Jared Longshore's Blog, page 30

How to Stand Before Kings

It is one thing to make great plans, and it is another to execute the steps. You have seen this before. A man dreams of being generous while walking by a person in need. A student stays up late into the evening, doodling her path to graduation, then she sleeps in the following morning, missing class. A couple imagines what it would be like to have a healthy marriage, but they don’t work through and settle their latest conflict. We want to finish the race, and that is commendable. But the finish line only materializes when you put your feet to pavement. 

Proverbs 29:29 says, “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings.” But it does not say that you will stand before kings if you merely think about standing before them. It is not the man who hears the word which is blessed but the man who does the word.

Diligence requires that you show up on time and labor skillfully at your assigned task. The kind of work varies. It may be shopping for groceries, going for a run, attending a faculty meeting, or answering e-mails. It may also be the work of confessing sin, interceding in prayer for a friend, or leading a time of family worship. Whatever the work, the key is to do it without delay. 

When we get down to our business, then others see our faith. James says, “Shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works” (James 2:18). Diligence, then, is not some good old-fashioned legalism as if we leave off faith in order to get on with labor. No, it is our faith that works. By faith we live in the moment, rejoice in our station, and do the word believing that the hand of the diligent shall rule.

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Table of Peace

There are all sorts of things that can trouble us. Paul said he was “troubled on every side; without were fightings, within were fears” (2 Corinthians 7:5). But this trouble does not only come upon us as individuals. Trouble comes upon the one bride of Christ, the body of the Lord Jesus, and we are that body. Sin doesn’t only churn up the otherwise clear waters of your mind and your sense of well-being. It also troubles our unity.

You have seen these snarls, and not only at a distance. You can recall times of great peace with other saints. But you can also recall the discord that arose when people coveted but did not obtain their heart’s desire. You can find Christians falling into quarrels in every season. And these divisions can come quickly. Proverbs 17:14 says, “The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water: Therefore leave off contention, before it be meddled with.” 

One of the chief ways we leave off contention is by coming to this table together. We come to one bread as one bread. We come to partake of one body for we are one body. Before His departure, Christ said to his disciples, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you” (John 14:27). That peace is manifest here. Christ made peace, reconciling us to Himself and reconciling us to one another. He made this peace by the blood of His cross. We drink that cup of peace now. We take His body which was broken for us so that all of our fractures would be healed. So as you come to this table, come receiving the peace of God. Come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ. 

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A Call for Normal Manly Men

It is fair to conclude that there has been a much-needed resurgence of masculinity of late. Our culture’s drift towards effeminacy has so infiltrated the church that a limp wrist seems a requirement for the pulpit. For this reason, I applaud recent works like Michael Foster’s It’s Good to Be a Man. We need straightforward, no-chaser teaching on masculinity like a compass needs the north, like Romeo needs his Juliet, like Fox News needs Tucker Carlson back. As the kids say, we need it real bad, no cap.

So my intention here is not to discourage the rising generation of men from the pursuit of manliness. Rather, it is to encourage them to run even faster toward that goal. We need men to obtain the prize; pulling a hamstring halfway down the track will not a champion make. In this spirit, I offer some signs of weird man to avoid, followed by indicators of normal man strength which we should all embody post haste.

Go West, Not Weird, Young Man

A notable sign of weird man masculinity is the relentless sharing of workout photos and videos on social media. Worse yet, when another man ardently likes and shares such images, adding that string of fire emoticons. Note well. Lifting weights—commendable and ordinary. Telling your friend that he put in good work today on that lift—perfectly normal. Drooling over your buddy’s gym pics, retweeting them, and calling him a “king”—go ahead and pump the breaks right there.

Another bad sign is being a he-man-woman-hater. Yes, it was good fun when Spanky and the boys from the Little Rascals founded that club back in the day. But you must grow up to actually like women. You need to find one that you like enough to protect her all the way to the grave. I am thoroughly acquainted with how many false charges of misogyny are leveled in these parts. But that doesn’t give you the right to actually be misogynistic. Signs of this kind of thing would be calling women idiots, talking bad about your mother, or visiting those dark pornographic sites on the internet.

Likewise, don’t set up the likes of Andrew Tate as a paragon of masculinity. Young men are looking in every direction for what it means to be a man. But the guy who admits that he tries to get multiple women to fall in love with him so that he can get them to prostitute themselves and make him money, that guy is not the pristine example of manhood. In fact, this kind of thing is an example of when misguided attempts at manliness go around the bend and become effeminate. It is of the nature of women to woo a man who will work for her and bring home the bacon. It is of the nature of men to work and provide for women. 

