The thunderstorm spent itself in less than five minutes. Brigades of staggering humidity hung as invisible pressing armies. The sun descended beyond the river to the west. Beyond the oaks. All was heavy and silent. And gold fell from the firmament.
If you ask people what they think God is like, how do they generally respond? Is it that God is holy? Is it that God is just? Is it that God is transcendent? Is it that God is immutable? No, those are not generally the responses. Usually the responses are along the lines of, “Well, I feel like God is just … um … you know … like … um, loving.”
Many modern sensibilities demand that God love, condone, and celebrate whatever fallen sinners laud. But is it possible that God is altogether different from fallen sinners’ nature?
Spiritual Warfare: Here’s an example of the alphabet jihadists chanting, “We’re here; we’re queer; we’re coming for your children!”
Again, is it possible that God is altogether different from sinners’ nature?
Isaiah’s Warning: To use the prophet’s language, “All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit. Their witnesses neither see nor know, that they may be put to shame. Who fashions a god or casts an idol that is profitable for nothing? Behold, all his companions shall be put to shame, and the craftsmen are only human. Let them all assemble, let them stand forth. They shall be terrified; they shall be put to shame together” (Isaiah 44:9-12, ESV).
When I study the Scriptures, it’s shocking how many times God had to whet His sword in judgment over man’s sin. So often that sin involved perversions of sexuality.
There are reasons that the Lird forbids sleeping with animals. There are reasons God condemns pedophilia. There are reasons God condemns infanticide. It’s because fallen, sinful, twisted human beings engage in such things. Left to themselves, there is no bottom to man’s depravity.
There are reasons God honors and blesses the marriage bed and the raising up of godly children.
Because God is altogether holy. Holy, holy, holy, to use Isaiah’s language (cf. Isaiah 6).
David in Psalm 7:
I was reading in Psalm 7 recently. In verse 9 David writes, “Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, and may you establish the righteous–you who test the minds and hearts, O righteous God!”
It surely strikes the unbeliever as pure silliness to read such a thing, right? Here is a man crying out to God for wickedness to come to an end. He wants, to put it in simple terms, good to win. His heart’s cry is for justice–true Godly justice–and goodness, and beauty to be ushered in. A triumphal procession, in other words, is David’s longing, a triumphal procession of the holy and clean and good.
Why does David pray like that?
Because of what we see in verses 11-12:
11 God is a righteous judge,
and a God who feels indignation every day.
12 If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword;
he has bent and readied his bow
Connection to the Big Picture:
God did whet His sword, of course. Not just in His raising up nations to bring low other nations. Not just in allowing invading armies to conquer Israel. Not just in Babylonian exiles.
Not just in World Economic Forums. Not just in efforts to establish a pagan one-world governmental system by self-styled elitists and billionaires.
Not just in depopulating the world via nefarious injections. Not just in having the wicked or cowardly and gullible call good evil and evil good.
He did it by the cross of Christ for all who will repent and believe the gospel. But it’s death to man’s pride in that exchange.
It’s God’s righteousness imputed to the broken and humble sinner because of the person and work of Christ. It’s the individual sinner’s sin imputed to the sin-bearing substitutionary atonement of Christ.
It’s the whetting of God’s sword, don’t you see?
If we will not come to Christ, the sword will devour us, because that is what our sin merits. And yet, God sends forth His light and truth via the gospel offer. Why? To redeem sinners.
When the alphabet mobs chant, “We’re here; we’re queer; we’re coming for your children!” I don’t know how much more brazen the spiritual darkness may become.
I don’t know what it will take for the West to awake and get engaged against the enemy of their souls, and the enemy of all righteousness.
In the end, dear ones, it’s not the rainbow-clad mobs we should most fear, but the One who has whet His sword of judgment for those who reject the gospel.
Narrative Thoughts:
If I had another life to live and could pursue another career or passion, I would have loved to have been a wildlife conservationist or ranger of some sort, I think. Why? Because I could have studied zoology and learned how creatures are sustained and upheld by the creation upon which they are dependent, and perhaps played a role in wisely stewarding the earth, and perhaps encouraged others to do the same.
