"Before the Wind Ever Blew"

This is an excerpt out of a book entitled "God Struck Me Dead: Voices of Ex-Slaves" by Clifton H. Johnson. I'm not sure how I came across this book but it has been very interesting reading to say the least. In this book are the accounts of many African-Americans who were enslaved prior to and even after the Civil War. Many of these accounts come from people who were illiterate and couldn't read a Bible during these times, were enslaved to owners who were and weren't Christians, and by many of their own testimonies these former slaves they claim that they were not searching for God. What is interesting to see in this book is the thread of the truth of God's grace that flows through each of these accounts stating that man is totally unable to save himself and that God, in the right time, must change the heart and affections of a man toward Himself and this is done through faith in Christ. The faith in Jesus that is spoken of by these ex-slaves is a faith that one can "know"; it is a faith gives great assurance to the believer that something has happened within them, and it is a faith that expresses what has been done for the believer. Although they regarded the Bible as the authoritative Word of God,  these slaves couldn't read the Bible and find their assurance in the passages of scripture as many could during that time and today so they were pressed to remember the moment in which God came in and changed their disposition to Him. Furthermore,many slaves also didn't have access to the theological resources or preaching that was to be found in those days. So how were they converted? In looking through the many accounts, visions, and dreams that are described in this book, there is a common and  heavy emphasis on sin, a clear and descriptive view of heaven and hell,  a heavy emphasis on the Sovereignty of God, and a heavy emphasis on the grace that is found in Jesus in the experiences spoken of. It is almost if not totally breathtaking to read the broken and poorly articulated sentences of slaves describing their lives in one paragraph and then to read only sentences later of their conversion experiences,in which many heard voices or saw visions where scripture they had never read or heard was clearly spoken and articulated to them concerning Christ and the promises of God. It was the joy, fear, sorrow and excitement that was felt during these visions and experiences that gave the believer great assurance. In many accounts the terms "dead" and "alive" are used to communicate the previous life of sin and the life found in Jesus. Thabiti Anyabwile in his book "The Decline of African - American Theology : From Biblical Faith to Cultural Captivity" points out this book in talking about the revelation of God through visions and voices to slaves in the American south. He states,

"The belief that God was able to and frequently did reveal Himself through voices and visions, if not normative by slave standards, was at least normal. The collection of conversion testimonies and short biographies assembled by Clifton Johnson in God Struck Me Dead are an invaluable recording of slave theological thought, at least among slaves alive during the twilight of the institution. Many of these slave conversion testimonies featured vision - and voice-based revelations, with the recipient recording very little surprise or dis-belief at the prospect of hearing or seeing God through dreams or visions."

Before I quote the excerpt from this book, I would like to clarify that I am in no way saying that to trust in a vision or an experience is to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that one is saved. True assurance comes from the Word of God found in the Scriptures and the fruit that is produced in the life of a Christian which shows evidence that the person who believes and trusts in Jesus is united to Him. This goes for all who believe in Jesus, even slaves who experienced radical and un-explainable visions and dreams. In many of the accounts of this book, the ex-slave narrators speak of how since their conversion experience,  their affections have changed, sin is not seen as lovely anymore, and their attitudes towards the world and the things in the world has changed as well. In other accounts we see the typical Christian life, one of struggle and temptation, fear and joy, suffering and affliction, and continued perseverance through trusting in Christ. I'm writing this to ultimately show and point to the sovereignty of God in saving the lowest of the lowest in a society through His own means and purposes. Illiteracy, abuse, and something as horrible as slavery are not outside of His power to save those who He calls to Himself. Here is a chapter in the book of an account entitled "Before the Wind Ever Blew":

"I dont know why it was I got converted, because I had been doing nearly everything they told me I ought not to do. I danced, played cards, and done just like I wanted to do. I don't reckon I was so bad, but they said I was. In my heart I was good and felt that someday I would do better.

One day, when I was about twenty-two years old, I got up feeling awful heavy. I went about my work, and had started to washing when I suddenly began to feel worse and worse. I wasn't sick, I was just heavy. I began to say "Lord, I wonder what is the matter with me?" I stopped washing and went in the house and layed across the bed, and there I saw Jesus. He turned my face to the east and said "Go and declare my name to the world, and I will fill your heart with song."

While I was laying there I saw the city. It was the prettiest place that I ever saw. All the little angels were the same size and color, and as they flew, all their wings moved at the same time and made the sweetest music I ever heard.

