If we really are happy and content in him, letting our faces show it doesn’t hurt, does it? Actually speaking about how Jesus has made us happy and content must be a good and sensible thing. That, I think is why the world needs happy pastors. And not just happy pastors, but happy Christians. Unless people see that Jesus does indeed make us happy, why would they think he’ll do anything for them?

I am all too aware that different people are drawn to Christ because for different reasons. For me, I suppose there are two key factors. First – let’s just admit it off the bat – I was brought up in a Christian family. That means I was to some degree socially and culturally primed for it. It _felt_ right to some degree because it _felt_ normal because for me, growing up in a Christian family, it was normal for me. The social and cultural barriers were minimal given I had been brought up in it. What social and cultural barriers there were tended not to be to accessing Christ, but why most people in the church operated one way and my family followed suit when we gathered together, but when we were home we operated a slightly different way. And, for that matter, why my middle class mates at school seemed to operate more like my church but my working class mates more like my family at home. But those weren’t barriers for me, they were more just curiosities that took many years to even recognise and then begin to understand to some degree.
The other factor for me was simply the belief that it is all true. I even went through a period in my teens – probably more out of a sense that my life would be easier and more comfortable if it were not true – of wishing it wasn’t. But I had professed faith long before then and could ultimately never shake the nagging sense that it _is_ really true. And if true, then kicking against it was even more uncomfortable than whatever issues I determined at the time would have made my life easier if I could just merrily go along with them. I find living as thought something I don’t believe is true, or pretending something I do believe is true isn’t in reality, far harder to cope with than the social awkwardness of not fitting in or whatever.
So, fundamentally, those are the two key factors (I think) that primed me to be a believer. I was culturally and socially primed for it, making it all _feel_ ultimately normal. There were no family barriers for me but, actually, being a Christian in my family was an evident benefit to me (pragmatically speaking). But I also couldn’t get around the fact that I really do believe God exists, always have and never doubted it.
Read More

Related Posts:

.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap{align-content:start;}:where(.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap) > .wp-block-kadence-column{justify-content:start;}.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap{column-gap:var(–global-kb-gap-md, 2rem);row-gap:var(–global-kb-gap-md, 2rem);padding-top:var(–global-kb-spacing-sm, 1.5rem);padding-bottom:var(–global-kb-spacing-sm, 1.5rem);grid-template-columns:minmax(0, 1fr);}.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd{background-color:#dddddd;}.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-layout-overlay{opacity:0.30;}@media all and (max-width: 1024px){.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap{grid-template-columns:minmax(0, 1fr);}}@media all and (max-width: 767px){.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap{grid-template-columns:minmax(0, 1fr);}}
.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col,.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col:before{border-top-left-radius:0px;border-top-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-left-radius:0px;}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col{column-gap:var(–global-kb-gap-sm, 1rem);}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col > .aligncenter{width:100%;}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col:before{opacity:0.3;}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18{position:relative;}@media all and (max-width: 1024px){.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}}@media all and (max-width: 767px){.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}}

Subscribe to Free “Top 10 Stories” Email
Get the top 10 stories from The Aquila Report in your inbox every Tuesday morning.

Although our justification before God was completed entirely, once for all, upon the cross of Christ, our final deliverance from sin is just as much of a process as Israel’s exodus. We are being sanctified in Christ each day, so we need the gospel just as much today as we did whenever we first believed. Indeed, we will often find that the deeper the gospel penetrates our hearts, the harder our sinful flesh fight back. Or we find that during times of pain and affliction how easy is it to return to the entrenched paths of sin for “comfort,” just as the Israelites first brought their complaint to Pharaoh. 

