DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed

They say you can't tell a book by its cover, but with this book you can. Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World By Being Different, besides having a catchy cover, is exactly what you think it is, a book about the Christian's call to be unlike the world in order to change the world.

Tullian Tchividjian is the grandson of Billy Graham, the founding pastor of New City Church outside Ft. Lauderdale, an author, a conference speaker, and as of a few weeks ago, the pastor at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church (which merged with New City so Tullian could pastor both congregations). In addition to these claims to fame, Tullian is a friend of mine.

Unfashionable is divided into four secions: The Call (be different), The Commission (be agents of renewal), The Community (different looks like this), and The Charge (go big or go home). My favorite section is the first. Tullian makes a compelling case for the attraction of transcendene, irrelevance, and truth. The story of how the Lord brought Tullian back to the fold is the perfect example of the book's main point. "I was a seeker being reached, not by a man-centered, trendy show, but by a God-centered, transcendent atmosphere. I was experiencing what Ed Clowney, the late president of Westminster Theological Seminary, used to call 'doxological evangelism.' It was, quite literally, out of this world. Here, finally, was the radical difference I'd been longing for." Elsewhere Tullian adds, "Younger generations don't want trendy engagement from the church; in fact, they're suspicious of it. Instead they want truthful engagement with historical and theological solidity that enables meaningful interaction with transcendent reality. They want desperately to invest their lives in something worth dying for, not some here-today-gone-tomorrow fad." Amen and Amen. This certainly rings true in my heart and in the hearts of the twenty- and thirtysomethings I run into.

Unfashionable is well organized, attractively laid out, and clearly written. Tullian sprinkles in a number of good quotations from other authors and livens the book with personal anecdotes. If there is anything I disagree with it's that I may have a little more "two kingdom theology" and a little less "Christ the transformer of culture theology" in me than Tullian. I completely agree with his main point that we should be engaged in culture and seeking to make a difference in the world, but transforming our communities for Christ seems to be more of an implied New Testament teaching than something that gets top billing. I don't think Tullian and I would disagree with much in practice, but we may want to put our emphasis on a different syllable.

Having said that, Tullian is very careful to strike the right balance, explaining that re-creation is individual and cosmic, that the kingdom has come and is coming, that we are rescued from a problem and for a purpose, that we change the world by persuasion not coercion, that we must have both purity and proximity when it comes to culture. All in all, I welcome Tullian's reminder to create what is Christ-honoring in the finance, academic, fashion, entertainment, and political centers of the world. I've known enough Christians who care little for the world's problems and attempt little to make the world more God glorifying, that I appreciate Tullian's challenge to get out there and just do something (to coin a phrase).

Unfashionable would be ideal for use in small groups. The study guide at the back is thorough and the book's subject matter lends itself well to group discussion.

The vision Tullian casts for us is biblical and bold. The church and the world will be better if we listen to his advice and start making a difference in the world by being different.

It's a little known fact that I have a second blog. Every couple of weeks I blog for the Church Herald, which is my denomination's independent magazine. There are a couple dozen bloggers over at the Herald site. The posts are sporadic, theologically all over the map, and usually concern Reformed Church in America matters. But I thought my latest post over there might be of interest over here. My post is an open letter to another pastor in our denomination who, in the latest issue of the Church Herald, argues that one size church vows don't fit all, and non-Christians should be able to join the church with a different set of vows.

*****

Dear Pastor Van Doren,

I read with great interest your article on church membership in the latest issue of the Church Herald (May 2009, 7-8). As a pastor, I know the tension between wanting people to join your church, but not wanting to sell-out to make everyone happy. I understand, as you mention, that small churches could really use the financial support that new members might bring. I can sense too that you are aware of the danger of secularization in the church. In other words, I feel the tug you feel.

But, brother, I urge you to scrap the plan for two sets of membership vows, one set for Christians who confess Christ and one set for unconverted non-Christians who don't believe the gospel but are still interested in the church. You state, “There’s no wrong reason to belong to a church.” But surely there are plenty of wrong reasons. Joining the church to be seen is wrong. Joining the church to make business connections is wrong. Joining the church to please your parents is wrong. Joining the church because you think Christianity is a plan for moral self-improvement is damnably wrong. You point out yourself that many people join the church because it is politically expedient, or they want good ethical instruction for their kids, or because they want to be a part of benevolent organization, but they do not believe in the in the uniqueness, Lordship, or divinity of Christ. There’s no nice way to put this: people who do not believe in the unique divinity of Christ and will not call him Lord are not Christians (1 John 5:10-13; John 8:24). To make such a judgment is not uncharitable, it’s simply Christianity. A Christian believes certain things and lives a certain way. Welcome non-Christians in the door, and invite them to stay, but we should not call them members of the church, for the simple reason that they are not members of the body of Christ.

You argue that we are “commanded by our Lord to treat saint and sinner alike, to banish all manners of exclusivity” but this is not the teaching of Scripture. Instead, the Bible commands us to judge those inside the church (1 Cor. 5:12). Contrary to popular opinion, God does not love everyone in the same way. If he did, what would be the point of the cross, justification, reconciliation, and adoption. We can be kind and generous to everyone, but in the end God only dwells with his people, while the rest will face the second death (Rev. 21:3-8). If Jesus told his would-be-followers to carry the cross, count the cost, and let dead bury their own dead, surely it is not too much that we expect church members to articulate the gospel and profess Jesus as Lord (and mean it).

Moreover, our confessional standards tell us that hypocrites and the unrepentant are not to come to the Lord’s table (H.C. Q/A 81) and that we are given the keys of the kingdom–gospel preaching and discipline–to “open the kingdom of heaven to believers and close it to unbelievers” (H.C. Q/A 83). The officers of the church, according to our doctrinal standards, ought to “exclude from the Christian fellowship” those who “profess unchristian teachings or live unchristian lives” (H.C. Q/A 85).

I admit that I don’t know the pressures you are facing or how dire things may look for the future of your church without some half-way covenant of church membership. But better to be on God’s side with a small church, than against him in a bigger one. You’re right that many people might “leave our churches if we required them to defend their faith publicly, through a written credo or in-depth interview before the board of elders” but let God deal with that. It’s not unheard of to have meaty membership classes, basic doctrinal requirements, and elder interviews. Many churches still do all three. Trust God to honor those who honor him. The Lord’s mercies are new every morning and he will reward you for doing the right thing. As you even note, “it is a statistical fact that the fastest growing churches make greater spiritual demands on their members, not relaxed ones.”

Most of all, as under-shepherds we need to think of our grave responsibility before God. “Obey your leaders and submit to them,” Hebrews 13:7 says, “for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account.” The church, like Old Testament Israel, is meant to reflect the character of God. That’s why the unclean in Israel had to be washed or put outside the camp. God is holy and we must be holy as he is holy. Which is why the members in our churches must be cleansed by the blood of Christ through faith and repentance or face expulsion outside the church.

Membership standards, like church discipline, are not puritanical inventions, but necessary guardrails motivated by a passion for the glory of God and love for our flock. When we purposefully allow unregenerate persons into the membership of the church we do three very bad things: we tarnish the holy character of Christ, we allow unchecked sin and unbelief to act like leaven in the congregation, and we deceive our people.

Please, brother Van Doren, rethink your acquiescence to the secularized spirit of the age. It’s not an exaggeration to say heaven and hell are at stake. We must not say “peace, peace” to our people where there is no peace (even if they do tithe). Obviously we can’t manipulate God’s ways, but my strong hunch is that if you required more of your members you would find in 2-3 years that you would have more of them and the ones you had would be more fruitful.

It takes love to welcome non-Christians in our midst. But I dare say that in our hyper-tolerant world, it takes even greater love to call them to faith and repentance and share with them the good news that through Jesus Christ, and him alone, can they be forgiven and live forever with God. Church membership is for those who get this. And if we get it, we’ll make sure they’ve gotten it before making them members of the church.

Another cracked clay pot,
Kevin

Going through the public school system in Illinois and Michigan I can't recall ever hearing a negative word about Abraham Lincoln. The closest anyone came to criticism was to suggest that Lincoln took too long to emancipate the slaves. I simply took it for granted that Lincoln was a great man and America's greatest president. As I learned more about the Civil War and read more on Lincoln, including Allen Guelzo's masterful book Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President, I came to see Lincoln in a more nuanced light, but my respect only deepened.

So I'm always taken aback when people dog our sixteenth president. I suppose I was just ignorant not to have heard the criticisms before: Lincoln the tyrant; Lincoln the duplicitous; Lincoln the father of big government. I'm neither a Lincoln scholar nor the son of a Lincoln scholar, so I can't pretend to have the final word on these debates. Obviously, some of us have too rosy a view of Honest Abe. But others, I think, have missed what used to be obvious: Lincoln is still our greatest president (I know non-Americans read this blog too, so forgive the "our").

Vindicating Lincoln: Defending the Politics of our Greatest President by Thomas L. Krannawitter of Hillsdale College is a robust attempt to one-by-one turn back the charges of the anti-Lincolnites (a curious mix of liberals, paleo-Confederates, and Libertarians). Thus, Krannawitter gives us chapters on "Was Lincoln a Racist?" "Do States Possess a Constitutional Right of Secession?" "Was Lincoln's Goal to Preserve the Union or End Slavery?" And "Was Lincoln the Father of Big Government?"

