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I Choose to Worship

When the enemy says I’m done, I’ll lift my praises
When my world come crashing down, I’ll lift my praises high
‘Til the darkness turns to dawn, I’ll lift my praises
I choose to worship, I choose You now

Sometimes the dark is darker than dark. But as Psalm 139 reminds us, “even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.” The darkness cannot steal my song. Nothing can. Storms, floods, armies, and persecution can try but none of it can take my song. Why? Because it comes from the Lord. The Lord that is over all. So, as Chris Llewellyn beautifully writes, “I build my alter right here and now. In the midst of the darkest night it won’t burn out.”

Agree to Disagree

The phrase means different things to different people. By and large, it has been the way of the West of centuries. Put a different way, most areas of disagreement do not constitute separation.

We deal with this in the church all the time, where Albert Mohler divides theological arguments into three tiers. First tier issues being orthodoxy and worth saying “you are not a Christian” over. These are matters of heresy. Second tier issues are matters that divide denominations, such as paedobaptism. We agree that we are both Christians, but we might not be able to go to the same church together. Third tier are the, what I call, long-beard issues. These are topics that are fun to discuss and debate, but have no affect on our salvation.

I say this to say that we need to think about what hills are worth dying on and realize that the majority of hills are not worth such acts.

This leads us back to the phrase: agree to disagree. When we agree to disagree on a specific topic, sometimes that looks like leaving the topic lay, knowing there is disagreement and being okay with it. There are other topics to discuss, after all. Other times we respectfully continue conversation around the topic because of a mutual desire to understand people we disagree with.

But the truth of the matter is that the existence of agreeing to disagree means that there are topics we cannot agree to disagree on. See first tier topics. For a Christian, this doesn’t mean that you hate— or show any less love for— the person you disagree with, it just means the disagreement is on a topic important enough to cut certain ties— in the context of these disagreements, the tie is the church, this individual is not allowed to lead or participate in certain ways in one’s church and could see church discipline, for instance. For instance, sometimes a disagreement can be on a topic important enough to prevent an individual from being around your children.

These are healthy things to do, but one has to weigh the importance of topics. As a Christian, we have to weigh these things against the Bible and our duties therein.

As a Christian, we are to go and spread the Gospel. To do that, you will be encountering people that disagree with you on the topics that are of most importance to you as a Christian every single day. If I cut ties with everyone that believed that children with Down Syndrome should be rooted out in the womb and murdered, I would be cutting ties with a lot of people that need Jesus. This ends in me being Amish, sequestered to a hundred acres in Arkansas with no Internet, no phone, and no contact with the outside world. Just me, my woodshop, and lots of laughing kids. Actually, that sounds great. But my Lord commands that I engage with the world.

But that is the Christian worldview. Lovingly living alongside men and women that disagree with us is part of the plan. It’s how we spread the Gospel. The worldview that is spreading through the West like wildfire is almost Darwinian: destroy those that you disagree with. Why would you continue to love someone that disagrees with you? You don’t need that kind of negativity in your life. And the result is that the bar for what is worth destroying a relationship, or possible relationship, is much lower for many. What used to clearly fall into “you are Jewish and I am Christian, but we can still be friends,” now lands in “you are Christian and I am trans, so we cannot be friends and I’ll call your manager on Monday to demand that they fire you.”

This is a worldview difference that is stark as we enter into an era of post-Christian society. Where a couple decades ago the atheists followed Christian principles, the new atheists most certainly do not. For many of them, not only are they not okay with agreeing to disagree on their topics, they will chase you down and harass you until you agree. That will come in the way of threats of violence against you, threats against your job, threats to destroy your reputation, threats to go after your children, and worse.

Some of those reading this have seen this form of disagreement either personally or close friends. Others think I am being sensational and hyperbolic. I assure you I am not. All those types of threats I mentioned in the last paragraph I have experienced personally in the last year.

Please Christian, be aware that persecution is coming in the States. If your job hasn’t been threatened yet, it will be sooner or later. You will get a call from HR and be told to defend yourself against baseless claims. If your children haven’t been used as collateral to get your obedience yet, they will be sooner or later. Hold to your faith and show grace in these situations. Look to the martyrs of old. Don’t waiver in your faith or your testimony.

Understand, Christian, that we are dealing with worldview differences so often now that it is becoming normal. Try to be peaceable in all things and know that many in our modern world have no intent on doing anything of the such. You are now the counterculture.

The Shameless v. the Unashamed

One of the heartening signs that has resulted from the ascendancy of this creepy clown world regime is that it has revealed to me that there are still seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal. There have been many new voices, deserted by their former leaders, who have stepped into the breach. They are standing up straight, and they are unashamed.

