http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14711954/young-love-in-a-cruel-land
On February 18, 1812, Ann and Adoniram Judson (ages 21 and 22) boarded the Caravan in the New England port of Salem. They had been married for less than two weeks, and set sail for Asia, expecting not to see America again.
They arrived in Burma (now Myanmar) to commence pioneer gospel work in July of 1813 — having already endured a four-month sea journey, a painful separation from their sending body and colleagues (due to their conscientious decision to be baptized as believers), the death of Ann’s friend Harriet, and the stillbirth of Ann’s first child.
The next thirteen years would be punctuated by serious illness, lengthy separations, and continual harassment. Ann’s second child, Roger Williams, died at eight months. She was pregnant with her third child when Adoniram was taken into the notorious Death Prison in Ava in June 1824. They would not know freedom together until February 1826. During that time, both suffered immensely; Ann daily risked her own life to care for Adoniram. These privations resulted in her death, at age 36, in October 1826. Little Maria Eliza would die six months later.
So much suffering. So many tears.
Yet Ann’s determination to serve Christ shone, undimmed, to the end. What fueled her resolve? To answer that question, we have to go back to her profound conversion, which resulted in a passionate concern for God’s glory and a powerful certainty in God’s promises.
Profound Conversion
Ann Hasseltine was born in 1789, in Bradford, New England. Popular and sociable, she would confide in her diary that she was “one of the happiest creatures on earth” (Ann Judson, 20). Ann attended church each Sunday, but her life revolved around friends and parties.
When she was 15, a teacher arrived at Bradford Academy who urged his pupils that repentance was urgent. Many were convicted of sin, including Ann. But she lurched, for months, between fear of judgment and terror of what friends would say if she became “serious.” Ultimately, God drew her to himself. At age 16, she wrote,
A view of [God’s] purity and holiness filled my soul with wonder and admiration. I felt a disposition to commit myself unreservedly into his hands, and leave it with him to save me or cast me off, for I felt I could not be unhappy, while allowed the privilege of contemplating and loving so glorious a Being. . . .
I felt myself to be a poor lost sinner, destitute of everything to recommend myself to the divine favour. [I knew] that it had been the mere sovereign, restraining mercy of God, not my own goodness, which had kept me from committing the most flagrant crimes. This view of myself humbled me in the dust, melted me into sorrow and contrition for my sins, induced me to lay my soul at the feet of Christ, and plead his merits alone, as the ground of my acceptance. (24–25)
Ann joined the Congregational Church in Bradford in September 1806. Her parents and siblings were also converted and joined the church. This is a vignette of what was taking place throughout America — a movement we now refer to as the Second Great Awakening.
“Christ did not issue the Great Commission on the condition that health, comfort, and safety could be assured.”
One outworking of revival was increased concern for those unreached with the gospel. Previously, American Protestants had sent missionaries to the North American Indians, but not overseas. Now, some young Christians were convinced that Christ’s command to go to all nations applied to them too.
Following her conversion, Ann began teaching in a small school. She wanted the children in her charge to follow Christ, but in her prayers she ranged across the globe, praying for the conversion of all nations:
My chief happiness now consisted in contemplating the moral perfections of the glorious God. I longed to have all intelligent creatures love him. (27)
Passionate Concern
Ann now knew that she was here on this earth to serve God. At 18, after reading the journal of David Brainerd, she wrote in her own journal of her passion to pray for all nations, and of her willingness to go wherever Christ would choose.
A year after that, in June 1810, four young students met with the General Association of Congregational ministers in Bradford. They were volunteering to take the gospel to the unreached people of Asia. One of them was Adoniram Judson. The brilliant son of a Congregational minister, he had been converted after a period of rebellion. Like Ann, his conversion resulted in a passionate concern that all nations should praise God.
That day, the would-be missionaries were given lunch at the home of the Hasseltines. Unsurprisingly, Adoniram set his heart upon Ann. One month later, he wrote to her father,
I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of missionary life . . . to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all this, for the sake of him who left his heavenly home and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God? (37)
Mr. Hasseltine left the choice to Ann, who resolved to marry Adoniram and to leave all she knew for the unknown:
I rejoice, that I am in [God’s] hands — that he is everywhere present, and can protect me in one place as well as in another. He has my heart in his hands, and when I am called to face danger, to pass through scenes of terror and distress, he can inspire me with fortitude, and enable me to trust in him. Jesus is faithful; his promises are precious. (40)
At this time, sea journeys were hazardous. Letters took months, and some never arrived. There was no established mission network to which these pioneers could go. Nothing was guaranteed: safety, health, toleration — least of all success. Many thought the idea insane.
