to 7.1 it says this: “After the wall had been rebuilt and I had set the doors in place, the gatekeepers, the musicians and the Levites were appointed.”

As soon as the city wall was sorted, Nehemiah organised a service for celebration and rededication, appointing Levites, musicians and gatekeepers (the modern equivalent might be pastors, worship leaders and bouncers – let’s call them the welcome team)!

And then in v4 it says this: “Now the city was large and spacious, but there were few people in it, and the houses had not yet been rebuilt.”

You read that right. The houses hadn’t yet been rebuilt. People didn’t yet have a roof over their heads. But notice, it didn’t occur to them to sort that out until they had come before God first. No one said, “Well, I’ve got a bit of DIY to do on my living room this weekend so I won’t be able to make the service.” No! God first.

A worldly church, a jaded church, is one in which people seek happiness in pleasing themselves. A spiritually renewed church is one in which people find true joy in pleasing God. The first and greatest commandment is this: love the Lord your God with all you heart, mind, soul and strength. Everything else is comes after.

Your attitude and mine to worship says a lot about where our priorities in life really lie. If I cannot honestly say that worshipping my mighty Creator and magnificent Saviour is the number one thing in my life I need spiritual renewal.

And look at this - in 8.5, everyone stands together. In 8.6 they all say “Amen” and bow down before God as one. I’m not a great fan of “If you want to sit, sit; if you’d rather stand, then stand.” I don’t mean to say there’s never a place for that, particularly in prolonged times of ministry, but I think it’s right to respond to God together as one body, not just as individuals who happen to be in the same place.

A spiritually renewed All Saints’ starts with worship that shows passion for God and that is rooted in a love for sound, biblical truth.

And I include giving as part of worship as well. There’s a church in this Diocese who have a very unusual offertory prayer. When they bring the plate up to the front, the service leader often prays: “It’s not just what we say or do; this is what we think of you.”

It’s not about having a form of service that we like. Chances are that this format is not your preferred style. You probably prefer 9:00am or 10:30am. But it’s not about you – or me – it’s about the Lord. The only thing of any consequence this morning is if our worship pleases him.

I was sharing in the Communion service on Wednesday that I have a friend who’s a vicar in Chelmsford. He was standing at the back of church one Sunday saying goodbye to people as they left. And someone mumbled “I didn’t really get much out of that service today.” Well, you can imagine his face when my friend said, “Oh, I didn’t realise we were worshipping you!”

Spiritually Renewed Welcome

Now notice the two qualities Nehemiah looked for in his gatekeepers (or welcome team). Chapter 7, verse 2: “I put in charge of Jerusalem my brother Hanani, along with Hananiah the commander of the citadel, because he was trustworthy and feared God more than most people do.”

In other words, you could rely on them to turn up and organise everything and they were prayerful, it says they feared God. If you’re on the welcome team, or if you serve in any practical way in the church (flower arranging, making coffee, cleaning, putting out chairs – whatever…) the Lord is looking for two things; reliability and reverence.

One of the best welcomers I ever knew was called Esther and she was from Peru. She was totally dependable; she was always early, well prepared, attentive, cheerful and friendly without being intrusive. I once said to her, “You do that job so well” and she blushed a little. And I had to dig it out of her but I found out that she prayed silently for the people she welcomed as they entered the building, “Lord, bless that man today,” “Lord speak to that woman today.” “Lord let that child discover more of you today…”

In a spiritually renewed All Saints’ everyone would be a gatekeeper. Everyone would look out for everyone else; welcoming in the stranger and watching out for those in special need of God’s touch in their lives.

So that’s the worship leaders and the welcomers. Then you get all these names in chapter 7 which I’m not going to preach on except to say this: every name on that list is important to God. Not one person is forgotten.

And the Lord records the names of everyone who belongs to him. It’s called the Lamb’s Book of Life. At the Last Judgement, all those whose names are written in that book will enjoy the glorious new creation for eternity. And those that aren’t won’t. Are you sure that your name is in that book? Don’t leave this place today uncertain about whether it is or not. Speak to one of the leaders and they will be able to show you from the Bible how you can be confident that your name in that book, because of what Jesus has done for you.

Spiritually Renewed Hearing

When we get to chapter 8, we find the public reading of Scripture (v3) and (in v8) a kind of preaching; “They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people understood what was being read.”

Notice that the whole objective of the preaching ministry is to enable people to hear the message, to grasp it and understand it. It was never designed by God to give overworked people a chance to catch up on sleep!

