Ben Zornes

Living and Dying to Show the Preciousness of Christ

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Thinking Like a Christian

These Halcyon Days

These Halcyon Days

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“It All”

Sociologists, political scientists, epidemiologists, historians, and High School students will be studying the days we are living through for decades to come. If the rumors are true, the Galactic Federation has been watching it all in fascination, but were not able to be reached for comment at this time. If you are gloomy and morose because of it all––and by “it all” I hope you can catch my drift––buck up soldier. As Chesterton once said, the only way a soldier can avoid death is by constantly coming within an inch of it. In other words, we’ve got work to do, and we must joyfully undertake to sort through “it all.”

By “it all” I refer to the election, the controversies after the election, the virus, the governmental overreach in response to the virus, the anemic reaction from many church leaders to the government’s overreach, the reports of Chinese spies sleeping with US Representatives and other elected officials, the Global Reset with PM Trudeau hopes to usher in. Deep breaths toots, you’ll make it through.

Last I checked, the 1st amendment ensured the preservation of that right, despite recent attempts to redefine free speech as anything YouTube deems kosher. So, what I am about to do, follow me here, is exercise that right.

Did Trump Win?

On election night, it looked like Trump was going to mop the floor with Biden. And then the great, and unprecedented pause in counting. I stayed up later than I should (we had a newborn after all and sleep is precious in the Zornes’ home these days) expecting them to call at least one of the states that have now become the center of controversy. But the call never came.

Now, I am not one to ruin a perfect record, but if Biden indeed “won”, I have a perfect record of not voting for the winning candidate. My first presidential election I voted for McCain in ’08, Romney in ’12, then Castle in ’16, and yes I fiendishly voted for Trump this go round. I like to live dangerously.

I’ve followed politics closely from my early teens. No one was shocked when Obama blew the doors off voting records. Romney was too milque-toast to win, and Obama handily won again. Trump of course had the privilege of running against one of the most disliked candidates in American history.

But if I told you a year ago this time that Joe Biden, creepy Joe, sleepy Joe, sloppy Joe…would only improve on the number of counties which Hillary won by about a dozen, have his son’s shady business dealings hit the news cycle a few weeks before the election, have RBG die a month before the election, and still would shatter Obama’s voter turnout and vote total you would have referred me to the psychological studies department of the aforementioned Galactic Federation.

For four years of Trump’s presidency has been undermined at every turn by the media and the democrats. It’s now at the point that you cannot post a picture of your new puppy without the Tech Wizards over at FB and Twitter flagging your post with an oh-so-helpful notification that there was no voter fraud. In other words, we are being presented with suits and ties telling us, “Nothing to see here.” It’s like insisting that the guy with the creepy barn and blood-stained chainsaw isn’t a suspect in the string of recent disappearances.

Trust in our governmental institutions is rock bottom. This is thanks largely to their gross incompetence in locking us up for 2 months, telling us not to have Thanksgiving, mandating that we mask-up “or else”, then sending relief checks to death row inmates, and they want us to believe that massive number of mail-in ballots were processed correctly, not sent to the wrong addresses, confirmed with scrupulous attention to detail by people that are ashamed their school is named after Jefferson (all while their students’ grades plummet because they are terrified of the ‘rona). Was that last sentence a run-on sentence…oh dear, I fear it was.

So it is not conspiracy theory nut-jobbery to demand that every avenue be pursued for investigating whether our election was truly free and fair. This moment is the moment to demand that those avenues be pursued honestly, and without accusations of “not accepting the results of the election.” This would be akin to having Ted Bundy give you dating advice. We need to pursue all this now because what comes otherwise will ensure that representative government in America has had its identity stolen by a form of feudalistic socialism.

Emergency, Everybody to Get From Street

This isn’t a detour, but stay with me here. If you want a good family movie night, try The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming! Basically, it is about a USSR submarine that runs aground on a small US island off of Maine’s coast. The mayor panics. The Russians panic. In one scene, see below for your viewing pleasure, the Russians try to clear the streets by pretending there is an emergency.

This is precisely what our elected leaders have been saying, unconvincingly, for the last 10 months. “Emergency, everybody to get from streets.” Now…this leads in to my next observation.

I’m currently reading a book It’s Better Than It Looks, which I will review in an upcoming post. The author notes that every president since FDR (Eisenhower excepted, God bless him) has claimed new powers due to some “emergency”. Biden will take office in about a month, unless by some miracle the SCOTUS rules that the results in PA, GA, and MI were indeed fishier than Cape Cod in the morning.

Make no mistake, he’s already saying it openly, this pandemic is an incoming Big Governmentarian’s dream come true. An emergency that almost everyone has already bought into. Ready-made for the implementation of all sorts of policies which can be ushered in due to “emergency measures.” Before you blink, funding for Planned Parenthood, Climate accords, and universal basic income will all be implemented in conjunction with coronavirus emergency “reasons.”

