If You Really Want It, It's Going to Cost, Part 2

Besides sacrificial prayer and fasting and that sort of thing, the main way Christians need to die to self these days is to rethink some of their most fondly held beliefs.

In a sense that's what I've been doing for some years now, although I must admit that most of what I've had to change my mind about isn't anything I've held to with any particular fondness or zeal. Giving it up has been mostly a matter of learning and learning and learning rather than fighting my own prejudices. I salute anyone who takes up the fight against his/her own prejudices; that takes real courage and humility and dedication to the pursuit of truth.

So if you've been a staunch advocate of the Westcott and Hort-based modern Bible versions and are willing to reconsider the foundations of your advocacy, I praise the Lord for your willingness and wish you God speed. It would have to cost a great deal of personal pride at least, and possibly even friendships, to give up a strong attachment to your accumulated knowledge, and even to the seminary or the teachers you've been trusting about this.

If you've been a diehard supporter of the interpretation that the woman's head covering is her hair, or feminine dress, or something else, I applaud your willingness to reconsider that belief. I can imagine how much it would cost a woman who has spent her life cultivating her long hair in the sincere belief that it meets the Biblical requirement, to have to think she might have been wrong all that time.

I pray the Lord would wake up many, lead us to repentance and humble us deeply over our wrong allegiances, so that His church might yet rise up in these last days in the power we've been so desperately without for so long now, in the purity of a spotless garment, in a return to our First Love, in a deeper knowledge of God. Strengthen Your people in faith and truth and wisdom and courage in these last hours, Lord.

If you really want it, It's going to cost

One thing I know: to have the power of God it's going to cost. Death. Dying to self that is. Seriously laying oneself on the altar rather than playing at it.

Read about the great revivals of the past -- or individuals who experienced great empowerment by God (think of Hudson Taylor for one of many) -- and you have to appreciate what it cost to bring it about. Hours of prayer into the night, or begun very early, some on knees or face. Hours. Five, six, seven hours. The whole eldership of a church in one case meeting for such protracted prayer two days a week while an elderly lady of the congregation and her sister prayed in concert with them at their home. (Notice something here. Since both men and women met together in the Upper Room, separating the sexes is no doubt not necessary in all circumstances, but I think it's interesting that in this case the men prayed separately and the praying women didn't join them. But then it was specifically the elders of the church. It is not said but I suppose the women covered their heads in those days. This was in Wales or Scotland, I forget, I just remember a few of the particulars.)

They prayed like that for months before God answered but He did answer in great power, the kind of power that moves people to seek God without a word's being spoken to them. They showed up at the church drawn by a power they knew not what.

Such exertions of individuals for the power of God are often not described as the reason God empowered them, or not described in terms of dying to self at least. We may hear about what they were doing before the blessing came, praying and studying the Bible for instance for long hours at a time, or what they were asking for in prayer, or how many got together. And sometimes their actions aren't even given as explanation, just as descriptive fact, but it seems to me the key in all the cases is the dying to self that they went through, the hours spent, the comforts abandoned.

There is sometimes a specific giving up of comforts mentioned in some of the stories, sleeping less, eating less or less luxuriously for instance, much fasting. Or there is the story how under the prompting of the Holy Spirit a man is moved to give up his last dollar to help someone else in need although having himself no prospects for his next meal. Thrown absolutely on the Lord's care at such a time the man learns that He provides -- in a way that is never really learned until all human means are exhausted. It always happens that way.

Revival can come to individuals as well as whole congregations and communities, though that's not usually the word for it. It's the same phenomenon though.

John 12:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. 25 He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.

Matthew 16:24 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. 26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Carnal versus spiritual Christians

I know that with my emphasis on Christians either operating in the spirit or operating in the flesh I am affirming a particular brand of Christian thinking that is not accepted by many. Some insist that there is no such thing as a "carnal Christian" but as with many dismissive arguments from one camp about another, this is merely a superficial technical claim that simply ignores the reasoning behind the idea. Technically, that is, you can't even be a Christian if you are carnal. But the other side points out that Paul addressed the Corinthians as carnal while not in any way implying they were not Christians. Christians may and do think carnally, that is, they think like unsaved people, and there are degrees of this according to faith and experience and so on. They have the basic faith in Christ to be Christians, but when it comes to particular teachings their faith may falter and they will consider the question carnally. This is true of all of us in the early stages but there are some who are more spiritual than others even from the beginning.

