It’s Friday the 13th and I suspect there is not a one of you that woke up scared because of that fact. Some of you, no doubt, had other things to worry about, other fears to face. But that “unlucky” combination of a Friday on the 13th of the month has pretty well lost its grip on us. We’re moderns, not like our superstitious forbears with their rabbits’ feet, four-leaf clovers, and salt over the shoulder tossing. We look down our noses at those poor benighted hayseeds farther down our family tree.
Except that we’re just as superstitious, if not more, than they were. Most every skyscraper in America, if it reaches that high, misnames all its floors from the 13th upward, calling the 13th the 14th, the 14th the 15th ad nauseum. Our commercial airplanes make the same kind of mistake with respect to their row numbers. All of which pales in comparison to our temples of superstition, casinos. When I was a child, if you wanted to gamble legally you had to travel to Nevada. I remember when Atlantic City, in its bid to save itself, sold itself into the fickle hands of fortune, legalizing gambling.
Then, the floodgates opened. Today there are six states bereft of casinos. Why? Casinos exist because their patrons believe in luck. Any gambler, from the well-trained blackjack player to the old woman chain smoking Lucky Strikes, guzzling watered down whiskey sours and tugging on the bandit’s one arm knows the odds favor the house. That’s how they make money. They literally cannot lose, given enough time. The only reason then to gamble there is if you believe somehow you can beat the odds. Which is as superstitious a belief as knocking on wood. Just a lot more expensive.
Partly to blame, I suspect, is evolution. It too is wildly superstitious lunacy that is catechized into the nation’s children at state schools. It not only says that it’s possible to beat the odds given enough time but that it’s impossible not to beat the odds, given enough time. It affirms, in turn, this fundamental, philosophical impossibility that likewise ties to gambling, that there is such a thing as a free lunch, that you can not only get more from less but can get everything from nothing. We live in a universe, according to naturalist scientists sitting in endowed chairs at highbrow institutions of learning, where not just wealth pops out of nowhere but universes do. If the nothing can spit out a universe with a big bang, why shouldn’t the slot machine spit out a truckload of quarters with a resounding cacophony of shrill bells and whistles?
He was a wise man who first said that there is nothing new under the sun. Our propensity to laugh at our ancestors for their lack of self-awareness is peak lack of self-awareness. We are just like them. Just as our children will be just like us. Change never comes from the inside because it always is what it is. Change comes when He invades what has always been His. Maranatha Lord Jesus.
He was at least an insightful man, if not a wise man, who first said, “I care not who writes a nation’s laws, as long as I write the nation’s songs.” He understood that what shapes our lives is rather more potent than that which merely hedges our lives. We are at least obtuse men, if not foolish men, when we labor so hard to seize the engines of political power for the sake of the kingdom. It is a good thing that we aspire to see every knee bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. His reign indeed covers all things political. But it is a bad thing that we would rather see His lordship confessed in a courtroom than in a song.
While we rightly affirm that man is soul and body (not as we too often think, souls in bodies), we would be wrong to pass over the remaining distinction between mind and heart. We are two things, the material and the immaterial, and that which is immaterial is at least two things, what we think, and what we feel. A man of integrity has mind and heart in harmony. Few of us are there, however. Excitement, more often than not, is a function of the heart more than the mind. As we consider law, usually our minds are more engaged than our hearts. It is a rare bird whose nerves begin to twitter when they hear, “In re: Carleton versus the state of Nevada…” or “Whereas the charter of the town of Spencerville gives license to all who live therein to….” Music, on the other hand, has charms.
Music has the unique ability to bring together heart and mind, to both teach and inspire at the same time. Music, more than abstract arguments, more than abstract law, shapes souls. We are what we sing. Which is why He who is wisdom wisely gave us songs.
One of the weaknesses of the loss of psalm singing in the church is that we have lost sight of the power of psalms as song. We know that the book of Psalms is God’s Word. We know that the Psalms contain wisdom. We may even read and study them in an attempt to internalize the wisdom they contain. They become fodder for sermons, proof texts for sundry theological positions. But that’s not the way God intended us to be shaped by the Psalms. He wrote them so that we would sing them. (This doesn’t mean, of course, that this is all we might sing. Sadly, however, too many of us who conclude we may sing songs that are not Psalms don’t take the trouble to sing the Psalms. We seem to think our only choices are Psalms only, or no Psalms at all.) Singing the Psalms moves their wisdom from our brains into our hearts. And our hearts are the font of our actions, our lives.
