Search & Ye Shall Find...

The world of late has gone astray. Up is down, left is right, good is now railed as evil, and evil hailed as good—and quite frankly, I have become rather exhausted trying to make sense of it all. What was once a wide open bay upon which the soul could sail freely has since become an expanse settled with fog - paddle still in hand, but a crippling fear keeping one from veering off too far this way or that. Make no mistake, “I am speaking in human terms, because of [my] natural limitations”, as the Apostle Paul says in Romans 6:19. Namely, I do not say these things strictly as a Christian, per se, as though my hope were by any means faltering. Rather, I say it as a man; as a man who has bound his every hope to the words of Christ, yet as a man that is still bound by the weakness of the flesh; a man that is rubbing shoulders with a world that is fading and dying. The world has fallen, my friends, and though Christ is our only hope, there is a sense in which, because of the light we have from Him and His word, we as Christians see the world with far greater clarity because of this hope, and what we see terrifies us. This is not to say that all was fine and tidy six months ago, or a year ago, or an age ago. Rather, it would seem that the mess we have all become accustomed of late has since grown to be a burden of greater proportions. A beast that was once hidden is now coming out from under the bed and beneath the staircase to sit with us at the dinner table. Despite all the upsets and bereavements since 2020, the past few years have nonetheless proved to be a time of sobriety for many of us; a season in which the tether of this world has been steadily loosened. Hardships often prove to be fertile soil in which to make sense of things - after all, sometimes all that is needed to cut through the fog is a little perspective. Now, when the world seems especially foggy, there tends to be one of two wells that I find myself retreating to for rest and refreshment. These are small things to be sure, but they have proved to be utterly reliable and have since grown to be quite dear to my heart. Among these wells of refreshment is of course writing, which has been a great outlet for imaginative and mental constipation in times past. Although, there are times when I have very little energy to pour out my mind, especially when I am tired and strained to begin with. Therefore, the two roads that I will most often tread upon when I sense the need of a break from this weary world are in actuality very simple and small things: either to sit by a small fire with a coffee in hand or to go on a walk in the countryside. The latter of these, taking a walk in the wood of this world, being the greater of the two. I have always delighted in strolling through the rolling hills and shadow-laden woodlands of this world; though I never pondered deeply why this was. I, of course, like any sensible creature, shared an appetite for nature and creation, and so for a time I was content to enjoy beauty for beauty's sake. It has only been over the last several years in which I've taken thought to the why of the matter and I feel as though I have come to the bottom of it at last.  In all of those old tales and books that crowded my childhood - The Lord of the Rings  and Narnia being chief among them - I always caught a sense of some warmth within them that our current world did not have. Only, as a young boy, I did not recognize this warmth for what it truly was way back then. It seems as though the worlds tucked away among the pages of old books captured a sense of what was far more real, eternal, and solid than the things of our world would ever dare suggest - the world of fallen man, that is. This world of ours is filled with many broken people and sharp edges; a cloak of gray and shadow tossed upon it, seemingly veiling some deeper truth just beyond our reach. By contrast, the worlds of Narnia and Middle-Earth did not seem this way. Surely there were great wars and vast figures of evil looming over the lands, but is our world any different? I would venture to say it is not; our world is in many ways far worse off than these lands of fiction. Though, these worlds did not have Christ, only just the shadow of Him. The wars raging over Narnia and Middle-Earth were brutal and sweeping, but they were fought for the good and freedom of those who lived in those lands. Our wars, on the other hand, have since abandoned such noble causes. In these old tales the evil was always far away, far off to the East, where the thought of it was ever near but the enemy himself was distant enough that he did not greatly disturb one’s sleep or morning coffee. In our world, the enemy is we-know-not-who, shapeless, and oftentimes the foe may be far closer than we dare to imagine. Although unrealistic, perhaps, the old tales that we were all weaned on as children illustrated to our young minds a world that was very much founded on right and wrong, black and white; with good on the one side and evil very clearly on the other. Not only that, but it seemed that the folks who we would call good in these stories were in fact, however imperfect, men and women who genuinely strove for the betterment of the world they inhabited. They were flawed beings who, like you and I, just tried to do what was right in a world that was attempting to consume them. And this thing I caught a glimpse of within these tales, the thing I called warmth, well, I do hope you know what I mean. For when all the wars were fought and the dust settled, the heart of the tale often rested upon two friends sitting around the warmth of a charcoal fire in deep conversation over a meal, or perhaps sharing a puff from a pipe, or a bout of ale. Whether their talk was concerned with the gathering darkness to the East or their upcoming journey to the Haven of the Elves, it mattered not - that such a moment could be enjoyed to begin with was often the point in itself. The characters that found themselves at the center of these tales cared not for gold or fame, for friendship was wealth enough for their world-weary hearts. Indeed, “the sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal, or two friends talking over a pint of beer.” Happy are those who know the truth of this remark. Within the friendship found in these tales - when gathered around the dinner table or in deep talk - I always caught the aroma of something ever so near, and yet too far off to make out clearly. A sense of Deja-vu almost, even nostalgia - an emotional memory, as it were. This very same feeling, this emotional memory of the soul, often accompanies me when I take an hour or two from the day and simply walk among the aching pines and babbling creeks of this world. Though not always, there are nonetheless many times, whether in deep talk or ‘deep walk’, when the soul seems bent upwards; when a tune from that other world falls lightly on your ears, as though you are privy to something that you should not be hearing - not yet, at least. After catching the aroma of such things beyond words themselves, who are we to call this fickle place of shifting shadows and gathering nightfall home? It is in these little moments, as heavy and dense as a thunderclap and yet as light as the footfall of a sparrow, in which we catch a glimpse of the wood beyond the world. A place that at times cannot possibly seem more far off, and yet in other moments, a place that is perhaps only inches away from our own. A place that is not on the other side of the universe or in another universe altogether, but a very real place that runs alongside our very own existence. Almost as though the very wood is reflected in the puddles of our own world, pointing ever upwards. A place so real and weighty that our world struggles to keep up with it, let alone our own souls. And yet one day the two shall become one; or rather, the one shall be folded up and the other - the surefooted reality - will have its proper place.  The wood of this world shall be done away with, and on that day we will no longer need the bitterly weak symbols of nature and old books to point upwards any longer, for the real thing will be all about us. The door will be opened at last, the warmth and light of that place shall sweep over us, and we will then have time to rest from our travels - for we will be home. The war will be over and won, and the time to rest among dear friends by the warmth of the fireside will have finally come.

