Truth Tellers

By David Feddes

You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. (Exodus 20:16)

The Gospel of Judas claims to reveal the real Jesus and the real Judas. The real
Judas, according to this ancient document, was not evil. Instead, Judas was the only
one of the twelve apostles who really understood Jesus. Jesus secretly told Judas his
real message. Jesus taught Judas that the physical world is evil, that bodies are bad,
and that people have an inner divine being. This divine self needs to escape the prison
of the body to fulfill its divine destiny.
When Judas handed Jesus over to his enemies to be killed, it was not a wicked
betrayal; the Gospel of Judas says that Jesus ordered Judas to do it. Jesus told Judas
that he would surpass all the other disciples, because Judas would help Jesus to
escape his body and become pure spirit. Jesus told Judas, “You will sacrifice the man
that clothes me.” According to the gospel of Judas, Jesus did not die to get rid of the
world’s sin; he died to get rid of his own body. Jesus did not rise from the dead in a
glorified resurrection body, and he did not promise that his followers would be physically
raised from the dead. Bodily resurrection would be tragedy, not triumph. Bodies are
bad! No, says the gospel of Judas, Jesus offered guidance on how to escape being
physical and human.
That contradicts what the Bible says. According to the New Testament gospels,
Judas was not the best of all the apostles but the worst. He was a thief and a traitor.
Judas was a member of Jesus’ ministry team, and one of his duties was to serve as
treasurer. But Judas stole money that people had given for God’s work. Eventually
Judas became so greedy that he decided to go for one big payday. He went to Jesus’
enemies and offered to betray Jesus to them for a payment of thirty silver coins. Satan,
the chief of demons, entered Judas’s heart, and Judas did Satan’s work. He led a band
of men armed with swords and clubs through the darkness of night to the place he knew
Jesus would be. Judas gave Jesus a kiss, not out of love, but to help Jesus’ enemies
pick Jesus out of the crowd and seize him. Afterward Satan had no further use for
Judas. Judas was filled with horror and killed himself. That’s what the Bible says about
Judas.
As for Jesus and his message, the Bible never says Jesus told people that they
have a divine inner self that needs to be free of the body. It is not bad to have a body;
the Bible says God created bodies. When Jesus died, it was not to get rid of his body
but to get rid of our sin. Jesus did not just dwell in a spirit realm. He arose from the dead
in a body that could be seen and touched. When Jesus returns, he will raise our bodies.
The gospels in the Bible say one thing; the gospel of Judas says another. What
should we believe? When the Judas manuscript came to light, the news media gave it
lots of publicity. You may have heard people say that the gospel of Judas is a legitimate
alternative to the Bible. You may have heard that experts authenticate the gospel of
Judas as very old.
Well, it is old. It goes back many centuries—but not as far back as the biblical
gospels. The Bible’s accounts were written within a few decades of Jesus death and
resurrection by people who knew Jesus personally. The Judas manuscript, on the other

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hand, is dated about 150 years after Judas betrayed Jesus. 150 years is a long time.
The author did not know Jesus or Judas. The book was written by Gnostics who thought
bodies were bad. Some Gnostics called themselves Cainites. They admired not only
Judas but Cain, the biblical character who murdered his brother Abel. This cult twisted
almost everything the Bible said into its opposite and turned many villains into heroes.
Now, let’s imagine a different example of writing a book 150 years after events, a
book that contradicts the historical accounts of eyewitnesses. It’s been a little less than
150 years since President Abraham Lincoln was shot. Suppose somebody sat down
today and wrote a book titled History of Booth. Suppose this book claimed to give the
real, hidden story behind Abraham Lincoln’s death. History of Booth claimed that
Lincoln secretly told John Wilkes Booth to shoot him, and the assassin Booth was
actually an American hero. Now imagine that the person who wrote this book was part
of a group called the Arnoldites. The Arnoldites are named after Benedict Arnold, the
traitorous general who worked for America’s enemy. Would you take seriously a book
that said the secret of being a true American is to follow in the footsteps of Benedict
Arnold, the traitor who double-crossed George Washington, and John Wilkes Booth, the
assassin who murdered Abraham Lincoln? Who would pay any attention to such
ridiculous lies dreamed up long after the actual events?
If such a History of Booth would be ridiculous, the Gospel of Judas is even more
ridiculous. But some journalists and professors act as though it reveals things that place
the biblical gospels in question. A similar dynamic occurred with the ridiculous Gnostic
ideas described in The Da Vinci Code. Tell a big enough lie often enough to lots of
people, and eventually some of them believe it.

Father of Lies
How could anybody believe something as weird and wicked as the gospel of
Judas? The answer is that these lies come from Satan himself and are backed by
demonic power. It’s not just that people’s brains don’t work very well. The deeper
problem is that evil powers are at work in those lies. Liars cause confusion. Satan is the
biggest liar of them all. Satan wants people to be confused about Jesus, not to have a
clear faith in the truth. The gospel of Judas and other Gnostic falsehoods were the sort
of thing the Bible warned of in advance. According to 1 Timothy 4:1-2, the Spirit clearly
says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and
things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose
consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.
As we’ve seen, people with a seared conscience ended up saying Cain the
murderer and Judas the traitor were good. These were the kind of people who said the
human body is bad and that people should avoid the physical pleasures of marriage or
of eating tasty food (4:3). They loved death more than life.
Satan knows that if people believe his lies instead of Jesus’ truth, those people
will perish forever instead of enjoying eternal life with Jesus in glorified resurrection
bodies. Satan is a killer, and he tells lies in order to bring death. Jesus said of Satan,
"He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in
him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies"
(John 8:44,45).

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 From the very beginning, in the Garden of Eden, that old serpent, the devil, has
been telling his murderous lies. God told Adam and Eve that they could eat fruit from
any tree except one. If they ate from the forbidden tree, they would die. The first thing
Satan said to Eve was, "Did God really say that?" He got Eve to doubt God's
truthfulness. Then he told her that disobeying God wouldn't kill her. It would liberate her.
She'd become like God herself. Eve and Adam believed Satan; they doubted God, and
humans have been lying and dying ever since.
Whenever someone tells a lie, Satan is happy, and Satan advances in his
murderous campaign to ruin lives and destroy souls. Not all lies are as spectacular as
the claim that Judas and Cain were good. Lies and deception come in various forms.
A boy flatters a girl with sweet little lies about how much he loves her, but once
she's gone to bed with him, he dumps her as used goods. A woman makes marriage
promises and then decides she'd rather be without her husband, leaving him betrayed
and shattered. A child in school acts friendly toward another kid, but behind his back
tells others what a loser he is. A teacher grades a set of exams that are mediocre, yet
gives them top marks, giving the students a false sense of accomplishment and
depriving them of any incentive to improve and excel.
An athlete signs a six-year-deal, and two years later threatens not to play unless
the deal is renegotiated. A salesman bamboozles a customer into signing a contract,
only to be dismayed later at what the fine print turns out to mean. A researcher falsifies
his findings or hides the dangers of a certain product so that it will reach the market
faster, and people die as a result. A doctor lies and tells a patient there's a good chance
she'll survive her cancer, thus depriving the dying patient of the chance to face
impending death squarely and courageously and forcing her to endure the added pain
and indignity of useless treatments. A politician makes all sorts of promises he knows
he won't keep, and the people lose their confidence in government. A talk show host
blabs a variety of rumors and speculations and half-truths, and people become cynical
about everything. A preacher says one thing but does another, and his congregation
starts to wonder whether they can trust anybody or believe in anything.
Is there anything more characteristic of the life of sin than lying? You do
something wrong; you don't want anyone to know; so what do you do? You lie. And
once you tell that lie, you have to tell another lie to cover it up and then another and
another, until your whole life becomes a web of lies.
Lies poison relationships. Think of what happens when a group of people get
together in a cafeteria or at a party or wherever. Look at all the smiles! Listen to how
friendly everyone is!
"It's so nice to see you."
"It's been great talking with you."
But then notice the whispers and the dirty looks, and listen to what they say after
a person leaves the room. The fake friendliness and flattery evaporate, the phony front
is dropped, and it comes out what they really think of each other.
Our atmosphere is so polluted by lies that we're in danger of suffocating. We
somehow need to breathe in the fresh air of truth and discover the life and liberty that
come from "speaking the truth in love" (Ephesians 4:15).

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God of Truth
You and I need to be people of truth for our own good, and because God is a
God of truth. If you know God, then you will love truth and hate lies. Why? Because
that's what God does. The Bible says, "Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but
those who act faithfully are his delight" (Proverbs 12:22, RSV).
God loves truth and hates lies because truth is his very nature. The Bible speaks
of the Lord as "the God of truth" (Psalm 31:5). It speaks of him as "God, who does not
lie" (Titus 1:2). It also says "it is impossible for God to lie" (Hebrews 6:18). God's power
is infinite, most anything is possible for him, but one thing God can't do is lie. Truth is of
his very essence. God wouldn't be God if he were anything but absolutely true and
trustworthy and faithful.
The Bible says, "God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he
should change his mind. Does he speak, and then not act? Does he promise and then
not fulfill?" (Numbers 23:19) "For the word of the Lord is faithful and true; he is faithful in
all he does" (Psalm 33:4). When God came to earth as a man in the person of Jesus,
he said, "I am the Truth" (John 14:6). When Jesus was on trial before Pilate, he said, "In
fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.
Everyone on the side of truth listens to me" (John 18:37).
And how did Pilate respond? He grunted, "What is truth?" That's the question of
every person who'd rather avoid God, who wants to do something he knows deep down
is evil. Just about every wicked deed is followed by a trail of lies, or else it's covered up
by the biggest lie of all: There is no such thing as truth; nobody can be sure if God
exists or what he's like; nobody can know for sure what's right and wrong. If there's no
truth, there's no right or wrong, and that means I can keep doing what I'm doing. Some
intellectuals have even turned this into a philosophy. What is truth? Who knows? Let's
all believe as we please and do what we want—even if it means crucifying the Son of
God, as Pilate did.
"What is truth?" That sarcastic question of Pilate denies that God is real and that
his revelation is reliable.
We’ve sampled some of the havoc that occurs in different areas of life when we
lie to each other, whether those are monstrous lies that twist what the Bible says about
Jesus or the everyday lies we tell in dealing with each other. Truth comes from God, the
ultimate life-giver. Lies come from Satan, the ultimate killer. It's not just that honesty is
nice, and lies aren't nice. It's that we're either in league with the God of truth, or else in
league with the father of lies, Satan.

Speaking the Truth in Love

Truthfulness is crucial for a real relationship with God and for real relationships
with each other. The Bible says, "Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and
speak truthfully to his neighbor" (Ephesians 4:25). "Then we will no longer be ... blown
here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in
their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up
into him who is the Head, that is Christ" (Ephesians 4:14-15).
"Speaking the truth in love" is the key to relationships. So far we’ve seen the
deadliness of lying and the need to say only what is true, and that's extremely important.
Before we say something, we first need to ask, "Is it true?" But then we need to ask

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another question: "Is it loving? Am I 'speaking the truth in love'?" What all this means is
that we can't just ask whether it would be accurate to say it, but we also need to ask
whether it would be helpful.
Suppose you tell a doctor or therapist or minister something very sensitive about
yourself. Would it be okay for them to go and tell the whole world, as long as what they
said was true? Of course not. Even if it's true, they are acting falsely because they are
betraying a trust.
That's obvious enough in matters involving professional confidentiality, but what
about ordinary gossip? A lot of gossip is wrong because it's nothing but rumor—but
even if it's true, it is still wrong to broadcast sensitive secrets or to spread negative
stories about other people behind their backs. Even if you're speaking the truth, you're
not doing it in love.
The Bible book of Proverbs talks realistically about gossip. Proverbs 11:13 says,
"A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy man keeps a secret." If you've got a
friend who spreads your secrets all over, that person isn't likely to be your friend for
long. Gossips aren't very good friends. They also ruin other people's friendships by
turning them against each other. Proverbs 16:28 says, "A gossip separates close
friends." Maybe there's been someone you liked and respected, and then a gossip
came along and told you some damaging stories about that person. It may have been
something from their distant past, or something you didn't really need to know, but once
you heard it, you never looked at that person quite the same way again.
When someone wrongs you, it's especially tempting to tell others what
happened. You want to make sure everybody knows what a jerk that person was to you,
and you retell the incident to poison others' minds and make them despise that person
as much as you do. That's not "speaking the truth in love." Proverbs 17:9 says, "He who
covers an offense promotes love, but whoever repeats the matter separates close
friends."
Gossip does terrible damage, but for some reason we find it almost irresistible.
We relish hearing gossip about people we know. If that doesn't satisfy our appetite, we
buy magazines and tabloids or watch TV shows that offer gossip about actors, singers,
politicians, and other famous people. The sleazier the rumor, the better it tastes.
Proverbs 18:8 says, "The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to a
man's inmost parts." Gossip is delicious. People are hungry for it; they digest it, and it
stays with them.
Of course, when I am on the phone or part of a group that's talking about
somebody, it's not really gossip. We're just getting caught up on the latest news. It's
when other people talk about me—now that's gossip, and it ought to stop. It's hard for
us not to gossip, and it's just as hard not to become furious when somebody spreads a
rumor about us. Maybe that's why the Bible says, "Do not pay attention to every word
people say... for you know in your heart that many times you yourself have cursed
others" (Ecclesiastes 7:21-22).
We need to be sensible enough to have a thick skin when people spread rumors
behind our backs, and we have to admit that we've done the same thing many times.
But God doesn't want us to stop there. We shouldn't just shrug and say, "Well, the world
is full of gossips, and I'm one of them. That's just the way things are." No, in the Bible
God shows us the world as it is, but then he calls us to something better because of

