I had expected much more.  From outside, the Hindu temple in Dehra Dun, northern India, was ornate and impressive.  But as Anand Samuel and I entered the temple, it was just a big room with cold concrete flooring.  (We had removed our shoes before entering.)  There were no priests, no teaching, no choirs, although music played outside all day long over loudspeakers.  Painted flowers and Hindi signage covered the walls inside, warning adherents not to offer money to Shiva, the “Destroyer,” and not to be flippant in their acts of worship but to take them seriously.  

A worshipper arrived and rang one of the bells in the entryway.  Sounding the bell alerts the temple deity that a worshipper has arrived.  She paused, bent down and kissed each step as she approached the altar, where she bowed and prayed to Shiva, whose statue was inside the holy place surrounded by flowers and cobra statues.  She received a dish of fruit, offered it to the god, and then ate it as an expression of dependence and faith.  And then she was gone.

What struck me was how hopelessly deceived this woman was.  

Their idols are silver and gold, made by the hands of men.
They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but they cannot see;
they have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but they cannot smell;
they have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but they cannot walk;
nor can they utter a sound with their throats.
Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.

—Psalm 115:4-8

Who knows why the worshipper was there in the temple that night?  Perhaps she was guilt-ridden for her sins, trying to justify herself by performing these acts.  Maybe tragedy had struck in her life, or she was giving thanks for something good that had occurred, or she feared that the Destroyer would strike a loved one.  Whatever motivated her, she was immersed in demonic deception. Idolatry isn’t a legitimate cultural expression of the divine spark within all of us.  No, Paul wrote, “what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God” (1 Cor 10:20).

Of course, we’re no different.  All of us by nature are every bit as deceived as that poor woman last week in Dehra Dun.  We are all “blinded by the god of this age” (2 Cor 4:4) until gospel light shines in our hearts to deliver us. In God’s infinite mercy he has given us his true Son from heaven, the Lamb of God, perfectly revealing the Father’s character.  Jesus Christ is the “radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of God's being” (Heb 1:3).   Praise God that, through no merit of our own, he has delivered us from idolatry and futility and brought us into a relationship with the living God!

I came away from the temple in Dehra Dun with the following lessons for my life:

1. Praise God for the Bible.  

 

Idol worshippers are “darkened in their understanding” (Eph 4:18), but we have received the light of revelation.  God has not only appeared in this sinful world, he has spoken to us!  He has revealed true truth, in such a way that we can read and understand and hear directly from our Creator.  As John Frame has written, “Consider the immense significance of the fact that the Creator of heaven and earth, who sovereignly governs all the affairs of the universe, actually knows, befriends, even loves human beings—and that he speaks to us.”  What a priceless gift, that we are delivered from demonic deception, and set free to enjoy genuine communion with our Lord.

Have you taken this gift for granted?  Countless millions of idol-worshippers have no access to “the word of truth,” but by grace you have!

He has revealed his word to Jacob, his laws and decrees to Israel. He has done this for no other nation; they do not know his laws. 
Praise the LORD. —Psalm 147:19-20

2. The Bible is all we need for life and godliness.  

 

In the ancient near east, many pagan temples resembled Shiva’s temple in Dehra Dun or Israel’s temple in Jerusalem: there was a holy place within the temple, reserved only for the priestly caste and the holiest occasions.  Do you know what was commonly kept in that holy room?  An idol, a representation of the god himself.  Contrast that with what was kept in Israel’s most holy place: a Book.   

 

God has spoken.  He has revealed himself in true and living words, “so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:17).  We need no further data, image or instruction.  Scripture is sufficient for all of life. God does not require us to believe anything about Himself or His redemptive work that is not found in Scripture. Nothing is required of us by God that is not commanded in Scripture either explicitly or by implication.  No wonder the psalmist said, “Oh, how I love your law!  It is my meditation all the day” (Ps 119:97).

