Dispensationalism and the Gospel

 One of the major teachings of the New Testament is that Christ’s death on the cross was a complete and fully sufficient sacrifice to save men from their sins. What the Old Testament sacrifices could not do, Jesus did in His suffering and death. The New Testament then tells us that if a person now tries to turn back to the Jewish sacrificial system, in doing so they reject the work of Christ, the Gospel, and God Himself. For Dispensationalism then to teach that the Jewish sacrificial system will be reestablished with God’s blessing during the Tribulation is for it to contradict the Gospel. Scripture goes to great lengths in saying the exact opposite of what Dispensationalism teaches.

Alcohol

The Bible encourages drinking alcohol. See Deut. 14:22-26 and the wedding at Cana. It also condemns overdoing it. The distinction is clear in Scripture. And so on that basis, you cannot forbid drinking. Scripture stands against temperance.

Another angle on this is the fact that Scripture condemns the use of things that are in and of themselves evil. Adultery and other sexual sins, theft, murder, etc. It also makes very clear that alcohol is not one of those things. The abuse of a thing does not make the proper use of a thing evil. The fault there lies in the user, not in the thing used.

And what is the proper use of alcohol? To drink it with gratitude before the Lord for this gift that He has given you to enjoy. There’s no support in Scripture for needing to find some merely practical use for a thing in order to justify it. Pragmatism isn’t Biblical either; God gives us lots of things just to make us happy.

The Natural Order

 It was from Adam that God took the substance that He meant to fashion into woman, indicating that as man was formed first and as woman sprang from man, so man is to be her head. He from the dust, she from him. He directly from the Former’s hand, she indirectly and through him. “Adam,” says the apostle, “was first formed, then Eve” (1Ti 2:13). Therefore, says he, she is “not to teach nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” Thus, again, he states the gradation: (1) the head of the woman is the man, (2) the head of the man is Christ, (3) the head of Christ is God (1Co 11:3). Further, he adds that “the woman is the glory (or ornament) of the man”; for, says he, “the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man” (1Co 11:8-9). Such is God’s order of things; such His assignment of place and rank to the creatures that He has made. We may be sure that there is a reason for this gradation, not merely a typical [typological], but a natural one, whether we fully understand it or not. We cannot alter this law and be blameless. We cannot reverse it and not suffer loss. The construction of our world’s fabric is far too delicate and complex for man to attempt the slightest change without dislocating the whole. One star displaced, one planet thrown off its orbit, will confound the harmonies of space and strew the firmament with the wrecks of the universe. [Likewise,] one law lost sight of or set at naught will mar the happy order of God’s living world below.

In one age or nation, man treads down woman as a slave; in another, he idolizes her and sings of her as of a goddess. Both cases inflict a social wrong upon the race, in the latter case as truly as in the former. And who can say how deep an injury—both spiritual and social—has been wrought and how fatal an influence has been sent forth, by that fond sentimentalism that, impregnating our poetry and coursing like fever through the veins of youth, not only “costs the fresh blood dear,” but saps the whole social system, nay, propagates a principle of subtle ungodliness and creature-worship in its praise of woman’s beauty and idolatry of woman’s love.

- Horatius Bonar

The Good Samaritan

 Luke 10. Jesus’s parables often have multiple applications. While it’s clear that the parable of the good Samaritan has in focus what it is to love one’s neighbor, it was of particular application to the Jewish leaders of that time. While the priest and the Levite refused to help the troubled man, keeping the law to love one’s neighbor as one’s self, the Samaritan did keep it. A non-Jewish man keeping the law of Israel’s God, the God with whom they alone were in covenant, would have been shocking and offensive to them.

Jesus’ point in the parable was to highlight Israel’s failure to keep covenant with God through obeying His law, to show the possibility of a Gentile keeping it, and to illustrate God’s turning away from Israel to the Gentiles.

“(F)or when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them) in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel” (Rom. 2:14-16).

The point of Romans is God’s salvation of the whole world, not just the Jews, and that their shame in the Gentiles being saved instead of them might draw the Jews back to God.

