Toby J. Sumpter's Blog, page 30

Prodigals & Perfectionists

One of the lessons of this table is that God is not petty. God never loses a sense of proportion. Here God sets a table of grace for the world. And He says, “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (Is. 55:1). 

And the thing to notice here is that God says this to people who have stolen money from Him, have cursed Him, and spent all their money on prostitutes and reckless living. Your Father in Heaven is the Father in the parable of the prodigal. He is looking down the road for all the prodigals, for any who come knowing their sin, and He is eager to throw a party. He is preparing a fatted calf for those who have no money, for those who have squandered His grace. 

The older brother in the parable is the petty one, and please note carefully that he was the good one. He stayed home. He didn’t squander his father’s inheritance, and yet in the end, He was angry and excluded himself from his father’s joy. But the father’s joy is for both kinds of sons, prodigals and petty perfectionists. 

We come to this table every week, but it’s possible to come and yet not really come. It’s possible to eat and drink, but not feast on Christ. It’s possible to come and not enter into the joy of the Lord. But that is what is set before you now: the joy of Christ; your Father’s joy. It’s the kind of joy that runs to meet foolish sinners and welcome them come. It’s the kind of joy that puts a new robe on your rags, a ring on your filthy finger, kills the fatted calf, and hires a band for dancing. 

Do you see? Do you understand? Your Father is full of mercy, full of grace. So lay your petty grievances down. Let them go. Stop fussing about what he said or she said or did and just come. Come to the feast. Come into the party. Come into the joy. 

Come and welcome to Jesus Christ.

Photo by Ardian Lumi on Unsplash

A Catechism on the Governments: 50 Questions & Answers

Preface
This might seem like a strange blog post, and it really is different from what I usually do here. But these are strange times, and as they say: strange times call for strange blog posts. They do say that, don’t they? During the Reformation catechisms were written all over the place, short punchy lists of questions that everyone was asking, trying to get their heads and hearts around, and so here’s one for our day that I hope will be helpful, as we ask the Lord to bring another Great Reformation out of this current disarray.

And of course, helpful comments or suggestions are most welcome. But please note that I said “helpful comments.” All the unhelpful ones please only share with your computer screen or iPhone or pet turtle. At some point, it would probably be helpful to put Scripture references in the answers. But suffice it to say for now I have tried to stay close to what the text clearly says or what can be clearly inferred from the text. In other words, I have Scripture references in mind for these answers, and I’m happy to provide them upon request for particular answers. So here goes.

Introduction
1. Where does all authority and power come from?

All authority and power in heaven and on earth originates in the Triune God and has been given to the Lord Jesus Christ.

2. If all authority is from God, what kind of authority can humans have?

Because all authority is from God, all human authority is delegated and limited.

3. What does it mean that all human authority is delegated?

Delegated authority means that it was given directly by God and can be revoked by Him.

4. What does it mean that all human authority is limited?

All human authority is limited by the particular assignments given to them by God in His Word. Any leader who goes beyond, misuses, or abdicates their particular assignments has no authority to do so. 

5. What governments have been established directly by God?

God has established the responsibility of self-government in every individual, and family government, church government, and civil government in society.

6. Who is the Head of every government and power?

The Lord Jesus Christ. Since He exercised self-government perfectly in His sinless life, atoning death, and glorious resurrection and ascension, He has been made Father of all the families of the earth, King of all the kingdoms of the earth, and the only Head of the Church in heaven and on earth.

Self-Government
7. What is the sphere and assignment given by God to individuals in self-government?

God has graciously assigned the dominion mandate to all human beings which is part of what it means to be made in God’s image.

8. What is the Dominion Mandate?

The Dominion Mandate is found in Genesis 1:28 and it is the command and blessing, with the corresponding authority to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, and rule over all of creation. 

9. How is self-government possible?

Because of sin and the Fall of Adam, self-government has been distorted and become a means of tyranny, harm, and misuse. Therefore, true self-government is only possible through the regeneration of human hearts brought about by the preaching of the gospel and the renewing grace of the Holy Spirit.

10. What is self-government also called in the New Testament?

In the New Testament, self-government is also called self-control, one of the fruits of the Spirit.

11. Why is self-government the foundation for all other governments?

Self-government is the foundation of all other governments because all other governments are made up of individuals who either serve themselves and their lusts, or else they serve others in love through obedience to the authority of Christ.

12. What is the duty of all people with regard to self-government?

It is the duty of all people to rule their entire lives in this world to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth with good things in praise and imitation of their Maker and Savior and for His glory.

Family Government
13. What is the sphere and assignment given by God to family government?

God has assigned the dominion mandate to families as well, with the particular tasks of providing for the basic nurture, health, welfare, and education of individuals in the household. 

14. Who are the magistrates of the family?

Ordinarily, God gives husbands and fathers primary authority and responsibility for the provision and protection of their household. Every wife and mother is the vice-magistrate of the home, assisting her husband, bearing and training up their children, and ruling her home in wisdom and beauty. 

15. What does the provision of health and welfare entail?

The health and welfare of a household entail the basic ongoing material and spiritual provisions of love, care, friendship, intimacy, food, clothing, and shelter, as well as the responsibility to provide for medical expenses, disabilities, retirement, and inheritance. 

16. What does Christian education entail?

Parents are required by God to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of Lord Jesus. This is the task of teaching children to love God with all that they are in every area of life all day long, but it is also the broader task of handing down the skills, loyalties, and spiritual and material inheritance necessary for the household to successfully replicate itself over generations under the blessing of God. 

17. What sanctions has God given to the government of the family?

God has given parents the authority to discipline children in the love of Christ, both in positive encouragement and with the use of the rod of correction. Ultimately, if a child persists in rebellion and unbelief, Christian parents have the responsibility to disinherit him.

18. What is the duty of all people with regard to the government of the family?

It is the duty of all people to honor their father and mother, that their lives may be long in the land. All people are also required to honor the marriage bed and consider it and the blessing of children among the highest gifts given by God to men, and the basic building block of human society.

Church Government
19. What is the sphere and assignment given by God to church government?

God has given church government the Great Commission and authority over Christian worship. 

20. What is the means God has given to the church to carry out the Great Commission and Christian worship?

God has given the church the Word and the Sacraments to carry out the Great Commission and Christian worship. 

21. What is the Great Commission?

The Great Commission is given in Matthew 28:18-20 where Jesus says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, therefore go, disciple the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you.”

22. What is Christian worship?

Christian worship is the called-together gathering of the church in person, principally on the Lord’s Day, to renew covenant with Christ, through the Word read, preached, and sung, as well as through prayers, and the celebration of the sacraments, all according to Scripture. 

23. What is the Word?

The Word is the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation, the perfectly preserved testimony of the patriarchs, apostles, and prophets, proclaimed by evangelists, missionaries, and pastors, and thoroughly taught to all who believe in Christ for obedience in every human endeavor. The Bible is the authoritative Word to every human government, but it is the peculiar charter and constitution of the Christian church. 

24. What are the Sacraments?

The sacraments are Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the signs and seals of membership in the church, means of grace for all of God’s people, instituted directly by Christ.

25. Who are the officers of the church?

The officers of the church are qualified men called elders (or bishops) and deacons. 

26. What are the offices within the eldership? 

There are three offices of elders: ministers (or pastors) are elders tasked with regular ministry of Word and Sacrament; teaching elders (or doctors) are tasked with teaching the Word, often in academic or missionary contexts, and ruling elders (or lay/parish elders) are elders whose primary job is to rule the church. All three offices of elders share the government of the church equally together. 

