Douglas Wilson Archives - Page 110 of 179

On Christian Disobedience #1

Joe Harby on April 12, 2015

Introduction

The state is the great idol of modernity, and so of course Christians have to think through what things are lawful to render to Caesar and what things are not. This week we will consider the nature of our problem—the corruption of the system and the corruptions of those who oppose it. The next installment will address civil resistance in the Bible (Ehud, Gideon, Paul, Peter, David, el al.). But we must also remember civil submission in the Bible, and so passages like Romans 13 will be considered after that. Next, we will review an aspect of this subject infrequently considered, which is the nature of “established authorities” and the meaning of common law. The week after we will address common problems of conscience among Christians—Social Security taxes, registering for the draft, building inspectors, EPA regulations, licenses, and so forth. And last, we will look at the only possible solution to our civil woes, which is the genuine reformation of the Church. Any call for societal transformation must begin in the household of God.

The Text

“O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongs—O God, to whom vengeance belongs, shine forth! Rise up, O Judge of the earth; render punishment to the proud. Lord, how long will the wicked, how long will the wicked triumph?. . . Shall the throne of iniquity, which devises evil by law, have fellowship with You? They gather together against the life of the righteous, and condemn innocent blood” (Ps. 94:1-3, 20-22).

The Corrupt System

The Bible does recognize what we might call de facto rule. But the Bible also teaches the concept ofmoral legitimacy. “It is an abomination for kings to commit wickedness, for a throne is established by righteousness” (Pr. 16:12 : cf. 20:28; 25:5; 29:14). And so where do we stand? Here is just a brief review.

Abortion—since Roe v. Wade, we as a nation have maintained, for a full generation, that the dismemberment of an infant in the womb is morally legitimate. But the Bible says that murder is evil and defiles a land (Ex. 20:13; Num. 35:33- 34), and that the unborn in a just society are to have full legal protection (Ex. 21:22-25).

Moral filth exalted—from pornographic and federally-funded “art,” to twisted sex ed courses, to sodomite “marriages,” to vile behavior tolerated by our leaders, our culture defies God (Rom. 1:28-32 ). And so we as Christians must defy the culture.
Hatred of the truth—from the central lie of our government school systems—that the living God is, at best, irrelevant— to the lying ways in which we handle the law, wanting it to be as slippery as our hearts, we have turned from truth. “How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us’? Look, the false pen of the scribe certainly works falsehood. The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken. Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord; so what wisdom do they have?” (Jer. 8:8-9)

Bogus crusades—because we will not learn our morality from the law of God, we find ourselves inventing our own lists of things to be indignant about, including, but not limited to, tobacco, sexism, wine and beer, climate change, and the history of western Europe. But remember the words of Mark 7:9.

In summary, our modern rulers cannot be dismayed when we deny that they have moral legitimacy, because they want to insist that in the final analysis, there is no such thing a moral legitimacy. And so the preachers of the Word of God can have only one thing to say to such wickedness in high places (Is. 5:20-21).

The Corrupted Opposition

It would be wonderful to be able to say that the corruption in our centers of power has nothing to do with us, but God gives rulers in order to chastise a people. “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Pr. 14:34).
The state of the church—how can we expect the civil magistrate to conduct his affairs according to the Word of God when the church won’t conduct her affairs according to the Word of God? Consider the importance of salt in Matt. 5:13-16.

The idol of personal comfort—why do we yell when they want us to pay for the privileges we greedily accept? “I spoke to you in your prosperity, but you said, ‘I will not hear.’ This has been your manner from your youth, that you did not obey My voice” (Jer. 22:21). If you hear the word of righteousness when you are not afflicted, you do well. Lack of preparedness—when we are finally provoked to action, it is foolish and ill- considered action because of our prior sloth (1 Chr. 12:32). The school of resistance to lawless thrones is the same as the school of submission to the Lordship of Christ within the church. And this school is not a three-week course.

Judgment or Mercy

We serve the living God, the Holy One of Israel. He never changes; His attitude toward sinful nations is always the same. His wrath is visited upon all who defy Him, those who walk along spitting at the very clouds. The only way to flee from God is to flee to God. The only way to flee to God is through His Christ, our Lord Jesus.

