Chesterton & McAtee On The Meaning Of Apparel

“All women dress to be noticed: gross and vulgar women to be grossly and vulgarly noticed, wise and modest women to be wisely and modestly noticed.”

G. K. Chesterton

It’s been a beef of mine for quite some time about the way we post-moderns dress. We are far removed from the class and the Haute couture of previous generations. It all bespeaks a coarsening of the human condition… a continuation of our disintegration downward into the void.

And now it is not enough to be ill-kempt in our dressing attire, now we seek out being ill-kempt in our own flesh with our comparatively recent fascination in the West with tattoos and  body piercings.

Of course all of this is especially desultory on women as they are were created to be the fairer sex. It is one thing if one is living in a old shack to have torn and ugly furniture. It’s quite another thing if one is living in an upscale and higher end home to have it decorated like Berlin in May of 1945. God created women to be bearers of beauty as among mankind but today countless numbers of them dress like they are trying to star in a Jackson Pollack painting. One has a hard time today discerning a band of women at a shopping center from the crew of the fictional Whaler ship made famous as the “Pequod” from the novel “Moby Dick.”

I would go so far as insisting that the coarseness of our culture is perhaps best captured by the coarseness of our women-folk. Now, of course, as men are the head and creators of every culture (whether by abdication of their responsibilities to lead or by active leading askew) men are ultimately responsible for a culture populated by women covered in ink, pierced with metal, and dressed in spandex. When I was a boy, one could only see what I see daily by going to the circus or the county fair.

Look, I know that our women-folk have been led astray and so aren’t alone responsible for the ways they seek to de-beautify themselves. When living in a madhouse culture we can hardly be surprised when people begin to think that the madhouse is the norm and so follow the customs and norms of the madhouse. If a young lady sees her friends, peers, and elders looking like skin calligraphy is the hip thing one can hardly alone fault the innocent naive who have few better role models to not want to get pierced, inked, and trolloped in order to fit in with the madhouse culture.

I look at old photos of America from just two generations ago and it is like looking at another reality. Recently, I came across the photo of a major league baseball game in the late 1960s and I was amazed by the number of attendees who were wearing ties and suit jackets as well as the number of women wearing dresses. It was clear that the way they dressed then proves how coarsened we have become as a people. Another example is the way folks dress for church. Growing up we understood what “Sunday go to church clothes” meant. Nearly everyone was dressed in the best they owned. I have photos somewhere around here of me as a child with my Sunday School class with all of us 5 year olds all dressed up for church full of grins and sas.

None of this is to necessarily say people were better or more moral then. Often times dressing appropriately was a hypocrisy that was paying its coin to virtue, but people understood dressing like a vagrant was not acceptable. Even if all that finery in attire was hypocrisy, better the hypocrisy then, than the outright in your face non-hypocrisy that we have today. We could use a little hypocrisy in the way we dress.

So, our attire is just one more piece of evidence that we, as a people, are declining. What we wear, accouterments and all, screams volumes about us and screams volumes about what we think about God. There is theology being revealed in the way we dress (or don’t dress).

Doug Wilson’s Ongoing Gnosticism

“There is nothing bigoted in recognizing that certain cultures are superior to others… but they are superior only by grace & through grace.”

Doug Wilson
Pope of CREC

It’s hard to believe that this complete lack of intelligence passes for “deep thinking” by today’s clergy. Perhaps, equally as bad, is the fact that so few catch how thoroughly torpid this statement is.

First, that grace account for the superiority of one culture over another is banal because grace accounts for the superiority of anything over anything else. Whether we have been given ten talents, five talents, or two talents in any area is always only a matter of grace. God doesn’t owe any of us anything. So, Wilson’s statement is a NSS Captain Obvious statement that is right up there with the observation that “the Pope is Roman Catholic.”

