Douglas Wilson Archives - Page 132 of 179

Sower, Soils, Seed

Joe Harby on October 14, 2012

Introduction

The central method that Jesus employed in His teaching is the method of setting forth parables. That means that if we want to be serious Christians, we should give ourselves to the understanding of His parables. We should want to learn what they mean, but more than this, we should want to learn how they mean.

The Text

“The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side. And great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship, and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore. And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow . . .” (Matt. 13:1-23; cf. Mark 4:3-9, 14- 26; Luke 8:14-15).

Summary of the Text

One day things were so crowded that Jesus had to teach the multitudes from a boat (vv. 1-2). He taught them many things in parables, and the first recorded parable was that of the sower (v. 3). Some seed fell by the wayside, and birds ate it (v. 4). Some fell on stony places, where the soil was thin (v. 5). They started up quickly, but the sun scorched them (v. 6). A third category fell on ground that also had thorns (v. 7). The last cast seed fell on good ground, and was fruitful to the tune of 30, 60, and 100 fold (v. 8). Let those who get it get it (v. 9). The disciples then came and asked why He taught in parables (v. 10). Jesus answered that His purpose was to both reveal and conceal (v. 11). Not only so, but the parables are used to give more to the one who has, and to take away from those who have just a little (v. 12). Jesus spoke in parables as a judicial judgment on the Pharisees, and to fulfill the words of Isaiah (vv. 13-15). But the eyes of the disciples are blessed (v. 16). They are more blessed than the prophets and righteous men of old because they see more (v. 17). Jesus then explains the parable (v. 18). The one who hears about the kingdom without understanding it is the beaten path guy (v. 19). The one who hears “shallowly” is an eager believer, but who falls away in times of trouble (vv. 20-21). The third kind of person grows the crop, but also thorns—the cares of this world and the lies of wealth choke it out (v. 22). The good ground hears, understands, and then bears a harvest of 30, 60, or 100 fold (v. 23).

The Answer Key

We should pay particular attention to this parable. It is the first parable in Matthew, and comes at the head of a series of seven. It is a parable that has the remarkable gift of an “answer key.” Jesus breaks it down for us, which means that we can learn (by analogy) how to handle the other parables. He walks through it with us. Third, in the account given in Mark, Jesus explicitly says that it is the key to all the parables (Mark 4:13). He says, “Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?” Do not study the parables, therefore, without mastering this one.

Sower, Seed, Soils

Since we are learning how to handle these things, let us write it out in big, block letters. In the next parable, Jesus identifies Himself as the sower (Matt. 13:37), and there is no reason to not take it the same way here. Christ sows the seed. What is the seed? In this place, it is described as “the word of the kingdom” (Matt. 13:19). Luke says that it is the “word of God” (Luke 8:11). As we serve as the agents of the Lord Jesus (who is the sower), we have to be careful to empty the whole bag of seed. In the book of Acts, preaching the message of the kingdom was the same as “testifying of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24-25), as well as teaching the things that were “concerning the

Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 28:31). The word of the kingdom is as wide as the kingdom. It encompasses everything. It is not enough to say “word of God” as a placeholder—we have to pay attention to what He is saying.
Then there are the soils. The first thing to note is that the soils are four different kinds of human hearts. Jesus says this explicitly in v. 19, when He describes the birds taking away from the foot path man the word which had been “sown in his heart.”The crop does not succeed with the shallow man because he has no root “in himself.” So we are dealing with individual hearts, and Jesus says there are four basic types. There is the hard heart, the shallow heart, the divided heart, and the good heart. This is the Lord’s taxonomy, and we need to learn how to classify ourselves. More about his shortly.

First Century Soils

Never forget that this parable was not told for the first time at First Memorial Church in 1957. In addition to what it plainly means for every man, it also meant something particular and distinctive for the Lord’s first century hearers (Mark 12:1-12). If I were to tell you a story about a man who tried to tread on a rattlesnake and who got attacked by a bald eagle, you would pick up on things that Chinese man wouldn’t.