“ For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them ” (Matthew 18:20). In the beginning, the Lord God breathed upon a young world those words befitting the creation of Adam, the first man : “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). As Christians, so must we eschew isolation and seek rather to gather regularly as the body of Christ. It is not good to be alone; we must gather. Indeed, how can we not? We are the very body of Christ. Can the hand move about without the foot, or the eye guide itself through the darkness apart from its position in the head? I should think not. In the book of Hebrews, the divinely inspired author gives this command: “ And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,   not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near ” (Hebrews 10:24-25). In order to encourage other believers—to stir up one another to love and good works—we must first be in the habit of rubbing shoulders with other believers: a command that displayed its frightful importance when such opportunities to gather were threatened and even prohibited during the pandemic years. I say frightful because we are doubtless all aware of many who, upon being barred from gathering with their church in 2020, are yet to return to the Lord’s house for worship to this very day. Now, while I believe the principle command in this verse refers to corporate worship as the body of Christ on the Lord’s day, we would be shortsighted to say that the command ends there. Just as we must nourish ourselves with God’s word each day, and be meditating on what we’ve read throughout the day, so too must we make every effort throughout the week to fellowship with each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. For it is throughout the week, and not just on Sunday,—as we do battle in our little corner of the world with the forces of cosmic darkness around us and dethrone every lofty argument that opposes the Lordship of Christ—that we need one another most. And while meeting together as believers extends beyond worshipping on a Sunday morning, it should never extend beyond worship. Indeed, just as all of life is worship—“ So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God ” (1 Corinthians 10:31)—so must our fellowship as believers be a sweet smelling aroma of Christ ’s excellence to the watching world, no matter what it is we find ourselves doing. Whether we are meeting a friend for coffee, playing a round of golf, or laboring alongside a brother or sister in the workplace, let us endeavor to do it well and do it for Him. However, all that being said, one cannot deny there is a particular glory present when believers gather under the study of God’s word. I was reminded of this reality only this past week when our Bible study reconvened for the first time since Spring. As the shadows began to grow long out of doors, the golden light making its pilgrimage westward, a different sort of light and warmth began at the same time to settle in mine and Elaina’s little living room as our group took their seats. As our soft song of praise lifted up to the Lord in worship, followed by our prayers and humble discussion over His word, there was a joy among us that no words could describe. Not a giddy, shallow, fleeting joy, mind you; but a deep, abiding, and otherworldly joy. The kind of joy that goes about silently, unsaid, for fear of disturbing the peaceful waters it has produced; as though calling attention to it will, in some way, diminish it. A caliber of joy not unlike the feeling one has while sharing a meal with loved ones, or waking up on the first fresh morning of a holiday, only richer, deeper, and more enduring—as though in that hour the noise of the world fades and you find yourself doing that which is not only most important, but most dear to you. A joy owing to the fact that there no longer lingers a crossroads between what is best for you and best to you; no division over that which is most important and that which you love most. This is made all the sweeter by the holy, joyful camaraderie of souls all about you, the fellowship of the King, sharing in that very moment fellowship with the King Himself, aching upwards, outwards, and onwards towards that “ Day drawing near ” wherein our joy will be full, uninterrupted, and ever increasing in the sight of our Lord. It is in these moments of fellowship with other believers that the light of eternity breaks through the flimsy fetters of time and space, pointing our hearts not towards a world that should be , but towards that world which always has been and forever will be, prepared by Christ Himself for those chosen in Him before the foundations of the world. Whether it be at a Bible study or while out on a walk with a close friend reflecting on some great truth, is there not in these moments a strong sense in which one can almost feel the warmth of the Lord’s presence among them—a burning of the heart, so to speak? A fierce and gentle Presence among the many gathered; or more accurately, a strong Presence gathering together the many. We should hardly be surprised—we are the fellowship of the King, after all, and it should be no small wonder that He walks among us: “ For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them ” (Matthew 18:20). And yet, is it not at the same time the greatest wonder in all the world that the living God should desire fellowship with us? Photo by Brian Beckwith, Unsplash

I did not know Charlie Kirk; I never had the opportunity to meet Charlie Kirk; and, to be quite honest, Charlie didn ’t rank highly among the conservative voices I find myself regularly listening to. I ’ m not even American. Though, I did frequent his content more than occasionally and I respected him deeply. All that to say, Charlie Kirk and I were not friends; but as two souls united to Christ through faith, he and I were and are brothers. I say are brothers because Charlie is now more alive than he ever was—the past-tense does not apply to the man or woman who dies in Christ. Indeed, a mere bullet could not stop this man from living—for Christ Himself said, “ I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live ” (John 11:25). And though I never met him, I have full confidence that one day I will. Charlie was a giant in American politics, and in my opinion, one in the faith as well. And for all the good that Charlie did in his short thirty-one years, both politically and culturally, it is because he is my fellow brother in Christ that I feel a particular weight in my chest as I write these words. Indeed, a weight that has slowly nestled itself into my heart ever since my wife broke the news to me that he had been shot, only to die very shortly thereafter. As soon as it was confirmed that Charlie had passed into the embrace of our Lord, the One whom he loved so dearly, I must admit that a fire broke out within me; a white-hot, righteous indignation at the wicked soul who could commit such a monstrous act in front of Charlie ’s wife and children, and countless others; a loathing for the ideology of those who could possibly celebrate such a heinous sin—but perhaps most of all, a deep sense of aching and sadness over the fallen world around us and the crippling consequences of death that still linger in the vestiges of even redeemed souls. And then, even as the anger was still rising within, a sort of pity overcame me; a pity for those so blinded by the darkness that they would cheer the death of a young husband and father for simply committing the crime of disagreeing with them; and a pity for the warped image-bearer who, though they surely deserve justice, was driven by their sin to such a degree that they murdered another image-bearer. In that moment—and since then, series of moments—I repented of the loathing and hate that was clawing a foothold in my heart, and sincerely asked the Lord for a heart to consider these matters in a way that reflected His own. This morning I opened my grade eleven Law class with a heartfelt and distinctly Christian discussion about yesterday’s events. Having had last evening and most of my morning dedicated to thinking through Charlie’s passing, there were some things on my mind that I wanted to share with my students. I had the opportunity to contextualize Charlie’s death not as a matter of political right verses political left, but as a matter of good and evil, a matter of light and dark. As I considered my brother in Christ before these young students, I was able to do just that: by God’s grace, to reorient their perspectives away from the noise of this world towards the Kingdom of Christ, towards the very real evil we do battle with in this world—an evil that Jesus alone has the answers to. Some of my students engaged in this morning’s conversation with maturity and kindness, for which I am thankful; and a few others, not so much. However, it was within these conversations that a remarkably simple truth struck me, a truth so simple yet so profound that I should have settled on it the moment I heard the news of Charlie Kirk’s assassination: the political right and the political left, or so-called ‘Third Way-ism’, scarcely have more answers for yesterday’s tragedy than the other. If politics could save the world, God would have sent us a politician—instead, He sent us His only Son. What this world needs most is the Gospel. Indeed, that’s what Charlie was preaching all along. The assassination of Charlie Kirk was a tragedy, one that will undoubtedly scar the American nation for generations. However, even in the midst of such darkness, let us not forget the Gospel—Charlie never did, for it was upon his very lips only minutes before he died. Let us pray for the loved ones of the man who was shot and for the one who took the shot itself. Make no mistake, once the murderer is captured and tried in a court of law, they should be swiftly executed. For, “ Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in His own image ” (Genesis 9:6). Indeed, that is justice. The State bears not the sword in vain and we bear not the image of God in vain. State-sanctioned execution is God ’s good gift to a fallen world, a fallen world in which He considers His image-bearers as having the utmost worth. If you draw issue with that, look not to me but to God ’s word. However, to pray for the justice and the salvation of the wrongdoer is not to engage in contradiction, but rather a reflection of the Lord’s very own heart. In this way we follow not the right path or the left, but the narrow way laid out by our Savior. What our world needs most is the very thing it’s always needed most. Not the fumbling moral machinations of either right or left, or anything in between, but rather the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, which “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16). At the very end of this article I have included a short Gospel tract that I wrote several months ago. If you feel so inclined, please feel welcome to share it, whether in print or digitally, with those whom the Lord has put on your heart. Or, as I often do, simply print off several copies and leave one or two wherever you might find yourself throughout the day—for as you know, the Lord often works in small and unexpected ways. Do not be overcome by evil, brothers and sisters, but rather overcome the very real evil in this world with good and share the good news of salvation through Christ alone to our fallen world. And for those of us who have fled to Christ for refuge from the wages of sin,—being death—rest in the truth that we do “ not grieve as others do who have no hope ” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). And yet we still have freedom to grieve, the command to grieve; for death is no small foe and it inflicts no small wounds. In Christ the sting of death has been removed, and yet was it not the Lord Himself who wept at the grave of His friend Lazarus? As Christians, we should both weep and grieve; not as those without hope, but as those with hope who rightly recognize the deep brokenness and disorder than sin and death inflict upon the world. As God ’s people, we have the language to express our grief and hatred over wickedness because of the truth that is in Christ Jesus. So, then, let us grieve for Charlie as those who hope in Christ and share that hope with a world that needs Him more now than ever before. After all, that’s what Charlie would have done. And of course, continue in prayer to our sovereign Lord and God on behalf of Charlie’s dear wife, young children, and the many loved ones who mourn his passing. “ O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. ” —1 Corinthians 15:55-57 A Great Savior For Our Great Need “When evening came, [Jesus] was there alone, but the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. And in the fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea. But when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, ‘It is a ghost!’ and they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.’ And Peter answered Him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ He said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, ‘Lord, save me.’ Jesus immediately reached out His hand and took hold of him, saying to him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’ And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshipped Him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’”   —Matthew 14:23-33 The Gospel is the Good News of Jesus Christ; it is the very backbone of all that Christians believe and the sum and substance of all that the Bible preaches. Every religion and man-made philosophy under the sun instructs mankind on how we are to work our way to God; Christianity tells the story of how Jesus, God Himself, came to us in human flesh. Jesus Christ died for our sins on a Roman cross 2,000 years ago and prepared the way of salvation for all who call upon Him and believe in His name alone for justification. Perhaps you’ve never heard the Gospel before, or what I’m saying to you is completely foreign from what you thought Christianity was all about, so here is a quick summary of the Good News about Jesus Christ:   God is good and we are not (Romans 3:10); God is morally perfect and cannot even look  at sin, much less be in the presence of sinning humans. The Bible makes clear that everyone—you, me, and every human that’s ever lived, except Jesus—has sinned against this holy and good God. What is sin? It is a hatred of God and His laws; it is to prefer anything over true worship, heartfelt obedience, and loving fellowship with the One who made us—all murder, adultery, theft, lying, and hate stems from a human heart that does not want to submit to and obey God. And because we are not good, we rightly deserve death and justice from the hands of a perfect and holy God, just as a judge would rightly punish a criminal in a court of law (Romans 6:23a). But God, being rich in mercy and steadfast love (Ephesians 2:4), sent His one and only Son to die for sinners (John 3:16), such that all who despair of themselves and their empty deeds, repent by turning from their sin, and believe that Jesus Christ died for them will not perish by eternal judgement in Hell, but have eternal life and unending joy in the presence of God Himself in Heaven—forever (Romans 6:23b).   In the account of Jesus walking on the water towards His wind and wave-beaten disciples, we see a clear image of the Gospel. The roaring crescendo of rain, wind, and waves is howling all about the disciples, and they are gripped by an otherworldly fear—little do they know that the One with them, the One going about the storm unseen and unphased, is to be feared above all. Out from the doom and darkness of the raging deluge came the Lord, “who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea” (Job 9:8). The disciples, adrift in their fear and unbelief, could not see Him whose “footprints were unseen” through the great waters (Psalm 77:19). In the midst of near destruction, it took only the soft cry of Peter—“Lord, save me”—to stir the Lord to action. There was no delay or deliberation on the part of the Lord; within an instant, as the words were upon Peter’s very lips, “Jesus immediately reached out His hand and took hold of him, saying to him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’” (Matthew 14:31). My dear friend, let not the long years and many troubles of this life cloud your sight so as to forget this simple truth: the God who made you loves you. His hand and His heart are ever extended out towards those who call upon Him for forgiveness from their sins, ready to draw them in and guide them towards home where all winds and waves will have finally ceased—“For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13). We have a most tender and immediate Savior. Great is our need, but greater still the great Savior to serve our need! Because God is good and just, sin must be punished. On the cross as Jesus died, He was punished by God the Father on our behalf: “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (1 Peter 2:24-25). By putting your faith in Jesus alone for salvation—not your understanding, church attendance, moral deeds, or good intentions—you are then united to Him, so much so that when God looks at you, He now sees the righteousness of Jesus His Son. Your sin and guilt are taken away in Jesus Christ when you put your trust in Him; through Christ, we are adopted into the family of God Himself, given the family name, and granted unending fellowship with Him now and in the world to come. If you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ, you need only to recognize your great need for salvation from the just punishment for your sin and to recognize His great ability and desire to save. It took only the soft cry of Peter, “Lord, save me”, to stir the Lord to action. It is the Lord’s great desire to forgive you, to cleanse you from all your sins—past, present, and future—so that you can be with Him in Heaven forever. Indeed, this is why Jesus, God in human form, came to earth all those years ago—to seek and to save that which was lost. If you hear His voice calling you this day, call upon Him in response, for Jesus Himself said, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me I will never cast out”  (John 6:37).   “Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” —Matthew 11:28-29

Last weekend, my wife and I watched the new Formula 1 film that ’s been racing through theaters over the summer , F1. The world of Formula 1, like most any other sport, is just that—a world unto itself, littered with legends, seemingly arbitrary rules, and teams that mean little to the world outside of the fanbase. I first began following Formula 1—and only moderately at that—several years ago with the release of Netflix ’s hit series, Formula 1: Drive to Survive. Since then, I’ve left the door cracked ajar ever so slightly on any news coming out of the sport. What made F1 so enjoyable as a movie was the sheer authenticity of it, going so far as to film its scenes during real Formula 1 races around the world, capturing real fans, real cars, real Formula 1 drivers, and above all, real speed. The film follows a low-tier, would-be underdog Formula 1 team, APXGP, on their way through the Formula 1 season. After a crippling first few races, the owner of the team recruits a former—and by Formula 1 standards, nigh-elderly—teammate in a man named Sonny Hayes to race for APXGP, played by Brad Pitt. Before moving on, perhaps some context is in order. In Formula 1, teams race not one but two cars in any given race, with one driver being pegged as the lead while the second driver takes up more of a supporting role. This ensures that the lead driver—the better of the two—has maximized chances of winning. Meanwhile, the ‘rookie’ driver does all he can to keep the rest of the racing grid at bay in the rear while still trying to garner some points himself—more or less. Formula 1 is all about points: if a driver finishes in the top 10, they get points, with points descending from first place downwards. Any driver who fails to finish in the top 10 also fails to score points, putting not only their racing seat in jeopardy for the following season, but gambling with the fate of their entire team also. At the end of the racing season, teams are awarded financing for the next year based on their performance throughout the season. Teams that do well continue to do well, and increasingly so; teams that do poorly continue to languish. If both your drivers finish in the top 10, great; and if one of your drivers crash out or have engine problems, well, then that is why you have a second driver on the grid. As you can imagine, everyone wants to be driver number one, the lead. In the world of Formula 1 where speed is everything,—the driver’s very craft—no one wants to be second place. This is where the plot of F1 picks up, with Brad Pitt’s Sonny Hayes and APXGP’s rookie driver knocking heads and exchanging blows. In Formula 1, your teammate is also your biggest competitor and rival in many cases. Joshua, the rookie, is young and talented, but equally hot-headed and arrogant. By contrast, Hayes is a seasoned veteran who, though he loves the thrill of the race, has no patience for the foolishness and brash recklessness of his much younger teammate. Whereas Sonny Hayes races for the joy of racing itself, having had the allure of fame beat out of him over the past 30 years, the rookie Joshua treats racing as a means to an end—the end being popularity and renown, even if it ever only be from fans he’s never met fawning over him on social media. As Sonny attempts to take on a mentorship role towards young Joshua throughout the film, he routinely reminds his young teammate that fame, and all that comes with it, is nothing compared to the joy of racing itself—indeed, as Sonny often says to Joshua, “It’s all just noise.” Even as I sat down this evening to write, I routinely felt the pull towards distraction of some kind, any kind. Like an invisible—oddly strong—hand that tempts me to drown out the silence with something other than my own thoughts and the many innocuous sounds around me. As though even the mere prospect of silence was threatening in some way. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, billions of hours worth of podcasts, it’s all there right at our fingertips at any given moment, ever vying for our attention. It’s always there, and it’s all just noise. In the second book of his space trilogy, Perelandra, C.S. Lewis makes this keen observation: “Inner silence is for our race a difficult achievement. There is a chattering part of the mind which continues, until it is corrected, to chatter on even in the holiest of places.” Lewis was writing in a world where little else beyond a radio could serve to distract you. Little did he know—as is so often the case with Lewis—just how acutely his observations would come to define the generations long after him. Only, I fear the rot is even worse in our day: we shun both inner and outer silence. For fear of being left alone with our thoughts, we drown out all the world around us with endless distractions and incessant chatter. “It’s all just noise.” Life is made up of seasons, seasons made up of years, years made up of months, and those months are made up of weeks, days, hours, and fleeting moments. If we cushion our every waking hour with some distraction or other, do we not run the very real risk of forfeiting much of our lives? In my own life, I am daily reminded by the Lord that the real “stuff” of the day is found in the little moments, those little moments that I am so quick to disregard, ignore, or pack tightly with some new distraction. Some of these distractions are fine and well, mind you; but surely not that which “is needful” above all else (Luke 10:42)—namely, listening to the still, small voice of the Lord by meditating on those truths of His word that my heart is so swift to forget, or simply attending to the often small matter that He has laid before me with faithfulness and diligence. Therein lies one of the many differences between our race as believers and the race the world would have us run, between the Kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of Formula 1. In Formula 1, speed is everything, no matter the cost to your teammate, the other drivers on the grid, or to your own wellbeing—no one wants to be second place. By stark contrast, the Christian race is won not by the swift and ruthless, but by the faithful who depend in humility on their sovereign Lord. In the Kingdom of God, we are not called to be first, but rather to deny ourselves: “ But many who are first will be last, and the last first ” (Matthew 19:30). Let us not be so caught up in the “noise” all about us—whatever form it may take—such that we neglect the purpose for which we were made. Sacrificing our time upon the altar of mere distraction severs us from the very real, very weighty, very joyful reality that we shall one day appear before the throne of Christ Himself and give an account of ourselves. We are not saved by our good works—praise God, we are saved by the good works of Christ—but we are saved for good works: “ For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them ” (Ephesians 2:10) . I for one have no desire to be ashamed before Him on that day! And so, while the day remains, “ let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God ” (Hebrews 12:1-2). Sonny was right, “It’s all just noise” in the end. So fight the good fight and lay aside every distraction, run well the race set before you, and finish well—not for the praise of men, but for the joy of having raced well and finished faithfully. And not for this only, but for that crown which shall never perish, and best of all, to see Him “ face to face, as a man speaks to his friend ” (Exodus 33:11) and hear those words, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:23). Photo by Julian Hochgesang, Unsplash