27. What is the office of deacon?

Deacons are qualified men who assist the elders in carrying out the ministry of the church and in caring for the physical needs of the saints.

28. What are the sanctions of the Church?

Christ has given to the church the sword of Scripture with which it is authorized to preach, encourage, teach, rebuke, as well as private and public censure. This authority is also called the keys of the kingdom, and it includes welcoming new Christian disciples through baptism, correcting for sin, and in cases when an individual persists in high handed, unrepentant sin, excommunication, barring them from the Lord’s Table, and reckoning an individual an unbeliever and outside the fellowship and inheritance of Christ.

29. What is the duty God requires of all people with regard to the Church?

God commands everyone everywhere to repent and believe in Jesus Christ, and so be baptized and received into membership in a local church, to be in submission to local elders, and to participate in the worship and life of the body through freely giving of their gifts.

Civil Government
30.  What is the sphere and assignment given by God to the civil government?

The sphere and assignment given by God to civil government is punishing criminals, establishing good order and justice in society through equal weights and measures, and praising the righteous. 

31. Does the Bible require a particular form of civil government? 

The Bible allows for some flexibility and freedom in form of government, but it clearly teaches a constitutional and representative form of government, governed by Scripture, common law, and natural law, prioritizing personal, local, and covenantal relationships and loyalties, with multiple checks and balances, given the natural tendency of sinful men to abuse power. A Christian civil order requires a limited government.

32. How is civil government to be limited?

Civil government is to be limited by honoring the assignments given to the governments of the family and the church, not meddling in or taking to itself those assignments, and remaining steadfast in the sphere and assignment given to it by God: punishing criminals and upholding justice. 

33. Who are the officers of civil government?

Following the pattern of Scripture, the officers in civil government are ordinarily qualified men who are judges, legislators, and executives, beginning with local magistrates in the city gates.

34. What are the sanctions granted to the civil government?

God has granted the civil magistrate the sword with which to execute God’s vengeance on criminals. The basic principle is the lex talionis “eye for eye” which requires strict punitive or retributive justice and biblical restitution in cases of theft, property damage, or divorce, but may also include stripes, banishment, exile, or the death penalty. Incarceration is not an ordinary tool given to civil government.  

35. What is the difference between a sin and a crime?

All sins are not crimes, but all crimes, if defined by the Bible, are sins. However, sins are the jurisdiction and ministry of individuals, families, and churches. Crimes are the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate and do objective, public harm to life, liberty, or property. The Bible identifies crimes as those actions which require restitution or penalty by civil magistrates. For example, in the Bible, drunkenness and ethnic animosity are sins but not crimes, while adultery is a sin and a crime. 

36. Are the civil laws of ancient Israel binding on all civil governments for all time?

No. The specific laws of ancient Israel have expired with that nation state. However, those laws were based on the general equity of moral justice based on the eternal character of God. Since that eternal character cannot change, those common law principles are still binding on all nations for all time.

37. What does natural law teach and require?

Natural law is the revelation of the eternal character and attributes of the Triune God found in all of His creation, including His image found in all human beings in their conscience, customs, creativity, and cultures, and it teaches and requires all men to acknowledge Him as Creator and praise and obey Him in all things. Because of sin, natural law must be interpreted and checked by Scripture.

38. What is the difference between “preventative” and “punitive” justice?

Preventative justice is the attempt by humanists to prevent crimes by limiting liberty through endless regulations, fines, and inspections, whereas biblical punitive justice leaves men free and only punishes where actual crimes have occurred. 

39. What is necessary for a civil magistrate to administer just punishment?

Civil magistrates administer just punishment when crimes are clearly identified in the Bible, confirmed by the mouth of two or three witnesses, when the accused have the right to answer their accuser and cross examine any witnesses, and when the penalty is commensurate with the crime. In short, the Bible requires fixed, equal weights and measures, due process, presumption of innocence, and convictions based on established facts, evidence, and testimony. 

40. Does the Bible require the execution of rebellious children, adulterers, or homosexuals?

No. The Bible allows the death penalty as a maximum sentence for such crimes, but only requires execution for intentional murder. 

41. Since God establishes the authority of civil magistrates, must they always be obeyed?

No. Jesus says that we must only render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, but we must always render unto God what belongs to God. 

42. But doesn’t the Bible also teach that we must sometimes submit to evil rulers?

Yes. In matters that do not require us to directly disobey God, we are free to submit to evil rulers in order to be a testimony to them of grace and truth, but we are also free to disobey, especially when God raises up righteous lesser magistrates that we may follow instead. We must never submit when a magistrate commands us to disobey God. 

43. What are some examples of righteous civil disobedience?

The Hebrew midwives lied to Pharaoh and refused to kill the Hebrew baby boys. Gideon threshed wheat in a wine press to hide it from Midianite tax collectors. Daniel and his three friends refused to participate in idolatry in Babylon. Daniel prayed with his windows open in defiance of the king’s decree. Paul fled from a warrant that was out for his arrest. 

44. What is the duty of Christians toward civil government?

It is the duty of Christians to seek the good of their cities, counties, states, and nations, as well as pray for and honor those who serve in every area of civil government. This good is to be defined by the Bible and not vague humanistic notions or cultural fads. This good is primarily performed through faithful living in the other spheres of government, free associations and markets, as well as direct participation at various levels of civics.

Conclusion
45. When were all of these governments established by God?

They were established at Creation in the Garden of Eden before sin entered the world. The fall of man affected the way these governments function, but it did not create them. 

46. May these governments decide to take on new assignments or jurisdictions?

No, because these governments derive their authority from the Lord Jesus, they cannot take on new assignments or jurisdictions without relinquishing their authority since they would be disobeying Christ.  

47. What does it mean that these governments have separate powers or spheres?

The separation of powers means that each government must only exercise its authority in the limited jurisdiction assigned to it by God. Civil governments may not regulate how or when the church gathers for worship or how families provide for themselves or educate children. Neither may parents take to themselves the authority over the sacraments, and the church may not legislate or execute criminal justice. 

48. Are there not times when one government is abusing its authority and another government may legitimately intervene?

Yes, for example, when a crime, as defined by Scripture, has been committed in a family or church, civil government must intervene. Likewise, when a family or civil government is in unrepentant sin, ministers of the church must teach, exhort, rebuke, and censure. 

49. Are there cases of overlapping jurisdictions or authority?

Yes, there are occasional instances where there may be legitimate overlap in jurisdiction. In those cases of overlapping authority, governments must protect their God-given jurisdictions vigorously and work through the challenges, respecting other governments as equals before God.

50. Will all of these governments last forever?

No. While individuals in Christ have everlasting life and the nations will bring their glory into the New Jerusalem, these governments along with marriage and family will be transfigured into something far more glorious, and it is the church alone, as the Bride of Christ, that will last forever. 

Photo by Igor Kyryliuk on Unsplash

Christ is Coming for Dinner

Never forget that this table is the supreme proclamation of the hospitality of God. God invites us here week after week in order to remind us that we belong to Him, that we are His sons and daughters, that we are His family. 

God has blessed our community immensely over many years in many ways, but one of the ways He is blessing us right now is through the addition of many new people into our church. You might be coming to this Downtown Church Plant because it’s a little smaller and easier to get to know people but if you look around you, there’s probably some folks you’ve never met, and these are the smaller services. What this means is that God is calling us to practice hospitality like He does. He invites us here every week, and then He sends us out to imitate His free grace, His generous hospitality.