So think of four kinds of eras in Israel’s history—there are the hard-hearted rebellious periods (think about Israel’s idolatrous apostasies), there are the brief spurts of enthusiastic faithfulness (here’s looking at you, Joash), and the times of formal allegiance to YHWH compromised by a double allegiance to status and money (think Pharisees). And then we see that Jesus is announcing the kingdom, right? He is preaching the advent of the good soil era that the prophets foretold, which means that He is not only the sower, but also the seed. If we think ahead, He is every form of good soil—the only way any of us might become good soil. What kind of soil were the Jewish leaders of the first century? They were clearly choked out by the thorns—they loved money (Luke 16:14), and they were ambitious in all the wrong ways (John 5:44).

100 Fold

But kingdoms are established one subject at a time. Jesus told His disciples to preach the gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15). We are to make this omelet one egg at a time.

Nothing said here is critical of 30-fold farming. For Jesus, it was all good. But there is good, and there is postmillennial stupendous. We are to pay attention to kingdom agriculture—which means we work it from both ends. We do not till our plots in the hope of growing a king. But neither do we affirm that the king is established, and therefore we do not need to worry about tilling our plots. We want an educated and fruitful citizenry, and we may labor evangelistically because we are in the era of good soil. We therefore plead with the lost to receive the word of the kingdom (2 Cor. 5: 18, 20).

Pulpit Freedom

Joe Harby on October 7, 2012

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Introduction

Today, October 7, 2012, is Pulpit Freedom Sunday. In 1954, the Johnson Amendment was passed which asserted the federal government’s right to set limits on what could and could not be preached from the pulpit. On this Lord’s Day, over a thousand American pastors are going to be preaching in defiance of that regulation, in hopes of obtaining a court case that can be used to challenge the constitutionality of that law. The issue is one of jurisdiction. There are partisan things that would be inappropriate to declare from a Christian pulpit, but the policing of such things is not up to the civil magistrate.

The Text

“But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also; Whom Jason hath received: and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus. And they troubled the people and the rulers of the city, when they heard these things. And when they had taken security of Jason, and of the other, they let them go” (Acts 17:5-9).

Summary of the Text

The preaching of the apostle Paul was effective in Thessalonica—so effective, in fact, that it provoked opposition, coupled with a slander. The opposition preceded the political slander, and was an opposition in search of an argument, which was found soon enough in a political claim. The unbelieving Jews gathered up “lewd fellows of the baser sort,” meaning first century blog trolls, and they were able to set an uproar going (v. 5). When they couldn’t find Paul, they grabbed Jason and some others, and hauled them in (v. 6). First, they noted that the preaching of Christ had turned the world upside down (v. 6). Jason was a friend of these people, and received those who acted contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there was an authority over Caesar, one Jesus, king of all things (v. 7). They troubled everybody with this set of accusations (v. 8), and after Jason posted bond, they all went home (v. 9).

No Ethereal Jesus

We believe that Jesus has been enthroned at the right hand of God the Father. We do not believe that He has been vaporized and projected up into the upper reaches of metaphysics. Here is the difference. We believe Jesus has been given dominion, glory, and a kingdom, over all peoples, nations, and languages” (Dan. 7:14). We believe it to be an everlasting dominion. We believe that of the increase of His government on earth there will be no end (Is. 9:7). We believe that all kings and presidents, congresses and parliaments, have a moral and true obligation to bow down and kiss the Son, lest He be angry with them (Ps. 2: 12). We believe that Jesus told us that our marching orders were to disciple all the nations of men, teaching them to obey everything Jesus commanded (Matt. 28: 18-20). We are not secularists, with a Christian corner in our hearts. We are Christians in public and private, with no authorized secular corners in our hearts. Whenever we find such a corner of impudent autonomy, we confess it to God the Father as a sin.

