Denzel Washington spoke at pastor T. D. Jakes’ International Leadership Summit last Saturday, where he explained his reaction when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Academy Awards last week. Washington went immediately to speak with Smith, a decision he explained to the group: “I don’t know all the ins and outs of this situation, but I know the only solution was prayer, the way I saw it, the way I see it.”

In other headline news, North Carolina defeated Duke last Saturday in what is being called a “game for the ages” and will play Kansas in tonight’s NCAA men’s basketball championship. When Hubert Davis, North Carolina’s first-year coach, was introduced last April, he told a press conference that his faith “is the most important thing to me. My faith and foundation is firmly in my relationship with Jesus. It just is.”

By contrast, this Atlantic headline caught my eye: “Why People Are Acting So Weird.” The writer documents a variety of ways people are acting more rudely and violently and points to heightened stress, the increased use of alcohol and drugs, and isolation enforced by the pandemic.

Today’s news offers tragic examples: at least six people were killed and at least twelve were wounded in a shooting yesterday morning in Sacramento, California. A man was shot to death in Atlanta. And one person was killed and at least eleven people were hospitalized Saturday night after a shooting incident at a concert in Dallas.

In light of all the bad news, how are Americans doing? In a recent Gallup poll, only 17 percent of respondents said they were satisfied with the direction of the country. However, 85 percent were satisfied with their own lives.

This disparity highlights the point I want to make today.

The challenge of “compassion fatigue”

Denzel Washington and Hubert Davis are Christians who act on their faith when the opportunity arises. By contrast, the perennial temptation in Western culture is to keep our personal lives and our public lives separate.

This temptation extends not only to our actions but also to our intercession. “Compassion fatigue” is a real challenge in these hard days.

For example, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared on screen last night at the Grammy Awards. His speech began: “The war. What’s more opposite than music.” In reference to the music industry’s biggest night, he said, “Our musicians wear body armor instead of tuxedos. They sing to the wounded in hospitals.”

When you see the daily reports about the ongoing tragedy in Ukraine, are you praying with the same passion you did a month ago?

Here’s another example: Ramadan began last Friday. There are more than two billion Muslims in the world, each of whom rejects the divinity of Jesus and is therefore without true hope of eternal life (cf. Romans 8:9). Does this fact weigh on your heart today?

By contrast, our Father loves each of us as if there were only one of us, Muslims included. And he is working in the Muslim world in ways we have not seen in Islamic history.

A sheikh leading other sheikhs to Christ

My friend Tom Doyle has been ministering in the Middle East for many years. His marvelous book, Dreams and Visions: Is Jesus Awakening the Muslim World? tells story after story of ways God is “awakening” the Muslim world by his Spirit.

Over the weekend, I read a companion book, David Garrison’s A Wind in the House of Islam: How God is drawing Muslims around the world to faith in Jesus Christ. Garrison reinforces Tom’s point by documenting statistically the fact that “Muslim movements to Jesus Christ are taking place in numbers we’ve never seen before.” He reports on nine different geographical regions in the Muslim world, identifying eighty-two movements to Christ in “what appears to be a historic hinge moment in the spread of the gospel across the Muslim world.”

Here’s just one example: Sheikh Hakim is a hafez, which means he has memorized the Qur’an. He told Garrison, “If someone said that Jesus was God, we would kill him. When I was a Muslim, I burned churches for Islam.”

He was an overseer of four mosques and was training three hundred Islamic teachers when an African evangelist gave him a New Testament in Arabic. “That night Isa [Jesus] came to me in a dream,” he says. He saw himself chopping down a mosque’s minaret. When he told the evangelist, “He smiled and explained to me, ‘You are going to win many sheikhs to the Lord.’”

When Hakim came to faith in Christ, he lost his job and his farm, and his father tried to murder him. Today he moves from town to town because there are always some trying to kill him. He has since led four hundred Muslim sheikhs to Christ, more than three hundred of whom have already been baptized.

Three ways to pray today

I invite you to join me in three prayer requests today.

First, ask God to give you his heart for our hurting world so that you can pray with passionate compassion.

Second, pray each day during the month of Ramadan (April 2–May 1) for millions of Muslims to come to faith in Jesus and for God to protect Ukraine, end this war, and redeem this tragedy.

Third, pray for the Spirit to move in power in our churches and broken culture. We have never needed a spiritual awakening more than we need a transformative movement of God today.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on this day in 1968. He died knowing that the movement for racial justice he led would ultimately triumph. While we still have far to go, we can claim his testimony as our own today: “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”

Will you pray for the passion to speak unarmed truth in unconditional love today?

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 “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” —Psalm 14:1

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus illustrated the unpredictability of life with his now-famous metaphor, “You cannot step into the same river twice.” He might have been reading the news:

• Skippy is recalling 161,692 pounds of peanut butter because of possible contamination with stainless steel fragments.
• Bruce Willis is retiring from acting after being diagnosed with aphasia, a language disorder caused by brain damage that affects a person’s communication ability.
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians is unexpectedly retiring.
• A massive pileup caused by a sudden snow squall on a Pennsylvania highway involved eighty vehicles and left six people dead.
• Singer Tom Parker passed away from brain cancer at the age of thirty-three.
• Americans will be able to choose a gender X designation on passport applications starting April 11.
• Yesterday was the international “Transgender Day of Visibility.”

In contrast to the constant flux and chaos of our fallen world, the Bible proclaims of our Maker, “From everlasting to everlasting you are God!” (Psalm 90:2). But fewer Americans than ever seem to agree.

Secularism continues to grow in the US. According to Pew Research, roughly three in ten Americans have no religious affiliation of any kind. Younger generations are less engaged in church than their parents; many committed Christians are not active in a local congregation.

On this April Fool’s Day, let’s consider King David’s admonition in Psalm 14:1: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” His observation applies not just to atheists and secularists but also to committed Christians in ways we may not fully appreciate today.

“The most dangerous period since the Soviet Union collapsed”

Our secular culture increasingly insists that personal authenticity is the path to flourishing, defining authenticity as “a feeling that people interpret as a sign that what they are doing in the moment aligns with their true self.”

Historian Carl Trueman calls this viewpoint “expressive individualism.” He explains that it enables a person to believe they are “a woman trapped in a man’s body” or that an unborn child is an organism encroaching on a woman’s life she is therefore free to remove. As I note in The Coming Tsunami, Christians who disagree are stigmatized as outdated, intolerant, oppressive, and even dangerous to society.

And yet, we might ask, how is this radical secularism working for us?

Consider this statement by the Wall Street Journal editorial board: “The world is entering the most dangerous period since the Soviet Union collapsed, and perhaps since the 1930s.” The editorial focuses on geopolitical dangers, but we could add the opioid epidemic and other “deaths of despair,” deepening political sectarianism that threatens democracy, and the escalating crime rate in the US.

“I think we are ready to listen”

In response, an op-ed in the Dallas Morning News caught my eye: “I’m an atheist, but between COVID and nuclear weapons, I’m ready to give God a try.”

Josh Selig is a ten-time Emmy Award-winning television producer and director. He writes: “We’ve entered a pantomime of our own lives. More often than not, it feels like we’re pretending. Pretending to live. Pretending to work. I read an article that said more people than ever are quitting their jobs. Perhaps it’s because our jobs no longer seem important. Not much does. All of our ceremonies feel unceremonious.”

He then tells God: “Although I check daily, there are no answers in my newsfeed, in my inbox, or on my phone. So, I’ve come to you. If you don’t exist then, of course, never mind. The joke’s on me. But if you do exist, and I suspect in your own way you do, then I hope you’ll get back to me.”

Selig concludes: “I’m here. We are all here. And, finally, I think we are ready to listen. Hope to see you on the mountain one day.”

Secular reasons for spiritual engagement

An atheist indeed has good reasons to “listen.” Contrary to American secularism, religion is growing dramatically around the world. Ramadan begins tonight, a month of fasting in Islam that is just one example of religion’s pervasive attraction for billions of people. (For more, see Shane Bennett’s article on our website, “4 things every Christian should know about Ramadan.”)

Even secular writers agree that “on average, religious people are generally happier, healthier, and live longer” and that “religious people are more likely to feel that they belong to a community.” Numerous studies show that the rituals and social bonding inherent in religious engagement are vital to flourishing.

The health benefits of religion are clear as well: a comprehensive Harvard study found that people who attend religious services weekly or more are 16 percent less likely to become depressed and show a 29 percent reduction in smoking and 34 percent reduction in heavy drinking.

For secular reasons alone, Psalm 14:1 turns out to be right.

Why Scottie Scheffler plays golf

Scottie Scheffler poses for photos with the trophy after winning the Dell Technologies Match Play Championship golf tournament, Sunday, March 27, 2022, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

However, the best evidence for biblical faith is its transformative effect on those who embrace it.

Pro golfer Scottie Scheffler is an example. Now ranked #1 in the world heading into next week’s Masters, Scheffler was profiled in Golf Digest after winning a difficult tournament last month. He explained how he keeps his composure under pressure: “I don’t place my value in golf. It’s kind of a tough balance because I spend so much of my time trying to improve and to be good at this game.

“You’ve really got to look at the motivation for why I play. For me, I have a relationship with Jesus Christ. That’s why I play golf. I’m out here to compete because that’s where he wants me. He’s in control of what happens in the end. So just really staying the course and staying faithful and letting him be the guidance for me versus anything that I do.”

When secular people like Josh Selig see the way our truth has changed our lives, they may consider making it their truth. When they do, they meet the Truth (John 14:6).

Is the Truth your truth today?

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Virginia (Ginni) Thomas is the wife of longtime Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. According to the Washington Post, twenty-nine text messages obtained by the Post and CBS News show that she “repeatedly pressed White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to pursue unrelenting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.”

In response, some Democrats are calling on Justice Thomas to recuse himself on cases related to the January 6 Capitol riots. Some are even calling for Justice Thomas to step down from the court or be impeached.

As we will see today, this controversy is relevant far beyond Justice Thomas, his wife, and their critics.

A defense of Justice Thomas

Former prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy states that the statute governing judicial disqualification, Section 455 (of Title 28, US Code), involves “financial or legal stakes in the matter, or some connection to the matter as an attorney.” According to McCarthy, “Ginni Thomas’s conservative political activism—up to and including the text messages to Mark Meadows about the 2020 election—does not activate those triggers.”

He adds, “If it did, many judges appointed by Democrats would have been disqualified from cases over which they’ve presided despite the political and legal activism of their spouses.” His statement links to a Newsweek article detailing numerous examples of such activism.

To reinforce his argument, McCarthy states that “Supreme Court justices are not even subject to disqualification over their own activities that bear directly on cases.” He notes the example of Justice Elena Kagan, nominated by President Obama, who served as Mr. Obama’s solicitor general when the administration was formulating its legal strategy to defend the Affordable Care Act. When the Act came before the Supreme Court, she did not recuse herself from the case and in fact provided the critical vote to uphold it.

McCarthy therefore concludes: “The smearing of Justice Thomas is transparently partisan politics, nothing more.”

Using a senator’s words against him

Whether you agree with McCarthy or not is not my point. Rather, I want to focus on the method he used to make his case.

If you accuse me of wrongdoing and I can show that you have done what you now accuse me of doing, I can win our rhetorical battle. Unsurprisingly, politicians do the same.

For example, earlier this year, Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer sought to change the Senate’s filibuster rules. Republican Sen. Tom Cotton then used Sen. Schumer’s previous statements in support of the filibuster against him. 

My point is not to castigate our public officials. I am grateful to those who are willing to serve in a day when they face more criticism—fair and unfair—than at any time in my lifetime. My purpose today is actually the opposite: rather than criticizing political leaders, I want to point a finger at myself. And perhaps at you.

