Imagine that you pick up a copy of the NY Times. In the entertainment section, you find a review of a current musical on Broadway:

“The latest offering on Broadway is a sad little play about the history and the future of mankind. I won’t trouble you with the details. Suffice it to say that the show is violent, tasteless, insipid, and naive. The plot line goes beyond unbelievable……..it is patently impossible. Don’t waste your time and money”.

Later on, you learn that the reviewer never actually saw the play. He based his review on second and third hand accounts that he had heard from friends and strangers.

What would you think of the review?

More to the point……what would you think of the reviewer?

And yet, we hear book reviews about the Bible every day. If you drill down into the negative reviews, you will find that the reviewer has almost never actually read the book. Even worse, the reviews that are positive………are also written by reviewers, most of whom, have never read the book cover to cover.

Considering the eternal consequences…….heaven and hell……there is no escaping the fact that the Bible is the most important book that man has ever been exposed to. It is hard to conceive that our public conversation about this seminal piece of text, both positive and negative, is conducted, almost exclusively, by people on both sides of the argument………who have never read the Bible cover to cover.

The blind leading the blind.

You may believe the Bible to be true……..you may believe that it’s a myth. That is not today’s question. Today’s question is a little more basic. Today’s question deals with intellectual honesty.

“Have you actually read the book?”

Probably not.

Today’s post is for those who have never read the Bible cover to cover. This includes essentially all non-believers and the vast majority of believers.

I hope that you will run out and grab a copy and read every word.

But, I’m not very optimistic. It’s a pretty big book and it can be a little “thick”.

Today, I am not addrsssing a culture divided between believers and non-believers.

Today, I am addressing a culture divided between the intellectually honest……..and the intellectually dishonest.

So, what is your next step?

Ignore the honesty problem.

Grab a Bible and start at Genesis 1.

Or

Take a baby step.

Here is my suggestion:

Read the book of John…….then Acts…….then the letters of Paul.

Think of this as the “Cliff Notes” version of the Bible. Imagine this as a book titled:

“Love God……and Everybody Else”

As you read I must warn you of another honesty problem that you will encounter on almost every page. You will read a passage and say to yourself, “That’s impossible!” Just remember, what you actually mean is: “That’s impossible……for me”. God operates on a spiritual plane…….he is not bound by your narrow definition of what is possible.

Possible or impossible is not the question.

God is real. The consequences are real. The fact that you may not believe this……is irrelevant.

So……I return to the original question. What do you think of the reviewer in the first paragraph?

Because you are the reviewer.

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Paul, Romans 1:19-20, ESV

I have been richly blessed:

A wonderful wife who has stuck with me for almost 50 years.

Sons and granddaughters

A home on a hilltop in the country

Health

And far more

I have also seen tragedy:

Illness in my family

The death of two sons

Your story is different. But, there has been, no doubt, a mix of blessing and tragedy.

We enjoy the blessings and we hate it when tragedy strikes. But……here’s the thing. God is the author of every one of our blessings. But, what about the tragedies? I believe that God is behind even the bad things that come our way. Perhaps he initiates the tragedies. Or, perhaps, he just allows them to happen. The story of Job is a case study in tragedy and blessing. God gives Satan explicit but limited permission to harm Job. The Bible never tells us why. God blesses Job…….God allows Satan to harm Job. In either event, God is working out his plan. He doesn’t need or ask for our approval. He doesn’t explain. We are left to fill in the blanks.

And so we do.

The Old Testament is full of this. God’s people sin and tragedy befalls them. They repent, and they are blessed. It is very tempting to view the blessings as rewards for good behavior and to view the tragedies as punishment for bad behavior. There is no doubt that this is sometimes the case. But, not always. God does reward us. God does punish us. But, often, perhaps most of the time, God is just working out the details of his plan.

Blessings are easy. Enjoy them. Praise God for them.

Tragedies, however, are an entirely different kettle of fish. How are we to react when God sends tragedy into our life…….when God allows Satan to harm us?

Why do bad things happen to good people?

God does not bless us because of who we are……or what we have done. God blesses us because of who he is.

God does not withhold his blessing because of who we are or what we have done. Sometimes, God withholds his blessing as a part of his plan. Sometimes, it really is a “zero sum game”. On a given Sunday, God may bless the Steelers at the expense of the Bengals.

The key thing to remember about God’s blessing?

It is about God…….not us.

Blessing is a tool that God uses to advance his plan…….not mine.

So……..enjoy God’s blessings. Try to run your life in line with God’s plan…….at least the parts of it that you and I can understand. This puts us in a place where we are more likely to enjoy God’s blessings…….his favor. When God withholds a blessing, be patient. God is working out his plan. He may be blessing someone else today.

