Posted on by Abe Austin

Finding Christ in the Conscience

We’ve all heard the admonition to reflect on “what would Jesus do” and then conduct ourselves in the same manner. This advice brings up the question, though, of how do we know what Jesus would really do in our particular situation? In some cases he showed compassion and reservation, such as when he spared the woman caught in adultery. At other times he showed judgment and passion, such as when he turned the tables of the money-changers in the temple. How can we really know which way he would deal with each situation, or even the things he would do that don’t even occur naturally to our minds?

Anticipating the behavior of another person typically requires a deep and intimate knowledge of that person. This is something else we are encouraged to develop: a personal and intimate relationship with Jesus. We are told that we ought to know his personality, his manner, his attitude. But once again, how do we do that when he isn’t here in the flesh?

Of course, we can glean some of Christ’s personality and pattern of behavior from the Biblical account, and we might gain further insights through personal, spiritual experiences, but there is also a third way that is perhaps the most reliable method of them all. Jesus told his disciples: “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12). Paul later confirmed to the Corinthians that he had sensed this light of Christ shining within him: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). This light of Christ is in all of us, even in those who have not yet accepted Christ. It is the conscience that always persuades us to do what is right. And this conscience is the key to learning who he is.

When we feel our conscience whisper in our hearts and we follow its counsel, we are at the same time both learning the nature of Jesus Christ and also doing what he would do. The conscience is telling us how he would behave in this instance, and as we do the same we feel his emotions and desires come alive in our own hearts. Thus, the prick of the conscience is an invitation to actually be Christ for a moment, and we are educated to his nature from within our very own selves!

Of course, this is also why following our conscience typically feels so strange and unnatural to us. It almost always means setting aside our own personality and choices, and stepping into an entirely different personality and pattern of behavior. This is a hard thing to do, but the more we practice it the more natural it becomes. Bit-by-bit we will be transformed from our old nature into Christ’s, taking on his attitude and likeness until we become his true representative. Thus, we can come to a deeper and more intimate knowledge of Christ than any other person. We will know him even as ourselves, because we will ourselves be as him.

If you truly want to know who Christ is, the tool to do so is already there in your heart. Practice bending yourself to the light he has put in you, and you will become a foremost expert on who the man really is. And then, everyone who sees you will also see the image of their Savior, and learn of him by you.

Posted on by Abe Austin

The Chicken or the Egg?

The Paradox)

We’ve all heard the classic dilemma, “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” Most people merely see this as an amusing puzzle, and quickly discard it as having no suitable answer.

But really, it is a very serious question, one that was posed by Aristotle himself over 2,400 years ago! The fact that we are still talking about it to this day, and still shrug it off without any clear explanation is a very alarming fact!

Now, to the creationist, the question really isn’t that troubling. If God created the Earth, the atmosphere, the seasons, and the universe as we know it, is it really any stretch to say that He could have architected the egg-bearing chicken also? And whether He did that with an egg or a mature fowl doesn’t really matter, He could have begun with either without any paradox.

But the materialist throws out the idea of an omnipotent creator, and puts in His place the forces of undirected, spontaneous evolution. Darwinism states that neither the chicken nor the egg came first, but a single-celled organism which, through a lengthy process of mutation and natural selection, developed into the species that we now call the chicken.

And I might concede that this would be a possibility, if we could agree that the evolution would have to have been a tool purposefully directed by the hands of an intelligent creator. But if one insists that this evolution occurred totally at random, which is the position of modern science, well that’s just plain ridiculous.

The Requirements)

Again, the proposal is that the chicken would have had to originate as some sort of single-celled organism, one which reproduced by dividing itself in half, but eventually it evolved into a creature that reproduced itself via a fertilized egg. This would mean that at some point in between there would have been a creature that still reproduced asexually, but which was also gradually developing sexual organs. Organs that eventually were able to produce and lay an egg, but initially this egg would not yet have been functional.

