Christ Church

The State of the Church 2024 (CCD)

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INTRODUCTION

This year, for my State of the Church message, I want to take a 30,000 ft. view. The church at large is beset with great danger to moral compromise. However, locally, we should not think ourselves impervious to the onslaught which is attacking the church of our Lord Jesus. We live in perilous times, and I want to summon our local congregation to look at the perils which surround us, and to take heed.

THE TEXT

But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication. So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate. Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.

Revelation 2:14-16

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

This letter to the church of Pergamos requires a bit of context. It was a city north of Ephesus. The Lord Jesus tells them that they dwell where “Satan’s seat is (2:13)”. The church had held fast to the name of Jesus, and did not deny the faith, even though it cost the life one of their number (Antipas). Jesus refers to Antipas as “my faithful martyr” which the same title given to Jesus in the prologue (1:5). Pergamos held shrines to a few false deities: most prominently Dionysius & Asklepios. The cult of the former included ecstatic partaking of fertility rituals and frequent intoxication. The cult of the latter had a temple full of tame serpents; the sick would often be laid in this temple for the night, with the belief that the serpent’s touch would bring healing and revitalization. Seat of Satan indeed.

Though the church had held steadfast to the name & faith of Jesus in prior persecutions, the Lord holds their current compromises against them. Past faithfulness is no guard against future compromise. Their foremost compromise is holding the doctrine of Balaam (2:14), which is summarized as a stumblingblock of idolatrous syncretism and participating in sexual fornication. The Lord also rebukes them for toying with the Nicolaitin heresy, which He hates (2:15). He summons them to repent of this compromise, or else face the two edged sword of His mouth (2:16, Cf. 2:12).

Those who repent in faith––and thus overcome (1 Jn. 5:5)––will partake of hidden manna, and will receive a white stone with a new name. This white stone was used in Roman culture for a few purposes: victory in the various gladiatorial games, acquittal in court, and a ticket into the feasts halls & celebrations (2:17).

THE DOCTRINE OF BALAAM

The saga of Balaam (Num 22-25) is returned to a number of times throughout Scripture, and is held up as a warning to God’s people. But it is not Balaam’s attempted curses which are the focal point of the warning; in fact Joshua notes God’s preserving mercy to Israel by turning Balaam’s attempt to curse into blessings “Then Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose and warred against Israel, and sent and called Balaam the son of Beor to curse you: but I would not hearken unto Balaam; therefore he blessed you still: so I delivered you out of his hand. (Jos. 24:9-10).”

It is not the presence of a false prophet who might try to curse Israel which is presented as the danger to Israel. God turns the curses of His peoples’ enemies into blessings. However, what is a danger to them is Balaam’s counsel/doctrine to Balak. Moses retells the story with a warning, “Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD (Num. 31:16).” We’ve already noted the Lord Jesus’ warning by John’s hand, but Peter & Jude warn of similar danger in Balaam’s doctrine:

  • Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness […] For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. (2Pe 2:15, 18-19).
  • Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core (Jde 1:11).

Both Peter and Jude accompany their warning against being enticed by Balaam’s doctrine by citing this Proverb: “Whoso boasteth himself of a false gift is like clouds and wind without rain. By long forbearing is a prince persuaded, and a soft tongue breaketh the bone (Pro 25:14-15).” Collecting all this together, we should see that the NT uses Balaam as the archetypal false teacher. But Balaam’s doctrine is not laid out like a logical argument, but it is presented as a temptation to visceral indulgence. And the most potent and poisoning indulgence is that of sexual sin.

The temptation to theological compromise is more often than not preceded by sexual sin. The logical arguments for some false doctrine flow out of a need to provide justification for behavior. We often say that theology comes out of your fingertips, which is true. But it is also a fact that we often find ways to internalize a theology which justifies what our fingertips have become fond of clinging to. The systematic theology of justifying sin follows the sin itself. Excuses are the battlements which a compromised heart erects to defend its precious.

BALAAM’S STUMBLING-BLOCKS

You live in a sea of the flotsam and jetsam of sin. You and your children are surrounded by enticements to forsake the clean water of the Word to drink the sewage of Balaam’s doctrine. The soft tongue of sensual enticement will break your bone unless you put up bulwarks of living faith.

Pornography – You must not take a passive posture when it comes to protecting yourself and your family from the pornification of our culture. As Chesterton once said, “Pornography is not a thing to be argued about with one’s intellect, but to be stamped on with one’s heel.” It is not necessary to frequent the skeevy part of town to come across it. Your newsfeed, your Spotify playlist, your favorite Netflix show, and the Super Bowl halftime show are channels whereby you are being slowly worn down to be indifferent to the Moabite temptresses in the tents of Israel.

