Sermons – Page 17

God’s 9th Word — Part II

As we begin this morning we want to connect God’s Character to God’s law.

GOD IS JUST

Scripture teaches repeatedly that “God is just.”

Dt. 32:4 “ The Rock! His work is perfect,
For all His ways are [a]just;
A God of faithfulness and without injustice,
Righteous and upright is He.

Psalm 33:4 For the word of the Lord is upright,
And all His work is done in faithfulness.
5 He loves righteousness and justice;
The earth is full of the lovingkindness of the Lord.

Even the pagan Kings could testify as did Nebuchadnezzar,

Daniel 4:37 Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt and honor the King of heaven, for all His works are [a]true and His ways [b]just, and He is able to humble those who walk in pride.”

And when all is said and done, God’s justice will be a theme in the singing in the final age

Revelation 15:3 And they *sang the song of Moses, the bond-servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying,

“ Great and marvelous are Your works,
O Lord God, the Almighty;
Righteous and true are Your ways,
King of the nations!

The character of “God as just” is seen in His ten words given to mankind. In our series on God’s justice on display in the Ten Commandments we have seen repeatedly that God is just and righteous and has given men, as His image bearers, His just character to live by.

GOD’S JUSTICE REPLICATED IN HIS PEOPLE

In Psalm 37 we see a connection between God who is just and His love for those who live by His just Character.

Psalm 37:28 For the Lord loves justice
And does not forsake His godly ones;
They are preserved forever,
But the descendants of the wicked will be cut off.
29 The righteous will inherit the land
And dwell in it forever.
30 The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom,
And his tongue speaks justice.
31 The law of his God is in his heart;
His steps do not slip.

God is Just and He loves seeing His justice in His Redeemed people as His Law is in their hearts.

We shouldn’t need to say this but we will nonetheless. It is understood that our only righteousness is found in Jesus Christ who is our law keeping perfection before the Father. But it is precisely because we are counted as having fulfilled the law in Jesus Christ that we esteem God’s law.

God is just, and we are just in Christ, and so we seek to speak up God’s justice by advocating for and living by God’s law.

BECAUSE WE ASPIRE TO TAKE GOD’S JUSTICE SERIOUSLY WE ESTEEM GOD’S LAW

This is why we spend time considering the ten words. We spend time considering God’s ten words because we desire to live the abundant life and we desire for God’s justice to be known among the nations.

This just character of God as seen in God’s law is seen as a threat by those who prefer to define justice according to their own law word. They feel threatened by God’s just character and so God’s law.

But, we might ask, is so threatening about God’s law?

Is it threatening that all people might honor, respect, and submit to lawful authorities? (#5)

Is it threatening that all people be committed to protecting the lives, and welfare of all other men? (#6)

Is it threatening that all people be committed to their own spouses and that all be committed to ending sexual exploitation? (#7)

Is it threatening that all people refused to steal property of others thus protecting their own material welfare? (#8)

And in light of the fact that all of this expresses God’s just Character, would it be threatening if everyone took this God seriously? (#1 – 4)

These commandments of God are those commandments that people have serious problems with. Because these laws are so threatening they must be removed from the places were children gather, they must be removed from the places where litigants gather, and they must not be appealed to as a basis for public policy.

Yet despite this cavil against God’s law if we as God’s people were to cease advocating for God’s law in our own personal lives and for the public square we would be left being in opposition to the character of the God we say we serve.

When it comes to God’s justice whoever is not with God is against God, and whoever does not gather with God scatters.

And so we teach and esteem God’s law. Not as our righteousness before God. We have that in our Lord Christ. No, we teach and esteem God’s law out of a sense of gratitude and love for the fact that the law no longer condemns us because we are righteous in Christ.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF GOD’S TRANSCENDENT LAW

And what shall happen if we give up on God’s law as a transcendent standard for our personal lives and for the public square?

Well, obviously we then will live by injustice. If God is just, and if His ways are altogether perfect, if we give up on God’s law we give up on justice and embrace injustice.

If we give up on God’s transcendent justice, as summarized in the Ten Commandments then we must find justice in the immanent.

Ill. — Transcendent Justice — Navigating by North Star

If there is no North Star then some other standard for justice has to be appealed to. That other standard will inevitably be defined by whoever has the most power.

If we will not be guided by the North Star of God’s transcendent law we will be guided by man’s immanent law that teaches, per Chairman Mao, that “power comes from the barrel of a gun.”

We will either serve the creator God’s transcendent justice or the “justice” that we create will serve the desires of which ever creature is in control.

The Russian novelist Dostoevsky, in his book “The Brother’s Karamazov” warned that once God is set aside, “man will be lifted up with a spirit of divine titanic pride and the man-god will appear.”

That man-god that Dostoevsky speaks of could be the arrival of anarchy where each man is his own god and where the law is, “every man does what is right in his own eyes.” That man-god could be the arrival of some democratic majority such as the one which was channeled by Robespierre in the French Revolution and gave the law of the guillotine. That man-god could be the arrival of some Despot and Tyrant setting atop a Nation-State who gives the law of his whim and fancy through the procedure of extra-constitutional signing statements or by fiat run around of constitutional authority. However the man-god arrives, he arrives because we failed to esteem God’s transcendent law that gives us North Star justice.

And so we appeal to God’s law as a transcendent norm that norms all other norms. We believe that if we did not appeal to God’s law as a transcendent norm that norms all other norms we would be a cruel and mean people. This is an important point to tease out for a moment.

When Alabama State Supreme Court judge Roy Moore insisted that God’s law stay in the court building in Alabama he was depicted as mean and as a obscurantist. But Judge Moore was the one who in his insistence that God’s law remain in the court room who was reflecting the milk of human kindness.