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Every appointee to Biden’s cabinet is demonstrating that his commitment is to infringing on liberty, in favor of the implementation of woke ideology, big government, globalist ideals. Which is why now is the time to resist it all manfully. Your Protestant heritage is at stake. Your children’s future liberty is at stake. And this “emergency” so-called is clearly going to be used ad infinitum to create new departments, new monstrosities of infringement on religious and civil liberty, new mutilations of children (both born and unborn, i.e. gender surgeries and abortion), and new excuses for treating you and your children like slaves.

So Grin & Giddy-up

Which is why, regardless of how this all falls out, you must thank the Lord for it all. He’s given us leaders we deserved. He’s spared us from a pandemic which could have been worse, which we do deserve. His sovereign will raises up kings and brings them low. If Biden is president of these sadly divided states, we must get to work rebuilding the Old West.

What I mean by that is this. Evangelicals, who voted for Trump in droves both in 2016 and 2020, have come to attend church quite sporadically. Evangelicals from 40 years ago would have been stunned to learn that the average evangelical only goes to church once a month. They’d be even more stunned to find out that many evangelical churches have willingly closed for almost a year. So, what can we do to fight the oncoming hordes of progressivism and Big Government?

Not by waving a Trump flag. Not by speculating of endless conspiracy theories. Not by violent action, unless provoked.

Go to church. Every Sunday. Go there with the wife of your youth. Then make a bunch of babies with her, and only her. Raise those children and educate them privately. Start multiple businesses and create multiple income streams. Tithe to your church, and give generously to those truly in need. Read your Bible regularly. Sing hymns at your City Hall. Stop watching porn. Stop getting drunk & high. Stop giving a rip what celebrities tell you to be ashamed of or applaud. Buy a few guns. Throw the best neighborhood BBQs.

And before all of that, and underneath all of that, turn from your sin, confess it all, and hear the good news of the Gospel, which Christmas proclaims: Christ is King of planet earth. Worship and serve Him alone.

A Psalty Sense of Justice

A Psalty Sense of Justice

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The other day I tweeted something that I suppose you might say, took off:

The conversation (if that is what you call a comment thread on social media) sifted out into a few camps, and I want to take this opportunity to expand on the original tweet.

The first camp came rushing to the defense of the song alluded to. The second camp thought my tethering of mushy worship ballads to looters in Chicago was like a VW Beetle towing a F150 up a Montana logging road at 55mph with a 40ft. rope. To put that in more boring terms, they thought I’d made a stretch. The third camp disagreed with me, arguing that the over-sentamentalized church music of the last 50 years has infected Boomers and as a result their children (in resentment) have joined the social justice mobs.

Now, as Inigo Montoya would say, “Let me ‘splain.”

Objection 1

The song itself “How He Loves” was not the point of my original statement. But the song is quite illustrative of a tendency within modern worship songs to sensualize our piety. This isn’t anything new, per se, as this sort of “language of lovers” is found in the Zwinglian corners of historic Reformed hymnody. But the problem in our modern context is that the utilization of the language of lovers is used to such an overwhelming, never-ending, reckless way that in the mind of the worshipper Jesus is reduced to a spiritual boyfriend.

“How He Loves” is the epitome of this sort of worship song. There is a now famous line in it: “Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss” (which are in fact the original lyrics). Some who recognize the impropriety of such language in reference to the Lord Most High, have reworked the lyrics to not offend Grandma in the back row (who still is a bit skeptical of these new fangled choruses).

But when we come to Christ, we come to Him as our brother, our friend, our bridegroom, and above all, our King. While our affections are to be stirred in our worship of the Lord Jesus, they must be godly affections. Our worship in song is not to be only emotional. The trap in modern worship is to evoke feelings at any cost, regardless of the theological content of what we’re singing.

Some pointed out that scripture (particularly Song of Solomon) has highly erotic language describing the relationship of the Bridegroom with the Church. The difference is that Scripture comes to us as a united whole. We sing “I am a worm and no man (in Psalm 22:6)” along with “let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth (Sng. 1:2)”. Modern worship songs croon about Christ the bridegroom/lover to the exclusion of other themes.

In full disclosure, I led the song in question–and others similar to it–which I regret having used as corporate worship songs. Mea culpa. Over time, I came to see that such expressions were not helpful in fostering the aforementioned godly affections. Instead, I noticed that the fruit of these songs was what I came to call emotional masturbation.

