Let the Little Ones Go!

 It's one of those moments they never train you for in seminary: you're preaching hard, really getting into the text, flourishing the sword of God's word with all your pastoral might!...and then little Johnny decides it's time to start competing with you using all the noises he can muster, great and small. Heads start turning. Focus is lost. You quickly try to regain control of the congregation's attention, but it takes a few moments for everyone to reset. We wait for mom to take Johnny out of the service until he can learn to stop making any noise. After all, the church service, above everything else, should be calm, clean, and serene. Right?

It is this attitude that leads many churches to shuffle the children out of worship for some time in the service, usually during the sermon, if not the entire time. On some level, I think we all get it. Moms and dads need breaks. Kids are going to struggle to just sit still through the service, never mind actually understanding the points of the sermon! Surely it's just better for everyone if junior goes somewhere where a trained teacher can give him something more digestible. And mom and dad can not only catch a break, but actually pay attention to the service and benefit from the preaching.

Let me be clear that I am not universally opposed to these practices. Some churches do them very well, in a way where children at a young age are being trained to participate ASAP in the worship service from start to finish. Many churches just do this for the youngest children in their midst and keep youth in the service as much as possible. All this can be God-honoring and it is not my desire to throw shade at anyone else's practice. 

It was in my Bible reading today that I was especially struck by this issue. Specifically, I am reading through the Old Testament this year and am in the first half of Exodus. As Moses and Aaron are interacting with the Pharaoh this exchange occurs: 

"So Moses and Aaron were brought again to Pharaoh, and he said to them, 'Go, serve the LORD your God. Who are the ones that are going?' And Moses said, 'We will go with our young and our old; with our sons and our daughters, with our flocks and our herds we will go, for we must hold a feast to the LORD.' Then he said to them, 'The LORD had better be with you when I let you and your little ones go! Beware, for evil is ahead of you. Not so! God now, you who are men, and serve the LORD, for that is what you desired.'" (Exodus 10:8-10)

Moses is adamant that Israel must go and worship the Lord God away from the Egyptians. And when asked specifically about who would go to this feast of Yahweh, he says, "Everyone! Young and old, sons and daughters." He even says that all these must go, "for we must hold a feast to the LORD." A feast to God, with sacrifices offered in worship and then shared in the celebration meal, must have everyone involved. It's not enough that the men of Israel be free to go, the little ones must come, too! 

Every congregation must decide for itself how it's going to approach the inclusion of children. I am not going to sit here and say that the issue is 100% black-and-white. I don't know where we got the impression that church was supposed to be a silent, serene affair; I don't see it in the Bible! But I can say honestly that those moments like I described at the start, those little voices bursting out in the service, give me a lot of joy as a preacher. Little voices remind us that worship is a feast to the LORD! And whoever heard of a silent feast? 

Does junior understand everything in the sermon? Of course not. But if he doesn't understand anything, I would say the answer is for us to be better preachers, not to send him packing! I'm reminded of a quote from Martin Luther that I'll paraphrase, in which he described how he aimed his preaching at the little ones in his church, not the doctors and professors. If he aimed at the children, the old men would get something, too. And if the doctors and professors believed such preaching wasn't sophisticated enough, he'd point them to the door!

God told Pharaoh, "Let My people go." Not just the men. Not just the adults. All the people. So let the little ones go, too! Or, as Jesus put it so well, "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 19:14)

A Renewed Call to Thanksgiving

Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.
Oh, give thanks to the God of gods! For His mercy endures forever. 
Oh, give thanks to the Lord of lords! For His mercy endures forever.

Who remembered us in our lowly state, for His mercy endures forever.
And rescued us from our enemies, for His mercy endures forever.
Who gives food to all flesh, for His mercy endures forever.

Oh, give thanks to the God of heaven! For His mercy endures forever. (Psalm 136:1-3, 23-26)

If you're like me, 2020 has been a crazy year, filled with lots of reasons to be unhappy and bitter. But that spirit comes from forgetting what is most important, which, despite what every Hallmark movie has told you, is not family, community, or small-town living. The most important things to remember, and the reason I will be giving thanks this year with vigor, is because God has not changed. He is still more than worth thanking and praising! That's the lesson we see in Psalm 136. 