3. Merely knowing the Bible is not enough. 

The demons know the Bible.  Satan himself tempted Jesus by saying, “It is written…” (Luke 4:8).  Just because we possess the Bible, just because we read it and understand it correctly, does not mean we have been delivered from the devil’s schemes.  So deceptive are our hearts that we can become puffed up with pride at our Bible knowledge.  We can regard idol worshippers as beneath us, forgetting that we by nature were also “futile in our thinking” (Rom 1:21).

 

Without the Spirit of God, the Word of God is forever closed to us.  “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor 2:14).

 

Remember: Jesus’ chief opponents were religious leaders—the chief priests and scribes.  They knew their Bibles better than anyone else.  But they didn’t know Jesus.  On one occasion he said to them, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life.  These are the Scriptures that testify about me; yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:39).

 

How tragic—to know the Word (unlike the idol worshippers) and yet fail to see the main point of it all! The glory of the Bible is that it points to the living Christ, who said, “These are the Scriptures that testify about me.”

 

Think of the Bible as a living signpost, unerringly pointing you toward Jesus.  As J. I. Packer said, “The written word of the Lord leads us to the living Lord of the Word.”  Therefore, let us approach God’s Word daily with prayer and reverence, and with a grateful anticipation for what we will find there. 

 

The lady at Dehra Dun, the one who rang the bell and kissed the steps, did not know the true God—but you can know him.  She was captive to Satan’s blinding power—but you need not be.  Turn to the Word of Christ, feed on it every day, because there we can come to Jesus by God’s grace.  

Jesus, not Shiva, is the true Destroyer.  Shiva’s followers claim he will one day destroy the universe, ushering in yet another hopeless cycle of death and re-birth.  But Jesus Christ is the true Destroyer: he will destroy death itself, once and for all.  

 

Christ appeared in this world and laid down his life for us on the cross, “that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Heb 2:14-15).

 

Shiva has enslaved millions, but his days are numbered: “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).  The true Destroyer of death, Jesus, is also the giver of life.  Let us enter into that life by “receiving with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21).

I’ve heard it from both sides, if not always so forthrightly.

“How many people now go to that church? It’s huge! It must be the music. Or maybe they have lasers and a smoke machine. I hope we never sell out like that.”

Or,

“How many people even go to that church? It’s so small! They haven’t baptized a believer in years. Their influence and importance is basically nil. I hope we are never irrelevant like that.”

I realize people rarely state their opinions so candidly, but the sentiments are out there. And both sides have a point. Some big churches are more show than substance. They may have thousands of people, but they sacrificed maturity, depth, truth-driven preaching, biblical ecclesiology, and maybe even the gospel to get there. On the other hand, some small churches are backward and insulated. They may talk a big game about standing for truth, but their small size is less about gospel courage than the fact that they are hyper-critical, dated in the worst ways, and unconcerned about the lost.

Churches can be big or small for all the right reasons. Or for all the wrong reasons. We simply should not conclude that bigger is better or smaller is more sanctified. In God’s eyes, the success of your church and your pastor are measured by criteria more important than weekend attendance. While we must not be scared of bigger numbers or automatically skeptical of them–numbers in the best cases represent people after all, people who are hearing the gospel and bearing fruit–neither should we fixate on numbers. Every church is different, with varying locations, gifts, opportunities, abilities, facilities, people, and cultural contexts that we can’t possibly be so crass as to think big churches are always doing things better than small churches. Surely, the emphasis must be on faithfulness.

If a blessed forgetfulness about numbers seems anti-missional, we should listen to Leslie Newbigin, still one of the most seminal theologians in missional circles as he summarizes the New Testament approach to numbers:

Reviewing, then, the teaching of the New Testament, one would have to say that, on the one hand, there is joy in the rapid growth of the church in its earliest days, but that, on the other hand, there is no evidence that the numerical growth of the church is a matter of primary concern.

There is no shred of evidence in Paul’s letters to suggest that he judged the churches by the measure of their success in rapid numerical growth, nor is there anything comparable to the strident cries of some contemporary evangelists that the salvation of the world depends upon the multiplication of believers.

