Articles by David Wells

Am I just wrapped up in the words
Or do I sincerely know?
Have I believed what they have heard¹
Are my sins washed as white as snow?²

There’s something uplifting in the tune,
A kid could lose himself to the beat.
Another shall be “saved” real soon
Despite his future in eternal heat.

Let it not be that I depart from thee,
Or lose sight of the radiance³
For hands held high don’t make me see.
I could be taken by an ambulance

To a bed of terrors, horrors, frights
Chained to suffering and turn my face.
Your face, your love brings me light⁴
And takes the sinner’s disgrace by grace.⁵

1. Isaiah 53:1 [↩]
2. Psalm 51:7, Isaiah 1:18 [↩]
3. Hebrews 1:3 [↩]
4. Revelation 1:16, John 4:4-5 [↩]
5. 1 John 2:2, Hebrews 2:17 [↩]

Even though the Christmas season has not yet begun, the holiday ads are already flooding the airwaves.  Businesses across the nation are looking forward to the extra revenue especially this year with its economic crisis.  The winter holiday has become not only a celebration for Christianity, but also one of four national holidays, the others being Thanksgiving, Independence Day and the Super Bowl.

This became clear when Lori Littman Brown, lobbyist with the Secular Coalition of America, appeared on the “Colbert Report” and explained the secularization of the holiday in America:

“In fact, Christmas is now a secular holiday…which means it’s no longer just about a religious thing, it’s a secular thing and we can all have parties and enjoy it.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Pastor Mike Plewniak continued VFC’s “Questioning God” series Thursday night with a sermon on the source of suffering and evil.  

Before his message, Mike played a video of interviews from UT students talking about why they believe suffering and evil exist.  The problem with these views, he said, was that they never took sin into account.

“You have experienced something from the fall,” Mike said.  ”The whole assumption is that suffering is unjust.”

Mike addressed two main issues that people have with God: the notion that suffering is something bad and that bad things happen to good people.  

First, the pastor reminded the audience that there is no such thing as a good person, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23)”.  If any suffering or grief should come to anyone, it is not unjust because many times of suffering are results of the fall of man.

“Where did evil come into this creation?” Mike asked. “You don’t have to go far to know that.  As soon as sin enters into the world, suffering follows.” Read the rest of this entry »

Is this attainable?

The reality of death seldom hits college students in a culture that values youth. Whenever companies market to us, we see their image of what it means to be young and how we have the world before us. Additionally, other companies market to older folks selling them some cream that will supposedly make them look younger.

This, too, can permeate into our lives as Christians. A friend of mine shared with me the mentality of men looking forward to marriage and that gift being a primary concern on their minds. Many books that female authors write focus on biblical femininity alone.

In a sermon on (1 Peter 4:12-19), John Piper talks about how ludicrous our thoughts on death are. Because we underestimate the reality of death, Piper says, we can make statements like this:

A true Christian must be willing to say, “I will not renounce Christ, even if it costs my life.” But as soon as we say that, it makes a whole lot of things in our lives look ridiculous. I will die for you, but I can’t find time to sit and read your teaching each day. I will die for you, but prayer doesn’t seem real… One of the best ways to bring wonderful Christ-honoring changes into your life is to measure your way of life by your willingness to die for Jesus.¹ Read the rest of this entry »

1. Piper, John. “The Holy Spirit Will Help You Die.” Bethlehem Baptist Church. Minneapolis, MN. 10 June 1984. [↩]

When I think of the world and how close her death is,
The passions of men arbitrarily assigned,
Her moans and groans disturb me
Because the responsibility for them is mine.
Oh, how I deny the blood my hands have shed,
Though on me she’s bled, its deep red
Staining my robes and flooding the thoughts of my head.
She’s dead.
And who here in her graveyard will judge me?
Who here living to die another day will cuff me?
For they too have seen that dagger before them,
The handle before their hands.
Far more ignominious than the ”A” of Hester Prynne,
On that dagger’s an “s” for sin.
We win,
At least for a time.
But there’s retribution for the crime
And hope only remains because a greater one has died.

