“Winged Missionaries”

If we honor God’s Word, He will honor us – sometimes in some surprising ways. The Canadian Jack Miner was the first one to band ducks and geese (1909). He wanted to discover their migration patterns. However, he did something that ornithologists are not known to do. He attached a Bible verse to the banding. Bruce Malone wrote about the incredible results:

• Over the years, hunters wrote to Miner saying that the Bible verses had changed their lives. Eventually, a missionary from the remote region of Northern Canada came to visit Miner. The missionary stated that a revival had taken place among the Eskimos because of the Bible verses placed on the bird bands! (Bruce Malone, Inspired Evidence)

Miner saw some of the fruit of his faithfulness. Many don’t! We labor through the night, hoping that the coming light will reveal the fruit of our labors. This had been the Apostle Paul’s prayer for us:

• With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that…by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith. We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Thess. 1:11-12)

We too can bank on this!

Intelligent Design vs. Evolution: It’s not a Toss-Up

The body is wondrously designed. Not only does it have the machinery for life, it also has the equipment to maintain life, and this equipment is incredibly complex. The Clotting Cascade involves 10 distinct chemical processes, culminating in a scab. Bruce Malone wrote:
                                               

• If one of these chemicals is missing or is in the wrong order, then a person would bleed to death. If the chemicals activate 20 minutes after the cut or if the clot does not cover the entire area, the result is again death. If the clotting continues without stopping, then the body’s blood system would clot up and the person would die. (Inspired Evidence)

This is only one of the thousands of processes of our life sustaining equipment that are irreducibly complex. This idea has recognized that all of the parts (chemicals) have to be present and connected for the system to work. This argues powerfully against Darwinian gradualism – the only mechanism the evolutionists have been able to propose to get us from A (the first form of life) to Z (us). Instead, irreducible complexity insists that gradualism cannot account for the development of any useful system.

Could other conceivable structures have performed the same vital function as the Clotting Cascade, as evolutions suggest? If they could, it doesn’t seem that they could do so as well. I had been taking Prilosec for acid reflux. I was assured that there wouldn’t be any side effects. The doctor spoke of this drug as if it represented an advancement over our original body design. I thought, “If only the body manufactured it’s own Prilosec and could automatically inject it into my troubled stomach as needed!”

However, it seems that every drug comes with its own set of side-effects – life-limiting characteristics. I subsequently found that this was also true of my “no-side-effects” Prilosec. Just today, the news announced that it has been found that all of those powerful antacids tend to cause vitamin B-12 deficiencies and even the early onset of dementia! Darn, but no surprise!

Perhaps then, God didn’t goof when He designed our body without a built-in Prilosec pump! Have we ever been able to make any improvement upon the healthy human body? Not as far as I can tell! This speaks loudly in favor of intelligent design. If we intelligent beings haven’t been able to improve upon the original design, perhaps the original had been even more intelligently designed than we have acknowledged!

As I grow older, I have been eagerly awaiting for just one of aging’s changes to improve my body. However, I’ve been repeatedly disappointed. My eyes, ears, sleep and even bowels are all beginning to fail me, bringing me back to thoughts about my former self – my original bio-chemical endowment. From my present partially-hobbled condition, I am more amazed than ever with what God hath done!

To a “Moderate” Islamic Apologist

If only these peaceful verses did govern Islam, I wouldn't be writing to you right now. There many religions with which I disagree with more than Islam, but I don't write against them - Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism.... This is because they are not murdering my people the way that Islam is throughout almost the entire Islamic world. Scholar and writer, Raymond Ibrahim, wrote about the extent of this slaughter:

• From one end of the Muslim world to another, Christians are suffering under the return of Sharia…Whenever Muslims are in power or getting more power, churches are outlawed, burned or bombed, while Bibles and crucifixes are confiscated and destroyed. Freedom of speech – to speak positively of Christianity or critically of Islam – is denied, often on pain of death…Christian women and children are routinely abducted, raped, and forced to convert to Islam. (Crucified Again, 8)

In addition to this, tens of thousands of Christians are routinely being slaughtered. Why is this so? Because justification for this is found in your holy books! And here’s what some of your own people say about the Koranic teachings:

• "If we follow the rules of interpretation developed from the classical “science of Koranic interpretation, it is not possible to condemn terrorism in religious terms. It remains completely true to the classical rules in its evolution of sanctity for its own justification. This is where the secret of its theological strength lies." -- Egyptian scholar Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd

• "Many thanks to God, for his kind gesture, and choosing us to perform the act of Jihad for his cause and to defend Islam and Muslims. Therefore, killing you and fighting you, destroying you and terrorizing you, responding back to your attacks, are all considered to be great legitimate duty in our religion." -- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his fellow 9/11 defendants

• "Allah on 480 occasions in the Holy Koran extols Muslims to wage jihad. We only fulfil God's orders. Only jihad can bring peace to the world." -- Taliban terrorist Baitullah Mehsud

• "Jihad, holy fighting in Allah's course, with full force of numbers and weaponry, is given the utmost importance in Islam....By jihad, Islam is established....By abandoning jihad, may Allah protect us from that, Islam is destroyed, and Muslims go into inferior position, their honor is lost, their lands are stolen, their rule and authority vanish. Jihad is an obligation and duty in Islam on every Muslim." -- Times Square car bomb terrorist Faisal Shahzad

I wish more Muslims would live according to the peaceable verses. However, there seems to be a general consensus among Islamic Scholars that the verses preaching Jihad and the subjugation of all other peoples now take precedence over the earlier peaceful verses, which have been abrogated. Here’s the commentary of Khan’s Noble Koran on the subject of abrogation:

• Then Allah revealed the order to discard the obligations and commanded Muslims to fight against all the Mushrikun [Polytheist and Trinitarians] as well as against the people of the Scriptures if they do not embrace Islam, till they pay the Jizya (tax) with willing submission and feel themselves subdued. At first the fighting was forbidden, then it was permitted and after that it was made obligatory against them that start the fighting against you and against all those who worship others along with Allah [Trinitarians]. (From the index on “Jihad.”)

I wish it were otherwise!

The Plague of Loneliness

Today’s bubonic plague is not caused by a pathogen. Instead, it is caused by the absence of an “intruder.” However, loneliness can be every bit as destructive as the plague, and it has become as epidemic. Theologian Jerram Barrs writes:

• In the polls taken of our contemporaries, people say over and over again that their primary personal difficulty is personal loneliness. That is extraordinary. You think of all the contact we have with people in this culture, but people’s number one identified problem is personal loneliness. People simply do not know how to make close relationships.

Indeed, this growing social isolation is even more remarkable in view of the many new ways that we now have to connect – Facebook, Skype, cell phones, meet-ups, dating services…

These findings tally with a survey that came out three years ago, indicating that 25% of respondents indicated that they lacked a personal confidante. The same survey had been conducted 15 years earlier, but found that only 10% lacked a confidante.

This parallels the findings of Harvard Sociologist Robert Putnam who observed:

• A broad and continuing erosion of civic engagement…began a quarter-century ago.

• Voting, political knowledge, political trust, and grassroots political activism are all down. Americans sign 30 per cent fewer petitions and are 40 per cent less likely to join a consumer boycott, as compared to just a decade or two ago. The declines are equally visible in non-political community life: membership and activity in all sorts of local clubs and civic and religious organizations have been falling at an accelerating pace. In the mid-1970s the average American attended some club meeting every month, by 1998 that rate of attendance had been cut by nearly 60 per cent.

• In 1975 the average American entertained friends at home 15 times per year; the equivalent figure (1998) is now barely half that. Virtually all leisure activities that involve doing something with someone else, from playing volleyball to playing chamber music, are declining.

Many cite greater tolerance as a positive relational development of our increasingly secular society. However, Putnam found that, meanwhile, the trust level was taking a hit:   

• Although Americans are more tolerant of one another than were previous generations, they trust one another less. Survey data provide one measure of the growth of dishonesty and distrust, but there are other indicators. For example, employment opportunities for police, lawyers, and security personnel were stagnant for most of this…In the last quarter century these occupations boomed, as people have increasingly turned to the courts and the police.

As Putnam suggests, social isolation or loneliness might have multiple causes. I would like to focus on one thing that has made relationships more difficult – the growing failure to accept ourselves as we truly are!