There is an incomparable sense of seriousness and urgency as the apostle contemplates the fact that he and all people “must appear before the judgment seat of Christ” and as he acknowledges the constraint of Jesus’ love and the ministry of reconciliation that he has received (2 Cor. 5:10-21). But this nowhere appears as either an anxiety or an enthusiasm about the numerical growth of the church. (The Open Secret, 126).

Wise words. We love to see more people loving Jesus and living in greater accordance to his commands, but we should not think church size, when judged by the only Judge that really matters, is a reliable measure of a church’s success or a pastor’s faithfulness.

According to the forty-seventh Psalm, we are to sing the praise of the Lord “with skillfulness.”   I will leave the musical instruction side of that commandment, with its pitches, note reading, beat, proper breathing, harmonizing, etc., to those more gifted than I am in this area (which would be quite a number of people).   Yet a congregation can make vast improvements in its singing even without choral training.  How?  Simply by listening to and obeying the Word of God’s instruction on how we are to sing in the presence of God.  Consider applying in a purposeful way these short exhortations to your singing as you go to the house of the Lord the next time.

1. Sing to the Lord!  So many Scriptural exhortations tell us to sing to the Lord or just place the words in our mouth that we will do so, such as ”I will sing to the LORD, because He has dealt bountifully with me” (Psalm 13:6).   How quickly we can forget that we are before the throne of the Lord who has redeemed us.  He is worthy of all honor and glory and praise.

2. Sing with the Lord!  Our Lord Jesus, who is Immanuel (“God with us”), is with the church whenever it gathers. His church is the very temple of God, and through the continual presence of His Holy Spirit He dwells with us.  We are told that Jesus says, ”I will proclaim Your name to My brethren, in the midst of the congregation I will sing Your praise” (Hebrews 2:12).  When we take His word and its truths upon our lips, His Spirit is there singing with us.  These first two reasons alone should sharpen our singing!

3. Be enthusiastic!  This post was prompted by a recent experience.  Last Thursday evening I was about to step forward to speak again at a youth conference.  To be honest, weariness from some extra pressures right before the conference, including a funeral, had caught up to me.  Though the message was the one I had most looked forward to delivering, I felt drained and empty.  Yet right before I went forward, the youth sang.  Their spirited, robust singing not only filled the room but my heart.  I floated up to the pulpit. My energy returned.   Enthusiasm is contagious.  Regardless of other’s attitudes as they come to church, if  you have the attitude “O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt His name together” (Psalm 34:3), others will be affected.

4. Engage your mind!  You should not read the Bible mindlessly or pray rote prayers.  Neither should you sing this way.  Paul exhorted the Corinthians by personally testifying, “I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also” (I Corinthians 14:15).  Listening to the minister’s introduction to the song, and then singing what the words mean are vital to praising God in truth.  We cannot be loving Him with all our hearts and minds if they are distracted from the words we are using as we sing.

5. Reflect the mood!  Along with using your mind, your singing and face should acknowledge the tone of the song.  When singing penitent psalms and confessing sin, often a more sorrowful note and facial expression are called for.  ”The troubles of my heart are enlarged; bring me out of my distresses.  Look upon my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins” (Psalm 25:17-18).  If a call to Christian duty and battle are ringing forth in the hymn, should not fuller-throated, serious notes be heard from our lips like a war trumpet and looks of determination be seen in our countenance?  At the times when songs are praising the Lord, joy should radiate from us.   “My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God” (Psalm 84:2).

6. Admonish the brethren!  Remember that the Lord is not the only object of your singing.  ”Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Colossians 3:16).  We are to sing into the hearts and lives of those around us as we ourselves become instruments of the Holy Spirit’s ministry to our fellow believers.  Like player-coaches, we are both instructing them in the things of God and then urging them on in faithfulness to sacred truths as we sing.  Your neighbor is supposed to hear you sing!