This means that the pre-chicken was expending energy and effort, giving up nutrients of its own body, subjecting itself to a more vulnerable state, all to produce something that was—for the time being—useless. And again, this might be acceptable if some Higher Power was requiring the life form to undergo this process, but it according to the laws of natural selection, this would mean that the species had a detrimental mutation which would have led to its extinction, not to its flourishing. This unnecessarily-handicapped pre-chicken simply would have been overrun by all the other variants that weren’t wasting energy laying undeveloped eggs.

And that’s just the matter of the chicken and the egg. But by itself, a female chicken still cannot produce a fertilized egg. Just as the species would have had to evolve from a replicating cell into a chicken that had embryonic and adult stages, it also would have had to evolve itself into male and female forms also. Thus it had go from being sexless to having sexed versions, but at least for a time those two halves would still have been reproducing asexually until they evolved into full sexual maturity. That means that there would now be two separate strands of random mutation, each evolving separately from one another, but somehow also in perfect tandem, developing in complementary ways, remaining compatible with one another once they both reached full sexual capability.

A Valid Question)

So as it turns out, the childhood question of “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” is actually a very weighty matter. It has all manner of scientific and metaphysical implications. 2,400 years later it still pokes holes in the most airtight theories of man and leaves us either with a stronger belief in our divine creator, or else a greater confusion of this inscrutable world.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Maintaining Hope in a Doomed World

A Vision of Destruction)

The Bible’s descriptions of the final days have struck fear into the hearts of many people. Even those who are otherwise unacquainted with the stories and messages of the Bible are still familiar with its visions of fire and brimstone raining down upon the world, destroying all the wicked, administering God’s judgment before the return of Christ. The passages also describe the terrible persecution that will first afflict the faithful, and that the world will ultimately reject the gospel message before they feel the wrath of heaven.

Given all this, it can be easy to feel pessimistic about ministry efforts in the world today. We’ve skipped ahead and read the end of the story and we already know that the world as a whole does not become convinced by the missionary efforts of the righteous. So why bother protesting evil? Why speak against the ways that society is moving towards its own destruction? The world is just going there anyway, so why not just separate yourself from it and live as a faithful hermit?

The Many and the One)

If, indeed, we are in the last days, there is a sort of logic to all those cynical, nihilistic questions. If we are fast approaching Armageddon, then no matter what we do the world is still doomed to fail, and so any effort on our part to save it are also doomed to fail.

But saving the world or abandoning it aren’t our only options.

Maintaining the light of hope and optimism, even in the midst of a world falling apart, only requires us to shift our perspective from the many to the one. I have made this point previously, that anyone who is focused on saving the whole world will be disappointed, but anyone who is focused on saving the individual may yet find success.

We could see ourselves as firefighters standing before a blazing building. Perhaps the fire has spread through too much of the structure to save it. Perhaps the whole thing is coming down no matter what we do. But what about the individuals that are trapped inside? There may yet be time to rush in and get as many of some of them as possible out to safety before it all comes crashing down!

Even if the earth is going to hell in a handbasket there is still a work for us to do, a challenge for us to meet, and a success for us to achieve. We can follow Christ’s admonition to stop fixating on the ninety-and-nine, and to go in search of the one, bringing it back with great rejoicing!

The fate of the world is already known, but the fate of you, your loved ones, and your neighbors still hangs in the balance.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 11:8-10

8 And he went out from Pharaoh in a great anger.

9 And the Lord said unto Moses, Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you; that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.

10 And Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh: and the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go out of his land.

These three sentences appear to be a brief summation of everything that transpired between the Lord, Moses, and Pharaoh, following their first discussion. Pharaoh rejected God’s word, but the Lord told Moses that this served a greater purpose: to let the world witness His power and wonder. There then followed a series of plagues upon Egypt, and through it all Pharaoh continued to harden his heart.

