Was the Church Lady Right? by Chris White

Many years ago comedian Dana Carvey had a regular sketch on Saturday Night Live called "Church Chat".  "Church Chat" was a mock television show where news of the week and cultural developments would be reviewed from the perspective of a buttoned-up, judgmental, Bible-thumping character called the Church Lady.  Of course the punch line of the sketch invariably led to her regular evaluation: "I don't know who inspired that….could it be….SATAN!"  It was irreverent, mocking, and of course quite hilarious and even as I write, I'm smirking in remembrance of her sketch with Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker or was that Jim and Tammy Baye Faker?  Memory seems to fail me.

It was all in good fun and the Church Lady is definitely a caricature of a type of Christian who sees the devil behind everything even when there is an obvious explanation that would be to the contrary.  There is an equal but opposite type of a Christian as well who sees every little thing that happens as God's direct benediction upon their lives.  If a person like this had been in the passenger seat during my commute to work this morning they would have said "oh, praise the Lord!  He's given us favor with hitting all green lights this morning!".  The reality was that I was purposefully speeding and maniacally weaving in and out of traffic on wet pavement and in the fog.  So if God was blessing me, it was not his favor towards my sin, just mercy on my stupidity.  But these extremes aside, I do want to go on record as saying Church Lady not completely wrong in her assertions about the Prince of Darkness.

I believe in the person of Satan.  I  reject the position that the devil is a human fabrication to explain why decent human beings make really bad choices.  I equate such thinking with the belief that the stork delivers babies to people and that Santa Claus and his elves live at the North Pole and only come out at Christmastime (even these symbolic images are accretions on some serious facts).  Satan is also not an impersonal force of evil exerting influence on humanity like gravity or barometric pressure.  There are plenty of people who believe such things and as C.S. Lewis would say, nothing would delight the Enemy more than we don't believe he exists.

If the polls are true, Satan must be do a happy dance every time he thinks about America .  Belief surveys tend to show a clear majority of Americans (55-57%) do not believe that Satan exists.  The  Barna group who polled only Christians on this question several years ago showed that 59% didn't believe in the person of the devil.  So, if Barna is to be believed here, those people who self-identify as Christians believe even less in the devil than the general population does.  Brilliant.  Once again, I'm certain nothing delights the devil more and I guess I must identify with the minority of self-professing Christians who believe the Bible should be taken literally.

Satan as he appears in the scriptures is at great variance with the devil of public imagination.  He is described as quite beautiful in appearance and not the least bit red or having horns, tail, or a pitchfork in his possession.  What is taught about the evil one is that he is an angelic being created by God who became so arrogant that he attempted to oppose his Creator and in so rebelling became the devil.  His complicity in the occasion of Original Sin reveals something of his nature and his own rebellion against God.  He appears to the parents of the human race as some form of attractive creature and through subtle suggestion leads them to believe God has been less than good to them and that they should take control of their own destiny.  Such a plan had a serious plausibility factor built into it, but when acted upon was quite disastrous and in the end delivered none of its promises.  Beguiling people with stellar appearance, promising them a glorious future and then delivering them to a diminished existence is not a strategy that is limited to American politics alone.  It is the essential core of Satan's standard operating procedure.

Two of the names ascribed to Satan are a dark angel "masquerading as an angel of light" (2 Cor.11:14) and the "accuser of the brethren"(Rev. 12:10).  There are many other names or descriptions for the devil given in the Bible, but these two give insight his strategies against Christians.   The principle effort of Satan is to deceive a person in such a way as to disconnect them from God.  Please listen carefully here.  I am not saying Satan can disconnect God from you.  I am saying he will do most anything he can to get you to sever your ties with the Lord.  Surprisingly one of his best tools for this is religion.   What makes religion good is that it elevates the human mind and soul with an insight that is greater than ourselves about how to live, think, and treat others.  By the same token, this is what makes religion so dangerous as well.  Not all religions are true (unless of course you believe that logical contradictions are logical) which means that if the light you get from it is not true, you find yourself doing things like flying airliners into New York skyscrapers or committing group suicide when you spot a comet in the sky.  The Devil very obviously cloaks himself in religious light to appeal to man's spiritual bent, but what he speaks from behind the masquerade is anything but the truth.

