JOLLYBLOGGER

What's it Like in the New Heavens and New Earth

Kevin DeYoung has a great post quoting Isaiah 65 and offering short commentary on it's implications for the new heavens and new earth.  I'd like to quote the whole thing but that wouldn't be right - you need to go to Kevin's blog to read the whole thing but here's a few snippets of what will and won't be in the new heavens and earth per Kevin.

The ways of this world, with its sin and suffering, will be forgotten. You will never think of the affair you had, the abortion you had, the pornography you saw, the gossip you spread, the drugs you took, the pain you caused. . .

You will only hear gladness–laughter, singing, whistling, music, the sound of a buzzing party with your friends, the high-pitched excitement of a feast that is finally under way. And besides all this, God will rejoice and be glad in his people. . . .

There will be no cancer cells, no MS, no car accidents, no SIDS, no miscarriages, no ALS, no Trisomy 18. You won’t have to get blood tests, or chemo, or worry what the CAT-scan will say. Death shall be swallowed up in victory. . . .

And best of all, Jesus will be there. We will be able to see him, touch him, talk with him, ask him anything, learn from him, and most of all worship him. We will love to praise him and laud him. We will love to sing with brothers and sisters in a thousand different languages.

Maturity Takes Time

This Sunday I am preaching on the story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22 and one little side point I will make will be to point out that Abraham was well over 100 when God tested him with the call to sacrifice his son Isaac.

Why is that significant"?  It is significant because it shows Abraham had, by this time, developed a mature faith, whereas, for much of the biblical story about him he showed an immature faith.

He showed great faith when he left Ur of the Chaldees to go to a land that God would show him (Genesis 12 and Hebrews 11:8-10), and when he believed that God would provide him a child, even in view of its seeming impossibility in Genesis 15:1-6).  Yet he shows remarkable inconsistency and immaturity in his willingness to lie about Sarah in Genesis 12 and 20 and in his willingness to go along with Sarah's plan in Genesis 16 regarding Hagar.

In the latter cases he seems to have forgotten, or at least failed to rely on, the promises of God.  But in the testing with Isaac, the most severe test he ever faced, he came through with flying colors.  In this case he showed a mature and fairly sophisticated theological understanding of the promises of God, as per Hebrews 11:19, he reasoned that God could raise the dead.  He connected all the dots - God had promised him descendants through Isaac, but God was calling him to sacrifice Isaac, but God can raise the dead so he can raise Isaac, ergo, in faith he obeyed.  Thankfully God spared him from having to go through with this but it is in this incident that he primarily shows himself an example of faith to all of us.

What if you only had one month to live?

I've been seeing here and there that lots of folks are reading or involved in a program at church based on the book One Month to Live.  I haven't read it or been involved in it in any way so in what follows I'm not so much commenting on the book or program itself as much as I am making an observation on the way these kinds of discussions usually go, by that I mean discussions on how you would change your life if you knew you were going to die soon.

At the risk of sounding like a kranky, contrarian, curmudgeon, may I say that I think most of those discussions, though well intended and hitting some important points often miss the mark.

Also, if I may say a personal word to my friends who are reading this.  I hope I don't come across as mister morbid in my blogging since most of my posts these days are about cancer and dying.  It's just that this is obviously the dominating circumstance of my life right now.  But I want to assure you that, though I think often about death and dying I am in no way giving up the fight for life, nor am I resigned to a "very-soon" death. Though my hope is not in doctors and statistics, I have even seen a bit of chatter lately to the effect that some of the more grim statistics for those in my condition are from five or more years ago, and that as new stats become available for those diagnosed more recently, we may find that the five year survival rate is higher than is usually reported.  So I have lots of hope and optimism, but I am realistic - I realistically could live a few months to many, many years, and I'm gradually learning to not worry so much about that as it is ultimately in God's hands. I am learning to live each day as if it has enough trouble of it's own and not worry so much about tomorrow - that's almost biblical, I think.

So having said that, getting back to the topic I started with, here's my gripe about these discussions on how you would change if you knew you were soon to die.  Most of them focus on how you can change your life now so that when it comes time to die you won't have any regrets.  This approach largely forgets the gospel.

Granted, it's not all bad.  I think often these days about how I will be remembered, mostly by my wife and children, but also to a certain degree about how others outside the family will remember me.  I do think about the legacy I will leave, so I do applaud anyone who begins that kind of self-evaluation process and makes the necessary changes that would entail.

But the bottom line is this - if I am to face my own death with no regrets, the only way I can do so is if my sins are atoned for, and sins are only atoned for by the work of Christ.  From what I can tell, most of these "what if you only had a short time to live" discussions revolve around things you must do to cleanse the slate and clear your conscience.  Again, good stuff to do, but only in a secondary sense.  If I knew I was going to die soon I would spend far more time reading, studying, meditating on and reflecting on all that Christ has done for me than anything else.  That's the only sure way to approach your own death with no regrets.

