Out Of Control And Loving It Order Printed Copy

Author: Lisa Bevere
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Exceptional piece. Highly recommended!

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About the Book

"Out of Control and Loving It" by Lisa Bevere is a Christian self-help book that explores how to release control and surrender to God's plan. Bevere shares personal stories and insights to help readers break free from the burden of trying to manage everything in their lives and instead trust in God's sovereignty and guidance. The book offers practical advice and encouragement for finding peace and joy in surrendering control.

A.W. Pink

Arthur Walkington Pink (1 April 1886 – 15 July 1952) was an English Bible teacher who sparked a renewed interest in the exposition of Calvinism or Reformed Theology. Little known in his own lifetime, Pink became "one of the most influential evangelical authors in the second half of the twentieth century."[1] Biography Arthur Walkington Pink was born in Nottingham, England, to a corn merchant, a devout non-conformist of uncertain denomination, though probably a Congregationalist.[2] Otherwise, almost nothing is known of Pink's childhood or education except that he had some ability and training in music.[3] As a young man, Pink joined the Theosophical Society, an occult gnostic group in contemporary England, and he apparently rose to enough prominence within its ranks that Annie Besant, its head, offered to admit him to its leadership circle.[4] In 1908 he renounced Theosophy for evangelical Christianity.[5] Desiring to become a minister but unwilling to attend a liberal theological college in England, Pink very briefly studied at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago in 1910 before taking the pastorate of the Congregational church in Silverton, Colorado. In 1912 Pink left Silverton, probably for California, and then took a joint pastorate of churches in rural Burkesville and Albany, Kentucky.[6] In 1916, he married Vera E. Russell (1893–1962), who had been reared in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and Pink's next pastorate was at Scottsville Baptist Church, Scottsville, Kentucky.[7] Then the newlyweds moved in 1917 to Spartanburg, South Carolina, where Pink became pastor of Northside Baptist Church.[8] By this time Pink had become acquainted with prominent dispensationalist Fundamentalists, such as Harry Ironside and Arno C. Gaebelein, and his first two books, published in 1917 and 1918, were in agreement with that theological position.[9] Yet Pink's views were changing, and during these years he also wrote the first edition of The Sovereignty of God (1918), which argued that God did not love sinners who had not been predestined unto salvation, and that He had deliberately created "unto damnation" those who would not accept Christ.[10] Whether because of his Calvinistic views, his nearly incredible studiousness, his weakened health, or his lack of sociability, Pink left Spartanburg in 1919 believing that God would "have me give myself to writing."[11] But Pink then seems next to have taught the Bible—with some success—in California for a tent evangelist named Thompson while continuing his intense study of Puritan writings. In January 1922, Pink published the first issue of Studies in the Scriptures, which by the end of the following year had about a thousand subscribers and which was to occupy most of his time for the remainder of his life and become the source for dozens of books, some arranged from Studies articles after his death.[12] In 1923 Pink suffered a nervous breakdown, and he and his wife lived with friends in Philadelphia until he regained his health. In 1925, the Pinks sailed to Sydney, Australia, where he served as both an evangelist and Bible teacher at the Ashfield Tabernacle. But his impolitic preaching of Calvinist doctrine resulted in a unanimous resolve of the Baptist Fraternal of New South Wales not to endorse him. From 1926 to 1928, Pink served as pastor of two groups of Strict and Particular Baptists.[13] Returning to England, Pink was invited to preach at a pastorless church in Seaton, Devon; but though he was welcomed by some members, the overseers thought his installation as pastor would split the church.[14] In the spring of 1929, Pink and wife returned to her home state of Kentucky where he intended to become pastor of the Baptist church in Morton's Gap. Once again his hopes were unrealized. To a friend he wrote, "I am more firmly convinced today than I was 14 months ago that our place is on the 'outside of the camp.' That is the place of 'reproach,' of loneliness, and of testing."[15] In 1930 Pink was able to start a Bible class in Glendale, California, while also turning down opportunities to speak in some Fundamentalist churches.