Of Whom The World Was Not Worthy

Standing with the persecuted church

"Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented - of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth." 

- Hebrews 11:35-38, NKJV

   

   Over the last week beginning November 4th with the International Day of Prayer [1], Willingdon Church participated in a week of prayer for persecuted Christians worldwide. At the culmination of this last week, we had the privilege of hearing Reverend Paul Johnson, Executive Director of Open Doors Canada [2] preach at Willingdon's sunday service today. I was fortunate to have the chance to have a long personal conversation with him after everyone had gone home.

    Much of what we talked about that was close to our own hearts - missions, evangelism, theology, truth, suffering, life, faith, practice, sacrifice, purpose - reminded me of my own convictions in post I had written a week or two ago, "To The Last Drop of Blood." In the process, I was also reminded of the verses of Hebrews 11:35-38 that I've quoted above.

   All of these challenge me once more as I examine my own life and conscience. I am reminded of my priorities and "first things", as one life among many others that have been called, more than an organization - a family. I am reminded that as much as my life and purpose are precious to God, so are those of others that form His church, of whom it is said, "a great multitude which no one could number, of all all nations, tribes, peoples and tongues." Where then, are my thoughts and concern for them, in the midst of all that crowds into my life clamouring for my attention? I was convicted by Rev. Johnson's observation during his sermon, that he found his own prayer life in want of fervor and discipline in comparison to those fellow believers whom he has encountered of the persecuted church around the globe. Is too much comfort and too little devotion slowly asphyxiating me? 

   I was also reminded by my Bible that while I am often found living my life in silent contemplation of my own "bubble world", a great cry has been heard in heaven. Blood cries out from the ground and voices have not been silent in heaven, of those whose blood has been spilt on account of the Christ they have followed, because they " did not love their lives, even unto death" :

"...I saw under the altar, the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying 'How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" - Revelation 6:9-10, NKJV

While the blood and voices of the slain cry out on their own behalf,

why is mine not heard on behalf of the church that is being dragged to the slaughter?

And when asked of me, am I willing to join them?

     "Watch and pray," Jesus said, "lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Just as I am in desperate need of the good news of the Gospel preached to me everyday while struggling along the path of sanctification, so too do I need a daily reminder of what that entails in my life as part of the larger family in which I find myself:

"Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnared us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." - Hebrews 12:1-2, NKJV

- The Wisdom Seeker

REFERENCES:

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[1] International Day of Prayer

[2] Open Doors Canada

Haunted By The Gospel

Haunted by the words of Romans1:16-17

     It happened again today morning. I woke up, as I have for the last week, with the words of a poster that I see every day above the foot of my bed resounding in my head:

    "For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God, the salvation of everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, 'The just shall live by faith.'"

- Romans 1:16-17, ESV

    It has come to the point where I must settle once and for all my questions of faith and teachings of church doctrine that I have been wrestling with for quite some time. I don't think I can take much more of the internal turmoil that I've been experiencing over the last three years, which has only increased since I began asking some hard questions after some painful realizations. I traced some of my experiences in different churches over my spiritual journey over my first 25-odd years, and my "patchwork quilt" theology and confusion that developed as a result, in my post on Reformation Day titled "Visiting The Crossroads".

    Thus it came to be over the last week, that I began re-reading Paul's Epistle to the Romans, every morning on my transit to work and while coming back in the evening. I have decided to study the book of Romans this Christmas season and while working my way through it, I will also connect its thoughts with the truths of the Christmas story recounted at the beginning of the four Gospels. I think this will be a very different Christmas from any that I have seen over the last 30 years, because I want to plumb the depths of the Gospel as I have never done before. By the grace of God and the guidance of His Holy Spirit, I hope to systematically work my way through my questions, find conclusive answers and make firm the convictions of my faith.

