Wheat and Chaff

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2015-05-07T21:11:00.001-06:00

Gay Marriage isn't the problem

2015-05-06T21:41:00.001-06:00

Dr. Stephen Baskerville makes the case that the current push for gay marriage is really just the result of a long push against families that started in the past, especially with no-fault divorce, as that fundamentally altered and degraded the role of fathers in society, and expanded the power of the state as a result.

G. K. Chesterton once suggested that the family was the main check on state power and that weakening it would destroy freedom. Chesterton was writing about divorce, and here another critical difference emerges between today’s debates and the way the issue was framed by Dawson and Zimmerman and theorists they cite. While homosexuality, abortion, pornography, and other cultural issues on today’s family-values agenda do appear in their writings, they are not central. The recurring issue throughout Western history that seems to be the most direct cause of marriage and family breakdown is divorce.

...

Given that 80 percent of divorces are unilateral, divorce today seldom involves two people simply parting ways.[10] Under “no-fault” rules divorce often becomes a power grab by one spouse, assisted by people who profit from the ensuing litigation: judges, lawyers, psychotherapists, counselors, mediators, and social workers.

The most serious consequences involve children. The first action in a divorce is typically to separate the children from one parent, usually the father. Even if he is innocent of any legal wrongdoing and did not agree to the divorce, the state seizes his children with no burden of proof to justify its action. The burden of proof (and the financial burden) to demonstrate that they should be returned falls on him.

The reason for this is that intact families, and especially fathers that are present in the lives of the children, are one of the greatest checks on the power of the state.

From Henry Dampier who has additional thoughts.

Liberation Theology

2015-05-06T14:21:00.003-06:00

The Communists invented liberation theology, according to an ex-Soviet spy.

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/former-soviet-spy-we-created-liberation-theology-83634/

Male and Female

2015-05-06T11:51:00.002-06:00

Genesis 1:27 says, "male and female created He them." The male-female dichotomy is part of the creative order from the beginning, and that dichotomy was there by God in the initial plan and intention for humanity. Humankind was to glorify God and represent God's likeness and image, and humankind does this as "male and female".

That refutes any possible normalization of homosexuality, polygamy, or transgenderism. It refutes the contempt, oppression, and abuse that men have so often directed toward women throughout history, but also refutes the rejection of gender distinctions and roles that is such a feature of our current age.

God made women to be female, to be distinct from men. You cannot claim to be pro-woman if you are not pro-femininity. This fact remains true both more men who hold women in contempt and women who hold their own femaleness, as God created it, in contempt.

More here, from Sunday's sermon.

The Course of Revolutions

2015-05-06T10:32:00.001-06:00

The Bolshevik Revolution was all about creating a just and perfect society in Russia. When they tried to implement this society, contrary to the reality of God's law and without the benefit of Christ's redemption, they inevitably failed. When they failed, rather than admit their error and change course, they blamed scapegoats, doubled down, and tried even harder to impose their vision on reality. Result- tens of millions dead.

The Cultural Revolution was all about creating a just and perfect society in China. They tried to implement their vision without reference to God's law, contrary to God's truth, and ignoring the salvation promised in Jesus Christ. They inevitably failed as their dreams and plans clashed with God-ordained reality, just like the Bolsheviks. But rather than admit their fault and change course, they tried twice as hard, blamed scapegoats, and pressed on. Result- tens of millions dead.

In America and the West, we have likewise seen a revolution, an attempt to create a utopia. The sexual revolution is part of it, as is the War on Poverty, the New Deal, and all the rest of the welfare state. It is the attempt to overcome all the effects of sin, all the misery and suffering that comes from our refusal to acknowledge our Creator and accept the salvation and lordship of Jesus Christ. It is likewise failing. Wherever the statist utopian dream has been given the freest rein (Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago) the results have been disastrous. Terrible poverty, crime, and social dysfunction of every kind.

But this, true to form, has not caused the utopians to rethink their ways. They have doubled down, found scapegoats to blame for their failures, and continue to press on.

Results...?

Profound Theology

2015-04-25T10:17:00.002-06:00

Question: "Why did God make you and all things?" Answer: "For His own glory."

It struck me today, though not for the first time, that this is a truly profound and crucial theological statement. It's from our little Children's Catechism, and kids have been learning this truth for centuries. But I think if we really knew that truth, really knew it down in our bones, we would avoid a lot of errors. There is more that needs to be known, for sure- it is not sufficient. But it is necessary- without this piece of information, you'll misunderstand and misconstrue everything. That statement right there cures the Arminian error, I believe. That's just one example.

