frontiers in mission 177-180

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The Roberta Winter Institute will try to up-grade our desire to bring glory to God byending our apparently neoplatonist trucewith Satan in the realm of all his ingeniousand destructive works. Our global missionagencies, which already have to their creditthe discovery of the nature of leprosy, will de-clare war on other sources of disease in addi-tion to being kind helpfully to sick people andpreaching resignation amidst suffering.

Mobilized Christian response did not comesoon enough to materially help my wife, andmay not help you or yours. But the least wecan do is set something in motion that mayrectify our understanding of a God who is notthe author of the destructive violence in na-ture and who has long sought our help in

bringing His kingdom and His will onearth.

We are in a war against an intelligent

enemyWhat I am trying to do, groping into it gradu-

ally but as fast as I can, is to try to undo a hugeand diabolical complex of misunderstandingswhich enervates and destroys any resistance wemight offer to the distorting works of the Devil.

My pastor (Gordon Kirk, Lake AvenueCongregational Church in Pasadena, Califor-nia) who is a former theology professor at Bi-ola has observed that Satans greatestachievement has been to cover his tracks.This urges us to recognize that we are exten-sively unaware of diabolic activity in theworld.

In scripture we see the prominence of theemphasis on the coming of Gods Kingdom,and note that the Son of God appeared forthis purpose, to destroy the works of the Dev-il (1 Jn 3:8). What if all disease pathogens as

well as all violent forms of life are the work ofSatan? How would that amplify and refocusour global mission?

When Satan turned against God preciselywhat kind of destruction and perversion didhe set out to achieve? Where would we seeevidence of his works? Would he set out topervert the DNA of originally tame animals?Would he employ powers of deception sothat we would get accustomed to pervasive

violence in nature and no longer connect anintelligent evil power with evil and suffering?Worse still, would Satan even successfullytempt us to think that God is somehow be-hind all eviland that we must therefore notattempt to eradicate things like smallpox lestwe interfere with Divine Providence?

In the last 20 years paleontologists havedug up more evidences of earlier life formsthan in all previous history. One of their

thought-provoking discoveries is that pre-Cambrian forms of life revealed no predators.Then, at that juncture destructive forms of lifesuddenly appeared at all levels, from largecreatures to destructive forms of life at thesmallest microbiological level.

Is this what Satan set out to do from thetime he fell out with the Creatorthat is, didhe set about to pervert and distort all forms oflife so as to transform all nature into an arena

red in tooth and claw that reigns today?We need to recognize and ponder more se-

riously the kind and degree of harm Satan isable to cause. We need to unmask the worksof Satan.

Are we fellowships of survivors or of sol-diers? We are all enlisted to war against theworks of Satan.

Roberta Winter Institute

Compiled and condensed from the writings and speeches of Ralph D. Winter.

Beth Snodderly, February, 2003D793

Chapter 37

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oberta Winter Institute, page 2 Chapter 37

Attributing evil to God/distortion ofGods character

There are very many people, even Bible-believing Christians not just non-Christians,who are profoundly puzzled, perplexed, and

certainly confused by the extensive presenceof outrageous evil in the created world of all-powerful, benevolent God. In coping withthis, they may frequently attribute to Godwhat is actually the work of an evil intelli-gence, and thus fatalistically give not theslightest thought to fighting back.

The assumption that all evil comes fromGod is pagan, coming from neo-Platonismwhich taught there is one God who is thesource of both evil & good. We have inheritedthis thinking in our view of Romans 8:28.

The Intelligent Design people dont takeinto account that they are attributing the crea-tion of evil to God. Darwin did not do this. In-stead he invented the wacky theory ofunaidedevolution. But Darwin at least recognized thepresence of evil if not intelligent evil, andeven the need to protect the reputation of a

benevolent God. In that he scored higher thanwhat we see in the written materials of Intelli-gent Design.

The corollary to this mistaken assumptionthat all evil comes from God is that we cantgo after evil because wed be going after God.The pattern is to be resigned to evil, even topresume that God is behind all things ratherthan that God is in front of all things, turningSatanic evil into good, but by no means ini-tiating the evil, much less suggesting that wedo nothing about it.