Second, the person with a below average IQ would respond by noting that just as superiority of culture is all by grace so superiority of race is all by grace. As  ICor. 4:7 explicitly teaches; “What do you have that you did not receive?”  All blessings, talents, and abilities are gracious gifts from God. This is true of race and culture as well. Regardless of any superiorities we have — including our race and/or culture it is the truth that we are what we are by grace that keeps us from a selfish pride.

Third, to suggest (as Wilson is doing here) that one can have superiority of cultures by grace while still insisting that race has nothing to do with culture has to be the apex of Gnostic thinking. Culture doesn’t drop from the sky. According to God’s providence culture is the product of who a people are genetically as combined with what they believe about God. As peoples  think in their heart so they are.  Culture is driven by God’s grace in race and could not exist apart from race. To deny this is outright gnosticism.

Wilson’s attempt to divorce grace from race and race from culture are false dichotomies. If one culture can be, due to grace, superior over another culture than one race can also be, due to grace, superior to another. After all, reproduction does not exist outside of God’s divine sovereignty.

Keep in mind here that Gnosticism was the earliest and most effective heresy in Church history. It was so effective because it could often sound so much like Christianity and yet it was not Christianity.
 

The Racial Casting Of The Gladiator II – A Film Review (Spoiler Alert)

I am a bit of a film buff. Part of the reason for that is that film is so influential in our culture in shaping worldviews. As such, I like to view films to see what exact paganism is being communicated by writers, directors, and producers in our films.

For quite some time now a large part of my analysis of films is racial. That is I look for what race is being cast into what role and then ask “why was that racial profile cast into that particular role?” When one does that one can often see how routinely white people are being replaced in our myth telling. Also, white people often play the villain or doofus part in Hollywood films with minorities playing the hero roles who stop the bad guy white man. A classic example of this was the remake of the Magnificent 7 which found Denzel Washington playing the chief good guy minority coming to the rescue of a bunch of sheep white townspeople. Denzel Washington, in that film is joined by a bevy of 3 other minorities (A Mexican gunslinger, an Injun outcast, and a Chinaman knife specialist), along with a coward White Southerner (who finally finds his courage at the very end of the film), a White right hand man who is always picking on the Mexican minority gunslinger and a White Mountain man who is clearly portrayed as a Jesus freak who hates injuns.

Recently, a film that did not receive particularly good reviews, seemed to find a anti-Woke, pro White message. That film was “Gladiator 2.” Once again we find Denzel Washington in a key role in the film but this time Washington ends up playing a villain whose death, at the hands of the white hero of the film, ends up re-establishing the heroic White man as the head of a renewed Roman Civilization.

If one interprets “The Gladiator 2” through this racial prism it is not a wonder that it was given such bad ratings. Interpreted via a racial grid the film suggests that while minorities almost overthrow white civilization in the end they fail after white man embraces his heritage identity.

The film gives us a Rome that has white twin brother Emperors who are both obviously effeminate with one obviously sodomite. These twins are destroying white Roman civilization with their perverted excesses. At one point in the film one brother says of the other brother; “the sickness in his loins as gone to his brain.” Clearly, the message of the film to this point is that the white man has lost his way as seen in this perversion and its wicked colonizing of other nations.  As the film opens Rome is attacking Numidia. A famous Numidian of the era “Juguruth” has been cast as a black man and the white Romans make the injured “Juguruth” a gladiator and kill him off in a battle in the Coliseum.

The character that Denzel Washington plays connives to murder the twin white effeminate Emperor brothers so that he might become the ruler of all of Rome. Washington’s character’s (Macrinus) murder of the white Roman emperors is particularly vicious and looks a great deal like the violence we see today by blacks against whites.

The Denzel Washington character (Macrinus) is through and through Machiavellian in his rise to power. First Macrinus outwits a stupid White Senator to get into position to get next to the effeminate Emperors  and then he outwits the whole white Senate as well as the effeminate Emperors so as to be on the cusp of ruling white Rome.

Much as where the West is now, the white man in the film has become feminized and minorities look to seize the throne from the white man with his effeminate leadership.

