As the book of Joshua ends things are looking up. God has delivered the enemies of Israel into their hand. The war for the land is over in principle. All that is left is a little mopping up. The Canaanite power had been broken. As the book of Judges begins the children of Israel look out over the Promised Land as lords of all they survey. And what they see is a land teeming with now docile, defeated, and frightened enemies. Those enemies had cried out for mercy, and Israel showed them mercy, in defiance of the very God of mercy who had brought the victory.
That generation that followed Joshua failed to follow his faith. Joshua believed God, even when God told him that a little marching and a little shouting would bring down the wall of Jericho. Joshua had believed God when He removed the stain of Achan from the camp. Joshua believed God when God told him, “See, I have delivered the land into your hand.” The next generation did not believe God when He told them to drive their enemies fully from the land. They were wiser than He. Why, wouldn’t it be better, now that they had the upper hand, to seek to influence the heathens? Wouldn’t it be more prudent to use their labor for building the kingdom? Why bother risking the blood of their compatriots when the land was already theirs in principle? Surely God could see the wisdom in making peace when Israel held all the cards.
Judges is a curious book, a seemingly endless cycle of disobedience-oppression-repentance-deliverance-disobedience. The cycle rolls, however, because of the path laid out here in the opening verses of the book. The disobedience began with the failure to drive out the Canaanites. And every oppression that the children of Israel experienced was at the hands of the very people they failed to drive out. God will not be mocked, nor will His wisdom be shown to be foolish.
This cycle does not end with the book of Judges. It continues through the history of Israel, and through the history of the church. And we keep committing the very same sin; we fail to believe God. We are too easily satisfied. God delivers us, and we grow content and at ease. We let our guard down, thinking ourselves unassailable, until we are over-run by assailants. We reach positions of power, and cut deals with those over whom we rule, only to discover that too soon our positions have switched. We keep our enemies around to tote our water, and soon we find ourselves with that burden.
When the evangelical church fought the good fight for the inerrancy of Scripture, it did well. They drove out those who would deny that God had spoken. Outside the mainline churches one would be hard pressed to find any pastor who would deny the inerrancy of the Word. But the battle is far from over; there are still those who would say that the Bible is without error, and that it teaches that God does not know the future. There are those who can speak of the inerrancy of Scripture on the one hand, and yet write off huge portions of it as being culturally bound. There are those who claim to believe the Bible is the Word of God, and that the Bible teaches we need only name it and claim it to get what we wish for. There are those who insist that the Bible is without error, and that their corporate understanding of it is likewise without error. There are those who affirm that the Bible is God breathed, and who deny that God breathed the breath of life into Adam on the sixth day.
Our calling is not only to believe the Bible is the Word of God, but to believe the Bible. We ought not to be satisfied with our own spiritual growth because we think the new man has the upper hand. We cannot conclude that since we have reached an understanding of the Reformed faith that we have arrived, that the battle for our own sanctification has come to an end. We need to drive out every wrong conviction, every wicked habit, every wayward affection. We need to stop being so easily satisfied, else we will soon find ourselves on the wrong end of the power struggle.
Such is a call to battle, a call to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. It does matter what we believe about how God controls the future, what His law yet requires of us, how He is to be worshipped, how sufficient His Word is, how He uses His church, and how He made His world. Every error in our thinking and in our doing is a potential oppressor that needs to be expelled from our lives.
But all along the way, throughout the battle, we must likewise believe this- that the battle belongs to the Lord. He will deliver us from our own evil, just as surely as He has delivered us from His avenging wrath. We must rest in His wisdom, in His power. Our great judge is not a Nazerite, but a Nazerene. Our great judge did not drink with his hand at Mount Gilead, but drank the bitterest cup at Golgotha. Our great judge has redeemed us not for a time, until we grow at ease in Babylon, but forever, until we rest eternally in the New Jerusalem.
You have heard it said, and rightly so, that it’s rather important to define our terms. Here is a case in point. There are at least three ways we use the phrase “celebrate Christmas.” The first is as the celebration Mass of the birth of Christ, that is, as Rome has celebrated it for centuries. Our fathers objected to this, and rightly so. If by celebrating Christmas we mean attending Roman Catholic mass, most assuredly we should not.