Free Will/God works throughintermediaries

We need to recognize the very radical andsignificant decision of God to create beings,angelic and human, with true free will and towork through those intermediaries.

We may frequently ask God to do thingswhich He has been expecting us as intermedi-

aries to do. Our mission then may need to in-clude things for which we ordinarily onlypray.

The concept of inappropriate prayer. This isseldom discussed in Evangelical circles. As aresult, we fail frequently to distinguish be-tween what part God wants us to play andwhat part only He can play. Confusion in thisarea is clearly in Satans favor. He is gladwhen he can get us to ask God to do some-thing God expects us to do. But it must betrue that God empowers those who seek himand want to do His will.

We dont ask God to paint the back fence.

We dont ask God to evangelize the heath-

en (as they did in William Careys day).We should not ask God to take care of dis-

ease.

God, we know, invites us to bind up thewounds we can see with our eyes and toward off evil which is large enough to seewithout a microscope, but He also hasseemed to want to await human collaborationin fighting the microbiological roots of evil forsome reason we may not fully understand.

We have an un-updated theology, thinkingthat we arent responsible to do somethingabout something we cant see (microbes). Butwe CAN see these now and do something.We are casting aside a whole arena of respon-sibility.

Un-updated theology that doesnttake new knowledge aboutmicrobiology into account

It seems likely that now that we have newknowledge about the outside sources of sev-eral massive diseases that we cannot in goodconscience fail to do what we can to mountnew offensive warfare with those attackingsources.

From Theologizing the MicobiologicalWorld: Our theologies, that is, our formalizedways of attempting to think Biblically, were ham-

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mered out during centuries that were totallyblind to the microscopic world.

Evangelicals have recently stressed the in-evitable intelligence and design in nature, butthey have not, to my knowledge, attempted tosuggest that there is evidence of any evil intel-

ligence and design. This is perhaps due to atheological tradition which does not under-stand demonic powers to have the ability todistort DNA. Our Evangelical theological tra-dition is so old that it also would not conceiveof good angels working at the DNA level. Inother words, we have no explicit theology forintentional modification of either good or bad

bacteria. Our current theological literature, tomy knowledge, does not seriously consider

disease pathogens from a theological point ofviewthat is, are they the work of God or Sa-tan? Much less does this literature ask thequestion, Does God mandate us to eliminatepathogens?

Discover and eradicate the origins ofdisease rather than treatment and

prevention

Surprising recent insights show that many

diseases are basically caused by outside in-vaders which we need to fight in the samesense as we fight the crime of visible terror-ists. Does nutrition, exercise, banishing anxie-ty, etc. protect you or cure you of Malaria?Are our immune systems normally capable ofdefeating Malaria, Tuberculosis, Smallpox,Anthrax, etc.? No, not normally. And, if thelatest thinking is correct slow-acting virusesunderlie heart disease as well as cancer, mul-tiple sclerosis, Alzheimers, and Schizophre-

nia. So, do we go on just praying in additionto making sure we heed these other things(nutrition, exercise, peace of soul and mind,etc.)? It is understandable, of course, that wewould not automatically think about going

beyond prayer and taking concrete measuresto quell the source of these destructive diseas-es if we did not know that they are caused byattacking pathogens which our immune sys-tems, no matter how healthy, cannot always

overcome.

I spent a couple of hours [recently] prayer-fully perusing a book that patiently, detailed-ly, describes how over 200 years of mission-ary work went down the drain. The wordFlorida in the 16th century included not only

our present state by that name but also the en-tire southeast of the USA, in the triangle fromVirginia to Alabama to Miami. In that arealived literally hundreds of thousands of Indi-ans (native Americans). Well, between about1530 and 1800 primarily Spanish work wasundertaken employing both soldiers and mis-sionaries, the latter very faithfully. Lots ofgood things and unwise things happened, buteventually missions (outposts) of the kind

we see still standing in California, 150 ofthem, were planted. Each one was a worshipcenter, an educational center, and an industri-al center. However, today there is not a physi-cal trace of a single one of those painstakinglyestablished missions. Worse still the entire In-dian population, as in Cuba, has totally van-ished, dying primarily of European diseases.All of those hundreds of thousands of people!Their religion certainly did not save them, atleast not in this life. I admit that I cannot

easily shake off the sensation of strangenessand tragedy hovering over those 250 yearsduring which Spanish, French and Britishfought each other and in some cases Indianuprisings, without realizing that their realand common enemy was Satanically devisedpathogens.

