Toby J. Sumpter's Blog, page 15

Never Runs Out

In 1 Cor. 10, it says that God gave Israel spiritual food in the wilderness just like He gives Christians spiritual food. And in John 6, Jesus says that the manna was a type of the true spiritual food which is Jesus Himself, come down from heaven. Putting this together, we ought to see this table as the fulfillment of the manna in the wilderness, but it too points us directly to Christ who is our true spiritual food. As we eat and drink here at this table in faith, looking to Christ to feed us, the Spirit ministers the body and blood of Jesus to us. 

And the thing to notice is that there is no scarcity in Jesus. There is only abundance. So much sin and sorrow come from thinking of this world and this life as one of scarcity. The world tries to spin this as exciting: you only live once, and there is of course some sense in which that is true. But for fallen sinners, that frequently feels like you’re on a bus looking down at the road flying past. And the older you get, the faster it seems to go. Just when you realize you’re done changing diapers, you look up one day and there’s a young man asking to court your daughter. And then someone hands you your first grandchild, and then you start wondering why everyone has started talking so quietly but their music is so loud terrible. And it can be tempting to despair or to grasp or grab. It might feel like so many really important things are flying past you, and maybe you’re still waiting for some of them or maybe you have lost some of them very dear to you: marriage, meaningful friendship, children, family, community, fulfilling work or a job. 

But God, knowing our frame, set this table in our midst, and He says to you: At my right hand are pleasures forevermore. God sets a feast in our midst, and He says, this feast is my life given for you, the fullness of joy, the abundance of life, and it never runs out. The trick, in other words, is to not look down at the ground (your life) seemingly flying by you, but instead, look up. And see Jesus Christ, and in Him, see every good thing never running out. Yes, some things fly by, but there will always be more, 30, 60, and 100 fold: further up and further in. So look up and come and welcome to Jesus Christ.

Photo by Rumman Amin on Unsplash

Act Like Men

“Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.” (1 Cor. 16:13)

Here, Paul exhorts the whole church to act like men, explaining that he means: be watchful and alert, steadfast in the faith, and strong. It is the glory of men to be strong, to stand firm, and to be watchful – little boys naturally love pretending to be soldiers and guards. But here the whole church is called to emulate that glory. How does that work?

Elsewhere, the Bible says that it is an abomination for men to dress like women or for women dress like men, specifically wearing the gear or weapons of men (Dt. 22:5). Women are not to act like or be treated like men in law enforcement, military combat, or other martial arts. Related, the law forbade Israel from boiling a baby goat in its own mother’s milk: what God created to give life should not become an instrument for taking life. Except for emergency situations like Jael and Sisera, women should not be death-dealers, since they are life-givers. This is a woman’s glory. The Bible also says that it is shameful for a woman to have her head shaved like a man, and it is conversely shameful for a man to have long hair like a woman – even nature teaches that her longer hair is given for a glory and a covering (1 Cor. 11:14-15). 

Nevertheless, God exhorts the whole church to be watchful, steadfast, and strong: to act like men. God requires churches to have this masculine tone. When men take responsibility for their families and the needs around them, when sin and difficulties are addressed thoughtfully and with courage, when men are alert and physically, intellectually, and spiritually fit and strong, the whole church is greatly blessed and follows that lead.   

We live in a land given over to sexual confusion calculated to destroy the glory of male and female, because those distinct glories reflect the glory of the Maker whose image we bear. Crossdressing, transsexuality, homosexuality, and every form of gender bending in fashion and in the church is meant to blunt the potency of the glory of being made male and female. So, in this moment, act like men: be strong and firm and alert as men and women.   

Photo by Olga Guryanova on Unsplash

Fight Laugh Feast Manifesto 2023

[This was the final charge I gave at FLF 2023 at the Ark Encounter. The audio/video of the Conference is going up here.]

For too long the Christian church has cowered. We have cowered before false gods and false religions and false priesthoods. And while there have always been attempts at bullying God’s people, the modern version of this has come in the form of so-called “secularism,” but this secularism is every bit as religious as the Baals and Dagons and Zeuses of the ancient world, with high priests bowing and scraping at the altars of Darwinism, materialism, and every form of Marxism, including the more recent critical theories, aimed at shaming Christians for the way God has made the world.

The high priests of these false gods and religions have pontificated their incantations claiming big bangs and billions of years of violence and mutations. They have written long bloviating papers for which they have given one another accolades and awards, calling one another brave and brilliant, while chirping and muttering with complete insanity, claiming that people evolved from shrimp, there is no Creator god, no meaning, no truth, and anybody who thinks otherwise is a threat to academia, intelligence, freedom, and democracy. When asked for proof they claimed it was in the geological record (it was not). They claimed it was in the fossil record (it was not). They claimed it was proven by their black cauldron of radio carbon dating (it was not). And when the music played, everyone bowed down, afraid of the consequences, afraid of the mockery, afraid of being cancelled, or simply afraid of looking dumb. 

But it was all lies and fear and propaganda. There is a God in Heaven and He has spoken to us. He spoke the light into existence from nothing. He spoke the sky into existence. He spoke the land and the seas. He spoke the sun, moon, and stars. He spoke the dragons of the deep and birds of the air. He spoke all the creeping and crawling things, and finally He spoke the word Man in His own image, from the dust of the earth and from the side of that first man: glorious woman. And when our father Adam disobeyed, God spoke again. He spoke a glorious promise that the seed of the first woman would rise up and conquer the seed of the serpent. And He spoke that promise in that Garden, and He spoke it again when He saved Noah and his family. He spoke it again to an old man and his barren wife in a strange land. He spoke again in a burning bush and then from a burning mountain. He spoke again and again in the mouths of prophets and kings, and then finally, the fullness of His Word thundered in the womb of a virgin. And that Word became flesh. That Word dwelt among us. And it was that Word that came to make all things new. And although we hated that word, despised that Word and attempted to silence that Word on a Roman Cross, it was by that very act that a New Creation burst into existence. When they thought they had silenced our God, it was in that very moment that all our sinful silence was destroyed, and from His side a New Creation has burst into this world. 

As Francis Shaefer said many years ago, “He is there and He is not silent.” He is there and He has spoken. This Word, from Genesis to Revelation, this Word breathed by the Spirit, is the Word that is sharper than any two-edged blade. It is the sword of the Spirit, every inch, every verse. From creation in six days to the new creation in three days to the New Heavens and New Earth in their fullness on the Last Day.

