Persecution of Christians

I have been reading an account of the revival which took place in Korea exactly one hundred years ago in 1907. It is entitled "When The Spirit's Fire Swept Korea" by Dr. Jonathan Goforth (1859-1936) who was an eye-witness of the wonders which happened there . The text can be found here.

The account is a wonderful chronicle of God's Holy Spirit moving among the people of Korea in the first decade of the 20th century. At one point though, Dr. Goforth made reference to the "persecution of Christians." I found this reference quite extraordinary.

When we typically think of the persecution of Christians, we think of our Christian sisters and brothers around the world who are suffering for their faith in Christ. (See this site for more information about this). However, Goforth was not referring to persecution of Christians but rather persecution by Christians. Even in this instance, he was not referring to such aberrations and sins as the Inquistion.

Rather, Jonathan Goforth was referring to the strong and powerful witness of those Koreans who were new and bold in their Christian faith and how that strong and effective witness was burdensome to those who were not believers in Christ. Goforth wrote:

A burning zeal to make known the merits of the Saviour was a special mark of the Church at Pentecost. The same is not less true of the Korean Church. It was said that the heathen complained that they could not endure the persecution of the Christians. They were evermore telling of the strong points of their Saviour. Some declared they would have to sell out and move to some district where there were no Christians, in order to get rest.

Quite candidly, I had never heard of such a thing before reading this today. Could it be said of us that our witness for Christ was so strong that those who refused to repent and believe in Christ felt so convicted and burdened that they needed to leave?

(The photograph is of Jonathan Goforth and his wife Rosalind).

Revivals and Prayerlessness

I came across this quote last week. I think it speaks volumes.

"It is my conviction that we are never going to have revival until God has brought the church of Jesus Christ to the point of desperation. As long as Christians people can trust religious organization, material wealth, popular preaching, shallow evangelistic crusades and promotion drives, there will never be revival. But when confidence in the flesh is smashed, and the church comes to the realization of her desperate wretchedness, blindness and nakedness before God, then and only then will God breathe in. Yes, there must be the point of desperation but there must also be the point of intercession. Oh, that God would bring us to this place of intercession! We cannot think or talk, let alone taste of revival, without intercessory prayer. Indeed, the reason for an unrevived church in the last analysis is the sin of prayerlessness."

Stephen Olford (1918-2004)

A Happy Independence Day to my American readers.

The Moravian Revival

During the last few weeks, I have been reading an account of the wonderful work of God among the Moravian Brethren in the village of Herrnhut (The Lord's Watch). The account is entitled "Power From On High." It was written by Rev John Greenfield in 1927 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Moravian Revival of 1727. An Adobe version of the book, released for distribution this year, can be found here. It should be noted that within weeks of the start of the revival, a movement started among the inhabitants of Herrnhut to commence round the clock prayer. Even more remarkable is that this 24 hour prayer did not stop for a century. The story is a great testimony of God's grace. I hope you find it as inspiring and faith-building as I have.

The photograph is of a painting of Count Zinzendorf, the leader of the Moravian Brethren during this era.

Listening to Ravenhill and Ryle

MP3 players and similar devices (i.e. IPod) can be a real blessing. I have been using my mp3 player to listen to some wonderful works concerning revival and holiness. I've listened to a section of a book called Holiness (considered by many to be a devotional classic) by Anglican Bishop J.C. Ryle (1816-1900) [pictured here]. The section has to do with the faith of Moses and what Moses gave up to be a true follower of God. You can listen to or download what I've been listening to from here.

I've also been listening to a radio interview conducted with Leonard Ravenhill (1907-1994), an English revivalist. The interview took place back in 1983. Despite a scant number of references which date the interview, its contents are just as relevant now as they were back in 1983. You can listen to them or download them from here.

Ravenhill had great insight regarding prayer and revival. Some thoughts of his can be found on the webpage for Prayer at http://www.ravenhill.org/prayer.htm A recurring theme with Ravenhill was the concept of desperate prayer before the Lord. He said:

C. H. Spurgeon was converted at the age of 16 and began preaching in London at the age of 19. When he was 27, they built him a tabernacle seating 6,000 which he packed twice on Sundays - that's 12,000 - and once on Thursday nights. How? He waited on God. He got alone with God. He studied...and he prayed.

God makes all His best people in loneliness. Do you know what the secret of praying is? Praying in secret. "But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, and when you have shut your door..." (Matt. 6:6). You can't show off when the door's shut and nobody's there. You can't display your gifts. You can impress others, but you can't impress God.

