Written by T. M. Suffield |
Saturday, February 25, 2023
The great writer on joy and longing, C. S. Lewis, tells us in a famous passage from The Weight of Glory that we are far too easily pleased. We do not know what the Lord is offering us, what joy is available to us in God. Lewis argued, especially in his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, that we find our way to joy by longing. He liked to describe it with the German word sehnsucht, a sort of yearning for a joy we don’t yet know, a nostalgia for a place we haven’t been. 

Have you ever felt like there was more to life than this? Known some sense of longing for the future?
Perhaps you’ve enjoyed a great steak done exactly how you like it, or a really well poured beer, or the absolute delight of seeing your team triumphant in your favourite sport (Curling, in the Suffield household). The memory of that enjoyment is delightful, and yet it isn’t the same as the actual pleasure you experienced. The pleasure doesn’t last, it’s fleeting. Maybe that makes you lift your head and wonder—and long—for a day when delight lasts.
Or perhaps you’ve wondered if everything should be more intense than it is? I’m profoundly colourblind. Apparently, I only see in a spectrum of grey and brown, though my experience is wonderfully vibrant. I’m told that the world is much more intense than I know, though have no way of accessing that level of reality. Maybe something one day shook you and made you wonder if there are colours that only the angels can see. I’m pretty sure there are. Maybe that makes you lift your head and wonder—and long—for a day when the browns are bright, burned, blue.
The great writer on joy and longing, C. S. Lewis, tells us in a famous passage from The Weight of Glory that we are far too easily pleased. We do not know what the Lord is offering us, what joy is available to us in God.
Lewis argued, especially in his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, that we find our way to joy by longing.
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Written by R.C. Sproul |
Wednesday, November 16, 2022
When the church is paganized there is no need for walls or gates in the city of God. Then the church doesn’t need to worry about singing the Lord’s song—it can sing the songs of the pagan culture because there is no longer a strange and foreign land.

In exile the people of Israel faced the question: “How do you sing the Lord’s song in a strange and foreign land?” The question is similar to that faced by contemporary American Christians. Ours is a spiritual exile as we confront a culture and government increasingly hostile to Christianity.
We look to Nehemiah for clues to guide our own pilgrimage in difficult times. Nehemiah was grief-stricken by the news of the condition of Jerusalem. The walls were broken down and its gates burned with fire. His first emotion over the sad loss of his heritage was grief. It was not bitterness or anger. Nehemiah wept and mourned as Jesus would later weep over the same city.
In his grief, Nehemiah moved to the next step, prayer and fasting. His prayer was first of all a prayer of adoration for the majestic awe of God and for His faithfulness to His people: “O great and awesome God, You who keep Your covenant and mercy with those who love You and observe Your commandments.”
Even in exile, Nehemiah praised God for His covenant faithfulness. Then the focus of his prayer turned to repentance, pleading with God to forgive the sins of his own people, acknowledging that they had brought exile upon themselves.
Nehemiah was a cup-bearer to the king. He served in a pagan government as a believer in God. His vocation was that of a servant. He was humble and respectful to the king, but proper fear of his king did not stop him from acting to save his people. He prayed to God and made a request of the king, asking for permission to go to Jerusalem to rebuild it. He also asked for letters that he might present to lesser governors for safe conduct and even a grant for building materials.
Not all the pagan governors were sanguine toward Nehemiah and his plans. Indeed, some were fiercely resistant to them. When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard of it, they were deeply disturbed that a man had come to seek the well-being of the children of Israel (Neh. 2:10). But there is nothing unusual about this as it is a common pagan reaction to the mission of the church in any age.
When Nehemiah set about the task of rebuilding his enemies laughed at him and despised him. Nehemiah, though, did not let his critics determine his agenda. He was polite but firm in his response to them.
When Nehemiah’s pagan enemies received word that he had rebuilt the walls (but the doors were not yet hung on the gates), they invited him to meet with them in a special “audience.” Nehemiah had no time for this sort of thing, knowing the plans of the enemy were evil. He replied to Sanballat and his cronies, “Why should the work cease while I leave it and go down to you?” Sanballat then sent an open letter accusing Nehemiah of a seditious attempt to become a king and other false charges. Nehemiah sent back a message denying the allegations, noting that the charges were but a thinly veiled form of intimidation.
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Unwin’s conclusions can be boiled down to a single issue. Are people living for the future, with the ability to delay gratification, or are they focusing only on the here and now? When a culture fails to restrain its sexual instincts, people think less about securing the future and instead compromise the stability, productivity, and the well-being of the next generation in the pursuit of sexual pleasure.  Unwin claims that he had no moral or ideological axe to grind in this research. “I make no opinion about rightness or wrongness,” he wrote. But his work is nevertheless profound, as are his conclusions, which we seem to be living out in real time.  

It is not normal or healthy for a culture to talk about sex this much. From Pride month to education to companies telegraphing their commitments to inclusion and diversity, to just about every commercial, movie, or TV show produced today, sexual identity is treated as if it is central to human identity, human purpose, and human happiness. And this vision of life and the world is especially force-fed to children, who are essentially subjects of our social experimentations. 
“If the energy spent talking about sex is disproportionate, it’s important to know there were some who saw this coming. The best example is Oxford sociologist J.D. Unwin. In 1939, Unwin published a landmark book summarizing his research. Sex and Culture was a look at 80 tribes and six historical civilizations over the course of five millennia, through the lens of a single question: Does a culture’s ideas of sexual liberation predict its success or collapse? ”
Unwin’s findings were overwhelming: 
“Just as societies have advanced [and] then faded away into a state of general decrepitude, so in each of them has marriage first previously changed from a temporary affair based on mutual consent to a lifelong association of one man with one woman, and then turned back to a loose union or to polygamy. ”
What’s more, Unwin concluded,  
The whole of human history does not contain a single instance of a group becoming civilized unless it has been absolutely monogamous, nor is there any example of a group retaining its culture after it has adopted less rigorous customs. 
Unwin saw a pattern behind societies that unraveled. If three consecutive generations abandoned sexual restraint built around the protections of marriage and fidelity, they collapsed.  
Simply put, sexuality is essential for survival. However, sexuality is such a powerful force, it must be controlled or else it can destroy a future rather than secure it. Wrongly ordered sexuality is devastating for both individuals and entire societies. 
Unwin’s conclusions can be boiled down to a single issue. 
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