Sermons – Iron Ink

The Embrace of Lilithism

Titus 2:1 But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine: 2 that the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience; 3 the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things— 4 that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.

We start up with this passage by insisting again that we have been duped in the language wars. We are speaking about what is been dubbed “feminism,” but as we noted last week that is definitely an example of Orwellian Newspeak. We have in feminism a definitional inversion of reality.

Consider that once upon a time the word feminine was defined as

FEM’ININE, adjective [Latin femininus, from femina, woman. The first syllable may be and probably is from wemb or womb, by the use of f for w; the b not being radical. The last part of the word is probably from man, quasi, femman, womb-man.]

1. Pertaining to a woman, or to women, or to females; as the female sex.

2. soft; tender; delicate. Her heavenly form angelic, but more soft and feminine

Now, when considering feminism there is nothing at all feminine about feminism. Indeed feminism pours limitless contempt on all femininity, and commends women to adopt all the brashest and basest behaviors of men. Which in turn, reveals Feminism to be the purest form of Misogyny. For this reason we have adopted the more accurate term of Lilithism.

Though we have restricted ourselves to looking at Lilithism in the home, per the passage, we should note in passing that Lilith is on the rise in all of our institution. Just this week Rev. Larry Ball sent me an article he wrote for a Presbyterian denomination website. In that article Rev. Ball complained,

Secondly, the rise of functional female elders and deacons in the PCA is symptomatic of the sinful equality inherent in Marxism. God created man and woman different and there is a godly and biblical hierarchy in this creation. Yet, the PCA continues to try to put out fires in various churches where this unbiblical equality of men and women raises its ugly head. Again, Marxist equality is creeping into the PCA.

So, the Lilithism that we are exposing again this morning finds itself dominating elsewhere besides our family orders.

As we come to this passage again this week we have need to point out something we left unsaid last week. We did not mention how untoward this passage is in terms of modern Lilith thinking. Here we find Paul, a man, writing to another man “Titus,” on how to speak and instruct older women. Didn’t St. Paul and the Holy Spirit know that a man can never speak to a woman on woman issues? After all what does a man know about being a woman? Yet, despite this modern well known fact that only women can speak to women about women issues, Paul has the temerity as a man to tell another man to tell even older women how to behave as women.

This is yet another reason why this passage and others like it so irritate modern day Lilith women. Where does a man get off in telling women how to behave as women? Had not Paul or Titus ever seen the T-Shirts that say, “It’s a woman thing. You wouldn’t understand.”

So, with that said we pick up from last week and remind ourselves that this passage is not about men being superior to women. We freely admitted last week that in a non-crazed social order women are superior to men at being women just as men are superior to women at being men. So, none of this is about one sex being superior to another. Clearly men and women are therefore not equal. What we have been considering is merely about the roles that God has assigned respectively to men and women.

And this passage is one passage that points us in that direction. Older women are to be role models for younger women because older women, presumably, have walked where the younger women are now walking. The Holy Spirit inspired Paul writes that the older women have a role in the Christian social order and that role is to admonish the younger women. The Greek word here for “admonish” is translated different ways. Some have it as “admonish,” others have it as “train,” others, “urge,” others, “encourage,” others still, “instruct,” “make sober-minded,” and finally some have “school.”

they can train
σωφρονίζωσιν (sōphronizōsin) sophronizosin
Verb – Present Subjunctive Active – 3rd Person Plural
Strong’s 4994: To make sober-minded, admonish, control. From sophron; to make of sound mind, i.e. to discipline or correct.

So you can see there is a range of nuance here. The idea though seems pretty clear that the older women are to come alongside the younger women to the end of helping them in living the domestic life.

Now, before we dig into that notice that Paul does not have any category here for single professional women. You have older women who have experience in domestic skills and you have younger married women. Now Scripture elsewhere will teach that some will have the gift of singleness and that must be understood, however except for those comparative few with that gift it is God’s will that young men and women should marry. It is why God said, “It is not good that man should be alone. I will make a help-meet suitable for him.” Marriage, and the domestic life are the natural calling for women and we see that here in this passage.

Now keep in mind here that the ultimate purpose of all this is to beautify the Christian faith. To make it attractive. The Cretans had a reputation for wildness and Paul is calling Titus to bring in order to family life so that the family order would serve as Gospel salt and light.

This admonishment, training, urging, that the older women are to engage upon w/ the younger women is first to love their husbands and children. Now, we here might read that and say, “Isn’t that kind of Captain obvious advice?” But if we paused a moment and considered where we now are in the 21^st century is that really such obvious advice? Remember, the 1^st century would have the same need to instruct young women to love their husbands and children as we have today.

Of course this matter of loving their husbands and children finds itself expressed in any number of ways. Christian women loving their husbands and children tend to make them a priority over herself. She knows how to fulfill their need before they even realize they will have a need.

Now, before we get too carried away with this gents we must remember that Paul says the same thing to men in Ephesians where he tells husbands to love their wives as Christ love the church.

So, there it is, there is this mutual dying to self in service of the other that one should find in a Christian home. This is the idea of women loving their husbands and husbands loving their wives. Together the husband and wife love their children.

Now here I go to meddling ….

It’s not love to your children to place them in Government schools. It’s not husband love to a young wife to expect her to carry an impossible load of keeping the home as well so bringing home the bacon. It is not young wife love to a husband to not be, as the text teaches, the maker of the home.

Now, of course all of this is pure patriarchy. It is what the Lilith turn hates. We have more of this kind of talk ahead of us. Clearly, God teaches that men and women are not interchangeable cogs. Just as you cannot use a chainsaw to be a socket wrench, just as one does not use fresh roses for starting a bonfire, so one does not use a woman to be a man or a man to be a woman.

The text here calls younger women to be discreet. We have seen this same Greek word already. Paul, using this same word, calls for self-control not only for older men (2:2) but also for overseers (1:8), younger women (v. 5), younger men (v. 6). However as that word is flush by the word “chaste,” here there is good reason to think that the Apostle has something particular in mind. If we would put it in our language today as negatives we might phrase it that the young married women are not to be flirts or harlots… they are to be discrete and chaste.

Calvin has this to say here about the call to be discrete and chaste,

“In short, he wishes women to be restrained, by conjugal love and affection for their children, from giving themselves up to licentious attachments…”

Young women should only be using their “come hither” look with their husbands.

Now, we need to realize in a culture that does not have a transcendent reference point as among the Cretans then or Americans today neither men nor women really have anything to restrict them from embracing the sexual mores of animals. However, Paul does have God and His Word as a transcendent reference point, thus he can, based upon God’s authority call for women to fulfill their roles by being discrete and chaste.

Of course the lack of being discrete and chaste is rampant in our social order. This was seen again this week with the whole Cornell University episode.

The next few phrases really lights the fires of those who have embraced Lilith. Paul instructs that the younger women be instructed to be, “homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands,”

This idea of “homemakers,” is

οἰκουργούς (oikourgous)
Strong’s 3626: A keeper-at-home, a housekeeper. From oikos and ouros; a stayer at home, i.e. Domestically inclined.

