Words are Not Morally Neutral

Abraham Piper recently blogged:

“To believe that all swearing is wrong, you also have to believe that our culture is right. Social customs define what’s taboo. Therefore, saying taboo language is uniformly sinful implies that our social customs uniformly align with God’s will.”

In other words, as some of my friends tweeted: “To believe all swearing is sin, you have to be OK with culture being the arbiter of right & wrong.”

My response?

No you don't.

First of all, contemporary culture is perfectly fine with swearing. Since when does culture denounce swearing (or anything for that matter) as right or wrong? Modern Christianity and some more conservative circles may put restrictions on swearing, but culture doesn't. Watch television, celebrities, politicians, and people in everyday conversation. They swear a lot. In our culture, swearing is far from taboo.

Secondly, as representatives of Christ on earth, we want to speak in a way that is loving and respectful, not filthy. Culture doesn't pronounce that certain words are wrong; culture associates certain words with concepts that, when normally used, mean either sexually descriptive or hatefully slanderous things. The words have been given negative connotations; they are the verbal equivalent of a tight tank top and low riding jeans on an immodestly dressed girl. Immodest clothing may cause your brethren to stumble. So may immodest words cause your brethren to become confused and return to hateful or wrongheaded thoughts.

Scripture says that your words always proceed from your heart, thus the words that a Christian uses in speech give the world a picture of what that Christian thinks in his heart. Will you represent your heart with wisely chosen words or words that culture has associated with banality, filthiness, hate, and / or lust?

We are mistaken if we think that words are morally neutral and that they do not have connotations or associations that are harmful and ungodly. I doubt that any Christian would walk into a public place and proclaim proudly that he is a pedophile. The Greek roots of the word give it the meaning “friend of children.” The modern association of the word gives it a new meaning: “perverted sex predator.” A guy using the word might intend it the first way, but he’s a fool to think that anyone else but himself will interpret it that way. Try explaining that one in court.

To just say that accepting word associations means that culture is dictating morality is over-simplification: culture, civilizations, and society always give meanings to all words. That’s how we communicate. Communication is a central part of civilization. This is basic stuff. The English language wasn’t spoken down to us from heaven, it was developed through centuries by the communications of sinful people. Thus, certain words are used for good things, and certain words are used for sinful things.

Racist words, for example, are wrong not because the culture says so, but because they have become associated with hatred of certain people groups. Sexually explicit terms are not only used in hateful ways but are also part of the lingo used by the modern porn industry to promote their products. These words are “taboo” (and I use that term loosely) not because the culture simply doesn’t like them, but because the words are associated with hurtful, greedy, selfish, and sinful things.

Supposedly Paul used an equivalent of the s-word once somewhere in Scripture. Once. Elsewhere, on numerous occasions, the Bible denounces the use of filthy, vile, and hateful speech: Psalm 10:7, 37:30; Proverbs 10:31-32, 15:4; Matthew 15:10, 18-20; James 3:10-13. The Bible warns Christians to be gentle in speech, to rule their tongues with wisdom, and that every spoken word comes from the heart.

Will you base your understanding of the proper use of the tongue on one single Greek word used by Paul, that may or may not mean something more than “waste,” or will you base it on Scripture’s teaching as a whole? The s-word has connotations in our day of demeaning, hateful speech, and is almost always used in a negative way. To say that the word Paul used in a different language and a different culture and a different society is the exact equivalent of the s-word seems more like wishful thinking than an honest reading of Scripture.

When we go before a crowd of people to speak, especially if the crowd is full of dignified persons like professors, scholars, politicians, pastors, and such, we dress nicely and formally so that we may make a good impression. We do not wear tank tops and jerseys, sweat pants or low-riders. At least, we shouldn't. Not because society is the arbiter of right and wrong, but because we, as Christians, are walking representations of the Gospel to the world around us, and we want to present the Gospel in a way that is wise, dignified, pure, holy, and thoroughly wholesome and good. Let the Gospel and the words of the Bible offend the world, rather than using the crude, rude, and dirty words of the world to offend Christ and your Mother, the Church.

