This story is heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time: a Canadian family is on a world tour so their three children with retinitis pigmentosa can build their “visual memories” before they lose their eyesight. So far, they have seen elephants, zebras, and giraffes in Namibia before moving on to Zambia, Tanzania, Turkey, Mongolia, and Indonesia.

“There are beautiful places everywhere in the world, so it doesn’t really matter where we go,” their mother explains.

When good things happen to good people, we tend to credit the good people with little thought for the God from whom “every good gift and every perfect gift” comes (James 1:17). However, when bad things happen to good people, we tend to blame God even though he “cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one” (James 1:13).

If Christians must account for evil in a world we claim was made by a loving Creator, skeptics must account for good in a world they claim was produced by chaotic chance.

I cannot help them with their problem, but I can offer three thoughts for ours.

One: Some suffering is the cost of living in a fallen world

God allows some suffering as a result of living in a fallen world (Romans 8:22). The law of gravity affects sinners and saints, atheists and missionaries alike.

If a chess master allows a novice to take back a move, the game can continue; if she allows a novice to take back every move, there can be no game. If God intervened every time the law of gravity was about to harm someone, there could be no law of gravity. He would likewise be forced to suspend all speech lest some words harm some people and even all brain activity lest some thoughts turn to sin.

In addition, God sometimes allows natural disasters and diseases to show us our finitude and need for his providence and provision. Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” led him to transforming reliance on his Lord (2 Corinthians 12:9–10). God wants to redeem our “thorns” in the same way.

Two: God permits the consequences of misused freedom

A health care expert says the sharp rise in sexually transmitted diseases in the US is “out of control.” The CDC warns that people who smoke cigarettes are fifteen to thirty times more likely to die from lung cancer than people who do not smoke. These are examples of the passive judgment of God whereby he responds to our sins by allowing us to experience their results.

A parent would never allow her three-year-old to experience the consequences of choosing to walk into a busy street, but she might allow her twelve-year-old to experience the consequences of refusing to do his homework.

In the same way, God sometimes judges sin by allowing its consequences. He said of his sinful people, “I will bring their deeds upon their own heads, declares the Lord Gᴏᴅ” (Ezekiel 11:21). Paul reported that the Lord responded similarly to “all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men” (Romans 1:18) when he “gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity” (v. 24), to “dishonorable passions” (v. 26), and to a “debased mind to do what ought not to be done” (v. 28). He does this to bring sinners to repentance, confession, and reconciliation with himself (1 John 1:9; Proverbs 28:13).

However, such consequences often affect the innocent as well as the guilty. With congenital syphilis, infected moms pass the disease on to their babies, potentially leading to deafness, blindness, or even death for the child. Second-hand smoke causes nearly thirty-four thousand premature deaths from heart disease each year in the US among adults who do not smoke.

Three: God brings judgment against unrepentant sinners

If the consequences of our misused freedom do not bring us to repentance, God sometimes turns from passive to active judgment.

His warning to Judah is his warning for us as well: “I will make the land desolate, because they have acted faithlessly, declares the Lord Gᴏᴅ” (Ezekiel 15:8). His character does not change (Malachi 3:6). What he has judged in the past, he must judge in the present.

However, as with his passive judgment, God’s active judgment affects “the land,” including the faithful left in it. When God punished Judah with exile to Babylon, Daniel was exiled as well. Jesus warned that when Jerusalem fell, “women who are pregnant” and “those who are nursing infants” would suffer along with everyone else (Luke 21:23).

The spiritual life is a mountain

Here’s my point: faithful Christ followers must work with urgency for moral and spiritual awakening not only for the sake of unrepentant sinners facing judgment but for our sake as well.

Transformational encounters with God empower our faith in the face of disease and disaster. And they lead sinners to repentance before natural consequences or divine punishments for their sins affect us, our children, and our grandchildren.

Jesus called us to “walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you” (John 12:35). Either we walk in the light of Christ or we are overtaken by the dark. You and I are moving forward with Jesus or we are moving away from him. The spiritual life is not a level road but a mountain: we are either climbing up or we are sliding down.