A final sign of weird man is all of the chest-puffing. If you keep that up, you end up looking like one of those birds of paradise shaking his tail feather in the rainforest of Papua New Guinea. It is quite fun watching them do it. And it is fun enough if you are teasing. But if you are the least bit serious about your boasting, you simply look like a buffoon. It is true that even among our species, men compete for women’s approval. This is natural and as it should be. However, the kind of lady you really want to win doesn’t look for a man who points to himself but puts points on the scoreboard. 

Marks of  a Normal Manly Man

First, find profitable work that people appreciate enough to pay you for. Then do your job well. After you have been at it for a while, stay at it even more until someone could honestly call you skillful. Proverbs 29:29 says. ” Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men.” Wanting to stand in the king’s court isn’t enough. You have to show up on time and get to work.

Second, marry a woman and have a lot of kids. Die for the well-being of your household. Leave it all on the field. Pray for them. Lead, protect, provide. Give your kids the best education you can find.

Third, worship God with your family. This comes before everything else. You will never be the man you should be if you do not appear before your Creator on the Lord’s Day.

Fourth, stop griping about your problems and start solving them. Yes, things are going to rot. So do something to fix it. Read a book. Understand the times. Find some other men who are actually laboring for reformation and join them. Build something so that your grandsons will have it better than you and be better than you.

Fifth, place your trust in the truest man that ever lived. Adversity is unavoidable. Without Christ as your Lord, you will be forced to choose one of two bad paths. 

The first is to surrender. You will flake out and flame out. You will call it quits, phone it in, and grow resentful that you fell short of the standard. In the worst forms of this, you will abandon your wife and neglect your kids. You will follow in the footsteps of Olympic gold medalist Bruce Jenner, who after a considerable display of natural or animal masculinity, didn’t finish the race and ended up soft, effeminate, and gay.

The other bad route is to respond to adversity with uncontrolled anger. You will kick lawnmowers and throw hammers. The challenges of life will stir anger in you such that you will repel your children like a magnet. Your household will walk on eggshells around you until they walk away from you altogether.

The curse that fell on our father Adam has fallen on us. We now work by the sweat of our brow. It is a tough road. The only way to endure is by faith in the Second Adam. He works patience, fortitude, and courage in us. The true form of these qualities can’t be found anywhere else.

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Mark Dever, Regenerate Babies, and Gospel Protectors

So Mark Dever recently said a little something at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He went hard in the paint on the Paedobaptist brethren. He went to dunking on them in the style of a Southern Baptist Lebron James. After descending from the rim, he even extended the right hand to them, lifting them from the floor with an altar call invitation by which the Reformed Paedobaptists of the world could come down and enter the baptismal waters for the first time.

Many of you know that I stumbled my way from the Second London Baptist Confession to
the Westminster a little while back. And while that journey has its bumps, it is nice to discover that one can go through the whole Shabang without ever leaving London. One of the benefits to this particular trip is that you really do know what is happening over there in Baptistville. And it also makes one appreciate how someone like Dever is working out his theological system. I loved Baptists when I was a Baptist. And in the weirdest and most delightful way, I love them even more now that I baptize infants.

Now Mark said a number of things so there are multiple toppings on this slice of pie. I would like to isolate two of them and offer some commentary. Before doing so, I should note that I count Mark a friendly acquaintance. Over the years of my ministry, I have learned things from him. I have made a couple of trips to Capitol Hill Baptist Church over the years. I enjoyed one of those weekenders back in the day. Now Mark’s practice at Capitol Hill is to not baptize until the age of eighteen. I never agreed with that practice. But Mark preaches the gospel and for that I am grateful. All that to say, my commentary here is the friendly kind with a brotherly kick in the pants at the end. I got quite tickled watching Mark go full Baptist. I’m summarizing here, but you should watch and enjoy lines like, “Paedobaptists I love you, you are welcome in our pulpits. You are smarter than us, but I get quite tired of being condescended to on this regenerate church membership point.” So Dever’s vent at SEBTS is worth a good laugh in my opinion and there are a couple of important points in there to boot.

