Q&A Fridays! Issue #43

9/19/08 - 6th Day - Late Afternoon. Preparation of the Sabbath.

Welcome to Issue #43 of Q&A Friday for Friday the 19th of September, 2008. I want to thank you all for your great emails and questions. I want to remind everyone of the rules by which I will be playing: Not all questions will be answered, and not all those that are submitted can be fitted into one issue. Those that did not make this issue (for length reasons) might be included in a future one. Questions might not be answered or included in the Q&A for the following reasons:

The scope may be too broad, or it may involve a topic on which I have taught at length... ex: “Can you explain the whole Creation?”. The question might need to be asked more specifically, or with fewer presuppositions that I would have to handle before actually getting to the question (I do reserve the right to rewrite questions to make them more clear and understandable or to make them more amenable to the format here). Answering the question might drag me off of “message” or into an area on which I am currently teaching, but at a point where I haven’t gotten to yet. If the question is answered in an upcoming teaching, or would involve getting into a topic I have planned for the future, then I will likely choose not to answer it yet.

The question might be considered rhetorical, or might involve me bearing witness against myself... such as “Who are you?”

As always, send your questions to Q&A Fridays:

editor(at)lazarusunbound.com.

Michael,

What is the proper way for a community of biblical agrarians to handle death and burial? What do you do there at the ranch? I am familiar with what the Amish do and it is quite beautiful how they arrange funeral services from casket making to wake, fellowship and burial. I am asking because I would like to get away entirely from the modern corporate funeral, burial in a steel reinforced casket enterprise. Could you elaborate?

Thank you for your question. I think that, first of all, although a community might have some cultural practices or traditions, in the end death and burial are very personal things for the family involved. We try to be there for people in any situation, but we also (as elders and/or leaders) try to keep in our place. We can advise and direct, we can counsel and support, but we try not to dictate. Death is an inevitable part of life and living in a community, and I agree that simple services are likely the best. We must remember that burial services are for the living and not for the dead. If someone dies in the Lord, then we know that they were translated into His presence, and therefore there is no need for expensive or showy services. We do teach that excessive grief is a sin, but we do believe that Biblical and moderate grieving is encouraged and acceptable. We do encourage folks to have a right view of death and dying, and we do accept that it is a normal part of life to mark the passing of a loved one. We have had only one death here in the community, and the circumstances (and the immediacy) required that a steel casket be purchased for transport. If someone were to actually die here on the land, we would have a much better likelihood of being able to build or procure a simple pine or wood casket. Texas really has very good laws that secure us much freedom in the burying of our dead. We do have a burial ground/cemetery here at the land. Now, as I said, the actual memorial service and other types of services would be left up to the individual family and their wishes, within bounds of course and subject to oversight and counsel from the elders here. Every situation is different. When our son Thomas died, we did not have a burial or graveside service. We had a memorial service some time later. You can read the memorial sermon here:

Memorial Service for Thomas Shepard Bunker

I know that in most cases, an Amish style simple service is preferable, though I also understand that in some circumstances – say the death of a notable person (like Spurgeon's funeral perhaps) there might be a need to make arrangements for many more people to come and fellowship. I do plan on dying, and I don't plan on being here for my wake of funeral, but I would encourage everyone involved with it to be moderate, but to still make allowances for the fact that there may or may not be people from around the country who might want to come here in support of my family. I guess that is a side cost of being notorious. Maybe my enemies would like to have their own celebration!

Michael,

I was reading with some amusement the exchange between you and “Robbie” (the Arminian syncretist) on the comments section of your blog. I agree that he never dealt with the issues, created straw men, and skirted around your answers. I am curious though how you would deal with his assertion that Lot was chosen because he was righteous. I read 2 Peter where Lot is identified as just and righteous, but we know that when someone is considered just and righteous by the apostles, it is because of Christ's righteousness imputed to them. How can you miss that? I read Gill on the subject and he agrees. How do you explain this to someone who already too puffed up to hear? Thanks in advance for your answer.

