Whatever this weekend brings, may you know the Lord’s sweet blessings through it all.

(Yesterday on the blog: The Death of Porn)
Many Voices, One Song
I appreciate this reflection on the Sing! Conference and, beyond that, singing in general. “I’m writing this post because I don’t want a profound dynamic of this conference to be passed by without mention. It’s a truth we need to hear. Specifically, I want to encourage you as you head to church this Sunday to remember this repeated refrain from the conference this week. Here it is: Singing together about Christ strengthens our unity in Christ.”
God Has Satan on a Leash
“The internet is filled with memes. Some funny, others distasteful. Then there are theological memes. Many are quite accurate; others, however, are downright horrible. You may have one notable, cringeworthy meme. Jesus and Satan are having an arm wrestling match—we’re just not sure who has the upper hand! Eternity hangs in the balance; it’s a jump ball.” But nothing could be farther from the truth.
Be Like Adam?
“Isn’t it true that Adam is most often used as an example of what a husband should not be like?” True. Yet in this article we learn what he did right…
I ‘Just’ Do Ordinary Work
Daniel Doriani speaks to those who say they “just” do a certain job. “In some cases, alas, ‘I just’ can be accurate. The desperate and the greedy may just work for money. Workers who lack ambition may have no direction, so they just do as they are told. People even say ‘I just’ because their work has scant value and they know it.”
The Church Was Always International
“The thing is, we’ve been conditioned to believe that the Christian faith is essentially a Western phenomenon, Church history books tell us about the way that the faith moved from the Middle East, to Europe and then out to the rest of the world through the efforts of Western missionaries. It’s a great story – but it didn’t happen like that.” History is complicated that way.
Speaking Rightly About Our Beloved
“Having accurate theology about Christ is not the same as love for Christ, but if we love him we will always seek to speak rightly about him.”
Flashback: Sex Under Law, Sex Under Grace
Any sex outside of God’s good stipulations is sex under the terrible burden of law.

The most amazing perverseness in man is proven by the fact that he does not remember what God has so arranged that it would seem impossible that it should be forgotten. —William S. Plumer

There was a time, and it was not so very long ago, when the Christian world was tragically under-resourced when it came to books confronting pornography and the men who indulge in it. At that time just about any resource was better than nothing if only it would help men make headway against their addiction.* Today, though, we are extremely well-resourced when it comes to such works and a new book must have something unique to offer if it is going to displace or complement the other ones on the subject. I’m glad to report that Ray Ortlund’s The Death of Porn is just such a book.

The Death of Porn is a series of six letters from Ray Ortlund to younger men, or, if you prefer, from a father to a son. It is written in a way that is both paternal and pastoral, in a way that is both soft and firm, both encouraging and rebuking. “This book is not about you just getting polished up a bit here and there, making yourself more socially presentable. It’s about your heart finally daring to believe in your true royalty. It’s about the ‘real you’ gaining traction for new integrity, especially in honest brotherhood with other men. It’s about you, with other magnificent young men like you, building a new world of nobility, where both men and women can flourish.”
The words “royalty” and “nobility” are key. In his first letter, Ortlund explains the dignity God has given humanity by virtue of our special place in his creation as creatures made in his image. “Your identity—who you really are—is found in the King you represent. You are his royal ambassador to our broken world.” Not only that, but this royalty has been affirmed and restored to us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In the second letter, he turns his focus from men to women to show that they, as much as we, are royalty. “God created every woman with high dignity and immeasurable worth. Whether or not any woman herself believes it, this is still true: God created her for majesty. God is why she matters. And no one has the right to degrade her, since God has dignified her. Whoever a woman is in his sight—that’s what she’s really worth.” There are serious implications to this. “I’m asking you to change how you see that woman on the porn site. I’m not asking you to make anything up. I’m only asking you to accept the way God sees her. He is on her side. He is indignant at the ways she is objectified, monetized, and mistreated.”
And it is in this chapter that Ortlund begins to land some heavy blows, to pummel men with the sheer horror of what they do when they indulge in pornography. So here, for example, is his explanation of what a man tacitly says to a woman when he looks at her on that screen.

I don’t care about you. I don’t care about your personal story that got you onto this wretched porn site. I don’t care about what will happen to you when the filming is over—how you’ll drag yourself back to your apartment and get drunk just to stop feeling the pain. I don’t care about what you’ll be facing tomorrow, which will be yet another day of this torment. I don’t want to know what you’re suffering. I don’t even want to know your name. You don’t matter. All that matters here is me. And not the ‘royal me’ God created but the predatory me, the masturbatory me, the urge-of-the-moment me, the selfish me that Satan is robbing of life, even as I rob you of life. So whoever you are there on the screen—I’ll click over to some other victim soon, but you just keep up the show, okay? Keep smiling while you’re abused. Keep it up, while I masturbate and masturbate and masturbate, because nothing about me or you really matters anyway.