Where I live (the state of Oregon) religious people are much fewer and most people shy away from the spiritual.  What I have long observed here is that Satan has another plan for the more secularized which leads them to give ultimate value to very temporal things.  I'm not saying there is anything wrong with recreation or family or hobbies, but for too many this has become the thing of supreme value which means for all intent and purposes, God's place has been usurped by snowmobiling or worse yet, a new iphone (I have watched people in airports gaze at their smartphones with expressions that border on worshipful ).   Then of course there is the chemical pathway to meaning.  Drugs and alcohol are horrible addictions which I would not make light of, but in a sense they artificially produce many of the same things people would find in religion.  Drink enough merlot or smoke enough weed and at least for a while there is peace of mind and even a mild sensation of transcendence.  Of course it’s illusory and never ends well for the person, but that was exactly the point.

What is so devilish about all these things is people are lured in (rarely against their own wishes) and once they are in deep enough, Satan finishes his work of destruction.  If you are trapped in a false religion or are an atheist, secularist, or drug addict, he’ll nurture you along until you die separated from God like he is.  If you belong to Christ, once you’ve been lured away with his temptations and are trapped, he will do what he can to discredit you and render you completely neutralized.  He is the accuser of the brethren because he knows God is holy and just and wants us condemned and punished even as he is going to be in the future.

In this matter,  Satan is right.  God is holy and just and does condemn and punish sin.  If He didn’t do so He could hardly be considered holy or just.  But this is where the good news of the Gospel needs to be taken to heart.  God is able to remain perfectly just and holy while at the same time show mercy and grace to sinners because He sent His son Jesus to die and take our judgment upon Himself.  This was a costly thing done for us but if He who is creator and judge assumes our penalty, then truly are no longer guilty or condemned by God.   Satan may accuse us before God all he wants, and in every regard it could be said those accusations are not without warrant.  We are all guilty as charged.  But the penalty is already paid by Jesus, which effectively leaves you not innocent, but forgiven in the eyes of God.  This is why Christians say we are not perfect, just forgiven, unless of course you are the Church Lady.  She is perfect.  Now, isn’t that special?

The Back Story Behind Daniel and the Lion's Den by Chris White

The story behind Daniel in the lion’s den begins several hundred years before when King Solomon dedicated the newly built temple in Jerusalem.  Recorded for us in 1 Kings 8 is Solomon’s lengthy prayer on this momentous occasion.  Within that prayer are these words:  “When they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you become angry with them and give them over to their enemies, who take them captive to their own lands, far away or near;  and if they have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captors and say, ‘We have sinned, we have done wrong, we have acted wickedly’;  and if they turn back to you with all their heart and soul in the land of their enemies who took them captive, and pray to you toward the land you gave their ancestors, toward the city you have chosen and the temple I have built for your Name;  then from heaven, your dwelling place, hear their prayer and their plea, and uphold their cause.  And forgive your people, who have sinned against you; forgive all the offenses they have committed against you, and cause their captors to show them mercy;  for they are your people and your inheritance, whom you brought out of Egypt, out of that iron-smelting furnace (1 Kings 8:44-51).

The circumstance of Daniel living in Babylon was a judgment against Israel because they were in constant unrepentant sin against God.  Daniel is a model of both moral and spiritual integrity in Babylon and God places him at the highest levels of power as an advisor to a succession of 9 Babylonian and Persian kings in his lifetime.  God was doing much in this time of captivity and discipline of the Jews and one of His tasks was making Himself known and revered among the Gentiles.  But Daniel was a Jew and a faithful man of God and he did what a faithful man in his context would do: pray daily towards the temple in Jerusalem three times a day (Dan. 6:10).  Apparently Daniel lived in a home that had windows facing west towards Jerusalem and he was in the habit of opening his shutters and praying with the window open.  Prayer with the windows open was probably not so God could hear his prayers better, but simply a matter of air circulation.  Babylon (modern day Iraq) is a hot and arid place and no doubt Daniel’s room would be quite stuffy without some outside air.

But the story of how Daniel got into hot water for praying to God is an important one too.  Darius the Mede was the new king of Babylon and was giving out all sorts of political appointments in the new regime.  Daniel was approximately in his early 80’s by this time.  He had seen a lot of kings come and go through the years but his reputation as an able civil servant made him quite valuable and a bit of a venerable institution in Babylon.  Out of jealousy over Daniel’s prestige and placement, a trap was set for him by some court officials who knew the only way to dislodge him from power was to attack at the point of his religion.  There was no use in attacking Daniel’s record, job skills, or ethics as they were impeccable.  So was Daniel’s devotion to God.  What these jealous officials did was manipulate the situation by getting Darius to pass and unbreakable law that for the next 30 days no god or man may be petitioned to save the Persian king.  Darius was in the early days of his reign and I suspect his quick approval of this was because he was unaware of how devout Daniel was in his personal life.  With the law passed, Daniel was easy to trap because he would always obey the law of God before the law of man.  By the way, God’s laws are very compatible with those of human society.  However, there are times when human society demands that God’s laws be ignored or broken.  Only then, and only in that specific regard, is a Christian free of his obligation to obey the law.  This does not absolve the Christian from the consequences a state may impose on him, but before God he will not be considered a law-breaker.  So Daniel did what he always did and prayed three times a day.  He was caught by his detractors who made sure that the full weight of the law came down on Daniel and that he would have to face the penalty of the state.

