Christ Church (Moscow, ID)

This is why Jesus took on a human body: so that He could drink death down, tasting it fully. This is why his mouth, tongue, and teeth were first formed in the body of his mother, the virgin Mary, so that He would be able fully to take in the acrid taste of death

A mid-week sermon from Pastor Douglas Wilson.

One of the greatest vices of the evangelical church over the past century has been our bad habit of attempting to read our Bibles in light of our current events, instead of the other way around, which is to read our current events in light of our Bible. In Scripture you have a firm and certain word. In the world around you, as we have right now, you have a raucous multitude driven by whatever emotion has worked its way to the top of their esophagus. If you go from that raging emotion to Scripture you will have no end of confusion. But if you start with the clear testimony of Scripture you will find that you suddenly have your feet on an immovable rock.So let’s start with Scripture and the promises of Psalm 118. These things have been promised to us and for us to be obedient means reading our current situation in light of this text.

A mid-week sermon from Pastor Toby Sumpter.There is something glorious here for us. The pagans were struck with darkness and could not rise, could not go out, could not move for three days, but all the children of Israel had light in their homes. The text doesn’t tell us exactly how this worked. It doesn’t say if there was some kind of massive cosmic miracle taking place or if the darkness was simply less intense in Goshen, such that the lanterns and candles actually worked or whether there was some other supernatural light being given. But either way, this moment is glorious. There was thick, paralyzing darkness in Egypt, but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings. The implication seems to be that there was still darkness in the land of Goshen, but that while Israel had to stay home, there was a relative blessing in the midst of the plague. Everyone was stuck at home, no one could go out, but where there was an additional darkness inside the homes of the Egyptians, all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings. Everyone had to stay home, but there were two very different experiences of that darkness. In one experience, there was no variation, only darkness, inside and outside, all the way through, but in the other experience, there was significant variation. The darkness was on the outside, but there was light on the inside. All of the children of Israel had light in their dwellings. It is still unclear exactly what has happened in our land, in our world, and what is happening. Whatever your views of this current moment, whether you are more concerned about the virus, or more concerned about the panic, or more concerned about government overreach and loss of civil liberties, or if it’s some or all of the above, whatever your opinions, whatever your concerns, the message is that for those who know God through Christ, no matter the darkness outside, there should be light in your homes, light in your families, light on the inside. Whatever the darkness, whatever the hardship, whatever the cause, you can say it however you like, but your sentence should end: but all of the children of Israel had light in their dwellings. But all the people of God had light in their homes. So my question is: if you call yourself a Christian, if you profess faith in Jesus Christ, is there light in your home? Is your home full of light? When the story is told of these days, will it be said of you and your family, that even though the world was full of darkness, the people of God had light in their dwellings? What is your home like? What is your family like? What is your marriage like? Is it full of light? Is it a joyful place to be? Is it a comforting place to be? Or is it fearful, biting, angry, grumpy, cold, or distant?

In a recent press conference, the president said that his desire was to have our country emerge from this crisis in a matter of weeks, not months, and that it was his desire for the churches of our country to be packed out on Easter.This is a laudable desire on at least two levels, and we should support and applaud it, as I do. But there is something more that still needs to be said about it. Packed churches are better than empty churches, but in themselves are not nearly enough.

The prophecy of Joel is about a coming disaster in Israel, the hope of repentance and reformation, and the promise of international justice. We do not know the full nature of the hardship we are facing, but we know that it is from the Lord. It is for our good, it is for His glory, and it is part of His plan to fill the earth with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. But one of the great lessons of Joel is the centrality of worship to all of life. Joel confronts our national sin of thinking that worship is not related to plagues, politics, economics, and family life.

Many of us recently read through Ezra and Nehemiah in the Bible Reading Challenge, and these books have a lot to say to us about the work of Reformation, which is what we are about.Ezra and Nehemiah take place after the 70 years of exile foretold in Jeremiah (Jer. 29:10), beginning around 539 B.C. While modern Bible commentators tend to date Nehemiah much later (100 years!) because he calls the king “Artaxerxes,” I’m inclined to read that as a throne name (like “Caesar” or “Pharaoh”) because Nehemiah refers to Ezra the Scribe being there with him (e.g. Neh. 8). Ezra also references Nehemiah (Ez. 2:2), which verse incidentally also mentions Mordecai, strongly suggesting that the “queen” in Neh. 2:6 is none other than Esther (making Ahasuerus, Darius, and Nehemiah’s “Artaxexes” all the same king). Regardless of how one takes the chronology, the books record the rebuilding of the temple (Ezra) and the walls of Jerusalem (Nehemiah), the blessing of God on their work, the challenges they faced, and provide us a number of lessons on the work of Reformation.

We need to begin with the obvious, which is that Scripture teaches that our words affect how we are doing, not to mention those all around us. But this “obvious” truth can, if unattended, deteriorate into the vagaries of generic uplift. When we speak the good word, it must be a word that is truly wise and good.

WLC 159: How is the Word of God to be preached by those that are called thereunto?They that are called to labor in the ministry of the Word, are to preach sound doctrine, diligently, in season and out of season; plainly, not in the enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit, and of power; faithfully, making known the whole counsel of God; wisely, applying themselves to the necessities and capacities of the hearers; zealously, with fervent love to God and the souls of his people; sincerely, aiming at his glory, and their conversion, edification, and salvation.

And here we come to a great hymn of gratitude and praise, offered up to God for His glorious law. We have here the definitive answer for those who accuse us of “bibliolatry” simply because we treat the words of God like the treasure they are. It is of course true that there is an absurd sin of actual bibliolatry out there in the religious world, the kind of sin that misses the whole point (John 5:39). But how could it be bibliolatry if we resolutely refuse to miss the point?