But hospitality is hard work. This is why Scripture specifically exhorts us to hospitality without complaining or grumbling. Hospitality is hard work. It’s hard work coordinating the guest list, hard work getting dinner prepared, hard work shoveling the driveway so that the guests don’t get stuck and never leave. Some guests are easier to get along with than others, and then you have clean up and dishes. Hospitality is hard work. 

But do not forget what it says in Hebrews: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Heb. 13:2). And remember the two disciples who didn’t recognize the Risen Lord until He broke bread with them and gave thanks. We celebrate Christ here with us every week in part because we need to be reminded that Christ is coming for dinner every night. He’s coming for dinner as you show hospitality to your own family each day, and as you open up your home to new folks and neighbors. Christ is openly here at this table so that you might know that He is at every table, so that you might have joy as you eat and drink and serve. 

Photo by Ian Keefe on Unsplash

First Video Blog or How Mad Can I Make the Women?

Introduction
Hello and welcome to my blog: Having Two Legs. To those of you who have been around for a minute (as the kids like to say), thanks for all the good times. And to those of you just joining us, ahoy. While my blog will continue to be the haphazard collection of my various thoughts and writings and musings and joyful vituperations, as of today, it has also gotten put on Youtube. While there have been a few half-hearted attempts at getting this thing recorded, the good folks at Canon Press are finally making it happen. So, beginning today, I will be posting and recording at least one article a week here on Mondays. Other bits of my writing, like exhortations and communion meditations and sermon outlines from Sunday services will continue to appear in written form, but my longer form articles will appear both here and there on the Having Two Legs Youtube channel brought to you by Canon Press. 

A Greatest Hits
For those of you just joining us, I did want to orient you a bit to the sorts of things you can expect in the coming weeks and months. I took a quick gander at my blog stats from “all time” (according to WordPress), and I thought I’d just give you a quick overview of my greatest hits. At the top of the list by a good margin, is the classic post “Beth Moore, John MacArthur, and Clobbering Girls in Football.” This was the post commenting on Pastor MacArthur’s now famous recommendation to Beth Moore that she “go home,” and the response literally broke my blog. After a day or two of scrambling, we got the thing back up and running on a server that could handle that kind of foot traffic, and we’ve been whistling dixie ever since. Only 5,000 views behind that post is one entitled “Cheerfully Difficult,” my plea at the beginning of the mask mandates for Christians to push back against all the totalitarian nonsense. Along the same lines, “Seven Principles for Reformational Civil Disobedience,” “A Case for Religious Exemption,” “With Kinks Every 6 Feet: What Romans 13 Means in America,” and “When Closing Church is a Bad Witness: A Reply to Jonathan Leeman” are all articles on this COVID-insanity. 

Another common thread in my writing has been on matters of biblical sexuality and what it means to be a man or a woman and not confusing the two in our culture. Greatest hits along those themes would include “Abortion as Porn Accomplice,” “The Gay Greenhouse,” “Nose Piercing,” “LivingOut’s Church Audit Dumpster Fire,” “Rosaria & Revoice in a 48hr. Petri Dish,” “As Gay as Pre-Ripped Jeans,” and “Rachel Denhollander & the Social Justice Movement.” Those are the top posts, but I suppose I would be remiss not to mention that blog cult classic “Pink Hair & Boys Wearing Girls’ Underwear.” Those were good times, weren’t they? 

A third bucket that many of posts fall into is just straightforward pastoral care. “Do Not Give Your Strength to Women” is the stand out post in this category, as is “How to Give Your Testimony If You Grew Up in the Church.” A “Charge to Deacons” is also still regularly viewed, as is “The Poison of the Petty Heart,” “What Kids Need,” “How to Be a Man: Do It Myself,” and most recently “Straight Talk for Dads: Raising Sons in a Pornographic Age.”

At the core of my writing there is a great concern for common evangelical Christians who are being force-fed lies and propaganda all day long, not just from lamestream liberal media but often from their own pastors, so-called Christian friends, teachers, conferences, and websites. I’m certainly not always very eloquent, and I often use my words like ten pound bricks. But the goal is to point the things out that are apparently uncouth, embarrassing, or unpopular to say, but which are manifestly and wonderfully true. And the reason for pointing them out is so that Christians will think about what they are doing, what they are being told, talk about it in their families and small groups and churches, and not just go along with whatever the cool kids are saying this week. 

The Name of My Blog
This is related to the name of my blog: Having Two Legs. It comes from the G.K. Chesterton novella Manalive, which I recommend to you, not for the masterful narrative or moving prose, but primarily for the exploration of one of Chesterton’s central ideas that life is best lived as though you were an Englishman (work with me) who had gone to sea in search of a new world and having landed, found a glorious new world that turned out to be England. He takes that metaphor and pushes it through the rest of life: what if you could live as though your wife were truly your lover, every weekend something of a romantic fling, a woman you were constantly meeting and wooing for the first time to marry and make love to – might you be accused of promiscuity or polygamy? What if you could look at everything through the lens of gratitude and surprise because you were somehow able to constantly see new and surprising things about it? And so the story opens with a report that this man’s friends have received a telegram from him which they take to be a sign of his insanity which only reads: “Man found alive having two legs.” It’s the astonishing glory of the ordinary. The breathtaking punchline of the mundane, which turns out not to be mundane at all. But the kind of childlike heart that begins to take notice of the world like that, frequently strikes respectable types as absurd, uncouth, and sometimes downright offensive. 

In my experience, and according to the commentary of one my most adept friends, many of my most… what shall we say?… colorful blog posts seem to have caught most fire by their ability to rub a certain segment of the Christian population the wrong way. Let me be clear: I don’t aim for this. I just aim to tell the unvarnished, glorious, mundane truth. I’m aiming for my articles to be as exuberantly obvious as the telegram, “Man found alive having two legs.” But after putting my finger in my mouth and then up in the air a few times, the most intense bursts of hot air have frequently been distinctly felt from the female sex, disturbed at how freely or bluntly I have felt to put things. Now, this has not been the case across the board. My wife, for one glorious example, is one of my greatest fans, as are my two daughters. Also my mom, God bless her. And for the record, both of my golden retrievers. Quite a number of other sane, godly Christian women have also added their general encouragement to my articles over the years. But given the climate we live in, overrun as it is by feminist insensibilities, ofttimes telling the truth is a bit like David dancing in the streets as the Ark of the Covenant came into Jerusalem. It’s not fully clothed, and it can make a certain segment of the Christian female public uncomfortable, and sometimes, in my experience, even rather irate. It may be that they fear I am suggesting in my mild sort of way that they are not yet fully glorified as the angels in heaven. 

Conclusion
At any rate, as we embark on this new chapter of Having Two Legs, I intend for my posts to continue merrily along in this Chestertonian tradition, one of pointing out the glorious obvious, the fantastical mundane, and the extraordinary ordinary with a great deal of exuberance and gusto and belly laughs and rhetorical slapdashery, unashamed of the looks of the respectable and cool kids in the room, particularly those daughters of Saul whose cheeks seem to be turning a distinct shade of ripe tomato. 

All of this is because Jesus is King. Jesus has died and rose again, and is remaking all things. He has given us His Word in the Bible, and it addresses all of life and tells us the unvarnished truth so that we might walk in the light as He is in the Light: men and women found alive, having two legs. 

Welcome aboard. 

Photo by Blake Weyland on Unsplash

March for Life 2022

Introduction
One of the central things that Americans must recover as we seek the end of abortion in our land is an understanding of the concept of covenant. A covenant is an agreement, a solemn oath and bond, between two or more persons, with God or before God and other witnesses, with attendant blessings and curses. 

