There Is No Other Stream — Part One

I invite you to turn with me to the Bible, first of all to Isaiah chapter 45, which is page 517, in our church Bibles, and then to Philippians chapter 2, which is page 831. Isaiah 45, page 517. Philippians 2, page 831. And we’re going to read from verse 20. God speaks through his prophet:

“Gather together and come;
 assemble, you fugitives from the nations.
Ignorant are those who carry about idols of wood,
 who pray to gods that cannot save.
Declare what is to be, present it—
 let them take counsel together.
Who foretold this long ago,
 who declared it from the distant past?
Was it not I, the Lord?
 And there is no God apart from me,
a righteous God and a Savior;
 there is none but me.

“Turn to me and be saved,
 all you ends of the earth;
 for I am God, and there is no other.
By myself I have sworn,
 my mouth has uttered in all integrity
 a word that will not be revoked.

And here comes the word:

“Before me every knee will bow;
 by me every tongue will swear.
They will say of me, ‘In the Lord alone
 are righteousness and strength.’
All who have raged against him
 will come to him and be put to shame.
But in the Lord all the descendants of Israel
 will be found righteous and will exult.

And then in Philippians and chapter 2, and from verse 9—page 831. Philippians 2:9: “Therefore God exalted him”—that is, Jesus—

           to the highest place
 and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
 in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
 to the glory of God the Father.

Amen.

Gracious God, with our Bibles open before us, we pray for your help that we may be true to the Scriptures in our thinking and speaking and listening, believing and obeying, trusting. And we depend entirely upon you for this, and we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.

Well, I don’t imagine that many of you will remember the first Sunday of the new millennium, except for the fact that many of you were embarrassed at how many toilet rolls you had purchased in prospect of the great collapse or how vociferous you had been in letting me know that none of the traffic lights in the entire world were going to work and that all of our computers would crash entirely. I must confess, I was a complete skeptic about the whole thing and therefore felt horribly smug when I wakened up on that morning and realized that actually, everyone who had bought a generator would be going back to Walmart as quickly as they could to try and get rid of it. I’m sure you still have it in your basement.

But anyway, when we came to church on that first Sunday, we acknowledged the fact that as we looked out on the horizon before us, it would probably be, for the Christian population, a decade, a quarter of a century of particular challenge. And we said that that would come without question in three areas—more, but definitely these three.

The onslaught on the Bible itself regarding its veracity and its sufficiency—the constant bombardment as to whether the Bible is the collection of material that was hodgepodged together by people or whether anyone can with any accuracy and conviction say that it is nothing other than the very Word of God. That would be one area of challenge.

Another area, we said, would be in the matter of human sexuality, the question of man and woman. What is the difference? Why did God make them in this way? Or if he didn’t make them in that way, as we have been led to believe, what are we supposed to do with one another? And I don’t think that in either of these areas any of us have been surprised, except perhaps by the extent of the onslaught; I think we knew it was coming.

And the third area, we said, would be in this matter of the exclusive claims of Jesus Christ. And this, of course, would not be unique to the first couple of decades of the twenty-first century, but we had a sense that it might be quickened in its intensity and begin to cut more deeply not only into the surrounding culture but into the convictions of some who would profess to be followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. And here we are, some ten years on, and I think we have actually proved to ourselves that those surmisings have been accurate.

Since we have taken a break at the end of Mark chapter 9, at least for a few weeks, I thought that it would be appropriate for us to address at least one of these three areas. And I want to address with you this morning this question of the exclusive claims of Jesus. I do so in a way that is topical rather than expositional. We’re not going to go to one passage of Scripture to justify our deliberations, but I hope that all that is said will be anchored in the Bible and that if it isn’t, you can reject it out of hand.

