Peter Witkowski Discipleship, Evangelism

King Saul: The Progressive, Liberal Faith of the OT

liberalThe core of liberal Christianity is not the brain child of twentieth and twenty-first century theologians. People who wore tunics and rode in chariots were writing off the Bible as being too harsh, too outdated, and too confining long before ascot adorned professors arrived on the scene. In fact, Adam and Eve wrestled with this very question of the whether or not God really said what he meant. “Did God really say, not to eat the fruit?”

In 1 Samuel 15, we come across another precursor of liberal Christianity. God commands Saul to annihilate the Amalekites because they had abused the nation of Israel and other people groups. By obeying God’s command, Saul would fulfill a divine prophecy. In Exodus 17:14-16, God had declared, “I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.”  If Saul fails to destroy Amalek, he would violate the Word of God just a a child violates the Word of God by stealing. God said, “You shall not steal.” 

Sadly, Saul fails to obey God’s command. The text reports that

Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of that fattened calves and the lambs, and all that was good and would not utterly destroy them. All that was despised and worthless they devoted to destruction (1 Sam. 15:3).

Saul and his army profited from those they were sent to execute. The Jews under Saul were like a prisons guard stealing a convicts Air-Jordan’s and Apple watch as he received a lethal injection.

Saul and the people seemingly disobey God’s Word for personal profit. Though their actions would cause most of us to gag, we can still relate to the two heart desires driving Saul: a desire to be relevant and a desire to be liked. The king refuses to kill Agag because Kings in the ancient world considered the killing of other kings bad Karama. The cultural thing to do was to kill the armies and the people but to spare the king. And so, Saul spares King Agag even though he had spent his reign terrorizing and murdering women and children (1 Sam. 15:23).  As the great theologian John Calvin noted:

“Here then was Saul’s sin; He wished to be more merciful than God.”

Saul looked at his culture and concluded that God’s commands were too harsh and so he lessened them.

Postmodern, progressive Christians often make the same argument. They deem the prohibitions against sex outside of marriage, homosexuality, and divorce to be too harsh. The liberals know that Bible-deniers are some of the most powerful and popular people in their community. If they cling to the Bible, they will offend the powerful and lose social status.

To maintain their relationship to the divine, progressive souls must declare that God has changed his view of sexuality declaring yesterday’s evil to be today’s holiness. As Saul before them, liberal Christians extend the mercy of God to keep pace with the cultural elites.

Second, Saul disobeys God because he feared the common people. He wants to please the people and so he fails to follow God’s Word to the letter. The people desire nice stuff, so Saul allows his troops to profit from the execution of Amalekites. He feared men more than he feared God.

The fear of man continues to plague modern men and women of faith. No one wants to be hated, picked last for kick-ball, or discover that they are in the minority on any substantive issue. We feel a lot more confident when we are part of the 90% of America as oppose to 10%. Yet those who follow the Word of God are promised perpetual minority status. Jesus said, “because you are not of this world…the world hates you (John 15:19).”

But, we still love to be loved, creating a problem.

The majority culture that has the greatest reservoirs of human love hates the words of God. Before we can access the culture’s love, we have to repudiate the Bible’s teaching on sin, homosexuality, and the exclusivity of Christ. If we don’t walk back God’s commands, the culture threatens to empty our churches. And sadly, we often listen to our culture, believing the ends will justify the means. We think God will understand that we have to abandon parts of the Bible to reach and influence more people with the Bible. Popularity demands we fear men and women instead of the Scriptures. And so, we follow after Saul and our culture.

Unfortunately for Saul and for liberal Christians, God does not tolerate changes to his commands. God never stutters when he speaks. God is not a college student who needs the opportunity to rewrite his term paper.

The prophet Samuel reports, “The Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret (1 Sam. 15:29).”

God does not change. God never outlaws sexual sin and then regrets his harsh words a few millennia later because he saw how “in-love” two unmarried coeds were.

Those who change the law of God, have not helped God and have not stumbled unto deep religious truth. They have defied God and deserve death. Samuel point blank tells us that ‘Rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.” Those who change the Bible by expanding upon God’s mercy to appease cultural elites or by whipping away truths to appease the masses do not worship the God of the Bible. They worship a false God of their own imagination.

J. Gresham Machen correctly notes that the modern, liberal, progressive Christianity that dominates much of the media, “is fundamentally hostile to the Christian faith.” He goes on to say,

Liberalism is totally different from the Christianity, for the foundation is different. Christianity is founded upon the Bible. It bases upon the Bible both its thinking and life. Liberalism on the other hand is founded upon the shifting emotions of sinful men.

The religion of Saul and of liberalism is a false religion. God hates such half-heart, evolving, man-centered faith because it is not true faith. Samuel tells Saul, “Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king.” Regardless of their titles and their church affiliations, those who disobey the Word of the Lord receive God’s judgment.

According to liberal theologians, children who have grown up talking to Suri will only stay with Jesus if we make his teachings more culturally aware and relevant. King Saul made this same argument long before radios, cars, and airplanes dotted the earth. God was not impressed then and he is not impressed now.

