Tears of the Saints

I wanted to share two incredibly powerful and excellent ministry-related resources with you today from the historic Lausanne Congress that just wrapped up last weekend in Cape Town, South Africa. The first is a heart-grabbing, tear-producing video entitled “The Tears of the Saints” relating the latest statistics on the needs in our world today. I would encourage you to take 4-5 minutes and watch it (I sat at my desk in stunned silence with tears welling up in my eyes after I watched it). I think you will agree with my assessment of it and I believe that you won’t regret it.

(Shared from History Makers. The statistics mentioned in the video above are listed at the bottom of today’s post)

Secondly, I watched a great interview a few days ago where the following question was posed to John Piper (who was one of the plenary speakers) during the Lausanne Congress:

The question was: Should we help alleviate the suffering of people here on earth, or should we help to alleviate the ultimate suffering that people will experience in hell for all eternity if they do not come to know Christ?

His answer was essentially: Both/and, not either/or. He went on to explain that when the Gospel takes root in the human soul, it makes us care about all suffering. It makes us want to alleviate all unjust human suffering here and now. But, because of the scope of eternity and the seriousness of the fires of hell, the eternal suffering is infinitely more serious.

He summed it up by saying, “Christians, in the name of Christ, care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering.”

And then he went on to say this: “If you find resistance welling up in your heart about eternal suffering… or resistance welling up in your heart about alleviating suffering in the here and now, then either you have a defective view of Hell or you have a defective heart. And if your heart is good towards human beings, and your view of the Bible and of Hell are good, then you will be able to say, ‘We Christians care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering’. I’ve found that that sentence helps people not become either / or.”

Here are the statistics from “Tears of the Saints” video in case you wanted to keep them for future reference:

• There are only 100,000 missionaries in the world today
• Approximately 3% work among the unreached
• There are 16,000 people groups in the world today
• Over 6,000 of these people groups are considered unreached – that’s one-third of the world’s population (2 billion people)
• 3,700 of these people groups are unengaged and have no church or missionary
• That’s 350 million people who have no access to the Gospel
• Two out of every three people in the world live in Asia
• 70% of Asians have never heard of Jesus Christ
• 3.5 billion people in the world are Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist
• 86% of them do not personally know an individual who is a follower of Christ
• 2,252 language groups do not have one verse of Scripture translated into their own language
• Persecution and martyrdom are on the increase. For many Asian and North African believers, persecution is a daily reality.
• In North Korea, Laos and Iraq, believers face prison, torture and death for their faith
• Half the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day
• 30,000 people starve to death every day
• There are more than 13 million orphans worldwide
• In the past hour…
• 1,625 children were forced to live on the streets
• 1,667 children died from malnutrition and other diseases
• 257 children were orphaned because of HIV/AIDS
• 115 children became prostitutes
• Work is being done all across the world to reach the unreached – but the workers are few.
• You can do something…you can change the world

“The gospel is only good news if it gets there in time.” (Carl F. H. Henry)

“Having seen all this, you can choose to look the other way, but you can never say again, ‘I did not know.’” – William Wilberforce

How Do We Overcome Sin?

Over the years, one of my favorite writers and speakers has been Randy Alcorn. When I was in seminary (Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon) back in the late 1980’s, our family attended Good Shepherd Community Church where Stu Weber was lead pastor and Randy Alcorn was associate pastor. We learned much from both Stu and Randy during those years (and have since through their books).

A few weeks ago, I came across one of Randy Alcorn’s blog posts that dealt with the issue of “How do we overcome sin in our lives as Christians?” that I wanted to share with you (click here to read more). Here is Randy’s brief post dealing with the question of “How Do We Overcome?”

Recently, Of First Importance posted a citation from D. A. Carson, one of my favorite theologians and writers. If you’re not familiar with Carson, I highly recommend his works. Contemplate these biblical and powerful words:

“How dare you approach the mercy-seat of God on the basis of what kind of day you had, as if that were the basis for our entrance into the presence of the sovereign and holy God? No wonder we cannot beat the Devil. This is works theology. It has nothing to do with grace and the exclusive sufficiency of Christ. Nothing. Do you not understand that we overcome the accuser on the ground of the blood of Christ? Nothing more, nothing less. That is how we win. It is the only way we win. This is the only ground of our acceptance before God. If you drift far from the cross, you are done. You are defeated. We overcome the accuser of our brothers and sisters, we overcome our consciences, we overcome our bad tempers, we overcome our defeats, we overcome our lusts, we overcome our fears, we overcome our pettiness on the basis of the blood of the lamb.”