But the Jews consciously rejected Jesus, as they had His Father repeatedly throughout the Old Covenant. Likewise, they rejected His apostles, who came to them as a last-ditch effort to save them from the coming wrath that they deserved. In the end the apostles turned from the Jews to the Gentiles, fulfilling the prophecy that all the nations would come to worship Israel’s God.

“So when the Jews went out of the synagogue, the Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. Now when the congregation had broken up, many of the Jews and devout proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God.

On the next Sabbath almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God. But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy; and contradicting and blaspheming, they opposed the things spoken by Paul. Then Paul and Barnabas grew bold and said, ‘It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first; but since you reject it, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles.  For so the Lord has commanded us:

“I have set you as a light to the Gentiles,

That you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth.”’

Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed” (Acts 13:42-48).

Jesus Himself had turned away from walking among the Jews openly when they had determined in their hearts to kill Him (John 11:54). In doing so, He imitated Yahweh’s repeated turning away from Israel throughout the Old Covenant, whenever they turned back from following Him, choosing their fallen state in Adam, their state before Abram left Ur, their state before Yahweh delivered them from Egypt, and the state of the pagan nations surrounding them. They repeatedly chose to live in wickedness, worshiping the false gods like the nations, as if they were not in covenant with Yahweh. As a result, Yahweh repeatedly turned His back on them, leaving them to the consequences of their sinful desires and actions, and bringing judgment upon them for it. And yet every time they repented and turned back to Him, He returned to them and gave them another chance.

Jesus came as Yahweh’s final prophet to His beloved people Israel. Israel would reject Him and crucify Him, as their ancestors had rejected His Father. And yet the plan all along was that the whole world through Israel might come to Yahweh, and the Jewish people themselves turn to God in Christ. Today God’s people, the Church, are comprised of Jews and Gentiles who have put their faith alone in Jesus Christ for salvation. All are joined together in the one Olive tree (Romans 11), for there is no other means by which any man might be saved than the work of Christ.

Colossians 2

A couple of short thoughts on Colossians 2:

1. Paul is speaking to the Colossians specifically as a group of Gentiles, i.e. uncircumcised.

2. Jesus’s circumcision of which Paul speaks here was His death on the cross.

3. Merely removing the foreskin was not enough to purify mankind. The whole body was/is corrupt and had to/has to die.

4. In the act of water baptism, a person is united with the death and resurrection of Christ. The benefits of Christ’s work become ours through the rite of baptism.

5. Baptism and faith are not at odds here. Both are present. Jesus trusted in God, and so must we.

6. Being raised with Christ, all our transgressions of God’s Law have been forgiven. Not only have we been forgiven, the Old Testament legal requirements that kept Gentiles away from God have been done away with entirely through Christ’s death and resurrection.

7. By His work, Christ has usurped the principalities and powers (the rulers and authorities), subjugating them to His own rule and dominion. Consequently, they no longer are able to command or make any legal claim against those of us who are in union with Christ. All the courtroom arguments against us they may try to make are thrown out of court.

No doubt there is enough there to rub different folks the wrong way, at different points. But Paul isn’t simply throwing out a variety of vague, disconnected references to salvation. He is making a coherent statement about the work of Christ, specifically as it relates to the Gentiles.

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“So you’re saying baptism somehow saves us, whatever you mean by that. Aren’t you then saying that we’re saved by our good works, our work of getting baptized?” It’s a common response.

But nobody actually baptizes himself, does he? Usually a minister applies water to the person’s head and says “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Or he dips the person in a pool of water and says the same. The minister baptizes you. It isn’t something you do; it’s something done to you. God is working through the minister as his tool to save you, just like he sanctifies you when the minister preaches God’s Word to you. The fact that you are listening in no way means you earn sanctification. You wouldn’t even be listening if God hadn’t first inclined your heart toward Him and made you want to listen. All the credit goes to God.

Things Scripture Doesn’t Say, Pt. 2 - Getting Saved

 Scripture nowhere says that a person needs to know the exact moment at which he got saved. Are you right now trusting in God to save you? That is the only thing you need to know. At what point in the past that began to be true is not a question you need to answer.

