day no. 17,491: nuptial nations

"Instead of the old social distinction between those who are married and those who are unmarried, there will be a distinction between those who are married and those who are really married. Society might even become divided into two societies; which is perilously approximate to Disraeli’s famous exaggeration about England divided into two nations. But whether England be actually so divided or not, this note of the two nations is the real note of warning in the matter. It is in this connection, perhaps, that we have to consider most gravely and doubtfully the future of our own country. Anarchy cannot last, but anarchic communities cannot last either. Mere lawlessness cannot live, but it can destroy life. The nations of the earth always return to sanity and solidarity; but the nations which return to it first are the nations which survive." — G.K. Chesterton, The Superstition of Divorce

No fault divorce has produced no reason marriages, but not every marriage is for no reason and not every married couple would get divorced without a Biblical cause or fault. So, in this sense, we do have two tier marriage. We have those who are married according to vows made before God and men and we have those who are married according to the whims of the State and the state of their current mood. But this produces two societies. One in which men and women keep their promises and one in which they don't. The blessing of God to the faithful is the curse of God on the faithless. That which cannot go on forever, won't. Insanity is not a long term strategy. Anarchy is unsustainable. And so, the fruitless and faithless will cut themselves off from the future. The tragedy is the destruction they cause on their way down. Like a drowning victim, they are dangerous and likely to take some down with them, but they refuse to be saved by those with a foot on solid ground. That is intolerable. It is a lack of empathy and they refuse to receive a helping hand from those who claim to have the high ground.

day no. 17,490: no fault divorce and no reason marriage

"The obvious effect of frivolous divorce will be frivolous marriage. If people can be separated for no reason they will feel it all the easier to be united for no reason. A man might quite clearly foresee that a sensual infatuation would be fleeting, and console himself with the knowledge that the connection could be equally fleeting." — G.K. Chesterton, The Superstition of Divorce

No fault divorce leads to no reason marriage. If there isn't real money on the table, people will risk more than normal because there are no serious consequences attached to it. In other words, the risk is nearly eliminated. No one has any fun playing poker for pieces of candy they don't care about. It may be one way to gamble without "gambling," but it isn't really poker if there isn't anything real at stake.

The same can be said for marriage. If the vows aren't real, the breaking of them isn't a big deal. If everyone knows that no one means it, it means less if they get tired of playing along later. 

If covenants can be dissolved willy nilly they will be entered into willy nilly. If promises can be broken without consequence, they will be made with more regularity. Why not? What's the worst that could happen? Such is the mindset of those who approach covenants lightly and the lay of the land is the worst that could happen: evil is rewarded as good and good is derided as evil.

day no. 17,489: scary godmothers and the divorce cult

"With or without marriage, with or without divorce, with or without any arrangements that anybody can suggest or imagine, it remains a tragedy. The only difference is that by the doctrine of marriage it remains both a noble and a fruitful tragedy; like that of a man who falls fighting for his country, or dies testifying to the truth. But the truth is that the innovators have as much sham optimism about divorce as any romanticist can have had about marriage. They regard their story, when it ends in the divorce court, through as rosy a mist of sentimentalism as anybody ever regarded a story ending with wedding bells. Such a reformer is quite sure that when once the prince and princess are divorced by the fairy godmother, they will live happily ever after. I enjoy romance, but I like it to be rooted in reality; and any one with a touch of reality knows that nine couples out of ten, when they are divorced, are left in an exceedingly different state. It will be safe to say in most cases that one partner will fail to find happiness in an infatuation, and the other will from the first accept a tragedy. In the realm of reality and not of romance, it is commonly a case of breaking hearts as well as breaking promises; and even dishonour is not always a remedy for remorse." — G.K. Chesterton, The Superstition of Divorce

Those who believe divorce to be a better solution than marriage often accuse supporters of marriage of being unrealistic or hopelessly romantic, but Chesterton points out here that the divorce dealer are just as much, if not more, unrealistic and hopelessly romantic. Divorce afforded the credit for a happy ending. Everyone lives more happily ever after now that they are no longer bound to their spouse. But divorce does not lead to happier men, women, or children. It is not the roll credits love fest that it was marketed to be. Fairy godmothers do not grant divorces and if they do, they are fallen fairies. Just an demons are fallen angels, dark fairy tales are the flip side of scary godmothers. 

day no. 17,488: the more things change...

"What is respected, in short, is fidelity to the ancient flag of the family, and a readiness to fight for what I have noted as its unique type of freedom. I say readiness to fight, for fortunately the fight itself is the exception rather than the rule. The soldier is not respected because he is doomed to death, but because he is ready for death; and even ready for defeat. The married man or woman is not doomed to evil, sickness or poverty; but is respected for taking a certain step for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness or in health. But there is one result of this line of argument which should correct a danger in some arguments on the same side." — G.K. Chesterton, The Superstition of Divorce

No one gets married in order to become worse, but everyone who gets married is willing to be worse in order to be married. No one gets married in order to be poorer, but everyone who gets married is willing to be a bit poorer in order to be married. No one gets married to be sicker, but everyone who gets married is willing to be sicker in order to stay married.

A man must be willing to lay down his life for his bride, but he doesn't marry her hoping to be separated from her by martyrdom. Fidelity is a strong desire to keep things the same as they are combined with a strong willingness to endure change in order to keep the same thing.

day no. 17,487: homes and homelands

"Marriage makes a small state within the state, which resists all such regimentation. That bond breaks all other bonds; that law is found stronger than all later and lesser laws. They desire the democracy to be sexually fluid, because the making of small nuclei is like the making of small nations. Like small nations, they are a nuisance to the mind of imperial scope. In short, what they fear, in the most literal sense, is home rule." — G.K. Chesterton, The Superstition of Divorce

Atoms are like bb's in a bag: they can be conformed to any shape an external pressure desires. Molecules have more structural rigidity. They have a shape of their own. They cannot simply be maneuvered into whatever shape someone else wants. They exist on their own and can maintain themselves without outside interference or assistance. 

Democracy wants to isolate the atoms and treat people as individuals. This gives it the ability to move and shape said individuals into whatever shape they like. A bag of bb's does not put up much of a fight. Grease the bb's with the sins of the sexual revolution codified in our legal codes and refuse to enforce the moral law with equity and you get a bean bag incapable of any resistance whatsoever.