As last, here in the fifth chapter of Exodus, we find the first confrontation between Moses and Pharaoh. Through all of his faults and fears, Moses returned to Egypt with his brother Aaron and told the elders of Israel all that God had spoken to him. In response, they believed what Moses had said and worshiped the LORD. Now, with the support of his people behind him, the prophet of God is ready to speak directly to the king of Egypt.
Thus Says the Lord // Verses 1-3
Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh… After receiving the support of the elders of Israel, Moses and Aaron were clearly not interested in wasting time. How exactly they were able to get a standing before the king of Egypt so quickly is not mentioned here, but I would assume that the gravitas of these two messengers of the Most High would have convinced Pharaoh’s servants that their message was an important matter to attend to.
In this initial dialogue with Pharaoh, which we should remember was happening between Aaron and the mouth of Pharaoh while Moses and Pharaoh watched the proceedings and perhaps whispered in the ear of their ‘prophet,’ Moses and Aaron speak twice. Their initial pronouncement is a direct demand, coming from the very mouth of the Great I Am: Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, “Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.” Then after Pharaoh dismisses the words of the Almighty, the prophets speak again: The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.
Many have noted the shift in tone between their first and second statements, for the first is an authoritative demand from God while the second appears to be a polite request from Moses and Aaron. We should remember, however, that God explicitly commanded Moses to speak the words of their second statement back in 3:18. Therefore, it is not as if Moses and Aaron were cowering down after meeting the initial opposition of Pharaoh. Indeed, as we noted before, the LORD is apparently giving Pharaoh this simple request merely to let the Israelites go a three-days’ journey in order to display the hardness of the king’s heart. It is to reveal that Pharaoh would not even let the Hebrews go temporarily. Thus, it is not as if things would have been any different if the LORD had offered a compromise to Pharaoh.
As dismissive as Pharaoh’s response is, let us draw this bit of encouragement: success in evangelism is not measured by the response of the receiver but by the faithfulness of the herald. Moses and Aaron were faithful in their mission to proclaim God’s Word, even though we have already been told that Pharaoh would not listen. Nevertheless, God intended to pile up His warnings to Pharaoh so that Pharaoh would be that much more worthy of judgment. Although we should pray mightily for the salvation of everyone around us, we would do well to remember that God’s mercy and judgment are the same today. Although we are to proclaim the gospel to everyone, only some will be believe, and the others will have heaped greater judgment upon themselves for having also rejected God’s mercy and grace.

The final phrase of their proclamation is an interesting one: lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword. I do not think that we should read this as Moses and Aaron speaking of God’s judgment solely upon the Israelites; instead, it seems that they were still speaking of themselves as belonging to the nation of Egypt, which goes right along with this initial request to sacrifice in the wilderness and then return. Again, let us stress that the LORD is giving Pharaoh the great mercy of warning him of the coming judgment. Thankfully, this is how God almost always operates. He gives opportunity after opportunity for repentance before finally bringing down the sword of His justice and wrath. This will become incredibly clear as each of the plagues reveals the stubbornness of Pharaoh to be more and more worthy of God’s judgment.

Before discussing Pharoah’s responses, Philip Ryken makes an excellent point on how Christians might learn from the statements of Moses and Aaron:
This dialogue is a model for bold Christian witness. Moses and Aaron began by telling Pharaoh exactly what he had to do. But they also took the time to explain who was making this demand and why and what would happen if it wasn’t met. The God of Israel was demanding freedom for his people. He was making this demand so that he could be glorified in their worship, and if his demand was not met, he would respond with swift and terrible justice.
Christians ought to adopt a similar strategy in presenting the good news about Jesus Christ. The gospel is first of all a demand in which God commands sinners to repent and believe in his Son. But that demand requires some explanation. To repent is to be sorry for sin and turn away from it. To believe in God’s Son is to trust in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as the full payment for one’s sin. Christians also need to be prepared to explain why God makes this demand. Very simply, it is because those who refuse to come to Christ will be lost in their sins and will suffer the eternal punishment of God’s wrath. If you are not a Christian, consider yourself warned! Like Pharaoh, you have heard what God demands, as well as the consequences of refusing him.[1]
Pharaoh’s initial response to Moses and Aaron declaring, “Thus says the LORD…” is a perfect insight into the heart of this prideful monarch: Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.

Let us take a moment, however, to walk in Pharaoh’s shoes. Imagine the audacity of these demands from the perspective of Pharaoh. He believed himself to be a son of the gods, a god-man, both human and divine. And before him were two representatives from a nation of slaves, speaking on behalf of their God, a God who had let them endure slavery for four hundred years. Pharaoh’s response is, therefore, cold and honest, and as a self-proclaimed deity, he directed his skepticism and hostility directly at the God who had sent Moses and Aaron.