Coal Fires and Fish (Easter 2015)

Joe Harby on April 5, 2015

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Introduction

The physical presence of the Lord Jesus, alive after the resurrection just as He promised He would be, transforms everything. We can see this very clearly in the fall and restoration of the apostle Peter after the resurrection of Jesus.

The Text

“And the servants and officers stood there, who had made a fire of coals; for it was cold: and they warmed themselves: and Peter stood with them, and warmed himself” (John 18:18).

“And the other disciples came in a little ship; (for they were not far from land, but as it were two hundred cubits,) dragging the net with fishes. As soon then as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread” (John 21:8-9).

Overview

These two verses are just a few pages apart, and the Greek for the charcoal fire is identical (anthrakian). The apostle John is a very careful writer, and the contrast that is built in here is no accident. We are being invited to compare and contrast the two settings.

The first fire was built by the enemies of Christ (18:18), and the second was built by Jesus Himself (21:9). Peter was present in both settings, and he was present because of something that had been said by the apostle John (18:16; 21:7). Jesus was present in both settings. In the first He was on trial for His life (John 18:27; cf. Luke 22:61), and in the second He has conquered death (21:1). In the first, Peter denied the Lord three times, just as Jesus had predicted (18:17, 25, 26), and fell into sin. In the second, he affirmed his love for the Lord three times, more humbly than before, and was reinstated to ministry (21: 15, 16, 17). In the first, Peter received something from wicked men (warmth), and in the second he received something from the Lord (food, and forgiveness). In the first, Peter does not compare favorably with the disciple that Jesus loved—John was more influential “at court,” John didn’t deny the Lord, and John didn’t run away. In the second, Peter has all such comparisons put to rest for him (John 21:21-22). “What is that to you?”

153 Fish and Big Ones Too

Paying attention to the number of fish caught is not a mystical or spooky reading of the text–—it is a literary reading of the text. It is reading with your eyes open. The issues are placement, foreshadowing, parallelism, conventions, and so on. To illustrate the difference, consider another detail from this text—when Jesus called out to His disciples fishing about 100 yards offshore, He told them to put their nets down over the right side of the boat, which they did. When they had done so, the result was a huge haul. This was a way of Jesus identifying Himself. When He had first called them to ministry, He had called them away from their nets (Matt. 4:18-22) so that they could become fishers of men. And when Jesus had done a similar miracle like this one before, the response that Peter had had was that of being overwhelmed with his own sinfulness (Luke 5:8). The first time the miracle had made him aware of his sinfulness; the second time he was living in an awareness of his sinfulness, with the memory of his denials and blasphemies still raw, and this same miracle calls him out of it.

This scene in John has a return to both elements—Jesus deals wonderfully with Peter’s sin and fall, and Jesus recommissions him to ministry as a fisher of men. He tells him three times to “feed the sheep” (21:15, 16, 17). We should also have no trouble seeing the fish as emblematic of the coming haul at Pentecost. The nations were to be brought into the boat, and Jesus indeed made His disciples fishers of men. In this case, Peter had jumped out of the boat, and the others had brought the fish in. But Peter is soon to rejoin them in the work. I like to imagine Peter standing on a wall in order to preach at Pentecost, and to see him cast his gospel net over the right side.

But what is it with the specific number of fish? This is a good place to illustrate the difference between a careful literary reading and mystical reading. This number has had a goodly amount of ingenuity to be spent on it. Some of it has been fanciful, some of it pretty pedestrian, and some of it sober. But the sober reading is still astonishing.

Bear With Me

The pedestrian reading is that 153 is mentioned because that’s how many fish there were, darn it, and John was simply interested in adding an irrelevant little detail. He put that in for “local color.”

A fanciful reading is that when you add the ten of the commandments to the seven of the seven-fold Spirit, as Augustine urged, you get 17, and 153 is the triangular of 17. (Triangularmeans that if you add the numbers 17 to 16 to 15 to 14 and so on down to one, the sum is 153). The problem here is that you can also get 153 from Seventeen magazine, and that doesn’t mean that John is talking about the challenges of adolescence in a secular age. This is the kind of thing that John Calvin called “childish trifling.”