But Christ did not issue the Great Commission on the condition that health, comfort, and safety could be assured.
Shortly after arrival in Burma, Ann’s journal records her desire that all should honor God, her concern for the plight of people deprived of gospel light, and her conviction that it was a privilege to have been called to sacrifice comfort for the kingdom:
If it may please the dear Redeemer to make me instrumental of leading some of the females of Burma to a saving acquaintance with him, my great object would be accomplished, my highest desires gratified: I shall rejoice to have relinquished my comforts, my country, and my home. . . . When shall cruel, idolatrous, avaricious Burma know, that thou art the God of the whole earth, and alone deservest the homage and adoration of all creatures? Hasten it, Lord, in thine own time. (83–84)
Cruel and avaricious were not malicious terms. Burma’s penal system was indeed brutal, including public torture for minor offenses. And the country’s exorbitant taxation trapped the majority of the population in dire poverty. Ann’s passionate concern was warranted.
Powerful Certainty
The day-to-day routine of surviving in harsh and hostile circumstances, acquisition of a new language, hundreds of hours in discussion with inquirers — all was motivated by the conviction that God is sovereign, and his promises are sure. “We have nothing to expect from man, and everything from God . . . we are in the service of Him who governs the world” (55, 172).
Such confidence liberated Ann to see the long-term perspective. They were laying a foundation for future work:
We cannot expect to do much, in such a rough, uncultivated field; yet if we may be instrumental in removing some of the rubbish, and preparing the way for others, it will be a sufficient reward . . . when we recollect that Jesus has commanded his disciples to carry the gospel to the nations, and promised to be with them to the end of the world; that God has promised to give the nations to his Son for an inheritance, we are encouraged to make a beginning, though in the midst of discouragement, and leave it to him to grant success, in his own time and way. (73, 83)
She longed for Christ to be magnified and souls to be won in Burma — whether she saw the harvest or not.
Permanent Contribution
Ann’s life, albeit short, was hugely influential in the expansion of the missions movement in the nineteenth century. Ann and Adoniram established the first church in Burma. Ann was fully engaged in evangelism. She engaged in translation in both Burmese and Siamese (Thai), including a catechism. She started schools and stirred up support for female education among American women.
Ann died prematurely. Her valiant efforts to secure her husband’s survival in prison had shattered her own strength. He would minister in Burma for another 23 years, during which time a firm foundation for church life was laid (including his magnificent translation of the Bible).
In time, the epic drama of the Judson story inspired generations of Baptist missionaries. Ann’s writings were among the first at a popular level to stir up missionary interest among the Protestant population in America, and beyond. Her Memoir was printed soon after her death, and ran through many editions. She was the childhood heroine of Adoniram’s second and third wives.
In 1815, a 10-year-old American girl, Sarah Hall, wept when she heard of the death of Ann’s baby Roger, and she wrote a poem to mark the sad event. Little did she know that eighteen years later she would become the second Mrs. Judson!
“The epic drama of the Judson story inspired generations of Baptist missionaries.”
In 1828, a 12-year-old factory girl, Emily Chubbuck, was moved to tears by reading of the death of baby Maria. Eighteen years later, she would become the third Mrs. Judson! Emily said to a friend before meeting Adoniram, “I have felt, ever since I read the Memoir of Mrs Ann H. Judson when I was a small child, that I must become a missionary” (253).
Pray for Burma
Ann’s God-centered testimony inspired, and continues to inspire, many. It challenges the self-absorption of our comfort-obsessed culture. It spurs us on to plead with God for many to come to a living faith and a joyous determination to serve God whatever the cost.
It also reminds us of Burma (now Myanmar), where the military regime is brutalizing the population, including many Christians. We can pray that their testimony of eternal hope would win many to Christ, and that God would be honored in the nation Ann Judson so willingly served and departed from into glory.