The home is a world unto itself. It is under the authority of the magistrate inasmuch as it is subject to the laws of God enforced by them, but other than that, they do not need the state. The home exists under God on its own authority of husband and wife to educate, care for, provide, and nourish its people as it sees fit. The state fears the home for it claims primary citizenship of its people. A man is a husband and a father before he is a citizen and those who have homes, wives, and children act like it. They take care of their own business which means they do not need anything from the state, which means the state does not have any levers on that men or the people for whom he provides.

day no. 17,477: lolo is thirteen

A toast to Laurelai:

Lolo,

You are beautiful, helpful, cheerful, funny, loyal, sweet, and kind. You are a good daughter, a good sister, and a good friend. You look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. You pray for others and you make everything more fun. You are delight to everyone who knows you. May you continue to grow in wisdom, stature, and favor before God and others as you grow into your teenage self. Look to your mother and be like her: beautiful on the inside and the outside. Look up to your big sister and learn from her. Look kindly upon your younger sisters and show them how to be a lady of God and lead them into Christ by your example. May you always be a gentle and quiet spirit which in God's sight is very precious and may your little meat sticks that you call legs always be like pillars cut for the corner of a palace.

I am so proud of you and I love you very much.

To Lolo!

Happy Birthday, darling.

Love,

Dad

day no. 17,465: nineteen years of wedded bliss

Today marks 19 years of Team Van Voorst.

I love my wife. I like being married. I love my children. I like our home. I like my life. 

Christ is King and He is kind.

Here's to many more.

day no. 17,463: share bears

“The building blocks of ethnic identity are (1) a shared name, (2) a shared sense of place, (3) a shared sense of the past, (4) a shared sense of belonging or kinship, and (5) a widely shared set of beliefs and values that give rise to a shared set of practices and norms. This fifth building block comprises . . . such things as religious beliefs and practices, language, cultural conventions, and customs, as well as cultural ‘products’ such as literature, music, architecture, and art.” — Steven Bryan, Cultural Identity and the Purposes of God

The key word here is "shared." Covenants create bonds. Covenants created by oaths of office, marriage, and church membership create a shared name in a shared place in a shared time that share a particular past and interpretation of its events and a particular vision of the future and what needs to be done to secure it. 

"Looking at the definition above, our government school system is at war with numbers 3, 4, and 5. The government school system is the fifth column for the globalists. The government school system is not just anti-Christian, although it is that. It is also at war with the idea of America. Just get your kids out of there." — Douglas Wilson, The American Ethnicity

Government schools are secular boot camps. They are not bad at what they do, they are good at what they do and good at convincing many to continue to send their kids to them despite being objectively bad at what they say they are doing.

"The government school system is a foe to be defeated, not a friend to be reformed." — Voddie Baucham

If every Christian in America pulled their kids from the government school system, we could shut it down. We could cut off our enemies' supply chain and save our kids all in one fell swoop. They are at war with us. When will we fight back?

"On the flip side, what happens when there is not a shared name, or a shared sense of place, or a shared sense of the past, or a shared sense of belonging, or a shared faith? What happens? Well, wars for starters." — Douglas Wilson, The American Ethnicity

The world knows that it does not share our name (Christian), our sense of place (Christendom), our sense of the past (Creation, Fall, Redemption), our sense of belonging (the Church), or our shared faith (that was once for all delivered to the saints). That is why they are fighting us. They understood the assignment. Why aren't we listening to our marching orders?

James 4:1-4

From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

We must wage peace. Chaos is at war with Christ. Will the church militant rise up and strike a blow for the end of blows being struck? Or will they enable more war by refusing to fight the strugglemongers?

Galatians 5:17

For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

There can be no compromise between light and dark. There is no middle ground. The flesh and the Spirit do not agree on anything. There are no terms to come to. And it has been that way since the Fall of man in the Garden.

Genesis 3:15

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Enmity is baked into the equation. The seed of the serpent is at war with the Seed of the woman. Whose side are you on? Who do you fight for? What do you fight against?

day no. 17,455: amending the constitution of the United States of Christendom

"We, the people of the United States, humbly acknowledging Almighty God as the source of all authority and power in civil government, the Lord Jesus Christ as the Ruler among the nations, His revealed will as the supreme law of the land, in order to constitute a Christian government, and in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the inalienable rights and the blessings of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to ourselves and our posterity, and all the people, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." — proposed amendment to the United States Constitution (1864)

Once upon a time, the PCA proposed amending the preamble of the United States Constitution to include the wording above. This was a concerted effort to clear up any vague notion of our nation being founded upon the principles and practices of Christendom by stating emphatically and unequivocally that the Gospel of God and His Son, Jesus Christ, are the cornerstones of the country we call home.

This was placed on the desk of Abraham Lincoln who responded by saying he needed time to consider what it said and what it's implications its adoption would bring about. Whatever was going through his head regarding this proposal, something else soon went through his head which prevented him from pondering it any longer. And the proposal died along with him in the confusion and turmoil that followed as the republic lost its head after losing its head of state.

The adoption of this amendment would have made us the United States of Christendom.

day no. 17,454: double duty

Today my father turns 88 years old on the same day that my parent's marriage turns 49.

Both are nearing milestones. My father is about to crest his four score and ten (90) and their marriage is about to reach its two score and ten (50). Both are significant.

Psalm 90 lauds the longevity of those who reach 70 and the few who reach 80. My father has already eclipsed those both and is approaching the nearly unthinkable 90.

And 50 is half of a century. That is a significant measure of time. A centurion was entrusted with one hundred men and he was expected to keep them in line and to put them to good use. In a similar way, the man who has been entrusted with 50 years is expected to produce something of value with them. To be married 50 years is to have stayed alive that long and to have kept someone else alive that long as well. It is not mere survival, it is provision. It is not just the ability to endure trouble, it is the responsibility to endure someone else's.

All that to say, congratulations mom and dad. God has been kind to you both. May you finish well and pick up steam as you see the end of the race approaching instead of fading on the final stretch.

day no. 17,450: rocking chairs and resting well

“It might be said symbolically that Americans have a taste for rocking-horses, as they certainly have a taste for rocking-chairs. A flippant critic might suggest that they select rocking-chairs so that, even when they are sitting down, they need not be sitting still. Something of this restlessness in the race may really be involved in the matter.” — G.K. Chesterton, What I Saw in America 

Americans are restless. 