How one can study the intricacies and beauties and mysteries of nature and not be moved to contemplate who and what lay behind all of that beggars belief.
But I suppose that theology is the queen of the sciences for a reason. How so? Because the various ologies (biology, zoology, immunology, geology, archaeology, etc.) and schools of thought hinge upon the supreme artist and craftsman, the unmoved mover, the transcendent, God.
No intellectually honest person can study butterflies or hummingbirds and say to himself, “Yep, purely accidental. No rhyme or reason. Just matter in motion.”
The Word for the World:
Psalm 8 is among the most beautiful poems in the Bible:
1 O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
to still the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet,
7 all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
9 O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Some Questions:
Intro: I had no idea who Jason Aldean was and is. But that is over now. Why? Apparently, to write and/or sing about the obvious is hate speech in clown world, brought to you courtesy of all things progressive/Leftist/pagan/woke, etc.
But Jason’s probably laughing all the way to the bank. His type of pop country is not really to my taste, but I rejoice with him and the millions of others who resonate with the song’s message. Small town life is different from urban life, eh? Wow, who knew? Small town folks are generally kind, neighborly, and often culturally Christian, eh? Wow, who knew? Urbanites tend to be less kind, seldom say ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’, and are often secular, eh? Wow, who knew?
Earth-shattering insights. Completely groundbreaking in their originality.
Here’s Jason’s song. Better be prepared to be called a nazi, a racist, and all other manner of deplorable appellations:
Snippets of a Conversation: Today when I was on the treadmill in the gym, one of my friends and I were texting back and forth. He always encourages me with his ideas. He is about to launch a podcast and YouTube channel. I think he said the title is to be “Written on Their Hearts.” It’s to be biblical and aimed at engaging the culture. My buddy is well-read, biblical, articulate, and versed in the world’s way of thinking. That is, he knows the playbook of the secularists, the globalists, the pagans, the Hollyweirdos … but I repeat myself.
A Link: Larry Alex Taunton sat down with Chad Prather and laughed intelligently at all the madness we see continuing to unfold in clown world. It was a wonderful episode. I much prefer to read than to watch podcasts, but I concede the fact that most folks are not going to do the work of reading deeply. Since that is the case, enjoy Larry Alex Taunton and Chad Prather as they dialogue intelligently, laugh, lament, then laugh again at the moral melee brought to you courtesy of the wokesters, the alphabet jihad, the pagan, and the oh-so-tolerant progressives:
Encouragement: The enemy of men’s souls knows the truth-tellers are over the target. He knows the vast majority of folks know that Harry is not Sally, and Harry does not menstruate. Harry doesn’t even have babies. Again, what news, right? Truly amazing insights.
Laugh at the devil, Christians. Laugh at the insanity. Laugh at the clown world he is attempting to institute and with which he is indoctrinating the naive, gullible, ignorant, and morally weak.
But gird up your loins, too, Christians. Be of good courage. Be not afraid. Count the costs. Fight like men. Trust the Lord.
Don’t expect the world’s applause. The world system hates you. Always has. That is the nature of truth-telling. It’s not popular. But in the end, truth wins, even through all the lies of clown world. And judgment is real, too. Ultimate judgment.
So, be of good courage. Unite with the few brave biblical souls remaining, and be of good courage.
Be faithful to engage the enemies of the isms–atheism, paganism, secularism, scientism, naturalism, progressivism, etc.–in hopes that God may grant repentance and faith.
Why do you seem surprised when fiery trials come upon you? Have you not read the Book? “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you” (1 Peter 4:12, ESV).
My thanks to my friend again for pictures of the avian world.
When one ponders the male and female birds, their colors, their intricate designs, their camouflage, their displays, their being fed and provided for, their being sustained, their songs, their joy and their flight, it humbles the proud and exalts the name that is above every name.
But one has to be honest and humble and teachable to see and rejoice rightly. The fool is proud and will persist in his folly. But we continue to show and to share in hopes that mercy will triumph over judgment.
“Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas; they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and commercials.”