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There isn’t a single verse of Scripture that speaks of becoming a Christian as “asking Jesus into your heart”. And that cheesy, sentimental, romantic way of talking about salvation has probably turned far more men off to the Gospel and the Church than we might think.

Things Scripture Doesn’t Say, Pt. 1 - Only Christian Music Is Allowed

 Scripture nowhere says that it is a sin to listen to “secular” music, music that doesn’t aim to be specifically Christian, or music that doesn’t mention God or the Bible. It’s true that if a person is saved they should at least sometimes want to listen to music that speaks accurately and positively about God. Scripture commands us to sing praises to God, and to “sing to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs”. But it doesn’t say that is the only kind of singing you’re allowed to do. There are types of music that a Christian shouldn’t want to listen to - if you find yourself wanting to listen to songs like “WAP”, then something spiritually is wrong with you, and you need to repent and correct course on some things. But if there isn’t anything particularly contrary to God’s word about a piece of music, then God has given you the freedom to listen to it. All good things ultimately come from Him, and He puts those things in the world for you to enjoy.

Most Christian music over the past hundred years or so has been terrible. If you don’t like it, then it probably means you have good taste. “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another” (Gal. 5:13). You don’t have to abandon Christianity to enjoy good art - so don’t use it as a excuse to do so.

It Isn’t About You

 In Reformed circles we often like to tell people “it isn’t about you” (“it” being the Gospel, or the worship of the Church, or anything related to Scripture). In our narcissistic age, this certainly has its need. But while God is clearly concerned about His own glory, and often puts wicked men in their place, I think we tend to push this further than Scripture gives us the right to. Salvation is about us, in that it’s us He’s saving. Scripture is filled with statements about the love, the kindness, the mercy, and the goodness of God directed toward us. Scripture tells us that He sent His Son not just to satisfy His own righteous demands, nor simply to bring Himself glory, but out of His love for mankind. His loving acts in this world are not just self-focused, nor focused at those impersonal parts of His creation, but focused on us. “What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that You should care for him?” (Ps. 8). And this is clear in Calvin as well. Using one quote to illustrate:

“For in administering human society he so tempers his providence that, although kindly and beneficent toward all in numberless ways, he still by open and daily indications declares his clemency to the godly and his severity to the wicked and criminal. For there are no doubts about what sort of vengeance he takes on wicked deeds. Thus he clearly shows himself the protector and vindicator of innocence, while he prospers the life of good men with his blessing, relieves their need, soothes and mitigates their pain, and alleviates their calamities; and in all these things he provides for their salvation.”

God’s point often in His rebukes in Scripture is to show His glory, to show His place as God exalted above man and all creation in all His being, and to show that His care for all things is His free choice. But He has chosen. He everyday cares for mankind freely, willingly, gladly, lovingly. And when sin came into the world, the thing that might prevent the giving of His love, He gave even more, that no impediment might stand in the way. In our arrogance we might need a reminder sometimes that we aren’t the center of the universe - that we are not God. But the true God has set His love upon us in such a way that He can call us His children, His friends, and the inheritors of the universe He has created and upheld.

“He will not always strive with us,

Nor will He keep His anger forever.

He has not dealt with us according to our sins,

Nor punished us according to our iniquities.

For as the heavens are high above the earth,

So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him;

As far as the east is from the west,

So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

As a father pities his children,

So the Lord pities those who fear Him.

For He knows our frame;

He remembers that we are dust.

As for man, his days are like grass;

As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.

For the wind passes over it, and it is gone,

And its place remembers it no more.

But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting

On those who fear Him,

And His righteousness to children’s children,

To such as keep His covenant,

And to those who remember His commandments to do them.” (Ps. 103).

I wonder if as Calvinists we don’t sometimes strive with men more than God Himself. Inasmuch as we do, it is a thing of which we must repent. If we have truly been recipients of His grace, how can we do otherwise? 

Does this really arise from a zeal for the glory of God and a love for our neighbor? Or is it merely a lust for power and authority that isn’t rightly ours, with a sadistic need to tear others down? If it is the latter, and sometimes I think it is, then our own salvation must be in question. We are not reflecting the character of the God we claim to be in union with, but rather something of the devil. True godliness speaks not only truth, but in love and humility. 

