Comfort in Chaos 7

Comfort in Chaos 7

Illegitimate Children of the Covenant

In Hosea 2:4, God says, “I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms.” The children in question were Israelite youth who had been born into and were growing up in an apostate church. They were church kids who had grown up in a syncretistic church which had tacked the verbiage of the religion of Jehovah onto the pagan social and religious values of the surrounding heathen nations. This made them illegitimate children of the covenant.

If this doesn't describe the last couple of generations of American evangelical kids, I don't know what does. Many, who have grown up in church, have grown up with the verbiage of Christianity tacked onto the same values as the surrounding secular culture.

Youth ministry is one of the biggest demonstrations of this bastardization of the worship of God. The unspoken assumption of typical "youth group" ministry is that God exists to make you happy in the enjoyment of whatever it is you happen to be “passionate” about. What do the children of unbelievers value? What are they passionate about? Sports, movies, bands and singers, video games. What do church youth groups busy themselves with? Sports, movies, bands and singers, video games. In the final analysis, the focus is on the dreams, desires, and ambitions of the “worshipers.” It is a utilitarian religion that uses God as a stepping-stone to what we really want.

This is, in many ways, not very different from the focus of much of the grown-up oriented ministries. The ultimate reality is you and your dreams. God exists to help realize these things. That's the heart of Canaanite paganism (all paganism, in fact). You scratch the back of the gods and they'll scratch yours. Paganism is indirect self-worship. It is the “worship” of a deity whose sole purpose is to give you what you want. Dressing this religion up with words like “Jesus,” “sacrifice,” “commitment,” “fellowship,” “disciple,” etc., doesn’t make it any less pagan. It’s still spiritual whoredom.

If your kneejerk reaction is to object that sports and music aren’t inherently evil, then you’ve missed the point (and most likely, the boat). No one is suggesting that youth groups become hermitages where the youth hand copy ancient manuscripts and wear hair shirts. But when the youth pastor’s skills include the ability to chug Mountain Dew, recite lines from the latest hit HBO show, kill at chubby bunny, and don’t include being “mighty in the Scriptures,” we’re producing the next generation of children of whoredoms. We shouldn’t be terribly surprised when the leave the faith. They never had it in the first place, nor was it ever presented to them.

Darwinism and Mass Shootings

No one who adheres to Evolutionism has any moral grounds for decrying mass shootings. In fact, they have no moral ground at all. This is because their system cannot account for a morality that is binding upon all. But leaving that aside for a moment, their system professes that nature – on its own – weeds out the weak and undesirable. Ironically the ones who proclaim this loudest typically have a perverse proclivity to want to help nature weed out the ones they consider weak and undesirable. At any rate, the whole system of Darwinism works upon the principle of “survival of the fittest.” 

Admittedly, Darwinists seldom live down to their principles. They champion animal rights causes - animals who are the weak victims of human survival, which is stupid. If human survival endangers other creatures, why should anyone be bothered by this. It is simply a superior species offing a weak species. The fittest is surviving - which is what is supposed to happen. They should be celebrating the survival of our species as a demonstration of our survival. Instead, they wish to instill shame (an emotion completely out of place in an evolutionary world) in those whose good fortune it is to be the fittest. They actually do live down to their principles when it comes to their own species, though. Darwinists are, without fail, the biggest supporters and proponents of the holocaust of abortion – the wholesale slaughter of the weakest and more defenseless of our kind. Adults and children murdered in mass shootings are far less helpless than these poor unborn babies, but Darwinists mourn the death of the former, but celebrate the murder of the latter.

The truth of the matter is, Darwinists should celebrate all murder as an example of nature doing her thing and ridding the earth of the weak. Why should the fittest feel guilt and shame for surviving when Nature actually functions on the principle of the survival of the fittest?

Evolutionists love to mock Christians as “unscientific,” but it is they who fail to live according to their own "scientific" principles. If they truly believe in the survival of the fittest, then they should celebrate every occurrence of nature having her way and ridding the earth of endangered species, or weak individuals who weren't clever enough to develop the necessary survival skills to avoid getting killed in a mass shooting.

Upon what grounds can they actually decry these things as “evil?” Upon what grounds can they label anything “evil?” If, as they profess to believe, humans are merely the organic products of a mindless process of evolution in a universe that exists by sheer chance, upon what can any appeal to right or wrong be based? Morality, according to their view, can be nothing more that the arbitrary viewpoint of one person or group of people unfairly enforcing their view upon others. Unless there is a personal God who created the universe, there is no possibility for any kind of morality. Any appeal to right or wrong can be nothing but a power play. And in the case of Darwinists, it always is a power grab.

If humans are mere animals, the biological product of unguided evolution, why do Darwinists insist on holding us to standards higher than animals are held to? Who goes into the African savannas to castigate the lions for murdering sickly zebras? Who reproves chimps for flinging feces at each other? Who calls the sharks onto the carpet for the wholesale slaughter of cute seals? No one, that's who! So why are they so insistent upon decrying violence in the human animal? And don't appeal to consciousness, either, you double-standard hypocrite! By your account of Nature, consciousness is nothing but the chance byproduct of unguided evolutionary processes. So why should you insist on binding anyone's imaginary "conscience" with appeals to consciousness?

