Self-destructive. I don’t know a better way to describe our nation’s current policies, governing ideology, and trajectory. There are many other words we could use to describe it: stupid, demonic, wicked, unbiblical, harmful, corrosive, etc., but self-destructive is as good as any of them. There seems little doubt that if the United States remains on its present course, it will permanently and irreparably undermine every good thing our country has enjoyed as well as its long-term prospects for liberty, prosperity, and survival.

I say all of this as someone who in the last few years has slowly, and rather timidly, admitted to becoming a postmillennialist. Some may hope the bleakness of the prior paragraph might dampen my foolish cheerfulness and make me a more sober, godly, and dour amillennialist once again. Thus far the cheerlessness of America’s condition seems ineffectual in correcting my theology. Maybe a few months in a concentration camp for refusing to use feminine pronouns for God will snap me back into a more realistic appraisal of the powerlessness of the gospel. (I jest… but not about my refusal to use alternative pronouns.)

This might be an appropriate moment to remind each other that the future of God’s kingdom, Christ’s conquest of the world, and the glorious consummation of redemption and history does not depend on these United States or the United State she is becoming. As much as we can (and should) love our nation, America is not the new Israel, she is not the last hope for liberty in the West, she is not the location of the Church’s last stand before the Angelic Air Force sends in the stealth helicopters and airlifts us all to safety before the Tribulation gets underway. America has been, and may yet be, God willing, a great nation, one founded on Christian principles, committed to broadly (though very imperfectly formed) biblical laws, and generous to her citizens and neighbors. But she is just a nation, a political entity founded by men, governed by men, and lately run into the ground by men. Our best leaders have only been men at best, and some of our favorites had a rather sketchy commitment to Christ and consistent Christian governance. Even the most conservative were more than a little compromised in the areas of faith, knowledge of God, and moral conduct.

I wrote this originally for our church’s weekly, Lord’s Day Eve devotional, but what does all of this have to do with the Lord’s Day? Nothing in particular, and everything. We do not gather on the Lord’s Day as Americans, per se, but as Christians, first, foremost, and fundamentally. But we are also Christians who belong to particular nations, and we ought to love, pray for, and grieve for our nation insofar as it is disobedient to God’s Son. The Lord’s Day is not about the nation, the flag, or current policy debates. It is a day of celebration, declaration, and demonstration that Christ is Lord and King. We are not separated from our social, national, and ethnic identity in worship, but neither do those historical features define us. The Church worships in the context of a higher, eternal fraternity that transcends every temporal social marker. My neighbor may be a combat veteran who gave sweat and blood for our country, and I am grateful for his service. But the Lord’s Day is a reminder that I have more in common with my brother in Christ in Afghanistan than I do with a fellow American who refuses to worship the Lord.

Some of us may get a little too wound up about the current state of affairs—though some of you are a wee bit too lackadaisical about it—but the Lord’s Day is a solemn, sovereign, spiritual reset that reorients our vision and values and reminds us of what is true and lasting. The West’s current madness is neither. It is not true, and it will not last. But the Church will, Christ’s kingdom will, the gospel will, Christian families will, the word of God will, faithful preaching will, and the plan of God ordained before the first day began will.

Our hope is in the Lord. There are no political solutions for spiritual problems. Electing conservative leaders is a good idea, akin to putting pressure on an arterial wound. It’s a good idea, but it’s not solving anything. What will? Preaching the gospel. Preaching God’s Word, the whole counsel, not just the “how to get saved” parts but everything, including Christ’s Lordship over all the nations and God’s plan for righteous government. Baptizing your children, catechizing them, teaching them to sing the Psalms and to say, “Amen!” when we pray, and training them how to live as Christians and showing them the way by your example. These are the things that God’s people must do, not just in this nation but in every nation, on the Lord’s Day and every day so long as we live in this world.

The kingdoms of men are temporal, not eternal. Wicked governance will not last, because the future belongs to Christ. He will shake every kingdom that can be shaken until only the unshakable remains. Build your house—your heart, your habits, your household, your hope—on the Rock. Don’t forsake the gathering of the Church, and don’t show up for weekly assemblies but let your heart remain elsewhere. Come, sing, pray, confess, receive, listen, learn, love, and rejoice like you mean it, because Christ is King, and nothing can ever change or thwart his sovereign rule and the future he has planned for all of creation.

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Darkness first appears in Scripture in relation to primordial chaos. All was dark when God made the world, but out of the darkness, God created light. Let there be, and there was. It was not merely dark before, the kind of darkness you have when the sun goes down. This was complete darkness, perfect darkness, because light did not exist in the world. There was no indirect lighting. It was not merely dim. It was darker than a cave when you journey underground and the guide turns off all the lights. Even there, light exists; it is simply too low for you to perceive it. But the world at the beginning of Genesis 1 was a world without any light at all. Until God spoke, the whole universe remained in perfect darkness.

