From my Scripture reading this morning:

1 Chronicles 10:1-14 Then the Philistines fought against Israel: and the men of Israel fled before the Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gilboa. 2 And the Philistines pursued after Saul and after his sons, and the Philistines smote Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Malchishua the sons of Saul. 3 And the battle was sore against Saul; and the archers hit him, and he was wounded of the archers. 4 Then said Saul to his armor-bearer, Draw out thy sword, and thrust me through therewith, lest these uncircumcised come and mock at me: but his armor-bearer would not, for he was sore afraid: therefore Saul took the sword and fell upon it. 5 And when his armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise upon the sword, and died. 6 So Saul died and his three sons, and all his house, they died together. 7 And when all the men of Israel that were in the valley, saw how they fled, and that Saul and his sons were dead, they forsook their cities, and fled away, and the Philistines came, and dwelt in them. 8 And on the morrow when the Philistines came to spoil them that were slain, they found Saul and his sons lying in mount Gilboa. 9 And when they had stripped him, they took his head and his armor, and sent them into the land of the Philistines round about, to publish it unto their idols, and to the people. 10 And they laid up his armor in the house of their god, and set up his head in the house of Dagon.    11 When all they of Jabesh Gilead heard all that the Philistines had done to Saul, 12 Then they arose (all the valiant men) and took the body of Saul, and the bodies of his sons, and brought them to Jabesh, and buried the bones of them under an oak in Jabesh, and fasted seven days. 13 So Saul died for his transgression, that he committed against the Lord, even against the word of the Lord, which he kept not, and in that he sought and asked counsel of a familiar spirit, 14 And asked not of the Lord: therefore he slew him, and turned the kingdom unto David the son of Jesse.

Saul turned from God to a medium, and it cost him his kingdom, his life, and the lives of his sons. That is one of the lessons of this chapter, and probably the one that stands out to most readers. But there is another lesson in this account that is more easily overlooked. It is found in two facts:

1. Saul took his own life. Of his own free choice, he fell on his sword, intentionally killing himself (v. 4).
2. God took Saul’s life. As judgment for his disobedience and idolatry, God killed Saul (v. 13-14).

Are these facts contradictory? Not at all. They only demonstrate that God exercises his sovereignty over the actions and wills of men.

From Revival & Revivalism by Iain Murray:

From the general introduction to the period of the Second Great Awakening we turn to some particular observations.
   In the first place, if it be asked, What special means were used to promote these revivals? The answer is that there were none. The significance of this fact will be more apparent in later pages. This is not to say that the spiritual leaders of this new era held the view that the gospel could be advanced without means being employed. They were united in regarding such an attitude as a serious abuse of the doctrine of divine sovereignty. As Ebenezer Porter affirmed:

The God of this universe is not dependent on instruments . . . He could fill the world with Bibles by a word, — or give every inhabitant of the globe a knowledge of the gospel by inspiration. But he chooses that human agency should be employed in printing and reading and explaining the Scriptures. God is able to sanctify the four hundred millions of Asia, in one instant, without the agency of missionaries; but we do not expect him to do this without means, any more than we expect him to rain down food from the clouds, or turn stones into bread.

These men were united in the belief that God has appointed the means of prayer and preaching for the spread of the gospel and that these are the great means in the use of which he requires the churches to be faithful. There are no greater means which may be employed at special times to secure supposedly greater results. It is therefore the Spirit of God who makes the same means more effective at some seasons than at others.    This has perhaps not always been as evident as it was in 1800. Sometimes revivals have coincided with the emergence of hitherto unknown preachers whose abilities have been credited with securing change. But in the case of the Second Great Awakening, nearly all the preachers prominent at the outset had already been labouring for many years. . . .
   The facts are indisputable. A considerable body of men, for a long period before the Second Great Awakening, preached the same message as they did during the revival but with vastly different consequences — the same men, the same actions, performed with the same abilities, yet the results were so amazingly different! The conclusion has to be drawn that the change in the churches after 1798 and 1800 cannot be explained in terms of the means used. Nothing was clearer to those who saw the events than that God was sovereignty pleased to bless human instrumentality in such a way that the success could be attributed to him alone. . . . Jeremiah Hallock, a leader in Connecticut, wrote: ‘As means did not begin this work of themselves, so neither did they carry it on. But as this was the work of the Omnipotent Spirit, so the effects produced proclaimed its sovereign, divine author.’ Asahel Hooker, another eminent Connecticut pastor, drew the same conclusion after seeing the same change among his own people: ‘It is the evident design of Providence to confound all attempts which should be made by philosophy and human reason to account for the effects wrought without ascribing them to God, as the marvelous work of the Spirit and grace.’