If Pharaoh had relented after the first curse or two, it hardly seems that the story would have had the same impact and travelled far and wide. It truly is a remarkable thing to consider, that these events transpired some 3,500 years ago and are still so commonly known in the world today. If anyone ever doubts that the Bible is the bedrock of Western civilization they have only to ask themselves how many stories of the Hittite or Assyrian empires they know. Though the Israelite people were quite small, with virtually no impact on the larger world at the time of its liberation, theirs is the story that we know best today. And surely their freedom sticks so well in our minds because of its ten dramatic plagues being wrought one after another by the hand of the Lord.

As the Lord said in verse 9, His wonders were indeed multiplied. Multiplied in the doing, the telling, and the retelling, thousands and thousands of times over.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 11:7-8

7 But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast: that ye may know how that the Lord doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel.

8 And all these thy servants shall come down unto me, and bow down themselves unto me, saying, Get thee out, and all the people that follow thee: and after that I will go out.

God had sworn to slay all of the Egyptian firstborn, but as with the previous curses, He would set a division between the Egyptians and the Israelites. The phrase “shall not a dog move his tongue” must be an old expression, and most scholars agree that it meant that things would be so peaceful that not even a dog would bark in the streets. Thus it not only illustrated safety from physical harm, but even from anything alarming or distressing.

God also prophesied that this curse would be the one that finally broke Egypt. “These thy servants” appears to be referencing the Egyptian leadership, who would demand that the Israelites go. God further foretold that Pharaoh wouldn’t go back on his word this time, as given by “and after that I will go out.”

There is one other sentence at the end of verse 8 that I have omitted. “And he went out from Pharaoh in great anger.” This doesn’t make a lot of sense in the current setting of Moses describing the coming curse to the Israelites, and I believe that this last sentence actually belongs with the next two verses. I will therefore include it in tomorrow’s study.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 11:4-6

4 And Moses said, Thus saith the Lord, About midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt: 

5 And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the mill; and all the firstborn of beasts. 

6 And there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be like it any more.

God revealed His plan to Moses. He would pass through the land of Egypt, consigning every firstborn to death. The word used for firstborn is a masculine noun, which suggests it was specifically the eldest male of each household that would die. This, of course, would have disrupted the Egyptian legacy, as their culture passed the estate and right to rule to each firstborn son, just as in the Israelite culture.

Furthermore, the application of this curse was absolute. God declared that the rich and mighty would die, even the firstborn of Pharaoh, but also the poor and lowly, such as the firstborn of the maidservant. And not just the firstborn of the people either, but every firstborn animal as well.

And what was the reason for taking all of the firstborn? God Himself declared it when He called Moses to this cause. God explained that His message for Pharaoh was, “Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my firstborn: I say unto thee, let my son go, that he may serve me: and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn.” Thus, Pharaoh had already been warned that this was how the Lord would even things out if the Israelites were not let go. God had been merciful in making Pharaoh perfectly aware of the stakes at hand, and also in demonstrating through the prior curses that He was absolutely capable of making good on His threat. Pharaoh had every reason to surrender, but he continued to defy God anyway.

Pharaoh’s decisions might seem incredulous if we didn’t have so many examples around us today of people jeopardizing their happiness, their families, and their very lives for false destructive lifestyles. People are often willing to lose it all rather than surrender to the God that they’ve rejected.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 11:2-3

2 Speak now in the ears of the people, and let every man borrow of his neighbour, and every woman of her neighbour, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold.

3 And the Lord gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants, and in the sight of the people.

Thus far God’s demands to the Pharaoh had been that every man, woman, and child of the Israelites would depart into the wilderness, and that they would bring all of their cattle as well. But today we see this was not all the Israelites would carry with them. The Lord instructed the Israelites to borrow jewels and precious metals from their Egyptian neighbors. “Borrow,” of course being a very loose term. These things were being “borrowed” with no intention ever returning them!

The point of this seems to be to finish the signs of war against the Egyptians. Though the Israelite people did not raise a single sword against their slavers, by the end of this sequence the Egyptians would have had all their firstborn slain, their fields razed to the ground, lost their commercial industries, and all of their valuables would be taken. It would appear exactly as if the Egyptians had been conquered by a great army, but the battles were fought entirely by God, not man.