The sun, moon, and stars are not the sources of light in the universe; God is. He is the light that shone on Day 1, long before the heavenly bodies were brought into existence on Day 4. The Word of God, the Logos, shines forth on Day 1: Let there be light, and the Word brought light into this world. The Son of God began to shine, and order began to appear in the universe. God’s Son, the Word, is the light of the world. The sun in our sky is only his representative, a placeholder to remind us of the true Son who gives light to the world. The sun is a creational symbol of the uncreated God who is, himself, the source of light and life.

In the Bible darkness represents disorder, ignorance, and estrangement from light and life and truth. It is used to portray God’s wrath and just judgments. The enemies of the Lord live in darkness and will be condemned in the end to the outer darkness, but those who receive mercy and peace in Christ are brought from darkness into light, out of death into resurrection life, spared from wrath and given reason to rejoice forever.

The Creator built a resurrection sign into the rhythm of every day. Every morning, light dawns, awaking the world from the slumber of death. Every night, the world dies and descends into darkness, awaiting the voice of the Maker who the next day will once again say: Let there be…. The heavens declare the glory of God, and so too they declare the gospel. Yahweh has brought light to the darkness, life to the dead, and gladness to the sorrowful. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.

We do not perceive the gospel presentation painted across the screen of the sky every day because we all took science classes in school and are too smart to believe in such absurdities. We learned about the rotation of the earth and its orbit around the sun. We understand the sun doesn’t really “rise” and “set.” It is only our perception of a mechanical process, created by God, to be sure, but of no more theological significance than the metamorphosis of a butterfly. Ahem. We have learned so much that we have become useful idiots, promoting the propaganda of a godless Darwinism while missing the creational ritual being performed before our eyes every day. The rising and setting of the sun is a play—like a Bridegroom coming out of his chamber… rejoicing like a strong man to run its race. Are you watching closely? It is so familiar you may miss it.

The Son of God, the Logos, is the light of the world. It is true in Genesis 1; it is affirmed again in John 1. He comes to bring light and life and truth to this world, but then like the sun, he passes out of sight and into darkness. He descends into the ground, just as the sun does every night, buried beneath the horizon, and the world lies in darkness. The light of the world dies, and creation sleeps in death, awaiting the Word to speak in the darkness once more: Let there be….

Commentators tell us of a solar eclipse that accompanied the crucifixion of Christ two thousand years ago. Maybe that is how the Lord did it. However it happened, the Lord turned out the lights in the land of Israel just as he had done in Egypt many years before. This is not a piece of fiction. As Jesus hung on the cross, darkness covered the land. It was not the perfect darkness of Genesis 1 nor the paralyzing darkness of the plagues on Egypt. It was the darkness of a setting sun, the twilight in which one can still see but only dimly, and it happened in the middle of the day.

Wrath had come upon the Son, to be sure. He was suffering, for our sakes, the penalty of our sins. By his stripes, we are healed, and he had to be struck so that we might be delivered. But the darkness is not merely wrath. It is death anticipating new creation. The old world is dying on that cross. The Law is nailed there with Jesus. The Mosaic system is coming to an end, and a new creation is about to appear. The resurrection would take place on the 8th day, Sunday, the first day of a new creation week, the day when the Son rose from the earth, when the Word of God, the Logos, once again cried out in the darkness: Let there be light, and behold, there is light.

We now live in the new creation, though its fullness is not yet seen. The light has appeared, and God is now working to put the new world in order. The sun is up, if we have eyes to see. The day has dawned. Life has begun anew, new and everlasting life with God in the heart of every believer, and new life to be realized on the day of redemption when Jesus sets creation free from the curse of sin under which it has suffered for so long.The sun set on Calvary that day, but it set in order to rise again. Each day reenacts the Gospel story. Faith enables us to see it for what it is. God is reminding us of our history, he is preaching to us about our future, and he is fixing our minds on Christ, the eternal Son, the Logos, whose voice has cried out in the darkness of our hearts and caused light to appear. Amen.

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Marriage is an act of death and resurrection. It will not be surprising to many worldlings that marriage is a type of death. There is no shortage of jokes that have been made to illustrate that point. But in the Bible, death is always followed by resurrection, judgment gives birth to salvation, and the inglorious and perishable is transformed into glory and imperishability. So it is with marriage.