Yes, that is the same title as Dan Phillips used. Since he said a lot of what I was thinking (and a lot more), I thought I might as well use it. Dan correctly states that Spiderman 3 contains a lot of good moral principles, but horrible theology. Dan’s objections begin where mine did, with this statement from the movie: “First, you must do the hardest thing. You must forgive yourself.” I've previously written on this subject here. Read Dan’s article, in which he concludes: “Spider-Man 3 is a fun, expertly-done movie. It contains a nice bit of moralizing. It preaches an appalling sermon.”

I only have two things to add to what has already been said.

First, assuming we buy the psychoskubalon of self-forgiveness (as though such a thing as a sin against self exists), it is not hard to forgive ourselves. What could be more self-indulgent? and what is more definitive of human nature than self-indulgence? Letting ourselves off the hook for our sins is as natural as breathing.

Second, in answer to the objection, “Well, you know, it's not a Christian movie. You can't expect them to get it right,” I reply, “You're right. In fact, I should expect them to get it wrong; and when they do, I should be prepared to say so.” You see, whenever anyone, whether Christian, Roman Catholic, Jew, Muslim, or atheist opens his mouth on anything touching on God, theology, or spirituality, he is obligated to get it right. God will accept nothing less. There is only one God, one Way, one Truth, one Life. God makes no allowance for false theology, even due to ignorance.

“But it's just a movie. It's just entertainment. No one came to hear a sermon.” But they did hear a sermon — a moralistic, man-centered sermon. A sermon that leads away from Christ, even while promoting moral character. That is damning, and it needs an answer.

This does not mean you can't go see Spiderman 3 and enjoy it for the entertaining (though mediocre) work of ignorant men that it is. Just be prepared to answer those who praise the good moral of the story with the true Gospel.

The following quote from Revival & Revivalism by Iain Murray continues in the same vein as the one posted earlier this week.

. . . A Baptist author, . . . describing the revival at Hartford in 1798–1800 , wrote: ‘The Lord seems to have stepped out of the usual path of ordinances, to effect his work more immediately in the displays of his Almighty power, and outpouring of his Spirit; probably to show that the work is his own.’
   Thus what characterizes a revival is not the employment of unusual or special means but rather the extraordinary means of blessing attending the normal means of grace. There were no unusual evangelistic meetings. No special arrangements, no announcements of pending revivals. Pastors were simply continuing in the services they had conducted for many years when the great change began. That is why so many of them could say, ‘The first appearance of the work was sudden and unexpected.’ Their theology taught them that there is no inherent power in the truth to convert sinners and they rejoiced in the knowledge that the size of the blessing which God is pleased to give through the use of means is entirely in his own hands. As William Rogers of Philadelphia wrote to Isaac Backus in 1799, ‘The revivals of religion which you speak of are peculiarly illustrative of the glorious doctrines of grace, — “the wind bloweth where it listeth”.’
   On the subject of means, something needs to be said more particularly on prayer. As with the truth that is preached, prayer has no inherent power in itself. On the contrary, true prayer is bound up with a persuasion of our inability and our complete dependence of God. Prayer, considered as a human activity, whether offered by few or many, can guarantee no results. But prayer that throws believers in heartfelt need on God will not go unanswered. Prayer of this kind precedes blessing, not because of any necessary cause and effect, but because such prayer secures an acknowledgement of the true Author of the blessing. And where such a spirit of prayer exits it is a sign that God is already intervening to advance his cause. One thing that can be said with certainty about the 1790s, before any general indications of a new era were to be seen, is that there was a growing concern among Christians to pray. Later on, when the evidence of records from those years was compared, it was recognized that across the Union, from Connecticut to Kentucky, the 1790s were marked by a new spirit of intercession.