You’ve probably heard the story about the woman who wanted her five-year old son to go to church but couldn't sit with him because she sang in the choir. So, she asked the boy’s grandfather to sit with him. The problem was that the old man always nodded off during sermons, so she offered her son £1 to keep him awake. Half way through the sermon one Sunday though she looked up and heard him snoring away. So she questioned her son after church. “Why didn’t you do your job and keep granddad awake? I gave you £1 to wake him up.” “Oh,” he said, “but grandpa gives me £5 to let him sleep!”

Funnily enough, in the celebration service described in Nehemiah 8, the preaching lasts for hours but apparently no one brings a pillow.

And look at 8.9. “All the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law.” They realised how far they were from obeying them and it touched their hearts.

A spiritually renewed All Saints’ will be one where we love the word of God, let it convict us and rebuke us, and listen carefully to every verse, asking the Holy Spirit “how does this apply to my life?”

Conclusion: Spiritually Renewed Joy

And a spiritually renewed All Saints’ will be a community conspicuous for its infectious joy.

I once saw a sticker on a car that said “Start each day with a smile. Get it over with.” That’s not the joy of the Lord!

In 8.10 Nehemiah says, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

The prophet Isaiah prophesied that the Messiah, when he came, would be anointed with an oil of gladness.

Those who have a love for intercessory prayer are usually really joyful people, have you noticed? No wonder! After all Jesus says “Ask and you will receive so that your joy will be complete” (John 16.24). The joy that the Lord gives is your strength.

Have you ever wondered what makes joy ugly or beautiful? Think about this; if people enjoy cruelty and violence, their heart is callous. If people enjoy dirty jokes and toilet language their heart is dirty. Or when we get our enjoyment simply from our possessions, our hearts shrivel up like a gadget or a lifeless object. We become like what we desire.

But when your heart delights in the perfections and the preciousness and splendours of the triumphant and risen Christ you become like him. That’s why the joy of the Lord is your strength.

One last thing. Because our roof project (like Nehemiah’s wall project) is not just about the building – but also the people – we are planning a Celebration and Rededication Service at the end of September.

It will be a great occasion to invite friends and family. We hope to have a few surprises as well.

Our idea is to invite the roofers, the architect and also the Kirklevington Day Release team who’ve done lots of work on the grounds to thank them for their work and give them a small gift.

It’ll be an opportunity to honour all the people from All Saints’ who have worked so hard on the project over the years.

But it will be an opportunity for us to stand solemnly before the Lord and joyfully renew our commitment to serve him, pledging our lives once again to his service. And we plan to follow the service with a glass of champagne and a celebration lunch. Put it in the diary.

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 28th July 2013

Determined to Stand Firm (Nehemiah 6.1-19)

Introduction

The great 19th Century missionary to Africa, David Livingstone, once had an encounter with a lion that cost him the use of his left arm.

There’s a statue of the incident in Edinburgh. 

It’s quite a piece of work isn’t it?

Do you think Livingstone was in God’s will when that incident happened? He was called by God to leave this country and take the Gospel to where it had never been heard before in sub-Saharan Africa. Well, did he get it wrong?

Anyway, you can imagine how Livingstone felt some years later when he was chased up a tree and besieged by several lions. The story goes that the tree was not all that high and he was barely able to climb out of reach of these beasts who were snapping their fangs at him. They stood on their back feet and roared and shook the little tree. It’s said he could even feel their warm breath as they tried to reach him and devour him.

But amazingly he lived to tell the tale and said this; “I had a good night and felt happier and safer in that little tree besieged by lions, in the savannah of Africa, in the will of God, than I would have been out of the will of God in England.”

Livingstone never once felt that he was out of God’s will just because he met with adversity and affliction. He understood that Jesus never said “Take up your cushion and follow me”!

As we’ve been going through the book of Nehemiah together, we’ve noticed how hard it was even though they he was moving in perfect obedience to God’s call. It’s hard enough rebuilding an extensive city wall in hot weather with untrained amateurs like Nehemiah had to do.

But on top of the task itself, so far in Nehemiah we’ve come across ridicule, insults, intimidation, contempt and bullying. He and his people have had to rise to each challenge one by one as they got on with rebuilding the city walls in Jerusalem.

The Situation in Chapter 6

But now, by chapter 6, you really feel they’re getting there. All the breaches in the wall itself have been repaired. The gates are not yet in place but we’re talking about the finishing touches now. They’re almost there. 

