We have a battle to win, a great enemy to destroy. We are called to an epic struggle that spans the epochs, from the garden of Eden to the Garden City of the New Jerusalem. We have a kingdom to build. When Jesus told His students, however, to seek first the kingdom of God He wasn’t dealing with the problem of complacency. He was not seeking to rouse a bunch of couch potatoes into action. Instead Jesus was calling on those who were caught up in worry and fear, to set those aside. Instead Jesus is seeking to calm anxious hearts and minds, to remind those who are His that they are the children of their Father in heaven. It is our Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom.
Jesus makes much the same point in the gospel of Mark. We are all too familiar with the story. Jesus is in Judea, and the multitudes gathered around Him as He taught them. Many among the crowd brought their little children to Jesus, but the disciples rebuked them. Jesus seeing this, we are told, was greatly displeased. Then He uttered these potent words, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God” (Luke 10:14). We’ve all seen pictures of this glorious event. We see the children gazing up at the Lord with trust in their eyes. We see the joy and delight in the shining face of Jesus. We walk away, our hearts warmed by the tender love of Jesus toward the little children, and once again, completely miss the point. As touching as this scene is, as moved as we might be by the love of Jesus for the children that were there that day, and toward our own children, what we miss is the reason for all this. We miss the wisdom of Jesus who says, “Assuredly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it” (verse 15).
Jesus’ words present both a stern warning and a delightful invitation. The warning is clear enough. If we will not come as children, we will not come at all. There will be those in the end with their dignity intact, their maturity assured, and their eternity spent on weeping and teeth gnashing. Jesus does not say that if we do not come as children we will be least in the kingdom. He does not say that if we do not come as children we will miss out on joy. He does not say that if we do not come as children then we will lose some degree of fellowship with our Father. He says we will not come at all. We will, by no means, enter into the kingdom.
But there is invitation here as well. We enter into the kingdom as helpless as babies. We enter into the kingdom as needy as babies. We enter into the kingdom as ignorant as babies. We enter into the kingdom as worthless as babies. We enter into the kingdom with nothing in our hands, not even a pacifier. We have no contribution to make, and no agenda to follow. We come trusting like a baby, resting like a baby, and laughing like a baby. We enter into the kingdom with eyes wide with wonder.
We were taught to pray by Jesus, to our heavenly Father, that His kingdom would come as His will is done on earth as it is in heaven. We will enter into heaven as children. We bring heaven down to earth as we live our lives as children. We bring heaven down by living now as we will then. In the upside-down economy of the kingdom of God, the call to Christian maturity is the call to by young. As we age, as we acquire wisdom, we learn more and more that we know less and less. When we are born, we begin the process of aging, growing closer to death. When we are born again, we begin the process of getting younger, growing closer to life.
The first great theological battle my father fought was over the question of women’s ordination. He was originally ordained in the United Presbyterian Church, until the Pittsburgh presbytery determined not only that women could be ordained but that those who disagreed could either leave or face discipline. My father also was perfectly happy to have women speak to thousands, men and women at Ligonier conferences. There was a time when all teaching series offered by Ligonier were either by my father, his mentor John Gerstner, or Elizabeth Elliott. What gives?
What gives is that central to our confusion on the issue of women preachers is a foundational weakness on the question of preaching. It is not a too high view of women that leads to women preachers but a too low view of preaching. Preaching is what happens when a man with authority speaks from the Word to the congregation under his care. His authority in that context is, however nuanced, profoundly distinct from any “authority” carried in the context of a conference or a book or a teaching series. Like apocryphal literature, what we take in from those not ordained as elders may be quite useful pious wisdom. It cannot be preaching with authority.
The one and only time I had to serve detention as a school student was my last year of high school. I skipped mandatory chapel. I arrived on time. I took my seat. And when Mrs. Bunny Hill, a delightful woman and teacher, stood up to speak I stood up and walked out. I was wrong to have done so. Addressing a chapel meeting at a high school, if the speaker was Mrs. Hill, my father or the Archbishop of Canterbury isn’t preaching and lacks the authority of preaching. My concern then, when Beth Moore stands behind the pulpit on Mother’s Day morning, or the women’s group leader at my local church isn’t that there is a woman preaching. My concern is that the church is gathering without the Word being preached.
