TOPC TOPiCs

Recently my six children and I played a couple rounds of miniature golf together. And while the first round was all business, the second degenerated into a convoluted series of ill-conceived trick shots, sophomoric antics, golf puns, and laughter. A lot of laughter.

I love hearing my children laugh.

Children today seem to have fewer opportunities to play—just play—than earlier generations. Sometimes, being goofy is the best, most important thing to accomplish.

Church matters. School matters. Work matters. But so does good, old-fashioned immature behavior at a mini-golf course.

I know very little about gun control legislation, but lately I’ve read two stories that seem to me to share a disconcerting connection.

Several days ago, Joy Behar, host of ABC’s The View, said that Vice President Mike Pence’s Christian faith is a “mental illness.”

At the same time, I read another article that wonders why evangelical Christians are slow to support seemingly common sense gun control measures, such as forbidding guns to those whom our government defines as “mentally ill.” Some have even suggested that Christians love guns more than children.

The 2^nd Amendment is not vital to the Christian Church. If no Christian in America owned a firearm, the Church of Jesus Christ would still thrive. Jesus is building His Church, and He doesn’t need an AR-15 to do it. No Christian would lose any part of his eternal inheritance if Uncle Sam took away every gun and all the kitchen knives too.

But it strikes me that Joy Behar is not alone. The number of people who think like her is growing, including politicians. It’s not so fanciful to imagine a day when our government defines the Christian faith as a mental illness. And the gun control laws many are now advocating forbid mentally ill persons from owning a gun . . .

Maybe you’re thinking, “That won’t happen!” And you’re probably right. Maybe evangelicals should just get on board with more gun laws.

But maybe laws are dangerous things. After all, laws set precedents. And sometimes a good law—like the 14^th Amendment, which extended citizenship and voting rights to former slaves after the Civil War—becomes the grounds for a not-so-good law, like Roe v. Wade. Ponder that for a moment. A post-Civil War voter rights amendment that enfranchised millions of former slaves was—105 years later—hijacked to justify the murder of 60 million unborn children.

The legislation this present generation passes will affect our children and grandchildren. It may affect generations to come. Sometimes it will affect those generations in ways none of us can foresee.

At other times, however, the writing is on the bad-idea wall. Encouraging our government to define mental illness, and then making our Bill of Rights dependent on that definition, is a bad idea. If a mentally ill person—as the government defines such illness—no longer possesses the rights afforded by the 2^nd Amendment, what guarantees that citizen any other right? What prevents the government from denying 1^st or 4^th Amendment rights to those citizens whom it defines as mentally ill?

What happens if, years down the road, the government defines your beliefs as a form of mental illness?

If the government can create a group of citizens for whom the Constitution offers no protection, then the government is no longer a government of law. It is a tyranny. And that frightens me.

So maybe at least some Christians have thoughtful reasons not to rush to implement new laws, especially laws that depend upon the government to define mental illness; laws that deny constitutional rights based upon that definition—a definition that can be altered to include the beliefs of any group that the government finds unsavory.

Or maybe every Christian is just a brainwashed, NRA junkie, child-hating, supporter of school shootings.

In fact, maybe we’re all just mentally ill.

Billy Graham has died, and yet lives.

The Bible teaches that when a Christian’s body dies his soul immediately enters the presence of God, consciously to enjoy his reward. Theologians call this disembodied existence the intermediate state.

God created man soul and body. Jesus possesses a soul and body. He died in His body to redeem our bodies.

The soul of Billy Graham will therefore not remain disembodied forever, for the intermediate state is not the final state.

Resurrection is coming.

Jesus promised in John 5:26-29, “As the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.”

When Jesus returns, the bodies of all who ever have lived will rise immortal, imperishable, and incorruptible. Body and soul reunited, every person will stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

The righteous will inherit a renewed heavens and earth—a physical eternity—in which the spirit and flesh no longer war, where sin and disease no longer ravage the body, and in which God dwells with His people. We will walk and talk with Him as in Eden, having no shame for we shall have no sin.

Right now preparations are being made to commit the body of Billy Graham to his final earthly resting place. But it will not be his eternal resting place. That place will be a goodly land, in which all God’s people will run and be not weary; they shall walk and be not faint. For God will make their bodies just as immortal as their souls.

Mourn not for Billy Graham. He is, right now, rejoicing with His Lord. And one day soon, his tired old body, which finally succumbed to death, will rise—eternally young.

Jesus rose first.

Those who love Him will certainly follow.

Recently I read yet another article that advises churches how to “attract” young people.

“Attraction” is not a biblical category. The Bible calls on churches to teach the young, to exhort the young, and to entrust the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the young. But it doesn’t tell us to attract the young. I think it realizes that we can’t.

In John 6:44 Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.”