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Hero in an Unmarked Grave: The Unusual Modesty of John Calvin
On May 27, 1564, just after eight o’clock in the evening, a nurse urgently summoned Theodore Beza (1519–1605) to Calvin’s bedside. “We found he had already died,” Calvin’s friend and fellow pastor later wrote. “On that day, then, at the same time with the setting sun, this splendid luminary was withdrawn from us.”1 Calvin was 54 years old.
Calvin’s death sent a shock wave throughout Geneva and beyond. Beza writes, “That night and the following day there was a general lamentation throughout the city . . . all lamenting the loss of one who was, under God, a common parent and comfort.” He records that two days later “the entire city” gathered at the St. Pierre Cathedral to honor their beloved pastor. Despite Calvin’s prominence, the funeral was unusually simple, “with no extraordinary pomp.”2 But Calvin’s burial was particularly unusual.
Unmarked Grave
Eighteen years earlier, on February 18, 1546, fellow Reformer Martin Luther died at the age of 63. As was common practice for ministers, Luther’s remains were interred inside the church where he had faithfully served. His casket lies in Wittenberg’s Castle Church, near the pulpit, seven feet below the floor of the nave. Luther’s successor and fellow Reformer, Philip Melanchthon (1490–1560), is buried beside him.
So also William Farel (1489–1565), who first called Calvin to Geneva in 1536, is buried in the cathedral of Neuchâtel, where he spent the final years of his ministry. When Calvin’s friend and successor Theodore Beza died in 1605, he was buried next to the pulpit of St. Pierre, the Genevan church in which he and Calvin ministered together.
But Calvin’s remains lie elsewhere.
Rather than being interred in St. Pierre, Calvin’s body was carried outside the city wall to a marshy burial ground for commoners called Plainpalais. With close friends in attendance, Calvin’s body was wrapped in a simple shroud, enclosed in a rough casket, and lowered into the earth. Beza writes that Calvin’s plot was unlisted and, “as he [had] commanded, without any gravestone.”3
Why did Calvin command that he be buried, contrary to common practice, in an unmarked grave? Some speculate that he wanted to discourage religious pilgrims from visiting his resting place or to prevent accusations from the Roman church that he desired veneration as a saint.4 But the answer lies somewhere deeper — in Calvin’s understanding of Christian modesty.
Forgotten Meaning of Modesty
When we speak of modesty today, we most often mean dressing or behaving in such a way as to avoid impropriety or indecency. But modesty more generally refers to the quality of being unassuming or moderate in the estimation of oneself. For centuries, the church understood the connection. Immodest dress was not simply ostentatious or sexually suggestive; it reflected an overemphasis on appearance. As Jesus warned, outward appearance can mask impiety (Matthew 6:16) or pride (Luke 18:12).
This is why both Gentile women converts in Ephesus and the Jewish Christians addressed in Hebrews are urged to consider how their outward appearance relates to the disposition of the heart. Excessive adornment could be evidence of self-importance (1 Timothy 2:9). Acceptable worship requires a posture of reverence, not pretension (Hebrews 12:28). Thus, a modest person represents himself neither too highly nor too meanly because he understands both the dignity and the humility of being transformed by the grace of God.
“Modesty is simply the outward reflection of true Christian humility.”
Modesty, then, is simply the outward reflection of true Christian humility. It obliterates pride by embracing the reality that a Christian is both creaturely and beloved. In this light, self-importance becomes absurd. Grandiosity becomes laughable. Celebrity becomes monstrous.
We Are Not Our Own
For Calvin, the gospel radically reshapes our view of self. As those created in God’s image, provisioned by his goodness, redeemed by his mercy, transformed by his grace, and called to his mission, those who belong to Christ no longer live for themselves. “Now the great thing is this,” Calvin writes, “we are consecrated and dedicated to God in order that we may thereafter think, speak, meditate, and do, nothing except to his glory.” Calvin continues,
If we, then, are not our own but the Lord’s, it is clear what error we must flee and whither we must direct all the acts of our life. We are not our own: let not our reason nor our will, therefore, sway our plans and deeds. We are not our own: let us not therefore see it as our goal to seek what is expedient for us according to the flesh. We are not our own: in so far as we can, let us therefore forget ourselves and all that is ours.