Many years ago, before I had ever been ordained, I was invited to speak at a Reformation Celebration put on by Reformed churches in the San Francisco Bay area. A pastor who had served in that difficult world for decades, a genuine hero to me, drove me to the airport after I spoke. My heart soared when he said to me, “That was an outstanding talk that you gave.” And all the air went out of the balloon when he continued, “It would have been even better if you were ordained.”
Worse than women in pulpits, I would argue, is that we have sheep in pews who recognize no authority in their shepherds whatsoever. We have shepherds who likewise either don’t recognize their own authority or who don’t find authoritative preaching to be necessary. I’m enormously grateful for the impact of many wise women in my life, especially my precious wife. I, in turn, see the Word preached as something radically more compelling than a message shared.
Thomas Aquinas was a great gift to the church. He stands among the greatest minds the world has ever known. This doesn’t mean, of course, that he did not have his flaws, one of which goes to the heart of his intellectual labors. He saw it as his goal to synthesize the wisdom of Aristotle with the wisdom of the Bible. Now, Aristotle was no intellectual slouch either. That said, Thomas’ goal ought to immediately raise flags for us. Even a dummy like me can see: why would anyone want to synthesize the Bible with anything? What does the Bible lack that Aristotle brought to the table? The Bible is sufficient to tell us that the Bible is sufficient. We don’t need Aristotle — or Aquinas — to remind us that at the end of the day we don’t need Aristotle or Aquinas. What we need is the Bible.
This propensity for mixing the Bible with our own wisdom did not die with Thomas. Because we are inveterate syncretists, we are inveterate synthesizers. We want to combine our philosophy with the Bible. We want to combine our political theories with the Bible. We want to combine our psychology with the Bible. We want to combine our economics with the Bible. And we want to combine our understanding of the business world with the Bible. Of course, we all ought to believe what the Bible says about each of these things. The trouble isn’t bringing the Bible to bear on questions of wisdom. The trouble isn’t asking what the Bible tells us the state is called to do, nor asking what the Bible tells us about the human soul. The problem is taking a body of “knowledge” built on an unbiblical worldview and then trying to mesh that with the Bible.
Consider, for a moment, how little Scripture and how much psychology we have in the field of business. Consultants there are eager to tell us of the vital importance of developing a “vision,” of putting together a “mission statement.” While it is always good to know where we are going, it is always better to go back to the Bible. There we are told to meditate on the Word of God. We are told to seek out the wisdom therein. What we are not told is to have a “mission statement.” If anything, we are given a mission statement — seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
This is not merely Jesus’ mission statement. It is not merely my mission statement. It states the mission for all of us, which means in turn that it states the mission of missions. This is what the church is to be about in every corner of the world. And when the church in one corner reaches out to aid the church in another, this is where that aid ought to be moving.
Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians that the body of Christ is made up of different members. We all have different callings under our one, grand calling. His caution, however, is that too often we confuse our specific calling with God’s general calling. That is, we are seeking to build our own little kingdoms rather than seeking His. When our peculiar mission is driven by our peculiarities rather than His one grand mission, we are upside down and likely in the way. When we seek to syncretize our end with His, we miss our true mission.
Each Lord’s Day we do not worship alone. Instead, we are lifted up into the true and eternal Mount Zion where we meet with the souls of just men made perfect (Heb. 12:22–24). The church across the globe gathers together there. The Lord’s Day is like a celestial “wave” whereby as the earth spins on its axis the saints of God rise up to give Him praise.
We are not united, of course, by a common tongue. We do not share the exact same history (though we all have Abraham for our father). We are not of the same skin color. What unites us is our common faith. We confess the same Lord. We have the same mission. Together we are called to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And together is the only way this will come to pass.