7. Warn the unbelieving!  Our singing is to be evangelical in nature also.  Unbelievers are to be hearing of the holiness of God and the way of salvation He has prepared in Christ for people.  ”Sing to the LORD, bless His name; proclaim good tidings of His salvation from day to day.  Tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples” (Psalm 96:2-3).  Yet not only do we need to warn them so they will turn to Christ.  We also must warn them of what will happen if they do not.  The early church, after Herod’s threats, sang and prayed from Psalm 2 (see Acts 4:23-31).  This psalm ends with this warning, “Now therefore, O kings, show discernment; take warning, O judges of the earth.  Worship the LORD with reverence and rejoice with trembling.  Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry, and you perish in the way, for His wrath may soon be kindled.  How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!”

8. Finally, lift your voice!  You should sing at a volume that says you want to be heard.  Notice everyone is included in the exhortation, “O clap your hands, all peoples;  shout to God with the voice of joy” (Psalm 47:1).  There are times when our singing should be lifting the roof.

It wasn’t because we were or are Christmas haters. It wasn’t because we didn’t have much money for presents (we didn’t). We told our children that the man in the red suit was the “Christmas clown” on the premise that, while pretending is fun and necessary, the Santa story isn’t quite the same thing. When we were reading pretend stories to our children they knew the convention, that we were making up stories and that we were temporarily entering into a make-believe world, that we were exercising our imaginations about possible worlds. That’s why make-believe stories begin with conventional lines such as “Once upon a time….” This language is a verbal wink. It signals to the participants: “please place your tray in an upright and locked position, turn off your cell phones, and stow your carry-on bag. The flight is taking off.” 

 In the Santa faith, however, there is no such convention. The story is told earnestly and even passionately. Expressions of doubt are met with rebuke and exhortation. Evidence is presented and a defense of the faith is offered. The cookies and milk are gone in the morning. New presents appear. There are other rituals. In my family we opened some presents on Christmas eve. Dad always worked on Christmas eve. As the time approached for him to come home for work, time began to slow. After dinner he would take a nap. While he napped each present was checked meticulously and shaken one more time. Time came to a halt in the annual demonstration of the theory of relativity. The energy of an eager child is equal to the mass of presents under the tree times the length of my father’s nap squared. The rite never varied, at least not while we believed. 

 That’s just it. At some point we learned that the Santa faith isn’t really a true faith at all. It was a complex hoax, a conspiracy even. Santa can’t live your heart if he doesn’t really live at the North Pole. At that moment, in a small but sometimes painful way, we learn that people lie. The pain of the truth is buffered by presents and Christmas cheer but things are never the same. We become just a little bit cynical, perhaps for the first time.

 We decided not to tell our children that there was a Santa because we we did not want our children to suspect that we were liars. If we lied to them about Santa, why weren’t we lying about Jesus and the resurrection? Why weren’t we? After all, they had never seen Jesus. They only had a book, a story, and a story teller. Who can blame them for doubting? If Santa doesn’t really fly through the air then perhaps Jesus didn’t ascend? If Santa didn’t really eat the cookies, then perhaps communion is just a thing we do; it doesn’t really mean anything? 

 In its own way, the Santa myth tells children (and grown-ups) that this really is a closed universe, that there isn’t really any such thing as transcendent reality, that Christmas is really about being nice to one another and thus so is Christianity. Perhaps because they learned a long time ago in the death of Santa? Poetry is a way of talking about transcendent realties. If there are no transcendent realities then poetry is ultimately hollow—there’s nothing to communicate or worse, the message communicated is that there is no message, not really. 

 Some cultural historians tell us that the Santa faith has become more intense in the modern period than it ever was, e.g. in pre-modern times. Perhaps that’s because, having implicitly accepted the the modern notion that it’s no longer possible for rational, modern people to believe in a tri-personal, transcendent God,  that Jesus is God the Son incarnate, that we turned to a new, more credible, more manageable, less demanding deity? After all, he only asks that we be good. The only punishment for failure is possibly that we don’t get that new flat screen. Perhaps Christmas is commercialized not because the Scroogy old capitalists have ruined it but because they’re giving us our heart’s desire?