And that’s when all hell breaks loose.

So let’s read the chapter now…

The final attempts by Nehemiah’s enemies to sabotage the project just as it is approaching completion are exactly the same tactics the devil uses against believers today.

And he picks his moment.

You remember when Jesus had fasted 40 days in the desert? He was ravenous. So the devil came up to him and what did he choose to talk about? With Jesus’ stomach rumbling like a minor earthquake, he decides to bring up the subject of bread. Freshly baked, nice and crusty on the outside, all soft, nutty and sweet on the inside, still warm from the stone oven… Hungry? The devil maximises his chances of discouraging you and diverting you by striking at the worst possible moment.

So far then, ridicule, insults, intimidation, contempt and bullying haven’t worked. The work continues unabated. The last thing Nehemiah’s enemies try in chapter 6 is distraction. They try and divert Nehemiah from his focus. And they do it in three different ways.

Don’t Settle for Compromise

First of all, in v2-4 they try and get him to compromise. The devil wants you to compromise your faith. He wants it to be as diluted and half-hearted and weak as possible.

The work was progressing really well, they were in touching distance of getting it finished. So Nehemiah’s enemies say “let’s have a round table conference and talk about it. We need to discuss all this together. It would be good to meet up and explore a few options….” They were not only persuasive, they were persistent. “Four times” it says, they sent the same message.”

I remember when I was a young Christian, maybe I was about 18. One of my friends come up to me and said “Don’t you think this is all a bit over the top? Aren’t you taking this religion thing a bit too seriously? You’re not focused on your A levels like you should be.” That’s the first and last time any fellow student of mine was concerned that I might not be revising enough!

I was getting really involved with a great group of young Christians. About the same time, my dad came to me and said “Oh, I had a religious experience about your age. Lots of people do. I expect you’ll grow out of it.”

And then someone else said this: “You’re not getting involved in all that speaking in tongues stuff are you? Don’t you think it’s just emotionalism? And they’re always going on about the Bible. Why not go to a nice, traditional church instead?”

People often face those kinds of comments especially when they’re new believers or when they take a big step in faith like baptism or when they sense a call to full-time Christian service. People try and steer you towards compromise.

It can get under your skin. You start thinking “Am I being fanatical? Maybe I am. Perhaps I’m just getting caught up in the emotion, letting myself get carried away? I should be careful. I suppose it’s alright having a private faith but maybe it’s getting out of hand when I actually start going to church as well.”

Are you being pressurised to compromise your faith?

Listen, there’s no round table negotiation with the devil. Nehemiah gives his opponents the same answer one, two three, four, five times. “I am carrying on a great project and I cannot come down.”

They tried to get Jesus to come down from the cross didn’t they? Aren’t you glad that Jesus said, in effect, “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down”? No compromise.

Don’t Listen to Lies

The next thing they try is lies (v5-8). The devil wants you to listen to his lies. Let’s read what it says…

“It is reported among the nations -and Geshem says it is true- that you and the Jews are plotting to revolt, and therefore you are building the wall. Moreover, according to these reports you are about to become their king…’”

In other words, “Nehemiah, people are saying that you are only in this for yourself. This is not about God’s honour. This is all about your ego Nehemiah. You’re just setting up your own empire. So and so says it’s true. Everybody’s talking about it.”

Everything they said was completely false.

Remember this: Jesus said, “Blessed are you when [not if] people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven…”

I remember listening to Radio 4 one morning, years ago, and my ears pricked up because there was an interview with Sandy Millar who was vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton at that time. And someone else was also on the show talking about the Alpha Course.

The journalist presented some facts about Alpha; it is a 12 week course on basic Christianity, with a meal and discussion groups. Some facts and figures were quoted to illustrate the course’s success. And Sandy was sharing some wonderful testimonies of dramatically changed lives. So far, so good.

But then the other man interviewed began to say some weird things. He claimed that Alpha used subliminal brainwashing methods and subtle manipulation techniques and that, on the Holy Spirit weekend, occult forces like witchcraft were used.

It wasn’t just a scurrilous exaggeration of Alpha’s biggest weak points. No! It was a total misrepresentation. A complete lie! But some people listening to that interview might have wondered to themselves “Well, you know what they say, no smoke without fire…”

From time to time, I have complete lies told about me as a church leader. I’m not going to repeat them here but it’s always anonymous and, in each case, pure fabrication.