God has indeed given each of us a part to play, a little mission that works toward the single grand mission. The serpent, however, delights in our confusing the part with the whole. Our glory, however, isn’t found in building up our little corner of the kingdom. Instead, our glory grows only insofar as His kingdom grows. We must decrease, but He must increase. And as we die, so we live. In other words, when we seek first the kingdom and His righteousness, all these things will be added to us. His kingdom is not only forever, but it is for everywhere. May He be pleased to give us eyes to see that “Jesus shall reign where’er the sun does His successive journeys run.” May we see “His kingdom stretch from shore to shore, till moons shall wax and wane no more.”
I’m old, old enough to remember party lines, person-to-person long distance calls and rotary phones. I remember when cordless phones were new and exciting. I’m old enough to remember being called to a ministry wide meeting wherein we were all informed of the soon coming of the world wide web, and just what had Al Gore wrought. I’m old enough to remember dial-up, free AOL floppy discs. I’m old enough to remember brick sized cell phones, the first clam shells and the first cameras.
Today it is not enough that we should have phones that can call anyone in the country. It is not enough that our phones contain cameras more precise than professionals used only a decade ago. It is not enough that our web connections have done away with inch-by-inch page changes and now stream HD videos without breaking a sweat. No, the real revolution is here- that now we can do all this virtually anywhere. We no longer have to wait until we can get wired in, nor even until we can tie into wifi. With 5G everything the internet has to offer can be sourced wherever we go.
What do we do with these capabilities? Post pictures of our lunch. Create videos wherein we dance and lip sync to the latest hits or our skateboard entries into the Darwin awards. Read tribal gossip and engage in verbal warfare with other tribes. Check our fantasy football rosters. There is nothing inherently evil in engaging in theological discussion with strangers, or dancing or photography or fantasy football. There’s certainly nothing wrong with lunch. Perhaps the real problem is simply the distraction. What does it say about the state of our souls that we invest so many hours in things that, even if they are not morally objectionable, are utterly insignificant?
I suspect that what it reveals is that we do not want to have revealed to us the hard truths about what we are. I suspect that these idols for distraction are just another Romans 1 suppression engine. Paul there tells us that we all know, through the created order, that there is a Creator and that we fall short of His demands. Rather than repenting we seek to suppress these unpleasant truths, to keep them out of our consciousness. Our consciences, in a word, cannot bear being conscious. And thus was born Candy Crush.
It is all too easy, especially for me, to respond to contemporary tech with all the gentle manners of a curmudgeon. Such is not my goal. Nor am I merely scolding smart phones. Rather, I’m preaching to myself the importance of meditating on God’s Word. I’m confessing my own propensity to pursue mental baubles. What does it say about believers, like me, who have every reason to enter fully into the joy of the Good News are just as likely to drown out God’s message as those still hearing only bad news? What is says is we need to repent and believe the gospel.
No one should be surprised, though of course it makes no sense, when unbelievers complain about God’s judgment. Romans 1 tells us that they know God is, they know He is almighty, and they know they are in for it. It’s the last two that grates at them. If He’s so powerful, and He is, then why does He still find fault? And He does. Paul’s non-answer in Romans 9 is familiar to us, “Shall the clay say to the Potter, why have You made me thus?” God is God, and we are not.
The surprise comes when I find that I, a believer, complain about God’s pottering of me. Unlike the unbeliever, by His grace He is making me a vessel for mercy. That, most assuredly is not where my complaints lie. To get at my beef we need to perform a smidge of grammar. I promise this won’t hurt.
“Made this way” has two distinct, albeit related meanings. So far we have considered one of those meanings. We are asking why we are being made into the things we are being made into. When the unbeliever asks, “Why have You made me thus?” he is asking God why the unbeliever is being formed into a vessel fit for destruction. When the believer is not complaining, we are thanking God that His end design for us is to be vessels of mercy. “Made this way,” however, can also refer not just to the end, but to the means. I’m delighted God is making me a vessel for mercy. What I hate is the way He is doing it.
God’s way in shaping me is to squeeze me with His powerful hands. His way is to spin me dizzy on His wheel. His way is to soften me by burying me in water, and to harden me by baking me in the raging fire of the kiln. I want the mercy. I want to be made into a work of art, something beautiful and honorable. What I don’t want, what I don’t trust, is how He is getting me there. Every time I grumble against the Lord, in times of hardship I am joining the chorus of unbelievers in asking, “Why are You making me thus?” I’m accusing Him of being sloppy in His work, of not knowing the best path to get me where I am going.