I admit that I haven't read every chapter yet. I also admit that for the most part I find Krannawitter's arguments persuasive--not always unassailable, but persuasive nonetheless.

Chapter 2, "Was the Kansas-Nebraska Act Pro-Choice or Pro-Slavery?" is particularly powerful. From 1820 to 1854, the tempest over slavery in the United States was mitigated by a piece of legislation called the Missouri Compromise. The Compromise allowed Missouri to enter the Union in 1820 as a slave state, but prohibited slavery in the rest of the land of the Louisiana Purchase that lay north of the latitude line that extended from Missouri's southern border. This compromise fell apart in 1854 with the passage of the Stephen Douglas-backed Kansas-Nebraska Act, which eliminated the restrictions of 1820 in favor of a "popular sovereignty" approach whereby every new state (regardless of its location) could decide for itself whether to allow slavery or not. What could be more reasonable? Let everyone choose. If a state wants slavery, so be it. If most of the people in the territory think slavery is wrong, they don't have to allow slavery.

But Lincoln, guided as he was by his belief in natural rights, did not applaud Douglas's logic.

[The Kansas-Nebraska Act] is wrong; wrong in it direct effect, letting slavery in Kansas and Nebraska--and wrong in its prospective principle, allowing it to spread to every other part of the wide world, where men can be found inclined to take it. This declared indifference, but as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I can not but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself...[and] because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty--criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest.

Lincoln understood what many politicians hope we will miss, that "declared indifference" is often "cover real zeal." "Don't like slavery? Then don't own one" is not a nice morally neutral position. Such bumper sticker logic gives implicit approval to the appropriateness of slavery and the legitimacy of those who seek its expansion. Popular sovereignty is a beautiful philosophy, but only when we are acting as sovereigns over ourselves. "When the white man governs himself," aruged Lincoln, "that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man...that is despotism."

The connections with the pro-slavery argument and the pro-abortion argument should be obvious. Both argue for choice. Both, at least in their more civilized forms, pretend moral neutrality. And both rely for their inner logic on strikingly similar propositions: blacks are not human persons with unalienable rights; and neither are the unborn. To quote from Lincon's 1864 speech in Baltimore with only a slight tweak, subsituting 'choice' for 'liberty': "We all declare for choice; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word choice may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor. While with others the same word may mean for some men [and women] to do as they please with others, and with other men's labors. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name--choice. And it follws that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names--choice and tyranny."

My wife and I have been re-watching the Ken Burns' Civil War series (pretty great wife, eh). Watching the video reminded me of one of my favorite movies, Gettysburg, which reminded me of my second favorite scene in the movie (my favorite scene is the 20th Maine's bayonet charge).



I love this scene for two reasons.

1. I love the way Lee gives a stern, yet measured and appropriate rebuke. Stuart has let him down. Lee cannot let the matter pass. Stuart must learn from it. More importantly, the whole army depends on Lee to get the best out of Stuart. Anything less than a rebuke would have been cowardly.

2. I love the way Lee builds Stuart back up after dressing him down. My tendency when I sin or screw up is to act like Stuart and try to hand in my sword. "Alright, Lord, if that's how you feel. I'll hang it up." But Lee will have none of it. "There is no time!" (Great line, especially with the southern drawl). Stuart needs to stop groveling, learn from his mistake, and get back into the battle.

I love this clip because Lee gives rebuke like a soldier and teaches Stuart to take rebuke like a soldier. If only we could give and take it like they do in the movies.

Phillip Jenkins is a good scholar and important Christian intellectual. His book, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, on the rise of Christianity in the South and East, has already become a missiological standard. But while praising him for this work, Alan Jacobs, a professor at Wheaton College, still takes Jenkins to task, in a recent First Things article, for Jenkins' latest book, The Lost History of Christianity.

Here's the gist:

Jenkins presents, for our edification and (I think) admiration, the story of “Peter Phan, a Jesuit theologian whose main sin, in official eyes, has been to treat the Buddhism of his Vietnamese homeland as a parallel path to salvation.” And then he writes: “Following the ideas of Benedict XVI, though, the Church refuses to give up its fundamental belief in the unique role of Christ.”

Now here is where I pause in wonderment. Does Jenkins really and truly believe that “belief in the unique role of Christ” is an “idea” distinctive to the current pope? Can he be unaware that he would have come nearer to the truth by writing “Following the ideas of Benedict XVI, of every previous occupant of the throne of St. Peter, of the apostles, of the Church Fathers, of the leaders of the great Reformation traditions, and of most influential leaders of Christianity throughout the world, the Church refuses to give up its fundamental belief in the unique role of Christ”?

At one point in the article, Jacobs shows some well-deserved exasperation at Jenkins propensity to invoke ambiguous slogans instead of actual arguments.

It turns out that Jenkins’ claims and commitments are rather difficult to lay hold of, owing to his tendency to invoke anodyne nostrums in place of straightforward arguments. Consider this example: In our world, Jenkins writes, “teaching different faiths to acknowledge one another’s claims, to live peaceably together side by side, stops being a matter of good manners and becomes a prerequisite for human survival.” But what does acknowledge mean here?

“Over the past thirty years,” he adds, “the Roman Catholic Church has faced repeated battles over this question of Christ’s uniqueness, and has cracked down on thinkers who have made daring efforts to accommodate other world religions.” But what does accommodate mean here?

Or “if these Nazarenes could find meaning in the lotus-cross, then why can’t modern Catholics, or other inheritors of the faith Jesus inspired?” But what does find meaning in mean here?

Or “some day, future historians might look at the last few hundred years of Euro-American dominance within Christianity and regard it as an unnatural interlude in a much longer story of fruitful interchange between the great religions.” But what does fruitful interchange mean here?

Or “we could do a lot worse than to learn from what we sometimes call the Dark Ages.” But what does learn from mean here?

The difficulty should be evident. Only the coldest of hearts and the most tightly shut of minds could repudiate acknowledgment of one another and finding meaning in one another’s views and learning from one another and having lots of fruitful interchanges. Certainly I am eager to embrace all of those values, insofar as I understand them. But must I give up my belief that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life in order so to embrace them?

One more paragraph, which serves well as a summary of Jacob's irenic polemic against Jenkins:

Jenkins continues, “For long centuries, Asian Christians kept up neighborly relations with other faiths, which they saw not as deadly rivals but as fellow travelers on the road to enlightenment.” But the quest of the Christian is not enlightenment; rather, it is love of God and neighbor and reconciliation with God, as God reconciles the world to himself. Yes, if you choose to voyage along “the road to enlightenment,” you can get along swimmingly with your Buddhist neighbors. But you will have ceased to practice Christianity and begun to practice Buddhism or something very like it.

Alan Jacobs is one of the best essayists around. So as they say, read the whole thing.

Exodus 1:17 always hits me right between the eyes.

The people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly, so that the land of Egypt was filled with them. So far so good. But there arose a Pharaoh over Egypt who did not know Joseph. Frightened and prideful, the Pharaoh made quick work of enslaving the Israelites. He made their lives hard and bitter.

But God knows how to win a fight–give the good guys (gals actually) more babies than the bad guys. The more God’s people were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. So the Pharaoh said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “When you attend a delivery–if it’s a girl, let her be. If it’s a boy, kill him.”

Which brings us to verse 17: “But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live.” I’ve heard this story a hundred times, but what arrested my attention was the startling, yet matter-of-fact juxtaposition of verses 16 and 17. Now, as far as I know, all the verse 17s in the Bible are next to verse 16s, but not many pack a punch like the pair in Exodus 1. Here’s the most powerful man in the most powerful country in the world commanding a couple of lowly slave ladies. Were they afraid for their lives? Did they panic? Did they weep and wail? We do not know their emotional state. But we know they were fearful– terrified at the thought of disobeying the Lord. Do you want to know the source of their mighty courage? They feared God more than Pharaoh. I cannot get over how verse 16 gives way to verse 17. “‘Kill the baby boys,’ the King decreed. But the midwives feared God.”

“Fear God?” we might ask. “Did not God bring them to Egypt where they were enslaved. Was not God allowing his people to be oppressed and mistreated. What was God doing anyway–what could God do–to stop this new Pharaoh hell-bent on infanticide? Fear God who is sitting idly by while the world’s most powerful man sets out to destroy our people? No, let us fear Pharaoh.”

Oh to have faith like a Hebrew midwife! We are so easily given to fear and so rarely is it before the face of God. Verse 17 in the story of our lives often reads, “But they feared Pharaoh and did as he commanded.” Or, “But custom dictated and they went along with the crowd.” Or, “But family expected...” or, “peer pressure demanded...” or, “colleagues insisted...” or, “the movies assumed...” or, “the system required...” And so it goes that we fear loss of life, loss of reputation, loss of status, and loss of privilege more than we fear God.

It is not for no reason that the Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 1:7). It is only when we fear nothing but sin and no one but God that we can begin to make prudent moral decisions in life. If we are not afraid of God, we will be afraid of everything and everyone else. We will not be wise and we will not be midwives.

As everyone knows, fearing God does not really mean we fear God. Instead, we honor him, respect him, and reverence him. True enough, perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). We are not afraid that God might not be for us, but against us (Romans 8:31). We are not nervous about future punishment, knowing that there no longer any condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).