Objection 2

This inflamed emotionalism is how we arrived at the place where this generation–raised on songs which did not inform their mind as well as stir godly affections–seeing injustices and being malnourished in that quarter they instead found a sense of justice by following the emotional mobs of worldly vengeance and vigilante justice. These youth who grew up in the church were not shaped by the mercy and justice of God which is declared in the Psalms, they were shaped by a mindset that worship = club music/love ballads.

As I’ve recently said elsewhere:

Worship in modern evangelical parlance has come to mean, almost exclusively, music. To be more exact, the sort of music that consists of three chords and the truth, give or take a chord, and give or take the truth.

Worship Like You’re told

You cannot feed on a diet of emotionalism and not end up with an atrophied sense of what God demands and desires in our worship of Him. He desires mercy, not sacrifice. He desires us to walk humbly and do justice. He doesn’t call us to come into His presence in order for us to get a tingly spine. Your hot yoga class can accomplish that just fine.

God calls you to come into His presence as a living sacrifice. He calls you to walk in view of His mercy. He calls you to sing about His justice, which includes asking Him to bring vengeance upon His and our enemies (in the imprecatory Psalms). The Psalter teaches us to see that we are captives in need of deliverance, and so we learn to turn to Him alone to save us. It teaches us to think about the themes of creation (and how God made the world…you know with male and female as the only genders…but that’s another wasp nest I’ll whack some other time). It teaches us to think in terms of redemption and restoration coming from God’s hand alone, since no man is righteous, not a one.

Our sung prayers, especially as we sing the Psalms, help us to see that God is the great Avenger of His people, but they must walk in faithfulness to His Law. And then the New Testament helps us to recognize that the Law only exposes our sinfulness. Which is why we need to sing about the blood of Jesus.

We’ve raised a generation on vapid lyrics full of emotional language, orgasmic chord progressions, and plopped on top of that saccharine beverage a dollop of pop-psychology sermonettes by preacherettes. We’ve taught our children that they aren’t mature enough to sit through an adult service, and so we’ve taught them that whatever content is contained in a “grown up service” isn’t for them. When they grow up, they find that there is substantially no difference between their youth pastor’s sermons and the senior pastor’s sermons, the only difference is the sermon illustrations are more for Boomers.

But their gender diversity counselor at the community college points out a lot of the inequities, problems, injustices, and discrepancies that are present in our nation/culture. Their pastor is telling them to unhitch from the OT. Their humanities professor is telling them that Marx was right. And because their diet of worship has been ha-la-la-le-lu-jah x10, they do not have the immune system to fight the socialist bug. So, there they are manning the barricade of CHOP, or supporting BLM’s satanic form of justice.

Objection 3

I have some real sympathy with the final objection raised to my tweet. I agree that Boomers have just as willfully gone along with much of the inanity of our modern worship nonsense. They couldn’t stomach the hot gospel of Calvin, Knox, or Watts; so they opted for the self-help that felt much cozier ’cause it sounded like what Dr. Phil was saying.

As I mentioned earlier, these Millennials and Zoomers came (or are coming) of age, and see that there isn’t much of a difference between their youth group antics and the “adult service.” Which tells them that mom and dad just wanted to get away from them. These kids were told that God the Father “just gushed over them with luuuv,” but then they came to see that Mom and Pop sure didn’t overflow with love to them.

So, they hungered for a father’s love. But the patriarchy, they were told, should be smashed. It has been replaced with the bloodlust of bitterness and vindictive vengeance. So, yes, we sent our children to youth group to sing ooey-gooey love ballads, and when they found out that we did so to get away from them, it shouldn’t be Breaking News on CNN to find out that they ran to the arms of the Father of Lies.

So Come to the Father

But the love of Father God is strong.

It cannot stand injustice. It cannot stand a stubborn knee in the neck of a man pleading for mercy and receiving instead a death sentence without a fair trial. The Father’s love teaches us to ask Him to “defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy (Ps. 82:3).” The Father’s love cannot stand hypocrisy of using tax dollars to slaughter unborn black babies. The Father’s love refuses to tolerate the shame that is fatherless homes for Whites, Blacks, Asians, or any other ethnicity.

The Father’s love cannot be separated from the blinding light of being pleased to crush His own Son, the only innocent man who ever lived, so that you and I might be forgiven. The love of God assures us that all our animosity, guilt, shame, and sin are tossed in the sea, and God promises to not remember our sins against us (Ps. 79:8).

The Father of Lies will always demand another victim, another oppressor to overthrow, another stone to cast at someone other than ourselves. The Father of Light gave us the true victim, to suffer in our place, so that we might come to Him as adopted Sons and Daughters.

The church desperately needs to return to the Word, and find there the great love and justice of God as proclaimed in the simple Gospel news. You and I are condemned sinners. But God, through Christ’s sacrificial work, offers forgiveness for all our sin, and promises to welcome to Himself those from every nation and tribe who come to Him in repentance and faith. So sing the Psalter. Preach the Gospel. And get a Psalty sense of justice.

