The cross is folly to those who are perishing, and the power of God to those who are being saved (1 Cor.1:18); it is a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks, but to Jewish and Greek believers in Christ it is the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor.1:23-24). In the Gentile world of Athens, the proclamation of the resurrection of Christ led to some mocking, some inquiring, and some believing (Acts 17:32-34). The gospel as a whole is a matter of death to death for those who are perishing, and life to life for those who are regenerated by the Holy Spirit (2 Cor.2:15-16). 

It is a startling and counter-intuitive thought that Christ Jesus came into the world to usher in hostility and trouble and controversy. Surely we have enough of that already. Yet He tells us clearly that we are not to think that He came to bring peace on earth, but, no, He came to bring division (Luke 12:51). Within the one family there will be divisions – father against son; mother against daughter; mother-in-law against daughter-in-law (Luke 12:52-53). The household will not always be the refuge of peace and harmony that we all desire.
What, then, about all those ‘peace’ verses? ‘When a man’s ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him’ (Prov.16:7). We are not to aim to be cantankerous and hard to get on with: ‘If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all’ (Rom.12:18). Even where a Christian has an unbelieving spouse, God has called us to peace (1 Cor.7:15). In the civil sphere we are to pray for those in authority over us that we might lead a peaceful and quiet life (1 Tim.2:2).
Yet the proclamation of the true gospel is invariably divisive. At the birth of the Messiah, old Simeon foresaw that this child was appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel (Luke 2:34). As people began to understand something more of His claims, there was a division among the people over Him (John 7:43). He was not just a talking point in the pub; there were those who wanted to arrest Him (John 7:44).
After Jesus had healed a man born blind (John 9), and claimed to be the good Shepherd who would give His life for the sheep, and then rise again (John 10:11, 17-18), there was a similar response.
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In an age where fake news is rampant and governing authorities use scientific rhetoric to enforce their political agenda, we must remember that one of the greatest lies in our age is salvation via science. Christians have an obligation before the Lord to recognize false prophets and false promises. Lest our hopes be divided between Christ and creation, we must see what is behind the vaccine mandate mania of so many.

Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy,and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread.— Isaiah 8:12 —
In our church, one of our elders often reminds us that Isaiah 8:12 is a verse that neither confirms nor denies the presence of a conspiracy. In our world there are many reports that are fake news, and because of that there are many who also discount true news. By the same token, there are reports that some label conspiracies that turn out to be true. And conversely, there are “true” reports that turn out to be false. In short, since the world fell by believing Satan’s Primordial Lie—“you can be like God”—we have lived in a world of lies, half-truths, conspiracies, and fake news. And in that world, the people of the truth must learn not just how to tell the truth (Exod. 20:16), but how to spot a lie.
In the original context of Isaiah 8:12, the Lord has told Isaiah to “fear God, not human armies” (G. V. Smith, Isaiah 1–39, 220). In the historical context, God has promised to preserve Judah, even if the king has foolishly rejected God’s help. In that context, the Lord says,
Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. 13 But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. 14 And he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 15 And many shall stumble on it. They shall fall and be broken; they shall be snared and taken.” (Isaiah 8:12–15)
In Isaiah 8, the particular sin is fearing man (i.e., human armies) instead of fearing God. But the enduring principle is fearing God according to what God has said. Again, in this case, God has promised a way of salvation, and Isaiah is calling the people to trust him and not human armies. In another context, however, fearing God might mean something else. In the case of Habakkuk, fearing God meant submitting to the coming destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon. In the case of Jeremiah, fearing God meant surrendering to Babylon and not fighting God’s instrument of judgment, as strange as it was to do so. Accordingly, the command to fear God does not always have the same application for God’s people.
Put this all together, and it is a foolish principle to fear God and never recognize or resist the threat of bad actors. Moreover, it is a foolish principle to read Isaiah 8:12 and conclude that everything that people call conspiracy is errant. History teaches us that rulers plot evil schemes (i.e., conspiracies) and that nations conspire together to accomplish wicked ends. Even more, sacred history—the history found in Scripture—teaches the same thing.
Echoing the first sin, the number of times that God’s people have been lied to—by their leaders, by their neighbors, by their prophets, and by themselves—cannot be counted with both hands. While the law of God can be numbered on our fingertips, and digit number 9 stands for “Do not bear false witness,” the number of times God’s people have believed false witnesses is too numerous to count. And thus, we should learn from Scripture how God’s people have believed lies and become liars, so that we who walk in the truth would not believe lies.
The Sin of Believing Lies
Douglas Wilson wrote about this a few months ago, and ever since, his observations from Scripture have stuck in my mind. He observes that “Christians certainly know that it is a sin to go around telling lies, but not so many know that it is also a sin to believe lies.” In context, his argument is a response to the ever changing testimony of Anthony Fauci and the school of prophets who follow him. More germane to this post, however, is the biblical reporting that follows. He writes,
Our race fell into sin because they believed a lie (Gen. 3:4-6). The Roman Christians were told to be on guard against those who with flattering words deceive the naive. It is a sin to be naive like that (Rom. 16:17-18). The Colossians were warned against empty deceit (Col. 2:8). As condemnation, God sent a strong delusion on certain individuals so that they would believe a lie. This was because they refused to love the truth (2 Thess. 2:9-13). The Galatians were rebuked for believing falsehoods (Gal. 3:1). [And] Joshua and his men fell for the deception posed by the men of Gibeon because they did not consult the Lord (Josh 9:14).
Clearly, not believing lies is as biblical as not spreading them. And thus, discerning truth from error in the things we hear and believe and pass on is a Christian virtue. Not believing lies is not something that promises to be fool-proof, but it is something we are called to pursue. Speaking honestly about this, Wilson continues:
If we are going to be reasonable people, I think we have to allow for some instances of deception that can occur where the one lied to really is innocent—where an accomplished hypocrite manages to appear righteous before men (Matt. 23:28). But the passages cited above show that the deceived are frequently complicit in their own deception. They go along in ways they shouldn’t. This pandemic was just such a situation. Believing a lie is culpable when the levers and handles that the liar uses are themselves culpable—those levers and handles being things like fears, lusts, gullibility, ignorance, and so on.
We will pick up the pandemic below as an example of this principle that we must not believe lies, but for now I want to ground this principle deeper in Scripture and to find one example of spitting out fake news followed by another example of swallowing hook, line, and sinker. Ironically, this example is found in the same chapter (1 Kings 13) and in the same prophet (the unnamed man of God who warns Jeroboam of a coming judgment). I point to this example, because one of the best way to learn how to discern truth from falsehood is to watch how it is done and how it is isn’t. And when it occurs in the same person, it shows us how vulnerable all of us are to believing lies, even if we have a track record of truth.
So, without giving a full exposition, I will introduce the man of God who rejected one lie and swallowed another.  And from these two incidents, I believe we can find help for walking wisely in our day of secular sacraments and government sponsored scientism. Again, Isaiah 8 is correct: not everything you hear is a conspiracy, but don’t make the absolutizing error of believing that nothing is a conspiracy either. We must remember that no matter what we are told, fearing God is our first priority. And putting God first means, we must learn how to spot fakery, lest we become liars ourselves.
Rejecting Fake News, Swallowing Fake News, and Knowing How to Tell the Difference
In 1 Kings 13, we find an example of God’s man rejecting fake news, only to follow that brave act of obedience with an immediate denial of God, as he swallows up another false report. Here’s the plotline.
After Jeroboam, king of Israel, builds two altars with two golden calves in 1 Kings 12, the Lord sends a prophet to pronounce God’s judgment on Jeroboam’s wickedness. This prophet is introduced in verse 1 as the “a man of God,” and throughout, this title (“man of God)” is repeated fourteen times (vv. 4, 5, 6 [2x], 7, 8, 11, 12, 14 [2x], 21, 26, 29, 31). Peter Leithart has observed, this nameless man of God serves an archetype for the rest of 1–2 Kings (cf. 1 Kgs. 17:18, 24; 20:28; 2 Kgs. 1:9–13; 4:7; etc.). In these books, God continues to send prophets (men of God) to rebuke the wicked kings of Israel and Judah and call them back to the Lord.
In this first instance, the man comes to Jeroboam and announces that his idolatrous altar will be torn down (vv. 2–3). In response, Jeroboam seizes the prophet, but not before his hand is paralyzed and his altar is broken in two (vv. 4–5). Struck down, the king pleads for the prophet to pray for healing (v. 6). The man of God obliges and the king is healed. With self-interested gratitude, the king invites the man of God to dine with him, to which the man of God replies, “If you give me half your house, I will not go in with you. And I will not eat bread or drink water in this place, for so was it commanded me by the word of the Lord, saying, ‘You shall neither eat bread nor drink water nor return by the way that you came’” (vv. 8–9). So far, so good. The narrative reports that the man of God departs.
From these first ten verses, we see that the prophet discharges his duty, escapes danger, and avoids the temptation to dine with the king. Remembering the Word of the Lord, he retains his loyalty to God and refuses the king’s “gracious” offer. Though the prophet’s refusal might not seem remarkable, it does contradict human nature. Made in the image of a God, man aspires for glory; and made to rule over the earth, human nature aspires for dominion. Accordingly, any invitation to rise to the king’s table is naturally attractive (cf. Prov. 25:7). Therefore, it takes moral courage and genuine faith to reject the “treasures of Egypt” and invite reproach as a true follower of God (Heb. 11:25). Accordingly, such obedience depends upon rejecting false invitations by remembering what God has commanded.
In the last year, this has been more difficult than usual. Extenuating circumstances, i.e., a global pandemic, have invited churches and church leaders to gather online, abandon singing, divide the church into clean and unclean, and hide the image of God with various masking protocols. The rationale is that we are doing all of this out of love for neighbor, but in the process the command to love, which fulfills the law, has run roughshod over the law of God and Christ’s commands to gather (Heb. 10:24–25; 12:22–24), sing (Eph. 5:18–20), show hospitality (Rom. 12:9–21), visit the sick (James 5:14), and greet one another with physical affection (i.e., a holy kiss).
In short, unlike the man of God in his refusal to take the king’s meat, many in our day have followed the science and not followed a number of biblical imperatives.
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Patience does not mean we simply tolerate deviant practices that violate our church constitution. We must continue to highlight these public actions and compare them to what we have confessed as a Church and agreed to uphold. As we do this, we should pray all our brethren will live with integrity before God and man and likewise fulfill their vows to the Scripture, to our Doctrinal Standards, and to our Form of Government and Discipline (BCO 21-5, 24-6) as we minister together in the PCA.