Rocking chairs allow one to rest without resting completely and that is, in microcosm, the essence of the American spirit. We strive, we reach, we push... or at least, we used to. 

We did not find rest in Jesus, however. That is not why we have stopped striving. We have not found contentment. No, we grew discontent with our discontent and so we found a new way to be discontent... laziness.

"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you." — Augustine

Doing nothing is not resting. A rocking chair can genuinely relaxing. It maximizes the relationship between exertion and relaxation. A minimal twitch of the leg can set the entire body back and forth. In that way, a rocking chair is perhaps a good picture of resting in Christ while doing that which He prepared beforehand for us. 

We must do something and we must rest. In Christ, we can do both. Without Him, we either work ourselves to death or we die to our work. We get anxious or we get lazy, but we do not rest.

day no. 17,443: unorthodox obedience (exhortation outline)

Christ Church Leavenworth

Jenny Geddes Day

July 26, 2026

Unorthodox Obedience

INTRODUCTION

Our text for this morning is Numbers 25:1-13, these are the words of God.

“While Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab. These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Take all the chiefs of the people and hang them in the sun before the Lord, that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel.’ And Moses said to the judges of Israel, ‘Each of you kill those of his men who have yoked themselves to Baal of Peor.’

And behold, one of the people of Israel came and brought a Midianite woman to his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the people of Israel, while they were weeping in the entrance of the tent of meeting. When Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose and left the congregation and took a spear in his hand and went after the man of Israel into the chamber and pierced both of them, the man of Israel and the woman through her belly. Thus the plague on the people of Israel was stopped. Nevertheless, those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand.

And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the people of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I did not consume the people of Israel in my jealousy. Therefore say, “Behold, I give to him my covenant of peace, and it shall be to him and to his descendants after him the covenant of a perpetual priesthood, because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the people of Israel.”’”

This past Thursday marked the anniversary of one of the most memorable episodes in the history of the Scottish Reformation. The time was July 23rd in the year of our Lord 1637 and the place was St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh, Scotland. That morning, James Hannay, the dean of the church, ascended to the pulpit, the same one behind which the great John Knox himself had once stood and preached; and standing there, he opened his mouth and attempted to supplant the liturgy of John Knox's Book of Common Order with a newly published Scottish version of the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer. I say “attempted” because he never finished. Before he could finish the reading, a simple milk maid in the congregation thwarted his attempted coup. Who was she and how did she do it? Her name was Jenny Geddes and the way she stopped him was by throwing her stool at his head. The Ballad of Jenny Geddes, a poem by John Stuart Blackie, colorfully recounts the details of that day.

‘Twas the twenty-third of July, in the sixteen thirty-seven,

On the Sabbath morn from high St. Giles the solemn peal was given;

King Charles had sworn that Scottish men should pray by printed rule;

He sent a book, but never dreamt of danger from a stool.

The Council and the Judges, with ermined pomp elate,

The Provost and the Bailies in gold and crimson state,

Fair silken-vested ladies, grave doctors of the school,

Were there to please the King, and learn the virtues of a stool.

The Bishop and the Dean came in wi’ muckle gravity,

Right smooth and sleek, but lordly pride was lurking in their e’e;

Their full lawn sleeves were blown and big, like seals in briny pool;

They bore a book, but little thought they soon should feel a stool.

The Dean he to the alter went, and, with a solemn look,

He cast his eyes to heaven, and read the curious-printed book:

In Jenny’s heart the blood upwelled with bitter anguish full;

Sudden she started to her legs, and stoutly grasped the stool!

As when a mountain wildcat springs upon a rabbit small,

So Jenny on the Dean springs, with gush of holy gall;

Wilt thou say mass at my lugs, thou popish-puling fool?

No! No! She said, and at his head she flung the three-legged stool.

A bump, a thump! A smash, a crash! Now gentle folks beware!

Stool after stool, like rattling hail, came twirling through the air,

With, well done, Jenny! Bravo, Jenny! That’s the proper tool!

When the Devil will out, and shows his snout, just meet him with a stool!

The Council and the Judges were smitten with strange fear,

The ladies and the Bailies their seats did deftly clear,

The Bishop and the Dean went in sorrow and in dool,

And all the Popish flummery fled when Jenny showed the stool!

And thus a mighty deed was done by Jenny’s valiant hand,

Black Prelacy and Popery she drove from Scottish land;

King Charles he was a shuffling knave, priest Laud a meddling fool,

But Jenny was a woman wise, who beat them with a stool!

Simple obedience to God will sometimes require a radical defiance to men. We saw this both in our text with Phinehas and in our story with Jenny Geddes. Walking with God will sometimes require you to step outside of your cultural moment. In the days of Phinehas, some people were laying down with the wrong people and the rest were weeping about it. The moment called for someone to stand up, and that’s what Phinehas did. In the days of Jenny Geddes, some people were compromising with Rome and the rest were silently watching it happen. The moment called for someone to take a stand, and that’s what Jenny did.

Where disobedience has become orthodox, obedience will look unorthodox. If everyone around you is compromising, taking a stand will make you stand out. Being moved by the world requires nothing more than drifting along, and nothing is easier to do than nothing. So, compared to those around them, the faithful will often appear unconventional. Our neighbors may find our faith a bit too much, but our descendants will honor our zeal as they admire the stars in the skies that stand out against the blackness.

Here is your application: if you don’t like the way things are going, don’t complain about it, do something about it. Consider Philippians 2:14-17, “Do all things without grumbling or complaining, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life.” Phinehas and Jenny are numbered among the stars. There are, of course, many others; so many, in fact, that Abraham could not count them, and if you stand up in the midst of this crooked generation, you will join them in standing out against the darkness. In order to do this, however, you will have to be willing to look unorthodox. When darkness is the reigning paradigm, light can break the pattern.

Douglas Wilson once noted that, “Desperate times call for faithful men, not for careful men. The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.” There is a reason people write poems about Jenny Geddes and name their sons after Phinehas. We honor those who stood up when others were laying down. We recognize their courage and their unconventional approach to unconventional times. When the situation is desperate, a doer is more necessary than a documenter, but once the doing has been done, someone must document it. That is how good stories are made and that is how they are preserved. I am grateful for the actions of Jenny Geddes and for the words of John Stuart Blackie, and I stand on them both. I am inspired by the stand of Phinehas and by the words of Moses that tells his stor.

