day no. 16,451: guilty and glory-haunted

"We are a very guilty people. We are also a glory-haunted people. The only possible outcome of this combination— apart from the great grace of reformation and revival—is tyranny. There is only one alternative to the tyrannical course we are on, and that is for God to give us preachers who will invite the nation to come to Jesus, and to give us a heart that will do so." — Douglas Wilson. All the Condemnation in the World

We will have tyranny if we do not have a revival. Reformation is our only path to freedom. There is no such thing as a secular sanity. There is no nebulous generally agreed upon morality that is not rooted in the Gospel of God revealed through His one and only Son, Jesus Christ. Because we have insisted on secular sanity, we have lost our minds. We are guilty before a holy God whose laws do not go out of style because we've grown too big for our britches. We cannot assuage our shame by hitting the accelerator on our sins.

"Guilt must be declared righteous; guilt must attain to glory. But apart from repentance and faith in Jesus, the only way to get there is by means of a moralistic and very public frenzy." — Douglas Wilson. All the Condemnation in the World

Glory is inescapable. Justification is inevitable. It is never a matter of whether we will seek glory, but from where and if we will reach it. It is never a question of anything being justified, but what and by what means is deemed justifiable.

The guilty cannot avoid glory. They will either attempt to glorify their guilt or to glorify the guilt-bearer of God. The world as we know it will either descend as sinners into deeper tyranny or descend to one knee before the Liberator of sinners. Sin will be dealt with and because it is serious, someone has to die. It will either be everyone under tyranny or everyone under the Redeemer that God appointed. 

By the grace of God, we know that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that God's Christ is the King of kings who sets the captives free. Guilt will not win the day. Glory-whores will not capture the kingdom. In the hearts of His people and through the hard work of their hands, the world will revive and reform as it conforms to the image of the Son of God. Everything is headed in that direction and someday, soon enough, we shall see it.

Romans 8:28-32

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

day no. 16,450: song and sword, singing the Word

Psalm 149:5-9

Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds.

Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand;

To execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people;

To bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron;

To execute upon them the judgment written: this honour have all his saints.

Praise ye the Lord.

It is the privilege of the saints to sing with all their hearts with swords in all their hands. May God's elect never shy away from either. May the love of Who we have behind us give us faith to go ahead. May we know the Word of God and cut to the quick each and every one of His nations. May we have Psalms in our hearts and on our lips and His Word in our hearts and in our hands as we go forth to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey all that the Lord has commanded. In so doing, we can rest and run assured that He is with us always. This is the honor and privilege of God's people.

day no. 16,449: the high-minded and heavy-handed stand no chance against a household in Christ united

Genesis 14:14-16

And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan. And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus. And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people.

The high-minded and heavy-handed stand no chance against a household in Christ united.

One household overthrew four kingdoms. These four kingdoms had just successfully overthrown five kingdoms. Abram and his clan retrieved his kidnapped nephew along with everything else the four kingdoms had hauled off. In other words, he redeemed five kingdoms worth of treasure from four kingdoms worth of warriors. 

Abram had servants whom he had both trained and armed. They may have been servants, but they were trained and armed like free men. Thus they were loyal servants. They were given dignity and treated with respect and in return they fought for their faithful master and friend. They used their training to overtake their master's enemies and employed their weapons for the sake of setting others free. These men were citizens of Abram's household. They were born into his house and brought up by him. They were trained and nourished and disciplined in the instruction of the Lord God and when called upon, they fought as one single unit under the banner of Abram.

Pharaoh too once feared a family and for good reason. A band of brothers ain't nothing to sleep on.

Psalm 127:3-5

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: And the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; So are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

Abram sharpened sticks into arrows and had nothing to fear when opposed by local tyrants. A man who attends to his household has no reason to worry about the kingdoms of rebels. A patriarch need not fear an emperor. A man with loyal sons is better equipped to resist his enemies than a man with fearful subjects and hired hands.

The high-minded and heavy-handed stand no chance against a household in Christ united.

day no. 16,448: rocco is EIGHT!

Happy EIGHTH birthday, Rocco!

You are such a good little man. I like being your dad. You are strong, kind, considerate, polite, brave, bold, and 100% boy.

You have my eyes and my nose and I enjoy seeing myself when I look at you.

Last school year, every work day, you would politely knock on my door and ask if you may come in and get our trash and then inevitably ask, "Since I'm already in here, may I use your bathroom?"

