day no. 16,645: a covenantal requirement and a generational necessity

Psalm 78:4-7

We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments.

God commands fathers to teach their children to teach their children to teach their children. It is a covenantal requirement and a generational necessity. God commanded our fathers to keep the law. One of those laws was the obligation to teach their children the law. Another obligation was to teach their children to teach their children the law. Implicit in this is an obligation to teach your children how to teach their children to teach their children. The love of Christ is a communicable cure. It can be conveyed and spread by personal contact, particularly when those persons are parents and especially when they open their mouths.

We must teach our children to teach their children to teach their children.

day no. 16,644: throwing shade at foreshadows

John 5:46-47

For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?

If you have no love for God's Law, how can you love God's Word?

If you are ashamed of the words of God, how can you have faith in the Word of God?

If you place no faith in the words of God which you can see, how can you place your faith in the Word of God whom you have not?

If you have rejected the prophets, you cannot accept their message.

If you have had your doubts about the Bible, you cannot be faithful to its Author.

Jesus is in the Old concealed and by the New revealed.

You cannot throw shade at the foreshadows without being blind to the light.

day no. 16,643: the image of God lathered on like icing

God did not say, “Be fruitful, but be reasonable.” He did not command, "Fill the earth," but warn, "But don't get carried away!"

Genesis 1:28

God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

God blessed them by saying be fruitful and multiply. He charged them to fill the earth and to rule over it -- every inch of every other thing under the sun. God was over man and He commanded men to be over everything else. He did not merely spread man's authority over the earth, but commanded man to multiply in order to make his presence felt over the entire earth. There is no mud meant to be withheld from the squish of good men's toes.

Genesis 9:1, 7

And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth... Be fruitful and multiply; spread out across the earth and multiply upon it."

This command was not forfeited by the fall. God reiterated his charge to fill the globe after having filled it with water. Once the waters subsided, He reminded Noah of what He first told Adam, "Go and do to the world what I did with water -- fill it, subdue it, rule over it, and spread out everywhere to each nook and cranny.

Leviticus 26:9

I will turn toward you and make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will establish My covenant with you

The principle behind this pronouncement was not lost through the patriarchs or abandoned in Egypt. God told Moses that the plan was still, "Be fruitful and multiply." This command was part of the covenant. Go out and get after it everywhere there is to git and don't be stingy with the serving sizes. Slather the image of God on everything like icing on a hot cinnamon bun.

Matthew 28:18-20

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Finally, Jesus Christ in His farewell address to His disciples circled back on this command. Go out and flood the world with the presence of God. Baptize the entire globe in the Name of the Triune God. Do not, like Achilles, allow anything to remain dry. Make sure the water and the blood sprinkle everything.

From beginning to end, it has always been, "Be fruitful and multiply." Never has a hint of holding back been introduced. It has always been full send and spread thick. The plan has always included a positive view of produce and posterity akin to "the more the merrier."

day no. 16,642: the world must remove its shoes in His presence

Psalm 82:8

Arise, O God, judge the earth:

for thou shalt inherit all nations.

All nations. None escape Christ's claim. There is not a single one that He declines. He will judge the nations according to His Word and refine them by His gracious fire. Any atom of vainglory will be burned up that any atom of grace may remain: purified, perfected, and appropriated into Christ's Kingdom. The entire earth owes Him honor. The whole world must remove its shoes in His presence, stand at His entrance, fall before His feet, and stand up at His command.

day no. 16,641: Christ cannot be overcome

"O GOD who art the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom; Defend us thy humble servants in all assaults of our enemies that we, surely trusting in thy defence may not fear the power of any adversaries, through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." — Book of Common Prayer, Morning Prayer: A Collect for Peace

The humble servants of God inspire haughty assaults from God's enemies. Due to the enmity of good and evil, the sons of liberty will be attacked by the slaves of license. The proud darkness will attempt to snuff out the smoldering wick, but the might of Christ will confound them. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty; and the yoke of slavery cannot be reapplied. The glory of God defends the steadfast. The faith of the weak is a strong shield.