It is true that things look bad. The leadership of Laketown was feckless and self-serving. The whole town is in disarray, and is under attack. The dragon has come and everything is hopeless.

But there is one man, Bard, and he has one arrow. And with that one arrow in his hand, one bird comes and speaks to him. And he sets the arrow to string, unashamed.

The Shameless v. the Unashamed by Douglas Wilson

No commentary needed here. Pastor Doug said it all. Christian, go read Pastor Doug’s post. Or watch the video.

America’s Inchoate and Disinte­grating Soul

America’s Inchoate and Disinte­grating Soul

Speaking out in terrible taste now seems like the good old days to us. Tennessee had recently outlawed trans-surgery on minors, and so the hot takes after the Nashville shootings were running along the lines of “straight Tennessee had it coming.” This is not politics anymore—this is something else entirely.

That Acrid Taste of Damnation by Douglas Wilson

Let’s go.

The idea is to believe in oneself, to reach deep down within one’s own heart, and there to discover a treasury of infinite riches. So goes the lie. But what we have discovered instead is that we have become a vacuous people with hollow souls, empty minds, and grasping hands.

Vacuous. Emptied of or lacking content. A commenter on YouTube put it this way, “this is angry Doug.” Yes, yes it is.

If you are reading this, and you are one of those who has been surgically torn apart by such lies, and you are still miserable, that misery has to do with your relationship to the God you are still rejecting. Your misery has nothing to do with the fact that some people in the red states disapprove of what you have done. They cut off your breasts in San Francisco, and you are not spiritually empty because somebody in Tulsa disapproves. You feel spiritually empty because you are spiritually empty, and Oklahoma has little or nothing to do with it. Not only so, but the surgeon who did this awful thing to you is spiritually empty as well, and the medical profession certified him is as hollow as a jug. Looking to them for answers is like drinking from the dry and broken cisterns of ancient Israel, the ones that were dry in Jeremiah’s day.

Let me speak clearly.

I spent my week in worship to temper my words. To temper my hands. To pull my punches. I would guess that Pastor Doug did the same. Tongues should not be unrestrained. But restrained tongues, something necessary for every Christian man and woman— by which I am including everyone as there are only men and women—, still must speak truth in the darkness, still must call evil evil, and still must call for the hearts of man to turn from darkness and repent.

This week we saw an unrepentant, monster of a woman walk into a school seeking to kill children. And she did just that. Three kids the age of my daughter and three adults my parent’s age slaughtered by a vile snake. And all week I saw the media raise her up. Glorify her. Why? Because she was a victim too. Her parents didn’t “love” her the way she needed, the church rejected her, Tennessee had this coming by passing laws that prevented sexual dance shows by cross-dressing freaks around children. I have read think-piece after think-piece about her. I have read the tweets from lunatic, loathsome, lousy Leftists saying that she was executed by the police. And then there are the protests. Extremists stormed Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Nashville, Kentucky, and Montana’s capitols over the last couple of days, attacking police and holding “die-ins,” a practice by which the protester lies on the ground and acts as if they are dead. Either no self-awareness or a complete callousness to the reality that one of their tribe murdered children literally days before in the name of their cause.

These people are evil, wretched fools.

It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.

Luke 17:2

Let me speak clearly. I support the laws passed in Tennessee. And the message this week has been loud and clear. If you support these laws, don’t be surprised when your children are murdered. But this is the logical conclusion of years of rhetoric that includes calling those that disagree with you “fascists”, saying that we want to “send you to a concentration camp”, that we want you “dead” and “murdered”. This is what comes when you ask questions on TikTok like “when are we going to start treating the fascists like the world did in the 1940s?” You convince a group of people that they are victims, that they are being attacked, that “words are violence,” that “silence is violence,” and that “disagreement denies your existence” and then tell them that those oppressing them are Christians and that we need to kill the fascists and it’s no wonder that eventually someone takes your no-one-could-actually-take-this-bullshit-seriously bullshit seriously and decides that killing children is the way to affect change.

And then these extremists, who charge people to kill in their name, claim she is a victim too.

See, last week I would have said this was partisan saber rattling intended to cause discord. But then I read on CNN that Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz said we are focusing on “[banning] books touching on gender issues” but “dead kids can’t read.” I spent a month, as things escalated in my personal life, writing about comfort in persecution, not striking back in persecution, and taming the lions. I think God needed my head down, buried in worship, and Scripture when this persecution came to fruition.