Of course in the West, and particularly in America, long ago the moneyed corporate foundations in this country pursued a course to force women out of the home into the work force. Our whole economy now is organized so that young women cannot be homemakers. Further, when young women are homemakers they are somehow often looked down upon. How many times has the expression been used, “Oh, she doesn’t work, she just stays at home.” As if being a homemaker isn’t work. As if a homemaker ever quits working. A man works from sun to sun but a woman’s work is never done was not a proverb that came into existence without reason.

Look, it is this kind of women that should be given the greatest respect in the church. Men get all the attention for their work but what of the women who were homemakers who were helpmeets to their husbands so that they could do the work that they became known for?

Second wave feminism arose from the inspiration of Simone Beauvoir and Betty Friedan denigrating both homemakers and the Christianity that called for homemakers who were obedient to their husbands. This they said… this homemaking, this being good, this being obedient to their husbands was denigrating to women.

In her book, “The Second Sex,” Beauvoir complained bitterly about what she called “patriarchal domination,” She offered that Christianity was one reason for patriarchy writing that “the beliefs of Christianity played no little role in women’s oppression.” She wrote that the Apostle Paul reiterated the most patriarchal strains of Jewish thought in his writing and therefore embeds anti-Lilithism notions into Christian theology. Beauvoir believed that “womanly” behavior does not arise from the female sex inherently but womanly behavior is instead a patriarchally determined standard of propriety for the purpose of subordinating women. So, per the second wave of Litlithism, female behavior is a matter of wicked Christian nurturing and not a matter of God ordained nature.

This second wave of Lilithism eventually led to a third wave where all arguments that men and women are different by nature are completely attacked in favor of the idea that maleness and femaleness is merely a social construct. This view brought us to a riveting point wherein a female candidate for the Supreme Court could not answer the question, “What is a Woman.” If maleness and femaleness is all a social construct then there really is no stable answer as to what is a woman.

But we return to the testimony of God’s Word that the nature and so role of men and women are distinct.

Let us not lose the implications of this refusal to accept that women should be homemakers, good, and obedient to their husbands. When we lose this primary distinction between men and women we begin to lose the whole idea of distinctions as part of our egalitarian stew. Understand the loss of the ability to make distinction between male and female is born of the loss of the ability to make a distinction between God and man.

The reason that first, second, third wave feminism arises is due to the fact that distinctions between all things including male and female are completely arbitrary when the distinction between God and man is denied. The reason that women today in the church are so insulted by the counsel that young women should be homemakers, good, and obedient to their husbands is because both men and women have been captured by the zeitgeist … by the spirit of the age.

There is all this bitter reviling of how women have been degraded by Christianity and the kind of teaching we find here in Titus 2 but look at what a woman said from another generation about the Biblical distinctions of male and female,

No system of philosophy has ever yet worked out in behalf of woman the practical results for good which Christianity has conferred on her. Christianity has raised woman from slavery and made her the thoughtful companion of man; finds her the mere toy, or the victim of his passions, and it places her by his side, his truest friend, his most faithful counselor, his helpmeet in every worthy and honorable task. It protects her far more effectually than any other system. It cultivates, strengthens, elevates, purifies all her highest endowments, and holds out to her aspirations the most sublime for that future state of existence, where precious rewards are promised to every faithful discharge of duty, even the most humble. But, while conferring on her these priceless blessings, it also enjoins the submission of the wife to the husband, and allots a subordinate position to the whole sex while here on earth. No woman calling herself a Christian, acknowledging her duties as such, can, therefore, consistently deny the obligation of a limited subordination laid upon her by her Lord and His Church.

Susan Fenimore Cooper

Now we cannot end without speaking to the teleos … the purpose of this instruction,

that the word of God may not be blasphemed.

This was always the bright star of the Apostles thinking. He appeals to a particular family order for the purpose that the word of God would not be blasphemed. This reminds us that the way we live in the public square matters. Our homes should be sanctuaries wherein the cause of Christ and His Word are be held in esteem.

So, little flock, we must ask ourselves, “Is our family life lived out so that it does not blaspheme the name of God? As husbands do we make it a joy and comfort for our wives to be obedient? As wives are you committed to continuing to learn the art of making a house a home? As men do we lead, provide, and are we sound in our faith?

The Turn To Lilithism

Titus 2:3 the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not enslaved to much wine, teachers of good things— 4 that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.

I wanted to take some time to return to the problem of Feminism in the culture and in the conservative church. Really, in calling this Feminism we have allowed the enemy to control the language since there is nothing at Feminine about the different expressions of what we call Feminism. We would be better serve to call it “Lilithism.”

Lilith is an ancient archetype representing the dark side of the female nature. Lilith in ancient myth was often associated with themes of rebellion, independence, and sexuality. She is depicted as a figure who defied Biblical patriarchal norms, choosing autonomy over submission, and is linked to various myths across cultures, particularly in Jewish folklore where she is seen as a demon of the night.

We have seen a continue rise in Lilith behavior recently, especially with the Lindsey Clancy trial and with the rise of Lilith like women in the conservative church. We see Lilith like behavior in the statistics that find 70% of the marriages that end in divorce, end in divorce as initially filed by women. That number rises to 90% when it is college women who are in divorce proceedings.

However, in order to get at this we are going to look at texts that those who do Lilith thinking hate given their desire to overthrow all shreds of patriarchy. This morning we look at the Titus passage.

We note here that Paul is instructing Titus on how to speak to the church. Titus is responsible for putting all things decent and in order and that includes family life. This reminds us that Christianity is not merely a set of soteriological doctrines disconnected from every day life. Nobody wrote more on the core doctrines of the faith than the Holy Spirit inspired Paul, but here we see him writing about what the Christian life is supposed to look like as it is incarnated into the family. There is to be order and structure and that order and structure is to reflect God’s appointed hierarchy.

Remember, Crete, where Titus is working has a reputation, like most of the modern world, of being heathen. There are challenges to be faced. Family order has to be spoken to, and Paul does just that as he talks about what Titus is to teach and so expect from older men, older women, younger women, younger men, and bondslaves.

Now, these matters were important then and they remain important now. One reason they are so important is that our family orders demonstrate the attractiveness of our Christianity. If our family orders are all bumfuzzled and characterized by constant kerfuffle we communicate that the Christian faith is ugly and unseemly. OTOH if our family orders are godly and lovely, scads of people who have never known the peace and tranquility that Christian family life brings will say to themselves upon seeing our Christ ordered families, “whatever they have that creates that harmony of interest, I want to learn about.”

So, even though what Paul is writing here is not directly on matters of salvation, it is on salvation inasmuch as family orders like what Paul insists upon are the result of salvation visiting families.

Paul writes first to older women. Presumably these were women who had raised their children but of course “older women” today could be a woman in her 40s if she is in a context around women in their 20s. In this letter though, I’m confident we are talking about women who would have been eligible to make the widow’s list.

Paul writes here to older women on the need to be reverent. The word here literally means, behavior suitable to a sacred character. Well, what kind of behavior is suitable to a sacred character? Well, we might start with humility, deference, and respect. We might say that the character looked for is the opposite of haughty, snotty, or belligerent.

Peter in his epistle says something similar when in writing to women he writes about women having the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.