But 666 is the triangular of 36 (and 36 is 6 times 6). It is a number we instantly recognize. The biblical writers often did make some of their points with numbers, and John particularlydid. The fact that it is unusual to us doesn’t make it unusual or odd to them. We already have solid grounds for understanding the fish as representing the Gentile nations. We have that “fishers of men” call that Jesus gives Peter and Andrew, James and John. We have the fact that throughout Scripture, the sea represents the Gentiles and the land the Jews. No one in the Old Testament is shown eating fish, but in the New Testament fishing (and the eating of fish) comes to the front and center.

On the day of Pentecost, how many nations are listed? Well, 17 actually (Acts 2:7-11). And we have to remember the practice of encoding numbers in names (called gematria) was common in the ancient world. They could do this in a way that we cannot because they used the same symbols for letters and for numbers. We have Roman letters and Arabic numbers. But in Hebrew, the first nine letters corresponded to 1-9, the next nine were 10-90, and the last five were100-400. So?

Well, as one biblical scholar points out, the prophet Ezekiel promised that the time of the New Covenant would be a time of glorious fishing.

“And it shall come to pass, that the fishers shall stand upon it from Engedi even unto Eneglaim; they shall be a place to spread forth nets; their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many” (Eze. 47:10).

The prefix En simply means spring, and so there are two words we should consider here —Gedi and Eglaim. If we look at the numerical value of Gedi in Hebrew, we find that it is 17, and the value of Eglaim is 153. Now try reading through Ezekiel 47, with its living water from the Temple of the Church, and trees on both sides of the river, with leaves for medicine, for the healing of the nations, and see how fishers of men shall stand there, from “the Spring of 17” to “the Spring of 153.”

Ezekiel was talking about the salvation of the Gentiles under the figure of fish, and he uses these numbers. John refers to this, and it has the same meaning as the explicit meaning given to it by Jesus in Luke (fishers of men). This means that 153 is a symbolic number for the Gentile nations who will be brought into the kingdom of God.

Back to the Charcoal Fire

Remember that Peter is being restored. The antithesis is very clear here. The charcoal fire built by the enemies of Christ is not really a good place to warm yourself—and it ends with snarling, cursing, devouring, bitterness, and tears.

The charcoal fire built by Christ is built in order to feed the disciples, and then, as Peter is being restored, he is commanded (in his turn) to feed the Christians who will follow him. Post-resurrection, the Lord who feeds His disciples is as humble as He was in the upper room when He washed their feet. They come to the beach, and He is cooking their breakfast. “How do you want your eggs?”

The resurrected Christ forgives and feeds. Our responsibility is to be forgiven, to be fed, and then to forgive . . . and feed. The first charcoal fire is the fire of betrayal, treason, sin, blasphemies, crashing pride, and humiliation. The second fire is the fire of free and full forgiveness, a fire of complete reconciliation.

After Peter denied the Lord, and went out to weep bitterly over it, how many times do you think he wished he could do everything over? How many times do you think he

lamented his self-confidence and bluster? How many times do you think he wished he could go right back to the beginning of his discipleship, and follow Christ faithfully this time? And what does Jesus give him? In the miracle of the fish, this is exactly what He gives to Peter. He takes him back to the moment he was first called, and is graciously given an unspeakable gift. Here, follow me again. All is forgiven. This really is a do-over.

Come, Follow Me

And what about you? Do any of us need to experience this kind of reconciliation? The answer is yes for all of us. The Lord is not more gracious to Peter than He is to you. Do not ask about Peter what Peter asked about John—you will get the same answer. What is that to you? You follow me—but you follow Him cleansed and forgiven. As though you had never denied Him.

This sermon is modified from a sermon first preached in 2007.

Gathered Up Godforsakenness (Good Friday 2015)

Joe Harby on April 3, 2015

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We call this day Good Friday, and it is good that we do. This was a day of darkness foreordained by the good pleasure of God, the day on which He determined to do whatever it might take to secure the salvation of the world.

But the fact that it was good and holy in its purpose and intent, and was good for us, as all God’s blessings are, did not prevent it from being hard as sin, and as black as the hearts of the men who condemned Him.

