Here is a question on which I have been musing for the last 2 years:
If the present generation of Americans were given the opportunity to form a new nation, could they create one equal to or greater than the United States of America?
The answer is an undeniable “no.” The only people who would dare to argue otherwise are those who believe that the USA is a nation that should be torn down or, as President Obama put it, “fundamentally transform[ed].” The problem is that most of the key leaders in this country fit into that category. I’m talking about leaders in the political, educational, cultural, and religious realms.
Establishment politicians have demonstrated their wickedness time after time by their inaction in the face of various moral insurrections led by domestic enemies who want to pursue President Obama’s vision to its logical conclusion of destroying the very foundations on which America is built. Witness the Black Lives Matter riots, covid vaccine mandates, legalization of so-called homosexual “marriage,” and forcing girls not only to share but to celebrate sharing toilets and locker rooms with males. Beyond inaction, too often and with increasing frequency legislative bodies actively aid and abet these domestic enemies by pushing bills and legislation that promote their insurrections. Witness the most recent example of the US Senate’s vote to pass the misnamed “Respect for Marriage Act” by a 62-37 vote. This latest maneuver is especially illustrative of political wickedness because it gives “statutory authority for same-sex and interracial marriages.”
Do you see how they operate? By tying the abomination of homosexual “marriage” to the legitimacy of interracial marriage, the Senators could threaten anyone who voted against it with the career-ending stain of “racism.” By misnaming it the “Respect for Marriage Act,” they simply lied about its attack on genuine marriage so that unthinking & unsuspecting people would think favorably of it and reason that, of course, we should be for respecting marriage! It reminds me of Hitler’s euphemistic “Final Solution.” After all, who doesn’t want problems finally resolved?
Such tactics illustrate Jesus’ words in Luke 16:8, “For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.” That’s true not only for our politicians but also for the creators and producers of our entertainment industries and other influential shapers of our culture. From executive producer for Disney Television Animation, Latoya Raveneau’s giddy celebration of her success in pushing Disney to promote her “not-at-all-secret gay agenda,” to Harvard graduates’ open (and, sad to say twenty-five years hence, highly successful) bold strategy to “overhaul straight America,” they have let slip their dogs of war to great effect on the Christian ramparts of this once-great nation.
The educational institutions of this nation, for the most part, serve as fifth columnists for the moral terrorists seeking to destroy the United States. By that I mean that US citizens are financing most of these institutions through forced taxation to further the agendas of those who are working to eliminate every vestige of righteousness from our borders. Parental protests of school boards across the nation over the last few years have exposed corrupt curricula and activist teachers that seek to push the racism of Critical Race Theory and the perversion of LGBTQ+ ideologies. Some even promote (serendipitously at great financial gain) child abuse through “gender-affirming” mutilation.
On April 26, 1983 the National Commission on Excellence in Education filed a report to the US Department of Education on the quality of education in America. The name of the report signals its findings, “A Nation at Risk.” While the commission focused almost exclusively on academic metrics, what they found led to this chilling assessment:

If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves….We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament.

One can only imagine how those 1983 sensitivities would evaluate the devolution of the American educational complex of 2022. Former failing pedagogy has been supplanted by LGBTQ+ promoting curricula. Listen to some of the teachers who teach that curricula by spending a little time on this site. And then consider that American taxpayers are required to continue financing the insurrection.
One of the greatest disappointments of the last several years has been the failure of so many Christian leaders.
And what have the “sons of light” been doing during this fundamental transformation? For the most part, they have been following feckless leaders who, if not fully complicit in the moral rot and godless degradation of this land have nevertheless facilitated it by their incompetence or cowardice (and in some cases, both). If they were not exhorting us to practice “pronoun hospitality” by participating in the self-deception of those suffering from gender dysphoria they were reassuring us that “God only whispers about sexual immorality.” As it was in the prophet Jeremiah’s day, so it is in our own:

“From prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely. They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace (Jeremiah 6:13b–14).

