No one should be surprised, though of course it makes no sense, when unbelievers complain about God’s judgment. Romans 1 tells us that they know God is, they know He is almighty, and they know they are in for it. It’s the last two that grates at them. If He’s so powerful, and He is, then why does He still find fault? And He does. Paul’s non-answer in Romans 9 is familiar to us, “Shall the clay say to the Potter, why have You made me thus?” God is God, and we are not.
The surprise comes when I find that I, a believer, complain about God’s pottering of me. Unlike the unbeliever, by His grace He is making me a vessel for mercy. That, most assuredly is not where my complaints lie. To get at my beef we need to perform a smidge of grammar. I promise this won’t hurt.
“Made this way” has two distinct, albeit related meanings. So far we have considered one of those meanings. We are asking why we are being made into the things we are being made into. When the unbeliever asks, “Why have You made me thus?” he is asking God why the unbeliever is being formed into a vessel fit for destruction. When the believer is not complaining, we are thanking God that His end design for us is to be vessels of mercy. “Made this way,” however, can also refer not just to the end, but to the means. I’m delighted God is making me a vessel for mercy. What I hate is the way He is doing it.
God’s way in shaping me is to squeeze me with His powerful hands. His way is to spin me dizzy on His wheel. His way is to soften me by burying me in water, and to harden me by baking me in the raging fire of the kiln. I want the mercy. I want to be made into a work of art, something beautiful and honorable. What I don’t want, what I don’t trust, is how He is getting me there. Every time I grumble against the Lord, in times of hardship I am joining the chorus of unbelievers in asking, “Why are You making me thus?” I’m accusing Him of being sloppy in His work, of not knowing the best path to get me where I am going.
This thing made should never say to the One who makes me, “Why?” My calling and duty is to trust, to rest, to believe that He is both, in the midst of all my hardships, making manifest His glory, and bringing to pass my good. His hand, no matter how heavy, is always a good hand. His fire, no matter how painful, is always a good fire. The Good Shepherd is the Good Potter. May He teach me to trust Him as I trust Him to teach me.
Christians debate the morality of our voting at least every two years. Is voting for the lesser evil voting for evil? Should Christians seek politicians who will care for the poor with tax dollars? Isn’t abortion just a done deal that Republicans keep alive to keep Christians in the fold? These are legitimate questions that frankly have legitimate answers. More often than not, however, the questions are used for little more than rationalizing the decisions we already made before asking them. Add into the mix the strange story of a brash, crude, politically incorrect previous president who gave us justices that overturned Roe v. Wade and who may have sought to overturn the last election.
Without providing answers to the above questions I want to lay down a few simple suggestions to plug into your calculations. First, character always matters. Always. That doesn’t mean, of course, that we’re electing a pastor. It doesn’t mean any skeleton, no matter how old, should be fair game. It does mean that a man who lies about his marriage vows will certainly lie about his campaign promises. A man who cheats on his wife will cheat on his constituents.
Second, a sound worldview always matters. I’m willing to stipulate that President Carter was an honorable gentleman. He was, however, an honorable gentleman who was profoundly confused about the proper function and limits of the federal government. A man who comes on national TV in a sweater to tell us to keep our thermostats at 64 may be benevolent, but that doesn’t keep him from being a dictator. If Mr. Rogers thinks the neighborly thing to do is to rob Peter to pay Paul it will soon be a terrible day in the neighborhood. Don’t vote for a nice socialist.
Third, remembering no one is perfect, remember also that sometimes the best choice is “None of the above.” We ought to take our vote seriously enough to recognize that we can’t really pat ourselves on the back if our vote kept Stalin out of office by electing Hitler. If you find yourself in this position, however, let me suggest this- write to the slightly better guy’s party and let them know why you voted “no.”
Fourth, the legal murder of the unborn is no more an “issue” than the Nazi holocaust was an “issue.” It is the great evil of our age. Voting for any candidate who believes it is his duty to use his office to protect the murder of any unborn child is a vote for the devil himself. Don’t do it. Ever. For any reason. As with my earlier point, anyone who thinks it is a legitimate function of any government to protect the murder of the innocent has already demonstrated a clear lack of qualification for office. Voting for such a man demonstrates a clear lack of qualification to vote. To call this perspective partisanship is to side with Molech.
Finally, you should vote as a Christian, as one who knows that Jesus Christ reigns over all things. He has already decided who will win the election. Our job isn’t to change a fixed future. Our job is to be found faithful. When the votes are tallied and the challenges have been decided, you will have peace in your conscience, even if there is no peace in our time.
