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(This is the third blog post in a series looking back at my history on this earth, and some of the significant people who have influenced me, and the previous blog posts were entitled Cancer Patient Everette Hatcher tells stories of Interesting people he has interacted with the last 20 years!!and Cancer Patient Everette Hatcher recommends listening to John MacArthur’s wise words on LARRY KING LIVE PROGRAM “What Happens After We Die?” )
Got some bad news on 11-17-23 that my PET SCAN found a lot of cancer in my liver too which puts me in stage 4 pancreatic cancer and a life expectancy of 6 months and with possible success from chemotherapy treatments my life may be extended up to 2 years with 5% chance of 5 years. Need all the prayer partners I can get so feel free to tell others!!!
The reason I am recommending this article is because it is exactly where I want to be. I have told my wife over and over everyday day since I got cancer that I realize all the blessings I have NOW MORE THAN EVER!!! , “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps. 118:24) My father has told me almost everyday the last few years EVERYDAY IS A BLESSING!!! What a great perspective on life and I know what he means now!!!
This article also means a lot to me also because it was written by R.C.Sproul’s good friend John P. Sartelle Sr. My wife’s cousin Larry Speaks used to go over to Memphis every year and hear R.C.Sproul speak at Dr Sartelle’s church. Actually I wrote several blog posts in the past discussing Larry’s funeral and how he lived his life (FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 479 MY May 30, 2017 LETTER TO HUGH HEFNER Featured Artist is Mark Cazalet, and RESPONDING TO HARRY KROTO’S BRILLIANT RENOWNED ACADEMICS!! Part 171A PAUSING to look at the life of Sir John Sulston (My 4-7-17 Letter to Dr. Sulston about Psalm 22) and RESPONDING TO HARRY KROTO’S BRILLIANT RENOWNED ACADEMICS!! (Pausing to look at the life of Steven Weinberg who was one of my favorite authors!) Part 169 Y My May 28, 2017 Letter to Dr. Weinberg on Solomon’s words on LAUGHING and the meaning of life! and FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 329 LETTER TO HUGH HEFNER ( After touring the Playboy mansion Peter O’Toole said, “This is the way God would have done it if he had the money.”) Featured Artist is Katrin Sigurdardóttir)
The Power of Joy
HEART AFLAME
DECEMBER 2023
What are the major characteristics of your life as a Christian? Stop and answer that question as honestly as you can. As a reader of Tabletalk, you probably understand yourself to be a sincere follower of Christ. What are the major characteristics of the life of a follower of Christ? Many of us have one word that comes to our minds: love. Indeed, our lives are to be marked by our love for God and others as we perceive God’s love for us.
Writing about the characteristics of the Christian life, Paul says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love” (Gal. 5:22). Love is the first characteristic listed as the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives. But many Christians are surprised by the second characteristic that Paul mentions. What is the very next characteristic in Paul’s list? It is “joy.” It is right there after “love”—“joy.”
How can joy be such a distinguishing mark for the Christian? The world can know joy, just as it can know love. How, then, is the joy wrought by the Holy Spirit different from the world’s joy? It is a transcendent joy. How can that be? We are quite ordinary people. This joy has a supernatural aspect. The source of this joy is a heart that has been changed by the Holy Spirit—a heart that has been produced by a rebirth. It is a joy empowered by the Holy Spirit, who indwells us and is constantly transforming our lives. This reborn and indwelled life arises every morning and shouts, “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps. 118:24). It celebrates the physical and spiritual feasts that the Lord brings to our lives daily.
I love the eighth chapter of Nehemiah. A remnant of Israel has returned to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon. The people are being called by their leaders, Ezra and Nehemiah, through the Word of God to celebrate the harvest Feast of Booths. Evidently, Israel had not celebrated this feast for decades. Read about it for yourself:
And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the Lordyour God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law. Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Be quiet, for this day is holy; do not be grieved.” And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them. (Neh. 8:9–12)
God was calling His people to remember and joyously celebrate that He is the Lord of the harvest. Does He not still call us to do this? Are we daily reveling in the immensity of God’s physical and spiritual provisions?
Paul said it this way: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” (Phil. 4:4). Notice the word “always”—it is to be a constant joy. By the power of the Holy Spirit, it is a joy that we choose even in the worst circumstances. When Paul and Silas were in the physical and spiritual darkness of the innermost part of a jail in Philippi, when their backs had been laid open by a torturous beating and they were in stocks, what did they do? They chose to pray and sing (Acts 16:25). Their joy transcended this awful midnight of their lives. On our worst days, we are still bathed in God’s incomparable grace. The horrific events of our lives cannot remove the sovereignty of God the Holy Spirit from our reborn hearts, the blood of Christ from our souls, and the certainty of coming glory from our minds. It is in the darkest of times that this joy shines the brightest. This joy is a powerful witness to the world around us.
The returning exiles wrote a song in their joyful celebration:
When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
we were like those who dream.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then they said among the nations,
“The Lord has done great things for them.”
The Lord has done great things for us;
we are glad. (Ps. 126:1–3)
The world was in awe of their joy. Does our joy daily say to the world, “The Lord has done great things for us”? The Philippian jailer was converted when he observed the transcendent joy of Paul and Silas.
Ezra and Nehemiah said to the people, “Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” We want to say: “No, Nehemiah, you got that wrong. It should be that the strength of the Lord is your joy.” But he did not say that. He said, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” Believer, what keeps our lives from being eaten alive by sorrow and despair? What keeps us from cynicism and hopelessness? The joy of the Lord is our strength. The word translated “strength” can also be translated “fortress” or “refuge.” Thus, we can say, “The joy of the Lord is our fortress, our refuge.”
