It has long been my habit whenever I speak somewhere, to remind those to whom I am speaking of our historical context. Context is everything. My goal isn’t to place us in the declining years of the west — though that is where we are. Nor is it important to me to note that we have entered the third millennium. Rather, I want people to understand that the context of our lives is the same as the context for everyone’s life, from the first advent of the first Adam to the second advent of the second Adam. All of our lives take place in the context of the battle between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. God declares in Genesis 3:15: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between her seed and your seed. You will bruise His heel, and He will crush your head.” The God who creates the world in Genesis 1 and 2, who divided day and night, sky, land and sea, in turn divides the world in Genesis 3. There is no neutral ground. History, not church history, but history, is the story of the work of Christ in crushing the serpent, and bringing all His enemies into subjection.
This one war that is the context of our lives, isn’t, however, the only war in our lives. We fight a lifelong battle as Christians, the battle against our old nature, that dead, old man that just keeps fighting to the death. Sanctification is the process by which we, by and through the power and grace of God, win that battle. Over time, as we grow in grace, our fallen nature begins to fall away, and we become more and more what we were in the garden. As we grow in grace, we better and better reflect the image of our Savior, who is the express image of the Father.
But there is a third war as well, besides the war between us and them, and the war between us and us. It is the war between them and them. That is, just as our old and new natures vie for survival in us, so too in those outside the kingdom there is a battle between the image of God and their fallen nature. But history is moving as inexorably here as it is in our own lives. Just as we become more and more what we were created to be, so those outside the redeeming grace of God become less and less what they were created to be. To put it another way, there are not only three wars going on, but three great siftings. First, the sheep and goats are separated. Second, that which is goat-like is separated from the sheep. And third, that which is sheep-like is separated from the goats. In eternity that which is white will be all white, that which is black will be all black. Grey will simply fade away.
The culture wars are fought in this context. As the culture seeks to live in greater and greater rebellion, we who are citizens of heaven grow more slowly. And as we become salt and light, they, servants of the serpent, decay more slowly. All sinners, those inside and outside the kingdom, want convenience. But all sinners in turn tend to love their own children, a reflection of the One whose image we all bear. A culture is in decline, however, when the love of convenience trumps the love of children, as it has in these United States now for more nearly 50 years. Sixty million image bearers never became warriors in the great battle precisely because the image of God is eclipsed, not principally in how we see them, but in what we are in ourselves. That is, it is the destruction of the image of God in mothers that has led to the denial of the image of God in babies, and through that brought their wanton destruction.
That the evangelical church has barely uttered the least objection is condemning proof that we are not only not fighting well the culture war, but are not fighting well the war within ourselves. Our indifference is a shameful portent of the remaining power of sin in our lives.
It is because our enemies in this great battle yet bear the image of our God that we can and must love them. We love them, however, not by laying down our arms, but by taking them up. We love them not by trying to become like them, but by being the ekklesia, the called-out ones, set apart, separate, holy. We love them by being salt and light. When we seek to protect the unborn because they bear God’s image, we are in turn seeking to protect the already born, because they bear His image.
Though the war is all too real, the weapons with which we fight are not carnal. No gunship will vanquish the serpent. No smart bomb will annihilate the old nature within us. No howitzer will strengthen the image of God in the lost. Rather, the battle cry, indeed the great weapon in all three battles is one, this confession — Jesus Christ is Lord. The more we believe it, the more we will be Him. The more we will be Him, the more they will see Him. And the more they see Him, the more the world will change.
It’s not peculiarly new, this objection to the Christian faith. People have used it for some time when confronted with the plain teaching of the Bible. Those outside the church seek to wiggle out from under the commands of God by, oddly, pointing to the commands of God. When we say “The Bible forbids x” they don’t reply, “It does not.” Instead they reply, “The Bible also says you can’t wear a shirt with both cotton and wool. The Bible also says you can sell your daughter. The Bible also says you can stone your son if he gets out of line.” And too many Christians slink away.
The argument assumes the existence of a universal moral law that all humans recognize, but then suggests that the Bible itself not only falls short of that moral law but clearly and immediately opposes that universal moral law. The argument suggests, “Given that the Bible’s sense of morality says this, why should we listen to what it has to say about that?”
What though, ought we to do with laws that challenge our sensibilities? The first thing we need to do is to understand the nature, meaning and scope of the laws. Consider, for instance, God’s command to Old Testament Israel that they not wear clothing of mixed materials. This law falls under what we call the ceremonial laws. These laws were not given because eternal moral standards require them. They were given instead for a more narrow, specific purpose- to set Israel apart from her neighbors. The same would apply to prohibitions against eating pork or shellfish. These laws were given for a people, for a time. They were not evil laws then, but they are not binding laws now. Jesus fulfilled the ceremonial law, which means we now can eat a BLT, and better still, don’t have to be circumcised.
Some of the “offending” laws, however, were not ceremonial as such, but were civil. The Old Testament civil law, for instance, allowed for recalcitrant, disobedient children to be stoned to death. This did not mean, of course, that failure to pick up one’s toys was a capital offense. The law instead dealt with older, teenaged children who defied, who dishonored, who maligned their parents continually. Still find it offensive?