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who he is. He is the God of truth, and the God of love, and so you and I are called to
speak the truth in love.
The Bible says, "A good name is more desirable than great riches" (Proverbs
22:1). When you protect and promote your neighbor's good name, you give him a
priceless gift. When you attack his reputation and destroy his good name, you rob him
of something very precious. As a general rule, then, if you don't have something kind to
say about someone, don't say it.
That doesn't mean there are never times when we need to say things that aren't
very pleasant. If you're an eyewitness to a crime, you need to tell the unpleasant truth
so that justice will be done and the innocent will be protected. Likewise, if someone
wrongs you, you can confront that person honestly. And if you see someone making a
mistake which they themselves don't really notice, you may be able to help with a word
of constructive criticism. There are times when we need to tell the truth, even if it's a bit
painful. The Bible speaks many times of the value of a loving rebuke.
Still, there's a big difference between rebuke and gossip. In rebuke, you point out
a person's fault to that person so he can change it. In gossip, you point out a person's
faults to everyone else so they will have a lower opinion of him.
"Speaking the truth in love"—that is God's standard for how to use our tongues.
The Bible says, "If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight
reign on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless" (James 1:26). Did
you catch that? "His religion is worthless." Lies and gossip are symptoms of worthless
religion. They are the marks of a person who doesn't belong to God.
1 Corinthians 6:9 says that slanderers have no place in the kingdom of God. In
declaring God's wrath against sin, Romans 1 mentions gossips and slanderers in the
same breath as sexual perverts and murderers. And Revelation 21:8 says: "But the
cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who
practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of
burning sulphur. This is the second death." Throughout God's Word, then, it is clear that
liars and gossips belong in hell with the father of lies and all his lying demons.

Truth That Saves

Left to ourselves, hell would be our unavoidable destiny, since lying and gossip
seem to come so naturally to us. But God has not left us to ourselves. He reveals his
unchanging truth in the person of Jesus Christ and in the promises of the Bible. The
Lord promises that when we turn away from Satan's lies and believe God's truth, we will
be saved.
So repent of your lies and all your other sins. Ask God to forgive you for the sake
of Jesus' blood. Trust his promise of pardon and eternal life. Don’t be misled by Satan’s
lies. Believe God’s truth in the Bible. Then, with the help of God's Spirit living in you,
commit yourself to a life of truthfulness, since you have been adopted as a child of the
God of truth himself. The truthfulness of God is our only source of stability and hope.
The Bible says that when we trust Jesus, we have "a faith and knowledge resting on the
hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised" (Titus 1:2). In another place
it says that because "it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the
hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for our
soul, firm and secure" (Hebrews 6:13,18-19). Isn't that beautiful? In a world of rumors

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and lies, we have "an anchor for our souls, firm and secure." We have God's promises
in Christ, and "it is impossible for God to lie."
Trust the God of truth, and become a truth-teller yourself. Trust the God of love,
and "speak the truth in love" in your relationship to others. Trust the God of eternal
encouragement and speak in a way that encourages others. "May our Lord Jesus Christ
himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal
encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every
deed and word" (2 Thessalonians 2:16-17).

Originally prepared by David Feddes for Back to God Ministries International. Used with permission.

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Souls for Sale
By David Feddes

You shall not covet ... anything that belongs to your neighbor. (Exodus 20:17)

"Gangsta rap" is a hot item. Rap albums are often crammed with filthy language
and gutter talk. They glorify casual sex, brutal rape, racial hatred, using drugs, shooting
your enemies, and killing cops. And it sells. Quite a number of gangsta rappers have
gone platinum, with over a million albums sold.
There's a lot we could say about all this. We could talk about the rappers who've
been arrested for drugs, rape, and murder; we could analyze the degrading content of
their albums; but instead of going into all the gory and disgusting details, let's look at it
from another angle. Let's ask why these albums are being produced in the first place.
Sometimes gansta rappers are called artists. They supposedly express the anger
of deprived folks in the inner city. But you know who buys most of their albums? Rich
white kids in suburban malls. Do you think they buy rap so they'll be more sensitive to
inner city rage and despair? Dream on! They buy it to inject something shocking and
dangerous into lives that are really rather tame and boring. So again, what's the real
reason rappers produce this garbage, and why do agents and record companies spread
it around? Money. It's that simple. Money.
Lately there's been an outcry, because rappers who've sold millions of albums
get only a small percentage of the profits. They're so eager for success that, when
they're first getting started and someone dangles the keys to a new BMW and waves a
few thousand dollars of instant cash in front of them, they sign long-term contracts
without looking at where most of the profits will go in the long run. They sign their lives
over to shrewd agents and ruthless record companies, who then rake in untold millions.
In other words, the rappers are greedy, but the agents and companies are just as
greedy, and they come out with the biggest share of the money. They've been playing
the game a lot longer, and they're a lot better at it.
Let's shift gears now, and go from the world of gansta rap to the world of a high
tech business corporation. It's headed by a man who, according to all reports, drives
himself relentlessly. When he got married recently, he cut back his workday—from 2 or
3 in the morning to midnight.
And he expects his employees to have the same driven attitude. As one of the
company's main men says, "This company isn't a job; it's a way of life." The chairman
prefers to hire people straight out of college. Young people are quicker to come up with
new ideas, and they're also quicker to adapt themselves to company expectations and
put all their time and energy into the company. If you hire people when they already
have families, they might think that there's more to life than company success and
personal income. And this approach seems to work. The company dominates its
particular field, and many employees have become millionaires themselves.
Meanwhile, the chairman keeps looking for ways to beat the competition, and he
keeps looking for new areas his company can get into and become the major player. A
news magazine recently reported on a typical meeting. Someone brought up an idea
that sounded like a real money-maker, and the chairman could hardly contain his
excitement. "It's a gold mine," he exclaimed, and then, with profanity he added, "Get me

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into that and [blankety blank] we'll make so much money!" The man is already worth
billions of dollars, but he still gets excited every time he sees a chance to make even
more.
By now you might wonder where I'm headed with all this. What does a gansta
rapper have in common with a billionaire businessman? Well, despite some obvious
differences, they have at least one thing in common: Both are symptoms of a system
where greed is considered a virtue and where everything has a price tag, even the
bodies and souls of men.
When it comes to gangsta rap, the important thing isn't overcoming the evil and
horror of inner city life but marketing it. Sadness and sleaze are saleable. It's beside the
point if an album corrupts impressionable kids; the only thing that matters is if they'll buy
it. Profit is uppermost, and the impact on people is pretty much beside the point.
When it comes to running a business, the important thing isn't that people in your
company have happy families and meaningful personal lives, but that they are high-
energy, high-speed parts in a fast-moving corporate machine. The ideal is to keep the
employees thinking and working, keep the customers buying and spending, and keep
the competition from getting to the jackpot before you do. Profit is uppermost, and the
impact on people is pretty much beside the point.

The Coveting Virus

We’re looking at the last of the Ten Commandments. God says in the Tenth
Commandment, "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your
neighbor's wife ... or anything that belongs to your neighbor" (Exodus 20:17). When
you're infected by the coveting virus, you focus less on God than on stuff. You spend
less time thanking him for what you have than longing for what you don't have. You care
about your standard of living, not living by God's standards. You relate to other people
less in terms of who they are as persons than in terms of whether they have something
you want. You put price tags on everything, including other people.
Why does a gansta rapper spew all sorts of filth into a microphone? Because he
covets the fame and fancy cars that others have. Why does the agent rip off the rapper
and market the filth to impressionable kids? Because he covets a fatter bank account.
Why does a billionaire keep working frantically? Why does he get his thrills beating the
competition to where the money is? Because he covets being the best and having the
most. Meanwhile, the rest of us would do almost anything if only we could make it to the
top. If only we could have the fame and excitement of star entertainers. If only we could
have the wealth and power of the giants of business. If only... If only... Is there anything
that arouses our energies and shapes our priorities more than coveting?
Just look at the world of advertising. Many commercials have one simple aim: to
arouse desire and make people covet. Why else do commercials feature shapely
women in skimpy bikinis or bare-chested men rippling with muscles? They're selling
beer or cars or something else that has nothing to do with bare bodies, but they show
lots of skin anyway. Why? Because advertisers know that if you can somehow
associate sexual lust with desire for a certain product, sales are going to go up. It's
simple. Once you get the consumer to covet his neighbor's wife, he's more likely to
covet his house, his car, his drink, and whatever else you'd like to sell.

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 Another advertising strategy is to feature a famous athlete or entertainer. People
will covet what the celebrity has—they'll wish they were that rich and famous; they'll
wish they were as successful and happy as that person appears to be in the
commercial—and, almost without noticing, they'll also start to covet the product the
celebrity is plugging. How much advertising is aimed simply at providing accurate
information so the buyer can make an informed choice? Not much. More often, it's just a
matter of getting people to covet. And let's face it: coveting can be very good for
economic growth. Coveting is great fuel for the economic machine. When having more
stuff is at the top of everyone's agenda, you get a society where everyone is working
and producing and advertising and buying and selling at a frantic pace. And the result?
Almost everybody does end up having more stuff. Okay, so maybe marriage and family
and friendship and love and kindness are collapsing under all the immoral entertainment
and the obsession with career that spring out of coveting, but hey, that's the price of
prosperity. The economy is growing, money is changing hands, we have more stuff than
previous generations, and that's what it's all about, isn't it?

Bodies and Souls for Sale

The last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, talks about the downfall of a
society and economic system which it labels "Babylon." Revelation portrays this
"Babylon" as a prostitute, because she will do anything for money. Everything is for
sale. Everybody has a price. If you asked Babylon what matters most, she'd answer,
"It's the economy, stupid." And it seems to work. Babylon is rich. Her economy is so
vibrant that everyone else's prosperity is affected by it. However, Babylon the prostitute
finally perishes under God's judgment. Revelation says:
The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys
their cargoes any more—cargoes of gold, silver, precious stones and pearls; fine
linen, purple, silk and scarlet cloth; every sort of citron wood, and articles of every
kind made of ivory, costly wood, bronze, iron, and marble; cargoes of cinnamon
and spice, of incense, myrrh and frankincense, of wine and olive oil, of fine flour
and wheat; cattle and sheep; horses and carriages; and bodies and souls of men
(Revelation 18:11-13).
There's almost nothing you can’t buy in Babylon. Consumers have almost unlimited
choices. Merchants do very well. The economy thrives. It sounds almost like heaven on
earth. Except that the covetous values of Babylon destroy your relationship to others
and bring you under the judgment of God.
Babylon sells everything, even the bodies and souls of men. In some societies,
this happens through slavery or prostitution. But as I've been pointing out, our society
has other ways of buying and selling bodies and souls. Pornographers, filmmakers,
singers, and advertisers know that naked body parts are very saleable. They also know
that violence, viciousness, blood, and mutilated body parts are saleable. There's money
to be made, so there's a sale on bodies. Customers will pay good money and even sell
their souls to get this trash.
And then there's the matter of running a business. What happens when
companies run their business based on coveting? How do they relate to others? When
they think of the Golden Rule, it's not "Do unto others as you would have them do unto
you." In relation to workers, it's "Do with others whatever makes the most profit for you."

