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?