I begin with words from the mid-twentieth century, which is when I was born, and some of you were too. At that point in history in England, the Archbishop of Canterbury was Archbishop William Temple. He [was quoted in] a book entitled Towards the Conversion of England, and in the second chapter, at the beginning of it, he makes this statement: “The Gospel is true always and everywhere, or it is not a Gospel at all, or true at all.”[1] He also observed, “The Church has become confused and uncertain in [its] proclamation of [the] message.”[2] “The Church has become confused and uncertain in [its] proclamation of [the] message.” He was able to justify that looking at the panorama of events in the middle of the twentieth century in England, and I think that he would be more than happy, if he were still alive, to reinforce that statement as he would survey the vista of contemporary life here in American at this point in time. He notes the observation of a Buddhist monk who said at that time, “To the eastern religious it looks as if Christianity has reached the stage in adolescence when the child is slightly ashamed of his father and embarrassed when talking about him.”[3]

It’s a long time since I was in that position. I’m glad that it only lasts for a short while, but it is a period in time that many of us as adolescents experience, when we think that our father is the weirdest father in the entire universe, and if we see him coming down the high street, we try and duck into the butcher’s shop so that none of our friends will be introduced to this weird character who is our dad. Everyone else’s dad is perfectly fine; it’s just our dad who is slightly weird. Then we suddenly realize that all of our friends feel the same way about their dads, whom we regard as being perfectly normal. But the Buddhist observes, he says, “It looks as if the Christians have reached the stage in adolescence where they’re actually ashamed of their father and they’re embarrassed when they’re talking about him.”

Now, I wonder: Is that not accurate? Are we not, many of us, on our back foot? And the surrounding culture has been prevailing in such a way that some of us are increasingly vague, lacking in confidence, and we are responsible for a guilty silence. And part of the reason for our guilty silence is that we lack a thorough knowledge of the gospel itself. We do not have a complete understanding or conviction about its truth and about its relevance or about both.

And in that respect, we are pilgrims of our age, for the environment in which we live is a tough environment for proclaiming the truth. It’s tough to declare the claims of the Bible when the very idea of truth as something that is fixed or universal or objective or absolute is challenged on a daily basis. Indeed, one of the great challenges to proclaiming the news of the gospel is in this very arena, because people have trouble believing in Christianity because of the exclusivity of its claims. If only it were prepared to be like other people, if only we could be like the nice people around us, then folks would be able to handle it much better.

Stephen Prothero, someone I like to read—he’s a professor of religion at Boston University—has just written a quite masterful book entitled God Is Not One. We might hope from the thesis of it that this was Stephen’s conviction coming across very clearly regarding the very things we’re considering now. I don’t think it is. I may have misread him. I hope I get the chance one day to talk with him concerning this. But he says quite honestly in the opening part of the book, “Before I came to describe myself as religiously confused, I thought I had the [answer] to the big questions.”[4] “Before I came to describe myself as religiously confused…” In other words, this is an expression now of intellectual maturity. Intellectual maturity is found in being able to say, “You know, I am just horribly confused. I used to be an idiot and actually believed things. I had convictions, when I was a boy coming out of Sunday school. But now I have ascended to the high territory where I am just confused.” He goes on to say, “I discovered the study of religion just as I was losing the Christian faith of my youth.”[5]

It’s actually quite sad. I felt sad as I read the book. And I said to myself, “Now, we need to make sure that our children do not grow up to make the same statements, that they don’t emerge from the Sunday school work and the youth work of Parkside Church rejecting the convictions of childhood and maturing to a position of religious confusion.” And what will be the antidote to that? It will be the convictions of parents and grandparents, instilling in your children and in your grandchildren these truths. The Hebrew Shema gets it right: “These things are to be upon your hearts. And you are to teach them to your children. When you walk along the road, and when you lie down and when you get up.” And what is that? “Hear, O Israel: The Lord your God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, your mind, your soul, your strength. He is the one God. He is the only God. He is your God. Make sure your children and your grandchildren know this,”[6] says the Shema.

So here we are. And I want, as I say, to tackle this with you throughout our study this morning and then, again, if the first service is anything to go by, coming back to it this evening so as to bring some clarity to the remarks.

