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Christian Liberty and Resistance (Christ the Redeemer)

Christ Church on May 27, 2025
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Cultural Revolution and the Sons of Issachar

Christ Church on April 16, 2023

INTRODUCTION

You have no doubt noticed that we live in tumultuous times. Many of you have learned that you should no longer say things like “now I have seen everything,” because that sentiment always seems to be refuted by events in the middle of next week. In our time, we have seen a number of transitions, in which a pattern of escalation can readily be seen. We began with certain cultural issues, of a very serious nature. There was the sexual revolution of the sixties, followed by its bloody reckoning in the 1973 Roe decision. A few years later, in a speech to the 1992 Republican National Convention, Pat Buchanan coined the phrase culture wars. And now, according to certain insightful observers, we are on the threshold of a cultural revolution, similar in outlook to what Mao launched in China in 1966.

How are we, as Christians, to understand and respond to all of this?

THE TEXT

“And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do; the heads of them were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their commandment” (1 Chronicles 12:32).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Our text is part of the record of how David consolidated his reign over all of Israel, during the time when the house of Saul was being combined with the house of David. Judah, David’s tribe, brought in 6800 warriors (v. 24). Simeon, from the north, contributed 7100 men (v. 25). Levites are mentioned (vv. 26-28), some warriors but others no doubt priests. Ephraim brought in a large number (20,800) and the half tribe of Manasseh did the same (18,000). But the really striking thing about this passage is what is said about the wise men of Issachar. There were two hundred of them (v. 34), and their brothers with them were under their authority. The thing they contributed, ranked up here with tens of thousands of skilled warriors, was the fact that they understood the situation and they had a plan. They were oriented, and they were ready for action.

SUMMARY OF OUR SITUATION 

In his book on preaching, John Stott says that the preacher stands between two worlds, which is also the title of his book. The preacher must understand the text, and be able to state faithfully what that text is saying. Because it is the Word of God, the meaning of it does not twist or shift from age to age. “The words of the Lord are pure words: As silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.” (Psalm 12:6). The silver is always pure, and this silver is always silver.

But a preacher must also be a son of Issachar. He must be able to exegete the times, so that he can apply the constant Scriptures to an inconstant world. The challenge in exegeting the times is that men are slippery, and confused, and deceptive, and constantly changing. Man is unstable as water, and because he is a sinner, it is always dirty water.

There are secular thinkers who understand the times pretty well, but because they don’t have the Word, they are lost in the chaos, however accurately they might see the chaos. There are biblical preachers who understand the text of Scripture well, but who have no idea how it might ever apply to anything. They are like an arms expert who knows how to assemble and disassemble a rocket launcher in a factory somewhere, but who has no idea what to do with it on the field of battle.

The sons of Issachar were not like this. They understood the times, first thing, and they knew how the Word of God should inform the plan of action.

THE PERENNIAL TEMPTATION

Becoming a son of Issachar can at times be pretty lonesome. “Who’s that guy, going off about his ‘rant thing’ again?”

“This wisdom have I seen also under the sun, and it seemed great unto me: There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it: Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man. Then said I, Wisdom is better than strength: nevertheless the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard. The words of wise men are heard in quiet more than the cry of him that ruleth among fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war: but one sinner destroyeth much good” (Ecclesiastes 9:13–18).

In David’s time, such men were recognized and heeded. But David’s son Solomon recognized how easy it is to neglect, overlook, or forget such men. But that still doesn’t matter. Wisdom is still better than weapons of war. Wisdom is still better than strength. The city is still delivered, and so we should always remember the wisdom of Ronald Reagan’s desk plaque. “There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.”

WHAT ISRAEL SHOULD DO

We of course are not the chosen nation the way Israel was. But we are a nation that has fallen steeply away from the faith we once professed, and we are under the severe chastisements of God for our apostasy. So under this heading, I am merely saying what this “Israel” should do.