So Non-Partisan Is Not Neutrality

It is no better for the Christian church to be co-opted by a secular political party than it is to be co-opted by a secular state. This is a standard we have held to in this church for many years. But when a particular man of truth is a candidate for office, and he fears God and hates covetousness (Ex. 18:21), as for, example, Gresham Bouma does, what principle would be violated by saying so in church? And even if such an endorsement were offered in error, what business is it of our federal government—which does not fear God at all and is the walking embodiment of covetousness—to set up shop as the arbiter of these things?

How We Got Here

Fuzzy thinking is one of the characteristic sins of our age, and one of its marked features is that of trying to have it both ways. We tend to look back at those eras when God blessed us as a nation—which He did —and we try to pretend that He is still blessing us in that way. But withholding His judgment, although a blessing after a fashion, is not the kind of blessing we should be seeking out. At least that, obviously, but why are we not hungry for much more than that?

How bad would it have to get before we started to question some of our erroneous assumptions? How many babies would we have to kill? How many dollars would we have to soak in kerosene and set off with a match? Our ruling elites obviously hate the future. When they are not killing those future citizens, they are taxing them into a staggering slavery. When are we allowed to observe and say how much they hate the future? And if we can see and say it, then why can we not say it from the pulpit?

Wisdom declares that everyone who hates her loves death (Prov. 8: 36). Secularism is unbelief, and unbelief is always fruitless (Jude 12). How fruitless? As fruitless as a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic. As fruitless as a sodomite wedding on the court house steps. As fruitless as an argument with someone who wants unbelieving godlings to be able to ascend to the sides of the north, and create wealth out of nothing.

Real Authority

So it always comes back to Jesus. If He did not assert His authority over these United States by coming back from the dead, then go find another religion. Get another altar to light candles on. Call yourself something else. Go count some pagan beads. The Lord Jesus is one who—if preached biblically and in the power of the Spirit—will always unsettle the bramble men of this age. If He is declared as crucified, buried, risen, ascended, and ruling the nations, then Jason and friends will always find themselves down at the courthouse posting bond. And if He is not declared in that way, then how is it possible to pretend that you are still preaching the Christian gospel?

If you don’t like eating the devil’s beef, then stop smelling his gravy.

Joy and Melancholy

Joe Harby on September 30, 2012

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Introduction

What are we to make of a disruption of joy that does not appear to proceed from unconfessed sin, and which also appears unrelated to external afflictions? What are we to make of that broad category of minor depression, major depression, other forms of mental illness, the blues, or simply other forms of unhappiness? They are obviously all related to “joy,” but in what way? And what about demonic oppression? How does that fit in? If King Saul had gone to a modern shrink, what would the diagnosis have been? Would it have been “you have ‘an evil spirit from the Lord.’ Take these pills. Come back and see me in three weeks.”?

The Text

“And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:23).

Summary of the Text

The apostle Paul is giving a string of practical exhortations at the end of 1 Thessalonians, and at the end of them he pronounces this benediction. Those exhortations include giving thanks for everything (v. 18), constant prayer (v. 17), testing everything (v. 21), and, to our point, to “rejoice evermore” (v. 16). The benediction then calls upon God to sanctify them entirely, and that they all be preserved, spirit, soul, and body, to the coming of the Lord Jesus.

In order to understand this benediction, we have to understand that the relationship we have with our bodies is not simply that of a guitar to its carrying case. It is not as though your soul is the guitar, and your body the case. In this sense, we don’t have bodies. We are bodies. But having said that, we also must recognize that Paul was once (likely) separated from his body (2 Cor. 12:2-3), and yet, the idea of such a separation creeped him out to some degree (2 Cor. 5:2-3).

All of this is to say that not only are we responsible for what we do with our bodies, we are also responsible for what our bodies do. There are varying degrees of responsibility, to be sure, but do not think that what your body is up to is somehow “over there.” Your body is part of what must be preserved in holiness. Your body is an aspect of you.

Agitated, But in a Resting Way

Some of you have no doubt picked up on a biblical tension as we have covered this sort of thing. On the one hand, we are to learn how to pray like the psalmist, pouring out our troubles before the Lord (Ps. 38:22). On the other, we are supposed to rest in Him, casting all our burdens on Him, because He cares for us (1 Pet. 5:7). How are we supposed to do both? The best way to summarize this is that we are to present all our concerns (whatever they are) to the Lord, but without the whiny voice. No grumbling, but a lot of discussion.