Often Christians with their transcendent norms and with their advocacy of God’s law as a universal norm that all men should be governed by are seen as the mean people but in point of fact it is people who appeal to get rid of the North Star that was given to regulate human behavior who are the cold hearted mean people. Those who desire to throw off God’s law to be ruled by the un-anchored relative law of the creature are the cruel and the despotic. Those people who have successfully thrown off God’s North Star rule of “Thou Shalt Not Kill” as being oppressive have successfully murdered over 50 million unborn children. Those people who have successfully thrown off God’s North Star rule of “Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery,” with legislation that has been counter intuitive to the support of the family are responsible for the destruction of untold numbers of family and individual lives. We could go on, but you get the idea, it is those who oppose God’s law as a transcendent norm that norms all norms who are the mean ones and the cold hearted.

With all that as backdrop we continue to examine God’s law.

This week we take up the 9th commandment again.

Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness

That this law still has influence in our lives is seen by how we raise our children. Likely, all of us raised our children impressing upon them the importance of “telling the truth,” and we made sure that our children didn’t run with other children who we knew were capable at lying. In our marriages we expect spouses to be honest with one another and we find it to be a fault in a husband and wife that lies to their spouse. In the workplace we still look for honesty in both our employees and our employers even if we are often disappointed.

And in the public square we still have the residual influence of God’s transcendent “Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness” on our books. We still have laws against perjury, slander, and libel, and fraud, and insider trading, and obstruction of justice, even if those laws are not enforced as much as they should be.

We take it for granted that “Honesty is the best policy,” but in other cultures untouched by Christian thinking this is not necessarily so.

Don Richardson, in his book, “The Peace Child” related the story of a tribe where lying and deceit was the greatest honour / trait a man could have! And upon the first telling of the death of Christ, initially the tribe thought Judas was the hero because of his deceit.

So, unlike other cultures, we still have a residue of a memory of “Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness.”

A people who are honest and truth tellers are necessary to have a culture that can function, whether that culture is just in a family, or a workplace, or a community. If we could not trust one another to be truth tellers relationships would not be stable, and commerce could not function. If we could not trust one another to be truth tellers we would be withdrawn and solitary. If we could not trust one another to be truth tellers we would grow to be suspicious and paranoid.

We can see how important “Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness” is for healthy communities.

In the Catechism we are instructed what is required in this commandment

Answer: That I bear false witness against no man, (a) nor falsify any man’s words; (b) that I be no backbiter, nor slanderer; (c) that I do not judge, nor join in condemning any man rashly, or unheard; (d) but that I avoid all sorts of lies and deceit, as the proper works of the devil, (e) unless I would bring down upon me the heavy wrath of God; (f) likewise, that in judgment and all other dealings I love the truth, speak it uprightly and confess it; (g) also that I defend and promote, as much as I am able, the honor and good character of my neighbour. (h)

Types of False Witness

Last week we spent time on the fact that this commandment is especially in reference to the court room looking at how this commandment serves as a legal fence around the other commandments. There is no way, that judicially, one can protect Life, Marriage, and Property, unless one can get to the truth.

But clearly, the ninth commandment has in mind a much wider scope than the judicial system alone. It forbids all forms of false witness, all forms of lying (Eph.4:25).

25 Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.

The 9th commandment aims at preserving reputations and our neighbors good name. One way to destroy a man is to destroy his reputation and so the 9th commandment seeks to protect reputations by forbidding

(1) backbiting and gossip.

Scripture speaks of backbiting as done by the wicked.

Rom.1:29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Rom.1:30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,

Gossip may not include overt lying. Gossip may succeed in false witness by leading astray or by giving truth in such a way that one knows it will be misinterpreted.

Backbiting is a graphic word that communicates an attack on someone in such a way that he can not defend himself. In our imagination we should see it closely akin to the guy in the Movie who shoots someone in the back. Backbiting attacks a person where he is most vulnerable because he can not ward off the attack.

(2) judging rashly

The disciples passed a blind man and asked Jesus who had sinned — the blind man or his parents (John 9:2).

Clearly this was a rash judgment as Jesus points out that neither was the case.

We need to remember this prohibition as we deal with people. Sometimes it seems so obvious what motives for people’s behavior that is reported to us, but we must be careful not to judge rashly. Matters are often not what they first seem. We should try to give people the benefit of the doubt … especially those that we know.

As we enter into this election cycle it will be important for us to not judge rashly. Advertisements on all sides are aimed at us spending 30 or 60 seconds to convince us to judge rashly. Of course judgments are necessary but we should try to, as much as possible, arm ourselves with all the facts before we come to a conclusion.

(3) Libel.

Libel is lying openly and intentionally in print.

Libel often occurs by twisting someone’s ones words, by giving half a quote or by not giving the full context. Truth is in precision.

When we enter into this kind of behavior we are violating the 9th commandment.

As Christians we are to be characterized as dealing in truth.

Jesus said that when we speak lies we speak the Devil’s language. (John 8:44)

Elsewhere Scripture teaches,

Prov.12:22 Lying lips are abomination to the LORD: but they that deal truly are his delight. Prov.13:5 A righteous man hateth lying: but a wicked man is loathsome, and cometh to shame.

Jesus Christ Our Truth Before God

We are liars. None of us keep the command to not bear false witness perfectly.

And so we must constantly repair to Christ.

Our trusting in Christ does not give us license to lie (shall we go on sinning that Grace might increase?) but it does remind us that when give up on our own self righteousness in terms of bearing false witness, Christ is the one who is our righteousness before God.

9th Word

Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness

The appeal to objective truth

In a world that locks out God there is no objective truth and if there is no objective truth then the whole conversation about bearing either true or false witness is a non-sequitur.

So before we can talk about commandment #9 we have to presuppose that God is.