The man who comes to be married must first die. He must fall asleep, the kind of sleep from which he will never awake on his own—he must be awakened, raised, by the Lord. In order to be married, he must first be broken, broken open, torn apart, so that from brokenness, new wholeness may be created. Marriage does not involve the union of two individuals. It is a new creation, a covenantal unity in which those who were formerly two are now one by grace.

Adam was given two responsibilities as the lord of creation. He was to tend and guard the garden. Work is not a result of the Fall; it is a creational ordinance. God made man to work, and man will never be happy or fulfilled so long as he remains idle. He was made to care for the garden, to prune the trees, gather the fruit, plant seedlings, fertilize, weed, and extend the bounty and  beauty of the garden to transform the surrounding wilderness. The trajectory of creation was not for the garden to remain an isolated oasis and for the rest of the world to remain untamed wild lands. Adam was to follow his Maker’s example as a sub-creator. Just as rivers went out of the garden, so life and abundance were to extend beyond the garden as well. The wilderness would become a garden, the garden would become a city, the family would become a nation, then many nations, until the glory of God covers the face of the earth as the water covers the sea.

God put Adam in the garden as a warrior caretaker, but the Lord saw immediately that Adam could not fulfill his task alone. He needed a helper, one suited for his need and mission. Adam could master the animals. He could make yokes and harnesses for the oxen and horses. He could fell timber, pull out stumps, and plow new fields for orchards using animals already at hand. What he needed was something no horse or ox or dog could give him. He needed a companion, a fellow image bearer with whom he could share intimacy and fellowship, with whom he could bear children—be fruitful and multiply—and raise successive generations to carry on and finally finish the mission the Lord gave to humanity. It is not good for man to be alone. The creation mandate cannot be fulfilled in isolation. Some are called to singleness, but that is not the pattern for mankind. Singleness can never fulfill the creation mandate. Only covenanted households building the kingdom of God through childbearing, discipleship, and sanctified labor can.

Adam’s need could not be met by any of the beings created thus far. They all belonged to different kinds, and what Adam needed was someone like him with whom he could bring forth more divine image bearers after his own kind. He needed a wife, but in order to have a wife, Adam first had to die.

This might seem a little extreme. After all, Adam was still less than one day old. The 6th day hadn’t come to an end yet. His life had barely started. He hadn’t even put in a full day’s work, and already the Lord says it is over. Adam could not do what had to be done next. Man is only a sub-creator, and what was needed was the sovereign action of the true Creator. So the Lord put Adam to sleep, but not for a nap—he put him into deep sleep. How asleep would you have to be for me to cut your chest open, remove a rib with a saw, and sew the muscles and skin back together without disturbing you? The Lord put Adam to sleep and then broke him. His flesh was torn open, his body was divided, and out of that division, God created new unity.

This is the pattern throughout the Bible. Years later at the Tower of Babel Yahweh spoke a curse, broke humanity, divided the people, and then from that division, created new unity in the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost. On the cross Jesus’ side was pierced, his body was torn open, blood and water poured out, the elements of cleansing and consecration, covenant and communion, and from division, God created new unity. The two shall become one flesh. In the holy Supper, bread is blessed, broken, and divided, and by that division of Christ’s Body, we who are the Body are united. Christ’s Bride comes from his side, just like Adam’s. And he sanctifies and cleanses her, just as husbands are commanded to do to this very day.

In Ephesians 5 the apostle Paul gives us a lesson in ecclesiology, the doctrine of the Church, by using the analogy of marriage.

Marriage is a covenantal analogy of Christ’s relationship to his Bride. Marriage is the type, the shadow, and Christ’s relationship with the Church is the fulfillment, the substance. That does not make our marriages less important; it makes them far more important than they otherwise would be. Our society views marriage as an arrangement of convenience, and when it ceases to be convenient or to contribute to personal happiness, it can be easily discarded. But the Bible says marriage is a picture of salvation. We are not saved by being married. If anything, we may see our sin with greater clarity in our relationship with our spouse! But marriage works the same way salvation does—by grace through faith, by sacrifice and service, by perpetual cleansing and consecration, by love and loyalty—and it helps us understand salvation better than we otherwise could.

Jonathan and Gillianne, you already know this, but let me remind you, neither of you are marrying Jesus. Your spouse cannot be your Savior. You will not be able to do for each other what only Christ and the Holy Spirit can. But you are already united to Jesus. He gave himself for each of you. It was not good for you to be alone, and your need will not ultimately be fulfilled by each other—it will be met by your faithful Savior. The Church’s marriage to Christ is the marriage we all were made for.

