No Revision Required

Among Christian leaders today, there are few books save the Bible that have been more influential or universally appreciated than Spiritual Leadership by J. Oswald Sanders.  Years ago I read the book and was not impressed.  I am horrified to say that until quite recently I have misjudged Sanders.  Why?  It is because the book I read was not actually written by J. Oswald Sanders.  Was his name on the cover?  Yes.  But I admit that I am indignant of the wretched (my opinion) paraphrase that has been attributed to him by the editors at Moody Press.  The second revision, which are all copies printed after 1994, is a "line-by-line revision."  Why they thought it necessary to butcher the latest edition in the process, I will never know.  What I do know is that this revision is a shadow of what J. Oswald Sanders actually wrote.  The original and first revision by Sanders are powerful, inspired, and dynamic.

You be the judge.  Here is a passage from the 1st revision printed in 1989:

Self-sacrifice is part of the price that must be paid daily.  A cross stands in the way of spiritual leadership, a cross upon which the leader must consent to be impaled.  Heaven's demands are absolute.  "He laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren" (1 John 3:16).  The degree to which we allow the cross of Christ to work in us will be the measure in which the resurrection life of Christ can be manifested through us. "Death worketh in me, but life in you."  To evade the cross is to forfeit leadership.  (page 142)

Here is the same paragraph rendered toothless and impotent in the second revision by editors in 1994:

This part of the cost must be paid daily.  A cross stands in the path of spiritual leadership, and the leader must take it up.  "Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.  And we ought to lay down or lives for our brothers" (1 John 3:16).  To the degree the cross of Christ is across our shoulders and over our backs, so the resurrection life of Christ is manifest through us.  No cross, no leadership. (page 116)

Frankly, I am outraged that anyone in the cause of "revising Spiritual Leadership for the Christian living today" (page 9, 2nd revision, 1994) could do such a thing.  You have failed in this instance, Moody Press.  I regret to think of all the time spent trashing a Christian classic.  I am no literary expert, and my meager education perhaps does not afford me the right to say anything on the matter.  But I know this:  classics do not need revision.  The editors write, "Although we have changed the wording extensively, we have remained faithful to the original meaning and intent of each passage" (pages 9-10).  Based upon the examples cited above, I doubt anyone would agree with you.  What would John Oswald Sanders say?

This is a classic example of building on slippery sand.  J. Oswald Sanders built upon the foundation of Jesus Christ and a lifetime of experience following Him.  The editors at Moody built upon the foundation of Sanders.  It is faulty in this instance, and will always remain the case.  I am angry about this injustice.  Worse than this however, think how people have paraphrased the Word of God!  I am not a hard-core "KJV only" man, but with the abundance of paraphrased volumes of "scripture" these days the risk for error is horrible.  Classics need no revision.  The Bible should be translated straight out of the original texts.  I like the fact I can refer to the Strong's Concordance and know the Hebrew or Greek behind the English I read in my Bible.  A single word of God is mightier than all the volumes composed and revised by men combined.

The lesson?  Choose your books carefully.  Pay attention to when the book was written and who revised it.  If you own a copy of Spiritual Leadership printed after 1994, throw it away and buy a 1st edition copy used from Alibris.com or something!  Most of all, make sure the Bible you hold in your hands is the Word of God.  Use the translations which have withstood the test of time, not the remix or flavor of the month.  Don't read versions which intentionally blunt the power of the original.  The Bible is already relevant.  If we are not agreeable to the Word of God, it's not the Word's fault:  it's us.

Walking with Us

I've been working nights this week, and the hours are exceptional to wreak havoc on my daily schedule and writing routine!  I'm looking forward to the weekend when I can spend time with the family.  It's been nice to see Laura a bit during the day, but I have not seen my kid's faces since Monday.  In a word, LAME.

I was encouraged yesterday during my morning devotional time.  I'm in the book of Deuteronomy, and it ranks high among my personal favorites.  Deuteronomy 2:7 reads, "For the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hand. He knows your trudging through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing."  Here are the initial impressions God placed upon my heart:

This is not presumption, for God knows His people.  He can say, "Thou hast lacked nothing" because He provided for every need all along the way, never skipping a day.  He does not say, "That's good enough for you!" but "You lacked nothing because I know you and your needs, and I abundantly supplied them."  What kind of God is it who does not know?  No god at all.  Notice that God does not require His people to find Him (for they never could alone) but goes with them always.  This is how he maintains such intimate knowledge of His people, their trials, needs, and desires.  Has not our God said, "I am with you always?"  God does not abandon His people in their time of great need:  He remains with them.  He blesses them along the way, though they are in the wilderness.  He does not leave in times of hardship or appear only at the oasis - He IS an oasis of life, constantly affirming, providing, protecting, and sustaining His own.  While for forty years they walked, God walked among them.  All the works of our hands are blessed when God shines His gracious presence upon us.