He pulls no punches: “If you look at porn, be honest enough to say to God, ‘Today I entertained myself with sexual exploitation,’ or ‘Today I joined in the abuse of a woman,’ or ‘Today I watched her degradation for my pleasure,’ or ‘Today I took my stand against you and with Satan.’”
Yet he does not fail to offer hope, for in his third letter he shows that Jesus, too, is royalty, and that “he is better at saving than we are at sinning.” He is eager to forgive us our sins and to transform our desires and deeds.
The final three letters turn from the characters (men, women, Jesus) to imagining a much better future. This is where he gets very practical in encouraging men to turn from freeing themselves from porn to freeing others, to work together in true brotherhood, and to tackle this issue not just in their own lives but in the church and wider society. His encouragements in the area of confessing sin, prayer, and receiving God’s healing are as good as any I’ve read.
His book is unique in its format, unique in its writing, and unique in its authorship. Ortlund is not a younger man joining with his peers to offer them a soft shoulder, but an older man who is pleading with those who are younger to embrace who they most truly are in Christ. And sometimes slapping them down. He writes with love, with firmness, with the best kind of intensity.
“Here’s what I ask you to remember all along the way,” he says. Your battle against porn isn’t about porn. It isn’t about sex. It isn’t about willpower. Your battle is about hope. It’s about your heart believing that in spite of your many sins—like my many sins—God rejoices to give you a future you can scarcely dream of. You’ll win your fight by believing that God’s love for you is too great to be limited to what you deserve.” Indeed. I hope many men, young and old, take the time to read The Death of Porn and let it transform their lives.
(Note: While the use of pornography is by no means limited to men, they are the audience for this particular work.)

Buy from Amazon

Grace and peace to you today.

There are a few books discounted for Kindle today, and I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen any of these titles on sale before.
Pride (in the Name of Love)
Jared Wilson: “Jesus was perfect, and yet he did not look down on others. I am ridiculously imperfect, but I do look down on others. Jesus was perfectly holy, and yet was not arrogant. I am frustratingly unholy, but I am arrogant a lot. Like, a lot. I am not Jesus. But I do want to be like him.”
The Ends and the Means
Seth Lewis considers how small things can lead to big things. “A quiet phone call. That’s all it would take, and no one would know the difference. Except me. And my wife. And our friend. And God.”
There Is Power in Counting It All Joy
Paul Tautges: “To ‘count it all joy’ does not refer to being happy about the trial itself. Nor does it take away your permission to grieve. James is not saying, ‘No matter how painful your loss is, you need to just put on a happy face. Pretend, if you have to. Don’t let anyone see how much you hurt.’ No! True joy is not a spiritual façade.”
Trojan Horse Christians
“Satan will allow you to avoid all kinds of temptation if you continue to believe the lie that your moral life is the reason you have God’s acceptance. The enemy loves it when we build our monuments and look in amazement upon them. The problem with wooden horses is that they burn. They will not stand on the day of judgment.”
Say It, Even if It’s Been Said Before
This is true and worth considering: “The reality is, content you write today will be written again by someone tomorrow. It has probably already been written by someone before you. There is nothing new under the sun. Being faithful to God and encouraging others is more important than being on the cutting edge of a given topic.”
Why Waiting is Good News
Though we are impatient people, there is value in waiting. “Waiting reminds us that although we have agency, we are not ultimately in control. For those of us who find value in achieving, working hard, and crossing off tasks on our to-do lists, waiting can push us into a tailspin as it unhooks the lynchpin between who we are and what we do.”
Flashback: The Bit of Heaven the Heaven Tourism Books Never Touched
Heaven is the place where there is no trace of sin. In fact, the joys of heaven are dependent on sinlessness.

If we get a discouraged man to take heart again, and to set out bravely to fight his own battles and carry his own burdens we have done him a far greater kindness than if we had fought his battles and carried his burdens for him. —J.R. Miller

Good morning. May the Lord bless and keep you today.