There are always those events in life which, despite how eagerly you may await them, always seem to fall short. That vacation you ’ ve been pining for over the last year reveals itself to be nothing special in the end; the new restaurant you ’ ve wanted to try for months turns out to be awful; and the highly anticipated final season of your favorite show—well, that is the worst offender of all. Hopefully such occurrences are few and far between, but they happen nonetheless, no matter how vehemently we might push up against them. Indeed, life is full of disappointments. And then, every so often, things go not only as expected, but far, far better. Several years ago, before I gave my life to Christ, I was with my family up North during our summer vacation. Not too far North, mind you, but far enough. We were on the Northernmost tip of the Bruce Peninsula in a little town called Tobermory, situated right along Lake Huron. Tobermory was a second home for my sisters and I growing up. And Little Cove, a small inlet within Tobermory, held a particularly strong hold over my family ’ s affections. Somewhere down the annals of time, my dad ‘stumbled’ upon the place, claimed it as his discovery, and subsequently brought our family there two to three times a year for the next twenty years— it was lovely. It was rumored during that year in question that there would be a meteor shower on the very same week that our family happened to be cottaging up there. I say ‘rumored’ because, let’s be honest, a healthy skepticism of the weather network is not only an exercise of common sense, but outright wise. After all, even if there was a meteor shower, a lot could still go wrong: it could be cloudy on the nights in question, veiling our view entirely, or the shower could be delayed and trickle into the morning hours, thus limiting the starkness offered by the night sky, rendering the cosmic spectacle mundane. In God’s good pleasure, none of these inconveniences came to pass. Upon arriving at Little Cove near midnight—a small beach nestled among the pines just off the beaten path—my father, sister, and I were treated to an experience I have never forgotten. Indeed, the heavens themselves seemed to have opened.  Before us stood the pillar of the Milky Way, our own galaxy, adorned in rich hues of violet and sapphire, shining into the darkness like a jewel. The trail of the Lord’s robe, replete with stars beyond count and colors out of time, flooded the night sky. As the darkness gathered further to the North and South, away from the brilliance of the Milky Way, small streaks of light could be seen as they bowed slowly downwards—the meteors. They looked like satellites at first; tiny pinholes in the universe, leaving razor-thin tails of cosmic dust in their wake.  It was as though the Milky Way at the center of this drama held the very universe intact, like a mighty braid of stars, leaving the meteors to fall like loose strands of hair to the left and the right. Before us, the impenetrable veneer of the lake, black and void, reflected the heavens back upon itself in an unending, unrelenting symphony of praise to her Maker. Trillions of voices taking up their harps in absolute harmony, one by one, echoing endlessly through the unmeasured plain of the universe. What I observed during that meteor shower, even as an unbeliever at the time, left an imperishable mark upon my soul, such that I shall never forget it. I don’t know how long we sat on the edge of that lake, utterly entranced, but when we finally gathered our things and left, the roaring of the universe kept pressing on. It felt like leaving a theater during the climax. Even with our backs turned, the cathedral of the cosmos continued in praise, for we were not her true audience; we just happened to stumble upon an orchestra in concert, one that has been playing for a very, very long time. We’ve all heard the saying, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Allow me to propose another question: if no one ever sees it, does God still get the glory for it? The answer to both questions is a resounding yes . Just as “the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” at creation (Genesis 1:2), so too does His omnipresent reign overshadow the work of His hands to this very day. There is not a hair, sparrow, or tree that falls without the Father’s permission. Creation itself, whether animate or inanimate, exists to proclaim the praise of God ’s glorious excellence and beauty. The God who individually fashioned the sparrows and lilies is the same God whose speech gave form to the stars of heaven. He made all these things—the furious and the fine, the seen and the unseen, the mighty and the intimate—that we might see Him for who He is. These were made chiefly for His glory, whether seen and enjoyed by us or not, but also as guides to us so that we might praise Him in proper context. “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (Romans 1:19-20). There are worlds beyond imagination populating the vast cosmos, each adorned with its own landscape, climate, and beauty. Worlds that have never been seen by men, angels, or demons, and perhaps never will be. These exist for Him, and Him alone.  Upon the outskirts of each of these worlds is a sun, some the same size and glory as our own, while others are many hundreds of thousands times larger and fiercer. Yet, each sun sets upon the world they shepherd when the day is done, taking care not to deviate from their given course.  A dear friend of mine once told me, “Try your very best to watch at least one sunset a day, it’ll do you good.” He was joking, of course, but consider this: we are limited to only one sunset a day, but for God that number is in the hundreds of trillions. He Himself is present upon every world in the universe, tending to it with care as though it were flowers in His garden. There is work to be done in the howling infinite, who else to do it but the Lord? For Jesus not only made the universe, but He maintains it also: “For by Him all things were created… and in Him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16-17). And when the day of work is done, He rests in the cool of His garden as the evening sun sets—a few trillion​ sunsets at a time.  Can you bear the weight of ten trillion sunsets? He can. If no one ever sees it, does God get the glory for it? Yes, yes He does. It is a sobering thing to consider that there are potentially worlds and stars and entire universes that God has made for just Himself. Realms beyond the peeping eyes of men and angels; for Him, and Him alone to enjoy. I would encourage you, dear reader, to spend some time in the book of Job, particularly chapters 38-41. In it, God answers Job “out of the whirlwind” and presents an astonishing account of Himself, one of majesty coupled with profound intimacy. He is Lord of the morning stars, the Father of the rain, and yet He is gentle and lowly at heart. Our God is the one who binds “the chains of the Pleiades” while also leading lion cubs to their supper. He tends to the far reaches of His universe and yet makes time to simply watch as “the mountain goats give birth” (Job 39:1). Allow me to end with words from G.K. Chesterton’s book Orthodoxy, wherein he articulates these truths far better than I: “Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them.  It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.” Take heart, brother and sister, for though He is the Maker of the stars, you were made in His image, and the stars were not. Indeed, you are of more value than many sparrows and many stars. For the Lord did not shed His own blood for these, but for you and for I— “ I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me ” (Galatians 2:20). Photo by NASA, Unsplash

Anytime I’m asked about my wife—whether at work, at school, or elsewhere—and what she does, I always excitedly reply, “Well, she’s a counselor; a Biblical counselor.” I labor to make the point—so as to ensure no one is left confused or misinformed—that all her work as a counselor must be understood within an explicitly Biblical worldview. This conversation starter typically makes for an easier transition into further conversations with the individual about God, the Bible, and the Gospel. They might not like it (hint: they seldom do), but at the very least this clarification sets the tone for the rest of the dialogue. By emphasizing the Biblical counselor’s emphasis on sin, the need for repentance, and the hope of the Gospel through faith in Jesus Christ, it becomes somewhat more natural in conversation to then turn the focus back onto the individual I’m speaking with and emphasize their own need for reconciliation with the Lord. Although, as you can imagine, folks tend to tune out or have mysterious appointments to keep—“Oh look at the time, I have to go!”—the moment words like “sin” and “repent” are introduced into a conversation. Indeed, people perk up when they hear my wife is a counselor because they are eager to talk about themselves and their feelings, only to withdraw the moment the focus is drawn away from their emotions and onto their own sin. People love to recount their lives in these sorts of conversations, but shut down all dialogue out of hatred for the very thought that they will have to one day give an account for the way in which they lived their lives before the Lord Jesus Christ. Elaina, my wife, has been in the counseling world for a number of years now, though it’s been only over the past year that she’s begun counseling in an official capacity. However, it took no time at all to discover that, as a woman who only counsels other women, the majority of her counseling sessions were going to be with women who were struggling in their marriages. These marital struggles come about for a myriad of reasons and are often times exceedingly complex to tease out—we are, after all, selfish sinners who are boundless in our capacity to destroy ourselves and others outside of the grace of God. But, setting aside all these nuances, permit me to speak absolutely plainly for a moment when I say that most of these marital issues, as seemingly complex as they may at first appear, are in reality far more simple than we’d like to admit: namely, it really all comes down to a failure and refusal to repent . Marriages grow cold not because husband and wife begin falling out of love, but because they begin falling out of repentance. The failure to repent is the failure to love; and the failure to love is, you guessed it, tied to the failure to repent of sin in your marriage. The sin-swept wane of many years and the hardening effects of bitterness left unchecked and unrepented of render many husbands and wives cold and callous, unable and unwilling to turn from sin. Unwilling to turn towards a living and loving Savior in Christ who stands ready to forgive those who forsake their sin and cling to Him for lasting healing. If you find yourself falling out of love, rest uneasily in the fact that you’ve fallen out of repentance well before this point. Contrary to popular belief, even popular ‘Evangelical’ belief, love is a choice; an act of the will that sets aside self, preferring rather the glory of God and the good of the other. Feelings come and feelings go, but love cannot go. Love must remain, it is commanded to remain: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord... Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:22, 25). In the words of C.S. Lewis, “Love as distinct from ‘being in love’ is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit.” In like fashion, repentance is also an active choice of the will. There are times, many times, when it feels easy to love. By contrast, we never feel like repenting. If we waited for our feelings to align in order to repent of sin in our marriage against God and our spouse, I fear we would never be moved sufficiently to do so. That is why repentance is, first and foremost, like love, an act of willful obedience towards God and not an action only taken provided the appropriate emotions are first present as some sort of “feeling fuel” in our hearts. To repent is to love. Keep short accounts with the Almighty and with one another, it really is that simple. Dear brother and sister, the reality that both love and repentance are not enslaved to feelings is a truth that is wonderfully and infinitely freeing to the soul. If you are in Christ—if you have believed on His name for the remission of your sins and have placed your hope in Him, if His Spirit has taken up residence in you—then “you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11). As a son or daughter of the Living God, we are no longer consigned to wandering in the wilderness of impulse, apathy, and dead emotionalism, but free to love God and others from a heart that has been renewed and remade. Just do the right thing, no matter how you feel, “ for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure ” (Philippians 2:13). As Elaina and I approach our third wedding anniversary next week, I find myself overwhelmed by God’s goodness and faithfulness to us in all that her and I have navigated together as husband and wife. I praise and glorify the Lord for the faithful friend He’s given to me in Elaina, and for the faithful friend He’s been to us both. Marriage to her is so natural, so sweet, and so much better than either one of us could have possibly asked, imagined, or contrived on our own. I praise the Lord that she is so very easy to love and delight in. And when disagreements or conflicts arise between us, as they often do in even the very best of marriages, or when our sight is clouded by sin, I am thankful for the well-worn paths of love and repentance that the Lord has walked us through time and again. As husbands and wives, we may not always feel like loving, repenting, or asking for forgiveness, but here’s a little secret: the more we put these truths into practice, the more natural and heartfelt they will become and before you know it, the right and Godly feelings are swift to follow in due time as the right habits take root. Through the continual putting off of self and the putting on of Christ, you shall indeed become more like Him. In the meantime, keep obeying the truth and loving one another deeply from a pure heart (1 Peter 1:22). Be swift to repent and quick to ask for forgiveness when you fall short of the calling Christ has called us to as ambassadors of that Heavenly marriage of which we shall all one day take part. “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” —1 Corinthians 13:4-8 Photo by ashleyphotography.ca

PROV ’IDENCE , noun [Latin providentia ] 1 .) In theology, the care and superintendence which God exercises over his creatures. He that acknowledges a creation and denies a providence involves himself in a palpable contradiction; for the same power which caused a thing to exist is necessary to continue its existence. “ Know that the LORD, He is God! It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture. ” —Psalm 100:3 My wife and I have been on vacation with her family this week—what a joy it is to get away for some much needed rest! I thank the Lord that He has weaved the need for refreshment into the very fabric of His creation. The older I get—which, as folks keep reminding me, is not very old quite yet—the more I feel drawn to the longings of Bilbo Baggins in The Fellowship of the Ring : “ I want to see mountains again, Gandalf—mountains; and then find somewhere where I can rest. In peace and quiet, without a lot of relatives prying around, and string of confounded visitors hanging on the bell. ” Just before we left for our week away, I was out for coffee with a dear friend of mine who, not for the first time, highly recommended that I read through C.S. Lewis ’ The Space Trilogy. There are allegedly many long-time C.S. Lewis readers out in the world like myself who, admittedly, have not read this series. And so, without any further delay I got my hands on the thickly-bound, 3-in-1 copy of the trilogy and swiftly began consuming the first novel, Out of the Silent Planet. To describe The Space Trilogy as Narnia for adults, or merely as Narnia in space, would be a disservice to Lewis’ work. An argument can be made that The Space Trilogy is the novel form of The Screwtape Letters , Lewis’ famous work on angels and demons—but that too seems to fall short of just how other this series of novels is when stood against his body of work as a whole. Without treading too deeply into spoiler territory, there is a scene early on in the first novel that struck me. Ransom, the protagonist, has just landed on the mysterious red planet of Malacandra. In no time at all, Ransom encounters one of the planet’s native species, a 7-foot tall cat-like creature that is described as something like a feline mixed with a ferret or beaver, though that’s hardly important at the moment. What is important is Ransom’s reaction to this creature; a reaction that becomes characteristic of much of his journey on Malacandra throughout the book. Upon meeting this creature and discovering that it not only is benevolent but also has the ability to communicate, Ransom reflects upon their first contact in this way: “[it was] as though Paradise had never been lost and earliest dreams were true, the charm of speech and reason. Nothing could be more disgusting than the one impression; nothing more delightful than the other. It all depended on the point of view.” Now, this may well be one of my wilder connections, but allow me time to develop this thread—I think there’s something important here. As a student of literature, I’ve grown accustomed to reading texts through the lens of theme and symbolism. Indeed, it’s a rather useful way to understand a wide variety of texts and build meaningful connections between them. If I had to ascribe a primary theme to Out of the Silent Planet, I could scarcely do better than Ransom’s words from just a moment ago: It all depends on the point of view. So much of Ransom’s fantastic adventure on Malacandra follows his discovery of some new landscape or creature or entire species of creature, his subsequent response of either fear, dread, or disgust, only to grow in his understanding such that his affections go from disgust to delight. Through incremental developments in his revelation of the planet and those who inhabit it, Ransom routinely discovers that not everything is as it first seems in this strange world; that there is a deeper, older beauty churning beneath the surface—“Nothing could be more disgusting than the one impression; nothing more delightful than the other.” Indeed, Ransom’s journey across the novel is really just one of perspective. The books of Numbers and Deuteronomy have occupied the rest of my reading time while on vacation. While at first glance the Old Testament and C.S. Lewis’ The Space Trilogy have nothing in common, the similarities soon become clear once you look beyond the surface. Again, it all depends on the point of view. From the vantage point of the man who does not know the Lord, the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy are mostly dreadful. Add in Exodus and Leviticus, and the story becomes dreadfully burdensome also. Here in these books we have the unvarnished tale of humanity’s rebellion against God on full display, a dress rehearsal for the wicked plot which will soon echo throughout the rest of history. A cursory glance of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible of which Numbers and Deuteronomy are a part, will reveal the dreadfulness of man’s sin and the dreadfulness of God’s glory and goodness. The two are ever rubbing up against one another. The good and perfect law of God is given as a gift to the nation of Israel as both a blessing and a curse: should they obey God they will be surely blessed, and if not, they will surely perish in His wrath. To the man who does not know God, there is a great dreadfulness about all His ways; an all-consuming fire that he, a mere creature, dare not approach. The law of God as revealed in the Torah serves as a revelation of God’s own nature; a bright light to shine upon the darkness of man. And yet, when we but begin to ponder the edges of His glory and commence the consideration of what it may mean for God to be holy, holy, holy, it is then, and then only, that we start to see God for who He is. If history is, as Lewis put it, “ the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy, ” then the Old Testament is the long, beautiful story of God proving man wrong in this regard. As R.C. Sproul once said, the sheer wonder of the Old Testament is not that so many people died, but rather than anyone lived when man ’s sinfulness and God’s perfect righteousness are properly understood. Again, it all depends on the point of view. As the Lord Himself said, “Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live? Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD is God; there is no other besides Him” (Deuteronomy 4:33-35). The nation of Israel was never safer nor in greater danger than when they were being led out of the land of Egypt by the strong hand of the Lord. For the faithless and rebellious among them, terror greater than any Pharoah could inflict upon them brewed above their heads every hour; but for the faithful who loved the LORD their God, they were ever safe in the pastures of providence. It is upon this razor ’s edge that the Christian’s perspective ever sojourns. For, as we all know, to be kept from harm is not always the same as being kept from hurt. On our road to Christlikeness, our Heavenly Father may hurt us, but He never harms us. God often allows pain and hurt to intrude upon our quiet lives for our eternal good; this He does to heal us, not harm us . Herein lies the mystery of the twin perspectives presented to us in Hebrews 11. On the one hand, the people of God throughout the ages are stoned, sawn in two, and slain by the sword, hated violently by the world and those in it; and on the other, the people of God are those “of whom the world was not worthy ” (Hebrews 11:38). As those in Christ, we have this sure confidence: “ And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose ” (Romans 8:28). Life outside of the Lord is a hard, bitter existence. Without His great and exceedingly precious promises, it is little wonder that people lose all hope in this life. For what is life without Christ but sickness, sorrow, betrayal, murder, hate, sin, and then worst of all, having to face death itself under a dark, starless sky without the hope of a Redeemer? And yet with the Lord for us, we can have every confidence that no matter how hard life gets, He is in control; and not just in control, but indeed actively working out all things for our highest good: “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18). In John chapter 10, Jesus describes Himself as the Good Shepherd. The Lord knows those sheep who are His; He calls them each by name, and they respond to the melody of His voice. It was He who called His people out of Egypt through many trials, wonders, signs, and war, and great deeds of terror, and it is He who will lead us safely home. Without the Lord by our side, the trials of this life illicit only dread and despair; but with the Lord by our side, working out all things for good, we ought to feel only delight— “Nothing could be more disgusting than the one impression; nothing more delightful than the other.” I think Joseph said it best when he was led to conclude, after a great many trials and terrors of his own, that, though men meant evil against him, “God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20). Ransom was right, it ’s all a matter of perspective—and providence. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalm 23). “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one” (John 10:27-30). Photo by Art Institute of Chicago, Unsplash

“One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in His temple” (Psalm 27:4). Why do you want to go to Heaven? I assume that, when it comes time for you to die, Heaven is the place you want to go to—only a madman, or worse, would desire the alternative. But why do you want to go there? Most people, even irreligious people, think there is such a place as Heaven. For them, such a dreadful place as Hell could never exist; Heaven, by contrast, must exist. I assure you, there are agnostics and atheists abundant who think that, though in their minds God does not exist, a place of rest for humanity must nonetheless be awaiting us—believe me, I have spoken to a number of these folks. And yet, despite the fact that many people in this world suppose such a place as Heaven must exist and that they are undoubtedly going there when they die, they haven’t the slightest clue why they want to go there, much less why they’d want to dwell in that place forever. A friend of mine in high school held to this Godless position of a God-less Heaven. When I pressed him about Christianity, he brushed me off because in his own words, “I think that Heaven is the place where we all end up no matter what, but I don’t think God will be there.” I should have asked him if he thought Hitler would be there. There is in our current cultural zeitgeist this prevailing belief that no matter who you are or how you’ve lived your life here below, that the door of Heaven will be open wide upon your death and you will be warmly welcomed in. Whether you were a Christian, Muslim, Jew, atheist, skeptic, or a raving Satanist, chances are you’ll be just fine in the end. Indeed, our society is so open-minded that all of its brains have altogether fallen out. Let me make this abundantly clear: this is an evil, foolish, and deeply demonic doctrine that lulls into comfort and complacency billions of souls that are Hell-bound apart from the saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a worldview that promises joy without justification, salvation without sacrifice, peace without propitiation, rest without repentance, and above all it gives to sinful humanity the very thing they most desire: Heaven without the presence of a holy, holy, holy God. Our fallen world craves a form of Heaven that excludes God Himself. Little do they realize that, without the sovereign rule of a holy and good God, this ‘Heaven’ of theirs would soon turn into a Hell of their own making in no time at all. Without the presence of God in Heaven, it is nothing but a deserted and empty banquet hall; just another well-adorned tomb for sinful humanity to rot in. There is a genuine longing within fallen humanity that desires a world without sickness, suffering, war, crime, and death, but they refuse to acknowledge that such a world is only possible through the Lord they so vehemently deny and hate. These vile things exist because they have rebelled against Him. Well did Jesus diagnose their sickness: “For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them” (Matthew 13:15). What sinners ultimately want most is the freedom to sin apart from the just consequences of their sin. Indeed, “ And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil ” (John 3:19). Thus the desire for a Heaven that permits eternal, unending rebellion and debauchery; a Heaven that does not include God, the Giver of all good and perfect gifts. But for the Christian, we are still no nearer in answering my initial question than when we began: Why do you  want to go to Heaven? Is it to merely escape the judgement of Hell? If so, I should think that a weak motivation—for even the demons and the Devil himself are eager to flee their certain doom. Or perhaps your chief desire is to admire the New Heavens and the New Earth and tread upon those streets of gold? My friend, golden streets can only be walked on and pearly gates swung upon for so short a time before they too lose their glitter and shine. If you were to say that Heaven has your heart because of the loved ones awaiting you there, then I should say you were drawing closer to the mark, for I too have friends I long to see and hold again, but it still will not do—lest we make an idol of our friends and family who have died in the Lord, we must aim higher. And aim higher we shall. The Westminster Shorter Catechism begins with a question, indeed the question of questions. It goes like this: What is the chief end of man? Answer: Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever. There is no loftier destiny than this, dear brother and sister. To glory God by enjoying Him forever is not an inn we rest at before moving along with our journey—it is the very purpose for which we were made, the very purpose for which we were saved, and the scarlet thread that binds together the testimony of holy Scripture. That he might behold and savor the beauty of God was at the very heart of Moses’ cry when he asked of the Lord, “Please show me your glory” (Exodus 33:18). When the psalmist wrote, “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God” (Psalm 42:1), he was not thirsting for anything God might give him, but rather he was longing for the gift of God Himself. Later in the Psalms, Asaph gives voice to a thousand generations of saints when he cries out, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you” (Psalm 73:25). In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul joins in this chorus when he declares that, for him, “to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). In the Gospel of John as the Lord Jesus is giving His high priestly prayer, He makes clear the end and purposes of that life to come: “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). O, whom have I in Heaven besides Thee, my Rock and my Redeemer! This is the journey’s end— and beginning —of the soul saved in Christ. The promise of Jesus in Matthew 5:8 is the ultimate and infinite answer to the great longing of every believer’s soul: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” To see God as He is—to be seen and known and loved by Him—is the end for which we were made. There is nothing outside of this. To behold Christ’s infinite beauty, to converse with His matchless character, and to feast on His loveliness for unending ages lies at the heart of the believer’s deep ache for Heaven. Only an all-encompassing thirst for an infinite God can satiate the deep well of our souls. This desire swallows up within itself all other desires and gives them root, life, and a lasting, eternal purpose. To see God and be seen by Him— that, my dear Christian, is why you should want to go to Heaven. “ And as [Aslan] spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before. ” —C.S. Lewis in “Farewell to Shadowlands ”, the final chapter of The Chronicles of Narnia Photo by Jason W., Unsplash

“Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside His outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around His waist. Then He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around Him... When He had washed their feet and put on His outer garments and resumed His place, He said to them, ‘Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.’” —John 13:3-14, selected verses __ It may surprise you to learn there is a strong case to be made for Charles Spurgeon having been the most prolific writer in the history of the English language. That is, among all those who have ever written in English, Spurgeon may have penned and published the most words—ever. It was said that throughout his fifty-seven years, Spurgeon penned three lifetimes worth of material, be it drawn from his weekly sermons, lectures, letters, editorials, or roughly 150 books . As I write this, my collection of Spurgeon ’s sermons stare back at me (largely unread, I must admit) from my bookshelf—a mere ten volumes amongst the sixty-three published during his lifetime. In 1865, Spurgeon began his long-running magazine, The Sword and the Trowel, which he continued to write for and edit until his death in 1892 (might I add that the magazine is still running, though I cannot speak for its quality without Spurgeon at the helm). The Sword and the Trowel was to be an extension of Spurgeon ’s preaching ministry wherein, in addition to his many other exploits, Christ would continue to be proclaimed. In his own words, “We would ply the Trowel with untiring hand for the building up of Jerusalem’s dilapidated walls, and wield the Sword with vigour and valour against the enemies of the Truth.” When asked by David Livingstone, a missionary to Africa, how he could possibly accomplish so much, Spurgeon replied with his characteristic wit by saying, “You forget, Mr. Livingstone, there are two of us working.” Spurgeon, in imitation of and strengthened by his Lord and Teacher, poured himself out for the good of those God had entrusted to him. In my own work, I hope to accomplish for the Lord a tenth of a tenth that Spurgeon did in his own lifetime—indeed, that will be labor enough! It has long since been my custom to commit each piece I write to the Lord well before I ’ve written a single iota. Indeed, “ Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain ” (Psalm 127:1). May every word here abound for the Lord ’s glory and for the eternal good of those who would read it; that is my chief prayer each time I sit down to write, and doubtless it was Spurgeon’s well before. Bombard the hearer with scripture, and the Lord will do the rest. There was a time when I quite seriously considered calling this blog, as the title of this post might suggest, The Sword & The Towel. Not trowel, mind you, but towel. Drawing from Christ’s example in John 13 as He washed the disciples’ feet, it has consistently been my desire to pair humble service with the truth of God’s word in every piece I write. I want my words to be true and efficacious for Christ’s glory and your good not just a year from now, but a generation from now, a hundred years from now—an eternity from now. As a writer in submission to Christ, I feel it is my duty to ward off darkness and falsehood with “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17) while employing these words, as a towel about me, in ministering to the needs and cares of those who may read this blog. In all of this, my ultimate aim is that the fame, beauty, and love of Christ would increase, and that I would decrease (John 3:30), ever trusting that His word, the scriptures, will by no means return to Him void without first having accomplished His eternal purpose (Isaiah 55:11). When He returned to table after having washed the feet of the disciples ’, Jesus commanded us “to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14). In your walk with the Lord, how can you couple truth with love—the sword with the towel—in your service to the Lord and others? Whether you are a fellow writer, or perhaps a teacher, farmer, doctor, pastor, parent, student, janitor, or anything else in between, the Lord has use for you. The Lord by His Spirit has equipped the church with a myriad of spiritual gifts in the expectation that we use these gifts to glorify Him and build one another up. As brothers and sisters in the body of Christ, we accomplish this by first dutifully and prayerfully determining what those gifts may be. Then, by donning the mind of Christ as revealed in the word and by walking in step with His Spirit, we will soon find ourselves operating as the hands and feet of Christ Himself during our sojourn here. “For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep your from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:5-8). Meditate on how His Spirit has gifted you, seek His will in prayer and in the word, and ask Him how you might wield both the sword and the towel in His kingdom today. This is a joyful pursuit, for His glory and your best interest are never at cross purposes. Do not be surprised if the Lord should answer bountifully, for remember, “There are two of you working.” “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13). Photo by Daria Kraplak, Unsplash

“ Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters; yet your footprints were unseen ” (Psalm 77:19) . “When evening came, He was there alone, but the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. And in the fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea. But when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, ‘It is a ghost!’ and they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.’ And Peter answered Him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ He said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, ‘Lord, save me.’ Jesus immediately reached out His hand and took hold of him, saying to him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’ And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshipped Him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’” —Matthew 14:23-33 __ It is a humbling experience to share the Gospel with little children. They ask a lot of piercing questions; good, simple questions that insist upon straightforward answers. There is a sense in which little else better prepares you for sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ with others than by first trying to explain the Gospel clearly to a group of thirty kindergarteners sitting on the floor in front of you. Sharing these mighty truths with those who are so small requires humility. We must first ponder anew the simple truths of the Bible for ourselves, such that these realities can then be plainly communicated to little minds. This entails that we drop the ‘ Christianese ’ and preach the word as Jesus and the Apostles did: God is good and we are not (Romans 3:10), and because we are not good we rightly deserve death from the hands of a perfect and holy God (Romans 6:23a); but God, being rich in mercy and steadfast love (Ephesians 2:4), sent His one and only Son to die for sinners (John 3:16), such that all who despair of themselves and their empty deeds, turn from their sin, and believe that Christ died for them will not perish in judgement, but have eternal life and unending joy in the presence of God Himself (Romans 6:23b). Sharing the Good News with children ought to remind us that we, as adults, never outgrow the Gospel. Indeed, we shall never outgrow the Gospel : “ so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus ” (Ephesians 2:7). T he longer we walk here below with the Lord, we will become more sanctified and less sinful, yet we should grieve the lingering sin in ourselves all the more—even though there should less sin in our lives than a year ago, a decade ago, or many decades ago. As a dear mentor of mine used to encourage me when I first became a Christian, “The more like Christ we become, the more sin we will see in ourselves, even though there will be less of it.” That is, the more holy we become, the more we will see sin for what it truly is and hate it as God hates it. In this way, we will sin less and less as we mature in Christ, yet hate more and more the sin that so easily entangles us, even after a lifetime. In sanctification, as John MacArthur once said, it is the direction of your life, not the perfection of it, that counts. We are never to settle for less than perfection, less than the very righteousness of Christ Himself, but we must always remember that our salvation depends upon His perfection alone and not our own—“For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law” (Romans 3:28). As Charles Spurgeon once observed upon this very point, “It is not merely true that we were once Christ’s enemies and that we were also utterly insignificant and unworthy of His notice, but it is amazing that He should lay down His life for such unworthy friends, even as friends, as we are. There are some professing Christians who can speak of themselves in terms of admiration, but, from my inmost heart I loathe such speeches more and more every day that I live. Those who talk in such boastful fashion must be constituted very differently from me. While they are congratulating themselves upon all the good things that they find within themselves, I have to lie humbly at the foot of Christ’s Cross and marvel that I am saved at all, for I know that I am saved.” In the account of Jesus walking on the water towards His wind and wave-beaten disciples, we see an image of the Gospel so clear that any child could easily understand it. The roaring crescendo of rain, wind, and waves is howling all about the disciples, and they are gripped by an otherworldly fear—little do they know that the One with them, the One going about the storm unseen and unphased, is to be feared above all. Out from the doom and darkness of the raging deluge came the Lord, “who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea” (Job 9:8). The disciples, adrift in their fear and unbelief, could not see Him whose “ footprints were unseen ” through the great waters (Psalm 77:19) . In the midst of near destruction, it took only the soft cry of Peter— “Lord, save me”—to stir the Lord to action. There was no delay or deliberation on the part of the Lord; within an instant, as the words were upon Peter’s very lips, “Jesus immediately reached out His hand and took hold of him, saying to him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’” (Matthew 14:31). My dear friend, let not the long years and many troubles of this life so cloud your sight as to forget this simple truth: the Lord loves you. His hand and His heart are ever extended out towards those who are His, ready to draw them in and guide them towards home where all winds and waves will have finally ceased. Just as the storm by His gracious design thrust us into His embrace all those years ago when we first believed, so now does He permit the storm to rage on for a little while longer for purposes far beyond our understanding. We need only trust Him and cling to Him, though it be His grip on us that holds our souls fast. We serve a most tender and immediate Savior. Just as He marked the boundaries of the sea long ago when He laid out its foundations, so too does the Lord establish the beginning and end of the storms we face—“ Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed ” (Job 38:11). Great is our need, and greater still the great Christ to serve our need! And if you know Him not, you need only to recognize your great need for salvation from your sin and His great ability and desire to save. It took only the soft cry of Peter, “Lord, save me”, to stir the Lord to action. “ All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me I will never cast out ” (John 6:37). Here below, the storms will yet rage, but never lose sight of the Master of the storm. Oft His footprints go unseen in the midst of the storm; but rest assured, He is at work. Once we ’ re home, once the winds and waves have settled, all will be made well and clear. As the endless ages roll in that world to come, the Lord will continually unfold to us some new and wonderful revelation of His grace towards us. Some new jewel in the cross of Christ that we never before considered will be revealed, some new angle that previously went unnoticed and unappreciated, but so beautiful will it be that, upon once seeing it, it cannot be unseen—indeed, we will then wonder how we ever missed it, or considered the cross whole without it. “My little ship of faith did He / Securely, soundly make / He ruleth wind and sea and me / He never will forsake!” ( Zion’s Harp , number 313).

In my first year of university, I took a course titled “The World History of Crime”. The course played out just as the title suggests: we examined crime, punishment, and criminal justice across various societies throughout the annals of time, beginning with the Ancient Mesopotamians and ending with Hitler’s Nazi Germany.  My professor, a lawyer and former resident of the Soviet Union, was a well-read man who took the time to pour over ancient law codes and punishment practices to give us a comprehensive picture of global history through the lens of criminology. Though my professor himself may not have admitted it, the reality is that ever since brother struck brother outside of the Garden in humanity’s youth, our world has been consumed with crime, bloodshed, and violence. Our history, the story of humanity, is one of crime—crime against one another, and above all, cosmic treason against a holy God. But thanks be to God that, for those of us in Christ, our story does not end in misery; ours is a story of rags to riches, of dust to glory. While a good deal of that course is now lost from my memory, there is, however, one ancient punishment that I will not soon forget. In Ancient Rome, presumably before crucifixion became widespread, Emperors would in some cases punish convicted murderers by chaining them to the corpse of the person they had killed, binding the two in a dark dance until both were joined together in death. Virgil, the Roman Poet, describes the grotesque practice in this way: “The living and the dead at his command were coupled face to face, and hand to hand; Till choked with stench, in loathed embraces tied, The lingering wretches pined away and died.” I remember this particular method of execution so vividly because of the obvious bearing it has upon our understanding of the Christian life. Before God saved me, I was not an innocent man who happened to be chained to a dead sinner—I was both the dead man and the murderer. “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked” (Ephesians 2:1). Let ’ s forever banish the notion that when Christ saves us He delivers us from sin that is merely outside of us; no, it is from sin within our very hearts, the “ sins in which [we] once walked. ” Outside of Jesus Christ, we were both murderer and dead man bound together in one—dead men walking. But God. In the Lord Jesus Christ, I am no longer a dead man enslaved to sin and self, but “a new creation,” for the “old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (1 Corinthians 5:17). That great gulf between God and I has been bridged in the man Christ Jesus, God the Son, and I have now “put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator” (Colossians 3:9-10). Through the gospel of Christ, God as cosmic Emperor unchains us from death, rather than binding us eternally to it.  And yet, why is it that I feel I am choked daily with the stench of that old man? As though we are yet still, as Virgil put it, “in loathed embraces tied?” Why is it that, like Paul, the cry of my soul so often is, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24). When such thoughts arise, we must, as Paul did, preach the truth back into our minds: “Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25). Indeed, we must cultivate the daily habit of preaching to ourselves from the truth of Scripture, rather than listening to ourselves from the bottomless pit of our own deceitful flesh. Martin Lloyd-Jones made much of preaching to yourself with Scripture during his ministry: “Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?” However, we would be remiss to say that our thoughts in this case are entirely wrong. We are, as Paul makes clear throughout the book of Romans, people in whose flesh “nothing good dwells” (Romans 7:18). Make no mistake, our garments—our minds and flesh—are stained with sin. We are in Christ, yet the stench of that old man is never far-off. Paul himself wrestled with this tension daily. In Romans, he openly pens this struggle in such a way that all believers may find resonance in his words: “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (Romans 7:15).  