One of my favourite 'blogs' is that of Challies Dot Com, a Canadian Christian who writes extremely well and encourages his readers to seek out fine Christian material. I was so impressed by the post on Monday 30th June I have reproduced it. You can go direct to Tim Challies site from here:

The Heaviest Obligation

A.W. Tozer has been in the news lately (or in the blogosphere at any rate) following the release of A Passion for God, a biography of the man written by Lyle Dorsett. Dorsett dealt honestly with some shortcomings in Tozer’s character and I, like many readers, was surprised (and perhaps even shocked) by some of what I learned. Yet even as I’ve thought about these things, I’ve found that my high respect for Tozer remains. Much of what he taught continues to resound in my mind. Here is just one example of this.
Tozer premises The Knowledge of the Holy, probably his best-loved book, on the now-famous statement that “what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” While he does not provide a Scripture reference to back this claim (I don’t recall a verse that states, “God spake thus: what thou believest about me is the most important thing about thee…&rdquo I believe he is correct in this assertion. After all, “the history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God.” If no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God, the same is true of individuals. We can never rise above our idea of God.

Why is this important? As Tozer says, “We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God…Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God, just as her most significant message is what she says about Him or leaves unsaid, for her silence is often more eloquent than her speech. She can never escape the self-disclosure of her witness concerning God.” And he is right, for once we have decided who God is, we chase after that image of God. It is, then, critically important that we learn about who God is through the Scripture, for this is His self-disclosure. Otherwise, we move towards a fabricated and false image of God. We put aside the real thing and chase after a mere shadow.

And here are words that gripped me and have long given me food for thought: “Were we able to extract from any man a complete answer to the question, ‘What comes into your mind when you think about God?’ we might predict with certainty the spiritual future of that man. Were we able to know exactly what our most influential religious leaders think of God today, we might be able with some precision to foretell where the church will stand tomorrow.” This is a sobering thought, for when we survey the leaders of the church today we will find a vast variety of views on God, many of which are clearly unbiblical. We have “Christian” leaders who deny the Trinity and others who deny the atonement. We have leaders who, it seems, must never have stopped to seriously consider just what they think of God. There are many followers who have likewise never stopped to consider who God is, what He has done, and what He demands of us. And as we can see where the church will be led in the future, we can look at the leaders of families, men like myself, and understand where we will take our families. When I survey my heart and ask what comes to mind when I think about God, I will know where my family will stand tomorrow.

“It is my opinion,” writes Tozer, “that the Christian conception of God current in these middle years of the twentieth century is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God and actually to constitute for professed believers something amounting to a moral calamity.” If this was true of the middle of the last century, how much more true is it in the early years of the current century? And yet, “All the problems of heaven and earth, though they were to confront us together and at once, would be nothing compared with the overwhelming problem of God: That He is; what He is like; and what we as moral beings must do about Him.” But still many Christians do not think deeply about God, about what He is like, or about what we must do about Him. “I believe there is scarcely an error in doctrine or a failure in applying Christian ethics that cannot be traced finally to imperfect and ignoble thoughts about God.”

This is a serious matter. “Before the Christian church goes into eclipse anywhere there must first be a corrupting of her simple basic theology. She simply gets a wrong answer to the question, ‘What is God like?’ and goes on from there. Though she may continue to cling to a sound nominal creed, her practical working creed has become false. The masses of her adherents come to believe that God is different from what He actually is; and that is heresy of the most insidious and deadly kind.”

And here is Tozer’s charge: “The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worth of Him—and of her. In all her prayers and labors this should have first place. We do the greatest service to the next generation of Christians by passing on to them undimmed and undiminished that noble concept of God which we received from our Hebrew and Christian fathers of generations past. This will prove of greater value to them than anything that art or science can devise.”

Having read these words and having pondered them, I see, more clearly than ever, the importance of placing myself and my family under the leadership of spiritual leaders who have a high and biblical view of God. If nothing is more telling and more important than what comes into my mind when I think about God, it must also be critically important that I learn from men who think deeply about God and who humble themselves under His word. And I see the importance of being the kind of spiritual leader who has a conception of God that is worthy of God. This task of learning who God is through his self-revelation in Scripture, and honoring Him as He really is, is the greatest service I can do to my family and to its future generations.

