The Emmy Awards were held last night. Among the honorees: Zendaya won best lead actress in a drama series for HBO’s Euphoria, which is so sexualized and graphic that even Common Sense Media’s review is forced to use descriptions I will not repeat here. The same goes for their review of HBO’s The White Lotus, which won for outstanding limited series. I could go on.

When a political leader claims that drag queens are “what America is all about,” transgender characters are increasingly featured in video games and on television, and a Texas teacher tells students to refer to pedophiles as “minor-attracted persons,” it is clear that our moral compass is not just broken but nonexistent.

Australia’s Margaret Court, winner of twenty-four Grand Slam singles titles, made news during the recent US Open when she disclosed that she has become a persona non grata in the tennis world because of her Christian beliefs. She opposed same-sex marriage when it was proposed in her country, and the backlash has been severe ever since.

For example, LGBTQ lobbyists are calling for Melbourne Park’s Margaret Court Arena to be renamed. She replies, “They got everything they wanted in marriage, and everything else. So I think, ‘Why, when you should be so happy you’ve got that, are you still taking it out on people if they haven’t got the same beliefs?’ That’s what I don’t understand.”

Closer to home, LGBTQ activists are currently lobbying US senators to support the so-called Respect for Marriage Act, legislation that would expand same-sex marriage protections with no religious liberty protections. And a Justice Department official recently labeled the religious liberty legal group Alliance Defending Freedom as a “hate group.”

Drag queens as worship leaders

In Ezekiel 5, the Lord says of Jerusalem, “She has rebelled against my rules by doing wickedness more than the nations, and against my statutes more than the countries all around her” (v. 6). Her “wickedness” was “more than the nations,” not because it was objectively worse but because she knew better.

Scripture warns, “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness” (James 3:1). The more we know, the more we are responsible for what we know.

Satan has added an additional layer of deception in our day.

Not only do many Americans reject the moral truth of Scripture, but they claim the mantle of Christian faith in so doing. From praying for God to bless clinics that perform late-term abortions, to citing Christian “compassion” in support of euthanasia, to enlisting drag queens as worship leaders, to claiming that abortion does not contradict the Christian faith, many so-called “people of faith” have been busy undermining the faith.

When I am a Cowboys fan

Such deception is even more powerful when the ones doing the deceiving are themselves deceived.

This is possible and even popular because, in our postmodern society, we think we are Christians if we say we are. This makes sense in cultural context: I am a Democrat or a Republican if I say I am, regardless of how or whether I vote. I am a Cowboys or Steelers fan if I say I am. In our culture, I am “non-binary” or transgender if I say I am. We think the same way with Christianity.

But relational reality is different. I could not claim to be married to Janet until she agreed to marry me. I could not claim to be a graduate of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary until the seminary conferred such status on me. I could not claim to be the pastor of the churches I served until they called me to be their pastor.

In the same way, we are Christians only if Christ says we are. And he says we are Christians only if we have made him our Savior and Lord and thus have “become children of God” (John 1:12). Our religious claims are true only if they are biblical. Our lives are pleasing to God only when we do what he says pleases him.

“Save others by snatching them out of the fire”

Jude warned his readers that “certain people have crept in unnoticed . . . who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality” (v. 4). As a result, he called his fellow believers to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (v. 3).

To “contend” (epagonizomai in the Greek) is to “make a strenuous effort on behalf of.” This command applies to every dimension of our lives, every day of our lives.

This “strenuous effort” begins at home. You and I need to measure everything we think, feel, say, and do by the authority of God’s word (Hebrews 4:12) under the leading of God’s Spirit (Ephesians 5:18). The first step in the wrong direction can lead to all the rest. An airplane one degree off line will miss its destination.

The more our culture rejects biblical truth, the more passionately we must embrace it.

And this “strenuous effort” extends to everyone we influence. The stakes could not be higher: we “save others by snatching them out of the fire” (Jude 23) when we lead them from the deceiver to the Savior.

“You can give me the power to do good”

If you and I renew our commitment today to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints,” our Father will help us.

John Baillie testified to God, “The good that I want to do, I fail to do, but you can give me the power to do good.” Thus he prayed: “Dear Father, take this day’s life into your keeping. Guide all my thoughts and feelings. Direct all my energies. Instruct my mind. Sustain my will. Take my hands and give me the skill to serve you. Take my feet and make them quick to do whatever you ask. Take my eyes and keep them fixed on your everlasting beauty. Take my mouth and give me the words to tell others of your love.

“Make this day a day of obedience, a day of spiritual joy and peace. Make this day’s work a little part of the work of the kingdom of my Lord Jesus, in whose name these prayers are said.”

Amen?

Denison Forum

I wish I had been in New York City last night to see the “Tribute in Light” in person. Each September 11, two beams, comprised of eighty-eight seven-thousand-watt xenon lightbulbs, are released into the sky to echo the shape and orientation of the Twin Towers. Just seeing the video of the tribute was deeply moving for me.

All of us old enough to remember 9/11 will never forget it: the shock when the first airplane flew into the North Tower, the horror when the second plane struck the South Tower, the buildings spewing smoke into the sky, the people fleeing their burning floors by jumping to their deaths, the attack on the Pentagon, the collapse of the South Tower, the crash in Pennsylvania, the collapse of the North Tower. Less than three hours after the first plane to be hijacked left the Boston airport, the iconic Twin Towers lay in ruins in Lower Manhattan.

A few years earlier, I stood at the base of the World Trade Center. From the ground, I could not see the top of the two towers. That such colossal buildings could be destroyed so quickly is still staggering to me. Each year’s anniversary is another reminder of our finitude, frailty, and mortality.

Another headline in today’s news is a similar reminder: Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin arrived in Scotland’s capital of Edinburgh yesterday after a six-hour procession from her beloved Balmoral Castle. King Charles III and his Queen Consort Camilla are traveling today to join another procession taking the queen’s coffin to St. Giles Cathedral, where it will remain for twenty-four hours so the Scottish public can pay their respects. It will be flown to London on Tuesday.

Charles became king in the moment of his mother’s death, though his coronation could still be months away. In these two facts we find a life principle of transforming hope today.

“Did you think I was immortal?”

America is separated from the rest of the world by oceans on the east and west, deserts to the south, and forests and lakes to the north. Except for an abortive attempt by Japanese soldiers to take the Aleutian islands off Alaska in 1942, foreign enemies have not attacked Americans on our soil since the War of 1812.

9/11 changed that calculus forever. As every traveler enduring TSA airport screening knows, our enemies can use American airplanes to kill Americans. Not to mention cyber, chemical, biological, and radiological threats. We can also die of diseases we did not know existed. And, as the pandemic continues to prove, a virus two thousand times smaller than a dust mite can kill more than a million Americans.

If the queen of England, with all her vast resources, is not immune to the frailty of life, no one is. If towers reaching 110 stories tall and built to withstand hurricane-force winds could be felled by airplane hijackers, no occupant in any building is truly safe.

The queen’s namesake, Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603), reportedly said from her deathbed, “All my possessions for a moment of time.” France’s Louis XIV (1638–1715) was the only monarch to rule longer than Queen Elizabeth II. However, his last words were said to his grieving attendants: “Why do you weep? Did you think I was immortal?”

“We die to be raised up”

It is understandable to fear any journey into an experience we cannot see beforehand: stepping into a pitch-black room, attending a new school, working for a new manager. The greater the consequences of our decision, the more fearful we naturally become. Staying at a new hotel provokes far less apprehension than starting a new job.

Death feels so permanent to us. Except for Lazarus and Jesus, no one has come back to our world from the other side. It is therefore the greatest and most fearful unknown.

But St. Athanasius was right: “We no longer die to be condemned, we die to be raised up and await the resurrection of all, which God will bring about at a time of his choosing.”

Here’s why: “One has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Corinthians 5:14–15).

A transforming personal anniversary

If you have made Jesus your Lord, your “old man” died in the moment that you trusted in Christ (Romans 6:5) and you were “born again” (John 3:3) as a child of God (John 1:12). Now you already “have eternal life” (John 3:16). Note the present tense.

The forty-ninth anniversary of my salvation experience was last Friday. For forty-nine years, I have possessed eternal life. Now, as the child of God, when my body dies (if the Lord tarries), I will in that moment be united with Christ in paradise (Luke 23:43). When I close my eyes here, I will open them there. When I take my last breath here, I will take my first breath there. I will step from death into life and from time into eternity.

So will you if Jesus is your Lord.

My mother “died” of cancer in 2008. Some might say, “She lost her battle with cancer.” Actually, the cancer died and she is more alive today than she was then.

We often say that someone “passed away.” Actually, the world passes away. And we are with our Father and with “a great multitude that no one could number” forever (Revelation 7:9).

You are uncrowned royalty

All of this is illustrated by King Charles III’s ascension to the throne last Thursday. In the moment of his mother’s death, he became king. Nothing changed externally—he had the same appearance, with the same height and weight and the same personal characteristics that were his the day before. But in that moment, his status changed. Though he is yet uncrowned, he will be known forever as the king he was born to be.

In precisely the same way, the moment you trusted Christ as Lord you were born again into his royal family (1 Peter 2:9). You can now serve him faithfully and fearlessly, knowing that the worst that can happen to you leads to the best that can happen to you. You can use your momentary days for eternal significance and live for God’s glory rather than your own, secure in the knowledge that you will share his glory when you worship at his throne.

You are uncrowned royalty today, but if you are faithful to your King, you will receive one day “the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him” (James 1:12).

Isaac Watts (1674–1748) testified:

I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath,
And when my voice is lost in death,
Praise shall employ my nobler powers;
My days of praise shall ne’er be past,
While life, and thought, and being last,
Or immortality endures.

What “shall employ” your “nobler powers” today?

Denison Forum

After yesterday’s announcement that Queen Elizabeth II’s doctors were “concerned for Her Majesty’s health,” crowds gathered near Buckingham Palace. Then, shortly before her death was announced, a remarkable scene unfolded: a double rainbow broke through the clouds over the palace.

It was as though the Lord of heaven and earth wanted us to know that the queen had made her way from earth to heaven.

Following the queen’s death, America’s leaders have been especially expansive in their praise. President Joe Biden called her “a stateswoman of unmatched dignity and constancy.” Bill Clinton wrote, “In sunshine or storm, she was a source of stability, serenity, and strength.”