A Green Cathedral With A Sky Blue Dome

As the weather gets warmer (at least here in southeastern Michigan), you may want to consider expanding the locations in which you pray to include an outdoor location. This is something found throughout the Bible and in church history.

Isaac, the son of Abraham, is recorded as meditating in a field (Genesis 24:63). The Lord Jesus is known to have prayed outdoors (Mark 1:35) and seemed to be fond especially of praying on a mountain (Matthew 14:23; Luke 9:28). We find in the book of Acts that a praying community in Philippi met by a riverside (Acts 16:13). In 18th century America, Jonathan Edwards would walk in a field or in a forest for a time of prayer and contemplation on the things of God.

The outdoors are, of course, a part of God's creation, They reflect the beauty of His holiness and the depths of His creative thought. My family and I are blessed to have an 11 acre forest as a part of our backyard. Due to its size, I have referred to it as the "green cathedral". We have also been blessed to be able to visit my in-laws' place in the eastern part of Michigan's Upper Peninsula for a week's stay during the summer. On a clear night, the starry dome of the sky automatically lends itself to prayer. While the original ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome was painted with a starry background, I suspect no human-built place of worship can exceed having the actual stars as the ceiling above you.

As opportunity permits, take advantage of this original and most beautiful of worship sites, the very creation which God Himself made.

A Personal Retreat

Today, I took the day off for a personal prayer retreat. There have been a number of items which I have been trying to work through spiritually. I sensed that I needed some time away with the Lord. I was able to arrange staying at a retreat center during the day.

It was a truly blessed time. Upon my arrival at the retreat center, for a moment, I had a sense of guilt about taking the whole day off work for this. There are so many things to be done. Yet, I very quickly reminded myself that seeking God first in my life is not something to be done second. My body may not have needed a day of vacation but my soul did.

Although I did encounter a few people during the day, it was truly a time of silence and solitude. In the morning, I read through the devotional reading (Zechariah 2) for today with the printed guide that I use called Encounter With God (published by Scripture Union here in the U.S. and also in Great Britain). I also read through the letter to the Philippians, with a special emphasis on Chapter 3 and its' call for us to put the past behind us and look ahead to the heavenly and upward call of Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:13-14). I really sensed during that time this morning that God wants me to slow down my Bible reading and spend more time on meditation. I do not merit favor with God if I complete a reading the Bible in one year. I do obtain grace in pondering over the text and seeking how to apply it to my life.

I was able to spend quite a bit of time in prayer in the chapel at the retreat center. My prayers centered in on trying to develop and deepen my relationship with God in Christ as well as deepen my relationship to those around me, particularly my immediate family. One of my prayers was based on the response to God by Thomas Aquinas about three months before Thomas died. God is to have said that Thomas wrote well of him (his literary output for a low tech society and not having quite lived to the age of 50 is utterly amazing). Thomas said that all he wanted was "You, Lord." That has been my prayer as well. I prayed to put ambition (even if seemingly noble in the cause of Christ) in the "back seat" and prayed to seek God as my prize and may really pray that

"I [may] count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ" (Philippians 3:8 NASB)

At lunchtime, which I had in silence, was occupied with reading some devotional material which I had printed earlier, some from the Logoscentric blogsite as well as reading about Christ's priesthood in text taken from the book "A Body of Divinity" by the 17th century Puritan minister Thomas Watson. He is one of my favorite authors to read as he had a writing style which used comparisons from Scripture or nature to make a point. He could turn a phrase with the best that I have read. For example, in speaking of the sin which Jesus bore for us on the Cross, Watson wrote:

The sight of Christ’s bleeding body should incense us against sin. Let us not parley with it; let not that be our joy, which made Christ a man of sorrow

or

The balm-tree weeps out its precious balm, to heal those that cut and mangle it; so Christ shed his blood, to heal those that crucified him. He died freely.

It was a warm, beautiful clear day so I walked the grounds at the center for some of my prayer time and spent an hour sitting by a rather quickly flowing large creek. While sitting by the creek, I read from George Marsden's biography of Jonathan Edwards (Jonathan Edwards - A Life).

Also, I spent some time in my room and then in the library working on the some writing which I needed to do (I decided to spend at least two nights a month in writing a book which I've had rattling around in my mind and spirit for the last few months on the topic of restoration as found in the Bible).

The day was such a tremendous blessing. I am grateful that the same God who let me sample just a little of the peace of eternity during the retreat is the same God I meet in prayer everyday outside the retreat.

While not everyone's schedule and circumstances allow for this kind of daylong retreat, I highly recommend for you to try to find (or make) the time to do this. It is a great way to deepen your relationship to God in Christ.

