Ben Zornes

Bend or Be Bent

May 11, 2020 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

One of mankind’s besetting sins goes by various names in Scripture: stubbornness (Ps. 78:8), stiff-necked (Deu. 9:6), hard-heartedness (Mk. 3:5), impudence (Eze. 2:4), and uncircumcised in heart (Act. 7:51). This is the sin of pride, the insistence of doing things our way, rather than God’s way. We form our ruts and routines and feign our righteousness and insist that our god fit in with our schedule. We want our religion to meet our preferences, suite our tastes, coddle our sensibilities.

The stiff-necked man will dig in his heels and will not humble himself to hear the truth about himself. He doesn’t want to hear that his habits are rooted in selfishness. He doesn’t want his cushy existence interrupted. He doesn’t want his enjoyments and diversions called sin.

Man does this in manifold ways. We describe our loose lips as concern for brother so-and-so. We disguise the vile content of our entertainment as the way we unwind after a hectic day. We doll up our envy in the airbrushed medium of Pinterest boards and Instagram snaps. We deny that our stress comes from fear of being found out for cutting corners, loafing, or fudging the numbers.

It’s been said that the measurement of your humility is the amount of time between when you realize you have sinned and when you confess it and make it right. The stubborn, stiff-necked, hard-hearted man or woman will not bend, and in so doing they put their pride on full display. Pride sets itself up as a rival god, but God will not share His glory with false gods. But the man or woman whom God humbles will find grace to bend. And if God bends you, you’ll find that even the guilt and shame felt over your sins will have been God’s grace to You. So bend, or be irreparably bent.

Where the Arrow Points

May 5, 2020 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

This sacrament is an arrow pointing back. It points to the broken body and blood of our Lord. And so we remember His great sacrifice. But this sacrament is also an arrow pointing to this very moment. It points to you and me, and the unity we enjoy through Christ as we gather here in His name, and the fellowship we saints below have with the saints above. But it is also an arrow pointing forward. It points to a final consummation of the church with her Lord.

So this meal reminds us of Christ’s redemptive work in the past. It reminds us of His eternal supply of grace which He bestows on His people in each moment. It lifts our eyes to see the end of all our hopes and prayers and desires: our resurrection into endless life, where we shall enjoy perfect, unbroken communion with the Triune God for endless ages.

These last few weeks, our body has longed to be able to partake this meal together, in the assembly. That longing for enjoying this meal together should be a spur to us to look forward to the day when our faith shall be sight, our prayers turn to praise, our hopes shall be made manifest, the sacrament shall be substance.

In taking this meal we “shew the Lord’s death till He comes.” So look back and behold the great price that was paid for your salvation. Look right here and see the early blessings which the Lord has surrounded you with. And look forward with eagerness when the Lord of the Sacrament shall come, and give to us the full inheritance which He purchased for us with His blood. The inheritance of unbroken fellowship with the Father, Son, and Spirit, without sin, sickness, sorrow, or shadow interfering ever again.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus…

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The Gospel of the Pentateuch

Jesus and His Apostles quote the Old Testament with surprising regularity. We would do well to observe the example of their use, interpretation, and application of Scripture. Here is a series of short reflections on New Testament citations of the Pentateuch. The aim here is to let the New Testament authors “show us how it’s done.”

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Our Bureaucracy Which Ain’t in Heaven

May 4, 2020 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

In the midst of our present trial, many of us have petitioned our various governmental leaders to hear our concerns. Perhaps you’ve sent letters or made calls to the politicians, or stood on the front steps of city hall. You might have asked yourself, “Will it do any good? Will it make a difference? Will they even notice, hear, or care? Who knows?!”

Earthly governments are not absolute authorities, so when the occasion arises we do well to petition them to hear our concerns, answer our requests, face our objections to their overreach, and act on the injustices we face. However, there’s a stark difference between making our requests to a bureaucracy and lifting our prayers to our Heavenly Father.

Try counting the number of prayers offered up throughout our worship service (hint, we’ve already offered up two). Christian worship is––in large part––a prayer service. We sing some of our prayers. We confess our sins in prayer. We lift up various needs and thanksgivings in our congregational prayer. We do this because our Lord Jesus commanded us to ask the Father––in His name––for whatsoever we need.