Well, not quite . But Calvin does say something of great relevance that I thought might be worth reminding ourselves of, which I will introduce first. 
One of the 'delights' of Islamic fundamentalists is to accumulate martyrs, which they do at a great rate by bravely blowing themselves up against serious military targets such as funerals, weddings, busy markets crowded with women and children etc., most of whom are fellow Muslims but of the 'wrong flavour.'
Among the many annoying things of the Western media is its willingness to refer to 'martyrs' and usually to relate the Islamic 'struggle' to the largely imaginary 'Palestinian problem.' Calling these wretches 'martyrs' associates them with Christian martyrs in the public mind, and leads inevitably to the common conclusion that 'religion is really responsible for the troubles of this world.' We don't talk much about martyrs in the Christian Church these days, perhaps at least partly because of this situation. It's a great shame, when the truth is that literally millions of people, probably more in the twentieth century than in any previous century, have bravely laid down their lives for the sake of their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Many of them are unknown to us, ordinary people in many places and at many times, who were willing to die rather than deny the Lord who saved them and counted the heavenly treasure far higher than what life in this world could offer. On reflection, maybe that's why we don't mention them much in the West; perhaps we are so unwilling to part with earthly treasure that we are embarrassed by those who think more of the words of the Lord Jesus Christ and act accordingly.
Be all that as it may, in his 'Institutes' Calvin is reflecting on the 'natural' proofs for the truth of Holy Scripture. In 1.8.13 he says:
. . . . with what confidence does it become us to subscribe to a doctrine attested and confirmed by the blood of so many saints? They, when once they had embraced it, hesitated not, but boldly and intrepidly, and even with great alacrity, to meet death in its defence. Being transmitted to us with such an earnest, who of us shall not receive it with firm and unshaken conviction? It is therefore no small proof of the authority of Scripture, that it was sealed with the blood of so many witnesses, especially when it is considered that in bearing testimony to the faith, they met death not with fanatical enthusiasm, (as erring spirits are sometimes wont to do), but with a firm and constant, yet sober godly zeal.
You will have spotted the bit that interested me - Calvin speaks of those who meet death with fanatical enthusiasm which is a very good way of describing the Islamic militants. But he draws the contrast with the true Christian martyrs who died with a firm and constant, yet sober godly zeal. As I said above, the vast majority of the martyrs are unknown to us (but certainly known to the Lord who took them to be with himself in eternal joy). But those that are known, the great examples of history such as Polycarp, Latimer, Ridley, the young men of the Amazon in the nineteen-fifties, the godly Christians of Sudan who have endured so much, have died with a dignity that befits the conclusion that the 'blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.'
'Martyr' is originally derived from a Greek word which means 'witness' or 'testimony.' I was going to say that perhaps it should be reserved for its Christian meaning, but on reflection, while Christians do witness to the Lord Jesus Christ in giving their lives, Muslims also witness by it. Not all Muslims are terrorists, of course. There are peaceful Muslims, just as there are Muslims who favour a secular society. But the real question is, what is the nature of Islam itself? The Islamic fundamentalists do no favours to their peaceful brethren, but fundamentalists they are. What they are thinking and practising is what the Koran actually teaches, just as Christian fundamentalists get to the core of the what the Scripture says. It is a plain fact that is often forgotten in the almost universal despising of ‘religious fundamentalism’ that the many Christian fundamentalists have not produced a single terrorist. That’s because if you take the Bible literally you cannot get around the fact that it urges obedience to state authorities and above all a peaceful approach to others founded on love, even when they are enemies.
The Koran is corrupt, Satanic and far from peaceful in its intent. The Islamic fundamentalists witness is to the insatiable evil that their hollow system really is.