Now, we should say that reverent behavior does not mean that a older woman has to be mousy or a wallflower. It merely means that she’s not pushy where she shouldn’t be pushy. Of course, the modern feminist impulse mitigates against older women being reverent. “You’ve come a long way baby” includes the irreverence that is weekly seen on “The View” or can be read from any number of irreverent female journalists.

The Apostle pushes on and warns against older women being slanderers. Of course slander is speaking something untrue of someone to a third party. Elsewhere in Scripture it is called gossip. I quote Calvin here in order that folks might be outraged with Calvin and not me,

Talkativeness is a disease of women, and it is increased by old age. To this is added, that women never think that they are eloquent enough, if they are not given to prattling and to slander — if they do not attack the characters of all.

John Calvin
Commentary on Titus

I’m pretty confident that if Calvin were alive today and said that in a conservative pulpit in America he would be brought up on charges for being divisive.

Anyway, this admonition by Paul against slander is consistent w/ the rest of Scripture,

You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:16)

Proverbs 9:13, also applies uniquely to women,

“A foolish woman is clamorous: she is simple, and knoweth nothing.”

הֹֽמִיָּ֑ה (hō·mî·yāh)
Verb – Qal – Participle – feminine singular
Strong’s 1993: To make a, loud sound, commotion, tumult, to rage, war, moan, clamor

It may be the case that these older women, for whatever reason, had too much time on their hands and as a result filled that time with slandering. Remember, Cretans were known for “always being liars.” (1:12).

By way of a personal observation here, let it be said that older women do not have a corner on the market of slander. It is true, Paul writes what he writes here but elsewhere the Holy Spirit warns all believers off of slander,

James 4:11 – “Do not speak evil against one another, brothers.”

Now, let us pause here before pushing on for just a moment and notice how insulting all this is to our modern sensibilities. From here it is only going to get more insulting to our modern sensibilities, shaped as they are by four waves of feminism washed over us by over 100 years of changing ideology.

We have now multiple generations of women who heard the quote 1^st uttered in 1976 by Pulitizer prize winning historian, Laurel Ulrich, “Well behaved women seldom make history,” and having heard the quote have resolved to not be “well behaved.”

Now, before pressing on with the text we want to pause a moment and ask ourselves, why does a passage like this find both men and women recoiling with such hostility? A hostility that is only going to build as we look at the rest of the passage. Well, as I’ve already said, the reason for the hostility is that we have embraced a different conception of Christianity than what we find in the Scripture. We have had several worldview changes that make passages like this uncomfortable for us to hear.

I remember when I was 17 I had a Bible as literature class in High School with Mrs. Arends. One day after class my friend, who was a Pastor’s son, and I decided to have a conversation with Mrs. Arends about the Apostle Paul. We started quoting some of Paul,

Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. 1 Corinthians 14:34

A woman must learn in quietness and full submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; she is to remain quiet. I Tim. 2:11-12

But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God I Cor. 11:3

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord… Eph. 5:22

Finally Mrs. Arends snarled at us and said … “Well, that was the Apostle Paul.”

You see, somehow Paul was less inspired than the rest of Scripture and so should not be relied upon for truth. People really don’t like these passages and the reason for that is we no longer have the worldview of Scripture. We no longer thing Biblically. We find it offensive that men would be better at being men then women and that women would be superior to men at being women.

Well, this started in the garden of course, but in modern times this hostility to Titus 2 and other passages begins with the Enlightenment and first wave Feminism. Prior to the Enlightenment, which at the time was also interestingly enough called “the Illumination,” it was presupposed that men and women were distinct. But the Endarkenment, which began what some historians refer to as “the Age of Revolution,” begins and a woman named Mary Wollstonecraft (the mother of Mary Shelley) writes a little book titled, “A Vindication of the Rights of Women.” It was a book that had imbibed the principles of Rosseau and the French Revolution. This book argued for the equalization of human rights for all people. This was consistent with the egalitarianism of the Endarkenment and the French Revolution. This insistence was here that people, whether men or women, are cogs or integers that can be changed in and out without concern about the Christian teaching regarding God ordained differences between men and women. All people are individuals and all individuals have the same rights and so men and women should not be treated differently. Men and Women, for example, should have the same political rights insisted Ms. Wollstonecraft. Compare that mindset with the Christian world that found Calvin saying,

“It is the dictate of common sense, that female government is improper and unseemly.”

— John Calvin

Commenting on 1 Corinthians 14:34

In Mary Wollstonecraft’s day that mean the end of schooling that was distinct for boys vis-a-vis schooling for women. Up until the Endarkenment it was believed that boys and girls were different and so they received different educations. Male education focused on logic, ideas, and preparation for the work force. Women’s education prepared them for marriage, motherhood, and domestic necessity.

The world was changing and part of that change was the end of thinking that could pen what God had penned here it Titus. But let it be said that women are not equal to men and men are not equal to women. Woman was made to be a helper suitable to the husband. Scripture never envisioned women to compete with men in the workforce and it wasn’t that way until industrialization as combined with the welfare/warfare state which gave rise to Rosie the Riveter and her daughters. Scripture never envisioned that 28% of congress right now would be women. Indeed, Scripture teaches that it is a curse of God to be ruled by women and children.

As for My people, children are their oppressors, And women rule over them. Isa. 3:12

What prompted all this change was a worldview revolution – 1^st wave feminism – came sweeping in, and made passages like the one in Titus grating to our modern ears. What happened then is that the Church reinterpreted Christianity in order to cohere with the new anthropology bequeathed to us by the Endarkenment. No longer would it be the case that younger women would be “admonished to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands.” That was not going to be the norm.

Indeed, out of this 1^st wave of feminism arises one Elizabeth Cady Stanton who will write in her 1895 the Woman’s Bible, that traditional forms of Christianity were largely at fault for the vast inequalities that women faced in society. This work further challenged traditional translations and interpretations of Scripture that argued for differences between men and women, or ignored women, or placed men in a superior position to women.

Another woman from this first wave of feminism

“Matilda Joslyn Gage, criticized Christianity explicitly in her book, ‘Woman, Church, and State.’ In this work Gage contends that much of ancient society was matriarchal and that Christianity was detrimental to this previous age, imposing an oppressive patriarchal regime upon the Western world. Christianity therefore is the greatest contributor to female subjugation. Another example of the post-Christian influence on early feminism is found in the one who is likely its most famous proponent – Susan B. Anthony. Though a Quaker, in her younger years, she moved gradually toward non-dogmatic religiosity and supported the formation of churches where ‘no doctrines should be preached and all should be welcome.;”

Jordon B. Cooper

The Makers of the Modern Mind – p. 381

Well, that is just 1^st wave feminism. Before we are done looking at this text in the next couple weeks we will see the anthropology that the 2nd-4^th waves have given us that has made us as Western Christians so unbiblical when it comes to male female roles.

For now, let us continue to consider the Biblical mindset when it comes to God’s teaching on women,

“The text says that the older women must not be enslaved to much wine.”

In the ancient world water often carried disease and so wine, being fermented as it was, was often the libation of choice. Of course all believers are instructed to not be drunk with wine but to be filled with the Spirit.

