Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones on Christian Experience

I wanted to begin the New Year with some concise quotes from Dr Lloyd-Jones on Christian experience. They are so challenging and tell us that our hope for more of God is not in vain. The most stupid thing that a Christian can do is to be so put off by excess and fanaticism that they adapt their theology to become one of pure intellect and fear of any experience "in case" it is false.

Here is the Doctor from his monumental sermons on the book of Ephesians;

"Christians are so much afraid of excesses and of enthusiasm that they are only satisfied they are Christians when they are really miserable. What a tragedy. What blindness, what misunderstanding of Christian doctrine!".

And from his book; "Enjoying the Presence of God";

"Actually another belief that is very common today is the tendancy to dismiss these high experiences as just ecstasy. People try to explain them psychologically as the enthusiasm of youth, or people being carried away by emotionalism. But that is to limit 'the Holy One of Israel', that is to quench the Spirit. That is to put a barrier between that which God has made possible for us and ourselves".

I think one of the lessons perhaps that the Lakeland Outpouring brought the church - was that while Christian experience is true and valid, we do not have to invent experiences or signs or wonders when there are none. What an awesome comfort the doctrine of the sovereignity of God brings! We simply have to believe that He is good and He is eager to touch and to bless and to move. If He hasn't touched or done something - then we do not have to invent or exaggerate. Dr Lloyd-Jones very much taught this too as balance;

"If my experience does not tally with the New Testament, it is not the Christian experience. It may be wonderful, it may be thrilling, I may have seen visions. But I say, it matters not at all if my experience does not tally with this, it is not Christian experience".

That being said - it must be noted that the New Testament has very few limits on Christian experience! I wrote a post inspired by one of my favourite films called "Only God should have that kind of power" - and considered the place of "teleporting" for the Christian. The fact is that teleporting of sorts seems to occur in the Word of God! So let's be very careful before swiftly claiming that is "non-Biblical". But alternatively let's not desperately seize on any experience - because the real, the genuine manifest Presence of God is more than worth the wait!

SUDDENLY from Heaven!!

Rob Rufus received a word from God a couple of years back that has resonated with me since I heard it. He mentioned it during the monumental "Invading the Impossible" series;

"Please Rob, tell My people to stop trying to impress Me with human effort and holiness and obedience. Let Me impress them".

I think years of inbuilt pride and legalistic traditions of men have kept me from doing that even when I have thought I was trying. Without trying to conjour sympathy (because I know others are going through the same thing) this year has been AWFUL! Just - horrendous and I won't go too much into detail. I was driven out of my job at Acorns Children's Hospice by homophobic bullies at the beginning of the year and then have gone from one crisis to another. Even personal events - such as my car catching on fire on the motorway - all just seemed to come altogether!

I think I am beginning to understand why. I am now running on empty. I am pretty upset, bitter, sad and exhausted. I don't have much energy to even muster any faith in God - other than the prayer; "Lord I believe - help my unbelief". I don't have any money to be able to give away and bless other people or enable me to work towards what I feel is my calling. It's just all ... gone!

I realised tonight when I was walking home from work that is a pretty good place to be actually. Because I am out of ideas to try and "impress" God. All I can do is sit back and wait and watch for Him to act. For Him to prove His Word - to Rob Rufus. For Him to impress! For Him to be God! Throughout the Word of God - the worst thing that He could do was to remain silent.

Ern Baxter preached a sermon in my home church in Dunstable called; "Sovereign Surprises". Ern was talking about the burning bush and said;

"A lot of Christian life is very plebeian and ordinary and mundane and unexciting and uninteresting and it shouldn’t be so. There should be an area of valid excitement that comes from having faith ... Are you ready for a bush? If God suddenly breaks into your life and you see a phenomenon like that, are you ready for it? Is it in your thoughts at all, this whole process of divine intervention? Or is tomorrow going to be like today? Are we just going to go in a kind of hum-drum existence, or do we have the biblical right to expect that God has historically engaged in a process of divine intervention that gives us hope?".

It seems that religion reacts to God not seeming to be very active by responding with a theology that He has withdrawn into heaven, given us the Word of God in a book and our next expectation of Him intervening is at the 2nd Coming. But that isn't building a theology on the Word of God! It is building a theology on our experience or lack of experience of the manifest Presence of God!

