Toby J. Sumpter's Blog, page 28

Fervent Charity

In 1 Pet. 4:8, it says, “And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.” And in James 5:20 it says, “Let him know, that he who converts a sinner from the error of his ways shall save a soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins.” 

Love covers a multitude of sins. Fervent Christian love overlooks many sins. But this fervent Christian love is not indifferent to the souls of those around it. Love cares for the souls of those around it, but it is not a perfectionist or a legalist. Love covers a multitude of sins. Love lets many things go without another thought. Love laughs at small infractions, petty offenses, not because it doesn’t care, but precisely because it cares far more for the trajectory of the soul. 

The foundational model for this is God Himself. God loves like this. God loves fervently and covers a multitude of sins. God converts sinners from the error of their ways, so He can cover multitudes of sins. In 1 Jn. 1:9 it says that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We confess the sins we know about, and God cleanses us from all unrighteousness. 

The Devil is an accountant, an accusing legalist, and the Cosmic Bureaucratic Bookkeeper. The Devil keeps track of infractions and errors to the nth-decimal in order to accuse and manipulate us. But God rounds up to the nearest billion. God is easy to please, even if He is hard to satisfy. And this is because God loves grace. This is not a wishy-washy grace. This is a cruciform grace. This grace was purchased by the precious blood of His only Son, Jesus Christ. God looks at us through that lens, through the cross, through the cross of His love.

That is what is on offer here: fervent love. This is what you’re sharing with one another: fervent love. Fervent love drives for the goal of fellowship with God and one another, and it is eager to overlook many offenses. 

So Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ. 

Photo by Ali Abdul Rahman on Unsplash

The Sexual Revolution

[Note: These are notes for a Logos School Assembly presentation from March 2022.]

Introduction
Most people date what is called “the sexual revolution” in our country from the late 1960s to the mid 1980s. It describes a radical shift in public sexual morals. While there were plenty of signs of sexual morality collapsing privately much earlier, the key thing we are referencing is the shift in what was considered respectable or acceptable out in public. And we went from roughly the expectation that sex was reserved for one man and one woman in the covenant of marriage, ordinarily expecting to welcome children and deviations from that norm were generally considered unfortunate in public, to a world in which holding that norm as the best and ideal expression of sexual morality is now not generally accepted in public.

For example, just a few weeks ago a so-called conservative podcaster named Dave Rubin announced that he and his homosexual partner are “expecting” children. Quite apart from all the nonsense involved in making the claim, the really striking thing was how many people lined up to congratulate them. What was also striking was how careful the people were who said they could not approve or congratulate them. It revealed the sexual revolution quite plainly. 

So the sexual revolution includes: the widespread acceptability of sexual immorality, fornication, adultery, divorce, homosexuality, sterilization and birth control (intentional childlessness), abortion, out of wedlock pregnancy, single parenting, gender confusion (including things like “stay at home dads”), crossdressing, transsexuality, “open marriages,” pornography, and the assumption that any combination of these things may be “right” for you and that marriage and family can be virtually whatever you want them to be. Pick your favorite flavor. 

A Few Factors
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was one major player in the sexual revolution. He was an early psychoanalyst who was working with Darwinian assumptions about the nature of man. He thought of man as basically a highly evolved animal, and therefore instead of thinking of man as a physical and spiritual creature, he primarily thought of human beings as physical creatures with evolutionary chemical and emotional urges. He taught that repressing those urges led to lots of guilt and shame and that in turn caused people to act out in lots of horrible ways. So he began teaching that people should be allowed to do whatever they want sexually in order to prevent worse things from happening. But the Bible teaches that sin has corrupted human beings such that our desires and impulses are not good, and if we simply vent our desires, it will not prevent things from getting worse. It always leads to things getting worse.  

Another factor is what we might call the “revolutionary spirit.” Perhaps the highwater mark of this sensibility was the French Revolution, where a bunch of humanists tried remake reality in France. The revolutionary spirit is heavily influenced by Darwinism as well, but it imagines that there is some kind of human spirit that is basically divine. The basic idea is that formal religion and political and cultural structures are always artifacts of the past that must be torn down in order to evolve to the next great phase of humanity. “Revolution” is the process of throwing down old morals and social structures in order to make room for the human spirit to progress into something greater. During the French Revolution, worship of the goddess of reason was established in one cathedral, many of the nobility were executed, sexual debauchery was encouraged, and there was even an attempt to switch over to a ten day week. 

So combine these impulses with splashes of Marxism, identifying the Christian family and Christian marriage and Christian education as key elements of oppression, and there was a growing, concerted effort by the end of the 1960s to destroy the Christian family via sexual revolution.   

Kate Millett & NOW
On September 1st, 2014, Mallory Millett wrote this in an article for Frontpagemag.com, “It was 1969. Kate [her sister] invited me to join her for a gathering at the home of her friend, Lila Karp. They called the assemblage a “consciousness-raising-group,” a typical communist exercise, something practiced in Maoist China.  We gathered at a large table as the chairperson opened the meeting with a back-and-forth recitation, like a Litany, a type of prayer done in Catholic Church. But now it was Marxism, the Church of the Left, mimicking religious practice:

“Why are we here today?” she asked.
“To make revolution,” they answered.
“What kind of revolution?” she replied.
“The Cultural Revolution,” they chanted.
“And how do we make Cultural Revolution?” she demanded.
“By destroying the American family!” they answered.
“How do we destroy the family?” she came back.
“By destroying the American Patriarch,” they cried exuberantly.
“And how do we destroy the American Patriarch?” she replied.
“By taking away his power!”
“How do we do that?”
“By destroying monogamy!” they shouted.
“How can we destroy monogamy?”

…

“By promoting promiscuity, eroticism, prostitution and homosexuality!” they resounded.

They proceeded with a long discussion on how to advance these goals by establishing The National Organization of Women.  It was clear they desired nothing less than the utter deconstruction of Western society. The upshot was that the only way to do this was “to invade every American institution.  Every one must be permeated with ‘The Revolution’”: The media, the educational system, universities, high schools, K-12, school boards, etc.; then, the judiciary, the legislatures, the executive branches and even the library system.

It fell on my ears as a ludicrous scheme, as if they were a band of highly imaginative children planning a Brinks robbery… To me, this sounded silly.”

