On DW, KDY, Self-Owning in the Reformed Blogosphere, and Self-Owning in Our Own Lives

I chuckled as I typed "Reformed Blogosphere." It's a paper-weight sized snow globe—buried in the tiny pile of what is left of religion—in the cluttered attic that is America. The whole attic, taken collectively, has an inflated view of itself. But, even among men and history, it is not so big as it thinks it is. And before God, all of the nations are as a drop in the bucket.

If you don't know who DW is, you don't need to. There's nothing that he's said that hasn't been said better, by someone patently godlier, so that if the student will become like his teacher, you have better options. And if you don't know who KDY is, all you need to know for the purposes of this little note is that KDY made the "mistake" of writing an article about DW.

KDY noted that DW has a cultic following who follow DW's self-caricature in taking a flame thrower to anyone who critiques him. The article points out that as helpful as some of what DW has written might be, his fleshly demeanor and conduct should warn us off from becoming disciples, and that if we find ourselves attracted to that demeanor, then that should be its own warning sign about our own hearts.

Predictably, the DWdisciples immediately went scorched-earth, digging up things about the church that KDY serves, which predated him and which will outlast him unless the Lord grants a surprising reformation there. KDY is something that I am not, in part because his conscience apparently tolerates things in worship and ministry that mine wouldn't. So, this isn't a defense of KDY. It's just an observation that the response of the DWdisciples is something of a self-own. KDY said "this is how they tend to act." And they responded by acting that way.

True story: I was preaching on Rom 9:19–24 last night, roughly 24 hours after reading the KDY article. The introduction was crafted around the respondent in v19 thinking that he's come up with a such a clever argument, but that his presentation is actually such a revelation of his character that it ends up being a "self-own." I was very tempted to use DW as an illustration, because he's often had clever points to make (and only rarely are they as invalid as the rhetorical questioner in v19), but the cleverness of the point ends up being beside the point because his character is such that the presentation of it ends up being, before God, a self-own.

One great "tell" that we know little of the greatness and nearness of the Lord is that we still see ourselves (or anyone else) as very large. Genuinely knowing the nearness of the Lord will always compel us to make our lowliness known to all (cf. Phlp 4:5).

Another great tell that we know little of the greatness and nearness of the Lord is when first-table issues are smaller to us than second-table issues. When we obsess over statutes about how to treat each other but are largely unbothered by those laws of God that tell us what it is, specifically, to regard Him as holy when drawing near to Him.

DWdisciples rabidly attacking someone who says they tend to attack rabidly is a self-own. A sinner "finding fault" with God for finding fault with sinners is a self-own. Pride in a Christian is a self-own. Anything manmade or earthly in a church's worship is a self-own.

Some very good pastoral advice on the church's responses to the response to Covid-19

From the minutes of the 36th Council of the Reformed Churches of Brazil, March 22–26, 2021. They are a product of mission work by the Canadian Reformed Church. Article 75 is a response to one of their congregation's request for help in navigating government orders in connection with covid-19. May the Holy Spirit give to the undershepherds of His church wisdom and boldness to instruct and practice according to His Word.

ARTICLE 75. Request for advice and pastoral guidance on how a Christian's posture should be, as well as that of his church, in the face of the current pandemic moment of Covid-19. The internal commission, which was responsible for organizing a compilation of the advice given by the delegates, according to Article 34 of these Minutes, presents its work to the Council. The following delegates ask that it be recorded that they did not give any of this advice: Pr. Madson Marinho and Pb. Josemir Lopes. The advice given by the delegates of this Council to IPSEP IR questions is:

1. On the nature of the pandemic: we can say that we are facing an unprecedented real health crisis, or that we are experiencing the advance of an anti-Christian front, which wants to take advantage of the health crisis to stop the worship and worship of the true God? And what to do in the face of this?

● Some delegates responded that, although we are in a health crisis, we are not in the biggest one, as there have been much worse ones. Others said that there is no health crisis, as they believe that the virus does not have the power of lethality as disclosed. The real crisis is economic and not health related.

● Delegates generally believe that the virus has been used to curtail people's freedom, including freedom from public Sunday worship.

