In American evangelical Christianity, the term “born again” is now used to describe a personal spiritual experience of conversion and often marks a new beginning in a person’s relationship with God. It is often associated with the concept of being “saved.”
The phrase itself is thoroughly Biblical and originates from Jesus’ conversation with the pharisee Nicodemus in the Gospel of St. John, where Jesus tells him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” a. This conversation is often interpreted to emphasizes the need for a spiritual transformation in one’s relationship with God.
For modern evangelicals, being “born again” typically involves acknowledging one’s sinful nature b, recognizing Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and surrendering one’s life to Him. It is viewed as a moment of decision and personal commitment to follow Jesus. In many evangelical circles, the phrase “born again” is used to distinguish those who have had this personal conversion experience from those who did not have a individualized experience. This is often expressed as a criticism of liturgical churches (whether they be Presbyterian, Anglican, Catholic, Orthodox, etc.) that more often expect the corporate forms of worship and sacramental identity to sufficiently endow the believer with an individual Christian identity through the ecclesiastically means of grace like baptism, confirmation, catechesis, and the eucharistic service.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth. The Earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.
– Genesis 1:1-2
ORDER AND CREATION
Just moments before the “in the beginning,” nothing existed. And for limitless eternities, our God was perfectly thrilled to dwell enraptured within the inner trinitarian love of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And then, oh, about six to ten thousand years ago, God caused time to start ticking and space to bubble into being. The text says God first created the heavens and the Earth, which before the issuance of light, was just a collection of dark, formless, voided proto-matter that had yet to be organized into something meaningful. All of that changes in verse 2.
Once the darkened, watery building blocks of primordial mass were sung into being, the first thing our triune God does is hover over it. This action signifies His absolute sovereignty and dominion over the matter that He will henceforth be organizing. To hover over the disordered waters of pre-cosmological substances demonstrates that Yahweh is the one who will be taming the chaos, shaping it into a cosmos, and specifying it into something orderly and useful for His purposes. Thus, in six sequential twenty-four-hour days, Yahweh calls forth light out of the darkness and then heaven and Earth out of the waters, filling everything He made with life, beauty, and peace.
THE ORIGINAL MELKOR (1)
When God sings the universe into existence, He infuses it with purpose, life, beauty, and order. Like a master composer, He does not allow His celestial symphony to disintegrate into chaos or to lapse into an ear-jarring cacophony. He sang existential and intrinsic order into the masterpiece He fashioned and invited all of heaven’s newly created hosts to join the cosmic ballad with Him, which was very good.
At some point in the song, and no one quite knows how long, the simple harmonies were mixed with a most bitter discord. A rival song was being sung by Earth’s original Melkor. And among the divergent notes, a contingent of heavenly beings defected from their God and followed the dragony piper’s song like rats running to their doom. At this point, the God of order damned the archangel of chaos to slither shamefully upon his belly, dragging himself across the barren Earth, until the lake of fiery chaos could be prepared for him and his minions forever.
Unlike God, this miserable creature hated beauty, life, and order. He reveled in chaos, destruction, and disorder. He hated everything God made, especially the human beings God was so fond to sing about. From that moment on, the serpent of old would become man’s mortal enemy, seeking to extinguish his life, rob his people of beauty and joy, and fill his neighborhoods, societies, and cultures with pure unadulterated confusion and disorder.
SATAN’S DISCORDANT SYMPHONY
This campaign of mayhem began amid the beauty and tranquility of Eden’s orderly gardens. It was there the cunning serpent sewed division between the first man and his wife, which caused discord within their marriage, division with their God, and enmity among the creation, who now lived in fear and dread of man. This, however, would not be the end of Satan’s meddlings.
Throughout the centuries, the dragon has sewn discord, disunity, chaos, and open rebellion against God into one society after another. From a spirit of pure malevolence, this menacing entity still foments his sinister plans to topple the race of man. Lucifer, the master of discord, finds solace when unity is fractured, and harmony collapses among people. Like a twisted artist, he revels in the macabre he orchestrates, relishing the scent of bitterness, rejoicing in the notes of animosity that lingers in the air. Division is his chief weapon, his carefully hewn masterpiece, crafted to purposefully erode trust, foster disintegration, and extinguish the sweet harmonies of the Father’s song wherever it is found. With meticulous precision, he exploits the deepest fears and insecurities within the human race, manipulating the fragile strands that bind us all together, causing us to turn on our God, which causes us to turn on one another.