After I passed through this experience, I lost all worldly cares. The things I used to enjoy don't interest me now. I am a new creature in Jesus, the workmanship of His hand saved from the foundation of the world. I was a chosen vessel before the wind ever blew of the sun ever shined.

Religion is not a work but a gift from God. We are saved by grace, and it is not of ourselves but the gift of God."

Do Words Carry Power?

Do your words carry power? I was asked this question by a good friend yesterday morning and I thought it would make a good post. I also have had some other questions floating around upstairs that I've been meaning to do some digging in, so maybe I will respond to them in the near future. I haven't been blogging much recently due to a full plate of work, classes, and repairing my jumpshot. Anyways...do words have power?

Some background to this question is important. Today its not uncommon to turn on Christian television or even hear from the pulpit about the power of your words. Your words can "create your world" "improve your situation" or even bring you life's best days and worst moments, all you have to do is "speak it", "name it", "decree it" or "speak over yourself". Your words have GREAT power some say, but what does scripture say? Well, too often what supports these sayings we hear are verses such as Proverbs 18:21 which says

 "Life and death are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits",

 or even Romans 4:17 which states "as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. (emphasis mine). A few others that are named are 2 Corinthians 4:13 which says "Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence."; and James 3:5-12 which says

"So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire!  And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.  Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water?  Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water." 

Lastly I wont forget the words of Jesus who stated throughout the gospels things like this "He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”(Matt 17:20) So according to these verses, do our words carry power?
The answer is no.
So the answer to the question. Yes and No. I know that's difficult, but its true. Yes your words carry power and no they don't. It comes down to how you define power. Some define power meaning the ability to use words to create, make things happen or to get things. Power in this sense means to use words to bring something to pass that currently doesn't exist or isn't true. The answer to this is no. To use any of the previous verses listed and to interpret them to mean that you and I, Christian or not, can use our words to create something, bring something to pass, or attain something, is a wrong interpretation. We cannot speak death to anyone and wait for them to die. Why? Because ultimately death is in the hands of a Sovereign God who controls all things - life and death. The same goes with life.You and I do not control that. We cannot speak life to someone and cause them to live longer or cause ourselves to live longer. To this end, our words do not carry power. Our words therefore cannot "create our world". We do not have the ability to call things into existence in our lives that do not exist. (Try it now, see what happens.)In Romans 4, it is God who does that. I cannot believe I'll have $20 and then speak "I have $20 dollars" and then see $20 appear in my hand. Personally, I've made hundreds of thousands of these "confessions" in my life and have only experienced frustration, anger, or condemnation when my words didn't come to pass. According to this perspective, my confession didn't come to pass because I lacked faith or doubted God and this was just wrong. Furthermore "decreeing and declaring" or "binding and loosing" is not another way for you and I to use our words to "release things" or make things happen or stop happening. We cannot open heaven's window's with our words anymore than we can open the Federal Reserve's safe door with them. To see yourself as the one who has the authority to do this and that is to make yourself a sovereign and it makes God your caddy. It is God who blesses His people. It is God who gives grace through Jesus and whose providential hands move the seasons of our lives. Prayer is the means that He has established of communicating to Him about these things. Through prayer we humbly depend on Him for all things, yet we come boldly before Him in our requests because we have an Intercessor and a High Priest in Jesus. According to Matthew 17:20, It is our small mustard see faith that is placed in the hands of an  All-powerful God that enables us to do the impossible. Our words or faith don't do the impossible, God, the object of our faith, does. Our faith is not a force, something that we wield. To see faith as a force is to see it as something that you use to attain something whether it be salvation or a beamer. Rather, if we see faith as a gift (Phil 1:29) or as an empty outstretched hand, then what that shows is dependence...we are beggars who deserve nothing and will receive anything, even a crumb and be content. In Jesus, God pours out steadfast love and the riches of His grace upon beggars who don't deserve anything. The basis of His blessing us is not how much we can declare and bind and loose and confess, but it is Jesus. Romans 8:32 "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" Jesus is the basis upon which you are presently and eternally secure, not our words.