We who are Reformed spend a great deal of time and energy speaking about God’s sovereign power. God’s power is more than worthy of our attention and study. We ought to be bowled over, blown away by that power. It, like His law, is something we ought to meditate on. His power, however, is intimately connected to His kingship, His rule. God is not only sovereign in power, but is sovereign in authority. Consider how swiftly Paul moves between the two in Romans 9: “What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For He says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion’” (vv. 14–15). Here God affirms His sovereign authority. There is no law above Him to which He must submit, determining to whom He must show mercy. Next, however, we turn to His power. “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you and that My name might be proclaimed on all the earth.’ So then He has mercy on whomever He wills, and He hardens whomever He wills” (vv. 17–18).
Then Paul turns back to the question of authority: “You will say to me then, ‘Why does He still find fault? For who can resist His will?’ But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use?” (vv. 19–21). The two are inseparable. God has all power because He has all authority. He has all authority because He has all power. When we sin we foolishly fight against both.
Consider, for instance, the oxymoronic, and perhaps just plain moronic, notion of “making Jesus Lord of your life.” While it is right and proper that we ought to submit to the reign of Christ, He has been Lord of our lives, and even the lives of those outside the kingdom from the moment He ascended to His throne. We don’t make Him Lord, we recognize that He is Lord.
Or consider pragmatism. Here we determine that we will submit only to “that which works.” Our law is goal-oriented, rather than justice-oriented. This system has its own glaring problems. How, one has to ask, do we determine what we mean by “works?” That is, what is the goal? What are we aiming for? With no transcendent law, there is no transcendent end, and we are left still under the sun, chasing the wind. And we chase it still.
Even within the church we have embraced an understanding of ethics steeped in pragmatism. We are willing to submit to God, only insofar as we are able to understand His wisdom. Why, for instance, would God not want women to serve as elders and pastors if He has so gifted them? Why would God not want me to eat this fruit that is pleasing to the eyes and desirable to make one wise? God is our Father, and as such He is utterly free to declare, “Because I said so.” His law is grounded not in what it does for us, far less in what we understand that it does for us. His law is grounded in who He is.
Faith means believing God. When we believe Him, we submit to Him. His wisdom is not found in our own thoughts, our own strategies. His wisdom in found in His Word. Our calling then is simple enough — to fear Him and obey all that He commands. And because we fail at this calling, our calling is likewise that we would both repent and believe the Gospel. He has provided the way into His kingdom. He has given us our marching orders. Our Father has spoken. May He in turn bless us with ears to hear His Word, that we might walk in His way.
There are certain things you can always be sure of this time of year. You can count on pumpkin spice flavored pumpkin spice, the airing of It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, and Christians debating the legitimacy of “celebrating” Halloween. The debates are old, as are the caricatures we draw- the squishy, worldly evangelical that never met a worldly event they didn’t love on the one side and the prim and proper Ichabod Crane that is so anti-holiday he won’t celebrate Jesus’ birth on the other side. As is so often the case, most of us fall somewhere in the middle.
I’m not going to take a side on the Halloween debate. I am, however, going to offer up a caution that is appropriate this time of year. It should go without saying among Bible believers but here it is: demonic forces are real, present, active, destructive and dangerous. Are they empowered by jacko-lanterns? Probably not. Are they emboldened by our numbness to their present reality? Certainly so.
I have long argued that whatever arguments might be made for cessationism, the driving force is usually not biblical fidelity but modernism. Those believers who deny the present reality of what we call “sign gifts,” who suggest such faded away with the closing of the biblical canon, are likely more wigged out by the idea that the spiritual realm is real than speaking in tongues. We’ve bought into a mechanistic view of the created world. There’s hell, where the devil lives, earth where people live and heaven where Jesus lives. They only real “travel” between these realms, we seem to believe, happens when people die and go to their eternal end.
Jesus, however, reigns here. All authority in heaven, and on earth, has been given unto Him. That authority, likewise, is challenged here on earth, by demonic forces. I’m not arguing that Frank Peretti had it exactly right when he wrote of celestial sword battles swayed by the prayers of men. I am arguing that the Bible is, as it always is, right when it says we wrestle not with flesh and blood but with principalities and powers (Eph. 6:12). Paul not only reminds us that these powers are real, not only reminds us that they are at work behind the struggles that we have but that we wrestle against them. We are called to a battle with an invisible enemy.
The enemy’s work, however, is right before our eyes. Moms and dads murder their own children not because they haven’t been sufficiently educated, but because they embrace the spirit of Molech. Perverts dance salaciously before little children because they embrace the spirit of Dionysus. The demonic realm is not something to toy with.
