Brief Thoughts on the Lay of the Land

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It’s been obvious to all but the most panicked and fearful that the foolishness of the last couple of years has worn itself out. Even apologists for the government’s authoritarian actions earlier in the shamdemic are critiquing the validity of mandates in an omicron environment while still sanctimoniously congratulating themselves on having supported the control health measures, and ‘loved their neighbour’ through their support of state coercion of citizens to be vaccinated. They rest in the self-righteous knowledge that they have helped save New Zealand.

Except that they haven’t. Sure people weren’t dying of covid when we were all locked in our homes for weeks on end and refusing to let people visit our island nation. But what’s happened since the arrival of omicron? Their god the state through its Messiah figure Ardern promised salvation from covid damnation through the sacraments of masks and vaccination. But like all false gods, this one has failed miserably, much to the mirth of the true God (Psalm 2). Only the truly naive and self-deceived can believe that this has all been worth it. Rampant inflation is one of many signs that God is not mocked. Idolatry always ends badly.

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Great Content

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I have been listening to The King’s Hall podcasts over the last few weeks. Thus far the content has been engaging and thought-provoking. Highlights for me have been the critique of the ‘Big, Fast and Famous” evangelical model of church and the podcast devoted to revivalism and decisionism. You can find the episodes listed here. If you want to understand why the Western church is in such a mess, these two episodes are well worth your time.

You can find the aim of the podcasts in the about us section of the website. The King’s Hall exists to make self-ruled men to rule well and win the world. They define a self-ruled man as one who is ruled by the Spirit of God. The ruling well aspect looks at the masculine call to dominion in whatever the Lord calls a man to. The ‘win the world’ aspect defines the Missio Dei (Mission of God) as nothing less than winning the world. There is no truncated gospel with a secular sacred divide here. While aimed at men, I think there is much to recommend the content to women too.

Prayer, the Church and the Christian

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In my time attending fairly typical evangelical churches, I have noticed a pattern in public prayer. Those who pray about national or international situations do so with a distinctly socialist / left wing approach. The solution is always centralist intervention and control. This is the standard approach to prayer that is acceptable in most evangelical churches. Woe-betide anyone who steps outside of this script. It will be deemed as the terrible sin of ‘being political’. This is typical of a culture where secularism is by default seen as neutral and anything that challenges it is seen as religious.

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Ignore the False Prophet

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Here at The Sojournal, we like to berate the mainstream media of New Zealand. It is bereft of critical thinking and investigative journalism. In our covid age as we have marched towards ever more authoritarian government, our mainstream media has cheered the Beast on like the false prophet of Revelation. Our mainstream media is a massive part of the problem. They have used fear to stoke readership. Rather than report the facts and ask hard questions, they have joined the government in its programme of control by fear. Take a look at this headline from The New Zealand Herald from Friday 4th March.

What will the naive nanas and state worshippers take from this? What is their god’s mouthpiece, the mainstream media prophesying today? The prophet is reminding the State’s people that the enemy is covid and it has taken another five lives. The lead goes on to say this.

There are 22,535 new Covid-19 cases today and a further five deaths have been reported. That brings to 67 the number of people who have died with Covid since the outbreak started in 2020. Three per cent of New Zealand’s population are currently active cases, of which there are 152,358.

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Caesar Is Lord?

One of the oddest things is how many evangelical Christians have refused to say the vaccination mandates are unjust. Even now as the narrative is collapsing, they refuse to show public support for those protesting the mandates. This seems to me to demonstrate that their functional Lord is Caesar and not Christ.

God’s Law and the Christian

It seems there is quite a lot of confusion over the relevance of God’s law to the Christian in evangelical circles today. I claim no special insight into this as I too have grown up in this confusion. We’re not under law but under grace right? So that means the law is irrelevant? Why does Jesus say he didn’t come to abrogate the law when Paul seems to say the Christian is not under the law? What about the laws around sacrifice? What about stoning adulterers? it seems so very complex. Recently, however, I read an excellent book called “By this Standard” by Greg Bahnsen which is an outline for the case of the ongoing validity of the Law.

Before you accuse Bahnsen of arguing for works righteousness, that is not what he is talking about at all. There are some things the law cannot do.

What the Law Cannot Do

  1. The law cannot contribute anything toward the personal justification of one who stands under its curse for violating its precepts.
  2. The law cannot break the stranglehold and power of sin in a person’s life.
  3. The law delivered by Moses never could actually make anything perfect. Redemption comes not through the law.

What the Law Can Do

So according to Bahnsen what can the law do?

  1. The law declares the character of God and so reveals His glory
  2. The law displays the demand of God upon our lives as men.
  3. The law pronounces blessing upon adherence to its demands
  4. The law provides a definition of sin.
  5. The law exposes infractions and convicts of sin.
  6. Even more, the law works to incite rebellion in sinful men.
  7. Consequently, the law condemns all transgression as deserving God’s wrath and curse.
  8. The law drives us to Christ for salvation.
  9. The law guides the sanctification of the believer.
  10. The law also serves to restrain the evil of the unregenerate.

Bahnsen definitely got me thinking about the typical “Oh that’s Old Testament stuff” that we use to so easily write off the law that the Psalmist meditated on day and night and the Scriptures that were able to make Timothy and his readers wise unto salvation.