(Photo courtesy of www.heartlight.org)

Weights and Measures

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:1-2 ESV

Notice the distinction between "every weight" and "sin which clings so closely." There are some things we are called to put off which are not, of and by themselves, sinful by nature. An interesting commentary on this passage is found in "Way Into the Holiest" by F.B. Meyer(1847-1929). In Chapter XXVII, Meyer wrote:

WE MUST RUN FREE OF WEIGHTS. This speed can only be maintained when we run unencumbered and free. Now, of course we would all admit the necessity of divesting ourselves of sins; but in all our lives there are weights which are not sins. A sin is that which in its very nature, and always, and by whomsoever perpetrated, is a transgression of God's law, a violation of God's will. But a weight is something which in itself or to another may be harmless, or even legitimate, but in our own case is a hindrance and an impediment.

Every believer must be left to decide what is his own special weight. We may not judge for one another. What is a weight to one is not so to all. But the Holy Spirit, if he be consulted and asked to reveal the hindrance to the earnestness and speed of the soul's progress in divine things, will not fail to indicate it swiftly and infallibly. And this is the excellence of the Holy Spirit's teaching: it is ever definite. If you have a general undefined feeling of discouragement, it is probably the work of the great enemy of souls; but if you are aware of some one hindrance and encumbrance which stays your speed, it is almost certainly the work of the divine Spirit, who is leading you to relinquish something which is slackening your progress in the spiritual life.

No man would think of maintaining a high speed encompassed with weights. The lads who run for a prize litter the course with garments flung away in their eager haste. There would be little difficulty in maintaining an intense and ardent spirit if we were more faithful in dealing with the habits and indulgences which cling around us and impede our steps. Thousands of Christians are like water-logged vessels. They cannot sink; but they are so saturated with inconsistencies and worldliness and permitted evil that they can only be towed with difficulty into the celestial port.

Is there anything in your life which dissipates your energy from holy things, which disinclines you to the practice of prayer and Bible study, which rises before you in your best moments, and produces in you a general sense of uneasiness and disturbance? something which others account harmless, and permit, and in which you once saw no cause for anxiety, but which you now look on with a feeling of self-condemnation? It is likely enough a weight."

I also found a related blog entry here. The blog entry is a commentary on and application to Psalm 101:3 and the topic of "worthless things." How often do our best intentions get derailed when things which have no real enduring value in the scheme of eternity absorb time which could have been used in Bible study, prayer, Christian service to others? This is something which has become more and more evident in my Christian walk. For many years after my coming to Christ in faith back in 1984, I spent a lot of time in doing research to refute certain distinctive doctrines of the church in which I grew upapologetics. I kept telling myself that I was doing this to help family members who were still a part of that church. Only about two years ago did I realize that I have been spending way too much time in this endeavor. It was at that time that I knew I could logically demonstrate my case but without the Holy Spirit opening up hearts and minds, no one would listen. My prayer life suffered and has only really recovered in the last year.

Keep in mind that what I was doing was not only not evil but could definitely glorify God. However, it ended up sucking away irreplacible time and screwing up my prayer life. It was definitely a weight which I needed to throw off (or at least radically reduce) to run the race which Christ is calling me to run.

Pray for the wisdom to know what your weights and worthless things are. Truly this must be done with wisdom. It would be easy for myself or someone else to develop a list of "never do the following...." as a kind of holiness code. However, church history shows us, from the Pharisees of Christ's time to individuals today, when one makes up a list of dos & don'ts, we can easily default our thinking and actions to conform with the list rather than conforming to Christ. We might think that if something is not on the list, it's automatically okay.

One help in this may be found in a resolution written by Jonathan Edwards in the early 1720s. In his 7th Resolution, Edwards wrote:"Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life. Our time on Earth is short. I realize this more and more with each passing year. I turned 51 last month. Those years have seemed to go by so quickly. Yet, I have been blessed to make it to at least 51. Many others in human history never got this far in their earthly years. This should be a sobering reminder about asking the Lord to teach us to live our lives redeeming the time which we have.

Please don't take this entry as a "let's put on a hairshirt and have no more fun for as long we live" rant. However, this does require wisdom from God. Are we spending excessive time and money in some pursuit, which, in the eternal scheme of things, is of little or no value. My first application comes immediately. Being a hockey fan and relishing the fact that my hometown Detroit Red Wings have made it to the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, I'll need to ask myself if I'm spending too much time in following the Red Wings during this playoff season.

Lastly, while non-useful items to the Christian are considered a weight, there is a weight which we need to involve ourselves in. 2 Corinthians 4:7 tells us: "For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison". A verse such as this is a poignant reminder to keep eternity in mind in how we use our time here and now.