As a young teenager I spent an evening with a friend and a Ouija board. The next day I informed my father of the fun time I had had. My father informed me that if we were living in God’s holy nation of Israel, according to His law, I would be put to death. God takes these matters seriously. We dishonor Him when we fail to do the same. The One in us is indeed greater than he who is in the world. That One, however, warns us not to forget the reality of the war. Make believe on Halloween? If you wish. But always believe we are at war.
Check out this week’s Bible study on our call to believe the promises of God.
It is not a difficult thing to discern the nature of someone else’s god. Some people carry their religion on their sleeve, advertising their spiritual commitments on bumper stickers or t-shirts. You can tell the Amish by their clothing, even as you can Hasidic Jews or even Hare Krishnas. When a man throws down a mat, faces Mecca and begins to pray, one need not guess to whom he is praying. On the other hand, the world is full of hypocrites. Self-reports about ones religious commitments may not be wholly accurate. Sometimes we fool ourselves, and sometimes we are fooled by others. A better test than what we wear, or even what we say may well be this- who is our law-giver? The “Christian” who argues that God wants him to be happy, and therefore sanctions his adultery may say he worships God. Instead he worships himself, for he is a law unto himself.
Of course in our day the most widely held and passionately affirmed creed is this- there is no true and false, no right and wrong. Everyone decides these things for themselves. And so one could argue, rightly so, that the god of this culture is this mythical creature I call “God-to-me.” Relativism means we can each define God for ourselves. We can make up our own religion because in the end we are our own god. As soon as we speak this strange god’s name, God-to-me, we are affirming not that we are God’s creatures, but god’s maker. It matters not what follows in our actual description. (Interesting to note, however, everyone’s personal god is rather similar to everyone else’s. The name usually is followed with these kinds of attributes- “God-to-me is gracious, kind, forgiving, wants us to be happy…” How come no one ever says, “God-to-me is a consuming fire, filled to the brim with His just wrath at every sin and sinner”?)
I’m afraid, however, that we are only beginning to scratch the surface of our culture’s sundry forms of idolatry. For when we begin to challenge the clear, obvious foolishness of relativism, especially as it applies to our theology, we find there is another god ready to step up in God-to-me’s defense. If we challenge this nonsense, “Well, God-to-me says your god is silly, foolish and false, and if you don’t bow down to him you will perish forever” what do we hear next? We are reminded at this point that we are in America, and in America we have freedom of religion. We have the first amendment. The truth is that here in America the first amendment trumps the first commandment.
The broader culture has come to understand the First Amendment to mean not that any and all religions are equally legal in this country but that all religions are equally valid in this country. And that is where our deeper idolatry is made known. We seem to think that the state can not only determine what is legal, but in making this determination, can determine what is right or wrong. Legality is morality. In the absence of any true transcendent source of law or revelation, we will usually find the state filling that vacuum. Because men disagree, man cannot determine right and wrong, true and false. Instead that is determined by the closest we can come to collective man- the state.
The first amendment, so understood then, creates here in America the same situation that ruled in Rome. The Roman empire, like the American empire, did not particularly care what religion those within its borders practiced. This is why they could get along with the Jewish authorities during the life of Jesus. You could worship Yahweh. You could worship Juno. You could worship your own dog for all Rome cared. They had only one ultimate requirement- that you swear absolute loyalty to Rome. You could indeed have other gods before, in the sense of being in its presence, the god of the Roman state. You just could not have any god before, in the sense of having a higher loyalty, the god of the Roman state. The Christians who went to their deaths under the Caesars went not because they didn’t have the right theology, but because they refused to confess the one great creed of that culture, Caesar is Lord.
The broader culture hates uncompromised Christians for this very reason. We are condemned as radicals, fundamentalists, extremists precisely because at the end of the day our loyalty is to the Lord of heaven and earth, because we will allow no gods before Him. We are a dangerous breed, not because we don’t share their convictions, but because we don’t share their loyalties. For us the First Commandment trumps the First Amendment. For them it is just the opposite. Two competing Gods are seeking our attention, our devotion, our worship. One is worthy, the other a pretender.
The people of the Middle Ages, to their great credit, understood that our lives are a battlefield, that spiritual warfare was an ever present reality. Wanting to do battle with the devil, and knowing that the core of his sin is grounded in pride, they determined a bit of a psy-op, some psychological warfare by presenting him neither as a great beauty nor as a dreadful specter but as a fool. This is the source of this now common image.
Now the serpent is more crafty than any of the beasts of the field. I have no idea if being mocked sent Old Scratch off to lick his wounds. I do know that he took this assault on his pride and used it to his advantage. He took that silly image designed to deny his beauty and his power and used it to deny his existence. Moderns, when they think of the devil, do not think of a great and malevolent force, but a silly cartoon. Who would be silly enough to believe in such a creature, much less be on guard against it? What’s he going to do, kick us with his hooves?