How many times in the Bible do you see God saying something like, "So that you will know that I am God" or "for My holy name's sake" or something similar? These are all statements about God's self-revelation and how fundamental it is to the whole existence of the universe. This is why everything exists.

Good theology is the reason we don't have slavery anymore, and is the reason why you have cell phones and cars and democracy. That's not to say of course that the company that built your cell phone is Christian, but it is to say that we as a culture and civilization are still reaping from the long trail of benefits from the building of our civilization in northern and western Europe by people who were Christians. They believed that God had made all people in His own image and that God made the universe orderly and understandable, and made man to understand it. These ideas led to the scientific revolution, the concept of human rights and all the rest. That's not to say they were all perfectly worked out instantly. Some might cite slavery in the US or Europe as a counterexample. But the remarkable thing wasn't that slavery existed. Slavery has existed everywhere for all of history. The remarkable thing, the thing that requires explaining, is the push to end slavery, which happened entirely in places with a long Christian heritage.

Because they knew God. And they knew that God had created the very universe to reveal Himself. They wanted to know Him better, and they paid attention.

In a society rapidly rejecting Christianity and the civilization which sprang from it, I expect we'll be finding out soon whether this thesis is correct, whether a liberal, free, scientific society can long exist without the theological framework which gave rise to that society.

Arguing about theologians

2015-04-23T10:21:00.000-06:00

I love reading the Bible. No end of profit there, of course.

I like reading godly theologians writing about the Bible. That is very helpful too, as those wiser than me help me understand the Bible.

I find some interest in reading people who are writing about the theologians who write about the Bible. This is interesting from a historiographical perspective and helps me see the outline of the great debates we've engaged in over the centuries.

When we start arguing about the theologians, whether they did or did not in fact teach this or that doctrine, I find myself rapidly losing interest. What are we interested in, here? We want to know what the Bible says. That's ultimately what matters. The further we get in our discussions from that, the less value those discussions truly have.

Meditations on Reformed Worship

2015-02-24T09:57:00.003-07:00

My new book is available! It's on the subject of worship, from a Reformed perspective. I'll post the description from the book page:

Worship matters. We were created to be in relationship with God, in fellowship with Him, and to do so together with His people. The basic, bedrock promise of the Bible story from beginning to end is, "I will be your God, and you will be My people, and I will dwell in your midst." Corporate worship at its best is the closest experience of that eternal reality we will experience in this life. Over time the most accurate insight into a church's theology is their worship- what they do, what they sing, what they say, and the heart with which they do it. When you believe you are going to meet with God, you show everyone most accurately what you think about Him.

God being God, and we being creatures, and especially creatures in a sinful and fallen state, it must be the case that God will define how that relationship looks. Therefore we look to Scriptures to define worship for us, and not our own imaginations or the opinions of men. A child does not define his relationship with his father; much less can we tell our Creator how we will relate to HIm! But He has graciously and lovingly instructed us in His Scriptures in the principles that should drive our worship.

God is glorious, and good, and beautiful! And He has done marvelous things for us. Worshiping Him is an honor, a joy and a privilege, and carries great benefits for us as well. Interfacing directly with God through Biblical worship reveals our own nature, since we are in His image, and what we learn and experience in worship will shape our very hearts, to be more like Him in every way. And that is the purpose of our existence.

This book is a series of essays on the subject of worship. Why do we worship? What principles drive and inform our worship? What are the different elements of a worship service and why do we do them? Throughout, we intend to go beyond going through the motions to see the heart of why we do what we do in worship. The theology of the Reformed branch of the Protestant Reformation informs us throughout.

It will be available on Amazon.com shortly as well.

Board games

2015-02-20T15:13:00.000-07:00

I got a new board game a couple days ago- Stone Age. I've played it twice with the kids and it's great. It's a resource management and worker placement game, and I really enjoy it.

I love playing games with the kids. I think it's really valuable. There's all sorts of things to learn and benefit from in a good game. In Stone Age, you have to roll dice and divide by different numbers depending on what resource you're collecting. So it works math skills, strategic thinking and planning ahead. But besides that, most games I play with the kids give opportunities for lots of character building. How to win and lose gracefully, how to follow rules, how to control temper and pride- I think these are all really valuable lessons. I can observe my kids and see areas of their character where they need some growth. And we just get to spend time together and have fun as a family.

