Escaping the Grip of Worldliness
To love the Lord Jesus, to cleave to Him with full purpose of heart, to count him as “all our salvation and all our desire,” this is what He requires. This is also what our blessed Savior deserves from each of His redeemed people. If we do not despise worldly trifles, when standing in competition with His will, His presence, and His glory, then He shall regard us as denying Him, and we must expect to be denied by Him in the judgment day!
Worldliness is the besetting sin of most professing Christians! It is certain that very many of them are as eager in the pursuit of wealth as the heathen. This accounts for the little influence of the Word of God upon them. The seed is good, but the soil is bad! And the noxious weeds of worldliness, by their speedy and incessant growth, keep down the feebler plants of piety in the soul.
“The cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust for other things, choke the Word, and it becomes unfruitful.” Mark 4:19
But please note that it is not the overt act of covetousness or creature-dependence that is condemned, but the inward disposition of the mind and heart. The supreme delight of mind that arises from the possession of wealth, is itself a denial of the sufficiency of Christ to be our desired portion and treasure.
O, brethren, enter into your own bosoms, and judge yourselves in relation to this matter. Inquire whether Christ has such a full possession of your hearts, as to render all earthly things relatively vain, empty, and worthless, in your estimation. If not, then how can you call Christ your desired portion, or imagine that you have formed a proper estimate of the immeasurable blessings of salvation? Know assuredly, that if you have proper views of Christ, you will regard Him as your Pearl of Great Price!
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Irony & the PCA: The First Fifty Years
The conclusion of the 1982 Assembly marked the end of an era of expansion, optimism, and pioneering. Most of those initial leaders would pass on by the time of the half-century mark. Still, the Church had now absorbed an entire denomination with its various agencies, missions, presbyteries, and churches. Most realized that true union was not merely organizational and that large sub-cultures would need to continue in mutual trust for the PCA to grow as wished. The next decade would test those values and unity.
Below is another excerpt from TE David Hall’s new book, Irony and the Presbyterian Church in America. Dr. Hall has graciously provided a few samples of his latest volume to give the readers of Mid the Pines a fresh look at the first history published in conjunction with the PCA’s 50th Anniversary.
David Hall joins a long line of scholars to chart God’s faithfulness to His Church. The excerpt below details the efforts to build on the union between the PCA with the RPCES in joining and receiving. The now larger PCA experienced growth and growing pains as new questions regarding confessional subscription emerged. Read on below or purchase TE Hall’s volume available as kindle or hardcopy.
The 1982 (10th) Assembly: Union to Avoid Duplication
By David W. Hall
By the time that the 10th GA convened, returning to the campus of Calvin College with several other NAPARC partners, it was clear that enough PCA presbyteries had approved joining with the RPCES. Leading up to this Assembly, though, proponents on both sides of the issue were recruiting supporters to the very beginning of RPCES Synod. The new denomination had nearly quadrupled its membership in its first decade and doubled the number of presbyteries. Teaching elders, as had become the norm, had a nearly 2:1 ratio to ruling elders for these important debates.
When the Assembly began, Francis Schaeffer was invited to give a keynote address to this Assembly as part of the celebration of the J&R. Retiring Moderator Paul Settle announced that by more than a 3/4 margin the RPCES had approved the J&R with a 322-90 vote. Similarly, the PCA had obtained the requisite votes to effect union (25 presbyteries in favor, with none opposing); thus, the RPCES commissioners were soon included as registered commissioners of the 10th GA. Notwithstanding, by an 18-7[1] vote of the PCA presbyteries, the invitation to the OPC failed by one presbytery vote to receive the needed supermajority support and was discontinued for a time.[2]
Before Dr. Schaeffer spoke to the now-united churches, a few border disputes among presbyteries needed adjustment, and this was assigned to a sub-committee to reconcile as soon as possible. The other largely formal matters below (Min10GA, 320) were approved as this committee concluded its work and was dissolved.
