Some things we never quite leave behind this side of the veil. Try as we might to mature and to grow beyond this peculiar brand of foolishness, I’m afraid that at heart we are still junior high girls. Our problem isn’t, I trust, that we talk on the telephone too long, or that we go through life still having a crush on David Cassidy or some Back Street Boy. No, our problem is we think ourselves masters of motives. You remember either saying, or hearing someone say, “I was at the mall, and Susie was walking the other way. So then I smiled and waved and said, ‘Hey Susie,’ and she wouldn’t even look at me. She just walked on by. She is just so stuck-up.” We, I hope, wouldn’t say this anymore, but we still practice the same kind of foolishness.
We conclude, for instance, that such and such a family never comes to pot-luck suppers because they think they’re better than us. We conclude that this other family bought a new car because the husband works too hard or charges too much for the work he does. We think the pastor preached the sermon he preached because he has assumed the worst about us, when he doesn’t even really know our situation.
The root of this isn’t simply immaturity, but pride. The pride has at least two conduits through which it flows. First, we think ourselves far too clever. What we actually know is that family A doesn’t come to pot-luck suppers, family B has a new car and pastor C preached a sermon. There are equally plausible explanations for each of these events. Perhaps family A has one child with horrible food allergies, another child who will fall into a tailspin if he doesn’t get a nap, and a third child that doesn’t need an excuse to fall into a tailspin. Maybe family A, rather than thinking they are better than others, is actually ashamed of their family’s behavior in this kind of setting. Maybe they don’t come because they don’t think they measure up. Perhaps family B was given the new car by friends or family. Perhaps it’s a company car. Perhaps some other business cheated them, and with the settlement money they bought a car. Perhaps, and don’t let this shock you, God has prospered family B, and they bought a new car. As for the pastor, maybe he was preaching the next text, and in God’s providence it hit a sin you think others might perceive in you.
There is a second way this folly flows from pride. Not only are these sinless explanations plausible, but it is likewise probable that these plausible answers have nothing to do with you. That is, we fall for junior high girl syndrome only when we begin to think the world revolves around us. We’re so vain, I bet we think this post is about us, don’t we, don’t we?
God, though He might very well be surprised by the existence of junior high schools, is not surprised by the existence of junior high girls. He has given us the antidote. The antidote is love. Love, God tells us, suffers long and is kind. It does not envy, nor does it parade itself. It is not puffed up, and does not behave rudely. Now these are all great things about love. But they are only tangentially related to our concern. But then comes these three- love does not seek its own, is not provoked, and thinks no evil. This first, does not seek its own, is rather more sophisticated than not wrestling for the television remote. It means spending less time thinking on how our loved ones have hurt us, and more time thinking through how we might help our loved one. “Is not provoked” doesn’t mean that we take our emotions and clamp them down to avoid a reaction. We do not, because so far we haven’t said anything about the record of wrongs we are keeping, pat ourselves on the back. We instead keep no record at all. We avoid being provoked simply by following the next injunction, thinking no evil. That is, if we practice a judgment of charity, which is rather easy to do once we have died to self, then it takes no effort to keep cool.
It’s true enough that we are to be wise as serpents. There are bad guys out there who want our money, and will cheat to get it, who want to borrow our reputation, and will manipulate to get it. But it may just be that the path to getting beyond junior high girls is to become elementary school girls. What we need is an innocence that simply believes that others love us, and want what’s best for us. What we need is an innocent trust that God will protect us and take care of us. May He give us the grace to grow younger as we grow closer.
We will once again be sharing our home Bible study through Facebook Live (RC-Lisa Sproul) this evening, 7 eastern. Those who’d like to meet face to face, you’re also invited for dinner at our home at 6:15. Tonight we consider throwing mountains into the sea, and our calling to believe Matthew 21:21.
Join us, one way or the other, and we pray your faith will be strengthened.
It seems there is not a left-wing cause that isn’t supported by billionaires George Soros, Bill Gates, or others of their ilk. It seems as well that such a position would be counter-intuitive. The rich, we tend to think, want to hold on to their wealth while socialism wants to take it away. This anomaly is profoundly telling, revealing the ugly truth about socialism.
