The Westminster Divines, the Reformers, the Puritans, and Scripture call for active combat against remaining sins, not merely a passive acceptance that such sins will eventually go away. Paul knew this well, and instructed the church at Ephesus to equip themselves with “the whole armor of God” (Ephesians 6:11, 13).

Last year, the PCA approved a report on human sexuality that rightly spoke to the hope and victory of believers over sexual sins (AIC, 7 AND 10). However, when overtures were written to extend this to ordained officers of the church (along with calls for holiness in several other areas of life like finance, alcohol, etc) charges of “Wesleyan Perfectionism” rang loudly from certain quarters of the church.
We’ve been here before. Several years ago we struggled with the antinomian preaching of Tullian Tchividjian. I thought we had survived his aberrant teachings on the relationship between justification and sanctification, but I see it is sprouting up again within the PCA. It appears we may have an allergy to biblical commands to pursue holiness.
Is it wrong for Reformed believers to trust that the Spirit’s work will be effective? 1 John 5:4-5 indicates that we should indeed expect Spirit-wrought victory in our lives,
For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
The Greek word for “overcome,” used three times in these two verses, is the verbal form of the noun “victory” used in verse 4. It is associated with athletes winning a contest or an army winning a great battle. Within the larger context of this passage, John has taught that those who believe Jesus is the Christ have been born of God (v. 1). Further, if we love God, we will obey his commandments (2-3). The one who professes faith in Jesus Christ has victory over the world.
The “world” in 1 John is a collective word that encompasses all desires, ambitions, dangers, and temptations contrary to God’s revealed will. As Martyn Lloyd-Jones put it, “Perhaps the best way of defining what the New Testament means by ‘the world’ is that it is everything that is opposed to God and His Spirit” (Life in Christ, 588). It is not simply avoiding things that are worldly, like the old fundamentalist aversions to movie theaters and dance halls. “For all that is in the world — the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life — is not from the Father but is from the world” (1 John 2:16). John’s message couldn’t be clearer: Christians can have victory over the world (i.e. sin) through faith in Jesus Christ.
Commenting on 1 John 5:4-5, John Calvin wrote,
Having such a force to contend with, we have an immense war to carry on, and we should have been already conquered before coming to the contest, and we should be conquered a hundred times daily, had not God promised to us the victory. But God encourages us to fight by promising us the victory.
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“We must realize that to know the truth and to practice it will be costly….We must keep on speaking and acting even if the price is high. We must keep on preaching, even if the price is high. There is nothing in the Bible that says we are to stop. The Bible rather says, keep on, keep on.”

I was recently reminded that one of my favourite prophetic voices of last century, Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984), in one of his volumes utilised some of the most well-known prophetic books in the Old Testament. So I hastily went to my shelves, grabbed the thin book, blew off the dust, and read it once again.
And I am so glad I did. I refer to his very important book, Death in the City (IVP, 1969). The material in this book is actually based on a week-long series of lectures he gave at Wheaton College in Chicago in 1968. The talks centred on Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Romans 1 – a heavy-duty combination indeed – and how they relate to the West.

Those who know me and my writings know that I often speak about the West in terms of being past its use-by date, and now seemingly under the judgment of God. Yet here was Schaeffer a full half-century ago saying the same thing and making prophetic warnings about it.
Romans 1 of course speaks about God abandoning a people (see verses 18-32), while Jeremiah and Lamentations warn about and bemoan the fact that God is judging his people, with the seemingly inviolate temple and city of Jerusalem both being utterly destroyed by Israel’s enemies.
It is in that light that Schaeffer examines the contemporary West, and sees no other option than to say we too are under the just judgment of God. The entire 143-page book is a must-read, but let me try to distil some of the highlights here for you.
The book begins with these trenchant words: “We live in a post-Christian world.” He details the enormity of what this means and then says: “Do not take this lightly! It is a horrible thing for a man like myself to look back and see my country and my culture go down the drain in my own lifetime.”
The West has abandoned its spiritual heritage and is now wallowing in sin, immorality and apostasy. “There is only one perspective we can have of the post-Christian world of our generation: an understanding that our culture and our country is under the wrath of God.”
This is serious business: “Do you think our country can remain as it has been after it has thrown away the Christian base? Do not be foolish. Jeremiah would have looked at you and said, ‘You do not have the correct perspective. You should be crying’.”
How should believers respond today? We must pronounce hard truths to wake up a dead culture and a dead church: “Our generation needs to be told that man cannot disregard God, that a culture like ours has had such light and then has deliberately turned away stands under God’s judgment. There’s only one kind of preaching that will do in a generation like ours – preaching which includes the preaching of the judgment of God.”
He cites Jeremiah 1:10 and then explains:
Notice the order. First, there was to be a strong negative message, and then the positive one. But the negative message was first. It was to be a message of judgment to the church which had turned away and to the culture which flowed from it. Judah had revolted against God and His revealed truth; and God says that Jeremiah’s message was to be first a message of judgment. I believe the same message is to be ours today. Christianity is not romantic, not soft. It is tough-fibered and realistic. And the Bible gives us the realistic message that Jeremiah preached into his own days, a message I am convinced the church today must preach if it is to be any help in the post-Christian world.
Instead of soft, syrupy and sentiment preaching, we need powerful, Holy Ghost-inspired preaching, one that takes our condition seriously. Says Schaeffer:
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Extended singleness is a reality that many, young and old, face today. God is not surprised by this. Rather, He has called his people to live in “such a time as this.” In such a time, the Church has a responsibility not only to recover and uphold the institution of marriage but to graciously help people live out their singleness in self-sacrificial faithfulness.

Americans today are getting married later in life than their parents or grandparents. As of 2022, the average age at which Americans get married is 28 for women and 30 for men. This is eight years later in life than the average bride and groom of the 1960s.  
As many have noted, today’s spike in singleness and single-person households is, in part, the result of a widespread cultural erosion of marriage, both inside and outside of the Church. Over the past 60 years, marriage has taken a social and cultural beating thanks to the legalization of no-fault divorce and abortion, the widespread use of birth control, the proliferation of easily accessible hook-up apps, and the casual dominance of pornography. These realities undermine the maturity, self-control, and responsibility required for stable and successful marriages. Whether or not an individual chooses to engage in these practices, they decrease everyone’s chances of finding a partner interested in or ready for marriage. 
In the wake of this cultural erosion, the Church has had to make necessary and prudential efforts to reinforce marriage and family life as the God-given norm, reaffirming the goodness of marriage and family life in its teaching, serving as a space for Christians who desire marriage to find a spouse, and offering support and recovery for those fighting the temptations of “free love.” However, in these efforts, the Church has often struggled in its approach to singles. While not intentionally excluding singles, the Church has often failed to intentionally include singles—whether young or old, never married or widows/widowers—and create space for them to participate and serve in the life of the Church apart from the pursuit of marriage. In the process, some churches have even given the impression that singleness is only a problem to be fixed, rather than a calling that some have for part or all of their lives.  
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