Toby J. Sumpter's Blog, page 86

No Secrets: No Fear

Luke XLIV: Lk. 12:1-12

Introduction

Leaven is the principle of growth. Jesus says here to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy (Lk. 12:1). Hypocrisy is the way of the City of Man, but the Kingdom of God is built on the power and truth of the Spirit. No secrets: no fear.

Nothing Hidden

All hypocrisy begins with countenancing certain sorts of “small” sins, justifying them, and when consequences don’t seem forthcoming, graduating to the celebration of them. This is the same sequence David asks God to guard him against in Psalm 19:12-14. David is outlining a certain sequence of how sin usually works: as secret sins are ignored, hidden, and justified, presumptuous sins cannot be avoided, and those in turn invite the great transgressions. This is why Jesus immediately begins talking about secrets being revealed: nothing covered up will be hidden; whatever you whisper in the dark will be heard in the light (Lk. 12:2-3). The reason followers of Jesus should not participate in the leaven of the Pharisees is because it ultimately doesn’t work. It might look like it works for a time, but eventually Wikileaks will publish all your emails on the internet. Ultimately the reason why it doesn’t work is because there is a God in heaven. Sooner or later everything is going to come out. Everything is going to be revealed: “No creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must given an account” (Heb. 4:13, Eccl. 12:14, cf. Acts 1:24, Rom. 8:27).

The Fear of the Lord

Another way of saying this is that God is not mocked: whatever a man sows is what he will reap (Gal. 6:7). If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life (Gal. 6:8). Sowing to your flesh is folly, while sowing to the Spirit is wisdom. This is why the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 1:7). Much of Luke 11 was about wisdom and folly: Jesus said, “something greater than Solomon” is here (Lk. 11:31), He called the Pharisees “fools!” (Lk. 11:40). The “wisdom of God” sent Israel prophets and apostles (Lk. 11:49). Even the repeated command: ask, seek, knock, find (Lk. 11:9-10) echoes the urgent pleas of the father in Proverbs: get wisdom, seek wisdom, find wisdom (Prov. 4:5-7, 8:17). The Spirit is God’s Wisdom (Ex. 35:31).

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom because it begins to understand that you can’t live by immediate results or consequences. This is what “the flesh” does. Jesus teaches that living by the flesh fills people with fear. It’s actually a vicious cycle: You hide your sin because you’re afraid of what people might think (or consequences), and then you live in fear of what people will think (or do) if they find out. But Jesus says that the worst thing they might do to you is kill you (Lk. 12:4), but that’s not the worst thing that can happen to you (Lk. 12:5). This is why the fear of the Lord and His wisdom is freedom from fear: it teaches us not to sin in the first place since God sees all and knows all, but secondly, it teaches us to confess sin and repent of sin as fast as possible because you can’t really hide sin. It takes faith and wisdom to remember, but if God cares about sparrows and knows the minute by minute number of hairs on our head, then He knows all of our sin already and we can trust His Fatherly care (Lk. 12:5-7). If we have no secrets, then we have no fear.

Acknowledging the Son of Man

When Jesus speaks of acknowledging Him before men, He at least has the apostles and disciples in mind who will be brought before synagogues, rulers, and authorities (Lk. 12:8, 11). But Jesus is also addressing the other side of hypocrisy: on the one side, people may hide sin, but on the other side, people can hide their commitment to Christ, refusing to speak up and be identified with Jesus. If we pray in secret, that secret will get out eventually (Mt. 6:6, Lk. 11:1-4). If we pray for the Kingdom of God to come (and mean it), that secret will be seen as a direct threat to any pagan state or culture (cf. Dan. 6). But the crucial thing to see here is how these two forms of hypocrisy are two sides of the same coin. We need to understand how acknowledging Jesus before men is directly tied to having no secrets. The courage it takes to confess Christ is the same courage needed to confess sin. Or to put it the other way around: you will not have the courage to confess Christ before men if you do not confess your sins. This is because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth (Jn. 14:17, 15:26, 16:13), and the truth is that Jesus died for our sins, God has forgiven us, and now we have a glorious inheritance in Him – all of which is sealed to us by the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13-14). This is why refusal to confess our sins and/or forgive one another grieves the Holy Spirit (Gal. 4:30). This is why confession of sins to God and those we have sinned against is a normal part of the Spirit’s work in a believer’s life (Jn. 16:8, Mt. 5:24, Js. 5:16). Confession of sins and forgiveness is the most fundamental way we acknowledge Christ before men or deny Him. If you ignore your sin, cover it up or refuse to forgive, you are denying Christ.

There are varying interpretations of exactly what is meant by “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” (Lk. 12:10), and people sometimes worry that they have committed the “unforgiveable sin.” But the point seems to be that while the Jews could (and did) reject Jesus and kill Him, they would have one more chance when Jesus sent His Spirit at Pentecost on the Church. But then, if they rejected the Spirit in the Church, Jesus would judge the nation of Israel. And He did. An analogous application of this same principle would apply to all those who continue to persecute the Church today. They are blaspheming the Holy Spirit, and Jesus takes that personally (cf. 9:4-5).

Conclusions

Confession of sin and confession of Christ go together. You cannot have one without the other, and the latter will ring only as true as the former is actually practiced and experienced. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the announcement of the end of hiding in the shadows, covering up, lying, pretending, and all hypocrisy. We are people of the truth, and therefore we are people who are unafraid of the truth because our sins have been forgiven. This is the leaven of Christ, the leaven of the gospel, the leaven of sincerity and truth (1 Cor. 5:8). It is the power of the Holy Spirit, and by that power God makes men and women fearless.

Covetousness & Idolatry

Several times in the NT, Paul associates covetousness with idolatry.

In 1 Corinthians, the sin of covetousness is listed right next to idolatry twice in two verses (1 Cor. 5:10-11).

But it is explicitly tied together elsewhere:

“For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.” (Eph. 5:5)

“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” (Col. 3:5)

This is because covetousness is fundamentally the objectification of people. While God has designed the world to be thoroughly personal, sin tempts people to depersonalize the world, to commodify it, to use people for their things, or to use people as things. Certain forms of capitalism can do this: crony capitalism, gaming the system, crushing people in the wake. But of course socialism does this by design. It seems to be built on the assumption that since people have a tendency to turn other people into products, earning units, and goods – we might as well organize it. But the problem is that we’re still turning people into objects and interacting with them in depersonalized ways.

And this is precisely what idolatry does. It is constantly trying to trick life out of lifeless things. But the problem with this is that life doesn’t come from lifeless things. It comes from the living God and by His design it comes through His living image bearers. It comes through other people.

But living, breathing people are difficult, complex, different, and they keep moving around and changing, and (in this world) sinning. So men would often rather look at porn than have to love a real woman. Husbands and fathers would rather look at screens when they come home from work rather that love and serve the real people in their home. Many Christians would rather look at icons than have to interact with real saints (who turn out not to be so saintly). And even pastors and elders would sometimes rather over-engineer church programs, only read big fat books (that can’t talk back), or spend their lives tinkering with liturgies – rather than leaning into the really hard business of loving people.

That is really only possible if you truly believe that they bear God’s image, that Christ died for them, and that there is nothing in all the world that brings you closer to the living God than another human being, even the ones that are wrong. Somehow, as we learn to love and honor real, living human beings, God is breathing His life into us. He’s making us more human, more like His Son.

Living God Living Icons

Jer. 1:11-25, 1 Thess. 1:4-10

Idolatry is ultimately about power. The great lie, the great seduction of idols is the illusion of power. If you bow down to this image, you will take control of your life. If you bow down to this statue, you will overcome what holds you back. If you serve this part of creation, you will finally come out on top. But it’s an illusion or as Jeremiah says, a delusion, and it comes from the fact that idols are lifeless, silent, immobile, mute. A picture of Zeus or a statue of Baal or even an image of Jesus or Mary can’t talk back to you, and so you quite literally control the moment. Whatever you imagine, whatever feelings well up inside you, there is nothing there to push back, reject, undermine what you think or feel or imagine. And since it’s in the context of a religious exercise (prayer, kneeling, a candle, whatever), it feels almost incontrovertible that it’s helping you. It’s helping you take control of your life. And perhaps in some small psychological way, there may be some truth to that, sort of like talking to yourself in the mirror. It may truly give some small boost of confidence and self-determination. But it isn’t an encounter with the living God, and therefore, you are selling your soul for minimal benefits at best.

Paul tells the Thessalonians that the proof of an encounter with the living God is in living, breathing, flesh and blood people. Paul and Silvanus and Timothy were living breathing icons of Christ that not only spoke the word, but they did so with power and with the Holy Spirit. And the Thessalonians became imitators of them, receiving the word in the joy of the Holy Spirit, and they became famous in all of Macedonia and Achaia for their repentant way of life, turning from lifeless idols to serve the living and true God.

The living God gives life. The living God commands storms and judgments. The living God raises the dead and changes men’s lives. This is the proof of the resurrection. An idol is anything that people use to try to trick life out of lifeless things. But Jesus raises the dead to new life, and His life flows through living people through the power of the Spirit.

Six Woes for Leaders

Luke XLIII: 11-37-54

Introduction

Theodore Dalrymple points out in Life at the Bottom that leaders have a tendency to construct theories that do not actually match reality. Frequently, commitment to a particular vision or ideology works as a filter that strains out inconvenient facts that would call our vision into question. The “rightness” of a vision can often become a self-justification that functions as a blindness to the actual effects of their theories on the weak and poor and powerless. What Dalrymple points out in 20th century England, Jesus is explicitly exposing and confronting in the leadership of first century Judaism. The six woes of Jesus are a vehement pronouncement of judgment, driving home the central point that self-justification is the self-inflicted moral blindness at the root of all violence and bloodshed. And the only way for us to avoid this for ourselves is for Jesus to open our eyes.

