The Tyrannical Soul

The deadly cocktail of hedonism and crossless compassion has done widespread damage to today's Christian churches. It has shipwrecked people's faith; it has produced grotesque doctrines.

Paul described Moses as "choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. " (Hebrews 11:25, ESV, emphasis added) Sin is always in opposition to faith. It destroys faith and trust in God's farsightedness by appealing to carnality and man's shortsightedness. A tragic exchange.

It turns out the idols of pleasure are never placated, never satisfied. They are merciless taskmasters. They drive their vassals into the ground and into the dust. The hedonist is filled with angst, but he dares not blame his idols of fleeting pleasure. Instead, he sets out to impose his idols on other people and ultimately on the Bible itself. Yet, these efforts are Sisyphean exercises in continual frustration. Relief is always just out of reach.

In the fourth century B.C., Plato wrote about what he called the "tyrannical soul." From The Republic:

Not only is he ill governed within himself, but once misfortune removes him from private life and establishes him in the tyrant’s place, he must try to control others when he cannot control himself. He is like a sick man who is unable to exercise self-restraint yet is not permitted to pass his days in cloistered privacy; instead, he is obliged to engage adversaries in never-ending rivalry and discord....

Then he who is completely the tyrant is completely the slave.

Doesn't that sound a lot like the men and women in positions of influence who demand that society and the Bible be changed to accommodate their dissolute passions?

Faith in Christ offers true, lasting freedom. Jesus said in Matthew Chapter 11 (ESV):

²⁸ Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
²⁹ Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
³⁰ For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Great Joy

It really should be Easter (Resurrection) Sunday every day for born-again Christians.

Christ's finished work on the cross set regenerated believers free from the slavery to sin. Yet it's the kind of freedom that we have difficulty grasping, much less achieving, in practical terms, not for lack of self-discipline, of which there could never be adequately enough in these imperfect bodies, but for lack of faith, which arises from the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. We are not only justified by grace through faith, we are sanctified by grace through faith.

Jesus sees what we do not see: His completed work in us. If we try to get there by our own energies, by our own desire to do good, even by our own zealousness (remember Peter and the rooster's crow), we will fail. On our own efforts, we may succeed to some degree, possibly more than the unregenerate, but we will still fail. We will know that we have failed. Like the young Moses before his first trip to the wilderness, we are given a heart for the Lord but still stubbornly strive to do His will by our own power. A defeated life, even for a saved life, results.

Victory for Christians is identification with the Risen Christ — His power and His glory forever. Paul writes that we are to live "with Christ" (Romans 6:8) and "by faith in the Son of God." (Galatians 2:20) By living in faith, we trust the Lord to bring us to that objective (sanctification), only in His time and in His way. It is by faith that His will transforms our day-to-day lives.

There is great joy in freedom.

withChrist.org provides many excellent resources for further study on the "identification truths." For a primer, read "Identification History."

Dawn of a Dark Age

Iowa and Vermont recently became the third and fourth states to legalize same-sex marriage in the U.S. In his April 10th blog entry, Albert Mohler asked, "Is Same-Sex Marriage Inevitable?" His answer: a resigned yes.

The tragic absence of moral clarity has catapulted 21st-century society into the abyss. Once de facto homosexual marriages, i.e. so-called civil unions, were approbated, not just legislatively and judicially but also, and especially, in people's mindsets, the endgame was in sight.

Amending the Constitution would appear to be the only route left available to traditional marriage advocates, but this action highlights the one necessarily unavoidable weakness of the Constitution — in order to legislate morality, you need a moral people. As John Quincy Adams wrote, "Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other. "