Thanos and the Scarlet Witch: To Covet Godhood

 At the end of Avengers: Infinity War, we see that Thanos has gone to live in a mountainous region far from civilization in a cabin alone. And at the end of WandaVision, we see that Wanda has done the same. In both cases the camera seems to pan down toward the cabin(s) from a distance, and the fact that the last scene in WandaVision mimics that of Infinity War suggests we are to see a parallel between the two figures. There is a contrast in the two, though. Whereas Thanos comes out of his cabin from the inside and sits down on the steps, having completed the work he intended, Wanda begins sitting down on the front steps, arises, and goes inside her cabin, where we find she is still busy at work constructing her desired reality. The two figures are mirror images of each other. 

But the similarities don’t stop with their visual presentations.

We see in both characters the sort of willful individualism and isolation which is always the tendency of a person failing to deal with their pain and disappointment correctly. Both individuals sought to use their power to construct reality according to their own liking. The power they sought exceeded what they had any right to, and both showed themselves to lack the wisdom and goodness necessary to wield that power properly. No one person can ever have the qualities necessary to rightly conduct another person’s life, let alone multiple other lives. And the desire to do so always reveals a hateful narcissistic evil that can only lead to death. “You will never be a god,” Loki tells Thanos. And this is the heart of all of the occult: it is an arrogant hatred of the one true God, and a desire to kill Him and take His place.

The point of the end of WandaVision, then, is that Wanda has become her abuser, her persecutor, and the very thing she hates. “You took everything from me,” Wanda tells Thanos in Avengers: Endgame. Wanda does the same to the citizens of Westview in WandaVision, and the last scene of the show suggests she hasn’t yet learned to deal with her losses.

As Holy to the Lord

 The Pledge of Allegiance was written by a Socialist, and did not originally have the phrase ”Under God” in it. The Pledge is about religious devotion to the State, such that no Christian should say it, nor should it be recited in church in a worship services. Flags in church buildings are equally an abomination.

While I’m on the subject, I would also voice my disagreement with good Reformed men on the subject of sacred space, including Peter Leithart. It is true that space does not become ”magical”, and we should be careful to make that clear. But certain spaces can and should be set apart as holy for the worship of God. To set up such spaces is a mark of civilization resulting from the work of the Holy Spirit and the triumph of the Gospel. It is when you start declaring everything as equally sacred, in a pagan sense of being magical or even literally “god”, that you can know that the glory of God has departed from you.

Worship Music and the Language of Romance

 The Bible nowhere describes the relationship between the individual Christian believer and Christ using romantic terminology. It does describe the Church as a collective body that way - “husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church”. But nowhere does it tell the individual person to think of his salvation in those terms. And yet that language has tended to permeate contemporary worship music since its beginning. And this is one of contemporary worship music’s biggest problems. The fact is that when you use an unbiblical terminology to refer to something as central to the Bible as salvation, wrong theology and a wrong spiritual life can’t help but be the result.

One question that is brought up in this, though, is whether or not The Song of Solomon should be taken as a metaphor for the individual believer’s relationship with God or Christ.

The Song of Solomon serves at least two purposes. The first one was, and is, to teach the people of God what a godly, natural, romantic relationship is supposed to look like. Its second purpose, in its Old Testament context, was and is to illustrate Yahweh’s love for Israel collectively. That then carries over to Christ’s love for the Church in the New Testament. The Church is the New Israel.

As a picture of Yahweh’s love for Israel, this then sets the stage for the writings of the OT prophets later, as Yahweh brings charges of adultery against Israel, and as He threatens her with divorce for her harlotry with the nations, which divorce is finalized in the Book of Revelation, manifested in real history through the Roman assault on Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD.

It is also with this divorce motif in mind that Revelation 2-3 also has to be read, alongside of the apostasy passages of the New Testament, namely John 15, Romans 9-11, and the entire Book of Hebrews. Yahweh has divorced Israel, because He requires faithfulness, as any spouse should. Individual churches then also should be diligent in their faithfulness, lest He remove their lampstands, which is just another metaphor intended to illustrate the same ending of relationship with God.

