Hobby Lobby Revisited
Wednesday,
April 17, 2013
Dear ______,
We Don’t Understand Why God Abandoned Us.
We can and
should pray for miracles. We will win
this fight, but not on earth. All the
evidence points to the idea that we are well on our way down the drain. God has been patient with us since 1776 and
before, but His patience is growing thin.
On September 11, 1993, God could have sent His holy angels, our
guardians, to stop the World Trade Center bombing. He didn’t.
Why not? We are so very concerned
with the evil perpetrators of such an outrage.
We should be concerned with the fact that the problem is our own
sin. God withdrew His mighty hand of
protection from us.
Painful Lessons from Church History.
Shortly after
my birth on September 11, 1937, I was baptized in the Swedish Lutheran Church
in America (better known as the Augustana Synod). By that time, the Swedish Lutheran Church had
already been seriously undermined from within, and real faith in God totally
lost to some, who only attended Church out of a dull sense of duty. This growing cancer, this rottenness, this
lack of faith in God, had already grown for centuries (certainly before
1855). If we take Christ seriously, as
we must, we see that this rottenness was always with us: for Christ teaches
that Satan would sow tares in the field of God’s wheat. By 1855, most of European Christianity had
lost confidence that anything in the Bible was true. Pseudo-science had seemingly disproved
miracles, the virgin birth, and pretty much anything else of importance.
Existentialism is on the Wrong Track.
It is
difficult to understand if the Dane, Søren Kierkegaard was a villain or a hero
in such a mess. Kierkegaard (d. November
11, 1855) is the father of Existentialism.
Existentialism, greatly over-generalized, is the idea that even though
something is not true, or it can’t be prove true, that it should be believed
anyway. Existentialism, greatly
over-generalized, is that now famous “Faith is a leap in the dark.” It is hard to tell in this mess if
Kierkegaard is adding foment to this unbelief in God, or if he is a concerned
pastor throwing a life preserver to his dying flock with his last ounce of
strength. Nevertheless, such
pseudo-science, Existentialism, and Kierkegaard are all wrong.
Science is Inadequate.
We, as
engineers and scientists, know that this sort of pseudo-science does nothing to
disprove the miracles of the Bible.
Having given our lives to the study of science, we have learned the
painful lesson that science just isn’t that powerful; man just isn’t that
smart. This sounds a whole lot like
something Paul said around 48-50 AD (1 Corinthians 1:26). Evidently, Paul had a sense of humor. Today, he would write, “The Gospel for
Dummies,” and bind it into a black and yellow paperback. So, we conclude that we, as honest engineers
and scientists, must put a stop to the destruction of the evidence. Yes, the Bible must be opened again, and we
must learn from the beginning the most fundamental rudiments of reality. Duh, reality check.
Christianity Stands on Objective Truth.
Nevertheless,
Christianity stands on objective truth, and we must struggle to recapture and
relearn that objective truth. Christian
faith is not a leap in the dark; it is rather, a walk in the light. It is not difficult to prove objectively that
God exists. Measured statistically, the
odds of doubt are on the order of 1 in billions or trillions: statistically too
small to measure, and for all purposes, zero.
The problem is not that the existence of God is not provable; the
problem is that most observers want to suppress or throw out the evidence. Such blindness can only bring about
death. Consequently, the response most often
voiced is, “I don’t want to hear it.” At
which point we have to walk away, we can’t breathe life into a rock: only God
can do that.
Israel-Judah Fell from Within, not from
Without.
In 722 BC,
Israel was conquered by the Assyrians.
In 586 BC, Judah was conquered by the Babylonians. Neither of these nations was defeated because
of enemies outside their boarders; both of them failed from within. They rotted from the inside out because of
their sin. Finally, God got so disgusted
that He abandoned them: that is why they failed.
In the entire period from 1446 to 586 BC, Israel-Judah was never a great
and powerful nation, not as measured in terms of armies and weaponry. They were a military mouse sandwiched between
gigantic military lions. If the survival
of Israel-Judah was ever dependent on military might these lions would have
crushed them with a single swipe of the paw.
Even Solomon could not muster the might to resist such crushing
defeat. However, God’s Glory lived in the
middle of Israel-Judah; and as long as God’s Glory lived there, Israel-Judah
was untouchable. As soon as God’s Glory
abandoned them, they were crushed.
The Widow for Rescue was Shut.
Then in 4 BC,
God’s Glory returned. He came to His
own, and we did not receive Him (John 1:11).
America is Dying from Within, Too.
What I’m
trying to say is simply this. America is
dying from the inside out because of a fundamental lack of faith in God. Our churches are dying from the inside out
because of a fundamental lack of faith in God.
Many of our churches are already so dead that they should no longer be
called churches. In 1776, America was a
weak nation that prevailed because of great faith. In 2013, America is a great nation that is
writing her own epitaph because of zero faith.
Regaining Real Faith is the Solution.
It is not
that there is a breed of Christian, who is “better than the average bear,”
Holier than thou, more pious than most.
Christianity is not the religion of a collection of pious asses. Christianity is the religion of the
circumcised in heart, a very painful surgery.
Christianity is the religion of broken failures, who know full well that
their only hope rests in the Blood of Jesus Christ and in His Resurrection from
the dead. The Lord Jesus Christ is
coming to get us. That is an objective
hope, made confident by a many thousand-year history of God’s objective faithfulness
among us. Christians simply give their
life, living in that very objective and certain reality.
The Disease is Spiritual, not Political.
The political
problem cannot be fixed, until after the spiritual problem gets fixed. After the spiritual problem gets fixed, the
political problem will take care of itself.
If the spiritual problem is never fixed, America will be destroyed.
Yours in
Christ,
Augie-Herb
