Douglas Wilson

Hard Providence and Trusting God

Douglas Wilson on June 15, 2014

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Introduction

We live in a world where rough things happen. Despite all our advances in technology, everyone in this room will still die. We still get sick. We still have financial challenges. We have the heartbreak of wayward children. We still have to deal with the perversity of sin that we can still find stirring under our own breastbone. In other words, as it says in Job, man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. How are we to respond? If we want to avoid platitudes, tough times demand tough thinking.

The Text

“In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (1 Thess. 5:18).
“Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;” (Eph. 5:20).

Summary of the Text

The context of the Thessalonians exhortation is this. Paul is delivering a rapid-fire series of exhortations to them, including esteeming your leaders, being at peace with one another, warning the unruly, comforting the feeble, and so on. He then tells them to pray without ceasing, and comes to deliver our text. Right afterward, he says not to quench the Spirit. Now this cluster of exhortations shows that Paul is not assuming that the Thessalonians are somehow living in a la-la land, where it is quite easy to “give thanks in everything.” There are tough challenges in the same breath. This is not an exhortation only for those who live under marshmallow clouds and glittery rainbows, and who cavort in the meadow with sparkly unicorns.

In Ephesians, we find something similar. Right after a warning that the “days are evil” (Eph. 5:16), leading on to a caution about drunkenness (v. 18), Paul tells them to fill up on psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and tells them to “give thanks for all things.” This is what it means to be filled with the Spirit.

Reasoning Within the Constraints of Scripture

We are Christians, and so we should want to do as we are told. We should not want, under pressure, to reinterpret what God must have “meant.” We were not told to be “realistic.” We were told to give thanks in and for everything. This means that it is time for us to put on our big boy pants. “Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men” (1 Cor. 14:20).

We have to learn how to argue our case with God, as the psalmist frequently does. We must avoid, at all costs, murmuring in our tents, the way the children of Israel did in their tents in the wilderness. We may press our case with God, but we may never forget that His infinite and holy character is the only possible foundation for any sane argument. If that foundation is missing, then we have no argument, we have no complaint, and nothing is wrong with what is happening to us. You may appeal to God, and you may do so with loud cries. Jesus did that (Heb. 5:7). You may argue with God. Many holy men and women did that. You may not accuse God. You may not try to become a devil to God. You may not adopt into the premises of your argument anything other than the promises of God, grounded as they are in the character and attributes of the immutable and holy One. In short, whenever you argue with God, both of your feet must be firmly placed on the covenant of grace.

One Premise You Must Have

If God is up in Heaven, wringing His hands, and saying “oh dear” along with the rest of us, there is no possible way for us to do this. Since God wants us to do this, requiring it as He has, He wants us to get this premise down into our bones. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). We live our lives “according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Eph. 1:11). And God saved us by grace through faith because we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).

So we are not being asked to thank God in and for an isolated anything. Everything that happens is part of a purpose, plan, plot, stratagem, and so on. God is running a play. God is telling a story, and so you thank God for this verb’s place in the story. God is not telling you to thank Him for that same verb in an infinite, godless vacuum. No—there is no such place.

Of Course Not

Now it is psychologically impossible for us to thank God for the sin when we are in the middle of committing it. But that is a limitation created by the sinning. Such a limitation does not place our disobedience outside the story—others may thank God for how He is using our sin for His glory. Remember that whenever we thank God for the cross of Jesus Christ—which we are to do constantly—we are thanking Him for the worst murder that was ever committed on this planet (Acts 2:23; Acts 4:27-28). We are thanking Him for the murder, and we are thanking Him in it. What we are not doing is joining in with the spirit of murder.

Now for the Hard Part

When the pain is sharp, when the burden is heavy, when the event is uncertain . . . the wait is long. We don’t mind waiting when we have something to divert us, but if the pain, or the burden, or the anxiety prevent us from being diverted, all we have is a long and interminable wait. “Wait on the Lord: Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: Wait, I say, on the Lord” (Ps. 27:14).

“But why do we have to wait?” we complain. We are happy to have patience, so long as we can have it now. But God does not want you in a day-at-the-beach story. He wants you in an adventure story. And have you ever noticed that your worst experiences are frequently the best stories later?