But there isn’t a verse in Scripture, in either the Old or New Testaments, that suggests we should take the Song of Solomon as an illustration of the individual believer’s relationship with God. There have been commentators over the past two thousand years who have tried that, but Scripture simply doesn’t support it. There’s nothing inside or outside of the book that says we should read it and apply it that way.

I Am Of Calvin, I Am Of Wesley

 No matter what your denomination or church tradition may be, honesty requires recognizing that God has worked throughout history in denominations and church traditions other than your own. And humility should lead all of us to listen to what the Bible teachers and theologians of other church traditions have to say. No single denomination or church tradition has ever gotten every last thing right.

The Terror of the Lord

 The presence or absence of quiet meditation in the sanctuary before a worship service goes a long way in telling you what you need to know about a church.

All the robes and candles and incense in the world won’t make up for a lack of holy fear when entering into the presence of the God of all things.

Original Sin

 There have been different views on Original Sin throughout Church history - how Adam’s sin has affected all of mankind down through the ages. Often, though, the assumption has been that infants cannot sin - that it takes some level of consciousness of themselves, of God, of right and wrong, and of the world around them, to sin, a consciousness infants do not and cannot have. But can anybody actually prove that? On the contrary, children prove from a very young age that they are sinners. They often do wrong, and that intentionally, knowing they are doing wrong. The only thing stopping infants from at least some sins often is a lack of mobility. 

John the Baptist leapt in Elizabeth’s womb when Mary, carrying Jesus in her womb, approached them. We can’t understand it, but that was already an acknowledgement on his part of who Jesus was. While this was a special case, it demonstrates that infants are capable of a greater level of consciousness than we tend to expect.

There is no verse of Scripture that says that infants are innocent, in some overarching way. Rather, while infants may not yet be guilty of most specific sins, Scripture teaches us that they are born corrupted by sin.

The majority position in my own Reformed tradition has been that Adam’s sin in the Garden has been imputed to all his progeny, and will continue to be so for all those yet to be born. We are all guilty, in some sense, of Adam’s sin. The remedy, then, is the righteousness of Christ imputed to all those who place their trust in Him. But even if one won’t go that far, one has to affirm that infants are born corrupted by Adam’s sin. When David says “In sin my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51), he clearly wasn’t saying she was in sin when or by conceiving him. It was his own sin in view, whether in terms of corruption, or guilt, or both. And where the corruption of sin is, is there any reason to assert that acts of sin are not possible? Maybe there is, if we don’t understand what sin is. But if hate is a sin - or greed, or selfishness, or even simply failing to love one’s neighbor - then infants can sin, and they probably do far more than we might expect.

Right Worship

 If all right theology, and in fact all right living, begins with the wonder of God, then the answer when a person sins isn’t the endless lamenting of one’s sin or inability, but a returning to the wonder of God.

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One reason why we Christians argue so much about which hymn to sing, which liturgy to follow, which way to worship is that the commandments teach us to believe that bad liturgy eventually leads to bad ethics. You begin by singing some sappy, sentimental hymn, then you pray some pointless prayer, and the next thing you know you have murdered your best friend. -- Stanley Hauerwas

Disposable Men

 A patriotic Christian brother who served in north Africa in the 80s said to me recently, “I don’t know that anything we did there was any good at all.”

Patriotism can be a good thing. Unthinking, uncritical, undiscerning patriotism is not. Many a person who has served in good faith has died needlessly in the service of this country. Those who served in good faith deserve honor. Those politicians and profiteers who in their greed sent men like so much cattle to be slaughtered in pointless wars will receive their just reward.

The God Who Acts

 The Psalms, making up the hymn book of the Old Testament, were written with certain assumptions in view which we tend to be missing in our singing today. 

1.) God acts in time and space according to the worship, the faith, the prayers, and the obedient faithfulness, of His people.

2.) He blesses His people when they obey Him, and disciplines them when they don’t. He also comes to their aid when they cry out for Him in humble dependence, showing Himself at work in their lives according to their needs.