And as we go, so goes the nation we are called to serve as “the” salt and light (Matthew 5:13–16).

We founded Denison Forum in 2009 to be a catalyst for moral and spiritual awakening. I am more convinced today than ever that the need for such a transforming movement of God’s Spirit is urgent and that the time is short.

For the sake of our culture as it slides further and further into immorality, and for the sake of our own families and communities, you and I must humble ourselves, pray, seek God’s face, and turn from our wicked ways (2 Chronicles 7:14).

Then, and only then, will he “heal our land.”

Denison Forum

Some crises are beyond our ability to control.

Hurricane Fiona intensified into a Category 4 storm today as it headed toward Bermuda after slamming the Turks and Caicos Islands yesterday and devastating Puerto Rico on Monday. Alaskan officials are rushing to provide aid to remote villages flooded by recent storms; a major earthquake struck Mexico on Monday; Uganda has declared an Ebola virus outbreak.

Other crises are entirely of our making.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the partial mobilization of his country’s military today, calling up reservists as he escalates his war in Ukraine. A cheating scandal is rocking the chess world. And California Gov. Gavin Newsom is promoting billboards in conservative states telling women seeking an abortion that “California is ready to help” and (ironically) quoting Mark 12:31, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Doesn’t he realize that a mother’s closest “neighbor” is her unborn child?

However, lest Texans like me jump to the conclusion that his state is ungodly and ours in the “Bible Belt” is more godly, we should consider this news: a new index reports that Dallas, Texas, ranks No. 1 in the nation for infidelity. Using Census Bureau data, the “most unfaithful cities in America” were identified. Fort Worth, Texas, came in second; Houston ranked third.

By contrast, the “most faithful cities” were, in order: Pasadena, Torrance, Roseville, and Visalia, each of which is in California.

A mirror in the world’s largest castle

Whether religion is morally transformative depends on its object, not just its subject. We can go to church, but if we do not encounter the risen and living Christ, not much will change as a result.

As British Prime Minister Liz Truss read at Queen Elizabeth II’s state funeral Monday, Jesus alone is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). His Spirit alone can change human hearts (John 16:8). He alone can make us a “new creation” as the children of God (2 Corinthians 5:17; John 1:14).

The uniqueness and necessity of Jesus was illustrated for me years ago when I first visited Windsor Castle, the site of the queen’s burial. The castle was originally completed by William the Conqueror around 1086; it has been enlarged and renovated many times since, most notably by George IV, who died in 1830. It is the oldest and largest inhabited castle in the world.

The ceiling of St. George’s Chapel, where the queen was buried, is so ornate that I wanted to stare at it for hours. However, it is so tall that doing so is difficult and renders an observer dizzy from the effort. As a result, a large mirror has been placed on the floor, angled at the ceiling. When we look at the reflection below, we see the reality above.

In the same way, Jesus assured his disciples, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). This is true of no other person in all of human history.

Does God accept the worship of all religions?

I make this point in response to a very disturbing report on “The State of Theology” in America just released by Ligonier Ministries and Lifeway Research.

It notes that 43 percent of evangelicals agree that “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.” This percentage has risen thirteen points in just two years. Correspondingly and tragically, 56 percent of American evangelicals also agree that “God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.” This percentage has risen fourteen points in two years.

Another study, this one by George Barna and the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, is even more disturbing: it reports that at least a third of senior pastors in the United States believe a person can earn a place in heaven simply by being a good person.

No wonder our culture is continuing its slide into unbiblical immorality. The retired congressman and my personal friend Frank Wolf is right: politics are downstream from culture, and culture is downstream from the church.

If those who preach sermons and those who hear them do not believe they urgently need a transforming relationship with Jesus Christ, we should not be surprised when their beliefs and their actions mirror those of our fallen society. The longer we avoid the light, the more our eyes adjust to the dark.