The False Gospel of Feminism

The False Gospel of Feminism

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Introduction 

Spoiler warning: Men and women are different, with different glories. As some wit once said, “Women are like fine wine, they get better with age. Men––well––men are like milk…” But  the glory of both masculinity and femininity have been ruined by the fall. False gospels promise shortcuts to the restoration of glory. Feminism is one such false gospel. It isn’t good news. It feigns to value women. But instead of restoring feminine glory, it turns that glory from a treasure into trash. Rather than liberation, it gives chains. The breast of feminism is filled with the rebellious poison of autonomy, and an entire generation has been suckled by that cruel and envious mother.

The Text

Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands: Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.

1Peter 3:1-6

Summary of the Text

Peter’s epistle is full of instructions to “pilgrims/strangers”. He gives instructions to citizens in regards to their relationship to their governors (1 Pt. 2:13-17). He gives instructions to servants in regards to their relationship to their masters (1 Pt. 2:18), and all of this in light of Christ’s submission to His Father’s will (1 Pt. 2:19-25). 

As chapter 3 begins, instruction is given to wives in particular not women in general. Christian wives are to be in subjection to their own husbands, and this is part of their Christian witness (3:1). Their disposition is to be one of chastity married with godly fear/respect (3:2); outward adornment is to take a back seat to internal virtue (3:3-4), particularly the virtues of meekness and composure of spirit. God counts this as precious. This is how all faithful women have been and should be. They trust in God and the demonstration of this is subjection to their own husbands (3:5). Sarah is the perennial example of this godly femininity, and her daughters ought to do the same: see their husband as their earthly lord (3:6).

Two things are worth remarking on in this text. First, the term “subjection” is of course the biggest bone of contention which the slobbering jowls of feminists delight to gnaw on. “See, Christianity treats women as second class citizens!” But the term is a military one. The general has a greater responsibility than the foot-soldier, but both have the same job: win the war. What is the war? It is that God might be glorified, in the restoration of man and woman to their rightful glory through faith in Jesus. This “subjection” is in order that women might be cobelligerents in the battle against sin, the devil, the world; and in this conquest, they become truly glorious.

Secondly, in God’s sight, a meek and quiet spirit in a woman is precious. This is the glory with which God has endowed women: she is the crowning jewel of His creation. As Milton put it, she’s “Heaven’s last best gift”. Do you know what else is called precious in Peter’s epistle? Christ. “To You who believe He is precious (1 Pt. 2:7).” How does God treat things that are precious? He keeps them, protects them, and yet will also break them in order to bring about a greater glory.

The Gospel of Christ

So, what is the Gospel? It is this: Christ died on the cross, and rose from the grave in order to forgive your sins and give you everlasting life. Your sin deserved death, so Jesus died for you. You were cut off from God, so Jesus rose again to bring you to God. When God made the world, it was all good…with one thing excepted. Adam was alone. Adam was a lonely king. That wasn’t good. From his side she was fashioned. In beholding her, mankind’s first uttered words were poetic praise for feminine glory. All that glory was dashed to smithereens when Adam and Eve disobeyed and ate the forbidden fruit. But the story of the Gospel is that in Christ, we are being restored to that glorious arrangement. Men who are good kings of creation with a radiant queen beside him to lend a helping hand in the mandate to fill the world with worship unto the Most High. 

Creation tells us that there is order. And Scripture tells us there is glory in that order (Gen. 1:3-31). Adam’s origin wasn’t in an autonomous void. Nor was Eve. Adam was made in relation to his Creator. Eve was made in relation to the man. To be human is to hold an office: creature of the Living God. To be man, or to be woman, is to be given a post. 

The False Gospel of Feminism

Feminism has a Gospel: “The future is female.” It wants equality at all cost. But the equality which feminism has in mind is an equality where sopranos are forced to sing bass, while the basses are mocked out of the choir for even presuming to sing. Feminism says that in order to be saved we must reject masculine authority. A further tenet feminist orthodoxy is that women and men are interchangeable. The Feminist Catechism might run: Q: Do all women have a uterus? A: No. Q: Do some women have testicles? A: Yes.

In other words, feminism is an attack on the imago dei––the image of God in us. We were not made of play-dough which we get to endlessly fashion to our own ever-changing fancies. 

Feminism is Satanism wrapped in the bitter rags of feminine jealousies, lusts, and fears. It wants equality and autonomy. But your body is NOT your own. Your womb is not “yours.” It was a gift. Your very existence is dependent on Another. That Other is a Father. But there is a father of lies, who would love for Eve’s daughters to once again lay hold upon the forbidden fruit of equality and autonomy, thinking that the created order can be overthrown.