    Over the last week, I also remembered a series of sermons that was preached on the book of Romans in 2004 by John Neufeld, the senior pastor at my church. I listened to the opening sermon today. I will bring this post to a close with some of Pastor John's words from his opening sermon:

    "The book of Romans...has profoundly changed the lives of individuals, it has directed the life of the Church and it has changed the life of nations...Why study one of the most doctrinal books of the Bible, and I might add, one of the most difficult? The answer is that it has been used by God to effect the greatest revivals and reformations in history...it is the remedy for a world of lies, half-truths and lies about God. We live in a society that has become divorced from the idea of a revelation from God...many in North America have therefore adopted a concept of God which ranges from the what Stuart Driscoll calls 'the outright bizzaire to the downright blasphemous.' Many today think that they must be happy and comfortable, popular, wealthy and famous, and any shortage of this leads to howls of pain. We can't conceive of a God who would'nt give us exactly what we want...We live in a society divorced from divine revelation. We live in a society that doesn't understand the human problem. We live in a society that has all sort of convoluted means to solve human problems. And finally, we live in a society that does not understand the power of faith, that does not understand the power of the Cross to lead us to grace."

- John Neufeld, "The Heart of The Gospel", 2004

    There is a popular saying that one learns more and is transformed more through life's valley's than one ever does on it's mountaintops. Christian history will testify through the stories of faithful men and women that is the difficult times, the times of wrestling and struggle that God uses to hammer and mold us into the people that He wants us to be.

• September, AD 386: In the city of Milan, two verses from the book of Romans (Romans 13:13-14) brought a despondent pagan professor and philosopher by the name of Aurelius Augustine to his knees in submission to Jesus Christ as his Saviour and Lord, and transformed the course of the Christian Church. Also known as St. Augustine, he became the greatest Christian thinker for the next 1,000 years and still influences many today.
• AD 1517: Just over another 1,000 years later, the book of Romans transformed the tortured soul of a young Augustinian monk by the name of Martin Luther, teaching in a seminary in the city of Wittenberg in Germany and ignited the Protestant Reformation. 
• May 24th, 1738: 200 years after Martin Luther, a dejected young Anglican priest and a missionary was struggling with his faith, and about to leave the ministry. While unwillingly attending a bible study that was studying the book of Romans, the life of John Wesley was transformed. In the process, the history of England was transformed, as has been recorded by both secular and Christian historians; in the words of a secular historian, "the same revolution that destroyed France would also have been the revolution that destroyed England, except there was a man by the name of John Wesley." England did not turn to revolution, but turned to Christ, because of the preaching of John Wesley and his friend George Whitfield.

     I am hoping that God will use the Epistle to the Romans to work the same change in my life as He did in the lives of Augustine, Luther, Wesley, Chrysostom, John Neufeld, John MacArthur, Ravi Zacharias, and countless others who have made a mark for His Gospel. I might lose people, possessions and relationships in the process of what I am about to do, but I WILL find the most important thing - the truth of God and about God. And life will never be the same. Amen.

- The Wisdom Seeker

Visiting The Crossroads: 494 Years After The Protestant Reformation

The door to the Wittenberg Castle Church engraved with Martin Luther's 95 Theses

          Today, a sizeable portion of the population of North America will celebrate a festival that is common to the prevailing culture and environment, that of Halloween. Over the last few days, I had seen people around Vancouver dressed up in various costumes - some comical, others provocative. But today is important to me for a very different reason. It marks an event whose repercussions have played a large part in defining the identities of millions of Christians over the last five centuries and today as well, including my own. Today is Reformation Day [1], marking the event of October 31, 1517 that began the Protestant Reformation of the 16th Century and resulted in the biggest fracture in Church history that has drawn a firm dividing line between the Roman Catholic Church and all others who identify themselves as Christian for the last five centuries. I have been listening to some great talks from Dr. R. C. Sproul today, outlining the historical events of the Protestant Reformation, and thought I'd post the links to two of them here:

The Making of The Protestant Reformation (Part 1)

The Making of The Protestant Reformation (Part 2)

    Although I had never bothered with it before, Reformation Day is very important to me this year for a very personal reason. I am at a point in my own spiritual journey where I am attempting to sort and think through the deep theological issues, differences, teachings and controversies of differing church environments that I have been part of over the last 30 years. I am doing this because I want to better discern the truth of my faith and decide with conviction what my stand will be.