Both of you are sinners, and you will need patience and grace to deal with each other and with yourselves for as long as you both shall live. Ultimately it is not your love for each other that will hold you together: it is the love of Christ that will do so, the love of the Father poured out in your hearts by the Holy Spirit. Your marriage will not succeed by relying on your works. It will not flourish by insisting on your own righteousness. You must rely on Christ, on his righteousness, on his work. The gospel is not merely for your sins; it is for your relationship with your spouse. Christ is Lord of all, including your life together.

Now to say that marriage will not save you is not to say that it is devoid of spiritual value. It may not be ultimate, but it is certainly instrumental. God works through means, and marriage is a means of bringing God’s people to greater faith, humility, holiness, and joy. The Lord is bringing wholeness out of your brokenness. He is helping you to know his love more deeply by learning how to love and to be loved by each other. He will show you your sins more clearly in the context of marriage: your pride, selfishness, pettiness, impatience, resentment, and the evils of squeezing the toothpaste tube in the middle… or insisting that it is only properly squeezed from the bottom, the way we will do it in the new heavens and earth. And in the discovery of your sinfulness, you will more clearly perceive, deeply love, and fully enjoy Christ Jesus, your Lord and Savior. Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, he was buried, and he rose the third day so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. God has called you to joy in Christ, to wholeness from brokenness, to life from death, and to glory.

Jonathan, to receive a bride, you must die. You cannot remain who and what you have been any longer. You are no longer a single, solitary person. You are now a public person, a head of household, a warrior caretaker, a man charged to love and serve his wife in the same manner Christ has loved and serves his own. That means you not only die once here today as the Lord presents Gillianne to you. You must die daily, sacrificing yourself for her, giving your life for hers. She is your glory, and you must be torn for that glory to shine forth.

Gillianne, the Lord is crowning Jonathan with glory and beauty by giving you to him. You are the radiance of his life and his companion in mission. He is incapable of fulfilling God’s will alone. Sometimes, like his father Adam, he will be cowardly and selfish, resentful and quick to criticize. The Lord will rebuke him, correct him, and help him to grow to maturity, just as he will do with you. Sometimes, like your mother Eve, you may be a stumbling block to him. You will sin together, repent together, grow together, and glorify God together.

Who is sufficient for these things? None of us are. And it is in realizing our insufficiency, that we learn to see the sufficiency of our Savior. May you see God’s grace of new creation working wholeness from the brokenness by which he joined you together.

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Plutarch reports that Alexander the Great slept with a copy of Homer’s Iliad and a dagger under his pillow. Whether this is historically accurate or not—and I have no good reason to doubt it—it illustrates an important feature of “great men.” They love learning, they pursue strength, and they always keep the instruments of virtue and success close at hand. Alexander was, undoubtedly, a “great man” by the world’s measure, though he was not “great” according to the standards of the kingdom of God. We might say he was a “son of this world” who proved shrewder than many of the “sons of light” (cf. Luke 16:1-13). Alexander understood his place in the world by continually meditating upon a story that communicated the worldview, values, and goals by which he sought to live his life.

Human beings learn who and what we are, why we’re here, and what we’re supposed to do through stories. It’s always been this way. Virtually every human civilization has communicated worldview, values, and goals by means of story. They may have been oral traditions, written legends, or epic poetry, but the story encodes what members of the society are supposed to know, believe, and practice.

The Scriptures characterize our lives as a “story” God wrote in a book before the first day began (Ps. 139:16). The Church gathers to worship on the Lord’s Day, in part, to hear again, share, and celebrate the stories of creation and redemption. The Nicene Creed is the recitation of a story, the story of the true hero, the Christ, who came into the world to slay the Dragon, save his Bride, and establish a kingdom which will last forever. The Table is a ritual commemoration of the story, a reenactment of the Last Supper, a foreshadowing of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, and a place where God’s family gathers to laugh and sing, to remember and anticipate, the glorious consummation of the story God wrote before the first day.

Stories are important in the Christian life, first and foremost the Scriptures themselves, but also the stories (both historical and mythological) that help us understand our place and purpose and part in this world. I have often suggested The Pilgrim’s Progress is the “Christian Iliad/Odyssey” that ought to lie under our pillow at night. It is the Church’s myth that we ought to read again and again throughout our lives. I read it once every year, but Spurgeon reportedly read it more than 100 times. I don’t expect I’ll even come close to that number. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia and The Ransom Trilogy are also helpful tales which serve a similar purpose in communicating worldview and a righteous perspective. The Iliad and The Odyssey are, rightly, regarded as masterpieces, and their narratives may be profitably sanctified and re-purposed for use in the Christian’s battlefield tour, even if there is a good bit of transformation that must occur in the adaptation. Many other titles could also be named that may serve a similar purpose in our sanctification and journey in grace.