Withholding Intimacy – Paul teaches that sexual coldness in a marriage is a foothold for Satan (1 Cor. 7:5). Married couples must labor to maintain a robust bonfire of intimacy. Once more, according to Paul this is needful for both spouses. This requires masculine diligence to pursue, and feminine receptivity to being pursued. If this is ignored, Satan is given a seat at your family dinner table.

Abortion – The crushing weight of the crushed skulls of the unborn weighs heavily on our culture. It guides everything. The demons are chasing an entire generation of women who’ve slain their children. But the men who insisted upon the abortion of their sons and daughters, as well as the doctors that performed the sacrifice, and the magistrates who stand idly by are all haunted by the deep shame which God’s law places upon them. This explains the through the roof use of antidepressants, and mountain of mental illnesses.

Birth Control Pills – Less obvious, but just as damning, we’ve found minute ways of treating the blessing of children as a burden. Even Christian couples have found the ease of pharmaceutical regulation of their fertility to be very appealing. We have turned the womb of a woman from a haven for covenantal life into a chemical wasteland of disinheriting unborn heirs of the grace of life.

Surrogacy – A very pressing issue is coming rapidly into the norm. Not only have we turned the womb into a tomb, but we also have made possible the ability to make the womb profitable. Christian couples who struggle with conceiving a child should see the temptation to rent a womb as a profound abdication of faith in the God who opens the womb and grants conception. Surrogacy turns wombs into slave ships, and children into the slaves of the conceited vanity of so-called parents.

Sodomy – Within a short span of years our nation has embraced the mangled notions that sexuality is not just an attribute of our humanity, but it is our humanity. Thus, to condemn whatever indulgence someone’s sexuality desires is, in the demented thinking of our culture, the unmanning of the very person. But the exact opposite is the case. The judgement of God, according to Romans 1, is seen in being given over to mere impulse. To become utterly beastly. You and your family must practice self-control, in order to have any hope to overcome what we ought to refer to as the sodomizing of our society. This demands husbands to be vigorous, and wives to be virtuous, and demonstrate for their children the particular glory displayed in masculinity and femininity.

CONCLUSION

Rushdoony is worth quoting at length: “When men equalize good and evil, they hope with Adam to open up greater freedom to man, and to make life richer in its possibilities and actualities. But relativization is a two-edged sword: life, instead of becoming richer by the overthrow of moral law, becomes thereby on the same level as death, and no better. Nietzsche saw the consequences of this vaunted freedom and collapsed under its burden. Dewey could not explain why, having relativized all things, democracy should be held to have an especial value, or man’s freedom and dignity be prized. The anarchy of values leads only to the frenzied hatred of and war against all reality, because reality has become the epitome of darkness by its equalizing absorption of all meanings. In this sorry equalization, the theology of the modern church has had no small share.”

The battle which the church finds itself in is not unfamiliar to the people of God. From the days of Phinehas to the days of the church of Pergamum and down to our own present moment, Balaam’s doctrine appeals to our fleshly lusts first and only later do we erect a legal code to justify our sin. But the solution remains the same. Repent. The Sword of the Word does battle with the disciples of Balaam. Christ promises to the repentant both bread and a new name. No longer to be called Balaamites, but to bear the name of Christ. Have you been finding Balaam’s doctrine more and more fascinating? Have you dabbled in his ways? Have you been pining to hide under the shadow of Balaam’s clouds? Then beware. Turn away. Those are clouds without water. So to the church of the Lord Jesus in this year of our Lord, 2024, cling steadfastly to Christ and give no heed to our Balaams.

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Biblical Imitation: Looking Into the Mirror and Not Forgetting What You Look Like (Troy)

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But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.  2 Corinthians 3:18

First, imitation serves as an example of God’s design in how he made the world.  He is the master craftsman, and his world is built to run on a certain mix of fuel.  Inputs drive outputs, and imitation links these together.  In this sense, imitation is inescapable.  It’s not if, but who?  Second, the principle of imitation is intricately linked to how we live our lives and how we raise our kids.  Finally, Scripture show us to how we can take this principle of God’s design and push it into the corners of our daily lives.  The fact that we are starting a new year, adds the spice of considering how we can work our understanding of imitation into real change in our lives versus vain resolutions.  

GOD’S DESIGN – IMITATION

Proverbs 22:24-25, “Make no friendship with an angry man, And with a furious man do not go, Lest you learn his ways and set a snare for your soul.”

IMITATION COMMANDS: DO’S AND DON’TS

3 John 1:11, “Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God.”

IMITATION – PUTTING THIS INTO PRACTICE

Hebrews 13:7, Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.

Test for what you are reading or watching  (social media)

Philippians 4:8, Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.  