[16] The following year, the Pinks rented an unpainted wooden house in Union County, Pennsylvania, where a small group met; then in 1933 they moved to York, Pennsylvania. Pink decided that if his ministry was to be totally one of writing, he could do that just as well in England. In September 1934 he and his wife moved to Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, near honorary agents of Studies in the Scriptures. Pink seems to have finally given way to despair. To a friend he wrote "that those of my friends who would dearly like to help me are powerless to do so; while those who could, will not. And in a very few years at most it will be too late. What I have gone through the last seven years is so reacting on my physical and mental constitution, that ere long I shall be incapacitated even if doors should be opened unto me. However, I can see nothing else than to attempt to seek grace to bow to the Lord's sovereign pleasure, and say, 'Not my will, but thine be done.'"[17] In 1936, the Pinks moved to Hove, on the south coast near Brighton. After the death of his father in 1933, Pink received enough of the estate to allow him and his wife to live very simply without financial concerns; and between 1936 until his death in 1952, Pink devoted himself completely to Studies in the Scriptures. Vera believed her husband's almost unrelenting work schedule unhealthy, and she remarkably succeeded in having him take up stamp collecting as a hobby.[18] In 1940, Hove became a regular target of German air raids, and the Pinks moved to Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, where they remained for the rest of his life. The island was a bastion of Calvinism, but church services were held mostly in Scots Gaelic, and visitors were not especially welcomed in any case.[19] Pink governed his time in study and writing with "military precision." To a friend he wrote that he went out to shop and get exercise for an hour, six days a week, but that otherwise he never left his study except when working in a small garden. While in Hove, he even published a note in Studies advising subscribers that "it is not convenient for us to receive any visitors, and respectfully ask readers who may visit these parts to kindly refrain from calling upon us, but please note that we are always glad to hear from Christian friends."[20] Rather than attend church, on Sunday mornings, Pink spent time ministering to readers by letter.[21] In 1951 Vera became aware that Pink was failing. He lost weight and was in pain but refused to take any medicine that might dull his mind and hinder him from completing his work. He died on 15 July 1952. His last words were "The Scriptures explain themselves." Pink left enough written material to allow publication of Studies until December 1953.[22] Vera Pink survived her husband by ten years and after his death made new friends and mingled more freely with others.[23] Influence It is alleged that Pink's personality made it difficult for him to have a successful pastoral ministry. He has been criticized for being too individualistic and of too critical a temperament, lacking the benefit of thorough theological discussions with other men of similar gifts. One young pastor, Rev. Robert Harbach who corresponded with Pink for years remembered a very different Pink, who possessed a "pastor's heart." Pink's correspondence with Harbach (until Pink's failing health ended their correspondence in 1949) was warm, heartfelt and fatherly. Early in their correspondence, Pink wrote "I want you to feel perfectly free to call on me for any help I may be able to render you. I am in touch with a number of young pastors, and I deem it part of my work, and a privilege, to offer what advice I can."[24] Pink's acclaimed contemporary D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones received spiritual benefit from reading Pink and recommended him to others. To one young minister, he said, "Don't waste your time reading Barth and Brunner. You will get nothing from them to aid you with preaching. Read Pink."[25] But Lloyd-Jones also said, "If I had behaved as Pink did, I would have achieved nothing. Nothing at all... I had to be very patient and take a very long-term look at things. Otherwise I would have been dismissed and whole thing would have been finished."[26] Furthermore, without the assistance and companionship of his wife, who dedicated herself completely to him and his work, Pink would have (as he freely admitted) "been overwhelmed" and probably would have achieved little even in writing.[27] Theologically Pink was rejected during his lifetime because of his opposition to Arminianism; but after his death, there was a major shift of evangelical opinion towards Calvinistic theology. By 1982, Baker Book House had published 22 of Pink's books and sold 350,000 total copies. Nevertheless, it was Pink's Sovereignty of God that did "more than any other in redirecting the thinking of a younger generation." After Banner of Truth Trust republished it in 1961—modifying it to remove Pink's alleged hyper-Calvinism—the book sold 177,000 copies by 2004.