Know this:

God loves you and me.

God has a plan.

God’s plan is good…….better than yours…..better than mine.

God sees the finish line when we cannot.

And his promise is that the finish line will be fabulous…….for those who love and serve him.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

James 1:17, ESV

And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.

Job 2:6-7, ESV

Sovereignty…….we don’t talk about it much, probably because it is in our nature to reject the concept……..or, at least, to bend it to our purposes. Perhaps we should go back to the basics. Just what is sovereignty?

Sovereignty is absolute control. The sovereign makes the rules. The sovereign makes the decisions. The sovereign decides where everything is going. The sovereign decides who will live and who will die. Sovereignty is absolute. It covers every object, every living thing, every idea, every thought. There are no exceptions. There is no “happy place” where you can set God’s sovereignty aside and rest for a while. Perhaps the most important feature of sovereignty is that nobody gets to second guess the sovereign. Nobody gets to criticize the sovereign. Nobody has veto power over the sovereign.

In its pure form, sovereignty is complete. There are no exceptions.

God is sovereign. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are manifestations of God. Even Jesus honored God’s sovereignty in his prayer at Gethsemane.

So……the first and most obvious trait of a sovereign is that he is the decision-maker. He decides where he is going. He decides where his people are going. He tells us what we must do……and what we cannot do. In a word, the sovereign makes the rules.

The second trait of a sovereign is less obvious but more far-reaching. The sovereign defines everything in the universe. Because our sovereign is also the creator, this means that God defines the physical makeup of everyone and everthing. God defines every object. God defines every act. God assigns a value and a meaning to every thought. God has a plan. As creator, he builds the universe to suit his plan.

We see glimpses of God’s plan. But, we are not privy to the entire plan. This means that much of God’s plan…….perhaps most of it……makes no sense to us. And that is where we get into trouble.

We see some act……or thought…..or person……or object. We apply our limited fund of knowledge to it. And we conclude that it is wrong.

We conclude that God is wrong. Maybe we decide that God made a mistake. Maybe we conclude that he is not paying attention. Maybe we go so far as to deny the existence of God. This is the world of the secular humanist. This is the culture…….the environment…..that we live in. This is our society……which rejects God’s sovereignty:

God was wrong…….when he gave me breasts…….I have a better plan…….I am a man.

God was wrong……..when he said don’t lie…….liars get ahead.

God was wrong…..when he said don’t steal……stealing gets me good stuff and I don’t have to pay for it.

God was stupid…..when he said don’t murder……..killing your enemy stops him from interfering with your plan.

God doesn’t exist…….creation and life itself is a physical/ biochemical accident.

The ultimate act of rejection of God’s sovereignty?

My plan has primacy over God’s plan.

The rejection of God’s sovereignty……the usurpation of God’s sovereignty…..is the root of every failure in our culture. It is the root of every failure in my life.

Rejecting God’s sovereignty creates distance between us and God.

Rejection leads to distance…….distance is sin…….sin leads to spiritual death.

God is sovereign.

Ergo, God, by definition, is right.

God is not mocked.

When we disagree with God and what he is doing, we act out of ignorance.

Everything in creation is as it should be……until we interfere with God’s sovereignty.

Everything in my life is as it should be until I try to enlarge my little slice of sovereignty by denying……by stealing……God’s sovereignty

And I do this……every day.

I take my little slice of stolen sovereignty and I run with it. I enjoy it……because it allows me to take the things that I want. I like the power that it gives me. I want more. And, if I pursue this thought to its ultimate conclusion?

I can end up trying to seize all of God’s sovereignty.

This strategy works……for a while………but there is a problem. I’m going to die……soon. At that point, I will transition into God’s spiritual realm.

What will happen to my little slice of sovereignty…….when I meet God?

I don’t know.

But, I have to believe that my little slice of sovereignty will be completely……..or almost completely……..overpowered by God’s absolute sovereignty.

From where I stand today……..that is scary. I really enjoy my morning cup of coffee. What if God doesn’t approve of coffee? The list of things that I may have to surrender goes way beyond Starbucks. I worry about the pleasures that I enjoy here that may not exist there. I worry that my latte may be replaced by a harp and a cloud.

Here is what I believe:

I believe that the pleasures of the physical/temporal world will be replaced by experiences in the spiritual realm that I cannot even begin to conceive:

Living in close proximity to the ultimate source of love.

Experiencing the blend of absolute justice and absolute mercy.

Living in a perfect body forever.

Having an itimate relationship with my creator.

Ultimately…….God defines good and being close to God will be the best……..by definition.

It is not God’s definition of good that must be corrected.

It is my definition of good that must be and will be corrected.

Time to get started.

“All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?'”

