It’s not been an easy few years. No mask can hide it, no needle inoculate us from it. In addition to health woes we’ve had years of political upheaval and rancor, riots in our streets. Inflation is informing us that rumors of its death were greatly exaggerated. We are frazzled and exhausted, and headed right into a season of celebration. How do we sing songs of the Lord when we are in Babylon? Have we not hung our harps on the willows? How do we feast when the locusts destroy our fields?
We believers walk by faith. We are a people who have been redeemed, adopted. We are joint heirs with Christ. We have a great deal to celebrate. His disciples, you remember, unlike John’s disciples, came eating and drinking. Jesus explained that we’re supposed to feast when the bridegroom is with us. He later also told us, “Lo I am with you always.” We have been given life, and life abundant.
That said, we are likewise told in the Bible, wisdom straight from Solomon, that there is a time for everything, and for everything a season. There is a time for fasting, as well as for feasting, a time for dancing and a time for mourning. So how do we know which time is which? We look to those whom we love, those with whom we are united. We are to rejoice with those who rejoice, and to mourn with those who mourn. For the past few days, even as we set the stage for celebrating His incarnation I have been enduring a mild fast of sleeping. I wake up early, and I wake up often. The reason is simple enough. People I love dearly are suffering. People I love are likewise losing sleep, walking through the valley of the shadow of death. I wake, and I pray. I stay awake, and I pray. I wake up again, and I pray. I cry out to the Lord for my loved ones, beseeching the throne of heaven to give them comfort, strength, stamina, and sleep.
We mourn however, not as the worldly who have no hope. Our hope, that which sets apart our mourning from the mourning of others, is grounded in the same reason why we feast. That is, our hope is found precisely in the promise that He is with us. We mourn with hope because He walks with us in the valley of the shadow of death. He is with us. He walks with us in empathy, having taken the form of man, being a man acquainted with sorrow. And He is with us in power. Which is why, in the end, we even feast in our fasting, why we dance in our mourning. Whether we mourn or dance, fast or feast, even when we do both, whatever time it is, it is always the day of our Lord, the day that the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
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.
Yes there are. I know this because I am one. You, I pray, are one as well. Because there are only two kinds of genuine Christians, carnal ones and dead ones. It is important, as always, that we define our terms. When I affirm the existence of carnal Christians I’m affirming the truth that all living Christians are engaged in a constant battle between their own flesh and the Spirit, between the old man and new. Paul admonishes the ones he calls brothers, to whom he says God has given grace, who are the very children of God, that they are carnal (I Cor. 3:3). If the believers in Corinth are described by the Holy Spirit as carnal, well then, believers at the very least can be carnal.
Why then ask the question? Because there is no such thing as a “Carnal Christian” ™. Here we are not talking about believers who continue to battle against sin, but unbelievers who don’t battle against sin, while claiming to be believers. There was a time when well-respected evangelical scholars advocated for the notion that one could embrace Christ as one’s Redeemer while denying Him Lordship over one’s life. There was a time when the world’s largest para-church organization taught this noxious notion. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that were a person to cry out for God’s mercy in Christ, later repudiate that profession, embrace atheism or satanism, and live a life that makes Liberace, Hugh Hefner and Jeffrey Dahmer look like a Girl Scout troop, that said person would after his death be with Jesus forever.
Such a lifestyle, however, is not what keeps anyone out of heaven. Embracing atheism or Satanism will not keep anyone out of heaven. The only thing that keeps anyone out of heaven is any sin uncovered by the blood of Christ. And all who have so been covered, while they may battle this besetting sin or walk into some other moral failure, continue to battle, and by His grace and power walk out of their moral failure. The denial of the faith, whether in word or deed, is the evidence the faith was never there, not that the sins were too great for grace.
The only thing “Carnal Christianity” ™ is good for is to open wider the gate to the wide road to hell. It is the devil’s own patented false assurance machine. Getting jabbed with it will not keep you out of hell. It’ll just delude you into thinking you’ll never end up there, until you die and join the millions of other jabbed goats in eternal torment.
The grace of God is the balm of Gilead, the comfort to those beaten down by their sins. It is not an invitation to surrender to our sins. May God give us carnal Christians grace to fight the good fight and may “Carnal Christianity” ™ return to the pit from which it came, never to return.
Lisa joins me as we talk about God’s faithfulness and grace and what we’ve been through the past few months. We talk as well about God’s ongoing kindness to us through His people, through gofundme, which you can visit and share here.