Kevin McCarthy, minority leader of the House of Representatives, added that the queen “represented what it means to lead with conviction, selflessness, and faith in God and in her people. She led her people with grace, showing what servant leadership means in principle and in practice.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell noted, “Despite spending nearly three quarters of a century as one of the most famous and admired individuals on the planet, the Queen made sure her reign was never really about herself—not her fame, not her feelings, not her personal wants or needs. She guided venerable institutions through modern times using timeless virtues like duty, dignity, and sacrifice.”

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary”

Such praise is somewhat ironic coming from a nation that rebelled against the queen’s third great-grandfather, King George III.

Our Declaration of Independence from England boldly stated in 1776, “All men are created equal.” Our nation exists in rejection of the “divine right of kings” doctrine so prevalent in much of the world, the belief that God rules humans through a single human. We also reject the theological assumption that, because humans are finite and fallen, we cannot govern ourselves.

To the contrary, because humans are finite and fallen, we believe that no one of us can be trusted with unbridled authority over the rest of us. Our Founders therefore created a system of checks and balances on unbridled power and insisted that we need a consensual morality by which to navigate our lives and our nation. But they did not believe that a single monarch was needed or could be trusted, hence our rebellion against Britain and the constitutional republic that followed.

The Federalist Papers No. 51 observed: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

The queen and Billy Graham

This “great difficulty” is true even—and I would add, especially—for kings and queens. The more power one exercises, the greater the temptation to use that power for one’s personal agendas.

This fact makes Queen Elizabeth II’s humility and servant-heartedness all the more unique and illuminating.

I have visited her royal residences at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle in England and Balmoral Castle in Scotland. Each has a chapel where the queen worshiped each Sunday she was in residence. She prayed daily, every day of the week. She received religious instruction as a child from the Archbishop of Canterbury and possessed a spiritual depth that impressed many who met her.

For example, Billy Graham’s relationship with the queen began in 1955 when he conducted a Crusade in Glasgow and the BBC broadcast his message across the nation. The queen and Prince Philip listened to his sermon, then invited him to preach at Windsor Castle and to have lunch with the queen.

They met together twelve more times over the decades. She reached out to him often for spiritual guidance. He wrote in his autobiography, Just As I Am, “I always found her very interested in the Bible and its message.” (Please see our website for more on the queen’s faith and legacy.)

“The source of all fruitfulness”

The twenty-first anniversary of 9/11 is this Sunday. In the days after the horrific attack, the queen’s compassion was on full display when she assured those attending a prayer service in New York City, “My thoughts and my prayers are with you all now and in the difficult days ahead. But nothing that can be said can begin to take away the anguish and the pain of these moments. Grief is the price we pay for love.”

Such kindness is just one example of the “fruit of the Spirit” in her life (Galatians 5:22–23). Because we saw such fruit, we can know its source. This fact illustrates a simple but important life principle: we can measure the intimacy of our relationship with Jesus by the degree to which others see Jesus in us.

The healthier the fruit, the stronger the roots.

Jesus taught us, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Charles Spurgeon commented on Jesus’ metaphor: “Every bunch of grapes have been first in the root, it has passed through the stem, and flowed through the sap vessels, and fashioned itself externally into fruit, but it was first in the stem; so also every good work was first in Christ, and then is brought forth in us.

“O Christian, prize this precious union to Christ; for it must be the source of all the fruitfulness which thou canst hope to know.”

“Much longer lives her legacy”

Many will continue to pay tribute to Queen Elizabeth II in the days to come. But not everyone will understand the source of her godly character and servant heart.

Amanda Gorman, the US’s youngest inaugural poet, tweeted, “Long lived the Queen—but much longer lives her legacy.”

It’s now up to Queen Elizabeth II’s fellow Christians to explain the origin of her legacy and to extend it in our lives and service, to the glory of God.

Denison Forum

Have you heard of “quiet quitting”?

According to Gallup, at least 50 percent of the American workforce is made up of people who are “not going above and beyond at work and just meeting their job description.” Only 32 percent say they are “actively engaged” at work.

Harvard Business Review believes that the problem is “bad bosses, not bad employees.” Managers rated most highly saw 62 percent of their direct reports willing to give extra effort, while only 3 percent were quietly quitting. By contrast, the least effective managers saw 14 percent of their direct reports quietly quitting, while only 20 percent were willing to give extra effort.

In other words, the more we work for someone we value, the more we value our work.

This fact reveals something deeply significant about our culture and our faith.

Working harder to have more

For generations, Americans have been taught that we are what we do and what comes from what we do. Achievement and prosperity, measured by financial and material means, is our secular society’s definition of success.

But in recent years, this pathway to purpose has hit a dead end. Consumer sentiment fell to a record low earlier this year even though unemployment is historically low. Surprisingly, consumers were more optimistic early in the pandemic than they are today. Rates of substance abuse, depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation continue to rise.

Clearly, the so-called American Dream—working harder to have more—is not enough for many.

Others are giving up on the “dream” itself. Four in five millennial employees say their generation will be “much worse off” in retirement than their parents’ generation, a fear that is already becoming reality for many.

It’s therefore not surprising that many workers, especially younger employees, would choose to do enough to get by but no more. And that is bad news for all of us.

Encouraging victories for religious freedom

Apple unveiled its latest technology yesterday, with new iPhones, a new Apple Watch, and new AirPods. It’s remarkable to think that I can connect with more than five billion people through the playing card-size device in my pocket. Technology engineers driven by excellence have literally transformed our world. I’m grateful they did not do just enough to get by at work.

I recently underwent spinal surgery; four of my lumbar vertebrae are now screwed and fused together. I cannot begin to understand the medical brilliance necessary to achieve this outcome. I assure you that I’m grateful my surgeon and his team did not do just enough to get by at work.

Brilliant Christian attorneys have been busy defending our religious freedoms, with remarkable recent results:

• A judge ruled that a Michigan university cannot punish a Christian club for requiring that its leaders be Christian. (Yes, this was actually happening at Wayne State University in Detroit.)
• A federal district court held that a photographer cannot be forced to shoot same-sex weddings.
• A federal appeals court ruled that the US government cannot require several Christian medical groups and providers to perform abortions or gender transition surgeries under the Affordable Care Act.
• A US appeals court has ruled on behalf of licensed counselors who provide voluntary talk therapy to minors seeking help with unwanted sexual identity confusion.

I’m grateful that attorneys who defend religious liberty for all Americans are not doing just enough to get by at work.

“I fell at his feet as though dead”

God’s word clearly calls God’s people to lives and service of excellence: “If there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Philippians 4:8); “approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ” (Philippians 1:10); “whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might” (Ecclesiastes 9:10).

However, there’s another dimension to our discussion that occurred to me as I was reading Ezekiel 1. When the prophet encountered “the likeness of the glory of the Lᴏʀᴅ,” he reported, “I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of one speaking” (Ezekiel 1:28). The visions and prophecies that resulted created the book of Ezekiel.

John had a similar experience with the risen Christ on Patmos: “I fell at his feet as though dead” (Revelation 1:17). The visions he received in response created the book of Revelation.

Isaiah “saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up” (Isaiah 6:1) and responded, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips” (v. 5). His “lips” were then “cleansed” (v. 7) and he was sent to the world with the word of God (v. 8). The result was the book of Isaiah.

The pattern is clear: when we are awed by God, we are empowered by his Spirit to serve him and others with the excellence and passion he deserves.

“Whatever you do, work heartily”

John Piper was right: “Seeking the worship of the nations is fueled by the joy of our own worship. You can’t commend what you don’t cherish. You can’t proclaim what you don’t prize. Worship is the fuel and the goal of missions.”

Said differently, Christians can measure the depth of our worship by the dedication of our work.

The more we love our Lord, the more we will love our neighbor (Matthew 22:37–39). The more we are awed by God, the more we are empowered to fulfill his mandate: “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” (Colossians 3:23, my emphasis).

The priest and poet Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy captured our best response to our awe-inspiring Creator:

To give and give, and give again,
What God hath given thee;
To spend thyself nor count the cost;
To serve right gloriously
The God Who gave all worlds that are,
And all that are to be.

When last were you awed by God?

Denison Forum

The Walt Disney Company, through its FXX Network, is releasing an animated sitcom series called Little Demon, which a film industry website describes this way: “After being impregnated by the Devil, a reluctant mother and her Antichrist daughter attempt to live an ordinary life in Delaware.” According to One Million Moms (OMM), the show carries graphic violence and nudity and “makes light of hell and the dangers of the demonic realm.”

OMM adds that the series “is introducing viewers, including children who might stumble across the series, to a world of demons, witches, and sorcery. Along with the demonic content of the series, the minds of younger viewers will also be inundated with secular worldviews that reflect the current culture.”

When Tom Cruise shoots down a jet

One of the reasons I pay attention to popular culture is that, for a cultural offering to be popular, it must by definition have an audience. It therefore reflects and represents the values and worldview of a significant segment of our society.

For example, we learn something important about the hopes and fears of society by learning that the most popular movies of 2022 so far are Top Gun: Maverick, where Americans defeat Iranians; Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, featuring superheroes, sorcerers, and sorceresses;  and Jurassic World Dominion, where humans and dinosaurs defeat genetically engineered locusts.

Aristotle believed that art performs a cathartic function: what we see enacted on the stage (or screen) expresses and purges our fears, regrets, and pain. When Tom Cruise shoots down an Iranian fighter jet, we all win.

However, art does more than reflect our feelings and beliefs—it also forms them. Values legitimized by celebrities all too easily become our values. If actors and actresses we admire endorse LGBTQ ideology, who are we to judge or disagree? If they come out personally as gay or “transition” their gender, their admirers applaud.

Don’t think for a minute that the creators of Little Demon are simply making art they hope makes money. Like those behind much of the LGBTQ advocacy of our days, they are advancing ideology they want us to embrace.

Satan is “equally pleased by both errors”

There’s yet another agenda at work here as well: behind every temptation stands the tempter. Behind every lie stands the one Jesus called the “father of lies” (John 8:44).

Humans don’t have to know they are being used by Satan to be used by Satan. Typically they do not: “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4).

In The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis observed: “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”

We are committing both errors at the same time today. Some, like the creators of Little Demon, are advancing and advocating for demonic realities on a truly dangerous level. Others are secular materialists who would see the television series as a harmless way to make money through entertainment.

Satan is “equally pleased by both errors.”

Why the first step into the occult is so dangerous

The occult is horrifically popular today: the TikTok hashtag #WitchTok has 20.5 billion views, while psychic services is an industry worth $2.2 billion in the US. By contrast, the Bible emphatically rejects astrology and horoscopes (Jeremiah 10:2), mediums and fortune-tellers (Leviticus 19:31; Micah 5:12), seances (Deuteronomy 18:10–12), and worship of Satan in any form (Matthew 4:10).

The reason is simple: the first step into the occult opens the door to all that lies behind it.

Three urgent consequences follow.

One: Parents and grandparents must not allow children (or anyone else) to watch Little Demon or anything like it. If you would not allow cancer in their bodies, you must not allow spiritual cancer in their souls.

Two: Since “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19), anyone who does not belong to Christ ultimately belongs to “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4). This is why we must share the gospel with the lost and pray for them, since the Holy Spirit is the only power who can break the chains of Satan and liberate souls bound for hell.

Three: We must also guard ourselves since “your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). He cannot possess Christians, but he can oppress us with sins that become chronic and even addictive. Our response is clear: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). Note the order.

If, however, you are struggling with recurring sins, confess them immediately to your Father (1 John 1:9) and seek the help of trusted Christians as God leads you. And know this: “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).

The Puritan Thomas Brooks was right: “Satan promises the best, but pays with the worst; he promises honor, and pays with disgrace; he promises pleasure, and pays with pain; he promises profit, and pays with loss; he promises life, and pays with death. But God pays as he promises; all his payments are made in pure gold.”

Whose promises will you believe today?

Denison Forum

UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is Britain’s new prime minister. She will formally replace Boris Johnson today when she is appointed to her office by Queen Elizabeth II.

The queen has appointed all fourteen of her previous prime ministers at Buckingham Palace in London. However, the ninety-six-year-old monarch is staying at her holiday home in Scotland between August and October. To keep her from having to travel, the new prime minister will travel to her for a ceremony unlike any other in the queen’s seventy-year reign.

British prime ministers lead the political party that gains enough elected seats in Parliament to form a ruling coalition. If their party no longer supports their leadership, as happened with Boris Johnson, they can be forced to resign. Or if a general election replaces their party, as happened with Winston Churchill in 1945, they are replaced as well.

In other words, the new prime minister will only be prime minister so long as her party supports her and her party wins the next general election (which must be held no later than 2025).

Preparing for Martian pathogens

Great Britain’s elective system and the advanced age of her queen both illustrate the finitude of the human condition. Here’s another example: former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was buried in Moscow last Saturday. According to the Kremlin, President Vladimir Putin did not attend the funeral because he was too busy.

What Mr. Putin may not realize is that one day the funeral will be his. He is sixty-nine years old; life expectancy for males in Russia is sixty-eight. Americans should take note: our average life expectancy fell from nearly seventy-nine years in 2019 to seventy-six in 2021.

Here’s some good news: new COVID-19 boosters are expected to be made available this week. The new vaccine will be updated for the first time to target the latest version of the virus. However, according to one epidemiologist, we can still expect that every year, around 50 percent of Americans will be infected with the virus and more than one hundred thousand will die.

As another illustration of our mortality, Ukraine’s Minister of Energy warned yesterday that the “world is once again on the brink of nuclear disaster” after heavy shelling brought down Europe’s largest nuclear plant’s transmission line. New research has determined that there are no health benefits, only dangers, from drinking alcohol. A Denver woman fell nine hundred feet to her death while climbing in Colorado. An earthquake in China has killed at least sixty-five people.

And our greatest threats may be threats we don’t yet know to exist: NASA is planning a very special lab for handling samples that will eventually be returned to our planet from Mars. The reason is frightening: Martian pathogens could spawn a pandemic for which we have no defenses.

A sin you and I are especially tempted to commit

Yesterday we noted that “the Lᴏʀᴅ takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love” (Psalm 147:11). Here is what he does not “take pleasure in”: the sin of presumption.

Today’s stories illustrate the biblical precept, “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring” (Proverbs 27:1). Scripture warns, “No man has power to retain the spirit, or power over the day of death” (Ecclesiastes 8:8).

Unfortunately, the sin of presumption is especially tempting for those of us who seek to follow Christ. We know that we have become the children of God when so many have not (John 1:12). We study his word, pray, attend worship, contribute our tithes and offerings, and read content like this Daily Article when so many do not.

Satan would love for us to commit horrific sins that make headlines, but if we refuse, he will tempt us with “smaller” sins than those that make the news. We might then presume that if we commit these sins but are (apparently) more godly than others, we must be godly enough for God.

But “small” sins grieve the Holy Spirit just like public sins: “Whoever keeps the whole law but fails at one point has become guilty of all of it” (James 2:10). Pride in our apparent godliness is one such sin.

“What have we done that God didn’t do first?”

To this end, a statement by Max Lucado seems relevant today: “I’m wondering if you’d be willing to join me in a prayer of repentance—repentance from arrogance. What have we done that God didn’t do first? What do we have that God didn’t first give us? Have any of us ever built anything that God could not destroy? Have we ever created any monument that the master of the stars can’t reduce to dust?”

Max concludes: “Let’s humble ourselves before the hand of God. The Bible reminds us that those who walk in pride, God is able to humble. And we don’t want him to humble us, do we?”

Today’s theme became personal for me when I learned, as I noted earlier, that Americans’ life expectancy has dropped to 76.1 years. For a male like me born in 1958, life expectancy is even shorter—just seventy-four years. That is just ten more years. Said differently, according to actuarial tables, I have only 520 more weeks to live.

Now, I agree with David’s prayer to God, “My times are in your hands” (Psalm 31:15). My grandfather lived to be ninety-nine years old. However, my father died at fifty-five. I have no idea if this is my last Daily Article or if I’ll be writing for another twenty years.

But I do know this: I must refuse the related temptations to presume that I will be here tomorrow and that I am all I need to be today. I need to be a “living sacrifice” to God every day that I live (Romans 12:1), abiding constantly and intentionally in the presence of Christ (John 15:5) and surrendered unconditionally to the leading and empowering of his Spirit (Ephesians 5:18).

So do you.

Oswald Chambers noted, “The secret of the missionary is—I am his, and he is carrying out his enterprises through me.” He then added: “Be entirely his.”

Denison Forum

Canadian police are searching this morning for two men suspected of stabbing at least ten people to death in a rampage that has shocked the nation. At least fifteen others were injured in the killing spree.

In other news, a suspect has been charged in connection with the disappearance of a Memphis teacher investigators believe was abducted while jogging Friday morning. She has not been found at this writing.

And a government administrator admitted yesterday that there is no timeline for when residents of Jackson, Mississippi, will have access to drinkable water. It has now been a week since pumps at the main water treatment failed, leading to the emergency distribution of bottled water and tanker trucks for 180,000 people.

Artemis I postponed again

In contrast to the fallenness and finitude of humans, the Bible says of our Creator: “He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names. Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure” (Psalm 147:4–5).

On this Labor Day, the contrast between his omnipotence and our limitations is illustrated powerfully by our latest astronomical endeavor: Artemis I was postponed again Saturday due to a fuel leak. Assuming it launches later this year, the flight test will be an uncrewed mission around the moon that will travel an estimated 1.3 million miles.

Let’s put that achievement into perspective: the distance from the earth to the moon is 238,900 miles. The distance from the sun to Neptune, the outer planet in our solar system, is 2.78 billion miles, which is 11,636 times further than the distance from the earth to the moon.

The distance from our sun to our nearest star (Alpha Centauri) is nearly 25 trillion miles. The distance to the edge of our Milky Way galaxy is 600,000 trillion miles. There are as many as two hundred billion galaxies in the known universe, each of them containing an estimated one hundred billion stars.

And God made all of that.

“Draw near to the throne of grace”

After proclaiming the enormity of God’s creation, the psalmist brings his omnipotence home to us: “His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man” (Psalm 147:10). In other words, he is not impressed with our finite, fallen capacities.

Instead, “the Lᴏʀᴅ takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love” (v. 11).

To “hope in his steadfast love” is to depend intentionally and unconditionally on the grace and mercy of our Lord: “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

It’s been said that grace is getting what you do not deserve; mercy is not getting what you do deserve. Both are vital to human flourishing in this life and in eternity.

But both come with caveats made ironic by Labor Day.

“Jesus heals all who come, and casts none out”

The caveat to experiencing grace is that we must admit that we need what only God can do, that our labors are insufficient to earn what God can only give.

In Mark 1, we find a leper imploring Jesus for healing. “I will; be clean,” our Lord responded (v. 41). With this result: “And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean” (v. 42). Commenting on this miracle, Charles Spurgeon wrote: “The sinner is in a plight more miserable than the leper; let him imitate his example and go to Jesus . . . and there need be no doubt as to the result of the application. Jesus heals all who come, and casts none out.”

Spurgeon also observed that Jesus touched the diseased man and so “made an interchange with the leper, for while he cleansed him, he contracted by that touch a Levitical defilement. Even so Jesus Christ was made sin for us, although in himself he knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”

He added: “That hand which multiplied the loaves, which saved sinking Peter, which upholds afflicted saints, which crowns believers, that same hand will touch every seeking sinner, and in a moment make him clean.”

The only caveat is that we lepers must admit we cannot heal our leprosy and then bring our disease to the only One who can.

“My wretchedness is no match for thy mercy”

The caveat to experiencing grace—getting what we do not deserve—is that we must admit we can do nothing to earn God’s grace. The caveat to experiencing mercy—not getting what we do deserve—is that we must admit what we have done that requires his mercy.

Henri Nouwen observed that the human cry for mercy “is possible only when we are willing to confess that somehow, somewhere, we ourselves have something to do with our losses. Crying for mercy is a recognition that blaming God, the world, or others for our losses does not do full justice to the truth of who we are. At the moment we are willing to take responsibility, even for the pain we didn’t cause directly, blaming is converted into an acknowledgment of our own role in human brokenness.

“The prayer for God’s mercy comes from a heart that knows that this human brokenness is not a fatal condition of which we have become the sad victims, but the bitter fruit of the human choice to say no to love.”

The good news is that “the Lord is compassionate and merciful” (James 5:11, my emphasis). As A. W. Tozer noted, mercy “is something God is, not something God has.” No circumstance can change his character.

Tozer therefore rejoiced to pray, “My sin and wretchedness is no match for thy mercy.”

“Everyone has a need only God can meet”

On this Labor Day, you can trust in your labor or you can admit your need for God’s grace and mercy. But you cannot do both.

I saw a church sign recently that said, “Everyone has a need only God can meet.”

What is yours?

What will you do with it today?

Denison Forum

President Joe Biden delivered a speech last night from Independence Hall in Philadelphia. I have been where he stood and was deeply moved by the experience.

It was here, at the “birthplace of America,” that the Second Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Eleven years later, in the same room, delegates to the Constitutional Convention created the United States Constitution.

In many ways, their work defined what the president called the “soul” of the nation, which he defined as “the breadth, the life and the essence of who we are.”

In his view, that “essence” is under threat from what he called “MAGA Republicans” who “are determined to take this country backwards, backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love.” He added that they “promote authoritarian leaders, and they fanned the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country.”

In response, the Republican National Committee called Mr. Biden the “divider-in-chief” and described the Democratic Party as “one of divisiveness, disgust, and hostility towards half the country.”

Unsurprisingly, when Republicans and Democrats were asked in a new Quinnipiac Poll, “Do you think the nation’s democracy is in danger of collapse,” 69 percent from each party said yes.

“Religion and morality are indispensable supports”

As I noted yesterday, our nation’s founders were convinced that personal virtue is indispensable to political unity. I would add today that the men who gathered in Independence Hall were equally convinced that religious commitment was foundational to personal and public virtue.

It was in Independence Hall that George Washington was appointed Commander in Chief of the Continental Army in 1775. When he delivered his “Farewell Address” in 1796 after his second term as president, he declared, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”

He added, “Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

Our second president, John Adams, stated two years later: “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.” He added, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

How can you and I help Americans renew the moral and spiritual commitments President Washington believed were “indispensable” to our nation and her future?

“So that an opponent may be put to shame”

It is human nature to measure ourselves by other humans. If you and I attend worship services when others do not, if we live by biblical moral standards when others reject them, if we read the Bible and literature like this Daily Article when others do not, it is natural to consider ourselves to be more spiritual than others.

But in a culture as decadent as this one, simply being more spiritual than the people we know will not change the people we know.

Paul instructed Titus to “show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us” (Titus 2:7–8, my emphasis).

When Paul asked Titus to live a life others could imitate, he was merely asking Titus to do what the apostle was already attempting to do himself. He sought to “give you in ourselves an example to imitate” (2 Thessalonians 3:9) and thus could say to them, “You yourselves know how you ought to imitate us” (v. 7).

Paul made the same request of Timothy: “Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 1:13). And he instructed him to pay this “pattern” forward: “What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2).

Given the clergy abuse scandals of recent years and our declining rate of church commitment, would our culture say Christians are living in ways they should imitate? If not, what moral authority can we possibly claim for calling them to our faith?

What we should ask of everything we do

Philosopher Immanuel Kant asserted that we should “act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.” In other words, we should ask of everything we do: What if everyone did what I am about to do?

To change the culture, we must live in a way others should imitate. Said differently, we must follow Jesus so closely that those who follow us are led to him. Therefore, it is good to ask of everything we do: Will this glorify God or grieve him? Will it draw others to Christ or repel them from the faith?

Commenting on Jesus’ statement that Christians are the “salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13), St. John Chrysostom (AD 347–407) observed: “If others lose their savor, then your ministry will help them regain it. But if you yourselves suffer that loss, you will drag others down with you. Therefore, the greater the undertakings put into your hands, the more zealous you must be.”

How “zealous” for your Lord will you be today?

Denison Forum

A new poll asked Americans about changes in the US political climate, including whether divisions have worsened and what they expect for the future. Here were their responses:

• 66 percent believe political divisions have gotten worse since the beginning of 2021.
• 62 percent expect political divisions to get even worse in the future.
• 66 percent say political violence has increased since the start of 2021.
• 60 percent expect such violence to increase in the next few years.

Here’s the most sobering part of the report: a plurality (43 percent) believes a civil war is at least somewhat likely in the next decade. Only 35 percent say it is not likely; 22 percent are unsure.

Of course, conditions are markedly different today than they were in 1861, when the South and the North were contiguous geographical entities each dominated by a single party (Republicans in the North, Democrats in the South). By contrast, today’s electoral map indicates blue coasts and a red middle, but many states are experiencing deep internal divisions.

In Texas, for instance, Austin is clearly “blue” while West Texas is clearly “red.” If our state attempted to secede from the Union, I’m not sure which side would lead the effort or what the other side would do if secession were successful. Electoral maps reveal similar divisions in Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, among other states. And it is a surprising fact that in the 2020 election, Donald Trump received more votes in California (6,006,429) than he did in Texas (5,890,347).

While an organized, military, two-sided civil war such as occurred in 1861 may be implausible today, the divisions and distrust reflected in recent polls are nonetheless ominous for our future as the “United” States of America.

“Public virtue is the only foundation of republics”

Our nation’s founders were convinced that personal virtue is indispensable to political unity. George Washington observed, “Human rights can only be assured among a virtuous people.” Benjamin Franklin added, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.” And John Adams was insistent: “Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics.”

What would they think of our nation’s character today?

The answer is not simple, of course. There are many areas of American life where progress has been significant and transformational. I am grateful for our declining poverty rate, the tremendous contribution of minority businesses to the US economy, and the fact that our high school graduation rate is at an all-time high. We have seen great advances with regard to the rights of women and minorities, though we have far to go.

But when a majority of a nation’s people endorse abortion and unbiblical marriage, when premarital sex is the norm and pornography is an epidemic, when nearly eleven million children live in poverty in America and violent crime is escalating, is God able to bless that nation?

If not, what is her future?

“Reveling until they learned about the capture”

America has been the world’s only superpower since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Our analogy in the seventh century before Christ was the Babylonian Empire, a massive military power that conquered the nation of Judah and destroyed her temple in 586 BC.

Babylon, the empire’s capital city, was the first ancient city to exceed two hundred thousand people. Its outer defensive wall was so wide that chariots driven by four horses could pass each other. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus called Babylon the world’s most splendid city. He described its walls as fifty-six miles in length, eighty feet thick, and three hundred and twenty feet high.

And yet, according to the prophet Jeremiah (who lived during the zenith of their empire), the Babylonians’ fall was sure and certain: “Her young men shall fall in her squares, and all her soldiers shall be destroyed on that day, declares the Lᴏʀᴅ” (Jeremiah 50:30). That “day” was the day of judgment coming on the nation because of her sin: “You were found and caught, because you opposed the Lᴏʀᴅ” (v. 24).

As a result, “The Lᴏʀᴅ has opened his armory and brought out the weapons of his wrath” (v. 25) because the nation “has proudly defied the Lᴏʀᴅ, the Holy One of Israel” (v. 29). This judgment was enacted by the Persian Empire when it overthrew and replaced the Babylonians on the world stage in 539 BC.

According to Herodotus, when the Persian king Cyrus captured the city of Babylon, “the inhabitants of the central parts . . . long after the outer portions of the town were taken, knew nothing of what had chanced, but as they were engaged in a festival, continued dancing and reveling until they learned about the capture.”

What a sobering reminder that “righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34).

“The truest friend of the liberty of his country”

I am not predicting the demise of the United States of America, but I would remind you that the average age of empires is 250 years, an age our nation will reach in four years.

Presuming that a nation’s future is guaranteed is a guaranteed way to hasten its demise. The best way to serve America is to help America be a nation God can bless (cf. Psalm 33:12).

What is the best way to do that?

Samuel Adams was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and was considered by Thomas Jefferson to be “truly the Man of the Revolution.” Adams was adamant: “Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend of the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue.”

How true a friend of your country will you be today?

Denison Forum

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, passed away yesterday at the age of ninety-one. When he came to power in 1985, he introduced key political and economic reforms to the USSR that helped end the Cold War without the firing of a single shot. For his courageous leadership, he was awarded the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize.

He is one of the few people in history who can be said to have changed history.

Here’s a part of his story that surprised me: while Gorbachev is being hailed as a hero today by the West, he is widely seen as a villain in Russia. In a 2017 poll, only 8 percent of Russian citizens saw him in a positive light; more than 60 percent said they had a “distaste” or “hatred” for him.

This is because many Russians agree with President Vladimir Putin’s assertion that the collapse of the Soviet empire was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” In the same 2017 poll that held Gorbachev in such contempt,  83 percent held a positive view of Putin, while less than 5 percent responded negatively to him.

“To zero, to ashes, to smoke”

Has the invasion of Ukraine changed this perception?

Putin’s approval rating stands at 87 percent today, while 69 percent of Russians believe their country is on the right track. By contrast, only 10 percent of Americans believe our country is heading in the right direction; only 6 percent of us have confidence in Putin’s leadership.

In the Kremlin-controlled news media, the invasion of Ukraine is seen as part of a long history of enemies trying to subjugate Russia. According to this view, a wider civilizational war is being waged by the West against Mother Russia. As a result, only 14 percent of Russians are opposed to the war.

Unsurprisingly, Gorbachev felt his life’s work was being undone by Putin.

During Gorbachev’s tenure, the Russian words glasnost (“openness”) and perestroika (“rebuilding”) entered the English lexicon as he forged policies that allowed for greater freedom of speech, economic reforms, and easing of tensions with the West. However, since Putin invaded Ukraine on February 24, Russia has passed laws that make criticizing the war an offense that can result in hefty jail sentences. Dissenting voices have been silenced; Moscow finds itself isolated internationally due to sanctions imposed by the West.

Alexei Venidiktov, a prominent Kremlin critic and personal friend of Gorbachev, says, “All Gorbachev’s reforms—to zero, to ashes, to smoke.” When asked for evidence of this, he answers, “When Gorbachev left, there were four thousand NATO rapid reaction forces in Europe. Now NATO has announced that there will be three hundred thousand by the end of next year.”

“He makes nations great, and he destroys them”

Americans are lauding today a Russian leader many Russians despise. At the same time, Russians are following today a Russian leader many Americans despise.

This does not bode well for future relations between nations possessing the largest nuclear arsenals in the world.

Add other geopolitical threats: a nuclear-armed North Korea, an ascendant China with aspirations of a global empire, and a rising Iranian threat to the Middle East and beyond. Now include the ongoing pandemic, global economic uncertainties, and deep and rancorous political divisions within the US and many other countries.