Help Take Over the World

While the birthrate in the West has been plummeting, fundamentalist feminism has convinced young women to make “abstinence vows” of childlessness in order to combat climate change and smash the patriarchy. This environmental nunnery is branded as “empowering.” But Ladies…your body makes humans. How is that not the most marvelous and empowering gift to be endowed with?

You want to be a queen? It won’t be by giving your best years to a career or a corporation or to civil service. Let me present you with a scenario of how you can make a remarkable impact: 

If you have 4 kids and they have 4 kids, and so on…Your great grandkids living in 2060 would represent a town like Placerville, ID. Your great, great grandkids living in 2080 would be as big as Bloomington, ID (pop. 209). Your great, great, great grandkids living in 2100 would be as big as Moyie Springs, ID. Six or so generation from now, your descendants living in 2120 would be as big as Bonners Ferry, ID, and the next generation would be as many as the residents of the fine town of Star, ID (9,940). The eight generation would be as large as Post Falls, ID and the ninth a bit larger than Meridian. By the tenth generation, sometime in the 2200s, your descendants would be twice the size of Boise.

You want to make a disproportionate impact? Do you want to battle the evil which has corrupted both masculinity and femininity? Then get married and have lots of kids. Raise your sons to wear your instruction like swag around their neck (Pro. 1:8-9); raise your daughters to be mighty women of industry (Pro. 31); and raise them all to love and fear the Lord. And if the skull of an evildoer happens into your path, get out your tent-peg or your millstone and crush it (Judges 4:21 & 9:53).

Right Side of History

Right Side of History

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Eww, Dad-ishness

A common motto of the progressive left––whether arguing for homosexual marriage, state-funded transgender surgeries, dismemberment of a child in utero, or state-run health care––is that their opponents are on the “wrong side of history.” 

This sentiment plays well with society on the whole. After all, who wants to be seen with a flip-phone, wearing crocs, or sporting a bucket hat. Ew, to being backwards. Ew, to dad-ishness. Our age craves being savvy. You have to be to keep up with the leaps and bounds technology has made over the last decades.

With all the technological invasion––er––innovation, we also conclude that our morality needs tinkering with as well. If ever there was a crime to the modern mind, it is the crime of being a backwards bumpkin. The virtue of the age is being up-to-date with all the current sentiment.

The God of Our Age

This reveals that our god is not the Living God of the Bible, but the god demos. Mankind is our god. Thus, the whims of this god dictate our morals, our values, our sentiments, and our cultural mores. When “the people” are in charge, sentiments come into and out of fashion like Fourth of July fireworks. Up they go, boom they go, into oblivion they go. 

We have no underlying foundation underneath us, and so we are gullible for every new sentiment that demos demands that we go along with. In this year’s Miss Universe pageant, one contestant was a man, claiming to represent all women; he has the testicular fortitude to do this because he’s (well a man) and he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to look like a woman. If you can afford it, then anyone can be a woman. Then demos demands you applaud him as he feigns his femininity down the catwalk.

In another episode of the madness which demos has brought upon us, “parents” can decide to not assign their child a gender, and we are to shed a tear at the preciousness of their forward thinking. A young boy is dressed in drag, dances for a bunch of men, who throw dollar bills and catcall, and we’re told to be tolerant.

If you raise objections to these unsavory episodes in our cultural evolution to a utopia of brotherhood…er, I mean sisterhood, cause #TheFutureIsFemale…and peace and inclusivity, you are tsk-tsk-ed for not being on the right side of history. But this brings up an interesting question: how do we know whether we are reading history correctly?

Reading History Rightly

C.S. Lewis raised this question in his essay Historicism. In essence, as Christians we believe that God is the author of all history, and thus all history has meaning. The problem is when we assume we can interpret that history correctly. Lewis states, “I do not dispute that History is a story written by the finger of God. But have we the text?”Lewis, C. S.. Christian Reflections (p. 130). HarperOne. Kindle Edition. It is the pinnacle of our arrogance that we think we’ve got the bird’s eye view of the story that we are in. We have one line in this great story, and we think we have the insight to understand the whole novel.

Lewis points out that while we think that history has preserved for us “important” figures, he gives the illustration of Genghis Khan, how are we sure that Khan is actually an important actor in the story God is telling. Perhaps the main character in that scene is one of his many victims and the patience they showed in the midst of their suffering. We don’t know how to read history very well (we actually don’t know how to read many things very well, but I digress).