There is an eclectic little group of Kindle deals to browse through today.
(Yesterday on the blog: The Ministry of Being a Little Bit Further Along)
My Darkest Night; Hopefully Not Yours
Jim Elliff: “At 3:30 a.m., I awoke to a black room, so dark that my eyes could not see even one inch away, much less to the other side. The simple room in a Romanian home in Brasov had one of those metal external shades that are lowered over the window, capable of completely deleting light. I was in the darkest place I had been in perhaps for years. And, since it was night and I was alone in the house, I thought.” This got him thinking about the “outer darkness.”
How Will the People in Heaven View Hell?
On a somewhat similar topic, here’s Amy Hall on heaven and hell. “I fairly regularly get asked this question in various forms: How will the people in Heaven view Hell? How can they enjoy the glories of God while others are suffering? My answer has two parts—a direct answer and a crucial context for that answer.”
The Universe on a Human Scale (Video)
Our minds simply can’t comprehend the size of the universe, but videos like this one do a good job of trying to help.
Patriotism: Love and Loyalty Without Idolatry
I appreciate Isaac Makashinyi’s thoughts on patriotism (in this case, from a Zambian perspective). “A nation cannot be unified around the mere basis of the mutual satisfaction of utilitarian needs. Instead, it must be bound by an active dedication to the maintenance of the body politic. To call this dedication ‘love’ is proper.”
Hope That Anchors Our Waiting Hearts
Randy Alcorn shares an excellent article from Courtney Doctor. “I recently heard a pastor say, ‘The waiting may be hard, but it never leads to disappointment.’ The truth of that statement rests entirely on what we think we are waiting for. In other words, the question isn’t simply what am I waiting for, but what am I hoping in? I’m learning that waiting and hope are intimately tied together.”
Sin Is Far Worse Than We Think It Is
“When Christians think about sin, often it is in the context of our sins being forgiven. We know that we are sinners and that we do all kinds of things that disobey God, some of them unknowingly and some of them intentionally. But we have been forgiven for our sins, right?”
The “Leading” of the Spirit?
Nick Batzig: “Deep down, we’re all intrigued by the mystical. Many find it to be more ‘spiritual’ if they experience something working powerfully and inexplicably upon them. This, no doubt, is partially the reason why charismatic views of the Holy Spirit prevailed throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. There is everything right about wanting to experience more of the power and working of the Holy Spirit, provided we rightly understand the biblical teaching about the power and work of the Spirit.”
Flashback: What Not To Say at the Beginning of a Worship Service
What are the best, the most beneficial, things a pastor or leader can say as he opens the service? What will best serve the people who have gathered?

The highest aim of womanhood is not motherhood; the highest aim of womanhood is being conformed to the image of Christ. —Gloria Furman

No church can survive solely upon the labors of its pastors. No church can thrive when the expectation is that all ministry must be formal and must originate from the front of the room. No church can remain healthy when it falls to the elders to give and the members to consume. Rather, the work of ministry within a local church is the privilege and responsibility of each of the people who makes that church their own.

One of the most important ministries that any Christian can engage in is also one of the most unheralded. One of the ministries that is key to the functioning of the local church and to advancement in the Christian life is also one of the most overlooked. It is the simplest of all ministries and the least formal, a ministry that each of us is equipped to carry out. It is the ministry of being just a little bit further along.
There is a place in the church and a place in life for expertise and formal training. But there is a much wider place for simple commitment and involvement. The great majority of the help people need as they navigate life’s trials, the great bulk of the counsel people seek as they encounter life’s questions, does not require the input of experts, but merely the attention of someone who knows God and who knows his Word. They do not need someone who has access to the original languages or who exposits Scripture at a post-graduate level. They do not need someone who holds credentials from a Christian counseling organization or who has dedicated a whole lifetime to studying theology. These things are good and have their place, but they are not often truly necessary.
What most people need and long for as they face trials and encounter questions is simply the dedicated attention of someone who is a little bit further along, the listening ear and gentle voice of someone who is a few steps ahead on the path of life, or the path of ministry, or the path of suffering, or the path of parenting. Most are merely seeking someone who will informally mentor them from the perspective of their own successes and failures, their own experiences of good and bad, the godly wisdom they have accumulated along the way.
What’s so wonderful about this ministry is that we can all take it up, for each of us is just a little bit further along than someone else. The father with toddlers is a little bit further along than the father with an infant, the mother who lost a child ten years ago to the one whose child has only just been laid in the grave. The Christian teen has taken a few more steps along the path of life than the child, the Christian senior than the one in her forties. Each of them can prayerfully look back and extend a helping hand, a word of advice, a prayer of intercession, to a person following along behind. Each of them can take up this ministry of blessing and encouragement, of Word and prayer, of time and attention. For they have the one key credential: they are a little bit further along.

May the Lord bless and keep you today.