The prayer of a genius

So, let’s be clear: Jesus is who the historic Christian faith claims him to be: the sinless Son of God who walked our planet, died for our sins, rose from our grave, is praying right now for us, and will return one day as King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:16). (For evidence demonstrating the truthfulness of each of these claims, see my website article, “Why Jesus?” and my book, Wrestling with God.)

If you build your life on his unique lordship, when the hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, diseases, and the temptations of life find you, your house will stand (Matthew 7:24–25). If you do not, it will not (vv. 26–27).

A brilliant scholar at the University of Edinburgh was known affectionately to his students as Rabbi Duncan. The professor was a world-famous expert in Hebrew and Aramaic. One day some students began joking among themselves wondering what language this renowned genius used in his prayers.

Knowing his meticulous daily schedule, they made their way to his room in the nearby college and knelt quietly outside his door. To their surprise they could barely hear him whisper the words of Charles Wesley’s hymn:

Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
Look upon a little child,
Pity my simplicity,
Suffer me to come to thee.

When last did you go to him?

Denison Forum

I remember vividly the awe I felt when I entered Westminster Abbey for the first time. Parts of the present structure date to the 1040s; the Abbey was rebuilt by King Henry III and consecrated in 1269. The interior is much taller than it is wide and stands 101 feet in height. It gives those who enter an immediate sense of the vertical, drawing us from ourselves to God.

Queen Elizabeth II designed her state funeral conducted within the Abbey yesterday in the same way: vertically. She chose the music and the readings for her service personally. Each song was Scripture set to music or worship directed to the Almighty. And each reading came directly from the word of God.

For example, as her coffin moved through the Abbey, the choir sang The “Funeral Sentences” setting Scripture to music. The first hymn was Psalm 42 set to music and was “inspired by Her Majesty’s unwavering Christian faith,” according to Buckingham Palace. The second was “The Lord is My Shepherd”; the third was an anthem called “My Soul, There is a Country,” which points to “One who never changes—Thy God, thy life, thy cure.”

The fourth song, “O Taste and See,” was composed for the queen’s coronation in 1953 and sets Psalm 34 to music. The last congregational song was the national anthem and prayer, “God Save the King.”

Scripture readings were taken from 1 Corinthians 15 and John 14. As a result, billions of people around the world heard proclaimed the truth that God “gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57) and Jesus’ declaration, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

The reading from John 14 ended with Jesus’ statement, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (v. 9, KJV). The queen wanted the same to be said of her.

Awe produces humility

Watching her service yesterday morning was a true worship experience for me. Upon reflection, I believe I understand the source of the queen’s commitment to God and others: awe and adversity.

Her state funeral was so God-honoring because she lived her life in the same way. True awe of God always produces true humility toward God which leads to true service to others.

For example, when Isaiah “saw the Lord sitting upon a throne,” he was humbled by his sinfulness in light of God’s holiness and then he served God and others as one of the greatest prophets in history (Isaiah 6:1–8). Jeremiah saw his finitude in light of God’s revelation and was empowered to speak God’s word to the world (Jeremiah 1:4–10). John saw the risen Christ on Patmos, fell at his feet, and then gave the Revelation to the world (Revelation 1:9–20).

Queen Elizabeth II was similarly awed by God. Ministers who knew her best say her humble worship empowered her sense of divine calling to her duty. One said she was so immersed in Scripture that she would “just evangelize naturally.” Archbishop Justin Welby noted at her state funeral yesterday: “In 1953 the Queen began her Coronation with silent prayer, just there at the High Altar. Her allegiance to God was given before any person gave allegiance to her.”

From her example and those in Scripture we learn this fact: we can measure the degree to which we truly worship God by the degree to which we serve him and others.

Adversity produces humility

Adversity produces humility as well. Joseph’s years of slavery in Egypt taught him to treat his brothers not with pride but with humble service (cf. Genesis 50:18–20). Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” led him to say, “When I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).