First, we should say something about regenerate little ones and regenerate church membership. A very dicey topic indeed. So I would just remind you that I didn’t bring it up. Mark did. In the second position, I’d like to consider Mark’s claim, a widespread Baptist claim— indeed a hallmark Baptist claim—that we must get rid of infant Baptism if we would protect the gospel.

Little Regenerate Babes

The topic of regenerate church membership came up. And Mark made the point that he, as a Baptist mind you, is cozied up right there next to Rome and the East on the matter. Yes, I am having a bit of fun with that last sentence. But Mark is making what appears to be a solid point: “You Reformed Paedobaptists claim that the church includes regenerate and unregenerate. But the Baptists along with Rome and the East maintain a regenerate church membership.” Mark jumps up and down on this point, saying that the Reformed Paedobaptists are the weird ones in the room claiming a church full of unregenerate people.

His statement brings up the question about the relationship between regeneration and the little Christian babes who Paedobaptists of course baptize and acknowledge as members of the visible church (WCF 25.2). If a Paedobaptist were to stand up and say, “Now, Dever, we’re not that strange. Historically, the Reformed Paedobaptists generally believe in a regenerate church,” he is locked and loaded with his next question, “Oh, so do you think those little infants you baptize are regenerate?” And now we have a controversy on our hands. I understand that in our current climate, one can get in trouble for even putting the word “regenerate” and “infant” in the same sentence. But, I repeat: Mark brought this up. And I am simply going to point to the well-beloved and trusted Geerhardus Vos who might shed a bit of light into our times which are in great need of that particular substance.

Vos himself writes, “Another point of difference concerns the time when the promises of the covenant are usually realized by regeneration in the children of the covenant. Three schools of thought can be identified: the first school (including Ursinus, Polanus, Junius, Walaeus, Cloppenburg, Voetius, and Witsius) not only assumes that the children of the covenant who die before they reach the age of discretion, possess the Holy Spirit from their earliest childhood and so are born again and united to Christ, but also maintains this thesis as generally valid for the seed of the promise without distinction. They use it as an argument in defense of infant baptism in their polemics with the Anabaptists.”

Then Vos delivers several quotes, many of which follow.

Reformed Paedobaptists Respond

Polanus, the 16th century German Reformed theologian, wrote that the children of believers must be baptized “because they have been purchased by the blood of Christ, have been washed from their sins, and possess therefore by the work of the Holy Spirit the thing signified.… Because the Holy Spirit is promised to them, they possess the Holy Spirit” (Syntagma, VI, 55).

Antonius Walaeus, the 16th century Dutch Calvinist minister wrote, “we require with the Scriptures antecedent faith and repentance in the one who is baptized, at least according to the judgment of love, both in the infant children of covenant members, and in adults. For we maintain that in infants too the presence of the seed and the Spirit of faith and conversion is to be ascertained on the basis of divine blessing and the evangelical covenant.”

The 16th century Italian Reformed theologian Peter Martyr Vermigli wrote, “because we must not curiously investigate the hidden providence and election of God, we assume that the children of believers are holy, as long as in growing up they do not demonstrate themselves to be estranged from Christ. We do not exclude them from the church, but accept them as members, with the hope that they are partakers of the divine election and have the grace and Spirit of Christ, even as they are the seed of saints. On that basis we baptize them. We do not need to respond to those who object and ask whether the minister is deceived, whether perhaps the infant is in truth no child of the promise, of divine election and mercy. Similar diatribes could be adduced with regard to adults.” (Loci Communes, IV, 8, 7).

Ursinus, the 16th century Reformed German theologian wrote, “This is sure and certain, that God instituted his sacraments and covenant seals only for those who recognize and maintain the church as already made up of parties of the covenant, and that it is not His intention to make them Christians by the sacraments first, but rather to make those who are already Christians to be Christians more and more and to confirm the work begun in them.… 

Hence, if anyone considers the children of Christians to be pagans and non-Christians, and damns all those infants who cannot come to be baptized, let him take care on what ground he does so, because Paul calls them holy (1 Cor. 7), and God says to all believers in the person of Abraham that He will be their God and the God of their seed.… Next let him consider how he will permit them to be baptized with a good conscience, for knowingly to baptize a pagan and unbeliever is an open abuse and desecration of baptism. Our continual answer to the Anabaptists, when they appeal to the lack of faith in infants against infant baptism, is that the Holy Spirit works regeneration and the inclination to faith and obedience to God in them in a manner appropriate to their age, always with it understood that we leave the free mercy and heavenly election unbound and unpenetrated.”

