What we are experiencing is not the rise of new idols. It is rather the metastasizing of the idols which we have permitted out on the high places for years. Saying that you will not offer their drink offerings of blood is good, but it is not enough. It is time to cut down the groves. And set up altars over every square inch to the living God.

R.C. Sproul once said, “The cultural revolution of the 1960’s was similar to the French Revolution in that its goal was to bring radical change to the forms, structures, values, and ethics of the status quo. It sought to bring in a New Age with the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Now the dawn of the New Age is long past. Aquarius is now at high noon.”[1] He wrote those words only six years ago, which means that Aquarius is still at high noon. It means that the dawning of the Pagan Age is still long past. Sproul’s words beckon the question, “Why did it take Aquarius reaching high noon for the Reformed and Evangelical Church to get so hot and bothered by it?”
You can see the growth of the New Religion in covenantal terms (Adam, Abraham, Moses, David). The cultural revolution of the 60’s was the Adamic Administration, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with hippy love.” John Lennon supplied the Abrahamic promises—
Imagine there’s no heaven. it’s easy if you tryNo hell below us, above us only sky 
You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only oneI hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will live as one
I have spoken of the recent rise of Social Justice as the Mosaic Administration of Paganism. The New Religion has reached its Mount Sinai, and down from that unholy mountain has come the creature-law of intersectionality, critical theory, and all of that social justice tomfoolery. Adherents of the new religion have heard, and they believe, that if they simply obey these laws, then they will enter the Promised Land. A significant step toward a Pagan Davidic Administration can be seen with the recent Orwellian governmental tyranny as the state begins to enforce iniquitous and arbitrary standards. Some Christians are already denying any necessity for human law to accord with divine revelation and preparing to obey whatever despotic mandates civil authority decrees. The point is, we are a good deal down the line and if you’re going to fight well, then it helps to know where you are on the battlefield.
Over the past few years, the Evangelical and Reformed world has been full of debate, literature, conferences, and statements surrounding social justice, critical theory, wokeness, etc. It is clear where some leaders and organizations stand. It is not entirely clear which side of the fault line others are on. Neither is it clear, depending on how broad you draw the lines, whether the woke or the un-woke have more numbers. But, it is clear that you could now write the book Not Woke Church and likely sell a good number of copies. In the first place, let us praise the Lord. Amen to the church identifying idols and staying away from them. And in the second place, caution is in order. For there is now a market for Not Woke. And Big Eva knows a market when she sees one.
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Churches—not the buildings but the people—were made to care. We must be gentle but bold in advising weary caregivers to receive care. They may need help in accepting it.

You May Need Care
Who cares? As we saw in the first blog, we were born to care according to God’s creation plan (Genesis 1:26-28). It is who we are and what our Lord designed us to do. That’s how we live out the image of God in which he created us. When we care for others, we act like our Creator and do his will. But caregivers also need care at times.
God Designs Care to Meet Needs
To care for caregivers, it is important to understand a caregiver’s needs. What role do needs play in caring for caregivers?
Needs can be complex. Every need we experience is uniquely God-designed. Our Creator makes no mistakes, not even in planning to meet our needs. Neither does he make two needs or their solutions alike.
As we saw in part 1, God sent Joseph into Egypt. The brothers thought they sent him. After all, they kidnapped him and sold him to slave traders who took him to Egypt. But Joseph corrected their misunderstanding; he explained that God not only sent him, but also orchestrated every detail according to his sovereign plan.[1] God’s plan was to care for Joseph’s brothers as well as the entire nation of Israel hundreds of years later (Genesis 50:20). From this passage we learn that only God can plan care with fail-safe outcomes that override all wicked human intentions.
Those Who Need Care Must Want It
Although Joseph’s brothers did not ask for his care, Joseph saw his brothers’ needs as requests for care. That’s how we should understand caregivers’ needs. We should view the needs of caregivers who are suffering in their care for others as silent pleas for help. But how can we get them to receive our care if they are reluctant? Caregivers want to succeed at their God-given roles. But they may need care so that they can, in turn, care for others.
What can we say to caregivers who are stressed, exhausted, and ready to give up? Some already may be in deep and dangerous distress.

Encourage care. Many caregivers refuse care because they don’t think they need it. But when they reach the end of their ability to fix their own problem, they cry out in anger to God, worse yet, they consider giving up. Unwise decisions like this are unnecessary. Churches—not the buildings but the people—were made to care. We must be gentle but bold in advising weary caregivers to receive care. They may need help in accepting it.

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Rice desired his children to reach a spiritual height that surpassed him. He did not want them to be content with low spirituality which he said was common among Christians in his day. Instead of a list of rules for them to check off, he provided a paradigm to measure every action taken. The principle of our actions first and foremost must be a high regard for God. A holy reverence for the Divine majesty and a thankfulness for the work of Christ on our behalf must dominate every decision. Indeed, without this sacred regard for God, Rice wrote, “none of our actions can properly be denominated religious actions.”