Not only that, but He’s promised to act and answer us. He doesn’t tell us to take a number. He doesn’t send us a canned letter. He doesn’t tell us to get with His secretary. He isn’t a faceless beauracracy. He is our Father.

We have a whole host of requests in this season. Are you fearful of the virus? Worried about looming bills? Frustrated by the governments’ overreach? Concerned about food shortages? No earthly power can resolve all these problems, provide protection from these calamities, or bring peace in the midst of the storm. So carry it all to Your Father. He hears you, answers you, and does so because you are purchased by Jesus’ blood.

No Hands in Your Pockets

May 2, 2020 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

Imagine having a delicious bowl of the cheesiest Mac and cheese ever right in front of you. You stick your spoon in, and then….yawn and say, “That’s too much work to bring it into my mouth.” That’s one picture of slothfulness which King Solomon gives us (Pro. 19:24).

Being slothful, or lazy—or as mama calls it Oupa Meebol—is like thinking you can make something or get something without a cause. But we know that the world came into being beCAUSE God acted, God did something.

So we should imitate Him and make things. We take messes and make them orderly. We take old carpet out to put new flooring in. We take flour, butter, sugar and make cookies. God gives you this world and the things in it, and calls you to take it and make things out of the mess, make beautiful things, tasty things, sturdy things. But they won’t appear if your hands are stuck in your pockets and your tooshy is plunked down on the sofa.

RIP Willis Christie – The Power of Joy

April 30, 2020 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

Aside from my father, the man who shaped me most was my Grandpa Christie. Tonight, my mom held a phone up to my Grandpa’s ear so I could say a final goodbye in his waning moments. A few moments later Mom messaged to say he’d passed.

I wanted to share a few reflections on his life and lessons I gleaned from his example. When we would visit, you’d have to get up quite early to say goodbye to Grandpa before he got on his motor-bike (or into yellow delivery van) and headed off to his daily toil. I saw a hardworking man, and he set the example of diligent labor to provide.

Grandpa always had a poignant question to stump you with, or make you think. He’d point at a cloud and ask, “Do you know how far away that cloud is from us?” When I’d answer with the blank stare of a teenage musician, he’d say, “Well how can we figure it out?” And then we’d talk about angles, geometry, and come away with at least our critical thinking skills sharpened. But Grandpa always had a question for you. This taught me an important lesson: God gave you a brain and expected you to use it.

Grandpa always had a soft spot for good, ol’ fashioned Scottish humor. In other words, a loud belch would make him laugh with William Wallace-like thunder; and he would beam with pride over his grandchild’s effervescent display of burping skills, giving a coveted two thumbs up.

He would hand out Christmas gifts faster than we could unwrap them. Then he’d paingstainkinly assemble them for us to play with. He would gladly play whatever game we kids would propose, including racing us in a 100m dash, kickball in the park, or aluminum foil baseball in Grandma’s kitchen.

Grandpa Christie faithfully passed on the biblical virtues of hard-work, seeking wisdom, self-sacrifice, and cheerfulness. But when I think back on his life and legacy, I am exceedingly grateful for one thing in particular.

He taught me to be joyful.

He insisted on cheerfulness. He fostered it in his love of laughter, and his playful competitiveness. There wasn’t a thanksgiving meal where he didn’t find a way to be ridiculous; leaving his kids and grandkids and great-grand-kids laughing raucously, while leaving his beloved Mildred shaking her head with, “Oh, Will!”

Joy triumphs through difficulty. Joy has foundations deep in the holiness of God. Joy is found only in the presence of God Almighty. Grandpa knew this, and sought to give joy to his family, his friends, his customers, and the strangers he always seemed able to strike up a conversation with. His legacy is saturated with joy.

But this joy had roots deeper than the maple tree in his backyard, the one that formed the obstacle course to thousands of croquet games. This joy went beyond financial stability, difficult patches in his marriage or child-rearing, or through the difficult decision to finally retire in his late 80s. His joy was found in Jesus.

I know this because he told me.