One of the effects of getting older (and like the much-appreciated John Piper I am not ashamed of, or complaining about that!) is that one tends to find the 'big issues' of earlier years fading. Don't worry too much, I am not about to declare myself Catholic or Orthodox, or whatever is the latest trendy exit point for evangelicals. And for further reassurance, the Lord Jesus Christ becomes more central to me as time goes by, as does the gospel, as does the precious work of men like Calvin, Owen and Edwards in that I see in their work more and more of the Lord Jesus Christ. But some issues do fade, and I think they should. For example, for much of my Christian life I have been a firm Baptist, but latterly I have been convicted that I have not given enough respect and consideration to my Reformed friends who take a paedo-baptist view. I remember the excellent Ian Hamilton (Cambridge (UK) Presbyterian Church) pointing out to me that something like 95% of published Reformed theology is in fact paedo-baptist in origin. (I have forgotten the actual figure he quoted - it may well have been more).

I suspect that in my earlier years I would defend any corner that was a minority, just for the sake of it. Maturer reflection has allowed me to savour the riches of a more rounded and covenantal view of theology that has taken me to the point where I am quite willing to admit that I would baptise the baby of truly committed believing parents who held to a proper covenant view of that act.

That does not mean I do not regard myself as baptistic any longer, or that I would not baptise an adult believer. It means exactly what I said; the rough edges having been knocked off my thinking, I think more of my brothers in Christ who have so courteously disagreed with me for so long, and I think enough of them to have seriously considered their position and find myself unable to wholly reject what they are saying. Of course, I am very wary of the abuse of the paedo-baptist position, but then so is a paedo-baptist like Ian Hamilton, who has in the past put up with TV cameras and all the negative media publicity that goes with them rather than sacrifice his profoundly Christ-centred, serious and well thought-out theology of the place of children in the covenant.

The issue of baptism is not the only one on which I have found myself moved to modify my views. There are other things that I now realise are not so central as I had fondly imagined. And all this was confirmed all the more after I began to write this piece. I read another chapter of Sinclair Ferguson's excellent book, 'In Christ Alone.' If you have the book, take a look at the chapter titled 'Discernment: Thinking God's Thoughts.' If you don't have the book, buy it! Then this morning I read another prayer from 'The Valley of Vision,' part of which said:

May my cry be always, Only Jesus! only Jesus!
In him is freedom from condemnation,
fullness in his righteousness,
eternal vitality in his given life,
indissoluble union in fellowship with him;
In him I have all that I can hold . . . . 

That is where I want to be, in my thinking and in my practice; Christ crucified and Christ glorified, to be able to say 'in him I have all that I can hold,' to consider that the lesser issues are really not worthy of pursuing if they detract from him and put me at odds with my brothers in the Lord.

I have not attained all this, of course. I am sharing my aspirations and my weak, trembling steps along a road I pray you will tread far more readily than I have. Nor is this an excuse for a kind of theological woolliness, although I know some will inevitably think so! I am going to make this post longer still by copying a piece by Ray Ortlund that I completely agree with. Please note that - completely agree with! That means the opening of the first paragraph as well, where Mr Ortlund affirms his own Reformed position. If the first two sentences were a signable document, I would sign. Beef it up by adding one of the historical Reformed confessions, and I would still sign! Please read on, it's well worth it.

(The title is a clickable link back to Ray Ortlund's blog) 

Truly reformed

I believe in the sovereignty of God, the Five Points of Calvinism, the Solas of the Reformation, I believe that grace precedes faith in regeneration. Theologically, I am Reformed. Sociologically, I am simply a Christian – or at least I want to be. The tricky thing about our hearts is that they can turn even a good thing into an engine of oppression. It happens when our theological distinctives make us aloof from other Christians. That’s when, functionally, we relocate ourselves outside the gospel and inside Galatianism. 

The Judaizers in Galatia did not see their distinctive – the rite of circumcision – as problematic. They could claim biblical authority for it in Genesis 17 and the Abrahamic covenant. But their distinctive functioned as an addition to the all-sufficiency of Jesus himself. Today the flash point is not circumcision. It can be Reformed theology. But no matter how well argued our position is biblically, if it functions in our hearts as an addition to Jesus, it ends up as a form of legalistic divisiveness.