Edit: I would like to clarify that I love and respect Abraham Piper and my friends, and that I only wish to critique the argument as it stands, rather than those who made the argument and who are in many ways wiser than I am.

Read more...

A Theology Poorly Lived

In Reformed circles especially, theology can become sport of sorts. The mind gets its workout through reading the heavy-weights like Calvin, Van Til, and others. Then the Christian goes out and flexes his intellectual muscles with offhand theological comments, or critiques of the latest sermon, or diatribes on what is wrong with the Church today. This gives the Christian a popularity boost amongst those who don’t know as much theology. “What a godly man,” these people think. Indeed, the Christian begins to think this himself.

The Christian soon finds that theological debate is particularly exciting. He builds up his arsenal of Bible verses and keeps them in his mind like well-practiced fencing moves, always available for use in a witty riposte. Arminianism seems all too easy for the new Calvinist to debunk, and with the proper Bible bullets in hand he can confuse and obliterate his theological opponent and look good at the same time. The opponent is not a brother in Christ; he is a rival.

And when something tragic befalls the community, the armchair theologian is there to eloquently remind people of the providence of God and of how these sort of things were predestined to occur. “God uses evil sometimes to bring about good,” he might say, and then proceed to reassure everyone that this is part of God’s plan.

The theologian’s theology may very well be correct. The problems that he calls “heresies” may very well be heresies. The truths that he proclaims may indeed be insightful; he indeed may be a theological genius. The problem with the picture I have painted above is not in the theology per se; it is in the theologian.

What occurs in this situation is a frightening, subtle pride. The theologian understands the Gospel, theology, and even the nature of sin very well. He has all the facts down and all the theological terms memorized. He seems holy and pure in his worldview and in his everyday speech. Indeed, how could we think that this man is not a Christian? Surely such a thought is absurd! Surely this man is a part of Christ’s kingdom!

Herein lies the problem: all men have knowledge of God. Everybody. Is this not what Romans 1 teaches us? Has God not revealed Himself through creation? By sin, in his total depravity, man has suppressed this knowledge. He knows that God exists and he hates that reality, so he lives as if God does not exist. He reasons God away, philosophizing until he thinks his beliefs are valid. This is all a subconscious part of the fallen human nature; deep down in his soul, man knows that God is there, but his mind and his deeds are working hard to keep that knowledge down in the depths.

For certain men, the problem is harder to see. They know theology well and they even admit that God exists. And yet, this knowledge is in some sense suppressed. Impossible, you say? They are so enlightened, you say, that their minds cannot be darkened?

Cornelius Van Til notes that theology and love are not separable. The unbeliever may spout forth theological truths; but these spoutings may originate in a soul that is suppressing the truth. Hear Van Til on this:

"It will not do to separate the logical powers of man from his moral powers and say that though man is morally unwilling to serve God, he can intellectually know God aright. It is true, of course, that when Cain left the face of the Lord, he in a sense knew God just as well as he knew him just before.

It is true also that there is a sense in which Satan knows God now as well as he knew God before he fell. In a sense, Satan knows God better now than before. Did not God prove the truth of his statements to Satan thousands of times? But herein exactly lies the contradiction of Satan’s personality: that though he knows God, he yet does not really know God. His very intellect is constantly devising schemes by which he thinks that he may overthrow God, while he knows all too well that God cannot be overthrown.

What else can this be but a manifestation of the wrath of God? Yes, it was the natural consequence of sin, but this is itself the wrath of God, that sin should be allowed to run its course.”

(Quote from An Introduction to Systematic Theology by Cornelius Van Til. 2nd ed. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2007. Page 164)

Satan is at once both one of the greatest intellects in God’s creation, and at the same time an incredible fool. The fool, after all, has said in his heart that there is no God. The fool lives as though God can be overthrown, as though God does not exist. The Pharisees were theologians who intensely studied Scripture and committed it to memory, who discussed the finer points of theology and carefully observed God’s law, but in the end they were criticized for their pride and they did not recognize their own God when He spoke to them face-to-face.