But could it be that even after all our caveats, the Bible uses the word “fear” because we really are supposed to fear God? If we are going to have faith like Hebrew midwives maybe we need a word with a little more juice than “respect.” You respect on-coming traffic at a 4-way stop and you respect Lebron’s outside jumper, but you fear the Lord. In Exodus 20, the Lord descends on Mt. Sinai. When the people saw the thunder, lightning, and smoke, they trembled and stepped back. “Moses, you speak to us. But do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” Then Moses offers this stranger consolation: “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin” (20:20). Apparently, there is a wrong way and a right way to fear God. We should not fear destruction, but we should fear disobedience. We should not fear hell, but we should fear his holiness. We should not fear condemnation, but we should fear his consuming fire.

The bottom line is that we will never display strength in the face of temptation, or courage in the face of opposition, or boldness in the face of disapproval unless we think it a bigger deal to disobey God than to disappoint men. In Jesus’ day, many believed in him, “but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God” (John 12:42-43). Without the fear of God in our lives, we may manage to look like decent, respectable, nice people, but we will not receive the glory that comes from God. We will not shine as light and preserve as salt. And we would have killed Moses.

Lord, make us more like Hebrew midwives.

One last high place.

5. Prayerlessness. If I could snap my fingers and change one thing about myself, I would ask God to make me more devoted to prayer. Don’t get me wrong, like you, I do pray. I pray almost every morning. I pray at staff meetings. I pray before meals. I pray with my kids before bed. I go on prayer walks. I pray in hospital rooms and in people’s homes. I pray for folks over the phone. My life is not devoid of prayer. But yet, oh how I wish my commitment to prayer were more, much more--more earnest, more faithful, more saturated in Scripture. What to do with Acts 6? I’m not sure what it would look like for me and my elders to hand off almost everything else so we can be fully devoted to the word of God and prayer (Acts 6:4), but I can’t imagine we are looking just like it quite yet.

I desperately want my church to be known as a church of prayer (not known for the sake of being known of course). We certainly aren’t failing in prayer. But I don’t know that we truly believe we would fail without prayer. Several weeks ago I listened to an interview with Ben Patterson where he talked humbly about the prayer meeting he leads at the church he attends and about the four hours he spends in prayer each morning. Hearing Ben, who I know from my days at Hope College, talk about prayer did not make me feel guilty. It didn’t make me feel competitive, like I need to pray as much as he does. And it didn’t make me feel skeptical, because I know Ben and know people who know Ben and I know that he is the real deal when it comes to prayer. Listing to the interview made me feel like I want to pray more. It made me want my church to pray more.

I could be wrong, but I seriously doubt that the church in North American is know around the world as a church committed to prayer. We have money, education, books, a lot of missionaries, and some great teachers. But do we have a reputation for serious, importunate, long-suffering prayer? What if the single biggest answer for the decline of Christianity in America and our paucity of evangelistic fruit was not the lack of a new strategy for engaging the culture or the lack of new music or the lack of new ways of doing church, but the lack of prayer? What if your church, my church, took a fresh look at all we are doing, put everything on the table and said, “Let’s put prayer first and we’ll see what we can fit in after that?”

Of course, we need prayer plus–prayer plus good preaching, good doctrine, good leadership, good strategy. But so often we think of everything else we can do besides pray. We end up minimizing prayer because 1) it’s hard and we aren’t very good at 2) we probably don’t really believe in its power. Deep down I think we believe that if we spend a lot of time praying, we’ll still have the same problems left to deal with. We just won’t have as much time to deal with them. Prayerlessness is the measure of our unbelief. We don’t really believe that God answers prayers. We don't really believe that we have not because we ask not. We don't really believe that God can do more than we ask or imagine. True, God doesn't need to hear from us, but he ordained prayer so that we might be convinced of our need for him and he might be glorified in answering our prayers.

Reformed Christians believe most deeply in the sovereignty of God, the mercy of God, and in the power of God to whatever he desires. And yet, we often lag behind our brothers and sisters from other traditions when it comes to prayer. If the recent interest in and identification with Calvinism is truly a work of the Holy Spirit, and not just a passing trend, then we will see among the young, restless, and reformed a passion for God, a passion for truth, a passion for people in body and soul, and, infusing it all with unction and authority, a deep passion for prayer.

P.S. For more information on The Gospel Coalition, including a link to live webcasting (!) of this week's conference, go here.

P.P.S. I don't condone the smoking of cigarettes, nor is it a good idea to wear sunglasses at night.

Fourth high place out of five.

4. Our lack of church discipline. Thankfully, there are a number of prominent leaders today who believe and teach church discipline. Some churches still practice it and more are learning about it for the first time. But on the whole, it would naive to think that anything but a small fraction of churches in North America regularly practice church discipline. It is just too hard, too unpopular, and frankly, too messy.

But Jesus teaches it (Matt. 18) and Paul teaches it (1 Cor. 5), and historically it has been one of the three marks of the church. If God is holy and dwells among those who are holy, then unrepentant sin cannot be left unchecked in our congregations.

A lot of great work has been done in recent years mining the riches of Genevan Consistory records. If you study the records, or even the secondary sources, you discover that Calvin took the pastoral care of the church very seriously. It's easy to judge his efforts as controlling or intrusive, but they were also profoundly loving.

Usually 5-7 percent of the adult population was called to the Consistory for some case or hearing each year. In its first two years of activity, the Consistory summoned almost 850 persons out of total population of less than 13,000. If you included friends and family of those who were summoned, it’s likely that more families than not were involved in some disciplinary proceedings in those first two years. Overkill? At times, but they certainly took seriously their role to guard and guide the flock. It’s easy to fault Calvin for being over-zealous, but at least he was zealous.

Part of the problem is that we don’t know our people very well. We don’t follow up on folks when they disappear. We don’t stay in touch with them throughout the year. We don’t prepare our people with robust teaching on the meaning of membership and the duties of church members. Again, gratefully there are good models out there for us. But these are the exception. I would guess that less than 5% of our churches have been involved in any kind of disciplinary process in the last year. Maybe we have very holy churches. Or maybe we have delinquent shepherds.

I know first hand how hard and time consuming this work can be. But the elders are called to it and must be prepared for it. In particular, to cite just one example, we need to rise to the challenge of rampant divorce in our culture. I hold to the traditional Protestant view and believe that divorce is legitimate for sexual immorality and desertion, and that remarriage is allowed in those cases, but most of the divorces under are noses are not for biblical reasons. True, we sometimes get involved after the divorce or after remarriage and we have to make the best of the situation, but we simply need more courage to get involved earlier and stand our ground, no matter how often it gets us enmeshed in perplexing situations and unpopular decisions.

Church discipline is a means of grace given by God’s gracious hand. It is not a club, but a gentle rod to help the sheep come back to the fold. I have seen church discipline end painfully without resolution, but I also that it can work to wake up a struggling sinner and walk them back to faith and repentance.

Pastors and elders will give an account for their flocks before God. And the flock is commanded to heed the call of their leaders (Heb. 13:7). So let’s pray the sheep and the shepherds together will tear down this high place and agree to embrace church discipline as one of Scripture's ordained means for building churches that reflect the character of God.

In case you’re wondering, I am going to finish this series this week, so that means three more high places to go. Here is the third of the five:

3. The Idolatry of Youth. I know the high place all too well: many Christian parents have made an idol out of their children. Considering how frustrated we can all get with our children, it’s hard to think how we’ve made idols out of them. But think of how our schedules are dictated by our kids, and how most of what parents talk about revolves around the kids, and how getting our kids “every advantage” in life takes precedence over church, the husband-wife relationship, and just plain commonsense.

I love my children as deeply as any parent. I know there are sacrifices we all make (especially moms) for our kids. But I also know the temptation for many Christian parents (including me) is to let our children come before everything else in life, to nurture them (along with the rest of the world and the social media) toward narcissism, entitlement, and laziness. The old adage that kids should be seen but not heard may have been a little lopsided. Kids are kids after all. They do screwy things. But we have completely loaded down the see-saw in the other direction. Our finances, our time, our home, our social life, our marriage, our commitment to church–everything revolves around the children. Our grandparents would think this pattern very strange.

Moreover, we idolize youth culture. In this regard we are a product of our larger culture (which is, after all, what makes high places so hard to spot). Everyone is gunning for the 16-29 year old demographic. Everything is geared to what the next generation likes. Youth culture is our pop culture. This is true inside the church just as much as outside. No church talks about reinventing church so it resonates with old people. But plenty of us are concerned about how to change everything so the young people will like it. Perhaps this is because the older folks are mature enough to forgo their desires in the hopes of making church more palatable for the youth. This would be an example of selfless humility. But this doesn’t mean we have to automatically assume that what young people like is what we ought to be in to. Young people often don’t know what they should like. In most cultures throughout history the old have been revered for their wisdom and respected for their age. Have we not done the opposite in our day and revered the youth for their tastes and respected them for, well, not being old?

Most importantly, we have not honored the older members in our church like we should. Whether it’s because we fancy them too liberal or too conservative, we tend to assume that those older than us just didn’t get it. True, sometimes they didn’t get it. But the assumption we start out with ought to be: these brothers and sisters have walked with the Lord for a long time, maybe they’ve seen something I haven’t learned yet. Instead, we have assumed that because we are young our tastes and styles should rule and Pops can just deal with it.