[28] References 7. "NEW LIGHT ON THE EARLY MINISTRY OF A. W. PINK (PART 2)". The Arthur W. Pink Archive. Retrieved 27 June 2020. 13. Murray argues that Pink left the first of these two groups because he was not Calvinistic enough for them because he asserted belief in the "free offer of the gospel and in human responsibility to receive the gospel.", 77-123; R. P. Belcher, "Pink, Arthur Walkington," Timothy Larson, ed., Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2003), 529. Ronald Hanko argues that "Pink never taught that God loves everyone or desires to save everyone, or promises salvation to everyone in the gospel, as the Banner does." Ronald Hanko, "The Forgotten Pink," British Reformed Journal No. 17 (Jan-March 1997), 4. 23. Murray, 283. She was remembered by one of these friends as "an elegant and gracious lady with a radiant expression and a loving and lively interest in people." 28. Murray, 314–15. The Banner of Truth Trust edition has been criticized for omitting nearly half the original work, including three entire chapters. Hanko, "The Forgotten Pink."

Banished from Humanity

The safest road to hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. –C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters C.S. Lewis said many profound and fascinating things about hell. Some are biblically precise, while others are more abstract and subject to misunderstanding. In some cases, his views are not solidly biblical. But many of his insights on hell are true to Scripture, and some of his speculations are compelling food for thought. Hell: Grave Injustice or Ultimate Justice? Lewis wrote in The Great Divorce, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’” Of course, God does not fully let people have their way, since it is clear, for instance, that the rich man in Luke 16 wants out of hell but cannot escape it. Lewis’s point is, when someone says, “I do not want to have a relationship with God,” in that limited sense they ultimately get their way. The unbeliever’s “wish” to be away from God turns out to be his worst nightmare. Nonetheless, those who do not want God do want goodness and happiness. But what makes anything good is God. Second Thessalonians 1:9 describes hell like this: “They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord.” Where God withdraws, there can be no good. So, in Lewis’s terms, the unbeliever gets what he wants — God’s absence — yet with it gets what he doesn’t want — the loss of all good. C.S. Lewis said of hell, “There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and, specially, of our Lord’s own words; it has always been held by Christendom; and it has the support of reason” (The Problem of Pain). Most of what Lewis says here is solidly biblical. Where there may be a chink in his logic is exactly where it is for many of us. We wish there were no hell — and imagine this comes from our sense of goodness and kindness. But God could remove hell yet chooses not to. Do we have more confidence in our goodness than his? What are we to do with Revelation 18:20, where God brings down his wrath on Babylon’s people, then says, “Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, for God has given judgment for you against her!”? Doesn’t this suggest that in heaven we will see sin’s horrors clearly and have far stronger convictions about hell’s justice? Hell is not pleasant, appealing, or encouraging. But neither is it evil; rather, it is a place where evil is judged. Indeed, if being sentenced to hell is just punishment, then the absence of hell would itself be evil. Hell Itself Is Morally Good, Because a Good God Must Punish Evil Most of us imagine that we hate the idea of hell because we love people too much to want them to suffer. But that implies God loves them less. Our revulsion is understandable, but what about hell makes us cringe? Is it the wickedness that’s being punished? Is it the suffering of those who might have turned to Christ? Or do we cringe because we imagine hell’s punishments are wicked or disproportionate? These very different responses expose different views of God. Perhaps we hate hell too much because we don’t hate evil enough. This is something that could have been developed more in Lewis’s thinking. The same could be said of many of us. If we regard hell as a divine overreaction to sin, we deny that God has the moral right to inflict ongoing punishment on any humans. By denying hell, we deny the extent of God’s holiness. When we minimize sin’s seriousness, we minimize God’s grace in Christ’s blood, shed for us. For if the evils he died for aren’t significant enough to warrant eternal punishment, perhaps the grace displayed on the cross isn’t