The devil, if we are paying attention, presents us with something of a paradox. On the one hand, when he is introduced to us we are told, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made” (Gen. 3:1). On the other hand, he is likewise the biggest fool to ever walk the planet. If insanity is rightly defined as the propensity to try the same thing over and over again, all the while expecting different results, then our nemesis is certifiable. He has been on a losing streak since day one, and it will go on forever. That he fights is foolish. How he fights is crafty.
Satan, despite the interesting parallels in how we spell their names, is not some sort of bad Santa, carrying around a sack full of illicit goodies by which he seeks to tempt us away from our calling. It is decidedly less than crafty, then, to take such a straightforward approach. We would, of course, be on our guard were he so crass. Instead, the devil delights to work in the background, and to work on the background. That is, he likes to lay low while laying the foundations for our thinking.
Consider for a moment (but only for a moment, for I know how busy you must be) the biblical virtue of patience, that fruit of the Holy Spirit that seems always to be just outside our reach. What would you do if you, like the devil, wanted to squash this fruit of the Spirit, to turn it into a bruised mess fit only for the dumpster? Surely you would see that it would do you precious little good to try to create a crusade in favor of impatience. You would have to look long and hard to find a political action committee or a secular advocacy group that seeks to promote the virtue of impatience. You’d be more likely to find a brigade of zealots in favor of tooth decay. The devil is smarter than that. He does not preach the virtues of impatience. He just puts us in a world where it doesn’t make sense.
Sociologists often speak of what they like to call “plausibility structures.” These are not particular ideas that are self-consciously being promoted by advocates. Instead they are systems, so to speak, that encourage a particular way of looking at the world. The pro-abortion lobby has glommed onto this idea in how it sells its morbid view of the world. We are pro-life, but they do not present themselves as pro-death. Rather, they describe themselves as “pro-choice.” During the first decade of the pro-life movement we spent our time trying to make the case that unborn children were just that, unborn children. Surely once they see what they are doing, this would all stop. Except we won that debate, and blood still runs in our streets. It does so because “choice” resonates with Americans. And it resonates with Americans not because of careful, thoughtful reasoning among Americans, but because of toothpaste. “Choice” makes sense to us because we live in a world of choice, where we choose not only among forty different brands of toothpaste, but among ten different sizes and five different flavors. This creates a “plausibility” structure, a world in which choice just makes sense to us.
What has this to do with patience? Be patient — we’re getting there. “Choice” is not the only unspoken assumption that so often directs our conclusions. We live in a world not only where you can choose among so many toothpastes, but a world in which you can get that toothpaste whenever you want. You can get instant cash, and use it to buy instant coffee, all within the confines of your car. And lest that car should trouble you, you can get your oil changed, and be on your way in ten minutes or less. If that doesn’t help, you can get instant approval on a loan for a new car.
Instant service in many ways is a great blessing. But it can encourage us to be impatient, even about the good things. If I can be an instant winner with the lottery, why can’t I be an instant winner in my race toward sanctification? Why is God taking so long in teaching me patience? Perhaps because He delights to do so. Perhaps because you not only can’t hurry love, but you can’t hurry joy, peace, and patience, or any of the fruits of the Spirit. Virtues are things we are called to cultivate, not order online. They don’t come with the option of overnight shipping for a mere twenty dollars more.
If we would cultivate these virtues, however, we must eradicate the weeds that choke it out. It isn’t enough to try to bootstrap our way to more patience. We have to dig deep into these plausibility structures, and see where they are leading us. In short, we need to live in light of the culture to which we have been called, not in the dark of the one from which we have come. We must not have our minds conformed to this world. Instead, they must be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
Such wisdom doesn’t come from an instant cash machine. You won’t heat it up in a microwave. There is but one source, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him” (James 1:5). If we ask Him for wisdom, He will give it to us. If we receive wisdom, He will give us patience. But it may take a while. Such is the wisdom of God, and such is His patience with us.
Dunamis Fellowship and Sovereign Grace Fellowship continue tonight our weekly Bible study at 7 eastern. Tonight is part three of our look at the Lord’s Prayer, Lord, Teach Us to Pray. 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 the Lord’s Prayer.
No, of course not. Does Jesus reign over all things? Is He king of kings? Are all things being brought under His subjection? Does He command us to disciple the nations? Indeed, yes, absolutely and yup. I find it hard to believe that this is even a question.
A hundred years ago the Protestant church found itself split in two. On one side were those who believed the Bible and wanted to see people brought into the kingdom. On the other side were those who were embarrassed by the Bible but wanted to use it to bolster their social agenda. This, the fundamentalist-modernist controversy shows that black hats are deeply dark and white hats are badly stained. That is, both sides, one much more than the other, had their problems. The problem with the modernists was rank unbelief. The problem with the fundamentalists was unbelief with respect to Christ’s reign in the here and now. The modernists were all in on already, the fundamentalists all in on not yet.
This is the root of the divide in our own day. Now the modernists call their social agenda “putting feet to the gospel” and call the fundamentalists’ social agenda Christian nationalism, Trumpism, racism. The fundamentalists have gotten better insofar as they are in fact more engaged. The trouble is, sometimes the loudest in our camp have confused the Republican party with all that is pure and noble. We’ve been taken for a ride for almost fifty years on Roe, redefining “pro-life” as “slightly less bloodthirsty than the Democrat.”
I’ll grant, nodding in the direction of my two-kingdom friends that Christians should not act as though every policy decision is a matter of eternal life and death. We should not excommunicate our brothers and sisters in Christ simply because they think a capital gains tax rate of 30% is better than 25%. Jesus did not say, “Disciple the nations, and when the price of gas gets above $3.50 a gallon scream until Washington releases some of its strategic reserves.” I’ll grant as well that we ought not to be shrill, unkind or partisan to party. Poking those inside or outside the camp in the eye with political snark probably does no one any good. I know, physician heal thyself. Amen.
