An offer of Mercy, to the author of Mercy in the Wilderness, Steven Lawson

 

 

At one time Steven J. Lawson was one of my favourite preachers, I would still argue that the second best sermon I have ever heard preached in person was from Steven Lawson. However over time I grew to appreciate him less and less, like Justin Peters, he seemed ever read to condemn a fallen brother, or even to condemn a perceived error in another. Around this time three years ago I heard him at Ligonier London and heard bullets aimed at people confused about gender with no tenderness. I may not have noticed but he was followed by Sinclair Ferguson who said this, "In a world that seems to be confused about identity we have no need to be confused about our identity for our identity is in Christ." A different heart, I noticed that Steven Lawson, along with Justin Peters were first out the stiles to condemn Alistair Begg, when Alistair Begg advised a granny to go to her grandchild's gay wedding, because the grandchild knew where granny stood and Begg advised take a gift and make it a Bible. First out the stiles, ready to throw the first stone. 

This was even more alarming when I realised, as Steven Lawson was exposed for his sin, that he was first out even when his sinful relationship was going on, that is hypocrisy. 

I perversely wanted to read this book, I was never interested in reading Peter Mandleson's Third Man until he was exposed, I ordered it the next day. I ordered it as soon as I knew it existed, I saw that Justin Peter's was there again ready to condemn, he was the number 1 review on amazon.com, despite having not read it. I think that is terribly judgemental. 

I have read it, it says there will be no excuses, there are several, the main one being, I was too busy ministering to have a relationship with God. Our job is first to let the word minister to us, I take this as a warning to myself but I did find it to be an excuse and a poor one. 

Another worry I have about the book is that the book came about because he was invited to speak on his fall, on several occasions at his old church in Mobile, Alabama. He should not be giving talks, he also sits in the elders prayer meetings at the church he attends, I am not sure this is wise, this is not because he is a sinner who is repentant but because he is Steven Lawson. 

My main thing however is encouragement, in chapter 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Preacher' he recognises his lack of mercy and compassion. 'I had become a high justice, low mercy' preacher. God has humbled him and he recognises this weakness. It is easy I think to fall into this when we preach to the crowd, to the choir. It is why we need to be among our people as a fellow sinner, pointing away from ourselves and to the Saviour. This would be an issue for the "celebrity pastor" or the pastor of a large church that knows nothing of the congregation. This is not a picture of the pastor from the Bible who cares for the sheep, or as people say now, "smells like sheep."

It is also why we need to be outward looking moving among the lost to point them to a Saviour who saves. Otherwise we create our own echo chamber, we need to use our ears and listen as well as our mouths to speak. 

Again in the chapter; The Mercy I Found,  he writes, 'I had neglected that He draws near to the broken-hearted-until I was broken-hearted. I had overlooked that He is the Comforter of those crushed in spirit until I was crushed. I had forgotten that He is afflicted with our afflictions-until I was afflicted.' You know that is a bold admission, he points out that he understood the majestic holiness of God but had missed this, it is the centre of the Gospel isn't it? That this holy, holy, holy God because of His great mercy transfers us from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of His beloved Son. But I am thankful that Steven Lawson is honest enough to the read to admit this error. It seems to me that the LORD has been at work in Him. 

As well as the Justin Peter's review I have seen an article from Evangelical Times condemning Lawson for writing it, without reading it again. I am not sure he should have written it, I am glad to have read it. It is my hope that he stays away from the pulpit or the lectern and enjoys his retirement, is active in his local church, reconciled with God, with his wife and with his friends. 

I don't want to have a knee jerk reaction to a fellow sinner, I see he has been restored, he is repentant and God is at work. 

I pray that I would offer mercy and to be gracious to one who has fallen, especially in such a public way. We are sinners, we are not to cast the first stone but as those who have been shown mercy, we should show mercy. As those who have been loved despite our sin, we are called to love in spite of the sin of others. 

It is my prayer that the reformed community would also learn not to be, 'High bar justice and low mercy' in our dealing with others. That we would extend the hand of fellowship, that we would walk with those who have been humbled by God, humbly. 

