Dear Friends, May 22,
2022
On Tuesday I continued at the International
Presbyterian Church (what last week I foolishly entitled the ‘Independent’
P.C.) in my scheduled three lunchtime evangelistic studies on “The Work of
Christ the Prophet.” I am examining why is it that people said, “No one ever
spoke like this man.” And my second answer this week was, because of the
astonishing claims he made. They are all the more extraordinary because of
the humility of the man. Thomas Goodwin’s The Heart of Christ opens up those
familiar words of our Lord, “For I am meek and lowly of heart,” and Dan Ortlund
has written a best-selling book using this approach of Goodwin as he describes
the character of Christ. The new book is called Gentle and Lowly. It is
this meek man who had made fence posts and shelves for two decades in a one
donkey village surrounded by thorn bushes who was to begin his public ministry
for the final three years of his life. During that time the carpenter’s son
made many, many extraordinary claims. Muhammed Ali, the late boxer, could boast
about himself and refer to himself as ‘the greatest.’ That was all about
vanity, money and showbusiness. But Christ was so meek; when they nailed him to
a cross he prayed, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” No
impression was imprinted upon his disciples more deeply than his humility,
wrote Warfield. His life endorsed meekness and self-abnegation, and yet his
claims were as high as the throne of heaven itself.
For example, the Lord Jesus claimed
to be himself the way, the truth and the life and that there was no
other way of coming to God except via him, so that people should honour him just
as they honour the Father, that everyone who believes in him Jesus himself will
raise up from the grave on the last day, that it is he alone who is
going to determine the destiny of every single person on the globe, that
the standard of judgment will be how they have related to him. He claimed that he
never began to exist – as compared to all the rest of us who’ve known a
beginning to our lives. But he was there in the beginning; in other words, there
never was a time when he was not; before Abraham was he lived. He even claimed
equality with God, “I and my Father are one.” And the most remarkable of all is
the fact that he does not make these claims boastfully but meekly, as one beset
with gentleness and weakness, in the most matter-of-fact manner. He was simply
stating them as undeniably factual. That is how it has been, and is, and ever
will be. He and God - were one!
In many ways the challenge of
Christianity is that self-consciousness of the Lord Jesus. The logic is plain; that
as he says that he is your God then to him you have to respond accordingly. We are
challenging the world not with some emotional challenge but an intellectual
challenge, with the veracity of the claims of Jesus, with what men must otherwise
dismiss as a ‘megalomaniac Christ'. There is one great reason for being a
Christian and that is that it is true and so the Christian has the right
to say to every single person all the round world over, “Stop! The tomb was
empty. Christ arose. Christ is God. Submit to him because of the objective
reality and veracity of all that the Lord Jesus said.” Then of course he
endorsed his words continually by displaying his authority over the wind and
storms, over the work of the devil, over every kind of disease, even in its
later stages, and even over death itself, He was quite capable of reversing its
killing, destructive power. He resurrected the dead. There were tens of
thousands of these mighty miraculous acts that he did. It seemed to John his
apostle that all the books in the world could be filled with the reports of his
signs and wonders. These works of Christ are a multitude of confirmations of
the truth of his claims. ‘Believe me on the basis of my works’, he can plead.
He was not a conjuror or magician for when he opened his mouth it was not with
some weak voice that he spoke but with depth and beauty. What more could he say
or do to persuade you to acknowledge his deity?
If this central significance of Jesus Christ,
especially the importance of his redeeming achievements, are rejected, then you
can see what inevitably happens, that the vacuum is filled by the marginal
activities and claims of mere men and women. They are bound to replace what our
Lord has done. For example, it has just been announced in early May by the
Vatican that in September and October two rib
fragments, both kneecaps, muscle from the right thigh and some other tissue all
cut away from the body of the 19th century French women Bernadette
Soubirous, have been locked within an ornate box called a ‘reliquary’. They are
going to be brought from the U.S.A. (where they are currently being driven
around the different states) to the British Isles to be driven from each
Catholic cathedral to another right across England, Wales and Scotland, none to
be omitted. They will also be driven to Wormwood Scrubs prison in west London,
where a special Mass will be held for the convicts. This box will also be displayed
at the Church of England’s Liverpool Cathedral. What is the Church of England
thinking of?
When similar body parts of Teresa
Martin of Avia, Spain (who died when she was 24) were brought to Britain in
2009, half a million people went to see the box of her bits. Organisers of the
mummified arrival of parts of Bernadette’s body call this the ‘most important
relic ever to be brought to the U.K.’ They are hoping that a million people
will come and look at the Victorian box containing those fragments. The Roman
church has announced that some catholics have prayed to these dead women and
their prayers have been answered in a miraculous way. The seriously ill took a
turn for the better and lived. So the two women have now been pronounced by the
pope to be ‘saints,’ and the church encourages everyone to pray to those women,
especially when boxes with bits of their bodies inside are brought to the
country where they now live - they don’t have to go to Lourdes or Avila to see
the box of bits. It is all very medieval and most grievous. But when Jesus
Christ is lowered then other stuff is exalted.
Of course there is not a hint of any protests of such an event, but Billy Graham’s son, Franklin Graham arrives soon for a tour of some of the main cities in England, a tour entitled ‘God Loves you.’ Already there are protests and interruptions of the services hinted at. The Mayor of Liverpool, Steve Rotheram has said that Franklin Graham is a ‘hate preacher’ and that advertisements for the Liverpool meetings should be removed from buses because they leave passengers feeling ‘uncomfortable’ and ‘unsafe’. The chief minister for Wales, Mark Drakeford, told the Welsh senate that he deeply regretted that this preacher was coming to Wales. Adam Price the leader of Plaid Cymru said that Franklin Graham was not entitled to preach at the Newport Convention centre that is 50% owned by the Welsh government.
Well, I feel uncomfortable with bits of bones and mummified tissue being brought to Wales and people being encouraged to look at the box in which they are kept, and that they are being taught that such visit to the casket of bones will help them to get to heaven. Very uncomfortable. But I will not protest about adverts or interrupt the surveillance of the box of relics though my friends could well be giving out leaflets to the people waiting to glimpse the reliquary.
I have been listening to the testimony of how a man called Elliott Osowitt became a Christian. It was for me most touching. After being called up and fighting in Viet Nam the nice boy had changed. He become an unfaithful, selfish, family-destroying man, and all he was drawn into he marred, including his family, his wife and children. God lifted him out of it all and He made him a preacher. I think you can find a copy of him telling his story if you put ‘Elliott Osowitt’s Testimony’ on Google. That is what I did and after filling in one or two places I finally heard another pastor introducing him. Then I listened to his humble story of how God lifted him from sinking sands and despair. Nice voice.
Blessings on you, Geoff
P.S. James A Dickson is
expecting the delivery of my In the Shadow of the Rock at the end of the
coming week and will be selling it for £14.99