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In relation to competitors, it's "Do unto others before they do it unto you." And in relation
to government, the Golden Rule is simply, "The one who has the gold makes the rules."
They finance the campaigns of politicians who will help their bottom line; they hire high-
powered lobbyists to shape laws in their favor; they seek the best government money
can buy. Sound familiar?
Now, I don't want to leave the impression that the tenth commandment is
opposed to all business and enterprise. It's great when a business tries to make a useful
product or provide an important service; it's important to encourage creativity and
efficiency; it's fine to work hard and expect your employees to do the same, and it's
okay to advertise if you're doing it in a way that informs without manipulating. But all too
often, we do business Babylon-style. Coveting takes over, and the uppermost thing
becomes growth and profit, no matter what. Bodies are bought, souls are sold, and
relationships are ruined.

Using People
When we covet, we're more interested in what our neighbor has than in who our
neighbor is. We feel more love for his stuff than for him. Instead of loving people and
using things, we tend to love things and use people.
When you covet your neighbor's wife, the wife is no longer a person. She's just
an attractive body that could give you great pleasure. Her husband isn't a person, either.
He's just a problem that stands between you and what you want. That's what happened
with King David. The Bible says that David was out on the rooftop of his palace, looking
over the city, when he saw a beautiful woman bathing. David lusted for her; he coveted
his neighbor's wife, and he got the woman, Bathsheba, to go to bed with him. Then,
when he feared her husband, Uriah, might find out, David told Uriah some lies and tried
to cover his tracks. When that didn't work out, David arranged to have Uriah killed in a
military campaign. Uriah had been one of David's most faithful soldiers, but once David
coveted Bathsheba, Uriah's life and his loyalty meant nothing to David. Coveting led
David into adultery, lying, and murder.
In another grim story, the Bible tells how King Ahab coveted a vineyard that
belonged to his neighbor, Naboth. As soon as Ahab began to covet, Naboth was no
longer a man to be respected, but a problem to be solved, and Ahab's wife Jezebel
solved it. She got rid of Naboth. She arranged for phony witnesses to lie about him, and
then she had him executed. Ahab's coveting made Naboth a thing. Coveting led to lying,
murder, and stealing. Once you break the tenth commandment and start coveting, it
gets easier to break all the other commandments. You treat your neighbor as a thing.
You don't love him or her as a person.
And once you start coveting, it seems that enough is never enough. Ahab had all
sorts of land, but he thought he couldn't be happy until he had Naboth's little plot as
well. David had all sorts of women, but he thought he couldn't be happy until he had
Uriah's wife as well. When you covet, you feel like you'd be happy if you could just get
that one more thing that you want. But if you get it, are you satisfied? Not at all. You're
already coveting something else. Whether it's sex or property or market share or
money, no matter how much you get, you've always got to have more. The Bible says,
"Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never

4
satisfied with his income" (Ecclesiastes 5:10). You can be worth billions of dollars and
still be obsessed with getting more.
Coveting is like a black hole. When a star collapses in upon itself, it becomes
extremely dense, and its gravity becomes more powerful than ever. As it pulls more
matter into itself, it becomes even denser; its gravitational pull becomes even more
powerful, and on it goes. The black hole sucks up matter almost endlessly, swallowing
up everything around it, even light itself. That's what happens when you covet. You
collapse in upon yourself and base your happiness on having what you want. From that
point on, the more you get, the more powerful your coveting becomes, until you're
nothing but a deep and utter darkness that swallows up whatever gets too close to you.
Unless the power of coveting is broken, your final end is the utter darkness and
nothingness which the Bible calls hell. Already on earth, we get just a taste of hell in a
competitive, ruthless, survival-of-the-fittest society where we're so busy using each
other that we can't love each other, where we're so greedy and discontented that we
can't enjoy God's love or love him in return.

Selling Your Own Soul

Once you put price tags on the souls of others, you also (maybe without even
realizing it) put a price tag on your own soul. You sell out to the prince of darkness, the
devil himself, with his insatiable appetite and his constant urge to devour. Coveting is
the attitude of hell. When you do business with the devil, you may get more of what you
want, but you lose your soul, both now and in eternity. And as Jesus said, "What good
will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man
give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory
with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done
(Matthew 16:26).
When we stand before the judgment seat of Christ, we'll discover what all the
things we've coveted, all the stuff we've accumulated, is really worth. The Bible says,
"Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death"
(Proverbs 11:4). Righteousness is what counts in God's eyes, and nothing else. If we
aren't somehow righteous in God's eyes, we are doomed forever. Eternal life isn't a
commodity that can be bought with money. God doesn't take bribes. The Bible says in
Psalm 49:7-9, "No man can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for
him—the ransom for a life is costly, no payment is ever enough—that he should live on
forever and not see decay."
There's just one ransom, one price for redeeming a life, one payment that can
save us on the day of judgment: "Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all
men" (1 Timothy 2:6). The Bible says that "it was not with perishable things such as
silver or gold that you were redeemed ... but with the precious blood of Christ" (1 Peter
1:18-19). If you want to focus all your desire on something, if you want all your
happiness to depend on it, if you want to base your destiny on something that won't let
you down, then forget about all the stuff you've been coveting, and focus all your desire
on the Lord Jesus. Depend on him as your source of happiness. Trust him to be your
life both now and for eternity. Believe that he died to pay the penalty for all your sins
and selfish desires. Believe that he rose again to bring you into a whole new way of
thinking and living. Jesus is the only one who can give a fresh start to self-centered,

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covetous people. So stop selling your soul to Satan, and trust that Jesus has purchased
your soul for God. Repent of your sins. Receive the salvation Jesus bought for you with
his blood.
If you do that, your life will change radically. Once you belong to Jesus, your
highest priority isn't material but spiritual. Jesus tells us not to worry about food and
drink and clothes, "for the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father
knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all
these things will be given to you as well" (Matthew 6:32-33). In Christ your obsession
with things has to end. As a Christian, your main preoccupation is to live as a citizen of
God's kingdom and to find your satisfaction in doing his will.
And what is God's will? We've been focusing on God's will in the Ten
Commandments. According to Jesus, all the commandments boil down to this: "Love
the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This
is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as
yourself'" (Matthew 22:37-38). In Romans 13:8-10, the apostle Paul echoes Jesus when
he says,
The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal,"
"Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be are summed up
in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to its
neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Originally prepared by David Feddes for Back to God Ministries International. Used with permission.

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What’s Wrong with Gambling?
By David Feddes

Almost anywhere you go nowadays, you have a chance to gamble. At work, you
can put money into an office betting pool. At the store, you can buy a fistful of lottery
tickets. At some restaurants, you can play the machines. In your mailbox, you can find
the latest sweepstakes offer. On your computer, you can get into Internet gambling. At
some churches, you can play bingo. In your spare time, you can open the newspaper
and read the latest betting line on all the major sporting events. For vacation, you can
visit a casino or riverboat or racetrack.
Once upon a time, government was hostile to gambling, but now many
governments permit many forms of gambling and even sponsor it. The government sets
up lotteries and promotes them aggressively. Why raise taxes when government can
make millions simply by letting citizens try their luck? When the government itself
sponsors gambling, it can't very well say no to others who want to get rich from some
gambling enterprise. So gambling has gone from being a secretive, shameful activity to
a respected, booming business.
What's wrong with that? Many people like to gamble and seem to have a lot of
fun. Businesses that provide gambling opportunities provide jobs for their employees.
Government makes money through taxes on legal gambling, and schools get some of
the money from lotteries. Who could object to such things?

Chasing the Rabbit

What's wrong with gambling? Well, think of it in terms of a dog race. At a dog
race, a bunch of greyhounds chase a mechanical rabbit around a track. Those dogs run
like crazy, but no matter how fast they run, the rabbit runs faster and they never catch it.
They think they're going to catch it, but they don't. It always stays just out of their reach.
But is that the dumbest thing about those dogs—that they chase something they can't
catch? No, the dumbest thing is that they even want to catch it in the first place. Just
suppose one of those greyhounds really would catch the rabbit some time? What then?
The poor dog would be chewing on a fake rabbit. It would be as hungry as ever.
Those dogs chasing a fake rabbit are like gamblers chasing money. You can run
around after that easy money, but you're chasing a prize that you're not likely to catch
up with. The money remains out of reach. The odds are against you. A bumper sticker
defines the lottery as "a tax on people who are bad at math." That's true of just about all
forms of gambling: It's a way of taking money from people who are bad at math.
But just suppose you do hit the jackpot. What then? You find out that the money
doesn't make you nearly as happy as you thought it would. You're like a greyhound that
finally catches the mechanical rabbit, only to find that it's not very tasty and not very
nourishing. Someone did a survey of lottery winners. The survey found that the jackpot
winners had a burst of excitement when they first won, but they were no happier a year
later than they were before they won the lottery.
So gambling is foolish for at least two reasons. First, it's foolish because you
seldom get the money you're chasing. Second, it's foolish to be chasing money in the
first place. Money can't satisfy your deepest needs. You may enjoy the thrill of trying to

1
beat the odds, but all too often, the odds beat you. Gambling makes you dream of
getting rich, but instead it makes you poorer—poorer in terms of money and also poorer
in your soul. Fulfillment isn't found in the excitement of easy money. Fulfillment is found
in God. If we chase happiness anywhere but in God, says the Bible, we are "chasing the
wind" (Ecclesiastes 2:11).

Get Rich Quick?

Some time ago, a person sent me a long list of prayer requests in the mail. I
noticed that most of the requests had to do with money: He wanted me to pray that his
unpaid bills would be covered, that he would get a better job, that his landlord would
ease up on demands for rent, and, finally, he wanted me to pray that God would help
him win the lottery!
I wrote back and suggested that he might be able to pay more of his bills if he
stopped throwing his money away in the lottery. I also suggested that he start praying
for God's help in following Jesus, rather than asking for God's help in being a successful
gambler. The Bible warns against those "who think that godliness is a means to
financial gain" (1 Timothy 6:5). What more blatant way to use godliness as a means to
financial gain than to use the sacred act of prayer in an effort to win a load of money
that comes from other people's pockets?
The Bible gives us important insights about our relationship to money in I
Timothy 6, saying,
But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the
world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will
be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap
and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and
destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people,
eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with
many griefs. (I Timothy 6:6-10)
There's no mention of gambling in this passage, but there are some powerful insights
that apply to gambling and help us to see gambling for what it is. Verse 9 is especially
revealing: "People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many
foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction."
The desire to get rich quick, to get something without working for it, is one of the
main attractions in gambling. You hope to make yourself richer and make someone else
poorer in the process. The prospect of getting rich is enticing enough, and it's even
more exciting when you feel the competitive challenge of beating the odds and winning
money at someone else's expense. Gambling is an intoxicating brew that mixes greed
with a stiff shot of competition.
The desire to get rich, according to the Bible, gives rise to "many foolish and
harmful desires." This is true of greed in general, but it's especially true of gambling—it's
foolish and harmful. Ironically, gambling often starts with a love of money, and yet the
end result is almost always a loss of money. A friend of mine says that sometimes when
he's at a convenience store, he is asked whether he wants to buy some lotto tickets.
Usually he just says he doesn't want any, but once in awhile he'll say, "No, I'd rather just
light a match to my money."

2
 Gambling is a bad bet. You have a better chance of being struck by lightning
than of winning big in the lottery. The games are rigged and the odds are calculated so
that almost everybody who gambles will lose money. Losers outnumber winners. How
else could the lottery be a big moneymaker for the government? How else could the
casinos and racetracks be so lucrative? The sad irony of gambling is that you start out
wanting to make some easy money, but you end up losing hard-earned money. You'd
like to win something for nothing, but instead you get nothing for something.
Gambling is foolish and harmful, and the tighter its grip, the more harmful it
becomes. I remember talking with a distressed woman who told me that her family was
having financial problems. She then told me her husband's salary. It was huge!
Whatever problem he had with money, it wasn't because his income wasn't high
enough. But for some reason, his high income didn't seem high enough to him, and his
steady paycheck wasn't exciting enough. This man wanted some thrills. He wanted to
hit it big and be really rich. And so he spent several hundred dollars every week on the
lottery. He didn't win anything, but he did manage to get hopelessly behind on paying
his bills. His gambling hurt him, and even worse, it hurt his wife and children. As the
Bible says, "A greedy man brings trouble to his family (Proverbs 15:27)."
One former gambler told me he ran up debts of over $300,000. He had an
excellent business income, but his income couldn't keep up with his gambling. It almost
wrecked his marriage. He knew it was out of control when he started getting threats
from loan sharks and mobsters. At that point, gambling wasn't fun anymore. The man
broke free from gambling, got connected with God, and recovered his relationship with
his wife and children. But he came very close to losing his family, and even his life,
before he finally wised up. Such situations are becoming awfully common. More and
more people are enslaved to gambling and are endangering their own wellbeing.