One of the greatest disappointments of the last several years has been the failure of so many Christian leaders. In too many cases they have lacked courage and conviction. Simple, God-fearing believers have been repeatedly lectured by our betters to toe the cultural, political, and educational party line during their attack on the moral order over the last few years. We saw erstwhile trusted leaders shut down their churches at the command of civil magistrates while marching in support of Black Lives Matter protests as if the virus magically withdrew from all public virtue signaling. We were told there is no Christian basis for abstaining from the covid vaccine. Indeed, we were shamed by accusations that refusal of the vaccine is a violation of the second great commandment.
As we watched businesses destroyed, livelihoods forever altered, children’s education retarded, and parents and other loved ones suffer and die alone in hospitals, sycophantic Christian leaders continued to scold us with reminders that pastors are not medical doctors and that we must always trust the science™ regardless of how often or flagrantly those championing that “science” refused to abide by it themselves. Failure to do so, we were assured by such leaders, is to buy into wild conspiracy theories. To add insult to injury, as facts have continued to come to light that expose the failures of our leaders, they continue to refuse to admit their failures. This is both strange and revealing for those exalted to lead practitioners of a religion of justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. True grace sets Christians free to live in faith and repentance. As Martin Luther put it in the very first of his 95 theses,

When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, “Repent” (Matthew 4:17) he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.

Is a person who refuses to acknowledge his mistakes even practicing the same religion as Luther?
My love of a nation full of neighbors will not let me feign ignorance or remain quiet in the face of such demonic assaults on them. I want them to know the true God through faith in Jesus Christ.
I write as a Christian and a pastor. But I also write as a patriot. To some, that evokes charges of Christian Nationalism. Honestly? I don’t care. The longer I have lived as a Christian, the more clearly I have come to see that the second great commandment requires at least a modicum of patriotism. How can I love my neighbor as myself if I do not want my neighbor to enjoy the blessings and freedoms that I desire? And if I see those blessings and freedoms being destroyed by frontal assaults as well as by espionage and betrayal, is it loving to do nothing and stay silent?
If I know that “righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34), then how can I be ambivalent about the legalized slaughter of unborn babies or have my convictions so disconnected from my voting that I approve of a Christian voting for a Democrat candidate (whose party platform guarantees the protection of abortion on demand)? What kind of hatred must govern my affections for the person who is himself caught up in sexual perversion as well as for the children whom he grooms to declare that Drag Queen Story Hour in public libraries is “one of the blessings of liberty?”
My love of a nation full of neighbors will not let me feign ignorance or remain quiet in the face of such demonic assaults on them. I want them to know the true God through faith in Jesus Christ. I want them—and myself—to “live a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way” (1 Timothy 2:2b). That is why I will pray for “kings and all who are in high positions” (1 Timothy 2:2a) as the Apostle Paul instructs all Christians to do. And such prayer leads me to action. Because it is insincere to pray for that for which I am not willing to use God-given means to acquire, I will also vote for those civil magistrates who will stand against wickedness and serve the cause of righteousness. And I will encourage all my Christian brothers and sisters to do likewise.
If that’s Christian nationalism, so be it. As Craig Carter so astutely noted recently, “if so, then maybe we could use a little old-fashioned Christian Nationalism.” Because one thing is certain. Our forefathers who founded this nation stood on the foundation of Christian thinking and Christian living that made possible the kind of democratic republic we have enjoyed. Those foundations have been intentionally destroyed by purveyors of wickedness. And the people of God have stood idly by as it happened.
The church of Jesus Christ has been commissioned by our Head to make disciples of all nations. The way that we do that is by teaching and preaching the Word of Christ—all of it, including both law and gospel. It is time that God’s people humble ourselves in the face of the undeniable reality that we have not fulfilled this commission very well in the last few generations of these United States.
May God grant us the grace to repent, to seek His favor and the power of His Spirit, and to give ourselves wholeheartedly to proclaim the lordship of our Christ throughout this nation once again.

