An African Tribesman Speaks

Because I believe that our Lord will not return until  sometime after there is a redeemed representative from ". . . every nation, and people and tribe and tongue." (Rev. 5:9 et al), I give monthly to the Wycliffe Translators (one of only a handful of organizations who are trying to reach the unreached languages). Consequently, I get their monthly newsletter, Frontline. In a recent edition there was a story about a Lutos tribesman in the Republic of Chad, who had come to Christ, but still was practicing some of the rituals and customs of the native religions, in addition to practicing Christianity. Then he finally got a Bible in his own language, and his life began to change. He was quoted as saying:

 

               "I was serving two masters; the Word of God and our traditional practices. I was still very devoted to the traditional religious rites of my people."

The article went on to relate that this man continued to move away from his native religious traditions and to embrace Christian practices as he learned then from the Bible.

As I reflected on this story, I thought to myself how very much this man was like so many of us in this country! We too follow our traditions rather than Biblical teaching. A major difference, however is that he previously had no Bible to follow. We have the Bible. We have had it for longer than our nation has been in existence, and we have it in numerous translations, from the literal translations to the so-called "dynamic equivalence" paraphrases.  We simply don't bother to read them.

There are many in our nation that consider our common Christian practices to be biblical simply because we are a "Christian nation", all the while not realizing that many of our national cultural practices and extrabiblical to say the least, and sometimes downright anti-Christian.

Our cultural practices and religious traditions have become so entwined with our religious beliefs and practices that we scarcely recognize the difference. Even though "Protestantism", which is commonly held to be a "back to the Bible" movement has in every one of its denominational groups a set of extrabiblical traditions that are not faithful to Biblical revelation.

I am not going to single out any particular things that fit this category, but I simply mean to point out that we are frequently more committed to our individual traditions because we refuse to read the Bible for ourselves. We become so committed to our traditional practices that the way of the Bible is strange to us. We are like the  people God spoke to through the prophet, Hosea:

"Were I to write for [them] my laws by the ten-thousands they would be regarded as a strange thing." Hosea 8:12 ESV

Indeed God's ways seem strange to us, largely because we are ignorant of them. We need to be like that African tribesman from Chad and read the Word, and let it change us. We need to let it move us away from our cultural traditions, and toward the way of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Thanks for sharing this moment with me today.

Optimism?

I've just begun reading a very interesting book. It is Implosion by Joel Rosenberg. Rosenberg is noted mostly for his fiction works such as: The Last Jihad, The Ezekiel Option  and The Twelfth Imam to name a few, as well as his non-fiction works such as Epicenter. He is a very perceptive, gifted and even perhaps prophetic observer of the current events in the middle east in the post 9/11 world.

Rosenberg typically expresses that first of all,  God is in charge of these world events, and that all is happening in harmony with what His word says will take shape in the last days. I have only read  Epicenter, and a part of one of his novels, so I am not aware of all his thoughts and beliefs, but I have gotten the impression that he is generally pessimistic about the future of our nation, which I tend to be as well. You can imagine my surprise then when I read the third chapter entitled: The Case of the Optimists. In this chapter he presents an objective and seemingly sympathetic case as to why some are optimistic about our future. The basic thesis of the chapter is that we may have reason to be optimistic because of the historical evidence that our nation has faced similar dark days in the past, and has rallied, and managed to come back stronger than ever.

While I find myself wanting to grasp at any straw of optimism that I can, and am trying to continue to believe that our fate is not set in stone, I found by chapter's end that I raised three objections to the case of the optimists:

The current "war on terror" is largely out of our hands.                 The examples cited in the case for optimism are matters that were all, for the most part, within our control, such as the American Revolution, the Civil War and the Great Depression. These were nationally internal matters over which we had nearly complete control in formulating the solutions. Even the case cited of the first and second World Wars, were things in which we were able to choose our type and level of response without any significant fear that our homeland would be threatened. In today's world, the international terrorists are unquestionably leading the dance. 9/11 was their first attack on our homeland to which we were forced to respond. Nowadays, not only are we fighting them on their own turf, but they have infiltrated our country as well, to wait for their opportunities. Moreover, they are recruiting  natural-born American citizens. The threat is literally in the back yard of everyone in America. The enemy is within as well as without, and they have vowed to not stop until they have destroyed us physically, emotionally and spiritually! This enemy has been compared to the mythical multi-headed snake, Hydra,  who, when one head is cut off, grows a new one to take its place! We cannot ignore the present threat, nor can we feel secure within our borders as we have in the past.

The financial crisis, unlike the one of the so-called Great Depression, just keeps getting worse.  I don't suppose that during the Great Depression everyone agreed as to what to do about it, but I cannot find any evidence that we tried to spend our way out of it as we are doing today. A sixteen trillion dollar deficit has now grown into a nearly eighteen trillion dollar deficit. It is physically impossible to pay off the national debt through any normal measures, and even more drastic measures hold little hope. We continue dig ourselves deeper into the hole rather than making any attempt to get out of it.

We are not responding to our spiritual crisis.       This spiritual crisis is what I (as well as Mr. Rosenberg) feel is the real reason for the mess that we are in. Mr. Rosenberg seems to indicate (so far as I have read in this and the other works of his that I have read) that the reason for the crisis in our nation and in the world today is the fact that we are not responding to God. I believe this as well. It seems to me, as I am reading this book, that he is suggesting that the case of the optimists would include in its historic examples that at least the Christian optimists believe that if we return to God and follow Him that He can lead us out of our dilemma. Once again, I must agree with this. In fact, this is the only reason I can ultimately find for being an optimist. The problem is; nobody is moving in that direction! I guess it is unfair for me to say that no one is turning to God, but it surely seems to me that there are only a few of us that are doing so. The majority of the citizens of our nation seems to be on a collision course to ruin, oblivious to the probable result that awaits us because we have not only ignored Jesus Christ and His values, but have embraced values that are opposed to His, and refuse to let those false values go.

For these reasons, I find myself unable to embrace the  case of the optimists. Please understand; I believe in a God who performs miracles. Yet I continue to believe that only such a miracle from Him will save the day for our beloved nation. I also believe that He will not perform the necessary miracle as we continue to reject His values, and to work against Him and His church.

I also continue to believe that it is not too late, and that there is still hope.

Thanks for sharing this moment with me today.