A second definition would be more broadly cultural. Here what we mean by celebrating Christmas is decorations, Santa, the Grinch, eggnog, Rudolph, chestnuts roasting on open fires, Frosty, bells on bob tails, Charlie Brown, Texas death matches over the last Tickle-Me-Elmo, second mortgages for the latest game consol, Die Hard and everything Americans equate with the holiday. This may not be such a good idea either. I’m not saying all or even any of these things are sinful, but they can become a distraction from where our hearts ought to be.
What though, if we mean something else by “celebrating Christmas?” What if we ask the question this way- is it wrong to remember the incarnation? Is it a sin to devote some time to rejoicing over the coming of the Messiah? Can we in our celebration feast with our loved ones, even giving them gifts? Can we sing of that little town of Bethlehem? Can we preach on the glorious gospel truth that God took on flesh and dwelt among us?
Some would argue that doing this third thing wraps us up in doing the first or the second. Some suggest that God has already given us one glorious holiday, that comes not once a year, but fifty-two times a year. Some believe that we are not only entering into the sin of our modern culture, and entering into Romish heresy, but that we are entering into the pagan holy day of Saturnalia. I’m sympathetic to these concerns. But I answer them this way- We do not re-crucify Christ at Christmas, nor do we re-advent Him. But we do remember our fathers’ longing, and we do long for His return. We do not have to buy ourselves into debt, or tell stories to our children about a jolly old elf. But we do feast, and bless our children because we are His blessed children.
That He has given us 52 holidays a year does not mean that we cannot rejoice over His grace on Monday, and Tuesday, or any day- even December 25. That others before us celebrated the same day as us, for wicked reasons cannot mean that we cannot do what we will do in eternity for godly reasons- rejoice over the coming of the Messiah. That others tell their children stories about Santa is no reason for us to not tell true stories to our children about Jesus, and to laugh with joy as we do so. May Christians celebrate Christmas? “One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks. For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s” ).
By the time you are reading this the news cycle will have moved on. Indeed it already has. Yesterday, as I type, gunmen opened fire at a cemetery and kosher grocery store in Jersey City, New Jersey. The gunmen are dead as are a policeman and three civilians. Typically this horror would have brought out the usual suspects stumping for more gun control. This time we had to move along quickly to allow our attention to be drawn to another ring in our three-wing circus, the canonization of Saint Greta of the Carbon Footprint by Time magazine. Global warming trumps Trump. We don’t have news anymore, just variants of wag the dog.
Meanwhile, across the nation yesterday and today there is a news story no one is reporting on. Nearly 3000 babies were deliberately put to death by mothers and fathers and their hired assassins, all with the full protection of the federal government of these United States. The same will happen tomorrow and the day after that. It’s been happening daily for more than 45 years.
Mass killings have lost their capacity to shock us. We should not, however, be shocked at that. Why would we be shocked by killers taking down three civilians when we are not shocked by “doctors” taking down three thousand babies? I’m afraid we tend to judge the heinousness of a given crime not by how evil it is but by how unusual. Once the heinous is common it can no longer rise to the level of evil. It’s just boring. We are indifferent to abortion not because it is done behind closed doors, not because it is performed with surgical precision, in sterile rooms. We are indifferent because it is common.
This is one reason why I am an ardent advocate of true images of abortions. It is disturbing, as it should be. It is disgusting, as it should be. It is disheartening, as it should be. These pictures are not emotionally manipulative. They are emotionally awakening, reminding us of the diabolical, deranged, demented destruction inherent in the murder of an unborn child.
When we allow the mainstream media to determine our direction, to curate our concerns, to produce our perceptions we show ourselves not only to be lovers of the world, but its slaves. What is twitter trending today will likely be wrapping fish tomorrow. What is off our radar but on the mind of Christ, that is what will survive the cleansing fire at history’s end. When we seek to be men of the moment we find ourselves becoming merely momentary men.
Real horror is all around us. Perhaps the greatest horror, however, is inside us, for we have lost our capacity to be horrified. We are numb. While these babies are being burned alive, or torn limb from limb. Let the truth be known, and let our sin be exposed. There is nothing more gruesome than our own seared consciences.
Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” Luke 18: 9-14).
It is an unfair, gross distortion to hold that Rome teaches justification by works, while we Protestants teach justification by faith. The more accurate distinction recognizes on both sides the necessity of the work of Christ. Rome affirms that His righteousness is necessary for our salvation, that without it we are without hope. That righteousness, however, becomes ours through infusion. Protestants affirm also that His righteousness is necessary for salvation, that we have no hope without it. It, however, becomes ours through imputation.