Stories are not merely meant to be read; they are to be lived. We are characters in the tale which God has written, and we find our place in it by remembering, reciting, and ritually engaging narratives of redemption that have been left to us by our forefathers. Every Lord’s Day is like a visit to the House of the Interpreter, where our hearts are refreshed, our minds instructed, and our hands and feet strengthened for the journey that lies before us. God’s children gather in the sanctuary and lift our hands to our Father asking him, “Tell us the story again.”

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There’s no such thing as a perfect wedding. Something always, inevitably, goes wrong. Most of the time it’s not anything major. At the first wedding I officiated, I dismissed the congregation to the reception in the middle of the recessional. Oops. Somehow the marriage survived. Nowadays if the imperfection is entertaining enough, you can look forward to seeing it preserved forever on YouTube.

At the marriage in Cana, either someone miscalculated what was needed, or the caterers missed a couple of cases when they unloaded their van, or the drunk uncle imbibed more than was expected, but somehow, they ran out of wine. Jesus was not there to perform a miracle. He was simply attending the wedding. But when the need arose, Mary knew who to call on. And the Lord not only made more wine, he made the very best wine, and an abundance of it.

This isn’t the place to expound the significance of this manifestation of the Lord’s glory in the first wonder our Savior performed, but it is an appropriate time and place to point out the importance of Christ’s presence and participation at that wedding. When Jesus came into the Temple, he rebuked that he saw. He flipped over tables, cursed the moneychangers, and made quite a scene driving out the animals. But he didn’t do that at this wedding. Instead, he gave it his blessing, he exercised his power to enlarge and improve the provisions for it. Rather than promoting asceticism, he increased the celebration. Those who went to the Temple ought to have mourned in repentance over the evil found there, but those who came to the wedding were to rejoice and give thanks for the blessing of God on this new household.

A marriage is an occasion of celebration, a time for giving thanks and rejoicing in God’s goodness. But there will be no rejoicing in the wedding or in the home that results from it unless Jesus is present and also provides his blessing. We have seen the sad result when one or both parties in a marriage exclude the Lord and his counsel. They insist that it is their marriage, their life, their happiness, and their right to seek it however and wherever it may be found. Rather than turning to the Lord for help that all of us need, they rely on themselves, and inevitably, they run out of wine. The joy is gone and so too are the means of rejoicing.

Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. So says the Spirit in Psalm 127, and it is true. If you build a marriage on anything other than the Lord, if you decide that you are able to create and sustain it on your own by your own strength and wisdom, then you will inevitably fail. Eventually, you will run out of wine. Over time, love and desires change, satisfaction and shared interests deteriorate, the things that were once cute and attractive are now aggravating and repulsive, and no one is having any fun anymore.

I don’t remember much of what was said at my wedding 23 years ago, and in many ways I am not the same man that stood there holding his bride’s hand and making vows before the Lord. I have changed in a lot of ways, and so has my wife, but what has not changed is the presence of Christ in our marriage. In fact, he is not only still present, he plays a much, much larger role than he ever did before. We’ve run out of wine many times in the last quarter century, and it wasn’t any fun. The party seemed to be over. And every time, when we looked to the Lord, he not only provided what was lacking, he gave us more and better than anything we’d had before.

Ben and Ellen Beth, both of you have grown up in Christian families. You’ve heard sermons every week for your whole life. You’ve attended Sunday School and participated in Bible studies. You’ve memorized verses of Scripture. You’ve learned to pray and sing and been taught to live a godly, moral life. But you are about to embark on the most challenging exercise in sanctification either of you have ever experienced. You’re about to have to apply the Christianity you’ve learned and grown up with in a way you never had to before. Sure you’ve been tested in various ways. You have suffered and been tempted. But marriage is a laboratory for sanctification. It challenges, stretches, encourages, and exasperates. It will test your limits. It will expose sin that you never knew was there. Marriage will place constraints on you that you’ve never known, and when you get squeezed, you find out what is inside. What you discover isn’t always what you expected or as pretty  as you hoped it would be.

Marriage is also the place where you will see Christ’s glory and goodness in a way you’ve never yet known it. Your relationship is already a picture of grace—we’ve all seen it—and we all are looking forward to seeing how you will grow in that grace and love in the years and decades to come. We all are praying for you, and for your children, and we are excited about what the Lord has in store for you. The fact that it will be hard sometimes is a good thing. If we never ran out of wine, we would never get to see the glory of the Lord when he replenishes it or taste the goodness which he provides.

You can be sure that in twenty years both of you will have changed in a number of ways, and you may not remember much of what was said here today. But you should resolve now that whenever you run out of wine, you will look to Christ. You will desire, welcome, and plead for his presence and blessing, not just at your wedding but in your life together, in your home, and every day from this day forward so long as you both shall live. So long as Christ is there, there will be reason for rejoicing. You will see his glory and taste his goodness in ways that surpass anything you have ever known or ever could know outside of your marriage.