Without self-acceptance, we distance ourselves from others. The self that we are unwilling to accept is the same self that we want to hide from others. Rather than showing this self, we cloth ourselves with a façade – a front or a covering. This requires a lot of psychic energy and internal struggle. We engage in habitual, self-obsessed image-management, refusing to let the other into our world – the world we cannot accept.

Why is it difficult to accept this world? We feel ashamed of it and feel certain that if others saw us as we are, they would reject us. Consequently, we condemn ourselves to an endless quest to prove ourselves through accomplishments, carefully manicured appearances, money, power, whatever! However, this just pushes others further away. They feel a pressure to match the image that we put forth.

Besides, when we can’t be real with ourselves, we can’t be real with others. This makes any connection difficult and uncomfortable. To connect, two people need to share a common reality, at least to some extent. However, if we are consumed by managing our image, we do not put forth a true picture of ourselves. What we offer is something that doesn’t line up with what others see about us. This dissonance tends to push us apart. This problem is maximized by our secular culture, which tells us to build our self-trust and self-esteem at the expense of truth - who we truly are - further alienating us from ourselves!

I know a little about this because I had experienced intense isolation. I too had felt ashamed of myself, and no amount of accomplishments, positive affirmations, or psychotherapists were able to make dent into my shame. I was convinced that in order to be loved, I had to become someone else, and for many years, this is exactly what I tried to do. However, nothing would ease my social discomfort.

So what made the difference? Knowing Christ and His love and acceptance of me! As I grew in the certainty that He accepted me thoroughly, I found that I could begin to accept myself, even laugh at myself, and admit my personal failures. Before, I was unable to confront them. They threatened the little sense of personhood and value that I had managed to retain.

Christ has been liberating (John 8:31-32)! He is also an ongoing comfort to me. Prior to this, I was unable to face my faults and guilt and could not resolve interpersonal conflict. I always had to be right. To be wrong was just too deflating and humiliating – something I couldn’t endure. I had been psychologically trapped and lacked the flexibility to relate to others.

Why didn’t anything else work for me? I certainly wanted my psychotherapists and my various lifestyle changes to work, but they couldn’t deliver. Only my Savior could!

Am I Islamophobic: My Response to the Emergent Church

I just viewed the teaching video of Imam Yahya Hendi on the equality of women is Islam at the link you provided. 

He tries to distinguish the historical degradation of women in Islam from the true teachings of the Koran and the Hadiths, claiming that these teach the equality of women. Clearly, this is not the case. Here is the testimony of the Koran:

• [Surah 2.223] Your wives are a tilth [cultivated land] for you, so go into your tilth when you like, and do good beforehand for yourselves…

• [2.228] And the divorced women should keep themselves in waiting for three courses; and it is not lawful for them that they should conceal what Allah has created in their wombs, if they believe in Allah and the last day; and their husbands have a better right to take them back in the meanwhile if they wish for reconciliation; and they have rights similar to those against them in a just manner, and the men are a degree above them, and Allah is Mighty, Wise.

• [2.282] …call in to witness from among your men two witnesses; but if there are not two men, then one man and two women from among those whom you choose to be witnesses…

• [4:34] Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them…

How is it that this Imam glosses over these teaching as if they did not exist? Either:

1. He is practicing Taqiyya – the doctrine that authorizes Muslims to lie to the infidel in order to promote Islam, or
2. He is truly a misguided “moderate.”

The Koran degrades the infidel and authorizes deception:

• [3:27] “Let not the believers take the disbelievers for friends rather than believers. And whoever does this has no connection with Allah unless it is done to guard yourselves against them, guarding carefully.

• [5:54] O ye who believe, take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors. They are but friends and protectors to each other.