And here we are. We live in a world full of mass sexual confusion and rebellion. 

Christ or Nothing, Christ or Chaos
Perhaps the most important thing to point out about the sexual revolution is it is attempting to do the impossible. And the central impossibility is to have order come out of chaos: fruitfulness come out of impotence. God has created the world such that it takes a man and a woman to have a baby. But fruitfulness is not accomplished merely in conception and procreation. Someone can father many children by many different women, but that isn’t real fruitfulness if those children aren’t blessings to their parents or the world. Real fruitfulness is not only the gift of children but the blessing of joyful, productive children and grandchildren, and that means children and grandchildren growing up in faithful covenant families that love Jesus and live for Him. Children who end up angry, bitter, or in prison or addicted to drugs are not fruitfulness.

So the sexual revolution’s central lie is that you can be fruitful simply by making up your own sexuality and therefore your own version of “family” as you go along. It all started as denying that you needed to be married and now we’re at the point in the story where two guys are pretending they can be a family by buying babies and raising them intentionally in a demented “family” with two dads and no mothers. But fruitfulness is only possible under God’s blessing when one man and one woman join in covenant marriage and then welcome children and raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And when that norm is providentially hindered (e.g. a husband/father dies, barrenness), trusting the Lord to bless our best efforts at pointing to that norm and honoring it. 

While there is real insanity on the one hand: pretending that you can be fruitful by making up marriage and sexuality and family as you go along. We should not miss the real target: Christian men, Christian marriage, and Christian fruitfulness. And there are at least two reasons for this. 

The first reason is that it’s potent and powerful. When Christian men lead and love sacrificially in obedience to Christ it creates families, churches, businesses, cities, and nations that are strong and fruitful. When men embrace their calling to be strong to lead and protect and when Christian women embrace their calling to cultivate life and beauty, that is a potent combination that creates real fruitfulness. And when those men and women marry one another and keep covenant and raise children who embrace those callings in Christ, this is a counter-revolution (Reformation) that will scatter and silence the impotence of the alphabet jihad over generations. 

But the fundamental reason the sexual revolution hates Christian marriage is because it is a potent picture of Jesus and the Church. Guilty consciences hate every reminder that Christ is a faithful bridegroom, that He laid His life down for His unfaithful bride in order to make her clean and holy. But even though they hate it, we also know that deep down, there is something in them that longs for it. They love to talk about love. All you need is love. “Love is love” – whatever that means. But we know that true love has been displayed in Christ who took responsibility for our sins, sins that He did not commit, and He suffered in our place to set us free and make us clean. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us and sent His Son as the propitiation for our sins. 

Conclusion
Some historians have actually referred to the first three centuries as the first sexual revolution; what they are talking about is the fact that over the course of about 300 years Christian sexuality overtook and replaced the old pagan sexuality which was every bit as debauched as our modern culture. And so here we are again, but the gospel is for this moment. It is for sinners like us. It’s for the sinners in our land. And since Christ is the faithful bridegroom, we know that His love will win. His love lived out in our families is a bright and glorious light to the world. I remember this point being impressed upon me vividly when we lived for a couple of years in an apartment complex in South Carolina: our unit was on the ground floor overlooking a playground area. And every evening when we gathered in our dining room for dinner, many of the neighborhood kids would show up peering over our porch railing into our apartment, staring. And for many of them, I’m not sure they had ever seen anything like it: a husband and wife and their children gathered around a table for a meal with joy and fellowship. 

When we imitate His faithful love in our homes, we are part of the great Reformation of the world.    

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

The Sin of Introspection

One of the common sins inside the Christian Church is the sin of introspection, and it is one of the common sins committed at this table. The sin of introspection is a species of pride, but it is particularly insidious because it presents itself as deep and lowly humility. The sin of introspection dwells on past or present sins and says things like: I’m just so terrible and awful, I’m not worthy. It wallows in unworthiness. 

Now of course, there is truth to it. This is what makes it tempting. Of course you are unworthy of Christ and this table. And if you sinned again, that really is terrible and awful. But God says this: if you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So it is right and good to feel the conviction of your sin: the Holy Spirit searches us and convicts us of real sin so that we can confess and get clean. But this is the thing to pay close attention to: the Holy Spirit convicts you in order to get you back into the joy of salvation as quickly as possible. The Holy Spirit is not your abuser or accuser. That’s the Devil. That’s Satan. So if you are feeling conviction for a clear sin, then praise God and confess it, and repent of it: and that means making concrete changes in your life so you don’t do it again. That’s the Holy Spirit, and when you do that, you come out into the light and there should be relief and joy. 

Godly introspection is driven by joy, but the sin of introspection refuses to come out into the light. And this is why the sin of introspection is actually a form of pride. Jesus comes and opens the prison door and says, “I paid for it all, you can go free.” But the man or woman clinging to the sin of introspection has the audacity to tell Jesus “no.” The sin of introspection says that the blood of Jesus was not enough, that you are some kind of special human being for whom the Cross does not apply. And therefore you must suffer a bit more because you were really bad. But that is pure blasphemy. You are not special. And besides if you’re that bad why are you still listening to yourself? If you’re that bad, have the humility to listen to Christ. And this is what He says: your sins were like scarlet, but now they are white as snow. 

So Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ. 

Photo by Ethan Hoover on Unsplash

Church Membership

Lord willing, Kings Cross will be established as a new independent church beginning next Sunday with our own elders and membership. So I though it would be worth reviewing what we believe about church membership briefly. What do we mean by it and why do we bother with it? The basic case for church membership is found in Hebrew 13 where it says, “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith” (Heb. 13:7). And “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you” (Heb. 13:17).

So our position is that at the very least there ought to be two lists of names: a list of elders and a list of members. And the people on the two lists need to know one another well enough and there needs to be enough interaction between them that members can consider the way of life of their leaders and imitate their faith as it says, and the leaders need to know their people well enough to actually watch over their souls and give an account to God for them.

While we must not become ingrown and myopic, pretending that we are the only Christians around, our culture tends to be on the very other end of the spectrum: most of the scare-mongering focuses on warning you not to become part of some kind of cult. But our concern is to simply be faithful to Scripture and to Jesus: and that means cultivating the kind of loyalty to God and His people that will sometimes be accused of being cultish. 