In his oft-quoted six-minute gospel message, John Piper wisely told his congregation that you never outgrow your need for the gospel.  Indeed, no one gets stronger spiritually by seeing the gospel as just the way you get saved.  I am pretty sure that most people who were in Piper’s church or who were listening to him nodded their heads in agreement.

However, as statistics often reveal, church attendance is dropping.  More and more people are not only revising the gospel, but the life of Jesus Himself.  In an interview for last year’s VFC videos, one woman said that the person of Jesus Christ is not relevant.

“(It’s) not even so much Jesus as much as Jesus’ message of love and caring for people,” she said.

Is she right? Read the rest of this entry »

While I was at Anthem, I had to opportunity to interview Tony Carter.  Tony, who gave thee passionate messages about God’s holiness, man’s sinfulness and the good news of the gospel, has a lot of insight about biblical worldview.  You can read the interview here: tony-carter.

Pastor Mike Plewniak concluded VFC’s “J-series” Thursday night with a sermon on the cost of being Christ’s disciple. The message focused on Luke 14:25-33:

If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters–yes, and even his own life–he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple (v. 26-27).

“Don’t cling to the things of this world and give up Jesus Christ,” Mike said. “That would be the greatest tragedy.”

Mike began his message with a review of the “J”-series, recalling the messianic prophecies, Jesus’ life, Jesus’ claims about Himself, His death and His resurrection.  When he moved on to the core of his message, Mike seasoned it with careful questions for each person to consider. Read the rest of this entry »

I want an infinite tablet to write my love and loyalty upon.
For when I hear Your voice I have not
the space to write the words:
of gratitude, of remorse, of joy.
Worldly wisdom begs me to leave,
but while the mountains bow and the tides cease
Your words outlast them, outrun them
like Secretariat on another Derby run.
Read the rest of this entry »

Oh God, who is endless in mercy and patience,
help me to see my salvation,
for nowhere in this Mordor may I find it.
You work and endure forever;
Your statutes and commands last forever;
Your cross’ power endures forever.
How happy is the man who built his foundation on the Rock.
From there, he will never budge,
though waves assault and winds wage war.
You alone are the matchless king
who is quick to bless and quick to rise for justice.
I deserve Your justice carried out upon me,
but a Savior took my place.
May I remember Him even in my lust,
my idolatry, my unfathomable sin.
How happy is the man who dwells upon the Rock.
Lord, make me that man.

On Friday, The New York Times ran a feature about a disturbing sexual revolution going on in Chile. The South American country, once known as a “conservative” culture, is experiencing change in the wrong direction. As the Times notes, when the Chilean youth is released from the rules, they explore their sexuality promiscuously.

We too can become caught up in this sort of nonsense. While grace from God alone saves us, we sinners abuse that grace when we give ourselves a license to sin. Galatians 6:7 says, “Don’t be deceived: God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows he will also reap…” As the apostle clearly informs us, our sins have consequences. The children of this sexual revolution will face consequences for their sins.

What can people of God do in culture where sexual immorality, abusing God’s grace and carelessness are promoted? Read the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:13-14, “Enter through the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the road is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who go through it. How narrow is the gate and difficult the road that leads to life, and few find it.” A Biblical view on an active rebellion against God contradicts and offends our worldly culture, as it does Chile’s culture. But God is not mocked–we are accountable for what we do with our lives. How can we glorify God if we are not satisfied in Him enough that we turn to sex for our joy and contentment?

Read the full article here

Jordan D. McDonnell
Guest Blogger

After working in the UT physics department for a year (as a student, teaching assistant and now research assistant), you think there would be some progress in my personal evangelism–a few relationships deepening, solid conversations, maybe even the spread of the Gospel. However, in a field like physics, temptations abound.
Read the rest of this entry »

For the past week and a half, the Olympics have dominated the headlines of every major news outlet. While the press has endured many instances of censorship, such as limited internet access in Beijing, the sports spectacle continues to grab hold of the world’s attention. America’s “Redeem Team” has smashed all of its preliminary opponents. Usain Bolt paraded through the last ten meters of his astounding 100-meter gold medal finish. Inside the Water Cube, Michael Phelps swam his way to eight gold medals and idol status. Read the rest of this entry »

“Take a minute to identify your ‘club.’ When you do, there’s a good chance you’ll see a pattern of what passion looks like in your life. Your passion is what you talk about, think about, and dream about. It’s what you give your time to without complaint. It’s what you find your identity in. It’s what you’re willing to sacrifice for.”
–Joshua Harris

In a biblical and practical voice, pastor and New Attitude founder Joshua Harris writes about the lack of passion for the bride of Christ in his fourth book “Stop Dating the Church!.” A short but helpful read, Harris addresses the dangers of overlooking the importance of the local church and presents a helpful guide to living, learning, serving, and loving the local Christian community.

