Jared Longshore's Blog, page 33

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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You Eat What You Kill

In certain business circles you may hear the phrase, “You eat what you kill.” The general principle being that your personal compensation is based on the revenue that you have personally generated. There is a good bit of truth baked into the idea. Scripture says that “each man should carry his own load” (Galatians 6:1) and “if you do not work, then you do not eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). But this phrase, taken in isolation, only tells half of the story. Where did you get your ability to hunt? Somebody fed you back before you knew how to fire a rifle. Who’s kill did you eat back then?

Man is a remarkable creature. We really can do extraordinary things. That is why is quite easy to begin to live by sight rather than by faith. We think we are in a mechanical universe and if we put in the time and effort, then out will pop a precisely equivalent and statistically verifiable reward. 

The truth however is that we live in a world where the LORD gives and takes away. He is good and generous. And at the end of the day, we don’t merit anything. At the end of the day, “What do you have that you did not receive?” Yes, you worked harder than the rest of them. And that wasn’t you, but the grace of God in you. Boast all you would like of that grace. You eat what God killed.

We come to eat at a rich banquet that we did not generate. It is a humbling meal. Delightful and humbling. What have we contributed to this feast? Greed, lust, bitterness, prostitution, abuse, and a host of other sins that made this salvation necessary. 

We go forth to conquer, to rule, work, and exercise dominion. We can do so because God feeds us with bread we did not buy and vines we did not plant. So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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Dealing with Discord

There are at least two ways to ruin a good harmony. The first would be to pay too little attention to your fellow choir member. There you are rumbling along to the beat of your own timpani. Everyone seems to know you’re off key except you. The other way to skuttle a good musical arrangement is to pay too much attention to the singers around you and thereby not enough attention to the music itself. One form of this latter error involves a fairly experienced choir member, who knows a thing or two about singing, attempting to make up for another choir member who apparently does not. But, come to find out, while leaning opposite ways in a boat may keep you afloat, leaning opposite ways on the scale does not a happy conductor make. There are lessons here for dealing with discord in the body of Christ.

As you seek to be of one accord, some of you must pay a bit more attention to those around you, ensuring that you are not off pitch. You’re a leader. But are people following you? You’re a mother. Are your unchecked emotions troubling the other members of your family? You’re a husband. Have you taken the time to understand what is going on with your wife? You’re a sibling. Are you always first to the mashed potatoes?

Watch out for the other ditch as well. We have all seen someone try (unsuccessfully) to smooth out slander by following it up with a compliment, or fix timidity in a child with brutishness. A daughter tries to remedy mom’s bitterness with gossip. A son looks to harmonize dad’s anger with a bit of his own. Then there is the age old maneuver of trying to settle an argument by pointing out that, though you were in the wrong this time, just last week your opponent was. These attempts don’t remove the discord, but sow more of it. 

Christ is our peace. We will stay in fellowship and harmony with one another as we look to Him in faith.

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Selfish and Sickly

The common way of speaking today is that the remedy for your weariness is found in you taking a little time for yourself. Now, a good night’s sleep is a good thing. And Jesus went away by himself to pray so there is certainly nothing wrong with a bit of solitude. But, the message we often hear today is that you simply cannot be well while considering the needs of others. You’re a limited being with limited resources and you better make sure to look at for number one first and foremost. This line of thinking begins to feel somewhat like a prison where each man must be for himself or else we will just wither up and die.

It is striking that things went just the other way around for the Corinthians. They grabbed at the Lord’s Table. They looked out for themselves, neglected one another, and the result was that they became sick. Paul identifies a causal relationship at this point. The Corinthians’ selfishness resulted in them not discerning the Lord’s body, and Paul says, “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep” (1 Corinthians 11:30).

As you come to this table, you come to be nourished by Christ and you come with the body of Christ of which you are a member. He is the One who restores us. Your strength to go on is not found in you diagnosing yourself and operating on yourself. Your life and maturity are found in you coming to Christ, trusting Him, and acknowledging the saints around you, pouring out your life for theirs. So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ. 

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A Word About That Dark Secrets Duggar Documentary

A new documentary is out on the Duggar family called Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets. After watching a bit of this documentary my pastoral Spidey-Senses went off. The mature can do multiple things at the same time, which this documentary requires. But not all are mature. 

This doc is designed to play evangelicals and it has a good chance of doing so. Kristen Kobes Du Mez, the author of Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, makes an appearance or two. And Russell Moore has already taken this documentary as an opportunity to lament that the young homeschool Christian boys are training in rhetoric and political philosophy. If they keep that up, then they may end up clerking for Supreme Court Justices or something and, well Russell wouldn’t want anything like that happening.

This documentary is also the kind that can put a damper the spirits with Cloudy, Unhappy People ensuring viewers that the Duggars were faking the Shiny, Happy People thing. The ethos is something like: Let’s just all be miserable together.

There are better things to attend to and thinking about whatever is true, honorable, right and pure comes to mind (Philippians 4:8). Nevertheless, this swampy documentary is out there and my gut says evangelicals are watching. So here are few points so that you don’t get stuck in the muck.

Gothard Problems

First, let me say right up front that the IBLP / Gothard world is a well from which you don’t want to drink. I don’t know much about the ministry. But what I have seen is enough to say that there are significant errors and problems going on there. I’ll say it again for those who are going to set their hair on fire about the point coming in the next paragraph. As the apostle wrote with big letters once, I will put it in italics: Albeit I only have a little knowledge of the Bill Gothard movement and teaching, it is nevertheless clear from that little bit that you do not want to be covered in the dust of that particular rabbi. The Duggar documentary addresses the sexual sin of Josh Duggar who was convicted of child-pornography and is currently in prison. This sexual perversion and other kinds of family structure problems, childrearing errors, and sexual mishaps are laid at the feet of the IBLP in the documentary. And this leads us to the heart of the matter.