It seems even the world is beginning to figure this out. A recent study (apparently sponsored by the Institute for the Incredibly Obvious) demonstrated that the more teenagers are exposed to sexually explicit media, whether it be television, video games, movies, or music, the more likely they were to engage in sexual behavior at an earlier age. The world has not yet passed laws requiring teenagers to be sexually active. While we’re busy creating political action committees to keep condoms out of “our” schools, while we push for “abstinence training” in “our” schools, “our” playlists are telling us (and forgive the anachronism) that we feel like making love, that what we need is sexual healing. The playlists win every time.
If we who serve Christ sing His songs, the songs of wisdom, and the world outside the church sings songs of folly, what we would expect is different worlds. We should expect our lives to be marked by wisdom, by fidelity, by godliness. What we find, again according to sundry studies, is that evangelicals, both unmarried young people and married adults, are roughly as likely to be fornicators or adulterers as their unbelieving counterparts. The reason is likely this, we don’t listen to the music of wisdom, but instead listen to the music of the world. Our ears are as plugged into folly as the ears of our neighbors.
James Adams, in his fine book War Psalms of the Prince of Peace, affirms that the Psalms, however a rich source they might be on the life of David, exist first to tell us the story of Jesus. The Psalms cover the gamut of human experience. You will find there triumph and defeat, confidence and uncertainty, joy and despair. It is because these songs tell us the story of Jesus, however, that they are songs of wisdom. As these songs indwell us, as they shape not just our thinking but our feeling, we will become more like Jesus, who is the very personification of wisdom. As these songs proceed from our lips, we not only speak wisdom, but speak Jesus, showing forth His glory. We ought to be distinct from the world around us. We are called to be a set-apart people. Perhaps by His grace we might become distinct, if we would sing an old song to the Lord, if we would sing the Lord’s songs to the Lord. If we would sing wisdom, perhaps Wisdom might bless us.
It is one of my great passions, the desire to see me, and the evangelical church take the evil of abortion more seriously, to have our hearts more deeply broken, and our actions more faithful. We have all, I fear, come to accept the status quo. We are content to vote for Republicans hoping they will give us justices that will slow down the horror. (Which may be, fifty years down the line, be bearing some fruit.) What we are generally unwilling to do is go through any kind of hardship to stop abortion. When I am asked about this, should we stop paying taxes, I am at least heartened to know that there are some willing to pay dearly to win this battle. Not paying taxes rarely ends up comfortably for those who won’t pay.
That said I can say with confidence that Christians should in fact pay whatever taxes they owe even when that money ends up financing abortions. The Christian who pays such taxes has no need to feel guilty, while the Christian that refuses to pay, however well intentioned, ought to feel guilty.
Theologians have long understood the principle that must be applied here- we are responsible for our own actions, not the actions of others. In this instance, the Bible is quite clear about our obligation to pay our taxes (Mark 12:17). It is also clear that the proper function of the state is not to finance evil, but to punish it (Romans 13). Their failure to do what God calls them to do, however, does not mean I am free to not do what I am commanded to do. That they have so horribly misused the taxes that I have paid doesn’t mean I am guilty of what they have done. I have been taxed, and when those taxes are paid, they are no longer mine. What the state does with them may be something I should speak against. It may be something I should condemn. But I am not guilty for paying them.
Remember that the same Caesar to whom Jesus commanded taxes be paid used those taxes for what may be the only thing worse than abortion. Those tax moneys financed the judgment of Pilate. They paid the salaries of the Roman soldiers. They purchased the nails that held our Lord on the cross. Those taxes crucified the Lord of Glory.
More close to home, suppose the more a husband loves his wife the less she respects him, or the more the wife respects her husband the less he loves her. In either instance we are not to try to guess the result of our behavior. We are supposed to do what God commands. We are not responsible for the results of what we do. We are responsible to obey whatsoever God commands. We are called not to success, but to obedience.