Queen Elizabeth II, for all her wealth and power, knew personal adversity as well. She was twenty-five years old when her father died suddenly at the age of fifty-six and she inherited his mantle as the sovereign of a nation seeking to recover from World War II. Prime Minister Winston Churchill said of her, “But she’s just a child.” Historian Tracy Borman says that other officials likewise feared that she was “naïve” and “didn’t know anything about running a country.”

Guiding her nation through the Cold War, armed conflicts, deep political divisions, and very painful family struggles, she became what one commentator yesterday described as “the greatest monarch in the history of this planet.” She knew firsthand the truth of the statement she made famous in the aftermath of 9/11: “Grief is the price we pay for love.”

“We are all visitors to this time, this place”

Here’s the caveat: awe and adversity produce humility and service only if we choose for them to do so. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the grave, many were awed and placed their faith in him (John 11:45), but the religious leaders “made plans to put him to death” (v. 53). I have likewise seen adversity turn people from God rather than to him.

But if you will live your life in awe of God, using adversity as an opportunity to trust and serve him, your life will count in this world and be celebrated in the next.

Archbishop Welby observed yesterday, “The pattern for many leaders is to be exalted in life and forgotten after death. The pattern for all who serve God—famous or obscure, respected or ignored—is that death is the door to glory.” Later he noted: “People of loving service are rare in any walk of life. Leaders of loving service are still rarer. But in all cases those who serve will be loved and remembered when those who cling to power and privileges are forgotten.”

In her 2011 speech to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Australia, the queen quoted an Aboriginal proverb: “We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love, and then we return home.”

Now Queen Elizabeth II has returned “home.” She is no longer a queen—she has an even higher calling as a worshiper of the King. But I believe she will hear for all eternity those words we should all long to hear: “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:23).

When last were you awed by God?

When last did you use adversity to trust and serve your King?

Why not today?

Denison Forum

Up to a million people are lining the streets of London this morning for Queen Elizabeth II’s state funeral. Five hundred heads of state have assembled from around the world. The service is likely to be the world’s most watched broadcast of all time with 4.1 billion viewers.

It began at 11 a.m. in the UK, which is 6 a.m. EST and 5 a.m. in Dallas. If America’s response so far to the queen’s death is any indication, we can assume that millions of Americans are up watching.

The New York Times wondered recently if Elizabeth was the “Queen of America.” The article noted that the NFL’s first game of the season observed a moment of silence for her. Apple turned over its home page to a black-and-white photo of the young monarch. Even the Old North Church in Boston, where two lanterns were held high in 1775 to warn that the British were coming, invited visitors to sign a condolence book for the queen.

When Charles gave his first speech as king, ABC, CBS, and NBC covered it live, with CBS reporting 2.8 million viewers. By contrast, the broadcast networks declined to televise a speech by President Biden a week earlier. Only 23 percent of Americans say they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the presidency; in 1975, even after Watergate and the resignation of President Nixon, the figure stood at 52 percent.

There’s a lesson here we dare not miss.

All the monarchy we want

America’s fascination with the British monarchy and concurrent resentment of our own government are both ironic and instructive. As I noted recently, our nation rebelled against Elizabeth’s great-great-great-grandfather, King George III. We fought a War for Independence to rid ourselves of a monarchy.

However, scholars responding to the outpouring of affection for the queen in recent days have explained that for Americans, we get the upside of the monarchy without the downside. We continue to cultivate a political relationship with the United Kingdom that is vital to our economic and military interests. We can participate in the pomp and circumstance, history and tradition of the crown.

And yet, we pay no taxes to support the royal family and are in no way under their authority. You might say that for Americans, the British royal family is all the royalty we want.

In a way, our fascination with a monarch who has no power in our lives reflects America’s cultural ethos. As does our frustration with American leaders who do.

“All the thrills of religion and none of the cost”

More than 80 percent of Americans say they believe in God or a “higher power,” but less than 50 percent are members of a church, synagogue, or mosque. Pew Research Center reported last week that if current trends continue, Christians could make up less than half of the US population within a few decades.