True, unsuppressed theology is driven by love. The Christian life must be driven by love. Jesus Christ’s first response to tragedy was not to wax eloquently about the sovereignty of God and about predestination. Jesus Christ’s response to the pain and sorrow at Lazarus’ passing is to weep. Jesus wept. He knew He was about to raise Lazarus from the grave in the next few moments, and yet he wept. He reassured Mary and Martha concerning the bodily resurrection, but he also wept. He was moved. He shared our sorrow at the horror of death and the effects of sin upon the world. Jesus wept. How many of us do not follow His example, and proclaim the theology without the weeping, and without the compassion?

Previously, I typed up a brief biography of Abraham Kuyper and titled it “A Theology Well Lived.” I noted that Abraham Kuyper was fondly remembered as a loving, compassionate man. Herein is the point: when you meet up with the Arminian, or the Roman Catholic, your fellow brothers in Christ who greatly disagree with you on matters of theology that are admittedly of great import, is your first reaction to pull out your theological warguns and start blowing things up? Or do you feel genuine compassion and love for your brothers and sisters in Christ, who have been baptized with the same baptism by which you were baptized?

I tremble to think about all the times I have expounded on theology haughtily, or reveled in a theological tome and then treated a fellow brother or sister with disdain. There are many people in the church who are different from me; many people who even get under my skin. When I meet them in the hallway or the grocery store, shall I think “This person is so wrong in their Christianity!” and smugly rest assured in my own theology? Or shall I press myself with the biting question: “Would I die for this person?” If the answer is “yes,” then I love them, despite the theological differences.

I tremble to think of how I have often lived life sinfully, in rebellion; living as if God did not exist. My theology was in my mind, but not in my spirit. I understood theology, but I did not love it. It is good and right to be excited about theology and about God’s word, but that sort of excitement must come from a love for God, and not a love for self.

Let us think about these things and be humbled by them. It is all too easy to sit down at one’s blog, post something intensely theological, get some comments and site hits, and feel good about ourselves as if we have accomplished something worthy of praise. A blog itself is a risky thing: it can express theological knowledge, but can it express love? My fellow Christians, your theology is dangerous. True, Reformed theology is dangerous. It you are unfaithful, it will condemn you.

Let us think about these things and be humbled by them, and tremble at the thought that there will be many who do great things in Jesus’ name, but to whom Jesus will say “I never knew you.” Why? Because they did not clothe the poor, or show kindness to the widows and orphans. They did not practice love.

They knew their theology, but they did not know it. They did not live it.

Read more...

I'll Stick With Van Helsing

The Vampire is a literary symbol, in many ways, for the anti-christ. Whereas Christ gave life through the giving of His blood, thus changing those that He saves into living children of God; the vampire takes life through the taking of blood and transforms those he bites into walking undead. The only objects that can harm a vampire illustrate this point as well: the stake, not unlike the nails that pierced Christ; the crucifix, the very symbol of the Gospel and Christ’s victory; the sunlight, the symbol of God’s grace and powerful holiness; the sacred holy water, used for the baptism of God’s people; all these things mean death for the vampire. The vampire is in many ways Satan himself, the archenemy of Christ and the Church.

Abraham Van Helsing, who defeats the demonic vampire Dracula, is amongst other things a professor of theology (and a Dutch theologian at that!). He alone, and not the doctors who study bacteria under microscopes, understands the threat of an affliction that is not physical but supernatural. Whereas the vampire Dracula is sexually promiscuous and lust-driven, Van Helsing is the model of marital fidelity. Even after his wife has become insane, Van Helsing refuses to divorce her, remaining faithful to a wife who, in the eyes of the world, is as good as a dead woman.