The state should repent for all misuses of taxes paid. Christians should prophesy against the state when they do evil, including financing evil. We should all be on our knees imploring God to stop the horror. But we should pay our taxes. March on Washington. Preach outside your local mill. Write your congressman. Support your local crisis pregnancy center. And, as painful as it may be, trusting in His providence, render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars, our taxes, and unto God the things that are God’s- obedience.
It is likely the most overlooked, underappreciated, unknown attribute of the living God. Of course we are in grave danger indeed if we seek to pit against one another or to rank in relative importance the attributes of God. The doctrine of His simplicity reminds us that God is one, that He is not composed of parts. The attributes of God are not like that old spiritual, Dry Bones, wherein we affirm that the wrath bone’s connected to the justice bone, the justice bone’s connected to the omniscience bone. Neither does God find balance between competing qualities, as if His wrath were muted by His grace, or His love tempered by His holiness. These are all one, the same thing. In the end all of what He is He is because He is God.
Which, in the end, is why His immutability is so vitally important. This attribute is that which enables us to depend on God to be God. It is why we can be certain that every excellency, every perfection, indeed every promise of God is utterly inviolable. He shall not be moved. Jonathan Edwards wisely pointed out that this is one of the reasons the heathen hate him so much. They have other potent enemies. But those enemies can grow weak. They have other angry enemies, but they can be calmed. They have other knowing enemies, but they can be fooled. The God of heaven and earth, on the other hand, will never cease to be all-powerful. His wrath will never turn from sin. And His eyes will never grow dim.
This same attribute, however, redounds to the good of those who love Him. Every night Lisa and I gather our boys, Reilly and Donovan, before bed. We gather in a holy huddle, prayers are said over them, hugs and kisses are given and everyone is assured of the love of everyone else. It is a precious time for all four of us, and they go to bed at peace.
It’s all true. But sometimes I lose my temper. Sometimes I speak to these precious boys in anger. Sometimes I am merely distracted. The certainty we want to give them is radically muted by my own unpredictability. Not so with our heavenly Father. His immutability isn’t a mere battlefield wherein we tussle with process theology. It isn’t a mere bulwark against the folly of open theism. It isn’t even a mere facet of His character to be put under a microscope to be examined and expounded upon. It is instead a promise, a covenant promise.
It is my certainty when I lie down to sleep that He will love me in the morning even as He loves me through the night. It is how I know that nothing can take me from His hand. It is the very reason we not only believe His promises, but believe He is the promise. The grass withers. The flower fades. But the Word of our God endures forever.
The text says, “Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits.
For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.”
I confess that I get the question. As a committed believer in the doctrines of grace, I often say that there are no Arminian prooftexts. Yet, if there were one, this would likely be it. At first glance it looks like a denial of perseverance or preservation of the saints, the idea that a true believer can never lose his or her salvation. A second glance can either be a polite way to describe hermenutical gymnastics, or a prudent interpretive practice. I’m saying it’s the latter.
The first thing to notice in this second glance is that this long list of blessings the hypothetical person has received, while impressive, and while listing good things genuine believers receive, is well short of the blessings that only genuine believers receive. Each of them, in fact, are blessings that are given to the visible church as a whole. One can be enlightened, taste the heavenly gift, a partaker of the Holy Spirit and taste the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and not be elect, regenerated, repentant, given the gift of faith, have one’s sins atoned for, be vindicated in the resurrection, indwelt by the Spirit, gifted by the Spirit, and adopted into the family of God.
The visible church consists of those that we believe have received both sets of experiences. When one falls away, however, we learn that such a person hasn’t received that second set of blessings. It strikes me that the author of Hebrews, as broad as his description of the gifts is, studiously avoids listing anything that only genuine believers receive. A person who is unregenerate and in the church has been enlightened in that that they have been taught the gospel. They have tasted the heavenly gift in that they eat the bread of life at the Lord’s Supper. They, by virtue of being a part of the church which is the dwelling place of the Spirit, have been partakers of that Spirit. They, by sitting under the preaching of God’s Word have tasted its power, and again, by being within the church have been witnesses of the powers of the age to come.
I could add two more. What if someone had received all the above, plus had performed miracles in the name of Jesus, and even had Jesus Himself wash his feet? That adds up to Judas. I’m afraid we have too low a view of the work of God in the visible church, and, if we doubt that the One who suffered for us will never lose us, too low a view of the fullness of His salvation.