We have had several false and defamatory remarks posted on the reviews section of Google maps for this church. (Actually, I checked them out this week and I’m glad to see that, after some years, they’ve been taken down).

But bare faced untruths are a well-used weapon in the devil’s arsenal and we shouldn’t be surprised as the Bible calls him “a liar from the beginning and the father of lies.”

He’ll tell you

• God doesn’t really love you, you’re not good enough
• The Bible is all made up, you can’t believe what’s in there
• Don’t live generously – you need all your money for you
• You’ve gone too far – God will never forgive you
• How does Nehemiah deal with all these lies about him?

In v8 he says “Nothing like what you are saying is happening; you are just making it up out of your head.” That’s the truth.

The best way to deal with lies is with the sword of truth.

Speak out truth every day. Declare it.

• There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ
• God has blessed me in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ
• Jesus Christ us the same yesterday, today and forever
• I can do all things through him who gives me strength
• Are you speaking out truth when you hear the devil’s lies?

Don’t Let Fear Unsettle You

The last thing here is fear. The devil is a scaremonger. He wants your fears to unsettle you.

Verse 9 says “They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, ‘Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed.’”

Then there’s this in v10: “One day I went to the house of Shemaiah… who was shut in at his home. He said, ‘Let us meet in the house of God, inside the temple, and let us close the temple doors, because men are coming to kill you – by night they are coming to kill you.’”

What’s going on here?

They were trying to get Nehemiah to withdraw from the action, to retreat from what God had called him to do. “It’s dangerous” they were saying. “People are out to get you.”

Satan likes to play on our fears too. Whenever you take a step of faith what does he say? “People get into trouble when they take foolhardy risks like sharing their faith with their colleagues at work! Just think, you might lose your job, your home - everything!”

I remember when I gave up a good career in retailing to follow the Lord’s call to serve him in France. I didn’t speak the language, I didn’t like the people, and I didn’t know the culture. And Satan reminded me of it loudly and often. “Think of the danger you’re putting your family through. You won’t last a year!”

Actually, by the grace of God, within a year of arriving in France I was fluent in the language, loving the people and immersed in the culture. There was nothing to fear at all. When God calls, he equips.

How did Nehemiah deal with scaremongering? Verse 11; “Should someone like me run away? … I will not go.”

Ending

This man of God was determined to stand firm. The Bible says “Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he’ll draw near to you.”

When Satan wants you to compromise your faith are you determined to stand firm and settle for nothing less than the whole Gospel?

When Satan whispers lie after lie about you and about God are you determined to stand firm and speak out truth?

And when Satan unsettles you by playing on your fears are you determined to stand firm and say “Should someone like me, a child of God, run away?”

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 21st July 2013

Why I am a Christian (15)

The Bible’s Message Is Incredibly Consistent with a Striking Running Theme

In 2012 I jotted down all the reasons I could think of why I am a Christian. I found 26 so I decided to serialise them in a blog every fortnight for a year.

I have so far explored themes linked with science, philosophy and theology before looking at five different facets of Jesus (I could have written about many more. I find everything about Jesus utterly convincing). 

For the next three posts I am going to look at the Bible and why I think it is inspired like no other book.

Firstly, I am struck by its extraordinary unity and coherence.

As you read those words, I admit that they may not generate that much of a “wow” factor but when you think about it, they really should.

Think of it this way. Imagine you were asked to select and assemble into one volume 66 assorted pieces of literature, covering a 1,500 year timespan, authored by legislators, historians, poets, farmers, royalty, manual workers, political commentators, songwriters, tax administrators and family doctors, written in three different languages and from the cultures of three different empires on three different continents. However hard you tried, it would be no surprise if the result was a ragbag assortment of miscellaneous and often contradictory texts.

Now consider the Bible. It is a collection of 66 quite different writings, some quite long, some very short, in over a dozen distinct genres* written over one and a half millennia, by about 35-40 different authors (most of whom didn’t know each other or consult together), from all the social backgrounds listed above and more besides, and immersed in cultures as disparate as the Egyptian (Africa), Babylonian (Asia) and Roman (Europe) empires. Not one of those authors knew they were writing for the same anthology.

The result though is decidedly not the weird jumble of unconnected ideas you might reasonably expect from such widely diverse sources. In fact, though hundreds of themes are explored in the Bible from a bewildering array of viewpoints, it speaks with one voice. I think that is humanly inexplicable.