Some here are quick to affirm that our differences now amount to nothing more than a tempest in a teapot. We are arguing over two, thick, theological terms that are not a part of our ordinary language. Surely such a nuance must be insignificant. But it’s not, as Jesus’ parable illustrates. Let’s look at these two men, what they have in common and what separates them.
First, it is an unfair, gross distortion to hold that the Pharisee believes he justifies himself, all alone. How quickly we pass over the one good part of his pray, “Lord, I thank you…” The Pharisee knows from whence came the power to make him righteous. He knows that he needed the grace of God, that God had to work in him, that God is due all the glory for his obedience. The publican likewise looks to God and His grace as His only hope. He knows where to turn, even as the Pharisee knows whom to thank.
The difference, however, is here. The Pharisee believes that God’s grace has made him whole, that he is now, albeit by the grace of God, just in himself. God helped him out. God stood him up. But now he is standing on his own two feet. He gives thanks to God that he is better than other men, that he doesn’t commit this sin and that, that he performs this duty and that. God has poured righteousness into him, and there he stands.
The publican, on the other hand, knows what he still is, a sinner. The mercy he cries out for isn’t that he would be made a saint, but that he would be a forgiven sinner. He cannot cooperate. He cannot stand. He can only, and even this is the grace of God, cry out for the mercy of God, which is found in Christ alone.
The bigger difference than the differing approaches of these two men, however, is what it meant for their eternities. Only one of these two men went home justified. Only one of these men was an adopted son of the living God. Only one of these two men will spend eternity walking with God in paradise. The other will spend eternity weeping and gnashing teeth. Teapot tempests have no such eternal consequences.
In our feel-good, dumbed-down, ecumenical age we find distinctions distasteful. In the faithful preaching of our Lord He demonstrates the difference they make. That said, may we Reformed protest against our own propensity to cry out, “I thank you Lord that I am not like other men, Arminians, semi-Pelagians, or even this fundamentalist. I score high on all theology exams and have a library that is the envy of my friends.” Instead let us, consistent with our theology, beat our breasts and cry out, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
We must believe that the love of the world is hatred of God.
Whatever happened to worldliness? Time was when worldliness was a front and center concern to most Christians. Eventually it became the exclusive domain of fundamentalists. Now, only cranks are worried about worldliness. Cranks, and the apostle John. John tells us, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (I John 2:15).
There’s a scary thought. John isn’t merely telling us that it’s a bad thing to love the world. He isn’t merely calling us to stop loving the world. He is reaching a conclusion about the state of our souls, if we love the world. Loving the world means we are outside the faith. How do we escape?
We think we escape by defining down what worldliness actually is. When it was only the fundamentalists who had this worry, worldliness meant smoking and playing cards. Now, if we think about it at all, we think it must mean committing adultery or embezzlement. As long as we avoid the really bad sins, we seem to reason, we have evaded the charge of worldliness. We may not be sleeping with someone but we have taken the world as our lover. We may not be funneling funds into an offshore account, but we are still serving mammon.
The devil is an anti-Christ. He is not only against Christ, but presents himself as an alternate Christ. He takes all that is wrong and false, and seeks to disguise it as good and godly. How strange then that the evangelical church has taken as its approach to the world the strategy that seeks to copy the world as much as is possible. We think that the more like them we can be, the more of them will become us. To put it another way, to borrow from that demon Screwtape, via C.S. Lewis, we are thinking we are making our way in the world, when all the while the world is making its way into us.
One of two words translated as “church” in our Bibles, ekklesia, means when translated literally, “the called out ones.” We are called out of the world, called to be a distinct people, a peculiar people. We are called to be a city on a hill. Our Master has told us that we are not better than our Master. He was hated by the world, and if we are His, we too will be hated.
When we hate the world enough to be set apart, ironically, we demonstrate sufficient love for our enemies to call them to come out from among them, to enter into the kingdom of God. When we love the world such that we are just like them, we hate them enough to leave them in the darkness. When He is our delight, when it is His blessing that we seek, when we have given up everything that He would be our own, to have the Pearl of Great Price, then we can be of good cheer. For then we, in Him, have already overcome the world.