Psalm 136 is one of those psalms that totally upends any complaints about the repetitive nature of contemporary worship songs. It is a 26-verse psalm with each verse consisting of two lines. The first line is different, but the second line is the same repetition in each verse: "For His mercy endures forever." It is a psalm that calls on Israel, God's people, to give thanks to God for His greatness. God is praised for His creation (v.4-9), for delivering Israel from her enemies (v.10-22), and for raising her out of a low estate (v.23-26). An overview of God's great works is rehashed and all Israel is meant to respond with gratitude. But the most important that Israel must remember, and the chief reason for them to give thanks to the Lord, is that His mercy endures forever. His steadfast, covenant love, in fulfillment of all His covenant promises, remains the same. 

This is good news for the end of our 2020, friends! God's love for His people has not diminished, changed, or wavered. His mercy still endures and will endure forever. Our Creator is also our Redeemer and Friend. He has saved us, He is saving us, and He will save us. Whether you and your family are able to gather this year, or not; whether your holiday traditions are all kept up, or not; whatever the situation, this one thing remains constant: God is good and His mercy endures forever. Give Him thanks in all things and enjoy the blessings and the trials that He has sent you this year!

+ Blessings in Christ +

A Call to Lament for These United States

4 So it was, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned for many days; I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

5 And I said: “I pray, Lord God of heaven, O great and awesome God, You who keep Your covenant and mercy with those who love You and observe Your commandments, 6 please let Your ear be attentive and Your eyes open, that You may hear the prayer of Your servant which I pray before You now, day and night, for the children of Israel Your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel which we have sinned against You. Both my father’s house and I have sinned. 7 We have acted very corruptly against You, and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, nor the ordinances which You commanded Your servant Moses. 8 Remember, I pray, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations; 9 but if you return to Me, and keep My commandments and do them, though some of you were cast out to the farthest part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there, and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling for My name.’ 10 Now these are Your servants and Your people, whom You have redeemed by Your great power, and by Your strong hand. (Nehemiah 1:4-10)

Our nation is in a time of great turmoil. A buildup of racial tension, fueled by several murders of black individuals, culminated in the unjustified killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. Over the last week or two, the justifiable outrage over such a travesty of justice has increasingly given way to rioting, looting, violence, and anarchy in the streets of major American cities. Just this morning I read a story about 77 year old David Dorn. Dorn was a retired police officer in St. Louis who was murdered while trying to help defend a pawn shop from looters. He was also a black man. Apparently, if you get in the way of the bloodthirsty mob, your black life doesn't matter anymore. 

A seemingly infinite number of voices have come forward with all sorts of declarations: solutions to problems, demands for recompense, even working toward the tear down and restructuring of our entire society. This post is not an attempt to add to the clamor. Somehow, as it seems to always be these days, everything comes back to politics. I don't think it's any coincidence that all these things come mere months before another election cycle. I think one of the best things Christians can do in a time like this is to be slow to proclaim solutions. As one fellow ARP pastor has recently put it, we need to relearn the process of lamenting.

That's what we see in Nehemiah's case. Nehemiah is in exile and receives a report from home: the walls of Jerusalem are broken down and the gates are burned with fire. In other words, the report ain't good! Everything seems to have fallen apart, perhaps even irreparably. But Nehemiah's first response is not to proclaim a solution. He does not suddenly become a self-proclaimed expert on how to restore the city. The first thing Nehemiah does is to sit down, weep, and mourn with repentance for many days. 

Notice the progression of Nehemiah's prayer: first, he begins by remembering who God is, "You who keep Your covenant and mercy with those who love You and observe Your commandments." If we do not know who God is, and receive Him by faith, we will never truly understand the world around us. We won't even understand ourselves. "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." (Proverbs 9:10)

Second, Nehemiah confesses sins; both his sins and the sins of his people: "and confess the sins of the children of Israel which we have sinned against You. Both my father’s house and I have sinned." 

In the midst of our current crisis, there has been discussion of injustice, wickedness, evil, perhaps even some have used the dreaded word, "sin." There are two things we need to remember about this: there is such a thing as societal sin; a people can be guilty of wickedness, even if not every particular individual has committed that sin. This is true about our nation with the guilt of abortion, pornography, and a host of other heinous sins. It may equally be true of something like racial pride or malice. Even though our hands may individually be clean, our nation's hands may be bloody with sins. 