—Iain Murray, Revival & Revivalism, 128-129

Iain Murray writes of “Five Leaders in the Northeast” during the Second Great Awakening:

The secret of the influence of these men was that in their being much with Christ they were indeed the reflectors of ‘his beams’.
   But if it be asked how they attained to being such close disciples the answer may be surprising. It was not that they had reached some higher ground in the way of holiness. On the contrary, what marked them most was their low views of themselves. ‘The leading element of Doctor Griffin’s Christian character’, remarked Sprague, ‘was a deep sense of his own corruptions and of his entire dependence on the sovereign grace of God.’ ‘I fear that I am little better than a cumberer of the ground,’ Spring recorded in his diary, and Payson, similarly, often noted the pain of his unworthiness and his failure as a Christian. On 18 December 1817 he recorded in his diary: ‘Began to think, last night, that I have been sleeping all my days; and this morning felt sure of it . . .  How astonishingly blind have I been and how imperceptible my religious progress.’ again, in 1821 he told a ministerial friend, ‘My parish, as well as my heart, very much resembles the garden of the sluggard; and what is worse, if find that most of my desires for the melioration of both proceed either from pride, or vanity of indolence.’
   Statements such as these show us the nature of the relationship with God that these men had. Their felt need lay behind their frequent prayer and their dependence on Christ. Earnestness in prayer, says Payson, requires a true view of oneself: ‘You cannot make a rich man beg like a poor man; you cannot make a man that is full cry for food like one that is hungry: no more will a man who has a good opinion of himself cry for mercy like one who feels that he is poor and needy.’

—Iain Murray, Revival & Revivalism, 218-219

Divine Justice and the Doctrine of Election

In spite of the clarity with which Scripture addresses this topic, many professing Christians today struggle with acceptance of God’s sovereignty—especially when it comes to His electing work in salvation. Their most common protest, of course, is that the doctrine of election is unfair. But such an objection stems from a human idea of fairness rather than the objective, divine understanding of true justice. In order to appropriately address the issue of election, we must set aside all human considerations and focus on the nature of God and His righteous standard. Divine justice is where the discussion must begin.
   What is divine justice? Simply stated, it is an essential attribute of God whereby He infinitely, perfectly, and independently does exactly what He wants to do when and how He wants to do it. Because He is the standard of divine justice, by very definition, whatever He does is inherently just. As William Perkins said, many years ago, “We must not think that God doeth a thing because it is good and right, but rather is the thing good and right because God willeth and worketh it.”
   Therefore, God defines for us what justice is, because He is by nature just and righteous, and what He does reflects that nature. His free will—and nothing else—is behind His justice. This means that whatever He wills is just; and it is just, not by any external standard of justice, but simply because He wills it.
   Because the justice of God is an outflow of His character, it is not subject to fallen human assumptions of what justice should be. The Creator owes nothing to the creature, not even what He is graciously pleased to give. God does not act out of obligation or compulsion, but out of his own independent prerogative. That is what it means to be God. And because He is God, His freely determined actions are intrinsically right and perfect.
   To say that election is unfair is not only inaccurate, it fails to recognize the very essence of true fairness. That which is fair, right, and just is that which God wills to do. Thus, if God wills to choose those whom he will save, it is inherently fair for him to do so. We cannot impose our own ideas of fairness onto our understanding of God’s working. Instead, we must go to the Scriptures to see how God Himself, in his perfect righteousness, decides to act.

—John MacArthur, from his forward to Lawson’s Foundations of Grace (Reformation Trust, 2007), 8–9.

Let men therefore acknowledge that since they are born of Adam, they are depraved creatures and therefore can conceive only sinful thoughts until they are transformed by Christ’s work and are remade by His Spirit into a new life. It should not be doubted that the Lord declares the very mind of man to be depraved and altogether infected with sin, so that all the thoughts that proceed from his mind are evil. If the foundation itself has such a defect, it follows that all man’s affections are evil, and his deeds covered with the same polution. . . . For since their mind is corrupted with contempt of God, pride, self-love, and ambitious hypocrisy, all their thoughts are contaminated with the same vices. . . . The very affections of nature, which in themselves are laudable, are vitiated by original sin . . . men are born evil. It shows that as soon as they are old enough to think, they already have radically corrupt minds . . . depravity pervades all our senses. . . . God is not to be blamed for this. The origin of this disease stems from the defection of the first man, because of whom the order of the creation was subverted. . . . although all rush to do evil acts, no one is forced into this except by the direct inclination of their own hearts. When they sin, they do so because they want to sin.

—John Calvin, as quoted by Lawson in Foundations of Grace (Reformation Trust, 2007), 59.