However, our culture with its evolution in biology its existentialism in philosophy and its deconstructionism in literature we have denied God as the creator, God as the giver of meaning, and God as the author and as such we have denied that true truth exists.

“Today not only in philosophy but in politics, government, and individual morality, our generation sees solutions in terms of synthesis and not absolutes. When this happens, truth, as people have always thought of truth, has died.”

Francis Schaeffer

C. S. Lewis gets at our problem regarding bearing true witness without God when he notes,

“Suppose there was no intelligence behind the universe, …. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. … When the atoms inside my skull happen for physical or chemical reasons to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call ‘thought’. But if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It’s like upsetting a glass of milk and hoping that the way the splash arranges itself will give you a map of London. But if I can’t trust my own thinking, of course I can’t trust the arguments leading to atheism; therefore I have no reason to be an atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I can’t believe in thought, so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God”

– C.S. Lewis in The Case for Christianity

If there is no God, then talking about the bearing of either false or true witness is gibberish. If God does not exist and all we are is matter in motion then all I can say in terms of witnessing is whatever bio-chemical charges that occur in my head allow me to say.

It is true that despite the wide scale denial of God there remains an expectation of bearing true witness among modern Western man, but how modern man justifies that idea is impossible to gauge. We clamor for the bearing of proper witness and yet by our denial of the God of the Bible we render such an ethic impossible.

The expectation among modern men that the truth be told is a hangover from the Christian moral tradition that built the Western world. The expectation of proper witnessing is inconsistent with a time plus chance plus circumstance world. What the modern pagan West has done is to wrench the flower of a Christian ethic — an ethic that includes forbidding false witnessing — from the theological soil that makes such an ethic possible, and have then transplanted that Christian ethic into the non-Christian theological gravel that is the theology that now informs the West.

Or to put it another way, we have cut the flower of truth telling from the theological soil where it grows and yet we still expect the flower to remain full of life. To paraphrase Lewis,

We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We scorn the notion of God and are shocked to find false witnesses in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.

So our first point this morning is if we are to be a people who care about truth telling, and if we are to put off false witnessing and put on true witnessing we must have a vibrant belief in the God of the Bible who is Himself the God of Truth (John 16:13).

Our second point as we consider the 9th commandment is to remember that the prohibition against bearing false witness should be thought of vertically before it is considered horizontally.

We are a Christian people. We are called not to bear false witness. Our primary concern, given that commandment then should be that we not bear false witness concerning the triune God. Our passion should be to be found to be faithful witnesses regarding the character of God.

There is a great need for God’s people to not give False witness concerning God today.

There are many ways that this is done. We bear false witness of God when we talk about God’s unconditional love outside the context of faith in Christ.

“Unconditional love separates God’s love from His Law. The love of God is never lawless or unprincipled, never separate from His holiness, justice, and righteousness. Unconditional love is love with no strings attached; no requirements for change, no recognition of evil or acknowledgment of right and wrong. Unconditional love is a more revolutionary concept than any other doctrine of revolution. Unconditional love means the end of discrimination between good and evil, right and wrong, better and worse, friend and enemy, and all things else. Whenever anyone asks you to love unconditionally, they are asking you to surrender unconditionally to the enemy.

R.J. Rushdoony

Ministers and laymen alike are causing tremendous confusion and damage in the modern church by bearing false witness concerning the character and nature of God. It is true for those in Christ that nothing can separate us from the Love of God, but it is also true that the Love of God makes us a people who are zealous for good works. We have no business telling those who are unconcerned with flagrantly violating God’s standard that God’s love is unconditional as if in making a claim on God is the same as revealing that God has a claim on us.

That God’s love anticipates fruit in keeping with repentance among His people is seen in passages like,

Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ (Jude 3,4).

Note here that we here strains of the false witness against God that his love does not expect a certain walk. These people that Jude writes about had turned the grace of God into lasciviousness.

Lasciviousness” is translated from the Greek word aselgeia, which means “unbridled lust, excess, wantonness, outrageousness, shamelessness, insolence.”

So, the false witness against God’s character (gracious = promiscuous) is no new thing and yet that danger is something we need to keep before us.

Likewise false witness concerning God is born when Christians deny His exhaustive sovereignty.

When Christians deny, as many do, Grace Alone Through Faith Alone in Christ Alone as our rescue from sin, when we deny the doctrines of Grace that teaches that redeemed man contributes nothing to His right standing before God, when we deny the exhaustive providence of God of the kind taught in our Catechism, or when we deny the necessity to esteem the use of God’s law as a guide for life for Christians, in both the private realm and the public square, we bear false witness concerning God’s sovereignty and so violate the 9th commandment most egregiously.

When Scripture’s teach, “The Lord God Omnipotent Reigns,” it means that God is all powerful — is Sovereign.

There are other ways that we can bear false witness concerning God. We can question God’s word as being inerrant and infallible. We can divide God’s word up so that the Old Testament has an expiration date that no longer requires us to take it seriously. We can bear false witness concerning who God’s people are mistakenly teaching that God’s people are still the Jews when Scripture teaches that the Church is the people of God.

So, when we consider the necessity to not bear false witness perhaps what should go through our minds of utmost importance is pray that God would grant us grace not to bear false witness against Him.

Our third point this morning is to consider the 9th commandment as a requisite for justice in courts of law.

The ninth commandment, as it applies to a horizontal level (man with man) involves, first of all, judicial or courtroom matters. That is not its only sphere, in man’s relationship to his fellow man but it is its primary one.

The ruling chieftains of a set place exercised justice in ancient Israel. The system that was organized for the pursuit of justice was based upon witnessing. If God’s justice was to be had in this system then it required truth telling in the courtroom setting.There was no fingerprinting. No genetic testing. What was required and what was relied upon were truth telling witnesses.

