Gun Control and Apologetics

Conservatives are outraged at the hypocrisy of people in heavily armed offices dictating that only gun-free zones will make you safe. We can easily see how foolish it is to pass more laws to stop lawbreakers who wouldn’t obey the first law. What does a gun free zone tell a criminal? It tells the criminal that the law abiding citizen has laid down their best weapon of defense.

When we engage unbelievers, being salt and light we are engaging in spiritual battle and they are wanting and expecting a “Bible free zone” of apologetic in the public square.  It goes something like “You can’t argue from the Bible because I don’t believe the Bible, so we must debate on common ground of what I consider to be good sound reason.”  They want you to give up your starting point but they get to keep theirs. You must abandon your worldview and engage their worldview FROM their worldview. They borrow Christian terms like “right” and “wrong” and “good” and “evil” that can only exist with a standard of right and wrong and good and evil. And if there is standard, where did that come from and why?

Let’s imagine you are awakened from dreaming about living in a free Republic to find you are being robbed. As a vigilant citizen you reach for your Smith & Wesson and proceed to engage the lawless and disobedient. Full of good courage, you play the man and catch the thief with his arms hugging your television. When confronted with superior firepower he says  with a furrow of anxiety upon the brow “I don’t believe in the right of a man to defend his home with a gun. I think this ought to be a gun free zone.” Would you reply “Oh, yes, certainly - allow me to holster my gun, since you don’t believe in it, and we will get on common ground.”

What has happened? You have conceded to his presuppositions. You have laid down your weapon because he doesn't like you having it or doesn't want you to use it. He may genuinely not like it and not believe in it – but should that stop you from using it?  The believer who attempts to argue apart from scripture has conceded that the unbeliever somehow is coming from a neutral position. You believe in the authority of God’s Word. He disagrees, but be sure he is not coming from an unbiased position.

If a person denies that the Bible is living and powerful, does that make it not so? Is the Bible quick and powerful regardless of what a person thinks about it? When we engage unbelievers who do not want to concede that God’s Word is truth, don’t voluntarily turn in your Sword to the proper authorities, who happen to have weapons of their own. I believe in divinely inspired Word of God. This leads to the next reason - since the Bible is divinely inspired, it is authoritative and I must bow the knee to God’s Word. And, as if I planned it this way, leads to a thirdly - I believe the Bible to be supernatural in power and sharper than any two-edged sword. That the Bible gets down to the meat & bones of the matter and discerns your thoughts and intentions. It is a powerful, spiritual weapon and our only weapon. Thus when engaging in spiritual warfare, don’t turn the debate into a Bible free zone.

Grace & Peace

Doug

Fighting Today's Battles

J.C. Philpot battled a great error that was gaining ground in his day - the denial of the eternal sonship of Jesus Christ. In his introductory remarks he answered the objections some had made to confronting that heresy in the first place. One group thought the battle was not necessary because they did not understand the full significance of the error. Some were persuaded by some “Big Guns” who had decided for themselves (and for their followers) what the Bible said and that settled the question once for all. A third group thought it was a fight over words and why cause a fuss over semantics and the question should never been waged in the first place.

When confronting error there are usually these separate battles that the truth must confront. Not only do you fight the error but sometimes you have to deal with those who should be on your side but for some reason or the other decided to sit this one out. Sitting it out wouldn’t be as bad, but often they cheer for the other team which stings a little.

Philpot said 

“Those who from self-interest, love of carnal ease, entanglement in error, or cowardice of spirit, wished things to remain quiet as they were, all lift their voice against the disturbers of the general peace.” 

Come on, ye who troubleth Israel, if you were quiet, none of this would have happened (1Kings 18:17). It is amazing to see that the battles will change but the tactics and the positions of the enemies of truth rarely do. 

Considering one of the great fights of our day, which I believe is on Biblical marriage, we are starting to see these groups appear. There are groups that don’t understand what the fuss is all about. Others who think it’s better to live and let live. There are others that wish it was like it used to be and among conservative Christians we are most susceptible to the last excuse. Remembering the glory days when you didn’t have to give a definition for marriage  we can say that it should not be like this because it did not used to be like this. Both are true statements, but unfortunately, that line of argument is a useless defense of the truth because they say "so what?" and if we shrug and saunter away mumbling to ourselves away as to avoid the controversy because we did not get to pick the fight we lose the fight anyway.  

 Few who live in exciting times that we like to read about would choose the exciting time for themselves.  An old proverb went something like “blessed are the forgotten nations of history.” Why? Who wants to read a story about a country that lived in quiet peace for centuries.

There are fights in every generation that rise. Sometimes the fight is greater than we think that we can stomach. Sometimes it’s a fight we would rather not have at all. All who pick up the sword of truth wish that it needn’t be so and it grieves us that God’s Word is not obeyed. There shouldn’t be any that relish fighting – but that should not stop the men of God. We can look at the spiritual battles for truth about us and wish it were not so, wish for quieter times and peaceful seasons, but that is not for us to decide. God has placed you in this time to fight the battle that is going on now. It’s easy to be on the right side of a fight that is already over-the test comes when the battles just starting to get hot. Your story has been written, it is not for you to decide what times you live in – it is for you to decide how you will live.