Our membership is fundamentally in Christ; we are members of His universal body, but that membership is lived out in particular places at particular times with particular people. And this is how God proves the power of the gospel and His Spirit: knitting people together who are very different, teaching them to love one another, in order to the show the world that Christ has come and invite them in.  

Photo by Guido Coppa on Unsplash

The Daily Wire Goes Proto-Woke

Introduction
We can certainly have co-belligerents from many disparate tribes. When CrossPolitic interviewed Rod Dreher last Fall, he said much the same thing. Despite his differences with us, smashmouth Calvinists (I’m just going to call everything we do “smashmouth” from now on), he figured we’re all going to end up in the same prison cell together (maybe cell block four?), so he might as well make friends with us now. I’m no perfectionist. If a Roman Catholic is trying to honestly end abortion, we can stand side by side in that fight. If an atheist is exposing woke cancel culture, I’m happy to help chuck those grenades. But co-belligerents are different than allies. Co-belligerents have a common enemy but often they have a common enemy for very different reasons. When the Soviet Union was a co-belligerent with England and the US in World War 2, that wasn’t because we had shared values, but merely because we had a common enemy. 

So none of what follows is me taking my toys and going home. As I say, I’m not a perfectionist. Have I mentioned that I’m a smashmouth incrementalist when it comes to ending abortion? But I do believe that good fences make good neighbors, and the truth is always helpful, even when it stings. Not that anyone asked me, but I just want to point out that unless something changes dramatically in the current trajectory of the Daily Wire, it will be the next Fox News before too long, and what I mean by that is that it will be CNN but with more cleavage. And the Blaze and Prager U are already up to their armpits in woke compromise. And by that, I mean they are well on their way to being the next so-called conservative news sell-outs. They may hold out for some time with their own versions of a Tucker Carlson questioning the dominant narratives, but the Daily Wire is now officially begging to become irrelevant and obsolete and likely, just another CRT tumor in American media. 

Splain Yo Sef
The problem far too many conservatives have is that they are often way late to the fight. Here we are, chubby toddlers all, running into the living room of our country to find that our public schools are grooming kindergarteners to be trannies and sodomites and drag queens, and we squawk and think we’ve joined the culture war. But what we have to get our heads and hearts clear on is that the culture war is actually centered on the Bible and the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the center of the culture war. The central question is whether we will submit to the Triune God and His Christ or not; the rest is details. Ben Shapiro says that Jesus is not the Christ, and therefore Jesus is not Lord. Ben Shapiro, God bless him (and I mean that), does not have a consistent place from which to actually fight the darkness of woke lies and progressive tyranny. This is because his core conviction is a woke lie: Jesus is not Lord. Again, that doesn’t mean he can’t say many true and helpful things, but his denial of Christ means that ultimately he is what Paul calls an enemy of the gospel, even though he is Paul’s countryman by religion. Matt Walsh and Michael Knowles are Papist idolaters who think the Pope is the head of the church, that Jesus is re-sacrificed every time the Mass is celebrated, and that (holy) tradition is an authority over the Bible (more on that in a minute). And the one Protestant evangelical leading that operation is Jeremy Boreing (co-CEO with Ben Shapiro), and he apparently thinks he can take on the woke mob with boobs. 

Look, I’m not an idiot, I watched Jeremy’s razor ad, and I see clearly what they’re doing. It’s an appeal to men to be manly, to build an alternative, conservative economy, and screw the pansy, woke liberals. We don’t need your woke razors; we’ll make our own damn razors. It’s a brilliant move, and almost brilliantly executed. The problem is that Jeremy Boreing is doing what evangelicals almost always do and that is trying to win the war by going three or four decades backward to where it was not yet quite as obvious that we were already losing the war. Those of us who champion the traditional family sometimes get accused of just wanting to turn back the clock to Ozzie and Harriet or Leave it to Beaver or whatever your preferred iconic 1950s family looked like. But to Hell with that. While I would certainly take the 1950s in some respects over what we have today as far as public morality and freedom goes, if we’re aiming for that as some kind of potent cultural highwater mark, prepare to be massively disappointed, and to our point here, prepare to repeat a Vietnam, literally and culturally. 

The Whole Argument
Look, let me try to explain this to you carefully: right after the 1950s came the 1960s. That’s it. That’s the argument. Whatever was going on in the 1950s, it birthed, created, and curated the 1960s. Whatever hypocritical façade was on television in the 1950s, let us be clear that all was not well. And a whole bunch of what was not well can be exemplified in Jeremy Boreing’s razor ad, a sort of call back to a 1950s-let-boys-be-boys. But the thing that conservatives have to understand is that what Jeremy Boreing playfully exudes is nothing less than the proto-wokism that led directly to the current woke jihad. And just to put a fine point on what I’m talking about: I’m talking about the girls dressed as whores. That’s the fly in the ointment. It’s the glaring contradiction that undermines everything else in the ad. Because having multiple women standing around you with their breasts hanging out is not manly. It is what men think is manly who are already in the grip of woke lust. It is what men think is manly who are already in the process of giving their strength to women. And it is precisely how we got here. 

The original offer of woke enlightenment came in the Garden 6,000 years ago, when the serpent told a woman that if she ate of the forbidden fruit, her eyes would be opened and she would be like God, knowing good and evil. This is the continental divide. This is the watershed issue. Did God really say? And don’t misunderstand. My objection is not coming from some kind of prude embarrassment of female bodies, sex, or breasts. I just gave a wedding homily a few days ago in which I hit the glory of feminine beauty in a straightforward and biblical way. I’m a minister of the gospel, and one of my assigned texts is the Song of Solomon. And I do believe it is my duty to bring these things up in a way calculated to embarrass real prudes. But the Bible is utterly clear that a woman’s breasts belong to no one but her own husband to enjoy (Prov. 5:19).