Shalom <><
Stephen 

 

Every Man's Conscience, By Ryan Burton King

I'm now into my 3rd year as a Reformed Baptist minister here in London, UK, a location for many influential Reformed Baptists over the centuries. It is fair to say I have never liked the title Reformed Baptist, because I've met so many people who are downcast in their temperament that hold the name. London seems different to that with many defrosted Calvinists among them. 

What a delight it was then to read this book, in the last couple of weeks, where Ryan shows that many Particular Baptists were not the Frozen Chosen, were not legalistic and seeking to ensure others lived like them. Instead it was their desire to proclaim Christ and His Gospel to any man, they wanted the liberty to be able to do. Not for the State to compel men what they must and must not believe. 

This is a very short book, but don't let that fool you into thinking that it says little, it says a lot and is packed full of import information, so I believe it should be read slowly, the chapters are short but give you plenty to chew on. The issue for this book and for Ryan King who wrote it, is that our freedoms are being done away with slowly. The State has done this from time to time, usually under the control of the State Church. Freedom to worship is a privilege we have had in the west for a long time, it isn't the result of secularism, look at secular States if you want to see what freedom to worship exists in such places. It surprisingly isn't a result of Christendom, Christendom for all of the benefits it did bring, and it did, religious tolerance and freedom to worship wasn't one of them. Even the Presbyterian divines didn't believe in freedom and tolerance in the way we take for granted. In this book Ryan King shows that these freedoms were fought for and argued for by Non Conformists, including Baptists, but not exclusively by Particular Baptists. They wanted to have the right to worship without interference from the State, what power does the Magistrate have to legislate the kingdom? But not only for themselves but for all. I have seen some posts on X, formerly twitter by Christians arguing for a Theocracy, but there had only ever been one true Theocracy, God is not in covenant with any nation on the planet. God rules His church and it is the job of the church to proclaim Christ and for every man's conscience to worship in freedom. It is the Christian, the believe in Christ's job not to compel people to come through the power of the State but through persuasion, to compel them to see the beauty of the gospel and their need of Christ. In seeing it to turn from their sins and embrace the true God, through His Son. 

This book is timely when there are conservative evangelicals arguing for State control to compel people to worship God through the law. When we are compelled in the heart through the power of the gospel, Read this book slowly and learn from these great men of the past. 

  

 

I may say that for 40 years, as at the University of Oxford I carried out my duties as professor of Sanskrit, I devoted as much time to the study of the holy books of the East as any other human being in the world. And I ventured to tell this gathering what I have found to be the basic note, the one single chord, or all these holy books- be it the Veda of the Brahmans, the Putans of Siwa and Vishnu, the Qu’ran of the Muslims, the Sendavesta of the Paris etc-the one basic note or chord that runs through all of them is salvation by works. They all teach that salvation must be bought and that your own works and merits must be the purchase price. Our own Bible, our sacred book from the East, is from start to finish a protest against this doctrine. True, good works are also required from this holy book from the East, but the works referred to are the outflow of a grateful heart.  They are the thank offerings, only the fruits of our faith. They are never the ransom of the true disciples of Christ. Let us not close our eyes to whatever is noble and true and pleasing in these holy books. But let us teach Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims that there is only one book from the East that can be their comfort in that solemn hour when they must pass, entirely alone, into the invisible world. It is that holy book which contains the message- a message which is surely true and worthy of full acceptance, and concerns all humans, men, women and children- that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

Max Muller, from a speech delivered before the British and Foreign Bible Society 1901, as cited by Dr Daniel Strange, ‘For Their Rock Is Not as Our Rock’ an evangelical theology of religions.

Steven Lawson-Holiness part 2

Woops, found this in drafts:

At the Scottish Reformed Conference on the 12th of May Steven Lawson took us through Holiness in the Old Testament in the morning and in the New Testament in the afternoon. 

He started with a quote from Thomas Watson's A Body of Divinity 'The holiness of God is the brightest jewel in the crown of God'. God's holiness is as the centre of all His attributes, His righteousness is Holy righteousness, His wrath is holy wrath, His mercy is Holy mercy, everything about Him is holy. His word is holy. 