Sometimes you'll hear it said that because we're Christians we have "the mind of Christ" so that we can count on our thinking to reflect His just because we are Christians. Or that we have a "sanctified intellect" or "sanctified imagination" just because we are Christians. No other qualifier is needed. Similarly we've all had the baptism of the Holy Spirit because we're Christians. No experience necessary to ratify the assertion and the coldest driest mind qualifies.

Some theological clashes could perhaps be understood as a difference between fleshly and spiritual. For instance, the Arminian position is easy to understand and appeals to the natural/fleshly mind, while some tenets of the Calvinist persuasion, such as predestination and election, even the perseverance of the saints, usually take some spiritual growing-into. Nevertheless there certainly are some Arminians who have a deeper spiritual understanding of many facets of the Christian life than some Calvinists.

I've grown into this way of looking at these things over time and lately it's begun to consolidate in my mind in a more emphatic way than ever before. I don't know if I will put together a full defense of this position or not, but it seems good to affirm it now at least.

Degrees of Faith?

Stories of escape from the attacks on Westerners at hotels in Mumbai (Bombay) have been going around. I've heard two full reports now and some brief accounts as well, some miraculous escapes in some cases, such as near misses, odd circumstances keeping a person out of harm's way and so on. There were many such stories about escape from the WTC towers on 9/11 too, stories showing God's hand in various rescues, faith-building stories. I appreciate these stories. They are inspiring.

But they also raise a question in my mind whether saving our lives is of such high priority in the Christian life. The emphasis is always on the saving of the life, you see. A hero's death may also be inspiring too of course.

Both of the stories about escape from Mumbai (Bombay) emphasize the person's focused aim of escaping. They don't claim to be Christians exactly, but they do mention God, and there's no doubt that God saved them. I don't doubt that for a moment. But I do wonder about being focused on escaping because Jesus said we are not to try to save our own lives but to lose our lives for His sake.

Didn't He? But people will object if you point that out to them. They will say that maybe we are to try to save ourselves to be of use later or something like that. I think that misses the point of Jesus' teaching.

I'm not talking about the immediate aim of avoiding sure death. I don't think that's what Jesus meant -- unless you have a clear leading from Him to be doing something else in the situation rather than avoiding death of course. I'm talking about the exclusive focus on escape as opposed to seeking God's will in the circumstance.

God may use us whether or not we are being obedient, but obeying Him and dying to ourselves should at the very least mean that we aren't seeking to save ourselves from a calamity but putting His will above our own and seeking what He wants of us in that situation. If we are seeking Him then we can know in our spirit what He wants of us, we don't have to be blind to His will. We may remain blind to His will of course, that's up to Him, but we may not: He may show us something clear that He wants of us. It is possible He simply wants to lead us out of there, but more likely He would have us serve others in some way, as He did when He walked this earth and still does from heaven. This would involve self-sacrifice of course, even if we are protected from harm and eventually escape. It is by definition a sacrifice of self to put others ahead of ourselves.

I've been mulling over lately how easy it seems to be for this kind of teaching to be misunderstood, indeed not even recognized at all by Christians. Someone may accuse me of "seeking martyrdom" by simply quoting Jesus' saying we are to lose our lives for His sake, even if the context is clearly circumstances over which a person has no control. Someone else may think I'm denying that God is in control of whether we live or die if I say that saving onself is not to be our priority, based on the same quote. I'm never quite prepared for such misunderstandings. It makes me think that the Sermon on the Mount is not really taken seriously.

This was the response of a couple of people to what I wrote in response to one of the Mumbai stories, here:

What a story. Touching to hear of all the Indians helping him. I wonder if Alex or his friends were killed or let go?

