Blood-bought: Today I was able to be amidst some blood-bought people, crimson-clad saints. We looked into Asaph’s heart in Psalm 73 and confronted why believers can and should endure hardships, setbacks, and suffering. Because in the end, the Judge of all the earth does what is right. He always does what is right. No one receives injustice. Some receive grace; others receive justice. But no one receives injustice. There is a reckoning for us all. Either we are in Christ or we remain under judgment. But no one escapes ultimately. Either we are new creations in Christ or we remain servants of Satan (2 Corinthians 5:17). No middle ground. Neutrality is a myth. We either believe YHWH or the serpent. Truth or the lie. Again, neutrality is a myth. As Dylan quipped, “It may be the devil, or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” We’re all slaves theologically; it’s only a matter of who the master is–whether He’s the light of the world or the prince of darkness.

Next week, Lord willing, we will look into Psalm 14. Again, the spiritual warfare is writ large. It’s right there in black letters on white paper, revealed for all who will attend to the cosmic war raging in the souls of all of us.

Two types: The fool vs. the wise.

The fool is characterized by his suppression of the truth. It’s a moral combat that is taking place in the soul of the one who denies God and His moral law. God tells us up front that such a person is a fool. It’s Romans 1 in the Old Testament. When Paul writes in Romans 1:18 that sinners “suppress the truth,” this is what he is talking about.

We know the truth; we just don’t like it because we are confronted with our sin, folly, and God’s holiness. This is why we flee. We seek to don fig leaves. We seek to flee the presence of the holy. This is why it’s easier to make excuses for not attending the teaching of shepherds who tell the truth. It’s much easier to either not attend at all or to go somewhere where we’ll not be confronted over our sin and God’s holiness. As one of my mentors has said, “Soft preaching makes hard people. And hard preaching makes soft people.” The fool suppresses the truth; the wise attends to it and becomes still wiser.

Looking ahead: Another one of my mentors wrote, “The Old Testament is the New Testament revealed and the New Testament is in the Old concealed.” What Augustine understood is that Christ is the crimson thread woven throughout the Scriptures. As the Puritan Thomas Manton wrote, “Christ is the living Bible.” This reading of the Scriptures Christologically is why we will look at Psalm 14 next Lord’s Day. Christ is the answer to man’s need of redemption. Not secularism. Not paganism. Not materialism. Not consumerism. Not transgenderism. Not globalism. But Christ.

We will see there why June is now the enforced month of mandatory pagan worship. We’ll see folly on display. We’ll see how the enemy of men’s souls has taken the rainbow of God’s blessing to not destroy the earth by water and twisted it into reprobation, genital mutilation, and attempted erasures of the image of God. We will see, in short, how God told us up front (Romans 1, 3; Psalm 14, etc.) and how His Scriptures prove exactly what is unfolding in clown world. We will see what folly looks like. We will see what it looks like when the salt and light are vanquished or at least retreating.

The offer of redemption: But the good news remains for all who will attend. For those who come, God says that He “would feed you with the finest of wheat, and with honey from the rock I [God] would satisfy you” (Psalm 81:16, ESV).

That’s nothing short of poetic agrarian language from the worship leader Asaph in the 900s B.C. with a simple message: Forsake folly. Come to the truth. And be reconciled.