In the sermon on the Mount Jesus says we are called to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect. It's a restatement of Leviticus, 'Be Holy because I am Holy' Perfect is a synonym of holiness.

All God's ways are perfect, perfection is the standard He has set for all of us. And He will not drop the standard one iota. He doesn't grade on the curve- we are not measured against each other but against Him and His perfection.

Matt 6.9- Our Father in Heaven, though He is Father He is in Heaven, high and lifted up, His name is hallowed that is Holy.

Luke 1:35 The Holy Spirit, is Holy, the seed born is Holy, produces the Holy child, the God-man, Holy Deity added to Holy humanity. Gabriel comes from the Most High, another name for Holy- (High and lifted up again). See this one who is Holy, separate and different, He enters into our world, becoming our Saviour, no wonder the Shepherds are able to worship, not out of intellectual vacuum or anti theological way but because of Who He is. He is perfect in all His ways. The one who is separate is OUR Saviour.

In the temptation Christ makes His stand on the word,, not to show that He didn't sin, But that He cannot sin! Holy humanity and deity, he was incapable of sinning

We have several unlikely testimonies to the holiness of God.

A demon:
Luke 4:34. The unclean spirit calls out after Jesus, 'we know who you are the Holy One of God' Dr Lawson said the demon has a better testimony of than Professors of liberal theology.

A fisher man

So does Peter (Luke 5:8) he realises that he is the presence of Holy God and knows himself to be a sinner, he is undone, the light exposes those things that are contrary to God.  We sin less (though we are not sinless). However you are aware, painfully aware of the holiness of God and your moral failures.

Pilate: 'I find no guilt in Him'
the thief on the cross 'this man has done nothing wrong;
the centurion observes 'surely this is the Son of God'

The Power of The Word

I read recently the biography of William Carey, Missionary to India, written by his great grandson, S. Pearce Carey. In it he tells a story of how William Ward, Carey's fellow missionary and printer of the Bengali Bible. Ward left one of the copies behind in a village some distance from Serampore, completely by mistake. It was found by a high caste Hindu, he read it and then he re read it, then he read it to others. Over time he made his way to Serampore, a converted man seeking baptism. He was not alone he came with other converts seeking to be baptised and they kept coming.
I found this story encouraging and then a few days later I went to the store and saw this:

This was in Tescos Inverness, without doubt the best thing I've ever seen for sale in a Supermarket, and it was free. The reason it's the best thing is it's the only thing that can bring you to the God who transforms lives. If God can take the Bible translated into Bengali and use it on it's own to convert some High Caste Hindu who had never met a Christian before, God can take these Bibles translated into England and use it to bring people to Himself. Especially as the Western world and the moment is in lock down due to a virus. Spurgeon said, 'The veil between life and eternity is thin when death walks the street.'

Who knows what God will do by His word even this day?

Shalom

Stephen <><

Truth and Nothing but the Truth

I recently watched the movie Small Foot with my young family. The movie was fun, the animation was excellent, however there was a worldview presented that made me feel uncomfortable. At the centre of the Big Foot community which is where the movie began was a community holding on to "truth" the truth was kept on stones which didn't lie. It told that there world was an Island floating on the back of a giant Turtle(?) or something like that. One line from the community leader who wore the stones was nobody should question the "truth". I told my girls right away that you should always question truth claims, I think that would surprise the writers, that I a Christian would say this, but I will always say it, truth can and should be investigated, if it doesn't stand up to that investigation then it isn't true. Migo the big foot protagonist began to call the truth into question when he found a small foot, a man. The Stones said small foot didn't exist and you cannot question the Stones.  This leads him to say,  "truth is in the eye of the beholder". Again as soon as we came out I told my daughters that that isn't correct, truth is never just in the eye of the behold, truth is truth whether you believe it or not. When I was younger I studied Sociology and there were various schools of thought pushing their views, it was interesting to learn about these various competing theories but truth isn't like sociology, truth is more like mathematics, in maths 2 + 2 is always 4. I thought about 10 years ago that Postmodernism had collapsed without taking off, clearly the way western societies are moving the last few years have changed that as we ditch long held truths, like gender for a postmodern world.