One year around Christmas-time, he took me with him to pick up an inordinate amount of KFC which Grandma had ordered for whichever family gathering it was. As we drove back he asked, “If Jesus were to walk in the front door, what would you do?” I don’t quite recall my answer, but I clearly recall his. He said, “I think I would likely just go up and say, ‘Hello, how are you doing, come in and sit down.'” And then he continued, “But I think the best thing to do would be what that one carol says: ‘Fall on your knees.'”

Here was a man who knew that Christ was worthy of worship. From that eternal well of saving grace, Grandpa Christie dispensed the joy he found to everyone who crossed his path, every time they crossed it. That life of holy joy is now done. But now Grandpa’s joy is deeper than it has ever been. Grandpa’s laugh is now louder than it ever was. His wisdom reaches further than ever before; because now he is in the presence of the Resurrected Christ, who will one day raise the dead.

Grandpa’s jolly wisdom was always a true delight to be around. But the joy we found in Willis Christie is but a shadow glory. It is but a morsel of the joy which God intends for those who trust Christ. Grandpa’s joy wasn’t found in himself, it overflowed from the glory of Christ crucified, risen, and ascended. Grandpa is now enjoying that full glory. As the old hymn puts it:

Soon shall close thy earthly mission

Soon shall pass thy pilgrim days

Hope shall change to glad fruition

Faith to sight, and prayer to praise.

The Unshakeable God

April 22, 2020 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

The Unshakeable God – Ben Zornes
Posted by Christ Church on Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Introduction

Unless God humbles him, man won’t be humbled. Mankind has a hyperextended elbow from patting himself on the back. We look upon all the undeserved blessings which God has bestowed—our health, our financial stability, our routine, our safety, our full cupboards––and assume He owed them to us. Scripture is full of illustrative warnings against assuming the blessing of God as automatic (cf. Jdg. 7:2). If it is something God owes us then it is no longer grace. But if it is a gift, then the only thing to do is to humbly receive it all as grace upon grace.

The Text

Heb. 12:18-29

For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more: (For they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart: And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:) But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire.

Summary of the Text

The entire book of Hebrews is directed to Jewish Christians facing dark clouds of impending persecution. In their fear, they began casting longing looks back at the way things were under the old Mosaic order. Throughout the book they are admonished to look through the Mosaic order and see the superiority of Jesus. As the book comes in for a landing, these early Christians are told how they ought to behave in the midst of sovereign chastisement (12:6-11). They were to look diligently so as not fail of the grace of God (12:15).

Remembering OT history is to aid us in clinging to this grace. We’re told to remember where we have come: not to Sinai (12:18-19); with all its thunderous glory and holy fear (12:20-21).

Rather, these early Christians are told they’ve come to Zion. They’ve come to a city populated by angels, the church, and the righteous Judge (12:22-23). They have come to Jesus and to His blood (12:24). While Abel’s blood cried out for vengeance, the better word of Jesus’ blood cries out that “It is finished.”

Because of this, they need to prick up their ears and hear and heed. God spoke the Law to Israel at Sinai, upon the earth. But now God speaks from heaven, in the person of the ascended Christ.

When God spoke at Sinai, Israel was simultaneously worshipping the Golden Calf, and they didn’t escape God’s wrath. So if you fail to come to Jesus by heeding His Gospel voice you will not escape (12:25). God’s voice shook the earth at Sinai, but Haggai had prophesied of another shaking yet to come (Hag. 2:6). This shaking was upon them. The Mosaic order was to be removed by this shaking, so that the unshakeable things might remain (12:26-27).

These children of Abraham were receiving the immovable kingdom promised to Abraham (Heb. 11:10). So, they were to have grace so that they might bring acceptable service to God. This service was to be marked by reverence and godly fear (12:28), and they were to do so because of Who God is: a consuming fire (12:29).

God Likes to Shake Things Up

Think of a chalk-artist drawing on a sidewalk in some big city. While he’s drawing the chalk dust obscures the art. But when he finally blows away the excess, what emerges is the masterpiece.

Moses’ law was like scaffolding which was soon to be shaken off to reveal the immovable city of the Unshakeable God. God’s voice shook Sinai when the Law was given. But He was about to thunder once more from heaven.