This week Westminster Books is offering a discount on a book that will interest pastors, scholars, and serious students of the Bible.
Talitha Cumi
This is a sweet bit of writing. “With the quiet of the room and the mourning of the parents… With Peter and James and John looking on… With a twelve year old girl lying dead in her bed… With all the wailing outside and the mockery of Jesus… 
With the words of her death spreading around the small town… Jesus, the precious savior, takes this little girl by the hand and whispers in Aramaic: Talitha cumi.”
The Deconversion Stories That Go Unnoticed
Here is something to consider the next time you hear of a deconversion story. “I won’t speculate on the reasons for such celebrity deconversions as I am poorly qualified to speak on any of it. What is striking to me though is that for every high-profile professed Christian that turns his back on the faith, there are 100s overseas that make the same stated professions, walk away from the faith….and it goes largely unnoticed.”
Sometimes People Just Ain’t That Grateful
Stephen Kneale points out that some people just aren’t all that grateful and says, “We can’t live and die on whether people are grateful for what we do.”
The Insidious, Fake Intimacy of Algorithms
Yikes! “Many of us have deeper relationships with the algorithms than with the people in our churches. This is not surprising. When we spend more time tapping on our screens than we do talking with our friends, our algorithms will know us better than our loved ones do.”
Are Pro-Lifers Just “Pro-Forced Birth?”
“Abortion advocates are brilliant at playing word games. Using clever rhetorical moves, they are able to make protecting preborn children look bad and killing preborn children look good.” Tim Barnett provides an example.
How Do We Know We Can Trust the Bible? (Video)
I’m very glad that RTS’s “Wisdom Wednesday” videos are back. In this new one, Dr. Zachary Cole talks about why we can trust the Bible.
Does This Really Matter?
Gretchen Saffles: “How we spend our days isn’t just how we spend our lives. It’s how we become who we are and who we will be. It’s not just about what we’re doing, but the heart behind how and why we’re doing it. ”
Flashback: A Failure of Worship
The addict is not merely following deeply-ingrained habits and physical desires, but seeking the escstasy of worship. The problem is not the desire to worship—we are created to be worshippers—but the idolatrous object of that worship.

Waste no time in defending your Bible; preach it and let it defend itself! —Theodore Cuyler

May the God of love and peace be with you today.

Today’s Kindle deals include a series of deals from Crossway.
(Yesterday on the blog: The Song I Sing in the Darkness)
The Americans Who Don’t Want to Leave Afghanistan
“Every time President Biden or Press Secretary Jen Psaki talk about the American withdrawal from Afghanistan they refer to evacuating Americans ‘who want to leave Afghanistan.’ On the surface it seems like an odd description. Don’t all Americans want to leave Afghanistan? Who actually wants to stay in a place where the Taliban are figuring out what it looks like to rule again?” I think you probably know who wants to stay…
Reductionism: The Disease That Breeds Conflict
Pierce Taylor Hibbs writes about some contemporary conflicts and says, “beneath all that conflict, there’s a disease. It’s what we might call a mental disease: reductionism.”
Getty Music Sing! Conference
Here’s one last reminder that the Getty Sing! conference is continuing today both in-person and online. Those who tune in to the livestream will hear lots of great music, plus speaking from John Lennox, Trip Lee, Paul David Tripp, and others. Register here and use code VIRTUAL10 to save 10% on your registration.
How Do We Discern False Teachers?
John Piper: “Let me give you four biblical ways to assess whether someone is a false teacher. I do this just because the Bible agrees with you that we should be alert to the reality of false teachers, and it gives us tests.”
What Does It Mean to Weep with Those Who Weep?
Kevin DeYoung writes about what it does (and doesn’t) mean to weep with those who weep.
Uniquely Gifted: Overcoming Comparison
“Healthy competition can lead us to work harder and achieve more than we ever thought possible. However, competition’s ugly cousin, comparison, promises to help us achieve more but often leaves us in despair.”
After Death, Life
What hope we have! “There is one truth in the glorious panoply that is the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3) that is particularly special to me. One that stands out as a shining beacon on the darkest of days, one that daily speaks to my heart and revives me in the truth. And it, dear friends, is this: A man walked out of the back of death.”
Flashback: 5 Ways to Ruin a Perfectly Good Dating Relationship
…the wonder of marriage is that a messed up, sinful man actually can marry a messed up, sinful woman and somehow build a beautiful, life-long relationship that shines a spotlight on God and his gospel.

The church … is a hospital in which nobody is completely well, and anyone can relapse at any time. —J.I. Packer

Beginning today, thousands of believers from around the globe will be gathering online for a three-day immersive virtual experience packed with worship led from six continents, a first-time-ever performance of the upcoming Keith & Kristyn Getty album, exclusive Sing! Global conversations with key leaders in the church, culture, and arts, and talks featuring 100+ Christian speakers, artists, and musicians.

When you register, you’ll receive:

A free songbook with 52 songs for your church used throughout the event
Access to the Sing! Global online platform for 365 days to catch up on anything you miss
Free access to every prior year of Sing! online
Access to exclusive, interactive q&a sessions with many of our speakers
Ideas & inspiration for your church or family all year long

Plus, $5 of every ticket goes to fund translations and free distribution of the conference in communities around the world.
Hurry – the conference begins on the afternoon of Monday, September 13. Add your voice in singing and proclaiming that our hope is found in Christ alone!
Register here and use code VIRTUAL10 to save 10% on your registration.
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This week the blog is sponsored by Getty Music.