Because we have many internationals in our church, I have become more aware of how little my American culture encourages honor for parents and respect for our elders. Sadly, we see this in too many churches where youth ministry is everything and seniors ministry is practically nothing. Our church has never had many retirees so we are just now learning how to love and minister to these folks better. They are not helpless by any means (though eventually most of us will be), but they face special challenges (health, loneliness, the death of friends) that younger generations don’t understand. We have coddled kids when they should be challenged to do more for themselves, while we have not given enough help to the elderly when they really can’t do as much on their own.

We need to do away with any unwritten rules that senior ministry doesn’t really matter and churches filled with old people are not worth a young pastor’s time. And we need to stop separating every generation into its own niche group. The young need the old too much for that (and the old will benefit from the young too).

Idolizing our elders is not the answer to the problem of worshiping youth. But there’s a whole lot more biblical support (and historical precedence) for showing honor and deference to what older folks think, than our current obsession with the whims and wishes of tweens, teens, and twenty-somethings.

What are our high places? In posing that question, I’m not necessarily asking what are the most important issues facing the church today (though I think the issues I’m going to highlight are important), but what are the areas of obedience that we are almost all missing. And just to be clear about a couple things: I don’t claim to be the only one pointing out these blind spots, nor do I pretend to be the example of perfect obedience in any of these areas.

With that off my chest, let’s move on to number two.

2. Worldliness in entertainment. The good folks from Sovereign Grace have already sounded the alarm on this one. So worldliness isn’t exactly a total blind spot. But when it comes to the entertainment choices of the vast majority of Christians in the vast majority of our churches my strong impression is that there is little difference between what we take in and what the rest of the world goes to for a good time.

Let me get my caveats out of the way up front. 1) I know that some people really like movies and “get them” in a way I may not. I understand that. 2) I know we cannot make an absolute rule about entertainment that proscribes the choices for all Christians. This is an area of Christian liberty.

But, Christian liberty only goes so far. Did Christ die so we can watch actors french kiss and grope each other or have sexual intercourse (even if their characters are married and "they don’t show everything")? Did Christ die so we can hear people take the Lord’s name in vain a bazillion times in 90 minutes? Did Christ die so we can have the liberty to laugh at gay jokes? I’m not saying movies and TV shows that depict sin are automatically wrong? But what if they depict sin as fetching? Or as funny? Or what if they present sin as dark and gruesome and blow-out-your brains evil, but never lift you out of the cesspool of sin?

I know that movies can be art. I’m not against Christians in Hollywood, nor against Christians going to the movies. I’ve seen plenty of movies myself. But, seriously, how much of what is out there is really serious art? I remember reading Adventures in Missing the Point by Brian McLaren and Tony Campolo. In one chapter after McLaren was going on about the importance of engaging the culture, Campolo responded with something like, “True, but let’s be honest. Most of the culture out there isn’t worth engaging. It’s cheap, tawdry garbage.” (Feel free to look up the exact quote for yourself.) In other words, is our “incarnational” ministry really making great inroads for the gospel by familiarizing ourselves with the stuff that makes 16 year old boys laugh and your grandmother squirm? What happened to not even a hint of sexual immorality (Eph. 5:3)? What about the whole “whatever is lovely, whatever is pure...” thing (Phil 4:8)? And while we’re at it, how does being entertained by the world’s lasciviousness fit with the injunction to not even speak about the things the world does in secret (Eph. 5:12)?

I may have a more sensitive conscience than some. And perhaps my sensibilities are not refined enough to enjoy the art that’s out there. But I can’t help but look back on all the entertainment I’ve consumed and think “Has all of this been anywhere close to a net positive in my spiritual maturity?” Certainly not. It’s also worth thinking about how Christians just two generations ago (let alone two millennia ago) would have viewed (or not viewed!) the stuff we watch. As conservative Christians we like to complain about the decline in values in our country and how things that would have never been tolerated 30 years ago are now completely mainstream. And it’s true: our culture tolerates more sex, more violence, more crude humor, more foul language, more cleavage, and more sexual deviancy in it’s entertainment than ever before. But wouldn’t our grandparents say the same thing about what we have come to tolerate as Christians? We are so used to settling for sex that isn’t that graphic, and language that isn’t too bad, and visual stimulation that isn’t so much that we have become blind to our own worldliness.

1 Kings 22:43 [Jehoshaphat] walked in all the ways of Asa his father. He did not turn aside from it, doing what was right in the sight of the LORD. Yet the high places were not taken away, and the people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places.

Most of the kings in Israel and Judah were wicked. Only a few kings were good. And even the ones that were good, still were blind. Several times in Kings and Chronicles we are told that so-and-so did what was right, except…except for the high places. This little bit of pagan influence, this little capitulation to the culture was too ingrained in their thinking to be seen. Or if it was seen, it seemed too normal to think of doing anything about it. The good kings didn’t extend wickedness. They actually did much to curb it. They didn’t build or promote the high places like the bad kings did and the nation did under those kings (2 Kings 17:7-12), but neither did they destroy the high places like they should have. They were good kings with blind spots.

I have often wondered what are our high places? Of course, it is hard to see our own blind spots. If we could, they wouldn’t be blind spots. But even though we may not be able to notice every error, it’s still worth thinking and praying about what mistakes we are making without realizing it. And I’m not talking about current theological controversies. These are critically important, but we see the issues at stake, at least many of us do. Moreover, in asking what are our high places I’m not asking what are our biggest sins or the most important issues of our day. What I’m asking is this: what are the issues we aren’t even talking about or the unhelpful patterns and pressures most of us don’t even recognize?

In other words, what will future generations be surprised to see that we missed? It’s easy for us to see how previous generations of Christians were blind to the sin of racism or how it was a bad idea to kill each other over theological differences (even if some of the differences had eternal consequences). But if good Christians in the past—even heroic, admirable Christians—could miss something so obvious (to us), it begs the question: what obvious sins are we blindly committing and what obvious areas of obedience are we neglecting?

Over the next several days I want to highlight six areas that may be high places for us. Obviously, the fact that I’m bringing them up means they aren’t complete blind spots. In fact, I’m not the first person to talk about any of these areas. But still, I consider them “high places” because they are so prevalent (or missing) in the evangelical church in North America. Even when we see the issues and are talking about them, we still can’t seem to do much about them. When the cultural current flows us against with sustained force, we usually just settle for being decent Christians who do what is right but never take down the high places.

So what are some of our high places? Here’s one:

1. The lack of Psalm singing in our churches. Now listen, I’m not a Psalms only guy. I don’t find that position scripturally convincing nor historically necessary. I love old hymns, new hymns, Sovereign Grace music, Townend and Getty, even a good Spanish chorus or two. We have drums and guitars (and an organ) in our church. I’m not pining away for a straight-up Genevan liturgy with robes, an unchangeable order of worship, and unsingable metrical tunes. So, just to repeat, I don’t think the Bible restricts our singing to the Psalms. But you could make a better scriptural and historic case that we should sing only the Psalms than you could make a case for singing everything but the Psalms.

And yet that’s the practice in many of our churches. Is there a command of Scripture we disobey more frequently, and with so little shame, as the injunction to sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16)? I mean, seriously, it’s right there in black and white. We are supposed to sing psalms. As far as I can tell, the exegetical debate is not about whether these three terms refer to something other than biblical psalms, but whether they might all refer to different kinds of biblical psalms. Either way, God wants us to sing psalms does he not?

Jesus sang the Psalms (Matt. 26:30). The early church sang the Psalms. The Reformers, especially in the tradition of Calvin, loved to sing the Psalms and labored mightily to restore them to the church. The Bay Psalm Book was the first book printed in America. The Psalms—150 God-breathed songs—have been the staple of Protestant (and especially Reformed) worship for 500 years. And yet how many of our churches sing a Psalm even once a month? I know there are exceptions, but by and large the evangelical church is bereft of Psalm singing. We might unknowingly stumble into one every now and again through Isaac Watts, but for the most part we don’t think about singing Psalms; we don’t plan to sing Psalms; and we don’t sing Psalms.

Assuming we haven’t started an irreversible trend, I imagine future generations will be puzzled by our avoidance of the Psalms. “Why did they give up on the Psalms?” they may ask. “Didn’t they know God wrote them? I suppose they were worried that no one would like singing Psalms. I guess they assumed young people wouldn’t stomach it. But why didn’t they try? Why didn’t they come up with new music for the Psalms? Why didn’t they teach their people about the emotional depth and Christological richness and the gritty honesty of the Psalms? And if they couldn’t think of any other reasons to sing the Psalms, why didn’t they just do it because the Bible told them to?”

You know, they ask pretty good questions in the future, if I do say so myself.

Definitely not the true meaning of Easter, but...

This has been around the internet a time or two, but it's worth listening to again and again. The background music and pictures leave a bit to be desired, but the preaching from the late S.M. Lockridge makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck. And it's all true!

P.S. Rats, I see that Justin Taylor posted this on Thursday. I had this lined up in my blogging queue since Wednesday. Oh well, it won't hurt to listen one more time.

