Dead Man Blogging

The LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed.
…
While the earth remains,
Seedtime and harvest,
And cold and heat,
And summer and winter,
And day and night
Shall not cease.

God’s image of perfection for Adam was a garden. His promise to Noah was that the natural seasons would continue.

I live in a roughly 2000 square foot brick house. Garden, schmarden. I’ll take a cul-de-sac. My house is kept at a pretty constant 76 degrees year round. Forget that four seasons silliness. Cold and heat? Those refer to settings on my thermostat. I have electric lights that make “day and night” irrelevant. Seed time and harvest? No, thanks, I’m an IT professional. I sit at a computer all day. Every two weeks I get a piece of paper indicating that a number in a computer somewhere has been increased by a certain amount. Then I go buy things, and that number goes down a little bit and another number in another computer goes up. As far as I’m concerned, food comes in plastic wrap. Not by the sweat of my brow.

God said “Be fruitful and multiply”
And man replied, “Behold, Lord, here are my two children. I knew that Thou meant for me to start a family after I finished college and was firmly established in my Career, both me and my wife. For I have a Mortgage. Two were all that would fit into my Lifestyle, seeing that my SUV does not have the optional third row of seats.”

God said “Fill the earth, and subdue it”
And man replied, “See, Lord, I have purchased for myself a marvelous cage made of bricks and glass, and am near many other like cages. For we fear Urban Sprawl, and must needs be near unto the Shopping Mall.”

God said “Rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
And man replied, “Animals are most smelly and dirty. Behold, I have fashioned a Cubicle wherein I may work all the day long, almost all the days of my life. But I shall keep a small yard wherein I may mow, and a garden wherein I may work a little, to Relax. And when I am old, I shall Retire, and spend all my time Travelling.”

God said “Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, as I gave the green plant.”
And man replied, “We thank Thee, Lord, for Fast Food and Frozen Dinners. We dislike Preservatives and Saturated Fat, but cannot afford to buy organic and extra lean foods.”

God said “While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, And cold and heat, And summer and winter, And day and night Shall not cease.”
And man replied “We thank thee, Lord, for Central Heating and Air, and for the gift of Electric Lights.”

I don’t have any verses to prove this, but I strongly suspect that our 21st century middle class American lifestyle is NOT what God had in mind. Are we sure this is _progress_?

Of course we’ve made tremendous progress in many areas. I’m not knocking medicine, architecture, electricity, internal combustion engines, and fossil fuels. I’m just wondering about our lifestyles. Is this really the best we could come up with in the past few thousand years?

bq. Hebrews 13:17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.

p. God gives leaders to the church as shepherds, men who are supposed to “keep watch over [our] souls”. Not all elders are going to be good elders (see 3 John, for example). No elder will be perfect. Hopefully, a plurality of elders will provide enough balance that the whole church will stay on track.

Do you trust your elders? Do you think they are godly men? Do you think they regularly seek God’s will and are able to discern His voice? Do you think they are wise?

These are the guys you trust to preach and teach you and your family. They spend the money you donate. They choose lay leadership. They help put together the programs, classes, groups, etc., that you probably participate in. They make all kinds of decisions that probably have a direct impact on your spiritual life. _You better trust them._ You better think they are godly, and wise, and discerning.

If you don’t trust your elders - if you think they are so spiritually dull that they can’t tell if an idea is “straight from Hell” or not - well, you need to find a group you can trust. That probably means changing churches. But if you think they are _that_ susceptible to Satan’s wily schemes, that they will make the wrong decision when things get tough, you really shouldn’t trust them to watch over your soul. You need to find someone else.

I don’t mean to communicate a “love it or leave it” attitude. It’s certainly OK to disagree with your elders and give them feedback or input (assuming you do it appropriately). I certainly have. It’s not a question of _agreement_. It’s a question of _trust_. Do you trust them to make godly decisions, or at a minimum, not to make thoroughly satanic decisions?