“She gave me fruit of the tree”

One very simple way to avoid responsibility for our sins is to point to the sins of others. This story begins early: when the Lord called Adam to account for his sin in the Garden of Eden, Adam responded, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate” (Genesis 3:12). Eve in turn blamed the serpent (v. 13).

Satan is delighted by the degenerating moral condition of our culture. And he is also delighted when Christians point to the sins of others to justify their own.

Putin’s murderous invasion of Ukraine is obviously one of the most horrifically sinful acts by a political leader in recent times. But his sin does not justify my hatred of my brother. Even though the world would say the two have no comparison, Jesus disagrees (Matthew 5:21–22). It is the same with adultery and lust (vv. 27–30), proving the point that the sins of others do not excuse my sins or yours.

“Keep your heart with all vigilance”

I had a fascinating conversation recently with a millennial Christian leader. He believes that the single greatest reason many of his generation are dropping out of church is the ongoing moral crisis within the church.

I’m convinced that he’s right.

We can complain that critics are holding us to a different standard than they require for themselves, and we’re right. But they’re right to do so. We claim that the Holy Spirit of God lives in us (1 Corinthians 3:16) and that his “fruit” in our lives includes “goodness,” “faithfulness,” and “self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23).

If Muslims or Buddhists, Republicans or Democrats made the same claim, would we not hold them to it?

God’s word declares, “It is time for judgment to begin at the household of God” (1 Peter 4:17). To this end, let’s remember Proverbs 4:23: “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.”

The text explains how: “Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you. Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil” (vv. 24–27).

How cockroaches survive

Scientists tell us that cockroaches survived the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs by hiding in tiny soil crevices that protected them from heat and by being omnivorous scavengers who will eat what others will not.

Sin does the same: it hides from the heat and light of God’s truth and will “eat” anything we “feed” it.

If we would make a transformative impact on our culture, Christ must first make such an impact on us. Daily submission to him is vital to the sanctification that empowers our lives and witness. Oswald Chambers observed: “Abandon to God is of more value than personal holiness. . . . When we are abandoned to God, he works through us all the time.”

How abandoned to God would he say you are today?

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Will Smith has apologized to Chris Rock for slapping him at last Sunday night’s Academy Awards after the comedian made a comment about Smith’s wife. The Academy announced a formal investigation and condemned Smith’s actions. (For more on our response as Christians, read Mark Legg’s “Should we forgive Will Smith?”)

The story dominated social media, eclipsing even the war in Ukraine. However, another story from the Oscars has received less coverage: the hosts took numerous opportunities to castigate Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill.

The legislation has been dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by its critics and the mainstream press. Wanda Sykes slammed the bill in her opening monologue; she and fellow hosts Amy Schumer and Regina Hall repeated the word gay multiple times as the crowd applauded.

Florida’s governor nonetheless signed the bill into law the next day. So, let’s discuss what the legislation does and doesn’t do, identify the larger cultural narrative this controversy represents, and conclude with two biblical principles that apply to us all.

What does the bill actually say?

Ironically, the “Don’t Say Gay” bill never uses the word gay and does not prohibit its use. Rather, the measure bars classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity for children in kindergarten through third grade (from about ages five to nine) in Florida public schools. The law takes effect on July 1 and allows parents to sue school districts they believe to be in violation. 

Republicans argue that parents should discuss these subjects with children. Democrats claim that the law demonizes LGBTQ people by excluding them from classroom lessons.

Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters when he signed the bill, “We will continue to recognize that in the state of Florida, parents have a fundamental role in the education, healthcare, and wellbeing of their children.” He added, “I don’t care what the big corporations say, here I stand. I’m not backing down.”

“Big corporations” have indeed said much about the law. For example, a Walt Disney Company spokesperson claimed that the bill “should never have passed and should never have been signed into law” and added, “Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts.”

Why LGBTQ activists are focusing on children

My purpose in today’s Daily Article is not to provide a comprehensive discussion of the legislation. Rather, as a cultural philosopher, I want to focus on the worldview issues it represents since they are relevant to each of us, whether we live in Florida and have young children or not.

Nathanael Blake is a postdoctoral fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and author of a perceptive article on our subject in Public Discourse. He notes that many in our culture now believe the LGBTQ activist narrative that humans are “born this way.” Blake explains the argument: “Each of us is born with an immutable sexual orientation and gender identity,” which would mean that some children are born LGBTQ. As a result, they should learn about their sexual orientation and gender identity as soon as possible so they can discover their authentic sexual selves, or so the argument runs.

In this view, teachers of elementary-age children are on the front lines helping their students “discover” and embrace their sexual identities. Parents and the rest of us should be affirming of such “discoveries” as well. Anyone who rejects LGBTQ ideology is by definition suspect and dangerous to children. This ideology can even lead to “non-affirming” parents losing custody of their children.

Blake reminds us that the search for a “gay gene” ended in failure three years ago. Nonetheless, he warns that LGBTQ activists are “pressuring our culture, curricula, and even churches to affirm the ostensibly intrinsic rainbow identities of children.”

Practical responses for parents

In response to this rising threat to our children, two biblical conclusions are vital.

One: It is urgent that you and I understand, embrace, proclaim, and defend biblical sexual morality in all its holistic relevance and beauty.

God’s word clearly teaches that:

• Humans are created in his image as male and female (Genesis 1:27). 
• Sex is intended only for a husband and wife within the covenant of marriage (Genesis 1:28; 2:24; 1 Corinthians 7:2–5).
• And homosexual relationships are outside his design for us and thus forbidden (cf. Leviticus 18:22; Romans 1:26–27; 1 Corinthians 6:9; 1 Timothy 1:10).

For more, see my How to Defend Biblical Marriage.

Two: Parents are responsible for every dimension of their children’s lives.

One way I am asking God to redeem the frightening rise of LGBTQ activism with children is by using it to empower godly parents to become engaged in the entirety of their children’s experiences. They cannot “subcontract” their children’s education to schools, trust their private use of technology, or assume their friends share their biblical values.

God calls parents to teach his word “diligently to your children . . . when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deuteronomy 6:7). Every part of their lives and yours should be informed and lived biblically.

Is your “train” running on God’s “track”?

Here’s the bottom line: Children need the spiritual and cultural protection of their families and churches more today than ever before in American history.

Pastor Paul Powell explained, “As a train was made to run on a track, so we were made to run on God’s law. A train runs most effectively when it stays on the track.”

Accordingly, the greatest gift we can give our children (and everyone we know) is to help them love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30). When they know and live by his word, they live their best and most blessed lives.

Is your “train” running on God’s “track” today?

Is your family’s?

If not, why not?

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According to CNN, “Florida’s got yet another spring breaker in town: Scot, a massive great white shark, has been recorded swimming off the Gulf Coast.” The shark measures over twelve feet long and weighs sixteen hundred pounds.

A “massive great white shark” swimming just offshore feels like a metaphor for much that is happening in our culture, from rising inflation to a more contagious version of COVID-19 to deepening partisan divisions. But, of course, the “shark” that dominates the news each day and has captured so many of our hearts is the horrific invasion of Ukraine and the untold suffering that it is producing. 

As face-to-face talks between Ukraine and Russia continue this week, many analysts are asking how Russia’s aggression in Ukraine will end (assuming it does). In this context, three recent articles have greatly illuminated Vladimir Putin’s thinking and are therefore relevant to us today.

A “personalist regime” 

In a New Yorker article titled “What is Putin Thinking?,” David Remnick points back to the failure of democracy in Russia after the 1991 fall of the USSR. Oligarchs bought up the country’s most valuable state enterprises and made their fortunes while the people struggled. One historian said at the time, “These last four or five years in Russia have produced little besides pure hysteria.” 

In response, when Putin came to power in 1999, he set up what Remnick calls “a personalist regime built around his patronage and absolute authority.” Remnick explains that the national identity Putin created in opposition to the West “has played an essential role in his brutal invasion of Ukraine.” 

He also cites thinkers such as Nikolai Berdyaev and Ivan Ilyin who believed in the exalted destiny of Russia and the artificiality of Ukraine, both of whom were extremely influential for Putin.

A “civilization-state” 

Cultural commentator Andrew Sullivan takes us further back into history in “The Strange Rebirth Of Imperial Russia.” He cites Russian intellectuals who claimed after the fall of the Soviet Union that Russia is not just a nation-state but a “civilization-state.” 

Sullivan explains that this is “a whole way of being, straddling half the globe and wrapping countless other nations and cultures into Mother Russia’s spiritual bosom.” This worldview claims that Russia has always had such a civilizational destiny and mission which the West has countered and sought to undermine. Aleksandr Dugin popularized such theories in The Foundations of Geopolitics, which Sullivan calls “perhaps the best guide to understanding where Putin is coming from, and what Russia is now.” 

In light of this worldview, Putin proposed in 2011 a “Eurasian Union” to counter the European Union, reject the strategic control of the US, and resist Western liberal values. His invasion of Ukraine is but the next step in his passion to rebuild Imperial Russia.

An occupying force 

Journalist Jonathan Tepperman conducted a very illuminating interview with Alexander Gabuev, a former diplomatic correspondent and Russian newspaper editor who is now a scholar on Russia at the Carnegie Moscow Center. 

Gabuev explains that Putin thought his invasion would demoralize the Ukrainian army and that “part of the country would greet Russia with flowers and the other part would not resist.” He was clearly wrong. 

When Tepperman asked Gabuev if he can imagine a deal that could end the war, he replied that Ukraine would not “accept a peace settlement that makes them semi-dependent on the aggressor, even if it saves their cities.” To achieve Putin’s imperialistic agenda, Gabuev predicts that the Russian leader will seek to “occupy Ukraine, and there will be an Iraq-type insurgency, and ultimately this will end badly, because there is no way that Russia can occupy Ukraine forever.”

“An evil person will not go unpunished” 

In Romans 1 we read that God “gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done” (Romans 1:28). This is the permissive judgment of God whereby he allows us the consequences of our misused freedom. Tragically, the innocent are often harmed by these consequences as well. 

If nations and people do not repent, God then moves to his punitive judgment whereby he works directly to punish sin and lead sinners to repentance. We see this with the plagues of Egypt, divine judgment against King Herod (Acts 12:23), and the cataclysmic judgments depicted in the book of Revelation. 

Since we know that God judges nations (Psalm 110:6), it is plausible that Russia is experiencing God’s permissive judgment on its immoral invasion. If Putin persists, he and his people could see God’s punitive judgment. 

Here is what we can know without question: “An evil person will not go unpunished” (Proverbs 11:21) because “vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord” (Romans 12:19). Whether in this world or in the next (cf. Luke 16:19–31), God’s judgment on sin is sure (Hebrews 9:27).

A missionary prayer I have not forgotten 

How does the thought of God’s judgment on Vladimir Putin resonate with you?  

Your first thought might be, “The sooner the better.” Obviously, the fewer Ukrainians who suffer or die at his immoral hands, the better. 

But we must not forget that God loves Russians as much as he loves Ukrainians. He loves North Koreans as much as he loves Americans and Iranians as much as he loves Israelis (cf. Galatians 3:28). He loves each of us as if there were only one of us because he is love (1 John 4:8). 

If we loved the Russians as God does, we would be praying fervently for their nation and leaders to repent of this sinful invasion. If we love Ukrainians as God does, we would be praying fervently for their protection and future. If we loved all nations as God does, we would be praying fervently for every person on earth to know Jesus as Savior and Lord. 

I will long remember the time I heard a missionary pray, “Lord, break my heart for what breaks your heart.” 

What breaks your heart today? 