The answer is yes.
Our words do carry power in that they are potent but not omnipotent as my wife so wonderfully reminded me of while writing this. Our words are powerful in that they are given to us by God because we are made in His image and after His likeness.No other creation has been given words as a means of communication. Through God's Word(s), namely the Bible, God speaks to us. We find knowledge of His love, mercy, justice, holiness, grace, and wrath. We see the things He loves and we see the things He hates.We find promises and we find warnings all throughout the Bible and this is similar to how our words carry power.It has been said that because God's words create and bring something out of nothing in the Bible, that you and I have the ability to do the same, namely that we are "speaking spirits". This is wrong. Our words are not powerful in the sense that we are sovereign creators with them. Only God can create and uphold the universe by the word of His power. God's words to us also encourages us, convicts us, blesses us, and gives us knowledge of Him. Our words do essentially the same. By our words we can encourage, convict, bless others, and what someone says can tell much about them. Our words carry meaning. If they are truthful and honest and loving and grace-filled, then they can give life to and uplift those we are speaking to.On the other hand, if our words are negative, slandering, evil, and oppressing, then they can bring hurt, fear, dishonesty, and pain - words of death. According to James, our words are not so much as powerful as they are fickle. With our mouths we bless God and then curse our neighbors who are made in God's image. Rather than being concerned with the power in our words and what we can decree and declare and bind and loose and what we can name or claim, we ought to be more concerned with the nature of our words - do we bless God and curse others? Do we vocally profess Jesus one minute only to vocally deny Him the next? With our words, do we communicate our dependence on God, or do we claim to be in control of things? Do our words communicate the confidence we have in the object of our faith, Jesus,or do they convey that our faith is in ourselves or in something else?

Our words are powerful, but not in the way that they are sovereign. Our words do not control or create, but they do encourage or discourage. Our words are important because we will be judged by them(Matt 12:36-37), not by how powerful they are, but by how they convey the condition of our hearts.

Race and The Christian: John Piper, Anthony Bradley, Tim Keller

Faith, Hope, and Cancer...

No Mr. President...

Today, President Obama commemorated Roe v. Wade. Instead of recognizing it as an open door for one of the most grievous sins our nation has ever committed, he praised the ruling as an open door for women's rights. He stated the following:

"As we mark the 39^th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we must remember that this Supreme Court decision not only protects a woman’s health and reproductive freedom, but also affirms a broader principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters.  I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose and this fundamental constitutional right.  While this is a sensitive and often divisive issue- no matter what our views, we must stay united in our determination to prevent unintended pregnancies, support pregnant woman and mothers, reduce the need for abortion, encourage healthy relationships, and promote adoption.  And as we remember this historic anniversary, we must also continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams."

Desiring God produced this video a few years ago and it still rings true today as it did when Obama entered into the Oval Office four years ago.



Denny Burk wrote this article today about Obama's remarks. Click here to read the full article

"It was the last line of the statement that provoked me the most. The President says he wants “our daughters [to] have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons.” Who could disagree with that statement? I agree with it totally. The problem is that President Obama does not really mean it. At the same time he calls us to protect our daughters’ rights, President Obama praises the decision that has led to the legal killing of at least 25 million of our unborn daughters. Clearly he does not want to protect the rights of all of our daughters, but only some of them. How can he not see the moral absurdity of his own words?"

God Is For God - Matt Chandler

God's Amazing Grace - Martin Luther King Jr.

"The other day, I went out to Kilby prison to pray with some of the men on death row. And it’s always a very tragic experience, not so much a tragic experience as a sort of sad experience to look at men who have committed great crimes and now they are standing in a little cell with nothing there much, just in a little cell between four walls. And they can’t see much and they’re just waiting for the day of their death and the day of their ultimate doom. And I went to pray with some of these men. And I never can forget as I walked away from there after praying and walked out of all of these bars, I couldn’t walk out with arrogance. I couldn’t walk out with the feeling that I’m not like these men. I couldn’t walk out with the attitude of the Pharisee, “I thank Thee God that I’m not like other men.” But as I walked out of that door, something was ringing in my heart saying, “But for the grace of God, you would be here.” As I look at drunkard men walking the streets of Montgomery and of other cities every day, I find myself saying, “But by the grace of God, you too would be a drunkard.” As I look at those who have lost balance of themselves and those who are giving their lives to a tragic life of pleasure and throwing away everything they have in riotous living, I find myself saying, “But by the grace of God, I too would be here.” And when you see that point, you cannot be arrogant. But you walk through life with a humility that takes away the self-centeredness that makes you a disintegrated personality. And you begin to sing: Amazing grace! How sweet the sound That saves a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now I’m found, Was blind, but now I see. Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come; ’Twas grace that brought me safe thus far, And grace will lead me home. And when you take this attitude, you go into the room of your life and take down the mirrors because you cannot any longer see yourself. But the mirrors somehow are transformed into windows and you look out into the objective world and see that you are what you are because of somebody else. You are what you are because of the grace of the Almighty God."

- Martin Luther King Jr.