What more will it take to convince us that we need a Power beyond ourselves?

Job said of the Lord, “He makes nations great, and he destroys them; he enlarges nations, and leads them away” (Job 12:23). On what basis? “The wicked shall return to Sheol, all the nations that forget God” (Psalm 9:17). By contrast, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lᴏʀᴅ” (Psalm 33:12).

The Lord told his prophet: “If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it” (Jeremiah 18:7–10).

“Our wills are ours, to make them thine”

I plan to apply today’s discussion directly and specifically to America tomorrow. For today, let’s close by applying it to ourselves. What is true of nations is true of those who live in them: “It is better to take refuge in the Lᴏʀᴅ than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lᴏʀᴅ than to trust in princes” (Psalm 118:8–9).

When we “take refuge in the Lᴏʀᴅ” rather than in ourselves, we position ourselves to be used by God in ways we could never accomplish ourselves. When we begin every day by yielding it to his Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), he uses us to influence eternal souls in ways that affect their eternal destinies. When we surrender our resources to the One who gave them to us, he uses our service to exalt his Son and advance his kingdom.

You may never become a historical figure like Mikhail Gorbachev, but if Jesus is your Lord, you are the beloved of God, a child of the King. And ten thousand millennia after the Soviet Union and the United States of America are forgotten, your next act of faithfulness to your Lord will echo in eternity.

So begin your day by saying to your Father what Jesus said to him: “Your will be done” (Matthew 26:42). Say it to him all through your day and then follow where his Spirit leads in response. And remember that the will of God never leads where the grace of God cannot sustain.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson prayed, “Our wills are ours, to make them thine.”

Make your will his today, to the glory of God.

Denison Forum

Tennis superstar Serena Williams announced earlier this month that she would retire sometime after the US Open, so her first-round victory last night captured headlines. However, a tennis event last week deserves attention as well: the US Open held a “Tennis Plays for Peace” exhibition to raise funds for Ukraine relief. Tennis luminaries such as Rafael Nadal, John McEnroe, and Coco Gauff participated. The event raised $1.2 million.

In other recent news, a firefighter playing in a semi-pro basketball game used his knowledge of CPR to save a referee who had collapsed from a heart attack. A stranger searched for days using a metal detector until he found a woman’s engagement ring lost in the ocean. A British mother who lost her teenage son to cardiac arrest has installed twenty defibrillators in their town.

And a university student has raised more than $159,000 in donations as of this morning to help him adopt a baby he found abandoned in a trash can while visiting his family in Haiti.

Measuring God by the evidence

When people act in benevolent ways, we feel better about human nature. When people act in hurtful ways, we feel worse about human nature. This is especially true when religious leaders make the news for the wrong reasons, as with Matt Chandler’s leave of absence from his Dallas area megachurch, an announcement that is still echoing in my community and across the evangelical world.

We tend to measure not just the people of God but God himself by the evidence. When he answers our prayers and otherwise acts in gracious ways toward us, we respond with worship and thanksgiving. But when he does not answer our prayers in the way we ask and acts in other ways we do not understand, we are prone to question his power, his love, and even his existence.

The skeptic Sam Harris claimed that the existence of a suffering child anywhere in the universe negates belief in an all-knowing, all-loving God. You and I would not go that far. We continue to pray and try to have faith. But when God seems silent or distant or even asleep in our crisis, it can be hard to keep trusting him.

So, let’s consider a time when God actually did fall asleep in a storm.

Facing a mega seismos

In Matthew 8, Jesus “gave orders to go over to the other side” of the Sea of Galilee (v. 18), then he “got into the boat, [and] his disciples followed him” (v. 23). Suddenly there “arose a great storm on the sea” (v. 24a); the Greek calls it a mega seismos, a “massive shaking.” The boat was being “swamped by the waves”—so much water was getting inside the boat that it could soon sink.

Where was Jesus in this crisis? “He was asleep” (v. 24b). So his disciples “went and woke him, saying, ‘Save us, Lord; we are perishing’” (v. 25). These veteran fishermen knew their very lives were in jeopardy and cried to Christ for help.

His response seems surprising: “He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?’” (v. 26a). What did they do wrong? They were in the storm because they had followed Jesus at his command. He had taught them in the Sermon on the Mount, “Ask, and it will be given to you” (Matthew 7:7). Their prayer was not superficial but heartfelt, sincere, and passionate.

The rest of the story gives us our answer: “Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, ‘What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?’” (vv. 26b–27).

“You rule the raging of the sea”

The healing miracles Jesus’ disciples had seen him perform had been performed by others. However, prior to this event, no man had ever calmed a storm with only his words. Furthermore, the Jews considered calming storms to be the providence of God alone: “You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them” (Psalm 89:9; cf. Psalm 46:1–3; Psalm 107:29).

So the disciples went to Jesus for what help he could give, hoping he might be able to do something but nonetheless “afraid” he could not (v. 26). And when he answered their prayer, they marveled at “what sort of man is this” (v. 27, my emphasis).

They did not yet know what we know. They did not know that he would be raised from the dead and ascend back to heaven. At this point, they apparently saw Jesus as other Jews saw the Messiah: an anointed person used greatly by God but nonetheless a man, not God.

In their Jewish monotheism, “the Lᴏʀᴅ is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4). God could not be in heaven and on earth. Jesus could not be man and God. So, when he did what only God could do, “they marveled” at him.

They needed to learn what we need to remember: Jesus is God, and God is always enough.

“Who can drain a fountain?”

The storms of life can cause us to question the sufficiency of the God who allows them, but when we understand his providence the least is when we need his power the most.

When the crisis comes, we can turn from God because we do not understand his will, or we can trust that he knows what we do not (Isaiah 55:9) and will always act consistently with his perfect holiness (Revelation 4:8) and perfect love (1 John 4:8).

Then, the more we experience his power, the more we are transformed by gratitude for his grace. As A. W. Tozer paraphrased St. Bernard of Clairvaux: “The blacker the iniquity, the deeper the fall, the sweeter is the mercy of God who pardoned all.”

So trust the Savior who loved you enough to die for you, who is holding you in his hand right now (John 10:28) and praying for you at this very moment (Romans 8:34). And believe that this God is enough.

Charles Spurgeon wrote: “The cattle on a thousand hills will suffice for our most hungry feeding, and the granaries of heaven are not likely to be emptied by our eating. If Christ were only a cistern, we might soon exhaust his fulness, but who can drain a fountain? Myriads of spirits have drawn their supplies from him, and not one of them has murmured at the scantiness of his resources.”

He added: “A fish can more easily drink the oceans dry than we can ever exhaust the love of God in heaven. Drink away, little fish, you’ll never drink it all dry!”

What storm are you fighting today?

Denison Forum

When Matt Chandler became pastor of Highland Village First Baptist Church in 2002, the church averaged 160 in attendance. Now known as The Village Church (TVC), the DFW-area congregation has planted multiple churches and has grown to over fourteen thousand attendees.

Chandler was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2009 but was declared cancer-free a year later following medical treatment. He has written numerous books and leads the Acts 29 Network, a church planting partnership with more than four hundred churches in the US and around the world.

Then came an announcement yesterday that shocked everyone who knows Matt Chandler and his ministry.

“A Message to Our Church Family”

According to a statement by TVC titled, “A Message to Our Church Family,” a woman approached Chandler a few months ago with “concerns about the way he was using direct messaging on social media with a woman who was not his wife.” Chandler told the church yesterday that the messages were not sexual or romantic but that they crossed a line with their “frequency” and “familiarity.”

According to the church, Chandler shared these concerns with his wife and two elders that same evening and “submitted to their leadership in addressing the situation.” The elders in turn commissioned an independent law firm to review Chandler’s messaging history across all media platforms. Their report “led the elders to conclude that Matt violated our internal social media use policies, and more importantly that, while the overarching pattern of his life has been ‘above reproach,’ he failed to meet the 1 Timothy standard for elders being ‘above reproach’ in this instance.”

The elders did not determine that this issue rose to the level of disqualification, but they concluded that “Matt’s behavior was a sign of unhealth in his life” and determined that “the best course of action would be for him to take a leave of absence.” They added that this leave of absence “is both disciplinary and developmental, which allows him to focus on growing greater awareness in this area.” And they noted, “The timeline for his return will be dictated by the expectations the elders have laid out for his development.”

Four biblical responses

I do not know Matt Chandler or TVC personally. This announcement was made only a day ago; I know only what has been made public through it. Nonetheless, I can make four biblical statements this morning.

First and most obviously, “An overseer must be above reproach” (1 Timothy 3:2; cf. 1 Peter 5:3).

The TVC elders and Chandler emphasized this fact. This principle is crucial in part because otherwise the body of Christ faces crises precisely like the one we are discussing today. It is human nature to judge a movement by its leaders. And it can be devastating for church members when trust in their leaders is broken or abused.

Consequently, churches must hold their leaders accountable.

Scripture warns, “We who teach will be judged with greater strictness” (James 3:1). God knows those who are false shepherds and will judge them for their sins (Ezekiel 34:1–10). Chandler and the church elders are to be commended for taking this matter seriously and responding in a way that appears to be transparent and redemptive.

At the same time, we need to recognize that pastors are under attack.

As Anglican minister Tish Harrison Warren noted in her New York Times newsletter yesterday, pastors are facing burnout and discouragement at epidemic levels. She cites a Barna study showing that 42 percent of pastors have considered quitting full-time ministry within the past year. Stress, isolation, political division, coping with death and grief from the coronavirus pandemic, and the “relentless pace of issues” are all factors. Satan’s attack on Peter mirrors his hatred for all Christian leaders today (Luke 22:31).

While we need to encourage and pray for our pastors, we must also care deeply for those who are harmed by clergy misconduct.

Yesterday, TVC lead pastor Josh Patterson thanked the woman who confronted Chandler for her conviction and courage. The woman who received his inappropriate messages deserves compassion and care from her church family. And TVC leaders and their faith family need our compassion and intercession. We are to “bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).

Three bold statements

As I prayed about the way I should close this difficult Daily Article, I felt directly led to make three bold statements to you and to myself as well.

One: If we are hearing this news without a spirit of grief for everyone concerned, we need to repent of our lack of compassion and pray for “compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another” (Colossians 3:12–13).

Two: If we are responding to this story with a sense of personal superiority, we need to repent of our prideful sin and “clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another” (1 Peter 5:5).