Missions implications/bringing gloryto God

Are we to send missionaries around theworld simultaneously to implant disease andoffer eternal salvation? You will say no, notintentionally. But what about the diseasesthey already have? Are we to help them toeradicate those diseases (not just be kind tothose who get sick)?

To destroy the works of the devil is onemajor way in which our testimony of word

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and deed can glorify the true nature of ourliving God, our heavenly father. It is not analternative to evangelism, it will make ourevangelism more credible. It is to rectify ourGods damaged reputation. It is to avoid extend-ing the implicit and embarrassing policy of al-

most constantly misrepresenting Him in ourmission work around the world. Attackingthe roots of disease is part and parcel of our

basic mandate to glorify God in all the earth.

The principal concern in all of this is thedistortion we can see in many peoples ideasof God. Pause and consider Tozers statementthat The most important thing about you is whatcomes to your mind when you think of God. Ourtheological inheritance was hammered out be-

fore germs were known of. A full awarenessof the larger scope of the battle against God isnot yet ours. In regard to horrifying violencein nature, people have become so used to it,so accustomed to it, so hardened to it, so cal-loused about it that they have drifted intosuppositions that this must be the way Godcreated things. (Only Satan is happy aboutthat.) And, people get to thinking that a Godwho does not mind violence, cruelty and suf-fering, whether among animals or man, is not

the most appealing kind of a God when weset out to win people to Christ, His Son.

The Purpose for the Roberta WinterInstitute

At this point it is time to ask the questionwhy it is that the mounting muscle of thevery considerable movement of all those glo-

bally who are moved by Jesus Christ has notweighed in either theologically or practically

in the area of working to correct distortions ofnature and of Gods will by going to the roots ofthe problem. In a way this is the most ominousfact of all.

I know of no theological tradition, no de-nomination, no Christian schoolor hospitalfor that matterthat has seriously acceptedthe roots of the challenge of the enormousand continuing and growing factor of diseasein this world of ours.

Meanwhile constantly both believers andnon-believers are stumbling about wonderingover the amount, the harshness, and the un-predictability of evil in our world. Indeed, thecredibility of an all-powerful and loving Godis constantly being called into question by

people who are no longer content to supposethat God has His reasons. We may indeednot know all His reasons. But do we have rea-sons for our inaction?

It is truly astonishing how much greaterwe can make the impact of our missionaryevangelism if the true spectrum of concern ofour loving God is made clear and is backedup by serious attention not only to treating ill-ness but to eradicating the evil causes, the

works of the devil.Gordon Kirk says that Satans greatest

achievement is to cover his tracks. That,surely, is why we get out of practice speakingof him or recognizing his works or even rec-ognizing his existence. Yet, when we reinstatehis existence as an evil intelligence loose inGods creation only then do a lot of things be-come clear and reasonable. Otherwise Godgets blamed for all kinds of evil: God tookmy wife, etc.

I find it difficult, after making this switch,not to conclude that Satan's angels are thesource of life-destroying forms of life, viciousanimals, bacteria, viruses. Not that he createdthem but that he tampered with their DNA todistort them. To destroy his works meansthus to take it as part of our efforts, our mis-sion, to glorify God to restore, with God'shelp, what Satan has distorted. Thus, you seethe rationale for establishing the Roberta Win-

ter Institute.The primary focus of this new institute will

not be laboratory science but public and mis-sion awareness of the need for a new theolog-ical sensitivity for destroying the works of thedevil.

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