And yet, we continue to claim that we are “spiritual” even if we are not religious. I heard one of the Pew researchers in a radio interview last week; when asked if their report means Americans are becoming less spiritual, she stated that this is clearly not the case. It is just that we are choosing what we wish to believe outside the confines of established religions.

In a culture that defines all truth as personal and subjective, why would religious “truth” be any different?

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis described such religion as belief in an amorphous “Life-Force”: “When you are feeling fit and the sun is shining and you do not want to believe that the whole universe is a mere mechanical dance of atoms, it is nice to be able to think of this great mysterious Force rolling on through the centuries and carrying you on its crest.

“If, on the other hand, you want to do something rather shabby, the Life-Force, being only a blind force, with no morals and no mind, will never interfere with you like that troublesome God we learned about when we were children. The Life-Force is sort of a tame God. You can switch it on when you want, but it will not bother you.

“All the thrills of religion and none of the cost. Is the Life-Force the greatest achievement of wishful thinking the world has yet seen?

“Today we need a special kind of courage”

George Washington would have disagreed strongly with this approach to God. On this day in 1796, the “Father of Our Country” issued his “Farewell Address” as he approached the end of his second term in office. In it, he famously stated, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” And he added, “Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.”

Queen Elizabeth II would have agreed with our first president.

In 1957, she delivered her first Christmas broadcast on television. The Cold War was escalating and the Soviet Union was apparently winning the space race with their Sputnik spacecraft. The conflict in Vietnam was growing; the Asian Flu pandemic had claimed over 150,000 lives around the world; racial tensions in the US were increasing.

She therefore stated: “Today we need a special kind of courage. Not the kind needed in battle, but a kind which makes us stand up for everything that we know is right, everything that is true and honest. We need the kind of courage that can withstand the subtle corruption of the cynics, so that we can show the world that we are not afraid of the future.”

She consistently and publicly found that “special kind of courage” in her faith, calling Jesus “an inspiration and an anchor in my life.” Just last month, she prayed for Anglican bishops that “you will continue to be sustained by your faith in times of trial and encouraged by hope in times of despair.”

If the Queen of England, one of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world, needed a King, how much more do we?

Now she has joined the saints of the ages and the angels of all eternity in proclaiming, “To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever” (1 Timothy 1:17).

How will you emulate her commitment to this King today?

Denison Forum

It is estimated that global cybercrime will reach $10.5 trillion by 2025, an amount larger than every economy in the world except the US and China.

For example, Los Angeles Unified, the second-largest school district in the US with more than 640,000 students enrolled, was hit with a ransomware attack a few days ago. Such attacks on schools and universities are on the rise.

Cybersecurity threats are also escalating against the US water industry, the US healthcare system, and industrial infrastructure, including electricity grids, oil and gas facilities, and manufacturing plants. Uber Technologies said yesterday that it was investigating a cybersecurity incident that forced the company to shut down several internal communications and engineering systems.

The Justice Department announced charges Wednesday against three Iranian individuals alleged to have launched cyberattacks against the US and global critical infrastructure. The individuals are still at large and believed to be in Iran. The State Department is offering a $10 million reward for information on the three men. The Treasury Department has also announced sanctions against ten individuals and two groups affiliated with the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, alleging that they have carried out ransomware and other cyberattacks since at least 2020.

You and I cannot see a cyberattack, only its effects. Therein lies my point today.

What our daily mantra should be

As I noted yesterday, “secret” sins are one of Satan’s most effective strategies for hindering the advance of God’s kingdom through God’s people. Sins known only to God nonetheless grieve the Spirit who alone can empower us to do eternal good.

Human words cannot transform human hearts. The Spirit alone possesses the power to bring us to repentance and faith (John 16:8) and to make fallen people into God’s new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). It is only the Spirit working through us that can do anything of eternal significance.

Consequently, our daily mantra should be, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lᴏʀᴅ of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6).