And so this is the charge: 

Refuse to be embarrassed by any verse in the Bible. Refuse to be ashamed of any of it. Prohibitions against shell-fish? No trimming the sides of our beards? Mixing fabrics? Regulations for slavery? Death penalties for rebellious sons? Creation in six days? A gigantic floating zoo with giraffes sticking their heads out the windows? Burning bushes? Talking donkeys? Dragons and unicorns? Resurrection from the dead? Yeah, we believe in all of that. And we’re not embarrassed by any of it. We are not ashamed. We will not apologize. It’s the Word of God, and it’s all pure gold. Why would we apologize for gold? Why would we be embarrassed by the Word of our Father? There has always been a deep temptation to be one of the cool kids, to be welcomed to the cool table, the inner circle, to be considered intellectually or academically sophisticated and so soft-peddle what God’s word says about certain unpopular topics. 

Christians must stop caring what the world thinks. Christians must stop caring what certain weak and cowardly brothers and sisters think. We have a clear Word not from any mere man. We have a clear Word from our Maker and our Redeemer. The false prophets and wizards mutter and chirp, and we must not care. Let them. Our constant refrain must be: “To the testimony and law: to the Word, to the Word we go; if they don’t speak this word they have no light at all.” 

But this sure Word is the basis for our confidence and courage. The kind of courage we need in our day is the kind of courage that our fathers had when they built this nation. We need the courage of nature’s law and nature’s God. We need the courage and joy of knowing the Creator who has endowed men with unalienable rights and establishes the limited jurisdiction of government to secure those rights. We cannot have that kind of courage, that kind of liberty, and that kind of government apart from that kind of God, the God who created the heavens and the earth in six days and all very good. The God of Noah, the God Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Moses and David, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

And so please stand and let me give you a blessing for this great work: May the God and Father our Lord Jesus Christ, the God who Created the Heavens and the Earth and upholds them by the Word of His power, Who has now begun to remake all things through the resurrection of His Son and by His life-giving Spirit bless you and guard you and your families and churches, and establish you in every good word and work. May He give you the kind of joyful courage that laughs in the face of all danger and mockery, and may you see your children’s children standing in the gates of our cities confounding our enemies, until every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord, and this land is filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. And Amen. 

The Kindness of Six-Day Creation

[This was the main talk I gave at the Fight Laugh Feast Conference 2023. The video/audio for this talk (and all of the talks) is available here.]

Introduction
The title for this talk is The Kindness of Six Day Creation. I want to talk about the kindness of creationism and the cruelty of theistic evolution, and how these tendencies impact society and culture and politics. My basic thesis is that the further Christians and a culture get from a clear understanding of God’s sovereign, personal creation of all things in six days just like Genesis 1 says – the further we get away from that, the further we get from the kindness of God, the less kind we and our world will be and the more cruel it will become. The kindness of autonomous man (man divorced from God’s Word/law) is cruel. And the creative sovereignty of God (the absolute, exhaustive authority of God over all creation) is more gracious than we can ever imagine. The origin of kindness, like all things, is in the Creator God and His creation of all things. You cannot have true kindness apart from the kindness of the Creator. And however you believe this world came to be, that will be a cornerstone of your paradigm for what kindness actually is. Either we will have the kindness of God found His Word, His law, His Christ driving our culture, driving our politics, or else we will have the cruelty of man, making it up as he goes along, crushing the weak and the innocent, often all in the name of science and freedom and being nice. 

The Cruelty of Theistic Evolution
Perhaps one of the most appalling things about 2020 and the so-called COVID pandemic was the collusion of major evangelical Christian leaders with Francis Collins, the then-director of the National Institute for Health (NIH). My friend Megan Basham chronicled this complicity in an article published by the DailyWire back in February 2022, from which I’m drawing extensively for what follows. Tim Keller interviewed Francis Collins in May 2020, which included a digression where Keller and Collins agreed that John MacArthur’s church re-opening represented the “bad and ugly” of Christian responses to the virus. In November of 2020, Rick Warren hosted a special broadcast with Francis Collins in which they lamented Christians who questioned the efficacy of masks. Rick Warren said, “Wearing a mask is the great commandment: love your neighbor as yourself,” before going on to argue that religious leaders have an obligation to convince their people to accept government narratives and mandates. 

When Ed Stetzer interviewed Francis Collins in 2021, pastors were exhorted to exert their authority to get their congregations to get vaccinated, wear masks, and comply with the dominant, mainstream narrative. Stetzer’s Billy Graham Center formally partnered with the NIH and CDC to encourage churches to comply with COVID measures. While Anthony Fauci championed the narrative in secular news outlets, Francis Collins used his evangelical testimony to preach so-called “science” to believers. It later came out that Francis Collins wrote Fauci and other leading scientists asking for a “quick and devastating” published take down of the Great Barrington Declaration – co-authored by our friend Dr. Jay Bhattacharya —  a worldwide consortium of scientists raising questions about the dominant narrative supporting shut downs, vaccines, and masks – arguing instead for the efficacy of herd immunity for most healthy individuals, re-opening businesses and schools and targeted care for vulnerable populations. Emails have surfaced with Collins and Fauci mocking these ideas. Meanwhile, the Gospel Coalition was running articles citing Francis Collins as a respected authority.

So how did Francis Collins become such an evangelical hero? In 2007, Francis Collins wrote a book called The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, and apparently most of the evangelical world collectively wet their pants with worldly lust. Finally, one of the high priests of Darwin had abandoned atheism and came out as an evangelical Christian – and not just any scientist, but one of the chief architects of the Human Genome Project – mapping and sequencing the base pairs of human DNA. As the book’s description puts it breathlessly: “An instant bestseller from Templeton Prize-winning author Francis S. Collins, The Language of God provides the best arguments for the integration of faith and logic since C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity.” And how did Collins propose to integrate faith and reason and science? 

Theistic evolution. 

Plastered on the front of the paperback, the New York Times Book Review proclaims: “It lets non-churchgoers consider spiritual questions without feeling awkward.”

The book argues that Genesis is allegorical and should not be read as a literal, historical narrative. Collins likewise dismisses Intelligent Design and champions theistic evolution or what he prefers to call “BioLogos” which became the name of the organization Collins founded the same year dedicated to “faith and science working hand in hand.” What does that mean? According to their website, in addition to other boiler plate creedal affirmations, they say, “We believe that God created the universe, the earth, and all life over billions of years.” And: “We believe that the diversity and interrelation of all life on earth are best explained by the God-ordained process of evolution with common descent. Thus, evolution is not in opposition to God, but a means by which God providentially achieves his purposes.” The statement of faith ends with: “We believe that conversations among Christians about controversial issues of science and faith can and must be conducted with humility, grace, honesty, and compassion as a visible sign of the Spirit’s presence in Christ’s body, the Church.”

One wonders where the humility, grace, honesty, and compassion were during the COVID lockdowns? When millions of our grandparents were locked away alone in nursing homes, when millions of at-risk individuals could not access ongoing health care, cancer screenings, or the encouragement of daily work, school, contact with family and friends or just another human being? Where was that honesty and humility and grace when the Great Barrington Declaration needed a “quick and devastating” take down?