Better Living Through Chemistry?

Now your Christian discipleship includes everything, and this means it includes how and when you go to a doctor, when you get counseling and/or counsel, whether you go on medications or not, and what kind of medications you are willing to take. Be aware that the world—which is willing to tell you a lot

of things about what pills to take—does not know God. There is a strong tendency among unbelievers to medicalize simple unhappiness, as though a soma-induced bliss were a constitutional right. At the same time, it is not biblical worldview thinking to look at whatever non-Christians do, and then do the opposite. Non-Christian doctors do know how to set bones, and sometimes they know how to set brains. We need to think this through, submitting everything to Scripture as we do. This is part of what it means to love the Lord our God with all our minds. Think. Study. Learn. Discuss among yourselves.

Qualifications

Some Christians take a hard line, saying that they do not believe we should seek to shape and/or direct our moods through the ingestion of any chemical whatever. The problem is that the world is made out of chemicals. You can’t ingest anything else. Wine has chemicals in it, and it can make the heart of man glad (Ps. 104:15). Coffee has chemicals in it—some pretty neat ones.

Other Christians have all the discernment of a powerful vacuum cleaner. If worldly experts in a white lab coat say something is cool, then cool it is. This is how we have gotten to the place where so many Americans are on antidepressants in almost a routine way (about one in ten). And about 23% of women in their 40s and 50s take them. This, in a culture where human beings have never had it so good, at least when it comes to easy living. Something is clearly wrong with us. Some people are getting medicated up for the smallest little brain owie.

We need to make a basic distinction between masking drugs and restoration drugs. Some drugs simply dull the pain of what’s going on, while others are seeking to restore (say) a dopamine deficiency. That is no different (in principle) than getting braces for your teeth, or getting a broken bone set. But, having made this distinction, if you have a roaring headache and you take a couple of aspirin, you are not correcting an “aspirin deficiency.” You are treating a symptom, deadening pain. But why do you have a headache? And might the aspirin keep you from finding out what the real problem is?

A Broken Spirit

Returning to our text, the apostle tells us all these things in the context of community life, life together, koinonia fellowship. Mental health is a social affair, and all of us are involved in it. In v. 14 of this same chapter, Paul tells us to “support the weak” (v. 14). He tells us also to “comfort the feebleminded” (v. 14). The word that the AV translates as feeble-minded should be understood as something like fainthearted. The word literally is “little-souled” (oligopsychos). Comforting them is the task of the entire church community.

We should therefore be concerned about community joy, community singing, community gladness. This is not to ride roughshod over those who struggle, but rather to provide us with yet another example of how a rising tide lifts all the boats. We do not cultivate a merry heart so that that we might hoard it—we are called to share. “A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken” (Prov. 15:13). “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones” (Prov. 17:22).

Joy and Affliction

Joe Harby on September 23, 2012

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Introduction

We have seen that one cause of disrupted joy is the fact of unrepented and unconfessed sin. The second cause, the one we will consider today, is the relationship of joy and affliction. And the third, covered next week, will be the relationship of joy and melancholy, joy when you have a case of the jim jams.

The Text

“Giving no offence in any thing, that the ministry be not blamed: But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings; By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, By honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true; As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things” (2 Cor. 6: 3-10).