This thing made should never say to the One who makes me, “Why?” My calling and duty is to trust, to rest, to believe that He is both, in the midst of all my hardships, making manifest His glory, and bringing to pass my good. His hand, no matter how heavy, is always a good hand. His fire, no matter how painful, is always a good fire. The Good Shepherd is the Good Potter. May He teach me to trust Him as I trust Him to teach me.
Christians debate the morality of our voting at least every two years. Is voting for the lesser evil voting for evil? Should Christians seek politicians who will care for the poor with tax dollars? Isn’t abortion just a done deal that Republicans keep alive to keep Christians in the fold? These are legitimate questions that frankly have legitimate answers. More often than not, however, the questions are used for little more than rationalizing the decisions we already made before asking them. Add into the mix the strange story of a brash, crude, politically incorrect previous president who gave us justices that overturned Roe v. Wade and who may have sought to overturn the last election.
Without providing answers to the above questions I want to lay down a few simple suggestions to plug into your calculations. First, character always matters. Always. That doesn’t mean, of course, that we’re electing a pastor. It doesn’t mean any skeleton, no matter how old, should be fair game. It does mean that a man who lies about his marriage vows will certainly lie about his campaign promises. A man who cheats on his wife will cheat on his constituents.
Second, a sound worldview always matters. I’m willing to stipulate that President Carter was an honorable gentleman. He was, however, an honorable gentleman who was profoundly confused about the proper function and limits of the federal government. A man who comes on national TV in a sweater to tell us to keep our thermostats at 64 may be benevolent, but that doesn’t keep him from being a dictator. If Mr. Rogers thinks the neighborly thing to do is to rob Peter to pay Paul it will soon be a terrible day in the neighborhood. Don’t vote for a nice socialist.
Third, remembering no one is perfect, remember also that sometimes the best choice is “None of the above.” We ought to take our vote seriously enough to recognize that we can’t really pat ourselves on the back if our vote kept Stalin out of office by electing Hitler. If you find yourself in this position, however, let me suggest this- write to the slightly better guy’s party and let them know why you voted “no.”
Fourth, the legal murder of the unborn is no more an “issue” than the Nazi holocaust was an “issue.” It is the great evil of our age. Voting for any candidate who believes it is his duty to use his office to protect the murder of any unborn child is a vote for the devil himself. Don’t do it. Ever. For any reason. As with my earlier point, anyone who thinks it is a legitimate function of any government to protect the murder of the innocent has already demonstrated a clear lack of qualification for office. Voting for such a man demonstrates a clear lack of qualification to vote. To call this perspective partisanship is to side with Molech.
Finally, you should vote as a Christian, as one who knows that Jesus Christ reigns over all things. He has already decided who will win the election. Our job isn’t to change a fixed future. Our job is to be found faithful. When the votes are tallied and the challenges have been decided, you will have peace in your conscience, even if there is no peace in our time.
We who are Reformed spend a great deal of time and energy speaking about God’s sovereign power. God’s power is more than worthy of our attention and study. We ought to be bowled over, blown away by that power. It, like His law, is something we ought to meditate on. His power, however, is intimately connected to His kingship, His rule. God is not only sovereign in power, but is sovereign in authority. Consider how swiftly Paul moves between the two in Romans 9: “What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For He says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion’” (vv. 14–15). Here God affirms His sovereign authority. There is no law above Him to which He must submit, determining to whom He must show mercy. Next, however, we turn to His power. “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you and that My name might be proclaimed on all the earth.’ So then He has mercy on whomever He wills, and He hardens whomever He wills” (vv. 17–18).
Then Paul turns back to the question of authority: “You will say to me then, ‘Why does He still find fault? For who can resist His will?’ But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use?” (vv. 19–21). The two are inseparable. God has all power because He has all authority. He has all authority because He has all power. When we sin we foolishly fight against both.