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The Supreme Court of the United States’ possible reversal of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion is reason for Christians and moral people everywhere to rejoice. Dobbs v. Jackson will go down in history as significant as Brown v. the Board of Education for overruling previous, unjust decisions by the Supreme Court. Much of the joy, however, has been drowned out by a vitriolic clash among pro-life Christians regarding how best to work for the abolition of abortion in our nation.
Many traditional “pro-life” leaders feel threatened by those who insist, in the language of the 2021 Southern Baptist resolution, on “abolishing abortion immediately without exception or compromise.” Denny Burk, who opposed that resolution, believes it to be “a repudiation of the pro-life movement” and claims that the messengers who overwhelmingly voted to adopt it were uninformed. Consequently, he is calling on Southern Baptists to attend the annual meeting in Anaheim next month to withstand any other attempts to encourage the SBC to reaffirm the views that were adopted in that 2021 resolution.
It seems to me that most of the people involved in this clash are genuinely committed to the abolition of abortion, though they may disagree on the best way to work for that. There are some elites within the pro-life establishment, however, who are taking positions that undermine our common goal. As we have seen in so many other areas of evangelical life the last several years, it is the elite class that is woefully out of step with the rank-and-file believers who are working hard to see the scourge of abortion brought to an immediate end in our nation.
Last week provided a perfect illustration what I am talking about. Those events highlight the divide that exists among sincere Christians who want to see the end of abortion in our country and also expose the pro-life elitists whose actions helped undermine what could have been a tremendous step to outlaw abortion in Louisiana.
For the first time in the history of the United States, a bill made it out of committee that had the prospect of making abortion illegal in the state of Louisiana (HB 813). Called the “Abolition of Abortion in Louisiana Act of 2022,” the bill contained language that should have caused all Christians to celebrate:
Section 2. Acknowledging the sanctity of innocent human life, created in the image of God, which should be equally protected from fertilization to natural death, the legislature hereby declares that the purpose of this Act is to:
(1) Fully recognize the human personhood of an unborn child at all stages of development prior to birth from the moment of fertilization.
(2) Ensure the right to life and equal protection of the laws to all unborn children from the moment of fertilization by protecting them by the same laws protecting other human beings.
(3) Recognize that the United States Constitution and the laws of the United States are the supreme law of the land.
Such language excites any Christian who genuinely wants to see the end of abortion, whether a self-identified “abolitionist” or not. The response from 76 pro-life groups, however, proved that such was not the case. Leaders from those groups, including the Southern Baptist Convention’s acting president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Brent Leatherwood, issued “An Open Letter to State Lawmakers from America’s Leading Pro-life Organizations.”
These leaders of the pro-life establishment express their complete opposition to a law that would treat any woman who procures an abortion as being culpable in any way. They build their argument on this stated premise:
The tragedy of abortion isn’t limited to the unborn child who loses her life. The mother who aborts her child is also Roe’s victim. She is the victim of a callous industry created to take lives; an industry that claims to provide for “women’s health,” but denies the reality that far too many American women suffered devastating physical and psychological damage following abortion.
According to that philosophy, all abortive women are victims. Because they suffer post-abortion trauma they cannot ever be held legally responsible for ending her preborn baby’s life. Strange logic that.
Shall we apply it to drunk driving, too? After all, professional marketers are paid around 6 billion dollars a year by the alcoholic beverage industry to convince people to drink booze. When a drunk driver kills a family of five, using the elitist-pro-life logic above, should we not hold the driver responsible because he also is a “victim of a callous industry”? After all, alcoholism is defined by the National Institutes of Health as “an impaired ability to stop or control alcohol”
To make sure that no one misunderstands the elitist-pro-life position Leatherwood, et al., continue:
Women are victims of abortion and require our compassion and support as well as ready access to counseling and social services in the days, weeks, months, and years following an abortion.
