“This is His name whereby He shall be called—the Lord our Righteousness.” Jeremiah 23:6.

The time is short. It is but a little while, and the Lord Jesus shall come in His glory. The judgment shall be set and the books shall be opened. “Before Him shall be gathered all nations,” “that everyone may receive the things done in his body, according to that he has done, whether it be good or bad.” The inmost secrets of all hearts shall be revealed; “and the kings of the earth, the nobles, the military commanders, the rich, the powerful, and every slave and free person,” will stand together on a level at the judgment, and will see each other face to face, and one by one will have to give account of themselves to God before the whole world. Thus it is written, and therefore it is true and sure to come to pass.

And what does each of you intend to say in that hour? What is the defense you are prepared to set up? What is the answer you propose to give? What is the cause you mean to show why sentence should not be pronounced against you? Read on…

Of particular value here is the discussion of the nature of truth, how concepts of truth differ between social and generational groups, and the way in which these changes affect the reception of various ways in which Christianity is presented.

The Emerging Church – D A Carson [Part 1]
The Emerging Church – D A Carson [Part 2]

My main concern here is that what a church does to attract new members must continue to be done to retain them. In particular, if the propositional truth of scripture is downgraded to a topic of discussion and personal discernment, then whilst it will attract many who find such an approach more comfortable it does not allow for an eventual return to propositional truth. If we suggest that everything is up for debate, then we will never be able to return proper authority to the word without alienating much of the membership.

My concern about this argument is first that ‘reason’ unlike his ‘celestial’ and ‘natural’ forms is not compulsive or regulative but merely supportive. The sun cannot decide against rising, yet man can decide against reason. Whilst it is true that man is governed by some part of the eternal law of God, that law is expressed foremost in those things which we cannot avoid – in our post-fall condition that means to be born, to perceive God in the witness of the creation, to be sinful, to receive such grace as is given, to suffer death, and to receive judgement.

That reason is not a distillate of eternal law should be further clear by considering the chief end of reason, which is sin. For, every man that sins has reasoned that “there is no God” or “God shall not Judge me”, for else he would not sin. He reasons that God is not God indeed, but merely a powerful adversary, thus reasoning he exchanges the truth of God for a lie so that he might continue to sin. So, the chief end of reason is sin, notably idolatry and blasphemy. Reason recieves early attention in the scriptures, indeed it was through a call to reason by the serpent that mankind fell; God had declared the truth apart from reason, and the reason of man through the prompting of the devil made him judge the Word of God as less than certain.

If reason leads inevitably to sin and death, having done so throughout the scriptures from even the earliest times, then can we truly judge reason to be an expression of God’s eternal law as given to the governing of mankind? Long history – whether Jewish, Christian or Pagan – demonstrates that reason reliably leads peoples away from God. Reason is raised up against faith, for the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith. God has revealed to every man his eternal power and divine nature; yet as the scripture shows, our reasoning is futile and our foolish hearts become darkened, for despite claiming to be wise we become fools, exchanging that truth God revealed apart from reason for a lie derived through reason.

It is true that we may, at times, obtain through our industry some useful rules and regulations, and even be able to discern which path is more in agreement with the will of God. Yet, our ability to determine and discern such things results not from reason, but from the grace of God. Was it not declared by God that every thought of the heart of man was only evil continually? How then can we attribute any good thought or righteous judgement to ourselves? Indeed, it is telling that Paul tells of the fate of us sinners apart from grace, that where God ceases to restrain us we fall straightway into dishonourable passions and in depravity commit the most grieveous of sins. What Hooker percieves as the law of reason is perhaps then not law or reason but rather grace, and that it be called law is to be greatly regretted.

Why should this matter? Well, it all comes down to the Gospel. Just consider the simple but glorious truth – that Christ died for our sins and rose again. There is nothing complex about that statement, there is yet nothing in the grammar or syntax that would confuse a child. But, the Gospel is so strange to reason and in opposition to our fallen and self-centered thoughts, that it is impossible for mortal man to arrive at the Gospel through reason. Further, the evil heart of man will rather at every turn seek to use every tool it can to defeat the Gospel, and amongst the tools available the foremost is reason. The moment the seed of the Gospel is sown then sin attacks it from every angle, reasoning that it cannot mean what it means, that it cannot be true, that even if true it is inconvenient. Given this great assault, to which the scriptures testify amply, how ridiculous it is to raise up the proceeds of reason to being a law from God before and apart from scripture?

No, let us be very clear, that the righteous live by faith. It is not through reason that the Gospel can enter the heart, but by grace. It is not by reason then that we are saved, but it is reason that opposes our very salvation. Hooker’s reason itself is unreasonable by his own definition; for because it steadfastly resists the Gospel, so too does it resist God. As it resists God, it cannot be an expression of God’s eternal law in any form without God thereby being the author of evil and so not God at all.

What do you think? Is reason in itself a form of the eternal law of God as given man for his governing, or can the knowledge of God or his law only come from reason only in so much as it is moved through divine grace, a divine grace which we know can work quite apart from reason?

If it’s unfair, then it follows that we don’t forgive because it is fair; rather, we forgive in spite of it being unfair. It is to be expected that we should not want to forgive others, for we do not wish to be unfair to ourselves. So, if we come to terms with the idea of forgiveness being essentially and fundamentally unfair then I suggest it becomes easier to think about the true reasons, motivations and limitations for forgiveness.

Often-times we delay forgiveness. We put off forgiving others until we come to a decision that the matter is so far past, better explained, and half-forgotten, so that it somehow feels easier to forgive. It’s harder to forgive when the wound is fresh; we feel that the cost is too high, that to forgive too much too soon would be too hard or too charitable for us.

Now, the root of forgiveness is love; to forgive someone we do not want to forgive is a pure, certain and direct statement of love. Yet, more than that it is a gloriously and mightily unfair act of love. To forgive in opposition to our own knowledge of what is just and fair is to make a real and costly sacrifice, to deny ourselves retribution and vengeance for the sake of the love we have for our fellow men.

The question then is not how we might forgive others, but where we might look to find that great love, to fill our hearts until they overflow with charity. The more perfectly we love, the more perfectly we will forgive, not through our own work but through the work of that love which is within us.

This, interestingly, is something that differentiates Christianity from the major religions; for it is this very story, a history of a love so deep that it could not bear to see just judgement on mankind. It is an account of a sacrifice so great and so very deeply unfair that not just one person was forgiven, but the sins of the whole world. The Gospel of John puts it in this very simple way “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son”. Is it possible for there to be an act more unfair than for Jesus Christ to be rejected, persecuted, beaten, mocked and put to death by hanging on a cross amongst thieves?

God could have stopped what happened at Golgotha at any time. God could have saved Jesus and spared him from death. It would have been fair and just to send angels to defend him. He didn’t; and that he didn’t was for you and for me, because he loved us so much that he was willing to pay such a price to achieve our forgiveness. God, our perfect judge, just punisher, and omnipotent creator came to earth as man to be judged unfairly, punished wickedly and destroyed even to death so that he could take onto himself the punishment and judgement of our sins. What Jesus did on the cross was to pay the greatest price of the greatest love. Jesus said “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep”; and this was his intention from the very beginning.

The Prophet Isaiah, writing around seven hundred years before Jesus was born, wrote movingly about what Jesus was to do for mankind. I’ve included an extract from Isaiah 53 below, although the whole chapter is deeply meaningful:

He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.

Here then, at the foot of a Roman cross, do we find that deep and pure love, that perfect charity from which comes true, perfect, and very very unfair forgiveness. Here then, in the midst of perfect love do we find perfect forgiveness. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him (John 3:16-17).

Perhaps when we feel we don’t want to forgive others, or want to to put it off until it seems less of a challenge, we might do well to remember the deep love that God has for us, that whilst we were yet sinners, he died for us (Romans 5:8). How dreadfully unfair, how terribly costly, how very humiliating – but yet, how gracious, how merciful and how loving – that God who is the very definition of righteousness should sacrifice so much for desperate sinners such as us. God didn’t wait until our sins were half-forgotten, nor did he wait for us to first apologise and mend our ways; rather he saved us when we did not seek him and in spite of our hatred and rejection of him.

Forgiveness then is not a matter of difficulty, but a matter of love. To forgive one another is never wrong, but as we’ve discussed, it is usually deeply unfair. But, let us rejoice in this very unfairness, for it is in this unfairness that we reflect the glow of the love our creator has for all mankind, that love that drove God to commit the most unfair act of all eternity to take away the sin of the world.

1) Put the following in a file named ‘ram2mp3.sh’
2) From the command line, make the file executable
chmod +x ram2mp3.sh
3) Run the file as follows:
./ram2mp3.sh http://example.com/thesource.ram newfile.mp3
4) The file will download itself, convert itself to .wav, encode the .wav as an MP3, and then write it to your current directory as ‘newfile.mp3′.