While only 129 pages long, this book covers a wide range of problems with “dating” churches. Harris writes both in the second and first voice to connect with his audience on a personal level because, as he often states, this book is about a personal topic. “I won’t deny that there are problems,” he writes. “The sad reality is that there are churches and church leaders that grossly misrepresent Jesus Christ through their lives and teaching…But are those experiences really what hold us back from the local church?”
Read the rest of this entry »

No matter whether or not God exists, there is no denying that one Biblical truth hit us right up on the nose. There is no denying that humanity is dead in its sin. You’d figure that after 10,000 years of our species walking on this green Earth, there would be some sort of growth, some sort of intellectual evolution. But apparently, we all were asleep during those 100 centuries; probably dreaming about a fantasyland of unicorns and rainbows. Morality was just a job we didn’t want to wake up to.

One place that I think this is evident in is our philosophies. I hate all of this talk about “post-modernism” because that is just another example of mankind’s laziness. Whereas Nietzsche had the audacity to proclaim that God is dead and then build up a plan for how humanity would deal with that “truth,” whoever came up with post-modernism just basically stated something we already were aware of. We know nothing. I am sure there is some stupid essay about this that says we are incapable of establishing some universal moral code or truth, but that’s not really an idea. That is reality. We have spent those precious centuries of life debating about how the world has taught us some new divine truth, some God-given law that we ought to heed to. I doubt anyone but one man has ever even got close to what God’s plan is for humanity, and yet we have prophet upon prophet saying they know what it good for us. Give me a break. Read the rest of this entry »

The Earth and all we know will pass,
The time will come when there’s no glass:
A mount drawn up among the stars
Where God’s own Son will be all ours.
Oh how I long and dream for Him
Who freed me from the jail of sin,
Who leads me to green pastures and
Who hold me up with His right hand.
A rain, soft rain, is His great love,
Sending assurance from above,
Watering a poor man’s heart,
A garden swords can’t cut apart.

I know not if my faith’s the best–
But Christ did it, and love’s no test.
Who could be so good? He hath saved
This corpse content in its own grave.

I recently got myself into a sinful argument with a longtime friend of mine. Though the details of my argument are not important, the content of my speech conveyed my own pride. “You are not a Christian!” I shouted, placing myself in the position of God, “because you don’t do…” etc., etc. Just as anyone would, my friend hung up and is now not talking to me. He was quick to realize I was violating the most quoted part of Jesus’ sermon on the mount, “Judge not, lest ye not be judged” (Matt 7:1), and that very night I cried out to the Lord in one of the most emotional prayers of my life. Read the rest of this entry »

“As a young man with most of my life ahead of me, I decided early to give my life to something eternal and absolute. Not to these little gods that are here today and gone tomorrow. But to God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

I’m not going to put my ultimate faith in the little gods that can be destroyed in an atomic age, but the God who has been our help in ages past, and our hope for years to come, and our shelter in the time of storm, and our eternal home. That’s the God that I’m putting my ultimate faith in…The God that I’m talking about this morning is the God of the universe and the God that will last through the ages. If we are to go forward this morning, we’ve got to go back and find that God. That is the God that demands and commands our ultimate allegiance.”
-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Though he is most famous for being a prominent leader of the Civil Rights Movement in the American south, in his most comprehensive autobiography (edited by Clayborne Carson) Dr. King outlines his faith, his trials, his shortcomings, and his comrades in the cause for freedom. Committed to what he called “non-violent resistance” against racism and inequality, his autobiography covers everything from his birth to his death.
Read the rest of this entry »

Like the icy hand of winter’s chill
Sin chilled my now slowly churning heart.
But now a new faith drops in like dew on grass,
And it turns my eyes to the cosmos.
I gaze at the uncountable stars, twinkling bright.
Like sugar, they sweeten the black tea of the sky.
Read the rest of this entry »

I wrote this short narrative on May 20, and I’ll admit, it is an awkward topic. It is about lust and about how we can all be led astray by the idea of love, how “love” in the high school sense can blind us. The girl in the story is not any one person in particular, but a composite. I tell it in the first person because I feel I can explore the subject deeper this way.