For example, from Genesis to Revelation there is absolute agreement on the nature of God; his wisdom, his power, his truth, his love, his holiness, his justice, his patience, his authority, and his consistent righteous hostility to sin that is called his wrath. Throughout the 66 books a completely uniform picture of God emerges.

Furthermore, from beginning to end, there is also absolute agreement on the condition of humankind. Our species is consistently presented as lovingly created, superior in moral responsibility to all other animals, yet, - unlike them - inevitably sinful and flawed, always dependent on God's grace to initiate and maintain any relationship with God.

And throughout Old and New Testament the reader is constantly reminded that there will be a Day of Final Reckoning when God will judge the world in perfect fairness. There is no hint of reincarnation, only resurrection in a restored creation.

That's just three examples. There are many more. 

But the Bible does much more than just not disagree with itself (if you’ll excuse the awkward English). The Bible has, in addition, a profound coherence with a distinct sweeping narrative and clear central plot.

The overarching story in the Bible has been neatly summed up as the tale of three trees.

Firstly, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis 3 is the explanation (however literally or figuratively you read it) of how things got to be so messed up on our beautiful planet. In theological terms, it’s about how sin entered the world.  

Secondly, the cross on which Jesus was crucified, taking upon himself the penalty for sin, is referred to twice in the Acts of the Apostles literally as a tree (Acts 5.30 and Acts 10.39). This is the explanation of how God stepped in to repair everything.

And thirdly, the Bible ends in Revelation 22 with a vision of a restored creation, centred round an evergreen, permanently fruitful, Tree of Life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.

Basically, the Bible is the story of a beautiful and perfect world that is ruined, then rescued and finally restored. That basic narrative is the golden thread that runs through every book in the Bible. Every subplot, however self-contained and interesting in its own right, contributes to and finds its deepest significance in that central theme.

It would take far too long to illustrate how this is so all the way through the Bible. But here are just a few examples.

- Right from the start in the story of The Fall, there is the promise that a male figure, the offspring of a woman, would come to crush the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15). One day, the wrong of the Garden of Eden would be righted. Then right at the end of the story, in the book of Revelation, Jesus, born of Mary, finally subdues and conquers “that old serpent, the devil” before sending him to his everlasting punishment.

- The Old Testament Law with its laborious system of blood sacrifices in the Old Testament expressed the seriousness of sin and the penalty of eternal death it deserved. Its repetitive nature showed our powerlessness to decisively deal with the world's most incurable problem – the human heart. But, more than that, the massive cost in the life of livestock also prefigures the perfect and permanent atonement that Jesus would make for the sins of the world when the blood of his innocent life was shed on the cross.

- The Old Testament Prophets repeatedly called for a response of righteous living and from the people of their generation - and they were rejected time and time again. This depressing reading consistently matches the observation in the New Testament that absolutely no one is justified (declared ‘not guilty’) because absolutely everyone falls short of God’s standard.

- The Old Testament Writings all yearn for someone who will satisfy the hungers of the human soul. Every bewildering circle in the Old Testament is magnificently squared in the New Testament in the person of Jesus.

This coherent, central narrative running through the Scriptures helps to resolve some of the biggest puzzles in the Bible. 

For example, reading through Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, many people in our day are shocked by the primitive nature of the legislation (in fact, it was revolutionary and strikingly humane compared with other legal codes from that time). But what use does a Christian have for it in the 21^st Century Western world?

Consider the many offences which carried the death penalty in the Law of Moses. Isn’t this all we need to know to declare the Bible irrelevant to the issues of our age? For the record, the death penalty under the Law of Moses was prescribed in cases of cursing God, sacrificing to false gods, serious violations of the Sabbath, false prophecy, divination and the dabbling in various occult arts, human sacrifice, premeditated murder, kidnap, striking or cursing  parents, persistent and incorrigible rebelliousness, rape, adultery, homosexual acts, incest, bestiality and premarital sex.

Why do we not feel obliged to apply capital punishment to such (or indeed any) offenses in so called Christian countries? Because of Jesus who, in his own words, came not to abolish but fulfil the Law.

What does that mean? Two things. First, that the death penalty is permanently valid because, however much our standards vary from age to age, all those sins listed above constitute a serious offence against a holy God and always will. But second, because Jesus died for the sin of the whole world, he has already paid the death penalty for all sin. He has totally satisfied all the righteous requirements of the Law – including its draconian sanctions.

When Scripture interprets Scripture in this way all the pieces of the sometimes perplexing puzzle fall into place and the glorious picture emerges.