Dt. 17:6 On the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death; he shall not be put to death on the]evidence of one witness.

Dt. 19:15 “ A single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or any sin [a]which he has committed; on the [b]evidence of two or three witnesses a matter shall be confirmed.

We see then with the 9th commandment how serious God was about the issue of justice among men. What established justice among men was the testimony of two witnesses. If witnesses were false the gravest of consequences could occur and the pursuit of justice would lead to injustice.

I Kings 21:13 Then the two worthless men came in and sat before him; and the worthless men testified against him, even against Naboth, before the people, saying, “Naboth cursed God and the king.” So they took him outside the city and stoned him to death with stones.

In this incident we see why Proverbs says,

8 Like a club and a sword and a sharp arrow
Is a man who bears false witness against his neighbor.

So, given how serious this witnessing was we can readily understand why God gave, as one of the 10 words, the prohibition of false witnessing. God also put teeth in this prohibition against false witnessing. If one were caught giving false witness that person would receive in themselves the penalty that was designated for the person who they were trying to convict with their false witness.

Dt. 19:16 If a malicious witness rises up against a man to [a]accuse him of [b]wrongdoing, 17 then both the men who have the dispute shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who will be in office in those days. 18 The judges shall investigate thoroughly, and if the witness is a false witness and he has [c]accused his brother falsely, 19 then you shall do to him just as he had intended to do to his brother. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you.

So the prohibition against false witnessing was aimed at insuring justice and justice is something that God loves.

So, the 9th word reinforces the 6th, 7th, and 8th word. In order to protect life, marriage, and property you need legal institutions that can bring justice to bear but in order to bring justice to bear you need a prohibition against false witnessing since witnesses are instrumental in arriving at justice.

The ninth commandment involves a crucial issue — the safeguarding of honor, life, marriage and property. Where there is no justice because false witnessing abounds liberty vanishes and fear and injustice (Remember Naboth) reign.

72 Give the king your justice, O God,
and your righteousness to the royal son!
2 May he judge your people with righteousness,
and your poor with justice!
3 Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people,
and the hills, in righteousness!

Of course we still see the importance of the 9th commandment in our perjury laws. Being found guilty of perjury can land a person in a boatload of trouble. The reason for this today is the same as it was when the 9th commandment was given. If a court can not get at the truth, there will be no justice and where there is no justice every man will do what is right in his own eyes.

Drought & God’s Providence

Many scriptures speak of God being in control of the presence and absence of rain and withholding rain as a sign of His displeasure.

Dt. 28:15 “ But it shall come about, if you do not [a]obey the Lord your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

23 [a]The heaven which is over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you, iron. 24 The Lord will change the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed. (cmp. Lev. 26:19).

The metaphors of heaven as bronze and earth as iron spoke of a rainless sky and a barren land. Such realities would be frightful to any people.

Zech. 14:17 And it will be that whichever of the families of the earth does not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, there will be no rain on them.

Acts 14:17 and yet He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, [a]satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”

James 5:17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed [a]earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months.

Amos 4:7 “Furthermore, I withheld the rain from you
While there were still three months until harvest.
Then I would send rain on one city
And on another city I would not send rain;
One part would be rained on,
While the part not rained on would dry up.

Jer.5:24 Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear the LORD our God, that giveth rain, both the former and the latter, in his season: he reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest.

When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if My People who are called by my Name will humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive there sin and heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7: 13-14)

God created the world as a good environment which would normally provide ample water and food for mankind (Genesis 1:1).

0lder Calvinists saw an interruption of rain as God’s just judgment, Thomas Watson in 1670,

“It is God who brings droughts and rain, and who opens and stops the clouds, the bottles of heaven, at his pleasure:

Watson then cites Jer. 14:2-4,

“Judah mourns, her cities languish; they wail for the land, and a cry goes up from Jerusalem. The nobles send their servants for water; they go to the cisterns but find no water. They return with their jars unfilled; dismayed and despairing, they cover their heads (as a token of great grief and sorrow, as mourners do.) The ground is cracked because there is no rain in the land; the farmers are dismayed and cover their heads.”

Watson, like many of the older Calvinists saw the productiveness of the earth as related to people’s obedience to God.

They could look at the sins of Adam, Eve, and Cain as those sins resulted in unfruitfulness of the earth (Genesis 3:17-18; Genesis 4:12).

17 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’;

Cursed is the ground because of you;
In [a]toil you will eat of it
All the days of your life.
18 “Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;
And you will eat the [b]plants of the field;

As a result of Cain’s sin,

12 When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you; you will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.”

The Older Calvinists could look at Israel’s relationship with God and how the sins of Israel also directly affecting the fertility of the Promised Land.

When the people obeyed God, the land was productive (Deuteronomy 11:11-14). However, when they disobeyed, judgment came on the land by drought and famine (Leviticus 26:23-26; Deuteronomy 11:16-17; 1 Kings 8:35).

I Kings 8:35 “ When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain, because they have sinned against You, and they pray toward this place and confess Your name and turn from their sin when You afflict them,

At the same time the Old Testament contains promises that God will protect His faithful ones in times of famine (Job 5:20, 22; Psalms 33:18-19; Psalms 37:18-19; Proverbs 10:3)

Ps. 33:18 Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him,
On those who [a] hope for His lovingkindness,
19 To deliver their soul from death
And to keep them alive in famine

Ps. 18 The Lord knows the days of the [a]blameless,
And their inheritance will be forever.
19 They will not be ashamed in the time of evil,
And in the days of famine they will have abundance.