But watch this: the Bible teaches that there is a moral and logical gravity to sexual immorality. You cannot stop at pinups and bikini babes because you are already in the process of deciding for yourself what is good and evil. When you reject God’s Word, you are building a house on the sand, and it cannot stand. You cannot say that your standard is traditional family values or Western culture or even “holy” tradition because that is no transcendent, eternal standard. The “Judeo-Christian tradition” divorced from the authoritative Word of God found in the Bible is just humanism in religious drag. What we find in the “tradition” is promiscuity, injustice, and bigotry. What we find in Western culture is a bunch of good stuff (from Christ and His Word) and piles of bad stuff still getting worked out of fallen humanity’s system. There really was misogyny, polygamy, racism, and slavery. Hear me carefully: I’m not saying the West intentionally promulgated all those things. I’m not saying that there is nothing to conserve from the Christian West. No, I believe the Christian West has been a glorious explosion of progress and blessing precisely because the gospel was leavening that loaf, because in various ways, more or less, and to varying degrees, it was Christian and becoming Christian. I’m a conservative because I believe with all my heart that we must conserve those good things given to us by Christ and built on the firm foundation of His Word in the Bible. But if you make the tradition or the culture all by itself the standard you have made a very imperfect artifact of Christian influence the standard, which is just as foolish as making one man or one Christian denomination your standard (Sorry, Walsh and Knowles). For whatever good they may truly have done, they are not the standard. The standard is Christ and His Word. 

But the point is this: you cannot fight back against 2022 wokism with 1950s proto-wokism. OK, sure, you can try and you can score a few points, maybe even make the other side hurt in the bank account and in the cool points category. I mean let’s face it, modern woke progressives are some of the least cool people in the world, and dudes with blowtorches and fast cars are way cooler. No doubt. But it’s like if Boreing had gone for a slightly older audience, aiming maybe instead for the 1920s, and instead of pinup girls, he had two dudes in white hoods standing next to him, maybe with burning crosses. And you say, who would do that? Well, Jeremy Boreing apparently. Why do I say that? Well, the KKK really was a respectable Gentleman’s club that stood for “tradition” for a time in our nation. It was full of crap, but it’s true. And I have no way of knowing from Jeremy’s Razor ad on what basis the Daily Wire chaps would object to it. I mean those white hoods were signs of American masculinity (for a minute). They were wicked signs, but why hookers and not white hoods? And the answer I suspect is that one is more universally popular with lustful men. And that’s all I need to know. If you think you will win this culture war through pure populism, through some vague goodness of the common man, then you may be good for a momentary speed bump of the progressive tidal wave, but you won’t be here in 10 years. 

From Pinups to Mastectomies
It’s not an accident that when the prophet Ezekiel describes the promiscuity of Israel and Judah, likening them to desperate whores who paid their lovers to grab their breasts (Ez. 16:33, 23:21), that God gives that kind of whoring over to a kind of drunk insanity that ends up cutting off its own breasts: “Thou shalt be drunk with drunkenness and sorrow with the cup of astonishment and desolation… thou shalt even drink it and suck it out, and thou shalt break the sherds thereof, and pluck off thine own breasts…”   (Ez. 23:33-34). So this is the moral and covenantal gravity we are dealing with: if you show your breasts off or pay women to do so, you are asking for the kind of judgment from God that will drive you to the madness of self-mutilating mastectomies. Read it for yourself. Start with Jeremy Boreing, and you will end up with that poor Elliot Page girl. 

We are living in that world now, a world where having flaunted sexual promiscuity for a solid generation and more, we now find ourselves (shock) surrounded by women and girls getting mastectomies because they think they might actually be men, and we have men voluntarily being castrated because they think they are women, and men buying and selling babies because they have rejected the natural use of women. You can’t stand on some kind of moral high horse mocking Ketanji Brown Jackson’s refusal to define what a “woman” is, when you clearly don’t know what one is either. Sure, I can prefer a world where everyone knows that a woman has real, God-given mammary glands. But it’s unclear that Jeremy Boreing knows what they are for. They are not for the world to ogle. They are for one man to enjoy, a man who took vows to lay down his life to provide for and protect that one woman till he dies, and they are for giving life to children. 

Conclusion
I don’t write this because I want the Daily Wire to fail. I write this because they have been one of the closet things to an honest, conservative news and media house in recent years. But I’m told that their first feature film couldn’t help but have brief shots of breasts, and now the CEO comes out with his own ad pretending to be a pimp. 

This is the point: you do not fight the judgment of God with the very thing that brought the judgment of God. You do not fight the woke mob with the thing that sent it. I’m all about true, biblical masculinity, the kind that shoots guns (and flamethrowers), drives fast cars and big trucks, chops wood, smokes cigars, drinks whiskey, works hard, and doesn’t give a damn about what the godhaters think, but I also believe that all of that grit, all of that sweat, all of that strength and swagger (the godly kind) is for the purpose of finding one woman to love till your dying day, putting a roof over her head, and making her the mother of as many children as the Lord will bless you with. I believe that a husband not only may but must delight continually in his wife’s breasts and their bedroom should be a place where the two of them are constantly having a good time. But I don’t care how much you paid the ladies in the commercial, Jeremy, that’s still called buying and selling flesh. And while I hope that you object to what Dave Rubin is doing, you must hate the path that got us here. And while the liberals are full of lies and smears about true biblical masculinity, what you presented really is toxic masculinity and some of those 1950s dudes really were racist bigots. 

It could have been an amazing ad, but instead, the Daily Wire pulled the punch. Instead, they sold out to a proto-woke mob, and if they continue down that path, they will soon be as lame as all the rest of light night television. What they needed to do was have all the swagger and explosions minus the prostitutes, and the ad should have ended with Jeremy going home to a lovely wife and a table full of kids. That’s the most punk rock thing a man can do: work hard, kick ass, and do it all for Christ and his family. And having been a dude all day long, crushing the competition, paying his bills, putting food on the table, providing for his kids, taking dominion and putting woke razors out of business, the ad could have ended with a sly look from his wife and the two heading off to the bedroom. That’s manly sexuality. And that’s the only kind of masculinity that will actually conquer the woke mob. It’s a principled masculinity, a faithful masculinity, and most importantly, it’s a truly fruitful masculinity that’s good for the world because it imitates the masculinity of Christ who was faithful to His bride to death. Otherwise, we’re only grooming our kids to lose the culture war again. Jeremy and the Daily Wire, I hope you’ll do better. 

Leave Your Gift

Jesus said, if you bring your gift to the altar and remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift at the altar; first be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift. 