Therefore, do not fear the power of those who oppose the Lord. Whatever might they may have, it is borrowed. Christ alone possesses power in His right hand. He cannot be overcome. The darkness does not understand it anymore than it can overcome it.

John 1:5

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome (or comprehended) it.

day no. 16,640: He was hung over our doorways

1 Corinthians 5:7

Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast.

Jesus Christ stands in the gap. His blood covers our threshold. He hung over our doorways so that we might enter into the holy of holies. In Him we are safe and sound. He is our feast. He is the bread of heaven, the poured out wine, and the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world for the sins of it.

Therefore, do not neglect the feast, but keep it. No sacrifice remains except that of thanksgiving and praise.

Hebrews 13:15

By Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name.

day no. 16,639: dead men turn no tails

“The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function.” — Band of Brothers

Dead men turn no tails.

Those who aim to save their lives will lose them. Those who've already lost them will save them. Those trying to save their own skin turn tail, while those who've died to themselves ride it out. The sooner you accept the fact that you're already dead, the quicker you can manfully keep to your post. As long as you are attempting to deliver yourself, you are giving yourself over to treachery.  Those who love their lives will demonstrate that ultimate allegiance in betraying all other alliances. Those who are loyal to their own preservation will manifest their commitment in abandoning other commitments.

day no. 16,638: cut to the quick and quickening to the cut

Daniel 10:19

And he said, “You who are treasured, do not be afraid. Peace be to you; take courage and be courageous!” Now as soon as he spoke to me, I felt strengthened and said, “May my lord speak, for you have strengthened me.”

We cannot hear from God. We aren't strong enough to bear it. A single word from His mouth to our ears would undo us. But by His words He is able to strengthen us to hear. He is able to give us ears to hear. He can encourage faint hearts. He can speak boldness into the baffled. He can provide peace where His presence produced terror. The fear was a kind of gift and the relief is another kind. Grace teaches our hearts to huddle and grace our hearts exhorts to run. The words of God are grace and giddy up, they humble the proud and rouse the humbled; they cut to the quick, but quicken the cut.

day no. 16,637: the Masculine made flesh

“The male you could have escaped, for it exists only on the biological level. But the masculine none of us can escape. What is above and beyond all things is so masculine that we are all feminine in relation to it. You had better agree with your adversary quickly.”

“You mean I shall have to become a Christian?” said Jane.

“It looks like it,” said the Director.

-- C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength

You can hide from men, but not from masculinity. You can insulate yourself from mankind, but not from manliness. The hands that hold the world are masculine. The One who made everything is Authoritative. He is all initiative. He is Sovereign and the source of all responsibility.

The hands that hold the world are Christian. They became flesh in order to be pierced. The Masculine made flesh remade the world and all power everywhere is entirely His.

Matthew 28:18-20

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

We best do what He says and tell others to do the same... and the sooner, the better.

day no. 16,636: love is...

“Love is not blind; that is the last thing that it is. Love is bound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind.” — G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Love knows no bounds?

Love only knows bounds.

Love is blind?

Love is light. It doesn’t overlook sin. It sees them, and forgives them.

Love is love?

Love is not what you make it. Love is what made you.

Love is free?

Love counts the costs… and pays them… cheerfully.

Love your self?

As though you don't already? It’s like the one thing you’re already good at. You’re a natural… a prodigy.

day no. 16,635: a victory garden

Genesis 3:15 

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

Raising godly seed is not sitting the battle out; it is the battlefield.

1 Timothy 2:13-15

For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing-if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.

Being required to raise your kids is not being forbidden to fight; it is being required to fight by raising your kids.

Every Christian home is a victory garden.

day no. 16,634: quiet quitting is gay

Matthew 5:37

Let your "Yes" be "Yes," and your "No," "No." For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.

Quiet quitting is gay. 

If you want to quit, then quit. Be a man and say it out loud. Don't imply it through poor output. Put in your resignation. But don’t pretend to work somewhere. Sweat somewhere. Don’t spend your energy trying to look productive. Be fruitful and multiply.

Don’t draw on the benefits of employment while shirking the responsibilities of an employee.

