"Change We Can Believe In"

"Stronger Together"and "Make America Great Again" are fair slogans, ideal goals.  One cannot argue with the meaning, except when being proclaimed by those whose lifestyles do not reflect the words. I'll not labor over the upcoming election as it is too weary an endeavor and there are too many opinions.  And what I'd like to settle in on today is what our current president proclaimed as he ran for office, "Change We Can Believe In".  Now that is a great slogan and I do not want to concentrate on how that promise has been met but I would like to give true hope as to a promise that is always safe.

In his short but deep and thought provoking book, Knowledge of the Holy, A. W. Tozer beautifully illuminates the exciting and hope-filled truth of the immutability of God in chapter nine.  And in this amazing description of just one awesome attribute, he shares what God proclaims about Himself in regard to change and about us.  "I am the Lord.  I change not."  But for us, God says, "are being transformed", "have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge". (2 Corinthians 3:18; Colossians 3:10) "In Him, men of faith find at last eternal permanence.  In the meanwhile change works for the children of the kingdom, not against them."

"Poets have found morbid pleasure in the law of impermanence and have sung in a minor key the song of perpetual change."  (Think Leonard Cohen, an extraordinarily gifted artist but dark and without hope.  Or so it seems.)  "This note of sweet sorrow expressed with gentle humor gives a radiant beauty to his quatrains but, however beautiful, the whole... is sick, sick unto death...the poet is fascinated by the enemy that is destroying him."

"For human beings the possibility of redemption lies in their ability to change.  To move across from one sort of person to another is the essence of repentance: the liar becomes truthful, the thief honest, the lewd pure, the proud humble.... So radical is this change that the apostle calls the man that used to be 'the old man' and the man that now is 'the new man.'  When God infuses eternal life into the spirit of man, the man becomes a member of a new and higher order of being....In the working out of His redemptive processes the unchanging God makes full use of change and through a succession of changes arrives at permanence at last."

Believers have found the "cure for the great sickness".  This is the message of the gospel.  Christians aren't trying to get as many people into their club as possible as though this might be a greater entrance into heaven.  NO!  Christ alone is their hope and way to God.  Christians that have truly been changed want others to experience the freedom that God has bestowed on them and the hope He has given.  They are excited about the change.  It is truly a change that can be believed!

Tozer expresses in his book that some of you may think Christianity as being "something that might bring a certain satisfaction to persons of a particular type of mind but can have no real significance for practical men."  Yet I've heard such men speak of the good ole days with longing.  And it may be that their own change in attitude toward beauty and permanence is the very reason for this lacking.  What peace God offers to all through Jesus Christ to "know that our Heavenly Father never differs from Himself.  In coming to Him at any time we need not wonder whether we shall find Him in a receptive mood.  He is always receptive to misery and need, as well as to love and faith.  He does not keep office hours nor set aside periods when He will see no one.  Neither does He change His mind about anything.... He never changes moods or cools off in His affections or lose enthusiasm.  His attitude toward the sinner is the same as when He stretched forth His hands and cried, 'Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

Danger Signal

A man with a disease so far advanced that he has no strength or no power to throw off the effects of its spreading.  A helpless infant, newly born, deserted by its mother, unwashed, unclothed, unfed, forlorn, abandoned, hopeless.  These are two biblical illustrations of sin and the sinner.  Charles Spurgeon beautifully and powerfully explains the wonder of the gospel in his sermon, "For Whom Did Christ Die?" Read it in its entirety if you like; but for this post, here are a few nuggets from it.

For the most part, the people I know would do everything in their power to find a cure for their disease or take care of a helpless, abandoned baby.  But the sinner, suffering from the moral calamity of their sin "has no desire to throw it off.  He could not save himself if he would and would not if he could."  And "the worst feature in this plight --> you love the evil which is destroying you."  While in this condition, "Jesus interposes!" "When we were yet without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly."  (Romans 5:6)  "Ungodly: the Greek word is so expressive that it must take in your case, however wrongly you acted."

"If men were wise, they would ponder this night and day.  Jesus knew when He died that if the world was left to itself, it would grow worse and worse; that by its very wisdom, it would darken its own eyes and develop into a deeper damnation.  If you are unconverted, you are in grave danger, imminent peril, solemn danger.  The cross needs to be a danger signal for you.  Believe in Christ and you shall be saved from that ungodliness.  Jesus has not come to save men in their sins but from their sins and this is the best news for those who are diseased with sin."

"Mercy has my heart subdued, a bleeding Savior I have viewed and now I hate my sin."  "Christ died for the ungodly."   "Accept this truth and you are saved!  Not merely pardoned, not just that you will enter heaven, but you will have a new heart, you will be saved from a love of sin, saved from drunkenness, saved from blasphemy, saved from dishonesty.  Trust in the mercy of God through the death of Christ and a new era of your life's history will commence at once.  Do not reject this.  It is your life."  Let the cross be the warning that saves your life.

Zombies

Have we ceased to wonder?  Do we take time to look up at the sky, "that great, deep sea of azure that swims overhead; the winds sweeping through it; the black cloud fashioning itself together, now pouring out fire, now hail and rain; what is it?"  Such words were penned by Thomas Carlyle and referenced in A.W. Tozer's book, Knowledge of the Holy.  Tozer says that "we have grown use to it"-the world in all its beauty and splendor.  Carlyle goes on to write, "It's not by our superior insight...it is by our superior levity, our inattention."  And to this Tozer writes, "this world after all our science and sciences is still a miracle...to whosoever will think of it."

Tozer says, "secularism, materialism and the intrusive presence of things have put out the light in our souls and turned us into a generation of zombies.  We cover our deep ignorance with words, but we are ashamed to wonder, we are afraid to whisper, 'mystery'."  This we do by neglecting the wonder of nature and on a greater scale, to think seriously about God, the Creator, the great "I Am, the Self-existent Self back of which no creature can think".  We prefer to think about the temporal problems like how to build a better this or that.  And Tozer goes on to say, "For this we are now paying a too heavy price in the secularization of our religion and the decay of our inner lives".

John MacArthur in his commentary on Hebrews writes, "One cannot help wonder how many thousands of people in hell were close to salvation, how many thousands were close to being safely moored and anchored only to drift away forever by their failure to receive what they heard.  Drifting is so quiet, so easy, but so damning.  All you have to do to go to hell is nothing."  Like zombies, this generation, who have chosen not to think about that which they cannot explain, wander around dead, moving, with only the appearance of life.  They have lost their wonder, their desire, and their purpose for living.

Look up.  Look at the sky in all its beauty and think.  Think of the Creator, the Creator of all that we see and still cannot fully explain.  And "know that He is God.  It is He that has made you and not you yourself."  Then get on your knees and ask Him for help and hope that He alone can supply.  "Call to Him and He will answer and show you great and mighty things you do not know."  "Our deep ignorance" will then be consumed by the "mystery" of the life of Christ.  "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God for those who believe."  [Psalm 100:3; Jeremiah 33:3; Romans 1:16]  The power of the life of Christ, alone, will bring life to the generation of zombies, the living dead, who have ceased to whisper "mystery".