Our society has a morbid fascination with vampires and other images of the occult. All too many books and movies portray vampires, dragons, and witches as good characters who are simply misunderstood. This is partly due to readers today having no comprehension skills. Having not read widely and deeply in good quality literature, these readers soak up skewed symbols and think “oh, how romantic.” A knight saving a maiden from a dragon, as Christ saves the Church from Satan, is romantic. A schoolgirl falling in love with a vampire who sneaks into her room and watches her sleep is not.

In the old days, people read books and were discerning enough to understand what these symbols meant and what the author was driving at. Books were not fluff either; any idiot can write a book these days, but back then books had substance and meaning. No one wants to think while reading a book. They’d rather have thoughts stuffed into their heads.

As for me, I’ll stick with Dr. Van Helsing, The Red Crosse Knight, and Aslan. The rest of the world can keep Eragon, Edward Cullen, and the like.

Read more...

Saving a Dying Planet

In many ways, the environmentalist movement often exhibits a sort of human self-loathing. Look at what we are doing to the planet, with all of our emissions and SUVs and landfills. Just think of the world we will be leaving to our children! Won’t anyone please think of the children?

Christians get caught up in this craze as well. They emphasize stewardship heavily; we are to be good caretakers of the earth. In some sense this is a healthy view to have. We should be good stewards of our houses, our money, our country, our health, etc. Few of the things that I have listed, however, receive the amount of “stewardship” attention from Christians that the planet earth receives. There is a green letter Bible for environmentalists; I’ve yet to see the American Flag Bible with red-white-and-blue lettering.

This is possibly because this movement of environmentalism is so guilt-laden because of “global warming.” Christians feel like they have failed; they need to preserve the earth as best they know how. And yet, their attempts are, for the most part, futile and pointless.

The earth will be regenerated. It will be resurrected, in a figurative sense. It will be a new earth, the book of Revelation tells us. The problem in the thinking of many Christians on this subject is that there is some subtle, subconscious assumption that the problems with the environment will either bring about Armageddon or will become too severe for God to fix. We like to wallow in our own sin-guilt and fancy that God will not forgive us, despite His promises, so likewise we like to think that the earth will become dangerously beyond repair. Self-loathing.

I'm not arguing for antinomianism in this area, but I am arguing against a sort of works-righteousness. What this loathing leads to is a sort of environmental legalism. The earth will be saved by works, the environmentalist Christian thinks, and man must save the earth. What the Christian fails to recognize is that the earth has already been saved. Sure, the fullness of that salvation is not yet apparent or present, but nonetheless the earth has been saved. Creation is going to be remade. The remaking has already begun – the Church is the firstfruit of this new creation.

Christians like to cling to the old things, especially the treasures of this world. In this case, the old treasure is this world. Yet our real treasure is the new world, where the kingdom of God will reign. There is the rub: stewardship of what has been given is a good thing; obsession is not. We are not to treat what we are given lightly, but we are also not to cling to and fawn over it fanatically. Somewhere in between is the Golden Mean.

Read more...

Taste and See that the Lord is Good

In my last post I pointed to Gnostic tendencies in evangelicalism. No denomination in particular has wholly escaped these tendencies; Gnosticism is dangerous because it appears wholesome and holy, but in reality it undervalues creation as God created it.

The same sorts of Gnostic tendencies can influence our view of the Lord’s Supper. We may undervalue the Eucharist as something merely done in remembrance, or as a simple sign only. In reality, however, partaking of the Eucharist is partaking of the new creation. In an already, not yet sense the Eucharist is the final Wedding Feast, it is the celebration of the new creation and all of its splendor. It is the King’s table, amid the people of a kingdom that has already come, but is not yet fully present.

Sursum Corda: lift up your hearts. Know that when you dine with the saints you also, in a mysterious way, dine with Christ and feast yourself apon Him. The great spiritual feast is given physical meaning through this sacrament. The Eucharist destroys Gnosticism, for when we feast on the thanksgiving bread and wine we truly get to taste and see that the Lord is good.

Read more...