Once more from Brother Philpot:

 “Old Mrs. Bigotry is dead and buried; her funeral sermon has been preached to a crowded congregation; and this is the inscription put, by general consent, upon her tombstone:

For modes of faith let graceless bigots fight;

He can’t be wrong whose life is in the right. 

But if to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints is bigotry, let us be bigots still; and if it is a bad spirit to condemn error, then let us bear the reproach rather than call evil good and good evil, put darkness for light and light for darkness, bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”

A Love that Rejoices

"Paul wants [the Philippian church] to join him in cruciformity—to follow the One who laid down his life for the spiritual benefit of to others by likewise laying down their lives for the spiritual benefit of others. This is a love that rejoices in what is best for others... This kind of love will not result in selfish behavior that sinfully exploits others but produces “sincerity and blamelessness for the day of Christ” (Phil. 1:10). This kind of love will fill the Philippians “with the fruit of the righteousness that is through Jesus the messiah, for the glory and praise of God” (Phil. 1:11). God will be glorified when the Philippians live this way because mercy and love condemn selfishness and hate -salvation coming through discerning judgment for God’s glory." - James Hamilton, God's Glory in Salvation through Judgement.

This kind of Christian love wants the best for others for the glory of God. 

False Humility is Pride

Pride is a tricky sin. Sometimes we are most proud when we think we are most humble. False humility is really pride.

Pro 16:2  All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; but the LORD weigheth the spirits.

It is hard to find a guilty man when we make ourselves the judges of right and wrong, and make ourselves the author of our own laws. We try and do the work of Christ in our own life and try to justify ourselves. Christ is the Just and the justifier (Romans 3:25-28). 

However, there is a false humility that decries everything in our souls that denies the truth of God’s work in our souls.

Richard Sibbes in his wonderful book The Bruised Reed was speaking to those ‘smoking flax’ Christians, who are in continual despair over their salvation because they see no fruit or deny or explain away the fruit that is evident in their life.

 We must neither trust to false evidence, nor deny true; for so we should dishonor the work of God’s Spirit in us, and lose the help of that evidence which would cherish our love to Christ, and arm us against Satan’s discouragements. Some are as faulty in this way as if they had been hired by Satan, the ‘accuser of the brethren’ (Rev. 12:10), to plead for him in accusing themselves.

Don’t bear false witness against yourself and don’t deny the work of the Spirit in your life if you are in Christ. There will be evidences of the grace of God and it is not humility to deny His work in sanctification. It is prideful to take credit. It is prideful to look down at others. It is prideful to want to be noticed and praised for the evidence of God’s grace.  However, it is not prideful to see God’s grace in your soul and to use what God has given you for His glory and thank Him for His goodness.

Bearded Gospel Man Joe Thorn in his excellent book Note to Self touches on this in his section on pride.

Poor self-esteem in not an indication of humility or meekness. In fact, It may be a disregarding of the gifts God has given you and a mocking of the work he is doing in your life. How does this connect to pride? Haven’t you used this excuse of no ability and no talent to clear yourself of responsibility? Isn't it possible that you have used poor self-esteem as an excuse for doing nothing or as a means of saving face? Who could fault you when you don’t claim to be good at anything. Make no mistake about it – you are proud.

We must remember what we are – creatures.

We must remember who we are – children of God.

We must remember where we are – in Christ Jesus.

Pride is a sneaky sin. There is no easy way to spot pride except to always be hunting it down in our lives and be killing it-to spot him when he tries to sneak in the house. Sometimes Pride will knock on the door in a T-shirt that says LIBERTY in some ultra hip font.  Sometimes Pride comes dressed in his Sunday’s Finest complete with a Full Windsor. Sometimes Pride saunters about like an extra from Downton Abbey. Sometimes Pride knocks on the door in beggars’ clothes.  We need to be careful when we open the door and be quick to show Pride to the door when he sneaks through the vestibule. We need to keep him "screwed to the sticking place".

The answer is to think much of Christ and the cross. To remember what He did for us, what He does for us, what He is doing for us, and what He as promised us. 

You and Your Sword

Paul W. Martin at Unashamed Workman has some good advise for the preacher specifically but for all Christians in general.

So preacher, if you are not already, then begin today to:

• Read your Bible. 
• “Eat” your Bible (Jeremiah 15:16), 
• study your Bible (Ezra 7:10), 
• run your life by your Bible (Psalm 119:9-11) 
• and do not add a thing to your Bible (Revelation 22:18).

Chapter and Verse

“You are well aware, dear friends, that the division into chapters has only been made for convenience’ sake, and is not a matter of inspired arrangement. I may add that it has been clumsily made, and not with careful thoughtfulness, but as roughly as if a woodman had taken an axe and chopped the book to pieces in a hurry.”  
Charles Spurgeon