The Content of Christ’s Exclusive Claims

Well, we are concerned as Christians and we are responsible as Christians to affirm what the Bible makes clear. What the Bible makes clear. What does the Bible make clear concerning its content regarding this matter of God and there being no other God? Well, it’s actually very straightforward. And that’s why I read initially from Isaiah and chapter 45:

Turn to me and be saved,
 all you ends of the earth;
 for I am God, and there is no other.

“I[’m] God, and there is no other.” It’s quite a statement, isn’t it? And that’s what the Bible says, and you don’t have to go and ferret it out in obscure passages of the Bible. You will find that it is woven into the entire mixture of the Bible. For example, Psalm 115:

Why do the nations say,
 “Where is their God?”
Our God is in heaven;
 he does whatever pleases him.
But their idols are silver and gold,
 [they’re] made by the hands of men.
They have mouths, but cannot speak,
 eyes, … [can’t] see;
… ears, … [can’t] hear,
 noses, … [can’t] smell;
… hands, … [can’t] feel,
 feet, … [can’t] walk;
 nor can they utter a sound with their throats.
Those who make them will be like them,
 and so will all who trust in them.[7]

It’s unequivocal. You can disagree with it, but unless there’s something wrong with you, you can’t misunderstand it. Nobody’s going to say, “Well, I’m pretty sure that that isn’t what is being said there.” There’s virtually not two ways to understand it: “I am God, and there aren’t any other gods. All the gods that are little idols are useless to you. They can’t do anything. They can’t see anything. They can’t help you in any way. And if you entrust yourself to those useless idols, then you will actually become like them. You will become a hollow man or a hollow woman.” When you come into the New Testament, it reinforces the truth of the Old.

I like to keep in mind just three statements when I’m thinking these things out, often because I get engaged in this kind of conversation, as you do too. First of all: that there is one way. One way. John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way … the truth and the life. [And] no one comes to the Father [but by] me.” Okay? Secondly, there is one mediator. First Timothy 2:5: “There is … one mediator between God and [man], the man Christ Jesus.” And, thirdly, there is one name. Acts 4:12, when Peter preaches after the healing of the man at the gate Beautiful and the authorities of religion come to him and ask for an explanation of what’s going on, he says, “Well, actually if you’re inquiring about this, we need to let you know that this has been done in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. The one that you crucified God has raised up from the dead.” And he said, “And you need to know that there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”[8] Well, the Jewish authorities of the time must have said, “Now, that sounds a tremendous amount like Isaiah the prophet. But how does that fit with Jesus of Nazareth?” Well, he is the fulfillment and the explanation of all these things. So, one way, one mediator, one name.

As Christians, we affirm the fact that at Jesus’ name every knee is going to bow—that all of history is moving towards that event, that “every knee [will] bow, … and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” That is not, as we’ve said before, an expression of personal devotion, a feeling in your tummy, but it is a declaration of his identity. The word that is used there for “Lord” is the word which is used thousands of times in the Old Testament, in the Septuagint, when it is translated into Greek. And the word that is used for Yahweh, when it is translated into Greek—the name of God—is this word kyrios, “Lord.” And so, what Paul is saying here is “There’s going to come a day when every tongue will say that Jesus is actually God, that Jesus is Lord.” That doesn’t mean that everybody will bow having embraced him as Savior and Lord, but those who have rejected him in time will in eternity, to their shame and to their destruction, declare him to be the person he claims to be.

Now, the statements, then, are straightforward, aren’t they? Peter, in the declaration and response there in Acts chapter 4, which you can read at your leisure, is absolutely unapologetic. He’s direct. He’s clear. He’s not offering an academic treatise. He’s not offering an abstract proposition. He’s not suggesting that what he has to say is up for debate or that he is encouraging all kinds of opinions and discussions on the subject. No! Because although his statement is, in contemporary terms, politically incorrect, it is not logically incorrect. Because the statement made by Peter, the statement made by the prophets is a logical deduction from the facts as they’re given. In a way that testifies to the fulfillment of Christ and the promise of the Holy Spirit bringing the apostles into all truth, Peter then conveys this truth.

