day no. 17,369: black coffee Christianity

“The people always have an earnest desire to have a messenger who is willing to prophesy smooth things for them (Is. 30:10). ‘Prophesy deceits unto us’—they want deceits, boy, and they want them layered on thick. They want to heap up teachers who will stroke their felt needs (2 Tim. 4:3). If a man of wind comes prophesying wine and beer, he would be just the right spokesman for this people (Mich. 2:11). They want prophets who will speak to them in terms of affirming and melted butterscotch. They want pumpkin spice sermons.” — Douglas Wilson, No Such Thing As Bad Words

Everybody wants a sauce. They may vary on what kind of sauce they like, but they all agree that some kind of sauce is needed. Whether it is steak sauce, ranch, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, sriracha, etc... everybody has something they put on the food to flavor it to their liking. 

Christianity does not require any sauce. In fact, in most cases, it actually prohibits the use of most sauces. No adjectives are needed. You don't need progressive Christianity or trad Christianity. You just need Christ. In most cases, the sauce is meant to cover the flavor of something you don't like, not to enhance the flavor of something already present. We like pumpkin spice sermons because they are easier to stomach than black coffee Christianity. 

day no. 17,368: shock treatment

“What does shocking language do? One of the things it accomplishes is that it wakes people up. It brings them to their senses. It smells like burnt Marsh-wiggle.”  — Douglas Wilson, No Such Thing As Bad Words

Niceties and sweet nothings can gloss over a great deal of gross, but one bad word can burn off the fog.

"Nine times out of ten, the coarse word is the word that condemns an evil and the refined word the word that excuses it." — G. K. Chesterton 

Shocking language cannot be overused without it ceasing to be shocking. The whole point of jarring language is that it should jar. If you're always brandishing your pistols, it won't arrest anyone's attention when you wave them around (again). On the other hand, if you always have your weapon holstered, but today you draw, people understand that the situation is escalated. This is how we should be with our words. You should the necessary ones holstered, but you also must be ready to present them should the situation warrant it.

"Do not give fair names to foul sins; call them what you will, they will smell no sweeter." — Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

If you call bad things nice names, you do everyone a disservice. The sinner does not feel the need for quick repentance and resolution, the onlooker does not understand the seriousness of the situation, and the Lord is misrepresented as a moral guidance counselor whose law can be taken or left at leisure.

"Soft teaching produces hard hearts and hard teaching produces soft hearts." — Jim Wilson

Calling bad things bad names produces soft hearts for the law of the Lord. Calling bad things soft names produces hard hearts toward the law of the Lord.

day no. 17,367: bad precedents are called good when used on bad people

“In America they go after the S.O.B.’s first. And nobody cares about them. They establish bad precedents on them, and then they go after the rest of us.” — Allan Dershowitz

They went after the J-6ers because there was not enough public sentiment to support them. All of the Left despised them and most of the right were willing to believe what was being reported about them. So, they roughed them up because no one was found to defend them. Precedents were established, however, that now can be weaponized against others that some may support. Many of those, however, are also supporters of law and order and will say, "Well, they did technically violate the law, so I guess they got what they had coming to them," even though the law was only recently minted and being applied for the first time on their neighbor. We saw this during COVID. Neighbors turned into narcs a lot faster than you would have thought possibly. An entire country became karens and the rest of us were on their nanny cams.

Principles do not accommodate personal preferences. If they do, they are not principles, they are merely prejudices. Principles help you pre-judge by keeping a certain standard. Prejudices make it impossible for outside standards, like principles, to be held. I do not want the Left arrested for hate crimes anymore than I want a Christian to be arrested for them. I say this because I believe that hate crimes are, in principle, unjust. Murdering someone because of their color of skin is no worse a crime than murdering someone because of their political affiliation. They should be illegal for the same reason and punished the same way. Bad precedents often get pushed through by being used on bad people. Because they are bad by our standards, they deserve to have bad things by any standard happen to them. But that smuggles in bad precedent and anything you are willing to introduce can be used by your enemies against you.

In short, if you do not oppose evil in principle, you are merely tolerating it until it comes for you.

First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me

And there was no one left

To speak out for me

— Martin Niemöller

If you allow unjust things to happen to others because you don't identify with them, soon enough the authorities will identify you as someone that unjust things should be done to, and there will be no one left to come to your aid.

day no. 17,366: snake oil salvation salesmen

"Repent of your sins, all of them—lies, adultery, porn, stealing, cursing, sodomy, abortion, hatred, malice, and include in that list, topping it off, your readiness to accept offers of snake oil salvation." — Douglas Wilson, Slicker Than a Pocket Full of Pudding

Steer clear of snake oil salvation salesmen and even more clear of being tempted to hear their pitch. Do not let yourself become so desperate that you are willing to listen to liars. Do not be so faithless so as to entertain unfaithful solutions to your problems. This sounds easy enough, but there is always a temptation to turn to whoever will tell you what you want to hear.

