Jared Longshore's Blog, page 13

In Moses’ Day

In Moses’ day, God told Israel that if they would obey His voice and keep His covenant, then they would be a peculiar treasure unto Him above all people. They would be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These same covenant promises come to us, and our little ones. As they are baptized, they become signed and sealed citizens of this kingdom of priests. And these promises are yes and amen in Christ as we trust Him and obey Him. Our hope is not in water, as if it alone could wash away sins. But our hope is in the Great High Priest over this kingdom of Priests. He is the One who speaks by this water and His Word is true.

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Ultimate Authority

Our Lord’s triumph over the earthly authorities has much to teach us about authority in general. It did not go well for Agrippa when he exalted himself. And the entire hierarchy was levelled when Christ sent the Romans in judgment upon Jerusalem in AD70. In your positions of authority, this should sober you. And in positions under authority, it should do the same. “Put not your trust in man in whom there is no salvation.” And that principle works whether you are at the top of the hierarchy or at the bottom. I want to apply this to marriage, first with a word to wives and then husbands.

Wives, one of the fundamental truths that you must have clear in your mind in heart if you would respect your husband is that he is not Jesus. “Ah, you see, pastor, I already have that one covered.” OK, very good. But I have found more than a few women who have not. Errors abound. People have been known to say, “We have no king but Caesar.” And wives have been known to say, “I have no king but my man.” Abigail would beg to differ and she respected her husband by rightly identifying him as a fool. If you have no standard above your husband and no Godman above your man, then you do not have respect and submission. You have an idol.

Husbands, if you want to be eaten by worms, then signal that your wife should worship you. But there is a better way. That way requires you to know the difference between respect and disagreement. It requires you to trust God and not yourself. It requires you to love your wife, which includes covering a multitude of sins. There is an exacting man, who suffocates those under his leadership and doesn’t know the last thing about genuine patriarchy. He says that he will love his wife if she demonstrates loveliness, having forgotten that it is love that bestows loveliness. And if we might get to the heart of the matter, what shape was Christ’s bride in when He came to die for her? You go and do likewise.

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1776

The American revolution of 1776 was entirely different in principle, character, and tendency from all the revolutions of the European continent since 1789; and it is of the greatest importance to keep this difference in view, if we would duly understand and appreciate [the United States] and its prevailing idea of freedom.

Philip Schaff in God and the Atlantic, 153 by Thomas Howard

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Far Above What We Ask or Think

Imagine that you are there with Abraham when God told him that in him all the kindreds of the earth would be blessed. Really? Sure, it’s easy to believe this word now. You’ve had the privilege of being born a few thousand years after the promise was made. You’ve seen what God did to Egypt and to Og the king of Bashan’s land. You’ve seen David’s conquests and the Messiah Himself come to die for all nations. You’ve seen Pentecost and the march of the kingdom of God around the globe. So, easy for you to say, “Yes, and amen now.” But, what about back then when Abraham was nothing and his wife was long past childbearing years. Really, ‘all kindreds of the earth’ blessed in him?

Imagine him letting out this covenant promise to one of the inhabitants of Canaan only to hear the prideful chuckle and reply, “Hey, Abraham, it might be good for you to own a quarter acre of land here before you give into to any aspirations about changing all the nations of the earth.” The covenant promise is so heavy and unfathomable that God gave Abraham a sign so that he would remember and believe.

So it is with us today. This table is God’s sign of the new covenant. In it, He feeds you that you might live for Him. In it, Christ says, this is my body which has come down from heaven to give life to the world. The whole world? Yes, the whole world. Your children? Yes, your children? To how many generations? To a thousand generations. As you come to partake of this sacrament, trust Him for all of His promises. He is able to do far above all that we ask or think. So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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One With Christ

Baptism is not merely a practice in which we follow in Christ’s footsteps. Yes, He was baptized, and we, too, are baptized. But this is more than a matter of doing what Jesus did. Baptism is a sign of one’s ingrafting into Christ. It is a sign of what God Himself has done to us. The covenant child is not an outsider but has truly been grafted into the Lord Jesus. That is a cause for great joy because in the Lord Jesus is where all of the promises of God are yes and amen.

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Ask God to Part the Waters

What do you do when you’re running as fast as you can go but you’re not sure your fastest is fast enough? Or you’re thinking as hard as you can about solutions only to find none? Or, you’ve lived so long with a particular character flaw, you’re honestly not sure that sin will ever be put under your feet? Or, you have tried to restore your beaten and battered marriage, but you’re out of ideas when it comes to what tool will do the job?

Conservatives rightly critique zero sum game thinking in an economic context. One man’s gain does not imply another’s loss because the total wealth of the system is not fixed. Years ago, my grandfather gave me one of his banana stalks. I stuck it in the ground and soon had more banana stalks than I knew what to do with and plenty to share.

But if God can do that with banana stalks, what might He do with peace, forgiveness, temperance, self-control, and love? Yes, you only have one stalk of patience for the short-comings of your spouse right now. And you have no time in your schedule to get down to Moscow Building Supply and buy any more. But when did you stop believing that God multiplies patience stalks right out of your belly by the Holy Spirit whom He has placed there?

Sarah was short on cash and time, too. She’d reached the end of all the fertility maneuvers she knew of. But that didn’t matter at all when God decided to fill her womb. The capacity of David’s heart wasn’t large enough for him to run in the way of God’s commandments. But that didn’t matter at all when God enlarged it.