If you do trust them, then trust them especially when things look scary. But if you think the only reason they haven’t gone astray is that they’ve lacked the opportunity, you probably need to leave. Because it’s not like the church lacks opportunities to go astray. And many of those opportunities are very subtle. _If you don’t think the watchman will see the full frontal assault, how do you expect him to warn of the sneak attacks?_

Our elders need our prayers, our support, our encouragement, and our submissive obedience - _particularly_ when they are making tough decisions. If you don’t trust them enough to submit even though you think they are making a bad decision, _you need to find someone you can trust that much_. I don’t know if there is a nice way to say that, but I really don’t mean it harshly.

What they _don’t_ need is for us to give them grief. Opinions, hopes, worries, questions, fears, doubts - great. But not grief.

I know that the individual decisions the elders will face are not always clearly black and white. But the question of whether or not we trust them _is_ black and white. Your church leadership should be men you trust. You should trust your elders.

Jesus said we will know people by their fruits. Good tree, good fruit. Bad tree, bad fruit. If you think the tree is good, then eat the fruit. But if you think the fruit is _that_ bad, then the whole tree must be bad to, and you shouldn’t eat _any_ of its fruit.

[Obviously we shouldn't follow our leaders into sin. And I'm not suggesting some kind of cult-like obedience here. I figured that was obvious but I didn't want a dozen comments alluding to Jim Jones or David Koresh.]

My pastor made a statement last Sunday that was intended to be a little bit provocative, and it was. He was preaching from Malachi 4 where the people are complaining that God isn’t smiting the wicked, and conclude that it’s vain to worship him. The preacher pointed out that we should worship God for who He is, not for what He can do for us.

Then he said “We should worship God even if we knew that, at the end of our lives, we’d burn in Hell forever.”

One man later told him that this was “absurd” but I think it was profound.

We use the term “God” as though it were simply a proper name. But it’s far more than that. It’s a descriptive term. He is not only all powerful, all wise, all knowing, and all good. He is also _vastly more important_ than anything else. His pleasure and will are supremely important. Not only does He have the sovereign right and the omnipotent power to carry out His will; _it is entirely proper_ for His will to trump everything else. And it’s proper not simply because God is so good and nice that He deserves our allegiance - rather, _because He is God_.

We know that God has many characteristics that we appreciate. He is just, and holy, and good, and merciful, and loving, and generous, and patient. We like all those things. We love Him because He first loved us. But what if those things were not true of God? What if He were not particularly nice, and if He didn’t extend any grace and love aside from the common grace and benevolence that the entire creation gets? He would still be worthy of our worship and adoration. That’s what being God is all about.

This is why in my theology class I emphasize certain doctrines, giving particular attention to things like God’s sovereignty, man’s thorough depravity, and God’s sovereignty in election and reprobation. Copernicus made people aware of a heliocentric solar system. We need to be aware of a _theocentric_ moral and theological universe. We need to recognize that our universe orbits around God.

The ancients used to look at the skies and see very confusing things, from their earth-centered view. Planets changed course, even going backwards at time. Astronomers understood that planets moved in circles and spheres, so they put together very complex interactions of spheres in an attempt to explain what they saw and what they believed must be true.

Copernicus presented a much simpler understanding. Astronomers no longer viewed Mercury’s movement in relation to _Earth_, which led to such complex models. They viewed Mercury’s movements in relation to the _Sun_, viewed from the perspective of Earth. Suddenly the models were much easier to understand. The theoretical (that planets should move in - generally - circles) and what could be observed (that planets move in strange patterns) collapsed into a single, simple model.

I believe that a proper theocentric view of the world will also help resolve complex theological and moral issues. For instance, one of the most troubling questions in Christianity is, why doesn’t God work it so that everyone at least has a genuine opportunity to be saved? A human-centered theology has no answer. This situation is the ultimate in cosmic injustice. If “man” and “man’s salvation” are the most important things in the universe, the idea that a man might not even have a chance to be saved is antithetical to the very order and purpose of the universe. But a theocentric understanding realizes that God may have a divine purpose in the condemnation of men, and that it’s perfectly within His rights to order events that way.

If we understand that the universe is all about _God_, the idea that we ought to worship Him even if we knew we were going to hell is not absurd. It makes perfect sense.