I received another filibuster from Robbie just yesterday which emphasized this very point. Remember, Robbie insists that he reads the Bible for what it says, while everyone else who disagrees with him reads it for what they want it to say. Indeed Lot, a type of the wicked sinner, living among the wicked who is regenerated and saved by grace, upon his regeneration was vexed by the sin and wickedness of Sodom. We know that Lot was not righteous in an of himself, because the Bible says that there are NONE righteous, no not one. I offer these scriptures for proof:

Psalm 14:3

Psalm 53:3

Rom. 3:10,12

In fact, it is a permanent and unchangeable tenet of Christianity that we acknowledge that there are none righteous among men, and that all acceptable righteousness is imputed by Christ and is of grace and not of works, that no man may boast. So, we learn from reading the verses in Gen. 18 and in 2 Peter that Lot was saved AND SEPARATED OUT by God for His own purposes, and not for any act or work in the creature. Why was Lot saved and separated from wicked Sodom? Because he was to be the father of the Moabites, of which Ruth was to be one, who herself was to bring forth Obed, who begat Jesse, who begat David, who was the forerunner precursor and type of Christ. So Lot was saved by the righteousness of Christ, for the ultimate purpose of Christ, and for the sake of Christ and His kingdom – which is contrary to what Robbie claims and believes. As an Arminian, Robbie believes that men are saved by their own free will, and that God is a responder and respecter of men. It is funny how they accuse true Christians (those who believe in the Doctrines of Grace (like the Protestant Reformers, Puritans, etc.) of making God a respecter of persons, when we say that men are all sinners, and that God saves men for His own purposes, while there is no difference between them, and that salvation is a complete and utter work of God with no admixture of the works of men. The Arminian insists in freewill, and therefore they cannot read the Bible for what it says (in its entirety) but must put portions of God's Word in competition with other portions of God's Word. It absolutely makes a Papist or an Arminian (they are actually the same thing) sick to their stomachs that God might save sinners without their help, and that he then sanctifies them and perfects them as His own work, separating them out from the world and unto Himself. Note that the syncretist almost always also has really bad doctrine, in fact it is quite common to find syncretism and Arminianism in the same corpse. It is also not uncommon to find such pride and arrogance wrapping that corpse.

So, to answer your question, if someone is humble and enabled by the Spirit of God to hear, then you can explain it to them. If they are puffed up and unteachable, all you can do is send them on their way. Not to say that such men are harmless – because they are not. Unorthodox doctrine and bad orthopraxy swirled into the same man is a recipe for danger. These men do not now have the power or authority to silence me, but some day they will. Anyway, for now the Bible teaches us to separate from such men – and to have no fellowship with those who come bringing another doctrine. These men have no idea that their Arminian free-will doctrines are new, and were birthed by the heretic Pelagius, and brought forth in the heart of the Antichrist Papal Church during the Counter Reformation and the Council of Trent. They will learn it in time though – unhappily – on the judgment day. To those who are new to all of this, I recommend my book Swarms of Locusts, and A.W. Pink's wonderful book The Sovereignty of God.

Michael,

Do you think that someone who lives an urbanized/industrial life and who thinks that is just fine, but who has good salvation doctrine – for example they go to a Reformed Church – is damned?

Thank you for your question. Of course I cannot see what invisible work has been done inside a man. All of us who are now saved were once children of wrath (Eph. 2:3). We know, however, that God's work in His children does not finish at regeneration. It also involves bringing them the Gospel that they might believe the truth and be converted. Conversion involves a whole lot more than going to a good church, sitting and listening to sermons, or any other such superficial works. We know that, as it is said of Lot who was mentioned earlier – concourse with the wicked vexes the soul of God's elect every day. God sends men the truth in order to separate them from the wicked world. He commands them to flee the City of Destruction and to not look back, and to flee all the way to the mountain (Christ). So it would surely be folly to assume that a man who feels happy and satisfied in an urban/industrial setting is saved. If a man feels at peace with the wicked, it is likely that he is a Sodomite and not a Lot.

I am your servant in Christ Jesus,

Michael Bunker