The idea in the text seems to be one of addiction. We know that wine was not inherently evil because Paul can advise Timothy elsewhere to “take a little wine for your stomach.” So the problem here is not wine but rather an addiction to wine.

In the ancient world wine was used to take the edge of nagging aches and pains, and inasmuch this counsel is being given to older women wine was no doubt taken for things like arthritis or stomach ailments. Enslaved here means (doulovw / doulo ) means “to be held and controlled against one’s will. This communicates the idea of addiction. If Paul were alive today in Michigan he might write instead, “older women must not be enslaved to any pharmaceuticals,

The modern world is not so different than the ancient world. While they may have taken too much wine, we today become slaves of other addictions. The Rolling Stones made bank by singing about “Mother’s Little Helper,” in 1966 … quoting,

What a drag it is getting old

“Kids are different today,” I hear every mother say
Mother needs something today to calm her down
And though she’s not really ill, there’s a little yellow pill
She goes running for the shelter of her mother’s little helper
And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day

We must all remember that we are temples of the Holy Spirit and as such we must not be slaves to intoxicants or vaccines but rather we must remain slaves of Christ.

Finally, for our purposes this morning the Apostle writes to Timothy that the older women must be teachers of good things. Now, it’s clear from the context that when Paul writes this that he is talking about older women having a particular audience and context for this teaching of good things.

That audience is the younger women and the context is their home life. The audience is not all members of the Church in some kind of congregation wide teaching capacity. The context is not the church but family order.

Theoretically, at least, the old women are experts at domestic life and so they have a responsibility to teach younger women. Now, of course that teaching is not to be overbearing or bossy but encouraging and uplifting. We might add here that younger women should see it as a privilege to have older women in their lives from whom they have the opportunity to learn from. Clearly, the passage indicates that the older women are to be helping the younger women on how to be good wives and mothers. These are the good things. There is a real skill in running a home and family… the art of domesticity. And the older women are to teach these good things.

Now, we must end by noting that it is both men and women who are responsible for the rise of Lilithism and 1^st wave feminism. Just as Adam in the garden abandoned his responsibility giving way to Eve’s leadership, so many men are likewise responsible for where we are today in Church and culture.

Fidem et officium

This morning we pause to consider something obvious. However, often times the obvious gets missed for the very reason that it is so obvious. That reality is basis upon which the proverb that teaches “if you want to know what the water is like, don’t ask a fish,” gains its profundity.

Today we are considering the obvious from the Westminster Shorter Catechism. You remember there was a time when children were required to memorize the shorter catechism. Indeed, that was the reason that shorter catechism was created. It was expected that the children of the church would memorize this in their formative years when children spit back what is downloaded.

Something we must not miss in this exercise of memorization as done by children is that it not only taught them their undoubted catholic Christian faith, it also taught them to think systematically. That is it taught them think in such a way that they understood the relation between the individual parts and the whole. This happened because of the systematic way the catechism was laid out.

For example the Westminster shorter catechism, in its first two questions gives a kind of introduction to the subject matter of the whole work. It starts with setting forth the purpose of man (to Glorify God and enjoy Him forever) and then teaches wherein we are to learn how to do that (we are taught we are to meet our purpose via being instructed from God’s Holy Writ).

Then we turn to the question that we are examining this morning.

Q. 3. What do the Scriptures principally teach?

A. The Scriptures principally teach, what man is to believe concerning God, [a] and what duty God requires of man [b].

[a]. Gen. 1:1; John 5:39; 20:31; Rom. 10:17; II Tim. 3:15
[b]. Deut. 10:12-13; Josh. 1:8; Ps. 119:105; Mic. 6:8; II Tim. 3:16-17

Notice the logic of all this… and in noticing the logic notice how it teaches children to think systematically…. sequentially.

1.) The purpose of man answered
2.) It is Scripture wherein man learns the details of his purpose
3.) The Scripture teach man to be God centered

From here the shorter catechism spends the rest of the time expanding on the answer to question and answer three. Question 3 thus serves as the foundation upon which the whole superstructure is to be built. After Q. and A. 3, Questions from 4 to 38 deal generally with what we are to believe concerning God and after that questions 49-107 deal generally with what duties God requires of man.

Within that catechetical structure there exist respective subdivision. That is to say, both what we are to believe concerning God and what duties God requires of man continues to be broken down logically.

Now, before we get into the meat of the matter let us observe a couple of truths that we should not miss.

1.) WSC begins vertically before it goes horizontal.

Another way to say this is that in beginning with what we are to believe concerning God we see that the vertical post is primary and without the vertical post being primary the horizontal post cannot find its proper place. In other words we cannot consider what is duties God requires of man before we first consider what we are to believe concerning God. God is always prior.

The Catechizers start with what we are to believe concerning God because faith always precedes praxis. What we are to believe concerning God motivates individuals to fulfill their duties that God requires of man. If we believe wrongly about God, we will pursue duties that God does not require of man.

The texts provided by the Westminster divines teaching that we are to begin with what we are to believe concerning God are texts that demonstrate the need to presuppose God… to begin with God.

Gen. 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

^{John 5:39}Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.

^{John 20:31}But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

^{Romans 10:17}So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

2.) Our age is an age wherein men do not know how to think. As we noted the Confessions while teaching us our Christian faith teach us to be rational people who know how to think. We only emphasize this because the way we educate our children today is in compartmentalized categories that fail to demonstrate the relation between sundry truths we are teaching. A good catechism doesn’t fail in this regard. A good catechism teaches line upon line and precept upon precept. It teaches the student, quite accidentally almost, to think coherently, systematically, sequentially. Here in this Q and A what is being taught is that glorifying and enjoying God as instructed from His Word is the unifying theme that ties everything together.

This is why you have heard from this pulpit ad nauseum that theology is the Queen of the Sciences. This WSC Q. 3 reinforces that idea. We learn what we are to believe concerning God and concurrently we learn what duty God requires of man. The Latin phrase for the relation of Faith and Duty is Fidem et officium and deals with the importance of both belief and the actions that stem from that belief.

My friends, this is why we spend so much time on doctrine here. If man will only believe rightly concerning God, then duty becomes inevitable for as a man thinketh in heart, so he is. The simple truth of this WSC is why I would so often lose my mind at CRC denominational meetings. This simple truth is why I melt down praying for Reformation among our clergy corps. This simple truth is the cornerstone of my praying for you and your children. That all of us together might know what we are to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of His people.

3.) One more point of application on this specific point of what we are to believe concerning God. Realize that all of Western culture wars against this truth. It replaces what we are to believe concerning God with the priority of experiencing. Knowing God has been replaced by experiencing God but there is no experiencing God without a prior knowing of God in place in order to interpret our experiences of God should they indeed be experiences.

Many of you are young. Pursue knowing God from His Word. Read those of the past who were known for knowing God. I was greatly encouraged recently by Claire Shank sharing with me a joy in reading a particular book on knowing God that she was passing around to friends of hers. Make it your passion to know what you believe concerning God. If you do, you will be grifter proof.

Now for the second half of this question … the matter of our duty God requires of us.

Duty is an act of reverence and respect. It is what we owe to our superiors. Unfortunately, it too often can come across as required obligation. However, when duty to God is mentioned it should be observed that our duty becomes our privilege. Our duty may, at times be difficult, but duty in service to the King is always a great privilege.