Denison Forum

CODA made history last night as the first film distributed by a streaming service to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Jessica Chastain won her first Oscar when she was named Best Actress for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, and Will Smith received his first Academy Award when he won for Best Actor in King Richard.

But the headline story is that after comedian Chris Rock made a joke about actor Smith’s wife during the evening, Smith ran up on stage and struck Rock in the face. He later apologized “to the Academy and to all my fellow nominees” during his acceptance speech.

Of course, the conflict on everyone’s mind and heart is the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. Several attendees at the Oscars paid tribute to Ukraine in various ways. Actress Mila Kunis, who was born in Ukraine, has partnered with her husband Ashton Kutcher to raise more than $35 million in humanitarian aid for the Ukrainian people. “Recent global events have left many of us feeling gutted,” she said last night. “Yet when you witness the strength and dignity of those facing such devastation, it’s impossible to not be moved by their resilience. One cannot help but be in awe of those who find strength to keep fighting through unimaginable darkness.”

Russian Nobel Prize winner will donate his medal for Ukraine relief

Kunis’ moving statement is not the only positive story amidst the horrific war in Ukraine. Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov has announced he will auction off the Nobel Peace Prize he won last year to raise money for Ukrainian refugees. He also called on Russia to stop combat fire, exchange prisoners, provide humanitarian assistance and corridors, release the bodies of the dead, and support refugees.

The Academy Awards and Vladimir Putin’s immoral invasion of Ukraine have this in common: they illustrate the brevity and fragility of life.

Who won last year’s Best Actor award? Anthony Hopkins. Best Actress? Frances McDormand. Best Picture? Nomadland. (I had to look up each answer).

Here’s an illustration of human frailty and fallenness from the Ukraine invasion: radioactive materials are reportedly missing from the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. Experts warn that they could be combined with conventional explosives to create a “dirty bomb” that would spread contamination over a wide area.

The weekend news brought more examples of life’s fragility:

• A Colorado wildfire forced the evacuation of nineteen thousand people.
• Country music singer Jeff Carson died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-eight.
• Phil Collins, who has been dealing with health concerns for years, held his last concert ever in London.
• A man who fell to his death from a Dallas rooftop had planned to propose to his longtime girlfriend.
• A fourteen-year-old boy fell to his death from an Orlando amusement ride.
• A mother was shot and killed while visiting her late son’s grave on his birthday.
• A Montana hiker and father of four was killed when he was apparently attacked by a grizzly bear outside Yellowstone National Park.
• Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins died at the age of fifty.
• A police officer was gunned down in a Starbucks parking lot north of Seattle.

Prayer as a spiritual weapon

Last week, we discussed ways God uses his people to advance his kingdom and change their culture. Today, in the midst of our crises and challenges, as we face daily the brevity and fragility of life, let’s focus on ways our Father can change us.

In a Public Discourse article, philosopher Joshua Hochschild brilliantly describes the ways digital technology and social media are changing not just our world but also our minds. He explains that artificial intelligence is now using algorithms that predict our patterns of behavior, present us with customized digital stimuli, and thus shape what we think and do.

How should we defend ourselves? Professor Hochschild points us to “the power of prayer, sometimes described as a spiritual weapon.” He notes, “More than any other deliberate activity, prayer activates and directs the soul’s various modes of cognition, disciplining them and orienting them to deeper understanding of self and union with God.”

He recommends the prayer cycle in St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises as a model:

• Composition: Exercise your imagination and memory to recall sins and visualize yourself in the presence of God. 
• Analysis: Use your intellect to conceive, understand, and assent to truths (especially from Scripture, I would add), reasoning about their implications and contemplating their connections to your life. 
• Colloquy: Reflect on what you have learned and resolve to make good decisions, “exerting the will in acts of humility and love.”

“So shall my courage be firm”

Jesus promised us, “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit” (John 15:5a). But he warned that the converse is also true: “for apart from me you can do nothing” (v. 5b). 

Charles Spurgeon was right: “The stream must flow constantly from the fountainhead, or else the brook will soon be dry.” To this end, let’s make Scottish minister John Baillie’s prayer ours:

“By your grace, O God, I will go nowhere today where you cannot come, nor seek anyone’s presence that would rob me of yours. By your grace I will let no thought enter my heart that might hinder my closeness with you, nor let any word come from my mouth that is not meant for your ear. So shall my courage be firm and my heart be at peace.”

Is your heart at peace today?

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Ten-year-old Zlata Moiseinko is living in a schoolhouse in Ukraine that has been converted into a field hospital operated by Israeli medical workers. Russia’s invasion has now displaced half of Ukraine’s children, Zlata among them. She became so unsettled that her father risked his life to return to their apartment to rescue her pet hamster, Lola, to comfort her.

“I want peace for all Ukraine,” the little girl told an Associated Press reporter.

The human cost of this escalating crisis is staggering. The US Department of State released a statement this week describing “war crimes by Russia’s forces in Ukraine.” The Biden Administration announced yesterday that the US will accept up to one hundred thousand Ukrainian refugees fleeing the fighting. And NATO allies agreed yesterday to provide Ukraine with equipment and training to respond to a possible Russian attack using chemical, biological, or even nuclear weapons.

In the face of such challenges, my claim across this week that Christians should reframe crises as opportunities for the gospel can seem naïve. We understand theologically that we are called to bring the “light of the world” to the darkness, that we are commissioned to make disciples of all nations, even those at war.

But it’s not enough to know we are called to be change agents in a broken culture—we must believe that we can make a transformative difference where we are, as we are. To that end, let’s close our week by focusing on the empowering ways God can change us.

What happens through us must first happen to us. Said differently, when something happens to us, it is likely to happen through us as well.

The only way to “find life and flourishing”

In Jesus the Great Philosopher: Rediscovering the Wisdom Needed for the Good Life, biblical scholar Jonathan T. Pennington identifies two characteristics of biblical ethics: imitative and agentic.

Biblical moral standards are imitative in that God’s ethical demands are rooted in his own nature. According to Pennington, “Humans will only find life and flourishing when they imitate their Creator, when they learn to inhabit the world in the ways that accord with God’s own nature, will, and coming kingdom.”

Biblical ethics are agentic in that “we as moral agents matter.” As Pennington notes, “Who we are as people is significant—our understanding, our emotions, our motives, and our desires are wrapped up in what is right and wrong.”

This imitative and agentic ethic is a kind of “virtue ethics” that “focuses not just on the external issues of right and wrong but on our interior person and our development to be a certain kind of people. In the Bible, this means becoming more like God himself.”

Here’s the problem: we need God’s help to become more like God. Humans, because we are fallen and sinful by nature, cannot transform ourselves into a holiness we do not possess. I once heard our attempts to be good enough for God likened to a group of tourists who decided to swim from California to Hawaii. The best swimmers got further than the others, but all drowned.

“The condescension of compassion”

This is why, as Irenaeus noted, Jesus became one of us that we might be one with him. St. Leo the Great said of our Lord, “He took the nature of a servant without the stain of sin, enlarging our humanity without diminishing his divinity. He emptied himself: though invisible he made himself visible, though Creator and Lord of all things he chose to be one of us mortal men. Yet this was the condescension of compassion, not the loss of omnipotence. So he who in the nature of God had created man, became in the nature of a servant, man himself.”

Because our sinless Savior died for our sins, paying our debt by dying on our cross, you and I now can “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). If you have asked Jesus to forgive your sins and become your Lord, his Holy Spirit now dwells in you, making you his temple (1 Corinthians 3:16) and manifesting in and through you “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).

If we will repent of our efforts to save, sanctify, and justify ourselves, coming with humble contrition and repentance to our loving Savior, he will forgive everything we confess (1 John 1:9), separate our sins from us “as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12), “cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19), and “remember [our] sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:34; cf. Hebrews 8:12).

Then, when his love liberates us from our sins, through this grace “we draw near to God” (Hebrews 7:19), his Spirit demonstrates his “fruit” in our lives (Galatians 5:22–23), and we become changed people used by God to change the world.

“I am only one, but I am one”

You and I cannot stop Putin’s horrific invasion of Ukraine. We cannot stop all crimes, prevent all disasters, or heal all diseases. However, we must not let what we cannot do keep us from doing what we can do.

If our hope was in our abilities and resources, we would have no real hope at all. But our hope is not in us but in the One who indwells us, empowers us, and wants to use us as his universal body to continue the ministry he began in his physical body (1 Corinthians 12:27).

All Jesus has ever done, he can still do. What he did on earth, he can do on earth. What he did through his first followers, he can do through us.

Will we kneel before his throne as our Lord today? Will we use his blessings, not for ourselves but to advance his kingdom? Will we seek his glory over our own?

If we do, we can say with author and minister Edward Everett Hale (1822–1909), “I am only one, but I am one. I can’t do everything, but I can do something. The something I ought to do, I can do. And by the grace of God, I will.”

Will you?

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President Biden will mark the one-month anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with three global summits in Europe today. At one of these events, he will address an emergency NATO summit at which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will also speak.

Meanwhile, a “face” of the crisis in Ukraine is back in the news. 

Two weeks ago, I profiled a seven-year-old Ukrainian girl who beautifully sang “Let It Go” from the movie Frozen in a Kyiv bomb shelter. The girl, Amelia Anisovych, is now one of the 3.5 million Ukrainians who have become refugees since Russia invaded their country. More than two million of them have fled to Poland, where Amelia is now with her mother and grandmother. 

Last Sunday, she sang the Ukrainian national anthem in a Polish arena. Tickets for the arena’s ten thousand seats sold out, and the event raised over $380,000 for a humanitarian group serving Ukrainian refugees at the Polish border. 

From a gifted young girl to an acclaimed senior adult: the death of eighty-four-year-old Madeleine Albright is also leading the news. Her story was remarkable as well: born in Prague, her family fled to London when Germany occupied Czechoslovakia. She earned a doctorate from Columbia, became fluent or close to it in six languages, and served as America’s first female Secretary of State. 

Proposed bill decriminalizes killing newborn babies 

Encouragement and inspiration are vital gifts in these challenging days. 

According to a new report profiled in the New York Times, alcohol-related deaths in the US rose 25 percent from 2019 to 2020 and outnumbered COVID-19 deaths among adults younger than sixty-five. Drug overdose deaths also increased by 30 percent during the first year of the pandemic, reaching record levels. 

From “deaths of despair” to a culture in disarray: A Yale professor is warning that law schools are in crisis after students disrupted a free speech panel. The University of Virginia’s student newspaper opposed a campus visit from Mike Pence, claiming that the former vice president’s beliefs threaten “the well-being and safety of students.” Miami Beach declared a state of emergency this week after a pair of weekend shootings, part of a surge in such violence across the country. 

And a proposed bill in California would codify the killing of unborn children throughout all nine months of pregnancy and would decriminalize killing newborns even after their birth. It shields a mother from civil and criminal charges for any “actions and omissions” related to her pregnancy “including miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion, or perinatal death.” “Perinatal death” includes the death of a child up to seven completed days after its birth. 

“The telegraphic wire which links earth and heaven” 

This week, we’ve been focusing on ways we can redeem the crises of these days by meeting needs with courageous compassion. Today, let’s explore the faith it takes to make a difference in discouraging times. 

One of my mentors, John Edmund Haggai, often encouraged those he led to “attempt something for God so great it is doomed to failure unless God be in it.” Seeking a moral reformation in a culture that has abandoned biblical morality certainly qualifies. 

The good news is that, no matter how discouraged we become, the amount of our faith is less important than its object. Charles Spurgeon observed: “Faith is the telegraphic wire which links earth and heaven—on which God’s messages of love fly so fast, that before we call he answers, and while we are yet speaking he hears us.” 