I must admit candidly that I don't have a personal testimony of many awesome manifestations of the Presence of God. But I have striven through my life so far to let my faith be fired by reading of encounters - and hungering after it. Of continually hoping for "MORE" rather than settling for "less". During the sermon Ern Baxter gave a real-life account of a time when he was with William Branham - here it is;

"I remember when I was in South Africa many years ago travelling with William Branham. We were going through a time of bitter persecution by the Dutch Reformed Church plus the press. Thousands of people were coming to the meetings in South Africa and it was stirring. And he and I were alone one night holding our case before God. Suddenly I was aware of a Presence. Now I know the Presence of the Holy Spirit and I wasn’t getting the same registration. Brother Branham said in his very quiet way, “Brother Ern – don’t be frightened. The angel of the Lord is in the room”.

Well he didn’t have to tell me. The next night, still under persecution, a Dutch Reformed minister who was bitterly opposed to us, was on his way home and he felt a hand on his shoulder. There was no one around him and he couldn’t understand it so he hurried home. It was a warm night and he had just been wearing a white shirt. He took his shirt off and looked at the back of it and a print of a hand was burned into the back of it".

Wow! This makes me so hungry - not for experience. The Charismatic Movement was roundly criticised by critic cessationists for chasing after "experiences". That may have been true in cases. But I would say in my experience - most are hungry just for the Presence of God! For God Himself! For the glory! Ern Baxter went on;

"I’m asking you this morning to do is open your heart to expect God to do something else that is going to be of such a nature as you hadn’t thought about before. How many would have believed the Pentecostal visitation at the turn of the century? How many would have believed the Charismatic visitation? In our own century we have had such divine manifestation that is unprecedented and exciting. God is not dead! He’s alive! If there’s any charge of death, it belongs here. We are dull of hearing. We are unexciting! We are unresponsive to the divine activity".

Surely that is why church is having relatively little impact upon the lost. Because we have no expectation - no hunger for divine activity. Before I close with a prayer by Dr Ern Baxter, let me quote from Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones in his monumental; "Joy Unspeakable";

"Certain men you will find become concerned and disturbed and unhappy and they say; "What we need is another baptism with the Holy Spirit, we must seek the face of God". They do everything they can; they repent and render obedience, they try to go on walking a life of faith, a life of surrender to the Spirit and they do so genuinely. But nothing happens. And they go on and on like that and are almost at the point of despair, when SUDDENLY something HAPPENS! Often when they least expect it. When they are on the verge of utter despair, suddenly on the assembled company, the Holy Spirit falls again".

It is not just Ern Baxter or the charismatics who believed and taught in a "suddenly from heaven!". Dr Lloyd-Jones saw it clearly in the book of Acts also. Here is Ern Baxter's closing prayer and it is the cry of my heart;

"God I’m a candidate for a surprise! I can’t make it happen. God I deplore the pornography, the sexual perversion, the permissiveness in society! I deplore it God! But unless you rend the heavens and come down and I’m saying to you this morning, God I’m not going to lift a carnal finger to make a good meeting – I will worship you and keep my spirit open but I won’t simulate a prophecy and I won’t manufacture a healing. But God – here we stand. Our eyes are upon you! God this morning our eyes are on you! We’re not match for international problems – we’re no match for this thing or that. As far as the world is concerned they walk right past our door. They don’t hate us! We don’t even deserve their hatred. They ignore us. If they hated us it would mean that we drew their attention but they don’t hate us because they don’t even know we’re here.

And God there is no way we are going to try and make it happen. We’re not going to go out and confront them on the street – no we don’t want that Lord! But oh! Rend the heavens and come down! Visit this vine which Thou hast planted! This is Your people Lord! You said you’d prune and visit and water them! You said you’d make them flourish and make them grow! And God we want to open our hearts to that element of surprise that has characterised You from that moment when You spoke worlds into existence right down to the time when you incarnated Yourself in the virgin womb of a peasant girl! Right down to that time when You came into our lives with such an impact of Your glory that we didn’t expect. Do it again Lord! Do it again!"

And as if in confirmation as I was writing this post - a personal prophecy has come to me from a respected Newfrontiers prophet. He didn't know my personal circumstances and couldn't know. The "secrets of my heart" have been revealed. I think the surprise may be coming! And it can't come soon enough.

Dave Bish on the Song of Solomon

Dave has written an excellent post recently that thanks to Twitter I noticed. He interacts with Tom Gledhill, author of the BST Song of Songs and the article on it in the New Dictionary of Biblical Theology and Gledhill's views on this beautiful book. Gledhill follows (or maybe is to blame) for Mahaney, Driscoll et all and states;

"... there is some biblical justification for a moderate typological approach. But the danger of this hermeneutic is that of thinking that the relationship between the believer and God is highly emotional or even erotic".

He then goes on to state that it is "safer" to "the straightfoward and explicit admonitions of the NT". Dave responds;

"So Gledhill says a moderate typology is fine, but we're to abandon it because:

a) we might take it too far, but can we not restrain ourselves? And what if we permit ourselves to ask whether a less cautious hermeneutic might be fruitful? I'm not saying be wreckless, but let's not run scared. Sounds like an argument for abstinence from alcohol for risk of drunkeness...

b) the NT gives us 'straightfoward' words but Matthew Henry suggests: "when the meaning is found out, it will be of admirable use to excite pious and devout affections in us; and the same truths which are plainly laid down in other scriptures when they are extracted out of this come to the soul with a more pleasing power" Can we not have poetic theology?

c) it's prone to excessive allegoratization, but it's ok for Mark Driscoll to follow Gledhill's lead and interpret the foxes as sexual temptation? Excesses all round I guess, but might we miss some of the riches if we pass over details?I appreciate there are dangers, but I think Gledhill over reacts. Given he concedes there is some basis for this typological approach it seems a shame to throw away the opportunity for this book to testify about Christ and the church for fear of getting carried away with it. I accept it's possible to over-read the text, but perhaps we're more likely to under-read it...".

I don't think I need add anything to this outstanding rebuttal. Once again the danger of no use because of overuse - when rather we should be holding to right use. Fantastically written and I urge you to follow Dave's blog and his teaching.

How Hungry Do I Have to Get?

I sat mesmerised watching this fantastic singer on "America's Got Talent";



And in particular I was grabbed by something he said;

"How hungry do I have to get to really start getting somewhere?".

Hunger. A feeling experienced when one has a desire (usually to eat). The feeling pre-supposes the fact that there is something or someone available to fulfill that desire. What is tragic is that although there is enough food in the world to feed everyone - On the average, a person dies every second as a result of starvation. The body is physiologically conditioned to actually cause pain and discomfort with hunger! It's probably why so many people on diets are miserable!

Hunger is meant to drive us to seek that fulfillment. So if the feeling of hunger for God and more of His Presence pre-supposes the fact that He wants to fulfill that desire then we have two choices when the hunger grows more and more;

1. We can continue to ignore the pains and agonies of hunger and become bitter and cynical and develop a theology of the omnipresence of God but just settle for that and that alone.

2. We can allow the hunger to drive us and drive us to seek Him and find Him when we search for Him with all our hearts and He WILL be found by us!

I think that's why I love watching reality TV shows like "America's Got Talent" and "X-Factor". I love, love, love watching people's hunger for their dreams being fulfilled. Sadly those dreams won't last. Fame is momentary. But we surely are in the best possible position ever - the manifest Presence of God on our lives and with us and walking with us will never fade and it is better than any drug high, any alcohol high, any sexual high. So at times over these past few weeks I've wished the pains would go away but they are pointing to a need!

Fresh oil - His Presence - that is all I ever need!

Ern Baxter on Righteousness and EXPERIENCE!!

Here's the third video clip that I've got so far. I do apologise for the poor quality - for some reason the DVD wouldn't play on the TV so I had to try it out on my laptop. I think the essence of the message comes across though. Once again Ern is just so naturally funny (unlike other preachers who seem to "try" just a bit too hard) - and it really brings the whole message to life!

But he notes an important lack in charismatic life - that sometimes the essential doctrines of justification by grace alone through faith alone can get neglected for the enjoyment of experience. Historically the church has indulged in two gross errors. One is to despise the charismatic neglect of such doctrines and revert to a dead, dry formalism where grace is really a misnomer and legalism tends to creep in. The other is to despise the doctrines of grace and enjoy the day to day experience. The truth that Rob Rufus among others are restoring to the church is that these doctrines bring life and freedom and liberty and actually release a greater glory of experience that lasts!