One of the best ways for us to evaluate what kind of day this actually was would be through looking at how Jesus Christ anticipated it. The night of His arrest, He was in an olive grove called Gethsemane, across the Kidron Valley, opposite Jerusalem. The Lord’s submission there to the cup given to Him by His Father is justly famous, but there are a few additional details the gospel writers tell us in the description that will help us to understand our salvation more fully.

Before considering these phrases, remember that Jesus was a man who had spent His entire ministry, over the course of three years, as one who was always in complete control. He was the master of every situation. If a crowd wanted to throw Him off a cliff, He walked through them. If He was asleep in the bottom of a boat, and a tempest arose, He would tell the wind and waves what to do. If a leper came to Him, He would touch the leper and cleanliness would spread to the leper, instead of uncleanness spreading the other way. If He needed to walk across the Sea of Galilee, He would do so. If the chief theological logic choppers of the nation came to trap Him with questions, He deflected all their stratagems easily, as though they were cobwebs in a doorway. If He met a disreputable woman, He knew exactly what to say and do. He could tell people to roll away a stone so that a man who had been dead four days could obey Him and come out. In short, His disciples had never seen Him in over His head. The world had never seen such mastery. Never.

Christ was the final Israel. He was Israel, the obedient Son. And as an obedient Son, all the blessings of Deuteronomy were in the palm of His hand by right. “And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God” (Deut. 28:1–2 ). This was the secret of His mastery. This is the reason all the blessings of God pursued Him wherever He went. This was how He did His miracles—not as God in disguise doing tricks for the children, but rather as a Spirit-empowered Israelite. He had all the authority that flowed from obedience.

But something in the Garden of Gethsemane threatened to undo Him.

Matthew tells us that He was sorrowful [lypeo], and Matthew and Mark both tell us He was very heavy with grief [ademoneo]. Matthew and Mark both tell us He was exceedingly sorrowful [perilypos]. Mark says that He was “sore amazed” [emphobos]. Luke adds the detail that an angel came to strengthen Him, and says that He was in such an agony [agonia] that He manifested signs of a condition we call hematidrosis, a condition where agony or fear causes the cluster of blood vessels around the sweat glands to burst, causing the blood to be secreted with the sweat. And Luke, the physician, tells us that they were great drops of bloody sweat. In short, Jesus, complete master of every possible circumstance, was terrified.

Blend these three accounts together in a paraphrase.

“Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, “Sit here, while I go a little further to pray. Pray that you don’t enter into temptation.” And He went about a stone’s throw away, taking with Him Peter, as well as James and John, the two sons of Zebedee. And He began to be sorrowful, very heavy with grief, and pressed down with terror. Then He said to them, “My soul is crushed with sorrow, even to the point of death. Stay here, and watch with me.” And Jesus knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but Yours, be done.” And an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening him. And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly, such that His sweat was like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose up from prayer, and came to His disciples, He found them sleeping for sorrow.”

But after the agony of Gethsemane, Jesus is back in control. His submission to God was not only true, but also complete. He was fully composed when the Sanhedrin vents its rage against Him. When He stands before Pilate, bloody and beaten, the situation makes Pilate afraid (John 19:8 ). After He was nailed to the cross, Jesus gives a repentant thief an exquisite promise of Paradise that day. He remembers to entrust the care of His mother to John.

The one moment when this is not true was the great moment of dereliction, that moment He had been dreading in Gethsemane. Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani. God made the one who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. The blow finally fell, and when it did Jesus cried out in a holy despair, quoting Scripture, and it is still “my God, my God.”

So Jesus was deserted in that moment, so that you could come home. He was forsaken by His Father, so that you—born forsaken—might be adopted by His Father. Jesus stepped, obediently and willingly, into the abyss of godlessness so that you and I could step, obediently and willingly, into the arms of the Father. He obeyed His Father into the void, so that we could all be summoned out of the void.

Apart from Christ, all of us stagger through this life, our arms full of Godforsakenness. And yet Jesus comes to each of us and says, “Here, let me take that.” And in the event we are now remembering, He gathered up all our Godforsakenness into Himself, and made sure that all of it died and went down to the heart of the earth. We know because He escorted it there personally.

And so this is indeed Good Friday. But let it be remembered that this word good, as wonderful as it is, represents the understatement of the ages.

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

Palm Sunday 2015: The Crowds of Palm Sunday

Joe Harby on March 29, 2015

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Introduction

A commonplace in Christian circles understands the events surrounding the first Palm Sunday to be a clear demonstration of the “fickleness of crowds.” But there are good reasons for questioning this common assumption.

The Text

On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, Took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord (John 12:12-13).

But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus. The governor answered and said unto them, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? They said, Barabbas. Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified. And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified (Matt. 27:20-23).

Overview

When Jesus entered into Jerusalem riding on a donkey, in fulfillment of prophecy, a great multitude gathered around and received Him as their king, as one who was coming in the name of the Lord. There is nothing in the account to suggest that the acclaim and joy were not genuine.

And yet, a very short time later, a multitude before Pilate was persuaded by the chief priests and elders to clamor for the destruction of Jesus. There is nothing in this to suggest that the composition of the crowd was largely the same as before, or that the crucifixion of Jesus was the result of everybody suddenly changing their minds. Rather, the facts recorded for us appear to suggest that Jerusalem was divided over the identity of Christ, and that those who loved Him were (temporarily) out-maneuvered.

Jesus was arrested at night, and was examined by Annas in a secret proceeding at night, in full contradiction to Jewish law. By the time they showed up before Pilate, it was still early (John 18:28). From the time of the Lord’s arrest to the time when the first nails went in, about nine hours elapsed. The whole thing was an iniquitous rush job. For about half that time, while all this was going on, the godly from the Triumphal Entry, those yearning for the redemption of Israel, were sound asleep in their beds.

Fidelity and the Appearances

We have a marked tendency to go on the basis of appearances. Even Elijah once fell victim to this mistake. “God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life. But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of
grace” (Rom. 11:2-5).

Momentum is truly a mysterious thing. Ability to speak and to be heard is also mysterious, and often has little to do with actual numbers. This means that it is often the case that things can look far worse than they actually are.

The Good Purposes of God

The crowds on Palm Sunday were not silent in their reception of Christ. They dutifully responded just as they ought to have done, and if they had not, the stones would have cried out. But their joy was short-lived and was replaced by black despair when Jesus was arrested, tried and executed. But their faithfulness was still a seed which bore fruit soon enough.

God gave to His faithful a moment of great glory when they received Christ in His triumphal entry. But this glory was still early, and not near glorious enough. It was premature by design, a proleptic glory. Hopes were raised high, just to be dashed to earth again. But this was a necessary part of God’s good purposes. “For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done” (Acts 4:27-28).

The plan of God involved far more than a parade into Jerusalem, a parade to warm the heart. God’s purpose was the redemption of the cosmos, the creation of a new heaven and a new earth. This means that sometimes the ungodly appear to outnumber the godly because God wants to make it apparent that the power is His, and not ours. We serve a God who raises the dead.

Sins of Silence

At the same time, 6,999 faithful but silent ones can indicate a separate set of problems. It may not be utter and complete faithlessness—as it appeared to be to Elijah—but among the faithful we still might find a distinct range of problems. One of the most common is ungodly silence. As with all things, this sin can be used by the hand of God, but we are still responsible for it.

Remember the antithesis—there were two crowds in the Jerusalem of that day. Because of God’s purposes in the world, there are always two crowds—the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Where is your allegiance?

Remember your loyalties—the saints received Christ into Jerusalem loudly. Have you ever stood by silent when others were not being shy about their allegiances at all?

Remember God’s priorities—the general consensus was that the Messiah would come to Jerusalem and kick out the Romans. What He actually did was come to Jerusalem and kick out the moneychangers. Sometimes we are “silent” because we showed up at the wrong place.

Conclusion

Jesus set His face in order to go to Jerusalem. He did this because He set His mind on the joy that was set before Him. His entry into Jerusalem was an early step—and we have yet come close to completely the journey that He began. We are still in the shallows of that joy.

The Politics of Sodomy IV: Remember Lot’s Wife

Joe Harby on March 22, 2015

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Introduction

How do we as individuals respond to the situation we find ourselves in? How can we be faithful in our generation? These very practical questions, and they require answers that are equally practical. What are we to do? How are we to live?

The Texts

“And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar. Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other. Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom. But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly” (Gen. 13:10-13)

“And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground; And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant’s house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways” (Gen. 19:1-2).

“Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven; And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt” (Gen. 19:24-26).

“Remember Lot’s wife” (Luke 17:32).

Overview

The outline of the story goes this way, and it is a story that the Lord Jesus commanded us toremember. When Abraham and Lot came into conflict through their herdsmen, Abraham gave Lot the first choice on which land he could have. Lot made that choice on carnal principles (seeing the main chance), and he took up residence near Sodom. The men there were already renowned for their wickedness. In our next passage, Lot is living in Sodom, and he knows what a foul place it is. He tries to get the angels to stay with him for the night, and be on their way first thing in the morning. When the judgment finally fell, even that was inadequate evidence for Lot’s wife, and she looked longingly back at all the malls and restaurants, and she was destroyed. Remember her, Jesus said.

Review

Cultures fall apart in the pattern described in the Scriptures, and they do so exactly. Because we have rejected God, He is rejecting us, and the latter is far more important than the former. The end of this process is sodomy in the public square. And in the conflict that surrounds this, neutrality is an impossibility. All of us must either gather or scatter, and we cannot evade the force of this by making Christ the Lord of an invisible “spiritual” world. Thinking rightly about this means that we will avoid carnality in our motives for the fight—but we can never avoid obedience (or disobedience) in the material realm. Moreover, all of the physical realm is involved. But with all this as a foundation, we do need direction.

Worship is Always Central

Every Lord’s Day, we have the privilege of entering into the heavenlies, and we there glorify the name of Jesus Christ (Heb. 12: 22, 28-29). We do this in Christ, in the heavenlies (Eph. 1: 18-21). We then ask God to glorify the name of Jesus Christ on earth as it has been glorified in heaven (Matt. 6:10). And what this means is that that corporate worship, offered in faith and biblically ordered, is a battering ram in the hands of the saints of God. Moreover, this is our only battering ram, and we must not put it down to throw our wadded up paper balls at the fortress turrets. There are many consequences to the overthrow of the unbelieving fortress—economic, political, cultural, artistic, and so on. But the spoils of battle are not our weapons of battle. That is what we are fighting over, not what we are fight with. But also remember that “faith” and “trust” don’t mean air guitar.

Small or Great

The 115th Psalm is full of glorious encouragement on this subject. Among other things is the assurance that God will bless us, He will bless us and our children, and He promises to do this whether we are “small or great.” “He will bless them that fear the LORD, both small and great” (Ps. 115: 13). This means that in the eyes of God there is no such thing as an “out of the way” place. Andthis means that in order to “do something” constructive you do not have to wait. You have an audience now with the Most High King. His eyes are on the sons of men. And what does He see?

Husbands and fathers living sacrificially? Unmarried Christians faithfully serving in their communities? Children learning the meaning of loyalty and obedience? Wives respecting and honoring their husbands? A community of Christians characterized by sharing meals in one another’s homes, because they love one another? God will bless this, whether small or great, and whether or not the Supreme Court ever heard of it.

Divided Loyalties

Precisely because we are not gnostic, we must have multiple loyalties, and no two of us can have exactly the same ones. But these must be hierarchical loyalties, biblically ordered and ranked. If they are lined up side-by-side, then the name for this is “divided loyalties” or “idolatry” for short.

The only loyalty that we all may hold in common absolutely is our loyalty to the triune God, and every other loyalty must self-consciously be subordinated to it. Currently, the open competitor to this is the State that would be God. Because things aren’t what they used to be, we need to deal with all our liturgical idols (including the civic ones). This means placing the Apostles’ Creed over the Pledge of Allegiance. Or altering the Pledge to say “the triune God” or the “Lord Jesus Christ” instead of the current generic “God.” This is just an example, but if we do not commit ourselves to our Trinitarian loyalties, we are not remembering Lot’s wife, and we are slowly being conformed to the world around us, just as she was (Rom. 12:1-2).