Three: You and I must pray every day for the power of the Spirit to live with such godliness that our private lives always honor our Lord (2 Corinthians 7:1).

Matt Chandler could not have imagined that his personal direct messages would become headline news months later and would affect multitudes of people in the Dallas area and around the world. In a day of instant digital communication and global social media, our private lives can become public more quickly than ever before.

Billy Graham’s greatest personal fear was that “I’ll do something or say something that will bring some disrepute on the gospel of Christ before I go.”

The less you share his fear today, the more you need to.

Denison Forum

A driver and monitor on a school bus in Dallas, Texas, helped save two children who were caught up and nearly swept away in the recent flooding in our area. The driver said later, “It had to be God to send me that way because I don’t normally go that way.”

As our schools open across the country, so does concern for our schools and students. After gun violence in schools tripled over the previous year, wearable panic buttons are being mandated or encouraged by multiple states across the country. Bulletproof backpack sales are on the rise as well.

School violence is not the only risk to our youth: self-harm claims among US teenagers increased by 99 percent during the pandemic, claims related to overdoses jumped 119 percent, and claim reports for anxiety and major depressive disorders rose 94 percent and 84 percent, respectively.

Unsurprisingly, a record 58 percent of Americans say our best days are behind us and three-quarters of voters say the country is heading in the wrong direction. United States Poet Laureate Joseph Brodsky claimed, “Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse.”

And yet, as theologian Teilhard de Chardin observed, “The future belongs to those who give the next generation reason for hope.”

How can you and I offer hope most effectively?

A better way to change minds

Harvard professor Arthur C. Brooks writes in the Atlantic that changing people’s minds is extremely difficult, especially through argumentation that attacks the beliefs of others.

He notes: “When people fail to live up to your moral values (or your expression of them), it is easy to conclude that they are immoral people. Further, if you are deeply attached to your values, this difference can feel like a threat to your identity, leading you to lash out, which won’t convince anyone who disagrees with you” (his emphasis).

By contrast, Brooks observes, “Effective missionaries present their beliefs as a gift. And sharing a gift is a joyful act, even if not everyone wants it.” He encourages us to follow their example by offering our values “with love, not insults and hatred.”

To this end, we should “go out of your way to welcome those who disagree with you as valued voices worthy of respect and attention.” We should refuse to take rejection personally. And we need to listen empathetically: research shows that “listening and asking sensitive questions almost always has a more beneficial effect than talking.”

“Though I was blind, now I see”

Early Christians believed that the “gospel” (literally “good news”) was so valuable that many sacrificed their lives to share this gift with others. And their transformed lives were evidence that this gift works. What changed them could change others and, through them, the world.

The psalmist declared, “Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my soul” (Psalm 66:16). The man born blind told the religious authorities, “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see” (John 9:25). Paul never tired of telling the story of God’s transforming grace in the heart of the “chief” of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15 NKJV).

However, Satan knows the power of a changed life as well.

That’s why he is working to turn the culture not only against Christian beliefs but against Christians themselves. For the first time in American history, those who affirm biblical sexual morality are being branded as homophobic, discriminatory, and dangerous. Pro-life advocates are being castigated as part of a “war on women.”

Tragically, we cooperate with Satan’s strategy when our clergy abuse children and congregants, our churches and denominations go to war with each other over theology and buildings, and some of our leaders embrace unbiblical immorality while criticizing those who uphold biblical truth.

Following my guide through the jungle

The key to living a transformed life that draws others to Christ is practicing the presence of the transforming Christ. Jesus was clear on this: “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5, my emphasis).

From our Lord’s statement we learn this fact: We experience God to the degree that we are surrendered to him. This is how all relationships work: a gift must be opened to be useful; a doctor must be trusted to be helpful.

When I served as a college missionary on the island of Borneo, our guide took us one day through deep jungles to a remote village. He could lead us only when we followed his path and not our own.

Oswald Chambers wrote: “We never know the joy of self-sacrifice until we abandon in every particular.” Paradoxically, many of us have surrendered just enough of our lives to Christ to miss both what the world offers and what God offers. Thus we forfeit the joy of the Lord that would draw the world to the Lord.

However, Chambers assured us, “As soon as we do abandon, the Holy Ghost gives us an intimation of the joy of Jesus.” The results will be visible to others: a life fully surrendered to Jesus is “unutterably humble, unsulliedly pure, and absolutely devoted to God.”

“In his will is our peace”

It is not easy to live a surrendered life. This is a death to self, but a death that leads to abundant life we can find in no other way (John 10:10). As Dante noted in The Divine Comedy, “In his will is our peace.”

World champion weightlifter Jerzy Gregorek observed: “Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.”

My dear friend and fellow minister Dr. Ron Scates puts it this way: “When Christianity is hard, it is easy. When Christianity is easy, it is hard.”

Which will be true for you today?

Denison Forum

President Biden announced yesterday that he would cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for Americans earning less than $125,000 per year or households earning less than $250,000.

The White House claims that 90 percent of the relief will go to households earning $75,000 a year or less. Students who received Pell grants, which are for low-income students, will be eligible to receive an additional $10,000 in debt forgiveness.

Arguments for student loan forgiveness

According to the White House, the move is necessary because federal support has not kept pace with the cost of attending college. Pell Grants, for example, once covered nearly 80 percent of college costs but now cover only a third. Many students from low- and middle-income families thus had no choice but to borrow to get a college degree.

The administration claims that the move will help middle-class borrowers buy homes, put away money for retirement, and start small businesses. It will also help more vulnerable borrowers who could not complete their degrees due to financial constraints and now have debt but no degree. And the announcement noted that student debt falls disproportionately on Black borrowers.

On its face, according to the New York Times, the announcement could cost taxpayers about $300 billion or more in money that they effectively lent but will never be repaid. However, much of that debt was unlikely ever to be repaid: more than eight million people—one in five borrowers with a payment due—had already defaulted on their loans even before the coronavirus pandemic.

Arguments against student loan forgiveness

Many are questioning the legality of the president’s decision. The Office of the General Counsel of the US Department of Education previously determined that a presidential administration “does not have the statutory authority to provide blanket or mass cancelation, compromise, discharge, or forgiveness of student loan principal balances, and/or to materially modify the repayment amounts or terms thereof.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has also stated that the president lacks the executive authority to cancel student loan debt. And she noted that under such an action, Americans would be “paying taxes to forgive somebody else’s obligations.”

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget warns that canceling student debt will add to inflation and will undermine the Inflation Reduction Act. Critics also claim that the action is unfair to those who chose not to go to college, those paying back loans taken for other purposes (such as small business loans), those who have already paid off their student loans, those who chose colleges that required them to borrow less money, and those who will take out student loans in the future (since the president’s action is only for current loans).

The political consequences are yet to be seen. USA Today notes this morning that the president’s move “is a major gamble, presenting both an opportunity to energize young voters and handing Republicans new lines of attack on fairness and wealth.” Republican pollster Frank Luntz responded: “Make no mistake, you cut college debt and individuals in their twenties will reward Biden in record numbers. It’s just that the other people who paid off their debt will be really angry.”

How to become human

If you are like most of us, my guess is that you’re processing this debate through the prism of your personal perspective. If you’re a supporter of the president, you probably support his decision. If you’re a critic, you’re probably critical. If your student loans just got canceled, you’re probably grateful. If you paid back your student loans, you’re probably angry that some will not have to pay back theirs.

It is human nature to measure the world through our personal experience. After all, you have no eyes through which to see the world but your own. But we must beware: our fallen condition prompts us to be our own god (Genesis 3:5), a desire empowered by scientific and technological advances that enable us to bend the world to our will more than ever before.

Paradoxically, this quest for self-advancement comes at the detriment of the self.

In his book Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning, psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl observed: “Man is originally characterized by his ‘search for meaning’ rather than his ‘search for himself.’ The more he forgets himself—giving himself to a cause or another person—the more human he is. And the more he is immersed and absorbed in something or someone other than himself, the more he becomes himself” (his emphases).

Has this day come for you?

Jesus took this theme a step further: “Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25). “Loses” translates a Greek word meaning “to destroy utterly, to bring to ruin.” If we obliterate our life for Jesus’ sake, we will find it—guaranteed. And only then.

The Bible repeatedly calls us to submit our lives completely to God with the promise that he will give us in return a life we could never achieve or experience otherwise:

• “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (James 4:10).
• “Trust in the Lᴏʀᴅ with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6).
• “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33).
• “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

In The Normal Christian Life, the Chinese theologian Watchman Nee wrote: “A day must come in our lives, as definite as the day of our conversion, when we give up all right to ourselves and submit to the absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ.”

Has this day come for you?

Here’s one way to know. Nee asked, “Is there anything God is asking of you that you are withholding from him? Is there any point of contention between you and him?” He added: “Not till every controversy is settled and the Holy Spirit is given full sway can he reproduce the life of Christ in the heart of any believer.”

Can the Spirit “reproduce the life of Christ” in your heart today?

Denison Forum

 “I will do whatever it takes to ensure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office, and I mean it.” So declared Rep. Liz Cheney after losing her Republican House primary last week. When asked if she plans to run for president, she said later, “That’s a decision that I’m going to make in the coming months . . . but it is something that I am thinking about.”

Now a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows that if she were to run for president as an independent in 2024, she could actually help to reelect Mr. Trump.

In the poll, if the 2024 election were held today and were a rematch between President Biden and former President Trump, Biden would lead by four points among registered voters. But if Cheney were on the ballot as an independent, she would draw so much Democratic support that Trump would vault to an eight-point lead over Biden, 40 percent to 32 percent, while Cheney would receive 11 percent of the vote.

In other words, her candidacy could accomplish the opposite of its intended purpose.

UN preparing to declare abortion a “human right”

One of the many reasons it is difficult to effect moral transformation through political means is that political outcomes are so unpredictable. Three days before the 2016 election, the Princeton Election Consortium gave Hillary Clinton a 99 percent chance of winning the election. The 1980 election was widely considered “too close to call” before Ronald Reagan won in a landslide.

Another is that political entities so often get moral issues so wrong. For instance, delegates at the United Nations General Assembly are finalizing negotiations on a resolution that would require all UN agencies to declare abortion a human right. And a judge ruled yesterday in support of a Maryland school district that allows children to “transition socially to a different gender identity at school” without parental notice or consent.