Satan knows that where godlessness takes hold, division thrives. And where division thrives, love crumbles, compassion wanes, and the very essence of humanity grows sick, despondent, and crippled in his schemes. In this wasteland of fractured souls, he seeks to reign as a malignant despot, gloatingly atop a pile of ever-growing human bodies. He is the architect of despair, perpetuating a cycle of anguish and suffering on everyone and everything he can catch up in his snare. That is his modus operandi, and he has done this over and over and over again.
THE MARKS OF MELKOR IN ‘MURICA
Welcome to modern-day America. After a dramatic origination founded upon the knowledge of God and a good constitution, we find ourselves once again sick with the devil’s lullaby. A little more than a half-century ago, rampant sexual immorality became the norm among teens and young adults. For the first time in human history, people in this country were legally allowed to have their babies chopped up in agony inside their wombs, discarded like human vermin in medical-grade trash bags, and donated to universities that would perform experiments on the dead babies in the name of “the science.”
A generation later, homosexuality and lesbianism became the rampant satanic leaven injected into society’s rotting lump. Forty years later, this has festered into an insidious rainbow-colored mold that is morally calcifying this country. Today, men no longer understand what it means to be men. Society has no answer for what a woman is. Colleges doll out gender studies degrees, so that a generation of delusional deviants can foment intellectual absurdities and outright lies. The media is gaslighting everyone. The government and our leaders are bereft of any moral decency or character to lead anyone. Our children are being perverted in indoctrination camps called public schools. And amid all of this chaos and confusion reverberating in this land, the love of God grows ever cold, and the lampstand that once shone brightly to the nations and did beat back the darkness is now in danger of being swallowed by the void as its embers flickers.
When you look around and see a nation more divided than ever, that is undoubtedly the point. Our enemy never sleeps and is constantly roaming about like a roaring lion seeking whomever he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). We did not get here by accident; this was the point all along, transforming us from a harmonious society into a people who give hearty approval to every kind of wickedness and evil under heaven (Romans 1:32). And while this was clearly the point, there most certainly is a cure.
THE GOSPEL THAT KILLS DIVISION
Our God has not left us to face the serpent on our own. He did not leave us in our chains and miseries to be eternally accosted by the enemy of our soul. No!
Two thousand years ago, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ came to overturn the devil’s treachery, to heal man’s virulent soul, and to reunite God’s people with their God and fellow man. The chaos of sin was silenced through the sacrificial death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the deep chasm of division between humanity and God was permanently healed. In a single act of the most profound love, Christ embraced the weight of our transgressions and bore the agony of our iniquities. With each agonizing breath, He conquered the chaos that held us captive, disarming the powers of darkness and offering us a pathway to redemption. Through His blood, shed in perfect atonement, He washed away the stains of our iniquities and reconciled us with our Heavenly Father. In the glorious triumph of His resurrection, Christ shattered the chains of division, restoring unity between God and man and granting us the promise of eternal life, a resounding declaration of hope. In Christ, the chaos of sin is forever vanquished, and the division is forever mended.
This has occurred powerfully and ultimately between God and us since there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). Everything that once separated us spiritually from God has been abated so that there is nothing that can separate our soul from His love (Romans 8:35-28). Absolutely nothing!
But this is not just a reality for the soul. This is not just a truth vouchsafed for us in heaven, as true as that is. In Christ, the devilish poison of division is daily being put to death by the power of the Spirit. Through the paraclete’s relentless conviction, our hearts are being stirred, and all division is being laid bare. Our minds are being rewoven with the threads of the Gospel, casting off the shackles of animosity and embracing the mind of Christ (Romans 12:1-2). Oh, the glorious fruit the Spirit has wrought already and is working now within us! Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are trickling forth in purest droplets from the soul of spiritual babes and gushing forth like a mighty river from the long in love with Christ.
Empowered now by the Spirit of grace, we extend grace, forgiveness, and reconciliation, bridging the chasms of severed relationships with the unwavering love of Christ. Guided by the Spirit’s wisdom, we discern truth and dismantle falsehoods that breed discord in our homes, neighborhoods, and society. O, let us yield to the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying fire, for under His mastery and care, all division withers and all unity begins to thrive, birthing for Christ’s Church a testimony of God’s transformative power within us.