There is a place for both kinds of people. So, make sure you are telling the stories of our brothers and sisters who stood with God and then do something your kids will want to write stories about. We do not honor the likes of Phinehas and Jenny Geddes by compromising with our culture. We honor their unorthodox obedience by defying the darkness in our own day. This will require you to be unconventional, but all heroes are. That is why we tell their stories. So, preserve the memory of our ancestors by celebrating their achievements and bless the work of our descendants by giving them something else to celebrate.

CALL TO CONFESSION

Well, since we are so often too scared or too shy to take a risk in standing out and because we are often too quick to take for granted and forget those who did, we are reminded of our need to regularly confess our sins, whether they be these or others. So, if you are able, please kneel with me and confess your sins, first privately and then corporately using the prayer found in your bulletin.

CORPORATE CONFESSION

Almighty and merciful Father, we confess that we are by nature sinful and unclean. We have sinned against You in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and what we have left undone. We have not loved You with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We justly deserve Your present and eternal punishment. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of Your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us. Renew us and lead us by Your Holy Spirit so that we may delight in Your will and walk in Your ways to the glory of Your holy name.

DECLARATION OF PARDON

Arise and hear the Good News! The assurance of pardon today comes from Romans 5, “While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person— though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.” 

Jesus did not die for those who deserved it, He died for those who didn’t. That is good news for sinners like you and me. He stood out as a light in the darkness and He now calls us to walk in a manner worthy of that reality. That begins by stepping out from the darkness within so that we might stand up to the darkness that is without, and that is what we just did. So now, having done that, go forward in the light of Christ, because in Him your sins are forgiven… THANKS BE TO GOD!

Now let us ascend to the presence of God in all worship and praise.

day no. 17,431: punctuation marks the spot

“One of the most necessary and most neglected points, about the story called history, is the fact that the story is not finished.” — G.K. Chesterton

History is not yet in the books. Some of it is, but not all of it. The Author knows the ending, but He has not written it down yet. It is in His mind. He knows where all of this is going, but He has not yet put all of the details down on paper. Not because He doesn't know them, but because He is still writing down the details of today right before our eyes. We often know the end of a sentence before we begin to type it out. We sometimes know the end of the essay before we begin writing it. But God knew the end of history before the beginning. He knows where the period will be even as He is typing the present into existence.

day no. 17,429: raised or razed?

"The modern world will have to fit in with Christmas of die." — G.K. Chesterton,  The Illustrated London News (1909)

Christmas will conquer the world. The world will either have to get on board by dying to itself or it will be killed by the coming on of Christ. The earth will be as it is in Heaven. That will come either by being raised from the dead by repentance or by being razed to the ground by the wrath of the Lamb.

day no. 17,427: conservative and progressive according to the Spirit

"Christmas, being a Christian institution, contains in itself already the two alternative actions toward society — the preservation of what is good in the past, the removal of what is bad in the present." — G.K. Chesterton,  The Illustrated London News (1923)

We honor our fathers and mothers best by testing all things and preserving the good and tossing the bad. We cull our culture for its high water marks and we correct the errors that have emerged. We love our pasts in general and we repent of our failures at present. There is good in the past we have not honored sufficiently enough and bad at the present we have not repented of. By the grace of God, we must do two things at the same time: remember the work of the Spirit already accomplished and reform by the Spirit that which needs to be sanctified.

1 Thessalonians 5:21

Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.

The Word of God proves things faithful or not. That which is faithful, we must hold on to with all of our might and that which is proven false, we must abandon as though our lives depended on it.

"Christmas does not honor the past simply because it is the past, but because it is the truth." — Ryan Whitaker Smith, Winter Fire

Christians must be conservative and progressive. We must conserve the works of the Spirit and we must make progress in the Spirit right here and now. We must fashion the future out of the best of the past and according to the vision of Christendom that is our future.

"We conserve the past in order to preserve the future." — Ryan Whitaker Smith, Winter Fire

Sanctification means keeping the gains of the past and advancing to the gains of the future. We must be like Christ, easy to please and impossible to satisfy. We must not settle for how far we've come, resting on the progress of the past, we must strive for that to which we have been called, never stopping until He returns or calls us home.

day no. 17,420: a fighting chance

"The 7th century Christians of Asia and Africa...had trained themselves not to fight, whereas the Moslems were trained to fight.” — Teddy Roosevelt, Fear God and Take Your Part

Pacifism is a dead Quaker. It is the war on war. If you are not prepared for battle, you are being prepared for the menu.

Those who fight the good fight discover that God is still a God of battles. Everyone stands up a little straighter in the armor of God.

“From the hammer of Charles Martel to the sword of Sobieski, Christianity owed its safety in Europe to the fact it...would fight as well as the Mohammedan aggressor.” — Teddy Roosevelt, Fear God and Take Your Part

Enmity is hardwired into the system by God. Those who do not fight the seed of the serpent will lose. He will not stop fighting even if you do. Jihad will not go quietly into that good night, it will only go out with, quite literally, a bang. So, fight for your brothers, your sisters, your wives, your children, your country, your people, your life, and your God and see the deliverance of the Lord.

day no. 17,418: alphabetical areas of interest July 2026

"There are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people."

— G.K. Chesterton

Interested people are interesting people.

Be interested... stay interesting.

AC (was not working as well, able to fix by simply cleaning filter, praise God!)

Baseball (kids all got gloves and are learning how to throw/catch)

Bob Reese (YouTuber who does backflips and funny vids w/ his kid)

Boylei Hobby Time (still enjoying his imaginary builds on YouTube)

Chickens (we have baby chicks, again)

Convictions (Christian metal we recently discovered)

Cottage cheese (been eating this for snack for more protein)

Creatine (began supplementing for muscle growth)

Crimson Armada (Revelations II is soooo good!)

