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Judging by the site stats, which we have been keeping an eye on (but not obsessively), The Sola Panel has lots of readers from Canada and the US. Here's a deal I thought you should know about.

Marty Sweeney at Matthias Media USA is currently giving away 500 free 6-month subscriptions to our favourite evangelical magazine, The Briefing. There's no catch (apart from the fact that you need to live in North America and not already be a subscriber). Click here for all the details, and to sign up.

But you'll need to hurry. Marty is finalizing the final numbers in the next day or so.

Enjoy!

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Faith in Christ isn't easy for human beings. We can't win. When times are good, our trust in Christ can fall away, for, after all, who needs it? When times are bad, we can rage at Christ. Our faith is numbed under the sharp pang or the dull ache of our pain.

But then again, faith in Christ is not so hard for human beings. When things are easy for us, faith is easy, because all it takes is that word of thanks to the One who has been so good. When things are hard, faith is easy, because there is nowhere else we can go to find any solution, but into his arms.

Faith is both natural to us (because we trust someone or something practically every moment of the day), and unnatural to us (because trust is broken or disappointed so often, and we can grow cynical and hard and withdrawn). The gospel of God's love tells us that salvation is easy and hard: it is there for the taking (“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden”—Matt 11:28); and yet it is impossible to acquire on our own (“With man it is impossible”—Mark 10:27). Faith is easy and hard: to be saved, all we have to do is trust Christ, but, at the same time, this can only happen if God opens our eyes and quickens our hearts. Faith is ours, and yet faith is a gift.

And faith isn't even a ‘thing’. It is not a quality, or an attribute, or a characteristic, or an activity. It is an open hand. It is the grateful sense that something has been given. It is the heart that turns to the Giver in wonder at what has just been given. It is the cry of thanks when life is easy. It is the cry for help when things are hard.

It is that hard. It is that easy.

When life is hard—when life is easy—the Saviour's words remain the same: “Do not fear, only believe” (Mark 5:36).

But then faith is hard, and faith is easy—just as it was for the father who had anxiously watched his son being almost destroyed, constantly, from the day his son was born: “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

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It's when all the serious hurt-mouthing of God begins. Why me? What have I ever done to him? Where was he when I really needed him? After all I have done for him, what happened? How about a break? Isn't this enough now? Just stop!

Life is tough. Suffering is real. Things aren't working out like you dreamed they would—let alone like you deserve! It makes it so hard to keep on believing that God is being good to you. Where is he? Where is his love?

And on it goes.

But what are you going to do? Take the advice Job's wife gave to her husband, to curse God and die (Job 2:9)? That hardly seems sensible, and it hardly seems a step that will alleviate your suffering—especially if being right with God holds the key to eternity!

Eternity. Now there's a thought. A glory to come that is not even worth comparing to the sufferings of the moment (Rom 8:18). But can we even imagine that kind of glory? Perhaps the more we suffer, the greater the contrast, and the more our imagination is fired up—'cos what else is there? A whole new creation, new bodies, new reality, sin gone, death gone, pain gone, crying gone (Rev 21:1-4). When I feel the sufferings of this present age and hear the gospel promises, the disjunction couldn't be more enormous. It is enough to make me groan. It is enough to make me cry out, not “Why me?”, but “Remember me!”. And as I cry out, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom 7:24), it is enough to make me remember the answer to that question. Jesus' victory was mine—it was ‘for me’. And his victory makes me strain ahead to the inheritance, he has promised to share. Not even worth comparing ...

When life is hard, nothing is easy—not even faith. But, then again, perhaps when life is hard, faith becomes easy—by default. For where else are you going to go? He has the words of eternal life (John 6:68). And when life seems to squeeze the vice-grip harder, it is as if he turns our painful groans into cries of expectation. And the vice once again becomes his loving embrace.

(To be continued …)

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Sometimes a person seems to have a ‘charmed existence’. Everything (at least from the outside) seems to be just right. No real worries. Healthy, happy, wholesome. Perhaps even healthy, wealthy and wise. It seems that life, for them, is effortless and easy. It just comes their way and when it arrives, it is good.

It must (at least from the outside) be easy for such a person to have faith. God is good. Their life is good. Therefore, they believe in that good God. It is that simple. What could be easier?

But then again, if it was this easy, why did Amos have to condemn the fat cows of Bashan, whose ease and prosperity had led to their excesses (Amos 4:1)? And weren't they something of a picture for all of Israel, who grew fat on the nurture of the Lord, and then deserted him (Deut 32:15)? And what was so easy for the ‘rich young ruler’ who caused Jesus such sadness, because he chose his wealth, over gaining his own soul (Mark 10:17-30)?

There is nothing easy about faith when times are prosperous. Why do we need God when times are so good? He has given us everything already! That might almost sound like gratitude, but the next thought soon comes: Why do we need God at all? We are pretty well off, and in fact, didn't we gain this prosperity through our own efforts anyway? Why do we need to acknowledge God, or even give him thanks? (Rom. 1:21). Any name we may have made in the midst of our prosperity is the one that we made for ourselves!

It is not so easy to have faith when life's easy. It just becomes a moment to revel in the gigantic tower we have made, whose top just keeps on pushing aside heaven.

(To be continued …)

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It's a commonplace of the Roman Catholic tradition that those Christians who have died are now in heaven interceding for us. So the authoritative (for Roman Catholics) Roman Catholic Catechism asserts,

The intercession of the saints. “Being more closely united to Christ, those who dwell in heaven fix the whole Church more firmly in holiness ... They do not cease to intercede with the Father for us, as they proffer the merits which they acquired on earth through the one mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus ... So by their fraternal concern is our weakness greatly helped.”

It's an idea that is unsupported by Scripture, but is universally used within the Roman Catholic tradition to encourage Roman Catholics to offer prayers to Mary and the Saints. In contrast, Hebrews 7 points out that it's the Lord Jesus who intercedes for us in heaven:

The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. (Heb 7:23-25; emphasis mine)

Now there is a comforting thought for those who suffer in this world. Jesus is in heaven, praying for us in his capacity as heavenly high priest, making intercession for our sins. Indeed, the idea that anyone else who is not a high priest (and in the Book of Hebrews, Jesus uniquely occupies this role) might intercede on our behalf really is the most terrible blasphemy.

Even if dead Christians were capable of interceding for us in the way the Roman Catholic catechism envisages, there is no guarantee that they are able to hear us, and there is some indication in the New Testament that they can't. There is, however, a curious yet encouraging passage in Revelation 6 where we find that there are, in fact, dead saints offering prayers to God:

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been. (Rev 6:9-11)

How literally we ought to take this image is a question for another day. There is a great deal of picture language in Revelation, and if we are committed to taking it as factually as a news report, then we may also find ourselves committed to believing that God is not Trinity, but is of one substance with the seven spirits before his throne. So I for one am not going to insist that there are dead, martyred Christians praying before the throne of God at this very moment. Revelation 6 is making a point about God's sovereignty and justice (not about human consciousness between the time of our physical death and the day of final judgement).

But even assuming that the dead, martyred saints are indeed consciously in God's presence, offering their prayers to him, we are seriously misguided if we think that they are going to focus their energy on praying for us (especially if, as Hebrews 7 has shown us already, this is a job reserved for Jesus). Revelation 6 depicts these faithful souls as praying for God's judgement and justice to be poured out, and soon.

Now there, at least, is a lesson we can learn from the dead saints. We should pray as they prayed and as Jesus taught—that God's kingdom would come, and that his will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. Pray then, for divine judgement and justice.

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