However, Satan knows this fact as well and counters the work of God’s Spirit through God’s people by leveraging three cultural factors:

• We are consumers who have been taught by brilliant marketers that the world exists to meet our needs.
• We are fallen people plagued by the “will to power” to be our own god (Genesis 3:5).
• Unlike the Catholic concept of penance for sins in this lifetime and purgatory for them in the afterlife, evangelical Christians focus on the immediacy of God’s forgiveness and grace when we confess our sins to him (1 John 1:9).

Satan plays to all three factors with “secret” sins we think we can choose to commit and then confess without consequences. No one but God knows, we say to ourselves, and he forgets all he forgives (Isaiah 43:25). But we should remember that Satan is at war with a God he cannot attack directly (Revelation 12:9), so he attacks his children to hurt their Father (1 Peter 5:8). The best way to hurt me is to hurt my kids or my grandkids.

As a result, Satan’s evil character will not allow him to offer us a temptation that does not produce greater evil than the good it promises. There are no exceptions to this rule.

Three facts about “secret” sins

Here are three facts about “secret sins” we should remember:

One: “Secret” sins lead to debilitating “secret” guilt.

When God forgives the sins we confess, Satan then afflicts us with guilt for committing the very sins he tempted us to commit. Guilt is also how we punish ourselves for failures God has forgiven and forgotten. It can be debilitating in our lives, leading to a second factor:

Two: “Secret” sins cause us to feel we are unusable by God.

When we are engaged in “secret” sins, even after we confess them, Satan whispers to us that we are hypocrites if we share our faith with others when we are not fully living up to it ourselves. This is one of the main reasons more Christians do not share the gospel more publicly and persistently. It affects our willingness to serve the kingdom in other ways and steals our joy when we do.

Three: “Secret” sins, even when confessed, cost us reward in heaven.

The Bible promises, “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him” (James 1:12). Every time we fail the test we forfeit such a crown. God forgives the sins we confess, but the rewards we would have gained for refusing to commit them are lost forever.

What’s the solution?

Satan knows the sins we can resist in our strength and doesn’t waste his time with them. So, we can know that every temptation we face is one we cannot defeat without God’s help. However, part of Satan’s tempting strategy is to entice us to fight temptation in our ability. He drags us into the quicksand an inch at a time until we are in too far to escape.

What is the answer, then, to “secret” sins?

Developing the reflex of responding to temptation immediately by taking it to God in prayer. Such a reflex positions us to be “filled” and empowered by the Spirit in ways we would not have experienced otherwise (Ephesians 5:18). It draws us closer to our holy Father and makes us more usable in his kingdom.

As the Renaissance scholar Erasmus noted, Satan hates nothing so much as for his evil to be used for good.

Here’s the bottom line: Yielding to temptation makes us weaker. Refusing temptation makes us stronger.

Will you be stronger when this day is done than you were when it began?

Denison Forum

The news broke this morning that freight rail companies and unions representing tens of thousands of workers have reached a tentative agreement to avoid a strike. Following all-night talks, the agreement now heads to union members for a ratification vote. While the vote is tallied, workers have agreed that they will not strike.

Why is this news important to you?

The Association of American Railroads trade group estimated that a strike would cost the American economy $2 billion a day. According to the Associated Press, railroads carry cars, coal, chemicals, grain, imported goods, and other products and raw materials throughout the country. A shutdown, even if brief, would delay critical shipments and ripple across the economy.

A railroad strike would cancel commuter trains, cause energy prices to rise, disrupt deliveries of produce, meat, and building supplies, and add to inflation.

I do not know a single person who works for a railroad. Before this morning’s news broke, I had no idea that a railroad strike could impact me personally. But problems we cannot see are no less real. Because we don’t know they exist, we don’t respond to them until they grow so large we must.

As a result, our unseen problems can be the most dangerous problems we face.

Therein lies my point today.

“No creature is hidden from his sight”

Yesterday we discussed the power of private character. Today let’s focus on the alternative: the peril of private sins.