Boredom

2015-02-19T13:36:00.001-07:00

What if you never got bored of things? What if the same sunset that delighted you one day delighted you just as much the next day? Or even more? What if one particular piece of music just never got old? What if you could pick a well-balanced meal that you loved and eat it and only it for a hundred years and never get tired of it?

Would that not significantly change the way one perceives the prospect of eternal life? Perhaps the very existence of boredom, of the thirst for novelty, is a product of man's fall into sin. I don't know. I can't think of any Scriptures to support this one way or another. It's just a thought.

Fellowship

2015-02-18T19:05:00.002-07:00

If you are not learning to get along with other Christians, then you are not learning to be a Christian at all.

The Values that Shape Us

2015-02-16T19:29:00.001-07:00

The Atlantic has published a really valuable article for understanding ISIS.

One thing that makes Protestantism superior to Catholicism is the burning of heretics. Now of course the Protestants burned heretics along with the Catholics, but a Protestant can denounce the action, while a Catholic can't. Heretics were burned by order of popes and councils, for example the Council of Constance which burned John Huss to death. And in Roman Catholic theology, councils of the church are infallible. I can say that the Genevan church was wrong to burn Servetus. But the Roman Catholic can say no such thing about the Council of Constance.

Muslims have a similar problem. No matter how modern and moderate a Muslim becomes, he cannot escape the example of Allah's true prophet, who held slaves, who married a nine year old, who practiced all sorts of barbarities. The Islamic State says that anyone who rejects crucifixions and slavery rejects Islam, because it is to reject the practice of Muhammad and the teachings of the Koran, and they have a point. As Christians, however, we can never go wrong by returning to the example of our founder, Jesus, whose values and teachings have shaped the modern world, values by which the members of that modern world judge people like ISIS even if they do not acknowledge the source of those values.

The Christian church at its very best attempts to emulates the true principles and practices of its founder. Muslims at their best ignore the values of Islam's founder and adopt the values of the founder of Christianity instead.

The New Testament Sabbath

2015-02-07T16:24:00.002-07:00

The purpose of the Sabbath Day was never intended to teach people to rest in God one day of the week and to trust their own hard work the other six. That day was a token, a sign teaching them to trust God every day. It is to me so sad to see that just like the Pharisees of Jesus' day, some of the most careful and scrupulous observers of Sabbath days today think that by their effort to scrupulously keep the Sabbath they are earning God's blessings, and their legalistic attitudes are seen the rest of the week in their frantic activity trying to do everything perfectly.

The New Testament Sabbath is the reality of which the Old Testament Sabbath was just a sign. The New Testament Sabbath is the resting in Christ and His salvation every day, and doing it whether one is at church, at work, at play, or wherever. It is not the observance of a day- those ceremonies passed away with Christ. It is the observance of a mindset, one of faith and trust with God, every day.

Peace with God is the Key to Everything Else

2015-02-07T16:18:00.000-07:00

Most of what people spend their lives doing is trying to overcome the effects of the curse without ever actually dealing with the curse itself. The reason we are separated from one another, why people are hateful and envious of one another, why people are at war with themselves, engage in destructive behaviors of substance abuse, drunkenness, promiscuity and the like, why nations go to war, why people wreck the planet, wreck their families, wreck their own bodies- all of it is because they are alienated with God. The rest of that is God's curse on us for rebelling against Him. So it is absolutely futile to try to solve any of those other problems without solving the one big problem. We're not stronger than God, and we will never defy His curse against us. So people work hard, or chase pleasure, or get educations, or lose themselves in entertainment, all to try to feel peace and happiness in their lives, or at least avoid pain. But they will fail, because God is God and He will execute His judgment. If we accept reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ, though, the rest of it will all fall in line.

Political Correctness Built-in Self-Justification

2015-02-05T20:43:00.003-07:00

The great thing about political correctness is, that as long as your social experimentation continues to produce bad results and therefore produces people who sensibly point out the failures of your social experimentation, you can continue to blame the failures of your social experimentation on the bigotry of the people with the temerity to point it out.

Bet on the Proven Winner

2015-01-08T14:05:00.000-07:00

Two thousand years ago, when Christianity first came into the world, all the smartest, most educated, most powerful, richest and most admired men around believed it to be ridiculous nonsense, and said so loudly. With long tradition, majority opinion and all the latest thinking behind them, they argued that men ought to worship the gods of the Roman pantheon as these had obviously led to the success of the Roman Empire, and that all the world believed in either the Roman gods or something very similar, and that this new religion was suitable only for the most ignorant and weakest in society, that it was a religion for slaves and women.