I can only assume that the devastation of the prior plagues was what caused the Egyptians to so freely part with their treasures. We are told that “Moses was very great in the land,” which seems to suggest that all the people understood where all these curses were coming from. We also know that Pharaoh’s counselors had been advising him to just let the Israelites go, and it seems likely that the sentiment was held by the local populace as well. So whether they trusted the Israelites or not, the Egyptians were likely anxious to appease them and be rid of them.

Posted on by Abe Austin · 1 Comment

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 11:1

1 And the Lord said unto Moses, Yet will I bring one plague more upon Pharaoh, and upon Egypt; afterwards he will let you go hence: when he shall let you go, he shall surely thrust you out hence altogether.

There was one more plague for Egypt, and this one followed a different pattern than any that came before. First, as discussed before, Pharaoh and his people would be given no warning of it, and no ultimatum to avoid it. It would fall on them without Moses and Aaron prophesying of it, yet they would know that it had come from the Lord, just the same.

And, because of this curse, Pharaoh would “thrust [Israel] out.” Every time before, Moses had gone to see if Pharaoh would let them leave, but this time Pharaoh would go to Moses. Pharaoh wouldn’t need any convincing, this time he would outright demand that the Lord’s demands be fulfilled, down to the smallest detail.

Another difference that we will see with this plague is that Moses does not raise his staff or his hand or do anything else to signal its arrival. This one comes entirely from the unseen world, a curse that is prepared, triggered, and executed by God alone.

In short, yet another plague, seemingly just a continuation of all that came before, but already this one was being set apart from all the rest. Something familiar, yet totally new.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Not All Light is Equal

Is Light Good?)

Carl Jung is known for his quote “The brighter the light, the darker the shadow.” By this he meant that the more a person fixated on trying to be better, the more the darkness inside of him would lash out in defiance, leading to a pendulum swinging back-and-forth between periods of extreme good and extreme evil. Jung therefore recommended a sort of gray area, a place where a person could embrace both his vices and virtues, letting neither get out of balance.

The first time I heard this perspective I was struck by how it contradicted some of the most sacred experiences I have ever been witness to. In the twelve step group I attend we frequently express how good it feels to finally shine a light on the darkness and feel it dissipate from us. Men come to the meetings and confess all manner of temptation and unholy desire, and then tearfully express gratitude that the darkness is leaving their hearts even in the telling of it. There is no sense of the shadow growing darker, for the light is permeating all the way through and coming out the other side.

But as I gave Jung’s words a second consideration, I realized that I knew a few instances where I would agree with his assessment. I think that Jung’s perspective does have value, but that it is incomplete. In my experience, there are three types of shining a light on a problem, each with different degrees of usefulness.

Outer Light)

The first kind of light is one that one person shines on another. An example of this would be getting caught in a lie, or with incriminating evidence, anything that exposes one’s secret wrongs. There was no intention in the guilty to expose his secrets, but exposed they have been!

This light could be useful, depending on how the exposed person reacts to it. Ideally he would turn this embarrassing exposure into a wake-up call. Maybe he was horrified when he first got caught, but later on he says that he is so grateful that it happened. Having been seen at his worst, he could finally begin the work of becoming his best.

Alternatively, though, he might be resentful at being caught. Perhaps his exposer gives him an ultimatum and he does recovery work, but only begrudgingly. In this case he will have no gratitude for the light that shone upon him, and he will take the first opportunity to recede back into the darkness. He will pretend that he is cured, but all that he really learned was to be more careful in his lying. This therefore leaves him worse off than before.

The Light in the Cave)

The second kind of light is when a person fixates on his own problems. He is still in denial towards the rest of the world, but not towards himself. Silently, in his own head, he continually berates himself for failing to live in harmony with his conscience. He launches many campaigns against the darkness, trying to force himself to be better by sheer force of will, but these efforts always end in failure.

A person can white-knuckle his way to some length of acceptable behavior, but he hasn’t actually destroyed the darkness inside. Sooner or later it comes back, and this time with a vengeance. Inevitably the person slips back into his old ways, and usually delves deeper into them than before.