A Pimp For Sin

Even the government is addicted to gambling—or at least to the money that
comes from it. Governments balance budgets using lottery dollars and taxes on gaming
companies. Election campaigns are financed by piles of contributions from megabucks
gambling enterprises.
Despite wrecked homes and ruined lives, government still treats gambling as
something great. Officials brag about the good things lottery dollars accomplish. Some
trumpet the economic benefits that casinos bring to a community. How ridiculous! A
government that tries to solve problems by promoting gambling is like a fire department
that tries to put out a blaze by spraying it with gasoline. One journalist put it this way:
Gambling exploits a human weakness. Gambling parallels its constant
companion, prostitution, in suggesting that one can buy happiness. When
gambling is not only condoned but also officially supported by city and state
officials through lotteries and licensed parlors, then government has become a
pimp for sin.
"A pimp for sin." That's tough talk—but it's true, and it happens every time the
government urges people to gamble.
Government-sponsored gambling is really just a tax on foolishness and
weakness, a way of harming people in the name of helping them. A great deal of lottery

3
money is taken from people who have a low income, who live in poverty, and who vainly
hope that they can buy a ticket out of their situation. Most people who stand in line for
lottery tickets at local stores would be better off spending the money on a new pair of
jeans or on some groceries. But they gamble instead, and their desperate situation
becomes even more desperate.
Of course, not everyone who gambles has a low income. Some, as we've seen,
make lots of money. But even many who have a large income can't really afford to
gamble. What begins as an amusing game that nibbles away a few dollars turns into an
obsession that devours their lives. So, even if the government uses the money from
gambling for some good causes, it will never make up for the damage it is doing.
It's time to face the fact that gambling has become a powerful force that pervades
our entire society. It has taken over the lives of many individuals, turning them into
compulsive gamblers. Maybe that's happened to someone you know, or even to you.
And not only has gambling taken control of many individuals, but it has infiltrated our
major institutions as well. It's a big part of the marketing strategy for many different
companies, from scratch-and-win cards to sweepstakes to drawings. It is closely
connected with nearly every sporting event: No sports report is complete without
mentioning the odds or the point spread. Cities, states, and provinces are growing more
and more dependent on gambling revenue. Even many charities and churches rely on
bingo parlors and raffles as part of their fund-raising strategy.
For some people, this may seem like gambler's heaven, but any individual or
society that falls under the power of gambling is in big trouble. As the Bible says,
"People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and
harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction." Notice the progression: First
you're tempted; then you're trapped; and then you find yourself plunging headlong
toward destruction, unable to help yourself or halt the plunge. The final result is not just
financial ruin but spiritual ruin.

King Money, Lady Luck

King Money and Lady Luck may seem attractive and friendly at first, but before
you know it, they've got you trapped and are dominating and ruining your life. The love
of money, the desire to be rich, can take on a power all its own. King Money and Lady
Luck are more than just figures of speech. The Bible talks about mysterious spiritual
powers which can control individuals and dominate social structures (Ephesians 6:12;
Romans 8:38). These powers gain a terrible grip on many people. They warp the values
and priorities of entire societies. Ultimately, they compete with God himself for our
loyalty and trust.
That's why greed is such a serious matter. It isn't just a small mistake or a minor
weakness. Greed, according to the Bible, is surrender to a spiritual power. It is idolatry
(Ephesians 5:5; Colossians 3:5). It's trusting and worshipping something besides God.
Jesus himself said, "You cannot serve both God and Money" (Matthew 6:24). That's
Money with a capital 'M'--Money no longer as a useful commodity but as a dominant
power. Gambling is just one of several ways that we can fall under the deadly power of
King Money, and when we do, it makes us disloyal to God and ruins our relationship to

4
him. What's more, when Money is king, it spoils our relationship with other people. God
created us to love people and use money, but we love money and use people.
Money can be a useful servant, but it is a deadly master. When money rules your
life, it takes on a deadly power that it was never meant to have. "People who want to get
rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge
men into ruin and destruction." "For," as the Bible says, "the love of money is a root of
all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and
pierced themselves with many griefs." What gambling does to your bank account is only
part of the problem. The worst part is this: You can become so obsessed with money
that it blocks you from seeking treasure in heaven. Gambling can be a pit stop on the
way to hell. And what does it profit if you hit the jackpot but lose your soul?
Money is one false god. Another false god of the gambler is Lady Luck, or
chance. Some people gamble not just because of the money itself but because they
want to feel that Lady Luck is on their side. The Bible speaks of God's providence, the
way God controls all things and provides for his people. But all too often, we'd rather
think about luck than about God. After all, if luck is good to us, we don't have to be
thankful or accountable. We can do as we please. But if a personal and living God is
good to us, then we must live a life of gratitude and answer to him.
Gambling, then, tends to involve the worship of at least two different idols: King
Money and Lady Luck. Many of us would rather be rich than holy. We'd rather be lucky
than good. So we turn away from the holy and good God and devote ourselves to
Money and Luck.

Contentment in Christ
The Bible shows us a better way. If gambling or the love of money has become a
dominant power in your life, you need to be set free, and it's going to take a power
greater than yourself to do that. You need to turn your life over to the care of Jesus
Christ. If you want to enjoy real contentment, you need to get out of the realm where
Money is King and Lady Luck is queen, and you need to be part of the domain where
Jesus is Lord, where he's the one in charge of your life.
In I Timothy 6, after warning about how foolish, harmful, and destructive it is to
worship money, the Bible says, “But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue
righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. Fight the good fight of
the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called...” (6:11-12). These are
Jesus' priorities for us. This is what it's like to live in his power. We need to realize that
the grand prize in life isn't some lottery jackpot. The greatest prize is nothing less than
eternal life in the presence of God. God calls us to take hold of that prize. And that prize
isn't a gamble. It's a gift—a gift that comes only through faith in Jesus Christ.
When Jesus died on the cross, he overcame the deadly powers that lure us into
disaster. The Bible says, "Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a
public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross" (Colossians 2:15). You
don't have to be dominated by gambling or love of money or trust in luck. You don't
have to be dominated by any of the demonic powers that seek to corrupt you and
destroy your soul. Jesus has overcome the powers. And when the Holy Spirit of Jesus
enters your heart, he makes you a part of Jesus' victory. When you belong to God, you

5
can't lose. "Godliness with contentment is great gain," says the Bible. When Jesus
controls your life, godliness replaces greed, and contentment replaces covetousness. In
Philippians 4:19, the Bible says, "And my God will meet all your needs according to his
glorious riches in Christ Jesus." The Lord meets all our needs, material as well as
spiritual. Don't forget, though: God meets our needs, not our greed. Jesus taught us to
pray for our daily bread; he didn't teach us to pray for the weekly jackpot!
In summary, we need to be alert to the fact that in our society, gambling isn't just
a harmless pastime. It has become a menacing spiritual power, a force that awakens
foolish and harmful desires, that grips individuals and institutions, that tempts and traps
and plunges people into ruin. It competes with God himself for control of people's lives.
But when your faith is in Jesus, you are no longer dominated by King Money or
Lady Luck. When your heart is full of Christ, there's no room for any competitors. When
you are yielded to Christ and under his control, you will have treasure in heaven, and
you will also experience contentment here on earth. So if you must make a wager, then
wager everything on Jesus. Pray to him and ask him to forgive you and rule your life.
That's not a gamble. It's a sure thing.

Originally prepared by David Feddes for Back to God Ministries International. Used with permission.

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How to Wreck Your Life
By David Feddes

When I talked with Jim, he was feeling devastated. Jim's wife had just dumped
him in order to share her bed with a much younger man. Jim felt betrayed and crushed
by his wife's adultery. I felt sad for him and told him of my concern. What a horrible thing
to go through!
As we talked further, I asked Jim if he and his wife had any children. He replied,
"No, we don't. Not together, anyway. She has two kids from a previous marriage. I have
a child from a previous relationship—I lived with a girlfriend for several years and never
married her, but we had a baby together. My daughter now lives with her mother, my
former girlfriend."
A bit later I asked Jim whether he believed in God. "Oh yes, I believe in God,"
Jim said. "I also believe in guardian angels who look out for me."
I asked Jim if he ever read the Bible. "No," he answered, "I don't read the Bible."
I asked Jim if he ever goes to church. "No," he said, "I don't go to church. I've
never really seen any need for church."
Then Jim changed the subject and said, "What do you think of psychics? Do you
think psychics can read your mind and tell you what's going to happen to you in the
future?"
I responded, "Why do you ask? Do you go to psychics?"
"I sure do—all the time," Jim declared. "I get lots of guidance from psychics.
What do you think of them?"
"Well," I said, "at best psychics are fakes who have no special powers and make
things up as they go along. At worst, if a psychic does have any special powers, those
powers come from demons. So whether psychics are fake or downright demonic, they
are bad news." Jim was taken aback. He said he'd have to think about it some more.
Then I said to him, "Jim, I'm really sorry about your wife's adultery, and I don't
want to add to your pain. But your troubles go a lot deeper than your problems with your
wife. You are out of tune with God. Sure, you believe God exists, but hey—your wife
also believes you exist. That doesn't mean there's a good relationship. There's a big
difference between believing someone exists and actually having a healthy relationship.
Your wife believes you exist but she ignores you, goes against your wishes, and doesn't
want you in her life. You believe God exists, but you ignore him, go against his wishes,
and don't have him in your life. You lived with a woman for years and never married her,
even though God says that sex is for marriage only. You go to psychics, even though
God says not to, and you don't spend time in church, even though God commands it."
"You need to change," I told Jim. "Is your wife's adultery all that different from
when you lived with a girlfriend as though marriage didn't matter? The root problem of it
all is living without God. You need God in your life. Don't just believe God exists. Seek a
relationship with Christ. Read the Bible. Do what it says. I'm sorry, Jim, if what I'm
saying makes you even more miserable. I don't want to add to your troubles. I just want
you to find a new life." Jim said I'd given him a lot to think about, and then we said
goodbye.
Now, when I tell you about Jim, I'm not using his real name, and I've changed a
few minor details to protect his identity. But our conversation went pretty much as I've

1
described it. I've talked about similar things with many other people. I'm saddened
whenever someone’s life is in ruins, and I'm reluctant to make them feel even worse by
pointing out more problems. But sometimes the only way out of a mess is first to realize
how you got there.
So let's pretend you’re eager to wreck your life, and you want some clear, sure
advice on how to do it. You want to know the road to ruin in three simple steps.

Be Yourself
If I had to write a manual or produce a seminar on how to wreck your life, my first
piece of advice would be this: be yourself! That's all it takes. Just be yourself. Hang on
to your own opinions. Follow your own urges. Do whatever you feel like doing. Just be
yourself, and you're sure to destroy yourself. In Proverbs 14:12, the Bible says, "There
is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death." The Bible doesn't
repeat many things in the very same words, but it repeats this exact statement in
Proverbs 16:25, which again declares, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but in
the end it leads to death." Nothing feels more right than being yourself—and nothing is
more certain to wreck your life.
Jim was just being himself and following a way that seemed right to him. It
seemed okay to believe in God and angels without any real relationship with Christ. It
seemed okay not to read the Bible. It seemed okay not to worship in church. It seemed
okay to move in with a woman, have a child, and then move out and move on. It
seemed okay to depend on psychics for guidance. It seemed okay for Jim to follow his
instincts and be himself, but when his wife followed her instincts and went to bed with
another man, suddenly it didn't seem okay.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death"—
relationships die, dreams die, the body dies, and ultimately, there is the horrible death
beyond death, in hell. So be yourself, do whatever seems okay to you, and you will
wreck your life now, and you will wreck your eternal future. Being yourself is a key step
on the road to ruin.
Isn't it insulting to be told that you will wreck your life and go to hell simply by
being yourself? What is so awful and deadly about being yourself? Well, the Bible says
that on our own, without God, all of us are spiritually dead in sin. We try to satisfy the
cravings of our sinful self. We follow thoughts and desires that seem normal to us but
anger God and bring us under his punishment (Ephesians 2:1-3).
This fallen self, sometimes called "the flesh" or "the sinful nature," is what we're
all born with. We don't need to learn how to be selfish or sinful; it comes naturally. If
your selfish, sinful nature remains your core identity, if you don't receive a new self
through God's Holy Spirit, if you just go on being yourself and doing whatever your sinful
nature tells you to do, you will wreck your life and go to hell. Scripture says, "Do not be
deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to
please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction" (Galatians 6:7-8).
Wrecking your life is as certain as planting and harvesting. Plant to please yourself, and
you will reap ruin and hell.