Vengence is not yours, Christian. Protect your children. Preach the Gospel and fight for laws that keep our children safe. But do not do it out of vengeance. Be angry. Angry at evil. Angry at those that would see children die. Angry at those that would see children sin. But then pray for resolution, for resolve, for repentance, and for restoration.

As they started the pandemic with singing, they are coming for your children. They are actively posting this.

So as to not get called out for blaming the actions of a few on an entire group, this is not all of the LGBT people. Some want to live their lives and leave our kids alone. Most are likely abhorred at what transpired this week. These extremists don’t and aren’t. And unfortunately, the message of the extremists is being parroted by the media and the Democrat party. Comply or die.

America is going down a dark path right now. Pray for its soul. Pray for America to repent. Pray for mercy for a bit longer.

Christians Dare to Say

The Bible is without error. Do not hide, slink away, say only the safe things. That is what they want. That is what the culture wants. They want their ideologies to have supreme visibility and anyone that disagrees with it to capitulate and celebrate it. In the words of Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz, we are focusing on “[banning] books touching on gender issues” but “dead kids can’t read.”

Celebrate it and don’t get in between us and your kids or your kids will keep dying.

We see you, we hear you.

But, Christian, dare to respond with biblical truth as the Word of God is perfect, authoritative, and without error. Boldly share and don’t let their threats of death scare you.

Lift Up Your Song

I have got nothing else fit for a King. This week has been a struggle. I’ve got lots of angry words. There is a time for that, but right now I am heartbroken. Heartbroken for the children— children my daughter’s age— that were murdered. Heartbroken for the families suffering from their loss. Heartbroken for their communities. My words, angry or otherwise, are falling short.

But gratitude. It’s all I’ve got at this point.

Senseless

Senseless

Beyond that unfolding storyline was the urgent sense that some motive must explain this targeted attack on a school, including young children. […] Interestingly, CNN’s Laura Coates seemed to defend the search for a motive by arguing (quite correctly) that a motive is not justification for the crime.

[…]

Christians know that the hunger for a motive is explained by the fact that God made us in His image as moral creatures, and we cannot keep ourselves from the hunger to know some motive behind such a heinous crime. At the same time, we can learn of some motive only to realize that there is no merely rational answer to the darkness of the human heart. There is no way for us to know the depth of an individual’s depravity once a heart is committed to sin. Audrey Hale left behind a map of The Covenant School. Perhaps her dark manifesto will offer some map of her murderous heart. Even that will not answer all our questions.

[…]

But Christians know that the real urgency is six grieving families in Nashville. Christian moms and dads, with brothers and sisters, are living a pain no one else would dare to understand. In Nashville, there is a wounded community and a congregation that has experienced unspeakable loss. A Presbyterian pastor with his wife and their children are experiencing the death of their little daughter and beloved sister.

The world’s trouble erupts in Nashville by R. Albert Mohler Jr.

I am numb right now. I said somewhere last week that I felt like I was trying to stop a train. God, I pray this was enough to wake the world up that we have to stop the hateful, demonizing, us-vs.-them rhetoric. The children that died on Monday were my daughter’s age. I find some peace in that they are in Heaven now, away from the pain of this world, but I mourn all the more for these families and all the time they lost here. I pray they stay the course and follow them into the hereafter. A young sister cried out, “I don’t want to be an only child,” and my heart broke.

As I said on Tuesday, I could write many words. But words are seriously falling short right now. I trip and I just want to rage. There will be time for that, there will. But right now we mourn.

Jesus did tell His disciples that those who follow him would face trouble in this world. Big trouble. Heartbreaking trouble. Mind-bending trouble. But we must remember that Jesus went on to say: “But take heart; I have overcome the world.” Sometimes, remembering that promise is all that will get us through.

All My Words Fall Short

All My Words Fall Short

All my words fall short. I got nothing new.

We sang those words Sunday. I wanted to sing along but I was nearly in tears.

And then Monday came. As a Christian, as a father of an almost nine-year-old daughter, and as a man who knows the rhetoric of the extremist Left intimately, yesterday was a logical burst of a dam from a lot of build-up and I am in mourning for and with my Christian family in Nashville.

And these words ring louder and clearer. All my words fall short. I got nothing new.

I could rage right now. I could write many words. Many are words that I will agree with tomorrow and still next week and the week after. But you don’t want to hear my tone today.

No, instead I will point you to the last three Culture Saturday posts. Three weeks ago I touched on finding comfort when you find yourself among lions. Two weeks ago I addressed the anvil not striking back when hit by the hammer of persecution. And a couple days ago I wrote about taming the lions and bringing them before the throne of Christ. I think I covered most of what should be covered in a good Christian response to persecution in those three posts. I don’t think I need more words.