While the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, the Church, in the name of Jesus Christ, comes to seal, heal, and spread joy. Our country is in a mess right now. The fingerprints of Satan’s sadistic schemes are everywhere. And if something does not happen quickly, this nation will be torn asunder, collapsing into the same rubble as Rome before her. But, this need not be her fate!
If the Church would pray for revival, if we would speak the truth in love, proclaim the Gospel of peace, interject ourselves like salt into the rot, and shine forth like Christ in a crooked and perverse generation, then we may yet see this nation spared from the coming wrath of God. Perhaps if we would preach like Jonah, weep like Jeremiah, if we would repent like Nebuchadnezzar, or stand firm against God’s enemies like Samson; If we would worship as ardently as David, or employ wisdom like his son Solomon; If we would be as industrious in our society as Daniel and Joseph; if we would chase after the whoring gentiles like Hosea; and if we, who are filled with the same Spirit that raised Christ Jesus from the dead, would live like the apostles – going from town to town declaring freedom in the risen Christ – then I believe we will see this nation turning back to God.
Division, chaos, discord, and disunity are all symptoms of walking away from God. They are hallmark attacks of the enemy who hates humanity with a passion and wants to see us destroyed. As Christians, we know the answer. We have the remedy. We have the antidote to the serpent’s venom; the only loving thing now to do is apply it liberally wherever chaos and division are still found.
We do not have time to hide or blend in. If we do nothing, this country will collapse. It may already be too late, which God alone knows. But while we have breath in our lungs and see the truth, let us proclaim it. Let us pray the pagans will be converted to Christ. Let us petition heaven that this nation will repent and bow again unto Christ. And let us labor with everything we have to see His Kingdom advancing in this place.
For Christendom,
Kendall Lankfordrd
NOTES
(1) WHO IS MELKOR? – Melkor, also known as Morgoth, is a prominent character in J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendarium, specifically in “The Silmarillion.” He is a fictional character representing the embodiment of evil and the primary antagonist of the narrative. In Tolkien’s cosmology, the world, known as Arda, was created through the music of the Ainur, powerful beings who are subordinate to Ilúvatar, the supreme deity. Melkor was one of the Ainur who participated in the creation of the world. Initially, he was one of the mightiest and most talented of the Ainur, possessing great power and knowledge. However, Melkor developed a strong desire for dominion and control, which eventually led him astray from Ilúvatar’s original intentions. During the “Music of the Ainur,” a symphony performed by the Ainur under Ilúvatar’s guidance, Melkor introduced discord into the harmony. He sought to introduce his own themes and overpower the music of the others, desiring to shape the world according to his will rather than following the divine plan. This act of discord caused disharmony and tension within the music. Melkor’s primary goal was to dominate and control the world of Arda. He sought power, control, and the subjugation of all other creatures. Overall, Melkor’s modus operandi was centered around spreading chaos, corrupting others, and disrupting the harmony and order intended by Ilúvatar. His actions led to a long history of suffering and heroic struggles against his reign, making him one of the most significant and compelling villains in Tolkien’s mythology, and an apropos type of Lucifer in the Scriptures.
“Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer evil.”
~Proverbs 13.20
Though “influencer” has been practically coined in recent years with the rise of social media’s vast number of personalities, the concept is nothing new. We have always had these types in marketing or the latest gurus who gain popularity by promising the good life to those who buy what they are selling, follow their teaching, or, most of the time, both. Influencers, as we now understand them, are celebrities, real or perceived experts, popular social media personalities, and content creators who can separate you from your money and/or change how you think and act. From the Kardashians to Jordan Peterson, influencers affect our lives. They may not affect our lives directly, but they indirectly shape our lives by shaping the culture.
Influencers have always been around. Other people influence our thinking and affections from the time we are born until the time we die. Whether parents, peers, or potentates, our hearts are shaped by our relationships. This is why we must be vigilant in guarding our hearts by guarding our friendships.
“A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; he quarrels against all wise judgment.”
~Proverbs 18.1
We need friends. Whether same-sex comradery or the intimacy of marriage, we need to know and be known by others.
Friendships at every level have faced challenges in every age of history. Twenty-first century Western culture is no different. Though the challenges take different forms, genuine friendships are threatened by a number of cultural factors. The way we understand friendships is changing rapidly. We are more connected with people and less relational. We are friends with hundreds or thousands but with few or any in particular. Technology changes the way we relate. The telegraph gave us information about people thousands of miles away with whom we had no connection and contributed to desensitizing us. (See Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves To Death.) The blessing of air conditioning holed us up in our homes and made it uncomfortable to visit with neighbors. Television became a source of entertainment and information tempted us not to interact with the people in our homes.