Jeremiah 5:31

The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?

People like prophets who give them what they want. There is a free market prophecy that competes in the open market for the hearts of the people. It markets itself for a share of the market. And that would be bad enough, but then add to that people who enjoy being lied to. They prefer flattery to acclaim. Funny as it sounds, they like to be lied to.

"Tell me lies, Tell me sweet little lies"

— Fleeetwood Mac, Little Lies

There will always be a market for snake oil salvation salesmen. Itching ears will always want to have their felt needs scratched.

2 Timothy 4:3-4

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

Story always wins. When the true story and its Author are rejected, fables and hucksters are accepted.

day no. 17,365: marching orders

"Exodus 32:27 says, 'Let every man put his sword on his side…' This implies that every man was expected to have a weapon. Weapon ownership was expected of all men (Ex. 22:2; Neh. 4:16-18, 23; Esth. 8:11; etc.) and David exercised that right (1 Sam. 16:18; 18:4; 21:8-10, 13; 25:13) even when the Philistines disarmed the population (1 Sam. 13:19, 22) and later when Saul (by inference) seems to have disarmed the citizens (1 Sam. 22:13). Interestingly, Jesus continued that tradition in Luke 22:36. He said that He had sent them out once before without money, extra clothing, or swords to show that He could miraculously provide for them. But now that He was leaving them, He gave an abiding principle: 'But now, he who has a money bag, let him take it [in other words, don’t presume upon God financially], and likewise a knapsack; and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.' That passage is saying that owning a weapon is more important than owning a second garment. It is one of the most fundamental of the God-given rights in Scripture. And as mentioned previously, Jesus gave that command in a society that had prohibited sword ownership. It was a clear-cut case of civil disobedience. In other words, Jesus was saying that the illegalization of firearms is not a good reason to avoid owning arms." — Phillip Kayser, The Divine Right of Resistance

During His earthly ministry, Jesus sent His disciples out  into the countryside without money, without extra clothes, and without swords. After His resurrection but before His ascension, He sent them out again, but this time He sent them into the world, not just the countryside, with a money bag, an extra change of clothes, and a sword. In fact, Jesus told His disciples to sell their extra clothes to gain a sword, if they didn't already have one (two did). In other words, Jesus told His disciples that it would be better to be a little bit dirty because you haven't changed your clothes in a while or a little bit cold because you sold your outer garment, than it would to be defenseless. The Lord did not only permit the possession of weapons, He commanded it. He was not reluctantly obliged to allow it, He actively endorsed it. We know He knows how to command otherwise as evidenced by the episode from earlier in His ministry. He did not have to amend His previous marching orders. But He did.

day no. 17,364: reasoning salt

"And you can’t reason your way out of a moral failing; the only thing for it is repentance." — Douglas Wilson, Slicker Than a Pocket Full of Pudding

You cannot talk your way out of something you behaved your way into and you cannot reason your way out of something you sinned your way into. Repentance is, strictly speaking, akin to a change of mind, but it is more than a mere change of mind. Thoughts are involved, of course, but they are not the only thing involved. You can think differently about something you continue to do. You can think differently about things that you've done. But unless you repent and call them what God calls them, you are merely changing your mind. Repentance is not just a change in mind in general, it is a specific change of mind that is accompanied by the will. It is a reorientation.

If bad reasoning led to a moral failure, better reasoning may help you prevent another, but it does not sanctify the sin of the failure. Repentance and forgiveness require humility and a contrite spirit, not a cocksure assurance that now you've got it all figured out. There are good reasons to conform your mind to the mind of Christ, but you are not conformed to Christ merely by changing your reasoning. That is part of it, but far from all it involves.

day no. 17,363: denouncing the denouncement of sin

“There is no shortage of sin to denounce, and yet the only sin that the Christian church is willing to denounce is the sin of denouncing any of it.” — Douglas Wilson, No Such Thing As Bad Words

Somewhere along the line, the mainline denominations of Christianity decided that the most heinous of sins is judging sin as sinful. After all, who are we to judge? But that idea did not originate with Jesus Christ, who judged his accusers incompetent; no, that idea was smuggled in from elsewhere, somewhere where that rhymes with, "Did God really say?" 

Post-modern subjectivism provided a way to tolerate sin and a way to attack intolerance. It gave the carnal a license to sin and took away the officer's ability to write a ticket. It poured gasoline on our worst sparks and poured water on the flames of justice.

We now live in a day where pride is paraded down our streets to the applause of many mainline denominations. The only sin they acknowledge is that of being grossed out by it. That, according to their standard, is truly unacceptable and requires repentance.