The Lord has called you both to marriage. Here it is. There’s no turning back now. You can’t say this was a mistake. You can’t decide you’ve changed your mind. You can’t return or replace what you’ve now signed up for. The Lord has called you into covenant, and not just with one another but also with him. And in calling you to marriage, he has called you to joy. We do not fast at a wedding; we feast. We do not mourn; we rejoice. We do not joke about balls and chains; we shout and sing about blessed intimacy and beautiful children. God did not give you to each other in order to make you miserable. He gave you to each other in order to make you more like Jesus and to help you see his glory and taste his goodness. Never despair. Always rejoice. Jesus makes more and better wine than you ever had before. Amen.

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I recently had the opportunity to meet and participate in a panel discussion with Pastor Douglas Wilson. He is, at least in the small circle of my own denomination, the Lord Voldemort of Reformedom, “he who shall not be named.” But it is past time to admit publicly and with gratitude that Doug Wilson has had more influence on my thinking, theology, and pastoral ministry than any man alive today. His ministry of writing, preaching, and lecturing has informed, instructed, and encouraged me from afar for many years, and I would not be a Reformed minister today without his influence, though that admission will dismay many of my brothers in the OPC.

When I discovered the doctrines of grace while serving as a minister in the Churches of Christ, I became a theological orphan. Men who had been my mentors and fathers in the faith became, in some cases, not all, my harshest critics. I owe a debt of gratitude to those men as well for many things they taught me, and I speak of them frequently with appreciation. They laid the groundwork for me to discover sovereign grace and the covenantal structure of redemption. But I became at that point, and in truth had become some years earlier, a man without any teachers to whom I could turn, and so I had to learn from the dead. I will never have the opportunity in this life to shake hands with John Calvin, Augustine, C. S. Lewis, or G. K. Chesterton, men who became and remain my tutors in faith and piety. I thank God for them and look forward to expressing gratitude to each of them in glory. But there have been few men who were living to whom I could turn and from whom I could learn. (My own father was also a major influence, but I am thinking here about theological teachers.) Many men encouraged me—men who might not want their names listed in an article praising Doug Wilson; you know who you are and how much I love each of you—but without question, and without even a close second, Pastor Doug has been the single greatest teacher and influence upon my theological development of any man still alive today.

When I began moving in Reformed circles, I was reliably informed that Doug Wilson is a no good, horrible, very bad man. God alone knows how many hours of my life have been spent reading every negative story, every criticism, theological and otherwise, every piece of documentary evidence made available online seeking to establish that Doug’s image belongs in the post office rather than in the pulpit. I have not read everything Doug has ever written—who could keep up with his literary output? —but it is safe to say I have read more of his books and vastly more of his articles, essays, and blog posts than any of his critics that I have directly interacted with. His publications fill a considerable section of my personal library. For a while I simply trusted the Reformed leaders who assured me Doug was bad news. To my shame, my children remember my expressing reservations and repeating criticisms about him during that time. It was only after investing so much time over several years trying to discover the truth that I finally came to terms with the man and the controversies surrounding him.

I know something about theological and ecclesiastical controversy. If Doug is a whale swimming in the chilly waters of the Reformed world, then I have been and will remain an undersized tadpole in a rain puddle. But I experienced doctrinal and ecclesiastical war firsthand during the last several years I served in the Churches of Christ, and my own journey into Reformedom was not without its share of controversy. I recognize, in hindsight, and with shame, that I contributed to my own infamy in many ways. I often responded to my critics in ways that were unhelpful and, sometimes, just plain wrong. I was unwise, arrogant, and sometimes confidently confused. It isn’t easy to fit my size 12 foot into my mouth, but we all have our talents, and that is certainly one I have demonstrated on many occasions. I cannot believe, and I think I know better than to say, that Doug has never made the same mistakes. But I also know what it is like to be misunderstood, persistently and consistently so, even after many careful clarifications. I know what it is like to be misrepresented, oftentimes unintentionally, and sometimes not. And I know what it is like to be slandered without cause. The least serious criticisms that have ever been made about me were probably the ones that were most fair or had the most truth in them. The most serious have been laughable, including the one a few years ago that suggested I was flying to Honduras to meet secretly with leaders of the Churches of Christ. Critics in the Church can be creative, though both their criticisms and Christian screenplays suggest they may need to work a lot more on developing coherent storylines.