Paul answered the theological aspects of the Galatian error with solid theology. But the “whiff test” that something was wrong in those Galatian churches was more subtle than theology alone. The problem was also sociological. “They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them” (Galatians 4:17). In other words, “The legalists want to ‘disciple’ you. But really, they’re manipulating you. By emphasizing their distinctive, they want you to feel excluded so that you will conform to them.” It’s like chapter two of Tom Sawyer. Remember how Tom got the other boys to whitewash the fence for him? Mark Twain explained: “In order to make a man or boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.” Paul saw it happening in Galatia. But the gospel makes full inclusion in the church easy to attain. It re-sets everyone’s status in terms of God’s grace alone. God’s grace in Christ crucified, and nothing more. He alone makes us kosher. He himself. 

The Judaizers would probably have answered at this point, “We love Jesus too. But how can you be a first-rate believer, really set apart to God, without circumcision, so plainly commanded right here in the Bible? This isn’t an add-on. It’s the full-meal deal. God says so.”

Their misuse of the Bible showed up in social dysfunction. “It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised. . . . They desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh” (Galatians 6:12-13). In other words, “When Christians, whatever the label or badge or shibboleth, start pressuring you to come into line with their distinctive, you know something’s wrong. They want to enhance their own significance by your conformity to them: ‘See? We’re better. We’re superior. People are moving our way. They are becoming like us. We’re the buzz.’” What is this, but deep emotional emptiness medicating itself by relational manipulation? This is not about Christ. This is about Self. Even Peter fell into this hypocrisy (Galatians 2:11-14). But no matter who is involved, this is not the ministry of the gospel. Even if a biblical argument can be made for a certain position, and we all want to be biblical, the proof of what’s really happening is not in the theological argumentation but in the sociological integration.

Paul had thought it through. He made a decision that the bedrock of his emotional okayness would forever lie here: “Far be it from me to boast [establish my personal significance] except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. . . . For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation” (Galatians 6:14-15). In other words, “Here is all I need for my deepest sense of myself: Jesus Christ crucified. His cross has deconstructed me and remade me, and I am happy. Everything else is at best secondary, possibly irrelevant, even counterproductive. Let Jesus alone stand forth in my theology, in my emotional well-being and in my relationships with other Christians!” This settledness in Paul’s heart made him a life-giving man for other people. He was a free man, setting others free (Galatians 5:1). This is the acid test of a truly Reformed ministry – that other believers need not be Reformed in order to be respected and included in our hearts.

Whatever divides us emotionally from other Bible-believing, Christ-honoring Christians is a “plus” we’re adding to the gospel. It is the Galatian impulse of self-exaltation. It can even become a club with which we bash other Christians, at least in our thoughts, to punish, to exclude and to force into line with us. 

What unifies the church is the gospel. What defines the gospel is the Bible. What interprets the Bible correctly is a hermeneutic centered on Jesus Christ crucified, the all-sufficient Savior of sinners, who gives himself away on terms of radical grace to all alike. What proves that that gospel hermeneutic has captured our hearts is that we are not looking down on other believers but lifting them up, not seeing ourselves as better but grateful for their contribution to the cause, not standing aloof but embracing them freely, not wishing they would become like us but serving them in love (Galatians 5:13).

My Reformed friend, can you move among other Christian groups and really enjoy them? Do you admire them? Even if you disagree with them in some ways, do you learn from them? What is the emotional tilt of your heart – toward them or away from them? If your Reformed theology has morphed functionally into Galatian sociology, the remedy is not to abandon your Reformed theology. The remedy is to take your Reformed theology to a deeper level. Let it reduce you to Jesus only. Let it humble you. Let this gracious doctrine make you a fun person to be around. The proof that we are Reformed will be all the wonderful Christians we discover around us who are not Reformed. Amazing people. Heroic people. Blood-bought people. People with whom we are eternally one – in Christ alone.