PRAYER IN LIGHT OF IMITATING CHRIST

With Christ — Mark 3:14

Like Christ — 2 Corinthian 3:18

For Christ — 2 Corinthians 5:14-15

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State of the Church 2024 – On Hard Work & Holy Ambition (King’s Cross)

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INTRODUCTION

In our day, it is commonplace to hear messages on the need for work/life balance, the need for “me time,” and the dangers of workaholics, ambition, and stress. And I am convinced that 99% of it is a siren song for laziness, apathy, selfishness, and cowardice. 

The Lord created the world in six days and rested on the seventh day, and our Lord Jesus remade the world in three days and rested on the first day, re-affirming the Sabbath principle and transforming the first day into the Christian Sabbath (cf. Heb. 4:9-10). But the Kingdom of God is taken by a kind of holy violence, that is, great struggle and ambition (Mt. 11:12). 

The Text: “Then came to him the mother of Zebedee’s children with her sons, worshipping him, and desiring a certain thing of him. And he said unto her, What wilt thou? She saith unto him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom…” (Mt. 20:20-28).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

One time Mrs. Zebedee and her two sons came to worship Christ, and she asked for her sons to be given places of honor at His right and left hand (Mt. 20:20-21). Jesus gently corrected her, insisting that she didn’t quite know what she was asking for (Mt. 20:22), but His question in return did not utterly reject the request. He asked whether James and John would be able to endure the suffering that would be required for that kind of glory and authority (Mt. 20:22). When they replied in the affirmative, Jesus granted at least that – they would drink His cup and endure His baptism, but those places of authority were prepared by His Father (Mt. 20:22-23). 

While the other ten were upset with James and John for even making the request (probably envious that they had not asked first), Jesus did not rebuke the brothers but exhorted them all to give up every semblance of Gentile power-grabbing (Mt. 20:24-25). Instead, His disciples must be committed to the greatness that comes through long service and suffering (Mt. 20:26-27). This greatness is principally illustrated and accomplished by the suffering service of Christ Himself, who gave His life as a ransom for many (Mt. 20:28). 

HOLY AMBITION

Jesus does not say that desiring greatness and authority is wrong or foolish. Instead, He simply insists on two things: first, the only path to greatness is faithful suffering, and second, the results are in God’s hands. But if Jesus is the prime example, this does not mean that Christians should hope for minimal earthly impact or influence. Rather, if Jesus has been given the name that is above all other names through His obedient suffering, all Christians should seek to emulate that obedience to gain greatness under His name. For example, Paul says that he outpaced all the other apostles in his zeal for the kingdom, but it was God’s grace that enabled him (1 Cor. 15:10). It’s true that we ought rather be janitors in the Kingdom of God than dwell in tents of wickedness (Ps. 84:10), but that doesn’t mean our goal should be mediocre. Our goal should be to work hard for the King, enduring all trouble and difficulty gladly for His sake, and let Him use us where He will.   

FAITHFUL WITH LITTLE

In Matthew 25, Jesus tells the parable of the talents, praising the servants who invested what was given to them and doubled the master’s money: “well done, good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord” (Mt. 25:21, 23). But the servant who buried his talent in the ground and merely returned what was given is called wicked and slothful, his one talent is stripped from him, and he is cast into outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mt. 25:26-30). And his most heinous sin is his view of the master as a hard and greedy man, which is why he is cast into Hell. But God is not hard and greedy; He is generous and bountiful. 

APPLICATIONS

We need Christians who know that their Father is a generous God who will give abundantly more than we ask or think – because He has already given us His son – and therefore, they study, work, and build with a holy ambition and deep, joyful expectation. 

The way God made the world requires the necessity of study and service first. There is a caricature of some of the younger generations (e.g. “Gen Z”) of a sort of entitlement mentality, insisting on easy, high paying jobs without proving your wisdom or worth. These are people who quit jobs after a few days or weeks because they are “hard” and they don’t feel very “appreciated.” This should be a completely foreign notion for Christians. We need young men hungry for vocations of leadership in politics and the corporate world. This is call for Daniels and Josephs, which is to say, these are paths of suffering, persecution, hardship, often with real leadership and authority, though only rarely with much temporal glory. 

This is why we have put such a premium on Christian education. But it is not enough to merely remove our kids from the public schools. We really do want our sons and daughters to be full of knowledge and wisdom, and this requires wisdom to know how to raise the bar while remember their frame. Related, while our sons and daughters are called to different vocations, this does not mean that our daughters need be less educated. Let us have wives and daughters as ambitious as Mrs. Zebedee and sons like her sons. 