We ought not to think of the current shake-up of the world as “on par” with the shaking which is referred to in this text. However, we should think of our shaking as the aftershocks of that shaking. What happened when Jesus shed His blood, died, rose again, and ascended to the throne of majesty (Heb. 1:3)? In short, God shook the whole world. The result was that rebel principalities and powers were overthrown, and their jurisdiction was now handed over to Son of Man.

Fear, Folly, or Faith

The early Jewish Christians were faced with very uncertain times. They stood between the beast of the Roman Empire, and the seduction of the Judaizers. Worldly fear leads to folly. And folly has many faces. One temptation was to return to the familiar structure of Moses’ law. It would have let them “belong” again. On the other hand, they could simply renounce it all and blend in with the pagans.

We see this fear leading to folly playing out in real time. Over-reactors and under-reactors. Nail-biters and conspiracy theorists. Hoarders and protesters. There is folly in cowardly panic. There is folly in thinking you’re invisible. COVID-19 may very well be the means of your death. It might also be the means of peeling open your heart to show you a festering fear of earthly things.

But what it is not is a meaningless blip. It is a warning that God has shaken the world from heaven. You don’t get to ignore the rumblings. When God shakes the world, unbelieving men run to folly, because they won’t receive the gracious humbling from the hand of the Lord.

But for Abraham’s children, we feel the aftershocks of Christ’s kingdom being established throughout the world, and we fear not the face of man, or war, or plague, or economic disaster. God is our good King, and we serve Him.

Like Paton in the Tree

John G. Paton, a Scottish missionary to the cannibals of the South Pacific, once had to spend a whole night in a tree while hiding from the savages who were hunting for him. He said of that night, “If it be to glorify my God, I will not grudge to spend many nights alone in such a tree, to feel again my Savior’s spiritual presence, to enjoy His consoling fellowship.” In another close encounter with death he said: “With my trembling hand clasped in the hand once nailed on Calvary, and now swaying the scepter of the universe, calmness and peace abode in my soul.”

That is what genuine faith in the midst of trial is able to declare. Faith stays its mind on the Lord, and therefore is kept in perfect peace. Faith knows that when all around my soul gives way, Jesus is all your hope and stay. Faith comes to the City of Zion, and knows that no matter how topsy-turvy the world may be, the King of the World is unshakeable. God calls through such trials for proud man to repent. He humbles you in order to lift you up. He shakes away the impermanent things, so that you might cling to the only permanence to be found: King Jesus.

God is shaking this whole world up so that you would look to Christ. So that your hope in all earthly deliverance would fail, and that you might turn in humble faith to trust in Him Whose Kingdom cannot be shaken. He has humbled us to the dust, so that in the midst of the dust of this great shaking we might look to an unshakeable Christ, who lifts us up with Him into His glory.

The Basis for Courage

April 18, 2020 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

Children must learn to be courageous. While movies and books often moralize that you need to “believe in yourself” and use that motto as the basis for your confidence, scripture has a different basis for where courage comes from.

First it doesn’t come from looking within yourself. The Lord told Joshua

Joshua 1:5-6a (KJV)

5 There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, [so] I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be strong and of a good courage…

And David commanded Solomon, the future king of Israel with an echo of that same commission:

1 Chronicles 28:20 (KJV)

Be strong and of good courage, and do [it]: fear not, nor be dismayed: for the LORD God, [even] my God, [will be] with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee, until thou hast finished all the work for the service of the house of the LORD.

Courage comes from God’s nearness, not your own self-assurance. So, are you shy about standing up to your friends when they are foolish? Remember God is with you, and be courageous. Are you fearful about your dance recital, getting sick, or monsters in the closet? God tells his children, “I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”

Theonomic Hand-Grenades

April 15, 2020 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

Bombs Away

So, let me pull out this little pin, here, and lob out some OT passages and see what happens. You, uh, might want to plug your ears, the comments on this thing could get a little noisy.