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Be Godless
Let's look at a second simple step on the road to ruin, another guideline on how
to wreck your life: be godless. You don't have to be an atheist to be godless. You can
believe God exists and still be godless, simply by not listening to God and not putting
him first in your life. You can be godless by seeking your own immediate desires instead
of God's eternal blessings. You can be godless by putting your own decisions ahead of
God's direction.
A biblical example of this was Esau. Esau knew God was real, but Esau didn't
pay attention to the Lord or value the Lord's blessings. As the oldest son in the family,
Esau was in line to receive the special birthright as the next family leader and as the
main heir of the promises God made to his father and grandfather. One day, Esau was
out in the open country for awhile. By the time he returned home, he was hungry—really
hungry. His younger brother Jacob was cooking some stew. Esau said to Jacob, "Quick,
let me have some of that red stew! I'm starving!"
Jacob replied, "First sell me your birthright."
Esau said, "Look, I am about to die. What good is the birthright to me?" Esau
swore an oath, giving the birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and
some lentil stew. Esau ate and drank, and then got up and left. The Bible sums it up by
saying, "Esau despised his birthright" (see Genesis 25:29-34).
Esau cared more about his stomach than about God. He didn’t value having
God's blessing on his life and on generations to come. His motto was, "I want what I
want when I want it." Esau followed his immediate appetites, not only for food, but also
for women. He found two women who were idol-worshipers, but he wanted them, so he
married both, without regard for what God would think, without regard for what his
parents would think. Esau's wicked wives were such a grief to Esau's mother, Rebekah,
that she hardly wanted to go on living, and his father Isaac was also upset.
When Esau finally realized how displeasing his wives were to his parents, what
did he do? He went out, found a woman he thought his parents would like better and
added her to the wives he already had. Esau was just being himself, following his own
instincts, trying to solve problems his own way—and in the process piling more
problems on top of those he already had.
If you want to wreck your life, be godless like Esau. Do whatever your appetites
tell you; don't think about future blessings you might be throwing away. Go ahead and
assume that even if God exists, he won't mind being ignored. Your job is to do what you
want; God's job is to send guardian angels to make sure you enjoy maximum fun and
minimum damage. Even if you believe there's a God, just be unholy and godless, and
your road will end in ruin—guaranteed. You'll stumble from one mess to another and
end up exiled from God in hell. The Bible says that "without holiness no one will see the
Lord" and warns against being “godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his
inheritance rights as the oldest son. Afterward ... when he wanted to inherit this
blessing, he was rejected" (Hebrews 12:14-16).

Be Unbiblical
If you haven't already heard enough on how to wreck your life, here's a third step
on the road to ruin: be unbiblical.

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 One way to be unbiblical is to look for supernatural guidance apart from the
Bible. Consult a psychic who claims to read your mind and see your future. Base your
decisions on what the psychic says. Read a horoscope faithfully. Find people who are
involved in channeling or witchcraft, and get guidance from them. The Bible warns that
all such things are evil, so if you go ahead and do them, you'll wreck your life.
But maybe you don't believe these superstitions, and you do think the Bible is
special. That still doesn't have to keep you from wrecking your life. If you want to keep
racing along the road to ruin, you can think of the Bible as the Good Book and keep a
copy lying around—just don't read it. Or, if you do read it, stick with just a few verses
you like that make you feel good. Don't get into a habit of reading the Bible every day.
Don't fill your mind with biblical thoughts. Don't meditate on God’s promises. Don't
tremble at God’s warnings. Don't focus too much on Jesus. And make sure you don't
put the Bible's message into practice in your everyday life.
Be unbiblical, and you will wreck your life, perhaps without ever knowing why.
"The way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know what makes them
stumble" (Proverbs 4:19). Sometimes this ignorant darkness comes from not having the
Bible at all. But even if you have the Bible, you can still wreck your life. Just leave the
Bible on the shelf and fill your mind with all sorts of other things. Read supermarket
tabloids and romance novels. Listen to shock jocks on the radio or fill your headset with
sleazy music. Play lots of violent video games. Spend lots of time on the Internet,
especially on filthy porn sites or crude chat rooms. Watch as much television as you
can. Go to the movies whenever possible. Rent several videos every week. Join the
millions of people who watch show after show about sex and killing. Don't worry—you
don't have to become a killer or act like a sexual sleazeball in order to wreck your life.
Just fill your imagination and thoughts with such things. Feed your appetite with things
that Satan finds delicious, and your heart will get darker and darker. Soon the Bible will
seem dry and dull, and you'll have a taste for darker things.
But maybe you don't have a taste for media poison. Even so, you can still crowd
out the Bible and wreck your life. You don't have to take poison. Just stuff your mind
with junk food. Get glued to your TV. Watch hours of sports, soap operas, crime shows,
cartoons, or whatever—it doesn't have to be horrible. Anything will do as long as it fills
your time and keeps you away from the Bible. Feed your mind and soul with hours of
junk food. Then, even if you spend a little time hearing the Bible in church once a week,
God's Word will be crowded out by all the other stuff in your mind, and you will make
major progress on the road to ruin.

From Ruin to Renewal

Now, if someone actually wrote a manual on how to wreck your life and titled it
The Three-Step Road to Ruin, you wouldn't try to follow its instructions, would you?
Wrecking your life is not something you deliberately choose, plan in advance, and then
carry out step by step. But maybe you’ve been doing it without even trying: you’re being
yourself, you’re being godless, and you’re being unbiblical. Now that you've heard the
three-step road to ruin, think about whether you’ve been following these deadly
instructions. Perhaps you’ve been following them to the letter. You didn't need advice to
be yourself, to be godless, or to be unbiblical—you've already been doing those things
without being told.

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 I've been blunt, and it hasn't been pleasant. But my only reason for explaining
how to wreck your life is so that you won't do it. It breaks my heart to see marriages
collapse, families fall apart, people enslaved to deadly habits and urges, souls moving
down the broad road to everlasting hell. If you're in a horrible mess, you need to know
how you got there. And if you don't feel like you're in such a mess yet, you need to know
where you're headed if you continue to be yourself, be godless and be unbiblical. You
may see no harm in it. But remember what the Bible says: "There is a way that seems
right to a man, but in the end it leads to death."
If you don't want to wreck your life, if you instead want your life to flourish, what's
needed? Let's focus on three things. First, instead of just being yourself, become new—
get a new self. Second, instead of being godless, become godly—prize God and his
promises above anything else. Third, instead of being unbiblical, become biblical—feast
daily on God's Word, the Bible, and live by it.

Become New
Begin by becoming new. Get a new self. Without a new self, you change your
behavior for awhile, but if you don't somehow get a new self, you eventually fall back
into your sinful core identity. In fact, the Bible says that if leave your sin for awhile and
know something of Jesus but then go back to your old ways, you're worse off than if you
had never known better. If you're not born again, if you keep the same old nature, then
you're bound to go back to the same old way of life. As the Bible puts it, "'A dog returns
to its vomit,' and, 'A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud'" (2 Peter
2:22).
A dog may be well trained and have a fancy haircut, but it is still a dog by nature,
and given a chance, it will eat its own vomit. That's just what dogs do. Likewise, pigs
have a nature that is drawn to mud. It's not enough to get the pig out of the mud; you
have to get the mud off of the pig. The nature of a pig is to love mud. Without a new
nature, that pig will go back to wallowing in the mud the moment it gets a chance. To
stay clean, the pig doesn't just need to be washed. It need to stop being a pig. It needs
to become something else.
But how can a dog stop being a dog? How can a pig stop being a pig? How can
you stop being you and receive a new identity? You can't do it on your own. The Bible
says that just as a leopard can't change it's spots, so people with sinful selves can't
make themselves good (Jeremiah 13:23). God commands, "Get a new heart and a new
spirit" (Ezekiel 18:31). But God knows you can't do this on your own, so the Lord says,
"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you" (Ezekiel 36:26). What you
can't do, God can do for you. Jesus spoke of it as being born from above, born all over
again.
So don't go on just being yourself. That's a dead end, a sure way to wreck your
life. Give up on yourself, and humbly ask for God's mercy, forgiveness, and new life. By
faith receive cleansing through Jesus' blood and a new self. A new you is born when
God's Holy Spirit puts the life of Christ inside of you. As the apostle Paul put it, "I have
been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:20).
Once you have this new self, you won't be perfect yet. Your old self will still want its
way. But through God's power, "live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of

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the sinful nature" (Galatians 5:16). Instead of being yourself, become new, and you will
be a truly healthy self for the first time.

Become Godly
Second, instead of being godless, be godly. We saw earlier that being godless
doesn't necessarily mean being an atheist. It means you don't make God a high priority
or value his favor and blessing above all else. Being godly, on the other hand, means
that you prize God above all else. Christ is your supreme delight. His friendship and
favor is your deepest longing. Everything else is trash by comparison.
We saw earlier that Esau's appetites for food and women mattered more to him
than God's blessing. Don't be godless like Esau. Become godly. Don't put immediate
desires ahead of your eternal destiny. Make Jesus Christ your greatest treasure and
pleasure. The Bible says, "Many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is
destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on
earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from
there, the Lord Jesus Christ" (Philippians 3: 18-20). Think and act like a citizen of
heaven. Become godly.

Become Biblical
Third, instead of being unbiblical, become biblical. Read the Bible daily and think
about it constantly. The Bible says that a person who delights in God's Word will flourish
"like a tree planted by streams of water... Whatever he does prospers" (Psalm 1:3). Sink
your roots deep into the Bible, drink in truth and life from God's Word every day, and
you will grow strong and produce good fruit.
Get rid of media poison. Stay away from shows and songs that are bloody and
filthy. Keep even the more harmless stuff to a minimum to make space for God's Word.
Let Bible reading and prayer set the tone for your life. You'll be amazed at the joy and
transformation you experience personally. If you're married, you'll find your marriage
strengthened. Couples who read the Bible together and pray with each other and for
each other every day grow in love. More and more couples who ignore the Bible find
their relationships being wrecked. But if husband and wife nourish their love daily in
Scripture and prayer, if they worship weekly in church with other followers of Jesus,
such marriages thrive and almost never break up. If you have children, sit down as a
family every day for Bible reading, prayer, singing, and personal encouragement. Your
children will blossom, and many temptations that wreck other kids’ lives simply won't
have much appeal for those who relish God's Word. The Bible will make them wise for
eternal life.
Don't wreck your life by following the three-step road to ruin. Instead, ask the
Lord Jesus to save you. Instead of being yourself, become new. Instead of being
godless, become godly. Instead of being unbiblical, become biblical. And you will
flourish and live forever.

Originally prepared by David Feddes for Back to God Ministries International. Used with permission.