I am reminded of the Psalm 23 passage:  "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me."  The world must run to their gods and idols, vainly pursuing what always eludes their grasp.  Religion after religion is filled with the proud trappings of man doing something to obtain favor or an audience with God through suffering or sacrifice.  Christianity is different from them all, because our Savior Jesus Christ has come to us as a suffering sacrifice for our sin.  While people frantically are trying to bring peace on earth through political process, philanthropy, and education, Jesus has become our peace through repentance and faith in Him.  Instead of leaving us alone He has sent the Holy Spirit as our Helper and Comforter, and has set up in our hearts His kingdom.  This is made clear in Luke 17:20-21:  "Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, "The kingdom of God does not come with observation; [21] nor will they say, 'See here!' or 'See there!' For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you."  Christ will one day set up His physical kingdom on earth after His return.  To partake in the glory of that kingdom He must first usher that kingdom into our hearts through faith and the power of the Gospel.

Amazing, to have a relationship with the KING of Kings!  Through technology we can have a semblance of "closeness" or connectivity to those we love.  Phone and video calls bring the face and voice of those far away into our own room.  But the reality is they are still not close.  They remain sometimes thousands of miles away.  That little window of time of communication can provide so much relief from anxiety:  how much more peace and comfort can be received from the indwelling presence of God within our hearts?  The most advanced "smart" phone is as crude and unsophisticated as smoke signals compared to the connection we share with God through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.  He will never leave us or forsake us.  Jesus came to seek and save the lost.  Praise God for that truth!  He is with us whether we trudge through the wilderness or through the valley of the shadow of death.  Let us follow Him in wonder!

The Life of Christ

"It was one of the immeasurable evils which the Roman Catholic Church inflicted on Christendom, that it held constantly before the eyes of the Church the exhausted, suffering, agonized form of Christ on the Cross - fastened the thought and imagination of Christian men on the extremity of His mortal weakness - and so deprived them of the animation and the courage inspired by the knowledge that He is now on the throne of the Eternal.  A similar loss may be inflicted on ourselves if our thoughts are imprisoned within the limits of the earthly life of Christ, and if we do not exult in His resurrection and in His constant presence in the Church.  The historic Christ is the Object of memory; the present, the living Christ, is the Object of faith, the Source of power, the Inspiration of love, the Author of salvation.  Christ must be infinitely more than an august and pathetic tradition to us.  He is the Contemporary of all generations."

- R. W. Dale, His Part and Ours by Baxter, pg. 92

I must ask myself:  is my life a demonstration of one who exults in Christ's resurrection and His constant presence in the Church?  This is a subjective question due to the fact my answer depends entirely upon my limited view of the life provided by Christ.  Perhaps I live as if He remains upon the cross.  Christ then is nothing more than one who suffered.  Suffer He did, and more than I can ever know.  But He did more than suffer and die:  He rose glorified, breaking the chains of death which bound His mortal body by His righteous power.  Some would say the cross is the emblem of Christianity.  But there is no sign or representation needed when you can have the substance in the risen LORD and Savior Jesus Christ.  Jesus Himself must be our all in all.

Understand that we cannot receive from Christ unless we first receive Him.  We cannot receive forgiveness, peace, joy, or salvation until we repent and our faith is placed in Jesus alone.  Man is quick to receive from God, but is reluctant to give himself to Him.  The rich blessings and bounty found in Christ cannot be separated from Him.  Yet the misconception that man can enjoy eternal benefits from God without Christ is emphasized weekly from pulpits all over the world ad nauseam.  Preachers rarely explain why we have a need for Christ.  Instead, they focus carefully on what we need from Him.  Receiving is emphasized over believing.  Believing is often limited to our brains where faith does not tread.  We must trust God and give ourselves completely to Him.  We can try to receive things from God all day long, but the offer is only to those who receive Christ first.  That qualifies and enables us to receive from God because we are in Him and He in us.

