Bring Here Thy Wounded Heart

Relics of the Salvation Army
Back in October 2006 I was at a wedding in Exeter UK. The venue was the old Salvation Army 'Temple' in Exeter which is a fascinating building. I was almost distracted from the wedding by the furniture. Stretching the whole width of the hall, approx 40 feet, was a beautifully polished 'Penitent Form'. This was the 'altar' of the Salvation Army where souls were encouraged to 'get right with God'. The 'form' is really not intended for 'sitting' but to put your elbows on as you kneel.



In 2 foot high letters of gold it carried the words..

HERE BRING THY... ...WOUNDED HEART

...split into the two halves of the Penitent Form and consequently spread right across the width of the hall.

A little lower, and in the centre of the text, in slightly smaller letters were two more golden words

Salvation
Holiness

The Salvation Army Sunday meetings used to be a 'Holiness Meeting' in the morning and a 'Salvation Meeting' in the evening. This beautiful old piece of furniture is a 'relic' from the days when we believed people needed to 'repent' to come to Christ and presumed that if God was not already at work in their 'wounded hearts' they would not wish to come.

The Salvation Army officers did not 'counsel' the enquirers but knelt with them to 'pray through' until they came to personal conviction that God had heard their cries for mercy; hence it was often called the 'Mercy Seat'. Whether they came for 'Salvation' or for 'Holiness' they came to the same place; to Christ alone, with their wounded hearts.

It sat there through the whole (wonderful) wedding almost transfixed by the silent testimony of the days when God was expected to move in people's lives and bring them 'broken hearted' to the cross.

Have we lost something...?

“It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.”

In George Orwell's devastating critique of totalitarianism, 1984, one of the party workers has been given the job of culling the dictionary. The strategy is to make 'thoughtcrime' impossible by the removal of words that describe things forbidden by the party. Words like 'freedom' and 'rebellion'. If there are no words then there will be no thoughts, or so the theory goes. As he removes the words the party worker says the words at the head of this blog.

There is another famous quotation from the same book which declares "but if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.". Together the two quotations describe a brilliant propaganda strategy. Either remove the words altogether or, as an alternative, continue to use the word but redefine them. What does this have to do with us? Much, in every way.

Let's remove some words, shall we?. Sin? an old fashioned concept surely. Judgment? Not a word we hear much in the normal course of our lives is it? Adultery? Covetousness? Holiness? "it's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words". Remarkably 'freeing'. Of course we shall need to redefine the word 'free'. But that's not difficult and when we have corrupted the word we have corrupted thoughts and made communication all but impossible. What a strategy. Corrupt the language, corrupt the thinking processes. Break up the whole communication process. What a strategy.

It's not only in evangelism that we are struggling. Word's are dropping out of our Bibles; concepts are vanishing. "the old man" has disappeared from almost all modern versions. New words are being introduced instead with entirely different meanings. "the self"; a Freudian psychology concept. When is a Bible no longer a Bible?

There is a battle on, brothers and sisters. Time to wake up and enlist.

In desperation the psalmist asked a question;

If the foundations are destroyed,

What can the righteous do? Psa 11:3 NKJV.

A word of assurance came to his heart...

The LORD is in His holy temple,

The LORD’S throne is in heaven; Psa 11:4 NKJV.

Forgive us our denominations!

This was the title of a little booklet published in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s. Where did all those denominations come from? We may find some clues in the Bible.

Genesis 11 tells the story of the building of Babel. We interpret it as an illustration of humanity's attempt to reach heaven under his own efforts, but there is another theme here also. They were afraid of being scattered and decided to give themselves a central rallying point and to give themselves a name.

And they said, go to, let us build us a city and the tower, whose top may reach to heaven: and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

There are some interesting motivations that come to the surface here.

In the earliest chapters of the Bible cities are sometimes symbols of fear and defiant independence. The first city was built by Cain in direct disobedience to God's command that he must forever wander. He built a safe place for himself, afraid that he might be hunted down and killed.

Later the inhabitants of Shinar determined to build a city and to put their name on it. They were afraid that they might be scattered. There is a verb for "putting a name on something"; it is the word "denominate" . They built a defensive wall around themselves and put a name on it. That might serve as a good definition for "denomination"; a defensive wall with a brand label on it.

Of course, for many the brand label has no sinister undertones. It is just one of history's accidents. But if we organise ourselves together for security and use our brand names and creeds to exclude others we are following a dangerous precedent.

Let him who has an ear to hear, hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

The Paralysis of Omnipotence

This is the next passage in G Campbell Morgan's commentary on the Gospel according to Mark. He covers the attitude of the people at Nazareth to Christ's return visit. The locals knew Jesus of Nazareth so well, they knew his family, his personal history as the local carpenter and they were astonished at the power they had heard of and at the wisdom of the 'local boy'. In fact the passage records two different kinds of astonishment.