“Undoubtedly the Muslim is obliged to hate the enemies of Allaah and to disavow them, because this is the way of the Messengers and their followers. Allaah says: 

[60:4] “… ‘Verily, we are free from you and whatever you worship besides Allaah, we have rejected you, and there has started between us and you, hostility and hatred for ever until you believe in Allaah Alone’” (www.koranqa.com; fatwa 59879)

·              “Based on this, it is not permissible for a Muslim to feel any love in his heart towards the enemies of Allaah who are in fact his enemies too. Allaah says:

[60:1] “O you who believe! Take not My enemies and your enemies (i.e. disbelievers and polytheists) as friends, showing affection towards them, while they have disbelieved in what has come to you of the truth”

·              “But if a Muslim treats them with kindness and gentleness in the hope that they will become Muslim and will believe, there is nothing wrong with that, because it comes under the heading of opening their hearts to Islam. But if he despairs of them becoming Muslim, then he should treat them accordingly.”

Perhaps we should try to strengthen the hand of “moderate” Islam. However, an “Islam” disconnected from the teachings of the Koran and Hadiths will have little influence over Islam. The proof of this is that in every Islamic nation, the religious minorities live in fear and subjugation in accordance with Sharia. Evidently, the “moderates” are either irrelevant or are merely practicing Taqiyya.

The Liberal Church does not Understand Grace, nor can it!

While the liberal church talks much about grace, they know little about it. They meet at stately structures that point to a Biblical past. Within, are cultured, educated, well-mannered, respectable and highly refined people. But they seldom carry a Bible and even more seldom do they spontaneously share a verse from it. They “say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing,’” (Rev. 3:17), but they no longer believe much of the Gospel, the parts that are uncomfortable – the judgment and righteousness of God and the depravity of humanity.

In contrast, the believing church meets in store fronts, rented halls, and even in new, shiny buildings. Generally speaking, the people within are not refined and respectable. Nor are they highly educated or cultured. They often come limping, bringing within them scars from their broken past, but they come with their Bible and are excited about what they find in it. This is because they know that they need its Gospel message of peace, reconciliation and healing.

How do they know this?  Because God has revealed it to them! And why does the liberal church not know this and instead has exchanged the Gospel message for an updated message of universal salvation or one of, “There are many ways to salvation?” Because they have rejected God’s revelation! In rejecting the message of judgment and depravity, they have also rejected the message of grace. The great 18^th century American theologian, Jonathan Edwards, put it like this:

• The glory of divine grace appears chiefly in its being on the sinner when he is in a condition exceedingly miserable and necessitous. In order, therefore, that the sinner may be sensible [aware] of this glory, he must first be sensible of the greatness of his misery, and then of the greatness of divine mercy…Indeed, the soul is not capable of receiving a revelation or discovery of the redeeming grace of God in Christ, as redeeming grace, without being convinced of sin and misery. He must see his sin and misery before he can see the grace of God in redeeming him from that sin and misery. (From the sermon, God Makes Men Sensible of their Misery)

Edwards preached that we are unable to understand and appreciate grace until we see our need for it. Likewise, we have little esteem for the Savior, as long as we refuse to see that we are miserable sinners who require His mercy.

This is not merely a psychological principle; it is the will of God! He will not reveal himself to the self-satisfied:

• At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.” (Matthew 11:25-26)

Why is our God pleased to reveal Himself only to the meek and lowly - the brokenhearted as the Psalms assert?

• The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. (Psalm 34:18; Isaiah 66:1-2; 57:15)

And why must we first know of the judgment of God (and our deserving it) before He will reveal to us His mercy? Edwards warned that we need first to have an appreciation of both judgment and mercy:

• If men were sensible of the love of God without a sense of those other attributes, they would be exposed to have improper and unworthy apprehensions of God…For this is the very end of Christ’s laying down his life and coming into the world, to render the glory of God’s authority, holiness, and justice, consistent with his grace in pardoning and justifying sinners.

Truth and beliefs are the foundation for any relationship. If I believe that my wife is trying to hurt me, this belief will influence how I feel and act towards her. Similarly, what we believe about God will determine the nature of our relationship. Therefore, it is essential that we understand God – His hatred of sin and love of righteousness combined with His willingness to endure the judgment that we deserved:

• God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Cor. 5:21)

Why is this knowledge – that we are sinners who deserve nothing from God other than condemnation – so essential? Without it, we would become arrogant and boast. This is why God chose to reveal Himself the broken people of this world (1 Cor. 1:26-29).