Then there is Junius, the 16th century Reformed theologian who studied in Geneva under Calvin: “We call it false to argue that infants are completely incapable of faith; if they have faith in the principle of the habitus, they have the Spirit of faith.… Regeneration is viewed from two aspects, as it is in its foundation, in Christ, in principle, and as it is active in us. The former (which can also be called transplanting from the first to the second Adam) is the root, from which the latter arises as its fruit. By the former elect infants are born again, when they are incorporated into Christ, and its sealing occurs in baptism” (Theses Theologicae, LI, 7).

Voetius, the 16th century Dutch Calvnist, wrote, “The seventh opinion is the general point of view of Reformed teachers, in which regeneration is acknowledged in each of the children of the covenant in particular, namely those who are elect, whether they die in infancy or are brought to faith when growing up, etc.” (Selectarum Disputationum, II, 410–412)

Each of these men would obviously raise an objection to Dever’s comments at Southeastern Seminary. And it would be fun to watch how things unfolded from there. Their objection would run along the lines of, “Mark, you have us wrong on the unregenerate church thing.” Now, Mark’s fellow Baptists on stage were already slightly uncomfortable with Mark saying that they were all closer to Rome and the East on this subject than the Reformed Paedobaptists. So if someone of the likes of Polanus stood up and said, “Mark, you know, we’re really all together on this. You, us, Rome, and the East,” I can’t tell you what would happen. But I, my friend, would pay for admission. 

I know that I have not answered all of the questions one might ask about a regenerate church and infant baptism. This was merely a little resourcement exercise, demonstrating that Mark left a large swath of Reformed Paedobaptists out when he dropped the proverbial hammer at Southeastern. 

Gospel Protectors

Mark pivoted from his regenerate church membership comments to ones about protecting the gospel, making the widely held Baptist claim that you must be done with infant baptism if you want to protect the gospel. 

Much could be said, but I only have time for a brief word here. If Mark is right that God has not brought the Christian’s children into covenant with Himself, then he has a point. If they are no different than a pagan when it comes to the covenant of grace and church membership, then his logic holds up. On the other hand, if God has brought the Christian’s children into covenant with Himself, then Mark’s point gets turned around on him. Surely what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

Before noting the gospel-protecting power of Paedobaptism, let me say that there is such a thing as protecting the gospel in the wrong way. Some seem to try to protect the gospel, forgetting that it is the gospel that protects them. They glory in their administration of the sacraments more than the sacraments. And what Spurgeon said of the Scripture applies just the same to the gospel, “Scripture is like a lion. Who ever heard of defending a lion? Just turn it loose; it will defend itself.”

With that qualification in mind, I would turn around Mark’s gospel-protecting statement. If God has said, “I will be God to you and your children after you in their generations” (Genesis 17:7), and if God has said, “Believe on the Lord and you will be saved and your house” (Acts 16:31), and if God has said that His elect are, “the seed of the blessed of the Lord and their offspring with them” (Isaiah 65:23), then, you are simply fumbling things like the disciples, stiff-arming the children so they can’t get to the Lord Jesus. He has given them access, but you stand in the way. Christ has a body and welcomes them to it. But you will not let them be a part of His body. He gives them cleansing water. But you will not allow them to be washed. He gives them bread and wine. But you won’t let them be nourished. He gives them a house, His very own temple, but you insist that they stay out in the court of the Gentiles until their papers of credible profession are in order. Christ gives them the heavenly Jerusalem, which is the mother of us all (Galatians 4:26). But you won’t let the little babes who have the Holy Spirit, according to the testimony of the Reformed tradition, be nurtured by their mother. 

Knock, and the Lord will answer when you are eighteen is not a strategy for the church militant.

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A Quick Guide on Dealing With Marriage Bumps

Martin Luther once said, “There is a lot to get used to in the first year of marriage; one wakes up in the morning and finds a pair of pigtails on the pillow which were not there before.” Family is rightly called “the school of character.” You will get all sorts of opportunities to confess your sin and put on new virtues. But, there are also plenty of opportunities to get out of fellowship with one another. So here is some practical instruction so that you can deal with marriage bumps: 

First, determine whether the offense should be addressed in love or covered in love. He overcooked the steaks; let love cover it without mention. He’s swearing and cursing the barbeque gods in the backyard because he overcooked the steaks; go ahead and bring that one up with him.