You remember Peter and the disciples, as we’ve been seeing in Mark. They were not really getting the picture—little bits and pieces of the jigsaw, but they didn’t get it all. Now we find him on the streets of Jerusalem, and he’s got it absolutely perfectly. How did this happen? Well, because of what Jesus had promised: “When the Holy Spirit comes, he will lead you into all truth, and suddenly, the picture will form up, and you will be able both to understand and to explain to people what’s going on.”[9] And that is why Peter does what he does.

In light of Christ’s life and death and resurrection, he declares that there is no other Savior. He’s not being arrogant or rude or bombastic. He’s saying, “In light of the life and the death and the resurrection, there is no other Savior, for there is no one else who is qualified to save.” Buddha’s final words, apparently, to his followers on his death bed were “Try a little harder.” Jesus says to his disciples, “I’m going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the place where I’m going.” And [Thomas] says, “Lord we don’t where you’re going. How can we know the way?” “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”[10]

That, then, is essentially and summarily the content of what the Bible affirms concerning God’s exclusive claims.

The Context of Christ’s Exclusive Claims

Let’s say a word, secondly, about the context—about the context—in which these affirmations are given. First of all, we’ve noted the context in here in Isaiah. I could turn you again to… For example, you can read on from Isaiah, all around 44, 45, 46, 47. When you get to chapter 47, the statement is still as clear as ever. The prophet says to the people of his day, he says,

Keep on, then, with your magic spells
 and with your many sorceries,
 which you[’ve] labored at since childhood.
Perhaps you will succeed,
 perhaps you will cause terror.
All the counsel you have received has only worn you out![11]

It’s a great picture, isn’t it, of the futility of taking advice and counsel, and advice and counsel, of reading your horoscope, of trying to figure everything out? And he says, “Here you are, and you go to this stuff all day, every day. You go to substitute gods all day, every day. And instead of them bringing you peace and forgiveness and satisfaction and joy, well, all they’ve done is they’ve made you weary.”

“[So why don’t you] let your astrologers come forward, those stargazers who made predictions month by month.” (“Why don’t you bring those boys out?”) “Let them save you from what is coming.”[12] He’s challenging them: “Okay. If this is the answer, bring them out.”

Surely they are like stubble;
 the fire will burn them up.
They cannot even save themselves
 from the power of the flame.
Here are no coals to warm anyone;
 here is no fire to sit by.[13]

Well, who wants to sit at a fire that isn’t lit? Who wants to sit at a fire that has no heat?

“Why don’t you pull yourself up to the fire and get warm?”

“There’s no fire.”

“Well, that doesn’t matter. There really is. You just have to feel it. You’ll feel it. I mean, can you feel it?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“No, I suppose…”

That is all they can do for you—
 these you have labored with
 and trafficked with since childhood.
Each [one] of them goes on in his error;
 there is not one that can save you.[14]

“There isn’t one that can save you.” Now, that’s the context in Isaiah’s day.

You fast-forward through all the centuries, and it comes with striking application, doesn’t it? Why? Because everybody needs to be saved. Everybody knows they need to be saved. The only question is: Saved from what? Saved simply from suffering, as Buddha would suggest? Or saved from sin, as the Bible suggests? But saved nevertheless. And everybody every day is looking to something or to someone to save them.

I just downloaded again a wonderful rendition of “Gotta Serve Somebody,” not sung by Bob Dylan. I like Bob Dylan’s songs, but only when somebody who can hold a tune sings them. And because I’ve discovered this new tuneful edition, I’ve been playing it all the time in the car:

You may be an ambassador to England or France.
You may like to gamble; you may like to dance.
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world.
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls.