While the Bible states that some famines and droughts are the judgment of God (2 Samuel 21:1; 1 Kings 17:1; 2 Kings 8:1; Jeremiah 14:12; Ezekiel 5:12; Amos 4:6), not all such disasters are explicitly connected to divine punishment (Genesis 12:10; Genesis 26:1; Ruth 1:1; Acts 11:28). However, when God did send drought and famine on His people, it was for the purpose of bringing them to repentance (1 Kings 8:35-36; Hosea 2:8-23; Amos 4:6-8).

So older Calvinists used to read visitations upon the land as God communicating to His people by Divine providence. Those negative visitations could be lack of rain, they could be fire that raged through a city, or they could be capture by one’s enemies. The point is that older Calvinists, in difficulties or in blessings and abundance saw the hand of God.

For example,

Thomas Watson on the great fire that decimated London in 1670,

“That the burning of London is a national judgment, is evident enough to every man who has but half an eye.”

“O sirs, you are to see and observe and acknowledge the hand of the Lord in every personal judgment, and in every domestic judgment. Oh how much more then in every national judgment that is inflicted upon us! And thus I have done with those ten considerations, that should not only provoke us—but also prevail with us, to see and acknowledge the hand of the Lord in that recent dreadful fire, which has laid our city desolate!”

When other Puritans in the New World experienced starvation and Indian attacks, they reasoned it was God’s will and possibly also His punishment for their materialism and other sins. When they were victorious in battle with the Indians or reaped a bountiful harvest, they gave thanks to God.

Mary Rowlandinson, a Calvinist preacher’s wife in the New World was captured by Indians in a raid on their town.

Rowlandson believed that God was punishing his people for breaking their special covenant as his chosen people. She described the relationship between the Indians and the colonists as one orchestrated by God. As she surveyed her home after the attack bv the Indians, she credited the destruction not to the Indians, but to God, when she quoted “Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations He has made in the earth-“[10] When pondering the escape of the Indians, weighed down with the burden of their wounded captives, from the English army, Rowlandson concluded that “God strengthened [the Indians] to be a scourge to His people.” Rowlandson believed that “our perverse and evil carriages in the sight of the Lord have so offended Him that, instead of turning his hand against [the Indians], the Lord feeds and nourishes them.” She reinforced her conviction that God punished her people through the Indians by quoting the scriptural voice of God saying “Oh, that my people had harkened to me, and Israel had walked in my ways; I should soon have subdued their enemies and turned my hand against their adversaries.”[11] The Indians’ success over the Puritans was a result of the failure of the Puritans to uphold their covenant with God. The warning that John Cotton preached over forty years earlier, that if the colonist, “degenerate, to take loose courses, God will surely plucke you up,” had become prophetic to Mary Rowlandson

Remember, the point that I’m trying to make here, is that whether it was drought, or some other hardship, Older Calvinists believed that God’s sovereign providential hand was in the matter. Whatever they were dealing with it did not come to them by chance or happenstance. And generally they believed if what came to them was hardship, then they had need to repent.

Maybe they drew too tight a connection between the hardship and the specific sin in their lives they were being chastened for, but at least they understood that the world was Governed directly by God whatever concrete event may come into their lives.

I think there is danger in drawing to tight a connection between hardship that comes into our lives and some specific exact sin, though Scripture clearly teaches God chastens those He loves. If we draw to tight a connection between hardship and some exact sin we could fall prey to the thinking that success always equal righteousness while hardship always equals some wickedness. Scripture gives us plenty of examples that counter that so that we will not fall into that thinking.

Having said that, I also think that we have fallen into the greater danger of not seeing the world alive with God’s providential superintendence like the older Calvinists. We too often fail to see God’s providence in all the affairs around us. We too typically forget that all that happens, happens by divine ordination and with the concurrence of Divine providence.

For the older Calvinists God’s hand was seen in everything. To often for us, God is a spectator, along with us, in the
vicissitudes of life. And because we don’t seen God’s providence in all that comes our way we are slow to turn to Him in every situation, casting our all upon Him.

Now we ask why did the older Calvinists view life with this high sense of God intimate providence?

Because they saw it taught everywhere in Scripture,

Amos 3:6, “When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it?”

Whatever the judgment is which falls upon a city—God is the author of it; he acts in it and orders it according to his own good pleasure. There is no judgment that accidentally falls upon any person, city, or country. Every judgment is inflicted by a divine power and providence… including drought.

“The Lord said to him—Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord?” Exodus 4:11.

“See now that I myself am He! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand!” Deuteronomy 32:39.

“The Lord brings death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up. The Lord sends poverty and wealth; he humbles and he exalts. 1 Samuel 2:6-7.

“When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other.” Ecclesiastes 7:14.

“This is what the Lord says: As I have brought all this great calamity on this people, so I will give them all the prosperity I have promised them.” Jeremiah 32:42.

“Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come?” Lamentations 3:38.

“When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it?” Amos 3:6.

“For he wounds, but he also binds up; he injures, but his hands also heal.” Job 5:18.

“I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted.” Job 42:2.

“Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him.” Psalm 115:3.

“I know that the Lord is great, that our Lord is greater than all gods. The Lord does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths.” Psalm 135:5-6.

“I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.” Isaiah 45:7.

“The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me!” Ruth 1:21.

“I was silent; I would not open my mouth, for you are the one who has done this.” Psalm 39:9. “He is the Lord; let him do what is good in his eyes.” 1 Samuel 3:18.

“The Lord brought all this disaster on them.” 1 Kings 9:9.

“‘I am going to bring disaster on you.” 1 Kings 21:21.

“The Lord has decreed disaster for you.” 1 Kings 22:23.

“Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle!” 2 Kings 21:12.

“The Lord works out everything for his own ends– even the wicked for a day of disaster!” Proverbs 16:4.

“Therefore this is what the Lord says: I will bring on them a disaster they cannot escape. Although they cry out to me, I will not listen to them!” Jeremiah 11:11.