Conversely, we are God’s: let us therefore live for him and die for him. We are God’s: let his wisdom and will therefore rule all our actions. We are God’s: let all the parts of our life accordingly strive toward him as our only lawful goal. Oh how much has that man profited who, having been taught that he is not his own, has taken away dominion and rule from his own reason that he may yield it to God! For, as consulting our self-interest is the pestilence that most effectively leads to our destruction, so the sole haven of salvation is to be wise in nothing through ourselves but to follow the leading of the Lord alone.5
“Modesty blossoms when we experience the freedom from having to prove ourselves to God or one another.”
Modesty and humility flow from a heart transformed by the Spirit of Christ. “As soon as we are convinced that God cares for us,” Calvin writes, “our minds are easily led to patience and humility.”6 The Spirit shapes us with a kind of moderation that “gives the preference to others” and that guards us from being “easily thrown into agitation.”7 Modesty blossoms when we experience the freedom from having to prove ourselves to God or one another.
‘Modesty, His Constant Friend’
Calvin’s life reflected this reality. Despite the doors that were opened to him through his writing and network of connections, he was committed to “studiously avoiding celebrity.”8 When the Institutes was published in 1536, he was so successful in his object to “not acquire fame” that no one in Basel knew that he was its author. For the rest of his life, wherever he went, he took care to “conceal that I was the author of that performance.”9 Calvin even sought to avoid a wider ministry in Geneva, having “resolved to continue in the same privacy and obscurity.” He was drawn into the limelight only when William Farel warned him “with a dreadful imprecation” that turning down the post would be refusing God’s call to service.10 In brief autobiographical comments he wrote the year that he died, we see a glimmer of his own surprise over God’s sovereign hand through his life.
God so led me about through different turnings and changes that he never permitted me to rest in any place, until, in spite of my natural disposition, he brought me forth to public notice. . . . I was carried, I know not how, as it were by force to the Imperial assemblies, where, willing or unwilling, I was under the necessity of appearing before the eyes of many.11
It is no surprise, then, that a few days before his death, Calvin exhorted his friends to not be those who “ostentatiously display themselves and, from overweening confidence, insist that all their opinions should be approved by others.” Instead, he pleaded with them to “conduct themselves with modesty, keeping far aloof from all haughtiness of mind.”12 For Beza, Calvin’s modesty — forged by his vision of God’s glory, Christ’s redeeming love, and the Spirit’s animating power — was his defining characteristic. After Calvin’s burial, Beza captured it in verse:
Why in this humble and unnoticed tombIs Calvin laid — the dread of falling Rome;Mourn’d by the good, and by the wicked fear’dBy all who knew his excellence revered?From whom ev’n virtue’s self might virtue learn,And young and old its value may discern?’Twas modesty, his constant friend on earth,That laid this stone, unsculptured with a name;Oh! happy ground, enrich’d with Calvin’s worth,More lasting far than marble is thy fame!13
Free to Be Forgotten
In old Geneva, on the grounds of the college Calvin founded, stands an immense stone memorial to four leaders of the Protestant Reformation. At its center are towering reliefs of Calvin, Beza, Farel, and John Knox (1513–1572). Calvin would surely detest it. But the monument is a metaphor. We live in a culture that fears obscurity and irrelevance. We measure ourselves against others and build our own platforms in the hope that we will not be forgotten. We attempt to distinguish ourselves at the expense of the humility and modesty that honors Christ. Calvin would have us be free from such striving.
For however anyone may be distinguished by illustrious endowments, he ought to consider with himself that they have not been conferred upon him that he might be self-complacent, that he might exalt himself, or even that he might hold himself in esteem. Let him, instead of this, employ himself in correcting and detecting his faults, and he will have abundant occasion for humility. In others, on the other hand, he will regard with honor whatever there is of excellences and will, by means of love, bury their faults. The man who will observe this rule, will feel no difficulty in preferring others before himself. And this, too, Paul meant when he added, that they ought not to have everyone a regard to themselves, but to their neighbors, or that they ought not to be devoted to themselves. Hence it is quite possible that a pious man, even though he should be aware that he is superior, may nevertheless hold others in greater esteem.14
We may rightly regard Calvin as a hero of the faith, but he didn’t ultimately see himself that way. Humility had taught him to walk modestly before God and others — and, in the end, the freedom to lie down in a forgotten grave.