We may have moved away from modernity which was summed up in the popular 90s show, the X Files, 'The Truth is out there' it's worth seeking out, for Jesus said the truth will set you free. 

Truth is not relative, truth is not in the eye of the beholder, truth is definitive. You can see this in faith, there are not multiple truths, there is just one truth.  Truth is eternal. truth is found in a person the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, I am the Truth,  (not a truth) He also said, the Truth shall set you free.  

May you know the truth and may it set you free.

Stephen Barton <><

A War of Love- Regeneration,Revelation and the Church.

I recently read David Bennett's book A War of Love, it is David's testimony of how he ceased to be an Atheist and a Gay Activist.  I like much of what I read in this book and agree with him that the church has made homosexuality the unpardonable sin and that we have made the Gospel more offensive that it actually is.  I also agree with his more mature conclusion that God calls same sex attracted people to celibacy or "mixed orientation" marriages.

David nowhere in his book claims to have become an evangelical but he does claim to have been converted. I read the early part of his book where he outlines this and I must say it doesn't follow the Biblical picture of conversion. A lady asked if she could pray for him and he said yes, then she prayed and he felt an overwhelming sense of peace and he heard a voice inside say, 'do you want me' repeatedly. Later that night he woke up when he was "praying in tongues" he shouted out, "I've joined a cult" His mom came rushing in and from her charismatic understand explained tongues from Paul's letters and David revolted by this 'threw her Bible across the room' as he hated the God presented in there. Now as a read I knew for sure that the Holy Spirit wouldn't be working in a person's life, speaking to them, speaking through them and for that same person to be revolted by the words authored by that same Holy Spirit.

In his conversion there was not even a hint of a sense of sin- and we are all sinners, there was nothing of repentance and no display of Christ and His cross just a needy, 'do you want me', like some creepy guy who had been dismissed by his former girlfriend who is no longer a waitress in a cocktail bar.  All David had to do was yes to this needy request.

As the book goes on he has bigger and greater experiences, like clutching the hem of a glowing garment in the sky, like the woman grabbing Jesus' garment and being healed, David in this event claimed that he was healed of his attitude towards the Church for it's attitude towards people like him who are same sex orientated. And reading his story I could understand his anger towards us, yet he wasn't healed of his attitude at this point in his story in the way that he presents it.

He hears the voice of God speaking to him at various times but he doesn't have a good view of the place of Scripture, he says a couple of  times defending the conservative view on gay marriage, that those who disagree with it have not paid enough attention to 'Scripture, Reason or Tradition' as if these were equivalents. This is more Roman Catholic than Protestant which stands on the principle of Sola Scriptura, which also does away with extra revelation that is contrary to the Protestant understand of Scripture Alone.

My other concern was that David assumed that if someone goes to church be it a 'charismatic Lutheran' or a Roman Catholic church they are part of the church and that the people in there are Christian.

I feel for David because he is trying to be faithful to Scripture now in his celibacy, denying his own orientation, I can relate to that to some extent as a heterosexual as an adolescence into adulthood being chaste as I waited for my wife. I completely agree with him that the Bible demands we deny ourselves for the Gospel, I was 32 when I got married and lived denying myself too. However in the book it isn't clear if he thinks those who are seeking a same sex marriage are not Christians or if he thinks they are but 'don't have God's best for them'. As a millennial he used the phrase 'human flourishing of God's desire for us'. I wondered if he thinks that is the goal of God, rather a desire to conform us to the Image of His Son.

I can understand is lack of time for reparitive therapy but he's almost just as dismissive of the orientation change that conversion can and does bring about, The Gospel is powerful enough. I suppose actually that is where my problem with this book lies, it seems that for David the Biblical doctrine of regeneration isn't enough, faith comes through hearing and hearing through the Word of God. It is enough and is it beautiful. 

There is much to commend this book, it's well written by someone who is trying to be faithful, who is articulate and trying to reach out in love- but it misses the basics of the Gospel so was sadly disappointing.

God Bless

Stephen <><