Die Hards (watching through on 3rd Fridays)

Dishwasher (on the fritz and handwashing again with Atticus after dinner)

Dragonball Z movies (watched Superhero and Broly movie for first time)

Dragonball Z show (kids watching through and have Super ready to go after)

Driving (Paige has been driving to milk again)

Elder (still a candidate at CCL)

Europeans Discovering America (fun trend online for FIFA World Cup 2026)

Evanescence (new album, new single/video for "Who Do You Follow?" is really good)

Fall Out Boy (been enjoying their its during dishes)

Fifth Friday (introduced where Paige gets to pick movie on 5th Fridays)

Garage (been spending nice afternoons out there smoking cigars)

Headaches (have good runs with none and bad runs with them daily)

High Church Protestantism (enjoying the reformed catholic life)

Huguenots (genealogy info from mom, may go back to them)

Imagine Dragons (also been listening to their hits during dishes)

Instagram (growth on main channel has slowed, backup hit 10k)

Insurance Score SME (asked to join at Shelter)  

Jazz (date night spot at Legends)

July (should be an interesting 250th anniversary for the USA)

June (happy to see another muted year of "pride" month)

Key & Peele (watch skits before 3rd Friday movies)

Liver shots (began taking these after fasting)

Make Your Own Sandwich (rediscovered and added to Sabbath dinner rotation)

Memorization (monthly Bible verse challenge for kids)

Night time drink (stopped doing coffee/creamer, started vit C, magnesium, creatine combo)

Oatmeal (Paige bought me more to enjoy before dinner / after work)

Page One (once a month at CCL)

Party Speaker (great Father's Day gift)

Preaching (once a month at CCL)

Quick minutes (began doing with Paige in the morning)

Quince (Paige got some more clothes and perfume from them)

Reconquista (first cigar from Ave Maria box I smoked)

Reading (began reading more hard copy books agains during work day breaks)

Red Pill Reformation, Joshua Haymes (YouTube shorts)

Ruck (began rucking on Saturday at 6a with Atticus, Finneas, and Rocco)

Sermons (once/month at $500 per and trying to work ahead)

Session (began hosting monthly session meeting at our place)

Shaboozey (Good News and Amen have become fun dish time faves)

Side yard (attempted landscaping to redirect water)

Sila Thai (great new Thai place in LV we often go to for date night)

Tatiana (discovered these fun, flavored cigars)

Ten Thirty (introduced 10:30 dates with Paige when possible)

Traveller (story club book)

USA (250th birthday)

Van (still chugging along)

Verses (memorization challenge for kids completed with treats)

Weezer (new album/songs, fun to play their classics for summer months)

Wingfeather (working our way through this series again for Story Club)

Workout (began working out w/ Paige in AM after quick minutes)

Xtra Protein (been buying cottage cheese and yogurt for snack before dinner)

Yogurt (plain Greek for snack to increase protein, less chips)

Young Washington (going to see in the theaters on 4th of July)

Zzz (changed daily wake up time to 7:05a for more time to read Bible before working out)

day no. 17,413: callista is NINE!

Happy NINTH Birthday, Lissy Lou!

You are beautiful, smart, funny, responsible, helpful, silly, reliable, and tidy. You like to have fun and you like things clean. You like to tell jokes and you like to ask serious questions. You like to quietly draw and craft and you like to loudly run around and ride bike. You are the total package.

You have grown up a great deal in the last year. You are taking on more responsibilities and you have been taking more initiative in doing things that needs to be done like mopping floors, watching babies, doing baths for the little girls, etc... 

You are thoughtful person. You think about things and you ask good questions. You pay attention to what is going on at church and in our home and you want to know more about it. You like the Bible and you like it when I read it to you at night. You also like listening to songs about the Bible. God is moving in you and I can see Him at work in the kind of things you get excited about.

You know what you think. You recognize when someone in a movie or a video says or does something that we would not say or do. You don't like it when people tell the story wrong. You love God and your family and you don't like things that come against either. You take after me well in that regard.

Unfortunately, you also after me in that you get lots of headaches. I did when I was a kid as well. I still do now, but far less than I used to. Hopefully it is the same for you. I am hoping that it gets better for you as it did for me. Headaches are no fun, but you handle them pretty well. You don't make a big production out of it. You get tummy aches as well, but you don't exaggerate them. You do your best to soldier on. That is not easy to do and you do a good job at it. You are better at that than I was when I was a kid.

You are a good daughter, a good sister, and a good friend. You love your mom and your sisters and your friends at church and you do nice things for them when you're able. You like being friendly.

Lastly, a list about Callista could not be complete without addressing your love of bracelets. If you had a dollar for every bracelet you have, the world would be out of dollars... and bracelets. No one else would be able to buy a bracelet from you because you'd have all the money and you'd still have all the bracelets.

I love you Lissa Lou and I hope you have a very wonderful birthday. We are all grateful for you and we love that God made you part of our family.

So, here's to Callista!

Love,

Dad

day no. 17,411: hot opposition and cold collaboration

"Christmas has suffered much less from the heat of fanatical foes than from the coldness of frigid friends." — G.K. Chesterton, Christian Festivities and the Termite State (1935)

The war of Christmas is fought on two fronts. 

Hot opposition often calls the sons of the season to arms, but cold keeping quenches the fire of the season. An honest hater can, of course, do some damage, but not nearly as much as a dishonest lover can. If Christmas is under attack, it is an inside job. Thoughtless repetition is like a steady stream that wears away at the rocks. The solid, long-standing traditions of old are gradually glossed over, streamlined, and buried under a constant barrage of current. Fashions and fads drown our forefathers out. Christmas has much less to fear from those who take it seriously enough to fight it than it does from those who take it so lightly as to forget its origins.

"Fanaticism only encouraged the devout to be defiant, and they resolutely repeated it as a ritual; it was much more in peril of death where people only repeated it as a routine." — G.K. Chesterton, Christian Festivities and the Termite State (1935)

Those who are violently opposed to Christmas call the saints to war. They inspire the saints to Christmas even harder. The devout should not, however, need opposition to get excited. The goal should be to win over our opponents without everyone growing accustomed to the season by turning the yuletide into a yawn fest. Hot opposition is better than cold collaboration, but best of all is warm fellowship with God and each other.

day no. 17,408: babies are the best revenge (sermon outline)

Christ Church Leavenworth

Ruth 4:13-17

June 21, 2026

…

OT READING: Psalms 127-128

NT READING: Ephesians 6:1-4

Babies Are the Best Revenge

READING OF THE TEXT

Our text this morning is Ruth 4:13-17, these are the words of God:

So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife. And he went in to her, and the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son. Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel! He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.” Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her lap and became his nurse. And the women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, “A son has been born to Naomi.” They named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.