The Committee requested the Committee on Administration also to appoint legal counsel to work with the general counsel of the RPCES to assure that wills, trusts, corporations, and property matters are properly cared for in the transition process.
Steps were taken to assure that trustees in the RPCES with fiduciary responsibilities will not be placed in jeopardy when their responsibilities are transferred to corresponding members in the PCA.
The Ad Interim Committee wishes to thank the Coordinators, staff members, committee chairmen and others in the PCA who cooperated so willingly and fully with the efforts to facilitate the transition procedures of the Joining and Receiving. Appreciation is also expressed to our brethren in the OPC and RPCES who have so graciously worked with us as we have explored the possibility of ‘effecting one church.’
Though we regret that the OPC will not at this time be participating in the Joining and Receiving process, we pray that our sovereign God will allow us to continue already successful joint efforts in ministry and to expand our common witnessunto a day when we may indeed realize the hope of organizational unity to His glory.
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Modern Cultic Tendencies
Since the nineteenth century, the U.S. has proven to have a cultural soil that is particularly well-suited to the growth and spread of diverse cultic movements. The nineteenth century alone witnessed the rise of numerous small cults as well as several significant ones, including the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons. A number of factors—discussed in another article in this issue of Tabletalk—help us to understand why this happened when it did. But what of our own era? Is there anything in our contemporary way of thinking, or way of living, that is similarly conducive to the proliferation of cults and cult-like tendencies?
On the one hand, several aspects of nineteenth-century culture and religion that contributed to the rise of numerous cults continue to this day. We remain a hyper-individualistic culture that is attracted to populist ideals. We have retained our deep suspicion of all traditional authorities, including the church and her creeds. Within the church, the cry “No creed but Christ” (which, ironically, is itself a creed) has not lost any of its emotional appeal. Overly pietistic tendencies in the church continue to encourage the idea of a conflict between the heart and the mind resulting in antagonism toward anything doctrinal or intellectual. These basic misunderstandings led to a severe lack of discernment in the nineteenth century, and to the degree that the same misunderstandings continue today, so too do the same dangers.
The anti-intellectual trend that existed in the nineteenth century picked up steam in the twentieth. We have witnessed the “dumbing down” of our culture. The advent of television, as Neil Postman explains, by itself contributed greatly to the transition from an “Age of Exposition” to the “Age of Show Business” (Amusing Ourselves to Death, Penguin Books, 1985, p. 64). The dumbing down of the culture has been followed by the dumbing down of the church. Sadly, many churches have surrendered to the standards of contemporary culture and become places of entertainment rather than places of worship. Deeply exegetical and theological sermons have become an endangered species, having been replaced by vacuous therapeutic messages and mindless pop-psychology. In the eighth century B.C., the prophet Hosea declared the word of the Lord to Israel, saying: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hos. 4:6). Such a lament is not inappropriate in today’s anti-intellectual climate in which many Christians have lost the ability to think.
The antipathy and antagonism toward theology that began to gain ground in the nineteenth century also strengthened during the twentieth century. Some continued to argue that theology was detrimental to true “heart religion,” while others began to argue that language about God was simply impossible. Gradually theology moved from the center to the periphery of the church’s life. Christians are no longer regularly taught the foundational truths of the Christian faith and are therefore left vulnerable to cultists and others who cleverly twist Scripture.
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The Perfect Outcry in a Broken and Anguished World — Psalm 130
Things are not right. Untold crowds protest. But in Psalm 130 we hear the perfect outcry that can, and must, arise from every heart. In this Song of Ascents we lift up our heads to Jesus Christ. We wait for him, more than the watchman waits for the morning.
The year 2020 will be remembered, so far, for Covid-19, and large-scale protests. Vast masked crowds gather to rail against racism, policing, gender-inequality, climate change, and whatever other grievances each new week brings. Iconoclasts topple whole quarries of obnoxious memorials of the people and events of our past.
