The Conversion of Malcolm Muggeridge: Anthropology Meets Theology

The Old Testament prophet Isaiah had a life changing experience, which is described in the sixth chapter of the book that bears his name:  “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, sitting on a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple…. And I said ‘Woe is me!  For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and…my eyes have seen the Lord of hosts!”

Below are three paragraphs about the British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, written by pastor and author Richard D. Phillips.

Malcolm Muggeridge, the famous British journalist, had a life- changing experience that was very different from the prophet Isaiah.  Yet in one respect it was quite similar: they both came to a piercing awareness of their depraved spiritual condition.  But whereas Isaiah learned to say “Woe is me!” in the face of God, Muggeridge learned it in the face of a leper woman.

On assignment in India, Muggeridge went to a river for a swim.  As he entered the water, his eyes fell on a woman bathing.  He felt an impulse to go to her and seduce her, just as King David felt when he saw Bathsheba.  Temptation storming in his mind, he began swimming toward her.  The words of his wedding vows came to his mind, but he responded by just going faster.  The voice of allurement called out, “Stolen water is sweet” (Prov. 9:17), and he swam more furiously still.  But when he pulled up near the woman and she turned, Muggeridge saw, “She was a leper…. This creature grinned at me, showing a toothless mask.”  His first reaction was to despise her:  “What a dirty, lecherous woman!” he thought.  But then it crashed in on him that it was not the woman who was lecherous; it was his own heart.  This is precisely the teaching of the Bible about the moral and spiritual condition of men and women: our hearts are corrupt, our minds are depraved, and our desires are enslaved to the passions of sin.

It was not by chance that Isaiah felt his depravity when confronted with God’s holy presence, any more than it was by chance that Muggeridge’s glimpse of his true condition led to his conversion to Christianity.  One way to put this is that theology and anthropology are always linked.  In order to understand the truth about yourself and other people, you have to see the truth about God – and vice versa.  John Calvin made this point in his Institutes of the Christian Religion”, commenting that one may begin a study of theology either with God or with man, since to know either correctly, you must correctly know the other.

(From the book “What’s So Great About the Doctrines of Grace”, by Richard D Phillips)

Letters to my Stepdaughter VI

This is the final installment of my letters that I wrote to my stepdaughter.  This one was written in February of 2013.  Much has happened since I wrote the first one in November in 2012.  My goal was to introduce myself to her, since we had only spoken a few times.  In intoducing myself to her, I could not keep from presenting the gospel, because the gospel is a part of me.  Or maybe it would be better say that I, by the grace of God, have entered into the gospel through Jesus Christ and I now have my life in its midst.

Warning signs are everywhere, such as “Caution”, “Wrong way”, Dead End”, “Railroad”.  We get away with ignoring some of them without immediate consequences.  But if we ignore all of them, we do so at our own peril.  Many of them I don’t like.  I prefer to pick and choose.  As serious as it can be to drive thru a dead end sign, nothing compares to violating God’s holy, immutable laws.  Nothing even comes close.

 Like it or not, believe it or not, you and I entered this worlds with “dictator” written on our foreheads – no, written on our hearts.  In God’s great patience, He patiently endures our rebellion, foolishness, and, worst of all, hatred of all that he stands for.  By nature I am moody, selfish, prone to addictions, irresponsible, lustful, and on and on.  Those are the visible fruits of a life that inwardly is something much worse.  I want to run my own life.  That’s why I am a dictator, and an evil one at that.  Nobody, not even the God who made every atom and rules an immeasurable universe, is going to run my life. Or so I think.  He says “the soul that sins shall die.”  I think I can possibly tremble for a few minutes about such a statement, but eventually, I’m going to do what I want. 