The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of our God stands forever.

PRAYER

Our Father and our God, we come before You this morning through Jesus Christ, our Lord, and in the Holy Spirit. Thank You for Your Word. Help us to hold it in high and reverent esteem, persuaded that by it we live and not by bread alone. Fill us now with Your Spirit that we might hear it, believe it, and do it. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.

INTRODUCTION

Good morning! Today we are continuing our study of the book of Ruth, but we are nearing the end. All the wedding preparations are completed. The only thing left to do is to say, “I do” and roll the credits, right? Not exactly. A wedding is not just the end of a story, it is the beginning of another. As the nursery rhyme reminds us, “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage.”

Up until now in this series, we’ve focused a lot of our attention on the details of Biblical courtship; today, we turn that attention to Biblical marriage and family. When a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, he and her become one; and that oneness then leads to little ones. In the end, life is simple: if you’re single, get married; if you’re married, make babies; and if you have babies, make them disciples. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, let’s get to the wedding.

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

:13 “So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife.” Note that Boaz took Ruth to be his wife. This is significant. A man takes a wife and a woman is given away. Men take the initiative and women respond to it. A man must choose whom to pursue, and how and when to do it; and a woman must choose how to receive the kind of attention she gets from whom; she must then make sure he knows if it was welcomed or not. So, young man, you will need to win her over, but you will also need to win the respect of her father. That’s one thing the dating gurus never tell you. They focus on the girl and forget her father. But you cannot take what is not yours and she cannot give away what is not hers. So, you will need to know how to win the heart of the woman you like and the respect of her father who loves her. One without the other is not enough. Your mission then, should you choose to accept it, young man, is this: be the kind of guy a good woman can admire and the kind of a guy her father can respect. 

If that sounds hard, it’s because it is. Marriage is not for the faint of heart. So, don’t get discouraged if the father of the young lady you like is a bit standoffish at first. His job is to protect her purity, not your ego. He should be hard to impress. Would you prefer a father-in-law with low standards? No, you wouldn’t. That said, fathers, do not be impossible to please. Be hard to impress, but not unreasonable. The same can and should be said for you, young lady. A girl that is hard to get is worth the work. Precious gems are never just laying around. They are hard to find and take work to get to. Be like that. Diamonds are not made in the microwave, they are formed over years of enduring pressure and being content.

So, wait for a young man to pursue you and when he does, make sure that your first response is, “Talk to my dad.” If you like the guy, but he never ends up getting ahold of your dad, good riddance. God did you a favor. If the young man does go to your dad, he will have to answer some questions before your father follows up with you. If you don’t even like the guy, your dad can relay the bad news. This protects you and your reputation. If Johnny thinks it’s your dad’s fault, he will aim all his colorful language at him instead of you. (and your dad won’t care). But if you and your dad both like the guy, your dad can guide the process of getting to know him better while giving him permission to get to know you better. In the end, you cannot give yourself away, so do not begin by giving your heart away. Wait for your father’s approval and welcome his involvement. Do not despise the armor that God has given you. Sure, it is uncomfortable at times and yes, it makes some things more difficult, just like real armor; but it also protects your heart from getting bruised or broken, just like real armor.

Consider the refrain from the Song of Solomon: “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, do not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.” (2:7; 3:5; 8:4) Notice, it does not say, “Never stir up or awaken love.” Don’t be dramatic. What does it say? ”Not until it pleases.” Not when you please, when it does. So, how do you know when that is? Ask your mom and dad. Seriously. I’m not dodging the question. I’m answering it. They know you and they know if you are ready and they are the ones responsible for determining if this is the right time or if this is the right guy. Until you have the green light, your job is to guard your heart. Enter every relational intersection with caution and more often than not, come to a complete stop.

This does not require you to be cold or indifferent, but it does require you to be willing to be called that. Better to be considered a challenge than to be considered easy. So, be a wall, not a door. Walls protect. They have entry points, but they are well guarded and there is a watchman assigned to check the credentials of anyone asking permission to enter. A swinging saloon door, on the other hand, does not. It lets things in and out without discretion. Don’t be that girl. Don’t be a door.

But don’t take my word for it, hear the Word of the Lord from the Song of Solomon 8:9, “What shall we do for our sister on the day when she is spoken for? If she is a wall, we will build on her a battlement of silver, but if she is a door, we will enclose her with boards of cedar.” This is the chief concern of those who love you and are responsible for you. Will she be a wall or a door? So, your mission should you choose to accept it, is this: see to it that you are able to respond like the young lady in the Song of Solomon in the very next verse, “I was a wall; and I was in his eyes as one who finds peace.” I was a wall. That is the target. Give your people peace. Do not be boy crazy and do not encourage that behavior in your friends.

Contentment is good armor. It keeps your heart and your head safe. Do not allow yourself to get so thirsty for love that you are willing to drink poison just because it comes in a heart shaped bottle. Hear this word from Proverbs 27:7 ”One who is full loathes honey, but to one who is hungry everything bitter is sweet.” When you are full, you can turn down dessert. In the same way, those who are full of faith can turn down sweet nothings. Contentment is the ability to say, “No,” even to good things, in order to say, “Yes,” to something even better. But if you are starving, you will have a hard time saying, “No” to anything – even a stale french fry you find under your car seat. That might sound gross right now, but if you’re hungry enough, it might not. Hungry people, as Solomon points out, have a bad habit of calling things by the wrong name. They call bitter things “sweet” and gross things “good.” Contented souls can see the difference between good enough and great, but discontented souls cannot even see the difference between bad and worse. So, do yourself, your father, and your future husband a favor and be content in Christ and wait the right way for the right man at the right time.

And when that time comes and you hear the pastor say, “And who gives this woman to be married?” you will hear your father say, “I do” as he takes your hand and places it into the hand of a man you both respect. You and that man will then get your turn to say, “I do.”  But that is just the beginning. Everyone emphasizes the marriage ceremony. A lot of time and money and energy go into making that first day special. But the most important day of your marriage is not the first day, it is the last day. How happy you are on that first day is not nearly as important as how happy you are on the last day. But that takes work. As much work as it is to have a storybook wedding, it is much more to have a good book marriage.