This means that it would be better to be late for church than to come to church with outstanding offenses between you and a brother or sister. Sometimes conflict arises in the hustle and bustle to get out the door on Sunday morning: a short temper, a snappy response, a biting comment. Sometimes it happens in the car on the way to church. Jesus says that you must first make it right and then come for worship. And if you get all the way up here, and you realize things are not right with someone, you need to go find them first and then enter into worship. 

In the Old Covenant, your gift was often an animal – an animal that got sacrificed. In the New Covenant, you are the gift. We offer our bodies as living sacrifices – this is our reasonable service in Christ. This is why we stop at the beginning of the service to confess our sins. Is there anything between you and your spouse? Anything between you and one of the kids? Anything between you and a roommate, your brother or sister, your parents, a friend, or someone else? If you’ve sinned against them, you must go make it right. If they sinned against you, do you have a grudge against them? Have you taken offense? You need to either drop it and let love cover the whole thing or you need to go talk to them and be reconciled. Sometimes you do your best and things are still a little off, but the principle is that as far as it depends upon you, be at peace with all men. 

And Jesus says, do it now. Leave your gift at the altar. First go and be reconciled. Keep short accounts. Go make it right. Confess your sins. Forgive quickly. And then come and worship. Sometimes you may wonder why it’s so hard to worship, so hard to pay attention to the readings or the message, and sometimes this is the problem. Sometimes you need to first go and be reconciled and then come and worship.  

Photo by Kira auf der Heide on Unsplash

Another Smashmouth Explainer

Introduction
I hesitate to write this since I’m honestly not sure how helpful it will be. But I received enough encouraging feedback from the last Eight Tenets post, that I’ll throw one more explainer out for consideration. I have not had a chance to watch, listen, or read all the various responses. For example, it just came to my knowledge that the Apologia guys did a podcast episode on this topic, and I haven’t had a chance to watch/listen to all of it at the time of this writing and recording. So this isn’t a direct reply to that or anyone in particular, just a scattershot of generic replies.

Why the Name “Smashmouth” Incrementalism? 
Pastor Doug Wilson coined the term, and as I understand it, we simply mean that while we are willing to accept small incremental steps toward ending abortion, we are intent on being confrontational and aggressive about it. Unlike some pro-life groups that seem to have done the math and realized that a complete end of abortion would mean a complete end of their cashflow, we are working for the day when all pro-life organizations are out of business because there is no need for them.

I have also used the phrase “Reformational Abolitionist” since historically “abolitionism” in America (relating to slavery) tended to be driven by romantic idealism and revolutionary thought more than Biblical principles of Reformation. I simply mean that we want to end all abortion as quickly as possible according to biblical principles. This includes the prophetic call to complete and immediate repentance for all sins and crimes against Almighty God, including abortion. This includes the call to joyful, reverent worship as the central powerhouse for all Reformation and Revival for the whole world. This includes the duties of being fruitful, multiplying, and taking dominion in our families and businesses, building communities of generational joy, peace, life, laughter, Christian education, wealth, generosity, mercy, and justice. 

We must end the bloodshed as quickly as possible, but we must do so in obedience to God. And some who are giving their lives to this mission are doing so disobediently because they are sacrificing other duties on the altar of ending abortion. Some of them are murdering their brothers in their heart through their hatred and rage against people who do not see everything the same way they do. And that’s a bit ironic. The wrath of man does not accomplish the justice of God. Others are sacrificing the souls of their own children on the altar of ending abortion. Is your marriage on the rocks? Are your kids straying from the faith? You have no business making “abortion ministry” your central calling.

The first principle of the Hippocratic oath is first do no harm. It sure feels holy to stand out there and call mothers and fathers to repentance, but Paul says that you can give your body to be burned, and if you do not have love, it profits you nothing (1 Cor. 13:3). Some folks who have spent their lives on this issue would have been better off watching paint peel. And remember: love is obedience to God from the heart. Your first duty is to the people right in front of you: your spouse, your children, your neighbor. And then yes, as you are faithful in those things, God calls you to look up and work for justice for the orphan and the widow. But you have no business calling for justice for orphans and widows outside your home and church, if you are creating new orphans and widows inside your home and church. So “smashmouth” means confrontational and principled, but it’s a sword that cuts in every direction. 

Judicial Thuggery
I believe that Roe is a complete sham of constitutional justice. There is no right to murder little babies found in God’s law in Scripture, God’s law in nature, or in our constitution. Furthermore, there is no right granted to the Supreme Court (or any court) to make laws at all, especially such manifestly gruesome laws. This means that Roe is not currently the law of our land. It never has been. It never can be. This is because when a man or a woman, even when he or she is wearing a black robe, commands wicked things, nothing of authority has actually been said. 

But this is also true under the American club rules we call the Constitution. Judges do not make laws; congress does. So part of my smashmouth message is to cities, counties, and states to simply ignore Roe. It isn’t a law. But there is a law that exists in heaven and in nature and on all of our law codes that says: Thou shalt not murder. We learned in 2020 that governors and mayors apparently have emergency powers to shut all kinds of things down when lives are at stake. And therefore I have no sympathy (zero) for a conservative Christian governor who refuses to shut down the abortion mills in his state because “he just doesn’t have the authority to do that.” I believe the Hebrew that Ezekiel would use at this point is bullshit. Shut them down. We have an emergency. 2020 took away all your excuses. Make the feds send in the national guard. Make them forcibly re-open the abortion clinics. 

I’ve been saying for years (just in case you’re new around here) that conservative states should play chicken with the federal government in the same way the liberal states have done on issues like marijuana and immigration. If the blue states can pass laws legalizing pot shops and declare themselves sanctuaries for illegal immigrants, defying federal law, then conservative states should simply outlaw abortion and close down the murder mills and refuse to show up when they are summonsed to federal court by Biden’s cronies. Just smile and wave. Smile and wave. And if God is kind, and the current Supreme Court overturns Roe this summer as it should in the Dobbs vs. Jackson case, every conservative state should still do this. 