Here's Joseph Bottum from latest issue of First Things:

The circus came to town yesterday. At midnight on March 23, ten elephants walked through the Midtown Tunnel and along 34 Street, on their to way to Madison Square Garden: the 139th Animal Walk of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's Circus. The great gray legs of the pachyderms, their swinging trunks, that strangely rapid shuffle that they do: a simple pleasure to see. Except that the animal-rights activists were out in protest at the entrance to the tunnel. There are no simple pleasures in our puritanical times; each human pleasure is run through the great fires of human guilt, where it must be consumed. What strange days: The complex pleasures of human sexuality are declared simple and guilt-free, while the simple pleasures of a circus parade are rendered complex and guilty.

Sad to think that perversion has become more palatable than pachyderms.

Tony Jones wrote today about "Why Jesus Died." Here's his conclusion, which grieves me deeply:

Some people today may find it compelling that some Great Cosmic Transaction took place on that day 1,980 years ago, that God's wrath burned against his son instead of against me. I find that version of atonement theory neither intellectually compelling, spiritually compelling, nor in keeping with the biblical narrative.

Instead, Jesus death offers life because in Christianity, and in Christianity alone, the God and Creator of the universe deigned to become human, to be tempted, to reach out to those who had been de-humanized and restore their humanity, and ultimately to die in solidarity with every one of us. Yes, he was a sacrifice. Yes, he was "sinless." But thank God, Jesus was also human.

The hope he offers is that, by dying on that cross, the eternal Trinity became forever bound to my humanity. The God of the universe identified with me, and I have the opportunity to identify with him.

Today, and every day, I hang with him on that cross.

What can we say in response to this?

Leviticus 16:20-22 "And when he has made an end of atonement for the Holy Place and the tend of meeting and the altar, he shall present the live goat. And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness. The goat shall bear all their iniquities on itself to a remote area, and he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness."

Isaiah 53:4-6 "Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every one--to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all."

Mark 10:45 "For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

Hebrews 2:14-17 "Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people."

Praise God that he sent his Son not just to share in our weaknesses, but to bear our iniquities. Praise God that the Suffering Servant was not just wounded for our identification, but for our transgressions. Praise God that the Son of Man came not just be a restoration of our humanity, but a ransom for our sin. Praise God that our perfect Brother shared not just in our humanity, but shared in our humanity that he might become a high priest in the service of God, a high priest who offered himself once for all as our eternal redemption. Because without the shedding of blood Jesus could have still been human, but without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.

Every year the four churches on our street come together for a 12:15 Good Friday service. This year it was my turn to preach. I don't usually write out a full manuscript, but since I had a strict 20 minute time limit, I did for this service. I've copied the sermon below, especially for those from my church who couldn't make the service.

*****

I’m guessing that virtually everyone here has flown on a plane before. So you’ve all sat through those opening instructions from the flight attendants about what to do in the event of an emergency. They say the same thing on every flight, every day, on every airline. And every day, on every flight, on every airline, almost no one pays attention to the message. I’ve flown several times in the past couple months and I can’t recall seeing anyone looking at the flight attendants or giving one second of thought to what they were talking about. No one pays attention to these instructions.

Why? For a few reasons I think. For starters, the flight attendants look bored out of their skulls. There is nothing in their demeanor to suggest they are very interested in what is coming over the loud speakers. The way they drop the little seat belt down and pull on the strings for the oxygen mask don’t exactly scream passion and interest.

Second, almost everyone on the plane has been on a place before. They’ve heard about the seat cushion as a floatation device and putting on your mask before assisting others. They know they should follow posted placards and that the nearest exit may behind you. Nothing new is ever said. The flight attendants never say, “Your seat cushion can be used as a floatation device, an oxygen mask will drop in front of you, and on this flight only your headrest turns into a parachute and the back of your seat becomes a rocket!” There’s nothing new, nothing exciting, so we don’t pay attention.

Mostly, we don’t pay attention because we don’t think it matters. We don’t really anticipate the plane crashing. And in the unlikely event that the plane does go down, we figure someone will tell us what to do. If not, we reckon we’ll be able to figure it out on our own.

It seems to me this whole experience of listening to flight attendants is eerily similar to church for many of us. 1) We have someone preaching to us who is pretty bored with the whole thing. 2) We’ve been to church and figure we’ve heard all the same stuff before. So why listen? 3) We don’t think we’ll really need to use anything we hear in church. And if we do, we’ll figure it out before the end comes. So we don’t pay attention. We hear the gospel a hundred times and we don’t think anything of it. We celebrate dozens of Good Fridays and it never makes a difference. Jesus, cross, death, resurrection–it’s all just noise in the background of our lives as we try to get our seats to recline and open the tiny bag of peanuts. No one is listening.

But listen to Hebrews 2:1-4.

Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

This is one of five warning passages in Hebrews. These five passages are not teaching that genuine Christians can lose their salvation. What they are teaching is that some people with an external connection to Christianity will not in the end by saved. And further, these passages suggest that those who are saved at the end, will be saved by means of these warning. These passages are danger signs that keep the elect persevering to the end.

“We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard”–that’s the warning. Sit up straight. Put your feet on the floor. Shut your yap. And listen up. “Pay attention church people! You are in danger of drifting away.” Hebrews 6:19 says the promise of God is “a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.” So we’ve got warnings to the drifters and promises to those who are anchored.

Floating Away
There are a lot of ways to lose your spot on the river of faith. One way is to let yourself move away to another location. The waters get choppy and rough, so you take your boat somewhere else. That happens with the gospel. We ditch Christianity because life gets hard. We drift away because of suffering. Hebrews 10 says “But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometime being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes partners with those so treated.” And then verse 35 says, “Do not throw away your confidence.” In other words, “You used to be so firm in your faith. But then you got cancer, or someone didn’t like you because you believed the Bible, or you started having troubles with your kids. Something hard came into your life and it made you question your faith. You started to wonder if there was any point in being a Christian. Was it worth the cost?” you thought to yourself. So you compromised. You gave in. You pulled up anchor and let your boat float away.”

Or sometimes we look for another spot on the river because it seems it more enjoyable. When you first got interested in Christianity it was new and exciting. It gave purpose and order to your life. You liked the fellowship and the people. But then you found out how you were supposed to change. You learned that God, because he loves you, didn’t want you to have be a sexaholic, a workaholic, an alcoholic. You realized that following Jesus meant you couldn’t live any which you pleased. You belonged to God, and the God of the Bible is not an anything goes kind of God. So, unlike Moses, you decided to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin (Heb. 11:25). You decided to drop your anchor in a sexier port. As a result, even though you call yourself a Christian and you may go to a church once in awhile, you are not in the place you once were. Not by a long shot. You’ve drifted away.

But there’s an even easier way to leave the faith. You don’t have to pick up and move somewhere else because of suffering or the allure of sin. You can just drift. If you row your little boat out in the Mississippi River and take a nap for two hours, when you wake up you will not be in the same place. Without an anchor, you will have floated away with the current. That’s what happens in life. Hebrews 6:11 says “We desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish...”

Most church people drift away from God not because they meant to, but because they got busy, they got lazy, they got distracted, they had kids, they got a mortgage, a few illnesses came, then some bills, then the in-laws visited for a week, then the mini-van broke down, and before you knew what was happening the seed of the word of God had been choked out by the worries of life.

That’s the way it happens for many people. They never dropped anchor, and so they simply floated away when the currents got strong. They used to pray. They used to be interested in the Bible. They used to talk to God. They used go to church. They never woke up and decided “Today I’m going to stop being a Christian. They just drifted. That’s why Hebrews 10:24 says “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching.” Some of the Hebrews had checked out, stopped going to church, just floated away from the whole thing.

Listen Up
So what can we do to stop from drifting? Verse one tells us. “We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard.” We must keep a close eye on the gospel.

First, we must notice that it is a reliable message. Both of those words are important, reliable and message. The gospel is not the same as asking Jesus into your heart. The gospel is not a program for becoming a better you. The gospel is not a series of ethical commands. The gospel is not an experience of generic spirituality. The gospel is the good news that God so loved the world that he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, to fulfill the law, to suffer as a man, and to die on the cross, bearing the penalty for sin the we deserved, and being raised on the third day that we might be declared innocent and righteous before God. The gospel is a message.

And it is reliable. Eyewitnesses saw it and passed it on to others who in turn told others. The story of the gospel took place out in the open for all to see. This was no secret, mystery religion. These things did not happen in a cave somewhere. The miracles of Christ and the gifts of the Holy Spirit testified publicly that Jesus was not just another Rabbi or another prophet or another teacher, but he was, in fact, the Christ, the Son of the living God.

We must pay attention to this reliable message, lest we mistake false gospels for the real gospel, and end up believing in the Jesus of good causes, or the Jesus of good coffee, or the Jesus of good examples, or life coach Jesus, or greeting card Jesus, or prosperity Jesus, or positive thinking Jesus, instead of Jesus Christ crucified, dead, and buried for the sin of the world.

The other think we should notice is that this reliable message is the message about a great salvation. I think many church people drift from God because he seems so ordinary. They float away from the gospel because it strikes them as dreadfully boring. They give up on the Christian faith because, like the flight attendant instructions, it seems lifeless, passionless, inconsequential. But Hebrews tells us we have a great salvation.

