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.

day no. 17,362: the chalcedonian

We confess our Lord Jesus Christ,

perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood,

truly God and truly man, of a reasonable soul and body;

consubstantial with the Father according to his Godhead,

and consubstantial also with us as according to his Manhood;

in all things like unto us, yet without sin;

begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead,

and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the virgin, Mary,

according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably;

the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ; 

as the prophets from the beginning have declared concerning Him, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself has taught us, and the Creed of the fathers has handed down to us.

Amen.

— The Chalcedonian Creed (Cantus Christi pg. 819)

Jesus is not part man, part God like a centaur is part man, part horse. 

He is fully man and fully God. 

He is not a mixture of two things like an Arnold Palmer. 

He is God. He is man. 

day no. 17,361: the Biblical case for limited government

Deuteronomy 17:19-20

And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them: That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel.

The king was forbidden from turning to the right or the the left of the commandments of God. He could not fall short or shirk any of his assigned duties and he could not expand or add to any of his privileges. The magistrate had clearly defined and enumerated powers. He was obligated to fulfill his role in upholding his responsibilities and forbidden from expanding his jurisdiction of authority.

The Word of God advocates limited government, lex rex, not unlimited government, rex lex. The Word of God commands federal government in the original sense of the word "federal" meaning covenantal. Rulers rule by covenant. They are under covenant to God and take vows of office to uphold their duties before him and the people are covenantally represented by him and obligated to obey him inasmuch as he fulfills his role in good and orderly fashion. The people are also obligated to remove him in the event that he becomes a lawbreaker. It is not a sin for a people to remove a tyrannical leader, it is a sin for a leader to become a tyrant. In that scenario, the "ruler" is the rule breaker and the "rebels" are the rule keepers. 

day no. 17,360: revolution, reaction, and reformation

"The hallmark of the revolutionary mind is impatience. The same thing is true over on the other side—the reactionary mind is also impatient. The revolutionary wants his new order now, and is willing to burn everything to the ground in order to get it. The reactionary wants to prevent that, which is fine, but he is just as impatient. He demands that everything be fixed immediately. Both the revolutionary and the reactionary are convenience store activists—they want their results the same way they want their coffee, which is to say, hot and now. The reformer, by contrast, living in the light of eternity, and grounded in the Word of God, can afford to be patient. He can take a principled stand, and leave the results to God. He is not going to be dazzled, or snookered, or beguiled, by payments under the table from the commies." — Douglas Wilson, Hate Farm Subsidies from the SPLC

A principled stance cannot, by definition, wander away. It stands its ground come hell or high water. It knows how to suffer. It is not so hellbent on getting what it wants that it is willing to do whatever it takes to get it. How the ends are accomplished matters. That is the difference between a reformer and a revolutionary/reactionary. The reformer would take reform sooner than later, but isn't so particular about the sooner part as to be willing to surrender certain principles to speed up the process. The principles are the point. And when you have an a priori commitment to your priorities, you take the consequences come what may. You'd rather stick to your principles than gain a particular end by abandoning or ignoring them.

The extreme left and right are not the furthest apart. They are not polar opposites of a long, straight, line. They are opposite ends of a horseshoe. The more extreme either becomes, the closer they come together. Out on the limbs, they are not as committed to principle as they are committed to impatience. On those grounds, the woke left and the dank right have more in common with each other than either of them do with the rest of us principled folk holding down he majority of the curve.

day no. 17,359: sin farms

"If you pay firefighters by the fire, you are tempting some of them to become arsonists. Once a third world country was trying to deal with a rat infestation, and they had the bright idea of paying a bounty to anyone who brought in a rat tail. The natural consequence of this, because incentives work, was that some folks took up rat farming." — Douglas Wilson, Hate Farm Subsidies from the SPLC

You get more of what you incentivize and less of what you penalize. If you pay people for dead snakes, you will not end your snake problem, you will gain a bunch of snake farmers. If you get paid every time someone breaks the speed limit, you will not get less speeders, you will get cameras at every intersection and planes in the air monitoring your speed. 

The civil magistrate cannot profit off of justice. If and when it does, you will find more injustice about, not less. When the authorities make money off of your disobedience, you will be sure to find authorities who are cheering for and sometimes even generating more disobedience in order for them to turn a greater profit, just ask the SPLC.

day no. 17,358: the game of risk

“God requires us to risk things. This risk includes all that we hold dear, and to shrink back from it is to incur the displeasure of God. The wicked and lazy servant was the one who would not risk what had been entrusted to him. To play it safe is to play it dangerous.” — Douglas Wilson, No Such Thing as Bad Words

When it come to faith, safe is dangerous and dangerous is safe. The one who tries to save his life loses it and the one who risks his life for Christ's sake finds it. God is a safe bet, but He is still a bet. You have to push all in on Him. He has promised us what will happen if we do, i.e. we will find life, but we have to believe in His promises. The promises do not remove the risk, but they do reward it. You cannot have the reward before you take the risk, but if you take the risk, you will get the reward. If that doesn't sound like much of a risk to you, ask yourself why you are tempted to hold on to things. Why can't you die to that? Why won't you let that go? Is it because you're worried that the risk isn't worth it? Is it because you don't believe the promises of God? And now you begin to see why faith requires risk. True, it is a calculated risk, but it is nevertheless a risk. 

So, the only question that remains then is this: will you take the risk? Will you believe God's promises and push all in? If not, why not? Do you distrust the promises of God or do you believe that what you have now is better than what God promises to give you?