Then you need to repent. The God of heaven and earth determined that the nation of Israel, that He formed, that He governed, should have such a law. No doubt recalcitrant children didn’t like it. No doubt their heathen neighbors didn’t like it. But we who are supposed to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit are commanded to disciple the nations, commanding them to obey all that Jesus commanded. And Jesus, remember, came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.
The heathen find this retort effective not because God’s law is shameful, but because we are shamefully ashamed of it. We are already compromised, having our sense of justice informed by the world, rather than the Word. Our calling is not to squirm, not to apologize, not to try to cover for God. No, our calling is to stand on His Word, to have our consciences held captive to it, to adjust our moral sensibilities so they match God’s, rather than the world’s. Our calling is to be ashamed of ourselves, rather than the One who rescued us from our sins.
Cheaters gonna cheat. It’s what we do. Over the past few years gambling has grown to be virtually synonymous with the game. The Oakland Raiders now call Las Vegas home. The NFL has its own official gambling app. Time was that any connection to gambling was strictly forbidden in professional sports. The great Willie Mays, years after he retired, found himself in hot water with Major League Baseball when he took a job as a greeter at a casino. He’d done nothing wrong. It just “looked bad” in those more innocent times. The Houston Astros took the joy of winning the World Series and dropped it in the trash. Not long ago the NBA had to come clean and admit that one of its officials was manipulating games for gamblers. Fake vaccine cards, performance enhancing drugs, deflated footballs and stolen signals. It’s everywhere.
The problem here isn’t, in the end, gambling. The problem isn’t that sports have somehow become entirely too competitive. The problem isn’t endemic only to professional sports. Once more, instead, we find professional sports to be a microcosm of the broader world. It was philosophers, not football players, who first suggested that right and wrong are culturally conditioned. It was artists, not football players, who first “challenged our paradigms” by mocking honor. It was professors, not football players, who first taught us that all texts are shrouded power grabs, and so have no power to compel.
We have created a culture where we cannot be condemned for our sexual shenanigans, and then are shocked that we are surrounded by competitive shenanigans. As my friend and for Major League baseball player Mark Dewey once wrote in Every Thought Captive, we know that Lance Armstrong and Barry Bonds were unfaithful to their marital vows. Why should we expect them to be faithful to their competitive vows? Which, in the end, is the more sacred vow?
Relativism in the end isn’t merely stupid. It isn’t merely permissive. It is instead the death of everything good, true and beautiful. Because we are sinners we construct a world where sin is not possible. Because we are human, we hate the world we have created. Or, to quote a most quotable man, “And all the time—such is the tragic-comedy of our situation—we continue to clamor for those very qualities we are rendering impossible…In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings to be fruitful” (The Abolition of Man, by C.S. Lewis.)
They will scream at us that we are narrow, bigoted, and judgmental. And all the while they will long, as long as we are not like them, for the goodness, truth and beauty that inhabits the walls of the city of God. They will praise our works before God.
Dunamis Fellowship and Sovereign Grace Fellowship continue tonight our weekly Bible study at 7 eastern. Tonight we begin, Meeting Jesus. All are welcome to attend at our home. You can even come early (6:15) and we’ll feed you a meal. You can also watch on Facebook Live, RC-Lisa Sproul. We hope you join us as we consider together who Jesus is.
Far more fragile than the human immune system is the human liberty system. That is, of all the frightening things that have come our way through the pandemic years, none frightens me more than to witness great swaths not just of the government but of the citizenry embracing the idea that the government ought to be free to tell us all what to do. The first day I ever heard of COVID I was stunned to hear the President announce on national television that he would forbid travel to and from certain countries. More recently I’ve heard a different President go on national television to a. announce which employees of which sized companies must receive an experimental injection and b. that he was losing his patience with trying to persuade people to get the jab and was looking into more persuasive means. I’ve seen the idea floated as serious public policy proposals that the unvaccinated at best be treated by army field hospitals, at worst that they be not treated at all. One need not buy into any conspiracy theory at all to recognize that we’re not in the land of the free anymore.
It was Ben Franklin who quipped, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” We’re prone to think that our ideological commitments are safe when confronted with mild dangers, endangered when faced with extreme challenges. I suspect the opposite is the case. Were the Chinese communists to invade this land I have little doubt that we’d find a nation of heroes here. When a virus invades, on the other hand, we sell out at the first opportunity.
The same is true with respect to our faith. Part of the craftiness of the devil is his astonishing capacity to make us miss what is at stake. Put a gun to the average evangelical’s head and offer this choice, “Renounce Christ or die” and I suspect the vast majority would die. If, on the other hand, we are given this choice, “Embrace the spirit of the age or be embarrassed in front of your neighbors” we more often than not choose poorly.
Our calling is to strengthen the things that remain. We need to cultivate an immunity to social embarrassment. We need to move into the home of the brave if we wish to live in the land of the free. We don’t sell our liberty for security for two reasons. First because liberty is far too precious to be bought with the copper coins and dross of security. Second because those selling security are always out of stock.
I’m once again not taking a stand on vaccines, masks or social distancing. Everyone is free, so far, to do as they wish on those matters. The cultural push, and the cultural putsch that drives it, however, is toward tyranny. Trust not in princes. Find peace in the reign of the Prince of Peace.