Quiet quitting attempts to enjoy the benefits of obedience without incurring the costs of obeying.

It is all orgasm and no pregnancy, all pleasure seeking and no promise keeping, all show muscle and no real strength, like a marble statue that looks like it could lift a thousand pounds, but weighs a thousand more and doesn't lift a finger to help you move i.

Psalm 98:2

The Lord hath made known his salvation: his righteousness hath he openly shewed in the sight of the heathen.

God openly has shown.

No smoke and mirrors.

No pretense.

Colossians 2:15

Having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in [the cross].

Christ was not killed in a dark corner. He wasn’t slaughtered in secret. He triumphed over His enemies in broad daylight and burst forth three days later to eternal sunrise. He then walked about openly, revealing Himself as risen forty days before ascending to the right hand of His Father in Heaven where He is destroying His enemies in broad daylight before returning to demolish death, finally and forever.

Don’t try to look like something you’re not. Play the man. Work hard or walk away, but don’t phone it in for the look of respectability. Be respectable. Don’t cash a good man’s checks for a poor performance. Don’t reap a strong man’s wages for a weak man’s efforts.

day no. 16,633: the fruit from the tree and the fullness of the Law

"Just as the ten commandments are summarized by the two great commandments — love God and love your neighbor — so they are summarized by the one great commandment before the Fall, which was to not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge." — Douglas Wilson, Westminster Systematics

Do not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil lest you die is to say:

(1) you shall have no other gods before the One who issued this clear command,

(2) how that God is to be worshiped,

(3) that His Name is as holy as His commandments are His glory,

(4) rest in the goodness of His commands by eating from any of the other trees,

(5) honor the Father in Heaven by honoring His commandments on earth,

(6) respect life by not taking a human life by taking the fruit,

(7) keep the garden bed pure and keep adulterous fruit out of the covenant cupboard,

(8) acknowledge the fruit of Another by refusing to see it as yours,

(9) testify to the truth of His Word and don't add to or take anything away from it,

(10) be content with what God gives and be happy for those to whom He has given.

The fruit of that tree was God's and not to be consumed. It was set aside, like a tithe, for Him alone. In not eating that fruit, one kept the entire Decalogue. In that one law, all Law lived. The fruit from the tree contained the fullness of the Law. In any of God's ordinances all of His glory is revealed.

James 2:10

For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

In any law, all the Law lives.

day no. 16,632: love your next generation neighbor

"When you discipline your children correctly, you are loving your grandchildren." — Douglas Wilson, Why Children Matter

A man loves his great grandchildren by teaching his children to teach their children to teach their children. If you raise your children well, you will get to enjoy your grandchildren. If you do not raise your children well, you will have to raise your grandchildren. 

You do not love your next generational neighbor by failing to discipline their parents. If you are called to love those living next door geographically, you are called to love those living next generationally. Your children need you to be their parents so that they can parent their children someday. Your grandchildren will be owed the discipline and instruction of the Lord which means you must provide it to their parents. 

Psalm 78:4-7

We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments.

You cannot teach your grandchildren to remember the Lord's commands by forgetting to obey them. You cannot teach a future generation the value of the Lord by refusing to acknowledge it before the current one.

day no. 16,631: culture is the liturgy of livelihood

"Liturgies train our loves by aiming them toward a certain telos." — James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love

No one falls in love. Affection is not the end result of inattention. You do not "fall for" anything you haven't been preparing to embrace. You don't spend your entire life feeding an affection for virtue and then fall head over heels for vice. You do not mull over an affinity for sports cars and then fall in love with a minivan. You don't love by accident. You can fall in lust, but not in love.

How we organize our days and how we regularize our delights determines our affections. It trains our hearts in a particular direction. You do not backslide into affection. You fall, in that sense, for what you have been hoping to trip into.

"The reason culture trains our heart is that, in a sense, it is a type of liturgy." — Raymond Simmons, The Confessional County

Culture is a kind of repetition. It is a smell that always accompanies a moment, a flavor that pairs with a routine. Culture is a liturgy of livelihood. It trains our affections in a certain direction. It provides the grammar of delight and the logic of loveliness. It provides the scripts and sets the expectations. 