Another Short Defense of Increments
I know that Jon Speed has responded to my suggestion that the exile of sodomites by Israelite kings (instead of the death penalty) may be an example of godly incrementalism, and he raises some reasonable questions that I haven’t had time to chase down yet. Nevertheless, in my recent Tenets post, I mustered a host of additional biblical data demonstrating the widespread realities of incomplete and partial justice allowed for in the law of God and sometimes even instituted directly by God. I don’t think anyone wants to argue that polygamy is a “just” arrangement for marriage, and yet God did not immediately prohibit it (though He certainly could have). Rather, he regulated it, putting significant limitations on it (Ex. 21). He did the same with slavery and divorce. He did not immediately abolish slavery and divorce, but He established laws which, if followed from the heart, would slowly diminish those practices.

Of course, some argue that murder is simply in a different category. Fine, but God also regulated the common practice of blood vengeance for accidental murder. The system of cities of refuge protected many manslayers, but surely it did not completely eradicate blood vengeance. Some guys who accidentally killed someone probably got lynched before they made it to the city of refuge. There would of course be some legal recourse possible in those situations, but God did not completely criminalize blood vengeance killing. He incrementally limited it.

Finally, while some rightly point to the absolute abomination of innocent bloodshed, the way it defiles a land according to Scripture, God also says that failure to keep Sabbath does the same. In fact, at the end of the Kingdoms, it was not primarily the child sacrifice that God pointed to that ultimately caused the land to vomit them out into exile. No, God says it was their failure to keep Sabbath (2 Chron. 36:21). Therefore, by the logic of those who insist that all legislative efforts to end abortion must require complete and immediate cessation of all abortion, they really must insist on the same sort of legislation requiring Sabbath keeping, right? Or would it be acceptable to incrementally work toward a culture and civil law that honors the day Christ rose from the dead (as our US Constitution does)?

The Centrality of the Gospel
Some replies to me have asked if I would handle adultery the same way I’m advocating we end abortion. If someone in your church said he was addicted to porn or seeing hookers, would I urge him to cut it back to once a week or once a month? Of course the answer is no. I would insist on immediate repentance. Cut off the hand that causes you to sin; pluck out the eye. I would (and do) urge changing jobs, getting rid of your phone, cancelling the internet, filtering software, etc. Aha! My abolitionist friends cry. You admit it! Yes, of course I admit it, and happily. And for the record, if a member of my church was involved in the abortion industry in any way shape or form, I would require the same.

But what if I require immediate repentance of a church member, and the fellow refuses? I would walk out the steps of church discipline (see Mt 18), up to and including formal excommunication. But then what? What if he’s still going to stripper clubs? What if he’s still doing abortions? Now what? Now multiply that by a thousand (or more), and you have our culture, our nation. Of course, piles of people never actually got formally excommunicated. They just left the church or they go to an apostate church that says that adultery and fornication and abortion are all very complicated matters, and who’s to say? It is not at all complicated: abortion and adultery are sins and crimes against God and nature all the time and in every place. I will continue preaching that, Lord willing, to my dying day. And I call upon all men everywhere to repent and submit to Christ because there will be a reckoning. 

But what do we do in the meantime? What if some of the pagans offer to limit their murders to Tuesdays and Fridays? Do I take it? Yes, of course I do. Or, what if you live in a state like I do where Mormons hold a large share of the legislative branch, and what if their official heretical beliefs are that abortion should be allowed before a heartbeat can be detected or in cases of rape or incest? And the Mormons offer to help criminalize abortion after a heartbeat can be detected, except in cases of rape or incest? Do I take it? Yes, of course I do.

And as I said to my friend Jeff Durbin in one conversation about this, if we’re talking about a state (maybe in the South somewhere?) where a majority of the legislators are evangelical pro-life Christians, then I don’t see why you wouldn’t simply insist on passing a bill completely ending abortion. Period. If we’re talking about some place like, I don’t know, Oklahoma, where a majority of the lawmakers are members of SBC churches (maybe?), I’m probably completely with my abolitionist brothers. We don’t counsel incremental repentance for professing evangelical believers. But if you’re in New York State, and they’re passing legislation to allow you to kill the baby up to two years of age (and why not?), then you’re doing business with Aztecs and while you preach the gospel to them, I would absolutely take every opportunity to limit and regulate that bloodshed. Can we get a 20 week ban? I would take it. This is what we mean by “running all the plays.” 

A Super Long Conclusion
Maybe one way to frame all of this is to ask whether there is any room for running all the plays in evangelism. I’m a presuppositionalist, and I have concerns about approaches to evangelism that flatter a man’s reason and blindness. But I don’t mind running evidentialist plays or various and sundry arguments that might trip a man’s unbelief up in the process. Even the presuppositional argument depends on thinking and reasoning, but of course the point of it is to undermine all our abilities to reason to God. The point of it is what Paul says in Romans, to shut every mouth. 

In one sense, conversion to Christ is immediate. There is a point in time in which God gives a man a new heart. One minute, if a bus hit that guy, he would go straight to Hell, and then a minute later, he would go straight the other way. That’s true, and I believe it. But frequently, conversion is not experienced in such a dramatic way. Frequently, it seems to us more like a dimmer switch, more like the sun coming up. There really is a moment before and after, but since we are not God, we do not have the ability to click a stopwatch and record the nano-second. God knows it certainly, but we don’t and can’t. Therefore, we preach and urge for conversion of sinners. But frequently, we are working with incremental steps. 

Suppose somebody comes to church for the first time. We meet them and talk to them. Maybe they’re obviously pagan. Maybe it’s a lesbian or transexual. Maybe it’s an abortionist. They seem honestly curious. You tell them you believe the whole Bible, even the parts about homosexuality and crossdressing and abortion. And then, shock, they come back the following week. You talk to them again. They ask questions about the gospel and what the Bible says about sexual sin and abortion. You tell them the answers clearly. You point to the texts. They leave, and they come back again the following week. Maybe somewhere around week 4 or 5, they ask to meet outside of church, and they are a tangle of questions and confusion. They seem very interested in the gospel, very unsure of how to get out of their current situation, and what to do. Jim Wilson says there’s a difference between “good advice” and “good news.” Good news begins with the gospel and conversion and then leads to sanctification and wise decision making, but somebody who is not yet converted to Christ can make more or less wise decisions but not really make much progress in wisdom apart from Christ. You can tell an unbeliever not to spend more than they make (good advice), but ultimately only a believer wants to be wise and sacrificial with their money. 

