He Believed; Therefore, He Spoke

 13 It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, 14 because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself (II Cor. 4:13).

            I have enormous respect for Richard Wurmbrand. In his book, TORTURED FOR CHRIST, Wurmbrand recounts how he and others spent years in a Communist prison in Romania.

            Wurmbrand himself served fourteen years in prison. During some of those years, he was placed in a cell beneath the earth’s surface. Can you imagine spending several years without seeing sunlight? In time, images such as flowers and grass faded from Wurmbrand’s memory.

            Those who guarded Wurmbrand tortured him. Some sought to dehumanize Richard by urinating on him. He was severely beaten, and suffered other atrocities at the hands of his captors.

            Above all, speaking about Jesus was anathema. To do so was to submit to savage punishment. That did not stop Wurmbrand. He formulated a means of communication using exposed water pipes. With a spoon, Richard tapped out good news about Jesus in Morse code.

            In spite of the fact that he was hungry and hurting, Richard Wurbrand shared the gospel with his fellow prisoners. I am amazed by his faith.

            Like the Apostle Paul, Richard believed; therefore, he spoke.

The Curse vs. The Cross

             When I was a graduate student in Abilene back in the eighties, I heard Rick Atchley tell a story about the great Russian writer, Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Decades ago, Solzhenitsyn was sentenced to a prison camp in Russia.

            Inside that camp, Soviet officials were determined to break Solzhenitsyn’s spirit. Part of their effort consisted of assigning him a job of moving a pile of sand from one spot to another. When he had finished, he was to move it back to the original spot. Solzhenitsyn was ordered to fulfill this mindless task day after day.

            Working under a hot sun—sweating and toiling— Solzhenitsyn one day reached the breaking point. He simply dropped his shovel; he couldn't do it anymore. He knew the guards were going to beat him, but he could not go on.

            It was then that one of the other prisoners, a believer in Christ, went to the sand and drew a cross. Then he rubbed it out with his foot before the soldiers could see it.            

            In that moment, a flood of hope filled Solzhenitsyn’s soul. Thereafter, every time he felt like the world was going to break him, he just remembered that cross.

            The curse of the Fall brings you down. The cross lifts you up.

Titanic Teaching

            The movie TITANIC came out in 1997, but I think it is as popular as ever with girls. I know my two teen-age daughters seem to want to watch every time it comes on TV.

            Terry Mattingly is a nationally syndicated columnist, who typically writes on religious issues. The follow is a column he wrote on the movie TITANIC, just a few months after it appeared in theaters:

‘Titanic’ Theology Sinks on Vice

By Terry Mattingly

Scripps Howard News Service

            Soon after Titanic opened, director James Cameron ventured into cyberspace to field questions.

            One mother described how her young daughter sat spellbound through the romance between a first-class girl trapped in a loveless engagement and a starving artist who liberates her, then surrenders his life to save her in the icy North Atlantic. As they left the theater, the mother said, her daughter noticed older girls weeping.

            “It's OK. Don’t worry,” the child said, giving one girl a hug. “Rose is with her Jack now.”

            “That's so sweet,” wrote Mr. Cameron.

            With receipts of $1.1 billion and rising, Titanic has changed how at least one generation views one of this century's most symbolic events.

            For millions, the Titanic is now a triumphant story of how one upper crust girl found salvation - body and soul - through sweaty sex, modern art, self-esteem lingo and social rebellion.

            Titanic is a passion play celebrating the moral values of the 1960s as sacraments. Rose sums it up by saying that she could abandon her old life and family because her forbidden lover “saved me in every way that a person can be saved.”

            “Titanic reminds me of the distinctions between people of faith and secularists,” says conservative commentator Elizabeth Farah. “While all agree that death is inevitable and very often unexpected, the religious and secularists do not agree on the behavior life's fragility should promote. Those of faith know they may meet their Maker at any moment, at which time they will account for their sins. Their fear and deep love for God inspires them in their constant struggle for righteousness. To the secularist, life is short - get what you want, when you want it, and in whatever way necessary.”

            “The heroes of this modern Titanic fit into this latter category,” says Ms. Farah. “Their sins become virtues because they are rebelling against people who are portrayed as even worse. This isn’t just a bad movie,” she adds. “It is manipulative and fundamentally immoral.”

            Father Patrick Henry Reardon, a philosophy professor and Orthodox priest, goes even further in the next issue of the ecumenical journal Touchstone. The people who built the Titanic were so proud of their technology that they boasted that God couldn't sink their ship.

            Today, the creators of Titanic substitute romantic love as the highest power. Jack is Rose's savior, and he does more than save her life.

            “Had that been all that happened I would not have complained,” says, Father Reardon. “But they made that Christ symbol into a very attractive anti-Christ. The line that set me off I believe also to have been the ... defining line of the film: the assertion that the sort of saving that Jack did was, ultimately, the only kind of saving possible. If that were the thesis statement of the film, then I start looking for the cloven hoof and sniffing for brimstone.”

            I see art—movies, books, TV shows, paintings, music—to be a culture’s Bible. Art conveys, even when the artist does not intend it, the spiritual values of a culture. Consequently, I appreciate Mattingly’s column. It is several years old, but it still makes me think.

Obstacles

            So often, I see, in Scripture a God, who uses obstacles to make and mold us into the image of His Son. In thinking about this, I am reminded of an old parable:

The Obstacle in Our Path

 In ancient times, a king had a boulder placed on a roadway.  Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock.            

Some of the king's wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the king for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the big stone out of the way.

Then, a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables. On approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road.  After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded.

As the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse laying in the road where the boulder had been.  The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the king, indicating that the gold was for the person, who removed the boulder from the roadway.

The peasant learned what many others never understand. Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve one's condition.

            For the Christian, every obstacle does present an opportunity for improvement of one’s condition. Not for monetary enrichment, but for spiritual enrichment, because the adversity can serve as a tool of God to become more transformed into the image of Jesus.

Honor, or No?

            This week’s SPORTS ILLUSTRATED cover story focuses on the amount of athletes in college football, who have criminal records. Hint: the number is a large one.

            This week, Brigham Young University suspended the leading rebounder of their men’s basketball team—Brandon Davies—for violating the honor code. This was in spite of the fact BYU was one of the favorites for the NCAA Tournament, which begins in a couple of weeks.

            Moreover, word has filtered out that one of the reasons the PAC—10 has rejected BYU was because several schools within the conference considered BYU to be too “rigid.” (One example: school policy limits BYU from playing athletic contests on Sunday.)

            Question: Have the events of this week made BYU look commendable, or out of step with a rapidly changing culture?

Put Away that Television!

            I know first hand that it is hard to be part of a preacher’s family. One of my favorite stories is a humorous one. It concerns a preacher who was preaching a passionate sermon on the evils of television.

            “It steals away precious time that could be better spent on other things,” he proclaimed. He then challenged the congregation to do what he and his family had done.  “We put our TV away in the closet.”

            “That's right,” his wife mumbled to the kids, “and it gets awfully crowded in there.”

Call Dropped

            Several years ago, guards at the Duluth, MN county jail turned the wrong prisoner loose. Authorities had issued the call for a prisoner, and he was asleep. Knowing this, another inmate, Craig Karl Anderson, answered the call.

            Re-reading this story, I could not help but think about how many times the Bible tells me, Jesus will be coming back. I want to be alert when he does.