We see, by the witness of Scripture, that the older Calvinists had good reason to have a strong belief in God’s providence. It was part and parcel of that which makes Calvinism, Calvinism, and that is the belief in the Sovereignty of God.

So what is our attitude to be in the face of natural disasters?

1.) We would do well, in every natural occurrence, to see the hand of the Lord, and to look through the instrument that God uses to effect His end to the invisible God who wielded that instrument. Winds do not blow, floods do not come, rain is not with-held, unless God be in it. (“Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it, or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?” Is. 10:15).

2.) We don’t blame God as if He is guilty of our demands. Could any of us say that we are as Holy in our walk as our righteous Father Job was, and yet, God in His providence laid Job low and Job learned not to put God in the dock. When hardship comes our way we must remember that God’s dealings with us are altogether just, and that none of us, if honest with ourselves, can indict God for His dealings with us, as if we deserve better than whatever God brings.

3.) Repent. Repentance means a change in our thinking and then our lifestyle. We have to abandon our humanistic fantasies and return to taking the entire Word of God seriously. Why should we find it so difficult to call for repentance in the time of drought? Our whole life should be characterized as a life style of repentance and if that is so hardship should doubly call us to examine ourselves unto repentance, amending of thinking and acting where needs be and trust in Christ alone.

4.) Understand the truth of God’s “Severe Mercy.” Providentially, God sends hardship into our lives, often to put us into the refiners fire of sanctification. God’s severe mercy, often painfully, yet exactingly conforms us to Christ. We should pray that we might be able to say,

“I thank thee Lord for the Rod, the file, and the refiners fire, for grace tried and proven is better than grace left untried.”

(Paul’s thorn in the Flesh — God’s grace is sufficient.)

5.) We reach out with compassion to those who are suffering from natural disasters. We demonstrate the Love of God. We show the love of God in ministering to the needs and hurts of those immediately affected. It is an opportunity to show the love of Christ. It is an opportunity to relieve physical suffering [as Jesus did when He walked the earth], and point people to the only way to relieve spiritual suffering and know Peace w/ God.

“God’s 8th Word — Thou Shalt Be Charitable

I hope you have noticed something as we have made our way through this series of God’s law. I hope you have noticed why it can be said that we are “post-Christian,” in our Culture. Our social order is no longer governed by God’s law. Our cultural Institutions and framework are structured by a law that is other than God’s law.

As a people group and culture, instead of having no other God’s before us, we believe as a people, whatever we might believe contrary-wise individually, that “in the State we live and move and have our being.”

Today, the graven images that we have is too often a love of country that outstrips love for God.

As a culture God’s name is regularly taken in vain. In a conversation w/ a Judge I learned that in court perjury is a regular occurrence.

As a people our culture no longer take the Sabbath seriously … as I witnessed 30 years ago when public commerce ceased on the Lord’s Day.

By any fair calculation the family (Honor thy Father & Mother) is disintegrating.

And who can argue that as a culture we take seriously the prohibitions against Murder, Adultery, and Theft?

This is not to suggest there are not Christians … In this very place and other places who don’t esteem God’s Law. It is merely to point out that as a culture we are “post-Christian.”

God’s law is intended to shape God’s people and structure them, as that Law comes to them as Redeemed in Christ, and yet we who are shaped by God’s law find, at every turn, another law structure next to us, cheek by jowl, that likewise seeks to shape and inform us according to the god who is the lawgiver of that law system.

And so Biblical Christians, in this post-Christian setting, invariably are the counter-culture. It should be said of us, as it was said of the early Christians when the pagan culture was threatened by their presence,

“These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, (Acts 17:6)

As wicked Ahab accused righteous Elijah of being a “Troubler of Israel” because of Elijah’s stand for God, so we should be accused by our wicked culture as being “Troublers of our country,” because of our stand for the Lord Christ.

God’s law is health and vitality for those who are in Christ but those who are outside of Christ find God’s law to be accursed.

We are those who have been made righteous by Christ alone. The Scripture teaches that we were created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them (Eph. 2:10). It is God’s law that defines for us what good works are for us to walk in.

Christ gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds (Titus 2:14). Our zealousness for good deeds can only successfully be demonstrated if we have a standard to define the “good” about our deeds. That “standard,” is God’s law that we have been examining week by week in this series.

Last Week we talked about

I.) Stealing From God (Vertical)

A.) All abuse and waste of His gifts

II.) Stealing From Others (Horizontal)

This commandment demands just price and just wages.

III.) Stealing In The Public Square

Inflation, Usury, Ponzi Schemes

We examined how those are what the Heidelberg Catechism calls, “Wicked tricks or Devices.”

We could have also talked about

Price and wage controls, minimum wage laws, Corporate Welfare, Entitlement programs, public debt that we incur which the income of our children and grandchildren after us must pay, and other assorted wicked trick and devices whereby we design to appropriate to ourselves the goods which belong to our neighbour.

The passage that is cited to support the necessity to avoid these wicked tricks and devices as theft is,

1 Thess.4:6 That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified.

They might have also cited Ephesians 4:28

Eph.4:28 Let him that stole steal no more …

There is another category of wicked tricks and devices whereby we we design to appropriate to ourselves the goods which belong to our neighbor that I would like to brush up against briefly.

Scripture in Romans 13:6-7 requires us

6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. 7 Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.

And so clearly there is a proper due that is owed to those who rule. Because of Scriptures like this Christians can pay proper taxes as a devotion unto God.

C.) Confiscatory Taxation

Here I want to just offer some of what Calvin said on this subject,

Calvin argued for prudent limits, writing that taxes should only support public necessity; for “to impose them (taxes) upon the common folk without cause is tyrannical extortion.”