But you’re going to have to serve somebody, yes indeed;
You’re going to have to serve somebody.
… It may be the devil, … it may be the Lord
But you’re going to have to serve somebody.[15]

And there’s no question today whether in this room people are worshippers. The only question is: Who or what am I worshipping? And what the Bible says is that when we take something that is good and we exalt it to the place of God, it becomes an idol. So money’s good. If you want to buy a hamburger, it’s good to have money. But if money takes the place, if money is preferred by me to God himself, then it becomes my idol. The privileges of sexual fulfillment are good. If sex seeks to become my god, then it’s actually now my idol. I become its slave, to what I worship.

So we discover that the question that is raised by the prophet in his day is apropos our day. The context then is not dissimilar to the context now. In the first century, the challenges were equal. What was it that the Christians in the first century were faced with? They were encouraged by the surrounding culture to simply say that Jesus was something other than a man but not quite God or that he was just the greatest of the angels. That’s kind of the first-century context: “We don’t mind having you people around. You’re a bit of a nuisance. We can’t understand you. We don’t understand where your God is. If you have a God, we don’t know where he is. Why don’t you have him somewhere?” Which is the question that gets asks here at Parkside. People come in and say, “And so where is your God? You don’t have him anywhere. You haven’t put him up somewhere. There’s nothing… There’s no God in here.” God is hidden. You have the answer to that, actually, in the prophets again. God is in heaven; he does what he pleases.[16] Don’t you worry about God. He’s a hidden God. He was even hidden in the person of Jesus. That’s why the people saw him and didn’t get him.

When we take something that is good and we exalt it to the place of God, it becomes an idol.

“But wouldn’t you just be prepared,” they said in the Roman culture, “to put Jesus in the pantheon of gods?”—in the Garden of the Gods, like Colorado Springs? “We’ll go into Colorado Springs, and we have a place for this one and that one and the next one, and then we can have… It’s just… All we’re saying is let’s just put Jesus here, around with the others.” Isn’t that what our friends are saying to us? “Couldn’t you just do that? I mean, why do you have to always be on about this ‘one way, one mediator, one name’ stuff? Why do you say this all the time? We’re not going to invite you back for coffee, Mrs. Reynolds, if you’re going to keep this up.”

Well, why do we say it? Or do we say it? The writer to the Hebrews drives the truth of Jesus home conclusively as he opens up his letter: “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways”—here’s a history of the Jewish nation—“but in these last days [he’s] spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.”[17] “Through whom he made the universe.” That’s quite a statement, isn’t it?

“So, why are you so on about Jesus, as opposed to Muhammad or Krishna or Buddha or whatever?”

Say, “Well, one reason is Jesus made the universe.”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. Nobody made the universe. We made the universe.”

“Really?”

You see, the Christian answers Psalm 121 with the psalmist. The pantheon stops short of the answer or comes up with a different answer. What was our psalm this morning? “I lift up my eyes to the hills—where does my help come from?”[18] Contemporary ecology and pantheism says, “My help come from the hills. My help comes from the Earth, from Mother Earth.” The Earth is good right? The Earth is a gift from God. The Earth is flawed. But if the Earth assumes the place of God, then the Earth itself becomes an idol.

So the distinguishing feature of the believer is “I lift up my eyes to the hills.” Wonderful hills! There’s beautiful hills in the Lake District of England, where I’ll be this time next Sunday, God willing, and they’re always… You can never see them, ’cause it’s always raining. But “I lift up my eyes to the hills,” and I say, “Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord.” Who’s the Lord? “The Maker of heaven and earth.”[19] Who’s that? Jesus Christ, “through whom he made the universe.” He is “the radiance of God’s glory … the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.”[20] Not only did he make the cosmos, but he sustains the cosmos.

You see, we, if we’re going to be orthodox, Bible Christians, cannot step back from this. We can’t read the parts we like and include them and then exempt ourselves from others that we find a little challenging in our day. And our forefathers understood this. If the early believers had been prepared to do what their friends asked them—namely, simply include Jesus in the pantheon—then things would have gone swimmingly for them. Since they were unprepared to do so, it was the very opposite of swimming, because they were burned, and they were destroyed. Why? Because they said, “There’s only one name. There’s only one way. There’s only one mediator.” Well, you say to yourself, “Well, here we are now, all these centuries later. If that was the context six hundred years BC and 1 AD, thankfully, we’re a long way removed from that.”