 Presents and eggnog are great fun. We buy the tree and give presents. Remembering the incarnation of God the Son is a fine thing. It’s great to receive the annual Christmas cards and letters, even if I fail to reciprocate properly. Whatever we do around the holiday, let us remain grounded in real history and let us make sure that when we pretend that we and our children are all on the same page.

Written by:  

Dr. R. Scott Clark

Professor of Church History and Historical Theology at Westminster Seminary California, U.S.A

J.Gresham Machen “The Responsibility of the Church in Our New Age”, in J.Gresham Machen: Selected Shorter Writings, ed. D. G. Hart (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2004), 376.

Break out your favorite picnic cuisine, some blankets, dust off the ole' rugby ball and frisbee!  This weekend UCCD will be gathering at Safa Park for another church picnic!  Come to Safa gate two, head to your left towards the bar-b-que area and enjoy a great time of fellowship!

Serious pastry and coffee consumers may have noticed that something is now missing from the Sherbeck’s Cafe downstairs, namely, the pastries and the coffee. Be at peace, caffeine and sugar addicts, there is a good reason for their disappearance.

A few months ago, myself and several other members put our heads together and began thinking of some small changes that could be made in order to enhance our Friday morning fellowship, and give our church gatherings an even friendlier face. One of the best ideas that surfaced was to move our beverages and snacks from the small cafe downstairs into the hall where our church gathers each Friday morning. From 07 October, we’re putting this plan into action. We trust this will facilitate greater fellowship, meaningful connections with newcomers, and good, sermon-fueled conversations. Rather than scattering for the door after the Friday gathering, we hope that many will choose to stay for a few minutes to enjoy some average coffee and excellent conversation!

Will It Work?

Is serving pastries in Maranatha Hall the magical key to creating the ideal, friendly church gathering? Will coffee percolating in the back of the hall, somehow, unite our congregation in deep bonds of brotherly love? In a word, no, it will not. The fact is, no amount of coffee or tea or cake, served from any corner of our building can replace the friendly, gospel driven engagement of UCCD members lovingly reaching out to one another, to our friends and our guests. It is our responsibility and our joy. With that in mind, may I offer some Friendly Friday Morning Suggestions?

FFMS

1. It’s called the “BELL” principal: Be Early Leave Late. That’s right, I’m aiming a loving challenge at all of the folks who arrive during the last song before the sermon and leave during the last song after the sermon. For whatever reason, hatred of traffic jams or just plain laziness, you are depriving yourself of joyful fellowship, both before and after the church gathering. Let me urge you, set the alarm back, arrive early and stay late. Hebrews 10:24-25 tells us that each time we gather we are to encourage one another, to “spur one another on to love and good deeds”. This simply cannot be done without making the time to engage one another in friendly conversation. I realize that this involves sacrifice. Is it too great a sacrifice for you to make?
2. Be an Expositional Listener. Make use of the sermon notes page in your bulletin, or even better, purchase a small notebook and take notes of the sermon each week. Listen for, and write down the point of the passage preached. Then, write down some good questions or thoughts to share with others after the sermon.
3. Look Out! Be on the look out for newcomers, guests, or just people you don’t know. Perhaps some of you have made the embarrassing mistake of greeting a “newcomer” whose been attending the church for 3 years. I’ve made that mistake, more than once! Rather than asking folks if this is their first Friday at UCCD, may I suggest, “Hi, my name is _______ , how long have you been coming to UCCD?” However you choose to start your conversations, be intentional, be friendly, “out do one another with brotherly affection” (Romans 12:10 ESV) 

Much more could be said and done, but we trust that God, in His graciousness will use us for His glory, and that as we hear His Word faithfully preached, we will be conformed more and more to image of His Son, who prayed this for us:

“...I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

 John 17:20-23