This story was inspired by “The Blind Leaving the Blind” by Chris Thile, “Paralyzer” by Finger Eleven, Proverbs 5:3-6, and personal experience.

Read the rest of this entry »

“Man must not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
-Matthew 4:4

Check out the updates on the showcase, which includes a few messages about the Word of God, and in particular how it relates to the overall practical living of the Gospel.  Messages include:

“Scripture Alone” by Mike Plewniak, pastor at Cornerstone Church of Knoxville.

“Joy in God’s Word” by Craig Cooper, pastor of Cornerstone Church of Knoxville.

“Fighting for Faith with God’s Word” by John Piper, theologian and pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

“God’s Word, Our Food” by Joseph Prince, pastor of New Creation Church in Singapore

Oh, God, forgive my impulsive lust
For you are of good and I of dust.
Only in Your Love can we trust
As men betray while their wills bust.

Why call me beloved when I,
Lowest sinner fail, my Lord?
My weak hands crumble ‘neath Your Word
And my tongue wags just to lie.
My hate is a blizzard, my snow
Like nails stab my brother’s heart.
My winds rip my sister apart
And my clouds extend further than I know.

For this cold inferno, I ought to worse than die.
With Iscariot, I deserve to fry.
I plea, oh Lord, leave not my side.
Be with me now and levy the tide.

Sand, you fly through these, mine eyes
Filling my dirty holes with sediment galore.
I ask that you give me even more
So my cup of words may spill no cries.

I cried curses, all poisonous gas,
Wanting rewards in gold of all kinds:
Coins, bags, and strands ever so fine
But fading flesh always will pass.

Blind me, grain, and dry my lips.
May I see no hips or drink liquor’s drips.

Just like a baseball game, Lord,
We know how simple Your foundation is.
Baseball can be understood by a toddler,
The cross can save an infant.
And yet, like the world of baseball culture,
All there is to know about You is unknowable.
I can tell what a run is,
But I cannot recall each player on one roster,
On one team, in one year.
I can tell you how to catch a fly ball
But I cannot remember “the catch”
Or recount my favorite catches of all time.

Read the rest of this entry »

Inspired by 1 Corinthians 9:24-27.

Oh, how souls should be troubled when
They can smell the sulfur of Satan’s den.
Licked by flames, they’re but meat to feed
The evil one, deceiving all and increasing greed.
A prison for souls, Hell’s surfaces is eternal
But my jubilant soul’s been saved from this portal,
Living water in me to douse the sinning flame.
The victory has been won through the man of sorrows’ Name.
   Running now, I love the way the runner loves his prize.
   While his crown’s dead, the Gospel’s mine, I’ve Christ in mine eyes.

Session 1 | Joshua Harris

Ripping, Burning, Eating: A Right Response to God’s Word

Despite not being able to go to New Attitude this year, I have been blessed to have the resources to listen to the messages online.  Indeed, it is a blessing to know that hundreds of miles away, thousands of people, including Tyler, are listening to gifted preachers talk about God’s Word (the theme of this year’s conference).   Since Tyler was not able to write about the first message, I would like to take you through the message and delve deeper into it.

The theme of the conference came from Jeremiah 15:16, a Scripture that reads:

“Your words were found, and I ate them,
and your words became to me a joy
and the delight of my heart,
for I am called by your name,
O Lord, God of hosts.”