Every man, whether he regards God or not, is wholly blessed by God.  Yet as followers of Jesus Christ, when we see His perfection we see our great lack.  We are struck with our lack of devotion, confess we are prone to wander and sin, and fail to continually walk in the victory Jesus has purchased with His own blood.  There is a way we can live which is devoid of God's power.  But Jesus is more than a "friend next to ya:"  His power is within us due to the Holy Spirit's regenerating presence.  Can we walk in newness of life if the old man is free to roam?  Can we walk in holiness when we refuse to crucify ourselves with Christ so we too may die to self and live for God?

Galatians 2:20-21 says, "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."  On the jobsite the other day I heard two high school buddies reminiscing about their days of youthful hedonistic conquest.  One man kept repeating, "Those were the days, you know?  Those were the days."  The longing was as Lot's wife, whose head turned back towards Sodom.  God offered her a new life outside of that den of iniquity and death, but there was a draw within her that caused an almost involuntary urge to look back with affection.  Our life before Christ was no life at all.  Without Christ our emblem might as well have been a skull and crossbones set aflame by hell.  Now to live is Christ, to die is gain.  Is this just a cute catchphrase or the absolute truth?  Our life is now bound up in our risen LORD and Savior, Jesus.  Let us not seek to simply receive from God, but give ourselves completely to Him.  It is in giving ourselves that we can receive.  It is after we receive that we can walk in His strength and power.

God Laughs

We have a family routine after eating dinner.  Like my family did when I was growing up, we read a portion of scripture from the Bible.  As we read Psalm 2 today, God gave me fresh insight to that familiar passage. The first three verses read like this:  "Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? [2] The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, [3] "Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us."  This is the exact thing man has been doing since Adam's fall into sin:  man continues to rebel against the righteous commands of God.  It used to make news when the 10 Commandments were removed from justice halls, schools, and war memorials.  Not anymore.

With each passing day, the government and culture of every nation seems to drift further and further from Biblical values.  This "drift" is more like an intentional departure!  It has been a slow, subtle, abandonment of godliness and a pursuit of humanism according to godless philosophy.  Those who hold to conservative Christianity tend to either become fierce advocates of political activism, throw up their arms in helplessness, or others wring their hands in fear.  Some simply bury their heads in the sand in willful ignorance.  We know that things will wax worse and worse, and man's departure from God and pursuit of sin will become as in the days of Noah before Christ returns.  Darkness is called light, and light is called intolerance.  What is your response when you see nations and people defy God with their laws?  Many rejoice in their "victory" when Christian values are thrown aside and replaced with outright wickedness.  What is God's reaction?

Psalm 2:4-6 explains:  "He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision. [5] Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure: [6] "Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion."  People think they can overthrow the power of God by removing His laws and replacing them with their own.  God laughs at their attempt!  While we cringe in fear of "what this world is coming to," God laughs.  "Ridiculous!  I have already set up my Anointed on His everlasting throne!  He is the KING of Kings!  Your laws are no law!"  He sees the victory parades, the mocking, hatred, and the scorn blasted towards those who cling to righteousness.  The Day is coming when He will do something about it.  He has made a decree, and no law of man can overrule Him!

Psalm 2:7-12 says, "I will declare the decree:  The Lord has said to Me, "You are My Son, today I have begotten You. [8] Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession. [9] You shall break them with a rod of iron; you shall dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel." [10] Now therefore, be wise, O kings; be instructed, you judges of the earth. [11] Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. [12] Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him."  Those who rebel against God will be smashed into pieces like a clay pot, both in the spiritual and physical realm.  It is wisdom to honor God with our laws and ordinances.  God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance - even those (like all Christians at one time) who once opposed Him in thought, word, and deed.  He tarries now, but He will not tarry forever!

Blessed are those who trust in Jesus Christ.  He is the King of all, the Creator and Master of all things.  Satan is the prince of this earth, steeped in sin and incapable of repentance.  Praise God He has given us opportunity to honor Him with our lives and repent!  Instead of trading barbs with those who oppose God, let us be firmly against their position yet choose to demonstrate God's love toward each person.  No matter what happens on earth, God remains on the throne.  Jesus is worthy to be trusted and obeyed.  He comes quickly, and His reward is with Him!