Before we are ready to see the glory of grace, we have to see our utter unworthiness. Before we can be raised and honored, we must first be humbled:

• But he [God] gives us more grace [to the humble]. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble. (James 4:6)

·         Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time…God of all grace…after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. (1 Peter 5:6, 10)

Humility is the doorway to grace. Therefore, God will not graciously reveal Himself to the proud. Instead, according to Jesus, He must first humble them:

• “For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 18:14)

But how do we humble ourselves to receive this grace? We acknowledge the truth about ourselves – that the only thing that we deserve from God is judgment, and that it is only by His sheer mercy that we have anything good in our lives! Paul claimed that this was the purpose for the Law:

• Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.

The Law was given to show us our true moral status and to humble us by making us “conscious of our sin.” Solomon acknowledged this truth as he dedicated the Temple:

• “When a prayer or plea is made by anyone among your people Israel—being aware of the afflictions of their own hearts, and spreading out their hands toward this temple— then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Forgive and act.” (1 Kings 8:38-39)

Solomon acknowledged that it is “the afflictions of their own hearts” that will produce q humble awareness of our hopelessness and bring about true prayer. It is only in the context of brokenness that we learn to die to ourselves – to cease self-trust in favor of God-trust:

• “The Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” (Deut. 8:2-3)

The humbling reveals to us our failures and needs. Ultimately, it leads us to abandon our ways in favor of His. However, the humbling process does more than simply to reveal to us our needs and insufficiency in the face of trials. It also uncovers our moral corruption.

When Israel was deprived of their needs and desires, they not only had an angry bio-chemical reaction. They also rebelled against the God who had provided so graciously for them. The trial – the humbling experiences – brought to their awareness not only feelings, but a fully developed self-righteous program, complete with its self-justifications and vicious accusations against their Benefactor. It uncovered beliefs – “I will only follow You if I get what I want. You are my need-provider. If I don’t get what I want from You, I will hate You.”-  that were entirely contrary to blessed love-relationship with their Savior. These beliefs needed to be exposed and confronted. However, without the trials and humbling, this script would remain hidden and true loving relationship would be undermined!

If, instead, mercy and blessing is extended to the self-satisfied, this would only serve to harden and affirm them in their self-righteousness and entitlement mentality.

It is the humble who will see God (Matthew 5:3-8) and enjoy Him forever. This is the message we must continue to preach. Without the preaching of judgment and our deserving it, we will not be humbled, and our appreciation and adoration of our Savior will suffer – also discipleship! Paul therefore reminded Titus about the nature of true preaching:

• At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy…And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. (Titus 3:3-5, 8)

Lest we become proud, we need continual reminder of who we are and from where we have come. It is only in the context of humility that gratefulness will thrive, and with it, devotion to our Lord. The Lord will not throw His pearls before unrepentant swine (Mat. 7:6)!

However, we evangelicals are forgetting from where we have come and who we are. We rarely hear sermons on judgment, sin, and human depravity, and so we are losing our appreciation for grace. By neglect, we are becoming the liberal church. God help us!

Hearing the Spirit: Through Mysticism or Scripture?

Religious pluralism – the notion that all religions are equally correct - is speaking, and where it speaks, there is confusion and uncertainty! We therefore ask, “How do I know I am hearing from the Spirit, that I am going in the right direction?”

There are many different answers. The popular writer, Brennan Manning, offers one in The Signature of Jesus:

• “The first step in faith is to stop thinking about God in prayer…” “Contemplative spirituality tends to emphasize the need for a change in consciousness…we must come to see reality differently.” “Choosing a single, sacred word…repeat the sacred word inwardly, slowly, and often.” “Enter into the great silence of God. Alone in that silence, the noise within will subside and the Voice of Love will be heard.” (Ray Yungen, A Time of Departing, 83).

Well, if you want to hear God’s “Voice of Love,” you need to learn Manning’s methodologies – all entirely unbiblical:

1. “Stop thinking about God in prayer,
2. Change in consciousness,
3. Repetition of one word in order to bring this change in consciousness about,
4. Practice silence to hear”

In contrast to Manning’s program, the Bible gives ample testimony that we don’t need to learn techniques to amplify or actualize God’s presence. He is omnipotent! He can even speak through donkeys and evil prophets (Numbers 22:30-31). Instead, it is our lack of repentance that prevents us from hearing God. This is what the Spirit stated to the Church at Laodicea:

• As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. (Rev. 3:19-20)

The Spirit didn’t criticize this church because they hadn’t learned certain mystical techniques for hearing God. Instead, it was a matter of their failure to “be zealous and repent!” Our God cares about righteousness, truth, and faith, not about learning generic methods to change our brain waves.