Claiming to be on the right side of history, is claiming that the gods have spoken. Since demos is the god of our age (thank you, Karl Marx) we should not be surprised at the use which is made of turning “current-ness” into a dividing line between the righteous and unrighteous, the woke and the broke, the open-minded and the bigots. We decided to splurge on our lusts, and any restraint on our desires will anger the god. Demos demands that we read history according to his authority, and he says selling baby parts to heat our hospitals is a-ok. So get with the times.

Not Our Story to Tell

However, history isn’t the story of mankind. It is the story of God becoming a man, in order to redeem mankind. All mankind was entirely on the wrong side of everything: history, art, science, and racial/gender studies of the 17th century. Every religion has sought to make history mean something. But this means we also have the mystical insight of the gods; which is why we have sought to become as God.

A story is precisely the sort of thing that cannot be understood till you have heard the whole of it .Lewis, C. S.. Christian Reflections (p. 132). HarperOne. Kindle Edition.

But if God became a man, we would know something about the story God is telling. It is a story of creation, fall, redemption, judgement, and ultimately a resurrection. Christ was born, died, rose again, and this is––as Spurgeon once put it––the hinge of history. All other events must be in reference to that great event. 

The secularist appeal to being on the “right side of history” is really just a recapitulation of the serpent’s lie in Eden. It is an appeal to think we can tell and interpret our own story. To us this is not given. We can’t even recount every last detail of the last ten minutes (let alone what it means); so who are you, oh man, to think you can interpret the trajectory of all of human history? Never be bullied into thinking you must think like the crowd, simply out of fear of being on the wrong side of history. Rather, fear being on the wrong side of the Son of Man when he comes to separate the sheep and the goats (Cf. Mt. 25).

I recently published a collection of my essays. It is available in Kindle & Paperback over at Amazon:

The Kavanaugh Rule

The Kavanaugh Rule

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The Left’s favorite Bible verse, and perhaps the only one they know, is “Judge not, that ye be not judged (Mt. 7:1).” Take that back…they also know the one Levitical law about sewing two types of seed in one field or sewing a garment with two types of fabric (Lev. 19:19), which they trot out to make us embarrassed about even thinking to appeal to God’s Law when it comes to sexual regulations.

But “judge not” is still their pet-verse. So, let’s use it shall we? The next line, for those who have actually read it in context proceeds thus, “For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again (Mt. 7:2).” In essence, whatever the standard is with which you are demanding another be judged, you must be willing to submit yourself to the same standard of judgement.

This is really delightful. So, Kavanaugh has been accused of (now multiple) instances of sexual shenanigans.  The Left is demanding that the FBI investigate all these accusations. We wouldn’t want our Supreme Court sullied by such a miscarriage of justice would we? We wouldn’t want such a bastion of uprightness which has ruled that black men were property, mothers can butcher their babies in utero, and two dudes can enter the fruit-bearing union of marriage. No, we’d never want the bench soiled.

A Sexual Audit of Congress

So I propose an audit of the sexual history of all members of Congress. The whole debauched lot of them. We want a list of the parties they attended, who was there, and what went down. How many interns have been paid off, after all?

What measure you mete out, it shall be meted out to you. But that’s not what this is all about. This isn’t about justice. This is about power. Today, Dr. Ford (Kavanaugh’s accuser) and Kavanaugh both gave emotional testimony. DURING the hearings both the GOP and Democrats sent out campaign fundraising emails. The gnawing hunger for power is a heckuva drug.

In the maelstrom which is 2018 politics, do not forget that this is a fight. Father Christmas might remind us that battles are ugly things when women fight them. The battle will be fought in the pristine (insert sarcasm here) halls of our government. But the battle will be won by fathers fighting for their sons to be men of honor. Sons who aren’t given to strong drink, porn, or sloth. The battle will be won by fathers defending their daughters by insisting they not go to those parties. The battle will be won by mothers sacrificing the cultural prestige of a career for the greater privilege of rearing their children to fear the Lord.

Tit for Tat

What is taking place in front of us is the bruised ego of progressives retaliate for the scorching of 2016. If they are successful in destroying Kavanaugh, and taking back the Senate, House or both, the Republicans are already threatening to employ similar dirty politics. The tit for tat of vengeance will always lead us to destroy our enemies. 

The Gospel offers a means whereby we might route our enemies. It doesn’t offer a touchy-feely, “let’s all get along” mindset. It demands that we all die, in Christ, to our sin. The death of Christ is the only means whereby any family, city, or nation might have peace with each other; and only by being at peace with God first. 

Our nation has embraced sexual license and now is flabbergasted at how bad that’s worked out. Our nation has enshrined avarice, and then are shocked when those whose ambition brought them to the top abuse their power. We’ve knocked the load-bearing wall out of the house our more godly and wise forefathers built, and now wonder why there’s a sagging ceiling in the living room. The only recourse is to return to the Gospel which airs all our dirty laundry, all our vile secrets, and offers forgiveness for it all…through a man whose reputation and very life was sacrificed for yours.

