Thema - Volume 13, Issue 4

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Responsibilities of Faithful Saints

RESPONSIBILITIES OF FAITHFUL SAINTS
As much as some conservative individualistic Christians might want to "opt out" of all this, it is not possible. In an ethnic war, you don't have to choose up sides. The other side does that for you. Under the providence of God, all of us are on a particular side of an earthly conflict. The fact that this side we are on cannot honestly seek a blessing from the God of battles should make us desperate for reformation in the Church.

In the meantime, we must honor God—we are a people who do not want to honor God as God, and we do not want to give Him thanks. God's response to this is wrath. But wrath is turned away from repentant nations. Repentance in the Church can show the watching world what repentance looks like. We must refuse to do anything in the name of any other god. If we appeal to idols, we will have all the protection an idol can provide. Our adversaries will eat us with a spoon, as one wise man put it. We need to fight, as David did with Goliath, in "the name of the Lord of hosts." No idol fits that description.

We must put away our idols—in repentance we will come to see the various ways in which we have bowed down to other gods. In the camp of the saints, we still find materialism, lust, greed, false doctrine, and insolent pride. With tears repent.

We must fight with the proper weapons—the weapons given to us are mighty to pull down strongholds. But in our unbelief, we have regarded them as impractical and impotent. But God shall arise and put all His enemies to flight. Fight in repentance.

This fighting is through true worship. The formal response of the Church to terrorism (and every form of unbelief) comes every Lord's Day. Please pray that our worship responses would glorify God, and give us the biblical perspective we desperately need. Hear the sermons, sing the psalms, read the Scriptures, and offer petitions with this tragedy in view. Please pray that Christian worship would serve as a godly counterattack, and not as helpless hand-wringing. Prepare for worship as though it were an act of war, because it is. This means we must see modern evangelical worship for what it is—powder puff war. But true warfare is not carnal, and is directed at our own idols, and not just the idols of the terrorists.

Counteract lies through clearing your head in worship. We should want to hear God’s Word to us, and be truly humbled—instead of mindlessly assuming that all those other people throughout the world are somehow blind to our innate "goodness." In the weeks following this atrocity, the prevailing cant about the goodness and decency of America shows that it might take far more than this horror to humble us. According to this vile school of thought, America shouldn’t be under attack because it distracts us from stem-cell research. As God’s judgments begin to fall upon us, we have to understand, with each successive wave of judgment, that it is still better than we deserve. In Revelation, in the midst of judgment, men gnaw their tongues in torment—and still refuse to repent. Ask God to give a spirit of repentance instead of judgments that reveal how stiff-necked a people can be.

Pray that this event would be used to hasten the day of reformation in the church. This is necessary because the early returns are indicating that many modern believers who embraced silliness in prosperity want to continue embracing it during times of tragedy and crisis. But fervently pray that God would use the long cold aftermath of all this to reveal to His church how shallow she has become.

And last, we do mourn with those who mourn, and we are among those who mourn. But as Christians we should also be in mourning over the fact that we as a nation do not know what true mourning is. We do have grief and shock and dismay, but we do not yet have evangelical mourning. Jesus said that those who mourn are blessed, for they will be comforted. But such comfort will never be obtained if we just dab around the edges, refusing to deal with our sin.

We have to mourn over the fact that the Christian church at large is so ill-equipped to respond biblically. It is difficult to die well if one has not trained for it by living well. In the same way, it is hard to respond well in crisis when all that has gone before is training for nothing but emotional self-indulgence. Because the modern evangelical church is so self-indulgent with happy-clappy emotions, when crisis comes we are self-indulgent with sorrowful emotions. Thus, we remain in our sin.

We must mourn over the fact that the national response to this thus far shows little sign of having learned true wisdom through it. God is visiting covenantal sanctions upon us, and we are still too covenantally stupid to recognize what He is doing.

We must also mourn over the extremes embraced by Christians in response to this. One group simply indulges in flag-waving, and misplaces the antithesis entirely. The other group, in the grip of a conservative individualism, thinks they are separated from all this because they disapprove of the current regime in their minds. A biblical covenant solidarity identifies fully with our nation at this time—but does not assume that this means we are under God’s pleasure, for we manifestly are not. We are identifying with a people who have forgotten God, and this should make us fierce in our prayers for reformation.

And last, mourn for the grieving families, cities, and the nation. Weep with those who weep. But do not forget the terms of the covenant as you do. Love your nation fervently—but remember it is a nation struck by God.