The priest shall shut up him that hath the plague seven days:
Lev. 13:4, 31, 33, 50

And Miriam was shut out from the camp seven days: and the people journeyed not till Miriam was brought in again.
Num. 12:15

My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore [plague]; and my kinsmen stand afar off.
Psa. 38:11

Then the LORD struck the king, so that he was a leper until the day of his death; so he dwelt in an isolated house. And Jotham the king’s son was over the royal house, judging the people of the land.
2 Kings 15:5 NKJV

Three other instances are worth including here, as we simply survey the pertinent texts. First, when Aaron interceded for Israel after Korah’s rebellion, we are told that “he stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stayed (Num. 16:48).” Phinehas similarly interceded (with a bit more force) when he killed the fornicators in Numbers 25:8, and we are told, “So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel.” Third, the Lord sent judgement on judgement Israel for King David taking a census; when David sees the destroying Angel (and the accompanying pestilence) he runs to the place, purchases it from the Jebusite, and offers sacrifices: “David built there an altar unto the LORD, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So the LORD was intreated for the land, and the plague was stayed from Israel (2Sa 24:25).”

Now For Some Combustible Material

What we see from all this is a clear principle of separating sick from healthy, the dead/dying from the living. There is also a principle that decisive action on the part of the the priests or king is appropriate. But note this: the healthy are not quarantined. Separation is the key throughout the Levitical law, and in the case of infectious diseases this hold true. The clear distinction, typologically, is between what is clean and unclean, holy and unholy. Of course, the main goal of these texts is to reveal Christ, and theologians have generally interpreted the leprosy laws in Leviticus 13-14 as a grave reminder of the insidious and spreading nature of sin within the individual and community.

Viruses are real life parables of what sin does morally.

Think of what Jesus said when He rebuked the Pharisees, reminding them that it isn’t the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick (Mt. 9:12). See what Jesus did there? He took the common sense (we might better call it natural revelation) principle, and applied it morally. Of course morally-speaking, all of us are not merely sick, we are dead. Only Christ can make us alive by giving us repentant faith. Which is the Lord’s main point.

The Gospel is at the heart of both these OT & NT texts. And because the Gospel is like yeast in a lump of dough it can’t help but apply to everything and effect everything. Christ separates the sinner from his sin, by taking our infirmities down to the grave and rising again to give us eternal life.

And because He is now the universal King we should also note that to think that we get to make up our own principles and laws now would be to miss the pith of the Gospel: Christ, by His death, resurrection, and ascension is the lawful Lord of planet Earth.

Breaking the Eighth Commandment to Keep the Sixth

In the current COVID-craze, we have effectively done the opposite of a general equity application of these texts. We have not isolated the sick, nor even a step further by isolating the vulnerable. We have told those that are whole to hole up, hunker down, and mind your manners until “wiser-heads” give us permission to come out again. The staggering thing in this is that in an effort to preserve life (i.e. keeping the sixth commandment’s principle of preserving––not taking––life) we have driven a snow-plow right through the eighth commandment’s prohibition against theft.

We have weighed models of loss of life to the virus, and considered that stealing the livelihoods of millions of people across the nation and globe are worth the price of saving projected lives. Essentially, this is instituting an arbitrary hierarchy within God’s moral law. Stealing is better than killing, theft is better than murder.

Despots delight to deal in such rigid either/or’s. God’s law, on the other hand, is perfect, converting the soul. It tells us to preserve life, and not take a man’s life by stealing his millstone (Deu. 24:6). It tells us to take compassion on the healthy community by sending the leper outside the camp; or, in modern terms, quarantine those who are infectious. God’s law harmonizes perfectly. Man’s law is like the time that a bassist I played with was playing a B♭instead of a Bm…the result was what you might call discordant.

There is no Biblical basis for quarantining a healthy population. We’ve been told we must all “stay home to stay safe” in order to love our neighbor. But this once again inverts how God’s law specifies the way in which we are to love our neighbor in the midst of an outbreak of an infectious disease. Further it is a violation of God’s law to steal livelihoods, life-savings, and stable households. This whole pandemic episode is a fresh demonstration that when man thinks he knows better than God, he makes a tangle worse than that box of old computer cables in the attic.

In all of this, we should mark that God has been exceedingly kind to us. This virus, this economic collapse, this societal unease is God’s goodness towards us. He is reminding us––like the stunning flash and bang of a hand-grenade––of the fragility of our health, our finances, our society, our empire. He does this so that we might repent of our self-assurance and self-confidence and then build our lives and society on the sure Cornerstone of our brother who once bore all our infirmities, but who now sits at God’s right hand.

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