Walk it Through

Take “lousy experience x,” the thing that just happened to you this last week, and which still has you reeling. How do you process it? What precisely are you to do? You pray a prayer, something like this: “God in Heaven, I understand and believe that You govern all things for Your glory and our good. I believe that You are my Father, and that You do all things well. Therefore, I want to thank You in my trial and for my trial. Specifically, I want to thank You for lousy experience x, and ask You to receive my praise, as I sing the Doxology. ‘Praise God from whom all blessings flow.’”

Say to Them of Fearful Heart…

So it is not enough to speak the truths of God. We must speak the truths of God, supported by thereasons of God. “Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: Behold, your God will come with vengeance, Even God with a recompence; He will come and save you” (Is. 35:4).

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Grace and Peace

Douglas Wilson on June 8, 2014

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Introduction

Today we celebrate the giving of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost. As we consider this great event, we have to remember that the Holy Spirit is aPerson, not an impersonal force. He was given to the Church at Pentecost so that He might glorify Jesus Christ, who in turn brings us to the Father. Our salvation involves every person of the Trinity, and it is important for us to know how they work together in a divine conspiracy—to liberate us from the chains of our own selfish hearts.

The Text

“To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 1:7).

Summary of the Text

This salutation at the beginning of Romans has something in common with the salutations at the beginning of most of the epistles of the New Testament. It is virtually verbatim in many other letters (1 Cor. 1:3, 2 Cor. 1:2, Gal. 1:3, Eph. 1:2, Phil. 1:2 Col. 1:2, 1 Thess. 1:1, 2 Thess. 1:2, Phile. 1:3). In the pastorals Paul adds the word mercy (1 Tim. 1:2; 2 Tim. 1:2; Tit. 1:4). Peter does the same thing (2 Pet. 1:2), and in his first epistle he mentions grace and peace, but without mention of the Father and the Son (1 Pet. 1:2). The apostle John does it once, with the addition of the word mercy (2 Jn. 1:3).

What does it all mean? In order to answer that question we have to consider some other aspects of biblical teaching, and we also have to bring in a bit of church history.

How We Come to God

“For through him [Jesus] we both [Jew and Gentile] have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (Eph. 2:18). The Bible teaches that we cannot come to God unless God has first come to us. We cannot come to the Father, except by Jesus, and we cannot come to Jesus unless it is by the Spirit. And we cannot have the Spirit unless the Spirit has been poured out. And this is what we find.

If you will permit a homely little analogy, the text above shows us how we come to God. The Father is the destination we are traveling to. The Son is the road, the way we must travel. The Holy Spirit is the car. For by this road we have access to our destination by means of this car. The triune God comes to us so that we might come to Him.

A Bit of Church History

Our church has, as one of its foundational creeds, the Nicene Creed. In the original form of the creed, it said that the Holy Spirit proceeded “from the Father.” For the Eastern Orthodox, it remains that way. In the Western Church, which includes both Roman Catholics and Protestants, one word was added, which in English is rendered with three words. That one word is filioque, which means “and the Son.” This means that we confess that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father “and the Son.”

Fruit and Gifts

The Holy Spirit gives gifts, and the Holy Spirit also bears fruit. Another thing He does is teach us to prioritize these things rightly. He is the one who works in our hearts so that we might understand the relationship of gifts and fruit.
We have a tendency to focus on those things God gives which flash and pop. We are attracted to shiny objects. Miracles are always impressive, and the prophets get to speak up front, and so on. But notice how the Bible ranks these things. Paul says that the church at Corinth was a very giftedchurch (1 Cor. 1:7). They were not lacking in any spiritual gift. But just a page or so later, he is saying that he could not address them as spiritual men, but rather as carnal men (1 Cor. 3:1). Please let this sink in. Having spiritual gifts does not make one a spiritual man. Later in the same book, he prioritizes everything wonderfully. The gifts are marvelous, but he still shows the Corinthians a “more excellent way” (1 Cor. 12:31). The gifts include some that are reckoned as the “best,” but Paul goes on to argue for something better even than that.

And what he argues for is love (1 Cor. 13:1ff). In effect, he says that the fruit of the Spirit is far more evidence of His active presence than the gifts of the Spirit are. No one wants to be gifted like Balaam was, and yet devoid of integrity like he was. Jesus said that everyone would know that we were His disciples by our love for one another. “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35).