Six Woes for Conservatives

The Pharisees were a highly respected conservative movement in Israel. Descending from the reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah, the Pharisees were concerned with moral and ethical fidelity to the law of Moses. But as Jesus pronounces these six woes, He systematically exposes the fact that a deep rot of hypocrisy has set in. Jesus has just said that an eye that is healthy fills a body with light, but an eye that is evil fills a body with darkness (Lk. 11:34-35). This has everything to do with judging rightly, understanding what is most important and least important. Bad eyes distort reality, causing people to be zealous for unimportant things and indifferent to the most important things. And this is a demonic sort of darkness because people are self-deceived, believing they are actually doing good. The only thing worse than a bad guy is a bad guy who’s absolutely convinced he’s a good guy. So notice the bad eyes: The Pharisees were concerned with ceremonial washing, but couldn’t see the greed and wickedness going on in their lives (Lk. 11:39). They are scrupulous about tithing herbs but neglect to do justice (Lk. 11:42). They are obsessed with proper greetings and etiquette, but do not actually live out the love of God (Lk. 11:43). They are obsessed with ceremonial uncleanness, but they are unmarked graves, secretly spreading uncleanness to everyone they come in contact with (Lk. 11:44). Likewise, the lawyers instruct people in burdensome laws but do not actually help anyone keep them (Lk. 11:46). They are very concerned about building monuments to the ancient prophets, but Jesus says that by their very obsession over the graves, they demonstrate that they are just like their fathers who killed those prophets (Lk. 11:47-48). The lawyers were supposed to teach the people of God in order to welcome them into the house of God, but their teaching had the opposite effect: locking everyone out (Lk. 11:52). All of these woes have this in common: they are lopsided priorities, which are causing great harm and evil. They ought to have done these things without neglecting the others (Lk. 11:42).

Becoming Pharisees

So how do people with good intentions become bad guys? How do people like the Pharisees, conservative Jews who care about the law of God – how do they become hypocrites? How do they become ministers of uncleanness? How do they become murderers? Jesus implies the answer in His condemnation of the lawyers: they build monuments to the prophets of God that their fathers killed (Lk. 11:47-49). Rene Girard points out that there is a deep tendency in all human cultures to divinize or deify their victims. In other words, it’s a universal tendency to build the tombs of the old, martyred prophets. This is because violence and murder often give the impression that peace has been restored. In Cain’s view, Abel was the problem. Abel was getting in the way of Cain’s blessing from God. Cain wanted God’s blessing, so he got rid of the problem. Once Abel was gone, Cain could worship God in peace. And so on with all of the prophets that God sent to Israel: if they could just be silenced, there would be peace and quiet. So for example: Has a father or mother ever been harsh or critical of their kids and justified it by saying they’re just trying to help them? Yes. Many clean cut, middle class Christian parents are violent with their words and attitudes in the name of excellence, in the name of Christian values. Has it ever produced good grades, musical prodigies, or successful businessmen? Yes it has. It appears that our method works, and so not only do we justify it, we begin to celebrate it. We build a monument on the grave of our son or daughter’s crushed soul.

The Blood of All the Prophets

But Jesus says that something unique is taking place during “this generation” – all the blood of the prophets from Abel to Zechariah (cf. 2 Chron. 24:20-22) is being charged to this generation (Lk. 11:50-51). It may appear to the Pharisees and lawyers that their way has worked, but Jesus says the consequences are coming. Everything is coming to a head. The seductiveness of living according to your own wisdom (justifying yourself) is that there is often a certain lag time to consequences. Sometimes lightening strikes the moment you take a cookie from the cookie jar, but often it doesn’t. That doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences, but sometimes people think so. Proverbs says that the house of the seductress leads to death (Prov. 7:27). But how many men (or women) have begun harboring lust in their hearts, giving into it, and justifying it since it doesn’t seem to be causing any immediate harm? In fact, since we want to be in the right, we do not merely excuse our sin, but eventually, we come to celebrate it. We deify our victims. We call good evil and evil good. We justify ourselves and gouge out our eyes. We find ourselves with a “stubborn refusal to face inconvenient facts… an ideological filter of wishful thinking…” But the guilt, the lies, the shame, the theft, the violence, the facts are not really gone at all; innocent blood cries out to God from the earth.

Conclusions

We cannot consider a passage like this without applying it very directly to our own situation in the Church and public square here in America. What we see in this text is that when a society is led and ruled by leaders who are characterized by hypocrisy, and the people find themselves helpless to do anything about it, God’s woe, God’s curse is upon that people. America is under the judgment of God. We call evil good and good evil, and the Church has been largely impotent.

However, the judgment of God in this world is never the last word. In Isaiah 5, six woes were proclaimed against Israel for their greed, for calling evil good and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness, for their drunkenness. But in Isaiah 6, there is a seventh woe. Isaiah sees a vision of the Lord and cries out: “Woe is me!” In other words, the woes of God are an invitation: either we accept God’s woe or we reject it. If we accept it, if we agree with God, then God comes with a burning coal and presses it to our lips and declares us clean. If we say that we are unclean, Jesus will take our judgment and make us clean.

Weak Faith Strong Savior

Because the Bible says we must believe and have faith in Christ, it is a periodic temptation of Christians to doubt their faith, to wonder if they believe enough or have enough faith. Perhaps you wonder if you are believing God enough for your parenting. Or perhaps you wonder if you are trusting God enough in financial decisions. But the problem is that examining your faith is actually focusing on the wrong thing. Faith isn’t what holds you or blesses you. God is the one who holds you, Christ is the one who blesses you. Faith may be weak or strong, full of doubt or full of confidence. But everything rides on what you have faith in. If a man has very strong faith in his ability to fly by flapping his arms and his great faith causes him to leap off a high building, it doesn’t matter how great his faith is because he has faith in something that isn’t strong. But if you imagine someone who is terrified of flying in an airplane, and they have very little faith and can barely bring themselves to board, the fact that they have very little faith isn’t a problem because they have placed their very weak faith in a very strong means. Your faith isn’t what holds you. Jesus is the one who holds you. This meal is God’s promise to you, that He holds you. You do not hold yourself. Your faith is not what holds you up. He holds you. He feeds you. Cling to Him because He is strong to save.