Then take the resurrection as another example. As I explained in Reason 14, the resurrection stands out as stunning evidence of the truthfulness of Christianity. But, more than that, it fits perfectly and surprisingly into the logic of the big theme of the Bible. As J. John and Chris Walley write:

“The resurrection of Jesus… is like one of those twists in a novel or film that takes you by surprise until you think about it, and then you realize that it actually makes sense and it fits with the plot. So the Old Testament teaches that death is the inevitable consequence of human beings having sinned against God. The interesting implication of this (which no one appears to have explored before the resurrection) is that if someone who had never sinned actually did die, death would have no hold over them.”

My conclusion to all this is that a book with so many diverse authors, writing over such a long period of time, could surely only display such unity and coherence if their work was commissioned and collated by one divine editor.

So that’s the fifteenth reason I am a Christian. I believe the Bible is God’s inspired word; a trustworthy revelation about life, the universe and everything.

You might have thought that, with such a humanly inexplicable unity, the Bible would have the respect (if not the admiration) of those who are not believers. But no book has been as hated, as burned and as banned throughout history as this one has. That it has remained, despite all the odds, easily the world’s bestselling and most fervently sought-after book is what I’ll write about in two weeks’ time.

* The genres I have in mind are legislation (e.g. Leviticus), historical narrative (e.g. 1 Kings), short story (e.g. Ruth), tragic poetry (e.g. Job), song lyrics (e.g. Psalms), tweets (e.g. Proverbs), romantic drama (Song of Solomon), prophecy (e.g. Isaiah), dirge poetry (e.g. Lamentations), news supplement (e.g. Mark), open letter (e.g. Ephesians), private correspondence (e.g. Philemon) and apocalyptic (e.g. Revelation).

Why I am a Christian (14)

Evidence for Christ’s Resurrection is So Good

In 2012 I jotted down all the reasons I could think of why I am a Christian. I found 26 so I decided to serialise them in a blog every fortnight for a year.

I have so far covered themes linked with science, philosophy and theology. This is now the last of five posts about Jesus.

And this one is the most crucial of all.

New York City based author Tim Keller in The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism  rightly argues that Christianity stands or falls on one thing alone.

I have already looked at Jesus’ atoning death, his compelling persona, his remarkable fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy and his unique teaching. But, says Keller:

“If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said; if he didn’t rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.”

I absolutely agree. Either Christianity is supremely central to life (if the resurrection really happened) or it is irrelevant and even contemptible (if it didn’t).

The Apostle Paul made the same point about 15-20 years after Jesus’ death. Here’s a modern paraphrase of what he said:

If there’s no resurrection for Christ, everything we've told you is smoke and mirrors, and everything you’ve staked your life on is smoke and mirrors. Not only that, but we would be guilty of telling a string of barefaced lies about God, all these affidavits we passed on to you verifying that God raised up Christ—sheer fabrications, if there’s no resurrection. If corpses can’t be raised, then Christ wasn’t, because he was indeed dead. And if Christ weren't raised, then all you’re doing is wandering about in the dark, as lost as ever. It’s even worse for those who died hoping in Christ and resurrection, because they’re already in their graves. If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we’re a pretty sorry lot. (1 Corinthians 15.14-18 - The Message)

In other words, without the resurrection Christianity is false, Christian belief is futile, the Bible is fake and death is final.

Like Achilles’ heel, if you can successfully attack and disprove the resurrection, you fatally undermine Christianity, consigning it - lock, stock and barrel - to the dustbin of history.

Given the fantastic opportunity anti-theists have of discrediting Christianity and removing it from the list of world religions by proving the resurrection to be false, it is remarkable that so few of them have seriously attempted to set about doing so.

Some have though. About 260 years ago, two atheist lawyers from Oxford named George Lyttelton and Gilbert West decided to disprove the Christian faith by each writing a book.

Lyttelton set out to demonstrate that the conversion of Saul of Tarsus (the Apostle Paul) was a myth and West determined to debunk the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Each spent a full twelve months in painstaking research to establish his case.

When they had completed their studies they met up to compare notes. Lyttelton confessed “As I have studied the evidence from a legal standpoint, I have become convinced that Saul of Tarsus was converted just the way described in Acts.”

And West, having sifted the evidence for the resurrection most carefully and painstakingly, became satisfied that Jesus almost certainly did rise from the dead at the first Easter just as the Gospels claim. So exhaustive and scholarly was West’s work that the University of Oxford awarded him a higher doctorate for it.