Just Be Nice?

Now “love one another” sounds kind of Sunday Schooly, doesn’t it? But love in a fallen world is hard as nails. Loving is tough, an arduous business. In order to make it possible, God had to pour Himself out upon the Church on the day of Pentecost, and He did so in the person of His Holy Spirit.

So Why is the Spirit Absent?

Back to our texts. It may have struck some as odd that the text for this sermon on Pentecost was a text that did not mention the Spirit at all. But the oddity goes beyond that. In all these passages, in all these salutations, the Holy Spirit is not named specifically at all, and the Father and the Sonare mentioned. The formulae is basically this: grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. If we were prone to take offense on behalf of others, we might wonder why the Spirit is being so consistently slighted.

But the Spirit is not absent here. Jonathan Edwards, the great Reformed theologian argues, I believe compellingly, that the Holy Spirit is the grace and peace. Given the nature of the case, the Holy Spirit draws attention away from Himself, and He goes under various names. For example, He is called the seven Spirits of God (Rev. 1:4). For another, He is called the finger of God (Luke 11:20; Matt. 12:28). He is called the river of living water (John 7:38-39). The Spirit loves to go incognito.

And in virtually every epistle in the New Testament, the saints of God are reminded of their daily and ongoing dependence upon Him. Grace and peace be upon you. This is the gift of the Father and the Son, giving themselves to you, in the person of their Spirit. Grace and peace be with you, both now and forever.

Many Mansions

Douglas Wilson on June 1, 2014

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Introduction

Today is Ascension Sunday, the time when we remember the ascension of the Lord Jesus into the heavenly realms, where He was ushered on the clouds of heaven into the presence of the Ancient of Days, where He was given universal power, authority, and dominion. From that place, He rules on earth, but also in that place, He is doing something else.

The Text

“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him” (John 14:1–7).

Summary of the Text

The immediate preceding context for this passage is Peter’s claim that he would lay down his life for Christ. Jesus responds by saying that Peter will deny Him three times before the cock crows. His statement right after that, no doubt because of the consternation among the disciples, was “let not your heart be troubled” (v. 1). He summons them to believe in Him the same way they believed in God (v. 1). His Father’s house contains many mansions—Jesus would have told them if it were otherwise (v. 2). He is going away to prepare a place for them there. If He goes to prepare a place, then that means He will come back to take them there (v. 3). He tells the disciples they know where He is going, and they know the way (v. 4). Thomas responds that they don’t know either of those things (v. 5). Jesus says in effect that they knew without knowing. He said that Heis the way, the truth, and the life. He is the way to the Father (v. 6). If they know Him, which they did, then they know where He is going (to the Father), and they know the way to the Father (Jesus). To know Jesus is to know the Father (v. 7). To attempt to know God apart from Jesus is to try to be a philosopher, instead of a Christian. A Christian knows God through Jesus.

Honest Thomas

We sometimes like to patronize the apostles, as though we would have done any better than they did. Peter once walked on water five yards farther than any of us could have done, and yet we goho, ho, ho at him because he looked at the waves and sank. Thomas is called Doubting Thomas because he refused to believe the resurrection unless he saw and touched Christ’s wounds for himself. But here he is the member of the class who refuses to pretend that he understands when he doesn’t. This is a disciple who will not blow smoke. He is the one saying what we all ought to be saying here— what do you mean?

A Promise for All

Jesus here is talking to the Twelve, and yet Christians naturally and easily (and rightly) apply these words to every saint in the history of the world. “My Father’s house” is obviously Heaven. The word rendered as mansions here is μονή (monay), and simply means dwelling places within a larger house. The English word mansion is only misleading to those who don’t know the history of the English word—it can refer to a spacious apartment in a much larger house, as in a king’s palace. “My Father’s house” is the palace, and Jesus was preparing the rooms for His disciples. The spiritual logic of understanding the afterlife requires us to apply this to ourselves. We are all given the words of the Bible for a reason. We are not supposed to think that while the apostles get the spacious apartments, we will get the bunkhouses on the back 40.

