Are some sins unforgivable?

Question from the youth group to the church elders: Are some sins unforgivable?

Yes. Jesus says there is an unforgiveable sin. In Mark 3:29 he says, "But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin." 

But what exactly is it? In this case, the Pharisees heard Jesus’ teaching and saw Jesus’ miracles, and they were experts in the Scriptures which predicted his arrival, but when he came they not only rejected Jesus but said he was working with the power of Satan. So it was a whole-hearted rejection in response to an extraordinary amount of gracious revelation by God.

On the other hand, the Apostle Paul was a Pharisee who also rejected Christ and blasphemed God. Yet God graciously convicted him of sin and brought him to repentance and faith (Acts 9).

I don’t think we can figure out exactly what the unforgivable sin is. Jesus didn’t spell it out in detail. But it should make us very sober that a person could arrive at such a place.

And if you are sober about this you’ll be asking, "Have I committed the unforgiveable sin?" The unbelieving Pharisees wouldn’t have even asked this question because they were so confident of their righteousness. So if you are asking the question, it’s a good sign that God has given you a humble and repentant heart. God promises that "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Rom 10:13). God delights in forgiving all repentant sinners (Luke 15).

But we should never take his grace for granted. We can’t play around with sin thinking we can always repent tomorrow. The day may come when you have become so hardened and blinded by your sin that you no longer want to repent, which is a horrible place to be (Heb 12:17).

How do you know the Bible is true?

Question from the youth group to the church elders: How do you know the Bible is true?

I’d like to start by answering a similar question in reverse: How do you not need to know the Bible is true?

If you are convinced that Darwinian evolution and the laws of physics and theories of multi-verses can explain how we got here, then you have no reason to believe the Bible. If you can look at the most intricate biological system or the most picturesque landscape and are confident that it just happened by no cause and for no reason, then you have no need for the Bible. And no explanation of why the Bible is special will compel you.

On the other hand, if you think there must be a creator, then that changes everything. You can’t get something from nothing. And if you think a bit more, you realize you can’t get the personal from the impersonal, so the only way to explain us as persons, with morality and rationality and language and artistry, is if the creator is personal. And if there’s a personal God, then you can expect that he would communicate with the persons he made. And if God is going to communicate, then you need to ask if there is any place or time in human history where it appears that God has communicated. And now you can start asking serious questions about the Bible.

And once you start asking serious questions, you’ll see there’s no book like it.

It spans thousands of years of time, across many major civilizations verified by archaeology.

It was written by dozens of men, yet has a consistent story that traces from Genesis to Revelation.

It contains prophesies of historical events which are fulfilled hundreds of years later in its history.

It describes the human condition perfectly: that man is created good but has fallen into sin. That man is like God yet separated from God.

And it presents a Savior who is unlike any other. The main reason to believe the Bible is to read it and meet Jesus. He doesn’t present himself as a moral teacher or a wise man or a leader of men. He presents himself as the Savior of the World: the sinless man who lays down his life to save sinful humanity and to redeem all creation for himself.

If you don’t meet Jesus and aren’t compelled by the force of who he is and what he did, then you can always find some technical reason to dismiss the Bible. But once you see the power and beauty of who he is, you learn the treasure the Bible as God’s Holy Word.

Will the Book of Revelation happen in our lifetime?

Question from the youth group to the church elders: Do you suspect what is prophesied in Revelation will happen in our lifetime and if not then when?

The book of Revelation is very hard to interpret. The main themes are clear, like the victory of God, the defeat of Satan, the hope of the saints and the despair of the lost. If you were a 1st century Christian facing persecution from Rome, this book would have given you great comfort. However bad Caesar’s soldiers and lions were, Christ was coming soon and all the powers of this world and hell don’t have a chance against him.

But Christians differ wildly on how to pin down exactly what the symbols mean and where the timeline of the book fits into world history. So I’ll give you a few standard options, then I’ll tell you what I think.

There are four basic views:

• Futurist – The book talks about events that are still in the future for us. They will all happen at the end of this world.
• Preterist – The book talks about events that were in the immediate future for 1st century Christians, but are largely in the past for us. Much is about the destruction of the temple in 70 AD.
• Historicist – The book talks about the history of the church over the centuries, including major conflicts like the persecution by Rome, the spread of Islam, the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church, etc. 
• Idealist – The book is not talking about historical events at all, past, present or future. We should read it as a story and pull out the spiritual themes.

So, what am I? I’d consider myself a "partial preterist", but I’m unclear how partial I am. I think in chapters 13 and 17 John is talking about current events in the Roman world with thinly veiled language. The original readers would have understood the Roman Caesars he was calling out.

Next, I think the Great Prostitute of chapter 17 may be a symbol of unbelieving Judaism, which hints that chapter 18 is the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, not the destruction of a future world system. Check out 11:8 which clearly identifies "the great city" with Jerusalem, not Rome.

However, I’m still a futurist for other parts of the book, especially at the end. I think chapter 20 talks about the church age which is still ongoing and chapters 21 and 22 are still in the future. And for that, I would follow Jesus’ words, "Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come." It could be very soon, even in our lifetime.

Book Review: Desiring God, Piper

In 1986 John Piper wrote Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist as a new perspective on orthodox Christian theology. A hedonist is someone who lives for pleasure, which Piper argues is true of all humans. Instead of denying and resisting our longing to be happy, he writes "we should seek to intensify it and nourish it with whatever will provide the deepest and most enduring satisfaction." But what is the most satisfying, beautiful, desirable thing that exists? It is God himself!

With continuous exposition of Scripture, Piper shows that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. The call to believe in God is a call to delight ourselves in him. Our worship of God is the joy of tasting and seeing how wonderful He is. In each chapter Piper shows how service, money, marriage, missions and all of life is transformed by delighting in God.

Ultimately the philosophy of Christian Hedonism is grounded in the sovereign pleasure of God. Psalm 115:3 says, "Our God is in the heavens; he does whatever he pleases." We were created by a happy God who works all things for the praise of his glory and who graciously calls us to enjoy him forever.

If you think books on theology are dry and dusty, be careful picking this up. You may not be ready for the shock.

Book Review: Adopted for Life, Moore

In Adopted for Life, Russell Moore presents a Christian vision for adoption. He shares from his personal experience adopting two of his boys from a Russian orphanage and also from his training as a pastor, Bible teacher and leader in the Southern Baptist Convention. Moore asks, “What if we as Christians were known, once again, as the people who take in orphans and make of them beloved sons and daughters?”

Moore draws theological parallels between the Gospel story and the adoption of orphans today. He identifies the satanic scheme at play in Herod’s bloodthirsty slaughter of the infants of Bethlehem as well as America’s abortion culture, and then contrasts that to Joseph’s willingness to be an adoptive earthly father to Jesus.

The book has helpful advice and challenging questions to consider if you are thinking about adoption or foster care yourself, but is also beneficial if you would like to better relate to those who have adopted or have been adopted. It is a call for each of us to be like God who is a father to the fatherless and to love the orphans among us.