The most egregious example in recent decades came in the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision that discovered a right to same-sex marriage in the US Constitution. Writing for the five-to-four majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy assured those opposed to gay marriage on religious grounds: “The First Amendment ensures that religions, those who adhere to religious doctrines, and others have protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths.”

In the years that have followed, Christian bakers, florists, wedding chapel operators, photographers, and the like can testify that he was tragically wrong.

Now the so-called Equality Act would grant LGBTQ persons protected class status while allowing no appeal to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act or First Amendment protections for those who object on religious grounds. The so-called Respect for Marriage Act could be used by the IRS to strip nonprofit, faith-based organizations of their tax-exempt status if they adhere to their religious beliefs regarding marriage. And a lawsuit filed against religious colleges and universities that uphold biblical sexuality could cost them billions of dollars in student aid.

Why was Justice Kennedy so wrong? How did conservative Christians become cultural pariahs almost overnight?

How Christian truth became hate speech

In his 2017 book, Strangers in a Strange Land, Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput brilliantly analyzes this cultural moment. He lists various Christian “convictions about the dignity of life and human sexuality” such as “abortion, contraception, gender identity, marriage, and family,” noting that they are “rooted not just in biblical revelation, but in reason and natural law.”

Then he notes: “Critics of the Church reduce all these moral convictions to an expression of subjective religious beliefs. And if they’re purely religious beliefs, then—so the critics argue—they can’t be rationally defended. And because they’re rationally indefensible, they should be treated as a form of prejudice.”

Here’s the result: “Thus two thousand years of moral truth and religious principle become, by sleight of hand, a species of bias.” For example, “Opposing same-sex marriage (so the reasoning goes) amounts to religiously blessed homophobia.”

Further, “When religious belief is redefined downward to a kind of private bias, then the religious identity of institutional ministries has no public value—other than the utility of getting credulous people to do socially useful things. So exempting Catholic adoption agencies, for example, from placing children with same-sex couples becomes a concession to private prejudice. And concessions to private prejudice feed bigotry and hurt the public. Or so the reasoning goes.

“Insufficiently ‘progressive’ moral teaching and religious belief end up reclassified as hate speech.”

“They exchanged the truth about God for a lie”

How accurately does this text describe our culture? “God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:24–25, my emphasis).

Our root problem is simple and tragic: people will accuse the truth of being a lie if it contradicts lies they want to believe are true. Our first parents wanted to be their own god (Genesis 3:5). They wanted what seemed “good for food,” a “delight to the eyes,” and “desired to make one wise” (v. 6). And so they ate the forbidden fruit, and the human race has never recovered.

Don’t think for a minute that you and I are less susceptible to lies we want to believe. This is why we should submit every day to the guidance of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), then partner with him by seeking to have our “powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” (Hebrews 5:14).

Because of our fallen condition, we should work for cultural transformation through humility that admits our shared fallenness and prayer that seeks what only God can do. And we should make time every day to experience God through transforming personal worship that empowers us to love our Lord and our neighbor (Mark 12:30–31).

The poet wrote: “My heart an altar, and Thy love the flame.”

Who—or what—is the flame on your altar today?

Denison Forum

The former director of the Central Intelligence Agency recently claimed that the modern-day Republican Party is the most “dangerous” political force he has ever seen. With Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s ambitions for global dominance, Iran’s growing power in the Middle East, and North Korea’s nuclear threats, this is quite a statement.

In similar news, Vanity Fair published an article titled “Republicans appear to be realizing all their candidates are dangerous weirdos.” And Democratic strategist James Carville is condemning the media for covering “both sides” equally when some Democrats are “just silly” but Republicans are “evil.”

By contrast, Republican House candidate Sarah Palin told a cheering audience, “It’s no longer Democrat versus Republican. This is all about control versus freedom. It’s good versus evil. It’s a spiritual battle.” A national conservative commentator said of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, “I just think she’s an evil woman. A woman who is consumed with power. . . . it just makes me disgusted.”

More than 40 percent of Democrats see Republicans not as political opponents but as enemies; close to 60 percent of Republicans view Democrats in the same way. And Pew Research Center reports that 72 percent of Republicans and 63 percent of Democrats say members of the other party are more immoral, dishonest, and close-minded than other Americans.

We are seeing a level of political divisiveness and hatred today that challenges our confidence in democracy itself. One researcher warned that Americans are “losing faith in elections, institutions, and the ability of democracy to survive.”

More than at any time in my lifetime, it is urgent that Christians be part of the solution and not part of the problem.

“Our Christian political ethic is upside down”

Christian cultural commentator David French published an article yesterday in which he wrote: “The longer I live the more convinced I am that our Christian political ethic is upside down. On a bipartisan basis, the church has formed its members to be adamant about policies that are difficult and contingent and flexible about virtues that are clear and mandatory” (his emphases).

Dr. Tim Keller agrees. In a typically perceptive analysis, he stated: “One of the many reasons for the decline of church-going and religion in the US is that increasingly Christians are seen as highly partisan foot-soldiers for political movements. This is both divisive within the church and discrediting out in the world. Many Christians publicly disown and attack other believers who share the same beliefs in Christ but who are voting for the ‘wrong’ candidates. They seem to feel a more common bond with people of the same politics than of the same faith.

“When the church as a whole is no longer seen as speaking to questions that transcend politics, and when it is no longer united by a common faith that transcends politics, then the world sees strong evidence that Nietzsche, Freud, and Marx were right, that religion is really just a cover for people wanting to get their way in the world.”

Here’s a virtue that is “clear and mandatory,” to cite French: Paul instructed Titus to “remind” Christians “to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people” (Titus 3:1, 2, my emphases).

Why should we extend such grace? “For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another” (v. 3).

What changed? “When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy” (vv. 4–5). As a result, Christians are to “devote themselves to good works” (v. 8) and to “avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless” (v. 9).

This is such an urgent issue that Paul advised Titus, “As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned” (vv. 10–11).

We know the real enemy

Does this mean that Christians should not stand boldly for biblical truth and morality? Absolutely not. Early Christians were condemned and martyred by the authorities of their day precisely because they would not stop preaching the gospel and speaking truth to power.

But it does mean that we must refuse to condemn those with whom we disagree. This fact is vital in a democracy—if people who disagree cannot work together, ultimately they cannot live together and the future of their nation is imperiled. We can coexist with people who are “wrong,” but living with people who are “evil” is another matter.

As those who have been transformed by grace, you and I can—and, in fact, must—take the lead here. We know that the real enemy is Satan, the one who “has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4). And we know the One who is the only true hope of the world (Acts 4:12).

As “sons of God,” we are called by Jesus to be “peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9). We are forbidden by Scripture to say about someone what we would not say to them (cf. Matthew 18:15). We are likewise forbidden to slander (1 Peter 2:1), lie (Exodus 20:16), or gossip (Proverbs 16:28).

Rather, we are to pray for our leaders (1 Timothy 2:1–2). We can and should hold them accountable (Luke 17:3), but in a spirit of encouragement rather than condemnation (1 Thessalonians 5:11). We can and should participate in our political process, but as salt and light rather than as divisive partisans.

Ronald Reagan’s example

Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels once worked for President Ronald Reagan. When asked what impacted him from those days, he said, “He would encourage us to remember that we have only opponents, not enemies. He learned how to turn the other cheek and never lost sight of the fact that we are all in this together—as Americans.

“He would never stoop to the level of personalizing things, even if his opponents were doing it to him. It’s really important never to demonize groups or people in political life, and he led by example in this regard.”

Let’s do the same today, to the glory of God.

Denison Forum

The school board in Fargo, North Dakota, has voted to stop reciting the Pledge of Allegiance before their biweekly meetings, ruling that the Pledge does not align with the district’s diversity code. The board’s vice chairman explained that the problem is two words: “Under God.”

The words “under God” were added to the Pledge in 1954 by a joint resolution of Congress and have withstood numerous legal challenges over the years. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, upon signing the bill, stated: “In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America’s heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country’s most powerful resource, in peace or in war.”

How many of our leaders today believe that “spiritual weapons” are “our country’s most powerful resource”?

The Fargo school board certainly does not. In fact, the board’s president recommended that members replace the Pledge of Allegiance with a “shared statement of purpose” which she thought was more appropriate for their work.

In other words, rather than being “one nation under God,” they will be “one nation under us.”

Salman Rushdie remains hospitalized after attack

While our nation slides ever further into moral relativism and missional chaos, many of our geopolitical enemies are choosing the opposite course. Consider Iran as an example.

Author Salman Rushdie was stabbed roughly ten times Friday as he prepared to speak at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York. His family said yesterday that he remains in critical condition in the hospital. Rushdie was taken off a ventilator over the weekend but is being treated for multiple wounds and may lose his right eye.

His attacker’s motives are not yet known, but an initial investigation suggested he had posted on social media about his support of Iran. He may have acted in response to an edict (known as a fatwa) by Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 calling for Rushdie’s death.

Rushdie’s novel, Satanic Verses, is considered blasphemous by many Muslims. The fatwa calls for Rushdie’s murder and offers a $3 million bounty for anyone who kills him. It has never been revoked by Iran’s leaders.

An Iranian government official denied today that Tehran was involved in the assault, but he added that his country considers “[Rushdie] and his supporters worth [sic] of blame and even condemnation.” The front page of a newspaper in Tehran said yesterday that Rushdie had gotten “divine vengeance” and claimed that former President Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo, his former secretary of state, “are next.”

In related news, the Justice Department unsealed charges last week against a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards for attempting to arrange the murder of former National Security Advisor John Bolton. Mike Pompeo and former State Department Iran policy coordinator Brian Hook have received extended Secret Service protection due to Iranian threats as well.

Three steps to getting elected

A perceptive essay in the New York Times explains why Iran remains such a threat to the US. Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, reminds us that the 1979 Iranian revolution was fueled by religious fundamentalists focused on anti-Americanism. From then until today, the regime’s rulers have made their opposition to the United States central to their nation’s revolutionary identity.

Whether the issue is Iran’s nuclear program, its sponsorship of terrorist regimes in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza, or its geopolitical ambition to rebuild the Persian Empire, the ideological pattern is clear: America is the “Great Satan” who must be opposed for the sake of Iran’s survival. Iran’s entrenched leaders depend on this “threat” to legitimize their power, unify their military, and forestall meaningful reforms within their country.