When I read this the first time, I was in my twenties. When I read it again, I was in my thirties. When I read it again, another decade had come and gone.
Now I am reading it again. Reading, yes. Reading.
Tolle Lege.
Some of the boys came out during the daytime recently.
They are still in velvet and ‘friends’ for the moment.
But autumn is coming, and changes in hormones, and girls. And, well, things will change.
How anyone can watch nature’s cycles and say, “Yep, just random. No order. Accidental unguided matter in motion” is both intellectually dishonest and blind to what is plain and incontrovertible.
I love watching these creatures. They, like the rest of creation, have an author.
And that author is anything but silent.
At a military observance today in honor of veterans of the Korean War.
It was 70 years ago that the Korean War Armistice was signed under Eisenhower, and the 38th parallel and the DMZ became (for those who pay attention to history) markers of yet another war.
While in NGA, I was also able to watch the turkeys strut their stuff for a bit, too, prior to the observance.
To the Marine who spoke at the observance, to the hosting organization, to the Patriot Guard Riders, and more, salute.
Question: Have you ever heard or uttered the phrase, “Stand in the gap”? Most of us have, I should think. The meaning is straightforward, but I looked at some defintions online, too, just to see. Here was the first one: “To assume a position of active, resolute defense (for or against something).” I appreciated that, especially the part about standing in the gap “for or against something.” In other words, there should be reasons–good solid defensible reasons–for standing in the gap.
As a soldier of more than two decades now, and of many many days spent in military settings across the globe, I have seen and been part of no small amount of standing in the gap for America. But my concern here is not about military operations, per se. My concern is for the Christian church that is so often anemic, vanilla, and irrelevant. Why? Because the unspoken assumption in so many professing Christian communities is, “Be nice. Don’t raise your voice. Don’t be political. Just love people. And above all, be nice.”
Of course there is no command in the Bible to be unnecessarily fractious. However, do you think Jesus was crucified for not being nice? Did the Bible record how the Pharisees opined, “You have declared yourself to be a meanie; therefore, let’s call the Romans and have you crucified on Friday.” Um, no.
Was Paul stoned, whipped, tortured, imprisoned, run out of town, and eventually martyred under Nero because he was not nice? Again, no. Read his letters for yourself.
Was Peter crucified for not being nice? How about Thomas? How about James? Again, no.
Connection: I am indebted to some new friends who have united with our Sunday school class. Recently they introduced me to Larry Alex Taunton. He is a Christian intellectual, writer, and thinker. And here (it is linked below for you) is what he does in this (and other) podcasts/videos he puts out: He calls on true Christians to actually connect what they say they believe to how they actually behave. What a concept, right? Who knew that orthodoxy is to shape orthopraxy? Belief shapes behavior. In other words, he reminds us to stand in the gap.
Takeaway: This Sunday as we gather, I am teacing on Psalm 22, one of the most quoted and crucial and Christocentric psalms in all of the Old Testament. But when David penned that, he penned it from a position of a man standing in the gap.
He was a real man, speaking to real people, in a real zip code, on a real day, about real suffering and combat and hope and redemption.
It wasn’t fortune cookie bromides. It wasn’t, “Just be nice.”
It was (and is) about standing in the gap, how he did it as a king in his day, and about the ultimate King, who endured the wrath for his people, so that they would not lose hope, so that they would stand in the gap in their day, too.
Stand in the gap, dear Christian. Don’t retreat into pietism and cowardice by telling yourself (or by believing others when they tell you) that Christianity is “Just be nice.” That’s sentimentalism and moralism and not the message of the prophesied, sent, crucified, risen Savior. If you are a believer, you are to stand in the gap and so be found faithful. Connect the gospel to your daily life. Live it out. Yes, this brings conflict. But that is inseparable from the Christian life. You were told that you would “meet trials of various kinds” (James 1:3, ESV).
And why must it be that way? Listen to Peter: “so that the tested genuineness of your faith–more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire–may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:7, ESV).
Stand in the gap, dear ones. Stand in the gap.