I'm Not Going to Heaven

Many Christian hymns portray the Christian’s eternal destination in wrong and (dare I say) Gnostic terms. Consider:

“I’ll fly away, O glory! I’ll fly away…”

“In mansions of glory and endless delight, I’ll ever adore Thee in heaven so bright…”

“Oh, home of my soul, In that far away goal…”

And yet, in reality, I am not going to fly away when I die, nor shall I appear in some ethereal, mystical place up in the fluffy clouds.

Let me clarify: I believe that Jesus took the penalty for my sins, and thus has saved me from hell and damnation. When I say that I’m not going to heaven, I don’t mean I’m going to the lake of fire – I mean what the Bible teaches, that I am part of a new creation.

Allow me to give you a brief Biblical Theology of the New Creation. This is a lot to handle in one blog post, so get out your Bibles and fasten your seatbelts.

In Genesis 1, when the world is created, we are told that God created the heavens and the earth. Two distinct realms are brought into existence: heaven is the realm of the angelic beings, while earth is the dwelling place of humanity. Because of the Fall, the earth is cursed, the created order is disrupted, death enters the cosmos, and creation groans in agony (Genesis 3; Romans 8:21-22). The universe was originally pronounced to be good (Genesis 1:31) but now it is slowly dying.

However, Christ has come to redeem the world. He did not merely come to save the Church but to save the entire cosmos. This is why the people of God are described as the firstfruits of a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Gnosticism, as those who have read their church history know, downplays the physical aspects of human nature and elevates to importance the spiritual aspects, creating a dangerous dualism. Christians are not ghostly specters longing to be angels; Christians are physical beings having eternal souls in physical bodies. These physical bodies will be resurrected in the last day, not because the body is unimportant, but because it is extremely important and is part of how God created us (Daniel 12:2; 1 Corinthians 15:12-26, 50-57). The flesh has been corrupted by the Fall, but shall be raised incorruptible. Our souls have already been regenerated through the Holy Spirit, but our bodies will not remain unregenerate.

Dispensationalists, because of their eschatology, believe there is a special inheritance for the people of Israel and that the Abrahamic promises will be fulfilled because Israel will rule Canaan in the end times. What they miss is that the Abrahamic promises are far grander than that: the people of Israel (or the New Israel, the Church) will inherit the entire world, and that world will be a recreated, restored, perfect world. Abraham himself understood that the promises of God were promises of a new creation – of a resurrected cosmos (Hebrews 11:15-19). Jesus Himself reiterates this promise (Matthew 5:5).

Note in Revelation that, when this promise comes to pass, a new heaven and a new earth are created, and the old heaven and old earth pass away (Revelation 21:1). Earth has been made anew, and so has heaven, which had its own corrupting Fall (Revelation 12:3-4, 7-9). Heaven has been created anew for the angels, and earth for humanity. But that is not all, they are no longer separated – heaven is united with earth. This is the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven ( Matthew 19:28-30; 24:30-31; 25:31-40; Mark 1:14-15; Revelation 21:2-7).

Christ Himself ascended into heaven with a redeemed body. He will return in the flesh as well. In fact, right now Christ’s heart is pumping blood as he sits at the right hand of the Father. This is the beauty of the Incarnation. Christ did not dissipate into the ether upon reentry into heaven, rather he remained in the flesh that he might be our great High Priest.

You are, in Christ, the firstfruits of a new creation. The old is passing away, behold, the new is coming. I am not floating off to heaven; heaven is coming to me. God will dwell with us and we shall inherit the earth. This is the mind-boggling, enormous promise in Scripture. In an Already / Not Yet sense, the new creation is already here. So how then shall you live, as part of this new creation?

More can, and will, be said on this subject.

Read more...

The Victorious Feast

In most stories, evil is often defeated by symbolic instruments. A vampire may fear a crucifix; the aliens in the movie Signs are defeated by water; the aliens in the War of the Worlds are defeated by bacteria (and, it is alluded, by God’s providence); Saruman’s fortress at Isengard is drowned in a deluge and Sauron’s Mordor is overcome by fire from heaven. Evil is represented as being defeated by the very representations of divine victory.