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Three Golden Rules
David Feddes

WWJD has showed up a lot in recent years. WWJD sounds like the call letters of
a radio station, but people with WWJD on bracelets and T-shirts and bumper stickers
aren't trying to promote a radio station. For many, WWJD is a motto, a reminder to ask
themselves in every situation, "What Would Jesus Do?" That can be helpful. If WWJD
helps you not to forget the Lord and reminds you to be more Christlike, it's good for you.
But WWJD has its limits. I don't want to discourage those who find it helpful to ask
"What would Jesus do?" but we should watch out for possible pitfalls.
One drawback is that WWJD is a money maker. It's a golden rule in the sense
that it's made money for marketers, and it can lose its meaning. Originally the question
"What would Jesus do?" was the theme of a bestselling book of an earlier era called In
His Steps, by Charles Sheldon. In this fictional story, the people of a town are
transformed in wonderful ways when they decide to always ask themselves "What
would Jesus do?" before they do anything. Now the whole book has been reduced to
the slogan “What would Jesus do?” The slogan has been reduced to four letters,
WWJD. And the four letters have become a religious fashion item that generates cash.
In some ways, this process typifies trends in Christian marketing. The desire for
in-depth Bible study and careful reflection decreases, and the appetite for religious
fiction increases. Then some folks don’t even want to bother with the fiction; they'd
rather not read at all. They prefer slogans and wall hangings. Then even these tidbits
are cut down to fit an earring or bracelet. In many Christian bookstores, more money is
spent on fiction than non-fiction, and more is spent on videos, T-shirts, jewelry, mugs
and other such items than on books.
Now, fiction isn't necessarily bad, and slogans and jewelry aren't necessarily bad
either. But when such things replace thoughtful reading and careful study of God's truth
in the Bible, when religious "bookstores" do more to peddle trinkets than to promote
thinking, something is wrong. Something is wrong when people wear a cross as jewelry
but don't want to study Bible truths, such as atonement, substitution, or justification,
which express the true meaning and importance of the cross. So too, something is
wrong when people wear WWJD and ask "What would Jesus do?" but don't study what
Jesus actually did and said in the Bible. In such cases, WWJD is junk and nothing more.
Not everyone is so phony or shallow. I know some wonderful Christians who
eagerly study Scripture and have deep knowledge of God, and who also find it helpful to
have a brief motto or special item to help them keep their focus. They may wear a
cross, not as a replacement for prayerful study, but as a constant reminder of the Savior
and all that he means to them. They may wear a WWJD item, not as a replacement for
Bible knowledge, but as a constant reminder to put into practice what Jesus teaches in
the Bible. For them, WWJD can be helpful.
Still, even if you're not shallow or thoughtless, even if WWJD is more than just a
marketing fad for you, there's another limit you should be aware of. In some situations, it
may be helpful to tell yourself, "Do what Jesus would do," but in other cases, it's not
helpful at all. What would Jesus do at a funeral? He would walk up to the coffin and
raise the dead person back to life. What would Jesus do about hungry crowds? He
would borrow a little boy's lunch and feed 5,000 people with it. What would Jesus do

1
about Satan? He would take Satan on directly, after forty days in a desert without any
food, and conquer Satan's strongest temptations. You and I are not going to raise dead
people, feed thousands from a lunch bucket, or defeat the prince of darkness by our
own power and purity the way Jesus did. In many cases, we are utterly unable to do
what Jesus would do, and we shouldn't try.
In other cases, we must do things Jesus would never need to do. What would
Jesus do if he fell into sin? Bad question! Jesus never sinned. But you and I often sin;
we disobey God and wrong other people. We often need to repent and apologize and
ask forgiveness, but Jesus never needed to say he was sorry, because he never did
anything wrong.
So there are times when it's not helpful to ask, "What would Jesus do?" You're
not Jesus. Jesus did things (like raising the dead) that you can't do, and you must do
things (like repenting and apologizing) that Jesus never needed to do.
Still, there are times when it's helpful to ask "What would Jesus do?" especially
when doing the right thing might be hard or costly or painful. The Bible says, "Christ
suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps" (1 Peter
2:21). Despite huge differences between us and Jesus, there is a biblical basis for
following Jesus' humble, holy example, seeking to do what's right rather than merely
what's easy. So I encourage all WWJD folks to live up your motto wherever it rightly
applies.
At the same time, I want to offer three other mottoes that have even stronger
grounding in God's Word, three golden rules that are even more valuable than WWJD.

1. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

This statement of Jesus in Luke 6:35 is commonly called the Golden Rule, so it's
fitting to make it the first of our three golden rules. Some people might aim to do what
Jesus would do, but the Golden Rule which Jesus gives us doesn't sound quite so lofty
or spiritual. You don't have to put yourself in Jesus' shoes; just put yourself in other
people's shoes, and do to others as you would have them do to you.
If you're a husband sitting with a remote control in your hand, watching TV while
your wife toils away cleaning up dishes and getting the kids ready for bed, put yourself
in your wife's shoes. What would you want if you were an overworked woman at the end
of a long day? Wouldn't you want some help? Then click off the TV and help her!
If you're trying to sell something to another person, put yourself in that person's
shoes. Would you want to buy something without being told of a potential problem?
Would you want to be pressured into buying something you don't really need, something
you can't afford without going deeper into debt? No, you'd want to know the honest
truth, and you wouldn't want to get yourself in a financial bind. If that's how you would
want to be treated, then treat your potential customers that way.
Treat others the way you want to be treated. This Golden Rule is the underlying
pattern of all God's commandments for dealing with other people. "The commandments,
'Do not commit adultery,' 'Do not murder,' 'Do not steal,' 'Do not covet,' and whatever
other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: 'Love your neighbor
as yourself'" (Romans 13:9). God's commands aren't just orders to follow mechanically.
They are ways to love others as much as you love yourself, ways to do to others as you
would have them do to you. You wouldn't like to killed, would you? Then don't murder.

2
You wouldn't like to be ripped off and robbed, would you? Then don't steal. You wouldn't
want your spouse to betray you and go to bed with someone else, would you? Then
don't commit adultery. You don't like to be lied to or slandered, do you? Then don't bear
false witness. You don't want people circling you like vultures, wanting what is yours, do
you? Then don't covet. "So in everything," says Jesus, "do to others what you would
have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 7:12).
An expert in religious law once came to Jesus. He knew that the heart of God's
law is to love God above all and your neighbor as yourself—but he questioned who
ought to count as a neighbor. His very question indicated a lack of love. If you love
others as much as you love yourself, you don't try to figure out whether they qualify as
neighbors. Instead, you make yourself a good neighbor to them. You treat them the way
you'd want to be treated if you were in their shoes.
Jesus made this point by telling the religious expert the story of a man who was
robbed, beaten, and left for dead. First one religious leader, then another, saw the poor
fellow lying there but hurried past on the other side of the road. Then a half-breed
Samaritan came along, tended the man's wounds, took him to an inn, and paid his bill
for as long as it took the man to recover. Isn't that how you would want to be treated if
you were in bad shape and had lost all your money? Then let that be your policy for
dealing with every needy person you meet.
Do to others as you would have them do to you. The Golden Rule is simple; it
doesn't take a scholar to understand it. The Golden Rule is also plainly right; you can't
argue with it. Your conscience has to agree with it. You can't help admitting that this is
how you ought to behave, that it's right to treat others the way you would want to be
treated and wrong not to do so. The Golden Rule is a marvelous guide for human
conduct. If everyone in the world loved others as we love ourselves, if we put ourselves
in their shoes and did as we would want them to do to us, there would be no bickering,
no divorce, no cruelty, no crooked business deals, no war—just understanding and love.
There's just one problem. No matter how simple and right the Golden Rule is, no
matter how much we admire and praise it, we don't live up to it! We are self-centered.
We wish people would understand us, but we don't try to understand them. We know
how we want to be treated, but we don't treat others that way. If all we have is the
Golden Rule, we will be frustrated and guilty and condemned. For although it shows us
how we ought to feel and act toward others, it doesn't set us free from our selfishness or
give us the power to love others and do to them as we would have them do to us. The
Golden Rule shows the core meaning of God's law, but it doesn't enable us to live up to
God's law. So let's consider a second golden rule.

2. Do to others as Jesus has done for you.

Before you can begin to escape selfishness and do to others as you would have
them do to you, you must first know and delight in what Jesus has done. Before you can
start to love others as yourself, you must first experience God's love for you, and love
the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. After all, according to Jesus, the
command to love others as yourself is the second greatest commandment; the greatest
is to love God. And you cannot love God until you savor his goodness in Jesus and
accept by faith all Christ has done.

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 You and I cannot create love in ourselves; we can only love as the result of the
love of Another. God is love; I'm not. Love springs up within God with nothing to prompt
it except the fact that God is love. But I'm not God, and love does not eternally spring
from the depth of my being without being prompted. Love can flow from me only as
God's love first flows to me in Christ and then through me to others. As the Bible puts it,
"We love because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19).
And so our second golden rule, "Do to others as Jesus has done for you," does
more than show the pattern of how to treat others; it also shows where the power
comes from to do so. The power comes from God's own love in Christ, revealed in the
gentle, tender, gracious conduct of Jesus during his time on earth, and shown
supremely in his willingness to die so that sinful people might have new life. When the
Holy Spirit convinces you of Christ's love and fills you with joy and gratitude to him, the
Spirit also moves you to love God and to love others as Christ has loved you.
If you try to do what Jesus would do before accepting what he has already done
for you, if you take Jesus as your example before you trust him as your Savior and Lord,
then you will be crushed by the burden of trying to be like him. But once you believe in
Christ as the one who has already fulfilled God's Law for you by his perfect obedience
and sacrificial death, you can accept his love and eternal life as a free gift, without
feeling you have to earn it, and without being utterly defeated by your failure to measure
up to the perfection of Christ.
Then, as you're caught up in the awesome power of God's love in Christ, that
power becomes more and more dominant in your own conduct, and the pattern of
Jesus’ kindness to you shines all the more brightly and attractively as a marvelous
pattern for your own behavior toward others: "Do to others as Jesus has done for you."
The Bible applies that principle in many ways.
Love as Christ has loved you. "This is love," says the Bible, "not that we loved
God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear
friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another" (1 John 4:10-11).
God calls us to have Christlike love in all our relationships, especially in marriage.
Scripture says, "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself
up for her" (Ephesians 5:25). What a splendid rule for marriage! Do whatever it takes to
cherish and encourage and help your wife, even if it means giving up some of your own
desires. Love your wife as passionately and sacrificially as Christ has loved you.
Another way of doing as Christ has done to you is to give as Christ has given for
you. The Bible says, "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he
was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might
become rich" (2 Cor. 8:9). Since Jesus has given so generously to us, we should give
generously of our wealth to people in need—even to the point of sacrifice. "This is how
we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down
our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in
need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?" (1 John 3:16-17)
Another application: teach as Jesus has taught you. The apostle Paul once
wrote, "What I received I passed on to you as of first importance" (1 Cor. 15:3). In other
words, he taught as Christ had taught him. If you've been taught God's truth in Scripture
and the way of salvation through faith in Christ, don't let the truth be lost or watered
down or twisted, and don't keep the truth to yourself. Christ taught this truth; many have

4
suffered and died to guard this truth and give it to their children and neighbors and
spread it to many nations; so when you receive and believe this truth from Christ, guard
it, keep it pure, and share it. Teach as Christ has taught you.
Here's one more vital way of doing to others as Jesus has done for you: "Forgive
as the Lord forgave you" (Colossians 3:13). Do you count on Jesus to pardon you? Do
you trust him not to hold your sins against you? Then forgive those who have wronged
you. Don't hold their sins against them. They may not deserve to be forgiven—but do
you deserve to be forgiven? Jesus forgives even when we don’t deserve it. Do as Jesus
as done for you: forgive even those people who don’t deserve forgiveness. Do to others
as Jesus has done for you—that's our second golden rule. Christ's goodness provides
power for us to be good to others. What Jesus has done is the source and motivation of
all conduct that is truly Christian. And the motivation becomes even more powerful
when we consider our third golden rule.

3. Do to others as you would do to Jesus.

Show the same kindness toward everyone you meet that you would show to the
Lord Jesus himself. Hebrews 13:2 says that we should be kind and welcoming toward
strangers, "for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it." If
you mistreated a stranger, only to find out later that you had mistreated an angel,
wouldn't you be horrified? And if you showed kindness to someone who turned out to be
an angel, wouldn't you be thrilled? Now, if helping an angel sounds exciting, how about
helping Jesus, the King of angels? If we should be kind to strangers who might be
angels, we should surely be kind if the Lord takes it as kindness to himself. Jesus says,
"I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you
did for me" (Matthew 25:40). When you feed the hungry, you feed Jesus. When you
give a drink to the thirsty, you give a drink to Jesus. When you give clothes to the
needy, you give clothes to Jesus. When you visit sick people in hospitals or persons in
prison, you visit Jesus. The other side of the coin is that when you neglect such people,
you neglect Jesus.
Do to others as you would do to Jesus—because Jesus takes your treatment of
others personally. There is no one so small or unimportant that they don't matter. Jesus
says, "Whoever welcomes a little child in my name welcomes me" (Matthew 18:5), and
he says that whatever we do to the lowest and last and least, we do to him. "He who
oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker." "He who is kind to the poor lends
to the Lord, and he will reward him for what he has done" (Proverbs 14:31; 19:17).
In one sense, there's no way we can do anything for Jesus. How can we possibly
do anything for the One who already has everything? In his divine nature, the Son of
God has all the riches and enjoyment of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, so he
doesn't need anything from us. And in his human nature, Jesus has ascended to
heaven, so we can't see him or do anything for him directly.
And yet, though we can't do anything for Jesus directly, we can do many things
for him indirectly. How? By showing kindness to those who bear the image of the
Creator, Christ, and share the same human nature as Jesus. Would you want to be
rude to Jesus? If not, then don't be rude to people who were created in his image. Do
you want to show love to Jesus in response to his great love for you? Then show love to
those whom Jesus calls his brothers. You can't see God, and you can't see Jesus on

5
his heavenly throne, but you can see other people—and you must treat them the way
you would treat the Lord. "For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has
seen," says the Scripture, "cannot love God, who he has not seen. And he has given us
this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother" (1 John 4:20-21).
It's a marvel to know that God has become one of us in the person of Jesus, and
it's a joy to know by faith that Jesus makes himself your brother and friend. But keep in
mind that he also counts himself a brother and friend to people you meet, and that he
takes your treatment of them personally. So don't fight or bicker with another person
unless you like fighting and bickering with Jesus. Don't neglect or mistreat others unless
you want to neglect and mistreat Jesus. If you know Jesus as your brother and friend,
then show your love for him by loving the people he sends into your life. Do to others as
you would do to Christ.
Now that we've considered these three Golden Rules, I can picture a religious
marketer saying, "Hey, I've got a great idea! I'll make a bunch of necklaces and chains
with a golden 3 on them. That golden 3 will remind people of the three golden rules—
and it might also make a lot of money." Well, I'm no marketing genius, and I won't try to
sell you any golden 3's. But even if you never have a golden 3 dangling from your neck
or wrist, I hope you'll treasure these three golden rules in your heart and, by God's
grace, put them into practice.
1. Do to others as you would have them do to you.
2. Do to others as Jesus has done for you.
3. Do to others as you would do to Jesus.