The Core of Our Faith

Today is Good Friday. It is during this weekend, during the days of Maundy/Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday that we remember the core events of the Christian faith. It is during this time that we remember the start of the practice of the Lord's Supper which is continued to this day as a remembrance of the Lord Jesus' sacrifice of Himself on the cross for our sins.

We remember the events of Good Friday and the incomprehensible price paid by Christ to free us of our sins. On Sunday, we will remember the raising back to life of Jesus in His body. It is both a continuity and a discontinuity. Scripture is clear that this is the same body in which Christ died. Yet, this body has been more than revived. It has been given a life which will never end. (The implications of this are staggering. From that day of resurrection right up to today and beyond, Jesus Christ has been and IS alive in bodily form, the first human being to do so).

Prayer played a large part in these events which happened in real time and space. On Thursday night, Christ offered up prayers to be spared the suffering of the cross if possible. Yet, His prayers brought Him to the place of accepting God the Father's will for Him. On Friday, Christ speaks few words. He is mostly silent. Yet, in the midst of a physical and spiritual agony that none of us could possibly imagine, He prayed that those who were crucifying Him would be forgiven.

In your prayers this weekend, may I suggest that you thank God for Jesus Christ. What Christ did on the cross cleared the way for us to have the confidence to approach God in prayer. The veil separating God and humanity was ripped in two that day. In Christ, we have access to God and the life which truly is life.

The School of the Solitary Place wishes you a blessed Holy Weekend. (The picture is Rembrandt's "Raising of the Cross" c. 1633)

The Holy Name of the Lord

The Bible shows us that God is in an "other" category. He is unique, with no predecessor or follower or rival (Isaiah 43:10). His thoughts are infinitely above ours. Thus, we should not be surprised that His priorities differ radically from ours as well.

We see an example of this as we reflect upon the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) .We find that immediately after calling upon God as Father, the first request concerns the Name of God: "hallowed be your name" (Matthew 6:9 ESV). This is a solid reminder that in light of our day-to-day needs, many of which are real and some are imagined, the asking of God for those needs is not His first priority. The reverencing of the name of God, rather than our need, is understood as primary. Like His glory, God's Name, in Christ, is above all other names (Philippians 2:9). Like His glory, God must logically promote the honoring of His Name above all other things since nothing is greater.

An interesting term for prayer can be found early on in the text of the Bible. In Genesis 4:26, we find prayer being described in relational terms as the time when "men began to call upon the name of the LORD." In the Proverbs, God's Name is likened to a strong tower to which we may flee for refuge (Proverbs 18:10). In the Psalms, there are around 110 references in which all but a handful refer to the Name of the Lord. This brief section from Psalm 86 demonstrates this so clearly:

There is none like you among the gods, O Lord,

nor are there any works like yours.

All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord,

and shall glorify your name.

For you are great and do wondrous things;

you alone are God.

Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth;

unite my heart to fear your name.

I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart,

and I will glorify your name forever.

Understanding the Lord's priority in having His Name reverenced and regarded as holy may give us a new perspective on how our culture mistreats the Name of the Lord God. Unfortunately, there is much in our culture which violates God's known will. Numerous examples from the media can be presented which we know are offensive to God. Consider that we live in an age in which images which would have been considered pornographic a generation ago are now used in everyday commercials and advertising. Without diminishing that measure of a moral slide downward, I do wonder if the common misuse of God's Name and that of Christ, in swearing or even simple exclamations, offend God more than the raciest images found in television, movies and magazines of today. Even in television programs that could be considered family viewing, how many times does the even mindless uttering of "Oh my God" cross the lips of so many.

As you read through this entry, reflect on what it means to call upon the Name of the Lord and to honor His Name as holy. It may be a topic to which we've given little thought. To the Lord God, it is a vastly and infinitely important priority. It must be ours as well.

Following a Pattern of Prayer from the past

On Monday, our church began a monthly time of prayer for revival in the United States. We took our cue for this from a call to prayer issued by British minister John Sutcliff in 1784. (There is a link to a text of this prayer call which can be found on the sidebar of this blog or here). It was Sutcliff's desire for churches in the United Kingdom to pray for revival and not only within their own churches (denominations) but within other Christian churches as well.

We will be meeting on the second Monday of the month at 7:30pm Eastern time for the purpose of such prayer. Please pray that God will honor this time of prayer and stir the hearts and minds of His people to pray that they can pray.

(The photo is old Walpole Chapel in England. It was in use during the 1780s)