You love riding your bike on the street, but always ask for permission before doing so.

You like helping with the dishes at night as long as you are able to stand on the counter top so that you can put the dishes away. 

You are solid muscle. You have six pack abs and a smile on your face. You are like a velvet covered brick: strong and dependable and soft and pleasant to be around.

During Taki time, you always choose whatever Finneas picked. If I ask you before Finneas, you look over at him to see what kind he wants. You like being his sidekick. You two are quite the dynamic duo.

You like climbing on me at night when we're singing and praying before bed. You also like to receive your nightly hug and kiss.

You are a canon ball for the Kingdom. You will change the shape of things without being changed by them.

You pray most nights to drive a dump truck or a motorcycle and to teach your kids about the Gospel when you grow up.

You love church and like when the men separate out after service to be taught how to sing their parts. You make friends easily and have a blast sitting by and playing with all the kids at church on Sundays after service.

You sleep hard, but have been staying up more often during Story Club. When you do fall asleep, I get the privilege of carrying you down the stairs and tucking you in.

You like to wrestle and have recently bested both a neighorhood kid and a friend at church who were older than you. You have good grip strength and are hard to knock over. You are no push over, but are pleasantly disposed to accommodate others. You are like a sturdy solid gate that keeps everyone safe by keeping the bad guys out, but lets the good stuff pass through. "Men may be better than gates," as Aragorn once said, but you, my friend, are both.

You are a good man. I like being around you and like having you around and about. You are a good friend and a fun person to talk to. You ask good questions and stick around to hear the answers. You are thoughtful and faithful.

I like you and I love you and I'm so glad I get to celebrate these days with you as your dad.

I am very proud of you.

I love you, Rocco.

Happy Birthday!

Dad

day no. 16,447: tradition is old fire and fresh wood

"Tradition is not the worship of ashes but the preservation of fire." — Gustov Mahler

Tradition is the collection of vetted habits worth keeping. It is a body of culture which winnows itself as it goes. Tradition is not the ashes that remain of what was previously burned down, but the refined gold of what has passed through the fire and been made better off for it. The ashes are not the traditions, but the detritus. 

2 Timothy 1:6

For this reason I remind you to kindle afresh the gift of God

The Christian religion is one of keeping flames ablaze. We did not provide the lightning, but we can throw more fuel on the fire that fell from above. Tradition, then, is not the admiration of ashes, but the continuation of conflagration. It is old fire and fresh wood.

"Then I saw in my dream that the Interpreter took Christian by the hand, and led him to a place where there was a fire burning against a wall. In front of this fireplace was a man continually casting buckets of water on the fire in an effort to extinguish it. Nevertheless, the fire continued to burn higher and hotter." — John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress

The Holy Spirit is active in keeping His fire within us burning. He will not quench the smoldering wick. He will keep the party alive and pour fresh oil on what the Devil attempts to dampen.

Isaiah 42:3, Matthew 12:20

The smoking flax shall he not quench.

Let us then do our best to keep ourselves from being wet blankets. Let us kindle afresh the fire within by looking to Him who first lit us up. May we tend to our flame and preserve it for the next generation that they too may see by the light of it and be comforted by its warmth and grow its circumference to shine brighter and burn hotter than ever before.

"Be of good cheer, master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle in England, as I hope, by God's grace, shall never be put out." — Hugh Latimer

day no. 16,446: the world washed by water and by fire

"Is all this admirable universe, sinless and perfect everywhere beyond the Moon, to perish at the last day? It seems not. When scripture says the stars will fall (Matt. xxiv. 29) this may be taken 'tropically'; it may mean that tyrants and magnates will be brought low. Or the stars that will fall may be only meteorites. And St Peter (II Pet. iii. 3 sq.) says only that the universe will be destroyed by fire as it once was destroyed by water. But no one thinks the flood rose to the translunary regions: neither, then, need the fire." — C.S. Lewis, The Discarded Image

When God destroyed the world by water, He did not do away with the world entirely. He wiped out every living thing with breath save eight and those with them on the boat, but the world was still there when the flood was over. God did not wash the world away per se, but washed the worldliness off of the world. He didn't throw the plate in the trash, He washed it and dried it and put it back onto the table for use.