Faith in the Midst of Trouble

First, consider the Lord’s faith. He knew what was about to happen to Him, within hours, and yet He commands the disciples to believe in Him. He says that He is the way, when He will be nailed to a cross within hours. He says that He is the truth, when He will apparently be outmaneuvered by all the lies the world ever told. He says that He is the life, when His body will soon be a lifeless corpse. But Jesus saw through and past all that. For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame (Heb. 12:2).

Then think about what Jesus was telling the disciples to do. The disciples were about to go through a maelstrom of trouble. Jesus was going to be arrested, betrayed by one of them, they were going to be scattered, one of them would deny Him, and just one of them—John—would stay with Him. In that context, Jesus commands them to believe in Him.

He tells them that they will be in trouble, but should not let the trouble be in them. Let not your hearts be troubled. They had left all behind them for Jesus. They had burned the bridges behind them to go with Jesus. And now He announces that He was going to leave them. Not only that, but He would depart from them in what appeared to be a spectacularly disastrous way.

Many Mansions, Many Rooms

There is therefore a two-fold meaning to the Ascension. From the right hand of God the Father, the Lord Jesus is ruling all the nations of men (Dan. 7:13-14), preparing the earth for His return. But this passage means that He is also preparing Heaven for the “arrival” of earth. When the rooms are ready, He will come to get us, and take us there.

Bring this down to the individual level. While Jesus is fitting Heaven out for us, His governance of all the circumstances of our lives (including the afflictions and big troubles in it) is an essential part of the process of preparing us for the rooms we will dwell in. He is working both ends toward the middle. Our longing and our prayer should be for that glorious meeting in the middle.

The David Chronicles 56: Inscrutable Justice and Mercy

Douglas Wilson on May 25, 2014

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Introduction

This passage concludes the narrative of the book of Samuel, and it does so with a story that sounds odd to modern ears —for various reasons. Some of those reasons have to do with the coming of the gospel, and some of them have to do with us drifting away from a biblical understanding of God’s ways with man.

The Text

“And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah . . .” (2 Sam. 24:1-25).

Summary of the Text

God’s anger was kindled against Israel, and so He made David make a bad decision (v. 1). David told Joab to go and number the people of Israel (v. 2). Joab, wisely, was opposed (v. 3). But David prevailed against Joab and the military leaders (v. 4). They traveled through all Israel, taking 9 months on the census (vv. 5-8). The number was 800,000 in Israel and 500,000 in Judah (v. 9). Upon receiving this information, David’s conscience struck him (v. 10). A prophetic word came to the prophet Gad (v. 11), and it was a word that offered David three options (v. 12). So Gad came to him and gave him the choice between 7 years of famine, 3 months of fleeing from enemies, or 3 days of pestilence (v. 13). So David chose to fall into the hands of God, not man (v. 14), and God sent pestilence that killed 70,000 men (v. 15). The angel of pestilence was coming upon Jerusalem, but the Lord “repented him” of the evil, and told the angel to stand by (v. 16). When David saw the angel, he offered himself and his own house instead of the people (v. 17). Gad told David to build an altar where the angel was, which was the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite (v. 18). David obeyed (v. 19), and Araunah saw David coming and bowed before him (v. 20). David told him that he had come to buy the threshing floor, in order to build an altar that would stop the plague (v. 21). Araunah offered to give him everything he needed (vv. 22-23). David refused to offer that which cost him nothing, so he paid fifty shekels of silver for it (v. 24). And so David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and the plague was stopped (v. 25).

The Census Sin

First, what was the sin involved in the census? It was not because of the mere fact of the census—because that was allowed and assumed by the law (Ex. 30:12). And Jesus teaches us that counting our troops is a wise and prudent thing to do (Luke 14:31). So what was the problem here? Note that Joab, the consummate politician, was against it. Note also that David repented as soon as he heard the numbers. And note that the breakout of the numbers divided the troops according to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. The cultural fault lines that defined two future kingdoms were already there, and I believe that David realized that he had just badly exacerbated them. It was his job to be king of all Israel, and not to toy with war games that speculated on what would happen if they turned on each other.

Sin as Judgment

We know that sin brings judgment, and this is a truth that needs to be emphasized in a generation that desperately wants to forget it. But at the same time, we also must recognize that God is sovereign over all things, sin included, and that He sometimes arranges things so that judgment brings sin, which brings more judgment. He is the Lord, and we are not to talk back.