A good, godly marriage is built on oneness: one God, one church, one last name, one address, one bed, one bank account, one meal time, one, one, one. As much as possible, a good marriage reinforces by routine what is already true in reality: oneness. And where there is oneness, there is multiplication.

:13 “And he went in to her and the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son.” 

Brokenness and sin may lead to division, but oneness and faith lead to multiplication. Without going into more detail than necessary, it is worth noting that the description of the marriage bed provided by Scripture here is instructive. “He went into her” is not merely a euphemism, it is a description of the way God made men and women to complement one another. There is a reason it works this way and not the other way around. Men and women are not simply interchangeable. As Douglas Wilson once famously, if not somewhat notoriously wrote, “The sexual act is not egalitarian. A man conquers, colonizes, and plants; a woman receives, surrenders, accepts. This is of course offensive to all egalitarians.” Reality does not respond to memos from HR. Men plant seeds and women grow them; she is a lock and he is the key. They are different, but they go together. God made man first and from the dirt of the ground and He made woman second and from the rib of the man. There is profound theological significance to both the order of their creation and the material from which each was made.

Consider 1 Timothy 2:12-13, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve.” The evidence Paul provides in support of his conclusion is that the order of creation is theologically significant. It has practical implications. For another example, consider 1 Corinthians 11:7-9, “Man is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.” So, again we see that the order of creation here has direct theological implications. But we also see that material from which they were made is significant. Man was made from the ground and so he is made for the ground. Woman was made from the man and so she is made for the man. God made man to tend to the garden and He made woman to tend to the gardener. So, is this saying that men are better than women? Yes! Men are better than women... at being men. But it is also saying that women are better than men… at being women.

Just as a triangle is better than a circle at being triangular and a circle is better than a triangle at being circular, so men are better at being masculine than women and women are better at being feminine than men. It reminds me of Chesterton’s poem, Comparisons: “If I set the sun beside the moon, And if I set the land beside the sea, And if I set the flower beside the fruit And if I set the town beside the country, And if I set the man beside the womanI suppose some fool would talk About one being better.” When something goes bump in the night, call a man; when something goes “waaa” in the night, call a woman. Each is great in the place God has put them and a disaster when they try to replace the other. 

Another reason this mention of marital intimacy in Ruth is instructive is because it reinforces the reality that the marriage bed is an essential part of a Biblical marriage. It is not an optional add on. It is not something married people are merely eligible to do, it is something they are obligated to do. Consummation is necessary to establish a marriage, but it is also necessary to maintain one. It is an act of covenant renewal. Just as we gather regularly to hear the Word preached and to partake of the bread and wine at the Lord’s Table, husbands and wives should regularly come together to partake of each other.

Hear the Word of the Lord from 1 Corinthians 7:3-5, “The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” You do not belong to you. You belong to God; and if you are married, God says that your body belongs to your spouse. Regular covenant renewal is obedience to God and a blessing to your marriage.

A final reason this mention of the marriage bed in Ruth is instructive is because it mentions conception. Godly offspring, according to Malachi 2:15, are one of the primary reasons God created the covenant of marriage. It is the only context in which more people can lawfully be made. But note, what does the text say? “The LORD gave her conception.” The Lord opens and closes the womb. The Lord decides who is conceived and when. Pregnancies are not automatic and babies are not a guarantee.

God sometimes gives children to people who go about it the wrong way and He sometimes withholds them from people who go about it the right way. This can be hard to understand, but rest assured, God is not robbing anyone. No one is owed a child. Now, it may feel like that sometimes. If you’ve done things the right way, but you’re stuck staring at another negative pregnancy test, it can feel like God is not holding up His side of the bargain. But faith is joining Job in saying, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” We praise God when we get what we want and when we don’t. We pray for more children and then we say, “Not my will, but Yours.” And if He says, “No,” or “Not right now,” we say, “So be it,” and when He says, “Yes,” we say, “Thank you!” That’s what Naomi and her friends do next.

:14 “Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel!” Babies are a blessing, but they are not an automatic blessing. Note that the fact of the baby was celebrated (Yay! babies!), but the future of the baby was prayed for (may he be renowned). Babies are great, but they do grow up and if they are not parented well, they won’t be a blessing to you or to anyone else. All of our enemies are someone’s children. They were raised by someone and somewhere. So, while we do want to celebrate the fact of new life, we also want to emphasize the importance of the new birth and the responsibility of every parent to raise his or her children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. 

This is where our Old and New Testament readings come in. Consider Psalm 127. Lots of people get married and have kids, but only those who build their lives on the Lord will have houses that stand. Lots of people worry about their kids and watch over them, but if they’re not calling on the Lord and pointing their kids to Him, their oversight is all in vain. You can lose all the sleep you like, but you will never find rest that way. Those who place their faith in the Lord, however, do. They sleep soundly knowing that their labors are not in vain. They know that most blessings begin as responsibilities. In that sense, children are a lot like arrows. They start off as sticks, but with a lot of work they can be fashioned into weapons. Some sticks are more gnarly than others and some are a bit more crooked, but by the grace of God, the gift of good parents, and some grit, they can be sanded into something smooth and sharp. The man who has a lot of sharp kids who all have his back is a lot like a man with a quiver full of arrows. He is not scared of his enemies.

That leads to Psalm 128. The man who loves the Word of God and walks in a manner worthy of that high calling is blessed from the bottom of his feet to the top of his head. “You will reap what you have sown” is not a threat he hides from, it is a promise he leans into. His wife is like a fruitful vine in the heart of his home because he waters her well and his children have him surrounded every evening when they come to the dinner table because he provides for them. And he does not take any of this for granted, he takes it with gratitude. He worships his father’s God with his son’s sons and he teaches them to someday do the same.

And as our NT reading from Ephesians 6 reminds us, the promises of God to us extend to our children. When we honor the Lord and our children honor us, we both inherit the world. If we make it easy for our children to honor us, we will make it hard for our enemies to divide us. Together, we will possess the gates of those who hate us. God will build His church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. “‘Vengeance is Mine,’ saith the Lord” and babies are the best revenge. Nothing disturbs the death cult like new life. The stench of death trembles before the smell of a newborn baby. Nothing sends a chill down the spine of our enemies like fathers who love their sons and sons who love their fathers. That is the antivenom to his poisonous darts.