1. Mark 6:2 And when the Sabbath had come, He began to teach in the synagogue. And many hearing Him were astonished, saying, “Where did this Man get these things? And what wisdom is this which is given to Him, that such mighty works are performed by His hands!
2. Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He marveled because of their unbelief. Mark 6:5–6 NKJV.

Campbell Morgan uses a surprising phrase to describe the second instance. He calls it the 'paralysis of omnipotence'. It is a shocking phrase and something of an oxymoron. How can anything hinder omnipotence?

And yet clearly it did.

It is a sobering passage of Scripture. Christ comes, apparently with the desire in his heart to accomplish the will of the Father and his intentions are frustrated. I am choosing my words carefully. I am not saying he 'felt' frustrated but that his intentions were frustrated. He knew the will of His Father. He was anointed with 'power and the Holy Spirit'. He came to 'do' that will and yet He was 'not able' do what he wanted to do. As the passage declares he was 'not able to do a work of power there', other than to lay his hands on a few sick folk and heal them.

And the thing which caused the paralysis of omnipotence was 'unbelief'. Is 'unbelief' more powerful than omnipotence? We are touching this amazing mystery again that God, although omnipotent, will not use his omnipotence to force human beings to do things which they do not desire. It seems that in that crowd there were some who did respond to him and to those 'who received him he gave the right to become'. Perhaps it is the same in almost every gathering of people. There will be those who shut out the word of Christ and shrink away from his outstretched hand. He can do no work of power for such. But there are those who receive his word and long for his touch.

Christ marvelled at the 'unbelief' of those who rejected him. Has God given any greater power that the power to say 'No' to God? Will he 'marvel' at our reluctance to hear what he says to us, or will there be rejoicing in his presence as we voice our 'Yes, Lord'?

The Wife of Jesus?

Some folk will see the title and think 'haven't we been here before?' For some it may be new and troubling. It is really a very old story but the news-hounds who live on sensationalism have dragged it up to the top of the pile again. It has appeared in several newspapers and here on the BBC's website.

When the whole Dan Brown frenzy broke out I did an evening's teaching entitled 'from Judas to Da Vinci' which you can watch here on the Biblebase Vimeo pages.

If you want the shorter version. These documents which pop up from time to time are part of a movement known as 'Gnosticism'. (sometimes they are just modern fakes) This was a movement which tried to infiltrate and to subvert Christianity. Its first documented traces stem from the times of Irenaeus who was writing more than a hundred years after the New Testament. The Gnostics actually created their own gospels, e.g. the Gospel of Judas as a method of spreading their ideas. These ideas were never part of authentic Christianity. They do not come from the roots of the Christian message but are more like a grotesque parasitic attachment. Those who are always on the hunt for ways to discredit Christianity seize on these occasional discoveries and raise Dan Brown's cry that 'Christianity is a lie'.

Don't be disturbed. These weird lies tried to hi-jack authentic Christianity more than 1500 years ago. They failed… as will their modern imitators.

If you want more details do watch the video.

Nullius in verba (Take nobody's word for it)

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London". (wikipedia) Its motto and modus operandi is 'take nobody's word for it'.

I have just watched a BBC programme in which Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (JS) talked to three atheistic scientists including the man he describes as 'the world's most famous atheist' Richard Dawkins (RD). In these kind of encounters Rabbi Sachs usually gives a good account of himself but I was disappointed with his latest outing. RD returned to his theme that 'one cannot disprove the existence of fairies and the existence of God is the same kind of category'. They chatted for a little while as RD insisted that belief must be based on 'evidence' and 'not tradition, religion or revelation.' He pressed JS as to whether or not he believed that God had actually had a conversation with Abraham. JS was strangely reticent to give a straightforward answer to this question but emphasised Judaism's insistence on questioning. The first duty of a Jewish father, claims JS, is to get his child to ask questions. The first duty!?! Well it depends on the question.

JS almost certainly has in mind the Passover instructions which state And it shall be, when your children say to you, “What do you mean by this service?’ Ex 12:26 NKJV. But that question is to instruct the child as to the meaning of a revelation, not a scientific experiment. We are to engage our minds in the things that God has revealed; And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. Mark 12:30 NKJV.

True science and true faith are not enemies. They have their different areas of authority. As JS puts it 'science takes things to pieces and asks "how do they work"' 'religion brings things together and asks "what does it mean"". It is in that realm of 'what does it mean?' that revelation has the last word. It is perhaps significant that the question asked on the day of Pentecost was not 'what is happening' but rather 'what does it mean?' Acts 2:12. The answer to that question demands 'revelation' which RD will not accept and which JS seems to have little to say about too.

If the Royal Institute is willing to change its motto to 'take no man's word for it' it will get my hearty 'amen' but if it says I man himself is the final arbiter of truth it usurps God's prerogatives. Faith does not come by reason but by hearing… the word of God. As He spoke these words, many believed in Him. Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:30–32 NKJV.