The Demons Among Us

The Demons Among Us

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Let me go over the game film with you. The last 2-3 years have been quite the ride for Americans in general and American Evangelicals in particular. The 2016 presidential campaign, President Trump, the #MeToo movement, growing cultural turmoil of gender/sexuality issues, and the continual cycle of liberal outrage countered by “conservative” bluster. We have sure been busy haven’t we?

With each new day it seems there is some controversy, scandal, or issue which immediately fractures “us” into camps. Without commenting on the particular events which trigger this ceaseless cycle of outrage-mongering, I do want to point out our opponent’s strategies and tactics.

Our society over the last couple generations has adopted what they believe to be a godless worldview. Truth is what you make of it. Morality is decided democratically. Right and Good are defined by your nerve endings. This system of thought is what we have come to call Humanism. Another name for it might be the belief in Human Autonomy. Another term for it is raw sewage.

Humanism’s underlying premise is that man is autonomous. Meaning, man is not dependent on God for life, morality, and ultimately salvation. Man can decide his own morality. Man can determine his own destiny. Man can define his purpose. Man is the answer for all his problems.

The problem with this thinking is that inevitably––and here is where we are at in the game––mankind comes to disagree with each other as to which road to take, which standard to apply, which morality to abide by. Humanism works its way, like a tar from a cigarette, into the society’s bronchial tubes. At which point the demons of lung cancer are unleashed. Humanism is accompanied by all variety of demons, but two in particular are having a great time as of late: faction and feuding. We’ve come to believe that truth is whatever you want it to be, and now we have been successfully pitted against each other in an eye-for-eye feud. Each faction vying to destroy the other.

Here is why we see such vehement strife in American culture. We ripped out the capstone of the arch and wonder why the left side and right side are tumbling into each other. Neither side can support itself, but each side is insisting that it has a point of cohesion which the other side must adhere to. The irony is that both camps are assuming their own autonomy. They are assuming that nature is all there is. Without God the Son there is no cohesion point in the universe that can prevent the demise of humanism. Humanism is pride, and pride always comes to destruction.

A society where each man is a god unto himself is certain to eventually crumble. The gods are always easily offended, and when they are angry they demand blood, they demand vengeance, they demand a sincere apology for insensitive remarks. You cannot insist that each person should discover themselves, follow their heart, and “do you” and then be surprised when the eventually civil war breaks out. Man is too feeble to hold things together.

This is why Christian worship of the Triune God is vital. When believers gather each Lord’s Day for worship, Word, and sacrament, we are making a defiant statement of our unwillingness to worship idols. We are insisting that Christ is the “uni” around which the universe revolves. We have a point of unity which humanism never can. Humanism looks inward for guidance, fulfillment, and salvation. Christianity points us to the only Man who was ever clean of unrighteousness. Humanism insists man doesn’t need God; Christianity insists that God became a man in order to reunite mankind with God Almighty––Father, Son, Spirit. Our weekly worship is a reminder that every true believer has died in Christ’s death, and no longer lives unto himself. Instead, it is Christ Who lives within.

Christianity is the death of feuding and faction, because vengeance is satisfied, offenses are passed over, and sin is satiated. All because the righteous sacrifice of the Lord Jesus’ shed blood. Every Sunday we remember that all our little individual religions, all our altars to self, are in ruins, desecrated, destroyed and tossed into the grave. But better still, we celebrate a resurrection which binds all believers together in Christ. We have more than what faction can offer, i.e. mere fraternity. Christ offers fellowship. Fellowship with Him, and in Him we are brought to enjoy the fullness of the Godhead, and we are joined with all the saints of all ages. Humanism will always end in ashes and death. Christ offers a resurrection.

Leviticus on Immigrants

Leviticus on Immigrants

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Hoorah for Bible Study

In the midst of the current discussion on immigration, I’ve been somewhat surprised by the various attempts to appeal to Scripture to support the different positions. Of course, Jeff Sessions citing  Romans 13 (obey the government) as defense of the child separation policy was parried by MSNBC, CNN, Colbert, and other media outlets/personalities responding with other passages. I am heartened by the sudden interest in Bible study.

I’ve also seen Christians citing Leviticus 19:33-34, “And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” There’ve been plenty of meme-ifications of this (and other similar texts). Ironically, the same people who tell us Leviticus is outdated in its views on homosexuality, suddenly want it to be authoritative in how we treat “strangers/immigrants.” So, kids, pay close attention. It’s like playing tag with that one kid in elementary school who always wanted to change where and what “base” was based on his proximity to it.