As national and state pro-life organizations, representing tens of millions of pro-life men, women, and children across the country, let us be clear: We state unequivocally that we do not support any measures seeking to criminalize or punish women and we stand firmly opposed to include [sic] such penalties in legislation. (emphasis in the original)
By that flawed logic, women who have abortions for any reason are never responsible in any way for the death of their babies. To hold them responsible, according to these elitist pro-life leaders, is incompatible with showing compassion and support.
In 2021 Southern Baptists adopted the most decisive anti-abortion resolution in the history of the convention. It builds on and extends the language of previous resolutions, affirming the sacredness of human life and calling for the immediate ending of abortion. Over 5,000 copies of the text of the resolution were printed and distributed to messengers before the vote. Denny Burk, who is one of the Southern Baptist theologians and ethicists who took exception to that strongest anti-abortion resolution Southern Baptists have ever adopted, provides a little better assessment of what a post-Roe Christian ethic should look like. But only a little. His arguments also lack the kind of clear, biblical thinking that is desperately needed as we move forward.
In an article entitled “Why Pro-Lifers Support Laws to Punish Abortionists but Not Mothers,” Burk tries to defend the “pro-life” position that both pro-abortionists and abolitionists see as clearly inconsistent. He writes:
Pro-lifers believe that it should be illegal to perform abortions. Thus we favor policies that punish those who perform abortions, not the mothers who allow them.
He divides his defense of this position into two dimensions: moral and legal. Morally, the reason that women who hire abortionists should never be punished is because “it is not always clear what level of culpability should be assigned to the mother.” He at least acknowledges that the woman has some “moral agency and culpability,” but because it is not always clear “to what degree she is implicated,” she should not be punished for her involvement in ending a human life.
His arguments about the legal dimension can be summed up in his opinion that, if the woman who hires an abortionist is held legally liable with the abortionist for ending a human life, it will be harder to convict the abortionist. I find his argument on this point (and those of Americans United for Life, whom he quotes) completely unconvincing. To provide one simple objection, if there’s no potential charge available, how can you make a plea bargain in exchange for testimony against the abortionist? But since these legal arguments are not germane to my concerns, I won’t engage them but simply encourage you to read them for yourself.
To summarize Dr. Burk’s moral argument, he believes that women who hire someone to abort their preborn babies are morally culpable in some degree, though it is difficult to know how much. Because of that difficulty, no woman should be held legally accountable in any sense for ending the life of their babies through abortion.
Rather than alleviate women who hire abortionists of all culpability, as the pro-life open letter does, Burk acknowledges that they have some responsibility. But because it is not easy to determine exactly how much or in exactly what way, they should not be prosecuted at all. Yet recognition of different levels of culpability in homicide cases has been a part of jurisprudence at least since Old Testament times. This is the rationale for cities of refuge, where those guilty of unintentional homicide could flee for protection from the manslayer (see Deuteronomy 19:1-13). Such cities, however, were no refuge for anyone who willfully or maliciously took life because that person was fully culpable for the homicide he or she committed.
Within American jurisprudence there are various classifications related to homicide laws (and some variance from state to state): murder, manslaughter, vehicular homicide, negligent homicide, conspiracy to commit murder, etc. The distinctions are due to the different degrees of culpability of the perpetrators. The court system has the responsibility of sorting that out, and there is very well-developed case law in the American system that helps to differentiate between varying levels of culpability. This analysis is commonplace—necessary any time the judicial system responds to the unjustified taking of a human life. The challenge that Burk identifies, varying levels of culpability, can be complex but it is not unique to the case of abortion. Legal systems are accustomed to dealing with this sort of complexity.
Does it not, then, make sense to allow the legal system to do its job regarding what charges to file and what sentence to impose for a homicide that occurs in an abortion, rather than using the fact that determining the degree of culpability is hard as an excuse to withhold any legal sanctions?
In light of these disagreements and the confusion they have spawned, here are my recommendations of some basic principles that all Christians should hold as we try to develop a common-sense ethic about abortion in a post-Roe nation.