  • Worship God: our culture is in the state it is in because of all the true worship rendered to false gods, and all the false worship rendered to the true God. We become like what we worship, and this is no less true of societies than it is of individuals (Ps. 115). Worship the Most High God as though He were the Most High God.
  • Tie family ties tighter: Love your wife. Respect your husband. Educate your children in the Lord. Be done with porn. Sit down at your dinner table together. Confess your familial sins, especially anger and bitterness (Luke 1:17). Sing. Read stories where the bad guys are defeated.
  • Read books that orient you: You may be distressed because you don’t think you are among the sons of Issachar. But nothing prevents you from reading books that the sons of Issachar write. As a starter pack, try Strange New World (Trueman), Christianity and Liberalism (Machen), Idols for Destruction (Schlossberg), Love Thy Body (Pearcey), and The God of Sex (Jones).
  • Review your doctrinal commitments: I would begin with your postmillennialism, then move on to the covenant, and then on to Calvinism. Get these truths, and the biblical basis for them, down into your bones.
  • Muster your courage: “The wicked flee when no man pursueth: But the righteous are bold as a lion” (Proverbs 28:1). The church lockdowns and masking orders (and such) were simply a beta test, seeking to find out how soft the church was. The answer for them was “pretty soft.” And so you need to be prepared for the time when the church is ordered to meet just once a month in order to help “fight climate change.” You need to know beforehand that you are part of a church that will not comply.

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Sabbath Blessings & Curses

Christ Church on July 31, 2022

INTRODUCTION

Christians frequently fail to recognize how all of life relates to God. While we rightly reject the “prosperity gospel” that treats God like a vending machine, we must also reject various forms of Deism that assume that God is not active in the world, personally blessing and cursing. While God’s wisdom is far beyond our understanding, and the secret things belong to Him, those things that He has revealed, belong to us and to our children forever, namely the covenant, God’s personal promise of blessing for faithfulness and cursing for unfaithfulness (Dt. 29:29).

THE TEXT

“Ye shall make no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it; for I am the Lord your God…” (Lev. 26).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Having organized the Israelite economy and culture around cycles of Sabbaths, God explicitly links that way of life with the prohibition against all idolatry (Lev. 26:1-2). Idols always destroy and crush life; the Living God gives life and health and rest: you become what you worship (Ps. 115:3-9). The blessings of keeping covenant are not just “spiritual,” but they flow out into the land in real time from God personally: food, peace, safety, prosperity, fellowship (Lev. 26:3-13).

By the same token, breaking covenant with God brings His personal opposition, beginning with sickness, sorrow, and tyranny (Lev. 26:14-17). If that doesn’t get their attention, God promises to break their pride with successive rounds of judgment and chastisement that come in “sevens” like inverted “sabbaths”: first, droughts and famines (Lev. 26:18-20), then wild animals to ravage the land (Lev. 26:21-25), then enemies, violence, and starvation (Lev. 26:26-27), then the desperate cannibalism of a military siege followed by utter destruction (Lev. 26:28-32). Ultimately, the people will end up in exile heartbroken, but this will finally give the land her sabbaths (Lev. 26:33-39).

But if God’s people confess their sins and humbly accept God’s punishments, He promises to remember His covenant and not cast them away, even in the midst of judgment (Lev. 26:40-46).

BLESSINGS & CURSES IN THE NEW COVENANT

The first and most common objection to a text like this is that it only applied to Israel, their special covenant with God, and the Promised Land. The problem is that the New Testament repeatedly contradicts that. For example, Paul tells Gentile kids in Ephesus (Asia Minor) that the Fifth Commandment is the first commandment with a promise for them, “that it may go well with you, and you may live long on the earth” (Eph. 6:2-3). Related, the apostle tells the Christians in Galatia that men reap what they sow because God is not mocked (Gal. 6:7-9).

Even Jesus said that those who have given up families and houses and lands for His sake will receive a hundredfold back in this life (with persecutions) and eternal life (Mk. 10:29-30). Likewise, Jesus proclaimed blessings and curses in His own ministry related to loyalty to Him (Mt. 5:1-11, ch. 23, Lk. 6:20-26, ch. 11), and He warned of blessings and curses in Revelation, with specific warnings to churches (Rev. 1:3, ch. 2-3, 22:14ff). The New Testament also says that judgment begins with the household of God (1 Pet. 4:17). This covenant loyalty is faith, a living faith that works by love, and that faith is a gift of God, so that no one may boast (Eph. 2:8-9).