The Cult of American Climax

If you’ve watched any television in the last year or so, you will have likely been treated to one of the most unseemly elements of modern advertising: a Viagra commercial. Now arguably Budweiser and Coors have been saying basically the same thing in a slightly more subtle way for many years. See these young underclad women? You deserve to be with them. You deserve to be laughing and jumping into pools and oceans in various stages of undress having a good time. Here, let us help you with anything that might come between you and this happiness. This Bud’s for you.

The unspoken reality of course is that your mileage may vary. Apart from a few frat boys and the poor sorority girls lured to their parties, most guys really just drink the beer for the buzz. After three or four cans of American lager you may be sitting at home alone on the couch or sitting at a saloon in Kansas, but at least you feel sort of warm and happy, like they look on the commercials. But the trouble is that other than the obligatory “please drink responsibly” and “don’t drink and drive” the FDA hasn’t yet required the Beer advertisers to disclose all the possible side-effects and potential hazards of chugging beer (e.g. loss of job, loss of wife, loss of children, loss of intelligence, etc.). At the end of most drug commercials, the narrator’s voice slips into the 1.5x reading speed and non-chalantly reveals how the side effects may include nausea, vomiting, blindness, kidney failure, internal bleeding, and sometimes even death. My kids always get a kick out of these ads.

Thanks to VDR or at least the mute button, we can often skip commercials now or at least not listen to them, especially when the Viagra commercials come along. But we really have lost our ability to argue with them. What Budweiser promises in a can is essentially what Viagra promises in a pill. Of course there are differences. I get that. But what I’m arguing here is that we have lost the ability to argue about what those differences are. We’ve lost our ability to make careful distinctions and therefore, we cannot think in a straight line.

But even more significant is the fact that we don’t want to. We don’t want to think in a straight line. We live in a Viagra culture. The catechism of Hollywood, the Billboard charts, the Emmys, the Grammys, MTV, and now even our commercials is that you deserve to climax now. You deserve sexual pleasure now. On demand. Don’t think about it. No rules. No limits. But in order to actually achieve this idolized climax, the spectacle, thrill, and titillation must be ever increasing, ever exotic, ever deviant. When you make Aphrodite your goddess, when you make sexual pleasure your idol, everything must serve that purpose. This is what a “god” is — it’s what orients your life. And if sexual climax is your god, then everything must serve that end.

This is why when the Church Curmudgeon tweeted this screen shot a few days ago, I thought he was actually getting at something that was deeply true about our nation. I retweeted it for about thirty seconds before I thought better of it and deleted it, mostly because I didn’t want to give the impression I was going in for junior high humor. But the point actually is funny, but it’s funny because it’s actually far truer than it might first seem. When people worship false gods they become impotent. Literally. Psalm 115 describes this impotence as eyes going blind, ears going deaf, mouths going mute, arms and legs going lame, but the point is unmistakeable: Those who make idols and serve idols become like them. Idols mutilate their worshipers. They promise life and deliver death. They are shiny lures with sharp hooks. They steal, kill, and destroy, and they turn their followers into thieves, murders, and terrorists. And then they end up on presidential ballots. This is not a possibility. It is a certainty. And so it is no accident that as we have come to worship sex, we have in fact become startlingly impotent.

Part of our impotence is illustrated in the kind of political porn that is now served up for consumption. The spectacle, the debacle, the gameshow reality TV that is being served up at the moment is now what it takes for Americans to get off. We are a nation of sickos searching for salvation through orgasm. Which, incidentally, is why the high priests of this cult are sodomites, as they have always been in many cultures. The rise of sodomy is not merely the rise of deviant sexuality. Rather, it is also the rise of a cult. This is why they are sacred. This is why you must bake them cakes and take their pictures and provide flowers for their weddings. They are holy. It is not merely a social or political phenomenon, it is a liturgical, religious reality being instituted in our land.

And just as sex and drugs have been used for millennia to create a euphoric, ecstatic experience that is meant to synthesize and approximate communion with God, seeking to fill that universal spiritual void in the hearts of men, so we too serve up pot and beer and Viagra induced politics to the masses, promising happiness and fulfillment in the name of the gods. Having banned the living God from the public square we have not actually emptied the public square of the gods. Empty, well-swept houses are always the most attractive to demons and their obnoxious comrades. And so you still wake up every morning with that God damn hangover, with your head throbbing, and your gut aching with guilt and regret because we were not made in the image of these impotent gods. We are living icons of the living God.

And we were made for Him.

The Sin of Cynicism

Luke XLII: Lk. 11:29-36

Introduction

We live in an age of skeptics. Often this is presented as a thoughtful, intelligent position to take, but Jesus addresses the skeptics of his ministry as cynics and sloths. Jesus condemns those “who were seeking a sign” (Lk. 11:16) as evil and full of darkness. Therefore, it’s very important to understand the difference between honest inquiry and the sin of cynicism.