Well, I think that’s true. I haven’t heard of anybody being thrown to the lions here in suburban Cleveland for their convictions concerning Jesus. But I do know that a number of you who are out in the academy have been metaphorically thrown to the lions for affirming ridiculous ideas in the science department of Case Western medical facility: that Jesus Christ, who is the “heir of all things,” created the universe. Oh, they haven’t removed you from your position. You’re still doing surgery, and very effectively. But they just think you’re nuts. They talk about you behind your back. They’ve thrown you under the bus, intellectually: “Good surgeon, but she’s crazy with this Jesus stuff.” “Very good at business, but an idiot when it comes to the things of the Bible.”

You see, the prevailing mood in which we live our lives is one that sets itself apart from certainties. In fact, the only certainty in our day is the fact that there are no certainties—which is ridiculous, because that is a certainty. I’ve told you before that this is apparent in contemporary literature and in contemporary art, so much as we’re going to call a television program art. But Lost: I’ve told you before, I got completely lost with Lost, and partly because I was looking for the truth. I was looking for resolution. I was looking to discover it. And I was so stupid, I didn’t realize I was supposed to make it. If only I’d known I’m just supposed to fall into it and make it what I want it to be! “What was the ending for you?” “I don’t know.” “What was the ending for me? Whatever you want it to be.” It’s fantastic, isn’t it? It’s absolutely absurd, but it is there, in moral philosophy, in the question of the establishment of the Supreme Court, the issues of the Constitution, and in every other way.

Make no mistake that the questions regarding the appointment of Supreme Court justices in our nation have far more to do with personality and the configuration of the individual; it has to do with the underlying philosophical platform from which they come. And we have produced a generation that has decided that just about everything is on a sliding scale. Therefore, we cannot say with certainty about virtually anything at all. So when we interview them, they have no answers. When we press them, there is no definition. In fact, the only place you can get any kind of absolute clarity and definition is with the jolly weather forecast.

Last evening, I recorded one of my programs. My wife and I like to watch it. It’s a program for old people from the BBC. We often watch it on Saturday nights, just to get cozy. And right in the middle of it, the big red thing came right across the deal, you know. And they can’t make it go without shutting the entire dialogue down on your program. So you can’t stop it. You can’t start it. You can’t… You’ve just got to endure it. And it’s like, you know, “The thunder is coming. The lightning is coming.” And it’s a lady who should never be put anywhere near a microphone, and she’s rabbiting on about this, and I’m trying get rid of her, and I can’t get rid of her.

And I said to myself, “What is this about?”

“Well, it’s important! It’s a tornado!”

“Might be a tornado to you. Might be a trickle to me. You call it a tornado? I call it a trickle.” “You call it po-tay-to; I call it po-tah-to. Let’s call the whole thing off.”[21]

No, everybody knows: You can call it anything you want, but if you stand underneath that, you’re going to be in real difficulty. The same is true in air traffic control. The same is true in cardiothoracic surgery. The same is true in the bridges across the Hudson River. But when it comes to the issue of theology, moral philosophy, when it comes to the stuff we’re dealing with now, all of that goes out the door. And the only person you need to fear is the person who wants to say that there is actually truth which could be discovered, that there is actually meaning. Because meaning has collapsed. There’s no overarching story that explains the universe; there are only little stories, and everybody has their own little story. And whatever it is for you and whatever it is for me, that’s fine. Just don’t interfere with my story!

And what happens when you come to the Bible? The people who’ve been listening to that six days a week come on the first day of the week, and they’re going to approach the Bible in the exact same way. Even my address to you this morning, some of you are processing it in your minds just in the exact same way. What are you saying? “That’s just his view. That’s just his view. He does seem very certain about it, but we’re afraid of people who are certain about things. In fact, the only person we should fear is the person who thinks he knows, because we know if he thinks he knows that he definitely doesn’t know.” Why? Because nobody knows.