Human life begins at conception/fertilization. On this I think all pro-lifers, abolitionists, and right-thinking Christians agree.
All killing of human life by another human is homicide.
There are varying degrees of culpability for homicide resulting in varying kinds of crimes. Some homicides are justified (self-defense) and some are first-degree murders. Others fall between that spectrum.
Both biblical and United States criminal law recognize #2 and #3.
LA HB813 sought to codify that a human life begins at conception/fertilization and is to be granted equal protection under the law from that point.
The Open Letter signed by ERLC acting President helped dissuade Louisiana legislators from passing the bill.
The Open Letter contradicted the 2021 SBC Resolution on abolishing abortion that the messengers adopted. I addressed this more fully in a thread on Twitter, but compare the language of the Open Letter quoted above to what SBC messengers approved in 2021:

RESOLVED, that the messengers of the SBC meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, June 15-16, 2021, do state unequivocally that abortion is murder, and we reject any position that allows for any exceptions to the legal protection of our preborn neighbors, compromises God’s holy standard of justice, or promotes any God-hating partiality (Psa 94:6; Isa 10:1-2; Prov 24:11; Psa 82:1-4), and…
RESOLVED, that we affirm that the murder of preborn children is a crime against humanity that must be punished equally under the law, and be it further
RESOLVED, that we humbly confess and lament any complicity in recognizing exceptions that legitimize or regulate abortion, and of any apathy, in not laboring with the power and influence we have to abolish abortion, and be it further
RESOLVED, that as Southern Baptists we will engage, with God’s help, in establishing equal justice and protection for the preborn according to the authority of God’s Word as well as local and federal law, and call upon pastors and leaders to use their God-given gifts of preaching, teaching, and leading with one unified, principled, prophetic voice to abolish abortion… (emphasis added)

The moral law of God functions both to restrain evil and instruct in what is good and right. In the Protestant-Reformed tradition these functions have been regarded as the second and third uses of the law, respectively. Civil law that prohibits hiring an abortionist and affixes penalties for doing so would, thereby, help teach everyone, including women who might contemplate seeking an abortion, that abortion is homicide.
It is right to legally prohibit abortion by granting equal protection under the law to preborn humans. It is at this point that the stark inconsistencies of the professional pro-life position become apparent. They want to affirm the full humanity of preborn babies but do not want to afford them equal protection under the law that is afforded to humans who survive the womb because either the woman who hires an abortionist is not culpable (i.e. Brent Leatherwood and the other Open Letter signers) or the degree of her culpability is too difficult to discern (i.e. Burk). Were a preborn child granted equal protection, then her homicide would be treated like that of any other homicide that had co-conspirators or accomplices requiring the court system to sort it out legally.
Such prohibition does not mean that all women seeking abortion, doctors performing them, and helpers facilitating them would be judged equally culpable or equally guilty. As in all homicide cases, each case should be adjudicated based on the facts and any mitigating circumstances (#3 above).
This would mean that no woman who arranges to have an abortion would be judged either automatically guilty or innocent of any particular crime simply because she is a woman or simply because she had an abortion.