Now, I can imagine plenty of scenarios where you are telling this inquirer that they need to come to Christ and repent completely now, and yet, it could take weeks, months, or years for that to happen. Please don’t misunderstand, I’m not talking about the kind “friendship evangelism” that never tells the truth, never confronts sins, and simply plays footsie with the world. I’m talking about the kind of smashmouth friendship Jesus had with sinners, the kind that called sinners out, the kind that pursued for conversion and repentance and holiness. And yet, frequently there really is a process, and before a person is converted, they would certainly know what I think about their notorious sins (they need to immediately end), but in the meantime, my “good advice” would be toward incrementally ending those sins, since sinning less is better for them and for the world. There is no room for compromise on God’s standards, but when unbelievers ask whether it would be better to sin more or less, faithful Christians should have a clear conscience about always saying less. And that’s all we’re saying when we support a heartbeat bill. Fewer babies dying is better than more babies dying. 

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

John & Hope

I had asked John and Hope if there was anything in particular they wanted me to talk on for the homily, and when John wrote me back earlier this week he said (and I quote) “feel free to just wing it on the homily.” Which after some consideration, I decided not to do, but which I do consider a pretty open invitation. So I thought I would pick what some might consider the most offensive verse from your scripture reading. 

This is Psalm 45:11: “So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him.”

Psalm 45 is a wedding song, a wedding poem. In addition to all the other signs of antiquity: swords and sharp arrows dripping with blood, and garments woven with gold, perfumed with myrrh and aloes and cassia, the poem descends into what many moderns feel is another artifact of the past: stereotypes of men and women: he will desire your beauty, and he is your lord, worship him. 

Now, let us be clear at the outset that there are plenty of ways to get this wrong. Just because you hold that two plus two is four does not mean that you approve of all the kids in the class who wrote two plus two equals five or six or even three. Just because you’re doing the same math problem as them, doesn’t mean you agree with their wrong answers. Just because you believe that a woman is created by God to be beautiful, and a man was created to be strong doesn’t mean you agree with all the wrong ways people do the math. That doesn’t follow at all. 

But we can dispatch with a couple of the more common wrong answers quickly, and so we might as well. First off, to say that woman’s glory is her beauty is not to objectify a woman or turn her into merely something to look at. This is because the Bible is equally clear that a woman’s beauty begins on the inside. 1 Peter 3 says that a wife’s adorning is to not primarily be on the outside but first and foremost on the inside: the hidden man of the heart, which is not corruptible, the beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in the sight of God is of great price (1 Pet. 3:4). In the surrounding context, we learn that this inner beauty is full of courage, wisdom, and fearlessness. But we are not Gnostics either. We do not believe that God created these bodies as mere bags of skin and water in order to carry our brains around in them. The Bible teaches that a woman’s body is part of her beauty. Her long hair is for a glory and a covering. A husband is to delight continually in his wife, particularly her breasts, and if you’ve ever read the Song of Solomon, there’s plenty more, but this is a family event. 

So when a godly man desires a godly woman’s beauty, he desires that uncorruptible inner beauty that trusts in the Lord and is wise, courageous, and fearless, all of which overflows in an beautifully adorned life. And by God’s design this is a godly woman’s power. We do not deny that God created women for power and authority and rule. We only deny that the world’s way of empowering women does anything of the sort. The Bible teaches that a woman rules from her home, from the dinner table, from the marriage bed in obedience to her God. 

But what the world cannot understand is how that power can exist, or perhaps we ought to say co-exist, just to make them mad. They cannot understand or refuse to understand how that kind of feminine power can co-exist with a masculine power and authority that plays with swords and arrows and goes into battle and rules with strength his entire life, including his home, his family, and yes, even his wife. 

Again, we can quickly dispatch with wrong answers: to say that a man is lord of his home and lord of his wife does not mean that he is the absolute dictator of his home or wife, like our Federal government currently thinks it is. We believe in delegated and limited authority in every area of life because we believe that no mere human being can be trusted with absolute authority. The only human being we ascribe all authority and power to is Jesus Christ, and that is because He is fully God and fully man. He is perfect and holy and just and good. No other man (or woman) is perfect, and therefore, no other man or woman can be trusted with absolute authority and power. 

But this does not mean that you can somehow escape having authority and hierarchy in this world. The communist fantasy of the abolishment of authority is just that: a fantasy, a myth, and every serious attempt to establish that socialist utopia has resulted in some people with all the power crushing those they claimed they were setting free. So rather than lying about such things, the Bible simple lays out the limits. A husband has true authority in his home and over his wife, but it is limited by God’s word. And it is specifically limited by the model of Christ. The husband’s authority is only for loving his wife like Jesus loved the Church and gave Himself for her. A husband is lord as he dies to himself and leads his wife to become more holy. A husband is lord as he provides for the material and spiritual needs of his wife and her children and protects them in the process. This is true lordship, but it is a bloody lordship, a sacrificial lordship. It is not always what his wife wants or thinks she needs, but it is truly for her good, for her flourishing, for her fruitfulness and blessing because it is under the jealous oversight of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is watching closely how His servant lords lead and love His beloved daughters. 

Hope, my charge to you is to become even more of what you are today: lovely. First and foremost, pursue the kind of beauty that can never be taken away from you, the kind of beauty that never fades, the beauty that comes from knowing Christ. Rest in Christ and fear no man. Rest in Christ and serve your man, your husband, your family with courage and wisdom. Adorn your life, your home, your bed, your body with that beauty. It is your glory and power, and your husband greatly desires it. He is your lord: honor him, respect him greatly. But do not forget that you are a daughter of the King, and so do it all with great joy, great dignity. You are a lady of the realm. 