Harris based his message around this and two other Old Testament passages, one from the book of 2 Kings and the other from chapter 36 of Jeremiah.  Though he did not use this Scripture in the first session, I would also like to highlight a fourth Scripture from the book of Matthew, chapter four, verse four:

“Man must not live on bread alone,
but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

Harris divides his message into four segments: introduction, “tearing,” “burning,” and “eating.”  After his introduction, which discusses cultural perception of the Bible, he opens up his Bible in 2 Kings 22 to the story of Josiah, one of the last Kings in Judah.  Ever since the dividing of Solomon’s kingdom under Rehoboam, both the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah had rebelled against God’s Law.  In ca. 750 B.C., the Israel fell to the Assyrians and in two hundred years, Judah would fall to the Babylonians.  Josiah’s reign begins thirty-one years before the Jewish exile and nearly four hundred years after the fall of Solomon’s kingdom.

This chapter tells of how Judah had forgotten the law of God, and if you read into the lives of the earlier kings, their works display their ignorance of God’s Word. One day, a man name Hilkiah discovers the Torah (the first five books of Moses) in the Temple, and Josiah has one of his servants read it to him.  Once he has heard the Word, Josiah literally tears his robes out of humility to God and his life is changed.  He begins a wave of reforms in the kingdom.

Joshua Harris, after explaining the historical and biblical context of this chapter, elaborates on the power of the Bible.  Josiah, who humbles himself before the Lord, is an example of how God changes lives through His Scripture.  This, Harris says, applies to all of us today:

“How we treat the Word of God is a reflection of how we view God Himself.  If you disagree with the Word of God, then you should be afraid because it is God that you’re going to have to answer to.”

The Bible is not some dead book.  It is not just a list of guidelines or the way the ancients used to worship God.   It is the living Word–the only way we know who God is and what He wants for our lives.  Anything apart from it is simply conjecture.  Based on the prosperity he experienced as a King of Judah, Josiah likely believed he was in God’s favor.  But is was not until he literally listened to God’s Word that his life changed. How much can we learn from God if we just listen!

The third part of the message-”burning”-described what Josiah’s son Jehoakim did when he heard the Word of God read to him and how Christians too often tend to act like him.  When Josiah finally passed away, Jehoakim ruled three months before King Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple.  Jeremiah 36:21-23 reads:

“It was the ninth month, and the king was sitting in the winter house, and there was a fire burning in the fire pot before him.  As Jehudi read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a knife and throw them into the fire in the fire pot, until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the fire pot.  Yet neither the king nor any of his servants who heard all these words was afraid, nor did they tear their garments.”

In contrast to his father, Jehoakim disregarded God’s Word and tossed it away to be fodder for the fire, as if it held no weight whatsoever, as if it were like the funnies page from a Sunday newspaper two weeks old.  If you consider God’s Word to be like that, then you delude yourself that His Word means nothing after you have merely skimmed it, perused it, or read it once.  Harris says that this is folly and that while not many people literally burn the Word, we are “burning the Word of God when we don’t read it.”

He then builds on this point and makes an analogy to iTunes, on how people like Jehoakim only pick and choose the parts of the Bible they want to hear and then burn all the rest:

“Sometimes we treat the Word of God like iTunes. We can bring that iTunes mentality to the Word of God: I’m buying the track that says ‘God has a wonderful plan for my life’…I’m going to buy those nice ones and listen to those, and ignore the others.  Most of us haven’t studied the passages about God’s wrath.”

This is dangerous, Harris says, because what happened to Jehoakim could also happen to us.  God can easily tear away our kingdoms, our countries, and even our lives if we burn His Word by picking and choosing; by reading only the headline of the Good News and ignoring the lengthy article.

The final part-”eating”-refers back to Jeremiah 15:16 and how we must learn to love and to cherish our Bible just as we do our food.  For this section, I would recommend listening to Joshua say it online (link below), as I would recommend the entire message.  But to tie this to the Scripture I selected, Matthew 4:4, here is a Harris quote that encouraged me:

“God’s Word meets us right where we are.  It meets us in the midst of doubt.  It meets us in the moments where we’re asking questions.  It meets us in the times where we don’t feel like that super-happy ‘I love Jesus’-type person we’d like to be. God’s Word speaks perfectly when you aren’t doing perfectly, and God’s Word has power even when you feel powerless.