If a sin needs to be addressed, then confront it simply, forgive immediately, and get on with your day.

Remember that you’re both justified, even amid a conflict. This is a truth that stables the emotions and frames the disagreement.

There is a place for addressing mid-grade shortcomings in a mid-grade manner. On the one hand, don’t nitpick. On the other hand, you don’t have to wait until she’s gone full white witch of winter before you bring up her demeanor toward the kids.

Related, when you identify a shortcoming in your spouse, ask the Lord to address it with your spouse before you do so. He often straightens things out, and a spouse is won without a word.

When you are out of sorts, get back into fellowship before you do anything else. Keep short accounts.

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A Table of Rejoicing

Scripture tells us to rejoice in the Lord always. And God seems to know that we need to hear an exhortation often for, after telling us once, He says through the Apostle Paul, “again I say, Rejoice.” The gospel is good news. And good news makes its recipients glad. It is easy for us to forget just how good the Lord has been to us, so in His undeserved kindness He has given us this table to remind us. Here we eat, drink, and are made glad.

Why?

Because the Lord has forgiven our iniquities. He heals all of our diseases. He redeems our lives from destruction and crowns us with tender mercies. He satisfies our mouths with good things and renews our strength like the eagle’s.

Every one of us who now come to this table deserved to go to hell. And many men and women like us who deserved to go to hell will actually end up there. What makes us different from them? Not our strength. Not our intellect. Not a shred of morality that we somehow kept after Adam’s fall and presented to God so that we might woo Him toward us with salvation.

The difference between us and them is quite simple: God’s steadfast love. He set this love upon us when we had nothing but the ashes from the house we burned down. And when we were there in our filth, this infinite God of wrath and mercy set His favor on us in love.

Now we have been made a people. We have been crowned. We have the robe of Christ’s righteousness. We have Christ and all of His benefits. Goodness and mercy will hound you every Tuesday and Thursday for the rest of your lives, and all of the other days of the week included. So rejoice in the Lord always, come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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A Word to Effeminate Magistrates on Abortion

As we consider our onslaught against the human race and mark our deep hatred of mankind, evidenced by the slaughter of the innocent, we must find the root of our debauchery. And that root goes all the way back to a garden. There a woman was deceived, and a man fell. When that man fell, his wife and all of his children fell with him. Afterward, God went to the man first, for he bore the primacy of responsibility even though his wife ate the fruit first and gave it to him. Likewise, our shriveled-up hearts, the little raisins rattling around in our hollow chest cavity, are first and foremost laid at the feet of effeminate men. Many such men now hold office in our land.

You will have to pardon me as I must speak man-to-man to such men. First, the gospel for you. And then, the law.

The good news is that the truest man who ever lived has come. He was full of courage and suffered for others. He conquered sin, death, and even the grave so that soft men wouldn’t go to hell, which they rightly deserve. In his victorious death and resurrection, He also won you a backbone which He will work in you by His Spirit’s power. You must call Him Lord, confess His name, trust Him. Your sins will be forgiven and you will be made a real man.

Now, for the law of this Christ:

Any man who persuades a woman to get an abortion is weaker than a child. If you have some heavy lifting to do, and there is an option between contracting him or the preteen girls, make a deal with the preteens. Any governor who doesn’t resolve to drive abortion out of his jurisdiction is not only unworthy of being a governor. He is also unworthy of obtaining a driver’s license. Any legislator who will not labor against the murder of the unborn is not only unfit to legislate. He is clearly unfit to marry a woman. Don’t let him anywhere near your daughters. For that matter, you should be highly skeptical about contracting him to mow your yard. This is a simple argument from the greater to the lesser: If this man cannot be trusted to protect human life, what makes you think he will protect your yard from the encroaching weeds?

“But you don’t know what it would cost me politically?” My reply: Coward. “But women have a right to choose.” Coward. “Your reductionistic take that isolates our reproductive health policy in the tyranny of our unsatiable passions does not take into account the many complexities behind abortion, including financial instability, health risks, lack of support systems, and societal pressures.” Coward. 

What God said of his people through the prophet Isaiah is well-suited to our situation in this nation, “As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them” (Isaiah 3:12). We have lost our virtue. We are led by debauched and effeminate men with a sucking chest wound. Where there should be fortitude, justice, valor, and honor, there is only found only a gaping hole through which all of the forces of evil pass to run their knives into our women and children. Real men would have stopped them. Leaders who acted like men would have ended this scourge long ago. 