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Ministry Like a Nursing Mother: 1 Thessalonians 2:5–8, Part 6
http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15413778/ministry-like-a-nursing-mother
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A Time for Courageous Love
The Christian grandmother, talking with me about her daughter and grandson, was heartbroken.
As her daughter unveiled her new life, beliefs, and rules, this grandmother felt the ground was no longer solid. She raised this prayed-for daughter in the church. As a teenager, her daughter made a profession of faith. But then everything changed. The daughter rapid-fired her war against “heterosexism” and the new rules that would be mandatory for any future relationship. She demanded exclusive use of preferred names and pronouns. And she told her mother she could never share Bible verses or church lessons that contradicted LGBTQ+ beliefs.
This grandmother was sure she couldn’t keep the rules straight in her head even if she tried. She could barely understand what “heterosexism” was, although her daughter had explained it many times as “the dangerous belief that heterosexuality is normal.” Why would anyone go to war against this? the grandmother wondered.
Wrong Side of History
The ultimatums and blackmail landed hard: failure to comply resulted in being cut out, disowned. Her daughter, Jade, declared herself “non-binary” and used the pronouns “they” and “he.” Her three-year-old grandson, Allan, would now be raised as a girl and addressed as Sierra, presumably because he wore a tiara at a child’s birthday party and liked it. None of this made sense. The grandmother was sure her daughter was deluded by some social contagion.
This grandmother wanted to do the right thing. She tried to find the middle road and walk the thin line that allowed her to retain a relationship with her daughter, but she wondered: Am I on the wrong side of history? Should I comply with my daughter when I believe she is seriously deluded? And what about my grandson? Is he a “trans” child or an abused one? She asked herself, What if I get it wrong?
When the grandmother reached out to her pastor, he didn’t know what to say. He told her to extend empathy and try to see things from her daughter’s point of view. The small group she attended was divided on what to do as well. Some people in her small group even warned her against being “transphobic” and told her anyone can be trans and Christian, or gay and Christian. Is this true? she wondered. Some people in her small group treated her like she caused her daughter’s problems.
Life in the War Zone
I know there are many sides to stories like these.
I know for years some evangelical leaders have wanted to understand this story from the LGBTQ+ perspective, some even sponsoring gay-sensitivity checklists and conferences. But what about the grandmother? Does her point of view matter? And what about God’s? Romans 3:4 makes God’s perspective the priority: “Let God be true though every one were a liar.” What God reveals about our lives is the true truth. The Bible knows us and our needs better than we do. And that is the very best news of all.
This grandmother’s family and church life had suddenly become a war zone, and she is not alone. I hear stories like this almost every day. If you, like the grandmother, have ever felt that you live amid a civil war, you are not alone either. On the one hand, we expect the church to conflict with the world. Indeed, John Calvin tells us to “count the rage of the whole world as nothing” (365 Days with Calvin, March 19). We see the rage of unbelief all around us. We understand the rage of the world because we remember when we were once God’s enemy.
It’s not conflict with the world that surprises us; the division within the visible church confounds us. Our Lord calls us to walk in unity amid this “crooked and twisted generation” (Philippians 2:15). He does not ask us to become compliant with its perversion, and especially when the world demands as much. Jesus calls us to model the fathomless unity of the holy Trinity: “that they may be one even as we are one” (John 17:22). But how can we do this when some use the Bible to call sinners to repentance and others use the Bible to call the repentant to sin?
These are the times in which we live, and Christians must face the facts.
Three Subtle Reasons
I believe there are three reasons for our divided churches. And these three reasons have unleashed five lies that many evangelical churches have embraced.
Because I have believed all these lies at different points in my life, I understand how seductive they are. God knows the times in which we live and has provided a solution. Our calling is to repent of the lies that we have believed and attempt to stay connected with loved ones lost to them — and without our becoming indoctrinated. Easy to say, but impossible to do without God’s help. What are the three reasons?
REASON 1
First, we have failed to see that the seeds of the gospel are in the garden.
Many of us foolishly believed that we could reinvent our calling as men and women, render men and women interchangeable, defy God’s pattern and purpose for the sexes, and somehow reap God’s blessing.