Seeking a Sign

Jesus says that no sign will be given to this evil generation but the sign of Jonah the prophet. Surely part of the “evil” is the fact that Jesus has already performed many signs and healings during His ministry, including the very recent exorcism (Lk. 11:14). In Matthew’s parallel account, Jesus explicitly identifies the “sign” with Jonah being in the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights (Mt. 12:39-40). In Luke’s account, Jesus emphasizes the men of Nineveh repenting at the “preaching of Jonah” (Lk. 11:32), which may imply that what happened to Jonah may have formed part of his message to the Assyrians. Sandwiched between references to Jonah is the “queen of the south” who heard of Solomon’s wisdom and came to test him (1 Kgs. 10:1-13). Luke’s emphasis here is evaluating wisdom and greatness. If the queen of Sheba could recognize Solomon’s wisdom as a foreign gentile, the blindness of these “undecided” Jews is great. This is why their indecision or skepticism is evil.

The Light of the Body

In this context, Jesus tells something of a parable about light and darkness. Beginning with an image of a candle in a dark room (Lk. 11:33), Jesus shifts to the image of a body letting light in through the lamp of the eye (Lk. 11:34-36). Notice that this fits with what Jesus said previously about the unclean spirit leaving a person and returning to find the house “swept and put in order” (Lk. 11:25). The body is a house, and every house is a body. In Matthew’s parallel of this image, the point is clearly tied to choosing between serving God and money (Mt. 6:19-24). The healthy eye in that context is one that has chosen God as master and rejected money. This is why Proverbs says that the man with a “good eye” shares his bread with the poor (Prov. 22:9). The evil eye is greedy and covetousness, filling the body with darkness (cf. Lk. 11:39). In our context in Luke, we have a similar tension, a hesitancy between choices. In Luke, the choice is between Jesus and Satan, between the Strong Man and the Stronger Man, between a house infested with demons and a house filled with the Holy Spirit. The lamp-body-house image would likely have reminded Jews of the tabernacle/temple in which a lamp burned with holy oil in the Holy Place continually, symbolizing the presence of the Spirit in the house-body of Israel (Ex. 40:24-38).

Cleaning Cups & Dishes

As Jesus was saying these things, Jesus was invited to the house of a Pharisee for dinner (Lk. 11:37). The Pharisee is astonished by the fact that Jesus doesn’t keep the Jewish tradition of ceremonial washing before a meal, which was not actually required by the law but a precautionary action (Lk. 11:38). But Jesus says that the real offense is the fact that the Pharisees are all concerned about these ceremonial traditions while they are actually full of “greed and wickedness” inside (Lk. 11:39). Jesus calls them “fools” for thinking that God doesn’t care about the “inside” of the cup, the inside of their hearts, the inside of their house (Lk. 11:40). Jesus says that the way the Pharisees can be “clean” is if they “give as alms those things that are within” (Lk. 11:41). This suggests that there is actually more connection between this context and the parallel Matthew passage. It cannot be an accident that Jesus has just taught His disciples to pray, finding their identity in God’s kingdom, trusting Him to provide their daily bread (Lk. 11:2-3). And in that context, Jesus has cast out a mute demon and run into this crowd of skeptics (Lk. 11:14-16). In other words, the kingdom of God is a community of prayerful dependence on our Father. But the kingdom of Satan is always an (false) offer of independence (cf. Lk. 4:5-7). Putting all of this together, the Pharisees (and the scribes and lawyers, etc.) – all highly respected members of society – represent a way of (apparent) political, economic, and social security in the first century, but Jesus is claiming that it is satanic darkness, a pious looking Ponzi scheme. This is why skeptics of Jesus could at least claim plausibility, but Jesus says it’s evil.

Conclusions & Applications

Malcom Gladwell has written about the sociological phenomena at work in cultures and communities when different kinds of people make decisions about what they will buy or how they will act. While this is sometimes a function of what people believe, it is often also a function of peer pressure. People do things that they know are not good or don’t do things they know would be good, all the time. Often this is rooted in deep insecurity, but instead of seeking our security in Christ, we are often paralyzed by shifting opinions of men, which is ultimately a form of self-sufficiency. Rather than trusting Christ, we trust ourselves to navigate the winds of life.

Perhaps an even more insidious form of this is actually a form of sloth. Jeff Cook argues rather persuasively that sloth is not mere laziness, but rather it is a failure to judge reality rightly, and so it ends up zealous for frivolous things and indifferent about the most consequential. This is the curse of bad eyes, dark eyes, the inability to see clearly and let light in. The one with bad eyes hoards and oppresses (Prov. 22:9, 16), has irrational fears (Prov. 22:13), falls for the flattery of seduction (Prov. 22:14), and is sometimes even conned by the folly of children (Prov. 22:15). Skepticism is a self-protecting, self-serving form of laziness. We are like people who have lost their glasses who do not want to admit that we cannot see, and we try to cover up our blindness with zeal for frivolous things.

Jesus says that we should “give as alms those things that are within” then all things will be clean. Alms are gifts to the poor. This is not some kind of indulgence, as though if you’ve been a lazy fool, you can purchase cleansing. No, but the point is to stop living in self-sufficiency, saying you are just fine, that you will take care of yourself, like the church in Laodicea saying, “I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked” (Rev. 3:17). Beggars band together, and we are all beggars who need the gold of Jesus, the white garments of Jesus, and our eyes healed by Jesus (Rev. 3:18). Cynicism is sinful because is it fundamentally refuses to see its own poverty, nakedness, and blindness, and therefore refuses to cling to Christ.