Indeed, our thoughts according to the flesh are not deceitful merely because they tell us that we are wretched, for we are, but rather the mind of the flesh is deceitful because it proposes only doom and completely dismisses the finished work of Christ on our behalf. That is why we must preach to ourselves and not listen to ourselves. As believers in Christ, we are in a constant state of pilgrimage from this life into the next, “being renewed in knowledge after the image of [our] Creator”. As we get closer to our thrice-holy God, it is only natural that we begin to see, taste, and hate the indwelling presence of sin in ourselves more and more. But, no matter how much sin we see, we must always keep our hearts fixed on Christ. And yet, sometimes that voice within us is awfully loud. Sometimes, that dead man draws close to our face and with his rotting breath whispers into our ears, “There is no salvation for you in God” (Psalm 3:2). Whether it be the flesh, devil, or both shouting at us, the reality can so often be thus: we begin to doubt, to despair, and lose sight of our Lord amid the sound and fury of our own minds. The moment we take our gaze off Jesus and move it onto ourselves, our works, or our circumstances, we begin to stumble and fall amidst the waves of this life, just as Peter did upon the raging sea itself. As a young Christian, I wrestled with this dreaded foe we call ‘doubt’, with the very assurance of my salvation. I don’t recall how or why such doubts surfaced; one moment my newly blossoming life in Christ was making leaps and bounds and the next, I doubted. I did not doubt His ability or promise to save, mind you, but I doubted my own faith in Him, and I soon became overwhelmed with the torrents of my own sin around me and found my soul stumbling, sinking. It is one thing to realize and even taste for yourself the depths and depravity of your own sin, but it is another to doubt the promises of God. We may say that our doubt arises out of a despair over our own sin and not over His faithfulness—as I claimed when I was in the throes and pangs of doubt—but that simply will not do. To acknowledge your sin is one matter, but to obsessively fixate on it is another. Indeed, it is nothing but a form of unchecked self-pity, a shade of pride that ‘humbly’ swaths itself not as “holier than thou” but as “more wretched than thou.” In both instances the sin is the same: a preoccupation with self over Christ. Make no mistake, to claim that our own personal sin is somehow out of the bounds of God’s grace and Christ’s redeeming work is to doubt His character and promises. Self-pity is not piety, it is pride. When doubts arise, which they will from time to time, there is but one remedy: look unto Jesus. Indeed, the death of doubt is found only in the death of Christ. Not in our works or in the strength of our faith, but in Him. As the hymn goes, “Upon a life I have not lived, Upon a death I did not die, Another’s life, Another’s death, I stake my whole eternity.”   Assurance is found and secured in His finished work upon the cross whereby the Father has “forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:13-14). Cast your soul upon these truths, upon the reality that “a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ” (Galatians 2:16). As the great 18th-century evangelist George Whitfield so vehemently declared, “What! Get to heaven on your own strength? Why, you might as well try to climb to the moon on a rope of sand!” Look unto Jesus in the Gospels, and then take hold of these glorious truths through faith. And what is faith? As Dr. Stephen Yuille so wonderfully and simply puts it, “Faith is the hand of the soul by which we receive Christ and become one with Him.” This faith is not of our own meritorious concoction, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). We are saved by Him and for Him, secured eternally in the unbroken chain of salvation that Paul lays out: “And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified” (Romans 8:30).  Did you catch that, dear believer? Our ultimate glorification in the presence of Christ in eternity is in the past-tense, “He also glorified” —in the mind of God, our glorification is as good as done. And so, rest in the finished work of the Lord Jesus; let all doubt perish in the presence of not only His death, but His resurrection. Rest in the truth of both His promises and His character, for they are one and the same.  Cast yourself upon Him who died not only for many, but for men in particular—for you, and for me. When that dead corpse draws near, when your own thoughts spit out all manner of filth against the heart of Christ, pay no mind—these lies are but the lingering rattles of death in a flesh, Devil, and world that are passing away. Rather, rest in the words of God Himself, and preach them to your own soul: “And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me  and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

Like many of you, I ’ve often heard folks say something along these lines: “Well, in Biblical times  things like that used to happen, but not anymore.” More often than not, we use the phrase “Biblical times” in our conversations to denote some particularly miraculous time or event in Biblical history such as the flood, the exodus from Egypt, the halting of celestial bodies, or Jonah’s being swallowed by a great fish. That is, we tend to preface these weighty events by first categorizing them as having taken place in “Biblical times”—almost as though we feel a distinction must be made between that time and our own. I fear this is where we can go wrong in both our speaking and in our thinking, for the two go hand in hand. The way we think will manifest itself in the words we choose to use and, though perhaps more subtly, the reverse is also true. Since the Bible is true—not if, but since —what other time in history can there possibly be but those times which are, simply speaking, “Biblical times?” On the one hand, yes, Biblical times certainly refers to the time during which Biblical revelation unfolded; but, the entirety of Biblical prophecy has not yet come to pass—we are still living through the times and seasons anticipated by the Bible. Because the Bible is true and accounts for real history, such a distinction between then and now is not necessary: we’re still living in Biblical times. To help illustrate my point, perhaps I begin with an observation from my own life—or, perhaps it is more of a confession. I recently read through the book of Acts in my daily Bible devotions. Each time I move from one of the Gospel accounts into Acts, I am amazed at how seamlessly the transition is made between the Lord’s earthly ministry into what we’d now call “church history.” Because we are presently in the age of the church, there is a sort of familiarity that can be felt between our time and the time of the Apostles—a familiarity that, while it may not be complete kinship, is easier to adopt than putting ourselves into the shoes of, say, Adam and Eve or another larger-than-life figure like Noah. And yet, while I was reading Acts I would occasionally wrestle with this nagging thought that Acts felt “realer” than some of the other books I had just finished. Having spent some time studying church history over the past year, there was a degree of comfort I felt among the pages of Acts that was sorely lacking anytime I delved into the far more ancient world of the Old Testament. I know that the book of Genesis—and every other Biblical account—is just as historically true as the book of Acts, and yet I found within myself this subtle, seemingly imperceptible, distinction being made in my mind and, upon this realization, repented of it. From a purely observational perspective, I do not think it incorrect to say that there is a distinction that occurs between the Gospel of John and the book of Acts. However, this distinction is not one of truthfulness or accuracy but rather of content and revelation. Afterall, John ’s Gospel marks the end of the fourth and final Gospel account, culminating in the Lord’s resurrection, ascension, and promise to return for a second time, and swiftly at that—“Surely I am coming soon” (Revelation 22:20). Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension marked a pivotal turning point in world history; and in that way, it rightly marked a distinction between what came before and what followed. Just as the Old Testament looked forward to Christ’s ministry, so too does the rest of the New Testament keep looking back to it—indeed, it is the very nucleus of not just redemptive history, but history itself. Just as there is a revelatory divide between Genesis and Exodus, or Malachi and Matthew, so too can one be observed between John and Acts. In light of Christ’s redeeming work as presented in the Gospels, the age of the church begins to take form as the book of Acts unfolds. In the book of Acts, the Lord continues His work; not as He did while on earth throughout the Gospels, but through His Holy Spirit in the building of His church, ushering in this latter part of human history. In this way, it can be said, to some degree, that Biblical times gives way to the age we are currently living in—the age of the church. Only, I should wonder that if by thinking in this way—in terms of Biblical times giving way to church history—we betray the unity of divinely inspired Scripture and history as a whole. As though such a distinction subtly untethers us from the deep and abiding roots of the Christian faith. And by roots I do not merely mean the Apostles, early church fathers, and first Christian martyrs, but those who came long before even them: Abraham, Moses, David, and the countless others who were used by the Lord throughout Biblical history in the unfolding of His redemptive plan for mankind through Jesus Christ. To say we are now in the age of the church is absolutely correct, but let us never disconnect this age from the one that came before; or, for that matter, from the one which is to soon come. Within the vast tapestry of Biblical history, the Lord God is weaving together many threads; each age and time, whether of the Patriarchs, Moses, or David, serving as a crucial piece in a larger whole. We are now in what the Bible calls “the last days” (namely, the generations immediately following the work of Christ in the Gospels) but we are not yet in the very last of the last days—that is yet to come, and swiftly at that, “Behold, I am coming like a thief!” (Revelation 16:15). And yet the lot of us, from Adam to Abraham to your Applebee’s server, are still living in Biblical times. As twenty-first century Christians, we are living between the bookends of Acts and Revelation. Though divine inspiration of the Bible has ceased, there are many events foretold in Scripture that are yet to take place. And because the Biblical account of history in Revelation bleeds into the plains of eternity, there is a very real sense in which we shall always be living in Biblical times. The book of Revelation ends with the church’s joining Christ in the New Heavens and the New Earth, a glorious love story that shall run uninterrupted into eternity such that, “ as organs in the Body of Christ, as stones and pillars in the temple, we are assured of our eternal self-identity and shall live to remember the galaxies as an old tale ” (C.S. Lewis speaks at length about this topic in his essay, “Membership”). To end where we began, Paul in the book of Acts shares the Gospel with the men of Athens by appealing to their place in human history—which is to say, God ’s story. Standing in the Areopagus , Paul says: “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward Him and find Him. Yet He is actually not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:24-27). Our place in history—who our parents will be, where we ’ll be born and raised, our first school and earliest childhood friends, continuing into adulthood and the rest of our lives—has been determined by God before the ages began. There is a direct line that can be drawn from the first man, Adam, through Biblical times and into our own day: “And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place.” To what end? That all mankind “should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward Him and find Him.” Do you feel lost and overwhelmed when you look at history, especially Biblical history? Do you find yourself easily bewildered as you peer down the annuls of time to ages long past and seemingly alien from our own? Take heart, brother and sister, for God intends that in our study of history—Biblical history, of which we take part—we see a familiar face: the face of our loving Lord building His church throughout the ages into our present day. History may change, but our Lord and His purposes do not. Throughout all of redemptive history, the Lord Jesus Christ is calling sinners unto Himself. The good news of who Jesus is and that lost sinners can find salvation in His name serves as the bridge, the very connecting fabric, between then and now—just as He serves as the bridge between now and the things to come. We’re still living in Biblical times and praise God we always will be. “The cross, though it has at its head a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without altering its shape. The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travelers.” —G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy Photo by Hu Chen, Unsplash