All of us, to one degree or another, fear the loss of control. We want things to go the way we want them to go. We want to control what is around us so that we can be free from anxiety, and the only way we can be free from anxiety is if everything around us is operating as we think it ought to work.
One temptation that we face when studying Proverbs is thinking that if we master its principles, precepts, and commands, achieving wisdom, we will have the control that we crave. Our wisdom can be used as a lever to get every desired result. If we rightly order our speech, we will persuade others irresistibly to conform to our way of seeing things. If we do what is right, work hard, and work honestly, everything will fall into place. If we are wise husbands and wives, our marriages will be trouble-free. If we parent wisely, our children will move uninterruptedly to perfect maturity. Wisdom is the key to absolute control over everything in my life. If I don’t have absolute control, then I must strive for more wisdom so that I may have absolute control.
When the Church hears the word “God,” they should automatically think Trinity. We don’t want to fall prey to speaking about the Trinity in abstract and philosophical terms. Our liturgy speaks of Father, Son, and Spirit in concrete and relational terms. The Triune God is not Aristotle’s unmoved mover; the Triune God moves. The Triune God is not Islam’s un-relational God; the Triune God relates and loves to be in relationship with His people. The Trinity is an incomprehensible mystery – but it is a mystery of glory and light, not obscurity and darkness – ’tis only the splendor of light hideth thee,’ as the hymn puts it.
In our religiously pluralistic cultural environment, it is important to stress that the Trinity alone is the true God. Lesslie Newbigin once said, “…there is no way to preach Jesus without preaching the Trinity.” The Trinity is not only a doctrine to be believed but a God to be loved. When we see Christ, we see the Father; to adore Christ is to adore the Spirit whom he sent. To be Trinitarian is to simply to be Christian. As Darrell Johnson notes,
“This controversial, mind-stretching doctrine we call “the Trinity” did not emerge out of an ivory-tower think-tank. It emerged out of the life and mission of ordinary congregations.”
It was a comforting and living truth for the early Church, and it is a comforting and living truth for us today. The Trinity is not meant to remain on a 700-page systematic theology; it is intended to be a part of your life and the life of the body. Thinking Trinitarianly has serious consequences for us as a people. The Psalmist tells us that you are what you worship, which means that who we worship shapes the world around us.
Do not be deceived by the world’s cry that relationships are private and that sexual mutilation and transformation are personal decisions without consequence to society. We know that is a lie because the Trinity—the source of all reality–is not private, nor should your relationship with ethics be. You don’t need to find yourself in a tik tok video; you must find God and his people.
The Triune God alone gives meaning; apart from him, we are eternally lost. Let us come and find union in communion with the Father, Son, and Spirit.
Absolutely delighted to see this work published and in my hands. This is the fourth publication from Kuyperian Press.
This was the fruit of a lovely conversation with the Rev. Jack Phelps when I was in Anchorage, Alaska. It contains articles by a host of faithful men and, special note, two essays published for the first time by the late and inimitable R.J. Rushdoony.
My deep gratitude to the fastidious Austin C. Brown, whose care and typesetting brought this book to light.
Depression has no singular cause and no one cure. It may stem from a traumatic event such as a debilitating illness, a hormonal imbalance, or being an overly sensitive snowflake who can’t handle someone disagreeing with you. Cures will vary with the causes. You may need to work through the grief process with good biblical counseling, gaining and submitting to a proper perspective. Medical help may be needed to deal with thyroid, adrenal, reproductive organ imbalances, or other organ deficiencies. You may need to learn how to have thicker skin. There are many sources and ways to address depression, depending on the person and his situation.
“A plan in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.”
~Proverbs 20.5
“You can’t judge my motives because you don’t know my heart.” You might hear this if you ever make a judgment call on someone’s actions. There is this idea that there is no way we can know someone else’s heart and, therefore, can’t judge their motives. Doesn’t Jeremiah say under the inspiration of the Spirit, “The heart is deceitful above all things and mortally ill; who can know it?” Doesn’t he expect the answer, “No one can know it”? Yes, he expects that answer. None of us relying on our wisdom can discern our own hearts, much less the hearts of others. When the source of our discernment is wisdom is our experience and thinking divorced from God’s revelation, then, no, we can’t understand our own hearts or the hearts of others. We are self-deceived and constantly seek to justify ourselves by rationalizing our motives while impugning the motives of others. So, with this wisdom, we can know nothing true about our hearts or the hearts of others.