Many great cities of the ancient world had an acropolis. When the city was attacked by the enemy, the inhabitants of the city retreated to the acropolis, the fortified height of the city. The acropolis of the kingdom of God is the joy of the Lord. That is our fortress.
So today, I am forced to ask myself, “Is this transcendent joy a hallmark, a distinguishing characteristic, of my life?”
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In the film series “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?” the arguments are presented against abortion (Episode 1), infanticide (Episode 2), euthanasia (Episode 3), and then there is a discussion of the Christian versus Humanist worldview concerning the issue of “the basis for human dignity” in Episode 4 and then in the last episode a close look at the truth claims of the Bible.
Pessimistic Existentialism (pt. 4)
from R.C. Sproul Feb 12, 2009 Category: Articles
(Continued from Pessimistic Existentialism pt. 3)
“Be of Good Cheer—The World Has Overcome Us!”
Here we see the vivid contrast between pessimistic existentialism and Christianity. Christianity also features a ringing call to courage. The most frequent negative prohibition found in the New Testament comes from the lips of Jesus—”Fear not!” This command is given so often by Christ that it almost seems like a greeting. One gets the impression that virtually every time Jesus appears to His disciples, He begins the conversation by saying, “Fear not.”
Here is the difference between the message of Jesus and that of existentialism. Jesus said, “Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.” The existentialist declares, “Be of good cheer, the world has overcome us.”
Jesus gives a reason for good cheer. He was not a first-century Good Humor Man spreading sweetness and light with saccharin frivolity, singing, “Pack up your troubles in an old kit bag and smile, smile, smile.” His exhortation to joy was based on a real triumph, an ultimate victory He achieved over the threatening forces of chaos.
By contrast the existential cry to courage is based on nothing. It recognizes an ultimate triumph of chaos and clings to an irrational courage. Albert Camus understood this tension when he said that the only serious question left for philosophers to discuss was the question of suicide.
The contradictory character of existentialism was mirrored in the protest movement of the youth counterculture in the sixties. Two slogans became popular: “Do your own thing!” and “Tell it like it is!” On the one hand there was a massive revolt against traditional values and a call to radical subjectivism. The subject does his own thing. There are no objective norms to obey.
On the other hand the summons to the older generation was to objective truth telling. “Tell it like it is!” The slogan suggests that there is such a thing as objective reality, what Francis Schaeffer called “true truth.” The youth were angry with their elders for being hypocrites, for living contradictory lives. At the same time the young people were exalting the “virtue” of living contradictory lives.
The contradiction appeared at another level. At the same time the students were denying classical personal ethics by embracing the sexual revolution and the drug culture, they were screaming for a loftysocial ethic with respect to civil rights, world peace, and ecological balance. They wanted a world with love including “free love” with no private responsibility; a world without killing, except for unborn babies, and a world where the environment was pure of toxic substances, except for the ones they used on themselves.
With the impact of existentialism on American culture a serious attempt was made to achieve a synthesis between Christianity and existentialism. Instead of looking to the pessimistic heroes of the movement, the nineteenth-century philosopher Soren Kierkegaard became the focal point of interest. Kierkegaard was seen as the father of Christian existentialism. Kierkegaard’s emphasis on personal passion struck a chord in the hearts of Christians. He differentiated among levels or stages of life. The level where most people live is either at a moralistic one or what he called an “aesthetic” level. The aesthetic level is the stage of the observer or the “spectator.” The spectator looks at life but stays on the sidelines. He avoids passionate involvement in life.
Kierkegaard understood profoundly that Christianity is not a spectator sport. It demands passionate commitment. Christianity can never be reduced to cold, abstract creeds, or rational systems of doctrine. Truth is not always found in neat packages. It is often paradoxical, according to Kierkegaard.
He spawned on the one hand a renewal of personal commitment to Christ, of Christians plunging into the work of Christ with passion. He also spawned a movement in theology that exalted the irrational. The contradiction became not only acceptable to theologians, but desirable. “Systematic” theology suddenly became suspect because it sought a kind of consistency and coherency that left no room for contradictions.
This new orthodoxy was fashioned along dialectical lines. I once listened to a debate between an orthodox theologian and a dialectical theologian. The latter was blatantly speaking in contradictions to the former’s utter consternation. Finally in a spirit of frustration the orthodox man said, “Please, sir, tell me theology once without the dialectic so I can understand what you are saying.”
The orthodox man was aware that contradictions are unintelligible. No one can understand them, not even dialectical theologians. When we use them we are revealing our confusion, not our brilliance.
A final element that grew out of religious existentialism was a new stress on human personal relationships. Martin Buber, a Jewish philosopher, stressed the importance of what he called, “I-Thou” relationships. People are not things. They are not impersonal objects to be studied dispassionately. They are not numbers. We use things. People are not to be used. When I relate to another person I am not relating to an “it.” Human relationships are to be subject-subject, notsubject-object.
The I-Thou concept helped awaken a new consciousness to people as people. Jews are not cattle to be exterminated by a “final solution.” Blacks are not “niggers” to be treated as chattel. Women are not playthings to be used as toys. There must be no such thing as a “Playmate of the Month.”
Here was a solid protest against the widespread depersonalization of culture. The theologians who sought to combine existentialism and Christianity gave us a mixed blessing. They were correct in seeing that Christian faith demands personal passion. They were correct in stressing the personal element of human relationships. They were correct in seeing that the Christian faith is more than rationality. Sadly, however, too often they threw out the baby with the bath water. Their protest against rationality became too severe. Their antisystem perspective began to wallow in contradiction.
Surely Christianity is more than rationality. But it is not less.
*****
This is part eleven of R.C. Sproul’s book Lifeviews first published by Revell in 1986. In this series we are learning how Christians are called by God to make an impact on culture and society.
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