Calvin offered that obedience was a Christian duty in this area; however, he cautioned Princes not in indulge in “waste and expensive luxury,” lest they earn God’s displeasure. Again he would write on this subject, “Others drain the common people of their money, and afterward lavish it on insane largess.”

Has our tax system become confiscatory? Well, at least one area small businessman that I know of has just this past week written on this very subject,

A few years ago I computed how much of the profits that our companies have generated that I got to keep. Since every dollar in taxes starts as a dollar of profit, I figured out all the taxes we had paid corporately and personally. This included income taxes, social security taxes, sales & use taxes, franchise taxes, real estate taxes, license fees, etc. etc. I was stunned that we had paid a whopping 96% of all the profits we had generated to various governmental entities in taxes, keeping a miserable 4% for reinvestment in the business and as a reward for my work.

This small businessman then goes on to talk about what I consider to be hidden taxes,

And it has not only been the tax burden that successful entrepreneurs have to overcome, it is the regulatory ones as well. We have been forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars on equipment and machinery that was totally unnecessary and has went unused for almost two decades merely because the Ruling Elites knew better than us what was good for us. We’ve been forced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in compliance costs to just make sure that we haven’t missed jumping through one hoop or another of the over 13,000 pages of rules and regulations that we are supposed to obey, and on and on.

Calvin certainly would have understood that this kind of confiscatory taxation is a wicked trick and devices whereby what is designed is the appropriation by violators of the 8th commandment to themselves the goods which belong to their and our neighbor. If we are to take the 8th commandment seriously and our own Catechism seriously, we will not be supporters of those who do not advocate the repealing of this kind of confiscatory taxation root, branch and twig.

However the Catechism has a “Thou Shalt” for us that corresponds to the “Thou Shalt Not.”

Question 111. But what does God require in this commandment?

Answer: That I promote the advantage of my neighbour in every instance I can or may; and deal with him as I desire to be dealt with by others: (a) further also that I faithfully labour, so that I may be able to relieve the needy. (b)

(a) Matt.7:12 Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. (b) Eph.4:28 Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.

A.) Works of Charity

Here the Golden Rule is cited. In order to esteem the 8th commandment we should be a people who look not only to our needs but also to the needs of others.

In Reformed Church History this includes not only our personal giving to others as we see need but also our support for the Deacon’s fund in the Church.

Emperor Julian of Rome is quoted,

“Nothing has contributed more to the progress of the superstition of the Christians as their charity to strangers . . . . The impious Galileans provide not only for their own poor, but for ours as well.”

They fed the poor, nursed the sick, housed the homeless, and rescued those abandoned to die.

Calvin, envisioned the Church having this mercy ministry as well,

“When I first came to this Church,” he says, “there was as good as nothing here . . . . There was preaching, and that was all.” He would have found much the same state of things everywhere else in the Protestant world. The Church in the early Protestant conception was constituted by the preaching of the Word and the right administration of the sacraments: the correction of morals was the concern not of the Church but of the civil power…. Calvin could not take this view of the matter. “Whatever others may hold,” he observed, “we cannot think so narrowly of our office that when preaching is done our task is fulfilled, and we may take our rest.” In his view the mark of a true Church is not merely that the gospel is preached in it, but that it is “followed.” For him the Church is the “communion of saints,” and it is incumbent upon it to see to it that it is what it professes to be. From the first he therefore set himself strenuously to attain this end .

And so works of charity — mercy ministries — were hallmarks of the early Reformed Church in Geneva. Calvin himself died comparatively impoverished. Perhaps this was, in part, due to the fact that instead of soaking up the funds in his salary the funds were going to the Deacon’s fund?

B.) Protestant Work Ethic

In order to fulfill the 8th commandment we are required to labor (work) as we can. Many scholars have attributed this strong work ethic as being a major contributor to the success of Biblical Christianity. Christians understood that they were to work and give to the needy. We see here the clear call to be a blessing to others because of our work ethic. Of course that blessing is first to our family in providing for them but as God grants us abundance we are to be a blessing to others.

Let us close by asking what can be done in order to avoid stealing

What is to be done to avoid stealing?

(1) Live in a calling. ‘Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labour, working with his hands.’ Eph 4:28, &c. The devil hires such as stand idle, and puts them to the pilfering trade. An idle person tempts the devil to tempt him.

(2) Be content with the estate that God has given you. ‘Be content with such things as ye have.’ Heb 13:5. Theft is the offspring of avarice and envy. Study contentment. Believe that condition best which God has carved out to you. He can bless the little meal in the barrel. We shall not need these things long: we shall carry nothing out of the world with us but our winding sheet. If we have but enough to bear out our charges to heaven, it is sufficient.

(3) Stay out of debt. In Proverbs 22 Scripture teaches that the borrower is the slave of the lender. There is a natural tendency of those in slavery to get out of slavery at all costs, even if it means stealing to do so. Our whole economic system drives us towards debt. The temptation to theft will be far less upon those who are not in debt.

(4) Find ways to stewardship of what God is given you so that you can save against the day of need. When I lived in South Carolina a reasonably well to do Farmer told me that if “I took care of my pennies, my dollars would take care of themselves.”

(5) Entrust yourself to God’s providence. While it is true that we should

Go to the ant, O sluggard,
Observe her ways and be wise,
7 Which, having no chief,
Officer or ruler,
8 Prepares her food in the summer
And gathers her provision in the harvest.
9 How long will you lie down, O sluggard?
When will you arise from your sleep?
10 “ A little sleep, a little slumber,
A little folding of the hands to rest”—
11 Your poverty will come in like a vagabond
And your need like an armed man.

It is also true that we are

31 not to worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ 32 For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But [s]seek first [t]His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be [u]added to you.

34 “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will [v]care for itself. [w]Each day has enough trouble of its own.