In a similar sense, when we come to the Lord’s table, when we feast upon the Eucharist, we proclaim the divine victory right in the face of the forces of evil. The Eucharist is a celebration, a wedding feast, and the wedding feast cannot occur unless the bride has already been rescued from the dragon. We give thanks for the Lord Jesus Christ’s victory, both in the already and in the not yet. In times of great suffering, this meal reminds us that the suffering brought by sin’s curse upon this world will soon pass, and the splendor of a new creation will be upon us.

In the darkest hours, let the church come together for the communion of the saints, and in doing so show that we fear no evil, for God is with us.

Read more...

Just to Make it Official

This blog is on a posting schedule of "when I can." My attempts will be to do two posts a week, but sometimes I'll have whole weeks where I'm busy and there won't be postings. On other weeks there might be four posts in one week. Its going to be erratic, but life is busy right now and blogging (while I love it) it not really in the top 10 priorities.

Just wanted to let everyone know. Read more...

"The Questions Run So Deep, for Such a Simple Man..."

In 1979 the band Supertramp released a song called simply, “The Logical Song.” The song is quirky and dry-humored, as well as catchy. The most interesting thing that the song expresses is a sort of postmodern mindset – a confession of bewilderment and longing. The song opens:

When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful
A miracle
Oh it was beautiful, magical

The opening lyrics express a longing for the pristine innocence of childhood. As the song moves on, the lyrics explain how this child was sent away to school to become “logical.” The child is thrown into education to become an intellectual, to learn all that science, logic, history, mathematics, etc. have to offer.

But, as the lyrics express, the learning leaves him empty. He does not feel enlightened. Questions have now been raised in his mind – questions for which he has no answers. When he was a child, he did not care about questions of philosophy, theonomy, ethics, ontology, cosmology, and the rest. He did not even know such questions existed. Now he asks:

Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
Please tell me who I am

Before, as a child, he was in an environment of innocence, play, and imagination. Now he lives in the real world – the adult world – and the innocence is gone. All he feels is confusion. He asks “what have we learned?” The implicit answer is… nothing. Despite all the gathered facts, all the data, all the scientific experiments, all the scholarly writings and journal articles, man still cannot even define himself and his place in the universe. Man has still not found his purpose. Whatever that purpose is, it is not kiddie play. And yet, nevertheless, he wants to return to childhood – to simply ignore the problems and the unanswered questions, and to act as if they do not matter. He wants to ignore the logic and the science, and to throw the baby out with the bath water in a desperate attempt to escape reality, acting as if it does not concern him.

This is the postmodern mindset.

What the character in the song does not realize is that there is an answer to who he is – there is a purpose to everything, a universal truth holding together all the seemingly incoherent parts. Learning is not a fruitless endeavor - not if you have a worldview that admits that man shall never have all the answers, but that God is the ultimate answer and the Creator of all truth. Secular, “Enlightened” man has tried lighting up candles one by one in Plato’s proverbial cave in order to discover meaning in the universe, all the while ignoring the sunlight outside. The postmodern man also ignores the sunlight, but he has lost his faith in the candles. He knows that the scientists and logicians do not have enough wax.

In the academic setting that I have come into contact with recently, postmodernism is treated as a big issue. It is popular these days for Christians to discuss how to best answer this problem. If you have postmoderns who won’t even be… well, reasonable, how do you proclaim the faith?

The Gospel, however, is not dependent on our reasonings or our logical defenses. The Gospel is not a contradiction, it is not illogical; but the reason the Word of God is true is simply because God spoke it, not because man thinks he has somehow logically verified it. When we place our epistemological presuppositions in science and logic ultimately, rather than in Scripture and God’s inspired Word, we really become no better than the Enlightenment man. “Well, if we light one more candle, maybe then he’ll see that God’s Word is truth.” You don’t need a candle to see the sun.