One Law For Citizen & Stranger

Let’s consider this text then, shall we? Indeed, the mandate here (cf. Exo 22:21) is that a stranger sojourning in the land of Israel was to be treated fairly. Likely, what is in view here is a prohibition of enslaving or otherwise exploiting the strangers in the land. The Lord reemphasizes the “love thy neighbor” command, which means we ought to view all mankind charitably and with equal fairness. There is no room for ethnic hatred or prejudice in the Levitical law, and the Israelites were forbidden from mistreating strangers.

However, they were also prohibited from allowing the strangers’ cultural standards and ultimately their false gods to in any way influence Israelite culture, laws, and religion. If we look forward a couple of chapters there is another law in regards to immigrants, “Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country: for I am the LORD your God (Lev. 24:22).”

Context Matters

Now, the context for this ordinance is interesting. A young man whose mother was an Israelite, and whose father was an Egyptian had blasphemed the LORD (Lev. 24:11), and the elders petitioned Moses to ask what the Lord’s will was on this matter. The verdict returned that the young man should be stoned for His blasphemy (Lev. 24:14). Which led to the clarifying statement of Lev. 24:22, a stranger, immigrant, or half-Jew living in Israel was bound to obey Israel’s laws, and acknowledge Israel’s God. This meant that a stranger would not be allowed to break the Sabbath (Lev. 25:6), if he wanted to observe Passover he would need to fulfill certain legal requirements *cough cough* circumcision (Num 9:14 & Ex. 12:48), and as we see in Lev. 24 a stranger could be sentenced to death for blasphemy and by implication any other capital crimes described in the Mosaic law.

What this cashes out to is that the Lord loves equal weights and measures (Pro. 20:23). A stranger coming into national Israel is to be shown neighborly love, and will be held responsible to follow Israelite law. Further, it should be noted that this also presumes a clear distinction between citizen and stranger. This is not a bad thing, just like a father should be clear on which children are his, and which aren’t. I’m responsible to feed and clothe my children, but I’m not responsible to feed and clothe yours. This isn’t cold-hearted. It makes it clear where my focus needs to be. That said, a God-fearing man will also look with compassion on the naked, and clothe them, on the hungry and feed them. This is on top of his first obligations. I shouldn’t starve my children in order to check some social justice box. But I should labor to have abundance, in order to be a defender of the poor and weak, and to relieve the suffering of the hungry and destitute.

Immigration into Israel meant that the stranger would need to abide by God’s law which was given to Moses. It meant he would need to acknowledge that he was bound to obey Israel’s laws, but also acknowledge the One True God which the Mosaic Law presumes, “I am the LORD thy God (Ex. 20:2).” If he wanted to participate in the religious ceremonies and enjoy the cultural blessings of Israel he would need to be circumcised, along with his whole household.

But, but, but, the New Testament

Now…a common objection, after spending so much time in Leviticus, is, “But, now in the New Testament age, we aren’t under law, but under grace.” We must not forget that Old Testament law was not abrogated with the coming of Christ, it was fulfilled. Further, it was made plain that law keeping would never be the means of earning salvation. God’s Law, however, was in itself a grace which restrained the wickedness of man and preserved the righteous. Grace has a backbone. Grace doesn’t coddle us, it covers us.

We should keep it quite clear that earthly government (civil laws, family rules, business protocols) all are still perfectly acceptable so long as we acknowledge that these do not earn us favor with God. However, we should model our earthly laws after the law of God revealed to Israel. On top of it all, we must remember that mercy triumphs over judgement.

Say you find that I’ve broken into your house, and, when confronted, I request that you house and feed me. You need a lot of information to make such a decision, and that decision takes time; you’ll need to know you’ll be permanently supporting me, why I am in need of housing and food in the first place, will I pay rent, do I have a criminal history. While you’re tracking all that info down, do you mind if I help myself to your fridge? Now, what does mercy look like in that scenario? What does mercy to your spouse and children look like in that situation?

False gods Give False Laws

Remember, a stranger in the land is bound to the laws––and ultimately the God––of that nation. We must further remember that the sword of justice is given into the hand of the magistrate, but the ministry of grace, mercy, and peace to the church. Because we have come to worship the demos and the almighty State, we think that it is the government’s duty to show mercy and charity. Sorry cupcake…that’s not the government’s calling.

Part of the confusion we currently have at the border is as a result of worshipping false gods. If we would return to the true and only God we would acknowledge that immigrants would be obliged to submit to a government which itself acknowledged the Lord Jesus Christ as above all earthly powers. Of course, we should never mistreat strangers, but we must also remember that Leviticus requires us to punish strangers/immigrants who break the righteous laws of our nation. This isn’t hard-hearted, this is mercy and justice in action. Again, three cheers for Bible Study…thanks Jeff Sessions.

Ben Zornes