Originally prepared by David Feddes for Back to God Ministries International. Used with permission.

6
The Chicago Statement on Biblical Application

This statement is the third and final in a trilogy of Summits sponsored by the International
Council on Biblical Inerrancy.
Summit I (October 26-28, 1978) produced the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.
Summit II (November 10-13, 1982) resulted in the Chicago Statement on Biblical
Hermeneutics.
This last conference, Summit III (December 10-13, 1986), drafted the Chicago Statement on
Biblical Application. With this statement the proposed scholarly work of ICBI has been
completed, for the doctrine of inerrancy has thus been defined, interpreted, and applied by many
of the leading evangelical scholars of our day.

Note

The participants at Summit III signed the following Statement of Affirmations and Denials with
the following preface:
"As a participant in Summit III of ICBI, I subscribe to these articles as an expression of my
agreement of their overall thrust."

Article of Affirmation and Denial

Article I: The Living God

We affirm that the one true and living God is the creator and sustainer of all things.
We affirm that this God can be known through His revelation of Himself in His inerrant written
Word.
We affirm that this one God exists eternally in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each
of whom is fully God.
We affirm that this living, acting, speaking God entered into history through the Son Jesus Christ
to bring salvation to the human race.
We affirm that the revealed character and will of God are the foundation of all morality.

We deny that the human language of Scripture is inadequate to inform us who God is or what He
is like.
We deny that the doctrine of the Trinity is a contradiction or is based upon an unacceptable
ontology.
We deny that the notion of God should be accommodated to modern thought which has no place
for the concepts of sin and salvation.

Article II: The Savior and His Work

We affirm that Jesus Christ is true God, begotten from the Father from all eternity, and also true
man, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.
We affirm that the indivisible union of full deity with full humanity in the one person of Jesus
Christ is essential for His saving work.
We affirm that Jesus Christ, through His vicarious suffering, death, and resurrection, is the only
Savior and Redeemer of the world.

1
We affirm that salvation is by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone.
We affirm that Jesus Christ, as revealed in Scripture, is the supreme model of the godly life that
is ours in and through Him.

We deny that Scripture warrants any proclamation or offer of salvation except on the basis of the
saving work of the crucified and risen Christ.
We deny that those who die without Christ can be saved in the life to come.
We deny that persons capable of rational choice can be saved without personal faith in the
biblical Christ.
We deny that presenting Jesus Christ as a moral example without reference to His deity and
substitutionary atonement does justice to the teaching of Scripture.
We deny that a proper understanding of the love and justice of God warrants the hope of
universal salvation.

Article III: The Holy Spirit and His Work

We affirm that the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Triune Godhead and that His work is
essential for the salvation of sinners.
We affirm that true and saving knowledge of God is given by the Spirit of God as He
authenticates and illuminates the Word of canonical Scripture, of which He is the primary author.
We affirm that the Holy Spirit guides the people of God, giving them wisdom to apply Scripture
to modem issues and everyday life.
We affirm that the church's vitality in worship and fellowship, its faithfulness in confession, its
fruitfulness in witness, and its power in mission, depend directly on the power of the Holy Spirit.

We deny that any view that disputes the essential tripersonality of the one God is compatible
with the gospel.
We deny that any person can say from the heart that Jesus is Lord apart from the Holy Spirit.
We deny that the Holy Spirit, since the apostolic age, has ever given, or does now give, new
normative revelation to the church.
We deny that the name of renewal should be given to any movement in the church that does not
involve a deepened sense of God's judgment and mercy in Christ.

Article IV: The Church and Its Mission

We affirm that the inspiration of the Holy Spirit gives the Bible its canonical authority, and the
role of the church was and is to recognize and affirm this authority.
We affirm that Christ the Lord has established His church on earth and rules it by His Word and
Spirit.
We affirm that the church is apostolic as it receives and is established upon the doctrine of the
apostles recorded in Scripture and continues to proclaim the apostolic gospel.
We affirm that identifying marks of local churches are faithful confession and proclamation of
the Word of God, and responsible administration of baptism and the Lord's Supper.
We affirm that churches are subject to the Word of Christ in their order as in their doctrine.
We affirm that in addition to their commitment to a local church, Christians may properly
involve themselves in parachurch organizations for specialized ministry.
We affirm that Christ calls the church to serve Him by its worship, nurture, and witness as His
people in the world.
We affirm that Christ sends the church into the whole world to summon sinful humanity to faith,
repentance, and righteousness.
We affirm that the unity and clarity of Scripture encourage us to seek to resolve doctrinal
differences among Christians, and so to manifest the oneness of the church in Christ.

We deny that the church can grant canonical authority to Scripture.

We deny that the church is constituted by the will and traditions of men.
We deny that the church can bind the conscience apart from the Word of God.
We deny that the church can free itself from the authority of the written Word of God and still
exercise valid discipline in Christ's name.
We deny that the church can accommodate itself to the demands of a particular culture if those
demands conflict with scriptural revelation, or if they restrain the liberty of Christian conscience.
We deny that differing cultural situations invalidate the biblical principle of male-female equality
or the biblical requirements for their roles in the church.

Article V: Sanctity of Human Life

We affirm that God the Creator is sovereign over all human life and mankind is responsible
under God to preserve and protect it.
We affirm that the sanctity of human life is based on the creation of mankind in the image and
likeness of God.
We affirm that the life of a human being begins at conception (fertilization) and continues until
biological death; thus, abortion (except where the continuance of the pregnancy imminently
threatens the mother's physical life), infanticide, suicide, and euthanasia are forms of murder.
We affirm that the penal view of social justice is compatible with the sanctity of human life.
We affirm that withholding food or water in order to cause or hasten death is a violation of the
sanctity of life.
We affirm that because advancing medical technology has obscured the distinction between life
and death, it is essential to evaluate each terminal case with the greatest care so as to preserve the
sanctity of human life.

We deny that the quality of human life has priority over its sanctity.
We deny that the sanctity of pre-natal life negates the propriety of necessary medical procedures
to preserve the life of the pregnant mother.
We deny that killing in self-defense, in state-administered capital punishment, or in wars justly
fought, is necessarily a violation of the sanctity of human life.
We deny that those who reject a divine basis for moral law are exempt from the ethical and
social obligation to preserve and protect innocent human life.
We deny that allowing death without medical intervention to prolong life is always a violation of
the sanctity of human life.
Article VI: Marriage and the Family

We affirm that the purpose of marriage is to glorify God and extend His Kingdom on earth in an
institution that provides for chastity, companionship, procreation and Christian upbringing of
children.
We affirm that since marriage is a sacred covenant under God uniting a man and a woman as one
flesh, church and state should require faithfulness to God's intention that it be a permanent bond.
We affirm that in the marriage pattern ordained by God, the husband as head is the loving
servant-leader of his wife, and the wife as helper in submissive companionship is a full partner
with her husband.
We affirm that loving nurture and discipline of children is a God-ordained duty of parents, and
God-ordained obedience to parents is a duty of children.
We affirm that the church has the responsibility to nurture the family.
We affirm that honor to parents is a life-long duty of all persons and includes responsibility for
the care of the aged.
We affirm that the family should perform many services now commonly assumed by the state.

We deny that pleasure and self-fulfillment are the basis of marriage and that hardships are
justifiable cause for breaking the marriage covenant.
We deny that the biblical ideal of marriage can be fulfilled either by a couple living together
without a lawful marriage covenant or by any form of same-sex or group cohabitation.
We deny that the state has the right to legitimize views of marriage and the family unit that
contravene biblical standards.
We deny that changing social conditions ever make God-ordained marriage or family roles
obsolete or irrelevant.
We deny that the state has the right to usurp biblically designated parental responsibility.

Article VII: Divorce and Remarriage

We affirm that the marriage of Adam and Eve as a lifelong monogamous relationship is the
pattern for all marriages within the human race.
We affirm that God unites husband and wife in every covenanted and consummated marriage,
and will hold covenant-breakers morally accountable.
We affirm that since the essence of the marriage covenant is life-long commitment to the
covenant partner, action in relation to a marital breakdown should at least initially aim at the
reconciliation of the partners and restoration of the marriage.
We affirm that God hates divorce, however motivated.
We affirm that although God hates divorce, in a sinful world separation is sometimes advisable
and divorce is sometimes inevitable.
We affirm that God forgives repentant sinners, even those who have sinned by sundering their
marriages.
We affirm that the local church has the responsibility to discipline those who violate the biblical
standards for marriage, compassionately restore those who repent, and faithfully minister God's
grace to those whose lives have been scarred by marital disruption.

We deny that any contradiction exists within Scripture on the subject of divorce and remarriage.
We deny that it is sinful to separate or live apart from a promiscuous or abusive spouse.
Article VIII: Sexual Deviations

We affirm that Scripture reveals God's standards for sexual relationships, deviation from which
is sinful.
We affirm that sexual intercourse is legitimate only in a heterosexual marriage relationship.
We affirm that God's grace in Christ can deliver men and women from bondage to deviant sexual
practice, be they heterosexual or homosexual, and the church must assume responsibility for
restoring such members to a life that honors God.
We affirm that God loves homosexuals as well as other sinners, and that homosexual temptations
can be resisted in the power of Christ to the glory of His grace, just as other temptations can.
We affirm that Christians must exercise a compassion, kindness, and forgiveness in the ministry
of God's grace to those whose lives have been scarred by sexual deviations.
We affirm that human fulfillment does not depend on satisfying sexual drives; hedonism and
related philosophies encouraging promiscuous sexuality are wrong and lead to ruin.
We affirm that pornography threatens the well-being of individuals, families, and entire
societies, and that it is incumbent upon Christians to seek to check its production and
distribution.

We deny that homosexual practice can ever please God.

We deny that heredity, childhood conditioning, or other environmental influences can excuse
deviant sexual behavior.
We deny that the sexual molestation or exploitation of children in general and incestuous
relationships in particular can ever be justified.
We deny that it is hopeless to look for deliverance from homosexual practices or other forms of
sexual deviancy.
We deny that the healing of sexual deviancy is aided by condemnation without compassion or by
compassion without the application of Scriptural truth, in confident hope.

Article IX: The State Under God

We affirm that God established civil government as an instrument of His common grace, to
restrain sin, to maintain order, and to promote civil justice and general well-being.
We affirm that God gives civil governments the right to use coercive force for the defense and
encouragement of those who do good and for the just punishment of those who do evil.
We affirm that it is proper and desirable that Christians take part in civil government and
advocate the enactment of laws for the common good in accordance with God's moral law.
We affirm that it is the duty of Christian people to pray for civil authorities and to obey them,
except when such obedience would involve the violation of God's moral law or neglect the God-
ordained responsibilities of Christian witness.
We affirm that governments have a responsibility before God to establish and enforce laws that
accord with God's moral law as it pertains to human relations.
We affirm that Christ's rule of the church through His Word must not be confused with the
power He grants to civil governments; such confusion will compromise the purity of the gospel
and will violate the conscience of individuals.
We affirm that when families or churches neglect their biblically defined duties, thus
jeopardizing the wellbeing of their members, the state may rightfully intervene.
We deny that the state has the right to usurp authority of other God-given spheres of life,
especially in the church and in the family.
We deny that the Kingdom of God can be established by the coercive power of civil
governments.
We deny that the state has the right to forbid voluntary prayer and other voluntary religious
exercises at an appropriate time in the public school.
We deny that God's providential establishment of a particular government confers special
blessing, apart from the government's just and faithful execution of its duties.
We deny that religious belief is an essential prerequisite to service in civil government, or that its
absence invalidates the legal authority of those who govern.
We deny the Kingdom of God can be established by the power of civil governments.
We deny that the government has the right to prescribe specific prayers or forms of religious
exercise for its citizens.

