So he’s back on that pedestal with this sermon from Exodus. Unfortunately the recording ends before the sermon is done. Still a good listen.

And I think I should seriously say, so there is no mistake about it, because Bob seemed to think I might be swayed toward Open Theism, I really believe that Open Theism is heretical. I don’t say that lightly. We may debate time and how it was created and where God sits in relation to it. I’m not sure I’ve read Bible passages that claim that God sits outside of time. What I’m convinced of from scripture is that God is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. And if you believe in a God who is not omniscient, you don’t believe in the God of the Christian scriptures.

God knows all things. Nothing is hidden from his eye. Before he formed us in the womb, he knew us. He perceives our thoughts from afar and before a word is on our tongues he knows it. He knows the numbers of the hairs on our heads, and the deceitfulness of our hearts. He ordains the days of our lives. He can say with perfect precision what will happen in the future. He does know the end from the beginning. He did know that not one of Jesus’ bones would be broken and that the guard would cast lots for his clothing. And he does know the New Jerusalem will come down.

Just take one instance–the guards casting lots for Jesus’ clothes. How could God know such a thing? He has visions of the future? But only sometimes? He sees, from the time of the fall, that a seed will come and be bruised by the serpent and will crush the serpent’s head. He sees Christ and promises Abraham that through him all nations will be blessed. He gives Moses the plans to the tabernacle, making sure that everything points to Christ, he even sees the guards casting lots for Jesus’ clothing, but he can’t see Abraham taking up the knife to kill his son before it happens?

Why not? What would make it so God can see some things but not others? Who gives God visions of the future sometimes and withholds them at other times? Either God can see what lies ahead (in our human story) or he can’t. To think that he sometimes has this ability and other times loses it, is to make him a different God from who he claims to be in Scripture.

Ack, ack, ack! My favorite preacher has fallen from his pedestal with this sermon from Matthew.

Nah, I didn’t really have him on a pedestal. He’s said things in the past that I disagree with. The reason he’s my favorite preacher is that he limits himself to the word and doesn’t bring in a lot of outside sources. He looks at a passage and he says, “What does this passage say to us? What is the Author trying to convey?” He does that rather than making up a lecture on this or that problem and then searching out scripture verses that support his theory and offer a jumping-off place from which he may launch his lecture.

So he’s still my favorite preacher. And today, as I listened to his sermon on the Parable of the Sower, I was with him for quite a while. Even when he got to the part where he said that sometimes holding to certain statements of faith can block the hearing of God’s word. And I was still with him when he said that even in the OPC there might be repression or oppression, or something like that, because people are so committed to the Westminster Confession that they can’t hear God’s word.

I’ve lived in the OPC and one of the reasons I’m in the PCA now is that I’ve sought counsel from some OPC elders and gotten the Westminster Confession quoted to me, instead of being fed God’s word, which has the power to convict.

But the PCA I’m in, love it as I do–and I do love it because it’s the best, most balanced, church I’ve ever been in–is a struggle for me, too, sometimes. It is more ecumenical than I like. I was born in an RPCNA crib and raised in an OPC nursery, after all. And here I am in a clappy, happy PCA with a pastor who prays with United Methodists. I’d like to rebel. The reason I don’t is that I believe that God has given me this church and he’s given me these pastors and elders because they can help me. They are fine Christian men and if we don’t agree on all points, so what? I’m not perfect and neither are they. We are all growing in our understanding and we will keep growing until we die. So I don’t have to run from a church every time the elders do something I don’t like. If I did that, I’d have no church to go to because all elders sin and they all do things I don’t like.

I’m pretty sure they feel the same way about me. I think they can see some of my many faults.

So, I bring up this PCA because here I sit chuckling in my “loose by OPC standards” church, as my old pal Martin Emmrich tosses a little rebuke at those in the OPC who elevate the Westminster Confession above scripture. He’s absolutely right to do so. We are quick to complain about the Romans and the Eastern Orthodox elevating tradition above scripture. When they say that Holy Tradition is equal to Holy Scripture they are, in fact, putting it above scripture. Because whatever interprets scripture has the ultimate authority.

What’s the problem with the Confession, then? It says itself that Scripture alone is our only rule of faith and practice. It makes no claims at being equal to scripture. It clearly elevates scripture above all.

The problem is that, say what we like, there are OPC elders who have the confession memorized and who seem unfamiliar with scripture. There are those who argue a point every time by going to the Confession and never get around to looking at what scripture has to say on the matter. They are so sure that the Confession is without error that they wouldn’t think of changing it. They say it is not inerrant and not on par with scripture, but they treat it as if it is inerrant and cannot be improved upon.

So, since I was tracking so well with the sermon, what knocked perfect Martin off the pedestal today? He made his case, convicting us of our refusal to hear scripture, by going first to the place where God says, “Now, I know” about Abraham’s willingness to obey and sacrifice Isaac. Martin says we shouldn’t say that God knows everything therefore this passage can’t mean that God really didn’t know what Abraham would do.

He’s wrong.

Or maybe I should say I’d be interested in hearing him flesh this out a little so I can be sure I understand what he’s trying to say.

Because some things we do know about God. We know he’s all-knowing. So when I look at this statement, “Now, I know…” I most certainly can say it doesn’t mean that God didn’t know what Abraham would do. I don’t have to say what it does mean. I may not know what it does mean. And I don’t care if Martin can’t say what it does mean. But I do care if he says it might mean God didn’t already know.

I’ve had lots of friends see the illogical stance of Arminianism and, hating Calvinism as they do because they believe Calvin’s God is an ogre who denies hapless people the ability to repent and believe, they slide to the only place they can reconcile with their finite brains–Open Theism.