Christians who have become dependent on evidential and classical apologetics wring their hands at the “postmodern” problem. Presuppositional apologists, I think, should see this postmodern movement as a grand opportunity. Postmodernists gave up hope, saying that the experts will never learn enough to provide us with the ultimate truth, with the real answer. We simply need to share the Gospel with them, and bring them into an encounter with the living God, the author of all truth, and all true answers. The postmoderns are a step ahead of the moderns – at least they’ve lost their faith a bit in themselves and in their methods. Time for the Gospel and the Spirit of God to shake them further – to the core.

Once they see that God is the author of all truth, perhaps they won’t be as hesitant to be “logical.”

Read more...

Hurry Up and Wait

I think hardly anyone would argue that “instant gratification” is not a current flowing through this modern culture. Nonetheless, despite the fact that we all recognize the problem, we are all affected subtly by that sort of mindset. It seeps into our worship and our faith... it is in the air we breathe.

Let’s say someone is going through a period of depression and darkness. They just do not feel the presence of God. They feel alone. They also expect that they can make this problem go away instantaneously. I know I’ve been there before, and I’ve done that. Perhaps by singing a particularly emotional praise song, or hanging out with some vivacious fellow believers, they can escape this pit. So they think.

Don’t get me wrong: worship songs and fellowship are supposed to strengthen and encourage the believer, in times of both joy and sorrow. Yet, the strengthening is not instantaneous, and we should not treat these things as “get out of sorrow quick” cards.

Let’s say someone is single, and feels very lonely as he or she watches other happy couples. Desiring intimacy but unsure of where to find it, this person may turn to a bad relationship or to pornography. I believe it is wise to be very careful in whom you “ask out” as a single, and I think many of you would agree. Nonetheless, the urge to get into a relationship with some cute girl who you hardly know, who could or could not be a Christian, is an urge that is palpable.

In short, this sort of impatience, no matter how well-meaning or innocent it may seem, is dangerous. It presents the Christian with at best a false hope, and at worst a dark pit to fall into. King David had a wiser life-system. He said, in Psalm 25:1, 3-5:

“To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. Indeed, none who wait on you shall be put to shame; they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous. Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.”

Psalm 25 is one of spiritual turmoil – David feels guilt because of his sins, and he is “lonely and afflicted.” Despite this, however, he injects the Psalm with a brilliant light of hope, showing his faith in the God who keeps his covenant promises. (vv. 9-14)

David reveals in the Psalm that he does not know what God’s plan is concerning the things that are going on in his life at the time, but he nonetheless trusts God and is willing to wait and see how God’s plan comes about.

David is willing to wait on the Lord.

David knows that God will redeem His people. He knows that God is the deliverer. He knows that God is the comforter. He knows that God will destroy His enemies. Yet, just because God doesn’t do it at the very moment David wants him to do it is not a cause of concern – David knows that God’s plans are better than David’s plans, and that the covenant promises will be fulfilled.

David is not waiting on an emotion. He is not waiting to “feel” that God is with him. He knows by faith that God is with him, even though the enemies pressing around him might mock him and say otherwise. He is willing, despite the shadows over his soul, to wait for God’s glorious redemption. He knows that “Post Tenebras Lux” is true for God’s children.

Note that David’s waiting is not inactive. He is repenting of his sins and asking for forgiveness. He is singing a psalm in worship. He is praying to God in desperate times. Yet, throughout these acts of worship, he displays his willingness to wait on the Lord – to not seek spiritual instant gratification but to wait.

To wait on the Lord and is to love the Lord and His ways more than we love our own satisfaction, need, and greed. The gifts of the Lord are to be waited upon; the promises of the covenant are fulfilled in the timing of God and not of man. Instant gratification may be sweet for the moment, but it fades quickly; the joys of the Lord, though waited for long, are eternal and everlasting.

Christ is coming soon, to rescue His bride. Let us wait on the Lord.

Have any insights on this? Personal experience? Other, related sections in Scripture? Make a comment below.

Read more...