This is the sort of light that Jung was able to observe, and he was correct to be skeptical of it. However, his conclusion that there was no appropriate way to change one’s life was incorrect. A better conclusion would be that repentance was never meant to be an isolated experience.

Bringing Into the Light of Others)

The third kind of light is the one that I mentioned at the start. This is when the guilty freely confesses his wrongs to another. The key difference between this light and the first is that the person wasn’t caught against his will. This time the person is bringing his shame to trusted friends of his own volition, not trying to face the darkness on his own.

All throughout the scriptures we are told that we must confess. Confession is only confession when it involves another. We do not confess to ourselves, or by being found out. We confess by taking the initiative and sharing the darkest parts of our soul with another trusted person. Because of our shame, most of us would suffer in silence for years rather than take this step. Some will suffer in silence for their entire lives, feeling in their hearts as though being truly honest would kill them!

And in some sense it would. It would kill the dark self and replace it with the light. This effect might be difficult to accept by a modern psychologist, but only because it isn’t a natural, measurable thing. It is a miracle. It is absolutely real, but it defies intellectual explanation because God is in it. God is the light that dissipates the darkness, where our own light often only hardens it.

Exactly why God’s light shows up when we confess to one another could be a topic of study in-and-of-itself. For now, let us content ourselves with the fact that one reason why God shows up in these moments is simply because He promised that He would:

Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. 
-James 5:16, Matthew 18:20

Posted on by Abe Austin

Not All Good Deeds Are Equal

Blocked From My Own Good)

I have mentioned before how I lived many years under the power of an addiction to lust. Though I hated myself for it, I did things that I felt ashamed of, that I knew were wrong. I never was under the delusion that my objectification of women was an okay thing, yet I did it anyway. Because of my guilt, I would try to compensate in other areas. I would try to balance out my evil with extra kindness and devotion in my community and church.

But I never felt satisfied. In fact, I believe I was experiencing what it means to be cursed. To me this means that all of your actions, no matter how good on the surface, simply do not count. You may strive and flail, but it is as if you are running on a treadmill, all your energy leaving you in the same place. Like Cain, I tried to bring my fruits to the Lord, but He just would not accept my offering.

All of this changed, though, when I finally made confession. I told my wife what was going on in my secret life, I told my church authorities, I joined a recovery program, I went through a process of repentance, and I truly felt the atonement of Christ wash away my uncleanness.

And then I felt a sudden change. I felt the reality of God’s words to Cain: “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?” I felt the curse lifted, and now anything good that I did actually felt like it mattered.

Surrendered to Christ)

Sin is one thing that can keep our good works from reaching their full potential, but so, too, can refusing to surrender to the Lord. During my study of Pharaoh’s interactions with God and Moses, I have been thinking about this concept of surrender. Genuine surrender to the Lord is the first and fundamental basis of any true discipleship. Trying to do good while still holding back a part of your heart will always lessen the value of that good.

I know many who want to be basically good people, but who resent any notion of surrendering their will to another. In their desire to retain autonomy, to be their own master, they refuse to give themselves fully to God. They expect God to be content with the gifts that they decide to give Him, never seeking to understand what gifts He actually wants them to give. As a result, they live uninspired lives. They never experience the joy of being moved by the spirit to approach someone they normally never would have approached and saying to that person what they normally never would have said. They live according to their assumptions, not according to His genuine knowledge.

Surrendering ourselves, heart and soul to God, is necessary to be a part of His kingdom. And being part of His kingdom is necessary to having our good works sanctified for the building up of that kingdom. Trying to do good autonomously is like a swirl in an ocean, not necessarily worthless, but ultimately dissipating before it can accomplish much. Trying to do good as a pure vessel of the Lord is like being part of a flowing current, permanently and meaningfully changing the world for the better.

It is good to do good, but it is best to do the best good. And the best good can only be done by one who has repented of sin and fully surrendered to the Lord.