However, it is equally important to remember that God defines sin. Sin is the failure to live up to, or the transgression of, God's commandments. Sin is not whatever happens to upset the Zany Zeitgeist, the Sensitive Socialists, or the Craven Commies in our midst. Just because someone gets very mad about something does not mean that that "something" actually makes God mad. Nehemiah defines his sin as "not keeping the commandments, the statutes, nor the ordinances which You commanded Your servant Moses." 

Is God angry over the unjust killing of a helpless, restrained man already in police custody? Absolutely. Without question. It was an egregious injustice and requires punishment for the offendor(s) (which, biblically, would be the death penalty). God is also mad about our pornography addictions. He's mad about our Sabbath-breaking. He's mad about our idolatry and our rejection of Jesus Christ as Lord. He's mad about the millions of babies we've butchered in the womb. He's mad about our horrendous treatment of our elderly. He's mad about George Floyd's killing. And He's equally mad about the killing of David Dorn. If you cannot give an amen to that, you aren't really concerned with God's justice, you just want your own way in the world. If we are going to deal with our societal sins, let's deal with them, according to God's true commandment and in God's ordained fashion of dealing with sin. Let's deal with them the way Nehemiah did: with true repentance from true sin, as defined by the true God.

And let us also look to a true hope for the future. Nehemiah looks to God with hope, reminding God of His own word, "but if you return to Me, and keep My commandments and do them, though some of you were cast out to the farthest part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there, and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling for My name." There is always hope for the future, as long as Jesus is still on the throne. There is hope for greater racial reconciliation in this country, but only if we pursue it based on the finished work of the cross. The cross of Jesus has already broken down the middle wall of separation, reconciling us to God and putting the enmity to death (Ephesians 2:14-18). The only thing that remains for us is to live like that were true, by faith and obedience in Jesus Christ.

And so, reader, follow Nehemiah's example: remember who God is, for the first time or the hundredth; search your own heart for sin, confess it to God, and turn away from it to Jesus; and pray in hope of the glory of God. Perhaps our societal turmoil and trouble is only the birth pangs of a great revival of love, righteousness, and worship in our land. But it only comes as we seek it from Jesus Christ, the only King of kings and Lord of lords. May He be pleased to send repentance and revival to the shores of these United States again.

The Place of Doubt in the Christian Life

"Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!" I strongly believe these words are some of the most profound words ever uttered, not only in Scripture, but in all human history. So much is contained in this simple confession of faith and doubt. So much of the struggle of the human soul is revealed in these six simple words. In Mark 9 Jesus encounters a father who has a demon-possessed son. The demon possessing this man's child has been plaguing him since his childhood, maybe even since he was born. The father has watched for years as his son, under violent assault from a power outside of his control, has thrown himself into fire and water. For years, this unwelcome enemy has been attempting to destroy his son, and the father has never been able to protect his boy in the way all good fathers do.

But one day, in the midst of this terrible darkness, a glimmer of hope beams in. The father hears about a wandering teacher named Jesus, who apparently has demonstrated power to cast out demons and even heal people like his son. The father brings the boy to Jesus' disciples, a last ditch effort to try and procure healing for his tormented child. But the disciples cannot cast the demon out. What a sinking moment! All those years of despair and helplessness, interrupted by what appeared to be a ray of hope, but his son's demon is simply too powerful to be defeated, even for these trusted devotees of Jesus.

Is it any wonder that in Mark 9:22 the father seems to doubt Jesus, "But if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us." If You can do anything, Jesus. If you can help me, please do it. Otherwise, just leave me in the darkness of my despair and fatherly failure. Jesus' response seems almost callous in the face of all these things: "If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes." The father had an "if": if you can do anything. Jesus also has an "if": if you can believe.

It's here that the rubber meets the road in our thinking on faith and doubt. Jesus tells this man, essentially, "If you have faith, all things are possible." If you have faith, your son will be healed. Sounds almost like Jesus has gone into the Word of Faith camp! Is Jesus saying here that if a person has faith, they can have anything they want? And, on the contrary, if they don't get their prayers answered, they did not have enough faith?

The father's response is telling: "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!" Lord, I have faith; help my doubt! There are three things that we see in this father's words that help us think through our faith and doubt as Christians.