Today’s Jesus Changes Everything Podcast
A man nursed his field, just as his father had
Along came an evil man, wicked, King Ahab.
A family name plowed under, and blood now stains the ground
You can still hear Naboth crying in that whistle’s sound.
Ahab’s horse keeps running, grinding men within its gears
It came to town and tore it down, driving here away from here.
They dangled foreign dainties, fruits found in fields afar
Made us free our jubilee, made continental scar.
They promised power paradise was just around the bend
And just around and just around and just around again.
Ahab’s horse keeps running, grinding men within its gears
It came to town and tore it down, driving here away from here.
They next strung up their wires to bring us distant cares
By dash and dot our focus caught on vanities’ affairs
A man knows not his neighbor when he studies teletype
The fruit of human kindness trodden under, over-ripe.
Ahab’s horse keeps running, grinding men within its gears
It came to town and tore it down, driving here away from here.
A man, a land, a plan that never the twain be torn
A horseman cometh one day, e’en this evil He has born
His wrath so great, unquenching burns
And Ahab to his bile returns.
Ahab’s horse will be paddocked, led captive away
Here is here when He is near; we’ll drink new wine that day.
Friends,
I wrote this some time ago, and tinkered with it over the years. Not sure whether it is better as a poem or a song. What do you think? I do know I know nothing about writing music. Anyone want to give writing music for this a try? Hope you enjoyed,
The devil is not content to encourage us to fall off one side of the horse. He takes great pleasure in seeing us fall off both sides. We live, for instance, in what is a most permissive culture. This is true of both the world and the church. All things, we seem to believe, are permissible. Law is something old fashioned and forgotten.
It is for this reason that I define legalism three different ways. The first, and most deadly is when we see our obedience to God as a means to the end of our justification. This was the Galatian error, and it is perhaps most commonly reprised in our own day among the Campbellites who teach that we have peace with God through the work of Christ and our baptism. The second error, which is far more benign, is when we simply add to God’s law. The Pharisees were experts at this, as are fundamentalists in our own day. No dancing, no cards is no God-given law. The most common usage for this word, however, is this- it is a word we use to accuse others who call us to obey the law of God. That is, in terms of raw usage, legalism means teaching others to obey whatsoever Christ has commanded.
While we live in light of this third definition, the question is grounded in the second definition. That is, while we have no scruples about disobeying God’s law, we often also have scruples about that which there is no law. We do this often in failing to understand spheres of authority and responsibility. To put it more bluntly, we end up with misplaced scruples when we think ourselves master of all that we survey.
Consider for a moment the Roman soldiers that were baptized by John the Baptist. Prior to their conversions they had served as henchmen for the most rapacious, aggressive and vile state the world had as yet known. The Roman empire put the whole world under its boot. It kept its citizens happy with the bloody gladiatorial games. And John tells them, “Keep serving, and serve honorably.” He does not hold them responsible for the actions of their superiors. He only holds them accountable for themselves.
Now suppose I am employed by Widgets Are Us. My job is to write ad copy for these widgets. My calling is to write honestly and fairly. My calling is to give an honest day’s work for an honest wage. My calling is to submit to those who are in authority over me. My calling is not to make sure that the powers that be at Widgets Are Us don’t use their profits to buy crack cocaine, support wicked political candidates or write checks to Planned Parenthood. I have traded my labor for my wages. I have not been assimilated by the Widgets Are Us Borg wherein we are all one being and I am responsible for what happens with the profits.
Remember this. The single biggest contributor to Planned Parenthood is the United States federal government, this after several years of Republican majorities in the Senate and House, a Republican president and a majority of Republican appointed justices. Even under President Trump federal outlays to Planned Parenthood increased. But the ethical principle is this. Neither you, nor your taxes support Planned Parenthood. Your taxes are paid to the federal government, and your responsibility before God is to pay them. The government’s obligation is to spend those tax moneys on legitimate government callings, the protection of life and property against aggressors foreign and domestic, or in Biblical language, the use of the sword. Their failure to obey is their fault, not yours.
Please note that Planned Parenthood is almost certainly the most wicked organization in the country. The point isn’t, “It’s okay because they are okay.” They are most assuredly not okay, and should be the object of our frequent and heartfelt imprecatory prayers. But your work does not support them; your bosses do.