Now, two thousand years later, those arguing against Christianity are often the most educated, most powerful and most successful. They have the wealth and prestige of the universities and governments of the world behind them. Most of the most famous artists and musicians and scholars agree. And they argue that Christianity is a religion for the ignorant and hateful, that it is absurd and cannot be taken seriously. Yet their views of ethics and reality are far closer to Christianity than were those of Christianity's opponents from two thousand years ago. Christianity's opponents have conceded much ground to Christianity, while Christianity continues as it always has. Christianity has drastically altered the intellectual landscape of the world, and continues to do so. People will continue to mock, but historically it has been the worldview of those who mock and ridicule Christianity which ends up on the dung-heap of history.

Christianity, this religion of women and slaves, is pretty much the same as it was two thousand years ago, and continues to cast down all opposition, continues to spread into all the world, not because of the prestige and status of those that champion it, but because it is true. Jesus said that His kingdom would prevail and the gates of hell would not stand against it. We have a two thousand year track record of victory, from 120 believers representing less than a millionth part of the world's population to two billion believers representing a third of that population, to confirm the truth of what He said. Remember that the next time some rich, famous or prestigious person calls Christianity ridiculous and predicts its imminent demise.

What Are You Looking Forward To?

2015-01-03T20:57:00.003-07:00

From Jay Adams:

Forget your New Years’ resolutions; they come from you. These wonderful events mentioned by Peter are no resolutions—they are the promises of God.

Confession

2015-01-03T11:27:00.001-07:00

"Show your wounds to the Lord, the most excellent physician, and seek remedy from Him. Show them to Him, who does not reproach but most gently heals." John Chrysostom, on the value and importance of confession of sin to God.

Irony

2015-01-03T11:24:00.002-07:00

It's kind of funny when atheists post amazing pictures of the natural universe on Facebook or their websites and think that's supposed to detract somehow from the glory of the One who made the universe. The more incredible we realize the universe to be, the less likely it is that it just accidentally happened.

A Desperate Counter-attack

2014-12-30T08:58:00.001-07:00

From the Aquila Report, here's a great example of the dishonest tactics so often used to attack Christianity. I think it should be taken as an unintended compliment, a tribute to the importance of Christianity. If Christianity were irrelevant and dying, there'd be no need to go to all this effort. That someone is willing to throw away their own intellectual credibility to make attacks like this just shows that it really does matter, and that the author of such attacks has very personal, non-intellectual reasons for being so desperate to find reasons not to submit to Jesus Christ. Why not just ignore Jesus? Because they can't. This article feels to me like Hitler's last desperate attempts to defend Germany when his own generals all knew they were defeated.

At any rate, Michael Kruger does a great job of dismantling arguments that anyone with even a passing familiarity with church history would know were nonsense. This is one really important reason to study church history, as we are doing at Christ Reformed- to recognize the foolishness of these kinds of slanders.

It is impossible to consistently believe in unguided evolution.

2014-12-27T10:22:00.001-07:00

If unguided evolution is true, then unguided evolution formed my brain.
If unguided evolution formed my brain then theism is false. (since theism entails the claim that God formed my brain)
If I believe in theism, then my brain has produced a false belief.
If my brain has produced a false belief, then unguided evolution formed my brain to produce a false belief.
If unguided evolution has formed my brain to produce false beliefs, then I cannot be confident that anything I believe is not also false, including unguided evolution.
Therefore, it is impossible to believe in unguided evolution, since the belief in unguided evolution entails the belief that I cannot truly know anything.

Secular Humanism can only live as a parasite on Christianity

2014-12-27T09:21:00.000-07:00

Secular humanism might be described as the philosophical belief that all human beings have value and dignity, which is inherent rather than defined by supernatural beliefs or religious dogma.

A couple of interesting points about secular humanism-
-It shares a number of beliefs with traditional Christianity, especially the belief in the inherent worth and dignity of a human being.
-It provides no basis for that belief; no way of proving that humans do have any inherent value, other than their desire that it be so.
-Historically, it arose in areas (western Europe and America, specifically) with deep Christian roots.

