Destiny or Deity?

With the Super Bowl fast approaching, the issue of whether or not God is rooting for a particular team to win always seems to surface. It has been perpetuated to new levels the past few weeks by Ray Lewis, the star linebacker of the Baltimore Ravens who is a professed Christian. During the Ravens playoff run, Lewis has been telling his teammates and media that God has ordained for the Ravens to win the Super Bowl. He has also been quoting Isaiah 54:17, "No weapon formed against you shall prosper." I will not take the time to discuss the actual meaning of this verse but I can assure you that it is not about a football game.

But the question still lingers? Does God care who wins on Super Bowl Sunday? Is God a Baltimore Ravens fan - at least for this season? I really believe the fact that we even ask such a question is indicative of a society that has lost its way. Karl Marx once famously said, "religion is the opiate of the masses.” I would argue that sport is the new religion.

That being said, the answer to this question is not as simple as it would seem. Many theologians say that the notion of God meddling in a football game trivializes the power of an almighty force. That God might care about a touchdown or an interception offers a far too "mechanistic" view of God, they say.

"God is not a puppeteer who controls all of our motions and actions," said John Freeman, a professor with the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta. "That idea of being controlled takes away free will...It's offensive."

Conversely, some NFL chaplains - all NFL teams have chaplains, with the exception of the Oakland Raiders - say God's hand is at work. How else to explain that the perennially awful Atlanta Falcons now have a shot at being champions, says their team chaplain, Rev. Charles Collins. "Yes, of course God cares. God cares about everybody and every little thing that happens (in the game)."

So does God care? Is He the one pulling the strings of mediocrity to ensure the Cleveland Browns - better known as the basement dwellers - never have another winning season? Is He so obsessed with Tom Brady, like the rest of us, that He continues to help him win at an unprecedented clip despite his head coach being Bill Belichick often referred to as Bill Beelzebub by the media for his cold and tight lipped press conferences?

I found the best answer to this question from R.C. Sproul Jr. who wrote a blog on this very topic during this time last year right after the Denver Broncos defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers in overtime in the wild card round of the NFL playoffs. He says and I quote:

"The truth is God does decide, and He does care. He not only decides who will win the Super Bowl, He decides who will win the game of hearts that I play with my children. He decides, or rather decided, everything. There are no places, let alone no playing fields, where God stays on the sidelines. We need to remember that everything that happens must have a sufficient cause. And we must remember that every sufficient cause eventually traces its way back to God before time. This happens because that happened. That happened because this other thing happened. Eventually this takes us to “God said, ‘Let there be light, and there was light.’"

Of course God works in and through secondary means. He gives the gifts. He creates the weather. The one who numbers the hairs on our heads softens the ground where a defensive back slips, and a playoff game ends on an eighty yard touchdown pass. There is no thing, no cause, over which He is not sovereign.

Isn’t it, though, somehow beneath His dignity to be concerned with such things? Yes, of course it is. God has only one concern - the manifestation of His glory. And that is how He determines what will happen in a football game, and what will happen in an election, and what will happen in a cancer ward. His goal isn’t ultimately to make little boys in Pittsburgh happy, or little boys in Denver happy. His goal, which cannot be thwarted, is to show forth who He is. (emphasis mine)

Does that mean He plays favorites for the likes of outspoken Christians like Tim Tebow or Drew Brees? Of course. Because God loves those who are His, even as He loves His own Son, God is certain to favor them. That favor, however, isn’t a path to winning a football game, but is instead the path to true victory, becoming more like Jesus. God isn’t glorified in giving Tim Tebow unlikely victories that somehow redound to God’s glory. No, God is glorified in making His children, including Tim Tebow, more like His Son. Sometimes that means leading them to the thrill of victory. Sometimes it means leading them through the agony of defeat." [End quote]

As I mull over Sproul's assertions which I agree with, I realize the more difficult and pertinent question for me isn’t does God care, but should I? As I stated previously, our society is fixated on sports entertainment. Most see it as an escape from the doldrums of every day life, others view it as a chance to live their dreams through professional athletes. But as a Christian, my most important prayer is not asking for a Patriots victory. No, not even in the Super Bowl. My utmost petition to the throne of grace is for my children to have ears to hear the gospel, a heart to believe it, and grace to accept His providence in all things, even when the Patriots lose.
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“Sow a thought, and you reap an act; Sow an act, and you reap a habit; Sow a habit, and you reap a character; Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.” - Charles Reade

In Defense of the Bible

This past week I was at the library searching files of microfilm for Christian articles that the Pastor of my church had written in the late 1980’s when he was pastoring a church in Newfoundland, Canada. The newspaper I was researching was called the Western Star, which is the daily local newspaper for the Newfoundland area.