Do you think seriously about what the serpent, Satan, told Eve when he tempted her to eat the fruit and break the one “no-no” that God had given her and Adam?  He told her she would be like god.  Now, the real God, the only God, had told the first man and woman that they would die when they ate the fruit.  And they did – immediately.  They ran away, hid, and made clothes for themselves out of fig leaves, hoping to hide the God who was now their enemy.  There was no sorrow for sin, no plan to confess to God what they had done.  Read it again.  When God spoke to them, they tried to place the blame somewhere else – Adam blamed Eve, and she blamed the serpent.  The Holy God showed mercy and allowed them to live physically, but they were quite dead in the way that really mattered.  They were spiritually dead.  Here’s where you and I come in.  We died with them, before we were even born.  Don’t even try arguing the point, because He has said it is so, and no other opinion matters.  Through Adam and Eve came death into the world for everyone who came after.  Period. 

Now, here is the incredible lie that we believe.  We think we are alive.  We live in self-delusion.  We proclaim ourselves masters of our fate, we boast that we can follow our hearts (which are fully corrupted by our rebelliousness nature), and we think that we are basically good, and just have a few faults that drag us down from time to time.  We lie to ourselves.  Worse, we live a lie before God.  Can a man say “I believe in God” and then turn around and live for himself and give only lip service to God?  It happens all the time.  So, return to the warnings where we started.  I can warn you about many things.  Just to name a few signs, there is wastefulness, slothfulness, substance abuse and the corrupt life that goes along with it, sex outside of marriage, being quick-tempered, jealousy, and worshipping idols – an idol being anything one puts ahead of God.  Do you know what?  I stole that list out of the Scriptures.  Sin is not hard to find, and God hates sin. 

The list is not without meaning, and neither is a sign.  But a sign’s value is not in what it is by itself, but what it is pointing to.  I cannot beg you hard enough to do what you must do.  What you must do is run to Jesus, bow before Him, and confess that you, like me, are sinner who needs mercy, and then rise up prepared to follow Him to the ends of the earth.  But I cannot move you, persuade you, or bribe you to do so.  It is the work of the Holy Spirit that transforms a heart.  I pray daily for you.  God bless you and reveal His wonderful grace to you, Dear Stepdaughter.  

Letters to my Stepdaughter V

This was written in January of 2013.

Have you ever thought about the enormity of everything around us?  I do.  I am writing this at about 7:30 P.M.  Here are some facts.  I am only one of over 7 billion people in the world.  Since I woke up this morning nearly 300,000 babies have been born and about 125,000 people have died.  One thousand today have died by some form of violence.  There have been over 100,000 abortions, which is almost as many as the number of deaths.  What is the point of this?  It is an inescapable fact that, in one sense, I am very insignificant.  In that sense, I am just a number.  On top of that, I live on a tiny planet in a galaxy that is part of a universe that has trillions and trillions of galaxies.  I am only a speck.  Now, that can leave me with a sense of a futility.  I will be dead and gone in a comparatively short time, so what about me really matters? 

Now, let me make a connection.  You and your mother have begun a Bible study, a study in a small New Testament book called Colossians.  The one who created this incredibly large universe providentially determined that a book – the Bible – would be given as a gift to His people.  In His incredible, incomprehensible mind He determined that you two would be studying it in the year we call 2013.   The words in this Book are life to believers, to those whose eyes have been opened and ears unstopped in order that they might begin to understand just a little – and just enough to make Him their greatest treasure – about this all-mighty, all-powerful God.  As you study, I hope that you will grasp what God has done for those who believe.  This book unfolds the wondrous plan of salvation.  God’s word is meat and drink, a glorious feast for Christians. 

One of the gracious gifts that God has given to his children is the inner joy that we experience knowing that we have eternal life in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  I hope you also see its sober warnings.  We are warned not to be entrapped by the philosophy of the world.  We are warned to turn from what God calls sin.  We are commanded here (and in many, many other places in scripture) to maintain pure worship, sexual integrity, a love of the truth, love for others, and persevering faith.  Wow, that’s a lot.  And it is impossible for anyone not filled with the Spirit of God to be able to do it.  I will be praying for you as you study.  Like me, you are a small speck in this universe.  May God reveal to you what it means to live not as a meaningless speck, but as an adopted child of the Living God.

Wyatt Barbour, about 3 weeks old

Holding my grandson, Wyatt, 10 years ago when he was about three weeks old.  Standing by is his mother, probably making sure I don't drop him.