There are times in the Christian life when the Lord can seem far away, and their can be a number of reasons for that. I suppose many Christians would say that one loses one's sense of the presence of the Lord when sin has a hold in our lives, and certainly there is great truth in that. It can happen also when the Lord withdraws the sense of his presence for a season in order to stir us up to greater longing for him. Then there are the times when the Lord seems to draw very near, and that is what it is my joy to write about today.
This is written on the day we arrived at Amano, Tuesday, 10th June, at about 1330. I can truly say that I have never experienced such a closeness to the Lord, so that the days of the journey seem already to blur into one miracle of grace and mercy.
We set out on Saturday (7th June) as planned, leaving Johannesburg at about 0715. The roads were easy at that time, of course, and we were soon entering Mokopane, the place where we were robbed previously. Both Tina and I felt nervous going back, and at about 1000 it was already quite busy. We prayed as we came to the town that all the traffic lights would be green - there are about four sets we had to pass through - and they were.
It was a beautiful day and we really enjoyed the drive, seeing Eland and Impala (types of deer) and warthogs with young. At the South African/Botswana border we passed through very easily, crossing the Limpopo going for the first time to see what Botswana was like. The people there are very relaxed and very kind, and we had a good journey to a hotel in Francistown called 'Diggers Inn' named after a local gold mine founded and run by English people. 'Diggers' was very clean and comfortable, but in African style we were given seven TV controllers to try before the receptionist decided to give up - the problem, she said, was batteries which she didn't have. The promised WiFi internet was also not available because the receptionist didn't know how to issue the password! But that's Africa! We had travelled about 800km (500 miles) without incident, although I was somewhat tired.
The next day we made a good start from Francistown and headed for Kazungula, where a ferry crosses the 400m (a little more than 400 yards) wide Zambezi to take passenger into Zambia.
The road in one particular area of Botswana was very rough, badly potholed, but little did we know this was only a taster of what was to come!
Kazungula was a problem for us in some ways. The journey there was about 500km (312 miles), made a bit longer in time by the potholed sections. We got to the ferry about 1500. We had no idea when the best time to cross would be, and we were prepared to overnight in nearby Kisane if it was not practical to cross that afternoon, although we had some reservations about that as Kisane is very much the tourist town for Botswana's Okavango delta and Chobe river and the prices for accommodation are accordingly high.
But on the other hand we had been warned that crossing the Kazungula ferry could take several hours of queueing, plus we had no idea of the cost. So we decided to drive to the ferry, which meant passing through Botswana customs and immigration, to see what the situation was like. We passed maybe eighty or ninety lorries waiting for the ferry, and joined what seemed a fairly short car queue. The ferry is a double pontoon ferry, and within five minutes we were on board, and ten or twelve minutes later in Zambia! Quite clearly the Lord wanted us to go on!
Zambian immigration and customs are both expensive and tough, as well as long-winded. We had more than an hour of mainly waiting for the papers, but we were admitted quite easily. There was no difficulty, and immigration even accepted South African Rand in payment for our visas - normally US dollars or UK pounds are required but all we had of those had gone in the robbery.
Our next problem was that Zambia had very strictly enforced laws about cars having two warning triangles and also two white reflectors on the front of the car and two red at the rear; these are just pieces of reflective tape but the police routinely fine if you don't have them fitted and don't have the triangles.
That was all very well but there were of course no shops selling these things at Kazungula. Zambian police form regularly manned roadblocks at the entrance to towns and sometimes 'in the middle of nowhere' and we were told we would certainly be stopped at least once and fined the standard 50,000 Kwacha (about £6.25; US$12) on the way to Livingstone.
We drove the 70km (about 45 miles) to Livingstone having asked the Lord to help us, and we were stopped twice. In both cases the officers greeted us, asked where we were coming from, welcomed us to Zambia and waved us on without further question!
So we came to Livingstone, asking the Lord to guide us to somewhere that was clean but not expensive. We really had no idea where to go and having visited Livingstone before knew it could be very expensive. In the town we saw the Ngolide Lodge - it somehow looked right and we called in to see if a room was available. It was, at a typical South African overnight B&B price, and the Lord had given us a clean, comfortable room with air conditioning and all else we could need for about £50 (US$100). We slept really well, had a very pleasant breakfast, and then I took off into town to get the warning triangles, reflective tape and change Rand into Kwacha before the drive up to Lusaka.
We had been warned by an Australian businessman that the road from Livingstone to Lusaka was very poor, much worse than anything we had seen in Botswana. He had driven it in his Mercedes and lost two tyres in the process. A taxi driver told me that while it used to take five hours to Lusaka, now it was seven because of this 65km (40 miles) stretch of road - he said most people took the plane because it was so bad.
Still, I don't think anything prepared us for what we were going to encounter. The road, after all, is the T1, Zambia's primary route and the only way from the major tourist area of Livingstone/Victoria Falls to the capital. It's hard to describe the state of the road as we found it. There were short stretches of perhaps 100m (about 100 yards) where there was tarmac with just a crater-like pothole or two. 