I tend to be cynical about all this. Protestors seem intent on inflaming rather than healing race and gender divisions. And they seem to give little thought to the consequences of their demands. Defund the police? Erase our history? How then will our grandchildren not repeat its mistakes?
Whatever I may think, thousands are getting off their bottoms and onto the streets. They are unhappy, distressed, and they cry out for change. “Things are not right! We want something better!”
In Psalm 130 the psalmist too was deeply unhappy and distressed.
In this they share some common ground with Psalm 130. The psalmist too was deeply unhappy and distressed. He too felt the pain of brokenness and cried out in anguish.
The difference is that Psalm 130 is a perfect outcry. It shows exactly what should be cried out, and to whom we should cry out, and for what reasons.
Psalm 130 is “A song of ascents.” The temple was on Mount Zion, the highest point of Jerusalem, which is itself a city on a hill. It may first have been sung by pilgrims as they streamed up through Jerusalem to the temple to worship. It looks up, away from self and the earthly, to the face of the Lord.
And Psalm 130 is, along with Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, and 143, one of the Penitential Psalms. We see a sinner looking up to God’s face and pleading for his mercy.
A broken heart cries out to the Lord.Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord! O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy (Psalm 130:1-2).
David had once said, “I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me” (Ps. 69:2). “The depths” is the bottom of the sea, the base of the slimy pit. “The depths” can take many forms. It could be the depths of an airless dungeon, or chronic pain. It could be the depths of poverty, or of a broken heart. It could be the depths of despair, shame, or fear. It could be the depths of hopelessness, of looking forward and seeing nothing but the cold grave and endless torment. The psalmist cries out de profundis (Latin for “from the depths”) of this black and hopeless place. He dares to evoke God’s “ears” and begs that he will listen.
We should never forget that a loving Lord sometimes casts his people into the depths. Think of Joseph in the Egyptian dungeon and scabrous Job on his ash heap, consider David in the caves of exile, Jonah in the stinking whale, Daniel in the lions’ den, the Prodigal Son in the sty, and Peter in the abyss of bitter self-loathing on crucifixion eve. The Lord casts us down to death, that we might come to life and cry out to him.
Notice that the Psalmist doesn’t scramble out of the pit, and then call to God. He calls to God from the shroud. God wants our prayers from wherever we are, and even from whomever we are, at that moment.
Note two fundamental differences between the protester and the penitent.
First, the protester cries out to human authorities for change. Thus, they aim far too low and expect the impossible. Human governors can provide a degree of defense, law and order, communication, and healthcare, and we should be thankful for good government in Australia. But no government can reach into people’s hearts. They cannot make the greedy generous, the racist color-blind, the violent gentle, the selfish selfless, and the reckless responsible. The Psalmist cries out to the highest heavens. The voice of the protester, like a flapping dodo, fails to rise from earth and clay.
Second, the protestor cries for justice and rights. “Give me what I deserve!” The Psalmist cries out for the opposite. To see the Lord, the Rose of Sharon, the Lily of the Valley, the Lamb without Blemish, is to see at once the blackness of our own hearts, “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jer. 17:9 NKJV). To see the Holy One, sword of justice in his hand, is to see at once what we richly deserve, the fires of hell and the worm that does not die.
We must tread very carefully here. There are people who are in the pit as an immediate consequence of a sin. Think Jonah, Peter, and the Prodigal Son. And there are people in the pit, but it is not an immediate consequence of sin. Think Job, Daniel, and Paul and Silas in the Philippian jail. Yet the cry in both cases is the same, “Have mercy!”
There is profound injustice in the world. “The poor you will always have with you” (Matt. 26:11 NIV). Love compels us to stand for the rights of the unborn, the impoverished, child-slaves, political prisoners, and the elderly who are abused and who live, in some nations, with euthanizing potions at hand. Christians will always want to defend the weak.
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