Let me just say this, Christian. Protect your family. In this country, you still have that right. And knowing that the school was picked over another Christian school because of the lack of security, please talk with your child’s school and your church about security. The deranged individual targeted this school because of their values and faith. It also appears that she might have targeted one of the children specifically. This was a deranged, ideologically charged individual looking to kill Christian children. You are not safe. So be ready to defend yourself.

Culture Saturday: Tame the Lions

Culture Saturday: Tame the Lions

Let’s close out Spurgeon’s sermon on Psalm 57. Two weeks ago we looked at finding comfort when lions— vicious, blood-thirsty, non-believers— abound. Last week was patience, “[t]he less they love you, love them all the more. Baffle the lions.”

The ungodly are lions, and you are not; do not try to meet them in their own line. You will never roar as well as they do. If you are a Christian man, you have not the knack of roaring. Leave them to do it. Your way of meeting them is not by losing your temper and abusing your antagonists, and so becoming a lion yourself; but you must conquer them with gentleness, patience, kindness, love. I pray you, dear brothers and sisters who have to bear a good deal for Christ’s sake, do not get soured in spirit. There is a tendency in a martyr age to become obstinate and pugnacious. You must not be so. Love, love, love; and the more you are provoked, love the more. Overcome evil with good. I think it necessary to mention these cautions, because I know many require them.

Among Lions, sermon by Charles Spurgeon

I want to call out a few things here.

“Your way of meeting them is not by losing your temper and abusing your antagonists, and so becoming a lion yourself; but you must conquer them with gentleness, patience, kindness, love.”

Don’t become a lion to deal with the lions. Ill-tempered, abusive, taunting. You should be gentle, patient, kind, and loving. That is how we are to conquer.

There is a tendency in a martyr age to become obstinate and pugnacious.

Stubborn and quick to argue. Pugnacious is a juicy word. Sorry, I’m a word nerd. We cannot, as Christians, be these things. Proverbs is full of advice on how to argue, how to avoid arguments, when to argue, and probably more important than anything: when to shut up. The human ability to talk ourselves into arguments that we do not belong in and then stubbornly stay in those arguments when we do not belong there and have no ability to either win or bring glory to God through them is hubris.

Love, love, love; and the more you are provoked, love the more.

Christian, we are called to be unlike the world. We are called to do many things that go against the grain of the world. Loving no matter what and loving more when the world hates is quintessentially Christian.

[T]he braver thing is to ask for grace to stop with the lions and tame them.

Sometimes you are called to endure persecution— the taunting, the backstabbing, the slander, the lies— because you are there to show Christ’s love. You are there to show Christ’s patience. Christ’s mercy. Christ’s grace. And slowly soften the lion. Beg their curiosity.

Sometimes the Christian man should say, “No: God has made me strong in grace; and I will stop here, and fight it out. These are lions, but I will tame them. I believe that God has put me here on purpose to bring my fellow-workmen to the Saviour, and by his grace I will do it.”

Steadfast. Christian, be steadfast. Loyal to the cause. Steady and resolute. If God calls you to stand amongst lions— whether they are coworkers, classmates, or family members— then you stand amongst the lions.

I hope that we have some drops of that grand Christian blood still in our veins; and if we have, we shall feel that we could go to the gates of hell to win a sinner. You are not like your Master unless you would die to save men from hell.

Spurgeon is a world-favorite preacher and this makes me think of another quote from him.

If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for.

If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for. One of the many reasons you continue here after finding Christ— instead of just being yoinked into Heaven for safekeeping— is to reach others for Christ. Tame the lions. Pray for them. Warn them. Preach the word to them. We should be willing to do everything to win a sinner including dying. Look to your history Christian, look to the martyrs of our faith. How many walked into plague-ridden hospitals to win sinners, how many walked into cannibal tribes to win sinners, how many traveled to distant lands and faced down those that wished them dead just to win sinners. Look at how many of our brothers have had their throats slit by Muslims, how many were used as candles by Nero, and how many have been burned alive at the stake for not rescinding their Lord’s name and worshiping gods of wood and stone. Christian, that grand blood is still in our veins. And it calls for you to die to show others that they may live. To truly live.

It will be a grand thing for you to come one day to the church-meeting with two or three of your neighbours whom you have been the means of converting to Christ. I like to see a man march, if he can do it, with a tame lion on each side. When a man has by God’s grace brought some of those that were drunkards and swearers to the feet of Jesus, oh, it is a grand triumph.

Christian, tame the lions. Bring them to the feet of Jesus.