Consider, for instance, the oxymoronic, and perhaps just plain moronic, notion of “making Jesus Lord of your life.” While it is right and proper that we ought to submit to the reign of Christ, He has been Lord of our lives, and even the lives of those outside the kingdom from the moment He ascended to His throne. We don’t make Him Lord, we recognize that He is Lord.
Or consider pragmatism. Here we determine that we will submit only to “that which works.” Our law is goal-oriented, rather than justice-oriented. This system has its own glaring problems. How, one has to ask, do we determine what we mean by “works?” That is, what is the goal? What are we aiming for? With no transcendent law, there is no transcendent end, and we are left still under the sun, chasing the wind. And we chase it still.
Even within the church we have embraced an understanding of ethics steeped in pragmatism. We are willing to submit to God, only insofar as we are able to understand His wisdom. Why, for instance, would God not want women to serve as elders and pastors if He has so gifted them? Why would God not want me to eat this fruit that is pleasing to the eyes and desirable to make one wise? God is our Father, and as such He is utterly free to declare, “Because I said so.” His law is grounded not in what it does for us, far less in what we understand that it does for us. His law is grounded in who He is.
Faith means believing God. When we believe Him, we submit to Him. His wisdom is not found in our own thoughts, our own strategies. His wisdom in found in His Word. Our calling then is simple enough — to fear Him and obey all that He commands. And because we fail at this calling, our calling is likewise that we would both repent and believe the Gospel. He has provided the way into His kingdom. He has given us our marching orders. Our Father has spoken. May He in turn bless us with ears to hear His Word, that we might walk in His way.
There are certain things you can always be sure of this time of year. You can count on pumpkin spice flavored pumpkin spice, the airing of It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, and Christians debating the legitimacy of “celebrating” Halloween. The debates are old, as are the caricatures we draw- the squishy, worldly evangelical that never met a worldly event they didn’t love on the one side and the prim and proper Ichabod Crane that is so anti-holiday he won’t celebrate Jesus’ birth on the other side. As is so often the case, most of us fall somewhere in the middle.
I’m not going to take a side on the Halloween debate. I am, however, going to offer up a caution that is appropriate this time of year. It should go without saying among Bible believers but here it is: demonic forces are real, present, active, destructive and dangerous. Are they empowered by jacko-lanterns? Probably not. Are they emboldened by our numbness to their present reality? Certainly so.
I have long argued that whatever arguments might be made for cessationism, the driving force is usually not biblical fidelity but modernism. Those believers who deny the present reality of what we call “sign gifts,” who suggest such faded away with the closing of the biblical canon, are likely more wigged out by the idea that the spiritual realm is real than speaking in tongues. We’ve bought into a mechanistic view of the created world. There’s hell, where the devil lives, earth where people live and heaven where Jesus lives. They only real “travel” between these realms, we seem to believe, happens when people die and go to their eternal end.
Jesus, however, reigns here. All authority in heaven, and on earth, has been given unto Him. That authority, likewise, is challenged here on earth, by demonic forces. I’m not arguing that Frank Peretti had it exactly right when he wrote of celestial sword battles swayed by the prayers of men. I am arguing that the Bible is, as it always is, right when it says we wrestle not with flesh and blood but with principalities and powers (Eph. 6:12). Paul not only reminds us that these powers are real, not only reminds us that they are at work behind the struggles that we have but that we wrestle against them. We are called to a battle with an invisible enemy.
The enemy’s work, however, is right before our eyes. Moms and dads murder their own children not because they haven’t been sufficiently educated, but because they embrace the spirit of Molech. Perverts dance salaciously before little children because they embrace the spirit of Dionysus. The demonic realm is not something to toy with.
As a young teenager I spent an evening with a friend and a Ouija board. The next day I informed my father of the fun time I had had. My father informed me that if we were living in God’s holy nation of Israel, according to His law, I would be put to death. God takes these matters seriously. We dishonor Him when we fail to do the same. The One in us is indeed greater than he who is in the world. That One, however, warns us not to forget the reality of the war. Make believe on Halloween? If you wish. But always believe we are at war.