Summary of the Text

This section of 2 Corinthians gives a list of some of the apostle Paul’s experiences. I want to concentrate on one phrase here—“sorrowful, yet always rejoicing”—but we also need to take a quick look at the context. For Paul, the mission was central. He did not want the ministry hampered because of offense that someone gave needlessly (v. 3). Ministers of God needed to show themselves approved across a range of difficult circumstances—showing patience, suffering afflictions, doing what is necessary, putting out fires (v. 4), getting flogged, thrown in prison, navigating riots, working hard, keeping vigil, fasting (v. 5). Moreover, this was all to be done with a particular attitude, and that attitude was not just one of hunkering down. A servant of God should be pure, knowledgeable, patient, kind, driven by the Spirit, and not a love-faker (v. 6). This can only be done by the power of God, dressed out in the armor of righteousness on the right side and left (v. 7). Servants of Christ must be a bundle of contradictions—honored and despised, slandered and praised, called liars, but truth-tellers (v. 8), as famous nobodies, as dead men walking around, as chastened death-defeaters (v. 9), as sorrowful men rejoicing all the time, as poor men scattering riches, and as those who carry the cosmos around in their empty bag (v. 10).

A Regular Nightmare

In short, the apostle Paul was a PR agent’s nightmare. The list above is not really raw material that lends itself to press releases. Imagine the apostle trying to get an interview today for any position involving significant Christian leadership. Such trials can bring about a godly reputation provided the turmoil was on the other side of the world, and was inflicted by heathens. But if it was “right here” (as the apostle’s adventures were), where civilized and respectable people look askance at the practice of putting floggings and prison terms on your resume, Problems arise when the sentencing judge belongs to the same country club you do, and he asks you questions about whether “the apostle” he recently dealt with has spoken at your church recently. Let the throat clearing begin.

The Solution

The first thing to note is that true biblical contentment, solid scriptural joy, is not a trivial bubblegum joy, pink and long-lasting. It is not happy, happy, joy, joy, all frothed up like a specialty latte. Joy is bedrock that goes down a thousand feet, and is grounded in a deep satisfaction with the will of God—His will as expressed in His Word, along with His will as expressed in what unfolds in the course of your story. With that kind of bedrock, a sturdy house can be built. The bedrock is joy, the house is joy, and it is built on the cliff facing the sea —where the storms come from. Count it all joy, James tells us, when the horizon is black at midafternoon (Jas. 1:2).

This tells us that joy in the midst of affliction is not stoicism. You don’t have to pretend it is not a storm; but you should stay in the house. You don’t have to lose all your nerve endings and act like a block of wood. Look at the passion expressed by Paul in our passage. At the same time, look at how he gets over his troubles by getting under the one who decreed them. This kind of joy in affliction is by the Spirit, this is by the power of God.

Distractions

To paraphrase Thomas Watson, we sometimes lose perspective when we focus on whoever it was that brought our trials to us, instead of the one who sent them. And to paraphrase Thomas Traherne, God is so benevolent and prone to give that He delights in us just for asking. Putting these together, learning the meaning of what has been brought is the way to learn why they were sent. Our problem is that we tend to ask for the diploma, and God answers by giving us the classes. But we didn’t want the classes, which seem too much like work.

Peace of God

Our hearts and minds do not protect the peace of God (Phil. 4:7). It is the other way around. We don’t shield the armor of righteousness with our bodies; it is the other way around (v. 7). God is our fortress, and God sends the tempest so that we will take refuge in Him. He teaches us to run to Him.

Avoiding the Theology of the Foolish Women

When Job’s wife urged him to curse God and die, she is acting the part of a tempting Eve to another Adam. But Job refuses the temptation, and stands fast in his integrity. “But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips” (Job 2:10).

But we live in a time when not only have we adopted the theology of the foolish women, we have adopted the sensitivities of those who think such a comparison is a misogynistic attack on women. So let’s make it even-handed, shall we?—let us reject the theology of the foolish women of both sexes.

Joy and Sin

Joe Harby on September 16, 2012

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Introduction

This message is the first of three on the subject of joy. I want to consider, each in turn, three basic challenges to a believer’s joy. The first challenge will be sin—disobedience. The second challenge will be suffering or affliction. The third challenge we will address will be melancholy, the blues, or what our generation frequently calls depression. It is important for us to avoid the easy trap of a pious assertion that personal sin must be the reason for everything bad. At the same time, let us not kid ourselves either. Sin does bring in lots of troubles.

The Text

“Make me to hear joy and gladness; That the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice . . . Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit” (Ps. 51: 10, 12).