But it’s even worse: Megan Basham writes: “He [Collins] has not only defended experimentation on [babies] obtained by abortion, he has also directed record-level spending toward it. Among the priorities the NIH has funded under Collins — a University of Pittsburgh experiment that involved grafting infant scalps onto lab rats, as well as projects that relied on the harvested organs of aborted, full-term babies. Some doctors have even charged Collins with giving money to research that required extracting kidneys, ureters, and bladders from living infants.” Turns out the kind of humility, grace, honesty, and compassion that they’re talking about could just as easily describe Nazi doctors experimenting on the Jews. Apparently this is the visible sign of the Spirit’s presence they’re talking about: an infant’s scalp grafted onto a lab rat. 

Basham continues: “Under [Collin’s] watch, the NIH launched a new initiative to specifically direct funding to “sexual and gender minorities.” On the ground, this has translated to awarding millions in grants to experimental transgender research on minors, like giving opposite-sex hormones to children as young as eight and mastectomies to girls as young as 13. Another project, awarded $8 million in grants, included recruiting teen boys to track their homosexual activities… on an app without their parents’ consent.” One assumes that destroying teenage lives with perverse experiments is just more humility, grace, and compassion. 

I want to be clear: I know that people are complex. People are capable of sincerely holding contradictory views. And I have every reason to believe that Francis Collins sincerely believes what he has done is consistent with his Christian faith. So the point I want to make is not about Collins in particular, although he provides a very appalling example. The point I want to make is that your view of creation has enormous collective downstream effects. And I don’t actually mean this in the first instance for individuals. I mean it primarily for cultures and nations. Individual people really can be very complex and inconsistent. But over time, culture-wide, ideas have consequences. Individual people are not logically consistent, but generally speaking, cultures over time are logically consistent. Bad arguments, bad assumptions, bad presuppositions really will result in their logical conclusions downstream unless they are interrupted by God’s grace or repentance or both. 

Sovereignty, Authority, and Kindness 
The kindness of autonomous man (man divorced from God’s Word/law) is cruel. And the creative sovereignty of God (the absolute, exhaustive authority of God over all creation) is more gracious than we can ever imagine. 

Many have pointed out that in the modern evangelical church, one of the highest virtues is being “nice” and “winsome.” But what this has frequently translated into is a veneer of niceness on the outside, but piles of compromise and cruelty on the inside. Megan Basham notes this external veneer with Francis Collins who is known for having a sort of Mr. Roger’s demeanor, while overseeing this Hellish research. The thing that people don’t realize is that when we compromise God’s Word, we are always opting for cruelty. When we compromise God’s Word, we are always opting for cruelty. The Word of God is the kindness of God. The Word of God is the mercy of God. The Word of God is the grace of God. And when we turn away from His Word, we are turning away from kindness. We are necessarily embracing cruelty. 

So when the Bible opens with, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth… And God said, let there be light,” we need to read and hear those words as words of supreme kindness. They are words of immediate gift and grace from the Word of the Father. He spoke and all the good and perfect gifts came into being from the Father. To explain these words as mere allegories, mere symbols, mere poetry is not merely to strike at the historicity of the text (although it does that), it is to strike at the kindness of God. The direct, personal creation of God is the intentional, thoughtful kindness of God. What kind of God do we serve? What kind of God brought all things into existence?

In the theistic evolutionary model, the God of Genesis apparently ignited some kind of impersonal dynomite, and then worked through the mechanism of mutations, violence, chaos, and the slow, suffering extinction of millions and millions of species over billions of years to arrive at the current state of biological life on this planet. Notice this: theistic evolution is an attempt to baptize bloodshed, violence, suffering, and death over billions of years. Of course people like Francis Collins also want to describe this so-called “creation” as God’s gracious gift of life and beauty, but what have they actually done? They have evacuated the actual history of that immediate, personal gift spoken from nothing directly into existence, and instead, they have renamed the churning, mutating, boiling, maming, destroying process of evolution – they have attempted to rename that violence “God’s gracious gift of creation.” The irony could not be more sharp: “BioLogos” literally means “life-word” or “word of life” or “life from the word.” But they have completely redefined what those words mean. Don’t worry, those billions of years of mutations and violence and death – don’t worry: God was orchestrating it all. But that doesn’t make it better. That makes it far worse. You’ve redefined life and gift as suffering and death. It doesn’t make it better to say that God did it. 

But wait. There’s more: There is a law of human nature that we really must get fixed in our hearts and minds: the vaguer God’s sovereignty and revelation, the stronger man’s impulse to fill the void. This is an inescapable concept: it is not whether but which: if God is not all-powerful and if God does not reveal Himself clearly and sufficiently, then the fallen nature of man will always tend to fill the void, like water leveling out after being displaced – sinful men always grasp for any power and or revelation that seems unclaimed, which is always a first step to attempting to grasp all of it. Either God is All-Mighty and the Creator of all things and reveals Himself fully and clearly and sufficiently in the Bible, or else men will come along explaining that God took billions of years and natural causes and time and chance and mutations – and all of it is a rebellious attempt to put distance between God and His Creation, and ultimately between God and His Word. “Did God really say?” is always the prelude to attempts to usurp God’s authority. Questioning God’s Word is always an attempt to create a job opening. Sinful man naturally wants some of that power, some of that Creative authority to shape and remake the world according to its own whims, to fill in the so-called “gaps” in authority and revelation. This is what we mean by “autonomous man” – man apart from the Word of God. Sinners want to be their own gods. 

If there are gaps in the creation narrative, well then, what’s the problem with some gaps in the law of Moses? God didn’t tell us everything about creation – Genesis isn’t a science textbook (they say), which quickly turns into: God didn’t tell us everything about politics, law, or how to organize human society – Deuteronomy isn’t a civics textbook. And by the way, neither is it a biology or anatomy textbook, so who’s to say when life exactly begins or why we can’t experiment on little babies or give puberty blockers to teenagers? You see, it’s not very clear exactly what God made or even what God may still be making. If God spent billions of years throwing away other pre-human species, why couldn’t He still be in process with us? Why wouldn’t we still be evolving and if so, why couldn’t we experiment on little babies? If God used natural selection, and mutations, and the violence of stronger species against weaker ones, why couldn’t he use hormone therapy and fetal stem-cell research? The claims of ambiguity in God’s Word are calculated to decrease God’s authority and increase the authority of autonomous man. And the kindness of autonomous man is cruel.   