It was CS Lewis who argued, in the introduction to his masterful Screwtape Letters, that the devil vacillates between two strategies. In the one he presents himself as dreadful and omnipresent. In the other he hides himself completely. It may well be that he first shifted from the first strategy to the second just about the time we started painting him as a fool.
The devil is not a comic book character. Angels are not sweet and cuddly babies. Both, however, are real, powerful and active. Both are not to be trifled with. It is true that when we resist the devil he must flee, that He who is in us is greater than he who is against us. It is also true, however, that even the arch-angel Michael knew better than to treat the devil like a plaything (Jude 1:9). The key, it seems, is to neither walk in fear of the enemy of God whose head was crushed by the wounded heel of Jesus, nor to forget that he was the highest of all God’s creations. As long as the Father wills it to be so, Satan will be our enemy. As long as Jesus, Whose kingdom shall know no end, reigns, he will be an enemy on a leash.
C.S. Lewis, in his essay “On the Reading of Old Books,” which is found in the collection of essays, God in the Dock, argues that we are all by nature time bound. This frailty will, of necessity, give us a parochial view of the world. We tend to confuse our current circumstances with what is “normal,” that is, we think the experiences of our lives are perfectly capable judges of ultimate reality. We therefore come to reading new books with the same prejudices and unexamined presuppositions as the author, and so have difficulty stepping outside ourselves. When we read older books, on the other hand, we run into the prejudices and presuppositions of another age, revealing not only them, but our own as well. Stepping out of our time in our reading, he argues, helps us step out of our unspoken and likely unhealthy assumptions.
Our parochialism, however, is not merely along the axis of time. We have a narrow view of things geographically as well. We can, in a sense, travel to other times through reading old books. To get to other places, literal travel will often do the trick. Of course, even here we are still more comfortable the closer to home that we are. Reading a one hundred-year-old book will not challenge us the same way a one thousand-year-old book will. Taking a trip to England won’t upset our equilibrium as much as say, a trip to Burma.
Burma, now called Myanmar, is a third-world country in southeast Asia, nestled between India to its west and Thailand to its east. Eighty percent of the population is Buddhist, and the nation has been ruled by a military dictatorship for over thirty years. It is brutally poor. It is a long way from the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Yeara ago I travelled there, however, to meet with and teach a group of faithful, local Christian leaders. As we made our way from the airport to the rundown motel where we stayed, I couldn’t help but think of what a difference it would make were these good people to be given some liberty. If only, I wondered, God would bless these people the way He once blessed our country, who knows what wonders they might do?
As time went on and I got to know my hosts and witness their ministry at work in that tragic land, my perspective changed. While freedom is a good thing and a blessing, what they have is far more valuable. These are men and women who are content in God’s grace. These are men and women whom we would see as the man robbed and left for dead along the road, but who see themselves as the Samaritan. We pity them, but they serve those who are truly in need. These are men and women whose love for each other constructs an alternate nation, a holy nation. In the midst of their poverty, they are a royal priesthood. While we might be able to export Western style democracy, they are sitting on a surplus of biblical fidelity, mutual love, and true Christ-honoring freedom that we so desperately need on our shores. We don’t need to go over there and rescue them. We need them to come and rescue us.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are wonderful things, blessings from the hand of God Himself. That said, Jesus tells us that if we would gain our lives, we must first die. Jesus tells us that it is His truth, not this political party or that, not this tax burden or that, that would set us free. Jesus tells us that we ought not to be pursuing happiness, but that instead we should seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Jesus tells us what His priorities are, what His standards are. He tells us how we are to live as citizens of the kingdom we are pursuing. His economy, the way He has ordered the world, is right side up. Our way of looking at things is both upside down and backwards.
It is backward to believe that we must secure a social order wherein we enjoy the blessings of liberty so that we can then grow in grace. It is an evil wagging of the dog, on the other hand, to pursue Christ so that we might enjoy greater political liberty. Instead, we must pursue Jesus. If we would be free from intrusive government, we must first be set free from our appetites, our idolatries, our desires for the things the pagans chase after. But if we pursue Jesus and find Him, just as my friends have in Burma, then even the yoke of political oppression is easy, the burden of grinding poverty is light. If we have the pearl of great price, hidden where neither rust, nor moth, nor thieves, nor bureaucrats can get at it, then we will no longer pursue happiness. We will have found it.
Jesus did not demand His rights, but gave them up. He now rules over all men. And he calls us to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness.