Over the years I’ve been blessed to serve from time to time outside local killing centers. I go not to protest but to proclaim the gospel, to call on those about to murder their own child to repent and embrace the cross. I do so knowing that the powers of darkness actively proclaim their anti-gospel. One very simple argument I often make goes like this- there are people out here like me who are not paid to be here bringing you the message of Jesus. These people stand ready to help you in every way possible- clothes, diapers, counsel, rent, cribs, for free. The people inside that are trying to persuade you to go through with this are all here to get paid. The moment you tell them you have no money they will kick you right out of the door. Which group do you think is more trustworthy? Which group do you think has your best interests at heart?”
What then is in it for limousine liberals? Power. The ugly truth is that socialism isn’t about a more equitable redistribution of wealth, and never has been. It is always about increasing the power of those in positions of power. George Soros isn’t driven by a desire for more money. Bill Gates doesn’t go to work each day to earn another buck to buy another trinket. They seek greater power, more control over the lives and decisions of people like you and me. Socialism isn’t so much an economic system built on “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” as it is a political system built on, “The state will decide what you do, what you have, where you go, how you live.” Or, to put it as the World Economic Forum, a hive of the hyper-wealthy, puts it, “You’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy.”
Truth be told there are some wealthy people, billionaires even, who labor to promote free market economics. These are people who believe that greater freedom would allow for greater wealth for themselves. They also believe it would allow for greater wealth for everyone. More important still, what they seek is less government making decisions for a free people. Free market proponents want people to be left alone to make their own decisions while socialism proponents want people to never be left alone nor allowed to make any decisions. The latter seek tyranny. The latter seek liberty. The former “prosper” by controlling what is not their own. The latter prosper by meeting the desires of the market.
Do not be fooled. Socialists are not seeking fairness, but raw power. As George Orwell put it, “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”
It is a sure sign of the fall that we so egregiously miss what we lost. Jesus calls us to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness precisely because our priorities are all out of line. Even that for which we long — to get back to the garden — we long for in the wrong way. Eden, to be sure, was Edenic. It was a garden paradise. There were no weeds crowding their way in there. No bugs buzzed in ears, nor did they sting arms and legs. Adam and Eve had no need to fear that prowling lions would consume humble lambs or that cyclones would tear up their garden by the roots. Eden was a place of joyful, fulfilling work. Adam would never feel the pressure of too many deadlines. His laptop would never go on the fritz. Neither had he any reason to fear an industrial accident. And then Adam and Eve had each other. This was a love relationship that would stagger us in its glory, that would blow us away in its intensity, that would in turn calm us in its beauty.
And all of the above did not amount to a hill of beans compared to the real blessing. All of the above are but shadows of a far greater glory, icing on a far richer cake. The glory of the garden was this — they walked with God. What we lost was not just beholding but entering into the very glory of God. That is to say, it would have been enough just to have been allowed the privilege of watching Him walk by. That would have shrunk every other blessing down to size. But He did not merely walk by — He walked with. Adam and Eve drew near to Him. To get just a glimpse of what this must have been like, recall to mind how C.S. Lewis portrayed the joyful Aslan playfully wrestling with the Pevensie children. This, not luscious fruit and tropical breezes, is what we lost.
This loss, in turn, is what we are seeking so desperately to forget. We are haunted by Eden. Which may help us to understand the peculiar way in which our modern culture practices its folly. We are told by Paul in Romans 1 that all men know that God exists, but we suppress that truth in unrighteousness. Supposing ourselves to be wise we become fools and exchange the glory of the Creator for mere creatures. Our idolatry isn’t merely embracing the wrong religion. It is rejecting what we know so that we might bow down to what we have made.