I am not a seminary professor or widely esteemed leader in the Reformed churches, as many of Doug’s critics are, but I am someone who has tried to read and listen to him and to his critics comprehensively, carefully, and charitably over a number of years. When it comes to Pastor Doug Wilson, there are three kinds of critics. The first are men who have done their homework, at least to some extent, and they have specific and responsible disagreements with Doug on particular points. It may be infant baptism or paedocommunion, it may be on how to distinguish Law and Gospel or how to express the objectivity of covenant union and the sacraments. But these critics are fair. They do not paint with a broad brush. They do not hyperventilate or clutch their polemical pearls. In most cases, they don’t even wear pearls. And they don’t have an archive of Doug Wilson memes ready to post whenever Reformed thought leaders sound the alarm.

The second kind of Doug Wilson critic is far and away the most numerous. These are the men and women who have been reliably informed by their theological betters that Doug Wilson is a very, very bad man. Most of them are not sure why. When pressed, they are confident that he denies justification by faith alone and the imputation of the active obedience and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. They know that he is a racist, hates women, and loves child molestors. And they are fairly sure he was never properly ordained. They may be less confident that Doug was directly involved in the Kennedy assassination, though we should not be too quick to rule it out, but there is no doubt that he is a bad influence and a false teacher about… something.

The third kind of Doug Wilson critic is what we might politely call a damned liar. These are men who either know what they claim about Doug is false or who cannot be troubled to check. They affirm what is not true, and when corrected, they prove themselves unteachable, uncorrectable, and incorrigible. They will not read or listen to what Doug has to say—though they insist they have. Why should they? He is a false teacher. They will not concede when their allegations are proven false by confession and clarification. After all, that’s just the kind of thing a slippery and dishonest false teacher would say. They will never make themselves available for a public dialogue or debate, because everyone knows that Doug Wilson is a false teacher, so why should we give him a platform to create confusion and spread his diabolical cheerfulness? Theological controversy should not be clouded by arguments and engagement. Instead, it should be prosecuted by confident assertions and indiscriminate allegations pronounced in the safety of our own ecclesiastical counties and posted in the echo chamber of social media. These are not unevidenced allegations after all. I have seen the memes and the de-contextualized “quotes,” and I can tell from the black and white photo that accompanied it and the sinister music playing in the background that Doug Wilson really is an enemy agent. After all, doesn’t he love to quote an unrepentant and pugnacious papist?

The first kind of critic makes all of us better, and we should all thank God for the sanctifying providence of having such men in our lives. The second kind of critic needs to do their homework. Read a book or ten. Listen to sermons without malice, and really listen to what is being said. Remember that the Reformed experts you trust are men with feet of clay, just like Doug and the other men they criticize. As for the third kind of critic, you know who you are, and the good news is that Jesus died so that dishonesty, slander, and divisiveness can be forgiven too.I would not be Reformed today if it were not for Doug Wilson. I would not be a paedobaptist. I would be less cheerful, less fruitful, and less faithful if it were not for Doug’s life, ministry, and influence. My marriage has benefited from him. My relationship with my children has for many years. My local church and my fellowship with those I pastor has benefited immeasurably from what I have learned from that man. I only met Doug Wilson once, and he probably won’t remember my name. But I thank God for him. J. C. Ryle said, “The best of men are only men at best,” and I know that is true of Pastor Wilson and every other man, living and dead, that the Lord has used for good in my life. But it is past time to express my appreciation publicly. I thank God for Douglas Wilson.

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What was God’s purpose in making the world? Did he create the world in order to destroy it? Did he create the world with one purpose only to see that plan thwarted by human freewill? Does he intend for the majority of human beings to be lost? Does he desire to see the human race multiply and flourish in unbelief only so that at the end of time he can destroy the world and send the vast majority of those he created into everlasting punishment? It seems that this is what many Christians actually believe, even many Reformed Christians. The world is going to hell in a handbasket… literally… and that’s just what the Lord intended all along. The other possibility is even more troubling and unbiblical: namely, that this is not what God decreed or desired but it’s the best he can do given the mess man made with his freedom. In other words, God is not sovereign at all. He’s in charge, technically, but he can’t be held responsible for whatever happens because he is not actually in control. He tells us what is right, but it’s up to man to do right, and if we don’t, God can only do so much about it.

There is another option, one that the Church in earlier generations knew but that many modern Christians have never seriously considered. That is that God made the world in order to fill it with his glory, and he is, and he will. That the human race was created to multiply and fill the earth with worship, and they are, and they will. That the kingdoms of this world are under the sovereign authority of Jesus Christ, and they will all come to know it and, eventually, to bow the knee to King Jesus. That in the end more people will be saved than are lost, that the “few” who are saved refer to the Jews in Jesus’ own generation (cf. Matt. 7:13-14), but that in the end “all Israel will be saved” (Rom. 11:26) and God will “bring many sons to glory” (Heb. 2:10).