Dallas Willard on Love in Real Life

I'm reading Dallas Willard's new book - Knowing Christ Today - a good study on "Christian thought as true knowledge."  I'm going to share with you in a moment a quote of his on love, and I am sorry that I don't have the time or space to go into the context of how and why he made this remark.  The short of it is that this is in a chapter on the disappearance of "moral knowledge" and now that has been divorced from "science" and the academy.  However, ethicists and other today still value "love" as they define it.  Yet, Willard argues that they have divorced their notions of "love" from it's Christian foundations and seek to define it without reference to Christ. 

One reason they speak of "love" without reference to Christ may be because the Christian concept of love is very different from any other concept of love.  Here's Willard's quote (from p. 92) that I think is helpful in that regard:

You can't succeed in being ethical in act or character unless you have abandoned having your way, fulfilling your own desires, as the rule of your life (italics his).  That is the ethical meaning of love in real life as taught and practiced by Jesus.

With that as the foundation of love I can see why it doesn't have appeal outside of the Christian context.  It means that we aren't driven by our own, or by some set of shared passions, as one ethicist that Willard refers to recommends.  It certainly cuts against the grain of human ambition and the pursuit of pleasure.

Yet it does make sense in a life governed by the theology of the cross, where the cross defines reality for us.  In effect, it hints at idolatry as the antithesis of love, and idolatry is the enemy in a cross centered life.  It also dovetails perfectly with the idea of a life defined by taking up one's cross.  And finally, it offers a tangible guide for the practice of love in real life.

The Practical Advantage of Having Your Life Threatened

I deeply appreciate every prayer and word of encouragement that has been offered in response to my battle with cancer, and let me be the first to say that I hate this cancer and it has upset the applecart of my life like nothing I could have ever imagined.

On the other hand, when I found out I had cancer I came to realize that life up until that point was like living in fantasyland.  I had live in relative comfort, peace and prosperity all my life and had never had to face any of the real hard things in life.

This is an unusual situation both geographically.  By "geographically" I mean that those of us who are born in America are shielded from the hard things of life that many in our world have to face on a daily basis.  We don't have to face poverty and war and death and disease like many in our world do.  By "historically" I mean that we live at a time where life expectancies are greater than ever, health is better than ever and so, even here in America, we don't face the same kinds of battles with death and disease that even our forefathers faced.

Because of this we have accomodated our Christian faith to the times in which we live.  We have lots of books and seminars that purport to offer Christian perspectives on health and wealth building, on success and things like that.  We don't have quite as much to help us prepare for death. 

And if some of our Christian forefathers are any indication it could be that the low ebb of Christian devotion and commitment we often see is directly tied to the fact that death is not a daily reality that we confront.  Unless we are old, or a soldier in battle, or have a terminal disease, very few of us see death as something that could happen to us.  And because of this, we can always wait till tomorrow to get serious with Christ. 

This was brought to my attention today as I was preparing my Sunday sermon and reflected on some words from Richard Baxter that I first became aware of when I found out I had cancer.  I offer these for your consideration and meditation in the hope that you will seriously consider the brevity of (your) life and let this spur you on to follow Christ today.

Promise not yourselves long life, or prosperity and great matters in the world, lest it entangle your hearts with transitory things, and engage you in ambitious and covetous designs, and steal away your hearts from God, and destroy all your apprehensions of eternity.

"If God doesn't judge America, He'll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah," Huh?

This past Sunday I preached on Genesis 18 and 19, the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah and going into the prep for the sermon I was looking for similarities to their situation and ours, along with the corresponding prospect of impending judgment.

Along the way I was reminded of the statement at the title of this post "if God doesn't judge America, He'll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah."  I found that this was originally spoken by Billy Graham, and I have heard it repeated by many different people in many different contexts. 

As I studied the passage though I came to the conclusion that this statement is unhelpful at best, and biblically irresponsible at worst.  I say this not to cast aspersion on Billy Graham, a great father in the faith who deserves the honor he receives from his Christian brethren.  But the statement itself, with the applications that have risen by many Christians doesn't correspond with Scriptural reality and therefore ought to be removed from Christian rhetoric.

Why did Sodom and Gomorrah fall?  Many think that it fell because of the rampant sexual immorality, particularly homosexuality.  This brings up another questionable belief in conservative Christian circles - the belief that the acceptance of homosexuality is kind of the "last straw" before God brings judgment and destruction on a nation.  This is another view I have often heard expressed, and several times I have heard the Roman Empire used as an example of this.  The idea is that Rome descended into greater and greater immorality, culminating in the widespread acceptance of homosexuality, and this precipitated the fall of Rome.