However, hope blooms because there remain some white Romans who retain their heritage white identity. The heroes in the film are two white men and a white woman. The son of Maximus (and Grandson of Marcus Aurelius) from the first Gladiator film, (Lucius Verus Aurelius) is a man of integrity and is opposed to both the white effeminate brother Emperors and the black gladiator entrepreneur (Washington’s character) who is seeking to rule Rome. Joining Lucius in the attempt to stop the bad guy Emperors and Macrinus (the Black character) is a Roman General (Acacius) who has done the bidding of the effeminate white brother Emperors in conquering countless nations but has hated them every step of the way for how they have ruined Rome with their sexual perversion and invading of other nations.

These two men are joined by the mother of Lucius Verus Aurelias and wife of Acacius — a white woman with the character name, “Lucilla.” Like every major character in the film she hates the white effeminate Emperor brothers and she plots their overthrow. Lucilla and Acacius end up giving up their lives in order to overthrow the effeminate Emperors in hopes that Lucius will reign because of his royal bloodline. However neither know that Macrinus is about to seize power. It is left to Lucius to defeat the evil bisexual black man (Macrinus) in order for white rule to be maintained over white Rome. In the mano vs. mano final battle Lucius kills Macrinus while all of the white Roman army looks on waiting for who they will follow.

In this film the bisexual black man (Macrinus) is cast as the chief villain who is seeking to kill off white rule so that he can rule over the white empire of Rome. However, the film, while clearly showing how vile and stupid white rule in Rome has become, still suggests that minority rule can be stopped by the rise of two white men and a white woman who still retain their original white Roman heritage identity.

It is not a wonder why the ratings were so low for this film.

The Book Of Acts & The Preaching Theme of Resurrection & The Kingdom of God – Easter 2025

 Luke 24:44 He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”

45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

Acts 1:1 In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 3 After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. 4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with[a] water, but in a few days you will be baptized with[b] the Holy Spirit.”
6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

This morning as we consider the Resurrection of our magnificent Lord Jesus Christ I want to fix in your minds the relationship between the Resurrection of Christ and the Kingdom of God as well as the relationship of our resurrection in Christ and the Kingdom of God. The point I am laboring to sustain is that the Resurrection itself had a teleos … a purpose, and the purpose of the Resurrection was to provide the beginning point of the extension of the long anticipated Kingdom of God.

In getting started we want to define our terms.

When we talk about Resurrection we mean here;

“God’s act to raise, first Christ, and then his people from the dead to a bodily and glorified eternal life in the new creation.”

When we talk about the Kingdom of God here we mean;

“The total reign of God in the hearts and lives of men.”

What we will be laboring to demonstrate from the Scriptures is that there is the tightest and most intimate relationship between the idea of resurrection and the idea of the Kingdom of God. God’s people had for millennia been looking for the Kingdom of God and with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ the Kingdom has arrived as inaugurated.

This is so true that there is no understanding resurrection apart from its foundation for the presence of God’s Kingdom and there is no understanding of the present Kingdom of God that does not begin with Christ’s resurrection.

The manner in which we will accomplish this is by first noting the tight relationship between these two as seen by a top down overview the preaching of the disciples in the book of Acts. We will see there that in the book of Acts the two main themes of their preaching was the Resurrection and the Kingdom of God and further how that preaching was greeted by the opposing Kingdoms that it had arisen to challenge.

(((From there next week we will begin with Genesis and we will demonstrate, block upon block, how resurrection and the Kingdom of God were present as a motif in the OT – often as typologically presented and perhaps along the way we will learn somewhat of what this Kingdom was to look like.)))

So, having mapped out what we are doing and how we will be doing it we turn to the book of Luke-Acts.

 Lk. 24:45-47

45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

Here we find the resurrected Jesus describing Himself as the Messiah. By doing so He has identified Himself as a King. This great King opens the minds of the apostles to understand the Scriptures about the suffering, resurrection and proclamation of forgiveness of sins in His name. The Resurrected King intends to bring people into a Kingdom through the preaching of the Disciples whom Jesus declares “are his witnesses.”