Both men became Christians in the course of their research.

West’s rather laboriously titled book Observations on the History and Evidences of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ printed a quotation from Ecclesiastes 11.7 on the flyleaf: “Do not find fault before you investigate.”

But sadly many people do find fault before they investigate. Many just say that the idea of a dead body coming back to life is simply ridiculous so therefore the resurrection must be categorised with fairies at the bottom of the garden, assertions that the Earth is flat and sightings of Diana and Elvis playing golf on the Moon.

As I mentioned in Reason 4 the irony of this viewpoint is that it is often held by the same people who also vigorously argue that non-living matter did become living matter all by itself many millions of years ago in the evolution of life on Earth.

When sceptics actually take the trouble to look into the resurrection of course they usually refuse the writings of the New Testament as admissible evidence.

Four reasons are usually given;

1) the Gospels were made up many years after the events

2) they are inherently biased

3) they fail to name any sources to substantiate their claims

4) in any case the four reports of the resurrection contain fatal contradictions

For those four reasons, many people dismiss the Gospels as texts unworthy of a second look. But each objection encounters difficulties.

1) On the reliability of the Gospels, the best scholarship dates the earliest (Mark) at around 64-76 AD, perhaps as little as 30 years after Jesus’ death. Because there are so many similarities between Matthew and Luke that are not contained in Mark, it is clear that they must have drawn on further common source material readily available at the time (scholars call this material “Q”) so there is little doubt that the Gospels are substantially primitive accounts. For obvious reasons, the earlier an account is to the events it describes, the less likely it is to have been embellished and exaggerated along the way.

2) On the question of bias, the problem is that it wasn’t only Jesus’ band of brothers who propagated this news. Saul of Tarsus for example ruthlessly attempted to suppress and extinguish the resurrection rumours at first. It was only after a dramatic conversion experience that he became one its chief heralds. Jesus’ brother James was another noted sceptic and cynic (Mark 3.20-21 and John 7.5) until he witnessed the risen Christ and then became a leading figure in the church at Jerusalem.

3) On the question of the historicity of the Gospels, it is true that they fail to name sources but history was recorded differently in 1st Century Judea than it is in 21^st century Europe. It is surely unfair to judge the literature of one age by the standards of another. Otherwise, shall we have to write Shakespeare off as illiterate because he rarely spelled his name the same way twice? There is enough variance in the four Gospels to establish that they clearly drew on different but complementary sources.

Furthermore, the eminent archaeologist Sir William Mitchell Ramsay, after spending two decades researching the areas Luke wrote about, with the specific goal of discrediting the Acts of the Apostles as hopelessly inaccurate, concluded in St. Paul The Traveller and The Roman Citizen that Luke's attention to detail was impeccable and that he made no factual mistakes. “You may press the words of Luke in a degree beyond any other historian's and they stand the keenest scrutiny and the hardest treatment” he wrote.

4) The apparent contradictions (e.g. was it dark or light when the women set out and how many of them were there?) have been perceptively accounted for in books like Easter Enigma by Greek scholar John Wenham and Who Moved the Stone by journalist Albert Henry Ross (under the pseudonym of Frank Morison).

Wenham conducts a detailed and fascinating reconstruction of the movements of the chief characters which intriguingly harmonises the four accounts.

Ross set out to analyse all the material and write a book entitled Jesus – the Last Phase to show that the resurrection was an ancient myth. He ended up, like Gilbert West, changing his mind altogether and becoming a Christian. Confessing that he wanted to strip the last week of the life of Jesus “of its overgrowth of primitive beliefs and dogmatic superstitions” Ross had to change his plans.

“Things emerged from that old-world story which previously I should have thought impossible. Slowly but very definitely the conviction grew that the drama of those unforgettable weeks of human history was stranger and deeper than it seemed. It was the strangeness of many notable things in the story that held my interest. It was only later that the irresistible logic of their meaning came into view.”

The internal evidence (that which is found in the Bible) for the resurrection has been laid out many times by many people and I am not going to repeat it at length here.

But briefly:

1. The resurrection of the suffering Messiah had been prophesied centuries before the birth of Jesus (see Reason 10).

2. On several occasions, Jesus had himself predicted his own resurrection while teaching his disciples – who didn’t understand what on earth he was saying until it actually happened.

3. According to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the body had vanished from the tomb. But Luke and John also note that the burial shroud and head bandage were still in place. Why would any tomb raider steal the body, but leave the burial cloths in exactly the same place as they had been when they had covered the corpse?

4. If the Jewish authorities or Roman guards had removed the body, why did they not exhume it to put an end to the excited and increasingly troublesome proclamation - in that very same city and just six weeks later - that Jesus was alive?

5. If the disciples removed it and lied that they had not, why did they not back down or go away quietly when faced with violent attack, imprisonment and the death penalty?

6. And in any case, how would anyone have got past armed security guards at the tomb, shift the stone and remove the uncovered body completely unnoticed?

7. According to 1 Corinthians 15, many eyewitnesses, over 500 people “most of whom are still living”, saw Jesus alive after his death. The challenge of the passage is “If you haven’t seen him yourself, go and ask someone who has.”

8. If the Gospel reports of the resurrection were fabricated, why were women the first recorded witnesses of it? Their testimony was not admitted as reliable in the ancient world so there was nothing at all to be gained by noting that they witnessed the empty tomb and the risen Jesus before anyone else did. In the same way, if I wanted to concoct a story about seeing the Loch Ness Monster or a UFO, I would not help my chances of deceiving people if I choose young children or my own family as my principal witnesses because their testimony would be widely viewed as unreliable or suspicious.

The striking thing about the Gospel reports is that they are so incidental. They make no inferences and draw no conclusions. No one says "The burial cloth was still there so therefore that rules out grave robber hypothesis." There's no exaggeration either. No one says "OMG, it was so mind-blowing, it was awesome!" as if they felt the need to sell you something. The Gospel writers are remarkable for their understatement. They just tell you what people remembered about that morning; nothing more, nothing less.

You can read much more about the internal evidence in books like the two I mentioned above. The excellent Gunning for God by Oxford professor John C. Lennox also has an outstanding and well researched chapter on this subject.

The external or circumstantial evidence is also very strong.

1. Why were the eleven surviving disciples, without exception, completely transformed individuals with the resurrection at the heart of their message? These people had fled, understandably fearing for their lives, when Jesus was arrested. What happened to them? Only something totally out of the ordinary accounts for such a dramatic and permanent change in their behaviour.

2. Why did the earliest Christians, who were all devout Jews, suddenly change their “holy day” from the Sabbath to the first day of the Jewish working week – Sunday? From having always worshiped on their weekly day of rest, the observance of which was regulated to near obsessive levels, they started to meet instead the following day at dawn before going to work.

There would have to have been a momentous reason to make them turn their backs on centuries of deeply entrenched religious practice. (If Muslims began to gather for prayer on Saturday rather than Friday, or if Christians started to hold services on Monday before work rather than Sunday we would rightly conclude that a seismic cultural shift had occurred and that something out of the ordinary would have to account for it).

3. How is it that a thoroughly laughable story, originating from a motley band of unpromising losers in a backwater province of imperial Rome, became what is still today the world’s biggest movement? 

Christianity took on the might of the Roman Empire and, despite widespread contempt and brutal persecution, soon eclipsed it for cultural significance. How do you account for the improbable and meteoric rise of this deeply loathed and illegal sect? 

One thing only can explain it – the resurrection of Christ from the dead. People everywhere began to believe it because they felt its life-changing aftershocks in their own personal experience. Millions all over the world still do. 

No. The more you look into the resurrection, the more it adds up. The more you try to come up with an alternative conspiracy theory for an explanation, the more it looks like desperation. 

I have emphasised evidence in all my posts up till now because I believe it is so sound.

I know, I know. People these days don’t tend to ask “is it true?” The postmodern questions are more like “does it work?” or even “how does it feel?”

But I’m not a Christian just because it gives me a warm glow inside. Christianity really, really matters because, above all else and no matter what you feel about it, it is true. And no matter how good it might feel, if it is untrue Christianity is of no consequence at all, it is the worst scam in world history and should be held in the highest contempt. I can't find any value in moderate Christianity if it is based on false testimony.

As C. S. Lewis once wrote in God in the Dock: "One must keep on pointing out that Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, is of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important."

But if you don’t want to believe, no amount of evidence will be enough for you. However, if you want to believe, you can have an experience of Jesus that touches the deepest depths of your being. From Reason 17 onwards, these posts will emphasise experience more than logic.

For now though, the 14^th reason I am a Christian is because I believe Jesus rose from the dead. Nothing has persuaded me otherwise, and Christ's wonderful, life-giving, joy-filling presence in my life day after day brings my heart into glad agreement with my head.