significant enough to warrant eternal praise. How Jesus Viewed Hell In the Bible, Jesus spoke more about hell than anyone else did. He referred to hell as a real place (Matthew 10:28; 13:40–42; Mark 9:43–48). He described it in graphic terms: a fire that burns but doesn’t consume, an undying worm that eats away at the damned, and a lonely, foreboding darkness. “Perhaps we hate hell too much because we don’t hate evil enough.” Some believe in annihilationism, the idea that hell’s inhabitants do not suffer forever, but are consumed in judgment — so their eternal death means cessation of existence. Edward Fudge, in his book and DVD The Fire That Consumes, defends this position. It’s an argument I have considered seriously, one that holds up to much of the Old Testament revelation, but which I find very difficult to reconcile with Jesus’s words: “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:46). Or with the words of Revelation 20:10, which speak of not only Satan but two human beings, the Antichrist and the false prophet, being cast into the lake of fire and “tormented day and night forever and ever.” Revelation 14:11 appears to apply to a large number of people: “And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever.” Christ says the unsaved “will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12). He taught that an unbridgeable chasm separates the wicked in hell from the righteous in Paradise. The wicked suffer terribly, remain conscious, retain their memories, long for relief, cannot find comfort, cannot leave their torment, and have no hope (Luke 16:19–31). In short, our Savior could not have painted a bleaker picture of hell. It is one that C.S. Lewis, with reluctance, believed and affirmed, bowing his knee in submission to a higher authority. If the evils Jesus died for aren’t significant enough to warrant eternal punishment, then the grace displayed on the cross isn’t significant enough to warrant eternal praise. Lewis said, “I have met no people who fully disbelieved in hell and also had a living and life-giving belief in Heaven” (Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer). The biblical teaching on both destinations stands or falls together. When heaven and hell are spoken of in Scripture, each place is portrayed as being just as real and, in some passages anyway, as permanent as the other. Lewis’s friend, Dorothy Sayers, said it well: There seems to be a kind of conspiracy to forget, or to conceal, where the doctrine of hell comes from. The doctrine of hell is not “mediaeval priestcraft” for frightening people into giving money to the church: it is Christ’s deliberate judgment on sin. . . . We cannot repudiate hell without altogether repudiating Christ. (Dorothy Sayers, Introductory Papers on Dante [Methuen, 1954], 44) The Problem of Emeth in ‘The Last Battle’ Occasionally, Lewis seems to depart from the biblical doctrine of hell by supposing things that aren’t stated in Scripture and appearing to contradict things that are. In The Last Battle, the soldier Emeth, who served the demon Tash, is welcomed into heaven though he did not serve Aslan, the Christ figure, by name. Because the young man thought he was worshiping and pursuing the true God (emeth is a Hebrew word for faithfulness or truth), Aslan told Emeth, “Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me.” Some have used this passage to charge Lewis with being a universalist, though Lewis’s other writings clearly show he was not. But this passage does imply Lewis believed in a kind of inclusivism, where in some cases, mentally responsible people who have not embraced Christ in this life may ultimately be saved. The criterion for salvation, then, is not believing in Jesus while still here (John 1:12; 14:6; Acts 4:12; Romans 10:9–10). Rather, in some cases, God may consider it sufficient that someone has followed a false god with true motives. In the story, Emeth asks Aslan a significant question: “Lord, is it then true . . . that thou and Tash are one?” Aslan’s response leaves no room for confusion: The Lion growled so that the earth shook and said, “It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore, if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. . . . Beloved . . . unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.” (The Last Battle) Aslan categorically affirms he and Tash are in no sense alike. Indeed, Aslan despises the demon! There is nothing in Lewis indicating a belief that “all roads lead to heaven.” On the contrary, all who are in Aslan’s Country are there by only one way — the way of Aslan. Emeth is saved by Aslan — no one and nothing else. Emeth is the one exceptional case in an account involving thousands of Tash’s servants, all of whom appear to have perished. Emeth seems to be Lewis’s one hopeful exception, certainly not the rule. Emeth’s Better Parallel: Cornelius