That said, just as the gospel does not leave us orphans, so the law does not leave us in our blindness when it comes to the issues of morality attached to the government’s use of force. The truth is, the Bible does speak to how we treat those who are different from us. It most certainly speaks to the protection of the unborn. It speaks to the rapacious spending habits of politicians, and the bloodlust that leads to war. And where the Bible speaks, we are responsible to speak.
Let the world, and the modernists rail all they like. Let them accuse us of stepping outside our boundaries. Then remind them they have stepped into our territory in telling us to be quiet. Remind them that Peter once stood before the governing authorities and told them when they insisted he be silent, “Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll obey God rather than you, since you insist on contradicting Him.” Do not confuse America, in our early history, much less today, with the City of God. Do, however, let us work together to see that justice rolls down like thunder.
It is a necessary corollary, moving from the greater to the lesser, that if propositions have no meaning, the central proposition of post-modern epistemology, then the words that make up the proposition also have no meaning. Deconstructionism destructs meaning, leaving us looking at each other with confused faces like the doomed Babel Local Construction Workers Union. Professional educators are insisting that boys can be girls, 2+2 can equal 5 and that logic is white. Is it any wonder that professional politicians would in turn insist that husbands can have husbands and wives wives, that the unvaccinated are a danger to the vaccinated, that multi-trillion dollar budgets cost $0.00?
Which brings us to the President’s 24 hour, all-you-can-eat word salad bar. Some of us are young enough to know this is not normal, but old enough to know it’s not new. Vice-President and Senator Biden was well known for his longstanding intimate relationship with a certain Mrs. Malaprop. That is, he’s been blundering for decades, hopping about the District of Columbia on one foot as he tried to dislodge the other from his gob. He has, however, since running for and winning the office of the presidency taken it to a whole new level. Just about the clearest sentences to come out of his mouth are those where he goes off script, confessing that he’s afraid to offend his handlers by going off script.
I don’t pretend to know the reason behind all this. I’m not arguing that sinister forces chose him in order to enjoy not a Weekend at Bernie’s but 4 Four Years at the White House. I’m not even arguing that he is seriously cognitively challenged. What I am arguing is that his senseless talk makes perfect sense in a world without sense. To put it another way, he’s actually speaking our language. It is those who insist on explaining with words that words have no meaning that are incoherent. It is those who insist that words have no meaning, and who want to legislate against them, or bar them from social media that are confused, blithering fools.
From the creation to Babel, from Babel to the birth of the Word, from the birth of the Word to Pentecost, from Pentecost to today, language is so much more than a mere tool of communication. It is power and glory. It is death and life. It unites and divides. Assaulting language isn’t just bad philosophy but bad theology, because it is an attack on the Word Himself. The President of these United States, much like those who have gone before him, has embraced and championed not just lies but the wicked lie that there is no truth. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords, as He has done before, just may be letting the President become like the idols he worships. Our King speaks, and reality happens. The leader of the city of men, on the other hand, denies reality and can no longer speak.
There is a reason that mountaintop experiences are called mountaintop experiences- because it is the very glory of them that makes them so rare. The top of a mountain is sublime, exhilarating, moving. But you can’t live there. All of us on our journey to the Celestial City have moments of joy and comfort, and all of us pass through dark nights of the soul. If the authors of the Psalms, each of which experienced something I’ll never experience- the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit from which comes the very voice of God- can go through these moments when God feels distant, surely we shouldn’t expect anything different for ourselves. When those times come, what do we do?
First, we respond neither with panic nor complacency. That God feels distant is not proof that He is distant. He is both ever and always on His throne, and at our side. Our experience doesn’t determine what’s true. Rather we are called to labor to have our experience submit to what’s true. That these moments happen, that they are normal, doesn’t mean they are good, or that we should be content to remain in the valley. We are called to draw near. And we should delight to draw near.
Second, we avail ourselves of the means of grace, even when we don’t feel like it. The Word preached comes with power, even when we don’t think we want that power, or fear it won’t come. The sacraments are food indeed. For me, coming to the Lord’s Table, because it not only reminds me of my sin, but of His grace, because I know I come as a child welcomed to the family table of my heavenly Father is always a refreshing rain in the desert. I not only come to the table, but remember that I, by His grace, belong there. My Father wants me there. Which in turn feeds my prayers. Take your dryness to the waters of life. I want every struggle to be a struggle I bring to my heavenly Father. In the midst of the means, however, I’m not looking for a miracle. That is, we don’t deposit our entering into the means of grace and then download immediate healing for our dryness. We instead go back to point one, neither panicking nor being complacent.
Third, I put before my eyes and ears those things that remind me of His grace. For my eyes, that means my wife. As I spend time with her I remember that I am His child, that my love for her is but a pale reflection of His perfect love for me. For my ears, I tune into those two musicians who have over the years consistently fed my soul, Nathan Clark George and Andrew Peterson. Each of them have a peculiar ability not just to sing happy songs about happy times, nor angsty songs about angsty times, but write honest accounts of both sin and redemption. They each take the gospel promises and break them open that we can see the richness of all we have in Christ. They feed my soul, and draw me closer to the One who loves my soul.
In short, we work, not out of fear, but in confidence. We receive, remembering we always and only stand because He was hung. Third, we rejoice in song. When He seems far it is never because He has moved, but because we have. And like the prodigal Father, He always welcomes us into His arms.