The fact that this Kingship of Jesus – proven as it is by His resurrection – is global is seen in his command to the disciples that “the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. “

As we move to Acts we find the Kingdom of God once again being emphasized by the Resurrected King;

“He (Jesus) presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. (Acts 1:3)

These verses together reveal that the resurrected savior centered his post-resurrection appearances on the Kingdom of God and that this Kingdom of God is not merely a provincial affair but is global in its outreach. The Kingdom of God led by His Mediatorial King covers the globe.

On this Resurrection Sunday we have again to realize that the Resurrected Christ is intent on the Christian faith being a global affair. This Global reach of the Christian faith is emphasized in Matt. 28 in the great commission where the disciples are commanded to disciple the nations and it will be emphasized again by the Resurrected Jesus when after being asked if he were now at that time going to restore the Kingdom to Israel tells His disciples in Acts 1:6;

7  “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

I submit to you that the Great King Jesus never intended for the Church to be on its heels in a defensive posture. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords upon being resurrected inaugurated a present Kingdom that was intended to be a reality that would cover the globe. To be sure resistance would be met – and the book of Acts tells of that resistance but the resistance to the ever present Kingdom, in the end, is always overcome.

This is a truth we need to be reminded of. The Resurrection means the Kingdom of God has been inaugurated. We are not waiting for the Kingdom of God to yet come in the some future time. In the resurrection of Christ the Kingdom has come. Now, that present Kingdom has also has a future component so that we are await the full bloom of that bud already present, but the Kingdom has come and is present about us.

We see the advance of that Kingdom throughout the books of Acts. The Church is formed as what we might call the armory of the Kingdom. It is in the Church that we come learn of the character of the King, of what the Kingdom looks like, and of what it means to disciple the nations but the Church is not the whole Kingdom of God but only its armory. In and with the Church we learn to put on the whole armor of God. In the Church we learn what it means to take every thought to make them obedient to the great King. In the Church we take every thought captive to make them obedient to Christ. In the Church we learn from the Scriptures that we have been translated from the Kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of God’s dear Son whom He loves. So, the Church is instrumental to the Kingdom but it is not the whole of the Kingdom. The Kingdom extends beyond the walls of the Church so that eventually, over the course of time, the present Kingdom that the Resurrected Jesus brought out of the grave with Him covers the nations as the waters cover the sea.

The resurrected Jesus brings in the inaugurated Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of God finds its armory in the Church and from that armory the Kingdom expands into every area of life. Jesus is a great King who brings all domains under His sway and rule – and that more and more explicitly so as His Kingdom advances over time and in the context of the obedience of His people walking in terms of the King’s Law-Word.

We see the effect of that Kingdom that Jesus brings in affecting more and more areas. In the family realm we find in the NT that whole households are Baptized coming in as Households into the Kingdom of God. In Acts 17 the Resurrected Jesus and the Kingdom of God is such a threat to Thessalonica we read (and note the explicit relationship between Resurrection and Kingdom here;) In Thessalonica Paul

explains and demonstrates that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, saying, “This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ.”

This message is getting traction until Jews using evil men stir up resistance and go looking for Paul and Silas;

6But when they could not find Paul and Silas, they dragged Jason and some other brothers before the city officials, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have now come here, 7and Jason has welcomed them into his home. They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, named Jesus!”

Did you catch that? They come preaching the Resurrected Christ and everyone understands them to be preaching another King besides Caesar … the great resurrected King Jesus.