When the Kindness of God Appeared
When God speaks, the worlds burst into being. When God speaks, there is beauty and glory. When God speaks, there is life and blessing. And when we had rebelled and listened to the voice of the serpent, God spoke again, and He spoke His own beloved Son into the womb of the Virgin Mary. He spoke His own Word made flesh, and He spoke a new world into existence, beauty and glory for our ashes and shame, life and blessing instead of our death and cursing. 

“For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” (Tit. 3:3-7).

And all of this really does have political ramifications. Submission to the authority of God, the authority of His Word is submission to that creative Word, that redemptive word, His blessing-word. And thus, when authorities submit to that Word and exert their authority under His authority, in obedience, they rule in righteousness and true kindness. When a husband submits to God’s Word, he leads his wife in blessing and she is glorified and made more lovely. When a magistrate submits to God’s Word, he leads his citizens in blessing and their lives become more fruitful. When a minister of the gospel submits to God’s Word, he ministers life and blessing to his congregation. 

The Declaration of Independence famously says: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…” 

You cannot have life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness or the kind of limited governments that actually protect those rights, unless you have a Creator who has created men endowed unalienably with those rights. You cannot have that freedom apart from that Creator. And the more muddled you are about that Creator and His creation, the more muddled you will be about those rights and how civil governments actually secure them. 

Most people are familiar with this language from the Declaration, including its appeal to “the laws of nature and of nature’s God,” but perhaps we forget that these laws are appealed to in the context of defending a political revolution. It is on the basis of all men having a Creator that men have the courage to throw off tyranny; it is on the basis of the laws of nature and nature’s God that men have the conviction to risk their lives and livelihoods. You cannot have that kind of courage, that kind of conviction, that kind of freedom, or those kinds of unalienable rights unless God the Father Almighty is the Maker of Heaven and earth, in six ordinary days, and all very good. The more muddled our doctrine of creation, the more muddled our convictions about Genesis 1, the more vague and muddled will be our convictions about our salvation in Christ, and therefore, our convictions about political liberty, our unalienable rights, and what governments are for. We have been shown inestimable kindness in this land, and the Declaration of Independence and the ensuing War were some of the greatest acts of kindness in the history of the West. 

Maybe some of you will remember what President Biden said at a campaign stop in Texas, while running for president in 2020: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: all men and women created by — you know, you know, the thing.” Which is probably a pretty good summary of American cosmology and etiology. “Created by – you know, you know, the thing.” Which is why our politics and government are in the state they are in. You cannot get unalienable rights or a just cause for war or limited government from the – “you know, you know, the thing.” Instead, all you get from that kind vagueness is cruelty.

But Christians in many ways have led the way in this muddle. It has been considered acceptable for a century (or more) now for ministers of the gospel to declare exceptions to their Confessional statements on Creation. It has been declared non-essential to the gospel to believe that Genesis 1 is describing millions or billions of years, ages of time, or else is simply a vague, symbolic poem about God’s creative genius, — you know, you know, the thing. And right on schedule, our courage has diminished, our conviction has faded, and our freedom has been sold for a coddling nanny state of regulations, taxes, porn, sex-change operations, and mindless lockdowns. When the doctrine of Creation is considered non-essential, soon your churches, your businesses, and your unalienable rights will also be considered non-essential. 

Functional Theistic Evolution in Christian Homes
But we must not merely sit here and point at all those liberals and think this is entirely their fault. No, in many fundamentalist homes, where six-day creation has been preached, it has been preached with a functional Darwinism in spirit. Instead of this doctrine of creation filling Christian homes with gratitude and joy and kindness, many have taken this good biblical milk and then boiled their kids in it. What do I mean? How many angry atheists and LGBT activists grew up in evangelical families, churches, and Christian schools and co-ops? And so many Christians shrug and say it’s just a mystery why some Christian kids fall away. But how many of them are so angry and rebellious now because of the way their fathers and mothers talked to them growing up? How many creationist homes are functionally Darwinian and theistic evolutionary homes? How many are full of bitterness, critical spirits, grudges, unconfessed sin, and then how many are covered over in a false veneer of niceness? How many Christians try to cover that kind of violence with vague platitudes about how God is at work in it all? Don’t you see that’s just functional theistic evolution? You can’t call your cruelty to your brother or sister, your son or daughter “God working” and then magically get happy homes, healthy churches, or a truly just society. You cannot have that kind of blessing apart from the kindness of God, which is to say complete submission and obedience to the Word of God dwelling in us richly. 

There is a great deal to this, but we’re talking about the kindness of God’s creation by the Word from nothing, so let’s simply focus on our words. We are made in the image of God, and one of the ways we reflect His glory is in the power of our words. This was the first task given to Adam in the garden: to name the animals and whatever he called them, that was their name. As God created the universe through naming, we reflect that power and glory in our words by constantly naming what is going on around us. Our words are powerful because they mimic the Word of our Maker. This is why James says that the tongue is like the rudder of a great ship turning worlds this way and that; the tongue is a flame thrower: it has the power to destroy whole worlds. Provers 12:18 says that some words stab and pierce like a sword with violence, but the tongue of the wise gives good health. Proverbs 15:4 says a wholesome tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse mouth can break hearts. Proverbs 18:21 says that death and life are in the power of the tongue, and we eat the fruit of our own mouths. We are either speaking words of life and eating life and feeding life to those around us, or else we are speaking words of death and poisoning ourselves and those around us. Proverbs 26:8 says that lying hates those afflicted by it and flattery works ruin and destruction. A foolish and loose woman flatters and manipulates and makes her home an awful place to live, but a wise woman opens her mouth with wisdom and the law of kindness is on her tongue. 

So what is the dominant tone of your home? What is the tone of your marriage? What is it like to ride in your family car? What is it like at your dinner table? Is the dominant tone kindness and mercy, joy and laughter? Or it is harsh, biting, criticizing, angry, static, constantly correcting with a veneer of niceness, especially when guests are around? The name for that is hypocrisy. The name for that is lying. And it’s a functional Darwinism. You cannot plant harsh words and reap a joyful family. You cannot plant hatred, bitterness, envy, or resentment and then expect to reap fellowship and righteousness in your home. Darwin says that you can get order and beauty out of chaos, mutation, and violence. And theistic evolution claims that God works that way. But that’s a lie, and it’s an even worse lie when you try to decorate it with Bible verses, saying that God is at work through your violent words. No, He is not. Or He may be at work, but He may not be doing what you think He’s doing. You cannot bite and devour one another and call that a Christian home. You cannot graft an infant scalp on the back of a rat and call that compassion. 