Nebuchadnezzar’s epiphany about the sovereignty of God, Daniel 4:35, ESV

Stephen Hawking was, without a doubt, one of the greatest minds of our age. He was a theoretical astrophysicist. His pioneering work on black holes redirected our understanding of the beginning and of the coming end of the universe……..based on secular humanism. He was an atheist. He rejected the existence of God, eternal life, paradise, and hell. I don’t presume to understand the science that he worked with. I will say that he built a cohesive explanation of the beginning of the universe, uniting the theories of quantum mechanics and general relativity. This was a great leap forward in reconciling these theories. In a word, Hawking was a champion of secular humanism.

But Hawking’s work was based on the study, manipulation, and integration of multiple theories and assumptions.

Here is the problem. If you take twenty theories and assumptions and weave them into a cohesive “theory of everthing”, this does not prove any one of the theories to be true. Each theory must stand on its own. Each theory must be true……independent of the others. In fact, if any one of the theories that you are relying on is untrue, the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.

Cosmologists like Hawking are working to clean up the problems in the theories that explain the universe. They are actively searching for a workable “theory of everything”. They have spent hundreds of billions of dollars. They have written countless books.

They have not found it.

Why?

The scientific community bases its analysis on one central assumption.

That assumption is that there is no creative intelligence behind it all. That might be true. In fact, it must be true or Hawking and the others are chasing a mirage. But, this is an unproven assumption……..quite possibly an unprovable assumption. Is it any wonder that an analysis based on an unproven assumption has not yielded a solution?

The entire body of work…….of Hawking and other cosmologists is a theoretical framework built on a fundamental assumption that is unproven. They don’t talk about this problem. In fact, they ridicule anyone who does. There is no place in academia for a scientist who utters the heresy:

God did it……..God is smarter than Stephen Hawking.

To even entertain that possibility is to commit career suicide in the field of academic cosmology. The scientific community would rather entertain the idea that the 400 billion chemical bonds in the human genome were assembled by random accident than to consider the possibility of an intelligent designer.

So……I’m going to say it…….out loud.

God did it.

Prove me wrong.

Prove me wrong………because your fate hinges on this simple question…….and you must get the correct answer, because the cost of being wrong is unthinkable.

Did God do it……….or is it all a giant accident?

“I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.”

David’s prayer of thanks for creation, Psalm 139: 14, ESV

“I am a fabulous accident…….I rule the universe.”

The foundational prayer of secular humanism.

“I have sold more books on physics than Madonna has on sex.”

Stephen Hawking

Roughly 60% of Christians support making abortion legal.

The sole purpose of abortion is to end a pregnancy by killing a child.

Legal abortion codifies a woman’s control over her body.

Abortion is barbaric.

These statements are true.

So, what does this have to do with the Holy Spirit?

If you are not a Christian, you do not possess the Holy Spirit……you are in charge and you can do as you please.

Today’s post is for that majority of Christians……..who support abortion.

The Bible…….the owners manual for Christians…….teaches that to be a Christian, you must believe in Jesus Christ…….you must accept his divinity. It also teaches that when you do this, you receive the Holy Spirit who lives inside of you. It follows that pro-abortion Christians both promote abortion and possess the Holy Spirit. ⁰

And I have a hard time with that.

If this describes you, there are not many ways for you to reconcile this conundrum:

The Holy Spirit is OK with abortion. I find this to be inconceivable.

You do not possess the Holy Spirit……..you are not saved…….you are not a Christian. The long-term consequences of this are daunting. But, it leaves you in charge…….for now.

You possess the Holy Spirit…….but you ignore him. You allow your desires, your appetites, to drive your life. You drag out the Holy Spirit when you are in trouble; but, when he interferes with your appetites, you stuff him back into his box. On the surface, this is the best of both the spiritual world and the temporal world. In practice, you try to straddle the gap between two realities. And this works…….for now. I think that this path accounts for the vast majority of pro-abortion Christians. It accounts for a great many of my friends. It accounts for most of the people who sit beside me on Sunday morning.

But, I worry.

I don’t presume to know how Jesus feels about all of this.

Maybe Jesus is OK with part-time Christians. Maybe the time that we let the Holy Spirit of his box is enough for Jesus.

What I believe is this:

The more time that we spend listening to the Holy Spirit……….the more we include him in our decision-making………the better off we will be……..in both the temporal world and in the spiritual world. And…….this applies across the range of our decision-making. It goes way beyond abortion and politics.

I will try to give the Holy Spirit a bigger voice in the decisions that I will make today. I will do a better job of listening to the Holy Spirit.

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

Jesus promising the Holy Spirit, John 14:26, ESV

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”

Jesus, explaining the Holy Spirit, John 16:13, ESV