In the social-order realm there in Athens in Acts 17 we find Paul as the Resurrected King’s ambassador speaking to the Athenians about their Idols that are governing their social-order and culture and we see Paul by use of Scripture and Holy Logic tearing down those Idols that the Kingdom of God may advance over the social-order of the Athenians. In Acts 19 we find the Kingdom of God being a threat to the Economic order of the Ephesians as the presence of the witness of Christ seeks to over turn the Economic foundation of the city pinned, as it was in the making of idols; As I read this note the economic overtones in the passage;

23 About that time there arose a great disturbance about the Way. 24 A silversmith named Demetrius, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought in a lot of business for the craftsmen there. 25 He called them together, along with the workers in related trades, and said: “You know, my friends, that we receive a good income from this business. 26 And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that gods made by human hands are no gods at all. 27 There is danger not only that our trade will lose its good name, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited; and the goddess herself, who is worshiped throughout the province of Asia and the world, will be robbed of her divine majesty.”

The Kingdom of the Resurrected King is chronicled in the book of Acts and wherever the preaching of the Kingdom goes the Resurrected King and His law-Word is preached and wherever the Resurrected King and His Kingdom is Preached there you find conflict and conversion.

On this resurrection Sunday we continue to preach the Resurrected King who inaugurates the Kingdom of God and we continue to receive the same kind of reward that those who preached the resurrection and the Kingdom received in the 1st century.

But we have gotten ahead of ourselves haven’t we? Back to the earlier book of Acts and its testimony that the preaching of the Resurrection of Christ and the Kingdom of God go together like peas and carrots.

In Acts 3 where the Apostles heal the lame man they heal the long lame beggar in the name of the resurrected Christ;

 “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” 7 Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. 8 He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God

This miracle is present in the Acts text to demonstrate the presence of the Kingdom. The thing we need to keep in mind here is that the OT itself connected healing and wholeness with the Kingdom of God;

In Isaiah 35:5-6, for example, it says:

And when he (Messiah) comes, he will open the eyes of the blind
and unplug the ears of the deaf.
The lame will leap like a deer,
and those who cannot speak will sing for joy!
Springs will gush forth in the wilderness,
and streams will water the wasteland.

By this healing ministry in the name of the resurrected Jesus, the Apostles demonstrate that the Kingdom of God has arrived and the expectation is that people will bow to the resurrected King in whose name and by whose authority these miracles are being done.

The thing we want to emphasize though is the Resurrected Christ means the presence of the Kingdom and the presence of the Kingdom means that God is ruling now through His and our great mediatorial King. That same King who resurrected from the grave and who inaugurated the Kingdom of God remains the great King in 2025 and that Kingdom He inaugurated remains a present Kingdom now.

Even before we get to this healing in Acts 3 the same connection between Resurrection and Kingdom is spoken up in Acts 2. There we learn that because the King of God’s Kingdom – Jesus – is alive He now reigns as the Father’s mediatorial King.

Peter proves this conclusion for us in his very first post resurrection sermon in Acts 2

In that Pentecost sermon, Peter declares that when David wrote Psalm 16:27 he was prophesying about Jesus’ resurrection as the true king of God’s kingdom,

“he (David) foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses”

(Acts 2:31–32).

Peter reaches his crescendo a few versus later when he exclaims,

Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified (Acts 2:36).

The idea that God has made Jesus Christ includes the idea of King and God has confirmed Jesus to be Lord and Christ by the resurrection.

Jesus’ resurrection proves he is the rightful mediatorial king of God’s kingdom. And if the king is here, the kingdom of God is here. King Jesus conquered death and lives forever. And because he lives forever, he reigns forever. And because he reigns forever, his kingdom, God’s kingdom, will never end. As the king goes, so goes the kingdom.

So, we see that from the book of Acts that the resurrection of Jesus is fused together with the message of the Kingdom? Not enough evidence yet for y’all? Well we turn to Acts 13 where once again we see these twin motifs of Resurrection and Kingdom walking together. There Paul says that “those of Jerusalem put Jesus to death, (26-29)” and goes on to say “But God raised Him from the dead (vs. 30).

Paul continues on in that passage speaking of the Resurrection citing Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 55:3 and then again from David’s 16th Psalm; “You will not allow your Holy One to see corruption.” But in that Sermon from Acts 13 we also read about the Kingship of the Resurrected one

23 From this David’s seed, according to the promise, God raised up for Israel a Savior—Jesus

The mentioning of David’s seed reminds us of God’s promise that David would always have his descendant upon the throne. The reference to Jesus as “Savior” also points to a deliverer – that is a King who would rescue His people.