No one in this room as spoken perfectly. No one has only planted kindness. Everyone has said things they shouldn’t have. Everyone has been sharp, critical, thoughtless, complaining. So what do we do? The answer is here. We who are unkind must turn to the One who is kind. We must turn to His Word, turn to His Creative Word, that not only created all things in the beginning in six days, but has set about to re-create all things by the Word of His Power, the Word of His infinite kindness in three days. And so what is that Word? The word is this: Because of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. There is nothing so damaging as harsh words, lying words, bitter words, biting words, but there is nothing so healing, so restoring, so kind and gracious as the words: “I sinned against you, please forgive me.” If you have made messes with your words, this is the only way to clean them up. If you have stabbed and harmed one another, this is the only medicine that will bring healing to your home. And this is particularly true for husbands and fathers. This kindness is freely on offer to all who ask.

And notice that language: He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us. This is the beginning of true Christian justice. This is the politics of six-day creation. The same God who spoke the light into existence and formed the firmament and made dry ground, and filled it all with stars and birds and fish and animals and man, the same God Who is only Light, invites us to walk with Him in the light and have fellowship with one another as the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all unrighteousness (1 Jn. 1:7).

Conclusion
We have this blood. We know what to do about our sin. If we get this right in our marriages, families, and churches, then He will remake our land. If God turned the keys over to evangelical churches in this land tomorrow, there’s a high likelihood that all we would get is a bunch of Francis Collins running this land.

What Christians lack in this land is not numbers, what we lack is God’s blessing. And the only way to God’s blessing is through the blood of Jesus Christ. This is the Politics of Six-Day Creation. God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, Man and Woman in His image, in six days, and all very good. That is His original blessing, and although we’ve thrown it away, He has sent His only Son to restore it to us, so that we might come under that blessing again, so that nothing can stand before us. We must have that blessing, that Creator God, so that we may stand with courage and conviction in our day.

The Sure Mercies of David

Continuing Adventures of Jesus #21: Acts 13:14-43

Introduction
We commonly sing and repeat that glorious refrain from Psalm 136 (and others) that the mercies of the Lord endure forever, and this is certainly true in a general way. But as we see here in Paul’s first recorded sermon, there is a particular meaning of that phrase and application in the covenant that God made with King David that was fulfilled in Jesus Christ and all who believe in Him. In other words, there’s a specific reason why David sung about it so much. God made a particular promise to David for the blessing of the whole world. 

The Text: “But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and sat down. And after reading of the law and the prophets the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them…” (Acts 13:14-43).

Summary of the Text
Attending a sabbath service in Antioch of Pisidia (in the middle of modern day Turkey), Paul is invited to preach (Acts 13:14-16). Beginning with the Exodus, Paul narrates the conquest of Canaan through the beginning of the Kingdom under Saul up to the covenant with David (Acts 13:17-22). From that Davidic promise, Paul preached Christ, the seed of David, from John’s baptism to His false conviction and crucifixion under Pilate, His burial, and His resurrection (Acts 13:23-31). Paul declares this good news and says that the resurrection in particular fulfills what was foretold in Psalm 2, Isaiah 55:3, and Psalm 16 (Acts 13:32-37). Forgiveness of sins and justification by faith are preached, with a warning to the Jews not to despise the message, as the prophet Habakkuk warned (Acts 13:38-41, cf. Hab. 1:5). And the response was many Gentiles requesting that Paul and Barnabas come and teach again the next sabbath and many began following them (Acts 13:42-43).

Historical Faith
One of the striking elements of Christian Scripture and our faith is its essential historicity. The central tenants of the Christian faith are historical narrative: God created the world in six days, Adam sinned by eating fruit, Abraham built altars in Canaan, Israel was rescued from Egypt, judges delivered, kings ruled, prophets proclaimed, Christ was born, lived, crucified, buried, raised, and ascended. As we see here (Acts 13:17-31), the Christian faith is grounded in historical facts, events that you could have photographed, and there is no way to strip away the history and retain the faith. 

But many have attempted (and continue to attempt) to claim that Christianity is primarily a spiritual relationship or experience, and that the history is merely the “shell” that holds the essential kernel of “religious” feelings and experience. The claim is that so long as you have that experience or feelings, the historical details and doctrines don’t matter very much. But this is patently false: “If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching in vain, and your faith is also vain…  and ye are yet in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:14, 17). Why does it matter that we believe that God created the Heavens and the Earth in six twenty-four days? Because that is what Genesis 1 clearly teaches, but the vaguer our certainty of this history, the vaguer our certainty of salvation. If Genesis 1 doesn’t mean what it says, why not the Exodus? Why not the Resurrection?

The Sure Mercies of David
The center of Paul’s message is an historic promise of “sure mercies to David” (Acts 13:34). This “sure mercy” encompasses the selection of young David as king after Saul, a man after God’s own heart who would fulfill all of God’s will (Acts 13:22) as well as the covenant that God swore to David concerning his seed: “Of this man’s seed hath God according to his promise raised unto Israel a Savior Jesus” (Acts 13:23). This is referring to when God said to David, “I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom forever… but my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul… thy throne shall be established forever” (2 Sam. 7:12-16 cf. 1 Chron. 17:11-14). This promise became a theme: “He is the tower of salvation for his king: and sheweth mercy to his anointed, unto David, and to his seed forevermore” (2 Sam. 22:51). It’s striking that Solomon is a son born to David by Bathsheba, and Solomon appealed to God on the basis of the “mercies of David” (2 Chron. 1:8). This theme filled the praises of Israel – His mercies endure forever (1 Chron. 16:34, 41, 2 Chron. 7:6, cf. Ps. 18:50, 89:1, 106:1, 107:1, 117:2, 118:1-4, 29, and Ps. 136). God’s mercy is sure. God’s mercy is steadfast. God’s mercy is solid, and the particular promise to David is a King forever, which means blessing for all the nations, for all who love Him. 

And thus the prophets foretold the fulfillment of that promise in the face of Israelite decline: “Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David” (Is. 55:3). If the exiles were invited to draw near to God and be received into that everlasting covenant under David, then all are invited (Ez. 37:24-26). And so it becomes the believing prayer of many in Israel that Jesus, the “Son of David” would have mercy upon them (e.g. Mt. 9:27, 15:22, 20:30-31).

Applications
It is on the basis of the sure mercies of David, that God sent His only Son, the seed of David, into the world, to accomplish the forgiveness of sins and justification by faith for all His people. David was himself the great example these things: colossal sins and failures forgiven and justified by faith – a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22). And Jesus is the fulfillment: the One who fulfilled all of God’s will and who therefore cannot see corruption, who sits on David’s throne forever. 

Specifically, it says, “justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses” (Acts 13:39). The law is good, but it cannot justify. And to the extent that people try to get it to justify them, it only exacerbates our sin. And this really is the temptation of religious people: “I thank thee Lord that I am not like other men: democrats, drug-dealers, BLM activists; I homeschool, go to church every Sunday, and sing in the choir.” And the liberal, LGBT activist sitting in the very back of church, beating her chest, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. And Jesus says that she went away justified (Lk. 18:14). God does not accept us because we are good. He accepts us because we are not good in order to make us good. And this is true throughout the entire Christian life, even as He works His goodness into us. We are like little kids slowly growing up, truly growing in grace, but it is always all about His grace, His sure mercies forever. 