Summary of the Text

The Bible teaches us that God chastises every son that He receives. If we do not receive discipline, then we are not true sons (Heb. 12:8). But what form does this divine spanking take? How does God deal with us when we have slipped or fallen into sin? Joy is a function of our unimpeded relationship with Him, and when our misbehavior disrupts that fellowship, the most evident thing about it is our loss of joy. We see that in David’s case here. This psalm is a great psalm of confession, where he is putting things right with God. What does he ask for in that restoration? He asks for joy and gladness (v. 10), that the spiritual bones which God has broken may be restored. He asks, not for his salvation to return, but for the joy of it to return (v. 12). Restore unto me the joy. Unrepented sin and joy cannot be companions. They don’t travel together at all.

The Solution

The solution to unrepentant sin is, not surprisingly, repentance. We should take care not to over-engineer this:

“I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin” (Ps. 32:5).

“He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy” (Prov. 28:13).

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn. 1:9).

The central reason we don’t do this is pride. Pride has various shifts and evasions which we will get to in a moment, but the attitude that seeks out such shifts and evasions is the attitude that does not want, under any circumstances, to humble itself. It causes no end of trouble, and is the true enemy of all joy.

Traits of True Confession

In the verse from 1 John, the word for confess is homologeo, which means to acknowledge, to “speak the same thing.” If we confess, God forgives. If we confess, God is faithful and just in His forgiveness. If we confess, God cleanses us from all unrighteousness. If we confess, God restores us in our joy. So what are the traits of true confession?

First, true confession is honest, brutally honest. The wages of spin is death. Saying the same thing that God says about it is not the same thing as saying something different from what God says. Sometimes we say “different” in a way that is harder on ourselves than God is being, but this is rare. And when it happens, it is because we are being softer on ourselves with regard to the true sin that has us tied up. So confession asks God what it should say, and then says that.

Second, true confession is not something you get to apply to the sins of others. You can confess other people’s sins all day long and your joy will not be restored. Unwillingness to forgive, reluctance to let go of resentment and bitterness, and every other form of “contextualizing” your sin, is a good way to remain joyless.

And third, true confession occurs in the present. Today if you hear His voice . . . A man can know that his sin was sin, he can know that it was not the sin of another, and yet not confess it “yet.” He can say that the time for confession is “next Sunday,” or “soon,” or “after the circumstances are better.” In other words, there is a difference between standing on the high dive, knowing what you have to do, and actually doing it.

What Becomes Visible

We tend to believe that if we confess our sins, then others will know all about the sin and will think less of us. With the exception of hidden scandalous sins (like adultery or embezzlement, say), this is usually not the case. Usually, the people we are refusing to confess sin to are the people who know all about them already.

Confession would not bring them knowledge of your sin. It would bring them knowledge of your sorrow and repentance. Are you an angry person? Petty? Inconsistent? Vain? Dictatorial? Greedy? Lustful? What on earth makes you think that other people can’t see this? If you snap at your employees, or children, or spouse, and tell God how sorry you are about it in the middle of the night, how is it that you don’t see that it is your repentance that is invisible? The sin is right out there. Repentance humbles us, but not by making the sin visible. Repentance humbles us by making the humility visible.

What God Does

Scripture teaches us that God lifts up the humble, and He opposes the proud (Jas. 4:6). Those who refuse to confess their sins are proud, and this means that God is opposing them. He trips them up. He puts obstacles in the way. He makes things go wrong. He takes away their joy. Those who confess their sins are humble, and God exalts the humble. He lifts them up. He restores them. He blesses their endeavors. And measure these things by the video, not by the snapshot.

We think (in the carnality of our hearts) that confession takes us down a peg or two. We think that our sin put us in a hole, and confession would just dig the hole deeper. But this reveals our unbelief. God says the opposite.

What has happened to all your joy? Do you remember what it was like when you were first converted? Why would God want week-old Christians to experience that, but deny it to the older Christians? The answer is that He wouldn’t.