This topic became urgent to me when I read a verse in the book of Ezekiel that arrested my attention. The Lord said of his sinful people: “I have been broken over their whoring heart that has departed from me and over their eyes that go whoring after their idols” (Ezekiel 6:9a). We cannot see the “heart” of another person or the images their eyes see, but God can: “No creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13). His heart is “broken” by such “secret” sins.

In addition, what God sees in a sinner’s heart and mind will eventually be known to the sinner: “They will be loathsome in their own sight for the evils that they have committed, for all their abominations” (Ezekiel 6:9b). And to the rest of us: “Nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light” (Luke 8:17).

As a result, our response to sin should always be immediate and courageous: “Thus says the Lord Gᴏᴅ: ‘Clap your hands and stamp your foot and say, Alas, because of all the evil abominations of the house of Israel, for they shall fall by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence” (Ezekiel 6:11).

Why Satan loves to use “secret” sins

Let’s take a moment to unmask Satan’s strategy behind “secret” sins.

Our enemy wants us to commit adultery, but if we refuse, he tempts us to view pornography with the justification that at least we are not committing adultery. If we will not view pornography, he tempts us with lustful thoughts with the justification that at least we are not viewing pornography. This is because he knows that, as Jesus warned us, “Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28).

If you are thinking that this paragraph does not apply to you, beware: Satan will then tempt you with other sins with the justification that at least you are not committing sexual sins.

Why does the devil love to use “secret” sins? Because he knows what they do to us: “desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (James 1:15). And he knows that any sins, known by others or not, are enough to grieve and “quench” the Holy Spirit’s work in and through our lives in the world (Ephesians 4:30; 1 Thessalonians 5:19).

Oswald Chambers warned: “Even the very smallest thing that we allow in our lives that is not under the control of the Holy Spirit is completely sufficient to account for spiritual confusion” and “can only be conquered through obedience.”

“Secret” sins and public religion

Paradoxically, Satan is pleased when we commit “secret” sins while maintaining public religiosity. When we persist in private sin while preaching sermons, leading Bible studies, attending worship services, or writing or reading articles like this one, we are tempted to believe that our “private” sins are not harming others or we could not be engaged in such religious activity.

However, because the Holy Spirit cannot fully use a person who persists in unconfessed sin (cf. Romans 8:6–8), our spiritual activities have little effect on the larger culture. Our salt “has lost its taste” and our light is “under a basket” (Matthew 5:13, 15). Neither can then fulfill their transforming purpose in the world.

The lure and prevalence of “secret” sin help explain the truth of A. W. Tozer’s observation: “If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. If the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95 percent of what they did would stop, and everybody would know the difference.”

How strong are your batteries?

You have perhaps had this experience: the power goes out at night, so you hunt for a flashlight. You find one in a drawer and turn it on, but the bulb barely glows in the dark. You replace the batteries, but the flashlight still doesn’t work. It turns out that the contacts between the flashlight and the batteries are corroded with disuse.

Only when you clean out the corrosion and replace the batteries can the flashlight dispel the darkness it was created to defeat.

When the batteries are weak, the darkness is strong. When the batteries are strong, the darkness is weak.

Is the spiritual darkness of our day growing weaker or stronger?

Denison Forum

Kenneth W. Starr, a former federal judge and US Solicitor General, died yesterday of complications from surgery. Judge Starr served as president and chancellor of Baylor University and dean of the Pepperdine Law School. He argued thirty-six cases before the US Supreme Court and served as Independent Counsel for five investigations, including Whitewater and President Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky.

I was honored to be his friend. We met when he came to his post at Baylor in 2010 and stayed in contact across the years after. He was gracious to appear on our Denison Forum podcast; I was privileged to interview him for an Institute for Global Engagement event earlier this year at Dallas Baptist University.

He combined brilliance, sincerity, transparency, and humility like few people I have ever known. In my review of his 2021 book, Religious Liberty in Crisis: Exercising Your Faith in an Age of Uncertainty, I called his work “an indispensable guide to defending religious freedom.”