If we are a hard working people, and wise with our stewardship of God’s resources to us, then we must entrust ourselves to God’s providence, especially at those times when thieving, in one form or another, to relieve our distress might be tempting.

God’s 10 Words As His Character & Satan’s Antipodal Character

By way of opening this morning I want us to consider how Scripture portrays the violation of the 10 commandments as being Characteristic of the Devil. Scripture teaches us that God’s Law-Word is the Character of God so we should not be surprised that in are enemy the Devil we find a person whose Character is defined as being the antithesis of what God’s Law-Word establishes.

I open with this because I want us to understand that we either live as Children of God who walk increasingly in His character or we walk as Children of the Devil who walk increasingly in His character. The more we refuse to reflect Christ, who was the incarnation of God’s Law, the more we reflect the Devil who is the antithesis of God’s law.

In the words of the old Bob Dylan song …

“You’re gonna have to serve somebody. Now it may be the Devil or it may be the Lord but you’re going to have to serve somebody.”

1st Word

God said, “Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods before me

The Devil aspired

Isaiah 14:13 You said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to heaven;
above the stars of God
I will set my throne on high;
I will sit on the mount of assembly
in the far reaches of the north;[a]
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.’

2nd Word

God said, “Thou shalt not bow down to worship false gods”

Contrary to God’s explicit word Satan tempted Jesus to fall down and worship him.

Matthew 4:8-9 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”

3rd Word

God said, “Do not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain”

We learn in Job that Satan’s goal in his affliction of Job was to have Job curse God

Job 1:11 But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.”

Further, we find the Devil taking God’s name in vain when he quotes Scripture to Jesus during Jesus temptation. He cites God’s words for his own twisted end, using God’s words to undo God’s authority.

4th Word

5th Word

6th Word

God said, “Thou Shalt Not Kill”

In Scripture we find the Devil as,

John 6:10 — The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

John 8:44 — “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies

7th word

8th Word

God said, “Thou Shalt Not Steal”

In the parable of the sower it is said of Satan that he steals away the word sown

Elsewhere Jesus said of Satan

John 10:10 — The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

Some scholars identify “The Thief” here as “The Devil,” while others identify “the Thief” as the Pharisees but as the Pharisees were directly identified as acting in ways consistent with their Father the Devil, it comes much to the same thing.

Further the whole story of Scripture casts Satan as the one who would steal God’s Glory.

9th Word

God said, “Thou Shalt not bear False Witness

But it is said of Satan

10th Word

God said, “Thou Shalt Not Covet”

As we learned earlier on the 1st Commandment, Satan coveted God’s position as God

And we learn that the Sin that he plied in our First parents was coveting.

Fruit in the Garden … the desire to be as God

————-

This opening up of Scripture examines how it is that we reveal ourselves to be either Children of God or children of the Devil. If we are God’s people we will desire to walk in God’s character and confess before God and bring accusation against ourselves when we do not walk in God’s character.

However, it also opens up again our need as Christians for Christ and His Righteousness. We hear God’s law and we see God’s character in His law and we understand the requirement to conform to that character without fault or with the slightest deviation. And when we are honest with ourselves we understand that we must have a obedience to God’s character that comes from outside of us because even on those days we are most obedient in walking in God’s character we also see that it is not good enough. We are, with the Apostle Paul, the Chief of Sinners. And so while we esteem God’s law, we also look to the one who is our Law keeping righteousness that is acceptable before God, our Lord Jesus Christ who is to us our Wisdom, Righteousness and Sanctification.

And so the Law teaches us not only the Character of God that we are to walk in as God’s people, but it also teaches us that Christ’s perfect walk as God’s Covenantal Head for His people is that which we must hold fast to at all times as our only acceptability before God.

Similarly, when we look at Scripture we see the Character of Satan which is the antipode of God’s character and we understand that because we are Children of God, by the work of Christ alone, we are

22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

You see, as Christians we are to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God. And where do we learn of the likeness of God that we are to put on?

In Jesus Christ who was the incarnation of God’s ten Words.

And so we are the elect ones, who out of God’s sheer mercy and grace are covered in Christ and so being covered in Christ, and always being acceptable to the Father, we seek ourselves, as led by the Holy Spirit, to be miniature incarnations of God’s law word, increasingly conforming to Christ.

Like our Elder Brother Christ, it is our delight to have no God but God.
Like our Elder Brother Christ, it is our delight to not bow down to and serve false gods
Like our Elder Brother Christ, it is our delight to esteem the name of the Lord our God in vain
Like our Elder Brother Christ, it is our delight to honor the Sabbath
Like our Elder Brother Christ, it is our delight to honor our Parents
Like our Elder Brother Christ, it is our delight to esteem life
Like our Elder Brother Christ, it is our delight to remain chaste our whole lives
Like our Elder Brother Christ, it is our delight to promote the advantage of our neighbor in every instance
Like our Elder Brother Christ, it is our delight to be truth tellers
Like our Elder Brother Christ, it is our delight to be content with what God has appointed unto us

I John 3:8 teaches that Christ came to destroy the works of the Devil. In His death for sinners Christ destroys the accusatory work of the Devil who would bring charges (Romans 8:33) against the Saints. There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

And in the resurrection life that Christ freely gives to us (Romans 6) Christ destroys the works of the devil in our lives and makes us increasingly walking exemplifiers of God’s character so that we are an attraction to those who are called of God and reviled by those who are of their Father the Devil.

The Church is to be the Character of God. A living embodiment of the reality that the strong man has been bound and God’s people have been set free to walk in newness of life.

Here we see the hope of global Reformation. When God is pleased to grant Reformation, we can expect to see the continuing defeat of Satan’s character at every turn and the establishment of God’s character in its place.