David Rice (1733–1816) was a Presbyterian minister who played a prominent role in the development of Presbyterianism in Kentucky. He was born in Virginia and converted under the preaching of Samuel Davies in the 1750s. After serving in Virginia for some time, Rice came to Kentucky in the 1780s and immediately felt the challenge of ministering to those living on the frontier. Despite the difficulties, Rice was able to aid in the organization and establishment of churches through his faithful gospel preaching. He also played a hand in establishing schools—including the Transylvania Seminary (now Transylvania University) which had its beginnings meeting in his home.
In 1792, the year that Kentucky was admitted to the Union, Rice played an important part in the State’s first Constitutional Convention. He argued for the insertion of an article allowing for a gradual emancipation of slaves. Although his speech, entitled “Slavery Inconsistent with Justice and Good Policy,” provided a passionate apologetic for the cause, it ultimately failed to pass. When the revivals of the Second Great Awakening came to the frontier at the turn of the century, Rice advocated for moderation. He was not anti-revival as some have claimed, but he was opposed to the excess and bodily agitations that accompanied many of the camp meetings. Like a good Presbyterian, he wanted all things to be done decently and in order (1 Cor. 14:40).
Rice married Mary Blair, the daughter of prominent Presbyterian minister Samuel Blair, and together they had 11 children. By all indications, the Rices were faithful in raising their children in the instruction of the Lord. History testifies that all of their children had their own families and remained faithful to the church. Church historian Robert Davidson, writing in 1847, recorded that one of their children was converted from reading a Bible that was left on his clothes when he was leaving home for the first time!
One can see the love that Rice had for his children in some of the last words that he spoke to them. It is often the case when death is near, trivial and superficial matters lose their predominance. We are no longer preoccupied with them, and our attention no longer gravitates toward them. Instead, we become obsessively concerned with things that truly matter. We confront eternity face to face. David Rice’s advice to his children nine years before his death exemplifies this. As Rice grew older, he wrote some final words to his beloved children, which have come down to us in a work entitled The Rev. David Rice’s Last Advice to His Children, Whether His by Affinity or Consanguinity: Written in the Seventy-Fourth Year of His Age.
Rice began this work by sharing that he started to think about his final advice after the death of his wife. It was by this act of God’s providence he realized tomorrow may be his last day, and so he needed to share some parting words with his children. At the outset, Rice reminded them:
My dear children, frequently recollect and seriously realize that we must all appear at the dread tribunal of Jesus Christ; and that then you must give an account to him of the use, the improvement you have made of all the religious advantages and privileges you have enjoyed; and particularly those that you have enjoyed in the family in which you have been educated.
David Rice, “The Rev. David Rice’s Last Advice to His Children, Whether His By Affinity or Consanguinity: Written in the Seventy Fourth Year of His Age,” in The Virginia Evangelical and Literary Magazine 2/6 (June 1819), 246.
It was his purpose to exhort them to live with this in mind, and the remainder of the work was to help them practically live thankful to God for their advantages. The advice that followed was written under three broad headings: On the Doctrines of Christianity, On Christian Morality, and On Conduct in Civil Society. What follows are some prominent points, not an exhaustive study.
On Christian Doctrine
Stand firm in your convictions, show charity to Christians who disagree, and do not get weighed down in trivial matters or doctrine of secondary importance.
Rice urged his children to be fixed and well-established in the fundamental doctrines of religion, the government of the church, and the scriptural modes of worship. He desired that his children would be steadfast in their conviction. Rice had instructed them in the Presbyterian tradition, which, according to his testimony, was the best system of religion. They were to be unwavering in their beliefs, and not let anything move them from the foundation that they stood upon. Yet, simultaneously, where good Christians disagreed on secondary or tertiary issues, Rice exhorted his children to show charity. “At the same time,” he wrote, “extend your charity to others as far as reason and scripture will warrant you, treating Christians of every denomination as brethren…Men may differ widely as to the mode of worship, and yet be acceptable worshippers of God through Christ.”
While it is important for Christians to know secondary matters well, Rice did not want his children to get weighed down in these issues at the expense of Christian unity. He was also concerned about pride. He wanted his children to study those doctrines that produced holiness in the heart and life. Doctrines that carried a lot of speculation and did not produce a holiness of character could be hurtful. This is not to say they were not important, but that doctrinal hobby horses could easily open the door for pride and temptation to unpack and settle in our hearts. Rice warned his children to avoid religious controversy if it were possible, but if it wasn’t, he spurred them to faithfully defend the truth. They were to defend it with humility and meekness, not out of pride and vainglory. Further, they were to never “engage the enemy, until you are acquainted with the ground you occupy, your own force, and the forces of your antagonist.” Another warning Rice wrote was to avoid “religious novelties” which, generally speaking, were nothing better than seducing errors. In every century, religious fads and movements attempt to sway the people of God; Rice encouraged his children to resist.
In exhorting them to stand firm in their convictions while cultivating a heart of charity for those who disagreed, he was very clear that they were not to have communion with those who were nominal Christians. He wrote: “Treat all of your fellow creatures with kindness and with the respect due to their several characters; but have no religious communion with those nominal Christians, whose principles sap the foundation of the Christian religion, lest you thereby countenance their errors, and partake of their guilt and punishment.”
The world today is changing at a rapid pace. Our culture is in the midst of a moral revolution, the speed of which is unprecedented in history, and as a result, many Christians find themselves wrestling with how to approach culture. On top of this, there is an alarming number of professing Christians who are sliding into progressive ideologies and deconstructing their faith entirely. Consequently, these kinds of conditions create an environment where everyone is suspect. It is very tempting in this climate for Christians to fight with other Christians. If someone does not espouse a particular view or does not agree with this or that position, they are treated with suspicion. Indeed, today we slap labels on each other faster than green grass through a goose. In this type of atmosphere, let us remember the words of Rice. We are to stand firm on our convictions. All Christians ought to be willing to go to war together on the primary teachings of Scripture.
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