I'm sure I'd react with full-bore adrenaline too (which would probably give me a heart attack but oh well), but these stories usually make me wonder how as a Christian I SHOULD react, and saving my own life shouldn't be top priority. Of course it sounds impossibly idealistic but Jesus' teachings ARE counterintuitive, clearly aimed at overcoming our natural self-protective reactions by His power, as He overcame when He went to the cross for us. We're to love our enemies and pray for our persecutors for instance, forgive our enemies and not call for their death. It's the Spirit-powered Christian response that wins people, not anything we do in the flesh. Better to convert a terrorist even while dying at his hand than escape. Truly. We're to die to self and saving our lives will lose our lives, but losing them for His sake will save them. Jesus' teaching is full of such paradoxes. We're to fear nothing, not those who can take our physical lives but only Him who has power over our eternal lives. "Perfect love casts out fear." We're to put others ahead of ourselves, those who were milling around dazed for instance. If we really lived like this, something impossible to us and possible only by God's own power, Ducky could have nothing to say against us ever.

I know this is all talk coming from me, and the walk would be an adrenaline-powered run same as the writer's unless God gave me an infusion of grace at that moment to obey Him, and I'm truly glad for this man's escape and the story he has to tell, but I can't help at least KNOWING what God would want me to be doing instead. I truly believe that this is the Christian life as God wants us to live it, in His power, and I'm well aware of my own failure to do so. What power the church would have if we learned this life as Jesus teaches it.

I believe this. I yearn for this power, this total self-giving to God's will. Most Christians, however, seem content to recognize God's hand in their lives. I don't mean to minimize such a recognition; it's wonderful. It's faith, it's belief, it's salvation.

But is the Sermon on the Mount to be regarded as something beyond normal Christian life? What gets called the "Higher Christian Life" is really just obedience to Jesus, it seems to me.

A Living Sacrifice

I receive weekly teachings from pastor Zac Poonen of Bangalore, India, whom I discovered a few months ago while looking for inspiring teaching on revival. He has continued to inspire me.

I have been in churches that preach that Christians are to observe a literal Sabbath on Sunday and to tithe a literal 10% minimum to the church, and I've been to churches that "spiritualize" either or both. The preaching on both sides can be quite convincing, but I'm now persuaded that the New Covenant has no literal requirements, but being all a matter of walking by the Spirit would have us live the Sabbath fulfilled in Jesus Christ every day, and to give as He prompts us without reference to an external standard. Pastor Poonen elaborates this view, though I think he goes too far in accusing those of the other view of bad motives:

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Always Put God First In Your Life

Zac Poonen

In Malachi 3: 8-11 The Lord says, "Will a man rob [orcheat] God? Yet you are robbing Me. But you say, `How have we robbed You?' In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing [defrauding] Me, the whole nation of you. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until there is not room enough. Then I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of the ground; nor will your vine in the field cast its grapes".

Did you know that tithing is not mentioned even once after the day of Pentecost (when the new covenant was instituted)? Tithing is not commanded under the new covenant at all – yet multitudes of covetous pastors still preach it today and exploit poor, ignorant believers. Jesus did not teach His disciples to tithe but to give. What do we have to give to God first of all? Romans 12:1 states, "I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, present your bodies (not your tithes) as a living sacrifice to God."

Just as paying the tithe was emphasised under the old covenant, presenting our bodies to God is what is emphasised in the new covenant. Tithing was meant to be a type, just like the Passover lamb and the Sabbath day. The lamb was a type of Christ, and the Sabbath was a type of the inward rest that Christ gives us. These Old Testament rituals were all shadows of what was finally fulfilled in Christ (as Colossians 2:16,17 makes crystal clear).

Concerning tithing, God had said, "The purpose of tithing is to teach you always to put God first in your lives" (Deut.14:23-Living Bible). Under the old covenant, they offered their tithes to prove that God was first in their lives. In the new covenant, we present our bodies to God and thus prove that He is first in our lives.