Lion’s Dens are peculiar to the Persian Empire.  They were used to execute enemies of the state.  Lions were commonly used as a symbol of the monarchy (they are the King of Beasts) and therefore quite appropriate for the monarch to use against the enemies of the state.  Depictions of lion’s dens from archeology seem to differ from what is described in Daniel.  What is described in Daniel is something like a large pit where the victim was lowered.  Extant rock carvings that have been found show the lions in a cave eating a man who was put into small vault with no clothing on and his hands tied behind his back (much like a tomb).  This should hardly be considered a Bible discrepancy however.  A difference between lion’s dens is about the same as a difference in the style of two different electric chairs.  They slightly vary, but accomplish the same thing. Typically, the Lions were never fed between victims thereby ensuring that an encounter with them would be both terrifying and fatal.

Darius tried to find a way to let Daniel out of the consequences but could not find a legal trap door to do so.  The custom of these people was that their king was a god in his own right.  Gods do not make mistakes, therefore, a law they passed is unbreakable and inviolable.  Darius was forced to do what justice required and Daniel was sent to the lion’s den to die.  The opening was closed and sealed up with the king’s signet ring behind Daniel as he awaited his certain death.

Of course the reason we read of this story today is that God intervened by sending an angel to keep the lions from eating Daniel.  It is a miracle because a den full of hungry lions would never not touch a vulnerable octogenarian who was placed in their cave.  Having been preserved through the night, Daniel had satisfied the penalty of the law.  The penalty was being put in the lion’s den.  Death is assumed here but not required.  Thus, Darius was able to uphold his law and let Daniel go free afterwards.  The result was that Daniel’s God was glorified by Darius for letting justice be satisfied and yet saving his trusted friend from death.  In the end justice came to those who attempted to kill Daniel by them suffering the same fate only without God’s miraculous intervention.

What is so fascinating about this story is how it gives us a preview of the Christ event more than 400 years before Jesus walked the earth.  Many of the Old Testament prophets foretold things about the Messiah and so that Daniel the prophet would do so is not remarkable.  But in his case, he literally lives out the contours of Christ’s passion.  He is betrayed to a pagan ruler (as Judas did), the pagan ruler tries to avoid bringing capital punishment but is forced to by public pressure (as what happened to Pontius Pilate), Daniel was in his own person righteous and innocent of wrong-doing but out of loyalty to God pays the consequences of the law by enduring the death penalty (as did Jesus when he went to the cross), and finally Daniel is sealed in a cave which was certain to be his tomb and is freed from it by the one whose justice was satisfied.  Christ was sealed in the tomb for three days (a sign that he was fully and actually dead) and then was raised from death by the Father because atonement for the sins of the world had been made and the penalty of the law fulfilled.

So why doesn’t Daniel die just like Jesus does in the Gospel?  Because Daniel’s story is also our story.  We are supposed to keep God’s law but we can’t because we have a corrupt nature inherited through  original sin.  We are not corrupt because we sin, we sin because we are corrupt and this makes us guilty of breaking the law of a holy God.  Romans 6:23 says “the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Divine justice requires we pay the consequences which is death and eternal punishment.  That is a debt all of us have before a Holy God.  But Jesus Christ, though He was sinless, took your penalty, your debt, and fully paid it Himself thus satisfying what justice requires.  Daniel didn’t die and was freed from the penalty of the law because of God’s intervention and this is what is offered us in the Gospel.  Christ paid your debt before God so you don’t have to.  That’s why the Gospel is called good news.  But like all important messages, a response is required.  You may turn to Christ and ask for His help and mercy, or you may go it alone and face your own consequences.  That choice is entirely up to you.