First, notice how the father addresses Jesus: "Lord". This is the essence of faith: the confession that Jesus is Lord (Phil 2:11). The father has faith in Jesus as Lord, even though his faith may be nothing more than a mustard seed.

Second, notice how the father's faith is mingled with doubt. He does not simply say, "Lord, I believe you perfectly." Far from it! Lord, I believe; help my unbelief! He has true faith that Jesus is Lord and can do something to help heal his son. But that true faith is small and surrounded by a sea of doubts. Anyone who would tell you that being a Christian means not having doubts is either deceived or a liar. Any televangelist or faith healer who says that you need perfect faith, or doubtless faith in order to receive good things from the Lord never read this part of their Bible.

Do you and I not struggle, Christian? Do we not have doubts about God's promises or the trustworthiness of His word? Can you say with no deceit that you don't wrestle with God in any of these ways? If so, I envy you! But for most of us, doubts are a common companion. We read of stupendous miracles in God's word and we hear the serpent's whisper again, "Did that really happen?" "Can I really believe that?" We struggle with it! And true faith can and does exist in the midst of those doubts and questions.

But notice the third and final thing from this father's plea: his doubts are not a welcome companion. He cries out, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!" The Greek word for help boethei is the same word used when he asked Jesus to "have compassion on us and help us." He asked for Jesus' help in ridding his son of the demon, and he asks for Jesus' help in overcoming his doubts. This father has doubts, but he does not do what so many modern evangellybean Christians do by making his doubts a perverse source of pride; as if true spirituality was achieved by doubting God more than believing Him. Doubts are a present reality for the believer, but they are an unwelcome one. The Bible condemns unbelief as a sin. Although we remain wrestling with sin in this life, all sins, including doubt, are things to be overcome by faith.

We are not told anything about the father after Jesus casts out the demon. We imagine, however, that the experience strengthened his new faith in Christ and further established his trust in God's promises. This is one thing that separates biblical faith in God's promises from the prosperity gospel teaching. The prosperity gospel generally tells you that doubts are something to be overcome so that you can receive God's promises, having spoken them into your life by the "word of faith". But true bible religion teaches that our doubts are to be overcome as we receive God's promises, receiving them totally by faith through God's undeserved mercy.

In short: true faith is often surrounded by doubt, even for the Christian. But God's promises remain sure and true. Our doubts are unwelcome burdens to be overcome, not by closing our eyes tighter and praying harder, but by simply receiving God's gracious promises through faith, even if that faith is no bigger than the mustard seed.

Our Summer 2019 Update!

Walking Through Westminster, WCF 17.1-3 "Of the Perseverance of the Saints"

Westminster Confession of Faith 17.1-3

1. They, whom God hath accepted in His beloved, effectually called and sanctified by His Spirit, can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace; but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved.

2. This perseverance of the saints depends, not upon their own free will, but upon the immutability of the decree of election, flowing from the free and unchangeable love of God the Father; upon the efficacy of the merit and intercession of Jesus Christ; the abiding of the Spirit and of the seed of God within them; and the nature of the covenant of grace; from all which ariseth also the certainty and infallibility thereof. 

3. Nevertheless they may, through the temptations of Satan and of the world, the prevalancy of corruption remaining in them, and the neglect of the means of their perseverance, fall into grievous sins; and for a time continue therein: whereby they incur God's displeasure, and grieve His Holy Spirit; come to be deprived of some measure of their graces and comforts, have their hearts hardened, and their consciences wounded; hurt and scandalize others, and bring temporal judgments upon themselves. 

Summary

Can a Christian lose their salvation? That is one of the most debated questions in the history of theology. We certainly know that apostasy, falling away from the faith, is a reality in our world. We all know stories of people who profess faith in Jesus, or grow up in the church as apparently faithful covenant children, and then 20 years down the road, they are painting their hair purple, living in open rebellion against God, and treating the church as just another embarrassing step in the process of "progressing" on into true maturity and enlightened living.

The question before us is whether that person ever had a saving relationship with God, or not. Did they have something real and really lose it? Or did they never have the real thing and only lose the appearance of it, the sham covering?