God freely justifies sinful people in order that they may keep the law by the power of the Spirit (Rom. 8:1-5) – in order that all the glory may go to God. And this is only possible by evangelical faith. We look to Him, and what we see is sure mercy forever. And this is how we work, how we live in our families, how we teach and discipline our children. Nothing we do adds up to God’s blessing. We work because of God’s mercy and blessing. This is the difference between “get to” and “got to.” One is full of relief; the other is full of fear. But we have the sure mercies of David. 

Everlasting Covenant with David

“And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them. And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children’s children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince forever. Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them…” (Ez. 37:24-26).

We are recipients of this everlasting covenant of peace: the Davidic king is Jesus Christ, the son of David, and this promise is for us and for our children and our children’s children forever. And so the charge is to believe these promises with all your heart and teach them to your children. Amen.

Photo by mrjn Photography on Unsplash

Let the Little Children Come

“Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them. And when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to him, saying, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” (Lk. 18:15-17).

We often, like the disciples, get this exactly backwards. Many Christians say that the little children must first become like adults and then they can come into the kingdom. But Jesus says, Do not hinder them. In fact, Jesus says that we must become like them, or else we cannot enter the kingdom.

So first an encouragement to parents who are working hard to bring their little ones to church for Jesus to bless them. Do not be discouraged. Do not grow weary in doing good. Sometimes you will only hear a few bits of the sermon. Sometimes, you’ll be getting up and getting back down, going out and coming back in, and as you labor in this with joy, teaching your children, and patiently bearing with them, as you welcome them, you are teaching them that Jesus welcomes them. 

Second, we want to continue cultivating a culture of welcoming children to this table. As your little ones begin to wake up and pay attention, they can figure out pretty early on what’s going on. And when the bread and wine is being passed around, they’re starting to figure out that this is a special meal for God’s people. And when they say that they want to participate, when they are reaching for the bread and the wine, you are either welcoming them to Jesus and encouraging them to believe or else you are teaching them that they are not and you’re not sure if they believe. 

But you really ought to ask yourself why we would do that with this meal and not with any other part of the service. We teach our little children to kneel down and confess their sins. We teach them to say “Amen” after the prayers and songs. We teach them to raise their hands in the doxology. Why would we welcome them to Jesus in all of those ways, and then hold them back when they want to feast with their King? So, in the name of Jesus, let the little children come, and welcome to Jesus Christ. 

Photo by Derek Owens on Unsplash

That Foul Serpent Envy

Covetousness is idolatry, and therefore, covetousness and envy are some of the most foundational-root sins (Col. 3:5). Sexual sin and lust are driven and fueled by envy and covetousness, which are forms of idolatry. In Romans 1, covetousness and envy are listed with murder, wickedness, maliciousness, and lies. 

Envy is idolatry because it idolizes particular parts of creation: your neighbor’s wife, your neighbor’s husband, your neighbor’s house, your neighbor’s car, their job, their marriage, respectability, beauty, income level, leadership skills, hospitality, children, family culture, whatever. Envy idolizes something, but then it fundamentally idolizes self. Envy enthrones self as the supreme judge of the earth and determines that the way the Living God has apportioned His good gifts is unjust. 

Envy at its core, says, ‘that’s not fair.’ It despises the Living God and hates how He has given out His gifts, and then proceeds to hate those who have received them. Envy, in the name of justice, wants to rearrange the world. And that is idolatry, and that is how it is the root of so much evil. It is willing to lie and cheat and steal and sometimes even murder to rearrange things, to get what it believes it deserves or at least so that those who don’t deserve what they have been given, are stripped of those gifts. Envy tells stories about why that woman, that man, that family should not have those gifts. Why does everyone like her so much? Don’t they see he doesn’t deserve it? Don’t they see all their flaws? 

And this is why they crucified the Lord – they handed Him over because of envy. And they persecuted the Christians out of envy. And cultures of envy create cultures of fear and stagnation. In cultures of envy, no one wants to stand out, no one wants to accomplish anything great because as soon as you do, the accusations will start coming that you probably don’t deserve those gifts, you don’t deserve that success, and at the very least, if you don’t share all that wealth, you’re a greedy a pig, proving you don’t deserve it. 

But Christ was crucified for all that envy, all that idolatry. He who knew no sin became that putrid sin for us. He was lifted up like the foul serpent and pierced so that we might be healed of this destructive disease, so that all who look to Him might rejoice in all of the gifts of God. 

Photo by Alfonso Castro on Unsplash

A Market for Truth

[This is a talk I gave at the 2023 CREC Council meeting in Moscow, Idaho.]

Introduction
Virgil asked me to talk about the growth of CrossPolitic and the Canon App, particularly in the COVID moment – how God has stirred up a great hunger for the truth and the enormous opportunity we have in the CREC to deliver the truth – there is a great market for truth. 

So, since the goal is to charge the CREC to continue embracing the calling to be dealers of truth, I want to talk about the nature of truth and the necessity of continuing to hone a hermeneutic of truth, an exegesis of truth. If the CREC is to continue to become a great haven for truth-seekers, we, as its leaders, must be enthusiastic and committed truth-miners, truth-hunters. And this means that it is not enough for us to merely touch on some truths here and there. It is not enough for us camp out on our favorite truths or perhaps simply the types or symbols of truth. It is not enough for our congregations to have warm and positive associations with what is true. No, we must determine to serve up truth in its pure form. We must have the truth, particularly the entire truth of the entire word of God, and no sentimental substitutes. 

The Ethics of Elfland
In G.K. Chesterton’s great work Orthodoxy, he sets up a striking contrast in the chapter on the Ethics of Elfland. He says that his fundamental philosophy of life he learned in the nursery, and he learned it through fairytales. And what he came to see is that the fairytales are entirely reasonable things. He says, “Fairyland is nothing but the sunny country of common sense” (Orthodoxy, 44). He writes: “It might be stated this way. There are certain sequences or developments (cases of one thing following another), which are, in the true sense of the word, reasonable. They are, in the true sense of the word, necessary… For instance, if the Ugly Sisters are older than Cinderella, it is (in an iron and awful sense) necessary that Cinderella is younger than the ugly sisters. There is no getting out of it… If Jack is the son of a miller, a miller is the father of Jack… that is true rationalism and fairyland is full of it.” 