He added: “Faith clothes me with the power of God. Faith engages on my side the omnipotence of Jehovah. Faith ensures every attribute of God in my defense. It helps me to defy the hosts of hell. It makes me march triumphant over the necks of my enemies.” 

A leap into the light 

Our skeptical world by definition lacks such faith in God. As. C. S. Lewis noted, we have put God “in the dock” (the British term for putting him on trial) and make demands of him that we make of no one else. 

I have received two COVID-19 vaccines and a booster. However, I did not study pharmaceutical science to verify their contents before receiving them. I take a few prescription medications each day, but I have not sought advanced medical training to certify their efficacy. If faith is trusting that which I have not proven, I do almost everything I do by faith. 

Sitting in this chair, breathing this air, eating the food I will eat today—all of it is done by faith. Since selling my 1965 Ford Mustang many years ago, I have not driven a car whose technology and engineering I understood. I wouldn’t even know how to change the oil on my current vehicle. 

Not only do most of our decisions and actions require faith—all of our relationships do. Every relationship requires a commitment that transcends the evidence and becomes self-validating. You cannot prove you should marry your spouse before you marry them. You can examine the “evidence,” but you must step beyond it into a commitment that eventually validates itself. It is the same with friendships, employment, choosing schools to attend, and so on. 

And it is the same with a relationship with God: you cannot prove his love until you experience it. You cannot prove his forgiveness until you seek it. You cannot prove his providence until you submit to it. 

Such faith is not a leap into the dark but into the light. 

“A period when true faith can emerge” 

Oswald Chambers noted: “The reason some of us are such poor specimens of Christianity is because we have no Almighty Christ. We have Christian attributes and experiences, but there is no abandonment to Jesus Christ.” 

The way to know God is all you hope him to be is to believe him to be all you hope him to be. Such faith positions you to experience his best, to receive his grace, to experience his transforming love. 

Henri Nouwen wrote: “I really want to encourage you not to despair, not to lose faith, not to let go of God in your life, but stand in your suffering as a person who believes that she is deeply loved by God. When you look inside yourself, you might sometimes be overwhelmed by all the brokenness and confusion, but when you look outside toward him who died on the cross for you, you might suddenly realize that your brokenness has been lived through for you long before you touched it yourself. 

“Suffering is a period in your life in which true faith can emerge, a naked faith, a faith that comes to life in the midst of great pain. The grain, indeed, has to die in order to bear fruit, and when you dare to stand in your suffering, your life will bear fruit in ways that are far beyond your own predications or understanding.” 

Will your life bear such fruit today?

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“America stands in solidarity with the people of Ukraine as they fight for their freedom and their future.” This statement was posted by former President George W. Bush on his Instagram page along with a video of himself and former President Bill Clinton laying flowers at Saints Volodymyr & Olha Ukrainian Catholic Church in Chicago. Mr. Clinton also tweeted a video of their ceremony and said, “America stands united with the people of Ukraine in their fight for freedom and against oppression.”

In related news, a Ukrainian official accused Russia of bombing 135 hospitals and shelters since the invasion began on February 24. She tweeted, “Inhumanity of Russian troops has no limits” and claimed, “Russia is a war criminal.” 

These two stories have this in common: they both presuppose the sanctity of every human life. Former American presidents stand in solidarity with unnamed Ukrainian citizens. Attacks on hospitals and shelters are rightly viewed as attacks on humanity. 

Is our moral compass pointed in the wrong direction? 

NASA has now confirmed more than five thousand worlds beyond our solar system. However, so far as scientists know, our planet uniquely hosts life created in the image of our Creator (Genesis 1:27). Corporate CEOs can face discouragement amid these “unprecedented times” just like the rest of us. 

A new survey reports that 72 percent of Americans say the nation’s moral compass is pointed in the wrong direction, a finding that suggests there is a “right” direction and that we can and should find and follow it. And a Wall Street Journal reporter responded to the fact that “all my millennial friends are rethinking their lives” by choosing to embark on a “reassessment” for the sake of his “mental and spiritual health.” His observation assumes that such health is possible and desirable. 

This week, we’ve been discussing proactive ways we can respond to the crises and challenges in the daily news and our daily lives. On Monday, we honored and sought to emulate Christians in Poland who are ministering sacrificially to Ukrainian refugees. Yesterday, we sought to answer our Father’s invitation to deeper intimacy with him that empowers our compassion and our courage. 

Today, let’s take another step into the significance of service that touches hurts and transforms hearts. I once heard a pastor state that every Christian needs a personal Acts 1:8 strategy, a plan to use their influence where they live, across their larger region, and around the world. 

How can you and I fulfill such a strategy effectively? 

Worship leads to sanctification leads to service 

In Exodus 31, God told Moses, “See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship” (vv. 1–3). The text then describes the ways Bezalel would serve in building the tabernacle (vv. 4–5). 

He would not labor alone: God “appointed with him Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach” and has “given to all able men ability, that they may make all that I have commanded you” (v. 6). 

To fulfill this calling, these servants of God are called to a counterintuitive commitment: “And the Lᴏʀᴅ said to Moses, ‘You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, “Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lᴏʀᴅ, sanctify you“‘” (vv. 12–13, my emphases). 

Before Bezalel, Oholiab, and their team could begin building the tabernacle, they were called to worship the Lord of the tabernacle. Before I can preach sermons or write articles for God, I must meet with God. When I do, I can share a word not just about him but from him. 

When relevance becomes a problem 

Here’s our problem: if we do not see God as he truly is, we will not worship and serve him as he truly deserves. 

The evangelical church in my lifetime has made a dramatic shift in how we relate to the culture. There was a day when most people went to church (or said they did). Many Americans grew up with a basic understanding of the Christian faith. Churches therefore did not feel the need to appeal to the secular culture in ways that were intentionally accessible to secular people. 

As the culture began shifting to a post-Christian culture in the 1960s, many pastors and leaders sought to change their methods of ministry to reach the unreached. Some megachurch buildings came to resemble shopping malls. Hymns led by choirs and organs became choruses led by bands and contemporary instruments. Sermons focused more on practical advice regarding marriage, money, self-esteem, and other felt needs. The goal was to demonstrate cultural relevance in everything we did. 

I agree completely that we need to take Christ to the lost. Jesus called us to be “fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19); fishermen go where the fish are to be found and use methods appropriate to the fish they are trying to catch. 

However, in an effort to make the church more accessible to the culture, there is the risk of unintentionally diluting the biblical call to “offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe” (Hebrews 12:28). 

When last were you awed by God? 

“Something immeasurably superior to yourself” 

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis noted: “In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that—and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison—you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud you cannot know God. 

“A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.” 

Which way are you looking today?

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Wade Berry is pastor of Second Baptist Church in Ranger, 120 miles west of Dallas. He held an outdoor worship service last Sunday in front of their 103-year-old building, which was destroyed by fire last Thursday evening.

In his sermon, he spoke of residents who lost everything as their homes were turned to rubble and firefighters from thirteen state agencies and forty-eight local fire departments who dropped everything to help. Among them was Eastland County Sheriff Deputy Sgt. Barbara Fenley, who was killed while going door to door trying to help people escape. 

In other news, four US soldiers were killed in a plane crash during a NATO exercise. The White House warned yesterday that the Russian government “is exploring options for potential cyberattacks.” Public health experts warn that a more transmissible version of the omicron variant may fuel a surge of COVID-19 infections in the US. In the continuing strategy to normalize LGBTQ activity, the movie Lightyear will feature Pixar’s first same-sex kiss. 

And amid the escalating tragedy in Ukraine, this report was especially grievous: Boris Romanchenko survived the Holocaust perpetrated by Adolf Hitler, but he did not survive the carnage being perpetrated by Vladimir Putin. The ninety-six-year-old was recently killed in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, another victim of Russia’s atrocities. 

However, while we seem to be surrounded by evil, suffering, and deception on every side, there’s always more to the story. Pastor Berry testified in his sermon: “We are always more than the tragedies we face. There is beauty in ashes, hope in despair, and hope is evident, even in mourning.” 

How can we find such hope where we need it most today? 

Why Denzel Washington is grateful for the “grace of God” 

Yesterday, we discussed God’s invitation to see pain and suffering as opportunities for the gospel when we exercise the power of courageous compassion. Today, let’s focus on the power we need to demonstrate that power to others. 

Like a group of investors who purchased a Caribbean island, we can withdraw from the world and its problems. But for Christians, this keeps our salt in the saltshaker, our light under a basket (Matthew 5:13–16). 

Or, like actor Denzel Washington, we can view our abilities and resources as gifts given by the “grace of God” and use what we have “to help others.” 

The difference Jesus makes in those who follow him is documented regularly by research. For example, a new study shows that teenage Christian boys from working-class families who regularly participate in their church and demonstrate faith in God are twice as likely to earn bachelor’s degrees as their nonreligious or moderately religious peers. And research by the Barna Group reports that 61 percent of practicing Christians said they are flourishing in romantic relationships and friendships, compared to only 28 percent of all US adults who said the same. 

“This is the way, walk in it.” 

I was privileged to speak last Sunday and Monday at the First Baptist Church in Midland, Texas, where Janet and I served as pastor from 1988–94. They are one of the finest New Testament congregations I have ever known. Their vision statement, displayed where everyone who walks the halls of the church can see it, explains why: “To know Christ and make him known.” 

Their outstanding pastor, Dr. Darin Wood, and the congregation understand that each side of the statement is essential to the other. We must know Christ before we can make him known, and we must make him known to know him better. 

We must breathe in to breathe out and breathe out to breathe in. 

You and I obviously cannot give others what we do not possess ourselves. To teach you to speak French, I would first have to learn how to speak French. But the harder I work to teach you French, the more French I am likely to learn. 

Craig Denison is right: “It’s in seeking relationship with God that we become familiar with his voice and are able to follow him as sheep with their Shepherd.” Craig cites these promises: 

• “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known” (Jeremiah 33:3). When last did you hear “things that you have not known” from God?
• “Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left” (Isaiah 30:21). When last did you hear such a word from your Father?
• “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come” (John 16:13). When last did you hear the Spirit’s voice in your mind and heart?

“Let not the rich man boast in his riches” 

Our hurting world desperately needs the gift of authentic Christianity. Lives being transformed every day by the living Lord Jesus are proof that God’s word is true and his grace is amazing. 

Unfortunately, many of us settle for a religion about Jesus when we could have an intimate relationship with him. To experience such a relationship daily, as Oswald Chambers reminds us, I must give up “my claim to my right to myself.” When I do, “The free committal of myself to God gives the Holy Spirit the chance to impart to me the holiness of Jesus Christ.” 

When last did you make such a “free committal” of yourself to Jesus? 

The Lord spoke through his prophet: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lᴏʀᴅ who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth” (Jeremiah 9:23–24). 

In what will you boast today?

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Refugees, mostly women with children, wait for transportation at the border crossing in Medyka, Poland, Saturday, March 5, 2022, after fleeing from the Ukraine. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

The Baptist church in Chelm, Poland, has become a gateway to safety and security for hundreds of Ukrainians fleeing their homeland. Church volunteers tell refugees that the church has free drinks, showers, and places to sleep. The congregation has also set up a children’s area where they can play or watch educational videos on a screen.

Marek Glodek, president of the Baptist Union of Poland, says, “What we’re seeing is a movement of love and generosity across this nation. Poles are opening their doors and arms to Ukrainians. They are taking them into their churches. They are taking them into their homes. They are feeding them. They are caring for them.” 

He adds: “This is what Jesus calls his believers to do all the time. Polish Christians are taking the teachings of Jesus seriously and living them out each day during this situation.” 

Chinese airliner crashes in southern China 

This morning’s headlines remind us that such “situations” are a tragic part of life on this fallen planet. 

China’s Civil Aviation Administration is reporting this morning that a China Eastern Airlines jetliner has crashed in southern China with 132 people on board. Police are hunting two suspects after gunfire broke out Saturday at a car show in Arkansas, killing one person and injuring at least twenty-eight, including several children. Four people were shot in downtown Austin early Sunday. 

Wildfires in areas west of the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex had burned about 54,000 acres as of last night. At least one person has been killed and fifty homes have been destroyed. One of them belonged to a relative of my wife; their family lost everything. 

And according to the United Nations, ten million Ukrainians, roughly a quarter of the nation’s population, have been displaced inside their country or fled as refugees. 

However, as we have seen across history, God’s people demonstrating God’s compassion can demonstrate the relevance of his grace and transform hurting hearts. 

How early Christians “turned the world upside down” 

When Peter and John encountered a “man lame from birth” (Acts 3:2), Peter said to him, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” (v. 6). When “his feet and ankles were made strong” (v. 7), “all the people saw him walking and praising God, and recognized him as the one who sat at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, asking for alms. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what happened to him” (vv. 9–10). In response, Peter preached the gospel to the assembled crowd (vv. 11–26). 

When early Christians encountered those in need, those who were “owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need” (Acts 4:34–35). When “the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits” were brought to the church, “they were all healed” (Acts 5:16). 

When Peter “found a man named Aeneas, bedridden for eight years, who was paralyzed” (Acts 9:33), he said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed” (v. 34a). Luke records: “Immediately he rose. And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord” (vv. 34b–35). 

When unwanted babies were abandoned, early Christians rescued them and raised them as their own. When slaves were marketed, Christians bought them and set them free. In a culture where women were the possession of their father until they were the possession of their husband, Christians valued women equally with men and embraced the eternal significance of their kingdom callings (cf. Galatians 3:28). In a day when Jews despised Gentiles as unclean and Gentiles oppressed Jews, Christians proclaimed that “God shows no partiality” and welcomed all into the family of God (Acts 10:34). 

The pattern of early Christianity is clear: the need was the opportunity. When followers of Jesus saw someone suffering, they intervened personally in the power of the Lord in a way that met felt needs to meet spiritual needs. They embraced every problem, every pain, every challenge as an invitation to prove the relevance of God’s love through their compassion. 

And by Acts 17:6, they had “turned the world upside down” and sparked the mightiest spiritual movement the world has ever known. 

Giving away “gas for God” 

God wants his people today to view challenges as opportunities just as the first Christians did. 

When disaster and disease strike, our skeptical culture is prone to ask, “Why did God allow this?” Early Christians would ask, “What can we do about it?” When we adopt an abundance mentality that sees every problem as an open door for God’s love and grace, we then become instruments of that grace in transformative ways and the culture takes note. 

Tillie Burgin began what we know today as Mission Arlington thirty-five years ago with a simple phone call. A woman called First Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, seeking help with a bill she could not pay. Tillie met with her and promised to pay her bill. But she also asked if she could begin a Bible study in her apartment for the residents. 

That first gathering has grown to 360 Bible studies and congregations in the DFW Metroplex. In total, Mission Arlington / Mission Metroplex led 757 people to Christ last year and touched more than 350,000 lives. My wife and I have witnessed personally the transformative power of their daily commitment to meeting needs in Jesus’ name. 

Last Saturday, Pastor Brian Carn of the multi-campus Kingdom City Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, spent $10,000 from his personal finances to give away $35 gas cards to more than 300 drivers on the west side of his city. His “Gas for God” event is just one example: churches in Chicago, North Carolina, Alabama, Missouri, and Mississippi held similar gas giveaways. Each was reported by their local media. 

How to measure your life 

Our skeptical, post-Christian culture is not likely to be won to Christ through business-as-usual Sunday religiosity. But when we are a movement that rushes to the front lines of suffering armed with courageous and sacrificial compassion, God redeems deprivation and pain by leading its victims to his transforming grace. 

Erasmus was right: “Length of life should be measured not by the number of years but by the number of right actions.” 

How long will your life be?

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 “It’s been a joy in the midst of all this tragedy to see how God’s people have responded. . . . God’s church is operating exactly like it was intended to, to minister to people and getting them hope and to share Christ with them.” This is how Keith Townsend, International Cooperating Ministries’ director for Russia and former Soviet Republics, characterizes humanitarian efforts underway in Ukraine.

He describes churches and ministry centers that are removing their chairs and pews so people can sleep in them: “They’re housing the people, feeding the people, making sure they’re taken care of with their medical issues and things like that.” 

In related news, a fifteenth-century Romanian Orthodox monastery has opened its doors to Ukrainian refugees. Roughly one hundred people, mostly women and children, have so far taken shelter there. The archdiocese has offered hundreds of beds in monasteries and parish houses as well. 

Samaritan’s Purse is operating an emergency field hospital in Ukraine and has stationed scores of disaster response specialists in the region. I am hearing daily about other ministries and churches that are working on specific projects to assist the Ukrainian people and the millions of refugees fleeing the country. 

One more example: an American pastor in Bronx, New York, has traveled to Ukraine with a team of four others at the invitation of the Ukrainian military. He is working with the army to provide combat field trauma supplies. He says that as he serves soldiers and civilians who are “hit with a bullet or they’re hit with shrapnel,” he is also working to “provide spiritual, emotional, and psychological support and also to pray with people, to be a pastor to people, to share God’s love and to give them hope.” 

Is Putin a “war criminal”? 

When Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine three weeks ago, the Russian Defense Ministry said it was using precision weapons and claimed that “there is no threat to [the] civilian population.” Since that time, Russian airstrikes have hit a maternity hospital, a church, and apartment towers. Nearly one million child refugees have fled the country since the war began. Fears are rising that Russia could resort to chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction. 

According to Ukrainian officials in the besieged city of Mariupol, Russian forces bombed a theater in which thousands had taken refuge, even though satellite footage shows the word children in Russian written on the ground near the theater. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia in an overnight speech of deliberately attacking the theater. A Ukrainian news platform reports this morning that Russian troops have destroyed 90 percent of Mariupol and killed thousands of town residents. 

In light of such atrocities, President Biden called Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” this week. He amplified his condemnation yesterday, calling Putin “a murderous dictator, a pure thug who is waging an immoral war against the people of Ukraine.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken commented, “Personally, I agree. Intentionally targeting civilians is a war crime.” 

Tragically, analysts warn that we can expect such tragedies to escalate. 

How the war “could get much worse” 

Angela Stent, a former US National Intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia, writes in Foreign Affairs: Putin’s “overarching aim” is “reversing the consequences of the Soviet collapse, splitting the transatlantic alliance, and renegotiating the geographic settlement that ended the Cold War.” As a result, “the current crisis is ultimately about Russia redrawing the post-Cold War map and seeking to reassert its influence over half of Europe, based on the claim that it is guaranteeing its own security.” 

Another Foreign Affairs article warns that the war in Ukraine “could get much worse.” It explains that an “insecurity spiral ensues when the choices one country makes to advance its interests end up imperiling the interests of another country, which responds in turn.” The result can be a “vicious cycle of unintended escalation, something that’s happened many times before.” 

Scholars point to “the stability-instability paradox, in which states, stalemated in the nuclear realm, might be more willing to escalate in conventional terms.” For example, Putin might respond to economic sanctions against Russia with cyberattacks on NATO countries. NATO leaders might consider such attacks to trigger Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty, which states that an attack on one member state is an attack on them all, and respond with retaliatory cyberattacks on Russia. Such cyberattacks could prompt military responses leading to another world war. 

Or conflict in Ukraine could spill over its borders. Russia could attack land transfers of support into Ukraine from NATO states bordering the war zone, which could kill or harm NATO personnel and trigger Article 5. Or Ukrainian forces could withdraw into NATO countries; if Russia attacked them there, this could also trigger Article 5. 

When “I have no right to preach the gospel” 

This growing crisis is an opportunity for God’s people to demonstrate God’s compassion in the power of God’s Spirit. The darker the room, the more necessary and powerful the light. 

I was interviewed recently by nationally syndicated radio host Bill Martinez. As we discussed Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine, he quoted this convicting statement in Proverbs 24: “Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, ‘Behold, we did not know this,’ does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?” (vv. 11–12). 

In other words, you and I are responsible to know what is happening, to pray about it, and then to find ways to answer our prayers personally. When we do this, the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27) acts as the hands and feet of Jesus in our war-torn world. We demonstrate the relevance of our faith by the relevance of our service. Those who experience our courageous compassion will be marked by God’s grace at work in and through us. 

This is the model of Jesus at work. Our Savior healed bodies so he could heal souls. He opened blind eyes so he could open blind hearts. He met felt need to meet spiritual need, and he calls us to do the same. 

My friend Dr. Randel Everett is right: “I have no right to preach the gospel to a hungry person.” 

What “hungry person” will you serve in Jesus’ name today?

Denison Forum

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed a joint session of the US House and Senate yesterday. In today’s Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove calls his speech “an extraordinarily powerful historic moment” and says that he and the Ukrainians are “defining courage for our time.”

Mr. Zelensky’s remarks were so significant that I will devote this Daily Article to them. 

Among his statements were these very perceptive observations: “Russia has attacked not just us, not just our land, not just our cities. It went on a brutal offensive against our values, basic human values. It threw tanks and planes against our freedom, against our right to live freely in our own country, choosing our own future, against our desire for happiness, against our national dreams, just like the same dreams you have, you Americans.” 

After delivering most of his speech in Ukrainian through a translator, Mr. Zelensky closed by speaking in English. He told the members of Congress, “Peace in your country doesn’t depend anymore only on you and your people. It depends on those next to you and those who are strong. Strong doesn’t mean big. Strong is brave and ready to fight for the life of his citizens and citizens of the world. For human rights, for freedom, for the right to live decently, and to die when your time comes, and not when it’s wanted by someone else, by your neighbor.” 

As Mr. Zelensky delivered these statements in English, Senator Angus King said later, “There was a collective holding of the breath.” 

“I wish you to be the leader of the world” 

President Zelensky closed his historic address with statements that deserve to be read in their entirety: “Today, the Ukrainian people are defending not only Ukraine, we are fighting for the values of Europe and the world, sacrificing our lives in the name of the future. That’s why today the American people are helping not just Ukraine, but Europe and the world to give the planet the life to keep justice in history. 

“Now, I am almost forty-five years old; today, my age stopped when the hearts of more than one hundred children stopped beating. I see no sense in life if it cannot stop the deaths. And this is my main issue as the leader of my people, great Ukrainians. 

“And as the leader of my nation, I am addressing the President Biden, you are the leader of the nation, of your great nation. I wish you to be the leader of the world; being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace. 

“Thank you. Glory to Ukraine. Thank you for your support. Thank you.” 

Peace “depends on those next to you” 

In its simplest form, human life can be reduced to two options: we can live for ourselves, or we can live for each other. We can be Cain slaying Abel, or we can be Joseph forgiving his brothers. We can be Peter denying Jesus, or we can be Peter preaching to the Pentecost crowds. 

We can make the war in Ukraine the Ukrainians’ problem, or we can make it our problem. We can say with Volodymyr Zelensky that our hearts stop when the hearts of children stop beating. We can fight “for human rights, for freedom, for the right to live decently, and to die when your time comes.” 

Said differently, we can embrace the self-evident truths “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” 

Paradoxically, the best way to assure these personal freedoms is to ensure the world’s freedom. Mr. Zelensky was right: “Peace in your country doesn’t depend anymore only on you and your people. It depends on those next to you.” 

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. so perceptively noted in Letter from Birmingham Jail, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” 

“Let justice roll down like waters” 

When we seek “justice everywhere,” we stand on the right side of history. In accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, Dr. King stated, “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.” 

The word of God agrees. Scripture assures us that “God will judge the righteous and the wicked” (Ecclesiastes 3:17). He calls us to join him: “Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression” (Isaiah 1:17). We are to “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24).  

As a biblical philosopher, my purpose today is not to take a personal position regarding political or military responses to the war in Ukraine. Rather, it is to make the biblical case that what is happening in Ukraine matters as much to God and should therefore matter as much to us as if it were happening in America. 

I agree with Volodymyr Zelensky that his people are “fighting for the values of Europe and the world.” They are “sacrificing [their] lives in the name of the future,” our future. It is incumbent upon us to join them. 

“Our most basic common link” 

Today is St. Patrick’s Day. In addition to parades and parties, we should remember his story: kidnapped from his native England by Irish invaders, he was enslaved for several years before escaping and returning home. However, years later, God called him to return to Ireland as a missionary. He led more than one hundred thousand people to faith in Christ and became the patron saint of Ireland. His death on March 17, 461, is remembered each year on this day. 

But there’s more to his story: Irish Christians who were spiritual descendants of St. Patrick’s ministry sailed to Britain in the following century, where they evangelized the heathen who had overrun the country. According to Thomas Cahill’s How the Irish Saved Civilization, they “single-handedly refounded European civilization throughout the continent.” 

As a result, every American owes a debt to St. Patrick’s courageous ministry in Ireland and his spiritual descendants who preserved the benefits of Western civilization we enjoy today. This fact is just one more reminder that President John F. Kennedy was right: “Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet.” 

What happens to any of us should therefore matter to all of us. 

God assures us, “Blessed are they who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times!” (Psalm 106:3). 

As we respond to President Zelensky’s historic speech, will America be “blessed”?

Denison Forum

It is surreal to consider how different the world has become in three weeks.

As of this morning, more than three million refugees have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion began on February 24. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech to the US Congress later today “could be [the] most important by a foreign leader since Churchill in 1941.” The leaders of the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovenia traveled to Kyiv last night to meet with Mr. Zelensky to offer a broad package of support. The White House announced that President Biden will travel to Brussels for a March 24 NATO summit on the invasion. 

The Metropolitan Opera presented a benefit performance Monday night in New York City, with all ticket sales and donations going to support relief efforts in Ukraine. And a Russian television producer courageously interrupted a live TV state media broadcast on Monday to hold up a sign protesting the war. Her actions prompted others to protest; she was found guilty of organizing an illegal protest and fined. 

“World War III may already have arrived” 

It is obvious that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is changing the world far beyond Ukraine. The question is, how much of the world? 

Veronika Melkozerova, a journalist based in Kyiv, writes in the Atlantic, “Every night I close my eyes thinking I might be next on Putin’s death-toll list. Nowadays, you never know where the Russians will drop their bombs—onto a residential building, a kindergarten classroom, a monastery, or a maternity hospital.” She understands that people of the West “are scared of World War III” but adds, “Don’t you understand that World War III may have already arrived?” 

Putin clearly wants to rebuild a new Russian Empire, which could lead him to advance beyond Ukraine into NATO-allied countries and force the US into the conflict. I noted on Monday the growing concern that Russia could use “tactical nuclear weapons” to win its war with Ukraine; that same day, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters, “The prospect of nuclear conflict, once unthinkable, is now back within the realm of possibility.” 

China’s continued escalation of its nuclear capacities only adds to the growing danger. Adm. Charles Richard leads US Strategic Forces, which oversees the military’s nuclear arsenal. He told lawmakers last week, “Today, we face two nuclear-capable near peers who have the capability to unilaterally escalate to any level of violence, in any domain worldwide, with any instrument of national power, at any time.” 

How might God redeem the fears of these days? 

By now your stress level is probably higher than it was when you began reading this article. And we haven’t even considered that the world has now surpassed six million COVID-19 deaths as the US nears one million such tragedies. Vox has reported that “deaths of despair” (suicide, drug overdoses, and alcohol-related liver disease) “amount to the equivalent of a catastrophic pandemic every single year.” And now we are dealing with an enemy that might deploy nuclear weapons with unforeseeable global consequences. 

However, none of this surprises God. He is not reading these words with the same anxiety you and I might be feeling. 

Since I am convinced that the Lord redeems all he allows, I asked myself today how he might redeem the fears of these perilous days. Instantly a simple thought occurred to me: by showing us how deeply we need what only our Father can give. 

It is human nature to depend on human nature. From the first sin in human history to the last sin you and I committed, the common denominator has been the same: we want to be our own god (Genesis 3:5), to be king of our own kingdom. To show us our need for his redemptive grace, God then responds by allowing us the consequences of our misused freedom (cf. Romans 1:24–32). Inevitably, such self-exaltation comes at the expense of others. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is the latest in a line of murderous crimes extending to the dawn of human history (cf. Genesis 4:1–16). 

The defining question of our lives 

Denison Ministries Creative Director Josh Miller has a fascinating new article on our website titled “‘Blessed are the self-sufficient’: How the anti-Beatitudes explain our cultural anxieties.” After exposing the fallacy of living by our culture’s self-sufficient values, he asks, “What kingdom defines your life?” 

This is the defining question of our lives. You and I can seek to advance our own kingdoms, or we can “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” in the assurance that “all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33). 

When we turn our world and our fears over to the true king of the universe, what does he give us in return? Jesus assured us, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27, my emphasis). 

When we name our fears and trust them specifically and unconditionally to Jesus, we experience more than his help and hope—we experience him. We experience his peace, his joy (Hebrews 12:2), his abundant life (John 10:10). We can say with Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). We can experience fully “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). 

Henri Nouwen observed: 

“We tend to emphasize the distance between Jesus and ourselves. We see Jesus as the all-knowing and all-powerful Son of God who is unreachable for us sinful, broken human beings. But thinking this way, we forget that Jesus came to give us his own life. He came to lift us up into loving community with the Father. Only when we recognize the radical purpose of Jesus’ ministry will we be able to understand the meaning of the spiritual life. Everything that belongs to Jesus is given for us to receive. All that Jesus does we may also do.” 

Do you “understand the meaning of the spiritual life” today? 

Denison Forum

If Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has a face, it is the wounded pregnant woman who was taken on a stretcher from a maternity hospital bombed by Russia last week. Now the Associated Press is reporting that the mother and her baby have died.

Is Putin suffering from dementia? 

How much Ukrainian death and destruction will be enough for Putin? 

Does he want only to remove President Zelensky and install a puppet regime loyal to Moscow similar to the one in Belarus? 

He has already arrested the mayor of the southern city of Melitopol and replaced him with a new “acting mayor” who is urging residents to adjust to “the new reality” and end their resistance to Russian occupation. 

Does he want to control the entire country, making it part of a new Russian Empire as it was part of the old USSR? 

In justifying his invasion of Ukraine, he claimed that the very idea of Ukrainian statehood was a fiction and argued that “modern Ukraine was entirely and fully created by Russia.” 

Are his motives more personal? 

It has been widely noted that Peter the Great (1672–1725), the giant tsar (historians estimate he stood at least six-foot-eight) who is credited with transforming Russia into a feared world power, is Putin’s personal hero. For more on Putin’s military ambitions and personal background, please see Ryan Denison’s excellent new paper, “The inevitability of the Russian invasion of Ukraine: How Putin’s history reveals his destiny.”

Some experts are even wondering if Putin is suffering from dementia, Parkinson’s disease, or “roid rage” from potential cancer treatment that involves heavy steroid use. 

But there is another factor we must consider in seeking to understand Vladimir Putin’s motives for invading Ukraine and threatening the West so perilously. 

Putin’s “spiritual destiny” 

Yesterday we discussed a March 12 article by cultural commentator David French on the threat posed by Russian “tactical nuclear weapons.” Today, we’ll turn to another article by French, this one published on March 13.  

French refers to research by former National Security Agency analyst John Schindler describing an ideological “fusion” between the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and the FSB, Russia’s intelligence service. According to Schindler, Putin does not seek Russian greatness only out of a sense of secular national chauvinism, but also out of religious mission rooted in the ROC. 

Schindler notes that Patriarch Kirill, head of the ROC, considers the “main threat” to Russia to be “the loss of faith” in Western Christianity. ROC spokesmen constantly denounce feminism and LGBTQ activism as Satanic creations of the West that aim to destroy faith, family, and the nation. 

As a result, the ROC believes it has a “spiritual security” mission to defend Russia from Western spiritual influences in partnership with Moscow’s intelligence agencies. French cites Giles Fraser’s article on the British website UnHerd, which states that “Putin regards his spiritual destiny as the rebuilding of Christendom, based in Moscow.” 

Is Moscow the “New Rome”? 

Kyiv is centrally important to this narrative. 

The Russian news agency TASS quotes ROC Archbishop Kirill: “For us Kiev [the Russian spelling of Kyiv] is what Jerusalem is for many. Russian Orthodoxy began there, so under no circumstances can we abandon this historical and spiritual relationship.” The 2019 creation of a new Orthodox Church of Ukraine separated from the ROC further inflamed tensions as the ROC viewed this action as a direct attack on its “canonical territory.” 

We should add this historical note. The Roman Catholic Church is obviously based in Rome. In AD 324, the Roman Emperor Constantine declared the city of Byzantium the new capital of the Roman Empire, renaming it Constantinople and calling it the “New Rome.” When Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 (and was renamed Istanbul), many in Russia began claiming that Moscow became the “third Rome” and the spiritual heir of Jerusalem. 

French concludes: “Putin has fused Russian identity with the ROC, sees his nation and his church as a bulwark against western decadence, and is now not just attempting to seize his church’s ‘Jerusalem’ but potentially forcibly reuniting his church after a schism it rejects.” 

The peril of transactional religion 

When Christianity is used to advance secular aims, it ceases to be true Christianity. This is true whether these aims are Russian or American, your agendas or mine. 

Transactional religion was dominant in the Greco-Roman world; if a worshiper sacrificed on a god’s altar, the god could be persuaded to do what the worshiper wanted. We do the same when we go to church on Sunday so God will bless us on Monday or give money to the church so God will bless us financially. 

However, Jesus was clear: 

• “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). 
• We are to be “crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20), to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice” to our Lord (Romans 12:1). 
• The King of kings and Lord of lords does not exist as a means to our ends. Rather, we exist to glorify him: “To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever” (1 Peter 4:11). 

This mandate should be our daily aim: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). 

Abraham Lincoln’s “greatest concern” 

Joe Carter noted in First Things that during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was purportedly asked if God was on his side. 

He replied, “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side. My greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.” 

One day, “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lᴏʀᴅ as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14). 

How will you hasten that day today?

Denison Forum

Legendary quarterback Tom Brady made global headlines when he retired after his team lost the Super Bowl last month. However, he announced on Twitter last night, “These past two months I’ve realized my place is still on the field and not in the stands.” As a result, he stated, “I’m coming back for my 23rd season in Tampa. Unfinished business.”

In more normal times, this announcement might be the subject of today’s Daily Article. Or we could focus on former President Barack Obama’s report yesterday that he has tested positive for COVID-19. Or we could discuss the opening of baseball’s spring training, the NCAA basketball playoffs, or a variety of other cultural stories. We might even note that today is “Pi” Day (3.14) with $3.14 sales on pizza. 

But these are not normal times. 

In fact, they may soon become dangerous on a level we have never seen. 

Why “this is a uniquely perilous moment” 

David French is a military veteran, an attorney, and one of the most perceptive cultural commentators I know. His March 12 article in the Atlantic, “This Is a Uniquely Perilous Moment,” is subtitled: “Smaller-scale tactical nuclear weapons could bring the great powers into a brutal, deadly, and unprecedented conflict.” 

He describes “tactical nuclear weapons” as “low-yield, short-range weapons that are designed for use against military targets such as enemy airfields or columns of enemy forces.” He explains that “tactical nukes can be mounted in simple gravity bombs, on rockets, or even in artillery shells.” 

According to a 2021 Congressional Research Service report, Russia possesses close to two thousand of these weapons. By contrast, the US stores roughly one hundred nuclear weapons in Europe. 

Here’s where this news becomes even more concerning: French notes that “there is considerable evidence that use of those tactical nuclear weapons is part of contemporary Russian-military planning.” He cites reports that Russia has adopted a military strategy known as “escalate to de-escalate” or “escalate to terminate.” 

Putin could use low-yield nuclear weapons to destroy key air bases throughout Europe, attack an aircraft-carrier task force, or destroy specific army bases. As French warns, Putin’s tactical weapons “make him the first opponent that NATO allies have faced since the end of the Cold War who has the raw military capability to destroy a substantial portion of NATO forces in the field.” 

Could this be what Putin meant when he warned on February 24 that countries who interfere with his invasion of Ukraine would face “consequences you have never seen”? 

“The most dangerous confrontation of all” 

The New York Times is reporting this morning that Russia has asked China for military equipment and support for its invasion of Ukraine. The longer Ukrainian forces withstand Russia’s invasion, the more desperate Putin may become. 

If he were to use tactical nuclear weapons to defeat Ukraine, given NATO’s limited tactical nuclear arsenal, would we escalate our response? French asks, “Would we risk Washington and New York to dislodge Putin from Ukraine?” 

If Putin thinks we would not, would this embolden him to use his tactical nuclear arsenal against Ukraine? 

Here’s another scenario. Russian missiles struck a military base near the border with Poland, killing at least thirty-five people. The Associated Press reports that “the attack so near a NATO member-country raised the possibility that the alliance could be drawn into the fight.” Also, Poland’s president said yesterday that the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine by Russia would “be a game changer in the whole thing.” 

If NATO forces entered the conflict and Putin responded with tactical nuclear strikes, what would come next? Again, would the US risk our cities to defend NATO forces? 

French concludes: “It’s one thing to confront a potential nuclear conflict when both sides know they’ll lose. Mutual assured destruction kept the peace even during the darkest days of the Cold War. It’s another thing entirely to confront a potential nuclear conflict when one side believes it can win. That’s the most dangerous confrontation of all, and we may be close to that now.” 

The paradoxical best way to live every day 

Dr. Lane Ogden’s outstanding paper, How to manage fear in a time of crisis, was written at my request and published on our website earlier this morning. 

Dr. Ogden is a brilliant psychologist and the person I recommend whenever someone in the Dallas area asks me to direct them to a counseling professional. His paper offers biblical reflections and practical steps you and I can take today in responding to the fears we face. His paper is so timely because the threats we face are so significant.  

In such times, the Christian faith offers a unique perspective that can empower our courage and attract others to our Lord. 

Unlike our secular friends, we know that this world is not our home: “Here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14). We also know that “if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s” (Romans 14:8). 

As a result, we can face the perils of our broken world by trusting Jesus’ promise, “Everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:26). 

Paradoxically, the best way to live every day is to be prepared to die every day. To live with our sins confessed, our relationships healthy, and our lives fully yielded to our Lord and Master is not only the best way to die—it is the best way to live. 

The Puritan Thomas Watson warned, “Let them fear death who do not fear sin.” 

Which do you fear today?

Denison Forum

Hassan is an eleven-year-old Ukrainian boy. When Russia invaded his country, his mother, a widow, was unable to travel because she had to stay with her sick mother. So she sent her son out of the country on a train by himself with only a plastic bag, a passport, and a telephone number written on his hand.

He traveled roughly 620 miles to Slovakia to meet relatives. After he arrived safely, she said, “I am very grateful that they saved the life of my child.” 

Vladimir Putin clearly considers expanding the Russian Empire worth the lives of thousands of Hassans. 

A story as old as humanity 

The first fact we discover about humans in God’s word is that we are each made in the image and likeness of God. After we learn that “God created man in his own image,” we are even told, “male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). Clearly, every male and every female is equally valuable in the eyes of his or her Maker (cf. Acts 10:34; Galatians 3:28). 

From then until now, nearly every sin we commit against each other is a violation of this fact. Cain considered Abel’s life worth less than his own. Joseph’s brothers felt the same about him. From Egypt’s enslavement of the Hebrews to the Western world’s enslavement of Africans, sex traffickers enslaving their victims today, and nearly every other kind of crime in the day’s news, we see all around us the horrific consequences of rejecting Genesis 1:27. 

In this sense, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is a contemporary example of a tragic story as old as humanity. His Communist upbringing and KGB career taught him the Communist worldview with its depreciation of the individual as a means to the end of the state. 

“Primeval conditions in besieged cities” 

The New York Times reports this morning that the war has taken “a decidedly darker turn, with hundreds of thousands of people now living in primeval conditions in besieged cities as Russian forces try to batter the country into submission.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an overnight address, “We are doing everything to save our people in the cities that the enemy just wants to destroy.” 

Writing for The Times of Israel, Rachel Sharansky Danziger notes, “Vladimir Putin’s invasion is very eloquent and very loud in this regard. It says: Might Makes Right. It says: human lives are cheap. It says: liberties and free speech must give way to the good of the state, and the good of the state lies in its glory, not in its people’s safety and welfare.” 

Then she asks, “Are we willing to accept a world shaped on these terms?” 

China’s horrific treatment of the Uyghurs and Kim Jong Un’s imprisonment and torture of those viewed as threats to his dictatorship are other examples. The long history of anti-Semitism is yet another illustration of humanity’s sinful “will to power” and willingness to subjugate other races and peoples to the advancement of our own. 

“A rule which is not tyranny” 

There is another side to this story. America’s founding on the biblical fact that “all men are created equal,” while fueling our pioneer spirit and entrepreneurial culture, must be balanced with the biblical fact that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Otherwise, the equality of human lives leads to the equality of human ideas. There can be no right and wrong, only what is right for me and wrong for you. 

As D. A. Carson notes in The Intolerance of Tolerance, tolerance then becomes not the right to be wrong but the insistence that there is no such thing as “wrong.” The result is the destruction of institutions foundational to human flourishing. 

From the equal rights of the unborn to the definition and sanctity of marriage, the healthy expression of sexuality within biblical marriage, the dignity and value of the elderly and infirm, and the urgency of justice for all races and ethnicities, every dimension of human experience is damaged when objective truth is replaced by relativistic tolerance. 

In The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis noted that “the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means . . . the power of some men to make other men what they please.” By contrast, “A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery.” 

A light that “cannot be hidden” 

Such a “rule” and “obedience” is captured in the biblical call to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice” to God (Romans 12:1). As a “living sacrifice,” every dimension of our lives is to be yielded every moment of every day to our Master and King. 

Here we find one of the reasons why a “compartmentalized” life is so hazardous to the life of faith. When Jesus is a sermon subject and a person of history but not an intimate, present reality in our day-to-day lives, we miss the joy and the power he infuses in every soul that is truly united with him. 

Conversely, when Jesus is king of every part of our lives every day, we experience the “abundant life” he came to bring (John 10:10) and become the light that “cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14) and “overcomes the world” (1 John 5:4). 

So, like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, we can reject Genesis 1:27 by viewing other people as a means to the advancement of the state. Similarly, we can reject Genesis 1:27 by viewing other people as a means to our personal advancement and agendas. Alternately, we can embrace Genesis 1:27 as mandating the relativistic equality of all ideas and values and thus replacing truth with tolerance. 

Or we can decide today to become a “living sacrifice” to our Lord and King. 

“Let there be peace on earth” 

Imagine a world in which every Christian made that choice every day. Imagine the impact on every person we influence. Imagine the difference if Christians around the world led the nations of the world to value every person as God does. 

A beloved hymn so relevant to our war-torn world begins, “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.” 

Would you make these words your prayer today, to the glory of God?

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My granddaughter’s favorite song is “Let It Go” from the movie Frozen. When I watched this little girl sing the song in a Ukrainian shelter, I was nearly moved to tears. She is likely someone’s granddaughter.

What if she were mine? What if she were yours? 

Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine is generating some of the most moving stories that I have ever seen. For example, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gave the first speech by a foreign leader ever to Britain’s House of Commons Tuesday, echoing Winston Churchill’s famous words to the same chamber at the dawn of World War II: “We will fight till the end, at sea, in the air. We will fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the streets.” 

The whereabouts of his wife, First Lady Olena Zelenska, and their two children are secret since Ukraine believes they are being targeted by Russia for assassination. However, she has played an active role on social media, shining a spotlight on what she calls “the mass murder of Ukrainian civilians.” 

Then there are the children who are such innocent victims of Vladimir Putin’s escalating atrocities. 

At least three people were killed and seventeen were wounded when a Russian airstrike bombed a maternity hospital yesterday. One million children have been forced to flee Ukraine, leaving behind their lives and their friends. Polio is even making a comeback as the war has halted vaccination efforts. Russian bombardment has killed so many people in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol that workers are forced to bury civilians and soldiers in a mass grave. 

And US intelligence leaders are warning that Putin is likely to escalate attacks even further in the coming days. 

Only 4 percent of Russians blame Russia for the invasion 

While the world increasingly sees Putin and Russia as an international pariah, the story is far different on the Russian side. ​​

The New York Times reports this morning that top diplomats from Ukraine and Russia failed to reach an agreement today to calm the fighting in Ukraine or even to ease the worsening humanitarian crisis. Note this statement by Russian foreign minister Sergey V. Lavrov: “We are not planning to attack other countries. We didn’t attack Ukraine, either.” He was repeating Russian claims that his country was forced to conduct a “special military operation” in Ukraine to protect its own security.

Many in Russia believe him.

Putin’s approval rating soared as Russia prepared to attack Ukraine. While thousands of protesters have demonstrated against the invasion, only 4 percent of Russians blame the conflict on Russia. More than two-thirds blame it on the US, NATO, or Ukraine. 

The vast majority who do not blame Russia for the invasion is unlikely to blame Putin for Western sanctions enacted in response to the invasion. In fact, such measures may harden their opinion against the West and reinforce Putin’s narrative that he is defending his people from Western aggression. This does not mean that the West should not do all we can to defend and support Ukraine, of course. But it does illustrate the fact that nations have narratives. 

Even the way the two sides describe the country being invaded demonstrates this reality. Russians refer to it as “the Ukraine,” with the definite article indicating that it is a region rather than an independent entity. Ukrainians refer to their homeland as “Ukraine” without the definite article to reinforce its independent status. Americans follow this custom when we speak of “the Bluegrass region” (with the definite article) of “Kentucky” (without the definite article). 

In reading British scholar Geoffrey Hosking’s Russian History this week, I found context that further clarifies Russia’s narrative of this conflict. Hosking reports, “Whatever else they may have wanted, Russians have always longed for security from terrifying and murderous assaults across the flat open frontiers to east and west.” 

This need “motivated the creation of the first Rus” state in the ninth century. It explains their support for Ivan IV (1530–84), the first “Tsar” (a form of the Roman imperial title Caesar), and later for Peter the Great (ruled 1682–1725), who built Russia into an empire. 