A Plea to Pastors: Connect the Word to the events of the world; show the people how the Word of God explains the world. That is the way to equip the saints. Stop prostrating yourself before the “Idol of Nice” and connect the true church to the true God through his true Word. That is equipping the saints for battle. If you don’t do that, you’re just nice and altogether irrelevant.
Introduction: If you know anything about me, you are likely to know that I cherish few things more than reading. I read primarily deeply, but try to also read widely.
That was not always the case. I used to focus nearly exclusively on theology, history, and literature–especially on accounts of Vietnam. I read Tim O’Brien, Caputo, and Del Vecchio, and more novels and accounts of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen than you are likely to imagine. I just could not get enough. So much shifted in the 1960s and 1970s. Assassinations, drugs, corruptions, politics, secularism, feminism, more corruption, scandals, Vietnam, hippies, rock-n-roll, LSD, cover-ups, more corruption, more reports and scenes of Hueys in SE Asia, of Walter Cronkite, of Mike Wallace, of Simon and Garfunkel, of burning draft cards, of race riots, of Selma, AL, and Atlanta, GA, and of Oxford, MS, etc.
Multiple worn, worn-out, marginalia-ridden novels and memoirs of tunnel rats in Cambodia, and reconnaissance troops in the Balkans, and nested scouts in NE Europe in the Great War, fill my shelves. More, probably, than is psychologically healthy.
And that’s what leads me, among other things, to some of this week’s reading:
A Book:
This is where the breadth part enters. Crowley is a businessman. I am not; I’m in Christian ministry. I am in the people business. Soul business. Eternity business.
I’ve never been wealthy and don’t aim to be. But I do labor hard and (I hope) wisely. I try to focus on nothing less than what endures. It may sound pompous but here it goes: I try to labor for eternity. For that which endures. What endures are people. People’s souls. Their lives. What made them who they were and are.
I was blessed in certain ways to be not unfamiliar with many of the comforts that lucre can bring. I had a blended upbringing where some of wealth’s comforts were sometimes clear.
I know what it’s like to have more forks at the table than are necessary to eat. I know what it’s like to be on sailboats. I know what it’s like to use a driver and watch men drink a Bloody Mary or Gin & Tonic, and tap their gold-bedecked smooth hands upon the oak table at the country club, while the Jaguars and BMWs are pulled to the front door, and the young man with white gloves dons a smile as perfect as Brad Pitt’s, and opens the door for you and extends his fingers for the understood transaction.
But is there more? Is it possible that one could be quite dissatisfied, even empty, with the aforementioned? For literary types, is it possible Jay Gatsby was quite the fool, along with Daisy Buchanan? Mark 8:36 is not just a nice story in the Bible but a warning to search our souls and be honest about who and what we really worship.
Jaguars and BMWs are absolutely gorgeous, but I’ve never owned them. I have had Jeeps and Chevrolets and Fords and Hondas and Subarus and Nissans, however. No one has ever accused me of being showy via vehicles.
I know, I know, the book …
So Crowley cites another author’s 6 questions about how and why so many folks are dissatisfied in their jobs. The bottom line is, the jobs don’t reach them, not at their core.
And here are the (6):
Six Questions:
An Unscientific Concluding Postscript:
Kierkegaard notwithstanding, one of the best bosses I ever had was the one who recognized what fed my soul, and he let me pursue it to the best of my ability, and it served the organization. He benefited, too. Often. From my efforts. But I did not mind. Why? Because I was allowed to do what I was gifted in.
Then I have had other bosses, and they trusted me to work hard and make them even more successful. I think I have done that. I am forever grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given and I have tried to work quite hard to demonstrate excellence and show what faithful ministry can do.
And I’ve had the micro-managers, too, who want to look over my shoulder, read my emails, and know what I’m doing at every second of every hour. I absolutlely shut down under those types. Zero. They sabotage all joy, all motivation, all love of the job.
My Takeaway? Know your people. Entrust them to do well. If they don’t, talk to them and find out why. And if necessary, let them go.
But if you listen, and care, and are not stuck on yourself, it is possible God has given you someone special, one who can make you and the organization better.
Encourage him/her. Trust him/her.
And watch.
And learn.
MIND & MATTERS 