Christians must understand covenant because the whole nature of our salvation is based on covenants. Why is it that we are all sinners, born into sin, born naturally inclined to sin? Because Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden 6,000 years ago. But any reasonable person might ask: but why am I suffering the consequences of somebody else’s sin from 6,000 years ago? The answer is “covenant.” God made an agreement with Adam called the Covenant of Creation, and that agreement stipulated life and blessing for Adam and his descendants if He obeyed God perfectly. But it stipulated death and cursing for Adam and his descendants if he disobeyed God and ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam disobeyed, and so he plunged not only himself, but the whole human race into death and sin. 

“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for all have sinned… ” (Rom. 5:12). But this is why the New Testament calls Jesus the Second Adam, a new Adam. He is the head of a new covenant, a new human race: “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous” (Rom. 5:19). So it is that all who trust in Jesus are united to Him, the obedient one, and they are made righteous. They are transferred from the covenant of creation that was been broken by Adam and all his descendants into the Covenant of Grace which has been kept by Jesus. And that promise is to us and to our children. 

National Covenants
But under these broad redemptive covenants are other covenants: marriage is a covenant, for example, between one man and one woman, before God and other witnesses, and when marriage vows are kept it is a great glory and blessing, but Scripture says that when marriage vows are broken, there is cursing and it covers people with violence (Mal. 2:14-16). 

Nations may also make covenants before God. Of course the most famous was God’s covenant with Israel, which was a unique and special redemptive covenant, but many Christians have understood that while other nations are not be in the unique position of Israel, they may nevertheless make solemn vows and oaths before God to be obedient to His Word and to seek His blessing on their land. This is exactly what the founders of America did.

The passengers aboard the Mayflower made covenant on November 11, 1620, writing, “In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are under-written, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord, King James, by the grace of God… having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine our selves together into a civil body politick…” In 1630, John Winthrop summarized the Massachusetts Bay Colony saying: “We are entered into Covenant with [God] for this work….”

All the colonial constitutions explicitly appealed to God for His blessing and set forth biblical standards for life. The Idaho Constitution begins: “We, the people of the state of Idaho, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, to secure its blessings and promote our common welfare do establish this Constitution.” The Washington State constitution begins: “We, the people of the state of Washington, grateful to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe for our liberties, do ordain this Constitution.” Most of the other state constitutions say something similar, thanking God for freedom and basic human rights and appealing to Him as a witness. And our national government was established on the same principles. 

The Declaration of Independence ends with this covenantal pledge: “We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States… with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

Like a marriage, we swore solemn oaths to be faithful to the Triune God of the Bible as a nation, and by invoking His name and calling upon Him to bless our nation, we made covenant with the Living God. And the thing to underline here is that God remembers covenants. He remembers the covenants we keep, and He blesses those. But God also remembers the covenants we break, and there are curses that come upon those. In Deuteronomy, when God warned Israel about breaking covenant, He warned them specifically about the kind of madness and bloodlust that could fall upon them for breaking the oaths they swore. In Deuteronomy 28 God says that if they turn away from Him, He will bring foreign nations upon them who will lay siege to their cities until the Israelites are so starving mad that they begin eating the flesh of their own children (Dt. 28:53ff). 

We rightly recoil in horror at that kind of atrocity, but it must be said that as a nation we have fallen much lower. The Israelites were warned that if they turned from God they would be besieged by enemies and in their starving desperation, they would turn to cannibalize the fruit of their own wombs. But we are far worse. We are not besieged by foreign armies. We are besieged by luxury and lusts. We are not desperate for our next meals; we are full of good food and frequently obese. We have not turned to the murder of our own children out of desperation; we have murdered our own children out of mere convenience.  

While there certainly are often very hard circumstances that face mothers in our nation, there are mountains of resources for them. Many women are lied to and truly do despair, but as a nation, we are beyond wealthy. We are the wealthiest nation on the planet, and we are the wealthiest nation in the history of the world. And in that condition, we have executed over 60 million babies. While we have not taken to consuming our children directly, we have bought and sold their little bodies and organs for what we call “research” and we have used fetal materials in the development of many of our every day foods and products. This madness is the madness of covenantal curses.  

We sometimes shake our heads at the debauchery and savagery of pagan nations that sacrificed their children to their idols. But we are no better. We have sacrificed over 60 million of our children on the altars of career, so-called “sexual freedom,” empowering women, equality, and many other lies.

Supreme Court Rulings
Many of us have been watching and praying for many years for the reversal of Roe v. Wade, handed down 49 years ago today, and in the last year, a great hope has gone on up in our land for the Dobbs v. Jackson case before the Supreme Court which directly challenges Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the two landmark decisions that have claimed to codify the right to abortion in our land. On the one hand this is most welcome and a wonderful opportunity to correct those egregious moral and judicial rulings. I am praying that justice for the preborn is re-established in this land. I am praying for a full reversal of Roe, and for the right of states to protect the smallest and most vulnerable lives in our midst from conception on. And may God be merciful to do it. 

But on the other hand, we would be remiss not to acknowledge that Roe and Casey have never been the laws of our land. This is because the Supreme Court cannot make laws. It can only judge whether certain laws are constitutional or not. And even then, we acknowledge that the Supreme Court is not actually the highest court in our land. God’s Word and the court of His justice is the highest court in our land. It still says “one nation under God” on our coins, even if many have no idea which god that may be referring to. But the point is this: the Supreme Court could rule that gravity no longer applies, and gravity would care less. The Supreme Court can rule that boys can be girls, or that boys can marry other boys, and reality, God’s created reality, could care less. It does not matter if you dress up in black robes and say that it is perfectly permissible to chop up little babies inside their mothers’ wombs, at no point does such a so-called “ruling” even matter. It’s still murder. It’s still evil. The “right” to do evil does not exist.

Everyone likes to imagine how they would have acted in times past. Everyone likes to imagine that they would be heroes. When the Supreme Court decided in the Dredd Scott case that black people did not have standing as citizens of the United States, that decision was not valid. It wasn’t true. It wasn’t moral. It was not just. In fact, it would have been immoral, false, and unjust to comply with it. In righteous counties and cities and states, they would have ignored the Dredd Scott decision, and carried on treating all men equal under the law. 

But we don’t have to imagine what we would do after a Dredd Scott decision. We have our very own. It’s called Roe. It’s called Casey. At no time and in no place in God’s world is it ever morally acceptable to intentionally end a baby’s life. There is no right to murder in the constitution, and there is certainly no right to murder in God’s green earth. God is sovereign over life and death. Only God can give permission to take life. And if He has not given that permission expressly, it is high handed defiance against Him to take that life that bears His image. 

The Hand of the Lord
And so we come full circle to the notion of covenant. Abortion has never been legal, never been moral, never been a right in this land, any more than it is legal, moral, or just to command water to run uphill or to define male and female by the random lusts of psychotherapists or politicians. But the point is that it’s all related. It’s all connected. It’s the same covenantal insanity that leads people to try to redefine marriage or gender or life. And it’s the same covenantal insanity that listens to the madmen when they demand that we go along with it. And by covenantal insanity, we mean the curses of the covenant. 

The thing that is really hard for many believing Christians to get their heads and hearts around is the fact that the ultimate cause of this bloodbath of abortion is not Marxists or leftists or Democrats or liberals or pansy Republicans. The hand that has brought all of this upon us is the hand of the Lord. When people turn away from the Lord, and they insist that He let them go their own way, some of the most terrifying words you can ever hear from the Lord are, “thy will be done.” Romans 1 says that when people refuse to acknowledge God, refusing to worship Him as the Creator, and refuse to give Him thanks, God turns them over to madness and folly, the kind of madness that confuses sexuality and gender, the kind of madness that ends in violence and destroys ones’ own children. 

But we need not speculate here. We are not merely suspicious that this bloodbath of abortion is a covenant curse for our national sins. Let me read to you the final paragraph from a Supreme Court ruling from 1992: “Our Constitution is a covenant running from the first generation of Americans to us and then to future generations. It is a coherent succession. Each generation must learn anew that the Constitution’s written terms embody ideas and aspirations that must survive more ages. We accept our responsibility not to retreat from interpreting the full meaning of the covenant in light of all of our precedents.” 

The astonishing thing is that this quote is from Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In the very Supreme Court ruling in which Roe was upheld, in which the so-called right to abortion was doubled-down on, the majority opinion insisted that our constitution is a covenant “running from the first generation of Americans to us and to future generations,” and they accepted responsibility for interpreting the “full meaning of the covenant.” While the writer and signers of those words seem to have wanted to limit their interpretation to upholding the Roe decision, their own words condemn them. They appealed to the covenant of the first generation of Americans. They appealed to those who wrote and signed the Constitution. 

So the only real question that matters is: Before Whom did the writers and signers of our Constitution make their vows? When the writers and signers of our Constitution made that covenant, to Whom were they appealing to bless their oaths or else hold them accountable for faithlessness and treachery? There can be no doubt that the founders of our nation swore their oaths and penned our constitution before the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. As our Constitution itself explicitly concludes: “Done in Convention by the unanimous consent of the states present the seventeenth day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven and of the independence of the United States of America the twelfth.” The signers of our constitution explicitly appealed to the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, even as they marked the birth of our nation. 

The Way of Escape
So, we are standing on a brink. And part of that brink is the Dobbs v. Jackson case. It really is a watershed moment where God is giving us an opportunity. But the thing we have to recognize is that it is an opportunity to repent. If we see this as an opportunity to prove that we’re really not as bad as all that, then we’ve completely missed the point. We really are as bad as all that. We are a nation with blood on our hands, and pornographic filth all over our screens. We have been unfaithful to our marriage covenants, and so we have clothed ourselves in violence, and a lot of that violence has been done to our children. In fact, our national leaders, our judges, have explicitly appealed to the covenant to justify the senseless murder of millions of our children. This is no less staggering and damning than the cry of the Jews before Pontius Pilate: “His blood be upon us and upon our children.” We have appealed to the covenant, and so the covenant is being enforced. We have appealed to the covenant, and so the curses of the covenant have fallen upon us. 

But God has made a way of escape. The only way of escape is to somehow have the curses of the covenant fall upon us in a way that doesn’t destroy us. And this is why Jesus was crucified on Calvary. Jesus became the curse of the covenant and the curses of every broken covenant, so that all who trust in Him might go free. We have broken covenant, but Jesus has kept covenant perfectly. We have been unfaithful, but He was faithful, even to death. He bore the curse so that all who are in Him may be reckoned already cursed, already judged. Like the Passover in Egypt, when the Angel of Death came through the land and saw the blood over their doors, He passed over. Where the curse was already signified, the curse had no power. This is what it means to trust in Jesus. This is what it means to be under the blood. It means that all of your sins, all of your covenant unfaithfulness was cursed and judged fully on the Cross of Jesus. It means that the curse has already been fully paid already. 

There is no other way of escape. God sees our sins. He knows our wickedness. And we have appealed to the covenant. But it says this: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

A proud nation, an unfaithful nation, a lying, and sexually immoral nation will always find new ways to defy the living God and destroy those who bear His image and continue to call down the curses of the covenant upon themselves. A mere reversal of Roe will mean nothing if there is not a radical reversal of American hearts. There is nothing innately great about America, but what has made America great are humble men and women who have kept covenant by faith in a great Savior. 

You are here because you want to see the end of abortion in this land. You are here because you believe in a culture of life. But we cannot have that culture of life unless we keep covenant with the Lord and Giver of Life. We cannot have that culture of life unless we keep covenant in our homes and marriages. But where the blood of the everlasting covenant is displayed, a culture of life has already begun. In homes and marriages where sins are confessed and forgiven, a culture of life is growing, and the blood of Christ proclaims the end of abortion in our land. 

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

Two Notes on Confession

As with anything we do regularly, this can become routine and rote, so let me ask you to consider two things this morning as we come to confession. First, don’t save up your sins for Sunday. God wants you to confess your sins right away, not wait until Sunday. And if you already confessed it, already sought forgiveness, and already made things right, don’t bring it up again here. If you’ve been forgiven, this is not a moment for you to pretend that you haven’t been forgiven. Sometimes, during the moment of silence for individual sins, there might not be anything that comes to mind, and it’s perfectly fine to ask the Lord to search you and show you if there’s anything that needs dealing with. But it’s not a moment for dredging up old stuff.

The second thing is to recognize how forgiveness works. Forgiveness is God’s promise not to hold your sin against you for the sake of Christ. And the gospel is clear: “Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” This forgiveness is the aroma of the gospel. Many families and marriages and church communities begin to get a little rancid smell because they do not forgive one another. How does God forgive us? As far as the east is from the west, He has removed our transgressions from us (Ps. 103:12). He has cast all our sins into the depths of the sea (Mic. 7:19). 

Therefore, in a moment when I declare to you that your sins are forgiven through Christ, you must not only receive it for any of your individual sins, but you must also receive it for the forgiveness of your husband’s sins, your wife’s sins, your father’s sins, your mother’s sins, your brother, your sister, your grandparents, your employers, your roommate, especially if they have asked for it. And if they haven’t asked for it yet, you are to have that forgiveness in your heart for them, all ready for when they ask. How can you withhold from them what God gives you so feely?  

Photo by Gus Moretta on Unsplash

Straight Talk for Dads: Raising Sons in a Pornographic Age

[These are notes for a talk I gave to a group of dads yesterday.]

1. It’s never too early to begin preparing sons for manhood. What do men need? Self-control, patience, courage, obedience, joy, etc. So when your boys are young require them to practice self-control, patience, courage, obedience, joy, etc. This begins with small corrections of fits and screaming as infants, and as they become toddlers teaching them to control their bodies and emotions. If we want them to rule well as men, we must begin teaching them to rule their own bodies, emotions, and appetites when they are young. When they fall down, require them to be tough with pain. We gave our boys a quick moment of comfort and then quickly gave them the command, “show me tough,” to which they were required to growl and flex. When they are hungry and tempted to be grumpy, require them to be patient and joyful. If there are things that scare them, graciously require them to face those fears. I learned this before we had kids when I watched another young father do this with his toddler son who was afraid of a vacuum cleaner. I believe his son was required to kick the vacuum cleaner every time he saw it. I later did this with one of my sons who was afraid of going down the sliding pole on the school playground. Emotions and appetites are some of the strongest urges men feel, and so they must be taught to discipline them and rule them well from the earliest ages. When you are teaching your son to be tough and joyful when he has fallen down or hungry or tired, you are teaching him to be tough and joyful when temptation rears its head.

2. Always require immediate, complete, and joyful obedience to parental commands. Faithful men are obedient men. We must first learn to be obedient before we can command obedience. We must be men under orders before we can give orders worth following. But think of teaching obedience like coaching sports. Teach and practice, teach and practice, teach and practice, lots, before the game. Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath (Eph. 6:4). Many fathers provoke their children to wrath by not teaching and preparing their sons for the challenges they will face. If every situation is always a “game” that counts, you are being a poor coach and father. If you want them to perform well in the “game” make sure you take time to practice exactly how you want them to perform in the game. When my children were young we played “obedience games.” These were practice sessions where we practiced obeying right away, all the way, and cheerfully (candy was included). My wife and I would give individual kids random commands, and they would have to give a quick and cheerful “yes sir! / yes ma’am!” and then run and perform the task (e.g.“go get a pillow from your bed!” “Do three pushups!” “Give mom a hug!”, etc.) For a short while, my wife had to prepare my son before going into the grocery store that he could not lick the frozen food cooler doors. We also practiced for church, doing little bits of the service together practicing sitting quietly, singing, saying “Amen!”, etc. We also practiced having guests over, greeting them, handshakes, etc. Try not to give your young sons a random command that he hasn’t had time to practice with you (but of course sometimes it is good to stretch them and test them!). Related to all of this, remember that the joy of the Lord is your strength. And joyful obedience is a big part of this. When you are joyfully obeying, you are not likely to be distracted by temptation. Again, practice this with your young sons. No fussing. No complaining. Immediate, complete, and joyful obedience. But do it with them and show them how. Show them the joy especially.

3. Talk about the reality of sexual temptation and self-control from early years in language they can understand. I talked to my sons when they were young about the “bad lady.” The bad lady is the harlot from Proverbs. They were taught that God made women beautiful, but that some women use their beauty to sin and to cause men to sin. They were taught that this was one of the great battles of manhood. They were taught to look away, not because it isn’t beautiful but because it is beautiful and it can destroy a man. Don’t say it’s “gross” or “disgusting” and don’t let your wife say that either. It isn’t helpful to lie to them. God made a woman’s body to be beautiful. But that beauty is only to be enjoyed in the context of covenantal marriage. At some point in late elementary school/early junior high I’ve told my sons that the center of their self-control is their male member. They usually look at me a little strangely, but my goal is to tell them that before they feel it in their body. 

4. Practice male-female distinctions from young ages. No wrestling girls. No fighting girls. No teasing girls like their boys. Protect mom and sisters. Honor them. Hold doors, carrying things, and do chores for mom. These are certainly household rules, and they applied from the moment they could hold a sword or a gun. Don’t let it go when they’re 1 years old because it’s cute. These were household rules that have gone with them into the world. When my son was involved in the local wrestling club for a few years, the coach knew not to pair my son with a girl (there were a couple), and at tournaments, my son was prepared to forfeit whenever he came up against a girl in his division (there was one). At my kids school, Logos School, distinctions are reinforced throughout the school: boys wait to sit down for lunch until the girls have been seated, the boys wait for the girls to exit the classroom first and hold doors for the girls, etc. Later, in lacrosse and football, I and my sons’ coaches have made careful distinctions whenever we have been aware of a girl on an opposing team. We do not check or tackle girls. One element of pornography is the sin of wanting to get a woman to give herself away in a way that lines up with the male mind/lusts. In a sense, male lust is wanting a woman to act like an undisciplined man sexually (domineering, lustful, promiscuous). It’s no surprise to me that this pornographic culture has led directly to rampant homosexuality and now transgenderism. There’s something deeply homosexual about pornography. But we have often left a flank unprotected by refusing to make distinctions between boys and girls when they are young or in sports.  

5. Talk about marriage and children regularly. Talk about marriage as a good thing, a noble thing, a manly thing. Talk about the blessing of having children. While your sons need not think that getting married *right now* sounds fun – naturally they will think it’s embarrassing or gross, but they should be required to honor it and accept that it will be their high calling one day. On the flip side, do not allow your sons (or your daughters) to pretend to be ready for marriage before they actually are. No grade school crushes, no note-passing about who likes who, no middle school pairing off, and no high school romances. If they aren’t ready to get married and have kids, they aren’t ready to go shopping. Far too many Christian families and communities allow lusts to be stoked in little boys and then wonder why they have such a hard time saying no to sexual sin. And many Christian mothers are the direct cause of this stumbling, and many husbands refuse to step in. I overheard a Duck Dynasty episode my kids were watching not too long ago where a high school girl was being dated by a high school boy, and the whole episode was about how the dad was pretty nervous about it all and the wife and daughter and extended family all thought he was just being dumb. In the end I think he caved to the pressure and decided the young man was a pretty upstanding citizen and he was being too uptight. It was a pretty lame episode. The point is not that every young couple has to fall into sexual sin; the point is: what you are inviting? What are you practicing for? The Song of Songs says not to awaken love until it’s ready (Songs 2:7, 3:5, 8:4). While this is true for daughters and sons, many women don’t understand the way God has wired men. And they and your sons need to be taught. This is basically firearm safety for sex. Don’t point your gun at anything you’re not willing to shoot. 

6. Speaking of Duck Dynasty, guard your family entertainment choices carefully: movies, books, and music. Think of your entertainment as your friends and mentors. And don’t be naively simplistic. Some of the most dangerous movies are from Disney. And some of the most dangerous books are found in Christian book stores. What I mean is that the greatest threats to conscientious Christian families are probably not sex scenes and pornography, especially in the early years. The first great threats are lies about boys and girls, men and women, marriage, love, and children. A lot of so-called Christian novels are just emotion porn for women/girls that frequently don’t present men accurately. Most of the old Disney movies consistently proclaim what I call the “Disney gospel,” which basically consists of the message that if you disobey your dad, he will apologize to you in the end, and everyone will live happily ever after. Also beware of music choices as your children grow older. Spotify can be just as pornographic as Instagram. At the same time, cultivate a culture of “pursuing the good.” The primary focus should not be all the movies and books “we’re not allowed to watch/read,” but rather, the primary focus in your family should be on the movies, books, music, hobbies that you love, that you are into. Pick good favorites, and then dive in. 

7. All the best teaching in the world isn’t worth anything if you’re not living it out yourself. This means modeling faithfulness and joy in the wife of your youth. While you should certainly not be inappropriately open about your sexual relationship, your kids should know that you are sexually attracted to your wife. You should kiss her, hold her, hug her, hold her hand, give her gifts, tell her that she is beautiful and attractive regularly (and in front of your kids). They will groan and laugh and make awkward comments, and that means you’re doing it right. Make sure you hug and kiss your daughters lots too. Tell them that they are beautiful. And help them make wise choices about what they wear, about how they interact with their brothers and other boys (modesty, require respect and respectful distance, not flirty, not teasing). When you love your wife and daughters like this in front of the family (without being rude or embarrassing them), you are teaching your sons about being men, about being husbands and fathers themselves, and about what kind of woman to pursue. My own father’s example of faithfulness, loyalty, friendship, and joy in my mother is easily one of the most powerful lessons he ever taught me. 

8. Related to modeling sexual faithfulness, you must be sexually pure. Whenever you stumble, make it right. Otherwise you’re a hypocrite; and you have a log in your own eye. You won’t be able to see clearly to help your sons. My rule of thumb is that you need not give your wife the play-by-play of every thought that went through your head during the day (as you’re batting away unhelpful thoughts, etc.), but if you actively seek out or succumb to sexually explicit material or thoughts, your wife needs to know, and you need to ask her forgiveness. While a once in a blue moon occurrence of this may be enough to give you the strength and courage to keep those temptations at bay, if it isn’t, and any sort of pattern of sin is emerging, you must make changes to your viewing habits, down time, phone, apps, internet, etc. in order to cut off the hand or pluck out the eye that is causing you to sin. Again, think of your faithfulness and courage in this area as directly related to the faithfulness and courage of your sons. On the one hand your faithful fight will help you better understand the fight your sons will be face and give them tools for victory, but you also simply want the blessing of God on your family and on your sons. And the only path to God’s blessing is complete honesty before the Lord.

Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash

Conversion in Christ

Biblical Sexuality Sunday: 1 Cor. 6:9-11

Introduction
On December 8th, the Canadian government passed Bill C-4 by royal assent; with a little bit of bureaucratic shenanigans, it passed with unanimous consent. Bill C-4 effectively criminalizes Christian preaching, teaching, and counseling that upholds Biblical morality for all sexuality. It specifically prohibits “conversion therapy” and defines that therapy as any practice, treatment, or service that seeks to call individuals to embrace the body God created them with and heterosexuality, with a penalty of up to five years in prison. It also condemns historic, biblical teaching as “myths.” 

Having gone into effect last week, a number of faithful men have called for the pastors of Canada to preach messages today in defiance of that law, and many American pastors are also joining them to stand in solidarity with them but also to exhort and warn our own American leaders from going down this same path. 

The Text: “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:9-11).

Summary of the Text: Here Scripture clearly teaches that the unrighteous cannot inherit the kingdom of God (6:9). And the surprising warning is that Christians can be deceived into thinking that they can live in these patterns of sin and still inherit the kingdom (6:9). In particular, fornication (any sexual immorality outside of marriage), idolatry, adultery (sexual sin against marriage vows), effeminacy (soft men), sodomy (homosexual immorality), theft, covetousness, drunkenness, rage, and extortion (obtaining something through force or threats) are all singled out (6:10). These practices had previously characterized some of the Corinthians (6:11). But they had been changed, and they were not the same anymore because they had been washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of Jesus, and by His Spirit (6:11). 

The Spirit of Despair
Our text says: “do not be deceived” (1 Cor. 6:9). And the clear implication is that it is possible to be deceived. This is a real temptation, and it is a temptation for Christians in the church. This letter was written by Paul to Christians who attended church in the city of Corinth. The Devil is the Father of all lies and deception, and one of the central lies of the Devil is the lie of despair. This is the lie of the Canadian legislation, and it is the lie that has been growing in influence in our culture, even inside the Christian Church. The name “Satan” literally means “he accuses.” In Revelation 12, we are told that the Accuser has been cast down out of heaven, where he used to accuse the brethren night and day (Rev. 12:9-10). While his power has been greatly diminished, his primary occupation is accusing sinners of their sin. And with those accusations comes condemnation: the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). 

So the central lie is that it is too late, your sins and mistakes are too great, there’s nothing that can be done, and you cannot change. The next lie that comes right on the heels of those lies is that the best you can hope for in this life is to limp and hobble along with your sins and demons clutching at you and weighing you down. Paul was writing Christians who were being tempted to make peace with certain sins, concluding that they could not be completely free in this life. But Paul says that if they are not free of those sins then they cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven (1 Cor. 6:9-10). 

In a sense, the Satanic lie is actually so insidious because it settles for a mild despair: this is as good as it gets, limping along, going to church, trying to be good, but still enmeshed in these sins, still giving in to sexual temptation, still losing your temper regularly, still being a manipulative person.  But the Bible teaches that you must completely despair. You must come to the end of yourself. The problem with the Satanic despair is that it settles for a mild despair that rests in humanistic solutions. It says: you can get by like this. It’s not so bad. It says this is as good as it gets. It’s only human. We’re all fallen creatures. Not perfect, just forgiven. 

But the Bible teaches that settling for this is not the Kingdom of Heaven. Making peace with your sin means that you are not at peace with God. You cannot enter the Kingdom like that. But if you understand these words and you look at your life honestly, it should make you tremble. How can you enter the Kingdom like this? If you’ve never had that sensation, you need to seriously question whether you are a Christian. If you’ve never pondered your sin and seen how desperate a situation it creates before a Holy God, you need to seriously consider the state of your soul. 

Identity Politics & Salvation
Ever since Adam, there’s a sick rebellious streak in all the sons and daughters of Adam that wants to be a tragic hero. We want to make terrible choices and then flop and claim we are victims of the universe. “That’s just who I am” is a proud, defiant claim, and we have taken that claim to new institutional heights in our culture by making them fundamental identity markers: transgender, bisexual, queer, lesbian, and in the church, we’ve even tried to carve out identities like same-sex attracted or “gay celibate Christian,” etc. But all of it is a false gospel. The offer of this so-called “gospel” is that if you find your “identity,” you will be at peace with yourself and God and the world, but there is no peace in sin, and the early death and suicide rates of these communities is off the charts. 

Many well-meaning and soft-hearted Christians are swept along with this, not wanting to heap up shame or hurt on folks who struggle with these sins and temptations. Or we go soft on those sins because we have our own guilt and shame for “more respectable” struggles. We are not as courageous as we should be about homosexual sin because we have stashes of heterosexual sin in the closets of our heart. And of course it’s possible to go the other too: some so-called Christians really are wickedly harsh with transgender sin and homosexual sin because they have a problem with drunkenness and rage, and they do not know what spirit they are of. They try to cover their rage as righteous indignation, but it’s a fleshly rage and a self-righteous indignation. 

While we must always be kind and patient with all men, just as God is kind and patient with us, it is not kind or gracious to go along with lies or delusions, especially the kind that we are told explicitly in Scripture cannot inherit the Kingdom. But this applies to their sins as well as yours. It is not kind or gracious to go along with lies that say that homosexuals can inherit the kingdom apart from repentance, and it is not kind or gracious to go along with the lies that say that the covetous and manipulative can inherit the kingdom apart from repentance. Some people worship their idols by scrolling through porn, and some worship their idols by scrolling through Pinterest. Do not be deceived: the unrighteous cannot inherit the Kingdom.

The truth is that all the descendants of Adam do need a new identity – the world is right about that, but the only identity that will save is found in Christ, and Christ alone. In Christ, every sin and sinful identity is washed away, and we are set apart as holy to God by the Holy Spirit and fully vindicated by the name of Jesus (1 Cor. 6:11). 

Notice that: justified by the name of Jesus. What is your name? Your name is your identity. What is your identity? There is no other name under heaven by which you may be saved. Only Jesus. What is your name? What is your identity? Jesus was the faithful one, the perfect one, the obedient one. He is the only One who inherits the kingdom by right. He deserves to be there. Everyone else inherits the Kingdom by grace through His name. And Jesus promises to give everyone of us who trust in His name a new name of their own: “To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it” (Rev. 2:17). 

Conversion to Christ
So we preach conversion to Christ and conversion in Christ. This is not a “therapy” at all, but it is the supernatural power to change, to repent, to turn from sin and walk in the light. We proclaim liberty to the captives. We proclaim forgiveness of all sins in the blood of Jesus. And we defy and condemn every teaching, every legislation, every executive order, or court decision that says otherwise. 

Fundamentally, to deny the power of Christ to change sinners, to set them free from the bondage of their sin, is to deny the resurrection of Jesus from the dead: “… what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead…” (Eph. 1:19-20). What is this great power to change that we proclaim in Christ? It is the power of resurrection from the dead. That’s the central claim they are calling a “myth.”

Elsewhere, it says that if Christ is not risen, then we are still in our sins (1 Cor. 15:17). We can make the inverse point as well: if we are still in our sins, and if our sins are impossible to remove, then Christ is not risen from the dead. This is what the Canadian government, Revoicers, and all the rainbow churches are fundamentally denying: the resurrection of Jesus. But Christ is risen, and we are free. Christ is risen, and all things are being made new. 

And the particular newness that we are being made into is the newness of what we were made to be: new men and new women, new fathers and new mothers, new marriages, new families, new communities, new nations. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). 

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Worship for Believers

One of the ways our worship service is noticeably different from others is found in the fact that our worship services are designed for believers. We do other events periodically that are designed specifically for unbelievers – evangelistic outreaches, debates, etc., but we believe that the primary purpose of Lord’s Day worship is for believers and their families to gather before the Lord to renew covenant. We renew covenant not because the covenant expires or gets old, but we renew covenant because we are the kinds of creatures who grow weary and forget. God does not forget His promises, but we need to be reminded of them.

So our worship service is a Memorial – a service of remembrance: You are Called to Worship to remember that you are God’s people, called out from the world. You are reminded of your need for cleansing, and God’s promise of forgiveness. We are reminded that all of life belongs to God through the Scripture readings and sermon. We celebrate Communion every week, remembering the death and resurrection of Jesus that has made peace between us and God and one another. And we are Commissioned – reminded that we are disciples of Jesus to share the good news and make this world more like heaven. 

Now all of that assumes regeneration. It assumes that the people who are gathering, confessing, listening, eating, and being sent out are in fact Christians because those things are what really encourage Christians in their faith and walk. But that doesn’t mean everyone who comes is in fact a Christian. Over the centuries this was in fact one of the great problems in Israel and the Church. It is possible for people to drawn near to the Lord with their lips while their hearts are far from Him. So this is the point: this worship service is designed for believers. There is milk and meat here for those who have been born again by the Spirit of God, but if you are not saved, if Christ does not live in You, then this service will not be encouraging or helpful to you. In fact, it will probably be discouraging and confusing. The Bible says that the gospel is the savor of life for those who are being saved, but it is the aroma of death for those who do not believe. 

So right here at the Call to Worship, if you are not sure if you have a new heart, if you’re not sure if Christ lives in You, I call on you as a minister of the Gospel to call on the Lord. Ask the Lord to give you a new heart, to save you from your sins. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. And to all of you: call on the Lord so that you may truly enter into worship now.  

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Covenant Success

Introduction
Part of what we have lost is the potency of covenant success. And we do not have covenant success because we don’t have covenant succession. See that?

A significant way that we are told throughout Scripture that God intends for us to live by faith and receive the blessings of God in this world is through covenant succession, through multi-generational faithfulness. God has clearly communicated in His Word that when His people live by faith in Him, He intends to reward that faith through their children and grandchildren walking in that same faith and granting them greater and greater shares in the material and spiritual blessings of that faith. 

The Generational Pattern
“For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him” (Gen. 18:19). 

Notice the connections here: God chose Abraham so that he might command his children to keep the way of the Lord so that the Lord might bring to Abraham what He promised him. So first off, just notice the pattern: God loves to bless with fulfillment of His promises over the course of generations, through covenant succession.

This was reiterated to Israel on the verge of entering the promised land: “You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise… that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth” (Dt. 11:19, 21).

Of course there are also severe warnings in Scripture regarding the curses of the covenant: “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation” (Ex. 34:6-7).

But even this warning (“visiting iniquity to the third and fourth generation”) is couched in the context of far more potent blessings (“keeping steadfast love for thousands”).

This basic pattern of covenant succession is repeated in the New Testament. It was the promise of the Prophet Malachi, that the hearts of the fathers would be turned to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, in order to avoid the curse of failing to pass the faith on to children and all the turmoil and disaster that entails — you know, things like drag queen story hours and the shrieking covidfits (Mal. 4:6). That promise is explicitly appealed to in the New Testament as being fulfilled in the days of John the Baptist (Lk. 1:17). And Paul refers to the same basic pattern in Ephesians when he repeats the fifth commandment to children and appeals to them to remember that this is the first commandment with a promise: “that it may go well with you, and that you may live long on the earth” (Eph. 6:3). And fathers are instructed to bring their children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord Jesus, so that their children may enjoy those blessings (Eph. 6:4). 

So this is the point: God intends for His people to grow in spiritual and material might and authority over the course of generations. He intends for children and grandchildren and great grandchildren to be the recipients of great blessings, spiritual wisdom, and material means through the faith and obedience of their forefathers. In every generation, those blessings may only be received as true blessings through personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and fearing the Lord. 

God’s Way or Our Own Way?
This is one of the greatest holes in Western Christianity. We say that God must fight for us. We say that Christian worldview matters. But God says that He intends to grant that victory, that wisdom, that success in this world is through generational faithfulness, through covenant succession.  

“Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children—how on the day that you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, the LORD said to me, Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children so’” (Dt. 4:9-10).

Notice that: first of all the command is to you, the adults in the room: take care and keep your soul diligently, so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen. Keep them in your heart all the days of your life. And the second thing: make sure your children and your grandchildren know the things your eyes have seen. Make sure they know the glories you have learned and received. Make sure they know your testimony. Make sure they know the doctrines you struggled through to learn and embrace. Make sure they know the ecclesiastical and cultural and political battles you fought for the Kingdom. But notice the central goal: that they (your children and grandchildren) may learn to fear God all their days so that they may teach their children so. 

The Fear of the Lord
It seems that the central thing we must pass on is the fear of the Lord. This is the beginning of all wisdom, including the foundational wisdom of the gospel, the wisdom that sees the heart of man for the prideful, selfish idol factory that it is and the cross of Jesus for the great Exodus and Redemption that it is. It is the fear of the Lord at the center of it all – that there is a God in Heaven who is holy and just and true, who will not overlook evil, who sees all things and knows all things, who is supremely good and glorious and beautiful, with whom every creature has to do. 

Our great problem is that we have insisted for several generations on not teaching the fear of the Lord. We have insisted for several generations that God be nice, friendly, accessible, understandable, simplistic, and only and always love, as vaguely defined by our worldly and humanistic standards and demands. To the extent that we have rejected God’s Word as it pertains to the glorious differences between men and women, we have not feared the Lord. To the extent that we have rejected God’s clear Word regarding how this universe was created and came into being, we have not feared the Lord. To the extent that we have turned the worship of God into trite comedy hour, a rock concert, or a three ring circus, we have not feared the Lord. And because we have not feared the Lord, our children have not learned to fear the Lord, and so we are chased by our enemies, because we have rejected the blessing of God. 

Isaiah describes our situation well: “Their fear toward me is taught by precepts of men” (Is. 29:13). We have substituted our own precepts, our own theology, our own styles of worship, our own history and archeology, our own definitions of love and justice. We have, in other words, treated God like a doddering old fool, a senile man in the clouds, instead of the King of Glory, the Almighty and Living God, the Judge of the Earth, the Maker of All. 

The only alternative to the precepts of men is God Himself. Only God can give the fear of the Lord. And so He does, and He will. God works wonders in the earth so that His people will learn to fear Him (e.g. Isaiah 29:13-24). But don’t miss the punch line: God does wonders in the earth so that His people will learn to fear Him, so that they will teach their children to fear Him, so that He may bless them with particular glory and power and strength. This is spiritual blessing and spiritual power, that conquers kingdoms and endures tribulations, that slays giants and goes to the stake fearless. 

Conclusion
There is something particularly powerful in the gift of covenant succession that proves that the fear of the Lord is genuine. And God loves to bless it. If we would see God’s blessing on our churches and cities and nations once more, we must embrace God’s method for doing that heavy lifting: children and grandchildren. This is God’s way of Reformation. This is God’s way of pulling down strongholds and restoring the good, the true, and the beautiful in the earth. He does it through teaching His people to fear Him so that they teach their children the same, so that with that momentum, that generational heft, God may bestow on them authority and power and covenant success. 

And do not miss the fact that frequently the first thing God gives when He is giving this gift of covenant success is the gift of repentance to fathers and grandfathers, mothers and grandmothers. 

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