One of my heroes in History, Robert E. Lee, once said of duty,

“Duty is the sublimest word in the English language. You should do your duty in all things. You can never do more. You should never wish to do less.”

I could only wish that we thought that way about duty today. I wish the modern church had this sense of duty to our triune God. I wish we were driven by a passion to do our duty, whatever the cost to ourselves.

This idea of duty was not always foreign to us. As a lad I had to memorize this phrase while a Boy Scout,

“On my honor I, Bret McAtee, will do my best to do my duty to God and my country…”

So, there you have it. We learn what we are to believe concerning God but this belief is never left barren. What we are to believe concerning God creates a sense of duty to God and that duty is revealed in Scripture.

The catechizers quote these texts in order to sustain the idea of our duty to God.

^{Dt. 10:12}And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, 1³To keep the commandments of the Lord, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?

^{Joshua 1:8}This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.

^{Psalm 119:105}Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

^{Micha 6:8}He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

^{II Timothy 3:16}All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 1⁷That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

As the WSC continues the catechizers will be more specific as to our duties to God. Here they are merely liming out the general truth that man has a duty to walk in terms of God’s Law-Word. This means, of course, that we do not live with ourselves as the center of our reality. We live w/ God as the one around whom we spend our whole lives orbiting and that is revealed by treating people consistent with our love to God.

Now, if this is what the Scriptures principally teaches — what we are to believe concerning God and what duty requires of men — then this is what the Church must be principally teaching. That brings us to preaching. There is a type of preaching that exists now in Reformed churches that excels at teaching what man is to believe concerning God, but when it comes to teaching what duty God requires of man it is woefully lacking. In the last 6 months I have had phone calls from two different points in the US from people who attend what are thought to be conservative Reformed Churches and in both cases the people on the other end of the phone were telling me that all their Pastor preaches on is Justification… or in the language of the shorter catechism, all they preach on is “what man is required to believe concerning God.” There is no preaching on the duty God requires of man.

Now, there might be several reasons for that, I think, and one of them is due to the rise of Theonomy and Reconstruction theology. Theonomy has quite to the contrary preached on the duty God requires of man, and that very pointedly. Indeed, no doubt at times perhaps too pointedly. Some theonomists are like children running with scissors when it comes to the matter of our duty to God. There has arisen in the Reformed church a majority voice who is absolutely convinced that to preach on the duty God requires of man is to preach work righteousness. So, in order to avoid that the duty God requires of man has been eclipsed, and the church has become anti-nomian.

Another reason that the duty God requires of man has been eclipsed in preaching is because of the fear, on the part of clergy, of being accused of preaching a social Gospel. The social Gospel arose especially at the beginning of the 20th century. It’s emphasis was doing Christian work but it divorced that work from what is to be believed concerning God.

For example,

Rev. Lyman Abbott, a proponent of the Social Gospel, like so many advocates of the Social Gospel, in supporting prohibition, found the wine of Christ’s day devoid of intoxicating alcohol. Abbott further professed doubts about the Virgin Mary and Christ feeding the multitude of loaves and fishes.

“What interests me,” Abbott offered about the loaves and fishes, “in this incident is not the multiplication of loaves, but the spirit of consideration and helpfulness which is manifested.”

Daniel Flynn

A Conservative History of the American Left — p. 124

You see the Social Gospel tried to push man’s duty but they divorced that duty from a proper belief concerning God.

We need to note that the problem with the Social Gospel was never that it expected Christianity to have an impact on society. If Christian men and women walk in terms of their duty to the God who is men and women will have an impact on society.

The problem, historically, with the Social Gospel is that it was a project of theological liberals and as such the God it was serving was not the God of the Bible and as such the impact it was pursuing was the inverse of the impact that Biblical Christianity brings.

The problem of the Social Gospel, when it spoke of what the duty God requires of men is that the Social Gospelers transferred from God to the state the ability to save. The Social Gospelers did not think rightly concerning God and so they placed salvation in the hands of the state and its ability to build utopia. However, should we think rightly concerning God we realize that it is the duty of the state to provide Godly order, and it is the duty of the Church to herald a salvation that can be found only in the magnificent Jesus Christ.

Let us close by asking what happens when we forsake the WSC Q & A 3. What happens when we reject that man needs to look to Scripture to learn what he is to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of men?

Well, when that happens a vacuum is created. Men’s innate irresponsibility, that was previously held in check by the Scriptures teaching of their duty to God is released with the result that man has only a duty to himself. When that happens man becomes what we are seeing all around us…. selfish, narcissistic, and irrational. Where man has no sense of duty to God another force moves in to occupy the duty vacuum. At first that vacuum will result in anarchy as mentioned by rampant irrational self-centeredness, but as anarchy can’t provide social order eventually when the sense of duty to God is destroyed, the State will be taken as that institution to which all duty belongs. Duty will require us to believe that in the State we live and move and have our being. Men become convinced that it is wholesome and necessary for the public good to give our sense of duty to the State.

Let us end by quoting Van Til, from his work on the 10 commandments,

Our times thus explains that right now we live in a time wherein we have to realize and embrace the sacred duty of controversy. This is implied in the very task of witness-bearing entrusted to the Church’s care. One cannot witness faithfully for Christ if one does not witness against those that oppose Christ. If the knowledge of the name of Christ is to advance, it must advance in the face of obstacles. The ‘natural man’ hates the things of God and will seek to oppose them. Only in the face of opposition can Christianity advance. It will meet opposition everywhere. How can any faithful disciple of Christ, then, expect to witness for Christ anywhere w/o testifying against the opposition to Christ?

CVT

The Ten Commandments – pg. 80-81

Christos Kurios vs. Caesar Kurios

Last week we considered the Providence of God so that we might be patient in adversity and thankful in prosperity. A large thrust in that message was to continue to trust our Triune God when living in the midst of difficulties, trials, hardship and persecution.

This week we want to emphasize that confidence in God’s providence does not translate into be a people who do not contend for the Crown Rights of Jesus Christ in every area of life. In other words we can’t use God’s providence as an excuse to not endure hardship, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ., as Paul puts in II Timothy 2:3.

So, we embrace God’s providence but we embrace it in such a way that it gives us confidence to be always abounding in the work of the Lord.

Nowhere do we see this combination of trust in God’s providence with the resolve to not use that belief in providence as an excuse to not continue to work resolutely for heralding the Kingdom of God than we find in the book of Acts.

The Book of Acts chronicles the expansion of the early Church. Most people don’t realize it but Acts really is kind of a cultural war manual that tells the story about how it is that a fledgling religion/faith challenges and conquers the existing religions of it’s time with the consequence that the known world is at sixes and sevens over the twin preaching emphasis in the book of Acts of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God.

Paul in taking the Gospel forward is even accused in Acts 17 of “acting against Caesar’s decrees by claiming there is “another king, Jesus.” The passage is describing the unrest caused by their message.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

That Christ and faith in Jesus Christ was a message of conquest that threatened the existing cultural norms is seen very early in the book of Acts. At the beginning of Acts we read the Ascension of Christ, the coming of the Spirit for the empowering of the Church and then of the growth of the church in the context of persecution. A persecution, as we will see, born of the fact that faith in a resurrected and ruling Savior has the impact of threatening the previous cultural status quo.