“If God is all-powerful and all-good, how is the existence of evil possible? Either God is not all-powerful and, therefore, can do nothing about the evil, or if God is all-powerful, then he is not all-good.” This has been the “gotcha” question for many unbelievers through the centuries. There are answers to this question, but unbelievers who ask this are rarely satisfied with them. The issue is not so much a “purely theological” or “purely philosophical” dilemma. The issue is personal and moral as much as it is dogmatic. If I were to believe in a god, he must be a god who is all-powerful and uses that power to allow me to live my life without negative consequences. I want a god who frees me from all suffering no matter how I live. Some unbelievers may be more sympathetic to the sufferings of others, angry with the God they don’t believe in because he allows innocent people to suffer horribly. If they were God, they would arrange the events of history much differently.
What is God’s answer to this wisdom? The cross. The all-powerful and all-good God who created and sustains the world took on the flesh of man in the Person of his Son to absorb his own wrath against the sin of man and reconcile the world to himself.
Who in his right mind would believe such a message? This is insanity! An all-powerful, all-good God would find ways to avoid pain for himself and me. The word of the cross is a stumbling block to the postmodernist and foolishness to the modernist.
The rebuttals against the cross reveal not that God exists as an eternal dilemma but that unbelievers are insane. Those who scoff at the message of the cross are reality deniers. God is the Creator and sustainer of reality, and if our thoughts don’t align with his, then we are the ones with backward thinking.
Paul engages this battle of wisdom with the Corinthians in his opening salvo in his first letter. God reveals his wisdom in the cross of Christ. Period. To understand this wisdom, you must submit your mind and heart to God’s wisdom. No worldly wisdom will reason itself to God. The world cannot know God through its own wisdom (1Cor 1.21). We mistakenly believe that if man is educated adequately, he will be convinced. Think about it. No one can actually believe that the existence of logic, the ability to communicate coherently, and love can come from utter randomness. That is insanity. People must be able to understand that. Right? Nope. They refuse to see it, and you can’t convince them if they are committed to worldly wisdom. To people such as this, the cross will never make sense.
“But what about those philosophers who reason their way up to a higher power?” Paul would answer, “Did that higher power die on the cross for you? If not, it is an idol and no god at all.” “What about the scientists who give proof of an intelligent designer?” Well, they might have some good things to say, but is this intelligent designer the one who dies on a cross? If he is not, he is an idol. “What about the religious professional who believes that we are all going to the same god, just climbing up different sides of the mountain?” Well, there are serious conflicts between all of these various stories. The crux of the conflict is that all other religions of the world don’t have a God of the cross. “What about the person who believes in spirituality?” If his spirituality doesn’t include the fact that the Spirit proceeds from a crucified God, then his spirituality is worldly wisdom and futile. He still doesn’t understand the world because he refuses to submit to the wisdom of God.
Why does the cross make sense? Paul answers that question when he says, “It pleased God” to use this “moronic” proclamation of the cross to save those who believe (1Cor 1.21). God determined in himself that the cross is the way the world is put in order and moves toward its purpose. Whether or not the cross satisfies the wisdom of man doesn’t matter. Man doesn’t get a vote. His opinion and pleasure don’t determine the purpose of creation, especially since he is a part of it and has his purpose defined by his Creator.
Therefore, man’s fundamental calling is to submit to the wisdom of God by embracing the message of the cross and then living out this cruciform wisdom. Cruciform wisdom patterns its life according to the self-giving love revealed by God through the cross. Worldly wisdom trains you to look out for yourself, using and stepping on people to exalt yourself. Cruciform teaches you that exaltation comes through humbling yourself and serving others. Worldly wisdom trains you to indulge yourself in the name of liberty. Cruciform wisdom teaches you to deny your impulses for the joy set before you. Worldly wisdom teaches you to take vengeance on others, holding on to bitterness and unforgiveness until your sense of justice is satisfied. Cruciform wisdom teaches you to forgive even as God has forgiven you for Christ’s sake.
The world will think you are crazy, but you are the sane one.
There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’Abraham Kuyper