So, if you hold to evolution, in any form, please spare us your crocodile tears about the poor victims of mass shootings. Why aren't you rather celebrating the fact that Nature, red in tooth and claw, has done her dirty work and that the fittest have survived? Not only should murder be seen as not wrong in your worldview, it should be celebrated and encouraged because by it the fittest are surviving and the weak are kept from defiling the species with their undesirable DNA.

Faithful Ministers Proclaim the Whole Counsel of God

“It is not uncommon to hear certain persons pouring out the bitterest invectives in pulpit and conversation against others, as enemies to morality, as turning the grace of God into licentiousness, as not only neglecting, but even opposing the obligation of his law. In the meanwhile, if you hear the first, you shall rarely meet with anything but what is quite loose and general, a declamation on the beauty of virtue, and the necessity of holiness, or a very imperfect sketch of the offices due from man to man in the common intercourse of social life. And, if you hear the other, it is probable you may hear many of the hard sayings of the gospel, not only the necessity of doing justice, and loving mercy, with the certain damnation of those who hold unjust gain without restitution; but the necessity of loving God above all created comforts, habitually directing every part of our conduct to his glory, and being sincerely and without reserve, submissive to his providence. You may also, probably, hear the duties of every relation descended to with a particularity, and the neglect or breach of them reproved with a severity, that is nowhere else to be found. Now, I desire to know which of these are the greatest friends to morality. So strong is the deception, that I have known several of the hearers of the most boasted moral preachers, who could not avoid betraying, by their discourse, that they considered the exercises of piety, as no part of morality, and very consistently, indeed, with these principles, treated them with the most absolute neglect.

“I have little hope of the conviction, but would gladly, if possible, stop the mouths of gainsayers on this subject. Is it not usual to mark out the friends of salvation by grace, under the title of extraordinary strict, and eminent professors; generally, indeed, with a view to challenge the sincerity of that profession, and load it with obloquy and reproach? But consider, I pray you, with what propriety you give them the name of professors? what is it that they profess? it is, that they are nothing in themselves and deserve nothing at the hand of God but wrath for their sins; that they have no hope of acceptance, but by the free grace of God through the redemption that is in Christ; that they can do nothing of themselves, that is good, but by the grace of God, are what they are; so that there is no room left for them to glory. Is not this their faith and persuasion? Why are they then called professors? You are the professors, who make your boast of the law, and glory in the excellence and perfection of human virtue. Shew us then your faith by your works; justify your profession by your practice; boasting will bring you little credit. But let us see who have the most sober, honest, holy, heavenly lives; these are certainly actuated by the best principles.

“But, I must, in part, retract what I have said; for, after all, the servants of Christ are indeed professors. They have taken on the holy profession of the gospel: and, in fact, any instance of irregular conduct in them is more observed, more deeply reproached, and gives greater offence than the very same in persons of a different character. When they depart from their duty, and from strictness of conversation, I give them freely up to the censures of their enemies; they have richly deserved them, and therefore they ought to bear them. In the meantime, let me put those in mind, who, in the midst of their triumph, stigmatise them with the name of professors, that they do them, or rather their profession, more honor than they are aware of; for they show that they themselves are sensible that such principles ought to have produced holiness in the conversation. So far as they reproach the sinner, or the detected hypocrite, they do what is right, and it can scarcely be overdone. But, when they take occasion to bring a reproach on the profession itself, their very success is a condemnation of themselves; for that the gross crimes of their own admirers, are less offensive, is just because their profession is less holy. Nothing would give me greater pain, than to understand that my doctrine were to the taste of midnight rioters, swearers, and Sabbath breakers; and, if any such are found among the admirers of moral preaching, their teachers could not do themselves a greater honor, than by renouncing the connexion.”

John Witherspoon, Ministerial Fidelity in Declaring the Whole Counsel of God. Works: Volume 2

Thoughts on Divine Aseity

In the Biblical view of the world, the sovereignty of God out-ranks the laws of nature. God dwells in eternity outside the created universe. In theological terms this is known as the aseity of God. This is the attribute of God most likely to be neglected by Christians. That's why we often think of life as a series of events primarily concerning ourselves and the events we don't like we label "trials."

This is an inherently idolatrous view of creation. Though man was the pinnacle of creation, he was not the purpose. God's own glory was the purpose of creation. God decrees and overrules; He never reacts. He works all things according to the counsel of His will.

Neglect of this doctrine also explains why we instinctively look for "scientific" explanations for things Scripture clearly depicts as miracles. Whether it be the parting of the Red Sea or Joshua's long day, when we insist that there must be an explanation that accords with the known laws of physics, we are betraying the same idolatrous view of creation. God created all things and He upholds all things by the word of His power. Nothing He does requires a naturalistic explanation.

The so-called war between science and the Bible really boils down to a question of who has the legitimate claim to infallibility. Our instinctive trust in science over Scripture exposes our native hatred for God and our worship of our own intellect. We'll believe in and trust our own fallen, sin-perverted minds over God's infallible and inerrant Word. We worship the creature more than the Creator.