The Bible clearly states that “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). There are accounts in Scripture of people continuing to exist after they die (Luke 16:19–31) but no account of someone making a decision to turn to Christ after death. “I have met no people who fully disbelieved in hell and also had a live-giving belief in Heaven.” C.S. Lewis Bible believers are naturally perplexed by Emeth’s story and how to reconcile it with Lewis’s orthodox statements about salvation, heaven, and hell. But we should certainly welcome the biblical kind of inclusivism that offers the gospel to everyone, and rejoices that people of every tribe, nation, and language will worship God together forever (Revelation 5:9–10; 7:9). We should celebrate stories like that of Cornelius, whose service God accepted even before drawing him to a full understanding of the gospel (Acts 10:2, 22, 31). Emeth’s story would have paralleled Cornelius’s if Aslan had come to the young man before his death. That would have been my preference, certainly. But even with occasional imperfections, of which Emeth may be most prominent, the great truths of The Chronicles of Narnia remain clear, strong, and biblically resonant. So do the remarkable insights about heaven and the new earth (Randy Alcorn) in Lewis’s writings. People sometimes ask me why I tolerate Lewis’s more troubling doctrine. My answer is that his trajectory is toward the gospel, not away from it, and that God has used him to speak into my life Christ-centered and paradigm-shifting biblical truths. I do not have to embrace 100 percent of what Lewis said to benefit from that 85 percent that is so incredibly rich. Because Our Choices in This Life Shape Us Forever, God-Rejecters Might Be as Miserable in Heaven as in Hell In The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis spoke to those who argue against the doctrine of hell: In the long run the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of hell is itself a question: “What are you asking God to do?” To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But he has done so, on Calvary. To forgive them? They will not be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what he does. He adds this oft-quoted statement: “The damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; the doors of hell are locked on the inside. . . . They enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved.” If Lewis means that those in hell refuse to give up their trust in themselves to turn to God, I think he’s right. While they long to escape from hell, that is not the same as longing to be with God and repenting. Lewis speaks in The Great Divorce of “the demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste joy: that theirs should be the final power; that hell should be able to veto heaven.” Heaven and hell are places defined, respectively, by God’s presence or absence, by God’s grace or wrath. Whose we are, not where we are, determines our misery or our joy. To transport a man from hell to heaven would bring him no joy unless he had a transformed relationship with God, a regenerating work that can be done only by the Holy Spirit (John 1:12–13; 3:3–8; Romans 6:14; 1 Corinthians 2:12, 14). To the person sealed forever in righteousness, God will remain wondrous; to the one sealed forever in sin, God will remain dreadful. If we reject the best gift that a holy and gracious God can offer us, purchased with his blood, what remains, in the end, will be nothing but hell. Lewis also said in The Great Divorce, “All that are in hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.” This too is insightful but can be taken too far. One can desire joy outside of God and not find it, of course, but I take it that Lewis speaks of one who earnestly seeks the true God, the source of all joy. This is suggested in Jeremiah 29:13: “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” And Matthew 7:7: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” “To the person sealed forever in righteousness, God will remain wondrous; to the one sealed forever in sin, God will remain dreadful.” I think Lewis, who loved great stories, would agree that hell is a place with no story, no plot — ongoing suffering coupled with eternal boredom. Ironically, Satan labors to portray heaven, from which he was cast out, as boring and undesirable. The Bible, on the other hand, portrays the new heavens and the new earth as the setting for joy without end. If we think correctly about heaven, we will realize that because God is infinitely great and gracious, heaven is the ultimate adventure while hell is the ultimate sinkhole. Perhaps the best last word to give Lewis is this: “To enter heaven is to become more human than you ever succeeded in being on earth; to enter hell is to be banished from humanity” (The Problem of Pain). Article by Randy Alcorn