John Mayer in one of his songs, entitled “Belief,” says,

Is there anyone who
Ever remembers changing their mind from
The paint on a sign?
Is there anyone who really recalls
Ever breaking rank at all
For something someone yelled real loud one time?

… Everyone believes
In how they think it ought to be.
… Everyone believes,
And they’re not going easily.

Belief is a beautiful armor
But makes for the heaviest sword.
Like punching underwater,
You can never hit who you’re trying for.[22]

It’s an enigmatic song at best, but basically, what he’s challenging is, again, the notion of certainty.

And when we come back this evening, we’ll pick it up here. But let me finish in this way, with a word to those who are wondering about these things: Ask yourself the question, “Since each of us is trusting in someone or something, is what I’m trusting in sufficient to grant me peace and forgiveness and joy and hope?” You see, if I cling to my successes for significance, I make success an idol, and it will never satisfy me. If my disappointments and my broken dreams provide sufficient ground for my sulking and for my angry rebellion, then there is no hope there. The Bible says that ultimately, we will bow, and we will be put to shame. It’s not that we will be able to go on and it won’t matter, but all who have raged against him will come to him and be put to shame.

Since each of us is trusting in someone or something, is what I’m trusting in sufficient to grant me peace and forgiveness and joy and hope?

And so my question is a simple one: Why not trust in the living and true God? I mean, if you’re going to serve somebody (which you are), if you’re going to worship something (which you do), if you’re going to find confidence and strength and significance and meaning in your tiny, private little world, let me ask you: Is sex doing it for you? Relationships? Money? Career? Family? All good things—which are transmuted into parasites that will eat our souls when they take the place that belongs to God alone.

Well, we’ll come back to this later on.

Let’s pray:

Father, we thank you for the Bible. We thank you that we can have our minds recalibrated by its truth. We pray that it may be the truth of your Word which settles in our convictions, that unsettles us when we have chosen to find satisfaction sitting at fires that provide no warmth, trying to lie in a bed that is too short or wrap ourselves in a blanket that is too narrow. Bring us, then, we pray, to see that in the person of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, there is forgiveness and freedom and family and a glorious future, and grant that we might come to him in childlike trust and believing faith.

And may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God our Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit rest upon and remain with all who believe, today and forevermore. Amen.

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[1] William Temple, quoted in Towards the Conversion of England: A Plan Dedicated to the Memory of Archbishop William Temple (London: Press and Publication Board of the Church Assembly, 1945), 3.

[2] Towards the Conversion, 16.

[3] Quoted in Douglas Webster, Yes to Mission (New York: Seabury, 1966), 9.

[4] Stephen Prothero, God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World—and Why Their Differences Matter (New York: HarperOne, 2010), 23.

[5] Prothero, God Is Not One, 24.

[6] Deuteronomy 6:4–7 (paraphrased).

[7] Psalm 115:2–8 (NIV 1984).

[8] Acts 4:8–12 (paraphrased).

[9] John 16:13 (paraphrased).

[10] John 14:3–6 (paraphrased).

[11] Isaiah 47:12–13 (NIV 1984).

[12] Isaiah 47:13 (NIV 1984).

[13] Isaiah 47:14 (NIV 1984).

[14] Isaiah 47:15 (NIV 1984).

[15] Bob Dylan, “Gotta Serve Somebody” (1979).

[16] See Psalm 115:3.

[17] Hebrews 1:1–2 (NIV 1984).

[18] Psalm 121:1 (NIV 1984).

[19] Psalm 121:1–2 (NIV 1984).

[20] Hebrews 1:2–3 (NIV 1984).

[21] Ira Gershwin, “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” (1937). Lyrics lightly altered.

[22] John Mayer, “Belief” (2006).