These 11 principles can help frame the debate going forward for Christians who take the written Word of God seriously. All but one of them (#7, which is particularly of concern to Southern Baptists) deal with issues that all evangelicals should think through carefully.
We should all want to end the holocaust of abortion. But we should work to be precise in our language and measured in our judgments. Much confusion, I believe, has resulted from a lack of appropriate nuance in our communication at this point.
While abortion is always homicide, it is not necessarily murder on the part of everyone involved (though it sometimes is). When some who want to see abortion abolished hear “abortion is murder and should be criminalized,” they might think that those talking this way are advocating murder charges for every mother, father, and all others involved in such a killing. Emphatically, this is not my position.
We must not err on either side at this point. That is, we must not treat all post-abortive mothers as victims. But neither must we treat them all as murderers. Each case must be considered on its own merits. Those forced into having abortions by abusive boyfriends or pimps are victims. Those who choose to kill their preborn children of their own volition while #ShoutingTheirAbortions are murderers, and there are numerous scenarios in between. We must care for and proclaim the gospel to all these women as we call upon civil magistrates to provide preborn children the equal protection of the law and let the legal system do its job in determining the degree of culpability in each case.
That is why I refer to elective abortion as homicide, as opposed to murder. It should be legally prohibited and preborn children at risk of being killed should receive the equal protection of the law. I cannot imagine why any Christian who believes that abortion ends the life of one of God’s image-bearers would disagree with this.
It is important for Christians to get the nature of abortion right. If, like the open letter, we treat as victims all women who pay abortionists to kill their preborn babies, then we cut them off from the grace of God in Christ Jesus. The Lord Jesus is a real Savior for real sinners. If you convince someone that they are not responsible for their sin, then you eliminate their need of a Savior for that sin and effectively shut them up to a life of trying to deal with what they have done without the forgiveness that is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Are women who seek abortions victims? Of course, in the sense that every human being is a victim of sin and its consequences. Beyond that there is no doubt that some women are coerced and manipulated into abortion due to being trafficked or otherwise abused. As the Bible requires in making any judgment, all the relevant facts must be taken into account. But these realities do not mean that as a class all women who procure abortions are victims in some special sense, or on par with the babies that are intentionally killed by the procedure. We should be compassionate toward all women who seek an abortion and especially to those who have been lied to, intimidated, or in some other way manipulated into participating in that act of homicide. But I would defy Brent Leatherwood and the pro-life leaders who signed the open letter to convince the women who “shout their abortion” that they should see themselves that way. Better yet, I would encourage them to watch these testimonies of post-abortive women.
If a person is only a victim and has done nothing wrong, then she doesn’t need forgiveness. But those who are guilty of sin do. Jesus did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Until abortionists and the women who pay for their services come to terms with their complicity in the ending of a human life that is made in the image of God, they will never seek forgiveness. Until reality is honestly assessed, genuine repentance will never be sincerely professed.
So my plea to those who think they are being compassionate to women by absolving them of any responsibility in the abortion they freely secure is to recognize that they are doing tremendous spiritual damage to the very people they desire to help. Such compassion is cruel.
There is a Savior for sinners, including those who are guilty of participating in the sin of abortion. Jesus Christ came into the world to live a righteous life and die a sacrificial death so that all who repent and look to Him in faith might be saved. His grace is enough to forgive both abortionists and those who employ them to end the life of their preborn child.
So while we work for justice to protect the lives of the preborn, let’s never forget to preach the gospel that saves even the foremost of sinners and encourage abortionists, those who employ them, pro-lifers, and abolitionists to trust the Lord Jesus Christ and find eternal life in Him.

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Charles Dickens utilized his pen to influence his readers’ opinions. In a Christmas Carol, he strikes out against the ill-treatment of the poor through stinginess. He prescribed for Scrooge’s spirit to be replaced with the love for the common man. In another work, Little Dorrit, Dickens turned threatening eyes upon a practice that stifles man’s freedom to live and enjoy life. What has enchained man to a life of bondage? The answer is the Victorian Sabbath.

The narrator in his story described “a Sunday evening in London, gloomy, close, and stale.… Melancholy streets in a penitential garb of soot, steeped the souls of the people who were condemned to look at them out of windows, in dire despondency.”[1] Dickens considered the Victorian Sabbath to be punishment for the laborer who toiled the previous six days. “Nothing for the spent toiler to do,” lamented the narrator, “but to compare the monotony of the seventh day with the monotony of his six days.”[2]

To replace the Victorian Sabbath, Dickens advocated for Sunday societies along with other intellectuals in Britian.[3] These groups began meeting in the 1860s and replaced the traditional Christian sermon with a lecture on science or another subject. Thus, the common man, on his only day off a week, would have another option of inquiry than attending a depressing church service. For Dickens, the Victorian Sabbath produced misery and not joy.