There is one central message to every man who holds civil office in our nation: Act like men or resign in shame. Kiss the Son lest you perish in the way. His wrath is quickly kindled.

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Transgenderism: The Fruit of LGB PRIDE

This June has had its revelations. Some of them have been quite encouraging. Major news outlets covered the fact that Starbucks backed down on its PRIDE decor. Locally, I heard that one of the shops downtown replaced their Trans flag with a regular old PRIDE flag, leaving the Drag Queens at the library to fend for themselves.

They are, however, still getting plenty of support in California from one Senator Weiner. Mr. Weiner has proposed a bill that would classify your unwillingness to affirm your child’s gay identity as child abuse. Mr. Weiner’s fringe bill moves the Overton window so that all of the normal people can go back to just being gay.

For instance, the deputy opinion editor of Newsweek has recently articulated what seems to be a growing sentiment:

Democrats desperately want you to believe the divide in this country is between the pro-gay Left and the anti-gay Right. Nonsense. The real divide is between the vast pro-marriage side—whatever your orientation—and the small, nihilistic pro-transitioning children leftist elite. pic.twitter.com/zjxM4GiqVb

— Batya Ungar-Sargon (@bungarsargon) June 27, 2023

“Democrats desperately want you to believe the divide in this country is between the pro-gay Left and the anti-gay Right. Nonsense. The real divide is between the vast pro-marriage side—whatever your orientation—and the small, nihilistic pro-transitioning children leftist elite.”

This particular judgment only works in a world where water does not run downhill. Put simply; there is no going back to just gay. Put more clearly; there is no divide between the pro-gay marriage side and the “small, nihilistic pro-transitioning children leftist elite.” Ms. Ungar-Sargon, and Mr. Jordan Peterson, who tweeted in agreement with her, must come to reckon with the fact that the Ts are an organic and genuine offspring of the Ls and the Gs. Why is that?

Well, first, homosexual sin is contrary to nature. It is not simply fornication (sex outside of wedlock). It is of a different kind. The Apostle Paul explains the error, “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet” (Romans 1:26-27).

Now, the modern zeitgeist cannot fix their eyes on this text and learn the fundamentals of life in this world. They are too busy shrieking about the Apostle using a phrase like “the natural use of the woman.” But if they would step back for a moment and think this through, they would be far more happy.

This nature, which is contrary to homosexual sin, is no stagnant thing. God put nature there. He instilled a purpose in nature. The sun is for light and heat. Apples are for eating. Eyes are for seeing. The round peg is for the round hole. 

God is telling a story through nature. As Chesterton once put it, “One elephant having a trunk was odd; but all elephants having trunks looked like a plot.” One child growing in her mother’s womb after sexual intercourse is odd. But all children throughout the history of the world doing so, that my friend is a divine story.

God writes the novel. He writes us. We are letters on the page. He will have us moving about, growing, and living. But He will not have us taking the pen from His hand and editing His work. We cannot go against nature’s pen and survive. 

Gay Is The Old Trans

Here is the growing claim given the insanity of transgenderism: We can celebrate and dignify gay sex, which is contrary to nature and consists of men identifying as women, but we will by all means not celebrate and dignify a man identifying as a woman.

Now the first part of that previous sentence—that part which said gay sex involves men identifying as women—might cause someone to raise an eyebrow. So back to nature’s lesson. In gay sex, one man (at least) is effeminate and identifies as a woman. Now, he indeed does a terrible job identifying as a woman. Only women can be women, and for that we are grateful. But this man is guilty of effeminacy. The Bible has strong words for that sin: The “effeminate” will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9). The Greek word used here is “malakos,” which a trustworthy Greek lexicon defines as “being passive in a same-sex relationship.” 

So, again, the logic runs thusly, “There is a great divide between gay marriage which celebrates men identifying as women, and the trans movement, which celebrates men identifying as women.” That math just doesn’t check out.

Here is another reason why transgenderism is the rightful offspring of the Ls and Gs. Obergefell is a legal fiction. It says something exists that simply does not. The trans movement learned this same maneuver of identifying things that do not exist. The angelic doctor Thomas Aquinas used to employ a theological term for such a tricksy move. He called lying. 