The Confession echoes the Bible's teaching when it declares that, "They, whom God hath accepted in His beloved, effectually called and sanctified by His Spirit, can neither totally nor finally away from the state of grace." If God has set His hand on a human soul to save them, then they assuredly must be saved. The basis for that truth is that God is the one doing the saving; not the sinner. Two important words come up in relation to this truth: monergism and synergism. Monergism is the reality that salvation is all a work of God. Synergism is the mistaken belief that the sinner must work with God in order to reach salvation. If we were in any way required to contribute to our salvation, we would surely make a mess of it and our perseverance would be thrown into the ether. But because salvation is of the Lord, not of us, we can rest assured that the saints will persevere all the way to eternal life, no matter how much they may struggle on the way there. 

+ Blessings in Christ +

Walking Through Westminster, WCF 16.5-7 "Of Good Works" Pt. 2

Westminster Confession of Faith 16.5-7

V. We cannot by our best works merit pardon of sin, or eternal life at the hand of God, by reason of the great disproportion that is between them and the glory to come; and the infinite distance that is between us and God, whom, by them, we can neither profit, nor satisfy for the debt of our former sins, but when we have done all we can, we have done but our duty, and are unprofitable servants: and because, as they are good, they proceed from his Spirit, and as they are wrought by us, they are defiled, and mixed with so much weakness and imperfection, that they cannot endure the severity of God's judgment.

VI. Notwithstanding, the persons of believers being accepted through Christ, their good works also are accepted in Him; not as though they were in this life wholly unblamable and unreproveable in God's sight; but that He, looking upon them in his Son, is pleased to accept and reward that which is sincere, although accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections.

VII. Works done by unregenerate men, although for the matter of them they may be things which God commands; and of good use both to themselves and others: yet, because they proceed not from an heart purified by faith; nor are done in a right manner, according to the Word; nor to a right end, the glory of God, they are therefore sinful and cannot please God, or make a man meet to receive grace from God: and yet, their neglect of them is more sinful and displeasing unto God.

Summary

There's a great standup bit by comedian Norm MacDonald in which he makes the basic point that everyone is a hypocrite. After a great few minute introduction on the topic of hypocrisy and how we don't like it, he delivers a great line about all of us being rightly lumped into that camp. "Can you imagine," he asks, "having a little kid there, 7 or 8 years old, sitting them down...and telling them who you really are? Like, 'Hey, Billy, let me tell you all the evil (stuff) I've ever done.' That doesn't seem like a good idea."  

Essentially, we are all hypocrites on some level or another, because we are full of evil, but don't want anyone else to really know it. The problem we run into is that, while we can hide our evil from each other, God sees right through our hypocritical guise. He knows everything about how evil we really are. That's why the Confession echoes the Biblical teaching that we can never, by our own attempts at goodness, earn heaven. The distance between our sin and God's goodness is so vast that we can never cross it. Even when we have done everything commanded of us (which, if we are honest we never even come close to), Jesus still taught us that we were "unprofitable servants". Even if we did everything God told us to do, we still wouldn't have Him in our debt. He wouldn't owe us anything. Children growing up are often required to do chores (or they should be). When a child has done his chores, he has no right to go to his mother and demand payment. He was only doing what was expected of him. It is the same with God. 

This doesn't mean that God doesn't care about our good work: He does. If you are in Christ, then not only has God accepted you, but He accepts the good works you do, as done in Christ. Christ takes your imperfect good works and purifies them with His own blood so that the Father finds them wholly acceptable and pleasing. But they are only pleasing through Christ, not through you. 

The question then becomes: can unbelievers do "good works"? The Confession in section 7 echoes what Scripture teaches: good works can only be truly done by faith (Heb 11:6). As the unbeliever, by definition, does not have faith, none of their works can truly be called "good" the way that God defines it. This does not mean that their works are not helpful. It is better to live in a society where even unbelievers try not to harm their neighbor. It is better to live in a world where people try to help each other; where even unbelievers strive to live by God's 10 Commandments. However, because their works do not come from a heart that is born-again, thankful to God, and seeking to please God through faith, their works cannot be "good" in the sense that God requires. Yet, the Confession teaches (again, echoing Scripture) that it is still more sinful for the wicked to neglect good works. In other words, it is better that all men do works that are outwardly good; souls who reject God's Law because they don't believe in Him anyway are only making things worse for themselves on Judgment Day, not better. 

+ Blessings in Christ +