It’s a great salvation because it saves us from a great wrath. The argument in verse 2 is from the lesser to the greater. If the message declared by angels, if the law of Moses given by angelic intermediaries proved to be reliable and disobedience to that law meant punishment, how much more will we face God’s wrath if we reject a greater message about someone greater than Moses declared to us by one greater than angels? Parents don’t let their kids get away with disobedience, your employer doesn’t turn a blind eye when you break company policy, the government will not let you go free when you break their laws, so why should we expect God to let us escape untouched if we neglect such a great salvation.

Jesus is Greater
We must pay closer attention to this message. The Devil doesn’t want you to see the details. He wants you to believe that God is the one Being in the universe who doesn’t care about justice. But it is not so. We will not escape if we neglect this message. But praise God there is deliverance from great wrath in this gospel message. And just as importantly, there is in this message of great salvation a great Savior.

The whole book of Hebrews is an extended argument for the superiority of Jesus Christ.

The prophets revealed God to the people, but Jesus Christ was the revelation of God himself.

The angels were sent from God to be his ministering servants, but Jesus Christ was loved by God as his only begotten Son.

The old covenant taught Israel the way to God, the truth of the law, and the life of holiness, but Jesus Christ instituted a new covenant in his blood that he himself might be the way, the truth, and the life for us.

The tabernacle made with human hands symbolized God’s presence among his people, but Jesus Christ, uncreated, made without human hands, was God among his people.

The kingdom in ages past shook the mountain at Sinai, but Jesus Christ promises a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

The High Priest from Aaron’s line offered sacrifices for himself year and year, day after day, but Jesus Christ, our sinless High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, has made a sacrifice once for all, never to be repeated.

The blood of bulls and goats was shed morning and evening, century after century, for the remission of sins, but Jesus Christ, the lamb of God, shed his own blood for the sins of the world, thus securing an eternal redemption.

Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, but Jesus Christ has been faithful over God’s house as a son.

Joshua led the people into the promised land, but Jesus Christ alone can give you Sabbath rest.

Abraham was a great man of faith, but Jesus Christ is the guarantor of all that Abraham had faith in.

All these saints and all these things were pointing the way to Jesus Christ, our great Prophet, Priest, and King, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God (Heb. 12:2).

We must pay much closer attention to the gospel, to Jesus, and to the cross, lest by an imperceptible current we drift away. Heaven never tires of the cross, and neither should we. The saints in glory never grow weary of the singing the old, old story: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!"

Do not let Good Friday pass you by like a set of airline instructions. Fix your eyes on the cross. Not as the place to show us our worth, but to show us the weight of our sin. Not as the pace where Jesus simply felt our pain, but where he bore our penalty. Not as the place where God overturned divine justice, but where God in mercy fulfilled his justice. Not as the place where love died, but where love reigned supreme. Pay careful attention to the cross. Here we see a great salvation, delivering us from a great wrath, revealing to us a great Savior who was wounded for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities, that by his stripes we might be healed.

Like millions of Christians around the world, we will have a Maundy Thursday tonight. If you've never heard the term, it's not Monday-Thursday (which always confused me as a kid), but Maundy Thursday, as in Mandatum Thursday. Mandatum is the Latin word for "command" or "mandate", and the day is called Maundy Thursday because on the night before his death Jesus gave his disciples a new command. "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another" (John 13:34).

At first it seems strange that Christ would call this a new command. After all, the Old Testament instructed God's people to love their neighbors and Christ himself summarized the law as love for God and love for others. So what's new about love? What makes the command new is that because of Jesus' passion there is a new standard, a new examplar of love.

There was never any love like the dying love of Jesus. It is tender and sweet (13:33). It serves (13:2-17). It loves even unto death (13:1). Jesus had nothing to gain from us by loving us. There was nothing in us to draw us to him. But he loved us still, while we were yet sinners. At the Last Supper, in the garden, at his betrayal, facing the Jewish leaders, before Pontius Pilate, being scourged, carrying his cross, being nailed to the wood, breathing his dying breath, forsaken by God–he loved us. To the end. To death. Love shone best and brightest at Calvary.

Christ was all anguish that I might be all joy, cast off that I might be brought in, trodden down as an enemy that I might be welcomed as a friend, surrendered to hell's worst that I might attain heaven's best, stripped that I might be clothed, wounded that I might be healed, athirst that I might drink, tormented that I might be comforted, made a shame that I might inherit glory, entered darkness that I might have eternal life.

My Saviour wept that all tears might be wiped from my eyes, groaned that I might have endless song, endured all pain that I might have unfading health, bore a thorned crown that I might have a glory-diadem, bowed his head that I might uplift mine, experienced reproach that I might receive welcome, closed his eyes in death that I might gaze on unclouded brightness, expired that I might for ever live (The Valley of Vision, "LoveLustres at Calvary").

It’s been a few days, but I want to finally bring my five part review of A Clear and Present Word: The Clarity of Scripture to a close. (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four).

In Chapter 5, "A Sharp Double-Edged Sword," Mark Thompson summarizes his exploration of the doctrine of perspicuity. “The clarity of Scripture,” he writes, “is that quality of the biblical text that, as God’s communicative act, ensures its meaning is accessible to all who come to it in faith.” William Whitaker, from an earlier day, described perspicuity thus:

Our fundamental principles are these: First, that the Scriptures are sufficiently clear to admit of their being read by the people and the unlearned with some fruit and utility. Secondly, that all thing necessary to salvation are propounded in plain words in the Scriptures. Meanwhile, we concede that there are many obscure places, and that the Scriptures need explication; and that, on this account, God’s ministers are to be listened to when they expound the word of God, and the men best skilled in Scripture are to be consulted.

The clarity of Scripture, then, does not mean that everything is equally clear or that everyone is equally capable of understanding every part. But the doctrine does teach that everyone can learn the way of salvation from the Bible and that even the hard parts can be understood correctly with skill and the Holy Spirit.

Perspicuity is such a crucial doctrine, not just because our understanding of the Bible is at stake (and whether we can understand the Bible in the first place), but because the doctrine is intimately connected with our understanding of God. “In short," concludes Thompson, "a confession of the clarity of Scripture is an aspect of faith in a generous God who is willing and able to make himself and his purposes known.”

So before we resort to “all we have are interpretations”, let’s remember that we also have God, who want to be interpreted correctly. Before we let postmodernism tell us what we can and cannot know about texts, let’s look at Jesus and the Apostles and see how they handled the Old Testament. And before we let the chastened epistemology of contemporary voices wow us with their French philosophers and the rhetoric of hermeneutical humility, let’s not forget that God “has something to say and he is very good and saying it.” As Luther put it 450 years before pomo lit classes, “If Scripture is obscure or ambiguous, what point is there in God giving it to us? Are we not obscure and ambiguous enough without having our [own] obscurity, ambiguity, and darkness augmented to us from heaven?” Hear hear.

Thank God for Martin Luther. Thank God he wants to be known. Thank God for human language. And thank God that despite recent protestations, the word of God illumines our darkness instead of augmenting it.

One of the thorniest, most practical problems any pastor or Christian will deal with is forgiveness. Every Christians knows forgiveness is a good thing, but what does it mean? How do we do it? Is it always necessary no matter the circumstances?

For answers to these questions (and many others) I highly recommend Chris Brauns' book Unpacking Forgiveness: Biblical Answers for Complex Questions and Deep Wounds. Chris is a pastor in western Illinois, and, I discovered, used to be just down the road from my current church. He was kind enough to answer some of my questions for a blog interview.


1. Tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from? Do you have a family? Where are you serving now? Why does your book reference the Lansing State Journal?

Originally I am from the cultural center of Keosauqua in the GSOI (Great State of Iowa) –though, I’m very disappointed about last week’s court decision about marriage.

I pastor a church in a small town (Stillman Valley, IL). My wife, Jamie and I have four children (ages 15,13,11, 6). You can read more about me than you want to know here.

As for the Lansing State Journal, I was the senior pastor at Grand Ledge Baptist for 6 years which is just west of Lansing, MI. I collected a lot of forgiveness illustrations during that time and they ended up in the book.

My sermon illustrations are not the only thing we took from Lansing. Our dog still has a Michigan State collar, and my wife picked MSU to win it all in March Madness. Go Spartans.


2. Your book "Unpacking Forgiveness: Biblical Answers for Complex Questions and Deep Wounds" is very good. Thank you for it. How did you get interested in the topic of forgiveness?

As a pastor, I repeatedly encountered situations where people in my church needed to work through forgiveness issues and were not following biblical teaching. I began to study and preach about forgiveness because there was such a need in my church.

Once I began to really study forgiveness, I discovered that a lot of what was written was not biblical. So, it was that combination, the need of people in my church, combined with unbiblical teaching.


3. What are some of the common misconceptions about forgiveness?

Many people do not understand what a serious matter it is to be unwilling to forgive those who ask for forgiveness. If someone reading this is unwilling or unable to forgive they should read and meditate on Matthew 18:21-35.

I think another misconception is that we can unpack forgiveness on our own. All Christians must be part of a local church. The need for a church home is even more pronounced when working through a deep wound. The church is God’s plan for this stage in redemptive history. As much as Noah and his family needed to be on the ark, we need to be truly connected to a local church if we are going to unpack forgiveness. If someone feels themselves drowning where a forgiveness issue is concerned, the first question they should ask is, “Am I really connected to a Christ-centered, Bible preaching local church?”