Requires:
mplayer, ffmpeg, lame, libwww-perl

file=`GET $1 | sed 's/\r//'`
date=`date +%s`
feed=`wget $file --output-document=/tmp/cnv_$date`
`mplayer /tmp/cnv_$date -ao pcm:file=/tmp/cnv_$date.wav`
`ffmpeg -i /tmp/cnv_$date.wav ./$2`
`rm /tmp/cnv_$date* -f`

John 6:27-29
27 Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.
28 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

Whilst is is written that good works are found in those who are saved (e.g. James 2:14), this repentance and striving for obedience to God’s law is caused by belief in Christ and his work; it is the proper fruit of Christ in those who are saved and not the means by which they become saved.

As Paul writes, if salvation is obtained because of the righteousness of our own good works, then Christ has died in vain (Galatians 2:21). There would be no need for Christ were it possible for man to become righteous through his own efforts.

Romans 3:
20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:
23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

We are all sinners and condemned before God according to our own wickedness. None of us are ‘good enough’ to escape the eternal damnation. We must, at all costs and at all times, cling to our own possible hope of salvation, Jesus Christ. This is the Gospel – that Christ died for our sins, calling us to repentance and forgiveness of sins in his name.

The true face of Christmas?

Another prong of the attack on Christmas is to declare loudly that Christmas is not declared nor is it even hinted at by the Bible. That’s true on the surface. Search a Bible from cover to cover and you will not find a single mention of Christmas. Then again, there isn’t a single mention of the name Jesus Christ in the Old Testament and still he was clearly discussed, described and predicted. When it comes to prophesy, names are not everything.

So, are they right to say there is no mention of Christmas? Well, I think that depends on what Christmas means, or rather, what we mean when we celebrate Christmas. The traditional answer is that we celebrate the Birth of Christ – yet as the Gospel so boldly proclaims – Christ existed from before the beginning of time (John 1:1). If Christ existed before the beginning of time, how could he have been born so late in Bethlehem? It is clear then that we do not celebrate Christ coming to life as we do when we celebrate our own birthdays, rather we celebrate something much more important – and I am going to discuss what that might be.

Back in Old Testament times, all God’s chosen people dwelt in slavery in the land of Egypt. There had been great promises made by God to Abraham, yet they were really not enjoying great blessing under the cruel rule of Pharaoh. Things were bad and getting worse, and given that Pharaoh was killing all male children at birth there seemed to be no future for the Israelites as a race. Then something really amazing happened – God came to visit his people and remembered his promise. God himself brought his people out of slavery and dwelt amongst them. Just imagine it – Almighty God himself, creator of the Heavens and the Earth, all powerful – dwelling amongst man?

Whilst the Israelites were wondering in the desert, God had dwelt in a tent, the same kind of dwelling that the people of Israel used. Later when they were settled, King David asked God if he could build a temple for God to dwell in; and it was David’s son, King Solomon, who built one. The temple then became a very real sign of God amongst man, a defining mark of God’s chosen people and most importantly a symbol of God amongst us. The Temple, in so much as it was the place of God’s presence, represented God Himself.

The prophet Amos, prophesying whilst the temple still existed, predicts not only the destruction of Judah but also that the booth of David would be raised up again from its ruins and repaired as it was in the days of old. By the booth of David is meant the Temple, which was built in accordance with God’s promise to David. Later history shows that the temple was indeed destroyed, and eventually rebuilt, yet the second temple never reached the glory of the former as was promised in Amos.

Amos 9:11:

In that day I will raise up
the booth of David that is fallen
and repair its breaches,
and raise up its ruins
and rebuild it as in the days of old,

So what of this word ‘booth’? Well, the booth, or sukkah, has a very special significance in Jewish culture. It essentially refers to a temporary shelter, such as a simple shed created for animal housing or a dwelling-tent similar to those used by nomadic desert communities even today. Genesis 33:17 describes Jacob building these sukkah for his animals when he made his own dwelling. There is perhaps no perfect English translation for the term, and booth whilst it may be a technical match does not bring the same meaning as it is used in modern english.

To Jews, whether in Biblical times or now, the sukkah is closely linked to sukkot, an annual festival also known as the Feast of Booths or the Feast of Tabernacles. This festival is peculiar in that it involves building sukkah in remembrance of when both God and man dwelt together in tents within the desert. To this day, observant Jews recite a prayer at this feast, based on Amos 9:11, which translates as “May the Merciful One raise up for us the fallen sukkah of David”.