Note here that God’s anger was kindled against Israel (for unspecified sin), and as a result of that He stirred up David to number the people (v. 1). And then, because David numbered the people, he and the people were judged. I said a moment ago that God is sovereign, and we must not talk back. But if we wanted to talk back, is the material here? God judged David for a sin that God “incited” David to commit? Yes. Not only this, but the parallel account in Chronicles says that Satan provoked David to do this (1 Chron. 21:1), the first mention of Satan by title in the Bible.

Some who want to pretend that God does not hold all of history in the palm of His hand point to expressions like what we find here—God repenting, or changing His mind—and they insist on taking the words at what they say is face value. When we say that it is an obvious expression—how we experience God’s dealings with us—and that it is just like us saying “sunrise” when we know intellectually that it was actually “earthturn,” they say that we are trifling with the plain meaning of the text. Okay, if you want the plain meaning of the text, then why don’t you repeat the whole story? What did God repent of? He repented of killing 70,000 people because He was angry at something that He made David do in the first place, and He was angry for unspecified reasons. And He sent Satan as His agent. There is no resolution to any of this except in high octane Calvinism.

The Angel at the Threshing Floor

The Bible teaches that angels and celestial powers were assigned a governing role over mankind until the coming of Christ. Prior to the Incarnation, it was God/angels/man. After the coming of Christ, there has been a cosmological revolution, and it is now God/man in Christ/angels (Heb. 2:5). The world to come—the world we inhabit—has been subjected to man, and not to angels. This was not the case three thousand years ago. Then mankind was in his minority (Gal. 3:19, 24).

Sin as Stroke of God

The sovereignty of God over evil is not something that has disappeared in the new covenant. But make sure you understand the doctrine correctly. Is God the Author of sin? In one sense, no, of course not, and in another sense, yes, absolutely.

James tells us that God cannot be tempted by evil, and that He himself tempts no one. Let no one say that God is “tempting” him to commit sin (Jas. 1:13). God is present with you in the person of the Holy Spirit. God never tempts or lures to sin.

But God most emphatically wields sin, for His righteous and holy purposes. We have this text, and countless others. Assyria, full of military arrogance and sin, was an ax in the hand of God (Is. 12:12, 15). Herod, Pilate, Pontius Pilate, and all the Jews did with wicked hands (Acts 2:23) what God had determined beforehand to be done (Acts 4:27-28), and to which Jesus submitted as the will of His Father (Luke 22:42). God often picks up dirty tools with holy hands.

Close to home, we have the rod of our sexual license, which God is using to beat us senseless (Prov. 22:14). The wrath of God is visited upon us when God “gives us up” to homosexual lusts (Rom. 1:24, 26). Whenever you see and form of “gay pride,” and all the rest of that foolishness, do not think that this is something for which God will judge us (although He will do that). Think of it as a judgment for something else. It is the judgment itself.

We might want to say that we “don’t know” what it could have been. But two things . . . a spirit of true repentance would actually want to know. And a spirit of true faith would turn to God through Jesus Christ—the only available provision for this kind of thing. We have an offering far greater than what David was able to offer on Araunah’s threshing floor.

The David Chronicles 55: The True Sun King

Douglas Wilson on May 18, 2014

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Introduction

In this passage, we have the last formal pronouncement that the great David gave. This message from David spoke of the blessing that comes from a godly ruler. Louis XIV was the Sun King of France, and his idea of it was absolute monarchy. David, by way of contrast, spoke of a sun king very differently.

The Text

“Now these be the last words of David. David the son of Jesse said, And the man who was raised up on high, The anointed of the God of Jacob, And the sweet psalmist of Israel, said, The Spirit of the Lord spake by me . . .” (2 Sam. 23:1–39).

Summary of the Text

These are the last words of David, referring to his last pronouncement (v. 1). He was the sweet singer of Israel (v. 1), and God spoke through him (v. 2). A ruler must be just (v. 3), and if he is, then he is a morning sun (v. 4), a cloudless morning (v. 4), and as new grass after rain (v. 4). Though David’s house does not deserve it, God has made an everlasting covenant (v. 5). Sons of Belial, sons of worthlessness, are rulers who must be hedged with weapons, and then burned (vv. 6-7).