We don’t have to go there. We know that God is all-knowing. We know that God is all-loving. We know that God is all-powerful. And if we look at the world or the word and see apparent contradictions we can let them lie, content to have them answered later when we will fully know even as we are fully known.

Martin also brings up another thing that keeps us from hearing God’s word. Self-righteousness. Thinking, “So and so should have heard this sermon,” and never applying it to ourselves. So here I sit saying there are OPC elders who need to hear the rebuke Martin levels, but, by golly, I’m not going to give an inch on my surety that God did too know Abraham would obey him.

Well, I’m willing to be convinced. I’ll read the Bible with an eye open for passages that say God doesn’t know the end from the beginning. I’ll go that far. Open Theism gives me the willies, but if it’s true what does it matter how I feel about it? I need to ask God to make me love truth. Because, honestly, my first reaction is often to hate truth.

However, I’ve been made new. And sometimes those feelings of distaste are not self-righteousness. Sometimes they come from having a mind and heart in tune with Christ.

We shall see.

I went to my niece’s graduation this weekend. She was salutatorian and she’s headed off to Yale in a couple of months. I’m proud of her. She’s worked hard.

Still, I was bothered by the graduation ceremony. Five kids spoke. No adults. No one who has lived through the pain of…say…the death of a child. Or the crushing loss of a job and breakup of a marriage. No one who had built a successful business and could tell the kids what kind of commitment that took. Is this a new wrinkle in graduation ceremonies? Having the children cheer each other on and pat each other on the backs?

More disturbing than the absence of speakers over the age of 18 was the absence of God. Not one of the five best and brightest who gave speeches thanked God for his gift of life and brains and education. They encouraged one another to believe in the beauty of their dreams.

As if all their dreams must be beautiful simply because they dreamed them.

Some dreams are pathetic and ugly. No one mentioned those.

And even our best dreams are ugly when we chase them as a means of finding happiness. When we make gods of them. The only time our dreams are beautiful is if their end is to glorify God. And none of those kids mentioned the fact that God had given them life or said they meant to serve him with their strength. No one said they wanted to use their education for God’s glory.

It’s a terribly bleak place to live, this God-less society. I watched those bright young people graduate and I thought about what a great God we have. He’s creator of and ruler over such complex and wondrously made people. And how perverted it is for those creatures to fail to give him glory–as if they had accomplished all they had, apart from him.

OK, this obviously wasn’t a Christian school I’m talking about. But surely there are some Christians at the school. And they are free to speak about their faith. My niece, the salutatorian, is a Christian. She chose not to give a speech. Lost opportunity, that.

And that makes me think about my own lost opportunities. No one’s asking me to give any speeches, but if they were I’d probably turn them down. I don’t pray for opportunity to share God and speak of his glory. I don’t want to spend the time it takes to minister to others.

The kids who graduated this weekend worked hard to get there. And that hard work earned some of them a spot on the stage. I ought to work hard, too, to gain the stage in the lives of my neighbors, I think. And when I get the mike, I ought to give glory to God.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the kind of kissing teen girls are dreaming of.

And last week a publicist sends me several books to review.

The first is a new book put out by FaithWords (Used to be Warner Faith, now owned by Hachette). It’s called it’s all about us.

Lovely title, that, and it is an accurate one. Put it together with the cover shot–the bodies of three teen girls in short skirts and high heels–and you pretty much know what you’re going to get in the book.

I’ll write much more about this book later–it’s very well written and I’m not writing this to slam it. I haven’t finished it yet, and I still have high hopes that it will redeem itself in the end, but today I want to just speak to the kissing issue. Here’s the scene of the protagonist’s first kiss with the unbelieving hottie she’s in love with. The chapter starts with a quote from the Bible–”Love is patient, love is kind,” and then it warps that to say that love is what makes you oblivious to danger because all you can think about is this guy holding your hand. Well, that’s not love, of course, that’s temptation. But let’s move on to the kiss:

He smelled of clean cotton and warm skin and a faint trace of cologne. Talk about a dream come true. Bottle that scent for late-night fantasies, girls.

My eyes slid closed as his mouth found mine. Oh, that mouth. It came through on everything his grin had been promising for days. Soft yet firm, and nothing hesitant about it. I’m no newbie in the kissing department, but a first kiss usually asks permission. Waits. Backs off before I’m ready.

Not this one. Somehow he knew what to do to make my toes curl for real, to make my blood speed up in my veins, and to send my body temperature rocketing up.

By the end of the kiss, I was a watery puddle with steam rising off it, let me tell you.

This late-night fantasy deal is brought out again later–this girl likes to fantasize. And she likes to kiss. And she likes hot kisses.

And, the thing is, she’s just like most girls.

These are the kinds of kisses that the girls I know are hoping for. And these are the kinds of kisses they see nothing wrong with. They think they can, like this girl, become experienced in the kissing department and no damage is done to them. They think they can fantasize at night about the hottie, even if he’s not a Christian, and they’re obeying God because they aren’t having sex before marriage.

This fantasizing is idolatry, of course. And we’re all guilty of that. We all have things we like better than Christ. I’m not condemning the girls. I’m just wondering why so many Christian parents seem to be OK with this idol. We can’t get rid of the idols in their hearts, I know that. If they are going to fantasize, there is no way for us to stop them. But should we encourage them to go even farther in their sin? Should we pretend that kissing is fine? Should we allow our little bundles of raging hormones and lust to be alone with members of the opposite sex? Yikes! What’s up with that? Why would we even think of allowing two teens who are madly in love with one another to go out alone together? I can’t understand the reasoning for such a thing.

I’ve been trying not to rave about every one of Martin Emmrich’s sermons I listen to because I figure people won’t believe me if I gush too much. But I have to encourage you to listen to this one from the first chapter of Matthew.