● In this circumstance, an attack of evil against the church of the Lord is visible, an anti-Christian force, which has used the present health crisis to prevent the worship of the church. This has revealed the great antithesis in the world: the forces of evil and the church.

● When the Church faces such persecutions, it clings to the gospel. With this, the church must continue to fear the Lord, trusting the Scripture, being simple as the dove and prudent as the serpent and announcing the gospel.

● The Church must live in the “old normal”, and always attesting to the information given to her.

● In the face of all this, the church must move forward trusting in the Lord.

2. On the restrictions on public worship: to what extent should we accept the State's determinations regarding its interference in Sunday public worship? Is it lawful to stop conducting public services in person and adopt the so-called “online services”? Would celebrating services in person under restrictive decrees break the fifth and sixth commandments?

● The church should only follow the State's instructions as far as it does not exceed the limits of its task established in the Word of God, and when it does not hurt the conscience in the Lord.

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● Christ is the only head of the Church who knows what is good for her.

● The State cannot legislate about worship, as it does not have the authority to interfere in

Church issues.

● “Online” services are not services. Such “on-line” services are a breach of the 2nd commandment, since it is a form of worship different from the way God prescribed. Worship is a

irreplaceable gathering.

● Some delegates spoke about freedom of conscience to justify the absence of face-to-face meetings.

● In the Bible, the Church is never prevented from solemn meetings as a whole, but only the infected individual, such as OT lepers.

3. About mandatory vaccination: how should we proceed regarding the mandatory vaccination, since there are risks to the health of our siblings and ethical issues involved, such as the use of aborted fetus cell lines for testing? Should councils advise their members on this issue?

● The mandatory vaccine is an abuse, a violation of freedoms.

● Some vaccines against covid-19 can cause more harm than the disease.

● There is early treatment.

● We are being used as a “laboratory experiment”.

● The vaccines presented are not safe, as they have had adverse reactions and involve an ethical issue regarding the use of aborted fetus cell lines.

● Because of the danger that the vaccine can offer, taking it is a breach of the 6th commandment: “A light exposure to danger”

● Councils should warn their members of the danger of getting the vaccine and instruct them as to the ethical damage involved in this.

Illegitimate Destruction of Life, and a Suggestion of What to Do about It

As of this afternoon, our county has had 34 cases. 30 have recovered, none deceased. That means we have four cases remaining. It is good to give the benefit of the doubt to those who weigh lives against livelihood. But it is also good to recognize that the reason that it is called "livelihood" is because Scripture equates it with a man's life.

Virtual Worship Assemblies More Viral Than Virtuous

A word to brother pastors.

I sympathize with the desire to provide the worship experience, as closely as possible, for those who cannot physically assemble. Hopewell had been doing this, long before covid made it cool, for just a few shut-ins or frequently providentially hindered (feeble, distance drivers, etc.).

Encouraging Authorities to Submit to Christ in the 5th, 6th, and 8th Commandments

May the cost of the "cure" send us to the Cross

All that has been done in the advance of tyranny and decline of the economy will have an astronomical price tag in lives. Not just lives by which these are means that they ended early, but lives that are destroyed even in the midst of the living.

Apart from the grace of Christ, millions will come to the provocative conclusion that Solomon suggests for the godless in Ecclesiastes 6:3–6,

"If a man begets a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with goodness, or indeed he has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better than he—for it comes in vanity and departs in darkness, and its name is covered with darkness. Though it has not seen the sun or known anything, this has more rest than that man, 6 even if he lives a thousand years twice—but has not seen goodness. Do not all go to one place?"

Your Face, O Lord, I Will Seek

We ought to tremble
In this time when many are alarmed at earthly things that are happening, we ought to tremble with dread at a spiritual thing that isn't happening.

We have been shifting from God to man
For generations, churches have lost the true sense of the reality of God among us.

Less and less, have we sought His involvement or offered that which pleases Him; more and more, we have innovated to involve more men and please more men. It has been a long, slow, slouch toward functional atheism in how we handle the things of God.

If ever there was a time to reverse the shift, this is the time

4th Commandment or 6th Commandment—Not Either/or, but Both/and

Why was it that more than a month after South Korea had SARS-CoV-2, roughly half of the cases in that nation were from one Christian congregation?