THE EARTH IS THE LORD’S

Christians must never forget that God made this world, and therefore it matters to Him, and therefore it must matter to us. The earth is full of God’s glory, full of good things for us to find and cultivate and discover and use. In the beginning, God created Adam and Eve and commanded them to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and rule it with wisdom (Gen. 1:27-28). That task has been significantly hindered by the curse of sin, but God’s covenant was His personal promise to take away that curse and bless with fruitfulness in the earth, and this promise has always been received by faith (e.g. Lev. 26:9, cf. Gen. 15:6). Christ is the mediator of the New and Better Covenant because He has become the curse for us, so that we may get back to work under God’s potent blessing (Gal. 3:13ff). If God is for us, who can stand against us (Lev. 26:8, Rom. 8:31)? But if God is against us, who can possibly succeed (Lev. 26:17)?

But what we sometimes miss is that this includes creation itself. Creation itself is in bondage or liberty depending on the state of man, and therefore, creation itself either eagerly submits to our rule or stands against us and fights us (Rom. 8:19-22). Sometimes Christians falsely believe that “Christian work” is only doing evangelism or worship, but Christian work is all good work done under the blessing of Christ, including care for animals, forests, industry, science, water, and soils. While “climate science” is full superstition, distortions, and lies, we don’t need them to know that our culture’s covenant treachery has certainly called for famines and plagues and destruction.

CONCLUSION

We should not miss the highly personal nature of the covenant God made with Israel. Not only is God the one blessing or cursing, but the goal is for Israel to “walk” with God and for God to walk with them (Lev. 26:11-12). But if Israel walks “contrary” to God, God is promising to walk “contrary” to them. In fact, the text uses that word translated “contrary” seven times, implying a sort of anti-Sabbatarian collision (Lev. 26:21, 23, 24, 27, 28, 40, 41). There will be no rest.

Our sin is not merely “bad,” it also puts us on a collision course with the God of this world. It is a personal attack on God, and an assault on His goodness and grace. You cannot cling to your sin and have things go well for you in the land. It is certainly true that sometimes God takes righteous people through horrific trials, but it also true that He judges and chastens sinners, beginning with His own covenant people. Sometimes God is walking contrary to His people because they are walking contrary to Him. And the only way out is through the Cross of Jesus.

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Death Penalties & the Cross

Christ Church on June 26, 2022

INTRODUCTION

Modern man prides himself in not being violent and savage, and yet we have butchered 60 million babies and counting. We have high rates of drug and alcohol and porn addiction, suicide, incarceration, and so on. We sacrifice babies to our Molech, and we sacrifice millions more in the slow cooker of government programs and prisons. We have rejected Jesus and His easy yoke, calling it harsh, and we have demanded the demented yoke of humanistic hubris and tyrannical government. And the only way out of this mess is through the Cross of Jesus.

THE TEXT

“And the Lord spake unto Moses saying, Again thou shalt say to the children of Israel, whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel that giveth any of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death…” (Lev. 20:1-27).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

The text opens with a prohibition against offering children to Molech and against turning a blind eye to it, as well as all idolatry, since the people are to be holy and keep God’s statutes (Lev. 20:1-8). Seven crimes are listed with death penalties (20:9-16), and five additional sins are listed, with the community sanctions of being “cut off from among their people” and “bearing their sin” (Lev. 20:17-21). “Dying childless” could imply the possibility of a civil penalty, but it is probably a direct sanction from God since it identifies one of those instances as being “unclean,” which is a ceremonial status (20:21). God reminds His people that He is giving them life and blessing in a good land through His law, which is why they must remain separate from the other nations (20:22-24). The daily sign of the distinction was their diet (20:25-26), and that was to remind them to remove all idolatry out of their midst (20:27).

COMPARED TO WHAT?

“Molech” is related to the Hebrew word “melech” which means “king.” The fires of Molech are most likely a generic reference to the various cults of the nations. Dedication of children to Molech seems to have included both child sacrifice as well as temple prostitution. And right on schedule our nation is actually debating the appropriateness of Drag Queen story, so-called gender “transition,” and the furies are out in full force demanding abortion as “health care.”  This is nothing short of the new dedication of children to Molech.

You can always tell the god or gods of a culture by where coercion and violence are accepted and obedience and submission are required. Even in relatively conservative churches, if a woman says she must obey her husband, she will sometimes get concerned looks and questions about whether everything is OK (same with obeying a pastor or elder). But if you mention a court order or taxes (with threat of violence/prison), the assumption is that you better just submit. The fact that many modern Christians are embarrassed that God would require death penalties for certain crimes but just shrug when our civil government sends thieves to prison for decades, tells you who our god is, who we see as holy.