I conclude that secular humanism is a Christian heresy; meaning a belief system which is a distortion of Christian belief. Secular humanism is an attempt to get the benefits of Christianity without paying the price, the price of submission to God. It is the belief that the blessings that have come to the world through Christianity can be enjoyed while rejecting the supernatural basis for those beliefs. It is a house built on sand, a philosophy with no epistemological foundation.

Even as secular humanists mock and deride Christianity, the fact is, that secular humanism could not exist without Christianity. It is like a parasite. It depends on a steady influx of people who accept the Christian belief in the inherent dignity of human beings. But since it rejects the basis for that belief (that man was created in the image of God), it cannot actually inculcate that belief itself. It can provide us with no reason why all human beings should have any particular worth, since in its philosophy we are all just matter. Why should one collection of organic matter be more important than another? Or why is organic matter of more inherent worth than non-organic matter? And why should I view people of different genders or races as of equal value? If Christianity were ever somehow to cease to exist, so would secular humanism, and the world would lapse back into barbarism and savagery. Fortunately, that cannot happen, as God is God and has promised that the gates of hell will not prevail against His church.

Secular humanism, therefore, is a great deal like the pagan attempts in late antiquity to stem the growing influence of Christianity by aping Christianity's success. Julian the Apostate tried to encourage pagan temples to emulate the moral virtue and charity of the Christian clergy. He failed, because paganism lacks any real reason to do those things. Secular humanism will fail for the same reason; moral behavior and charity toward others can only really be grounded in the truth of a Creator that made us all in His image.

Evolution and the Gallery of Glory

2014-12-11T18:58:00.000-07:00

If evolution is correct, then the violence, suffering, and gore of the animal world has raged since time immemorial. And if the theistic evolutionists are correct, then this violence, suffering, and gore are part of God’s very good creation. Conceivably, Adam leaves his cabin in Eden one pleasant summer evening as the sun casts a golden swath across the meadow, the fragrance of perfection in the air enhanced by the river’s peaceful rush. He takes out his pipe and stuffs it with “the tender herb,” plucked from “where the morning sun first warmly smote the open field.” Eve joins him with a cup of tea, and together they delight in the scene before them, “breathing the smell of field and grove.” Across the water a moose screams as it’s rectally disemboweled by a pack of wolves. Adam takes a long, slow draw from his pipe, savours the cool smoke, turns to Eve with a contented smile and together they chat about the many pleasures of Paradise.

Evolution and the Gallery of Glory, Jeremy de Haan

Agents Provocateurs

2014-12-11T09:54:00.000-07:00

In the civil rights era, there were accusations that the FBI and CIA used what are called “agents provocateurs,” meaning that they infiltrated various protest groups with secret agents whose job was to discredit the organization by starting riots and engaging in violence and vandalism in the name of the group, turning public opinion away from it. I have heard the same charges made by liberal Occupy Wall Street groups, as well as Tea Party groups, who would talk of suspicious people that nobody knew showing up with ridiculous racist signs in order to make the Tea Party look racist.

I am not interested here in the truth or falsity of any specific accusation. But it’s clear that such tactics have been used. And it would be effective. Why would an enemy of a movement not use such tactics to discredit such a movement?

When we think about church history, likewise, it is very helpful to remember that Jesus Christ has an enemy as well that is desperate to destroy His movement, and will not stop at anything to do so. History is full of the occasions when Satan has used direct force. But wouldn’t it likewise be a very effective tactic in the war against Christianity to have lots of double agents, people who looked like Christians, called themselves Christians, but acted in ways that brought shame on the name of Christ?
For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. (2Jo 1:7 NKJ)

For there are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of dishonest gain. (Tit 1:10-11 NKJ)

But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. (2Pe 2:1-2 NKJ)

Note that verse from 2 Peter especially. As a result of the “many” that would follow their destructive ways, the true way would be blasphemed.

Studying church history has both broadened and narrowed my view of the faith. On the one hand, it’s given me a great appreciation for traditions of Christianity outside of my own, and it has helped me see myself and my church as part of a much greater movement. At the same time, it has made me realize that the true church, in the sense of those who truly believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, have always been a minority in the church, sometimes a small minority. There were always many who were part of the church for bad reasons. Even while the persecutions were going on under Rome, there were various heretical sects that denied the real humanity of Christ, or fell into other grievous errors.