What does it mean to offer our bodies? It means giving our eyes to God so that we never use them for ourselves again. Is that easier or is it easier to give 10% of your income to God? You know that it is far easier to give 10% of our income each month to God than to keep our eyes pure each day of that month. That is why preachers teach tithing more than keeping our eyes pure. Many pastors are lovers of money and they want their congregation to tithe so that they can become rich from those tithes. Since there is no justification at all for tithing in the new covenant, they use this verse in Malachi to frighten ignorant believers into paying their tithes every month.

The early apostles were poor, as we can see clearly from 1 Corinthians 4:9-12: "God has exhibited us apostles last of all……To this present hour we are both hungry and thirsty, and are poorly clothed, and are roughly treated, and are homeless; and we toil, working with our own hands." But consider the mathematics of how a covetous pastor today becomes wealthy. If 10 people give him one-tenth of their income, he gets one man's average salary (because 10 X 10% = 100%). This is reasonable.

But well-known pastors receive tithes from hundreds of God's people. If even 100 people give their tithes to a pastor, his income will become ten times that of the average man – and very soon he will become a millionaire, at the expense of his supporters! And then in order to justify his becoming wealthy, he will begin to preach prosperity as the mark of God's blessing (from the Old Testament – Deuteronomy 28:5,8,11) – and his flock is deceived. This is the deception flooding Christendom today, all over the world, and it is all being done in the Name of Jesus. The money-changers are back in the temple of God – and there is no-one to drive them out, as Jesus did; and there is hardly any preacher who is bold enough to expose these confidence tricksters.

Then how much money should we to give for God's work? Only what we can give cheerfully – for God does not love those who give money under pressure, or who give in order to get something from Him (See 2 Cor.9:8). First give your body to the Lord and then give whatever money you want to give cheerfully, but never as an obligation and certainly not out of fear. I hope this understanding of God's Word liberates you from false teaching.

So I have to inject here that I don't think most pastors who teach a literal tithe have any questionable motives, but sincerely believe that it is required of Christians. In the average church with this viewpoint the tithe is not considered the property of the pastor but of the church for God's purposes, and managed by the elders for many needs in the church, the pastor receiving a designated salary from it.

There are of course some high profile teachers who fleece the flock but these are not representative, and I'm not sure but I think these don't normally preach the tithe anyway, but of giving the most you can give. Investigations of some TV preachers have shown that they live personally at a level of expense available only to the very wealthiest. I understand why Pastor Poonen would preach against these Prosperity Doctrine false teachers of course. He often laments that Christian leaders in India have a tendency to pick up the worst teachings from the West.

A call to death to self, to life in Christ, and a note on the handicap of having a false Bible.

As I mentioned a few posts back, I've been appreciating the writings and talks of Zac Poonen, of Bangalore, India. I've listened and read enough now to have encountered some areas I disagree with him about, but overall his main message is so true to Christ I'm going to overlook the disagreements for now. This is exhortation to the Spirit-filled life that we just don't find except in old books, at least as old as A.W. Tozer and Leonard Ravenhill and Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

His main page: http://www.poonen.org/

A page of books you can read online or order for cost: http://www.cfcindia.com/web/mainpages/bookshelf.php

A page of links to topical Bible studies:
http://www.cfcindia.com/web/mainpages/topical_bible_study.php

And along the bottom of the page are links to other pages of sermons and teachings.

His teaching solves for me the problem of the charismatic errors while supporting the basis for genuine Pentecostal and charismatic expectations, my hope for revival, the enlivening of the Lord's true people in these last days. He believes in the gift of tongues for today but judges that some 90% of them are counterfeit. I can go with that -- at least until I have solid reason to think otherwise. He's never been in a charismatic congregation, he simply takes his understanding of the spiritual gifts for today direct from the Bible and because of his strong emphasis on what the Christian life costs, I find him believable.

His denunciations of the prosperity teachings as the complete contradiction of the Biblical message are sharp and to the point. His main message is the Exchanged Life, that is, the giving up of our life for Christ's life within us. The more we die to self the more we live to Him and for Him and through Him. This is more than just getting sin out of our lives, it's also mortifying the flesh in giving up everything we are to Christ. The more we mortify our flesh the more we have of the Spirit. This is classical Christianity, but finding it in the morass of apostasy and confusion these days is not easy. If you have a strong spiritual leading in this direction you can pick out the occasional gems from the muck, but usually it means you need to go to the older writers.