As I was scrolling through each issue, I came upon an article in the "Letters to the Editor" section that made a compelling case for why we can trust the Bible and believe it is the infallible Word of God. The letter was written in response to a weekly religion columnist named Michael Newton, who, as far as I can tell, spent most of his time researching scholarly works and rhetoric that denounced the Bible as being inspired of God. As you will see, Mr. Newton’s repeated attacks on the veracity of the Bible incited this reader, Robert M. Pike, to pen the following article. I am included it in its entirety because it is one of the most well-written and well-argued articles that I have read on the subject.

Please comment and let me know your thoughts.

Thank God for the Bible

Sir, I would like to make a few remarks regarding recent articles by Mr. Newton in the Religion Online section. Since Mr. Newton’s articles on the Christian religion differ very little, I see no need to be specific. I am reminded of an old poem that reads as follows:

Last eve I passed by the Blacksmiths door
and heard the anvil ring the vesper chime,
and looking in I saw upon on the floor,
old hammers wrecked by beating years of time.

"How many anvils have you had," said I,
"to wear and batter all those hammers so?"
"Just one" said he, and with a twinkling eye,
"that anvil wears the hammers out you know."

And so I thought the anvil of God’s Word,
through ages skeptic blows have beat upon,
yet though the noise of falling blows is heard,
the anvil is unharmed, the hammers gone.

Writers of Mr. Newton’s persuasion remind me of the Roman Senator Cato who ended all his speeches in the Senate with the words, "Carthago delenda est" (Carthage must be destroyed), only they are supplying the word "God" for Carthage. They follow the line of Karl Marx who once said his sole purpose in life was to destroy God in the hearts of men. Such people who believe that God is obsolete have no personal responsibility to a Creator, and of course, feel no need of the Bible or a Personal Savior. Once, while talking to unbelievers of His day, Jesus gave them advice that could well be taken today. He said, "You search the Scriptures (the Law and the Prophets), for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me" (John 5:39).

Bible critics attack the story of creation and the work of Jesus Christ (John 1). They attack His virgin birth (Matthew 1:18-22); His life and earthly ministry; they attack His work of redemption (John 19:28-30); they deny the declaration of God that He (Jesus) was His son and that He resurrected (Romans 1:4); and they make a mockery of His coming again. In other words, they deny all prophecy whether foretold or forth-told. If they could have disapproved all this they would have succeeded in destroying God. God stakes His claim to being God on His ability to foretell the future saying, "For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done" (Isaiah 46:9-10).

In the New Testament, we have the Apostle Peter saying, "For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty." One would think that would be sufficient proof, but he goes on to say, "And so we have the prophetic word confirmed…knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:16-21).

More than 2,500 years ago, Daniel said that many in the end time would go to and fro and knowledge would be increased (12:4). It seems to me that prophecy has amply been fulfilled since the turn of the century. I need not elaborate.

Before I finish I would like to mention two or three items to show how far ahead of modern science the Bible really is:
1) When most people thought the world was flat, Isaiah said, "It is He who sits above the circle of the earth" (40:22). Job declares, "He hangs the earth on nothing" (26:7). What scientist could give a better description of the earth’s shape and position in orbit?
2) For hundreds of years the basic elements of the world were thought to be earth, air, water and fire. Then came the scientific age and they discovered the atom, electron, proton and photon - an amazing discovery indeed. But what does the Bible say? "By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible" (Hebrews 11:3).
3) We know that the world’s food supply is made possible by the hydrologic cycle. In 1841 a scientist using a thermometer invented by Galileo in 1593 and a barometer invented by Torricelli in 1643, showed that the clouds were actually the result of rising vapor. Hundreds of years before the Bible says, "For He draws up drops of water, which distill as rain from the mist, which the clouds drop down and pour abundantly on man" (Job 36:27-28). In Ecclesiastes 1:7, we read, "All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full; To the place from which the rivers come, there they return again."

Thank God for the Bible.

- Robert M. Pike