2 Peter 3:6-7

Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

We too often imagine God's cleansing fire as an incineration. We imagine the world reduced to ashes and the new earth being ex nihilo two point oh well. But Peter here says the world will perish by fire in similar fashion as to how it perished previously by water, which is to say that those outside of Christ will be washed away, but those inside Him will inherit the earth. Only this cleansing will be accompanied by a complete and total restoration of Edenic blessing where sin is absent and God is forever and fully present.

1 Corinthians 3:11-15

For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

There is no foundation other than Christ which can support any work of any kind. But the work done on that foundation varies and the fire will test it. That which was good will be refined and purified by the fire like gold and will come out the better for the fire. That which was no good will be burned up entirely, but the foundation will hold the person who labored frivolously upon it.

1 Corinthians 15:58

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

Work done by, for, through and to the Lord will not be in vain. It will survive the refining fire and be better for having been exposed to it. The ark will save those inside it and the fire will save the goodness of any work He inspired through them.

day no. 16,445: gafforism

While listening to The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde on the treadmill last night (3/15/22), I came up with phrase "gafforism." It is a combination of gaffe + aphorism:

gaffe /ɡaf/ noun. an unintentional act or remark causing embarrassment to its originator; a blunder.

aph·o·rism /ˈafəˌrizəm noun. a pithy observation that contains a general truth, such as, “if it ain't broke, don't fix it.” a concise statement of a scientific principle, typically by an ancient classical author.

A gafforism is then the wisdom of the world, that is to say, folly. There really are better ways to pick up girls than others, but that kind of wisdom is wayward, it descends by excelling -- the better it is at that kind of the thing, the worse off it ends up.

James 3:14-16

If ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.

Gafforisms may help the worldly exploit the fallen world, but it does not help them lay claim to the world to come. Meekness is not a fruit of ignorance, but of repentance. The worldly wise will cool-shame and mock talk the meek, but the world they lust after will be taken from them and all the counterfeit joys they've experienced along with it.

All that said, here are some gafforisms acquired by Wilde. Witty or wise as they may be in assessing the worldly situation, they profit nothing on the day of judgment; in fact, they not only DO NOT profit, they produce more debt.

"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”

False: there are badly written moral books, well written moral books, badly written immoral books, and well written immoral books (case and point)

“To define is to limit.” 

True, but misapplied: This fact is reported as though it were a bad thing, and that definitions, therefore, should be resisted instead of embraced and obeyed. Ironically, Wilde misses the fact that for him to define "limit" as a negative is for him to limit himself to what limitations can be. Wilde cuts himself off from the liberty of the law by insisting only on the lawlessness of licentiousness.

“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

True: even the worldly wise can see through the lies of other worldly wisdom. But pitting one type of worldliness against another does not produce other-worldliness. Wilde rightly sees through materialism, but cannot see his sensualism. He rails against paying for things by rallying around free pleasure. He does not resist the prostitute for her profession, but would deny her the paycheck.

“The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.” 

False: this is akin to saying you can only get rid of a headache by decapitation. It does get rid of the headache, but it kills the patient rather than curing him.

“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” 

False: the maxim that any publicity is good publicity is only true of those who seek justification in the public eye. For them, to be ignored by the popularazzi is to be dead in the sin of obscurity with the rush of being thrust back into the public spotlight the equivalent of a miraculous resurrection. Their lives and livelihoods hang in the balance of public opinion, but your life is more than merely whether or not other people happen to notice it.

“When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.” 

False: love is not blind, it is bound. Lust is blind. It wants what it wants without seeing what it doesn't. But love is anything but blind or deceived. It has its eyes wide open and pledges purity and fidelity with the intention of keeping its vows. Romance, in the worldly sense, is without decision. It is driven by passion and defiance of forethought. Romance, in the Christian sense, is intentional. It is driven by covenant and diligence in duty.

“Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired, women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.” 

False: Christian men marry because they are fired up and Christian women because they are certain. The world may encourage men to marry once they've given up chasing tail and women to marry to prove to them how good independence really was, and in that sense, Wilde rightly observes, they do end up disappointed. Worldly marriage mocks at covenant and wonders why sharing an address is so difficult sometimes.

There are more examples, of course, but these are sufficient in showing the amount of wit and wisdom the worldlings are capable of seeing without having eyes to adequately describe what they're observing. It is one thing to see what is around you and another to to see your own eyeballs. For that, you need wisdom outside of your field of vision. You need the wisdom that is from above.