So if the Church has no pool of spiritual magnetism with which to “attract” the young, what can it do?

Preach the Word. Administer the sacraments. Pray. Do these things faithfully, and trust that God knows who are His. He will give the increase, drawing unto Himself all those whom He delights to save through faith in Jesus.

Either the Holy Spirit, using the Word, sacraments, and prayer, is sufficient or He is not.

He has been sufficient for 2000 years.

But lately we’ve lost confidence in Him. So now it depends on us. And we’re looking in vain for magnets.

In the ‘burbs outside St. Louis, the heavens have let loose. Lighting scars the sky and thunder bounds from hill to hill. Rain pours.

I am reminded of Job. As the LORD replied to Job’s demand for an explanation, He asked Job:

“Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain and a way for the thunderbolt, to bring rain on a land where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man, to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground sprout with grass? Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew?”

Job could only answer:

“Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further.”

The rain testifies to the power—but also to the love of the LORD, for “He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”

In sun and rain, drought and tempest, He is God.

Effectual calling. We don’t talk about this doctrine in church as much as we should.

Maybe because it’s a bit unpopular.

John Murray noted, “We may not like this doctrine. But, if so, it is because we are averse to the grace of God and wish to arrogate to ourselves the prerogative that belongs to God. And we know where that disposition had its origin.”

So what is this teaching, this doctrine that arouses our ire?

Simply put, when theologians speak of effectual calling, they are describing the work of the Holy Spirit, who calls each elect person into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. The Spirit’s call contains the power to come and is “efficacious unto salvation.”

Why does that matter? Usually, the Spirit’s call comes through the outward call of the Gospel. When a minister rises to preach or a Bible study opens the Word, an outward call resounds to all who hear: Repent and believe in Jesus! Often the Holy Spirit accompanies that outward call with His inward, effective power.

That means that if you have ears to hear, the Holy Spirit gave them to you. If you, by faith, have come to Christ, it is because the Spirit first effectually called you.

So, thank God for His power in drawing you to Christ. And continue proclaiming the Gospel, outwardly calling people everywhere to repent and trust in Jesus.

The Holy Spirit uses that outward call inwardly and effectively to bring men and women to faith in Jesus Christ.

Disappointment follows false expectations.

Early in my marriage I learned that my wife shuns spontaneity. If I walked in the door today with tickets to a tropical paradise and said, “You have two hours to pack, and then we’re off to the airport,” she’d probably yell at me. My wife likes to plan and to orchestrate the particulars. She would not enjoy the tropical paradise if details at home dangled in the breeze unattended.

Knowing this, how foolish would I be—after 20 years of experience to the contrary—to continue to expect her to enjoy spontaneity? If my expectations reflect reality, then contentment follows. If, however, I harbor false expectations, then disappointment will visit often.

I have come to believe that the Church in America harbors false expectations about the Church in America. An old Scottish divine, William Cunningham, understood that Christ has promised His presence and the Spirit’s power to the Church for “establishing and preserving a church upon earth.” Christ will certainly secure that end, but Cunningham correctly notes that Scripture does not specify the outlines, size, or design of that Church, or the periods and places in which it will flourish or decline.

If Scripture teaches that Christ’s Church on earth should always be widespread, growing, faithful, and prosperous, without any admixture of sin or error, without any regress after progress, and without any diminution or suffering, then the Church in America holds true expectations. But Scripture offers no such promises. To the contrary, the Bible cautions that corruption and false teaching will hazard the Church, that weeds will grow among the wheat, and that in dire times only 7000 will refuse to bow the knee to Baal.

Yet the American Church seems to expect constant growth, internal and external harmony, and continuing cultural influence.

Our expectations must disappoint.

Christ has indeed promised to build His Church, and to send His Spirit to empower its work. But He has not revealed His Father’s providential design in guiding and growing the Church. “The wind blows where it wills,” and the Holy Spirit’s movement in fulfilling God’s design is mysterious. Why does the Church grow in some places while diminishing in others? Why does revival touch here and not there? Scripture does not answer.

The Church in America should expect the Church worldwide to prosper. It should expect the Kingdom to expand, and to envelop every tribe, tongue, and people group. Jesus will have His Bride. But to expect that every generation of American Christianity will grow more robust than the last is to harbor expectations that the Scripture simply does not sustain.

Instead, Cunningham notes that the Scripture seems “fitted and intended to lead men to expect” not only “deviations from the scriptural standard,” but also “heresy, idolatry, and tyranny,” resulting in “gross darkness.” It has happened before. It is happening now. It will happen again.

Put simply, if the American Church expects that the battle will not be a battle, not only will she be disappointed, but she’ll also enter the fray unarmed and unprepared.

And that will produce more than disappointment. It will breed disaster.