In Paul’s day it seemed that on every street corner there was a temple to this goddess and a statue to that god. Modern Americans are different — or are we? We do not self-consciously bow down to gods of our own making. But if one were to step back, to set aside the normalcy of our idolatry, we might find it in the strangest places. I suspect that archeologists in future millennia, when they dig up our civilization, will suggest that we worshiped a nearly ubiquitous god named “Starbucks.” They would, of course, be missing the point. Starbucks is not our god, but a mere aid to our worship. We carry around cups of our drug of choice that will keep us awake and alert enough to attend to our gods — that we can distract our minds, and our hearts with our smart phones, our iPads, our satellite radios, our constant and perpetual influx of meaningless data. We are all aflutter taking in media of one sort or another so that we will not hear the deafening echo of our emptiness, so that we won’t feel the gnawing lack where we once walked with God.
The strangest thing of all, however, is not the frantic forgetfulness of those yet on the outside. No, the truly strange thing is that Jesus has for us restored paradise. We walk with God but will not listen because our earphones are piping us the latest new band. We will not see His glory because our eyes are captured by whatever is making the rounds today on Netflix. We will not even hold His palm-scarred hand because we’re busy texting someone with our phone. That is, we who walk in paradise, are too busy dancing with the Devil to notice.
The kingdom is here, and the kingdom is now. We need not, in one sense, seek it. For it has sought and found us. To seek what has already been found we do not work harder. Instead we stop. We listen. We see. We smell. We enter into the glory of His presence. We rejoice and give thanks that we are already seated with Him in the heavenly places. There is no cell service up there. Be still, and know that He is God.
In that stillness you will hear first the heavenly choirs of angels, as they cry out, “Holy, holy holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.” Then you will hear the Master’s voice. Even now, even here on this side of the veil you will hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant…. Enter into the joy of your Master” (Matt. 25:21). And you will rejoice that He is that exceedingly great reward. He walks with you now in the cool of the evening. For lo, He is with us always.
That truism masquerading as tender wisdom from on high, that Jesus is not a Republican or a Democrat, likely conceals more than it reveals. As a truism, it is true. Jesus doesn’t check a party’s platform to see where He aligns Himself any more than He assesses the relative merits of the Hebrews and the Jericho-ites and picks a side. Jesus is for Jesus. His policy positions and priorities are perfect. Neither party perfectly matches Him.
That said, one either has to be wildly compromised by the world or utterly ignorant of God’s law, both revealed and natural to not be able to quickly and easily affirm that one major party is closer to the mark than the other major party. Closer, I said, not close. Both, I would affirm, are way yonder far off. But one less so than the other. To acknowledge this obvious truth is not to affirm that Jesus is a Republican. It isn’t to confuse the ethic of Gordon Gecko with that of our Redeemer. It isn’t to affirm the apotheosis of Donald Trump. One who makes such an accusation, on the other hand, likely thinks Jesus is a Democrat, confuses the ethic of Fidel Castro with that of our Redeemer, and affirms the apotheosis of Tony Campolo.
That said, now would be a great time to not hand fuel to that fire. It is one thing to encourage us, as we head for the polls, to hold our nose and vote for the war, surveillance, light socialism and duplicity party. It is another thing to dance in the streets when they win. I suspect that the Christians in Berlin as the Soviets swooped in the from the east and the Americans from west shared these convictions- better the Russians than the Nazis, better the Americans than the Russians, better Jesus than all three.
One friend, an astute commentator on elections, Steve Deace, forecast for these midterms a red tsunami. Such is not what we have been given. Even if we had been, people drown in tsumanis, and the red got there from the blood of the unborn mixed with the blood of soldiers whose lives were spent for mere empire. The angels have not swept into the swamp to clean it up. Has there been a red tsunami it would simply mean the slightly smaller, slightly tamer alligators have returned to the swamp. And it is more than likely that they will continue to swap possession of the swamp with the bigger more destructive alligators every two to four years.
Please, don’t believe and don’t spread the hype. Happy days are not here again. Republicans running the House and maybe getting a majority in the Senate doesn’t mean we have thrown off the yoke of Pharoah or King George III. We’re simply meeting the new boss, same as the old boss, only mildly less so. Instead let us believe this. Jesus is no more and no less enthroned than He was on Monday. His power and authority have neither increased nor decreased. The high places where the Ashtoreths and the Baals are worshipped still stand. Molech Centers are still open, practicing their grisly business. And we who serve Jesus still rebel against Him daily. We have more than enough work to do and more than enough to repent of.
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.