Judge Starr is survived by his beloved and brilliant wife, Alice Mendell Starr, to whom he was married for fifty-two years, and by their three children and their families.

“The rock on which modern Britain was built”

History is often made by exceptional people like Judge Ken Starr whose names are known to history.

More than twenty-six thousand people filed by Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin in Scotland yesterday before it was transported to London and spent last night in Buckingham Palace. A procession including King Charles III, Prince William, and Prince Harry will accompany it today as it travels to Westminster Hall, where it will lie in state for four days ahead of the queen’s state funeral on Monday, September 19.

The reason for such a national outpouring of grief and affection is simple: as Prime Minister Liz Truss observed, the queen was “the rock on which modern Britain was built.”

In other historic news, Francis Scott Key penned the words of “The Star-Spangled Banner” on this day in 1814. Two years earlier on this day, Napoleon entered Moscow in an invasion that eventually failed and cost his army more than four hundred thousand men.

On a happier note, after Albert Pujols hit his 697^th home run, moving into sole possession of fourth place on Major League Baseball’s all-time home runs list, he gifted the ball to the fan who caught it and then signed two more balls for him. In other sports news, baseball great Ty Cobb’s dentures are going for more than $11,000 at auction. Neither Pujols’s home run ball nor Ty Cobb’s false teeth would be valuable if they were not associated with such historic figures.

However, history can also be made by people whose names are unknown to history.

The US has reached the historic milestone of one million organ transplants; each donor, while unknown to the rest of us, changed a life with their gift. A political leader in Idaho protested a planned “Drag Kids” performance including children “from ages 11–18,” leading to the event’s eventual cancelation. And a nurse saved a three-month-old baby who had stopped breathing during a flight Thursday night. Whatever the little girl grows up to accomplish will be an extension of that nurse’s compassion.

Traits that “were once considered normal”

Watching news coverage of the death of the queen, syndicated columnist Cal Thomas observed: “One is struck by the adjectives used by reporters, commentators and people interviewed outside Balmoral Castle and Buckingham Palace: sense of duty, virtue, integrity, service. What astounds is that these and other character traits the late Queen exhibited were once considered normal and worthy of being taught to children, but today stand in sharp contrast to what is modeled and accepted.”

He added: “One commentator said the Queen’s death is the symbolic end of the Greatest Generation. We pay lip service to the virtues that made the greatest generation great, but no longer promote them, whether it is in public schools, social media, or the wider culture.”

What is being said of Queen Elizabeth II could be said of Judge Ken Starr as well: both were known publicly for traits that were deeply personal. Their exemplary character and humble commitment to service were grounded in the sincerity and depth of their faith.

The queen was tutored as a young girl by the Archbishop of Canterbury and called Jesus “an inspiration and an anchor in my life.” Ken Starr’s father was a Congregationalist minister; the judge’s often-repeated maxim, “Truth is a bedrock concept in morality and law,” came from his family and from his personal faith.

“The true measure of all our actions”

C. S. Lewis noted, “Integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching.” But here’s the point: someone is watching.

Our names may never be known to history like the queen and the judge, but someone knows us as personally as anyone knew them. The people we live, work, and go to school with matter just as much to eternity as a queen or a federal judge. If they do not follow Jesus, we are the only Bible they may read, the only sermon they may hear.

This makes our personal integrity, or lack thereof, a kingdom issue of eternal consequence.

We cannot expect the people who know us to follow Christ if we do not. We cannot expect them to embrace biblical morality if they do not see that morality reflected in our daily decisions and actions.

By contrast, if Jesus is our first love, the passion of our hearts and king of our days, those who know us will see him in us and be drawn to his transforming love.

The writer of Hebrews encouraged his readers to “remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith” (Hebrews 13:7). When those who know you “consider the outcome” of your way of life, will they want to imitate your faith?

Queen Elizabeth II said, “The true measure of all our actions is how long the good in them lasts.”

What will be the “true measure” of your actions today?

Denison Forum

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?

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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.

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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?

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