America's Evangelists and How They Shaped the Church in America by Chris White

George Whitefield (1714-1770) is arguably America’s first media star.  In Colonial America, when Whitefield came to town, people came as far away as 100 miles to hear him!  Why so? Well, first of all America was in a period of spiritual revival which meant that the Holy Spirit was drawing many and many more had a renewed hunger for the Word of God.  But certainly not far behind this was the extraordinary speaking powers of Whitefield himself.  He spoke extemporaneously and had such a keen sense of timing and presence that people were utterly spellbound by him.  Our favorite founder Ben Franklin, a lapsed Christian of sorts, was actually Whitefield’s literary agent and promoter.  He once said that just to hear Whitefield say the word “Mesopotamia” would bring tears to his eyes.  Apart from his ministry of evangelism, Whitefield changed forever in America the way parishioners related to their pastors.  Prior to this, the town pastor was the spiritual authority and he corrected the wayward as a means of keeping the spiritual temperature of the community where it should be.  Whitefield proclaimed that the sorry state of affairs in Christian living was not the people’s fault but because their pastors were not in tune with the spirit and unfaithful to preach the word.  The solution to the problem is to reform the pastors and make sure they are preaching and teaching faithfully.  This was to be done by congregations voting with their feet.  In some cases this was a true problem, in many others it wasn’t, but the idea gained traction and while it caused a lot of controversy and hard feelings at the time, it did stick.  Although it would be inaccurate to suggest Whitefield alone set the trend of America’s more egalitarian and independent churches, he was definitely one of the strong trendsetters in that direction.

Dwight Lyman (D.L.) Moody (1837-1899) was the great crusade evangelist of America’s “Gilded Age” preaching to the masses in the large cities of America and Great Britain.  Moody was not a clergyman but a lay minister who came from a business background.  He was converted as a teenager but as a young man he had set his sights on making a fortune.  This brought him to Chicago, which at the time was a place of growing opportunities for the young .  In the midst of his pursuits, he had a spiritual encounter with the Lord and shortly thereafter became a man dedicated to Kingdom business.  Moody started with a Sunday School class that reached out to poor immigrant children and their parents and this soon exploded into many other outreaches and enterprises.  Eventually Moody met a musician named Ira Sankey and the two paired their ministries to great effect to do mass evangelism.  Moody, dressed not as a preacher but as a business man and preached not with soaring rhetoric but as a common man to the common man and Sankey, setting the mood of the crusade with memorable and easy to sing melodies played on a portable organ.  Moody was a great success in this enterprise and by his death he is said to have preached to more people than anyone else in history prior to the invention of the microphone.  But Moody also shaped the American church in a very profound way.  His example and his energies were devoted to developing the Christian personal worker.  This was not to denigrate in any way the pastoral profession, but Moody and many others who were like minded, knew that the reach and scope of an army of lay ministers and evangelists were what was needed if the Kingdom of God is to expand.  Moody is known for starting the Moody Bible Institute (although it was not so-called until after his death) which was not a seminary, but a lay training center for men and women seeking greater effectiveness in service to the Lord.  This idea worked and inspired many others throughout America and even around the world to do the same.  Since this time, the values and efforts of the lay minister have been prominent especially in the evangelical Bible churches of our nation.

Little needs to be said about William Franklin “Billy” Graham (b. 1918) as his story is well-known and is still in progress (Graham is now in his mid-nineties).  Graham is the model of the modern evangelist using every means of mass communication to amplify his message preached live before stadiums of people.  Graham’s honesty, character, and frankly his modesty have made many respect him and the Gospel of Christ even if they don’t necessarily agree with it.  The book, Preacher and the Presidents, highlights his relationship with every American president since Harry Truman.  I found it fascinating how Billy had access to this power and sometimes used it and most of the time was used by it, but really never was corrupted by it.  Few ministers can come into contact with the corrosive effect of that much power unscathed which is a tribute to the greatness of God and the keeping power of the Holy Spirit.  When I think of the Graham legacy on the American church, I think of the words cooperative effort.  Few people realize that all along Billy Graham never sought to be the star player, but to train others in any way he could to be soul winners.  Graham not only taught evangelists, but sponsored retreats and camps for pastors to encourage Biblical and gospel preaching in America’s pulpits.  Not only this, but the Billy Graham association has been at the forefront of world missions bringing together some of the largest gatherings of evangelists from around the world to cooperate to finish the Great Commission.  And at a time when most Bible-believing churches would hardly talk to one another much less cooperate, Billy Graham, was at the forefront including all Christian denominations in his crusades and encouraging them to come together for the sake of reaching the lost.  Several years ago I had the privilege of visiting the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College (Billy’s Alma Mater) and the marvelous museum dedicated to his work.  What was telling about the museum was that while it certainly did tell the story of his life and work, it featured in equal portions quite a bit of information of all the great people that came before him in this task and then ended with an admonition that the work of sharing Christ is all our work.  As America is clearly moving in the direction of being a post-Christian nation, the church in America must stand together like never before.  In that, Billy Graham, has set the pace by encouraging us to set aside the things that don't need to divide us and come together to give testimony to the living Christ.