In Acts 4:12 we read that the Apostles themselves understood that they and their message was a threat to the existing political-social-cultural order of their day. There we find Peter saying,

¹⁰let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. ¹¹This is the ‘stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’¹²Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

It is interesting to note here that Peter ties the resurrection to Christ’s Kingship when he uses that phrase, “there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

This phraseology would have been familiar to Peter’s listeners and it would have been understood as a challenge to the existing Roman order of the time. In the 1st century the Roman Empire was a military machine conquering the known world. When a people were conquered by Rome they would come under what is known as the Pax Romana which means “Rome makes the Peace.” Rome making the peace meant that the conquered people lived under the terms of conquest that Rome issued.

When a people were subjugated by Rome, Rome would nail their “euangelion” (good news) announcement to a post in a very public spot for all to read. There you would read,

“There is no other name under Heaven by which you can be saved, save for Augustus Caesar.” Receiving salvation in the Roman world was inclusive of embracing the idea that “Caesar is Lord.”

Now what really makes this contrast interesting between the Apostolic proclamation that it is only the name of Jesus under Heaven by which you can be saved and the Roman proclamation that the only name under heaven by which you can be saved is Caesar Augustus is that Rome also claimed for Caesar what the Apostles counter-claimed for Jesus … each claimed that their leader was God’s son.

Caesar Augustus was called the “divi filus.” This was a a name in reference to Augustus’ adoption under Julius Caesar who was then believed to be a god. Caesar Augustus the adopted son of Julius Caesar was the divi filius. Caesar Augustus…the son of god.

So, note the contrast.

In the face of the belief that Caesar Augustus was the son of God, comes Jesus Christ the Son of God. Both Caesar and Christos insist that there is no other name under heaven by which men can be saved except their names. Both require their followers to say on one hand “Caesar is Lord” (kurios kaiseros) or on the other hand “Christ is Lord (kurios Christos).

The Christian confession “Christ is Lord” (kurios Christos) presented a direct and radical alternative. Proclaiming Jesus as Lord did not simply state a private belief; it displaced the imperial claim to ultimate authority and divinity. In the eyes of Roman authorities and many contemporaries, this confession of Kurios Christos – Christ is Lord – could be interpreted as a subversive political statement that undermined the social, cultural, and religious foundations of imperial loyalty. In the Apostolic preaching there was found treason.

What they were saying when they said, “There is no other name under heaven by which ye must be saved,” in that ancient culture is akin to a Muslim today trumpeting their Shahada in a synagogue in Jerusalem today,

“I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.”

When the Apostles came with that message they were announcing different Lords, who create different customs and cultures and ways of living.. Different salvations create different cultures. Different Lords meant different centers of public identity, cultural expression, civic loyalty, and divine honor.

So, what I want us to see here is that the Christian faith that was being heralded in that ancient world was not some mere private commitment that could be adopted by individuals. No, the Christian message of the Lordship of Christ and the Christian faith that was based on that was a matter of throwing down the gauntlet against the political and cultural powers of the time. To take up Christ was political and cultural subversion. It was treason. It was a mockery of the heathen gods.

Look, Rome was serious about this Caesar is Lord title. Rome minted coins where one could read of the salvation, peace, and security which were found in Caesar Augustus. Now comes this little band of Apostles pressing the claims that Christ is Lord and that it is not the name of Augustus Caesar but rather the name of Jesus Christ which is the only name under heaven by which men must be saved.

Remember, all of public policy, all of social interaction, all of cultural identity is built upon and is reflective of who is Lord. What do you think the reaction is going to be to this message that the Apostles are bringing that there is a new Lord… a new name under heaven by which men must be saved?

In 1st century Rome salvation being provided by Caesar was often associated with political peace and prosperity. The salvation offered by the Apostolic message was offered based on the conviction that the present wicked age was overcome by the Resurrection of Christ and the introduction of the Kingdom of God. Paul gets at this in Colossians when he says, “You have been translated from the Kingdom of Darkness, to the Kingdom of God’s dear Son, whom He loves.” Salvation meant being a citizen in the age to come.

Salvation, in this earliest sense, was not primarily then about escaping the world after death, although it did include that, but salvation was primarily about participating in the renewal of creation already underway. The language of salvation was therefore communal, cosmic, and future oriented as much as it was individual.

The earliest stratum of Christian preaching, reflected in speeches in Acts and early creedal fragments, presents salvation as deliverance within history. God had acted to rescue Israel and, through Israel, the world. Jesus was understood as the Messiah who inaugurated the long awaited kingdom of God. To be saved was to be brought into this kingdom, to belong to the restored people of God, and to live under God’s reign.

Frankly, this is where the modern church has dropped the ball. The modern church wants to make salvation individual and primarily about being delivered from hellfire, but all through the NT and in the book of Acts w/ its constant returning to preaching the Kingdom of God we see a salvation wherein God is recreating the cosmos by the ingathering of a people who are living under the authority of their ascended Liege-Lord Jesus Christ.

Unfortunately, the Libs understand this better than those considered conservative. They understand that the Christian faith is supposed to reshape culture. Their problem is that the Christian faith they embrace is anti-Christ.

Well, let’s move along. What was the reaction to this message of the Apostles, that we find in the book of Acts? The reaction is what we might expect. People are invested in their gods and being invested in the gods they don’t want to see those gods overthrown by the Christians preaching sedition and treason against their gods who are currently in the saddle.

Discover how we see this in the book of Acts. Paul is Christ’s spokesman in Acts and His twin messages in Acts are the Resurrection of Christ and the Kingdom of God. As Paul brings this message he is resisted and persecuted by those who are adherents to Caesar or adherents to god of the Talmudic Pharisees.

Now, we are going to do a overview of Paul’s persecutions in order to demonstrate the resistance Paul dealt with in his ministry in proclaiming that Jesus Christ is Lord. However, in order to sustain my premise that the conflict in Acts while spiritual at its base did indeed have political and cultural implications. Returning to Acts 17 we read,

²⁰And they brought them to the magistrates, and said, “These men, being Jews, exceedingly trouble our city; ²¹and they teach customs which are not lawful for us, being Romans, to receive or observe.”

⁶But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, “These who have turned the world upside down have come here too. ⁷Jason has ^[c]harbored them, and these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king—Jesus.”

Note the accusations here …. Paul and company in preaching Christ are accused of “teaching customs which are not lawful for us.” If you read all of Acts 17 you see there is a riot going on due to the preaching of Christ with the implications that brings. The Christian message is resisted. The Christians are persecuted. Some are treated quite roughly.

This is the reaction of the gods and their adherents when Christianity comes to challenge the gods of this age.

We see this resistance all the way through the book of Acts. The reason I am going to trace this out is so you can see what to expect in 2026 you champion Christ, in a culture that is increasingly resembling the 1st century Roman world,

So how were they received in Acts for challenging the gods of this present wicked age?

“For I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake.” Jesus in Acts 9:16

9:23-25 – 1st Plot to kill Paul – lowered through a wall in basket in Damascus.