The Bible has never been modern enough for even the most rudimentary of people. But it has always been true. Will you believe it?

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Salvation: Correcting Misconceptions About God

assurance“Salvation, if we may so put it, is entirely the idea of God; it emanates from and has its source and origin in God the Father. Now this is a staggering thought! So often you and I feel we have to placate God because of sin, sin in us, sin in our mind and whole outlook and thought, sin in the world. We tend to think of God as being opposed and antagonistic to us, and therefore we are always thinking of him as Someone we have to appease and placate. We regard God as Someone who is unwilling to be kind and gracious to us and to love us. We think of him as Someone in the far distance in his eternal glory and absolute righteousness who is not well disposed towards us. We feel we have to put forward these great efforts in order to get him to look upon us with favour.

71Wwnwoz12LThis is a complete fallacy. Salvation has originated in the mind of God – it is God’s own purpose…

It is not only God’s idea…it has been perfectly planned from the very beginning to the very end. Here we come to something that is the source of the deepest assurance and consolation that any Christian person can ever know in this wold of time. What could be more comforting and reassuring than the fact that there is nothing contingent about this salvation. nothing accidental, nothing that needs modification? It is a perfect plan. God has planned it from eternity before the foundation of the world, it is eternally in the mind of God.”

The above selection comes from pages 57-58 of D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ book, The Assurance of Our Salvation . Click here for more info.

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Christians Should Be Confident People

confidentChristians should be confident about life.

Such confidence is not derived from ignorance nor from an over appreciation of one’s ability. The faithful Christian is not the person who thinks himself or herself adequate to every task whether that be run-blocking for the New England Patriots or trading commodities in Tokyo. The Scriptures clearly state that God has given people specific talents to specific people for the purpose of blessing humanity. Though equal in value, we are not equal in function.

When God zeros in on his people, the church, he describes them as a body. God designed us to work in unison with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. We are not competent for every task. But we should be confident in the Lord regardless of what we are doing and what is going on around us.

In short, our emotions should be determined by our understanding of the Lord and not our circumstances. And those who understand the power of God cannot help but be confident in their God.

In 1 Samuel 14, Saul and his army had become so petrified that they can no longer act like an army. Their fear is not without merit. The Israel’s army had 3,000 men who had recently assassinated a Philistines governor and his security detail. Responding to Hebrew’s bravado, the Philistines sent 30,000 troops crashing into the Hebrew countryside. Saul’s small and terrified force was no match for the Philistine army. Saul who had boasted of his military muscle only few days earlier now sat motionless. While he waited, His nation and army feel into disarray. People were literally running to the hills for safety. Saul had no hope because his circumstances contained only gloomy clouds of despair.

But not all in the Israelite camp were despairing. In 1 Samuel 14:6 we read,

Jonathan said to the young man who carried his armor, “Come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be that the Lord will work for us, for nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or by few.”

Jonathan knew that God was not limited by Jonathan’s circumstances. God did not need his health, money, power, abilities, or connections to carry out his plans. God rules. He controls the stars, the waves, the hearts of men and women, the birds, and even the tiny blades of grass. God reigns! But God is more than sovereign, God is good! Jonathan’s God had promised never to “abandon you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers, which he swore to them by oath (Deut. 4:31).” Though the odds were stacked against Jonathan, he went forward boldly for he knew the power and character of his God.

Friends as we wrestle through life, we should have Jonathan’s confidence times two. Jonathan went forward knowing the promise of God’s power. We go forward having experienced the fullness of God’s power. Jesus has died on the cross for our sins and he has risen from the dead, delivering us from the power of sin. Because of Christ work, Christians have a confidence that atheists, Mormons, and Muslims can never have. We have the confidence of knowing that we are right with God. We know that nothing can change that status. Nothing take away our hope of salvation. As Paul writes in Romans 8:31-38:

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;

    we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Christians should be confident people. Even when we feel the pain of cancer, the pressures of being jobless, and hardships that come with broken relationships, we can be confident in the power of Christ.  Like Jonathan, we can say, “Let’s see what glorious thing God will do today!”

Our circumstances do not define us. Our God does!

We should expect our God to work. God hears Jonathan’s expression of faith and gives the prince an incredible victory over the Philistines. Jonathan, his armor bearer, and the discombobulated army of Israelites defeat an army of 30,000 well trained troops. God does the impossible.

God is not done doing the impossible. He has not kicked off his shoes and sat down to play Candy Crush while we eek out an sad existence in the twenty-first century. Paul reminds us that our God “is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us.”  Our Lord and savior is still in the business of healing the sick, redeeming the broken, and sanctifying the redeemed. God used Luther to begin the reformation, Wilberforce to overturn slavery, and Jim Eliot to reach the Huaorani people. If you find yourself overwhelmed by circumstances that seem beyond rescue, implore the Lord for help! P. B. Power reminds us, “Man’s expectation is generally a prelude to God’s action.” Expect God things from God! 

This is not to say we expect God to do all our holy will. Yet, we should expect God to do all that is good and all that is best for us. We should always be confident of God’s goodness and love. We should be confident in our God!

Do you have the confidence of Jonathan?