But Chesterton contrasts that fixed foundation of the real world of fairyland with the events that transpire in this real world of fairyland. He writes: “There is an enormous difference between the test of fairyland; which is the test of imagination. You cannot imagine two and one not making three. But you can easily imagine trees not growing fruit; you can imagine them growing golden candlesticks or tigers hanging on by the tail.” Chesterton says, “We have always in our fairy tales kept this sharp distinction between the science of mental relations, in which there really are laws, and the science of physical facts, in which there are no laws, but only weird repetitions. We believe in bodily miracles, but not in mental impossibilities.”

Chesterton calls these rationalistic scientists, who try to force the necessity of reason and logic into every area, sentimentalists. “He is a sentimentalist in this essential sense, that he is soaked and swept away by mere associations.” Chesterton: “As ideas, the egg and the chicken are further off from each than the bear and the prince; for no egg in itself suggests chicken, whereas some princes do suggest bears.” 

The sentimentalist “has so often seen birds fly and lay eggs that he feels as if there must be some dreamy tender connection between the two ideas, whereas there is none… A sentimentalist might shed tears at the smell of apple-blossom, because by a dark association of his own, it reminded him of his boyhood. So the materialist professor (though he conceals his tears) is yet a sentimentalist, because, by a dark association of his own, the apple-blossoms remind him of apples.” Chesterton argues that instead of relegating these patterns to iron-clad laws of impersonal nature, we ought to see them as the personal habits of a youthful God, a God who never grows weary, but tells the sun to come up every morning, saying: do it again, do it again, bewitched by the Word that upholds all things: “A tree grows fruit because it is a magic tree. Water runs downhill because it is bewitched. The sun shines because it is bewitched.” Chesterton celebrates this wonder, and notes that it has a particular quality of praise. Let us call this a hermeneutic of wonder and praise versus a hermeneutic of scientific sentimentalism.

Now Chesterton is insisting on something very important with which we agree, but we do need to be careful here and make some additional distinctions because some of the threats to the truth have changed from his day to ours. For example, if we merely stop with the test of imagination, can you not imagine a woman turning into a man? Can you not imagine a pregnant man? What’s the difference? The difference is truth. The difference is the authority of God and His spoken word. We completely agree that this world is God’s personal spoken word, His song, His poem, upheld by the Word of His power. And water runs downhill because that is the true word that God has spoken, and on occasion when it doesn’t, when the water piles up in enormous mountains so that God’s people can pass over on dry ground, that is true because that is the Word that God is speaking. But we must not get it backwards. The test of imagination helps us recognize God’s creativity and praise His wonderful wisdom, bursting the narrow minds of sentimentalists, but it is not a freewheeling license to manhandle God’s truth.

So when someone asks: do you believe in interpretive maximalism, we should say, yes, if you mean getting every drop of truth from Scripture, scraping the barrel of creation for every scrap of truth. Yes, absolutely. But no, if you mean mere sentimental associations, if you mean: this reminds me of that. A bunch of people associate face masks with doctors and science and health and safety, and so despite all the scientific evidence to the contrary, millions in mass psychosis formations covered their faces with a bald-faced lie. Why? Because it reminded them of something healthy and safe. It reminded them of truth. As for the rest of us, we associated masks with thugs and outlaws and the oppression of Islamic burkas. But mere association is sentimentalism. It descends into subjectivism and relativism, because what you associate with something may not be what I associate with something. And to the point, it may not be true. 

Exegetical Truth vs. Sentimental Hermeneutics
2020 was an historic year on many fronts: first, the COVID panic resulting in unprecedented government shut-downs, two weeks to flatten the curve turning into months and in some places, even years. Suddenly, there was talk of essential services and social distancing, and churches were ordered closed along with small businesses, while pot shops and abortion clinics and casinos were often allowed to remain open. Then came the mask mandates and eventually the warp-speed development of so-called vaccines and strong-arm tactics and mandates to participate in mass human trials.

Arguably, to put the best spin on so much of what happened, the driving force for much of it was fear: fear of death, fear of being the cause of death, fear of suffering, fear of mishandling crisis, fear of responsibility, fear of rejection, fear of being cancelled and hated by others, fear of a poor witness, fear of any and all risk. What drove so much of our response to COVID was the tyranny of a sentiment, tyranny of feelings, emotions, associations. Sentimentalism is not merely relativistic, it is ultimately tyrannical, coercive, and violent. 

Then came George Floyd’s death in the midst of the shutdowns: churches were not meeting, social distancing was all the rage, and then suddenly there were “mostly peaceful” protests in the streets, church-like rallies, and marches. While many faithful churches remained open or quickly re-opened as the hypocrisy became clear, John MacArthur’s church was perhaps the most prominent. Initially complying with shutdown orders, the elders of Grace Community Church reversed course several weeks later and famously announced that they would resume in-person services in defiance of California orders, racking up fines and violations and vitriol. 

Some in the Reformed orbit strongly cautioned against MacArthur’s decision, one of the more prominent warnings coming from Jonathan Leeman of 9Marks, and this coming shortly after his participation in a BLM-themed march and rally in Washington DC. Again, giving Leeman the benefit of the doubt, I would argue that the best gloss on this inconsistency would be certain sentiments. Feelings of compassion, sympathy, and pain seemed to trump the feelings of fear or insecurity regarding COVID or the fear or uncertainty of standing up to civil magistrates. 

But many noticed. Feelings and sentiment are terrible at making careful distinctions. We naturally have stronger feelings for certain people, certain causes, certain issues; we have certain associations (good or bad) because of our stories, our experiences, but this is exactly what makes feelings and sentiment terrible judges. How do you measure feelings and sentiments? And they are particularly terrible judges because they demand justice, compassion, sympathy, action only until they don’t. But that is no objective standard. It’s a fickle muddle. 

In some cases, this means that marching in a rally, giving an offering, masking up, going on a missions trip, or putting a sticker on your computer gives enough positive vibes to take away that guilt, but in many cases, nothing can take away that guilt, and so struggle sessions and study committees must continuously dissect feelings in a black hole of introspection and accusation. One time on CrossPolitic, we asked Dr. Sean Lucas of RTS how we might know when our repentance for racism was complete. And he said, white Christians need to just keep asking black Americans for forgiveness until they tell us it’s enough. When the feelings of the aggrieved are satiated, it will be enough. But like the grave and the barren womb, they never say, it is enough. Dr. Lucas seemed to be suggesting a hermeneutics of sentimentality rather than a hermeneutics of truth and wonder and praise. 