Rebuilding this empire is Vladimir Putin’s expressed and determined purpose. To the degree that Russians see his invasion of Ukraine as necessary in defending them from alleged threats from the West and restoring their national pride and power, they are supporting his invasion. 

“It is good for me that I was afflicted” 

So, each side of the war in Ukraine believes that its side is “moral.” Notice what is missing in this debate: a question as to whether objective morality exists. 

As I have discussed often over the years (and in two chapters of The Coming Tsunami), it is conventional wisdom in our postmodern culture that all truth claims are personal and subjective. But when children are hiding in shelters and bombs are falling on a children’s hospital, such relativism is one of the first casualties. 

Suffering has a way of clarifying our priorities and exposing our fallacies. The psalmist spoke for many when he admitted to God, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word” (Psalm 119:67). He could then observe, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes” (v. 71). 

I am praying that postmodern skeptics learn from this horrific conflict the absolute fact of absolute truth, the moral imperative of embracing and defending objective morality. I am praying for Christians to exhibit the transformative power of living by such morality as revealed in the word of God (Hebrews 4:12) and empowered by the Spirit of God (cf. Galatians 5:22–23). 

And I am praying that such Spirit-empowered integrity will begin with me. 

“God will make you fit” 

The reality of suffering and sin forces us to admit the reality of our finitude and our consequent need for divine grace. Oswald Chambers noted in a devotional that to be united with Jesus Christ, “We must relinquish all pretense of being anything, all claim of being worthy of God’s consideration.” 

He explains: “There will have to be the relinquishing of my claim to my right to myself in every phase. . . . When a man really sees himself as the Lord sees him, it is not the abominable sins of the flesh that shock him, but the awful nature of the pride of his own heart against Jesus Christ.” 

He concludes: “If you are up against the question of relinquishing, go through the crisis, relinquish all, and God will make you fit for all that he requires of you.” 

Do you see yourself as the Lord sees you today?

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Anatoly was a twenty-six-year-old member of Irpin Bible Church, northwest of Kyiv, Ukraine. Note that he “was.”

An IT professional in a local company, he also served in his church’s media ministry. When the Russian invasion began on February 24, Anatoly evacuated his wife and other family members to safety. Then he courageously returned last Friday to join his church’s skeleton crew.

As a young mother and her two children fled Russian shelling, Anatoly volunteered to carry her suitcase across Irpin’s collapsed bridge. All four died when a Russian bombshell landed in the middle of their would-be humanitarian corridor.

As with Abel of old, “through his faith, though he died, he still speaks” (Hebrews 11:4). 

What is he saying to us?

Boy dropped from burning apartment building

Anatoly is just one of the hundreds if not thousands of Ukrainians killed so far in Vladimir Putin’s illegal and immoral invasion of their country. Why, then, did I want to tell his story this morning? Why did you choose to read it?

Here’s some good news: A three-year-old boy was dropped from the window of a burning apartment building in New Jersey Monday morning and caught by first responders. And some tragic news: a New Jersey man was swept out to sea while swimming off a beach in Hawaii last Saturday. And some more tragic news: an eleven-year-old girl died after falling under a moving school bus in Colorado last Thursday.

How did these stories make you feel?

I told each of them to make the same point: there is something in us that rejoices with those who rejoice and weeps with those who weep (Romans 12:15). This is part of our identity as beings made in the image of a God (Genesis 1:27) who loves each of us as if there were only one of us (St. Augustine). Each person is therefore someone of infinite worth to our Creator, not a means to the ends of a nation or its rulers.

This fact is vital to understanding the larger significance of the war in Ukraine for America’s future and American Christians today.

The future of our cultural freedom

US intelligence officials testified at a congressional hearing Tuesday that Putin is likely to escalate the conflict in Ukraine with no concern for civilian casualties, viewing his invasion as a “war he cannot afford to lose.”

Yesterday, we began discussing the fact that Russia’s invasion represents a “new Cold War” pitting the autocratic regimes of Russia and China against the individual freedom ethic espoused by Democratic nations of the West. Putin’s invasion is just one example of the degree to which he sees democracy as impeding his tsarist vision for Russia.

In response, I noted that America’s founders clearly linked freedom with morality and morality with religion.

They were right. 

As the Bible notes, we are all “pinched off from a piece of clay” (Job 33:6). As a result, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). It is therefore crucial that Christians embody and share with others the good news of God’s transforming grace (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Said bluntly, the future of our cultural freedom depends on the degree to which we embrace our spiritual freedom in Christ (cf. Galatians 5:1; John 8:31–32). In a day when American society is more opposed to Christian truth and morality than ever before, this fact is more crucial than ever before.

What percent of Americans elected our president?

The more secular our democracy becomes, the weaker our democracy becomes.

Princeton University scholar Allen C. Guelzo, in reviewing political scientist Jan-Werner Müller’s book Democracy Rules, cites Müller’s argument that “democracy has a deep philosophical affinity with relativism.” This is because our democracy rests on the two pillars of freedom (of speech, assembly, and association) and equality (of all citizens as equal political participants).

As a result, we make decisions based on popular voting, not objective truths, and trust that a free media will hold our leaders and institutions accountable.

But what happens when fewer and fewer of us participate in our democracy? (Kevin D. Williamson notes that Joe Biden was elected president by only 24.6 percent of all Americans.) 

What happens when the Americans who do vote are increasingly uninformed about the issues we face? And what happens when the people and the media they trust increasingly insist on tolerance over truth and seek personal and partisan advancement over the common good?

In The Republic, Plato warned that democracy is inherently flawed: freedom is supreme, but laws are not obeyed and chaos results. Leaders pander to the wants of the people whose support they require. A few people take advantage and accumulate great wealth. To restore order and put down the rich, the people then vote a tyrant into power and democracy ends.

Is this our future?

A difference that will echo in eternity

The last world war united Americans in defense of freedom and democracy with a sacrificial ethic and resolve of character that enabled us to defeat the greatest enemies our nation had ever faced. I am praying that the “new Cold War” will unite us once again in the same cause and evoke from us the same character.

And I am praying that America’s Christians will lead the way by surrendering daily to Christ as our King (Matthew 6:33; Ephesians 5:18) and then advancing his kingdom through our gracious witness, godly influence, and sacrificial faith (Ephesians 4:15).

In this day of global social media and connectivity, a single courageous Christian like Anatoly can make global headlines and a global impact. As with Isaiah of old, a single committed believer can use his or her influence to make a difference that will echo in eternity.

In answering his Lord’s call, the prophet cried, “Here I am! Send me” (Isaiah 6:8). 

What will you say to your Lord today?

NOTE: One very practical way we can be the presence of Christ to those suffering in this conflict is to care for refugees as Jesus cares for us. For more, please see our website article, “As 2 million Ukrainian refugees flee, how will you welcome the refugee next door?“

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UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi announced this morning that two million people have now fled Ukraine as conditions worsen by the day. How did you react to this news?

I fear that you and I are becoming accustomed to this unfolding tragedy and thus inured to the suffering we see in our daily headlines. This is understandable, as humans can withstand only so much bad news.

In this sense, Ukraine may be turning into another version of the coronavirus pandemic. We learned yesterday that the global COVID-19 death toll has passed six million. If one of the six million was someone close to you, I suspect you feel very differently about this report than those who have been spared such tragedy (so far).

Humans naturally filter the news through the lens of personal self-interest. For example, when I saw a headline about a “giant spider” infestation spreading across the southern US, I scanned the article to learn whether these insects are poisonous or not. (They are, but their bite is so tiny that they are reportedly not much of a threat to humans.) I did the same with news about a COVID-19 roadmap for the future, new DNA tests to detect diseases, and a report that women who visit a crisis pregnancy center are less likely to get an abortion.

Since, like you, I engage the culture through the prism of personal relevance, an article explaining why Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the beginning of a “new Cold War” that will affect every American caught my immediate attention.

This challenge “will test our nation to its core”

Ukraine and Russia have been engaged in conflict for many centuries. (For the history of their often-fraught relationship, I recommend Mark Legg’s excellent article on our website, “Why does Russia want Ukraine?“).

However, as geopolitical analyst Elliott Abrams explains in an article titled “The New Cold War,” this time is different: “A fully rearmed, aggressive Russia and a rich, aggressive, and technologically advanced China [are telling] us that the international order that has lasted since 1945 must end, and American predominance with it.”

Abrams points to the Vladimir Putin–Xi Jinping joint statement on February 4: “The new inter-State relations between Russia and China are superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era. Friendship between the two States has no limits, there are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation.” He then comments: “This is a clear announcement of a new alliance meant to go beyond the Cold War—in part by creating a partnership that will lead to a very different outcome this time.”

In Abrams’ opinion, responding to this “new Cold War” is a challenge that “will test our nation to its core.” He believes the US should support Ukrainian resistance against the Russian invaders with money and weapons, then redeploy our European forces east to protect the nations that have borders with Russia and (now) Ukraine.

Next, he believes we should rally our allies across the globe, match China in advanced military technology, modernize and expand our nuclear arsenal, and enhance our energy production to support Europe as it weans itself from Russian energy sources.

According to Abrams, this “new Cold War” is fundamentally a battle between dictatorial autocracy and freedom. For context, he notes that Ronald Reagan “always understood that the Cold War was more than a conflict among states; it was even more fundamentally an ideological conflict between the forces of liberty and the powers that would snuff it out nation by nation until our own was in jeopardy.”

Abrams concludes: “This new struggle has been thrust upon us by Russia and China; there is no escaping it. Strength will be rewarded, and weakness will be punished. The days of easy American preponderance have come to an end; for the next few decades we will have to work hard to keep the global balance of forces from turning against us.”

Why liberty needs God

In such a global conflict between totalitarianism and freedom, you and I have a foundational role to play.

George Washington famously observed in his 1796 Farewell Address: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” Our first president added that “reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

Consensual democracy depends upon consensual morality, but as Gen. Washington noted, morality requires religion. C. S. Lewis explained why in Mere Christianity: “You cannot make men good by law; and without good men you cannot have a good society.”

The good news is that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Any of us who turns to Christ as our Savior and surrenders daily to his Spirit (Ephesians 5:18) can manifest his character (Romans 8:29; Galatians 5:22–23) in ways that empower our democracy and enrich the common good.

The bad news is that this new “Cold War” over freedom is coming at the worst time in American history for such holistic faith.

The fastest-growing religious demographic in America is that segment of our population that professes no religion. Gallup announced last year that the percentage of Americans who claim membership in a church, synagogue, or mosque has fallen below 50 percent for the first time in our nation’s history. As I document in my latest book, The Coming Tsunami, our culture brands Christians as outdated, intolerant, oppressive, and dangerous on a level unprecedented in our nation’s history.

As a result, it is imperative that you and I become the change we wish to see. We cannot give what we do not possess or lead others where we will not go. As I noted yesterday, our example as Spirit-empowered Christ-followers can attract our secular culture to the One who is transforming us by his love and grace. But if we are “conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2), why would the world want what we have?

We will continue this vital conversation tomorrow. For today, I invite you to join me in asking God to empower a great movement of believers who say to Jesus every day, “Whatever you ask, whatever it takes, whatever the cost.” Then let’s answer our prayer with our daily, holistic submission to our King.

In The Normal Christian Life, Watchman Nee observed: “Not until the Lordship of Jesus Christ is a settled thing in our hearts can the Spirit really operate effectively in us. He cannot direct our lives effectually until all control of them is committed to him. If we do not give him absolute authority in our lives, he can be present, but he cannot be powerful. The power of the Spirit is stayed.”

Is the Lordship of Jesus Christ a “settled thing” in your heart today?

If not, why not?

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