We love God’s Word because this God has established our standing before Him through the death of His Son.  Not because we perfectly obeyed His Word, but because Jesus did this in our place…The central message of the Bible is that God does the redeeming.  It is Jesus who obeyed, and it is Jesus who is reigning over all.”

When I hear this and when I look back to Matthew, a written account of Jesus’ life and death, one of the first things I see is not a man stepping on a mountain and preaching, but a humble Son fasting for forty days and forty nights in the desert.  He thirsts, his belly consumes itself in hunger, and Satan himself adds to Jesus’ misery on the last night of His fast.  And Satan tempts Jesus.  Satan offers Him all the world if He falls at the Devils’ feet.  He asks for Christ to demonstrate His Glory by calling angels to attend to Him.  But the Lord Christ, in perfect obedience to His Father says, “Man must not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

 The Father sustained Jesus Christ because Christ fed off His Word.  Throughout His ministry, Jesus taught from the Old Testament and the people were amazed because His teachings had weight.  If Jesus can survive temptation and crucifixion because He was in God’s Word, how much more will God do for us that abide in His Son by also abiding the Word!

“But whoever keeps His Word, truly in him the love of God is perfected.  This is how we know we are in Him: the one who says he remains in Him should walk just as He walked.”
–1 John 2:5-6

Let us walk as Jesus walked by feeding off the same Word He fed off of.  Let us keep His Word, the Gospel, and have the love of God perfected in us.  Let us know we are in Him by listening to Him, and loving what we hear.  For the Word of God is a “Requiem” for Heaven, a symphony which the angels play at the throne of grace, more beautiful than anything anyone will ever compose.

You can listen to Session One of the 2008 New Attitude Conference at www.newattitude.org.

This poem is about the Beatitudes, the heart of the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ.

Oh, how I could pause
At just the beatitudes
And pause forever.

On April 22, my Dad texted me this message, “Let us rejoice and read Psalm 104:33.”  In meditating on that Scripture, I wrote this long poem.  We should long to not only recite, but sing the Psalms.  God has provided us with the most beautiful lyrics and inspiration for song and poetry.  We should likewise praise Him with our creative works.

Sing to the Lord with all your lungs,
Let you vocal chords ring with jubilee!
What better prize to be won
Than the grace of God?
Let Handel write 5,000 “Messiahs”,
Let “Amazing Grace” come from
A million bagpipes,
Let the organist play multi-tonal praise,
Let God arise!
I want to tear walls of my sin away
And play football in the field
I sold all I had to buy.
I want to brush off my light afflictions
For the joy of heaven.
My life is
nothing
without the resurrection and the life.
Whatever happiness this world has to offer
Is but sand on a shrinking beach.
Why settle for the free sample in creation
When you can feast on Christ?
I have never each such bread;
My lips have never tasted such wine,
For the wine comes from the vine
Kept by a Fatherly farmer.
Sing to the Lord, brothers and sisters,
Let the King of Glory hear your
Vocal chords ring!

“If the world hates you, understand that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, the world hates you…but this happened, so that the statement written in their law might be fulfilled: ‘They hated me for no reason.’”
-John 15:18-19, 25

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been exploring the vast world of YouTube and getting an update on the world of man. Because I have a tendency just to waste time watching television during the summer, I thought I would try to guard my time somewhat by keeping up with the arguments the world tries to come up with against the Gospel. If there is one thing that I can say about the arguments, they are numerous.

Along my journey on cyberspace I once again encountered the ever-so-critical Richard Dawkins, a Professor at Oxford University and author of “The God Delusion.” Some time ago, he made a documentary on faith called “Root of all evil?” where he presents his case against religious practices. Faith, he says, confines the mind and keeps people from using their minds to discover what he calls the true nature of the universe (1).

Just as I discovered when I read James Watson’s “The Double Helix,” the realm of science on the level that Dawkins and his colleagues work in is way too complex for me. As I tragically saw in Dawkins’ documentary, many Christians come off as proud and are confounded by the level of scientific knowledge evolutionary biologists have. Most, if not all, of his arguments for evolution are backed by loads and loads of evidence, whereas ordinary Joes like me know nothing about Darwin’s theory and how it has evolved since its conception in the late nineteenth-century.