Scripture says that marriage is an act of God and what God has joined together; man must not separate (Matthew 19:6). Marriage, then, is not simply the product of the will of the parties involved. There is something otherworldly to it. We all know the two little 6-year-olds who vow their marital love to each other under the bleachers at the Little League baseball game are not bound till death parts them. But why not? They said the words.

The answer is that God actually does the joining of a man and a woman via the covenant vows. And a basic prerequisite to such a union is that it be in accordance with nature, not contrary to it. The old adage that God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, has some good sense to it. God Himself points back to His original design for marriage in a similar fashion (Malachi 2:15). 

So gay marriage acknowledges and celebrates a non-reality. If two men who made marital vows to each other both became Christians, they would not need to divorce. They were never married. In the words of my friend Doug Wilson, same-sex marriage is nothing more than same-sex mirage.

Quite simply, you cannot celebrate men identifying as women at the altar and in bed (homosexuality) without them doing so at the parades and in the libraries (transgenderism). These two are joined together; what God has joined together, let man not separate.

Now it is the end of June. At least some of the little rainbow flags will soon be removed from several yards. So before that is done, I must share good news with those lost in the rainbow rebellion.

The truth is that a Holy Creator made you. You do not remember pre-womb. You did not choose your father or mother. And you do not choose your sex. You do not remember the womb either. God knit you together there. He bounded you. He gave you skin. Touch it and remember that you are a creature with borders. You have bought into a lie that you can be whatever you want to be when you grow up. But Disney lied to you. 

You can, however, be cleansed of your filth. Christians know what it is like to be washed clean. You, too, can be made new. You men can be made true men, even if you have pretended to be a woman. You women can be made true women, even if you have pretended to be a man. 

The only way to experience this true liberty is through Christ, who died for our perversions. He was mangled on Calvary for all of our twisted pleasures and disordered loves. You must stop trusting in yourself and your opinions. Chief of all, you must stop worshipping the baser appetites found in your belly. You must get on with trusting Christ. Call Him, Lord, repenting of your sin. He is the only One who can untangle the knots.

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Pornography Problems

We should not only avoid pornography. We should hate it with a deep hatred. It is a peculiar, modern perversion which causes unique problems. Two hallmarks of most pornography use cause these troubles: First, pornography involves physical isolation and therefore, Second, it lacks physical communion between a man and a woman. Pornography is therefore a sexual sin that perfectly fits our rampant Individualism and our Gnosticism. We think we can survive on our own (Individualism). And now we think we can have sex on our own. People denied that Jesus came in the flesh (Gnosticism). And we now deny that sex must be done in the flesh. These troubles are worth facing.

The individualism of pornography leads a man further and further into isolation, cutting away his appetite for true community with God foremost, his wife, his family, and his fellow Christians. He will find himself not only separated from the knowledge of God and others, but he will eventually be separated from himself. He won’t be able to say to himself, “Why are you downcast O my soul?” He won’t know his own soul.

The Gnosticism of pornography detaches a man from the goodness of God’s physical creation. He would rather images and screens than a flesh and blood woman created in the image of God. He would rather live in his head than in the tangible world God made. He ends up day dreaming about winning, rather than putting in the hard work of actually doing so.

God did not give Adam a hologram. He did not give Adam a mere image, but a flesh and blood image, a living soul that Adam could put his arms around. 

Pornography trains your appetites contrary to nature and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Christ came in the flesh. And sex is designed to be in the flesh. Christ came to restore fellowship and communion. And sex is designed for husband and wife to renew such fellowship and communion.

If porn has you, then confess it to God and a pastor or elder. There is a way out.

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Abortion and the Abolition of the Fairer Sex

As we pass through this June, we are grateful to our Merciful God for the overturning of Roe. We thank God for every advance against the abortion carnage while laboring for more advances. Indeed we must soldier on until this ghastly act which symbolizes the abolition of woman is itself abolished. Much work remains to be done. A good deal of that work concerns the legal and political front. But as we engage on those battlefields, we must realize that the heart of the matter resides elsewhere—in the chest.

C. S. Lewis said something profound in his Abolition of Man, which modern man—even modern Christian man—struggles to get his head around. He wrote, “The head rules the belly through the chest.” I say we struggle to grasp what Lewis meant, and that is in part because we no longer think about the chest. We’re in deep trouble for our negligence—”Without the aid of trained emotions, the intellect is powerless against the animal organism.”