The reason this has often been a challenge for me is that if my Protestant Reformed faith is correct, especially on the point of justification by faith alone, then a great majority of the rest of the church is false. It was and is hard for me to accept that such a large proportion of the church of Jesus Christ has lost the true faith. But when I remember that the church has an enemy, a very clever, crafty enemy, then this becomes much easier for me to understand. Would it not be an effective tactic to discredit the truth of the gospel for there to be many of those who claim to follow Christ, but have a corrupted version of that gospel? And a clever enemy, with the resources at his disposal that our enemy has, might use that tactic at multiple levels. There might be groups that were obviously heretical, denying core doctrines of the faith. There might be other groups who departed from the truth on a more subtle level, holding to many of the historic truths of the faith like the Trinity and the incarnation, and yet undermined the gospel by denying justification by faith alone. There might also be those that actually confessed all the right doctrines, but engaged in wickedness and immorality in their personal lives. This, combined with the continuing sinfulness of the saints themselves as seen in their own personal failures and disagreements about doctrine, would all lead to a great deal of confusion.

And it is an effective tactic. One common attack against those who advocate for the doctrine of justification by faith alone is that the majority of the church for its whole history has not accepted this doctrine. And that is probably true. Similarly, the majority of the church for most of its history has believed in the physical presence of Christ in the bread and wine of the supper. The majority of the church has believed in one sense or another that baptism works saving grace of itself. And many Protestants can be discouraged and embarrassed by the fact that they are in the minority. Even within the Protestant world, the multiplication of sects and doctrines has guaranteed that almost no belief is held by a majority of those who at least outwardly claim the name of Christ. Many Protestants desire to eliminate this embarrassment by some kind of greater outward unity; many work for mergers with other denominations, or even reunification with Rome, in order to present a more unified front to the world. This was actually the reason for the erection of the rule of bishops in the first place, so that the church would have a unified figure to point to that would provide an authoritative witness against the heretics.

This should not surprise us, though. The Apostles all told us that this would happen. Jesus told us that this would happen as well (Matthew 13:22-23). In Revelation 2-3, when Jesus sends letters to the seven representative churches, only two of those churches are really faithful and uncompromised with error.

But when warning us about this problem, the Apostles never point us to some external magisterium. They never point us to a continuing apostleship, or the bishop of Rome, or the collective decision of most of the churches, or anything like that. They point us to the Scriptures. And they point us to the witness of the Spirit that would remind us of the truth. They tell us to watch, and pray, to test the Spirits, to remember the words of the apostles, to hold fast to the gospel. Paul tells us that if another apostle or even an angel in heaven comes with a different gospel than the one he came with, to let him be accursed (Gal. 1:8-9).

We are historic Christians. We believe Jesus promised that His true church would always be on earth, and it always has. We believe that God made us to be in community, that the Spirit of God was not given to us alone as individuals, but to His church, and we should therefore learn from the church, both historically and in our own day. But this does not remove from us the obligation of recognizing that a lot of what might look like the church at first glance might not actually be the church, but a counterfeit, an “agent provocateur,” tares sown by the devil to deceive and confuse, to undermine and embarrass the true church.

So let us hold fast. Do not be discouraged by the majority opinions. Do not be surprised by the confusion of doctrines, by the presence of many deceivers, by many who look close to the truth but who deny it at core points. The greatest danger of these many deceivers, I believe, is that true believers will look at this great number of those who call themselves Christians and yet deny the gospel of Jesus Christ, and think to themselves that for the sake of the unity of the visible church they will deny it themselves, or at least to deny the importance of holding to that gospel, which comes to the same thing. As helpful as the creeds and confessions and writings of the fathers and the witness of history is, at the end of the day the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, laid on Christ Himself, and no other foundation can be laid. Whatever is not of that foundation must be rejected. The witness of the apostles and prophets we have in the Scriptures, and the witness of Christ we have in the Spirit that He sends to all His elect. So let us pray for that Spirit, that we would have discernment. Let us not be ashamed of the name of Christ, regardless of what the devil does. And let us hold fast to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ no matter what the devil says or does.

We cannot see into people’s hearts. I am not advocating here that we denounce all who disagree with us at any point as agents of Satan. We cannot know who those agents are. But we must know that they are out there, and not be deceived and discouraged by them in failing to hold fast to the truth of the Scriptures. Let God be true, and every man a liar.

Faith Implies Certainty

2014-12-09T16:31:00.000-07:00

"For unbelief is so deeply rooted in our hearts, and we are so inclined to it, that not without hard struggle is each one able to persuade himself of what all confess with the mouth: namely, that God is faithful." John Calvin, Institutes, Book 3, Ch. 2, Par. 15, "Faith Implies Certainty"