There are several problems with that view.  For one, there is some debate as to whether and when Rome actually "fell."  Having said that, if there was in fact a fall of Rome, the conventional view is that it fell around 476AD.  The problem with the idea that it fell as a result of increasing moral decadence and particularly homosexuality is that by this time Constantine had come and gone and had "Christianized" the empire.  Of course, bringing up Constantine raises a whole 'nuther set of issues as to whether or not his form of "Christianizing" the empire was a good thing or the right thing.  But I think it is safe to say that in giving Christianity the protection and favor of the Roman government he accomplished what many Americans, who buy the "moral decadence led to the fall of Rome" hypothesis, are seeking to accomplish.  In other words, for the 150 or so years before the fall of Rome Christianity was "on the rise" at least in terms of political and cultural influence, again a state of affairs that many Christians seek today.  But this leaves those who hold to the "moral decadence precipitated the fall of Rome" view with a conundrum.  How is it that the political and international fell during the rise of Christianity in the empire? 

Getting back to Sodom and Gomorrah there is an analogy here in the sense that, looking at the biblical texts you can't make the case that moral decadence was the one single cause of the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Health and Blogging Update 7-13-09

It's been awhile since I blogged mainly because I just haven't felt like it due to the aftereffects of chemo - I often am not only feeling bad physically but I get into a kind of mental fog and I just don't feel like thinking and stringing together a bunch of thoughts.  Plus, there hasn't been much new on the health front lately.

But having said that I'm feeling good today and I do have a bit of news on the health front. 

I have switched doctors - long story on why and how that came about that I won't go into here.   I now have a doc at Johns Hopkins which is a good thing.  I recently saw that Hopkins is rated as the best hospital in America and there cancer center is ranked third best in the nation.  So there is a sense of security in this in the sense that I'm probably in the best place I could possibly be for cancer treatment.  The two places that are ranked ahead of Hopkins are MD Anderson at the University of Texas and Sloane Kettering in New York.  So, since those are out of driving distance it's good to be at Hopkins.

The only down side of Hopkins is that it is internationally known and people come here from all over the world, so the wait times are going to be longer for pretty much everything.

But I went in today and spent a good deal of time with a nurse practitioner and the doctor.  The good news is that they gave me some answers to questions I haven't gotten before.  I have had 11 treatments so far and they tell me that 12 is the standard so they are going to give me one more and then stop.  One of the drugs I have been getting is called oxolyplatin (sp?) and it causes neuropoathy in the fingers and toes and that has become the dominant side effect for me over the last month.  I've pretty well lost feeling in the tips of my fingers and the pads of my feet and toes are going numb.  I have a hard time buttoning shirts and sometimes I lose balance. 

So, come to find out, ten treatments with oxolyplatin is usually about as much as they give so I won't get that with this next treatment.  I've also been given some medication which we hope is going to help me with the neuropathy so with that and not get the oxolyplatin hopefully I'll start getting my feeling back.

Now for the news that's not as good.  It's not bad news but it's just a reminder of the seriousness of cancer.  What we do after this treatment is wait for the tumors to start growing again and then go back on chemo.  I'll get a CT scan every 2-3 months and as long as the tumors don't grow I won't have treatment.  When they start growing again I'll go back on treatment.

The doctor said I could stay on some form of chemo but that statistically patients who stay on chemo vs. those who take a break and wait for the tumors to grow again don't do any better.  So, those who go off the chemo get to enjoy a higher quality of life for a time. 

The doctor expects that I will have a few months without treatment, hopefully up to six. 

I also asked about my prognosis.  The good news is that the doctor says my tumors have "good biology."  This is shown by the fact that they have responded very well to treatment.  She said that the average life expectancy for this is two to two and a half years which was a downer.  My old doctor had said three to three and a half years.  But don't forget that this "average" means 50% of people die before then and 50% live longer.  She said with my "good biology" in the tumor it is very hopeful that I'll be in the 50% group that lives longer.  On the other hand they said that those on the good side usually only live 4-5 years, not 10 or so.  That one kind of upset us.  She said the goal is to basically keep me alive and going in hopes that new treatments will come available in the future.  With Hopkins being a research hospital they will be the first to get the newest and best treatments.

That prognosis is not totally out of the blue, we have heard such things before and so this was just a reminder of the seriousness of the situation I'm in.  We have recouped pretty well from that and are just trusting God and using this as a reminder to number our days and make the most of them.  So, needless to say I would appreciate your prayers.  I do look forward to eternity but for the sake of my family and work I have yet to do I hope to stay here awhile longer.

Having said all of that I am feeling pretty good these days.  I had a drug holiday where I recouped a lot of energy.  And I have done pretty well since the last treatment two weeks ago.  Since this next treatment will be minus the oxolyplatin I expect the side effects won't be too overwhelming and then I can begin my period of no treatment and feeling well.  And I expect that will enable me to resume blogging at some regular pace.  I doubt I'll ever reach the frequency of blogging that I had in earlier days but hopefully I'll be able to post at least once or twice a week.