9:29-30 – 2nd Plot to kill Paul – sent to Caesarea from Jerusalem.

13:45 – Paul is contradicted/maligned in Pisidian Antioch.

13:50 – Paul and Barnabas were persecuted and drove out by Jews in Pisidian Antioch

14:2; 5 – The Jews embitter minds of Gentiles against Paul and attempted to stone Paul in Iconium.

14:19 – Paul is stoned and left for dead in Lystra.

16:16-24 – Paul and Silas were beaten with many blows and thrown into the inner prison in Philippi.

17:5-10 – Paul is forced out of Thessalonica.

17:13-14 – Paul is forced out of Berea

18:12 – Paul is brought before the judgment seat by Jews in Corinth but charges dismissed.

19:23-41 – No small disturbance arises concerning the Way in Ephesus when Christianity began to cause job loss for idol makers of Artemis.

21:27-40 – Paul is beat with the intent to murder in Jerusalem.

21:33-36 – Paul is seized by the Romans in Jerusalem. Paul remains under arrest for the remainder of the book of Acts.

23:2 – Paul is struck in the mouth as commanded by the High Priest – Jerusalem.

23:12-22 – A plot is formed by forty Jews to conspire with the Jewish leadership to assassinate Paul – Jerusalem. To avoid this attempt on Paul’s life, Paul was moved to Caesarea.

25:1-5 – There’s an attempt by the Jews to have Paul brought back to Jerusalem in order to ambush and kill him.

27:42 – The Roman Soldiers plan to kill the prisoners from the ship that was run aground, including Paul, but the centurion prevents it. Paul, with 275 persons is ship-wrecked on Malta on their way to Rome.

Now why all this persecution?

It is because Paul’s message was a threat to the pagan culture of the day.

In Acts 17:18, Epicurean and Stoic philosophers listened to Paul. They said, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods,”

In Acts 19 they complained,

“they all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus.”

Like it or not the Gospel which proclaims Jesus as BOTH Lord and Savior creates havoc in cultures who are a reflection and extension of false gods they serve.

Our culture is increasingly a 1st century polytheistic pagan culture. If we preach like Paul and the Apostles I cannot see how it will not be the case that the heathen culture is going to snarl, bite, and claw at Christians preaching up Christ and His Kingdom.

Are we willing to embrace a Christianity that invades the territory of the gods of this present evil age? Are we willing to proclaim the kind of Christianity that threatens the sycophants of false gods? Are we willing to suffer for the sake of the Gospel?

You want to make Hell spew anger? Invade what it believes is its territory with the claims of Christ and just see how angry the denizens of hell become.

___

This dynamic I’ve set forth here explains all the conflict that we are seeing recently. This is a contest of who is Lord? It is a contest as to which name under heaven we will be saved by. This context explains why ministers are stripped of their position and cast out of churches for attacking Feminism by being Biblical. It explains why young men are being put through struggle sessions because they no longer accept the gods of the post-war consensus. It explains why there is so much animosity by the R2K and Baptist types over the idea that all nations should be ruled in light of Christ’s Kingship. We are living in a time once again, as it was the case in the 1st century, where there is a battle royale going on between the established and accepted heathen gods and the God of the Bible. Those who say Christos Kurios are going to face the same persecution that Paul faced because he was working in against a world that embraced Caesar Kurios.

And in that battle we can rest in God’s providence and because of God’s providence we can enter the battle.

Heidelberg Catechism Sermon – Lord’s Day 10 – Providence

This morning we return to our Catechism to take up the issue of comfort. The Catechism specifies that we find comfort in knowing our sin and misery, in knowing how we have been delivered from that sin and misery and in knowing how we can express gratitude for redemption from that sin and misery.

But I want to contend that there are places to find comfort as well in the Catechism besides the broad brush strokes that it gives and one place to find that is in Lord’s Day #10 where we are taught about God’s providence.

Of course, as Calvinists, that is to say, as Biblical Christians, we understand God’s providence to reference God’s daily control of all things from the changing of the seasons, to the conception and birth of our children. From the gainful employment we have to the pink slip unexpectedly received. From the “chance” encounter with the person we would end up marrying to the hour our unions would end because of death. In all these matters and all others as Calvinists we believe that

“God is in control
We believe that His children will not be forsaken
God is in control
We will choose to remember and never be shaken
There is no power above or beside Him, we know
Oh, God is in control, oh God is in control”

This is what the Scriptures teach and this is what our catechism teaches w/ Q. 27.

27. What do you understand by the providence of God?

Now we should start here by observing that clearly the catechizers desired for we, as the catechumens, to know about this doctrine of God’s providence. They placed it here to explain the character of God when we confess from the Apostle’s creed, “I believe in God the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.”

The Catechizers desire for us to remember what they teach and as we will se they desire for us to remember this so that we will not be shaken by seeing things that might otherwise upset us if we were not confident of this truth of God’s providence.

And so to fill us with this confidence the Catechizers, following Scripture teach that we are to understand the Providence of God as,

The almighty, everywhere-present power of God,1 whereby, as it were by His hand, He still upholds heaven and earth with all creatures,2 and so governs them that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink,3 health and sickness,4 riches and poverty,5 indeed, all things come not by chance, but by His fatherly hand.

[1] Acts 17:25–26. [2] Heb. 1:3. [3] Jer. 5:24; *Acts 14:17. [4] Jn. 9:3. [5] Prov. 22:2; *Ps. 103:19; Rom. 5:3–5a.

Let us break this down. They start with talking about the “almighty, everywhere present power of God.” In theological language this speaks of God’s omnipotent power being omnipresent. God’s power is without limit and it is never absent from the Christian. Of course, when we speak of God’s almighty, everywhere present power we are not abstracting God Himself for where God’s almighty, everywhere present power is so is God Himself.

The Scripture teaches this almighty everywhere present power of God when Jonah went into the bowels of the sea (Jon. 1:3), after foolishly thinking he could flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

Ps. 23 speaks of this almighty everywhere present power of God when we learn that

“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For Thou art with me;
Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.”

Because of His confidence in the almighty and everywhere present power of God the Psalmist could write

27:3 Though an army besiege me,
my heart will not fear;
though war break out against me,
even then I will be confident.

Of course you see the comfort that this provides and the confidence that we can swell with when we believe and embrace the reality of the almighty and everywhere present power of the God who exercises that almighty and everywhere present power in the governance of His people’s lives.

But the Catechizers do not stop there. They make sure we know that this providence of God … this almighty and everywhere present power of God is personal. They do so, by using the phrase,

as it were by His hand, He still upholds heaven and earth with all creatures,2

The God we serve is not an abstraction. He is not impersonal. He personally involved in His creation in its day to day sustaining and governance. Listen to God’s Word from Psalm 104 testifying how intimate God is involved w/ His creation… as by His hand, he still upholds heaven and earth w/ all creatures,

He makes springs pour water into the ravines;
    it flows between the mountains.
¹¹They give water to all the beasts of the field;
    the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
¹²The birds of the sky nest by the waters;
    they sing among the branches.
¹³He waters the mountains from his upper chambers;
    the land is satisfied by the fruit of his work.
¹⁴He makes grass grow for the cattle,
    and plants for people to cultivate—
    bringing forth food from the earth:
¹⁵wine that gladdens human hearts,
    oil to make their faces shine,
    and bread that sustains their hearts.
¹⁶The trees of the Lord are well watered,
    the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
¹⁷There the birds make their nests;
    the stork has its home in the junipers.
¹⁸The high mountains belong to the wild goats;
    the crags are a refuge for the hyrax.

