“He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” (Eccl. 3:11)

The more one lives in this sin-cursed world, the more one acquires a strong sense that things are not as they ought to be. To use the language of Ecclesiastes, the world is “bent” or crooked (1:15; 7:13), thrown off-kilter in a very fundamental way. Thus it is a world that frequently cuts against the grain of our deepest intuitions: where the race doesn’t always go to the swift, or the battle to the strong, or bread to the wise, or riches to the intelligent. “Time and chance happen to them all” (9:11), and often in a way that offends our natural sense of justice and righteousness.

This world, in other words, is one where the wicked sometimes prosper; where liars, for a time, get away with falsehood; where infants die and good desires are left unfulfilled. “Bent” really is the perfect word for it. For it implies a sense of what should be, but not the full realization of it. Like a hand with three fingers or a marriage without love, there persists in this world a profound level of disharmony and lack—of privation and discontinuity. We retain a strong sense of what ought to be, but everywhere we find things falling just short of the ideal, turning at the last second away from their intended end.

In this world, flowers are planted, and very often grow, but many of them stop short of full bloom.

A Symphony of Vanity

It would be easy in the face of such pervasive dissonance to draw the conclusion that all the events of our lives are completely unguided, that we are all simply leaves in a windstorm, subject to a thousand forces beyond ourselves and totally helpless in the fray. But this would be a mistake. For, as much as Ecclesiastes stresses the confusion and disharmony of our present existence, equally strong is the affirmation that all of it is overseen by the wisdom and power of Almighty God.

Who has bent this world, but the Lord of Hosts? It is “the work of God” (7:13). Who can straighten what He has made crooked? There is a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh—and all of it is by His design. Thus the world may be bent, but it is purposefully bent; it may be crooked, but it is crooked by divine appointment.

Moreover, the Preacher assures us that our world has not been bent simply for the sake of it. God is no sadist. Rather, it has been bent for the same reason that an artist mixes darker colours with lighter, so that together they might rise above the mundane and mediocre and bring us closer to that sight of something truly beautiful, truly lovely. “He has made everything beautiful in its time,” is the conclusion of the Preacher (3:11). And we may take it as a fact. We do not yet see the whole picture, but God has told us that there is a picture, and that is deep comfort indeed.

Christmas Hope

So where does this leave us? Well, Christmas is on the horizon, and as it approaches it bears with it this reminder: that God does indeed make everything beautiful in its time.

The world was dark when Christ was born, filled with all manner of tyrants and strangeness, sinners and rebels, and its fair share of injustice, too. But none of it, importantly, was random. None of it was out of step. Even Augustus, then ruler of the world, was just one more colour on the Artist’s palette, when he ordered the census that would send Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem. All was arranged, all was ordered, all was governed, not by the will of man or devils, but by Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will (Eph. 1:11).

This God had commanded the birth of a Saviour, the arrival of a great Light, and to Him every atom leapt in joyful obedience. To Him the camels moved in happy submission as they carried the Magi over desert sands; to Him even old Herod, in the very attempt to undo what God had done, bowed his head in unwitting acquiescence. All transpired according to the “definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). All moved according to the Author’s purpose. Not one event was disordered or out of place, though you would never know it looking at it from the inside.

Christmas, then, in a very real sense, is Solomon’s vindication. It is the much-needed reminder that the world and all its motions dance according to the lead of omnipotent Wisdom and not the coercive pressure of tyranny and power.

It may appear otherwise—at times it often does. But there is always more going on than meets the eye. Indeed, if we learn anything from the Christmas story this year, let it be this: that God does His finest work in the darkest hour. And when all hope seems lost, and every event appears smothered in irrelevance, that is the moment when the Light is just about to break. That is the moment when God is working all things great and small toward a glorious conclusion.

Take Heart

Now, if your heart baulks at this thought, and, try as you might, you simply cannot see how the swirling mass of life is anything other than random, then I urge you: look to the Baby in the manger. For there upon the hay, wrapped in swaddling cloths, lies Heaven’s greatest gift—and a thundering affirmation that beauty will triumph over chaos.

Yes, the world is bent, but Christ is born! And with His arrival comes the sure and certain hope that what is crooked will soon be made straight, what is futile will give way to joyful consummation, and what has been lost is on the very brink of being restored. The whole earth trembles with eager anticipation; the creation shudders at the prospect of immanent liberty. Why should we be downcast and despairing?

We have only to wait “a little while” (1 Pet. 5:10).

“But Sam lay back, and stared with open mouth, and for a moment, between bewilderment and great joy, he could not answer. At last he gasped: ‘Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?’

‘A great Shadow has departed,’ said Gandalf, and then he laughed, and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count. It fell upon his ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever known. But he himself burst into tears. Then, as a sweet rain will pass down a wind of spring and the sun will shine out the clearer, his tears ceased, and his laughter welled up, and laughing he sprang from his bed.”

(Tolkien, Return of the King, 951-52).

“And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonours you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Gen. 12:2–3)

Being a conservative Christian in such a time as this, in such a place as this, amid such conditions as these, I am no stranger to the almost daily practice of hand-wringing. I know well the feeling of puttering along in my car and being accosted by “pride” flags on every corner—those damned symbols of civilizational rot and decay. I am familiar with the tragic habit of viewing schoolchildren with a cynical eye, depressed at the thought of what hellish doctrines are being massaged into their supple minds. I know what it is to see the form of a world you once loved appear to your eyes now like a dried-out cicada husk, emptied of all life and vigour and substance.

To live in this world is to live with the ever-present feeling of having been conquered—and not by an enemy you can see, touch, or strike, but an enemy who is at once everywhere and nowhere, who is impossible to touch and yet presses upon you from every side with the force of a boa constrictor. I have heard some compare this to the challenge of winning a fencing match against the morning mist, and I am inclined to agree. All efforts at hindering its advance seem futile in the end.

The effect that all of this has on the soul is quite…unhealthy. And that’s putting it rather mildly. A more honest stab at description would use words like jaded, bitter, despairing, hopeless, fed up, frustrated, angry, and cynical. Annoyed and crotchety could probably also be added, but we have to draw the line somewhere.

The point is this: anyone with a remotely functioning conscience has felt a sense of constant disappointment over the last decade, which, as Proverbs tells us, is the quickest path to a depressed and sickened heart: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life” (Prov. 13:12). The sad reality in Canada today is that most conservatives are moping around with at least some form of heart-sickness, usually demonstrated by a sullen and depressed demeanour or else an embittered, sarcastic shell. In either case, the condition isn’t good.

Now, I should note that we are in good company when I say this. Jesus groaned at the unbelief of his twisted generation (Matt. 17:17) and righteous Lot was tormented in his soul each day by the lawless deeds of his peers (2 Pet. 2:8). So some measure of holy discontent is certainly warranted and even required for those of us engaged in the present struggle.

The needed qualification, however, is that holy discontent can’t be the only thing that distinguishes us. Constant sighing, fretting, and veering off into bitter tirades against the Libs can’t be the only thing we’re known for, however justified those things may be. As Peter says, Christians must always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is within them, not a reason for their disdain of progressives. Hope is the substance of the Christian life. It is the note that must ring out whenever the Christian is struck.

So what I want to do for the next few hundred words or so is remind you, Christian, of your reason to hope. And to do this, I am not going to prophesy to you smooth words about a possible Fall election or chest-thump about how Pierre Pollievre’s common sense campaign will triumph in the end. That would be like trying to start a fire with a glob of mud. What we really need right now is kindling, dry and brittle. You know, the kind that goes fwoof the moment a spark hits it. We need “hot gospel,” as Doug Wilson is fond of saying. And for that, we need to turn to the word of God.

Hot Gospel in Ancient Mesopotamia

“And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonours you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:2–3).

These words were first uttered to a man named Abram, a pagan at the time, some four thousand years ago, and they came on the heels of what could be described as humanity’s first foray into communism. This way of painting the picture is, of course, slightly provocative—but only slightly. Karl Marx had not yet been born, but the marxist spirit—a spirit of envy, pride, and humanistic zeal—was palpable in the air. This spirit was the one that animated murderous Cain when he built the first city, a project that was driven then, as now, by a desire to obtain through culture and craft “the benefits of God apart from God.”1 It was the spirit that moved Nimrod to found the city of Babel and begin that infamous building project that would forever symbolize man’s rebellion and conceit. Here was hubris at its finest, a desire to “make a name for ourselves” rather than hallow the name of the only true God, our King and Creator.

Man, in other words, has always been a humanist. As the Preacher said, there is nothing new under the sun.

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Into this world, however, God condescended with unimaginable grace. Having judged this fledgling utopia, and scattered the nations abroad like autumn leaves on a stiff breeze, He called one man out of this multitude and made him a promise: through him God would make a great and mighty nation; God would give him a great name; God would plant him in the earth like a Muskoka pine and use him to bring blessing and life to the world.

Thus, in Abram—and not Babel—the families of the earth would be blessed. Their strength, wisdom, ambition, and schemes would all have to bow to God’s grace coming into the world through him. Cain and Nimrod have no portion in this new creation; their idolatrous aims are an obstacle rather than a vehicle to true flourishing. If the peoples of the earth are to have any hope at all, it will not come from them: it will come from the kingdom God is establishing, a kingdom brought into being by the sovereign power of His word and founded upon His grace and kindness.

Anything else is vanity and striving after wind (Eccl. 1:14).

From Trickle to Tsunami

As the story of Scripture unfolds, we find (not unsurprisingly) that God was faithful to His word. Beginning small, like a cold trickle from a mountain spring, the kingdom He promised grew and surged through history, until it finally burst onto the scene with cataclysmic force in the person of Jesus Christ. This Jesus, the New Testament boldly proclaims, is the true Seed of Abraham—which simply means that He is Abraham’s offspring and son, the rightful heir of all God’s promises:

“Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as referring to many, but rather to one, ‘And to your seed,’ that is, Christ.” (Gal. 3:16 LSB)

In other words, whatever God promised to Abraham finds its fulfilment in Jesus Christ. He is the rightful recipient of Abrahamic blessing, and He gives those blessings to all who are joined to Him by faith (Gal. 3:29). This is how God’s blessing and salvation are mediated to the world: not through physical connection to the bloodline of Abraham, but through faith-union with the living Christ, Abraham’s rightful heir.

Hence Abraham was promised that he would be “heir of the world” (Rom. 4:13), and Jesus has been named “heir of all things” (Heb. 1:2), with all authority in heaven and on earth being given to Him (Matt. 28:18).

Abraham was promised descendants as numerous as the stars (Gen. 15:5), and those in Christ, John tells us, are a great multitude too numerous to count, comprising those from every nation and tribe and people and tongue (Rev. 7:9).

Abraham was promised that the families of the earth would be blessed through him, and the families of the earth have indeed been blessed through him, having received justification and life through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:8ff).

Finally, Abraham was promised an eternal city, a heavenly country, a new world, and Christ the Lord has shed His blood and conquered death to procure just such a reward:

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:1–2).

In every way, then, God has fulfilled His promise—on a scale and to an extent that staggers the imagination. He has overcome every obstacle, defeated every enemy, and He has done so in such a way that His power, wisdom, glory, and dominion have been the prevailing theme.

Hence, so far from the lofty aspirations of Babel, the story of human history has not been the story of man’s great conquest and advance nor has it been the tale of our heroic skill and genius. Insofar as we have been involved at all, history has, to borrow Macbeth’s morbid phrase, been a tale of sound and fury, told by an idiot—to an audience of idiots—starring a cast of exceedingly impressive idiots. History does not flatter us. We are certainly the villains rather than the heroes.

And yet even so, none of this has deterred the tender mercies of our God, who has looked down from heaven on idiots like ourselves and chosen, not to condemn us, but to save us—and to save us from the misery and hell our own sin has unleashed. We deserve every bit of God’s judgment, but God, by grace, desires to spare us from it. This is the work He began in Abram’s day; it is the work He brought to fulfilment in the first coming of our Lord; and it is the work He will bring to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

“And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever…” (Dan. 2:44).

Conclusion

So here we are, Canada, buried beneath roughly three thousand cubic tons of unbelief and folly. We have coveted our way into economic ruin, lusted our families into devastation and oblivion, butchered millions of precious lives on the altar of sexual pleasure, and happily surrendered ourselves to an army of bureaucrats in a vain attempt to alleviate the consequences of our own irresponsibility. We are a nation of liars and cowards, hypocrites and narcissists. And we have no one to blame but ourselves.

But I said this article would give you reason to hope, so that is where I will end. And that reason is the kingdom of God.

As we have seen, God gives very little weight to the vain scheming of man. In fact, when the big wigs of this present age put their heads together and consider how they might “burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us” (Ps. 2:3), the Lord of heaven and earth laughs. He “holds them in derision” (v. 4). He chuckles from His throne and says, with holy wrath and fury: “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill” (v. 6).

In other words, God is gloriously unconcerned about the conniving self-exaltation of man. Their strategies and plots pose no more threat to Him than a piece of tinsel does to a castle wall. His kingdom is forever. His Christ has been enthroned. His King has already been chosen and is seated even now upon the throne of heaven, reigning until that day when all His enemies are made His footstool (Ps. 110:1; 1 Cor. 15:25).

The kingdom of God has triumphed over Babel, and it will continue to triumph—over every person, leader, and nation—until every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth comes to acknowledge its supremacy (Phil. 2:9–11). Christ will reign, and He will have the prize for which He died—an inheritance of nations!

“Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.” (3:17–18)

Habakkuk is a book for troubled hearts in troubled times.

Essentially, the question the prophet is wrestling with is this: Where is God in the midst of injustice? Where is God in the midst of suffering? Where is God in the midst of widespread, deep, and brazen rebellion? Habakkuk gives voice to this concern in the opening verses:

“O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you, ‘Violence!’ and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted.” (1:2–4)

Pain at seeing wickedness ravage the land. Anguish from feeling utterly helpless to prevent it. Confusion as to why God seems indifferent to such obvious evil. These are just some of the questions broiling in the prophet’s heart, and they form the impetus of the entire book.

Time does not permit us to trace out all the various ways these questions are dealt with throughout the course of the book. For now we should simply note that the Bible is no stranger to questions of suffering and injustice. In fact, Scripture is more attuned to these themes than we are. Those raw, aching questions that threaten to tear the soul apart in times of severe affliction—the Bible knows them, and God’s people have wrestled with them before. Indeed, such feelings are not deviations from the life of faith, they are part and parcel of what it means to trust the Lord in a fallen world.

Instead, we should fix our attention on where Habakkuk concludes, for here we find rich instruction:

“Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.” (3:17–18)

Here Habakkuk departs from what is perhaps the normal course in suffering. He doesn’t simply wilt under the pressure of affliction. Nor does he resign himself to despair and let his heart drift for days in the fog of discouragement and dejection.

Instead, he preaches to himself. He takes his soul by the horns and directs it toward what is ultimate and true, what is unfailing and eternal: God Himself. And more than that, he resolves to rejoice, to exult in the God whose wisdom and majesty are an anchor for our souls when all else is stripped away.

This is the hard but glorious truth of the life of faith—hard because it is difficult to practice, but glorious because it is possible: that in Christ Jesus there is always cause to rejoice. The man whose God is the LORD is never without a reason to give thanks; never abandoned to arbitrary whims of fate or random “chance.” All things, as the Heidelberg Catechism reminds us, come to us “by His fatherly hand.” Indeed, they work together for our good (Rom. 8:28), driving us along like wind in the sail toward that great and final day when the dwelling place of God will be with man and death shall be no more (Rev. 21:3–4).

This is our hope, and it is certain and unshakeable. And the example of the prophet Habakkuk reminds us that even when circumstances would tempt us otherwise, then, more than ever, we have need to fix our eyes upon Christ and rejoice.

“An evildoer listens to wicked lips, and a liar gives ear to a mischievous tongue.” (Prov. 7:4)

All of us like to style ourselves impartial observers. We like to think of ourselves as calm, cool, and unbiased, simply taking stock of the facts and passing judgment by the light of a sure and infallible reason. But the opposite is in fact the case. As this verse plainly shows, our character has just as much influence upon our judgment as does our reason—arguably more so.

We can see this by the fact that evildoers tend to listen to wicked lips and liars give ear to mischievous tongues ( Prov. 17:4).

Their character, in other words, shapes them.

It bends them in a certain way. It cultivates their tastes so that they hear and receive certain reports over others: in this case, wicked lips and mischievous tongues rather than righteous lips and truthful tongues. Evildoers prefer the callous talk of wicked lips. Liars prefer the ramblings of a mischievous tongue. And they choose this even over the healing and life-giving words of the righteous. Wisdom is as death to them.

To put it another way, our character—who we are as individuals, our moral dispositions, tastes, affections, and inclinations—is fundamental to our ability to perceive the truth. Twisted people perceive the world in a twisted way; the world is skewed to them because they are skewed, warped by a disordered love of unrighteousness and corruption.

Conversely, the righteous see the world right side up, not because they are superior, but because they, by grace, are themselves right side up. They fear God and hate evil (8:13); they acknowledge the LORD in all their ways (3:6); they love righteousness and hate falsehood (13:5); they seek for wisdom as for hidden treasure (2:4). And all of this works together to provide them with a view of reality that is sturdy, dependable, and true. They are inclined toward truth and goodness in a way that the wicked are not, and it is their character—not their intellect—that determines this in large measure.

The Insanity of Public Discourse

With this in place, we have now stumbled upon the whole reason for the chaos of our civil discourse. Many a conservative has lamented the insanity of public commentary. Aren’t we all observing the same world? Aren’t we all watching the same events unfold? Why then are we coming to such radically different conclusions? Why the profusion of hypocrisy, disagreement, and double standards?

Well, in part, the answer has been given above: evildoers listen to wicked lips and liars give ear to mischievous tongues. The proliferation of lies, in other words, is not accidental but deliberate—we prefer our lies rather than the truth. We love to crouch in shadow rather than give an inch toward the light. And we do this because we ourselves are evil:

“Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell you the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” (Jn. 8:43–47)

The reason we do not hear the truth is not because of any intellectual lack or deficiency. Jesus’ words are plain: the reason we do not hear is because we do not want to hear. The reason we coddle our lies is because we have a profound aversion to the truth, an aversion that stems, not from the mind, but from the will. Sons imitate their fathers, and this is the central problem. Our father is the father of lies, and he speaks out of his own character. If we belong to him—and every fallen descendant of Adam does—then we will do the same.

This is the root of our problem, and it is a problem no human remedy can touch.

A Gospel Answer

What this means practically is that if we are ever going to get back to a culture in which the truth is acknowledged, honoured, and loved, we need to first become the kind of people who acknowledge, honour, and love the truth. And this is something that can only happen by the Spirit of God.

Mere education is not enough. Conservative politics is not enough. A recovery of traditional values is not enough. We ourselves must be made new: resurrected from the dead by the powerful working of the Spirit of God through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Only then will we see a recovery of truth in our day, because only then will we have our hearts and minds renewed, able to discern what the will of God is: what is good and acceptable and perfect (Rom. 12:1-2).

So let’s continue to pray, preach, work, and labour to this end, toiling and sacrificing in the strength that God supplies.

To Him be glory forever. Amen.

“A wise man scales the city of the mighty and brings down the stronghold in which they trust.”(Prov. 21:22)

O see the triumph of wisdom in this text—her potency, power, and dominion! See how she overcomes with a step all the foolish hopes men, who look for security in cities, fortresses, and strength. In the face of wisdom’s advance each of these proves to be a false ally, an untrustworthy friend. Each gives way in the day of testing and crumbles like a weapon made of sand. Raw power is no match for wisdom’s march. Wisdom moves ever upward: up the walls into the midst of her enemies, until she at last comes out the victor.

And this victory, importantly, is not at all because she has strength of numbers on her side. The text presents to us a single man against a city of warriors, and the contrast is not without purpose. We are meant to see in it the ridiculousness of the contest, meant to feel the great imbalance. And yet, as the verse continues, we are meant also—precisely through the lopsidedness of it all—to perceive wisdom’s supremacy. A lone man, full of reverent fear toward God and a hunger for His righteousness, is enough to bring down all the unbelieving strongholds of the world, no matter how secure. Wisdom triumphs over power.

Doers of the Word

This truth, the potency of wisdom, demands at least two things of us if we are to be doers and not simply hearers of the word.

First, it means we must become people who are rapaciously engaged in the pursuit of wisdom—doggedly so. There is no room for foot-shuffling and dawdling here. The pursuit of wisdom is a desperate pursuit, an urgent pursuit, one in which we “seek,” “search,” “call out,” and raise our voices for understanding (Prov. 2:3–4). Wisdom must be prized before she is found. And anyone who refuses to recognize this, or who thinks wisdom will fall into his lap like Newton’s apple, is a fool: “...the complacency of fools destroys them” (1:32).

The pursuit of wisdom, in other words, is not a passive pursuit; slackers will not be rewarded. Rather, wisdom is gained through hunger, and so hungry people are just the kind of people we need to be.

But secondly, having set ourselves to seek wisdom, we should also let it fill us with a holy and volcanic boldness. This is the marvellous thing which our text reveals to us: wisdom is astonishingly ambitious. It scales the city wall, thwarts the desire of the mighty, and brings down the fortress in which they trust. Wisdom, in other words, is no coward, and neither are those who possess her. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the LORD (9:10), and those who fear God have no room in their hearts for the fear of man. Theirs is a defiant and indomitable courage.

If we are going to be led by wisdom, then, we need to earn ourselves a dishonourable discharge from the ranks of the cautious and careful, and enlist instead with the likes of David, Jonathan, Gideon, Elisha, and Paul. Which is to say, we need to recognize that wisdom is sometimes more unwise than we assume, sometimes less careful than our sensibilities might allow.

Sometimes wisdom looks like a shepherd boy bravely facing down a pagan giant (1 Sam. 17); at other times it appears as a lone soldier and his armour-bearer taking on an army of uncircumcised heathen (1 Sam. 14). The difference is never in the size of the army or the strength of the champion. Rather, victory is apportioned on the basis of one’s trust and obedience in God Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. Those who fear God scale the city and bring down the mighty; those who trust in the strength of man find themselves grovelling in the dust. Wisdom and might are not competing on the same level. In the world God has made, wisdom is a far more potent force than brute strength.

The Wisdom of the Cross

At the end of it all, we should also remember that the wisdom of God has been revealed to us, not in the arena of human might and achievement, but in the weak and foolish sight of a lone Man gasping and heaving upon a Roman cross.

And though this event looked for all the world like one destined to perish in obscurity, it was in fact the very way God in His wisdom was overcoming the world.

He was, in the cross, “reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them” (2 Cor. 5:19).

He was disarming the rulers and authorities, triumphing over them and putting them to open shame (Col. 2:15).

He was destroying the one who held the power of death and delivering all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery (Heb. 2:14-15).

He was making propitiation for the sins of His people, bringing many sons to glory (vv. 18, 10).

And all this while none of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:8).

The world, then, does not operate the way the wicked think—on brute force and power. It moves according to a deeper influence, the “Deep Magic,” as Lewis put it so well. And understanding this is a source of great comfort and great courage in evil days. “The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor. 1:25).

Remember this, Christian, and forge ahead wherever God has placed you. Trust Him and take the city.

“When a scoffer is punished, the simple becomes wise.” (Prov. 21:11a)

Contrary to contemporary sensibilities, it’s actually a good thing when scoffers are punished.

Why?

One reason is that by such punishment “the simple becomes wise.” That is, the naive are instructed and the inexperienced gain wisdom.

This is because the law has a pedagogical as well as retributive function. When truth and justice are upheld, and those who flout authority are called to account, it has a seasoning influence on those who witness it.

We see the consequences of rebellion.

We witness the bitter end of folly.

We taste the futility of iniquity.

And we’re the better for it.

Our culture presently denies the goodness of discipline and insists instead on a world without consequences: childhood without obedience, employment without diligence, crime without consequence, peace without truth.

The thought of actually enforcing justice, whether in the family, the workplace, or the civil sphere, is perceived as unkind and unloving. But this denies the clear wisdom of God’s word: sometimes we need to see the hammer fall.

Sometimes we need to see public rebuke, that “the rest may stand in fear” (1 Tim. 5:20).

Sometimes we need to see or even experience church discipline, that we may “learn not to blaspheme” (1 Tim. 1:20).

Sometimes we need to see that person fired, that sibling spanked, that criminal sentenced.

It may not be pleasant—it may not be “nice”—but if we’re humble, we might just gain wisdom.

Better yet, we might finally see our sin and our profound need for the mercy and grace of Christ.

May God help us toward that end.

“Let all that you do be done in love…If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed. Our Lord, come!” (1 Cor. 16:14, 22)

It is no exaggeration to say that the virtue of love is absolutely preeminent in the Christian life.

Love is foundational. Love is central. Love is nonnegotiable.

In fact, without love, Paul says, we are “nothing.” Not simply that we are deficient, lacking, or immature: we are nothing. So, despite whatever other accolades and achievements we may have (or think we have), if we “have not charity,” all our boasting is simply dust and straw, a clanging cymbal and a noisy gong.

Love for Christ and love for others, then, is the very substance of the Christian life: “Let all that you do be done in love,” and, “If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed.” Love is the litmus test of our profession of faith, the very measure of our genuineness and maturity.

Once we grant the preeminence of love, however, a very unsettling thing begins to happen—our sin and self-obsession begin to come into clearer view, and the hypocrisy we didn’t see before begins to shine. In other words, in the light of love we realize that what is required of us is not simply word and talk, as John says, but deed and truth. Thus, we can’t comfort ourselves with how much we know, or how much we talk, or the bad things we avoid and refuse to do. These are fig leaves at best and signs of complete self-deception at worst. Scripture is clear, the only thing that counts is faith working through love: genuine, concrete deeds of love, produced through faith in Christ and the power of His Spirit.

Now, for anyone with even a remotely functional conscience, this realization will produce a sinking sensation in the gut. Very likely it will also stir up a dozen memories of instances where we completely failed in our duty to love: memories where we were quick to serve ourselves and slow to serve the needs of others; memories of affection for Christ being quickly crowded out by a thousand lesser cares and concerns.

If that’s you, then I invite you now to turn your heart to the cross of Jesus Christ, which stands both as the clearest display of love the world has ever seen, and also the place where our sin and lovelessness were decisively paid for and forgiven. Consider Christ, who, as John says, “loves us” (note the present tense) and “has freed us from our sins by His blood” (Rev. 1:5), and take heart that through His life, death, and resurrection from the dead our loveless and wretched souls have been redeemed.

Through Him and the quickening, enlivening power of His Spirit, we can learn to “walk in love”, imitating our God as His beloved children (Eph. 5:1-2).

“The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.” (Ps. 1:4)

There is a world of encouragement contained in that little word “chaff.” Indeed, latent within it is an entire theology of wickedness that has the potential once digested to upend all our dismal ruminations and flood our hearts with inexorable joy.

Simply consider what is implied by the word: lightness, airiness, dust, vapour. “Chaff” speaks of something worthless and disposable, something that carries in itself no weight or significance or value or consequence. This, Scripture says, is the true character of “the wicked.” They don’t portray themselves this way, of course—and in fact on many occasions seem to be quite the opposite. But this text reminds us that their true condition cannot be long disguised: for all their boasting, the wicked are no more than a husk that the wind drives away.

The righteous, by contrast, are of an entirely different quality, being described as a fruitful and stately tree “firmly planted” by streams of water (v. 3 LSB). Thus, while the wicked are transient, impermanent, and ultimately fragile, the righteous are rooted, solid, and fertile. Their roots go deep, gripping the earth (Jer. 17:8). Their fruit is abundant, fed by constant streams (Ps. 1:3). Their leaf does not wither, and in whatever they do, they prosper (v. 3), upheld at every point by the grace of the living God and strengthened perpetually by His reviving, cleansing Law (v. 2).

The Impermanence of Evil

This distinction between the righteous and the wicked runs all through the Psalms. Indeed, it is fundamental to a truly Christian outlook on the world. Consider a small sampling of texts:

“The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell upon it forever” (Ps. 37:29); the wicked “will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.” (v. 2)

“The LORD knows the days of the blameless, and their heritage will remain forever” (v. 18); the wicked “will perish; the enemies of the LORD are like the glory of the pastures; they vanish—like smoke they vanish away.” (v. 20)

In short, we might say rather glibly that evil has an expiration date. No matter how sprawling, entrenched, immovable, or mighty it may appear (think of the ruthless man “spreading himself like a luxuriant tree in its native soil”)—evil is in the end only a “small and passing thing.” Tolkien was right after all. For all its hideous strength, evil is merely an illusion, a facade on par with the strutting of the peacock or the dying coal’s fleeting glow.1

“But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end. Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin. How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors! Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.” (Ps. 73:16-20)

Death and Resurrection

Of course, none of this means that evil has no bite, or that it can’t oppress the righteous with such horrors as mocking, flogging, chains, or imprisonment (Heb. 11:36). All of these are very real possibilities. Rather, the point here is that even when the wicked do sling their fiery darts and set their hidden snares, God is able to preserve His saints to the uttermost, “For the LORD loves justice; he will not forsake his saints” (Ps. 37:28).

Thus, even if our way leads to the blackened hill of Golgotha—even if the very waters of death rush over our heads and plunge us beneath their icy flow—even there, hope is not lost. The story is just beginning. For, as God has shown abundantly in the resurrection of His Son, not even death itself can hinder His grand design. Whatever triumph death may seem to have gained is at the last only flickering and momentary. “We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him” (Rom. 6:9). And the same holds true for all who are in Him. When Christ, who is our life, appears, we also will appear with Him in glory (Col. 3:4).

What this ought to produce in us, then, is a joyful, bold, and indestructible hope, a kind of cheerful glint in the eye and bounce in the step that is able to look evil full in the face and simply call its bluff. As Paul wrote to the Philippians, this kind of Spirit-wrought confidence is a “clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God” (1:28). The courage of the righteous is the bane of the wicked, and we ought never let fear steal that weapon from us.

Conclusion

So, Christian, when you see the wicked flaunting their rebellion and boasting in their strength, defying the living God and opposing His gospel, take a moment to remember what the Scripture says about their true condition. They are not as solid as they first appear. Despite their confidence, they are simply chaff that the wind drives away. Early morning mist that vanishes with the sun. Grass that fades. Herbs that wither. In fact, there is nothing permanent about them, since they have set themselves against the living God and thereby consigned themselves to eternal defeat.

This world, in other words, does not belong to the wicked. It belongs to God and to His Christ, and to all who put their trust in Him. The psalm sums it up well, and here we must plant our flag:

“In just a little while, the wicked will be no more; though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there. But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.” (Ps. 37:10-11)

Amen. Come Lord Jesus!

“For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!” (Job 19:25–27)

Job has lost much in the narrative up to this point. He has lost wealth, security, comfort, and reputation; he has lost his family, his children, his friends, his health. Even the solace that might have remained in the person of his wife has been taken from him: her heart has become embittered and there is thus no refuge to be found in her.

To make matters worse, the weight of all this is quickly eroding Job’s own strength and resolve. His heart is fast giving way, and darkness is beating at the edges of his soul like a torrent threatening to extinguish what little light still flickers within. This is perhaps the heaviest burden. As Solomon observed, “A man’s spirit will endure sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?” (Prov. 18:14).

It is in this state that Job casts anchor, and, in the midst of the storm, grasps upon the final, ultimate, and highest hope of the human heart—the sole hope that remains when all others have been ripped away, namely, the sight of God:

“For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!” (Job 19:25–27)

Job does not know the reason for his suffering; oftentimes, neither do we. But one thing Job does know—one truth he depends upon and lashes himself to amidst the unspeakable grief, loss, devastation, and confusion—is that his Redeemer lives, and because He lives, so too will Job. One day, whether on the other side of his suffering, or even deeper still, on the other side of the grave itself, Job’s eyes will see God. His body, that presently is wasting away, will be restored and he will see for himself the glory of the only Sovereign, the King of kings, and Lord of lords (1 Tim. 6:15). The very life of God his Redeemer ensures this. It is a ballast no trial can take away.

The Beatific Vision

Being creatures, it is in some sense only natural for us to tether our hope to creaturely things: the improvement of our circumstances, the enjoyments of the body, the restoration of whatever it is we have lost or perhaps something we hope to gain in its place.

But the story of Job shows us that such things cannot ultimately support the weight of our hope and joy, for every created thing, however good it may be in itself, can soon be lost. If we want a hope that is enduring, we must bind ourselves to something (or Someone) who is Himself enduring. We must look, as Paul says, not finally to things that are seen, but to things that are unseen, “For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18 CSB). Only here, with our eyes fixed squarely upon the life to come, will our afflictions appear to us in their true condition: not crushing and final, but, incredibly, light and momentary, working for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison (v. 17).

Job teaches us, in other words, what little hope is contained in creature comforts and what vast and boundless oceans of hope are stored up for us in God Himself. As Job comes to realize, one glimpse of God—one flickering sight of His face—will be enough to make ten thousand lifetimes of suffering a mere trifle, like waking from a bad dream to the warm, golden light of full morning.

This, importantly, is not because our suffering is in fact a trifling thing—far from it—but rather because the majesty and glory of God is of such a reviving and ebullient quality that it will vastly outweigh whatever grief and sorrow we have faced. Even the deepest wounds will surrender their hold and give way to everlasting peace. As Paul says, “…the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom. 8:18). The face of God, in a single moment, will make it all worthwhile: make all sad things come untrue, make all darkness turn to light, turn all death into everlasting life, and usher in a joy so deep and full and enduring that it will wash every trace of grief from our hearts forever.

God Himself, who has called us to his eternal glory in Christ, will do this, after we have suffered “a little while” (1 Pet. 5:10).

“...Haman sought to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus.” (Esther 3:6)

The theme of the book of Esther, if we were to sum it up in a phrase, might very well be “the hidden providence of God” — “hidden” because God is curiously (but intentionally, I think) never explicitly mentioned throughout the course of the story, and yet providential because His fingerprints are visible on every page.

Take, as just one instance, the instalment of Esther, a Jewish woman, as queen of Persia at precisely the time when Haman “the Agagite” (cf. 1 Sam. 15) is plotting their demise. This choice is more than mere happenstance. As the story unfolds, it becomes increasingly apparent that Esther’s surprising appointment to the office of empress is the decisive and pivotal factor in the deliverance of the entire Jewish people. Mordecai’s words press the point with eloquence and force: “And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (4:14). Esther’s exaltation undoubtedly carries with it the signs of divine agency.

And yet, on a very practical and human level, why was Esther selected? The text tells us: “The young woman had a beautiful figure and was lovely to look at” (2:7). Consequently, she won “favour in the eyes of all who saw her” and the “king loved Esther more than all the women, and she won grace and favour in his sight” (vv. 15–17).

Put another way, Esther had a God-ordained beauty about her, and this beauty resulted not only in her becoming queen, but in the preservation and deliverance of the entire old covenant people of God. God ordained Esther’s appearance—everything from her form to her hair colour to her eyes to the shape of her nose and ears and cheekbones—in order to weave her into a story of salvation, a story that itself was composed of ten thousand other elements, each dependent and interwoven with myriad others.

The thought simply staggers the imagination. Yet such is the wisdom and providence of God.

Your Father Knows What You Need Before You Ask

In the face of such wonder, the takeaway for us is simple: we must learn, as Peter said, to entrust our souls to a faithful Creator while doing good (1 Peter 4:19). The temptation in this world, corrupted as it is by sin and filled with Haman-esque characters who are ever busy plotting the destruction of the righteous, is always to give way to fear. It is to surrender to that anxious and fretful spirit gnawing at the edges of our minds and drawing us toward either despair or rage. But the thing we ought to do in such times is simply remember the message of the book of Esther: remember, that is, the hidden providence of God.

We ought to remember that God is always at work in every given situation in more ways than we can possibly conceive of. And we ought never to take his hiddenness for inaction. Our inability to perceive the works of God is no measure as to their presence or efficacy. We are unaware of almost all the various functions of our bodies throughout the course of the day and yet they continue to operate just fine despite our happy ignorance. So it is with God. He upholds the universe by the word of His power (Heb. 1:3), causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust (Matt. 5:45), cares for the birds of the air (6:26), ordains the motions of the stars, steers the course of nations, and keeps kings awake in the night (Est. 6:1) — all for His own wise and sovereign purposes.

Moreover, He does all this for the greater and penultimate purpose of one day bringing all things in heaven and earth under the headship of Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:10). Each event that takes place in the cosmos—from the seemingly insignificant motions of dust and dew, to the great and consequential movements of nations and kingdoms—is therefore a necessary step toward that final day when every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:9–11).

So take heart, Christian. God ordained the genetic code of a Jewish girl in order to shame the wicked and bring justice to His people. Though no human eye saw it at the time, He was setting in motion the conditions of salvation long before that salvation was historically necessary. As Jesus tells us, “…your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matt. 6:8).

Remember this. Think on this. And then entrust your soul to God, put your head down, and get busy doing good.

“Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! For they will soon fade like the grass and whither like the green herb. Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.” (Ps. 37:1-2)

“And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance…” (Rom. 5:3, CSB)

Introduction

One of the frightening aspects of affliction is the grim and needling thought that our affliction may never end; that, contrary to our wishes in the moment, there may not be any immanent relief from the weight of grief, pain, sorrow, or anguish pressing upon us every waking hour. In such times, the mind easily runs wild, imagining countless scenarios in which our suffering has been allowed to continue unchecked and has, like a weed, choked every last drop of light and life and joy.

We imagine ourselves several years down the road, still harassed by the same persistent ache. We picture ourselves growing weaker and weaker under the burden, until at last it crushes us completely. Every thought of the future is coloured with the pain of the present, and the effect is that we actually do begin to grow weary and fainthearted. If such thoughts are allowed to persist (and I must emphasize “allowed”), they can break us entirely.

To entertain thoughts of this nature, however, is not only to dance with despair, it is also to lose our hold upon the promises of God. It is to abandon our only tether to what is ultimate, good, beautiful, and true and fling ourselves into the suffocating darkness of our blind, faithless hearts. If we are to keep ourselves, then, it must be by binding ourselves as tightly as possible to the words of God. Our flesh and our hearts will often fail, but He is the strength of our hearts and our portion forever (Ps. 73:26).

Brightening the Eye of Faith

This being the case, consider that wonderful word “endurance” in the above verse. It is wonderful precisely because of its connection to the foregoing “afflictions.” There is a relationship between these two realities—a causal relationship—and seeing it provides a deep well of hope in the midst of suffering.

Paul states the relationship this way: “affliction produces endurance,” and each word is precious. Affliction, he says, works endurance, results in endurance, and is the means by which endurance is gained. Without affliction, endurance could not be produced, just as a tree cannot deepen its root without storms. Affliction, in other words, is necessary for the acquiring of strength. As Rutherford wisely put it, “Faith is the better for the free air and the sharp winter-storm in its face. Grace withereth without adversity.”1

“Knowing” this, Paul says, is the key to being able to rejoice in our afflictions (v. 3), since by this knowledge we understand that our affliction is not arbitrary, impersonal, or futile: affliction is working in us a strength of character, fortitude, and resilience that would not otherwise be present. Our afflictions, therefore, in whatever form they may take, are productive rather than vain; fruitful rather than fallow. They are God’s servants, apportioned in tender, fatherly wisdom, not for the purpose of breaking us down, but rather for building us up. And when they are through—when endurance has had its “full effect” (Js. 1:4)—we will, by the grace of God, be “perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

Conclusion

Take courage, then, dear saint, and do not let the light of faith grow dim. Incline the tossing of your heart to the firm foundation of the word of God and force your soul to submit itself there to His wisdom. Remember that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ your affliction is not lacking in purpose; rather, it is productive, working in you the kind of character and maturity that will soon give rise to hope (v. 4).

Moreover, because these things are true, you may take comfort also in the fact that your affliction will not crush you—it will not grind your soul to dust, as you fear it will if it continues. God, by His grace, will uphold you, and though you may not be able to endure in your present state, you won’t be the same person you are now once He is through. He gives grace for each day.

Remember the old hymn, “The flames shall not hurt thee; I only design thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.”

Plant yourself here, reader, and hope in God.

“For your name’s sake, O LORD, pardon my guilt, for it is great.” (Psalm 25:11)

As we are fond of saying here at Dominion Press, the fundamental problem in our culture today is not first the commies and progressives; nor is it the marxists, the socialists, the tolerance brigade, the Liberals, or even our conniving, deceitful, and dishonourable Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.

The problem with our culture today is sin, plain and simple. And all these other evils, as repulsive and malignant as they are, are merely symptoms of this deeper issue.

What is paramount therefore is that each of us learns how to deal with sin—our own sins first, and then the sin in our families, churches, workplaces, and communities, moving outward and upward as God gives grace, means, and opportunity to do so. As Jesus said, if we are faithful over a little, He will set us over much (Matt. 25:21). We need to take care of the log in our own eye before we can see clearly to take the speck out of our brother’s (7:1–5).

This being the case, allow me to direct your attention to three sweet truths regarding sin and repentance from Psalm 25. May they be a practical help to you as you seek to put to death sin in your own life by the Spirit’s power (Rom. 8:13).

Observe 1. That David seeks “pardon” from the LORD.

The immediate and natural effect of sin upon the conscience is to drive us away from God. Such was the effect upon Adam and Eve, who “hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God” when they heard Him walking in the garden (Gen. 3:8). Isaiah also cried out “Woe is me! For I am lost” when he saw the Lord in His glory seated upon the throne (Isa. 6:5), and the disciples too “fell on their faces and were terrified” when they heard the voice of God speaking from the cloud (Matt. 17:6).

Numerous other examples abound, but these three serve to establish the point. Even the smallest awareness of our guilt, when considered against the majesty and holiness of Almighty God, is enough to completely undo us. As Bunyan said, “Man crumbles to dust at the presence of God.”1

But not so in this text. Notably, we find here another way to deal with our guilt—indeed, the only way to deal with our guilt—and that is to go directly, humbly, and simply to God to ask for His pardon: “For your name’s sake, O LORD, pardon my guilt.”

The petition is so bold as to be almost presumptuous. Yet it is the way God has taught us to pray. It is, incredibly, the proper and even welcome movement of a heart animated by a living faith. We should thus avoid ever suppressing this instinct out of a phony sense of self-abasement or “humility.” If God has invited us to confess our sins to Him for pardon, then we simply ought to take Him at His word. Faith does not censure what God has approved.

Observe 2. That it is the greatness of David’s guilt that moves him to seek pardon.

The reason David petitions the Lord for pardon here is not because his guilt is small but precisely because it is “great,” that is, because it is abundant, heavy, overwhelming, and threatening. David, in other words, feels the magnitude of his guilt. He feels it weighing upon his heart like a stone, drying up his strength as by the heat of summer (32:4). Yet he does not allow his guilt to move him away from the Lord. Rather, the “greatness” of his guilt drives him to the Lord: “Pardon my guilt, for it is great.”

We ought to learn therefore that no sin should ever keep us from going to God in repentance. In fact, the greater our sin, the greater our urgency ought to be to confess it and seek forgiveness. As Matthew Henry aptly put it, “It is the glory of a great God to forgive great sins.”2 If our burden is heavy, that is all the more reason to run to the Lord and ask that it be relieved.

Observe 3. That the reason God will pardon our guilt is for His name’s sake.

David does not say, “For my name’s sake, O LORD, pardon my guilt.” Nor even, “Because of your great love for me, O LORD, pardon my guilt.” No, David grounds his appeal for pardon in something far more solid and enduring, something He knows God will not deny, namely, His own covenant faithfulness: “For your name’s sake, O LORD, pardon my guilt, for it is great.”

David knows that God has bound Himself by covenant to His people. He knows that Yahweh, who is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ex. 34:6), has promised to forgive “iniquity and transgression and sin” (v. 7). Thus, God’s own name, His own honour and reputation, is bound up with forgiving the sins of His people. Should He deny them, He would be denying Himself, something the apostle Paul tells us is impossible for God to do (2 Tim. 2:13). Hence David appeals to Him on this basis.

Notice, then, that our forgiveness is set firmly upon two solid and immovable pillars: the nature of God and the covenant faithfulness of God. On the one hand, God is disposed by nature to be merciful and gracious to us: He is a wonderfully unique God who “does not retain his anger forever, because He delights in steadfast love” (Micah 7:18).

On the other hand, however, because God is inclined by nature toward mercy, He has also willingly bound Himself by covenant to forgive the sins of His people. He has promised, in other words, to be a sin-forgiving God, and thus the forgiveness of our sins is not so much a matter of willingness or unwillingness but of faithfulness or unfaithfulness.

God’s commitment to His own covenant promises—and, by extension, to the reputation and glory of His name throughout the ages—ensures that He will be merciful to His repentant saints. As Calvin put it so insightfully, “the infinite glory of thy name will not suffer thee to cast me off.”3

So David believes, and so he prays. And so should we.

“And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (Gal. 5:24)

The apostle Paul, were he alive today, would no doubt be the bane of contemporary psychologists. The mere mention of his name would provoke outrage among the therapeutic community.

The reason for this would not be for any fault of his own, but rather because his views would be regarded as immensely unsavoury by the academic elites. His insistence on doctrines like sin and “the flesh,” and especially the need to “crucify” the flesh with its precious passions and desires, simply wouldn’t jive with the prevailing wisdom of the expert class, who believe firmly in the indulgence of the passions rather than their crucifixion. Indeed, to speak of the crucifixion of one’s desires would be regarded as downright repulsive, the symptom of a mind thoroughly corrupted by religious extremism and self-loathing.

The opposite, of course, is in fact the case—the apostle’s teaching on human nature both reflects accurately the true state of things and is also firmly undergirded by divine revelation. But therein lies the crux of the issue: the psychology experts of our time (let’s call them “Satan’s emissaries,” shall we?) are not at all interested in reality. They are not concerned in the slightest whether their views accord or clash with the objective world outside their heads, much less the authoritative word of Almighty God.

Rather, their primary concern—indeed, one could even say their sole concern—is whether or not a person “feels” as though their desires are being met. What those desires are, whether they are right or wrong, just or evil, in accord with reality or vainly set in opposition to it, does not even enter into the equation. Mere gratification—the raw, gluttonous indulgence of one’s desires and lusts—is the mark at which they aim.

This is why we now find ourselves living in a day where people think it acceptable, nay, even commendable, to chop little babies into pieces, to castrate children, to mutilate, dismember, and violate their bodies in heinous and egregious ways. Contrary to popular belief, such barbarity is not the result of decades of careful research. It is not a “scientific consensus” that has been reached through impartial observation, testing, and many thousands of peer-reviewed papers. Not in the slightest. Rather, such hellish practices are the result of men giving themselves over to one dark and demented belief, namely, that the way to happiness and satisfaction lies in the gratification of one’s flesh rather than its crucifixion; that joy can be had without God; that life can be attained apart from the gospel of grace.

It’s not without reason that Paul warns of the “doctrines of demons” (1 Tim. 4:1).

In the face of such lunacy, there is only one way forward, and it is to keep preaching with all our might the blessed gospel of God’s crucified Christ. Only through Him can our sins be forgiven. Only through Him can we be reconciled to God. Only through Him can true life, eternal and abounding, be found. And only through Him can that wretched flesh, “the old man,” as the Scripture says, receive his proper treatment: death and crucifixion through the cross of Jesus Christ.

May God help us to that end. To Him be glory and dominion forever. Amen.

“But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” (Gal. 6:14)

Three times in this letter Paul speaks of being crucified with Christ. In the first instance, he says that he himself has been crucified with Christ: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (2:20). In the second place, he says that all believers—those who “belong to Christ Jesus”—have “crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (5:24). And, finally, in the concluding chapter, he writes that the world itself has been crucified to him through the cross of Jesus Christ, and indeed he to the world: “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14).

The cross, then, stands at the heart of the apostle’s thinking, both with respect to the Christian life at an individual level, but also on a cosmic scale. The cross, in other words, is not a mere abstraction for the apostle Paul; it is not a theological trinket or a dusty relic confined to the realm of hymns and Sunday school lessons. For Paul, the cross stands at the very centre of the world, bridging the gap between heaven and hell, between this “present evil age” (1:4) and the “new creation” now dawning in the death, resurrection, and reign of Jesus Christ (6:15).

The cross is the vehicle of blessing for the world (3:14), the doorway into life in the kingdom of God. It is the ground of our justification (2:20-21), and the means by which our curse has been removed (3:13-14). Moreover, through the cross the flesh is crucified, along with its passions and desires (5:24), and those who belong to Christ Jesus are thus freed to walk in newness of life in the Spirit (5:16). Slaves become sons through the redeeming work of Christ upon the cross (4:3-5), and are gathered together into the “household of faith” (6:10), filled with the Spirit, and joined to God’s covenant people across the ages.

All these blessings flow to the saints from the cross of Jesus Christ. Is it any wonder that Paul resolves to boast in nothing else? The cross is the linchpin, the fountainhead, the cornerstone upon which the whole edifice of redemption is built. Without it, slavery, death, and condemnation reign, but through it life, redemption, forgiveness, blessing.

Keeping First Things First

We need to be careful to never lose such a rich and enlarged view of the cross. Ours is a tumultuous world and in such a world it is very easy to grasp at any number of things we think will make for stability and peace. But God has not placed the locus of world-transforming power in any human institution. He has not ordained that salvation come through the wisdom of man. Rather, God’s answer to the chaos and rebellion of the world is the very last thing to which the world would naturally look, namely, the crucified Christ, whose death, by the inscrutable wisdom of God, is life and blessing to the world.

Our call in these troubled times, therefore, must not primarily be one of politics and power, as though these were the vehicles that could effect cultural transformation. They are important, to be sure: valuable, needed, and ordained by God. But they are not ultimate, and they do not go deep enough.

The thing that will truly save us—the thing that will make all our efforts in these other areas enduring, effective, and worthwhile—is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world is crucified to us and we to the world.

“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.” (Gal. 1:3-4)

“But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die.’” (Gen. 3:4)

At the centre of Adam and Eve’s fall into sin and ruin was a singular and all-important question: Whose word will you obey?

For Eve, this issue was presented in the dichotomy between the word of the serpent and the word of God: the serpent came with one promise where God had given quite another. For Adam the challenge was similar, but slightly altered, and lay in the choice between the word of his wife and the word of his God.

Indeed, when God condemns Adam for his failure, this is one of the principal issues that is highlighted: “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you…” (Gen. 3:17). Both the man and the woman, then, were faced with the decision either to obey the word of the Lord or to obey the word of another, and in both instances they chose the latter.

Thus whatever else we may say about the Fall (and there is certainly much here to say), one of the chief things to note is the way in which God’s word was disbelieved while another’s was accepted. This was the first step toward destruction, the first stone to be toppled in a landslide of rebellion. As Calvin notes, “…never would they have dared to resist God, unless they had first been incredulous of his word.” Unbelief was the mother of our misery; suspicion toward the word of God the root of our undoing.

Faith and Unbelief

Recognizing the pivotal role of unbelief in Adam’s Fall should produce in us two very potent and visceral effects. In the first place, it should undermine completely any foolish confidence we may be tempted to place in ourselves. This, after all, was Eve’s downfall. Seeing that “the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise,” Eve followed her intuitions, misguided though they were, and took that first fatal bite.

Rather than trust God’s word, she trusted herself—what her eyes saw, what her mind perceived. Unbeknownst to her, however, her senses were at that moment very unfaithful guides and her understanding was grossly skewed. Not seeing the whole picture, the very act she thought was her triumph was really her demise. Her impressions betrayed her, and it was a misstep that proved lethal.

Now, if this was true of Eve—a creature unfallen and glorious—how much more so is it true of us, riddled as we are with much corruption, blindness, hypocrisy, and deceit?

It is generally the case that we are very quick to ascribe to ourselves high degrees of confidence and surety—we trust ourselves, in other words, and tend to regard our thoughts, impressions, opinions, and judgments as fairly reliable and sturdy. But the example of Eve should teach us that such confidence is entirely unfounded. She was deceived, and quickly, simply through creaturely limitation; you and I face this same limitation, but with the added difficulty of being fallen creatures rather than merely creatures.

Our attitude toward ourselves should therefore not be one of trust but suspicion. We should think of ourselves, as Paul said, with “sober judgment” (Rom. 12:3), recognizing that the flesh is “corrupt through deceitful desires” (Eph. 4:22) and that the wicked heart loves to flatter itself “that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated” (Ps. 36:2). Even Paul said he didn’t understand his own actions (Rom. 7:15). We should be exceedingly cautious of granting ourselves more self-confidence than he.

But, secondly, seeing our weakness and limitation, we should throw ourselves wholeheartedly toward hearing, memorizing, and preaching the word of God. As Solomon says, “The way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know over what they stumble” (Prov. 4:19). But the word of God, bright and clear, is a lamp to our feet and a light for our path (Ps. 119:105. “The unfolding of your words gives light;” the psalmist says. “It imparts understanding to the simple” (Ps. 119:130).

All around, then, is darkness and shadow: darkness without and darkness within. But the word of the Most High burns like a lamp shining in a dark place, and we would do well to pay attention to it (2 Pet. 1:19). Indeed, that Word has become flesh and shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. By this Word we hear, by this Word we see, by this Word we live, and through this Word the whole universe itself was created and holds together.

God’s Word, the eternal Son, is the foundation, the cornerstone, the fountainhead of all truth, knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. Apart from him, we die; but through Him—by believing in His name—we are given the right to become children of God and join Him in the possession of boundless and everlasting life.

Adam and Eve fell through unbelief; the restoration of the world is by faith in the Word of God. The question that remains for us, and the one that should burn daily within our hearts and weigh upon our consciences like a millstone, is, Do we believe this Word?

“But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” (Isa. 66:2)

“The LORD is our righteousness.” (Jer. 23:6)

IT WILL ALWAYS give a Christian the greatest calm, quiet, ease, and peace, to think of the perfect righteousness of Christ. How often are the saints of God downcast and sad! I do not think they ought to be. I do not think they would if they could always see their perfection in Christ. There are some who are always talking about corruption, and the depravity of the heart, and the innate evil of the soul. This is quite true, but why not go a little further, and remember that we are “perfect in Christ Jesus.” It is no wonder that those who are dwelling upon their own corruption should wear such downcast looks; but surely if we call to mind that “Christ is made unto us righteousness,” we shall be of good cheer. What though distresses afflict me, though Satan assault me, though there may be many things to be experienced before I get to heaven, those are done for me in the covenant of divine grace; there is nothing wanting in my Lord, Christ has done it all.

On the cross He said, “It is finished!” And if it be finished, then am I complete in Him, and can rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, “Not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.” You will not find on this side of heaven a holier people than those who receive into their hearts the doctrine of Christ’s righteousness. When the believer says, “I live on Christ alone; I rest on Him solely for salvation; and I believe that, however unworthy, I am still saved in Jesus;” then there rises up as a motive of gratitude this thought—“Shall I not live to Christ? Shall I not love Him and serve Him, seeing that I am saved by His merits?” “The love of Christ constrains us,” “that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them.” If saved by imputed righteousness, we shall greatly value imparted righteousness.

— C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, January 31

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” (Rom. 8:37)

If it were possible to zoom out and look at God’s people throughout the ages—every believer who has ever lived, from every place, time, nation, tribe, and tongue—what sort of picture might we see? One would think, given that these are God’s people we are talking about, that they would look fairly well-to-do: fairly dignified, regal, and prosperous. Images of English royalty spring naturally to mind, fair-faced and elegant trotting gently over field and fen.

And yet if we look at the sight that actually confronts us, both at present and throughout history, we find a picture quite different from the one our intuitions might suggest. Instead of a people spoiled with comfort and repose, we find a motley ensemble of sufferers, a ragtag collection of down-and-outers, a weak and wavering bunch who look by all accounts to be anything but loved by God.

“They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.” (Heb. 11:37–39)

“Five times I received at the hands of the Jews, the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from the Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.” (2 Cor. 11:24–28)

“Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” (Ps. 44:22; cf. Rom. 8:36)

As someone in some nineties movie once put it, “What gives, man?”

Hezekiah: A Case Study

There are a number of ways we can go about broaching an answer to this question, but a good start comes from the inimitable Charles Spurgeon. In Lectures to My Students, he makes the stout and keen observation that, “The Lord seldom exposes his warriors to the perils of exultation over victory; he knows that few of them can endure such a test, and therefore dashes their cup with bitterness.”1

In other words, we are not strong enough to enjoy ceaseless strains of joy and triumph; we “cannot bear unalloyed happiness,” as he puts it elsewhere. Thus, for our own good and protection, and with a healthy dose of tender, fatherly wisdom, God’s pattern is frequently to submit His children to that painful and temporary discipline that later yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it (Heb. 12:11). There will be a time for joy and triumph, but only after the pride, foolishness, and unbelief that make them dangerous to us has been rooted out.

We can see this pattern at work in the life of king Hezekiah in the Old Testament. Hezekiah was a man who embodied faithfulness to the LORD. Indeed, he is commended as such in Scripture: “Thus Hezekiah did throughout all Judah, and he did what was good and right and faithful before the LORD his God” (2 Chron. 31:20).

And yet, despite this (or if Spurgeon is correct, because of it), Hezekiah’s life was one flavoured with all the normal ups and downs common to fallen humanity. Soaring heights of national revival are followed shortly by foreign invasion (32:1); stunning victory over Judah’s enemies is soon eclipsed by life-threatening illness (v. 24). Hezekiah wasn’t ever granted long to bask on the “sunny side of the brae”2 before trial and hardship of some kind were soon added to his life.

And in fact, this seems to have been a blessing from God, since Hezekiah’s best moments were forged under the greatest distress and his downfall came in years of prosperity—when he was blessed with “very great possessions” (v. 29) and when he “prospered in all his works” (v. 30). This was when his heart grew “proud” and “wrath came upon him and Judah and Jerusalem” (v. 25). For God “left him to himself, in order to test him and to know all that was in his heart” (v. 31).

It would seem, then, that Spurgeon, as usual, is right on the money. “Poor human nature cannot bear such strains as heavenly triumphs bring to it.”3 We need that “gracious discipline of mercy” which “breaks the ships of our vainglory with a strong east wind, and casts us shipwrecked, naked, and forlorn, upon the Rock of Ages.”4

Conclusion

In the end, it is true that to look at the saints of God is very often to look upon tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, and sword (Rom. 8:35). It is to see a people harassed and helpless, hated by the world and often burdened by a seemingly intolerable load of hardship and duress. But if this is all we were to see then we would not have seen the whole picture. For underneath these things—in them and through them and by them—God Himself is at work, preparing for them an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison (2 Cor. 4:17).

Their hardships, therefore, are simply the winds God uses to drive them speedily along the way; their troubles are like sheepdogs, keeping their feet upon the path. Their burdens are mercies, helping them live near unto God, and when all is said and done, when the veil has been lifted and they are seated round the table and death has been swallowed up forever and God has taken away their reproach, then they will say, “Surely, in all these things we were more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”

“And the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” (Isa. 35:10)

“‘The bricks have fallen, but we will build with dressed stones; the sycamores have been cut down, but we will put cedars in their place.’” (Isa. 9:10)

One of the most insidious aspects of unbelief is its sheer tenacity. Like a piece of rebar fixed and unmoving, unbelief lies embedded in the human heart exercising unchallenged and terrible dominion.

But to make matters worse, the sort of dominion unbelief exerts is frequently a dominion that runs in complete opposition to the settled grain of reality. The world exists in one way, but unbelief insists it do so in quite another. Hence, God says sin is bad, and unbelief thinks it must be good. God says men are men and women are women, and unbelief cries “Oppression!” and flees to the nearest safe space.

Unbelief, in other words, possesses the unique ability to defy reality with stalwart determination. Indeed, this is one of its chief characteristics. It puffs its chest in the face of opposition, sneers at correction, admonishment, and rebuke, bullies into silence all views different from its own, and does everything within its power to secure absolute and unquestioned authority. Like Alexander of old, unbelief will face down the world in its quest for power. It is rapacious in its desire, immovable in its resolve. And, most amazingly, it is not perturbed in the slightest when a mountain of truth stands against it. Even if someone should rise from the dead, still it will not believe (Lk. 16:31).

Systemic Unbelief

All of this holds true for nations just as much as it does for individuals—in fact, there is an organic connection between the two. After all, if unbelief holds sway in the hearts of individual people, it’s only a matter of time before that unbelief will bleed into their families, workplaces, institutions, and governments also. A little leaven leavens the whole lump, as Paul reminds us (1 Cor. 5:6). Thus Israel under the old covenant, staggering around like a drunk under the just judgment of God, still had the audacity to say:

“‘The bricks have fallen, but we will build with dressed stones; the sycamores have been cut down, but we will put cedars in their place’” (Isa. 9:10).

And this at a time when the “whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint” (1:5); when “bruises and sores and raw wounds” lay exposed and untreated (v. 6); when the whole country lay desolate, its cities burned with fire, and enemies surrounded Zion on every side (vv. 7–8). At this time the people cried, We will build with dressed stones! We will replace the sycamores with cedars!

Such is the inane and unfounded optimism of unbelief. Manifest evidence of God’s judgment may abound on every side, yet still its response will be to fling itself further into rebellion. This time it will work. This time it will be different.

A Call to Repentance

The trouble is, it won’t be different. It never is. And for the simple reason that God, not man, is King of this world. In God’s world, water flows downhill, the sky is blue and the grass is green, cows produce milk rather than fruit juice, and the rebellion of sinners is met with the just judgment of God “both now and in eternity.”1 Rebellion, in other words, begets judgment as sure as injury begets pain. God is not mocked: we reap what we sow (Gal. 6:7).

What this means, therefore, is that we must learn, as the apostle said, to put no confidence in the flesh and instead glory only in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:3). We must hold it as a settled conviction that no help will come to us from Egypt, since, “The Egyptians are man, and not God, and their horses are flesh, and not spirit” (Isa. 31:3).

The Spirit of the living God, poured out from on high, is the only agent capable of producing the kind of transformation we need. Only God’s Spirit can turn our wilderness into a fruitful field (Isa. 32:15), can raise our valley of dry bones (Ezek. 37:11-14), can breath into the dust and raise us up a living creature (Gen. 2:7). If we miss this, we miss the entire message of salvation: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (Jn. 3:5).

The role of the church in these evil days, then, must remain the same as it always has, namely, to preach the gospel of Christ crucified and risen and to call sinners to repentance and faith. The fog of unbelief lies thick on the unbelieving heart, and sinners will therefore look to all manner of self-saving, self-aggrandizing schemes for their deliverance, but Christians must remember that all such paths are fool’s errands.

There is one gospel and one Saviour who can deliver us from our misery. May we look to Him alone for our salvation and our hope.

“Blessed is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in his ways! You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you.” (Psalm 128:1–2)

The beginning of a new year inevitably brings with it numerous thoughts of change and reorientation. The new year is a time that lends itself naturally to reflection, to pondering the path of our feet to see what elements of our lives are good and beneficial or what parts need to be adjusted and let go (Prov. 4:26). This in itself is of course a good and fine thing, especially in a culture that is increasingly harried, frantic, and burdened. Yet, as with everything, there is a way to go about this business that’s more troublesome than helpful, like trying to rake leaves in a hurricane or put the lid on a box full of crickets.

The way to which I am referring has to do with depending on carnal rather than spiritual means, with falling back on human rather than divine help. In our zeal to improve ourselves, in other words, we might very quickly find that we are working against ourselves. We might find that, despite our resolve, all our efforts are “vanity and a striving after wind” (Eccl. 2:11).

The difference between these two outcomes lies in the difference between Jericho and Ai (Josh. 6–7), which is to say, between going up with the Lord’s blessing versus going up without it. As the story of Scripture makes abundantly clear, these are the only two ways to live — either in the flesh or in the Spirit, under the blessing of God or under the condemnation of God, by faith or by unbelief. The one thing we cannot do is opt out of this dichotomy. This is the way reality is structured, whether we like it or not.

God: The Principal Agent

This being the case, it’s worth remembering where fruitfulness actually comes from. And to give you a hint, it’s not from “traditional values” or the supposedly unconquerable resolve of the human spirit. Rather, fruitfulness comes from God Himself:

“Blessed is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in his ways! You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you.” (Ps. 128:1–2)

Fruitfulness, then, comes as a result of fearing the Lord and walking in His ways. It is a blessing rather than a reward, a gift rather than a wage. Fruitfulness, we could say, is simply the gracious overflow of a life yielded to God, the fall harvest of seed sown in faith. It is not therefore something mechanical or transactional, dispensed impersonally like cash from an ATM. But it is sure, dependable, and trustworthy: if we give ourselves to God, He will make us fruitful: “Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the LORD” (Ps. 128:4).

Further, it must be said that God, not man, is the principal agent in all fruitfulness. The flesh, as Jesus said, is “no help at all” (Jn. 6:63). Thus, however enticing Egypt may appear, we need to remember it is God alone, through the gracious and powerful working of His Spirit, who can fashion the wilderness into a fruitful field and the desert places into a peaceful habitation (Isa. 32:15–18). The renewing, reviving, and life-giving work of the Spirit of God is the exclusive fountainhead of all life and blessing and peace. There is no good apart from Him; apart from Him we can do nothing (Jn. 15:5).

To the Teaching and to the Testimony

If you have been following the biblical thread thus far you will notice that all of what I have been saying places us then in a very peculiar position. On the one hand, it exalts the triune God as the only source of life, blessing, and salvation; and on the other, it humbles man so far into the dust that all his strength is reduced to a level somewhere on par with worms and gnats—probably less.

If that is the conclusion you have arrived at, good. That is precisely the picture Scripture paints for us and therefore precisely the place we need to be. Self-sufficiency, pride, and arrogant rejection of God’s help is what always gets us into trouble, and only humble, trusting, Spirit-wrought repentance will bring us out of it. All flesh is like grass, but the word of our God will stand forever (Isa. 40:6–8). His righteous, omnipotent, strengthening hand is our only hope (Isa. 41:10).

Things being what they are, then, my closing exhortation is simply this. Whether we are thinking of ourselves as individuals or as members of a rebellious, dying, and corrupt nation, our rallying cry remains the same: to the teaching and to the testimony! (Isa. 8:20). We must learn, in other words, the lesson that Ahaz did not, that “If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all” (Isa. 7:9).

God and God alone is our only recourse. He is our only hope of salvation. His Christ, His Kingdom, and His Gospel are the best and only bulwarks against the rising tide of evil. If we give ourselves to these things, blessing and life are sure to follow. But if we reject them, or vainly try to merge them with the help of lifeless idols, we may be sure that our reward will be a double portion of distress, darkness, and the gloom of anguish (Isa. 8:22). The Holy One of Israel is our Redeemer, and He will not give His glory to another (Isa. 48:11).

So as we, by God’s grace, go into another new year that we do not deserve, let’s remember to do so by faith. Let’s remember, with God’s help, that at the best of times we are only bruised reeds and smouldering wicks (Isa. 42:3), and that God in His goodness has given a Saviour-King who will not break or quench us (v. 3). He is our salvation, and though we are weak and often faint, He will not “grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth” (v. 4).

All blessing and honour and glory and might be His, forever and ever. Amen. (Rev. 5:13).

“O Ephraim, what have I to do with idols? It is I who answer and look after you. I am like an evergreen cypress; from me comes your fruit.” (Hos. 14:8)

“Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:10–11)

O what glorious wonders are contained in that little word, “Christ”! Such a short designation, such a simple title, and yet it contains within it all the hope of this fallen world. Like the Rock at Horeb, which poured forth water for a thirsty people when it was struck (Ex. 17:6), so this little word pours forth streams of living water when we begin to examine it. Strike it even once and life issues forth like rivers in the desert.

One of the places we first encounter the “Christ” (i.e. God’s anointed king) is in Psalm 2, where universal dominion is ascribed to Him: “‘Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession’” (v. 8). Following this thread we find that His dominion will also be an everlasting dominion: His throne “shall be established forever” (2 Sam. 7:16). Moreover, His reign, indomitable and unending, will be a reign of peace rather than chaos, bringing Yahweh’s salvation to the very ends of the earth (Isa. 9:7; 49:6). Through Him the nations will be grafted into Israel’s inheritance and “built up in the midst of my people” (Jer. 12:16). They will forsake their idols, “learn the ways of my people,” and glory in Yahweh alone (4:2), when He establishes His “servant David” over them to “feed them and be their shepherd” (Ezek. 34:23).

The reign of God’s Christ will also have implications for creation. Under His rule the “wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat…they shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Isa. 11:6, 9). The curse, in other words, in all its grim totality, will be rolled back and eradicated through the rule of this Spirit-anointed King (Isa. 11:1). He will usher in a new age when He comes, a new world where every trace of sin has been wiped away. As He says in John’s vision in the New Testament: “‘Behold, I am making all things new’” (Rev. 21:5).

However, as the revelation of this Christ unfolds throughout the Old Testament, a startling twist begins to emerge alongside it. Astonishingly, when God’s Anointed King appears, He will not accomplish salvation by divine fiat, nor will He conquer the world with a battlecry and simply declare the deliverance of His people. Rather, His appearing will be subtle, almost obscure, like the slow growth of a young plant or a root out of dry ground (Isa. 53:2). He will have no form or majesty to draw the admiration of the world and “no beauty that we should desire Him” (v. 2). Instead, He will be despised and rejected by men, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (v. 3).

Further, the Christ’s rejection will eventually culminate in His death — a death which is both undeserved and substitutionary. The Christ, in other words, will die for the sins of others rather than His own. He will be “pierced for our transgressions” and “crushed for our iniquities” (v. 5). He will “bear” and “carry” our griefs and sorrows like a sin-bearing scapegoat, though He Himself is innocent. Finally, He will offer up His own life as “an offering for guilt,” crushed under the hand and will of Yahweh (vv. 4, 10).

But this is not where the story ends. For, wonder of wonders, the prophet tells us that after these events, the Christ, the servant of Yahweh, will “see his offspring” (v. 10). God will “prolong his days” and cause His will to prosper in His hand. The grave, in other words, will not contain God’s Anointed — death cannot hold Him. Somehow, some way, the “righteous one” will conquer death and make “many to be accounted righteous” with Him (v. 11). He will “divide the spoil with the strong” (v. 12), enjoying the fruits of His victory, and upon the basis of His redeeming work Yahweh will establish a “covenant of peace” with His people that shall not be removed, and shower His saints with steadfast love and compassion everlasting (54:10).

So who is “the Christ”? Who is the Saviour of the world? He is the One the angels proclaimed: the child born to Joseph and Mary in the city of David all those years ago. He is the man, Jesus of Nazareth, the Shoot from the stump of Jesse, born of woman and born under the law, yet at the very same time “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God.” He is, to put it still another way, the Word made flesh, the culmination of ancient hope, the Desire of nations, the crucified King, the Lamb of God, and the Shepherd of Israel.

Words fail to capture His fullness. Perhaps this is why the Scriptures layer so many types and shadows upon one another. In any event, whether we have the strength to perceive it or not, all this is brought together under one head in that little word, “Christ.”

This is the hope we remember and celebrate at Christmas time. This is the Saviour we preach. And He is a glorious Saviour indeed!

A sinless God, for sinful men,

Descends to suffer and to bleed;

Hell must renounce its empire then;

The price is paid, the world is freed.

And Satan’s self must now confess,

That Christ has earned a Right to bless:

Now holy Peace may smile from heaven,

And heavenly Truth from earth shall spring:

The captive’s galling bonds are riven,

For our Redeemer is our king;

And He that gave his blood for men

Will lead us home to God again.

Anne Bronte, “Music on Christmas Morning.”