Let me give you one more example: Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin sold 3,000 copies on its first day of publication, and by the end of its first year (1852), had sold 300,000 copies. Within a few years, 1.5 million copies were in Britain alone, and by the end of the 19th century, it was considered the best-selling novel of the century, trailing only the Bible in popularity and sales. The wife and daughter of pastors, Stowe professed sincere faith in Christ, and her novel is loaded with Scriptural imagery, quotations, and symbolism. Uncle Tom clearly pictures a Christ-like endurance, sacrifice, and courage. Cassy, the broken and embittered maid of Simon Legree, comes to picture an image of Christian femininity, a virtuous and cunning woman, perhaps even a type of the new Eve, the Bride of Christ overcoming darkness. Is this a case of biblical symbolism and typology driving the truth of God into the heart of the world?

Well, no, the book was best-selling sentimental propaganda. Stowe wrote: “There is one thing that every individual can do – they can see to it that they feel right. An atmosphere of sympathetic influence encircles every human being; and the man or woman who feels strongly, healthily, and justly on the great interests of humanity, is a constant benefactor to the human race” (UTC, XLV, emphasis hers). 

What was the central most fundamental thing Stowe wanted? For every human being to “feel right.” Why? Because an “atmosphere of sympathetic influence encircles every human being.” Not truth. Not biblical justice. No, that would have complicated everything: all those pesky verses about how slavery was to be conducted, slaves and masters were to honor and treat one another, not to mention the book of Philemon. Just feel right and you will be a constant benefactor to the human race, and 600,000 American lives later, maybe we should have reconsidered that claim. Despite all the Scriptural references and symbolism and allusions, it turns out that the ultimate authority for Stowe was a humanistic sentimentalism piled high with emotions associated with the Bible, but not the straight, pure truth of God’s Word. 

Moscow & the Market for Truth
It was during the 2020 moment and what followed that CrossPolitic and the Canon Plus App and New St. Andrews College and many of our related ministries blew up. CrossPolitic hosted the first Fight Laugh Feast Conference just south of Nashville, TN in October 2020, perhaps the only conference of its kind with around a thousand people in an indoor soccer arena without a mask in sight. For many, it was the first time they had any taste of normalcy in months. It was completely legal, but police were called and stopped by to make sure we knew what we were doing was… completely legal. But I believe the real relief was the refreshing truth. 

We’ve heard countless testimonies of folks during lockdown finding Pastor Wilson’s blog, Canon Plus, WhatHaveYou, CrossPolitic, and many of your youtube and podcast sermons, and piles of people getting CREC red-pilled. Of course, the vast majority of our CREC churches remained open or re-opened very quickly after the madness seemed abundantly clear, and Presiding Minister Virgil Hurt led the way releasing public statements on the essential nature of Lord’s Day Worship, the limited jurisdiction of civil magistrates, the economic impact on American businesses, and the Christian doctrine of liberty of conscience and the right of families to make their own personal healthcare decisions before God. 

Most of our churches have grown significantly since 2020, some you were birthed during 2020 or since then, as a direct reaction to the COVID insanity. And the thing they have been drawn to is the truth. What we have found is that there is a significant market for truth. 

Conclusion
So this is the point I want to leave you with: in this cultural moment of madness and chaos, everyone is hocking their wares. Everyone is selling something. Fundamentally, there is truth and lies, but we know that there is also plenty of room for propaganda and counterfeiting and all manner of debasing the value of truth. And there’s a particularly insidious strain of debasing the truth that Christians are susceptible to, and it is the debasing of sentimentality.

It is not enough to associate with the truth. It is not enough to describe biblical symbols and types in detail and then associate them with Biblical themes and truths. Our job is not to build with mere faithful sentiment, or biblical feelings or symbols or associations because ultimately, those can all be manipulated. Our job is to build with the precious metals of truth, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. Of course, we have many God-given symbols and signs and types, but there should be a massive difference in our mind between what scripture reminds us of, and what God has actually said and intended to communicate and reveal. Do the actual exegesis, beginning with letting Scripture interpret Scripture, but do the hard work of exegeting the truth, not your feelings not your associations. Machen described what he saw in his day as the tendency to disparage the intellectual aspect of religious life, what he called an “indolent impressionism” particularly in biblical studies, a great reluctance to define terms, to memorize and master facts, and simply preach and teach them. 

And the stakes are really high: when truth is watered down this will ultimately result in a reduction of wonder and from there a muting of praise. We are a communion of churches that have made a stand on the centrality of worship, the essential nature of face to face, in-person covenant renewal worship. But this is because God has spoken, and we know the truth. We do not worship according to our own whims, according to so-called pious and holy associations or sentiments. We worship according to Scripture. We worship in Spirit and in truth. 

We really are living in a remarkable moment in history. God has significantly lowered the bar for success. Stay open, require no medical mandates, and tell the truth. Preach the whole truth, teach all of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation. It is the truth, the facts, the knowledge, the understanding of what God has actually said – it is that which is refreshing. It is that our countries are starving for. Imagine a dry and barren land filled with water fountains, where the people are cursed with a complete rejection of water fountains. They are slowly dehydrating to death, but all they have to do is press a button and cool, clean water will come flowing out. We live in that world. A world starving for truth. We have the truth. It is our job to give it to them. 

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The Danger of Flattery at Christian Meetings

Speaking of the apostolic ministry, Paul wrote the Thessalonians: “For neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloak of covetousness; God is witness” (1 Thess. 2:5). 

Flattery is one of the great sins of Christians, and it is often a thinly veiled cloak for covetousness. Flattery comes in various forms, but often it is either praise for that which should not be praised (e.g. complimenting an immodest dress) or it avoids godly confrontation of sin (refusing to speak up when gossip or slander is being shared, often as a prayer request or in the name of pastoral concerns), which is just suffering fools gladly, and often, for the sake of personal gain.

In Psalm 12, flattery is described as having a double heart, and flattering lips are described as proud. Flattery is a form of lying and deception. Pretending friendship, respect, kindness, but in its heart or in secret it is aiming for something other than the person’s good and Christian fellowship. It wants to get something. It covets friendship, respect, admiration, promotion, money, fame, speaking engagements, book deals, committee positions, whatever. In Prov. 20, a flatterer is also a talebearer, someone with loose lips, revealing secrets, apparently in an attempt to win friends and influence people. 

A gathering of Christians and Christian ministers can be a particularly easy place for the sin of flattery to proliferate. Everyone hopes to be encouraged. There are many good connections and friendships to make and renew. And we pray for unity and true fellowship – all good and glorious things. And of course Christian love is kind and is not rude. But in the name of kindness we must not lie. In the name of manners, do not be duplicitous. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Open rebuke is better than secret love. Rebuke a wise man and he will love you. 

We represent many congregations and families, and as representatives, we ought to think of our interaction here as a model for how we want our people to interact in their families and in our congregations. We should talk the way we want them to talk. Yes, full of joy and kindness and fellowship, but also on guard against all flattery and envy. Psalm 12 says, the Lord will cut off all flattering lips, and that would be the end of any kind of fruitful ministry. And God is witness. 

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