Jesus insisted that a relationship with God and hearing His voice had nothing to do with a mindless repetition of the same word:

• And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. (Matthew 6:7)

How then do we hear the voice of God and discern His will? The primary source of His voice is His Word! He therefore gave the church pastors and teachers to disseminate this Word for the edification of the church:

• So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

It is through this knowledge that we attain spiritual maturity and freedom from the suffocating demonic blindness:

• Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will. (2 Tim. 2:25-26)

God grants us repentance through Gospel preaching to produce a “knowledge of the truth” – the voice we should pursue - and this enables us to “escape from the trap of the devil.” There is no mention here or in any verses about the need to learn certain techniques to hear the voice of the Spirit.

In fact, Scripture explicitly tells us that we hear His voice when we read Scripture. Each of the seven letters to the churches (Revelation 2, 3) concludes:

• Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

By reading and meditating on Scripture, we hear what the Spirit has to tell us. Scripture is His Word to us:

·         [Peter] said, “Brothers and sisters, the Scripture had to be fulfilled in which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through David concerning Judas. (Acts 1:16 quoting Psalms)

Even the very personal Book of Psalms is the Word of the Spirit. Therefore, when we read the Hebrew Scriptures, we are hearing the voice of God. Jesus affirmed the same thing – that when David spoke (Psalm 110), he spoke “in the Spirit!” According to the Book of Nehemiah, when the Prophets of Israel spoke, they were speaking “by your Spirit” (Neh. 9:30). The Spirit and the Word are so closely associated that the Word is called the “sword of the Spirit” (Eph. 6:17)!

However, when we read Scripture, we naturally reject it, as the Hebrews had done (2 Cor. 3:14-18). This reading must also, therefore, be combined with a repentant heart:

·          So, as the Holy Spirit says [quoting Psalm 95]: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness.” (Hebrews 3:7-8)

We have erected a barrier against hearing what the Spirit says. We do not hear the Spirit because we do not want to hear Him. It has nothing to do with a failure to learn certain mystical techniques but a rejection of His Word (1 Cor. 2:14) – the voice of the Spirit. Consequently, blessedness is a matter of reading the Word of the Spirit with a willing heart:

• Blessed are those whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the Lord. Blessed are those who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart. (Psalm 119:1-2)

Consequently, King David prayed that he would be granted a “willing spirit” (Psalm 51:12), not mystical practices.

In contrast, according to Manning, blessedness comes from the repetition of a single word which then changes our mental state and brings us into the silence of God. However, can we be certain that this changed mental state opens us to the Spirit? Roger Oakland cites the “Christian” mystic, Richard Foster, who acknowledges the inherent dangers:

• Richard Foster claims that practitioners must use caution. He admits that in contemplative prayer “we are entering deeply into the spiritual realm” and that sometimes it is not the realm of God even though it is “supernatural.” He admits there are spiritual beings and that a prayer of protection should be said beforehand – something to the effect of “All dark and evil spirits must now leave.” (Faith Undone, 99)

Perhaps Foster hasn’t heard from the Spirit at all, and perhaps he needs to re-examine his disciplines and where they are leading him.

I hope that reading Scripture, trusting that the Spirit will speak to us through it, doesn’t seem overly dry. On occasion, it has for me. I wanted more. However, years ago, in the midst of decades of intense depression, there were numerous occasions when God spoke profoundly to me through Scripture. These were occasions when I was at my lowest, unable to read even a verse. Suddenly, a phrase would jump out at me like, “And God heard him!” It was as if an explosion of light went off in my head. “He heard me, He heard me!” It was so powerful that all my depression was driven away. I looked around, but it just wasn’t there! I was assured that God had heard me, and nothing else mattered.

This hasn’t happened to me for about 25 years. Yes, God still does speak to me through Scripture, but not with such profundity. I guess He expects me to stand on my own feet now.