    Much of this is tied to my own spiritual history. I was born into a Christian family in India that was several generations old and originating from an apostolic-era church unique to Southern India, the Mar Thoma Syrian Church [2]. One of the churches in India that traces its origins back to the missionary work of the Apostle Thomas, it describes itself as "Apostolic in origin, Catholic in nature, Biblical in faith, Evangelical in principle, Ecumenical in outlook, Oriental in worship, Democratic in function, Episcopal in character and is a Reformed Church". At the age of two, my parents moved to the Middle East, and we attended an Anglican Church there [3] - for almost a decade. At the same time, I attended an international Catholic school [4], just up the road from our church where I spent all 15 years of my school life, well versed in Catholic theology and doctrine, but still inherently Protestant in my faith. When I was about 10 or 11, events in my family resulted in us transitioning in our church attendance into a Pentecostal and Charismatic Church [5] that used our Anglican Church's compound for their services. While my family has stayed within that general community of Christians since then, I left to pursue a Bachelor's and later, Master's degree that took me on quite an adventure (which I wrote about two years ago in my post 'Where Is Home?'). In the process, I attended four different churches in almost as many countries [6 - 9]. The last church, in Vancouver - Willingdon - is where I have stayed for the last three years, and God willing, will never leave because I have found a rare gem and as the saying goes, "once you find a good thing, don't let go".

    The upshot of such a hike (through the spiritual terrain of differing church groups and perspectives of faith - Mar Thoma Syrian, Anglican, Catholic, Pentecostal, Charismatic, Mennonite - is that I've had first-hand, in-depth experience of differing perspectives, theology and teachings in Christendom. The downside, which was inevitable, was that I came to a point of crisis a few years ago in trying to figure out what to believe and where to find truth and take a stand among the differing, contradictory, and sometimes seriously erroneous teaching that I had seen, heard, learned and experienced. Although there was a common core of agreement that I could see, I was confused about differences and disagreements in doctrine, theology, attitudes towards each other, practice of their faith and many other things. Catholics taught one thing, Protestants another; Pentecostals and Charismatics emphasized different things from Anglicans and Marthomites; the Word of Faith movement preached a God who would deliver unlimited blessing and anything one asked for. I believe that this eventually led to a 'patchwork quilt' theology and confusion in my own walk with God, and was directly responsible for some of my personal failures and the painful correction that has been necessary over the last few years.

    Consequently, the last two years have been spent doing a lot of hard thinking, reading, research, conversation with solid believers, prayer and seeking of discernment in trying to figure out what is truth and error, right and wrong. Two books that have been of tremendous help and influence in establishing a foundation for thinking were both given to me by very dear friends - "The Knowledge of the Holy" by A. W. Tozer and "The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment" by Tim Challies. I still struggle a lot and haven't found conclusive answers to all my questions, but through these books and other resources, a coherent church community at Willingdon and some wonderful friends, I believe God has granted me a firm footing to start with, and out of my pain, an idea for a theory related to a framework for testing the integrity of doctrine. I hope to write about and develop all of these ideas, slowly but regularly, in future posts.

    In my search for answers, my current study is spanning church and secular history, theology, doctrine, hermeneutics, philosophy and many other areas of study. It is hard work with toil, tears and sometimes sleepless nights. But it is worth it because the truth, when we find it, is sweet. As I wrap up this post in the midst of some of the internal frustration and conflict that I still wrestle with, I am reminded of the words of the Apostle Paul in his second letter to the Ephesian church. I feel that they are a gentle reminder from the Holy Spirit in moments like this:

     "I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of other calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." - Ephesians 4:1-6, ESV

    Thanks for taking the time to read what I consider to be a very important post on this blog. To those who read this - Catholic and Protestant - and would like to share their own experiences, questions, doubts, and insights on their own spiritual journey through the Church and Christian community, I would love to hear from you. I hope you had a great Reformation Day and have a blessed week ahead!

- The Wisdom Seeker

REFERENCES:
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[1] Reformation Day
[2] Mar Thoma Syrian Church
[3] Holy Trinity Church
[4] St. Mary's Catholic High School
[5] King's Revival Church International
[6] Cathedral of Praise
[7] New Life AG Church
[8] Kerala Christian Assembly
[9] Willingdon Church