John, my charge to you is to gird your sword upon your thigh and so become even more of what you are today: strong. In Psalm 19 it says that all of creation proclaims the glory of God, and it’s like a tabernacle for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, rejoicing as a strong man to run a race. The metaphors are all piled on top of each other, but part of the image is the joyful strength of a bridegroom. It has taken strength to get to this point, and God is blessing you today with a wife. You have run hard, and you have won this part of the race. You have won Hope. But first and foremost, you must pursue the kind of strength that can never be taken away from you, the kind of strength that never fades, the strength that comes from knowing Christ. Christ was strong for you in dying for your sins, so that you might lay your life down for Hope. Remember that Christ conquered by taking responsibility for sins he did not commit in order to set us free. So too, you are being called today to take responsibility for Hope in order to set her free. You are being crowned today. You are becoming a lord today, but remember that you must be a lord who bleeds, a lord who sacrifices, a lord who imitates Our Lord Jesus, who died to make His bride whole. 

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen. 

Eight Tenets of Smashmouth Incrementalism

Introduction
This is not any kind of official document, but rather an informal reply to a request from some for an explainer of the “tenets of the smashmouth incremental” approach to ending abortion. While the request was for “tenets,” consider this more of a list of biblical principles defending the approach, but it’s a “thinking out loud” list, certainly not meant to be complete, exhaustive, or necessarily representative of anyone other than me. Pastor Douglas Wilson coined the phrase to describe our approach to ending abortion here in Moscow at Christ Church and our related ministries, although it certainly is not a requirement for fellowship or membership. So here goes… 

1. We call for the immediate end of all murder by abortion from conception on and biblical justice for the unborn, and we support all efforts to establish this moral, judicial duty in the world. We condemn all efforts to stymy, stonewall, ignore, or bury such legislative measures or judicial decisions, especially by organizations that call themselves “prolife” and lack the courage or principles to take decisive steps to end abortion. 

2. We believe that all who hate wisdom love death, and the natural man is enslaved to bloodshed and violence as his idolatrous sacrament and he will refuse to repent until God destroys him, either through physical death and Hell or through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We believe that it is the mission of the Church to proclaim the gospel to every creature in every nation calling them to complete repentance and submission to Christ and obedience to His laws in Scripture. No legislation or judicial ruling will end abortion, but Christ will end abortion through the gospel and it will be reflected in the laws of the land over time.

3. We believe that the gospel works through the world like leaven in a loaf, like a mustard seed slowly growing. Likewise, while every regenerate person is fully justified at conversion, sanctification is the process by which Christ conforms people to His glorious image, an incremental process only completed at the resurrection in glorification. While all known sin must be put to death as quickly as possible, God does not convict everyone of every sin equally or immediately. This is especially true of widespread cultural sins (for example, polygamy, divorce, and slavery). While God hates the shedding of innocent blood, especially of children, and His prophets certainly condemned it, the center of their message was a gospel message of repentance that would have resulted in gradual reformation in the land. 

4. While God’s justice is unchanging, the implementation of His justice will always be imperfect in this world, and our goal must be gradual conformity to God’s eternal standards. We find examples of this gradual conformity in the fact that God did not immediately put Cain to death after he murdered his brother, He did not immediately prohibit blood-avengers for manslaughter, He did not immediately prohibit polygamy, He did not immediately or fully prohibit slavery, nor did He completely prohibit sinful divorce, and Scripture praises kings who used methods of suppression for sodomy (e.g. exile) instead of the death penalty prescribed in the law. 

5. While obedience to God is immediate, complete, and joyful, Jesus teaches that the son who said “no” but then later obeyed his father is better than the son who said “yes” and then never actually obeyed. In other words, Jesus taught that obedience is sometimes slow, incomplete, and halting, but partial obedience is to be preferred to accomplishing nothing at all. The same is true of the necessity of ending abortion.

6. We reject the notion that any incremental bill that stops short of complete abolition means that its supporters are permitting any abortion before and within the limited parameters (e.g. “and then you can kill the baby”), any more than God’s law limiting polygamy was God granting permission to a man to take a second wife (Ex. 21:10). 

7. Since we cannot snap our fingers and end all abortion in every land immediately, all efforts to end abortion must be incremental in time and space. If you are waiting until the next legislative session to bring a bill of complete abolition, how is that not incremental? Are you saying that it’s OK to kill babies until then? Of course not. If you are only bringing a bill in Oklahoma, and not the whole world, are you saying that it is OK to kill babies in Massachusetts or India? Of course not. In the same way, small steps toward ending abortion like heartbeat bills and ultrasound bills or parental permissions need not be seen in any way as either permitting or regulating murder, but rather as limiting and suppressing murder, while discipling the nations. The corruption of some prolife groups who champion these sorts of bills as “major victories” need not curb our enthusiasm for running the next play. 

8. The Body of Christ is diverse and not every good work is the duty of every member of the Body. While we affirm that the murder of the unborn is a heinous sin and crime that some Christians must give themselves to ending, the preaching of the gospel in local churches, missions and evangelism and mercy ministries, as well as the building of cultures of life through families, schools, and businesses are also essential parts of calling the world to repentance and obedience to Christ. Christians who give themselves to building faithful Christian communities where children are welcomed and cared for are as much part of ending abortion as those brothers preaching outside of abortion mills and those calling legislators to end abortion, and therefore, we must not despise one another for building and fighting on a different part of the wall of the Kingdom, for being different parts of the Body of Christ. 

Assurance of Salvation

Can you know for certain that you are saved? Can you know for certain that you have eternal life and that when you die, you will be with Christ forever? The Bible says that you can know. In fact, 1 John is one of places in the Bible full of the promises of assurance of salvation. 

Do you know you are a sinner in need of cleansing and do you love confessing your sins? “If we say that have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn. 1:8-9)

Do you love finding new ways to obey God? “And this is how we know that we know Him, if we keep his commandments” (1 Jn. 2:3).

Do you long for heaven and the resurrection and the return of Christ? Is meeting Jesus and seeing Him and being with Him forever one of your greatest passions? “Beloved, now we are the sons of God, it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure” (1 Jn. 3:2-3). 

Do you love going to church and being with God’s people? If you miss a week do you feel it? Or could you go for weeks or months without it? “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren” (1 Jn. 3:14). “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His son cleanses us from all sin” (1 Jn. 1:7). 

If these things characterize you and are growing in you, be assured by God’s Word that Christ is in you, and you are in Him by His Holy Spirit, and you have eternal life. But if these things do not describe you, do not kid yourself, do not lie to yourself. And if you have any questions about any of this, please talk to me or one of the other elders. 

Photo by David Köhler on Unsplash