The most common misconception is that of “therapeutic forgiveness,” which we get to in the next question.


4. You talk a lot about therapeutic notion of forgiveness. What is this and why is it so dangerous?

“Therapeutic forgiveness” insists that forgiveness is at its core a feeling. Our culture has picked up on this in a big way. When most people say that they forgive, they mean that it is a private matter in which he or she is not going to feel bitter.

Borrowing a line from Boston’s, “Don’t Look Back,” album. I argue that forgiveness is, “More Than a Feeling.” Biblical forgiveness is something that happens between two parties. When God forgives us, our relationship with Him is restored. That is why Calvin said that the whole of the Gospel is contained under the headings of repentance and forgiveness of sins (Institutes 3.3.19).

Once people make forgiveness therapeutic, you have all sorts of non-biblical things happening. For instance, some say it is legitimate to forgive God. This is a heretical idea because God has never done anything which requires forgiveness. But, “therapeutic” forgiveness needs to forgive God so bitterness is no longer felt.

Therapeutic forgiveness also diminishes the necessity of two parties working out there differences. If forgiveness is simply how I feel, there is no need to worry about the relationship.

The tragedy of therapeutic forgiveness is that in making individual feelings the center of everything, I think it ultimately leads to bitterness and the wrong feelings.


5. Probably the most provocative aspect of your book is the repeated assertion that forgiveness is conditional. What do you mean by this? What don't you mean?

Start with the most basic biblical principle about forgiveness. We are to forgive others as God forgives us (Eph 4:32). The Bible clearly teaches that God does not forgive everyone.

That being the case, Christians are always required to have an attitude of forgiveness. Just as the Lord prayed on the Cross that his murderers would be forgiven, so we should pray for those who persecute us.

However, forgiveness doesn’t happen until the other party is repentant. When Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them,” he wasn’t granting absolution. Unless those who crucified Him repented and accepted God’s grace, then they weren’t forgiven.


6. As you've talked about this topic in different places, how do people respond to the message? Have you changed your mind on any aspect of the book? Have certain areas been reinforced even more strongly?

The fun part of preaching and teaching on forgiveness is that people are always interested. In a fallen world, everyone is unpacking forgiveness one way or another. And, there are always plenty of case studies to consider.

I haven’t changed what I believe the Bible teaches. The messages have been reinforced. I see more than ever that people need to carefully think about how justice fits with their beliefs about forgiveness.

If I was going to add to the book, I think I would put in a section about holding to forgiveness ideals in a fallen world. The reality is that many forgiveness wounds will never heal completely this side of eternity. I did include one chapter about what Christians should do when they can’t agree. But, there needs to be more said about that.


7. Are you working on any more book projects?

Yes, I have several things in the early stages. In response to the individualism that is so rampant, I am working on something about the need for Christian community in the church.


8. What books are your reading right now?

I have been reading a number of different books by Wendell Berry. I just finished a historical fiction book by Bernard Cornwell, Agincourt. I am preaching through Hebrews so I’m reading lot on Hebrews. And, honest, your new book, Just Do Something is on my desk.


9. What are some of the unique challenges and blessings of being at a rural church?

God called us here so we tend to notice the blessings more than the challenges. Ministry is much more local here. When we lived in more suburban areas, we only saw our church family at church. But, here we attend church with the same people who play football with our sons or softball with our daughter. It is a wonderful place to build relationships.

There are opportunities we wouldn’t otherwise have because it is a small town. For instance, our church decided not to have a library. We are cramped for space and libraries require a lot of resources. Instead I am on the local library board. I helped oversee the donation of a collection of books to the library. I’ve been able to pick out many, many books to make sure that there is a good basic collection of Christian books in the library. Those books are now available to our whole community, not just the people who come into our church.

I suppose that the tough part of being a pastor in a small town is that there are no breaks for me or my family. Pastoral matters often come up when I am at a ball game or some other activity for my children. There are no boundaries here.

And after doing some flying lately, I was reminded of this.

The seven seals crescendoed into silence. When the seventh seal was broken there was silence in heaven for half an hour. It was the calm before the storm, the musical rest before the grand finale. The seven trumpets, as we’ve seen, parallel the seven seals in many ways. They have a pattern of 4+3; they have an earthquake signaling the beginning of the end; and they have an interlude showing the church’s safety before the end comes. But unlike the seals, the seven trumpets don’t crescendo into silence. They crescendo into singing.

Revelation 11:15 The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever." 16 And the twenty-four elders, who were seated on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshiped God, 17 saying: "We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign. 18 The nations were angry; and your wrath has come. The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your saints and those who reverence your name, both small and great-- and for destroying those who destroy the earth." 19 Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and within his temple was seen the ark of his covenant. And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake and a great hailstorm.

Instead of silence in heaven, like we saw with the breaking of the seventh seal, we have, with the seventh trumpet, loud voices in heaven–probably the voices of the great multitude of God’s people. It doesn’t say that the voices are singing, but it is a poem or verse or refrain that they utter. And more than likely, this means it was a song. “The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever.”

I love Handel’s Messiah. I love all of it. Unlike almost any other music, I can put the Messiah CD in my car and worship. It is wonderful. And probably the most famous section of the Messiah is the Hallelujah Chorus. It’s so grand and triumphant and majestic. It’s actually not the end of the Messiah. Worthy is the Lamb is the last section. But the Hallelujah Chorus is probably the best known section. And my favorite part of the Chorus is when they sing this line from verse 15. The voices get real soft and legato: “The kingdom of this world.” Then you hear the strings. And the voices sing still softly “is become.” And then the voices and the instruments jump back in full throttle and punch it: “is become...the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and of his Christ. And he shall reign for ever and ever.” The music captures so well the theology of the text. The kingdom of the world is small and fading and lilting compared to the majestic kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ who burst on the scene in triumph and power and royalty and reign for ever and ever. Hallelujah! It’s gospel text put to gospel music.

Thy Kingdom Come

But what does it mean that the kingdom of the world will become the kingdom of God and of Christ? Let’s go back even further. What is the kingdom of the world? It’s the way the world works. The kingdom of the world is whatever rules and has power in this world. 1 John 2:16 defines the world as the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does. That’s what shapes and defines and reigns in this world. Because the world is in rebellion against God. It’s not how God created things, but it’s how things are in a fallen world. This is not the way it’s supposed to be.

But the good news of verse 15 is that one day the ways things are will be the way things are supposed to be, which is another way of saying “the kingdom of the world will become the kingdom of God and of his Christ.”

Let’s spend a few minutes talking about the kingdom of God. Most everyone nowadays is agreed that the kingdom of God is a central theme in the New Testament and the main theme in the gospels. But people can’t agree on what the kingdom means. There are three main views of the kingdom. Together they give a good definition of the kingdom. Separate they present a skewed picture of the kingdom.

The first view of the kingdom is the ethical view. According to this view, the kingdom is about living rightly. It’s about ethics. It’s the Sermon on the Mount. Love your enemies. Forgive those who sin against you. Don’t be judgmental. Give to the poor. Don’t commit adultery. Welcome the outcast. This is the view of the old theological liberals and of many of the new emergent church leaders. The kingdom of God means living out God’s shalom on earth. And that’s not an incorrect view of the kingdom. It’s just incomplete. The kingdom of God does mean living a certain way and enjoying a peace and harmony and justice that only Christ can bring. But that’s not all that the kingdom brings. If the kingdom is only a message about ethics, there’s no good news, because the utopia isn’t coming in this age and we can’t keep the Sermon on the Mount perfectly. So the kingdom is ethics, but it’s more than ethics.

The second view of the kingdom is the experiential view. According to this view, the kindgom is about what it’s your hearts. To receive the kingdom of God you must be like a little child (Mark 10:15). This is the pietistic view fo the kingdom. Be humble. Rely on God. Have an inner experience. Get in touch with your spiritual side. And this is not incorrect. The kingdom of God is about changed hearts and humility and experiencing the love of Jesus. But that’s not all. If the kingdom is only about an experience, there’s no Jesus. The kingdom is not just an experience, or even an experience of Jesus. It’s also a message about who he is, what he’s done, and what he demands.

Which brings us to the third view, the eschatological view. Eschatological simply means last things. According to this view, the kingdom of God ushers in the reign of God and brings us out of this present evil age and into the age to come. The kingdom means the king has come to finally vanquish his foes and save his people. The goats will be separated from the sheep. Those who believe in Jesus will be saved. Those who reject him stand condemned. This is the conservative evangelical view. And it’s right. As much as liberals and emergent folks don’t like it, the kingdom is about who’s in and who’s out. Who submits to the king and his rule and who doesn’t. But that’s not all the kingdom is about. It’s also about heart transformation and living out righteousness and justice.

So the short way of describing the kingdom is to call it the reign and rule of God. The long way to say it is the kingdom is about God having sway over our society, our hearts, and our allegiance. So here’s how one author summarizes Revelation 11:15: “Dominion over the world, without challenge or rival, has come into the possession of our Lord and his anointed King.” When the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ there will be no more lawlessness, no more rebellion, no more brokenness, no more injustice, and no more unrighteousness. They way God wants things to be will be the way things are.

Has the Kingdom Come?