"You can't not love."  — James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love

Love is inescapable. Liturgy is inescapable. Culture is inescapable. You will love something. You will organize your days around something. Your will train your affections towards something.

"Christian culture is putting God's ethics into public action." — Raymond Simmons, The Confessional County

Christendom is Christ's commands incarnate. It is not merely private sentiment. Jesus is not only the Lord of the few inches between your ears, He is Lord and Savior of every inch inside of you and the world around you in which you live, move, and have your being.

Christendom is Christian civilization organized around a Christian calendar, fueled by a Christian culture, and built on a Christian foundation.

1 Corinthians 3:10-11

But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

day no. 16,630: if the dam don't hold

"If you can hold back the culture's influence long enough so that you can change it before it changes your children, you should stay. If not, you have no choice but to make some sort of change." — Raymond Simmons, The Confessional County

If your dam won't hold, you have to move to higher ground. If your walls cannot keep the evil out, you have to evacuate. The Gospel of God will conquer the world, but some fronts may be temporarily lost in the course of the campaign. You cannot begin by taking Berlin. Nor can you initially expect to keep Berlin out of your backyard if you live within shouting distance. You cannot defend that plot of land by dying in it. You must retreat and regroup in order to return with the Allies to your homeland. It will be won back and Berlin will fall, but only by those who consolidated their forces outside its city limits.

day no. 16,629: Christ or the Christless

"If we are to be truly free, we must be bound to the laws of words of God. This is because the only alternative to submission to Christ is submission to Christless men." — Douglas Wilson, Westminster Systematics

Imposition is inescapable. Someone will submit to someone else. The world is hierarchical. Authority is hard-wired into it. Submission, therefore, is also inescapable. We will either submit to the Christ or to the Christless. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. His law is liberty. His Word is truth. Where He isn't there is tyranny, overreach, slavery, addiction, and the gnashing of teeth ad infinitum.

James 1:25

But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

Good works are acts of gratitude. They are grace-fueled and full of grit. The Christian gets after it only after getting got. He takes hold because he has been held.

Tenacity is tangible thanksgiving.

Perseverance is palpable praise.

day no. 16,628: whether for correction or for lovingkindness

Job 37:13

He causeth it to come, whether for correction, or for his land, or for mercy.

Whether for correction or for loving kindness, Christ causes all to occur. Nothing escapes His notice and everything's end is His intention. Whatever comes, He causeth it. Our options are either (1) the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, or (2) curse God and die. But we cannot imagine an outcome outside of His attention. We can wonder why, but we cannot wonder if. God is sovereign and His will cannot be thwarted.

Isaiah 14:27

For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?

day no. 16,627: continual and irreconcilable war

"This sanctification is throughout, in the whole man; yet imperfect in this life, there abiding still some remnants of corruption in every part; whence ariseth a continual and irreconcilable war, the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh." — Westminster Confession of Faith, 13.2

The Christian life is one of continual and irreconcilable war.  Because of sin, there is enmity. It was introduced by God the Father in the fallout of the Fall.

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.

Since that day, the sons of Eve have been at war with the seed of the serpent, wherever it is found. Christ came to conquer as far as the curse is found. This includes the dragon without and the dragon within. The Christian life is one of unending warfare. It is killing sin wherever it is conceived inside us (James 1:15) and taking it captive for Christ wherever it is conceived around us (2 Cor. 10:3-5).

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 will be warfare. There will be contradiction. There will be words and there will be backchat. Imposing wills will clash with only one will prevailing at the expense of the other. The Spirit will not stop until the world, the flesh, and the devil have been fully vanquished. The flesh will not cease fire. It will not surrender. But neither will the Spirit and God's guns will outflank the flesh, lay waste the world, and demolish the devil.

God shall arise and by His might

Put all His enemies to flight

With shame and consternation.

His haters, haughty though they be,

Shall at His august presence flee

In utter desolation;

For when Jehovah shall appear,

He shall consume, afar and near,

All those that evil cherish.

As smoke before his dreadful ire,

As wax is molten by the fire,

So shall the wicked perish.

Psalm 68