That “animal organism” is the belly. The belly is the “reluctant nerves and muscles” that want to abandon their post when the enemy is shelling. The belly is mere passion or appetite. The head is Reason. A soldier knows in his head well enough that he ought not to abandon his post. And a woman knows well enough that she should not contract Planned Parenthood to murder her child. Why abortion, then? Because we have raised women without chests. Lewis told us many years ago, “In a sort of ghastly simplicity, we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue.” The same goes for the women. We make women without chests and expect them to face pregnancy, childbearing, and childrearing with fortitude.

One of the chief reasons women contract the murder of their children in the womb is because they are afraid. They do so for the same reason a soldier leaves his post. Childbirth and childrearing are terrifying. Talk all you’d like about modern medicine and state-of-the-art hospitals. It doesn’t matter. Every woman knows, from somewhere down deep she knows, that she brings a never-dying creature into the world. A woman cannot face this mystery without fortitude. It is not merely a matter of the physical challenges, granted those are outrageous in their own right. A woman’s life changes when she bears a child. And this change occurs at a level that modern people can only vaguely remember. The fruit of her womb will face sickness and suffering. The child might hate her. The little one could grow up to be a murderer or a generous king. And she will be a key part of which road is taken. She knows this instinctively and there is simply no navigating these high stakes and troubled waters apart from fortitude.

June, then, is a month worth testifying to the Great Hearts of Christian women. As the wise man said, “Her children arise up, and call her blessed” (Proverbs 31:28). They do so with their lips and their very existence. The Christian woman, raising her children in the Lord, can look at her children and know that by their very existence, they testify that she has faced fears and stayed at her post. These children testify that she has governed her belly through her chest. This is all the more glorious because women are the weaker vessel (1 Peter 3:7). Even so, the Christian woman’s children testify that she is a daughter of Sarah who does not fear what is frightening (1 Peter 3:6).

Ending Abortion for Good

Now someone is going to read the last paragraph and point out that all Christian women don’t have this great heart. And that is true enough. But they are the only women who have the heart through which the head can govern the belly—”And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (Ezekiel 36:26-27).

The only way that abortion will be eradicated from our land is for this new birth to occur far and wide. And all of the evangelicals say, Amen . . . as they should. But we do need to ask what happens after this new birth. Why is it that the objection above sticks? Why is it that someone can say, “Not all of you Christian women rule the bell through the chest.” The answer is that once God gives a new heart, He then goes to enlarging it, “I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart!” (Psalm 119:32)

Now we like to think that God zaps us and voila! Our chests are enlarged. But God enlarges our hearts much like muscles are enlarged at the gym. He often changes up the workout just when we are getting comfortable. Sometimes we pull a heart muscle. Sometimes we think we are going to have a heart attack. All of this is a part of God’s heart-enlargement-training-camp. And habits are a crucial element toward this end. Lewis called the chest “the seat . . . of emotions organized by trained habit into stable sentiments.”

Now this kind of thing sounds like death to modern women. She, and her masculine counterpart, of course, live by their emotions. “Their god is their belly” (Philippians 3:19). To tell them that they must discipline the seat of their emotions, to say that their emotions must be arranged and trained into a proper order, is to tell them to lie to themselves. It is to tell them to deny their very existence, or so they think. Such a response arises when a society has lost any notion of the chest as the means of governing the passions.

I am aware that laying the abortion carnage at the feat of unchecked passions is highly offensive. It would be much more palatable to lay the offense at the feet of reason, (and indeed God does give people over to a debased mind). But I am after a peculiar kind of sin that must be killed so that no more innocent babies in the womb would be. That sin is incontinence. It is listed among several vices in 2 Timothy 3, “For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud . . . incontinent” (2 Timothy 3:3). The word means to be without self-control. It means the belly has gone wild. 

I said that this point is offensive and highly so. But there is a reason for the offense. This is something like a medical diagnosis and I really want to cut the cancer out. But that starts by acknowledging the cancer:

Women contract the murder of their children in the womb because of cowardice. And the men they contract to murder those children are twice the cowards. That is why some have decided to shout their abortion. “They glory in their shame” (Philippians 3:19)

But there is a better way. These women who would glory in their shame must come to see that they are glory. They are the glory of the glory of God (1 Corinthians 11:7). They are glory that can be made more glorious. They can turn away from the abolition of women by their passions and turn to the restoration of women by means of new and enlarged hearts.

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