This sermon should be read in full if you have the time. Charles Spurgeon was a man of good words. I could grab so many words and phrases from just this one sermon and learn. But I find it is very important in an age where the lions are begging more for our blood, demanding that we lose our jobs because of our views— views that remain unchanged over thousands of years—, demand that medical licenses be removed, demand that they not be allowed to teach students, and even dreaming of us being burned alive at the stake. Yes, this sermon is as important as it was the day it was preached, just as true today.

Culture Saturday: The Anvil Never Strikes in Return

Culture Saturday: The Anvil Never Strikes in Return

When there is a hard word spoken do not notice it; or if you must hear it, forget it as quickly as ever you can. Love others all the more the less they love you: repay their enmity with love. Heap coals of fire upon them by making no return to a hard speech except by another deed of kindness. Very seldom defend yourself: it is a waste of breath, and casting pearls before swine.

Among Lions, sermon by Charles Spurgeon

Love others all the more the less they love you. This doesn’t feel like the way of the world. It didn’t when I was a kid and it’s gotten even more, unlike the world. Enmity today is cyclical. Both sides spew lies about each other, both sides slander and demonize. But, Christian, we are called to repay enmity with love. We are called to break from the circle. Because often a response other than love is a “waste of breath”. Those with hate in their hearts cannot hear. They have already drawn their conclusions because they are being drawn to their conclusions, like pawns in a game. So love them. They may shout back. They may still swing their flimsy swords. But love them.

The anvil is struck by the hammer, and the anvil never strikes in return, and yet the anvil wears the hammer out. Patience baffles fury and vanquishes malice.

Patience.

Something that smacks me frequently is that the reason I am called to patience, mercy, and grace for those that raise spears against me is that when I raised my spear against God, he showed patience, mercy, and grace for me. In high school, I raged against His people. I didn’t believe the Bible to be true. I argued for hours with Christians. And they showed great patience with my curiosity, my arrogance, my strong-headedness. Why? Because God was doing His thing in His time. And that time came for me in college when I heard His voice: read Genesis. And so, after a bit of protest, I consumed His Word. I learned. And all those arguments came back and what should have appeared as pearls before swine all those times were all sowing to the moment when God knocked.

Christian, have patience. Slow your heart and remember your Savior. He forgave you. You did nothing for that forgiveness. You couldn’t. You were but a slave to sin. You were unforgivable by all worldly terms. But He went to the cross for you nonetheless. Be patient.

God will not quench the fire of persecution, for it consumes our dross, but he will moderate its power so that not a grain of pure metal shall be lost. The lions are chained, dear friend; they can go no farther than God permits.

God permits. No one acts of their own will. Not truly. Your God has a plan, dear Christian. And that plan is good. For some, you will be on the run until you are called Home. For others, it will come in waves. But this is to plan. The lions are only permitted to do that which God permits. Trust your Lord.

In this country the most they can do, as a rule, is to howl, they cannot bite; and howling does not break bones; why, then, be afraid? […] Talking will not hurt you. Harden your spirit against it, and bear it gallantly. Go and tell your Lord of it if your heart fails you; and then go forward[…] The lions can roar, but they cannot rend— fear them not.

Recollect here that Spurgeon is not speaking in the figurative, the metaphorical. He is speaking in the context of London in 1879. As of that time, the drunkards could do no more than howl. They were bound by law. This is not meant figuratively in that “during the age of the Church, the lions are chained and can only howl,” as he acknowledged earlier that the old howl of “Christians to the lions” would return to the streets of London. Slander is one thing, but now Christians are being arrested in London for praying silently on the street. Now Christian students are being arrested from Canadian Catholic schools for not worshipping gods of wood and stone. There is a difference here. But even so, the lions are only permitted that which God permits. God permitted Paul to be in prison. He had a plan.

Christian, if your heart is hurting take it to Him. Pour it out. Cast your burdens. And then move forward. That’s not to say that is easy. For some it is. For others, it is not. I can say that I continue to struggle here. But bury yourself in His Word. Get closer to Him. He has you.

[W]hen your soul is among lions, there is another lion there as well as the lions that you can see. […] If your faith be as it should be, it will be a great joy to you to know that he is always with you, that he is always near you. If he is ever absent from others of his servants, he is never away from his persecuted servants.

Flimsy swords and dragons. Your Lord is with you. Feel His warm breath. Feel His peace. If He is not afraid, why would you be? Take a big deep breath.

There can be comfort among the lions. That comfort comes from God and His people. Yes, there will be gnashing teeth. Yes, there will be howls that shake you to your core. Go forward, good Christian, and love. And the less they love you, love them all the more. Baffle the lions.

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