I am passionately devoted to gathering for public worship. I'm not even a "morning and evening" guy so much as a "morning and evening and before and between and after" guy—think Eutychus and such.

I think that the Westminster Larger Catechism got the 4th commandment right,

Praying for Greta and Millions of Children Like Her

This year a 16 year old girl won Time Magazine's person of the year. For what? For being trotted out as an image of youth and innocence to promote the nature-worship that is part of the complex public religion of our day. Truly, they still sacrifice virgins to the pagan nature-gods.

This poor girl is not a hero. She has been abused by her handlers--including, and especially, her parents.

They have put a world of burden on her shoulders, when she should be learning and growing and developing all sorts of skills (mental, physical, spiritual, emotional, etc.) through the work (yes, work!) and play of childhood.

They have taught her that she is wise enough to rebuke her elders, when they ought to have instilled in her a respect for age and experience that is superseded only by that Word which can make one wiser than her teachers.

They have thrust her, immodestly, onto the most public possible display, rather than teaching her the virtues of self-forgetfulness and modesty--that humility that is glad to serve gently and quietly where He who sees in secret observes and rewards.

Sadly, her being declared Person of the Year is symptomatic of the fact that it's not just Greta. Though not to the same degree, this is being done to millions of children in our and other cultures. Even--God forgive and help us!--in the churches.

As I plod along, day by day and week by week, in ministering the ordinary means of grace, it is in hope (in part) that God will use these means to protect the children who are influenced by my ministry from such folly. One of those means is prayer--in which we cry out to God for reformation and revival to come through these means multiplied by a multitude of other pastors and parents.

When I pray for reformation, one of the things that I pray for is an end to this folly. When I pray for revival, one of the things that I pray for is an end to this folly. Won't you work and pray with me? God strengthen and hear us!

Notre Dame Burned to the Ground

Notre Dame burned to the ground. As far as the building goes, it was just the roof and spire that burned this week. The rest may have to wait until Jesus burns even the elements of heaven and earth in the process of refashioning them for the new creation.

But the whole thing burned all the way to the ground some 200 years after the building was "consecrated," when Trent took Roman Catholicism over the threshold from "decaying church" into "synagogue of Satan" by anathematizing the gospel.

It's far more dreadful for the church, as a living and spiritual organism, to burn than for even the most significant of buildings to be lost. When Solomon's temple was razed, it was a smaller tragedy than the previous 400 years of Judah's spiritual collapse.

"But Notre Dame is a symbol." Stop right there. Christ brought us out of the shadows. Post-ascension, religious symbols beyond the two sacraments are indicative of a church that's burning.

I grieve for France, and Paris, and even beautiful buildings. I wish I grieved more, but my heart is never so soft as it should be. I fall even further short when grieving for churches. I keep hearing that it's holy week. Who says? Men? Certainly not God.

I'm not just hearing this from Roman Catholics. Not just from Evangelicals. Not just from so-called "Continental Reformed" (though we should change the euphemism to "Continental 2/3 Reformed," since the preacta and postacta of the Synod of Dordt would thoroughly shock them).

I hear it from ministers in my own Church. I am subjected to their Facebook ads for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services. I am amazed at their articles that throw the word 'catholic' around as if it has anything to do with the organization headquartered in the Vatican. I am dismayed at their dismay at the possible "loss" of dead images, which we confess together are offensive to the living God.

It's not that I'm ungrateful that the Lord has been turning our Church back around to its former, more biblical, doctrine and practice. Rather, I'm alarmed that there's not still alarm, when the fire is not yet out.

To be sure, the heat is diminished. The soundness of the structure as a whole is no longer in question. But the last of the fire still smolders in fairly obvious ways. It needs to be put out. And then the rebuilding and refurbishing can begin and should proceed in earnest.

To be honest, most of the time, I forget altogether to see this reality. Sometimes it takes an historic event to put the rest of our everyday experience into historical (or even biblical) perspective.

O, for a heart that would grieve as it ought for the spiritual state of the Church! O, for a Church that is so enraptured with the reigning, returning Christ who sits on the Throne, that it would shrug at the weightlessness (and grieve at the offensiveness) of all human embellishments that dare go by the name "Christ"ianity.