But in watching this documentary, Dawkins made a flaw in his argument against the Christian faith. He bashed the Old Testament prophets and the writings of the Apostle Paul, and yet when it came time to talk about Jesus, Dawkins said not a bad word about Him. Indeed, when I watched I would not have known he was an atheist had he not ripped Moses and Lot a couple of minutes before.

The fact is that no one can raise an argument against the Gospel itself, and that is the mistake many atheists make when they attempt to critique our faith. Jesus Christ was so perfect and His message is still so all encompassing that no one, not even an enemy of God can tear it down: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone (Psalm 118:22).”

In this passage from John, Jesus is talking to His disciples about the persecutions to come after He ascends into heaven. On the night before Good Friday, Jesus imparts this wisdom to the Twelve because He can already see the arguments and the knowledge of the world to come. And as Jesus teaches yet again, the world, filled with people like Dawkins cry out sarcastically, “He relies on the Lord; let Him rescue him, let the Lord deliver him, since He takes pleasure in him (Psalm 22:8).”

But what this passage also teaches us and should remind us is that Jesus knows exactly what we all go through when we struggle each day, trying to depend on an invisible God. The fruits of the Spirit are a little less obvious when we go to work, to school, or are just hanging out at home. Throughout Scripture, the theme of persecution repeats itself: “They hated me for no reason.” And yet, throughout all the changes and amendments the world makes to its assaults against Christ, the risen Lord remains strong in His message: He is the way to pay for sins, and the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).

So what are we to do? Proverbs 3 tells us that we should not rely on our own understanding. There is a wide realm of thought on Christian faith, and many people outside of one’s own comfort zone can be objective when it comes to seeing others as they try to live the life. We don’t want to be static and unchanging in our beliefs, because chances are that we are wrong. Talking to fellow Christians, reading up on Scripture, and especially prayer will allow us to become more enlightened. Keep asking, searching and knocking (Matthew 7:7-12) . “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free (John 8:32).”

As always, we should also remind ourselves of how Jesus is the core of all truth and is key to any argument. It is expected that if someone talks of Jesus, no one will be neutral on Him. If the Gospel is at the center of all argument, then it should be easy to defend it.

(1) Dawkins, Richard. Root of All Evil?  (15 May 2008). <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oooitli1reg>

This is part of a series on atheism and the Gospel.  David Wells can be reached at dave60op@yahoo.com.

I wrote this poem on the last night of the Clement Hall parlor (April 15, 2008), having taken a long break from poetry.  It sums up my feelings on man’s arrogance and our need for the love of the Lord.  

Life is but a grain of sand…
One speck piled upon billions
Blown around in the wind of God
And only by His grace are we blown
To Jerusalem to be built into His temple.

Can the sand blow the wind?
Can man command God?
I have seen men demand of Him
What is righteously His
But…
There is nobody righteous,
Not one under the sun,
No one can take from Him what
Is righteously His.

Let us not chase the wind
But let His breeze move us
To the house of the Lord.

I wrote this poem four days ago, inspired by the fighting in Beirut, Lebanon.  That fighting made me look upon my own heart and Proverbs 9:10-18.  The world bleeds without the love of God; hate abounds where love is not present.  Therefore, Christ must be present or else the Enemy will be quick to take his casualties.

I look out the window as the world bleeds,
The anxiety I hold blooms into doom.
Hope only comes from the One of David’s seed.

People follow as the storm proceeds,
Clouds of death bring days of gloom.
I look out the window as the world bleeds.

Like Pharaoh’s chariots ‘neath the Sea of Reeds
A miracle comes out from the empty tomb:
Hope only comes from the One of David’s seed.

Wicked men come out to carry out their deeds,
Lady Folly comes to kiss her evil bridegroom.
I look out the window as the world bleeds.

Tyranny comes ignoring Wisdom’s pleas.
Rumors of war sound loud sonic booms;
Hope only comes from the One of David’s seed.

With loaded clips, the silent cadence leads
Satan’s children, satanic in the womb.
I look out the window as the world bleeds,
Hope only comes from the One of David’s seed.