If you’re running into rivers that you can’t cross or walls that you can’t scale, that’s nothing to lose heart about. Ask God to part those waters. March around that Jericho with a song in your mouth and look to God to tear it down.

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The Guiding Star of Human Society

The precepts of the Decalogue are included to the extent that they infuse a vital spirit into the association and symbiotic life that we teach, that they carry a torch before the social life that we seek, and that they prescribe and constitute a way, rule, guiding star, and boundary for human society. If anyone would take them out of politics, he would destroy it; indeed, he would destroy all symbiosis and social life among men. For what would human life be without the piety of the first table of the Decalogue, and without the justice of the second?

Althusius, Politica, Preface to the Third Edition (1614)

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“Don’t Get Diddy’d”

A recent post of mine on X has garnered a bit of attention and more than a bit of screeching. Now that I have the attention of some of these people, I would like to outline where we are with a word of no peace to some and a word of peace or truce to others.

In this post, I compared the allure of the neo-Nazi stuff to a P. Diddy party, you know, the ones that have been in the news lately. And I compared the work Doug Wilson has been doing, warning about the rot, to the rapper 50 Cent, who has been warning about P. Diddy and his parties for years. While I am not a connoisseur of the rap scene, when I became aware of the news that P. Diddy’s parties were all fun and games until they were not, and nobody wanted to listen to 50, the parallel was clear: the recent flirtation with a little bit of white pride was all fun and games until it was not, and many have not wanted to listen.

If the correlation is too distasteful for you, I agree and request that folks knock off the neo-Nazi propaganda, or I fear I will be out here like Ezekiel, cooking food over feces next (Ezekiel 4:12-13).

But do note that the correlation is distasteful to the ones leading the neo-Nazi propaganda charge. It was aimed at them. Yes, they don’t like being compared to the black rapper with far too much baby oil, which is exactly why they should stop acting like him. So the word of no peace goes to anyone who wants to sympathize with racial pride, the Third Reich, or that seething malice against the Jews. There are plenty of good men rebuilding Western civilization, and your vitriol, ingratitude, and spite will rot out the statues of our fathers.

The word of peace goes to the many good Christians out there who think I’m taking the wrong angle, along with some of the other men in Moscow. I’m all ears for that conversation. We are in a time of tumult, things are falling apart on the right hand and on the left, and you’re going to be hard-pressed to find anyone more eager to rebuild our culture, heritage, and traditions. It is my basic assumption that the neo-Nazi propaganda is both wicked and most certainly won’t help the cause. If you think that I’m pulling a small weed in the garden, why are you so upset? Or do you think there’s no weed at all? If no weed, did you see the recent White Boy Summer video or no?

Let’s make a deal. Me smacking the neo-Nazis after some WBS fella literally put it in a hype video doesn’t make me Ray Ortlund, who, for Pete’s sake, just went and endorsed Kamala. And you wearing viper glasses, enjoying the Crusader memes, and saying amen to Stephen Wolfe’s work doesn’t make you the neo-Nazis I just smacked. I, for one, get quite a kick out of the memes and say amen to 99% of what my friend Stephen has written.

Much of what we’re dealing with is situational. You may not have run into guys wooed by the white racist stuff, but I have, and in real-life ministry for more than a few years now. It’s really ugly to watch them fall away from Christ. “Yeah, but calling out the dudes that are pulling them away from Christ the way you did isn’t helpful.” Well, I could have told them to cut off their testicles (Galatians 5:12).

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When Your Children Say Unto You

When the LORD instituted the Old Testament Passover, He did so with the purpose that it would catch children’s attention. Even the children recognize that we are engaged in something holy, something distinct, something peculiar. Moses anticipates their questions, “And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, ‘What mean ye by this service?’ That ye shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses” (Exodus 12:26-27).

This New Covenant table operates in the same manner as that Old Covenant table. It is a potent means of God’s grace. And it delivers that grace with instruction, not apart from instruction. Here is a word to parents: Teach your little ones about the grace of God. Do this as your homes, as you walk by the way, when you lay down to sleep, and when you wake. Our Father has given you Word. He speaks to you in creation and He speaks to you through the prophets and the apostles. He has spoken to you in His Son and He speaks to you at this table. He has set His face toward you and has assaulted you with words of grace that flow toward you like a mighty stream.

You must do likewise. Tell the littles ones that this bread is the body of Christ broken for them and us. This cup it the blood of Christ shed for them and us. God’s judgment has passed over our house because He has chosen us as His people out of all the peoples of the earth. We come to this table in faith and our faith is not faith in faith or faith in an abstract idea. It is faith in the Word our Father has given to us. So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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A Sign From Heaven

Baptism is an earthly sign from our heavenly King. In baptism, our Triune God says, “You are my covenant child. Let there be no doubt. You are my chosen race, holy nation, and royal priesthood.” But how can we be sure about this sign from heaven? Peter tells us that baptism comes to us by the resurrection of Jesus Christ who is gone into heaven, angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him. The One who speaks this sign to us is the same One who has delivered His people through water time and time again, be it Noah through the flood, Israel through the sea, or our Lord Himself who has passed through the water above the heavens. God speaks from His temple through water today, saying, “I am your God, you are my people.”

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