Skepticism can often be a deep and satanic form of self-sufficiency, but the death and resurrection of Jesus is the great sign that our Father is faithful and that we can trust Him. In Christ, there is a great world to explore and to study (with many challenging questions), but apart from Him, we cannot even begin to honestly search for answers. We are like blind men trying to take up water colors.

My Brain on the Debate

My reactions to the second presidential debate: Well, more accurately, my reactions to following Twitter during the debate, which according to Twitter was the most tweeted debate ever, at more than 17 million debate-related tweets sent.

I follow around 500 accounts on Twitter, heavily weighted on the conservative end of the spectrum, with a number of news sources across the spectrum, as well as a vocal minority of liberal journalists and other writers I’ve found thoughtful and interesting from time to time.

Major themes in my feed: Lots of (understandable) outrage from the conservative Christians at Trump’s insolence, primarily for moral reasons. Lots of outrage from the liberals at Trumps insolence, primarily for his shots at Hillary. Lots of continue outrage from non-white Americans about Trump’s racism and apparent despotic tendencies. Also, a few scatter shot criticisms at Clinton’s hawkishness when it comes to a war in Syria.

Following the debate, most of the liberals I follow were triumphant over what they saw as a clear Clinton victory, a number of begrudging conservative admissions that Trump did “well enough” to remain the GOP nominee, and several ringing acclamations of a Trump victory. Apart from Jerry Falwell Jr., I’m honestly not sure I follow anyone who is actually an enthusiastic supporter of Trump. If there are some, they keep their heads down and quiet. And for those of you wondering, I follow Falwell sort of like you might sometimes watch the elephant cam at the zoo.

Now surely part of the draw for last night’s (second) debate was the leaked recording of Trump’s claims of his filthy exploits with women. With a growing chorus of Republicans calling for Trump’s resignation, there seemed to be some momentary hope that something, *anything* would change the playing field. But the thing I keep wondering is why anyone thinks these recordings will change anything. There are claims that there are more of them. I bet there are hundreds. Trump is the kind of man who has Playboys framed on his office wall. What did you expect? Of course he talks that way. People who are surprised are either complete fools or lying.

But this is the real kicker: the American people who got him this far don’t care. They are the same American people who read 50 Shades of Grey and watch Game of Thrones and lots of them spend their weekends at the casinos. Trump is their hero. He represents them well. If America wanted to be disgusted by that kind of talk, they should have spoken up a long time ago. Most of that outrage is laughable hypocrisy.

Now, looking at the actual statistics of voters and voter turnout means that there really is a huge middle that perhaps is in the process of being swayed one way or another between the two frontrunners. And perhaps a Wayne Grudem renouncing his endorsement will shake the support of some. Perhaps some of the “very-reluctants” will become “resistants.” But I find the establishment media for the most part to be utterly tone deaf. They’ve been claiming that this is the worst thing to happen to Trump every few weeks for the last year and a half. And yet, he’s still there not caring what they say. And perhaps more importantly, a pretty enormous chunk of voting Americans are still there not caring what they say.

And another thing: while I get the revulsion to Trump, and let me just say that my revulsion has contracted a virus in the worm that was eating out the infection that had already spread throughout my revulsion, I’m still utterly baffled by the delusions of immigrants and non-whites about Hillary somehow being better. Trump absolutely will say and do offensive things, racist things, vile things, but Hillary actively and vocally supports systems of racial subjugation in our country. She actively and vocally supports the work of Planned Parenthood which targets non-white communities, for the murder of their unborn children. This is a systemic form of racism in these United States of America, and it has occurred on an epic scale. Hillary and the DNC openly support this black genocide.

Not only this, but the liberal welfare state has been one of the greatest systemic forms of racism ever seen. Here, let us help you poor people. Let us not treat you as human beings made in the image of God, made to work and be creative and industrious. Let us treat you with condescension, let us contribute to your problems by throwing money at you, by ensuring cycles of poverty and violence and drug abuse will continue on your streets. And we’ll call it hope and change and compassion. And what do they do? Apparently lots and lots of them buy the charade and go right along like obedient sheep, making all their outrage about systematic racism ring a little hollow. When a massive non-white revolt against the Left occurs, then I will start to believe you. Don’t get me wrong, I do believe there is mass, widespread, and systematic racism still alive and well in 21st century America. But the very worst form of it is the mass slaughter of our children. And I will add that there are liberal and conservative forms of racial animosity, but the knee-jerk loyalty to Hillary and the Left as some kind of lesser of two evils is an insane blindness even with the spectacle of a Trump presidency looming. But enough about Miroslav Volf.

Also: All the pundits announcing the funeral date of this Trump campaign really need to shut up. Face up to reality, people. Trump was never supposed to actually run for president. Trump was never actually supposed to get anywhere in the primaries. Trump was never supposed to be the Republican nominee. The polls said he couldn’t. Everyone said he wouldn’t. But he has and he did. And if you think some crass, sexual recording is going to do some damage to his campaign, you should quit your day job. The people who got him this far, don’t care, and if anything, the media and politicians calling for his resignation just makes his base all the more solidified and belligerent. There is a deep-seated resentment driving the Trump campaign, and that resentment is aimed at establishment politicians and the media telling these Americans what they can and cannot think. Trump is the defiant middle finger of that American sentiment. And to the extent that the media outrage machine keeps reading the Last Rites over the Trump candidacy, I’m afraid they’re actually ensuring his inauguration.