I am reminded of an observation a perceptive friend shared with me many years ago. He noted that to motivate people to your cause, do three things: (1) convince them they have an enemy; (2) convince them they cannot defeat their enemy; and (3) convince them you will defeat their enemy if they vote for you, give you money, or do whatever else you want them to do.

This strategy has empowered Iran’s leaders for more than four decades. The despotic rulers of Russia, China, Cuba, and North Korea are similarly fixated on the “threat” of the West. This missional focus enables and protects their leadership despite their manifest failures to enhance the lives of their people.

Embracing a mission God can bless

On one hand, we have the West’s relativistic insistence on tolerance of all truth claims (except those considered “intolerant”), to the demise of truth and the forfeiture of missional focus. On the other, we have autocratic regimes that focus missionally on external threats (usually America and the West) to enhance their personal power at the expense of their citizens.

Scripture offers us a third way: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). Let’s consider three reasons we should embrace this missional command.

One: God cannot empower any other purpose, because to glorify anyone or anything ahead of himself is to commit idolatry. As a result, when we seek to glorify God, we position ourselves to experience his omnipotent power and omniscient leadership. When we don’t, we don’t.

Two: He made all that is, which is why “the heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1). (For more on the stupendous magnificence of God’s creation, see my latest website article, “Supergiant Betelgeuse has unprecedented stellar eruption.”)

Three: He purchased our eternal salvation. We should therefore respond with gratitude: “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20).

I plan to say more tomorrow about living for God’s glory. For today, let’s close with advice from the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca (4 BC–AD 65): “Adopt once and for all some single rule to live by, and make your whole life conform to it.”

What “single rule” will you live by today?

Denison Forum

No one won last night’s Mega Millions drawing, which had a jackpot of $830 million, the fourth-largest in US history. As a result, the grand prize in Friday night’s drawing is now an estimated $1.02 billion, though that number is certain to grow as more tickets are bought ahead of the drawing.

If you bought a ticket but didn’t win last night, consider this: your odds of winning were one in 302.5 million. By contrast, consider your odds of experiencing the following:

• Having identical quadruplets: one in fifteen million
• Becoming an astronaut: one in twelve million
• Being struck by lightning: one in ten million
• Being crushed by a meteor: one in seven hundred thousand
• Becoming an Olympic athlete: one in five hundred thousand

Some discouragements are just part of life, but others reframe life. Consider the so-called Respect for Marriage Act (RMA) that has passed the House and is now before the Senate. It would repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act and require the federal government to recognize any marriage if it is legally performed in any of the fifty states.

Why is this bill so discouraging?

One: If a single state recognizes polygamy as legal marriage, the federal government would be required to do the same, making polygamy the long-expected next domino to fall as marriage continues to be redefined and corrupted. Since a town in Massachusetts has already done this, and the state of Massachusetts was the first to recognize same-sex marriage in 2004, such a scenario seems more plausible than ever.

Two: The RMA goes much further than the 2015 Obergefell decision by focusing on the LGBTQ community and thus rendering marriage genderless. As John Stonestreet notes, “This will harm children and further confuse reality.”

Three: The RMA has no provisions whatever for conscience protections. Legal actions against florists, cake makers, wedding chapels, and others who stand for biblical marriage will undoubtedly continue.

“Those who seek the Lᴏʀᴅ lack no good thing”

We have focused this week on finding victory over temptation and doubt. Today, let’s discuss discouragement.

Our first response should be to expect it. Challenges and setbacks are part of life, even (and sometimes especially) for people of faith.

In Psalm 34, David testified: “Those who seek the Lᴏʀᴅ lack no good thing” (v. 10). However, verse 18 adds, “The Lᴏʀᴅ is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” Apparently, we can still be “brokenhearted” and “crushed” even though God is “near” us.

Verse 19 captures this tension: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lᴏʀᴅ delivers him out of them all.” While God’s timeline may not be ours, the ultimate outcome is beyond doubt: “The Lᴏʀᴅ redeems the life of his servants; none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned” (v. 22).

We know how the story ends, but not when. In the meantime, discouragement is part of life.

“Rejoice in the Lord always”

Our second response should be to seek the joy of Jesus no matter our circumstances.

Paul wrote the letter of Philippians while in prison to a city where he had been imprisoned. Nonetheless, he could exhort his readers: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” (Philippians 4:4).

“Rejoice” is a present-tense imperative, an ongoing command without conditions or qualifications. While happiness depends on happenings, spiritual joy (the essence of “rejoice”) transcends our circumstances. No matter where we are, we can rejoice “in the Lord”—the phrase means to be intimately, deeply connected to our Master and King.

The darker the room, the more urgent the light. If discouragement has weakened your desire to be with God, this means your spiritual eyes have become adjusted to the dark. In this case, the less you want to be with God, the more you need to be with God.

(For more on the transformative power of meeting God in his word, please see my latest website article, “Where to see a $43 million copy of the US Constitution.”)

“Strength I find to meet my trials here”

There is more to say, so we’ll conclude this discussion tomorrow. For today, let’s close with a remarkable story that caught my eye recently.

Karolina Sandell-Berg (1832–1903) lived a life filled with heartbreak and hope. She was stricken at an early age with partial paralysis but was miraculously healed at the age of twelve. In gratitude, she began writing verses of praise to God and published her first book of spiritual poetry at the age of sixteen.

Ten years later, she was on a boat trip with her father, a Lutheran minister, when he fell overboard and drowned in her presence. Her hymns became even deeper and more heartfelt in the years to come. She wrote over six hundred hymns in total.

She married in 1867, but their only child died at birth. She became ill with typhoid fever in 1892 and died eleven years later. And yet, through all her discouragements, Karolina could testify in perhaps her most famous hymn:

Day by day, and with each passing moment,
Strength I find to meet my trials here;
Trusting in my Father’s wise bestowment,
I’ve no cause for worry or for fear.
He, whose heart is kind beyond all measure,
Gives unto each day what he deems best,
Lovingly its part of pain and pleasure,
Mingling toil with peace and rest. 

Will you trust your Father’s “wise bestowment” today?

Denison Forum

President Joe Biden tested positive yesterday morning for COVID-19. According to a White House statement, “He is fully vaccinated and twice boosted and experiencing very mild symptoms.”

In other political news, US Rep. Lee Zeldin, the Republican candidate for New York governor, was assaulted at an event last night, though he escaped serious injury. Italy’s president dissolved parliament yesterday following the resignation of the country’s prime minister. And CIA Director William Burns responded to rumors about Vladimir Putin’s health by stating, “As far as we can tell, he’s entirely too healthy.”

Geopolitics are not the only place to find illustrations of our uncertain times. Over one hundred million Americans are under heat warnings and advisories (for more on the heat crisis, see Dr. Ryan Denison’s insightful new article.) Ghana has confirmed its first outbreak of the highly infectious Marburg virus, which has a fatality rate of up to 88 percent.

And experts who gathered in Rome this week for a conference organized by the University of Notre Dame warned that religious freedom is under attack all over the world.

“Self-sufficiency is the greatest of all wealth”

This week we’ve explored reasons to trust God’s will in uncertain times. Let’s close with this fact: the more uncertain the times, the more we need to trust God’s will. The more difficult the surgery, the more we need a skillful surgeon. The heavier the burden, the more we need a strong friend.

However, it can be hard to trust God when it’s hard to trust God. That sounds like something Yogi Berra would say, but it’s true. The more difficult the times, the more we are tempted to blame God for them. And the more we are tempted to double down on ourselves.

From Socrates to today, Western society has taught us that to “know thyself” is the key to wisdom. Self-reliance is the path to personal success and significance, or so we’re told.

Epicurus (341–270 BC) claimed, “Self-sufficiency is the greatest of all wealth.” Ralph Waldo Emerson agreed: “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” So did Ayn Rand: “Man—every man—is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself.”

Joseph Campbell assured us, “You become mature when you become the authority of your own life.” And Steve Jobs famously advised, “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become.” (For more on our cultural self-reliance and our need for what only God can do, please see my new article, “‘Nap boxes’ and the providence of God.”

However, as you consider the news I’ve reported today and the daily drumbeat of crises in the headlines, let me ask: How is self-reliance working for us?

Why Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane

In challenging times, I recommend a look back that empowers a look up.

The Garden of Gethsemane is my wife’s favorite place in Israel. It was here that Jesus chose to die for us. As he watched the soldiers marching through the eastern walls of Jerusalem, into the Kidron valley, and up the Mount of Olives, he had abundant opportunity to flee what he knew was coming.

If he had retreated back to Galilee, the authorities in Jerusalem would have been pleased—this would have ended the threat of a revolt by his followers without risking the wrath of these same followers over his arrest and execution. And yet he stayed where he was, sealing his death.

However, there’s even more to the decision our Savior made that night.

Judas had already conspired with the authorities to betray Jesus, but arresting this popular figure needed to happen under the cover of darkness and outside the city lest the crowds hear of this plot and rise up against it. How could this be arranged?

Jesus solved their problem. He waited for them late at night and outside the city walls at a place Judas could find him: “Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, for Jesus often met there with his disciples” (John 18:2).

It was there that Jesus chose what would come the next day: he would suffer the most grievous form of torture ever devised, bear the sins of all of humanity on his sinless soul, and be separated from his Father for the only time in all of eternity. It was there that he chose to die on a cross so you could live eternally.

He would do it all over again, just for you.

“I choose to trust God in everything I do”

When we remember the love that drove Jesus to the cross and we consider that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8), we realize that he loves us today as much as on the day he died for us. As a result, we can trust his word and will to be best for us because he only wants what is best for us.

Now we can name our challenges, entrust them to his compassion, claim his ongoing intercession for us (Romans 8:34), and ask that his Spirit empower us to love our Lord and our neighbor as we are loved. In this way, we will become catalysts for the spiritual renewal our culture needs so desperately.

Let’s close the week with a remarkable illustration of my thesis: Alena Wicker has been accepted to the University of Alabama Heersink School of Medicine. What makes this news so remarkable? Alena is thirteen years old. She graduated from high school at the age of twelve and is now a junior in college.

After her acceptance to medical school, she posted a note on Instagram thanking her mother: “A little black girl adopted from Fontana, California. I’ve worked so hard to reach my goals and live my dreams. Mama I made it. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Alena also testified to the ultimate source of her opportunities: “Thanking God for every open door and for allowing my gifts to make room for me.” She added on Facebook: “No matter what happens in life I choose to trust God in everything I do.”

Will you follow her example today?

Denison Forum