Charles Spurgeon, however, came to the opposite conclusion. God gave humanity the Christian Sabbath as a day of joy. “Time is the ring,” he preached, “and these Sabbaths are the diamonds set in it.… The Sabbaths are the beds full of rich choice flowers.”[4] Elsewhere, he called the Sabbath “the pearl of the week”[5] and “a day to feast yourselves in God.”[6] Moreover, “they are full of brightness, and joy, and delight.”[7]

Spurgeon also compared the gift of the Sabbath to the gift of marriage. He argued, “It is a blessing for which good men dwelling with affectionate wives praise God every day they live. Marriage and the Sabbath are the two choice boons of primeval love that have come down to us from Paradise, the one to bless our outer and the other our inner life.”[8] Certainly, this statement exalted the Sabbath day, considering Spurgeon’s blessed union with his wife.

Reflecting upon his letters to her, Susannah wrote, “To the end of his beautiful life it was the same, his letters were always those of a devoted lover, as well as of a tender husband.”[9] After thirty-six years of marriage, she saw herself as the “loving wife of the best man on God’s earth.”[10] From the couple’s letters and secondary historical accounts, it is natural to conclude that Charles and Susannah had an ideal marriage.[11] Given this fact, Spurgeon’s assertion that the Sabbath is one of God’s two greatest gifts discloses the happiness and gratitude with which he approached the day.

For a person to love the Sabbath, he must love the Lord of the Sabbath.

Spurgeon, therefore, saw the Sabbath commandment as a life-giving gift and not as a soul draining obligation. Why? God calls all people to rest from their normal labors to labor joyfully for Him. He invites us into His presence to hear the preaching of the Word, to sing hymns, to pray before His throne of grace, to give financial gifts, and to commune at the Lord’s Table. Furthermore, we can serve others in conversation, in evangelism, in visiting the shut-ins, in teaching our children, and in hospitality.  

What caused Dickens and Spurgeon to have opposite attitudes on the Sabbath? Spurgeon believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, and Dickens did not. For a person to love the Sabbath, he must love the Lord of the Sabbath. If God sets aside every Sunday for worship, a believer is “glad when the Sabbath arrives,” because he “look[s] forward to it with delight.”[12] When the services end, the believer would “wish that Sabbaths were never over” and would “look forward to the next occasion when we should meet the saints of God.”[13]

For a believer in Christ, the joy of the Sabbath anticipates the joy of heaven. We skip one Sabbath day after another across the river of life until we arrive at the eternal Sabbath. George Herbert, a 17th century Anglican poet whom Spurgeon admired summarizes this Christian experience. In his poem “Sunday,” he wrote,

Thou art a day of mirth:

And where the week-days trail on ground,

Thy flight is higher, as thy birth.

O let me take thee at the bound,

Leaping with thee from sev’n to sev’n,

Till that we both, being tossed from earth,

Fly hand in hand to heav’n! [14]

[1] Charles Dickens, The Works of Charles Dickens: Little Dorrit, Part 1,29. Spurgeon’s library in Kansas City contains a volume of this work: Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit (London: Chapman and Hall, 1865).

[2] Dickens, Little Dorrit, 30.

[3] John Wigley, The Rise and Fall of the Victorian Sunday, 126, 190.

[4] Spurgeon, MTP, 7:584.

[5] Spurgeon, MTP, 33:104.

[6] Spurgeon, MTP, 8:527.

[7] Spurgeon, MTP, 38:140.

[8] Spurgeon, MTP, 20:42.

[9] Spurgeon, Autobiography, 2:24.

[10] Ibid., 28.

[11] See Rhodes, Susie: The Life and Legacy of Susannah Spurgeon, 75–86. Rhodes titled the chapter that chronicles the Spurgeon’s courtship “A Marriage Made for Heaven” (italics in original).

[12] Spurgeon, MTP, 47:76.

[13] Spurgeon, MTP, 14:413.

[14] Herbert, The Complete English Poems, 69.