God’s plan for men and women — the creation ordinance — is first found in Genesis 1, and it is central — not peripheral — to the gospel of Jesus Christ: “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it’” (Genesis 1:27–28).
We bear the image of God by growing in the knowledge, righteousness, and holiness of the Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 4:24). Homosexuality and transgenderism represent forms of rebellion against God’s creation ordinance and image-bearing. They are manifestations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and must be repented of, not celebrated.
Homosexuality and transgenderism are not part of anyone’s creational design, no matter what our feelings say. Our feelings are not free of sin, and they don’t trump God’s truth. Christ promises to forgive and restore all who repent and trust in him for salvation. Christ does not make an ally with the sins his blood crushes on the cross and washes clean. There is hope for all in the gospel.
REASON 2
Second, we have failed to read the times in which we live (Romans 13:11–14; Luke 12:56).
In the 2015 case Obergefell v. Hodges, the United States Supreme Court declared so-called gay marriage the law of the land. It also introduced the idea of “dignitary harm.” According to Obergefell, we are harming someone’s dignity by failing to “affirm” their LGBTQ+ identity.
In our post-Obergefell world, we now have two competing ideas of what it means to be human — and these ideas have collided. The Freudian/Obergefell idea is that sexual orientation is an accurate category of personhood; LGBTQ+ is who you are rather than how you feel. After Obergefell, laws quickly were put in place to honor, affirm, and celebrate being LGBTQ+. The biblical idea, however, is that bearing the image of God according to eternal and creational categories of man or woman determines who you are. It’s Obergefell or Christ: you either celebrate and affirm your sin nature, or you repent of the culpable and unchosen sin nature you inherit in Adam.
REASON 3
Third, we have failed to love our enemies and instead pretended that our enemies are our friends.
Many of us have failed to understand that loving our enemies is an act of godly confrontation, a weapon of our warfare and a great kindness (2 Corinthians 10:4). Christian love destroys arguments and lofty opinions raised against Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). Christian love doesn’t pretend that the world is a safe place or that the enemies of Christ are harmless — even if they are your daughter. Christian love seeks to make friends out of enemies through repentance and forgiveness. Christian love doesn’t delude us into believing that sin is no big deal, or that we are more merciful than God. Pretending our enemies are our friends is a cowardly cop-out.
Five Seductive Lies
These three reasons have introduced five lies into far too many evangelical churches. The five lies coalesce in rejection of biblical authority, defiance against Christ, and celebration of pride.
Lie #1: Homosexuality is a normal sexual variant.Lie #2: Being a “spiritual person” is kinder than being a biblical Christian.Lie #3: Feminism is good for the church and the world.Lie #4: Transgenderism is a normal gender variant.Lie #5: Modesty is an outdated burden that serves male dominance and holds women back.
These five lies rely on several false claims, but the biggest is the feminist invention that “gender” is distinct from biological sex. To create false categories of personhood, and then try to build a Christian life on top of them, is futile and foolish. As pastor Christopher J. Gordon puts it in The New Reformation Catechism on Human Sexuality, “To introduce gender as a new category of personhood, separate from the biological category of sex, in pursuit of a different sexual identity, is unnatural to the creation order and harmful for the purpose for which God made us” (13).
God promises that lies — even prominent ones that have become foundational to powerful governments and academic institutions — do not have the last word. He tells us that only the truth will set us free. As Jesus says, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31–32). Jesus does not say freedom will come if you stand in the shoes of your “non-binary” grandchild by inviting a “gay Christian” ministry into your church, or if you march in the pride parade with your lesbian daughter, or if you go to your son’s gay wedding. It’s not kindness to stand in someone’s shoes when that person needs to be rescued.
Freed from the Fear of Man
The Bible calls the fear of man a snare (Proverbs 29:25) — an instrument of execution from which you cannot extricate yourself. But as my husband says a lot, the gospel sets you free from the fear of man. So, if you find yourself wondering if you are on the wrong side of history, and if you have all of this wrong, remember the blood of Christ. Remember how it bore down on demons and delivered you from hell. Remember how Jesus became a curse so that you could receive blessing. Remember that the truth of Christ sets you free, not compliance with lies.
Understand the times. Know the reasons. Defy the lies. And love your enemies well enough to tell the truth.