Interestingly, the prophet Zechariah talks about sukkot, and declares that in the day of the Lord all peoples will keep sukkot. So, that means us, the non-Jewish believers, as well. Yet, sukkot was only prescribed to be kept by Jews, in remembrance of their own specific history. At first glance it would seem illogical for us to keep sukkot as it’s not about us, however perhaps the key to this verse lies in careful consideration of what sukkot represents and what it means.

Zechariah 14:16

Then everyone who survives of all the nations that have come against
Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD of
hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths.

I suggest that the real meaning of sukkot is a celebration not so much of the people of Israel dwelling in tents, but of God coming to dwell amongst his chosen people. It is a festival symbolic of a renewal of the often fractured relationship between God and man in a very visible and physical way. It is not insignificant that Solomon celebrated sukkot immediately following the completion of the Temple in which God had come to dwell (1 Kings 8:2). Later, it was chosen for celebrating the recapture and rededication of the temple in II Maccabees, a specific observance still recalled today in the Jewish celebration of Channukah. So, sukkot is bound up in the concept of this renewal of this very real and physical link between God and Man.

So, it does seem very fitting to recall the verse from Amos on the restoration of the sukkah of David; and more so when we reflect upon later history. Importantly, the same prophet who declares that all will celebrate sukkot also talks about who it is that will restore the temple – none other than Christ. Zechariah 6:12-13 describes Christ in terms of a man whose name is ‘the Branch’ who was to rebuild the Temple, bear royal honor and rule. That Christ restored the temple and is the branch is clear from his Gospel promise to raise the temple after three days, meaning his own self. Interestingly, when Amos predicts that the temple will be raised, the word he uses for ‘raise’ is the same used by Isaiah 26:19 when he talks about the resurrection of the dead (Isaiah 26:19; …together with my dead body shall they arise).

Zechariah 6:12-13

Behold, the man whose name is the Branch: for he shall branch out from his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD. It is he who shall build the temple of the LORD and shall bear royal honor, and shall sit and rule on his throne.

So; do we know any more about the branch? Isaiah 4 talks about the Branch, and then states there will at that time be a booth “for shade by day from the heat, and for a refuge and a shelter from the storm and rain” (Isaiah 4:2). What could this booth (sukkah) be, but of Christ himself? Is the coming of the Branch and the booth not clearly the coming of Christ? Can it be an accident then that Christ was born in a place with a manger; a dwelling of animals, probably a sukkot in the sense of those built by Jacob?

If the celebration of sukkot is indeed the celebration of a renewed close and even physical presence of God dwelling with man, then it is no great leap to suggest that it points towards none other than the coming of Christ. That event which we term his birth, but which is in fact God remembering his promise and sending Christ our great Redeemer and Saviour to dwell amongst us.

When we read Zechariah 14:16 perhaps might also think of Christmas, when every year people from every nation “go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast”. We should not make light of the birth of Christ by suggesting a focus on his death and resurrection, for that is to miss the great act of God in remembering us.

I contend that the greater significance of the Christmas story is not the story of birth and swaddling bands, but of God coming to dwell amongst man in a very real and physical way. This is our story, our history, our own spiritual ancestry; Christmas is our celebration of dwelling with God, our own sukkot.

Sukkot is known to the Jews as the Season of our Rejoicing, after Zechariah 8:16, in which it is declared a season of ” joy and gladness and cheerful feasts.” I don’t hold pagan beliefs but I am certainly going to celebrate Christmas this year with joy and gladness and cheerful feasts!

Dear Reader, have a blessed, safe and joyful Christmas.

Have you tried adding more to your to-do list? Yep, that’s a great time management tip. If you don’t seem to have time to do what you are already doing, put more on your plate. This works wonders because the human mind isn’t a machine; efficiency and productivity are not very closely related to time available.

The key is to add something different; something which isn’t your usual work, although it may be work related. You could start a blog, join a sports team, volunteer at a local charity or take classes in something that interests you. Whatever you add, be sure it is a change from your everyday work, and be sure that it has a time commitment behind it of some kind.

Through your new added focus on the fresh activity, your mind will reorganise your existing workload so that it becomes finished. Whereas previously your subconscious aim was to do as much work as possible during the time available, your whole psychological direction changes to completing the work on the list so that you can engage in the new task that you know is going to require a decent chunk of time.

Enjoy yourself and get more done; couldn’t be simpler!