¹⁹He made the moon to mark the seasons,
    and the sun knows when to go down.
²⁰You bring darkness, it becomes night,
    and all the beasts of the forest prowl.
²¹The lions roar for their prey
    and seek their food from God.
²²The sun rises, and they steal away;
    they return and lie down in their dens.
²³Then people go out to their work,
    to their labor until evening.

It was the Enlightenment that locked God out of His planet … who made God remote. The rise of reason and godless science as King, emptied the world where the hand of God upholds all of His creation. Some folks today write of how the world we live in has been de-mythologized. What some of them mean is that it has lost all its wonder and marvel because the personal hand of a personal God has been removed from our thinking.

From this hand of the personal God who is intimately sustaining all things for His creatures we learn that God’s providence means that God remains the governor. This is yet another term, along with “uphold” that bespeaks of God’s intimate personal involvement w/ His creation.

Our Fathers … these Catechizers lived in a world that was riven with the presence of God. They understood all of life in terms of God’s upholding and governing their lives. All that came into their lives they understood as not coming into their lives by secondary causes or by the non-existent thing called “chance.” They believed that God was upholding and governing their lives.

And they understood this upholding and governing to cover all things … and they list some of those things,

that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink,3 health and sickness,4 riches and poverty,5 indeed, all things come not by chance, but by His fatherly hand.

See how totalistic they understood God’s providence to be. Notice also they speak all of it as coming to God’s people by His fatherly hand. This Lord’s Day is being especially applied to the people of God. We know this because those who are not God’s people only know the hand of God’s judgment and know nothing of God’s fatherly hand.

It all comes to us by God’s fatherly hand. If we believe this then we receive all as coming from God’s fatherly hand. We accept living in the context of a faithless church as coming from His fatherly hand. We accept the joy of the presence of the remnant around us as from His fatherly hand. We accept the insanity of juries not convicting murdering mothers as from His fatherly hand, we accept justice being done when it is done from His fatherly hand. We accept communities celebrating the aberrant as from His fatherly hand, and we accept the glad news that God is still calling redeeming His people.

That is the thrust of this confession of God’s upholding and governing all things. This is God’s World and though the wrong is oft so strong God is the ruler yet. We sing heralding this Providence of God,

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour:
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own Interpreter,
And He will make it plain.

The thrust of this is that this is not a random world full of chance events. The thrust of this is to make us confident that even when we don’t understand God’s providence we can trust that God does understand God’s providence and that there is purpose in what we see as madness. We can find our equilibrium … our stability in all this cultural and ecclesiastical madness by embracing and owning this truth about God’s providence.

The Catechizers get at this when they ask and answer,

28. What does it profit us to know that God created, and by His providence upholds, all things?

That we may be patient in adversity, 1 thankful in prosperity, 2 and for what is future have good confidence in our faithful God and Father, that no creature shall separate us from His love, 3 since all creatures are so in His hand, that without His will they cannot so much as move.4

[1] Rom. 5:3; Jas. 1:3; Job 1:21. [2] Deut. 8:10; 1 Th ess. 5:18. [3] Rom. 8:35, 38–39. [4] Job 1:12; Acts 17:25–28; Prov. 21:1; *Ps. 71:7; *2 Cor. 1:10.

I preached this sermon this morning because, I am myself working on being “patient in adversity.” I am reminded of our Fathers and how patient they were in adversity. Father Job with all the scrouges visited upon Him. Father Joseph with the years in the dankest of dungeons. Father Daniel keeping time with ravenous beasts. Fathers Chrysostom, Augustine, Justin Martyr who were patient in adversity when contending against the Jews. Fathers Luther, Calvin, Knox, Ridley who knew a good deal about adversity.

They and we learn through adversity that the testing of our faith produces ^[a]patience as James teaches and as Paul teaches suffering produces perseverance.

Look at the adversity we are living in.

The Maine Supreme Court unanimously upheld a custody order on Monday giving a father veto power over a mother’s decisions to take their daughter to church or read her the Bible, largely barring the child’s religious upbringing.

Our allegedly conservative churches are hounding the most honorable and Christian men from their posts. Further, they are denouncing the idea of Christian Nationalism as if the idea has never been embraced by the Church historical.

A friend wrote me this week w/ another example,

My wife’s 92 year old great great Aunt passed away and she asked that Jenny’s brother Jonah do her funeral service.

He has credentials and has been a associate pastor off and on while bivocational since college.

The FEMALE “pastor” of the Methodist church that the great great Aunt used to attend and where the services will be held demanded to see Jonah’s credentials because the female Pastorette didn’t want someone who wasn’t qualified to do the service.

Now these are just three examples of the cultural adversity we are facing. This does not mention the personal adversities. The point in all of this though is that God is not absent. God is putting us in the refiners fire in order to make the best of steel, and God will use these hard times to create strong men who will rise up and put to flight the enemy.

And so the encouragement this morning is found in the Catechism in four ways,

I.) For what is future we can have good confidence in our faithful God and Father that no creature shall separate us from His love

They have explained God’s rule. They have told us, following Scripture, that God is our Father. The future belongs to the God who loves us for the sake of Jesus Christ. Of all people, despite the opposition we should the people characterized as having good confidence.

They cite Romans 8 here which teaches us that nothing can separate us from the Love of God. NOTHING. No adversity that God sends. No opposition from God’s enemies. No sorrow that enters our lives.

Here we are covered with the righteousness of Jesus. We can no more be touched by the enemy without God’s assignment than Christ can be touched at God’s right hand. We are impervious to any hostility or adversity that isn’t assigned by a triune God who loves us and hates those who hate His people.

Be of good cheer little flock. The future is bright and so your confidence should be brimming.

II.) all creatures are so in His hand, that without His will they cannot so much as move.4

The wicked plot against God’s people but the Psalmist says,

6They spread a net for my feet; my soul was despondent. They dug a pit before me, but they themselves have fallen into it!

Let us end though on a note about where our mind should go in light of God’s providence. If we believe in this kind of providence than we can be blistering in our championing God’s cause. We can speak the unvarnished truth not worrying about what man can do to us.

In the words of Rev. Joe Morecraft,

“And if a man believes that the overruling providence of God is operative in his life, he doesn’t care what man does to him. He will be courageous. No matter what the cost is to himself. So you see, when a man has these three components in his life, faith that God is present in his life. Faith that he is involved in a righteous cause, faith that the overruling providence of God is operative in his life, that person will do courageous things.”

God is personally concerned with your life. He is involved and His almighty and ever present power is right now upholding and governing your life. Your concerns are not strange to Him. He has not forgotten your trials but has introduced them in order to conform you increasingly to His lovely and resolute character.

Thank God now for the prosperity he has given to you by making you Biblical Christians who believe, unlike most other Christians, in God’s providence.