And we need to do this because we need the right kind of spiritual food, the right kind of exhortation, to strengthen us in these days of silly self-indulgent fleshly "Christianity."

I do have to say that it bothers me a lot that Zac Poonen is trusting in the new Bible versions. Clearly he wants a simple English text to get across the simplicity of the gospel, and he thinks the KJV is not accessible to his people. So he goes to the Amplified or the Living Bible at times. I do find it disappointing to hear him quote a well known passage in anything but the KJV wording. It's just another proof of how Westcott and Hort damaged the church. A Spirit-led preacher can still make use of the bad versions, but it's discouraging to hear him make a case for, say, how God's word has "eyes of the heart," going on to explain that this is because it's the heart that concerns God more than the intellect, apparently not knowing that the KJV has "eyes of the understanding." Also, to call the Holy Spirit the "helper" isn't exactly wrong, but "comforter" was the choice of the truly God-inspired KJV writers.

See, most preachers and teachers of the Bible think all the versions are merely different translations of the same basic word of God. They trust the translators to have given them viable options that all express God's own mind and heart, and if they prefer one word over another themselves, it's usually on the basis of what they think their hearers will grasp best. The idea that one is right and another wrong does not necessarily enter into it.

If they try to inform themselves of the controversy and the history of the versions, they usually stop with the apologists for the modern versions. They may be (rightly I think) put off by some of the extreme King-James-only advocates.

You'll hear a talk from time to time on the Reliability of the Biblical Manuscripts which simply never gets into the subject of the different lineages and qualities of manuscripts, or anything relevant to the KJV only position. They'll argue from the great many manuscripts in existence, and from techniques of textual criticism that can establish lineages back to the originals, that our Bible is reliable, as if all our Bibles were basically the same, without ever mentioning that there are whole lineages of corrupted texts as well as trustworthy ones, that also go back to ancient times.

The KJV translators were aware of these textual traditions and rejected those they found to be corrupt in their own judgment, which included the texts that were later preferred by Westcott and Hort and now made the basis of almost all the non-KJV Bibles today. Now the different lineages and traditions are treated more or less as equal, more or less as God's word, but if they get into it at all a modern scholar will simply flatly claim that the Westcott and Hort texts are superior, only because supposedly they are older. (Recently I've run across the assertion that as a matter of fact there are other ancient texts that still survive, even from the lineage that underlies the KJV, texts OLDER than those that underlie the new versions. My argument has been (basically Burgon's I believe) that a text that happened to survive from the 2nd century has no particular claim to being superior to a whole lot of texts that survive from the 4th, 6th or 10th centuries, because all it means is that the older one wasn't used as much, wasn't copied as much, wasn't appreciated by the church. In fact the Sinaiticus text that now underlies the new versions was found in a wastebasket in a ruined monastery. But if there are even older portions of the Bible of the KJV type, that's great to know.)

So preachers in all good faith accept the modern versions, accept whatever rationalizations they've learned from the modern scholars, are probably put off by the shrill and denunciatory tone and outlandish claims of some of the KJV-only camp, and so the church limps on to the Last Day with its sword a tad dull and its shield more often than not dangling uselessly at its side.

Well, I think some good preachers can for the most part rise above the handicap. But they are a rare breed.

Revival and Personal Revival

Another theme I haven't yet developed here as much as I'd hoped to is about the nature of revival and our need of the Holy Spirit to come in power in these days. I did give a link to SermonIndex where you can hear the sermons from last Fall's Revival Conference, and some of them are very inspiring. http://www.sermonindex.net/modules/mydownloads/viewcat.php?cid=720.

Of course we need the Holy Spirit to come in power in ANY time, and we need Him as individuals whether we have revival or not. I mentioned below, in the post about the woman's head covering, how I recently discovered a very inspiring teacher, Zac Poonen. I can't recommend his writings and sermons enough. This is a page of his books, which can be read online: http://www.cfcindia.com/web/mainpages/bookshelf.php#zac