– D.A. Carson, Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 103

This brings to mind the words to the old 19^th century hymn “On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand,” which I love:

My hope is built on nothing less / Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;

I dare not trust the sweetest frame, / But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand; / All other ground is sinking sand.

When darkness veils His lovely face, / I rest on His unchanging grace;

In every high and stormy gale / My anchor holds within the veil.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand; / All other ground is sinking sand.

Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God

This past weekend I had the privilege of participating in the 2010 Desiring God National Conference in Minneapolis, MN. The theme for this year’s conference was:

“Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God.”

The speakers this year ranged from…

Francis Chan

R.C. Sproul

R. Albert Mohler, Jr.

Rick Warren

Randy Alcorn

Tullian Tchividjian

to John Piper (who sponsors the conference each year).

Simultaneous to the conference was also the release of John’s latest book entitled “Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God.”

I thought you would appreciate hearing just one paragraph from the introduction to his new book, that also set the stage for the entire conference this past weekend. John writes (bold and underlining mine)…

“This book is a plea to embrace serious thinking as a means of loving God and people. It is a plea to reject either-or thinking when it comes to…

head and heart,

thinking and feeling,

reason and faith,

theology and doxology,

mental labor and the ministry of love.

It is a plea to see thinking as a necessary, God-ordained means of knowing God. Thinking is one of the important ways that we put the fuel of knowledge on the fires of worship and service to the world.”

What I loved so much about this conference was that humility and love for your brother permeated every message and every conversation. It was wonderful to be in an environment where “thinking” and “thinking hard” was emphasized, but marinated in love for God and love for our neighbor.

As the Apostle Paul said so clearly in 1 Corinthians 8:1-3 (which was also one of the key texts for the entire conference),

“Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that ‘all of us possess knowledge.’ This ‘knowledge’ puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.”

I thought over the next couple of weeks I would share with you a few “nuggets” that I came away with from this amazing three day event. By the way, in case you are interested in watching on video or listening in audio to any of the plenary sessions, you can watch / listen / download them for free here.

Here are a few quotes and thoughts that I found helpful and insightful…

“God is in charge of keeping people humble, not us.” (John Piper)

“There is not a thing in you or me that inclined God to choose you for himself. It is totally free. Our theology is meant to flatten us so that no one would boast in the presence of God. ‘Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.’ (2 Corinthians 10:17) It’s about smashing human pride and getting glory for God and God alone.” (John Piper)

During one of the Q & A sessions, the question was brought up, “How can we get the people within our congregation to really ‘think’ about God and the gospel?” Here are two of the comments that were made in response to that question:

“I really encourage people to read. Even it it’s just a paragraph a night. Start to read and exercise the muscle of your mind and it will get stronger and thirstier. I was a high school drop out and I eventually became a bookworm. Those who don’t enjoy thinking or don’t think that thinking is necessary should start reading.” (Tullian Tchividjian)

Here was what John Piper said in response to getting people to read (I’m paraphrasing),

“A lot of people think that I must be this amazing scholar and prolific reader – the kind of reader that can devour a book in a few hours. First of all, I do not consider myself a scholar – by any stretch of the imagination. I also am a very slow reader. I can only read as fast I can talk. Most people are surprised to know that I am actually a very slow reader.” (John Piper)

“One thing is clear: Knowledge that is loveless is not true knowledge. It’s imaginary knowledge, no matter how factual it is. “ (1 Corinthians 8:1-3) (John Piper)

“Loving God means that God is our supreme treasure and pleasure. We prefer above all else to know him and see him and be with him and be like him.” (John Piper)

“My greatest desire for this conference is that you will embrace serious thinking as a way of loving God and people – that through the awakening and sharpening of your thinking, you will love God and love people more deeply and more fully and more unshakable.” (John Piper)

“To that end may the cross of Christ – the deepest, highest, clearest revelation of God in history – be the focus of your thinking. There is no other place where you can see him more clearly or love him dearly. The cross is the place where your thinking will be most deeply purified and the worth of God will be most fully magnified.” (John Piper)

“The fullest expression of Christian living has to be a combination of God’s truth entering the head, igniting the heart, and outworking through the hands.” (Thabiti Anyabwile)