We may not all agree on when, where, or exactly how God’s promises will be fulfilled, and whatever we expect it to look like, we might expect the reality will take us by surprise. But we should have a larger and more hopeful vision than many of us do. We should read current events through the lens of Scripture, and not read Scripture through the lens of current events. We should think better of the Lord than to imagine that he created a world for the purpose of failure and loss, or worse, to imagine that he wants to do better but simply cannot. Will God be most glorified by allowing the world to fall into utter corruption and finally destroy it, saving only a handful of the image bearers he made, or by redeeming, sanctifying, and transforming an entire world so that it becomes a holy temple, a new creation, filled by worshipers of the one true and living God?

We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God, and in this world you will have trouble but be of good cheer [Christ] has overcome the world. But this is not all that Scripture says. Yes, evil will persist and so too will evil-doers until the return of Christ. God’s saints will suffer in many ways in this present age before we pass into glory. But God’s Word elevates and reorients our thinking. It lifts us above the plane of suffering where we presently find ourselves and enables us to survey the field and the Lord’s larger strategy. It fills us with hope in knowing that Jesus is not only Savior but also King, not only Redeemer but the Lord of all. Yahweh shall be King over all the earth (Zech. 14:9). Hear the word, believe it, and rejoice.

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Photo by Łukasz Nieścioruk on Unsplash

Fall has arrived, and that means it is time for theological experts on Facegram and Instabook to lecture their Christian friends on the evils of Halloween. The evils warned against are not what you might imagine. Who thought it was a good idea to send young children to the doors of strangers to ask for gifts? “Don’t talk to strangers, kids, unless you are randomly knocking on doors in the neighborhood and asking them to give you things to eat!” But I digress. The dangers are neither gastronomic nor endocrinological. The dangers are, evidently, demonic. I have been reliably informed that Halloween is the Devil’s holiday, and Christians whose children dress up like superheroes or princesses and consume large amounts of candy are agents of Satan, participating in the glorification of evil.

The discussion around Halloween each year demonstrates how reactionary, undiscerning, and historically ignorant many Christians are. The Lord knew what he was doing when he characterized us as sheep. We are not praised for our wisdom or discernment in the Bible, and our behavior tends to justify the Lord’s illustration.

On one hand we have Christians who think any participation in Halloween is of the Devil, that even vocalizing the term is a hat tip to occultism. Concerns about the propriety of such customs easily (and frequently) become judgments against believers whose consciences are not as strict as one’s own. On the other hand there are Christians whose participation in worldly recreation and holidays is never distinctly Christian. At Halloween their costumes glorify, rather than mock and deride, the evil over which Christ has triumphed. Their celebrations take the form of carnal carousing more than Christian thanksgiving. Is it godly and proper for those who worship the risen Savior and delight in the Law of God to dress up like a hooker or serial killer simply because such costumes are socially acceptable on one night each year?

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The promise of the gospel is that whoever believes in Christ shall not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16). The believer is saved through believing. Faith is the instrument by which one receives the atoning benefits and saving righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Moreover, faith is the alone instrument by which the grace given to the world by various means can be efficaciously received for justification. Preaching is a means of grace. So is baptism, prayer, Bible reading, and the Eucharist. Who among us has not received grace through the fellowship of the saints and a brother’s loving encouragement or admonition? Faith is not a means of distributing grace; it is an instrument for receiving grace. And we receive that grace not by earning it, not by qualifying for it through our good works, but by faith alone.

All this is standard fare in Reformed circles, even if it is sometimes forgotten in the midst of polemical pedantry, but so too is the affirmation that we are not saved by faith. Faith cannot save anyone; it can only receive the gift of salvation. Faith is completely powerless by itself. The Belgic Confession states it well: “However, we do not mean, properly speaking, that it is faith itself that justifies us—for faith is only the instrument by which we embrace Christ, our righteousness” (Article 22). Believers are saved, if they are saved at all, by Christ.

Christians often suffer from a lack of assurance for very misguided and unnecessary reasons. For example, they might wonder, “Do I believe enough? Am I sufficiently sincere?” Reformed Christians are particularly high brow and theological in their doubts: “Perhaps I was not chosen from the foundation of the world. Maybe I am unregenerate. My anguish over my sin, my persistent crying out to God, may only be the self-deception of a hypocrite whose heart remains bound fast in sin!” But if your salvation depends upon the adequacy of your faith, you will be lost. No one has perfect faith or even sufficient faith. After all, faith is a work of God (John 6:29), and your faith is imperfect, just like all of your other works.

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