But this raises another question. Is the kingdom present or future? Is it here or are we waiting for it to arrive? And the answer is “Yes.” The kingdom of God is present and future; it is here and it has not yet arrived. Until you understand this–what scholars call the already and not yet of the kingdom–you won’t understand the gospels or Revelation or much of the New Testament.

Let me read two verses which illustrate this tension. Matthew 4:17 “From that time on Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” Or, as most of the other translations have it, “the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” It’s like in Luke 17 when the Pharisees ask Jesus when the kingdom will come. And he replies, “The kingdom of God is among you.” Some translations have “within” but among is a better translation. With the coming of Jesus Christ, especially in his death and resurrection, the kingdom has come. That’s why Jesus could say the kingdom is at hand.

But here’s the second verse. It’s very familiar to you. Matthew 6:10, the Lord’s Prayer, “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The kingdom has not yet arrived. So we pray for it to come and break in and fully hit the scene.

I want you to picture a couple of diagrams in your head. I know, it would better if you could see, but just imagine. This was the Jewish mindset. You have two ages: this age and the age to come. This age is present and evil; the age to come is the age in the future where the Messiah reigns and his enemies are destroyed and there is peace and righteousness. They saw this age going in a straight line, then the Messiah, then off into the age to come. But that’s not how Jesus explained things which is part of the reason why they didn’t like him as their Messiah. For the Jesus, and the rest of the New Testament, the two ages work like this. You have this age, then overlapping it is the age to come. When Messiah came he announced the in-breaking of the age to come which was realized in principle. This in-breaking is called the kingdom of God. With the coming of Christ and especially his death and resurrection, the present evil age has become in principle the age to come. But it’s not a clean break from one to the other. They overlap such that this age is growing into what it is in principle. And when the ideal announced by Christ which broke in during his life becomes the reality, then the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.

Here’s an analogy. It’s not a perfect analogy. So don’t press it too far. But it’s kind of like election day and inauguration day. In this country the president is elected on the first Tuesday in November, but his presidency doesn’t officially begin until January 20. He’s won. His opponent has been defeated. It’s all in the papers and on the internet. The whole country preparing for the transition. The winner starts forming his cabinet and putting together his administration. The new era has begun, but on the other hand it hasn’t. See, in one sense, we live in the time between the election and inauguration. Christ has defeated sin and Satan and death. It is appropriate to talk about Christ as the King. The news is all over the place. And we are supposed to make sure everyone hears about this news. But opposition to King is still strong, and in some ways, growing stronger all time. He is the already, but not yet King. And it will be this way until his enemies are thoroughly defeated and his reign fully in place.

This already and not yet is really important. It’s how the kingdom works and how your salvation works. What’s true on a macro level is true on a micro level too. Your life is not a straight line with a clean break between old man and new man, or non-Christian and Christian. It doesn’t work like that–unconverted, selfish, prideful, boom, in Christ, now I’m completely holy. What happens is that you have your life outside of Christ then you are converted, regenerated, justified, adopted, all of that and now you are positionally in Christ. But who you in actuality is not yet that Christlike. Which is why New Testament ethics are based on who you are in Christ. Be who you are. Work out your salvation. Make your calling and election sure. In other words, grow into in reality who Christ has made you to be positionally.

So as a Christian you are already holy and not yet holy and becoming holy. And the kingdom of God is already here, not yet here, and getting here. Until we understand those sequences, we won’t understand how the gospel works and how the gospel of the kingdom works.

O Happy Day

Let’s go back to Revelation now. The kingdom of God is here. He already has defeated the devil and paid for our sins. Christ already sits at the Father’s right hand and is the King of this world. But he must also become the King, because his reign is disputed and his subjects are in unchecked rebellion. But, when the seventh trumpet sounds, there will be no more delay. The reign and rule of the Lord and his Anointed One will finally be complete, unquestioned, and unopposed. And all of God’s people will rejoice at the return of the king.

This is where I want to spend our last few minutes. What will be so good about that day? Or to put it another way, why will we sing and give thanks and fall on our faces and worship God on that day when the kingdom of this world becomes the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ? Here’s the answer: because on that day the Lord will take his power, the nations will no longer rage, the saints will be rewarded, the wicked destroyed, and God himself will be with us. That’s all in verses 17-19. We’ll see the same sequence of events unfolded in more detail in chapters 19-22. But in a sentence this is what the kingdom is and what it will mean when it fully comes: the Lord will take his power, the nations will no longer rage, the saints will be rewarded, the wicked destroyed, and God himself will be with us.

We will sing and give thanks and worship on that day because the Lord will take his power. Since the 1960s, American society has been very suspicious of power. Authority has been seen as a bad thing, maybe even an un-Christian thing. But the Bible is not against power and authority. It is against corrupt power and abusive authority, but not against the things themselves. I trust that we all desperately want the Lord God Almighty to take his great power and begin to reign.

In Revelation 1:4, 1:8, and 4:8 God is described as him who is and who was and who is to come. But here in verse 16 we simply have “the One who is and who was.” The last part of the triad is missing. There is no “who is to come.” Because in chapter 11:16, he has come. He has begun to reign. The future has become the present. On that day, the Lord will have taken his great power.

And the nations will no longer rage. Psalm 2 prophesied “Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One. ‘Let us break their chains,’ they say, ‘and throw off their fetters.’” Psalm 2 goes on to say that the One enthroned in heaven laughs and scoffs at them. Well, this is the Lord getting the last laugh. “The nations were angry; and your wrath has come.”

It’s hard for us to think get too excited about the judgment of the nations because we live in the top dog nation. Most of us don’t know what it’s like to under an oppressive regime, or a government violently hostile to Christianity, or a hopelessly corrupt leader, or a brutal dictator. But one or more of those are the reality for millions of people in the world. Philip Jenkins writes “Societies that know the threat of persecution, that have experienced anti-Christian violence in living memory, feel a strong affinity to the sections of the Bible that regard the secular state coldly, that present suffering as the likely lot of the Christian in this life. In such communities, apocalyptic literature–especially the book of Revelation–has a near-documentary relevance.”

On that day, the saints will be rewarded. Take the best, purest, happiest day of your life, multiply it by a hundred and have that same day for eternity. That’s still not as good as our reward. Watch kids at Christmas. It’s a mythical time for them. Presents, candy, cousins, mom and dad home for work, snowmen, sledding, no school. It’s magical. You may say, “they’re greedy kids, wanting all those presents and candy canes.” Perhaps. But we could stand to be a little more greedy for God’s gifts coming to us in the age to come. It wouldn’t hurt God’s feelings if we were to live each day in anticipation of heaven like kids live every day in December in anticipation for Christmas.

The saints will be rewarded and the destroyers will be destroyed. Eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth is still the law for those who do no know Christ. God is still a God of justice. He still demands an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It’s just that he poked Christ in the eye and knocked his teeth instead of ours. But don’t forget that this last trumpet is the third woe. As much as the saints rejoice, the final trumpet blast is the sound of death for the wicked. Jeremiah 51:25 “‘I am against you, O destroying mountain, you who destroy the whole earth,’ declares the Lord.”

I’m sure that Revelation 11 is meant to make us think of the Battle of Jericho: For six days the seven priests carrying seven trumpets marched around Jericho blowing their trumpets with the ark of the Lord behind them. And the people did not raise their voices. But on the seventh day, after marching and blowing the trumpets seven times, the people shout, the walls come a tumblin down, and the enemy is routed. In Revelation 11, the seventh trumpet sounds, the people shout in loud voices, and God’s enemies are destroyed.

We will sing and give thanks and fall on our faces and worship God on that day when the kingdom of this world becomes the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, because on that day the Lord will take his power, the nations will no longer rage, the saints will be rewarded, the wicked destroyed, and God himself will be with us. Chapter 11 brings to a close the long vision that began in chapter 4. At the beginning of chapter 4 John saw a door standing open in heaven and a voice like a trumpet speaking to him. And he saw God on the throne with lightning, rumblings, and peals of thunder. And the Lamb who was slain. And then the Lamb took the scroll and opened its seals one by one. And as the last seal was broken John saw seven angels with seven trumpets. And they were sounded one by one. And with the sounding of the last trumpet, John again sees a door open and inside there are flashes of lightning, rumblings, and peals of thunder. This long vision has come to an end and will lead into a different set of images in chapter 12.

I’ve said before the lightning, rumbling, and thunder are signs of theophany. They symbolize the presence of God, which is why they surround him who sits on the throne. And that’s why the seven seals ended with lightning, rumbling, and thunder and why the seven trumpets do as well. This series, which grows each time adding an earthquake and now hail, signify that this is the end. God has come to earth. The world has been judged. The righteous rewarded. And God dwells with us.

But, you say, there’s no vision of God here. Yes there is. There’s the ark of the covenant. The ark was in the holy of holies in the temple because it symbolized the presence of God. That’s why losing the ark was a big deal and touching the ark meant death. It was a physical manifestation of God’s holiness. And John sees the temple doors wide open so he can look right at the ark. So, here’s the best news of the good news, when the kingdom of this world becomes the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, God himself will be with us–Immanuel.

So rejoice the Lord is King! Your Lord and King adore. Rejoice, give thanks and sing and triumph evermore. Lift up your heart, lift up your voice. Rejoice, again, I say, rejoice!