We are secure in Christ. When we think too highly of ourselves (Rom. 12:3), this is a much-needed reminder that our progression is not due to our abilities, but Christ’s. The times we fall down repeatedly and not sure we will ever advance, we can look to this truth and know he will complete the work he started in us (Phil. 1:6). And, ultimately, we can continue on in sanctification, reminding ourselves of his hold on us, knowing we are secure in him.

We are secure, not because we hold tightly to Jesus, but because he holds tightly to us. (RC Sproul)
Recently my family went to a small boutique in our hometown (where my wife enjoys spending all our money). In order to get there, we had to cross a very busy street. I told Jovi, my oldest daughter, to hold my hand as we walked across the road and into the store.
While holding my hand, she would loosen her grip and act as if she was pulling away, but I tightened my grip all the more to ensure she stayed with me. It didn’t matter how loose her grip was on me since my grip on her was extremely tight. She could try to let go, pull away, or run off—it wasn’t going to happen.
The same is true with us and Jesus. As we hold Jesus’ hands through the trials and temptations of life, it can be easy to become distracted and loosen our grip. But his grip is firm, tight, and never letting up.
If you are in Christ, he is holding onto you and will never let you go. This precious truth should cause three things to happen for Christians.
Christ’s firm grip on you should humble you. It’s hard to be conceited when we know it’s Christ’s hold on us—not our hold on him—that keeps us moving forward.
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There are some things in the Bible that can be tricky to grasp. But that doesn’t mean that they’re impossible to grasp. And the perspicuity of Scripture assures us that even when they are hard to grasp, the Author intends His words ultimately to be understandable by anyone.

What do people mean when they talk about the perspicuity of Scripture?

I just came back from a trip to China, and it’s fair to say there was a bit of a language problem. I’ll spare you the details, but the first day I was there, my credit card was swallowed by an ATM, so I spent a good few hours sitting in a bank in Shanghai and trying to work out the Mandarin for “My credit card has been swallowed by an ATM.” I think the Mandarin for “ATM” is “ATM,” but that’s about as far as I got.
It’s fair to say that Mandarin is not, for me, “perspicuous.”
Ironically enough—given that it’s not very clear—perspicuity is a word that means “clarity” or “clearness” or “understandability.” So when we talk about the “perspicuity” of Scripture, we’re talking about the idea that God’s Word is clear about things that are necessary to be understood and obeyed in order for a person to be saved. The Bible’s teaching on salvation can be understood by anyone and everyone.
Psalm 119 puts it like this: “The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.” Even though, at times, the Bible requires us to patiently and humbly wrestle with it, we can indeed come to know what it means regarding salvation and the basic principles for pleasing God, even if we don’t have a college degree or subscribe to an enjoyable podcast that explains big theological words in a simple way.
In fact, God’s Word is simple enough that it can be taught to children, as it says in Deuteronomy chapter 6: “These words that I command you today shall be on your heart….”
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It is odd but in light of where much of Western culture is today, Wild in the Streets seems almost prophetic. For example, at the age of fifteen, Swedish-born Greta Thunberg took her largely ignorant but passionate narrative concerning “climate change” into politics, attempting to sway the Swedish elections. A year later, she publicly scolded world leaders in her 2019 UN Climate Action Summit speech. Now twenty-one, she has an international following successfully demanding governments fall in line with climate change activists’ demands. Lately, she has also come out as an expert critic of Zionism, accusing Israel of “genocide” in Gaza, where of course, Israelis are trying to wipe out the terrorist organization which attacked, kidnapped, raped, and killed Israeli innocents – because Gazan innocents are being hurt or killed.

The 1968 film Wild in the Streets has been described as an “American dystopian comedy-drama film.” In an era of rebellion against authority – the late 1960s – the premise of Wild in the Streets was simple. High school and college-age youth came to believe that they knew better how to run society and government than their elders. The main character, Max Frost, was a budding revolutionary who happened to be a very popular rock star.
Popular rock singer and aspiring revolutionary Max Frost (Christopher Jones) was born Max Jacob Flatow Jr. His first public act of violence was blowing up his family’s new car. Frost’s band, the Troopers, live together with him, their women, and others, in a sprawling Beverly Hills mansion. The band includes his 15-year-old genius attorney Billy Cage (Kevin Coughlin) on lead guitar, ex-child actor and girlfriend Sally LeRoy (Diane Varsi) on keyboards, hook-handed Abraham Salteen (Larry Bishop) on bass guitar and trumpet, and anthropologist Stanley X (Richard Pryor) on drums. Max’s band performs a song noting that 52% of the population is 25 or younger, making young people the majority in the country.
When Max is asked to sing at a televised political rally by  Kennedyesque Senate candidate Johnny Fergus (Hal Holbrook), who is running on a platform to lower the voting age from 21 to 18, he and the Troopers appear – but Max stuns everyone by calling instead for the voting age to become 14, then finishes the show with an improvised song, “Fourteen or Fight!”, and a call for a demonstration. Max’s fans – and other young people, by the thousands – stir to action, and within 24 hours protests have begun in cities around the United States.1
As the story unfolds, not only is the voting age lowered, but the age to hold national public office is lowered to fourteen. The mandatory retirement age is lowered to thirty and everyone thirty-five and older were to be shipped to re-education camps where they are permanently kept “high” on LSD. While some thought the premise “ludicrous,” others, like Roger Ebert, thought it actually a cautionary tale. Ebert’s review opens with:
Once you’ve experienced a concert by a group like the Beatles or the Doors, the fascist potential of pop music becomes inescapable. There is a primitive force in these mass demonstrations that breaks down individualism and creates a joyous mob.2
Further down, he notes:
“Wild in the Streets,” on the other hand, is aimed squarely at the younger teenage audience that buys records and listens to the Top 40 stations. This audience can believe, if only temporarily, in the greatness of a performer. They can sense what John Lennon was getting at (although he phrased it unfortunately) when he said the Beatles were more famous than Christ.3
Ebert also comments:
It’s a silly film, but it does communicate in the simplest, most direct terms.4
It is odd but in light of where much of Western culture is today, Wild in the Streets seems almost prophetic. For example, at the age of fifteen, Swedish-born Greta Thunberg took her largely ignorant but passionate narrative concerning “climate change” into politics, attempting to sway the Swedish elections. A year later, she publicly scolded world leaders in her 2019 UN Climate Action Summit speech. Now twenty-one, she has an international following successfully demanding governments fall in line with climate change activists’ demands. Lately, she has also come out as an expert critic of Zionism, accusing Israel of “genocide” in Gaza, where of course, Israelis are trying to wipe out the terrorist organization which attacked, kidnapped, raped, and killed Israeli innocents – because Gazan innocents are being hurt or killed.
We can see her point. In WW2, we and our allies refused to attack both Japan and Germany directly, even though they were attacking us, since many German and Japanese civilian innocents would have been killed or injured in the process. Oh wait – that’s not how the war ended.
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