LGBTQ+ Has No Light at All

Whatever the corruptions, anyone friendly to LGBTQ+ has nothing to say to the dark secrets of the Gothard / Duggar business. Everyone is pearl clutching about Josh Duggar’s sexual perversions while Mr. Biden just hung the sexual perversion flag on the White House, centered between two American Flags. I am not a fan of sexual corruptions wherever they are to be found. Anyone who stands against sexual perversion is welcome to state an opinion on the Gothard / Duggar situation. The microphone is open. We Reformed Christian types, you know the kind who still think Big John shouldn’t shower with your local high school girls volleyball team, are happy to take questions. 

But if you think that the sexually perverted should be in the White House, then you don’t get to decry the sexual perversions of Josh Duggar. You have the plus sign at the end of that LGBTQ. You have Open Marriages and Minor-Attracted-Persons right there alongside the Ls, Gs, and Bs. You have grown men entering the little girls dressing room and changing with them at Target. You cannot high-five Josh Duggar for what he did and be upset with him at the same time. You cannot want to get Josh Duggar out of prison and make him Chief Advisor to Mr. Biden on sexual matters in the United States and at the same time shun him and his family for his immoral sexual practices.

I mentioned that this documentary is designed to play evangelicals and has a good chance of doing so. So this second point is very much for those evangelicals. Those behind the Duggar documentary are not your friends and they are not more sexually pure and morally upright than the Duggars. It was something like four or five years ago when the liberal Lutheran lady encouraged all of the exvangelical ladies to send in their purity rings so that she could melt them down into a vagina. I recall that some Christians at that time took this as an opportunity to point out, not the problems with fashioning an idol in the form of female genitalia from purity rings, but the problems of purity culture.

The Duggar doc is round two of this kind of thing. If the producers of this documentary, and the many participants who lamented traditional family values, homeschooling, and spanking, would come out and renounce the rainbow flag+, then I will pay attention to their concerns about the sexual failings brought about by the teaching and culture of the IBLP. I will encourage evangelicals across this land to consider their take and give them a fair hearing if only they will say something simple like homosexual practice is a sin to be repented of and hospitals shouldn’t be places where men cut young women’s breast off in an attempt to make them men. Renounce PRIDE month and we will make time in the schedule. 

I’ll wait.

The Structure

The reason the Duggar family and this particular documentary catches the eye is because it touches upon both structure and spirit. These are age old principles with an age old relationship. The structure of the traditional family—the Christian family, the real family—testifies to a structured world, an ordered cosmos. 

We live in a time when there is quite a movement to burn down the ordered cosmos, which means deconstructing the divinely ordered family. Leftist revolutionaries have been after this for decades. Kate Millett, one of the leaders of second wave feminism, was gunning for this back in the 60s when she held here meetings and chanted about destroying the American Patriarch. How would she do it? By promoting prostitution, abortion, and other sexual perversions. 

That’s right, we can deconstruct the family by pimping out the women. So reasons feminism. 

The truth is that our problems are not found in the structure. They are found in our hearts. I’m not denying the existence of systemic sin. I am ousting the lie that the problem is in hierarchy, order, structure, and God’s design of male, female, and the natural family. That is the central lie of the Duggar documentary.

Modern man has lost his head so this natural order is fascinating, especially when it goes full Duggar style with all of those children. And modern man will have all sorts of flesh enjoyments when he sees failure amid this structure. Carnal man likes to see people fall while attempting to adhere to the Creator’s design. It makes him feel better about himself for all the ways he has fallen short of that standard. 

This is where hot gospel will do you better than peering into the “dark secrets” of the Duggars. 

The truth is God made them male and female. A wife is to submit to her own husband. The husband is head of the wife. Sex belongs in marriage. Children should obey their parents. Boys are boys. Girls are girls. And homosexual practice is contrary to nature. 

We have made a mess of this order. And then we have blamed it on the order. But the problem is our devious, corrupt hearts. The problems is that we are dead in our sins.

It is for this reason that Christ was born of the Virgin. That he lived a righteous life and died on a cross, taking the sins of His people to the grave. You have two options. Salve your conscience by objecting to God’s created order. Or repent of your sins, looking to Jesus Christ. The message is simple: The dark secrets you wanted to find in the Duggar home are found in your very own heart. There is one way to deal with them: You must be born again.

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Thank God for the Sore Spots

There is nothing more natural than asking God why a particular sore spot hurts. We are not stoics. We are not rocks. There are no real iron men among us. When a particular pain comes—and there are many forms—our human response is to say first, “God, please make it stop.” And second, “Why is this happening?”

There are a variety of pains that come our way in this game called-life: chronic illness, financial strain, a plaguing depression, hospital visits, routine anxieties, and the like.

What are we to do when one of these bruises get pressed yet again? Well, asking God why is natural. But hearing His answer is supernatural. You don’t need faith to ask why trials come. But you do need faith to hear God’s reply. His answer is that His power is made perfect in weakness.

Paul knew that he was in danger of being exalted above measure. This danger was not the result of Paul being a particularly prideful man. It was due to the many revelations he had received. God gave Paul a thorn in the flesh. And after Paul asked God three times that he might be rid of that thorn, God replied, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

If you don’t already find yourself in this condition, you will soon enough be infirm, in need, and distressed from without and from within. When these troubles come, you must know that they are not random or vain. All of your suffering is suffering for Christ’s sake. The thorn in your flesh is not causing less power to flow through you, but more. God’s power is made perfect in weakness. 

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