In these laws we see God’s requirement that we hallow Him particularly in our families and sexuality. Over the centuries, acts of treason and desertion from an army in time of war have been punished with death, subtly insisting that civil loyalties are the most sacred. Instead of accusing God of harshness, we ought to assume that He is warning us and the world about the potency and sacredness of marriage and family (Heb. 13:4). Jesus also makes it clear what cursing father or mother looks like: “For Moses said, Honor thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death: But ye say, if a man shall say to his father or mother, it is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightiest be profited by me; he shall be free. And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother” (Mk. 7:10-12). Jesus is clearly implying that certain forms a high-handed neglect of elderly parents are the kind of cursing of parents that might be tried as form of murder.

CRIMES & SINS & JUSTICE

This text distinguishes between crimes that require a civil penalty (20:9-16), and sins that require a ceremonial or familial penalty (20:17-21). The distinction between crimes and sins designates different jurisdictions: the state, the family, and the church. Sins are to be adjudicated and addressed by individuals, families, and churches as appropriate, while crimes have civil penalties and are the proper jurisdiction of the state. God has given the civil magistrate the sword of vengeance, which means that the state is only good at violence and coercion (Rom. 13). This is why the Bible requires a fiercely limited civil government. In a Christian land, all crimes would also be sins, but not all sins are crimes. In a pagan land, it’s more of a Venn diagram, and not all crimes are really sins.

It’s worth noting that only murder required a mandatory death penalty; all of these death penalties are maximum sentences (Gen. 9:6-9, Dt. 19:11-13). We can see this in another law regarding Sabbath breaking which also called for a death penalty (Lev. 24:11-22, cf. Num. 15:32-36), however in the days of Nehemiah, he suppressed Sabbath commerce but didn’t institute a death penalty (Neh. 13:19-21). We see something similar with the death penalty for homosexuality in our text (Lev. 20:13), but the good kings Asa and Jehoshaphat exiled the sodomites from the land (1 Kgs. 15:12, 22:46), and Josiah tore down their houses of prostitution (2 Kgs. 23:7).

CONCLUSION

In the New Testament, we do not see the apostles lobbying for death penalties. What do we make of that? Paul does say after listing a number of crimes and sins, “that they which commit such things are worthy of death” (Rom. 1:32), and elsewhere he says the law is good, so long as it is used lawfully, to prevent lawlessness and everything that is “contrary to sound doctrine, according to the glorious gospel” (1 Tim. 1:8-11).

Therefore, we conclude that the law (with its death penalties) remains the perfect standard of justice and reveals God’s wrath against our sins and crimes. We affirm the goodness of the law for public policy and all morality, but we affirm it first and foremost as that which drives the world to Christ and His glorious gospel. There is no life outside of Christ, and all who hate His wisdom love death. The world says believe in yourself, re-invent yourself, find yourself, and the end of that road is nothing but sadness and death: rage and shame, sickness and scars, mutilation and murder. And the law drives sinners to despair.

The law drives sinners to the cross, to the place of execution and there the gospel proclaims: Christ died for guilty sinners. Christ died for lawbreakers. Christ died for the unclean, the profane, the obscene, the sodomites, the pedophiles, the prostitutes, the liars, the idolaters, the proud, and all who have dishonored their parents. The law cannot save, but what the law is powerless to do, God has done by sending His Son. Christ has received the death penalty for us. And this is why it is only those who know their guilt who are the ones who are in.

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Blood, Marriage, and Worship (King’s Cross)

Christ Church on June 12, 2022

INTRODUCTION

These two chapters are the hinge of the book of Leviticus, the first half broadly sketching our duties to God (1-17) and the second half our duties to our neighbor (18-27). In this, we see the great indicative/imperative distinction that echoes through the rest of Scripture and Christian theology. We do because of what God has done. We do because of what God has made us to be. So the center of life is the blood of Christ, and everything else flows from there.