This is the second of a two-part series. Part one was published be published on Friday, March 3, 2022.
The trajectory of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) seems to have shifted beginning in 2018. Since that time, the General Assembly has delivered several tangible actions indicating greater commitment to the PCA Constitution (Westminster Standards and Book of Church Order).
Despite the encouragement, there remain numerous causes for concern throughout the PCA. In my previous article, I noted several areas creating trouble within the PCA including church-officer-impersonation, women in pulpits, and sacramental innovation, but I do not believe it is yet time to despair over the PCA. Instead, now is the time to continue to contend for the faith and uphold the PCA Constitution
Proposed Remedy
It is clear there are serious deviations of practice from the teaching of Scripture as confessed by our Church. This creates disunity and robs us of the peace we should be able to enjoy when we come together at General Assembly. Additionally, the dissonance between what we confess together (i.e. what we vow to uphold) versus what is practiced sows confusion, which is problematic since our God is not a God of confusion, but of peace.
A. Patience
Calvin encourages us toward patience (see his comments on John 10:31). The deviations in the PCA are not nearly so significant as those encountered by John Calvin in Geneva; we should be able to exercise patience.
Now is not the time to leave the PCA or wring our hands because of these innovative practices. Rather, this is the time to zealously cling to our Saviour, proclaim His truth, and make disciples by teaching the nations to observe all He has commanded.
We should recognize that the work of confessional renewal and reformation takes time. Patterns and habits are in place that must be confronted, in some places church culture must be changed to prize consistency and fidelity rather than latitude and contextualization, and brothers need to be corrected and taught with loving clarity and firmness.
All of these things take time, and we should be willing – even as we hold them accountable – to bear with our brethren as we work toward the goal of purity and peace.
B. Perseverance
Patience does not mean we simply tolerate deviant practices that violate our church constitution. We must continue to highlight these public actions and compare them to what we have confessed as a Church and agreed to uphold.
As we do this, we should pray all our brethren will live with integrity before God and man and likewise fulfill their vows to the Scripture, to our Doctrinal Standards, and to our Form of Government and Discipline (BCO 21-5, 24-6) as we minister together in the PCA.
The future of the PCA is not one of a tiered, latitudinarian approach to the Standards and teaching of Jesus, but of confessional fidelity.

He commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments (Psa 78:5-7).

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