Then in vs. 38-39 in this sermon of Paul from Acts 13 the Holy Spirit fuses the idea of resurrection and Kingship together by preaching;

“Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses” (vs. 38-39).

The resurrected Savior and Kingly seed of David brings freedom from sin and brings in the inaugurated Kingdom.

These are only a few places in Acts where we see the marriage of Resurrection and the Kingdom of God. If one goes to Acts 5 we hear these words of Peter upon being told to shut up about the message. Listen for the combination of Christ as Prince and the Resurrection;

29 But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: “We ought to obey God rather than men. 30 The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. 31 Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. 32 And we are His witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him.”

We have only hit the highlights this morning of the theme of the preaching of the early Church. That preaching was that the Resurrected Christ was the great King of the Line of David whose resurrection confirmed the presence of the Kingdom of God. The Resurrection of Christ means the Kingdom has come.

This present Kingdom has come has inaugurated and by that we mean that there is a fullness of the Kingdom that remains yet to arrive. But the Kingdom inaugurated means there is a immediacy … a nowness to the Kingdom of God. A nowness that could not be a reality if it were not for the resurrection of Jesus the Christ.

Because the Kingdom of God is inaugurated by Christ it is not something that we are still waiting for to arrive at some yet future point. Christ has brought in the Kingdom and we have been, as Paul says, translated from the Kingdom of Darkness to the Kingdom of Gods’ dear Son whom He loves. We are in this Kingdom now. We have been united with the Resurrected one as Paul teaches in Romans 6 and being united with the Resurrected one we too are now living resurrected lives in the newness of the Father’s Kingdom. Unlike those who know not Christ we are not dead men walking but we are the resurrected saints who put off the old man and put on the new man created in Christ.

This Kingdom of Christ is an expansive Kingdom that is not limited to the confines of the Church. As a mustard seed the inaugurated Kingdom of God expands and expands. Like the cut out Rock in Daniel the Kingdom of God smashes all other Kingdoms that resist it.

As we have seen in the book of Acts the declaration of the Resurrected Christ and the presence of the Kingdom challenged political alignments, social-order climates, family life, and economic arrangements. The Resurrected Christ inaugurated a Kingdom that was totalistic in its expanse. This Kingdom of Christ that the Resurrected Christ inaugurates finds the Church as its armory for the equipping of the saints, finds the church as the Kingdom hospital for the saints where the cure of the Gospel can be found for those who know they are sinners, and finds the church as a gymnasium of the Kingdom where the Saints are built up in Christ. The Church is all this in the Kingdom but the Church can not be identified solely with the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God impacts every area of life where God’s people are called to be salt and light. The Church is the advance guard of the Kingdom and it knows that the gates of Hell cannot prevail against it. Because the inaugurated Church is present with the Resurrected Christ we can confidently pray;

Thy Kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth
As it is in heaven

The resurrection of the King has reached us… has caught us up in its tornado force gales. We now have been resurrected with Christ as Ephesians 2 teaches:

Eph. 2:4But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved! 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,

So not only has Christ been resurrected and is the mediatorial King of the Kingdom of God but it is also the case that by the power of the Holy Spirit those who have been irresistably called by Christ and who own Christ likewise have been resurrected with Christ so as to now live the inaugurated resurrected life.

And we are now prophets, priests, and kings under sovereign God. We are those who herald Christ and command all men everywhere to repent and kiss the King lest he be angry and they perish in the way.

This is the preaching of the book of Acts and the Scriptures and this is what Resurrection Day means. As you can see it is both comfort and summons. Comfort because nothing can undo what God has done in the Resurrection of Christ. Comfort because Christ has named us and owned us and thus nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

But it also is a summons… a summons of all God’s people to contend for the Crown Rights of Jesus Christ in every area of life. This is no area … no academic discipline … no career calling .. where this resurrected King does not point to saying … MINE. Will we live in terms of the Resurrected King’s Kingdom?