3.) His acts are generally verifiable, though exceptions exist, because God is eternally uncircumscribable. Sometimes God and His acts are known only to Him, as He chooses to keep Himself hidden. And yet He often makes Himself known even to unbelievers through His acts, such that He receives glory through them knowing He is the one living and true God. When God acts, both believers and unbelievers can identify it.

4.) Victory and blessing are things that should be expected among God’s people. This does not mean sinless perfection, but a general trend in that direction. Nor does it mean that sickness, suffering, and death will never exist, or only exist as the result of some specific sin. The absence of victory and blessing among God’s people, however, often indicates unbelief and disobedience.

5.) Reflecting on God’s acts in history through corporate song should be a part of worship. The Israelites could and would sing about how they saw God acting in their own time.

Our singing, in contrast, quite often has a Gnostic tilt to it - detached from our own lives, and as if God stopped operating in the world in the first century. Or, it is individualistic, focusing strictly on the salvation of individuals. At its best it focuses on the Work of Christ. But somehow we sing as if Christ’s work has no ongoing effects beyond the salvation of individuals, pulling them out of a world that is not under His kingly authority and supervision. 

These thoughts are a work in process, and for now I offer them up as they are.

Errant Hearts

 In Reformed theology we regularly talk about the failure of much of the Church in having bad theology, or just weak or absent theology altogether. This is without a doubt a common and ongoing problem. And it always has negative effects. But the Reformed church has proven itself to be ineffectual all on its own, and that for many decades. And sometimes that has shown to be connected to outright sin. I find myself beginning to wonder more and more if the problem in the Church isn’t so much bad or weak theology, but rather a failure to love and trust God.

Now the Reformed mind will immediately start talking about how this is a false dichotomy, noting that bad doctrine hinders a person’s understanding of, his trust in, and his love for, God. And, how unbelief and a lack of love will prevent our understanding of Scripture. But let’s knock off the theological debates and our desire to rush back to intellectual categories for a second.

Are people really loving, and trusting, God? I think that is the question. And it should be addressed all on its own.

God has proven Himself quite resilient throughout the ages in being able to work around and alongside of His people’s imperfect knowledge. But Jesus Himself found at times he was unable to do miracles due to people’s unbelief. Faith and love, these are the indispensable things.

It seems to me we’ve been getting this all wrong.

Hypocritical Unbelievers

“The Church is full of hypocrites.”

You will never meet a person, Christian or otherwise, who lives fully consistent with what they say they believe. Everybody is in some part of his life a hypocrite. If you believe that isn’t the case about a person you know, either you aren’t thinking deeply enough about the matter, or he’s got you fooled.

But there are Christians who largely live consistent with what Scripture teaches, while they occasionally sin. Unbelief might want to believe otherwise, but unbelief begins from a position of falsehood, and wants to see what it wants to see, no matter the truth. A wicked person naturally wants to drag everybody else into sin and misery with him, because otherwise he has to face up to God and his sin on his own.

Beyond this, there can never be such a thing as a “consistent unbeliever”. By virtue of living in a universe created by the one true God, any position of sin and unbelief creates contradiction and conflict, which can only be reconciled by faith.

Should We Expect Christians To Doubt God?

Two quotes side by side, not merely to be controversial, but as an exercise in thinking the matter through publicly.

“Surely, while we teach that faith ought to be certain and assured, we cannot imagine any certainty that is not tinged with doubt, or any assurance that is not assailed by some anxiety.” - John Calvin

"Doubts should never be cherished, nor fears harbored. Let none cherish the delusion that he is a martyr to fear and doubt. It is no credit to any man's mental capacity to cherish doubt of God, and no comfort can possibly derive from such a thought. Our eyes should be taken off 'self', removed from our own weakness and allowed to rest implicitly upon God's strength. 'Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward.' A simple, confiding faith, living day by day, and casting its burden on the Lord, each hour of the day, will dissipate fear, drive away misgiving and deliver from doubt: 'Be careful for nothing, but in everything, by supplication and prayer, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.'" - E. M. Bounds