THE TEXT

“… What man soever there be of the house of Israel, that killeth an ox, or lamb, or goat, in the camp, or that killeth it out of the camp, and bringeth it not unto the door of the tabernacle…” (Lev. 17–18).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

God prohibits His people from offering sacrifices to other gods (Lev. 17:1-7), as well as offering sacrifices in any other place than He designates (17:8-9). God also forbids eating or drinking the blood of animals whether sacrificial animals or animals taken for food, since the life is in the blood (17:10-16). Those who disobey these commands are to be cut off or excommunicated from the covenant people (17:4, 9, 10, 14). Paganism and idolatry are always trying to trick life out of lifeless and dead things, and next to blood, sexual rites are the other common talisman of the nations. So God forbids His people from imitating the sexual confusions of the Egyptians and Canaanites (18:1-17), particularly through tribalistic marriages (18:18), or any other vile perversions (18:19-25). By these, the earth is defiled and vomits out its inhabitants (18:26-30).

THE COUNCIL OF JERUSALEM

The council of Jerusalem clearly affirmed the ongoing relevance of these chapters: “For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things; that ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication…” (Acts 15:28-29). While fornication often refers to sex outside of marriage, it also refers to any kind of sexual immorality, which would include all the incestuous prohibitions in our text. While it may have been tempting to dismiss these prohibitions against blood and incest as a lot of archaic oddities in previous decades, these have actually been the marks of paganism throughout history, and they are currently in the process of being mainstreamed again as we speak. The council was not prohibiting eating rare steak, but clearly we may not dismiss these prohibitions as mere ceremonial law. God’s people must always abstain from idolatry, including the bloodlust and sexual deviance that accompanies it.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD

We should never forget is that it is not whether there will be blood, but which blood, whose blood. The life is in the blood (Lev. 17:11, 14), and in this fallen world man wants to trick life out of blood apart from the God who gives and upholds all life. The fires of Molech (Lev. 18:21) and all abortion is the attempt to trick life out of blood and death. Cultures of sexual deviance are also always cultures of death and dying, and the diseases and ailments and shorter life spans that accompany them are no accident (Lev. 18:22-24). As Romans 1:27 says, they receive the consequences in their own bodies by their actions. It is simply a fact that the widespread culture of piercing and tattooing has also grown out of this bloodshed. Despite great progress in medical science, pseudo-scientific witchcraft is also on the rise. We reject the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ complete ban on blood transfusions, but we absolutely agree that the perennial scientific hubris of man must be rejected: trying to be lord of life and death, especially attempts to conjure up life from the bodies of murdered babies. But we have all this bloodshed because we have rejected the blood of Jesus. We have been embarrassed and ashamed of the blood of Jesus, and so now we have blood running in our streets. It is not whether but which.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD

When one extreme rears its ugly head, you can bet that others are preparing their pitch. We live under a regime of statism (worshiping the power of the state), but right on schedule, we have some beginning to preach the power of familialism or tribalism. While statists worship the blood of the sword, another ancient demonic impulse worships the blood of kin, and incest has historically been central to that quest for power. While there are sexual deviants who pursue perversion for mere kicks, we should not be naïve to the power plays at work in the current sexual cesspool. The statists and globalists are currently using sexual deviance to grasp for power, but one reaction to that tyranny collapses into an idolatry of tribe with its own attendant sexual maladies (e.g. polygamy, incest). But we are not tribalists, we are covenantal Christians.

Human society is built on flourishing families, but families cannot flourish apart from the blessing of God, apart from the blood of Christ (and neither can nations). The blood of Christ does not obliterate natural affections for family and culture or nation, but natural affection certainly must die and rise again. Jesus said that unless we hate our father and mother, we cannot be His disciples (Lk. 14:26). The Kingdom of God is an international, global, and pentecostal mission. We believe that the nations (as nations) will bring their glories into the New Jerusalem, but those Christian nations will be united by the Spirit of God indwelling them, joint missionary work, tons of neighborly commerce, and boatloads of cousins.

CONCLUSION

Never forget that God made the world such that you become what you worship. Psalm 115 says that those who make idols and serve them become like them, and when you reject the Living God, you can only go down. You can only change the glory of the incorruptible God into images of corruptible man, birds, beasts, or creeping things (Rom. 1:23). But when you worship man divorced from His Maker, you are worshipping a man descending into beastlike vulgarity. When you worship animals you become like them.

So we are here to worship the Living God who made us, who knows what we are for, and who has come and dwelt among us, so that we might become like Him. Creation itself groans for the redemption of the sons of God because when we worship and act like animals we only harm and misuse creation and so it vomits us out. But the blood of Jesus cleanses every stain, and by His blood we have eternal life. And under that blessing, we work and marry and exercise dominion until the earth is full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

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