But otherwise there was pothole after pothole, sometimes covering half or two thirds of the road, quite often the whole surface had gone and there was just unsurfaced craters. 'Craters' is not an exaggeration: these monsters were 18 inches or more deep. In most places there was a sandy 'soft shoulder' to the road but because trucks and cars used that rather than the road in places that too was cratered. A few occasions we had no road surface and no way to access the 'soft shoulder' either because the drop off the road was too much for our vehicle or because the 'soft shoulder' was also so battered we could not take it.
We took more than two hours to negotiate that section, but we sustained no damage to tyres or mechanically. How did we do it? We didn't - the Lord took us through, and I am not in the least exaggerating. We constantly prayed and thanked the Lord, and there were a good many times when we had to go through craters because there was no choice. You do that in an ordinary car knowing there will be a sickening crunch at some point, probably as the back end goes through as we were fully laden, but never once did that happen. There were time I knew we could not have negotiated a pothole, but it was as if the car 'somehow' was held above the hole. At times like that you know the Lord is with you.
So we got through that, and continued to head for Lusaka, having no idea where to stay. There were more occasional potholes in surprising places, in the sense that we would be on what seemed to be good road in good repair for several or even tens of kilometres, but then a large pothole would be there. On one occasion we were making good speed and just after climbing a hill and about to go into a left hand bend I just knew I must slow down, that round that bend was something we needed to avoid. And surely again it was the Lord, because as the bend came to straight there was another very large pothole, even though for the last 20 minutes or so we had had good road and been able to go along at 120kph (75mph, the legal limit on most Zambian main routes).
We were constantly, utterly and completely dependent on the Lord, and we knew his presence and he never failed us or left us alone for a minute. That is true of the whole journey, and I do not think I have ever experienced anything quite like it before.
After the drive up from Livingstone we arrived in Lusaka about 1700, in the full flow of evening traffic of course! We had no idea where to go to stay, but felt a peace that the Lord had the right place and we need not worry. The 'Great North Road,' on which we needed to continue the next day, took us through the business district and there were some hotels, but none seemed right. We went slowly forward and in about half-an-hour found ourselves in the twilight on the north side of the city, so we drove on through the suburbs and out into the countryside. It was dark and Zambian signs are rarely lit, so we did begin to wonder if we had gone wrong. But about 30km (19 miles) into the countryside we did see a sign for Protea Hotels and Safari Lodge. For those who don't know, Protea are a South African chain with a hotel in most decent-sized towns, so we pulled in and drove along a dirt road for about 6km - wondering whether we had misunderstood the sign! But eventually we reached the place, and where I had expected a Protea Hotel and a Safari Lodge we found it was the Protea Hotel Safari Lodge. (Yes, the sign by the road did say 'and' but this is Africa!).
The manager on duty was quite happy to offer a room, but at a rate way beyond our budget. So we explained our circumstances and turned to go, but he said that he would give us a night at weekend rate and even did us a 'deal' on food that night. It's a lovely place and it would be great to go back for a special break some time, but the Lord was so gracious to give us such luxury. We slept well, and the next day left for Amano. We stopped in Kitwe for a SIM card for the phone and to fill the tank, and were with Phil and Valerie Grove for a rather late lunch at 1330.
We had help with our unpacking and are already beginning to settle in. This has been long enough - more next time, the Lord willing.
In the meantime, thank you so much for your prayers and kindness in every way. Oh, and by the way, some of you may recall that 'Amano' is a local word for 'wisdom.' In saying 'Amano at last,' I think the only actual wisdom I have arrived at is that the more we mistrust ourselves and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, the better things are!