A Letter from Martin Luther on Spiritual Warfare - from Justin Taylor's Blog

I read this on Justin Taylor's Blog yesterday and thought that this was great in talking about dealing with spiritual warfare. Personally, I've heard many things in my few years about how to deal with spiritual warfare, and I've done everything from praying "warfare prayers" to "binding and loosing". After reading this I can imagine laughing with a response of "hahahah....wait, wait, wait...who is this again?", realizing that Christ is victorious over my sin and failures and all attacks that serve to destroy me only serve His sovereign purposes in bringing me to Himself. Enjoy!

A Letter from Martin Luther on Spiritual Warfare

The following is from a letter written in July 1530 to Jerome Weller, a 31-year-old friend who had previously lived in the Luther home, tutored his children, and was now struggling with spiritual despair: . .

Excellent Jerome, You ought to rejoice in this temptation of the devil because it is a certain sign that God is propitious and merciful to you. You say that the temptation is heavier than you can bear, and that you fear that it will so break and beat you down as to drive you to despair and blasphemy. I know this wile of the devil. If he cannot break a person with his first attack, he tries by persevering to wear him out and weaken him until the person falls and confesses himself beaten. Whenever this temptation comes to you, avoid entering upon a disputation with the devil and do not allow yourself to dwell on those deadly thoughts, for to do so is nothing short of yielding to the devil and letting him have his way. Try as hard as you can to despise those thoughts which are induced by the devil. In this sort of temptation and struggle, contempt is the best and easiest method of winning over the devil. Laugh your adversary to scorn and ask who it is with whom you are talking. By all means flee solitude, for the devil watches and lies in wait for you most of all when you are alone. This devil is conquered by mocking and despising him, not by resisting and arguing with him. . . When the devil throws our sins up to us and declares we deserve death and hell, we ought to speak thus:

“I admit that I deserve death and hell.

What of it?

Does this mean that I shall be sentenced to eternal damnation?

By no means.

For I know One who suffered and made a satisfaction in my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Where he is, there I shall be also.”

Yours, Martin Luther Luther:

Letters of Spiritual Counsel, trans. and ed. Theodore G. Tappert (orig., 1960; reprint, Vancouver, BC: Regent College Publishing, 2003), 85.

An Update on The Reading List - "Bloodlines" and "Liberating Black Theology"

This Fall/Winter, I have been reading a few books in my spare time and here is an update on the two that I am currently reading. I have finished "Knowing God" by J.I. Packer and "Doctrine" by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears and I am currently reading "Bloodlines:Race, Cross and The Christian" by John Piper and "Liberating Black Theology" by Anthony B. Bradley. Here are two excerpts from the books...some things that have stood out to me. The first excerpt is from John Piper's "Bloodlines"

Racial tensions are rife with pride - the pride of white supremacy, the pride of black power, the pride of intellectual analysis, the pride of anti-intellectual scorn, the pride of loud verbal attack, and the pride of despising silence, the pride that feels secure, and the pride that masks fear. Where pride holds sway, there is no hope for the kind of listening and patience and understanding and openness to correction that relationships require. The gospel of Jesus breaks the power of pride by revealing the magnitude and the ugliness and the deadliness of it, even as it provides deliverance from it. The gospel makes plain that I am so hopelessly sinful and my debt before God was so huge that my salvation required the death of the Son of God in my place. This is devastating to the human ego. And God means it to be: "By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast" (Eph. 2:8-9). He saves us by grace alone so that we would boast in him alone. Pride is shattered...Imagine what race relations and racial controversies would look like if the participants were all dead to pride and deeply humble before God and each other.

This excerpt is from Bradley's "Liberating Black Theology"

The fact of the Fall and the accomplished redemptive work of Christ serve as the true foundation for the liberation of black people. The fruits of Christ's sacrifice are not restricted to any one group of people because of our common human solidarity as sinners. Bavinck describes three benefits that accrue from the reconciliation of God through Christ: "(1) juridicial - that forgiveness of sins is our justification, mystical - consisting of the Christ being crucified, buried, raised, and being seated with Christ in heaven, ethical - through regeneration and being made alive, (2) moral - consisting in the imitation of Christ, economic - in the fulfillment of the Old Testament covenant and the inaguration of the new covenant , and (3) physical - in our victory over the world, death, hell, and Satan."

I'm sure there will be more to come from these books. I recommend both - they are filled with great content and they walk through the gospel and how it applies to racial issues in the world we live in.

Job - John Piper

Til' Death Do Us Part - Brandon Graves

The The Perfection of Beauty (Trailer to Shai Linne's Album)