We need young men hungry for pastoral ministry and missionary work. Jesus said that the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few (Mt. 9:37-38). It has always been the case, since at least the time of Jesus, that unbelievers are more eager to come into the kingdom than believers are to welcome them in. But there is a particular glory in the sacrifices of those who give their lives to proclaim the gospel because it imitates the life of the One who has received all glory and honor.

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Have Yourself a Merry Little Postmill – Christmas Eve Service (Doug Wilson)

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The point this evening is not to load your Christmas down with any exegetical postmill work, which has been done elsewhere. This is just intended as a simple word of Christmas encouragement—I do not seek to persuade you in these few minutes, but rather to embolden you.

It may well be that you even call yourself postmill and are happy to say that it is your doctrinal stance. You certainly live in a community that is characterized by postmill teaching and expectations. Well and good, but it may still be possible that this goon show of a century has gotten you down a time or two.

Your eschatology may say that the name of the Lord will be great among the Gentiles, from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same (Mal. 1:11). Your doctrinal commitments may well affirm that the earth is going to be filled up with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Hab. 2:14). The books on your shelf may well argue that the root of Jesse will be raised up as a standard, and all the Gentiles shall seek Him (Is. 11:10). Yes, certainly.

But the last time you checked, dudes could marry dudes, teens were being legally mutilated in the name of pronoun madness, and half the population believes that if we raise our taxes and give more power to the EPA, the government promises to fix the weather.

It is easy, in other words, to come to feel like a thick fog can somehow erase the sun, moon and stars. This is a possible discouragement even in our postmill circles. And so this message of Christmas grace is that our sovereign God has stooped down to us in order to remind us how transient evil is, and how permanent His goodness is. Christmas is a stiff breeze that demonstrates that a fog is a lot easier to scrub than the sun, moon and stars are.

But when you look for God to move, remember that He doesn’t do things the way we would have predicted. Take, for example, how He established the first beachhead of His everlasting kingdom in an animal’s food trough. Who among us would have called that move beforehand?

“Of the increase of his government there will be no end.” But we should know by now that we do not define increase the same way that He does. John the Baptist said that he was going to decrease, while the Lord was going to increase. But then what did that increase look like? It looked like agony in the Garden, and a flogging, and spittle in the face, and a crown of thorns. He will increase, but you must read all the way through to the end.

After God had spoken all His raw materials into existence, speaking to a darkness that was nothing at all, that created matter was still shrouded in darkness. And so at that point, what was the first thing God ever said in this world? “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light” (Genesis 1:3). He simply said light, and there it was. And so when the earth was an inchoate and shapeless mass of dark matter, when darkness was over the face of the deep (Gen. 1:2), all He did was simply speak.

This created darkness was His raw material, and it provided the apostle Paul with a marvelous illustration for God’s power over a different sort of darkness—the darkness of our rebellious iniquity.

“For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.”

2 Corinthians 4:6–7 (KJV)

The created darkness of the shapeless void and the rebellious darkness of mankind’s sin and rebellion have this one thing in common. Neither one can resist the voice of God’s authority when that authority says anything like, “Let there be light.”

Tiglath-pileser, Caesar Augustus, Herod, Pilate, Sanballat, Shalmaneser, Pharaoh, Bismarck, Napoleon, Attila the Hun, Woodrow Wilson, Genghis Khan, what are they? They are all of them principalities and powers who breath through the nose. Let there be light.

Pornography, propaganda, pandemics, police states, what are they? Let there be light.

Darwinism, socialism, feminism, egalitarianism, fascism, environmentalism, mysticism, what are they? Let there be light.

The God who spoke the cosmos out of nothing is certainly capable of speaking a new cosmos out of the old one. He can make sons of Abraham out of rocks, remember.

So when you look around at all the black rock of man’s iniquitous folly, you should certainly look straight at it without flinching. You should confess that it is in fact an enormous amount of iniquitous folly, all of it dark, bent, and twisted rock. But never forget that you are also looking at God’s own quarry, from which He is going to speak into existence a cathedral of light, built entirely out of living stones, and the pavers all made from transparent gold.

So the Christmas message is much more than the fact that God conquers and overcomes evil. He does do that, but there is a greater mystery involved. The Christmas message is that God is in the process of creating something marvelous, using evil as His raw material. All the laws, and conspiracies, and plans, and movements, and resolutions, and plots . . . all the things that have us so worried . . . are nothing but scraps on His workshop floor.

“Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

Luke 12:32 (KJV)

And what a glorious kingdom that will be. That kingdom of light, inhabited by children of light (Eph. 5:8) . . . where did it start? That kingdom of light began in those pitch-black nights that enveloped Bethlehem, and the shepherds, and the sheep, and the wise men.

It was truly dark. But the star wasn’t.

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