We then come to David’s hall of fame roster. Adino was chief; he killed 800 at one time (v. 8). Then Eleazer, one of the Three, who fought until his hand stuck to his sword (vv. 9-10). Then there was Shammah, who fought at the lentil field (vv. 11-12). Then there were the three men who captured a cup of water from the well at Bethlehem (vv. 13-17). Abishai was one of them, and another time he killed 300 men (vv. 18-19). He was like the top Three, but not of them. Benaiah defeated two men of Moab, and also killed a lion in a pit on a snowy day (v. 20), as well as an Egyptian (vv. 21-23). And then a number of the Thirty are named. The chapter ends by saying there were 37 in all, but in this chapter only 36 are named. The missing man was no doubt Joab. Names to note would be Eliam, the father of Bathsheba (v. 35) and son of Ahithophel. And it is surely not a coincidence that the last man named is Uriah the Hittite (v. 39). Uriah’s name meant “YHWH is my light.”

Citations of Bravery

We can see from these descriptions that courage takes a stand in particular circumstances. Eleazar fought until his sword grew into his hand and arm, and that detail was remembered by Israel. Shammah took a stand at the lentil field, while all the other troops fled. He took a hopeless stand, and he prevailed. The Lord wrought a great victory there. The three who got water from the well were doing nothing of strategic value, but wars are fought with symbols as well as with weapons. This was something that David knew, and treated the water with the respect it deserved, and he poured it out before the Lord. Benaiah fought with a lion, in a pit, on a snowy day. Top that.

A True Sun King

Sin is destructive, and men can forfeit great blessings by it. David did lose some immediateblessings through his sin, but he did not lose the great blessing. Jesus, the Son of David, sits on the throne of the universe now. God promised his house an everlasting covenant, and this was all David’s salvation and all his desire. But he adds this comment in v. 5 to show that he knows that he was not the perfect exemplar of the kind of king he describes in vv. 3-4.

That said, the covenant head of every civic order is not a necessary evil. Something that is frequently evil is not necessarily evil. In addition, a godly ruler is not superfluous. It is not as though impersonal market forces do all the good stuff, with the civic head simply serving as kind of an animated logo for the nation. No, there is real authority there. “And the Lord magnified Solomon exceedingly in the sight of all Israel, and bestowed upon him such royal majesty as had not been on any king before him in Israel” (1 Chron. 29:25).

In order for this to happen, God must raise a man up (v. 1), and God must anoint him (v. 1). Seizing power, garnering votes, bribing the right people cannot achieve this. An anointing is a gift. A man who rules other men must be just, and this justice is defined as ruling in the fear of God. A ruler who does not fear God is in some way claiming to be God. If there is no God over the state, then the state is God.

But if a man rules in the fear of God, he brings something to a nation which cannot be obtained in other ways. He is the light of a cloudless morning—clearly not a figurehead. He is the rain on the fresh grass. In short, a godly ruler is not optional if a nation is to flourish as God intended.

Dealing with Bramble Men

What is the alternative? The phrase sons of Belial means sons of worthlessness, and they cannot be persuaded by argument. Neither can they be seized by hand—they are bramble men, covered with thorns.

These thorns must be raked together with weapons, which gives a political force to the metaphor, and then when they have been heaped together, the only thing for it is to burn the pile of them.

This image for worthless rulers, judges, and lawmakers had been used before—Gideon’s son Jotham told the men of Israel a very pointed parable (Judg.9:14-15). He gave them that parable from the top of mount Gerizim (Judg. 9:7)—the mount from which blessings were pronounced. Mount Ebal was the mount of cursing.

So judgment upon wicked rulers is a blessing for the people. “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: But when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn” (Prov. 29:2). When the cause of that mourning is removed, the people rejoice. To curse the wicked in their office is to bless the people.

One of the snares that comes from living in a democratic republic—along with the blessing of regular elections, without tanks in the streets—is that we come to think that everything must be addressed by endless discussion and debate. But when bramble men have gotten themselves established, as they have in our nation, there is no way to address it apart from judgment. That judgment must not be a vigilante judgment, but it must be an actual judgment.

And when it is declared, when it is pronounced, the word comes down as a blessing. It is a declaration from Gerizim.