One final point: I’ve said previously that I haven’t jumped on the #nevertrump band wagon. This isn’t because I’m planning to vote for Trump (I’m not) or that I think he’s the lesser of two evils (we’re beyond that), but because sometimes God does give His people a choice between judgments. When David took his sinful census of the people, God offered him the choice between three years of famine, three months fleeing from his enemies, or three days of pestilence in the land (2 Sam. 24:13). David could not bring himself to make that choice saying, “Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great; let me not fall into the hand of man” (2 Sam. 24:14). Taking the Lord at His word, I assume that it would not have been sinful for David to choose among the options the Lord gave him. And in that sense, I don’t mind if people see the current presidential race as something like that, though I’m personally far more comfortable with David’s response. But I feel like it’s a little bit like saying #neverShalmaneser or #neverNebuchadnezzar. Right, I get it. We shouldn’t gladly choose either of those guys. But I wonder if we’re past that point. Shall we vote for a Jezebel genocide or for the Shalmaneser bulldozer? We shouldn’t want either. What we need is repentance, and whichever one will get us to that point faster is the better the option.

There’s of course much more to say, but Jesus is reigning and ruling over all of this and blessed are all those who take refuge in Him (no matter the circumstances). And in His kindness there’s always MLB playoffs to remind us that He loves us and to help us keep our priorities straight.

All Hail Aphrodite!

In Peter Berger’s fascinating book In Praise of Doubt, he references the German social philosopher Arnold Gehlen’s description of human society in terms of foreground and background as ways of describing those areas of a culture which are given and inherited or “preempted” by previous generations (background) and those areas which are live choices for every individual (foreground).

Berger writes:

“Both areas are anthropologically necessary. A society consisting of foreground only, with every issue a matter of individual choice, couldn’t sustain itself for any length of time; it would lapse into chaos. In every human encounter people would have to reinvent the basic rules of interaction. In the relations between the sexes, for example, it would be as if Adam encountered Eve for the first time every single day and had to ask himself ever again, ‘What on earth shall I do with her?’ (and of course Eve would have to ask herself the corresponding question of what to do with him). This would clearly be an intolerable situation. Quite apart from anything else, nothing would ever get done; all available time would be occupied with inventing and reinventing the rules of engagement. Alternatively, a society consisting of background only would be a human society at all, but a collectivity of robots…” (14).

As simple as this concept is, it is also wonderfully and horrifically obvious. No generation is a blank slate. No individual has absolute power of choice. He cannot just invent his own language, reinvent rules of civility, or determine that he will go against every norm of his community. And this is not least because it’s a supreme waste. We speak of moral values as though they are personal preferences, as though they are choose-your-own-adventure routes through life. But in fact, they are values. They are riches, forms of wealth, an inheritance.

It’s a gift to have language already in existence. It’s a gift to already have agreed to drive on the right hand side of the road, to take turns, to raise your hand before speaking, and to assume that telling the truth is the way to go. To have these and many other assumptions in our background is to free us to make many choices about who we will marry, where we will live, what occupations we will pursue, etc. Primitive civilizations are primitive precisely because they spend all of their time trying to invent (or reinvent) the basic building blocks of culture (language, rules of discourse, manners, customs, moral values, etc.).

This is why the current attempt to destroy anything and everything that functions as background in our culture is an iconoclasm of the most virulent sort. The shamans and witchdoctors that are currently declaring that persons must be referred to by their preferred personal pronouns (or else you are a vile hater) are driving their bulldozers into the foundations of civilization. They are insisting that language be reinvented for every individual preference. And of course this is all driven by the insistence that everyone be eligible to reinvent anything they want about themselves, which means that everyone else must endorse and support this constant reinvention, never mind that anyone may reinvent themselves in a way that is at cross purposes with someone else. Don’t bother us with logic, people. At the moment it seems that the trump card deciding these kinds of conflicts is whoever flashes the more inordinate sexual perversion. All Hail Aphrodite!

The honor of father and mother, the honor of tradition, is fundamentally the insistence that we consider others more important than ourselves. We do not get to barge into the world and demand that it bend to our special felt needs. Other people were already here working, laboring, building things, inventing things, building up a massive store of cultural wealth that they will leave behind for us. You may have a unique contribution to make. You may see something that needs improvement. Please get in line, take a number, raise your hand. A culture that collectively screams and cries, demanding everyone bend to their immediate felt needs is an infantile civilization, a civilization in which nothing ever gets done. And a culture that puts up with and gives into the temper tantrums has already traded the real value of generational cultural wealth for the ephemeral folly of trying to make a toddler happy.

Of Demons, Chaos, & America

In a bit of a rabbit trail during Sunday’s sermon, I noted that God’s war on Egypt was a thoroughly spiritual warfare. That is, God was at war with the demon-gods of Egypt (cf. Ex. 12:12). Pharaoh was the earthly representative of that pantheon, and clearly in Egyptian mythology, he held a deified status. Thus, most of the action takes place between Moses and Pharaoh, but as commentators have often pointed out, the plagues themselves were targeting various sacred emblems and deities in the Egyptian pantheon. The Nile is sacred to you? Well, the Lord will turn it to blood. Frogs are sacred? Let me fill your land with them. And so on.

Add to this the fact that the Egyptian wizards are able to mimic Moses for the first few plagues. They can turn their rods into serpents. They can turn the Nile to blood. They multiply frogs. They finally give up on the third plague, and apparently can’t cause gnats to swarm (Ex. 8:18). Notice two important things: first, the Egyptian wizards really do possess some kind of supernatural power, and second, they can only make the plagues worse. If the Egyptian wizards actually wanted to compete with the Lord, they ought to have been reversing the plagues. But if you think about it for a moment it makes complete sense. That’s the only thing the powers of darkness can do. Demonic, Satanic powers cannot give life; they cannot make things good or beautiful. They occasionally ape the goodness and beauty of God or appear as an angel of light, but it’s all a sham, stolen from the Triune God, the source of all goodness and light.

But a key detail that is often missed in all of this is the significance of the first sign: the staff in the hand of Moses. Of course Moses throws down the staff, and it turns into an enormous serpent. Next, the magicians and sorcerers are summonsed, and by the power of their demon-idols cast their rods down, causing them to turn into serpents as well. The serpent of Moses swallows theirs, which is surely significant, but the really crucial business is the fact that Moses then takes the enormous serpent by the tail and it resumes its form as a rod in the hand of Moses. The real miracle is that Moses holds the dragon in his hand.

In other words, Pharaoh is that enormous serpent, but God is showing Pharaoh on the front end that Pharaoh is a rod in His hand. I hold you, says the Lord. I hold you, and I wield you. And not the other way around. But take this one step further: all of the plagues are powered by the rod in Moses’ hand. Given the demonic power that drives the Egyptian magicians’ and grants them the power to make the plagues worse, it appears that the point of the plagues is actually an enormous object lesson in idols and false gods. Idols destroy. Demons maim. The powers of darkness send the world into chaos. The true God of heaven gives order and beauty to the world, and by His Word all things hold together. But to put your trust in idols and demons is to unleash chaos and insanity on your society. The ten plagues are proof of that. Moses walks around showing Egypt what Pharaoh is already doing to them. Moses lifts his rod, symbolizing the demon-possessed Pharaoh, and says, look at what your serpent king is doing: He’s turning your life-giving waters to blood. He’s doing it already with the Hebrew baby boys, but it’ll only be a matter of time before Egyptian boys are dead as well. Pharaoh claims to cause fruitful harvests and to be in league with the powers that cause fertility and good weather, but he’s a lying snake. God in heaven causes all those good gifts, and Pharaoh’s communion with the forces of darkness is actually unleashing pestilence, sickness, storms, darkness, and death.

Thus, the ten plagues work as something like a time lapse video. The miracles are God speeding up the process of what Pharaoh is already doing for everyone to see. Do you want to see what Pharaoh’s rule would do to Egypt? Watch. It is loosing nature’s chaos on Egypt. Idols are liturgical suicide. They are terror on a pedestal. They are roadside bombs that leave their worshipers blind, deaf, dumb, and maimed. All who worship them become like them (Ps. 115:8).

Now, the final point is the application to our own day. America’s rivers run with blood. We have elected Pharaohs who have carried out a successful population control regime on us. We need to recognize that this means we unleashed demonic powers in our nation long before 1972. People don’t just up and start murdering their children by the millions. It takes a certain kind of cold-hearted, demonic insanity to countenance the kind of bloodbath we have performed. We were worshiping convenience and power and money and lust, and those gods demanded the blood of our children. And because we had already come under their power, we caused our children to pass through their fires. At fifty million children slaughtered, we make the Nazi’s seem tame and humane. But that is not all; the whole thing is coming unraveled. And every day brings news of more chaos. Language is unraveling, society is unraveling, divisions are increasing, riots are ramping up, justice is miscarried, law and order cannot hold under the current conditions. And we are about to choose between Demon Fool #1 or Demon Fool #2 for our Commander in Chief. Would you rather the gnats or the lice? Would you rather the hail stones or the locusts? Please select one and we will give you sticker.

And the point is that if we are reading our Bibles, the unmistakable reality is that we worship idols. Our wizards command money to be printed by their dark arts, increasing the plague on our land. Our wizards in their black robes announce that boys can marry boys and girls can marry girls. Our wizards summon peace to arise in far flung places through the incantations of bureaucracy and embargoes and bombs. But we have unleashed dark powers in our land (and in these other lands) that can only crush, only maim, only destroy. These dark powers enslave people through guilt and shame and despair, and their shackles are addictions, lusts, regret, anxiety, and greed. The Accuser loves accusations. The Accuser loves condemnation. The Accuser loves guilt, shame, failure, treachery, and the despair that haunts all of it. America is unraveling at breakneck speed because we are a nation of idol worshipers.

On the one hand, this is horrific and terrifying. But on the other hand, we should not forget that the answer is so wonderfully simple, so startlingly simple. We just need to ask God to take away the frogs. We need to ask God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to take away the gnats and the pestilence and the darkness. We need to ask God to heal our land. Our idols cannot do it; the powers of darkness cannot do it. And of course that would mean that we must acknowledge Jesus as Lord. We would be confessing that Jesus is Lord because He (and only He) can save us from the chaos. Because He is the only one who suffered, bled, and died for us. When He was nailed to the cross, all of our darkness, all of our sin, all of our shame was nailed with Him. And He took it down with Him into the grave and now it is dead and now there is no condemnation.

Jesus has disarmed the principalities and powers. Apart from Him, there is only chaos, darkness, and enslavement, but with His blood over our doors, the powers are utterly powerless and fading into nothing.