So, hear this: taking time to raise godly seed is not sitting the battle out; it is the battlefield. Our children will either be like arrows in our hands or they will be like thorns in our sides. Inconsistent, half-hearted Christian homes are simply breeding farms for secularists. There is no blessing in simply having a lot of kids. We have to love them and nourish them and bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. If we don’t, someone else will discipline and instruct them in something else. The world is full of secular boot camps for kids – from public schools to sports teams to tv shows to dance squads, there are any number of people willing to influence your children. As Ben Merkle once observed, “You may not be paedobaptist or postmill, but the Left is, and that is why they are winning.” Whether you know it or not, the Left does, babies are the best revenge. So, do not let your children become arrows in the hands of God’s enemies. Do not send them off to a secular mill for shaping. Keep your kids.

Back to our passage. Naomi’s friends prayed for her family name to be renowned. The word literally means re-known, as in known again. It is a blessing to be well thought of and remembered, but it is the kind of blessing you can only have by faith. You cannot be renowned while you are still here. So you have to work hard and hope that someone will take the time to honor you when you’re no longer there to remind them. You cannot be renowned until you are gone, but you can live in such a way as to give your descendants a good reason to remember you well. That begins by honoring your own ancestors and ends with blessing your descendants. If you want your descendants to honor you, show them how. Be the kind of descendant you want them to be. 

T.B. Macaulay said it this way, “People who take no pride in the noble achievements of their remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by their remote descendants.” Note the connection: the kind of person who cannot find anything good to say about his ancestors is the kind of person who will not look to do anything good for his descendants. He is self-centered. He is disconnected from his people. He resents his ancestors and despises his descendants. He either ignores them both or he steals from them both. But not the one who honors his fathers and mothers. He is given new life and fresh energy as he brings up his children in the faith of his fathers.

:15 “He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.” So, children are a lot of work, sure, but they are also a lot of reward. They require a lot of energy, but they also energize things. You might be thinking, “That sounds nice and all, but I’m tired.” It is easy to see the costs when it comes to kids. Anyone can do that and that’s why many people don’t want kids. But what they refuse to see and what’s sometimes hard for us to see is that God gives the energy when it’s needed. Sure you don’t have that kind of energy now, but it’s not being asked of you now. So, don’t be anxious about what you might have to do tomorrow, attend to the chores you have today and trust that God will provide what you need when you need it. This is what Naomi’s friends observed: the old are refreshed by the young.

Consider Proverbs 20:29 “The glory of young men is their strength, but the splendor of old men is their gray hair.” God has made the generations to benefit from each other. The glory of youth is its energy and the glory of age is its wisdom and experience. When they work together, everyone benefits: the young know where to aim all their energy and the old get to see their ideas put into practice. Everyone is blessed when everyone contributes their glory to each other. When the young spend their strength and ambition foolishly on themselves, everyone suffers. When the old hoard their wealth and wisdom for themselves, everyone suffers. But when each gives their strength to the other, everyone is stronger. One child who listens to you and loves the Lord is worth more than seven who don’t want anything to do with you or your God. Naomi had two faithless sons who died in Moab, but now she has a faithful son–in-law who lives with her in Bethlehem.

Our story ends with :16-17 “Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her lap and became his nurse. And the women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, ‘A son has been born to Naomi.’ They named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.” Next week, we will finish our series by covering the last few verses of the book of Ruth which serve as a sort of epilogue and focus on the ultimate genealogical significance of this story. And while your legacy will likely pale in comparison to this one, it will still be your legacy. Legacies are, after all, inescapable. You cannot avoid leaving something behind. So, what will that something be? What will you leave behind? And to whom? What will your name mean? And who will wear it? And what will they think of it? 

Naomi came back to God empty and embittered. She had nothing but God and a bunch of baggage; and now, at the end of our story, she has a family and grandbaby, who, in many ways, is the point of this story. He is not the et cetera, he is the crescendo. Again, that will be teased out more next week when we consider exactly who Obed’s descendants were, but for our purposes this week, the point is that being fruitful and multiplying are part of God’s plan.After all, who is Obed? Before this study of Ruth, when was the last time you thought about him? In the grand scheme of things, is Obed all that important? We know nothing about him except whose son he was and whose grandfather he became. We don’t know what, if any, adventures he had or what trouble he got into or out of. What we do know is this: he grew up, got married, and had a son named Jesse. That is what we know about Obed. And that should comfort and encourage us. 

We are probably more like Obed than we are like Ruth or Boaz or Naomi. Most people won’t remember us. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have a part to play.

The redemptive arc of all human history is contingent on making babies. When God promised our first parents that a serpent crusher would come to smash the skull of the deceiver, how did He say that would take place? Through childbearing. A seed of the woman would come to destroy the works of the devil. That meant Eve had to have children and that she had to teach those children to do the same. The birth of Jesus that we celebrate at Christmas was the result of many births before it. And as famous as His birth was, most of those that led up to it were not. Just men and women following God’s design by loving the Lord, getting married, having kids, and teaching them to do the same. 

As Douglas Wilson once noted, “Cultures are built by men with families to feed.” And that is one of the best ways to heap burning coals on the heads of God’s enemies. It is not flashy, but it moves the world. It was the way God used to bring about the Messiah and it is the way He is now using to conquer the world. He promised He would never again flood the world with water, but He has also promised that He would someday flood the world with the knowledge of the Lord. Hell has built a dam to hold back the flood of God’s glory, but it is leaking and soon to be damned and under water. One of the primary means He uses to hammer down that dam is Christian marriage and childrearing. So, get married, have some kids and help us storm the gates of Hell. And with that, we end up where we started – life is simple: if you’re single, get married; if you’re married, make babies; and if you have babies, make them disciples, because babies are the best revenge.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

PRAYER

Heavenly Father, thank You for Your Word. Help us to store it up in our hearts that we might not sin against You and help us to apply it to our lives as we leave this place that we might not be guilty of hearing without doing. We ask these things in Jesus’ name and we offer up the words of the prayer He taught us to pray singing...