We see that skepticism and hostility in Pharaoh’s first question: who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? Pharaoh’s ignorance of the LORD was willful. Like all sinners until God intervenes, his skepticism of the LORD was directly tied to his refusal to obey God’s commands. Indeed, notice that Pharaoh’s response is essentially to say that he does not recognize the LORD as God but even if he did, he would not obey him. Citing Ryken again, he points out that Pharaoh’s answer reveals a pattern of unbelief among unbelievers in general:
Unbelief is partly an intellectual problem: the unbeliever does not know the Lord’s name. It is partly a spiritual problem: the unbeliever refuses to obey the Lord’s will. But often it is also a social problem: the unbeliever does not care for the Lord’s people.[2]
This is an important point to make because too often we treat most unbelief as purely intellectual, as if there were no other factors to consider. Paul, however, teaches us that all people know God as the Creator and the Lawgiver, and those who claim otherwise “suppress the truth” (Romans 1:18). While intellectual problems certainly do factor into unbelief, they are very rarely the primary problem once the heart of the matter is reached.
We can also use Pharaoh’s skeptic response to the command of the LORD to push back against the commonly held modern notion of skepticism as virtuous. Of course, as secularism increasingly uncovers itself to be just as religious as any other religion, that notion is somewhat going out of fashion. Yet it continues to hang on, nonetheless. While a certain degree of skepticism is necessary for scientific inquiry,[3] skepticism as a worldview is path to nihilism. C. S. Lewis wrote of this danger, saying:
But you cannot go on ‘explaining away’ for ever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on ‘seeing through’ things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to ‘see through’ first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see.[4]

Skepticism itself is not a virtue. Like the scoffer of Psalms and Proverbs, the perpetual skeptic sees through everything until he makes himself blind, unable to see at all.

Read More

For the determined unbeliever, sheer denial of God isn’t enough. They must insist on defiling even the memory of God. It’s why Nero must not only invade the temple, he must sacrifice a pig to Zeus. It’s why Mark Studdock must not just be forced to deny God, but to “trample on [the crucifix] and insult it.” It’s why apostate churches must not just permit gay marriage, but must invite a drag queen to lead their service. It’s why it isn’t enough just to ignore the resurrection of Christ — we must insist on worshipping a demon in His place. We must insist on a day of trans visibility.

“For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.” (1 Corinthians 15:3–8)
Collectors, whether of motorcycles or moths, typically feature the most valuable parts of their collection in some prominent place. Nobody wants people leaving the Tower of London recalling only Queen Victoria’s collection of silver toenail clippers. Therefore, the crown jewels must be first and foremost in the treasury display.
Two days ago was Easter Sunday, on which we celebrate the most pivotal event in history. Because Jesus Christ has done the impossible, carrying our sins in his body, death is no longer the final word in once was. For centuries the events of holy week have been the crowning jewel not just for Christians, but for the West, which owes its entire system of law and governance to the basic truths set forth in the Bible, which stand or fall on the literal fact of the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:19). In other words, the resurrection is the best and brightest piece in our collection. There is no gift we presently enjoy that doesn’t trace its roots back to the splendour of the empty tomb.
One would think such a treasure would, whenever possible, be brought into the light. Especially in the midst of such darkness as we find ourselves in today.
But one would be wrong.
Instead, our leaders decided to take the driest, most inglorious mouse turd they could find, adorn it with glitter glue, and place it in a bomb-proof reliquary. And here I’m talking about the so-called “trans day of visibility.” A day arbitrarily set aside in honour of the mass-psychosis that has taken hold of our nation. A day to remember the multitude of youth being shovelled into Molech’s arms by activist educators, virtue-signalling parents, and sycophant media shills. A day on which we must give extra-careful consideration to the TikTok “influencer” with a 5 o’clock shadow and a patterned dress trying to argue that parents don’t have rights over their own children.
Read More
Related Posts: