Movies That Take God’s Name in Vain
How should we respond when movies take God’s name in vain? The following is a letter I wrote in response to a friend who asked. Perhaps it will be of use to you.
Hello, ____________. I appreciate your consideration of my opinion, and that you have been patient to wait for it.
Your concerns are ones which I share and, might I add, I hope all Christians, too. The instinct to cringe or even feel anger when we hear God’s name misused indicates a healthy sensitivity regarding the Lord’s honor. To take God’s name in vain is a cardinal offense, one which, in the Mosaic economy, warranted the most severe civil punishments. The unfathomable sacredness of God’s name lies in that it represents his whole character and authority. Respecting it is therefore placed above virtually every other moral question in scripture.
Overcoming Despair About Personal Change
If our only hope of personal change was to let time and nature do their work, we might lose hope that ourselves and others would ever be brought to faith or holiness. Yet one of the deepest works of personal transformation to ever occur was that which happened within Saul on the road to Damascus, and this was accomplished in an instant by the Spirit. [Acts 9, 22] One moment Saul viewed Jesus as his enemy. Then a light appeared from heaven and a voice spoke, “Saul, why are you persecuting me?” As the bitter Pharisee beheld the fearful glory of the Son, a more mysterious light suddenly appeared within his heart—faith, the gift of God. Now in a moment he believed Jesus was his greatest benefactor, for having died to reconcile him, an enemy of God, to the Father at the cross. The greatest change imaginable happened in the twinkling of an eye, when a spiritually dead man was resurrected by God through new birth into spiritual life.
Too often we block our own view of Christ. Yet when we look around ourselves and our present circumstances to the cross and who we are in Him, we suddenly discover fresh beauties to behold.
Why Many Professed Christians Will at Last Be Condemned
Many professed Christians will at last be condemned, who have for the object of their faith, not Christ alone—His freedom to be gracious to whom He chooses; His substitutionary life and death in the place of His elect people; His application of grace to saints by His Spirit—as that upon which they solely rely for acceptance with God. They do not know God’s favor because they seek it behind veiled forms of works-righteousness. Instead of true faith, they lean upon the vain hope that one’s compliance with a set of religious terms, carried out by the power of an unregenerate will rather than resulting from a special act of God’s grace, is that which could activate God’s willingness to receive sinners into heaven.
If one of them should chance upon these paragraphs, he would likely say, “the writer describes someone else. I do not trust in keeping the whole Law like Pharisees.” Yet no matter how seemingly insignificant the duties are which false converts think move the Lord to bestow mercy, they always look to something within their natural selves to be the ultimate determining element in God’s choice to forgive. Whether it be the instance when they prayed a “sinner’s prayer”, walked an aisle to sign a faith-card, or swore to “live for Jesus”, they allow the very self-willfulness of these decisions to become the deciding factor in justification. But having faith in faith itself, as the fulfillment of one’s side of the terms to merit grace, is not true Christian faith at all. No, crediting man’s willingness to respond as being that which makes God willing to receive makes the gospel call into a works-contract, and is therefore only subtle legalism.
True faith looks entirely outside one’s self, to the mercy of God eternally fixed in Christ alone. It declares with humble reverence, “I may not know exactly why the Father receives me, but I know it has nothing to do with anything I’ve done, whether good or bad, and everything to do with what God has done for me, and in me, by grace alone through Jesus.”
When my children ask where babies come from, I will not roster myths, such as that infants are delivered by storks. Filling their heads with nonsense is as much a disservice to their little minds, as my lying would be an example of vice upon their souls. It is enough to tell them God forms babies inside of mothers, and that fathers are responsible to take care of them, too. I have never heard of a child who was not satisfied with that answer.
There is nothing which the Church can face in universal tribulation which it has not already faced in local tribulations. Persecution happens. Famine happens. Anarchy happens. Christians must press on no matter where they fall on the eschatological timeline. We must prepare for trials or miss the message of 1 & 2 Thessalonians, and indeed, of Paul’s second missionary journey.
Compare Acts 14:21-22, “When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”
Keeping Your Eyes on Jesus
There are many phrases in popular Christianity which can be difficult to decipher for any practical meaning, an example of which is “keep your eyes on Jesus.” Whatever it means, certainly the idea is not to peer into the sky. The words come from Hebrews 12:1-2, which say, “let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” So then, keeping one’s eyes on Jesus means knowing his teachings and promises in scripture, and believing they represent truth and life, not just for others, but for oneself. And by faith in his Word, deriving energy from the Spirit to persevere in the upward calling. For instance,
“I will never leave you nor forsake you.” [Heb. 13:5] To every believer, this promise is as true as Christ’s own existence.
“Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.” [Matthew 25:23]
Remember the thief on the cross, the one who mocked Christ but afterward repented of his unbelief. He was a saint in this world for mere for hours. During his brief Christian life, the little with which he was faithful was only to believe Christ’s promises of forgiveness, and once or twice compel his fellow robber to repent. Yet this converted thief was greeted that same day in the Kingdom, a victor with Christ over sin and death. He looked to Christ and was saved.
“Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.” [Isa. 45:22]
“For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.” [1 John 5:4]
If not to indulge our lustful appetites openly, the world tempts us in every way to look to our own efforts to be right and approved in God’s sight. Yet faith overcomes this temptation by looking beyond oneself, one’s own circumstances and history, to the finished work of Christ on behalf of believers, finding satisfaction and confidence in all Jesus has promised Himself to be.
For more on what it means to “look unto Jesus”, I recommend this excellent article by J. C. Ryle.
Reflecting on Death with Christopher Hitchens
In reference to his cancer, a host asked Christopher Hitchens, “how are you feeling?”
“Thank you for asking. Well, I’m dying,” he replied. “But so are you…No one is ever more than a breath away from the end. We were born into a losing struggle. We all knew that, or we should, it’s just that I have to think about it a bit more.”
He was right to have the perspective that physical death is inevitable and nearer than we think. But the spiritual sting of death, the fear of what, if anything, comes next, may be removed by the promise that those who rest in Christ’s finished work shall be embraced freely by God in the life to come. For them, personal obedience to the moral law has been removed as the standard by which they enter—or are excluded from—everlasting life.
“I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” [1 Cor. 15:55]
“Your Pastor Dresses Like Judge Judy,” and Other Misconceptions About Black Robes
My pastor happens to wear a plain black robe. Coming from Hawaiian Shirt Evangelicalism, I admit the gown was “different” to me at first. Over time, however, I’ve come to deeply appreciate what it doesn’t say: anything about the pastor’s personal style, wealth, or popular trends. Some may argue the bible says nothing about ministers wearing distinct clothing, or that doing so is “Catholic”. While I can see where they are coming from—I was there, too—I encourage everyone to consider the matter a bit more.
Nowhere in the word does Christ condemn sexual interests in the abstract, but rather such lustfulness as indulges any notion of expressing those desires outside of consensual, loving marriage commitments.