There are any number of people in the Christian Church who will not agree with this message. They will insist that I have what they call “a over-realized eschatology.” In other words they will accuse me of seeing that the Kingdom is too present now while not appreciating enough the not-yetness of the Kingdom. To such people I can only say that I think the real problem is that your eschatology is too under-realized. You do not appreciate the transformative effects of Biblical Christianity once it takes hold of people. You do not understand the intent of what it means for the Resurrected Christ to rule until all things are brought under His feet. You are not mindful of the expansive power of the Kingdom – of how big that mustard tree will become .. of how a little leaven leavens through the whole loaf. You have not plumbed the meaning of “the gates of Hell shall not prevail.” You have underestimated the desire of the Resurrected King that the Nations should be discipled. To those who say my eschatology is over-realized all I can urge you to ruminate upon the meaning of our praying…

“Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

The Right Response Ministries & Their Wrong Response To Praying For a “Good Pope”

Joel Webbon’s “Right Response” group has a podcast session where they encourage Protestant to pray that the next Pope of Rome would be a “good” Pope. It seems they especially want to see a Pope who would oppose mass migration and who would oppose sexual perversion. The group further refers to other differences between Rome and Protestants as merely being differences that are “this, that or the other.”  They refer to a need for a “good Pope — a godly man who stands firm…”

What are these Baptists smoking?

Good Pope? That’s like saying; “healthy processed fast foods,” or, “conservative sodomite,” or “benevolent dictator.” Some words just can’t be put together without causing severe mental disorientation to those who have not yet been plagued with madness.

I can see praying for a “Good Pope,” if by that one means that they are praying for a Pope to come to power who will dismantle the whole Christ denying idolatrous blasphemy that Rome is. Seriously, anybody whAllo can string the words Good Pope together with “a godly man” need to return to Church history 101.

I suppose if the Right Response team had said; “If you are a Protestant you can pray for a Pope who will be comparatively less bad than other Popes,” I could understand but the idea of a “good Pope,” who is a “godly man” indicates that some people don’t understand their un-doubted catholic Christian faith. Might as well pray for a good bout of herpes.

All of this reminds me of C. S. Lewis’ “Prince Caspian” Novel where the Old Narnians are on the cusp of being defeated by the Telemarines. In that novel a villainous dwarf named “Nikabrik” resolves to overcome looming defeat at the hands of the Telemarines by summoning for the old nemesis of the Narnians, “the Great White Witch.” Nikabrik is confident that she will help to defeat the hated Telemarines. It’s the old “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” strategy. However, the White Witch, while an enemy of the Telemarines was not friend to the Old Narnians.

In the same way the Baptists on the Right Response podcast want to find aid from a “Good Pope” in order to hold off our current New World Order Telemarines. This is not sound strategy. What matters it if the West is rolled over by the New World Order or if it is rolled over by a reinvigorated Roman Catholicism? One of those in the discussion (Wesley?) even suggested what a wonderful thing it might be if a Good Pope could bring back the millions who have left Rome because of false Pope Francis. Is Wesley sane? Should he be allowed a voice of influence? Protestant don’t want millions going back to the shackles of Rome all because there might once again be a “Good Pope.”

Anybody who reads Iron Ink with any regularity knows that I am all about Christianity covering the globe. I am all about the Church going forward to conquer the enemies of Christ. However, that cannot be done by embracing an organization and a Pope who does not have the Gospel. There is no such thing as a “Good Pope.” This kind of reasoning of Right Response is to put the cart before the horse. We are not going to recover the West by looking to Institutions that have officially condemned the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

During his life time the great J. C. Ryle warned that the Anglican Church embracing Roman Catholicism would destroy England. He was right. In the same way we are correct in saying that the Christian faith looking for help from a “Good Pope” would finally completely destroy the West. For Pete’s Sake the West was only saved by being done with all Popes.