Article X: Law and Justice

We affirm that the Scriptures are the only infallible record of unchanging moral principles basic
to a sound jurisprudence and an adequate philosophy of human rights.
We affirm that God has impressed His image on the hearts of all people so that they are morally
accountable to Him for their actions as individuals and as members of society.
We affirm that God's revealed law, the moral nature of mankind, and human legislation serve to
restrain the fallen political order from chaos and anarchy and to point humankind to the need for
redemption in Jesus Christ.
We affirm that the Gospel cannot be legislated and the Law cannot save sinners.

We deny that legal positivism, or any other humanistic philosophy of law, is able to satisfy the
need for absolute standards of law and justice.
We deny that any person or any society fulfills God's standards so as to justify himself, herself,
or itself before the tribunal of God's absolute justice.
We deny that any political, economic, or social order is free from the deadly consequences of
original sin or capable of offering a Utopian solution or substitute for the perfect society which
Christ alone will establish at His Second Coming.

Article XI: War

We affirm that God desires peace and righteousness among nations and condemns wars of
aggression.
We affirm that lawful states have the right and duty to defend their territories and citizens against
aggression and oppression by other powers, including the provision for an adequate civil defense
of the population.
We affirm that in rightful defense of their territories and citizens governments should only use
just means of warfare.
We affirm that warring states should strive by every means possible to minimize civilian
casualties.

We deny that the cause of Christ can be defended with earthly weapons.
We deny that Christians are forbidden to use weapons in the defense of lawful states.
We deny that the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians can be a moral form of warfare.
We deny that the circumstances of modern warfare destroy the right and duty of the civil
government to defend its territories and citizens.

Article XII: Discrimination and Human Rights

We affirm that God, who created man and woman in His image, has granted to all human beings
fundamental rights which are to be protected, sustained, and fostered on the natural and spiritual
levels.
We affirm that all human beings are ultimately accountable to God for their use of these rights.
We affirm that Christians must uphold and defend the rights of others while being willing to
relinquish their own rights for the good of others.
We affirm that Christians are admonished to follow the compassionate example of Jesus by
helping to bear the burdens of those whose human rights have been diminished.

We deny that any so-called human right which violates the teaching of Scripture is legitimate.
We deny that any act is acceptable that would harm or diminish another person's natural or
spiritual life by violating that person's human rights.
We deny that age, disability, economic disadvantage, race, religion, or sex used as a basis for
discrimination can ever justify denial of the exercise or enjoyment of human rights.
We deny that elitism or grasping for power are compatible with Christ's call to dedicate our
rights to His service.

Article XIII: Economics

We affirm that valid economic principles can be found in Scripture and should form an integral
part of a Christian world and life view.
We affirm that material resources are a blessing from God, to be enjoyed with thanksgiving, and
are to be earned, managed, and shared as a stewardship under God.
We affirm that Christians should give sacrificially of their resources to support the work of God's
church.
We affirm that the use of personal and material resources for the proclamation of the gospel is
necessary both for the salvation of lost mankind and to overcome poverty where that is fostered
by adherence to non-Christian religious systems.
We affirm that active compassion for the poor and oppressed is an obligation that God places
upon all human beings, especially on those with resources.
We affirm that the possession of wealth imposes obligations upon its possessors.
We affirm that the love of money is a source of great evil.
We affirm that human depravity, greed, and the will to power foster economic injustice and
subvert concern for the poor.
We affirm that the Bible affirms the right of private ownership as a stewardship under God.

We deny that Scripture directly teaches any science of economics, although there are principles
of economics that can be derived from Scripture.
We deny that Scripture teaches that compassion for the poor must be expressed exclusively
through one particular economic system.
We deny that the Scripture teaches that money or wealth is inherently evil.
We deny that Scripture endorses economic collectivism or economic individualism.
We deny that Scripture forbids the use of capital resources to produce income.
We deny that the proper focus of a Christian's hope is material prosperity.
We deny that Christians should use their resources primarily for self-gratification.
We deny that salvation from sin necessarily involves economic or political liberation.

Article XIV: Work and Leisure

We affirm that God created humankind in His image and graciously fitted them for both work
and leisure.
We affirm that in all honorable work, however menial, God works with and through the worker.
We affirm that work is the divinely ordained means whereby we glorify God and supply both our
own needs and the needs of others.
We affirm that Christians should work to the best of their ability so as to please God.
We affirm that people should both humbly submit to and righteously exercise whatever authority
operates in their sphere of work.
We affirm that in their work people should seek first God's kingdom and righteousness,
depending on Him to supply their material needs.
We affirm that compensation should be a fair return for the work done without discrimination.
We affirm that leisure, in proper balance with work, is ordained by God and should be enjoyed to
His glory.
We affirm that work and its product have not only temporal but also eternal value when done and
used for God's glory.

We deny that persons should pursue their work to fulfill and gratify themselves rather than to
serve and please God.
We deny that the rich have more right to leisure than the poor.
We deny that certain types of work give persons greater value in God's eyes than other persons
have.
We deny that the Christian should either depreciate leisure or make a goal of it.

Article XV: Wealth and Poverty

We affirm that God, who is just and loving, has a special concern for the poor in their plight.
We affirm that God calls for responsible stewardship by His people of both their lives and
resources.
We affirm that sacrificial effort to relieve the poverty, oppression, and suffering of others is a
hallmark of Christian discipleship.
We affirm that just as the wealthy ought not be greedy so the poor ought not to be covetous.

We deny that we may rightly call ourselves disciples of Christ if we lack active concern for the
poor, oppressed, and suffering, especially those of the household of faith.
We deny that we may always regard prosperity or poverty as the measure of our faithfulness to
Christ.
We deny that it is necessarily wrong for Christians to be wealthy or for some persons to possess
more than others.
Article XVI: Stewardship of the Environment

We affirm that God created the physical environment for His own glory and for the good of His
human creatures.
We affirm that God deputized humanity to govern the creation.
We affirm that mankind has more value than the rest of creation.
We affirm that mankind's dominion over the earth imposes a responsibility to protect and tend its
life and resources.
We affirm that Christians should embrace responsible scientific investigation and its application
in technology.
We affirm that stewardship of the Lord's earth includes the productive use of its resources which
must always be replenished as far as possible.
We affirm that avoidable pollution of the earth, air, water, or space is irresponsible.

We deny that the cosmos is valueless apart from mankind.

We deny that the biblical view authorizes or encourages wasteful exploitation of nature.
We deny that Christians should embrace the countercultural repudiation of science or the
mistaken belief that science is the hope of mankind.
We deny that individuals or societies should exploit the universe's resources for their own
advantage at the expense of other people and societies.
We deny that a materialistic worldview can provide an adequate basis for recognizing
environmental values.
 E P I S O D E 8

T h e

AGE OF
FRAGMENTATION
I. Art As a Vehicle Of Modern Thought
A. Impressionism (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Degas) and Post-Impressionism (Cézanne, Van
Gogh, Gauguin, Seurat): appearance and reality.
1. Problem of reality in Impressionism: no universal.
2. Post-Impression seeks the universal behind appearances.
3. Painting expresses an idea in its own terms as a work of art; to discuss the idea in a
painting is not to intellectualize art.
4. Parallel search for universal in art and philosophy; Cézanne.
B. Fragmentation.
1. Extremes of ultra-naturalism or abstraction: Wassily Kandinsky.
2. Picasso leads choice for abstraction: relevance of this choice.
3. Failure of Picasso (like Sartre, and for similar reasons) to be fully consistent with his choice.
C. Retreat to absurdity.
1. Dada, and Marcel Duchamp: art as absurd.
2. Art followed philosophy but came sooner to logical end.
3. Chance in his art technique as an art theory impossible to practice: Pollock.

II. Music As a Vehicle of Modern Thought

A. Non-resolution and fragmentation: German and French streams.
1. Influence of Beethoven’s last Quartets.
2. Direction and influence of Debussy.
3. Schoenberg’s non-resolution; contrast with Bach.
4. Stockhausen: electronic music and concern with the element of change.
B. Cage: a case study in confusion.
1. Deliberate chance and confusion in Cage’s music.
2. Cage’s inability to live the philosophy of his music.

— P A G E 28 —
C. Contrast of music-by-chance and the world around us.
1. Inconsistency of indulging in expression of chaos when we acknowledge order for practical
matters like airplane design.
2. Art as anti-art when it is mere intellectual statement, divorced from reality of who people
are and the fullness of what the universe is.

III. General Culture As the Vehicle of Modern Thought

A. Propagation of idea of fragmentation in literature.
1. Effect of Eliot’s Wasteland and Picasso’s Demoiselles d’ Avignon compared; the drift of
general culture.
2. Eliot’s change in his form of writing when he became a Christian.
3. Philosophic popularization by novel: Sartre, Camus, de Beauvoir.
B. Cinema as advanced medium of philosophy.
1. Cinema in the 1960s used to express Man’s destruction: e.g. Blow-up.
2. Cinema and the leap into fantasy: The Hour of the Wolf, Belle de Jour, Juliet of the Spirits,
The Last Year at Marienbad.
3. Bergman’s inability to live out his philosophy (see Cage): Silence and The Hour of the Wolf.

IV. Only on Christian Base Can Reality Be Faced Squarely

Questions
1. Explain what “fragmentation” means, as discussed by Dr. Schaeffer. What does it result from? Give
examples of it.
2. Apart from the fact that modern printing and recording processes made the art and music of the
past more accessible than ever before, do you think that the preference of many people for the art
and music of the past is related to the matters discussed by Dr. Schaeffer? If so, how?
3. “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds... With consistency a great soul has simply
nothing to do.” Emerson wrote this over a century ago. Debate.
4. How far do you think that the opinion of some Christians that one should have nothing to do with
philosophy, art and novels is a manifestation of the very fragmentation which is characteristic of
modern secular thought? Discuss.

Key Events and Persons

Beethoven’s last Quartets: 1825-26
Claude Monet: 1840-1926
Poplars at Giverny, Sunrise: 1885
Paul Cézanne: 1839-1906
The Bathers: c.1905
— P A G E 29 —
Claude Debussy: 1862-1918
Wassily Kandinsky: 1866-1944
Arnold Schoenberg: 1874-1951
Picasso: 1881-1973
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon: 1906-7
Marcel Duchamp: 1887-1969
Nude Descending a Staircase: 1912
T.S. Eliot: 1888-1965
The Wasteland: 1922
John Cage: 1912-1992
Music for Marcel Duchamp: 1947
Jackson Pollock: 1912-1956
Karlheinz Stockhausen: 1928-
Sartre’s Nausea: 1938
Beauvoir’s L’Invitée: 1943
Camus’ The Stranger: 1942
Camus’ The Plague: 1947
Resnais’ The Last Year at Marienbad: 1961
Bergman’s The Silence: 1963
Fellini’s Juliet of the Spirits: 1965
Antonioni’s Blow-Up: 1966
Bergman’s The Hour of the Wolf: 1967
Buñel’s Belle de Jour: 1967

Further Study
Perhaps you have seen some of the films mentioned. You should try to see them if you haven’t. Watch for
them in local art-film festivals, on TV, or in campus film series. They rarely return nowadays to the
commercial circuit. The sex and violence which they treated philosophically have now taken over the screen
in a more popular and crude form! Easier of access are the philosophic novels of Sartre, Camus and de
Beauvoir. Read the titles Dr. Schaeffer mentions. Again, for the artwork and music mentioned, consult
libraries and record shops. But spend time here—let the visual images and the musical sounds sink in.
Listening patiently to Cage and Webern, for example, will tell you more than volumes of musicology.

T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland (many editions, usually in collections of his verse).
Joseph Machlis, Introduction to Contemporary Music (1961).
H.R. Rookmaaker, Modern Art and the Death of a Culture (1970).
Donald J. Drew, Images of Man (1974).
Colin Wilson, The Outsider (1956).

— P A G E 30 —