In our little church that I pastor, we have
large families who believe this, striving to seek first God's kingdom and
righteousness in all of life, for God's glory and their good. We do this
together in true Christian fellowship and community. We are sinners, that is
true, but we know the grace of God in Jesus Christ, that His Word is Truth, and
that His promises for us and our children are sure.
Too much of Christianity today in our
nation, and here in the South, is in name only. This is to say, it is not much
removed from taking the Lord's name in vain. It is a relic some haven't quite
yet discarded, though many of the younger folk my age have. The sexual,
national, political, medical, educational, etc., confusion, insanity, and angst
we see today, occurs when fathers cease being faithful to God, firm as a rock
for the good of their families. Too often today, we have weak men, and hard
women, but we need strong, masculine men, and tender, nurturing, feminine
women, doing what God designed each of us to do as His image bearers. This
glorifies God, and allows us to enjoy Him and His people that He has created.
When more and more families do this, communities thrive.
But this requires saying the hard things
that nobody wants to hear, that offends others. It requires speaking against
sin, and speaking for righteousness, and then striving as best you can to
actually practice what you preach. This is loving though, when done for the
glory of God above all, and after that, for the well-being of mankind made in
His image.
1 Cor. 6:9-11 condemns us all, but also
shows that all sin can be washed away through the life, atoning death, and
glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ, the very Son of God, God come in the
flesh, redeeming all who repent and believe in Him from our sins and
sinfulness, to be filled with His Spirit, which illuminates His Word the Bible,
to serve God and His kingdom in true, joyous, holiness:
"Do you not know that the unrighteous
will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators,
nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor
covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the
kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were
sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the
Spirit of our God."
Churches should be robust in their doctrine
and theology, applying God's Word to God's people in all of life, encouraging
married couples to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it
for God's glory, as God commanded us as His image bearers, by our very natures,
from the beginning, Gen. 1:26-28.
Faithful leaders in the Church, who are not
sinless but are graciously gifted in heart, word, and conduct, called by God
for service, must be under-shepherds to guide and lead the sheep (I Tim.
3:1-7), the people of God, those who trust in Christ as Lord and Savior. This
requires both encouragement and rebuke, exhortation as well as consolation.
Sadly, the leaders in churches today are
often ill-equipped, or have false motives altogether, or are simply lacking the
gifting, despite best intentions, to lead. Study of God's Word and gifting by
the Spirit is necessary, as Ephesians 4 and many other passages show, and
common sense testifies.
As spiritual, moral, and cultural decay is
all around us, and many of our churches have acclimated to these debaucheries
and foolish thoughts and practices rather than warned against them, by
proclaiming the truth in love, backed up by faithful (though not sinless) lives
showing the good fruit of living according to God's Truth -- many have left the
Church, or settled for poor churches and poor leadership. Some simply have not
known that there is something better. A better way.
Well, there is. We can look to better,
earlier times in our nation's history, and of our forefathers in the faith,
found in nations all over the world, who taught and lived as faithful
Christians far better than any of us today. Their doctrine was hard, firm,
certain, but their love was fierce, their loyalty to God and His people sure,
and their fruitfulness and productivity for good overflowing. But all of this
is revealed in the Bible, the Word of God for us. We must be whole Bible
Christians if we are to be true Christians, faithful Christians, productive,
happy, and holy Christians. But the whole counsel of God's Word is rarely
preached at all these days, and even when attempted, is sadly twisted to the
destruction of both the preacher and the hearer.
To the world, and even to the Christian
church in many cases today, real faithfulness and service to God will look like
unbridled zeal, unhinged passion, fanaticism, harshness, unloving, etc. But
that is only because a man leading his wife and children in love, teaching and
catechizing them in the Bible, providing for them with hard work, being
faithful to his wife and not sleeping around, disciplining his children with
spankings when they sin to show them the righteous way, loving them enough to
not let them continue down a wicked path, is almost non-existent even among
Christians today, and something many ministers will claim is "too
harsh" or "too rigid". Yet, this ALONE produces the peaceable
fruit of righteousness to those trained by it, as Hebrews 12:7-11 says.
Mature, godly, happy women look like Titus
2, "reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers
of good things — that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to
love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to
their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed."
This, too, even among Evangelical churches
today, is something they would be embarrassed to preach on, or would twist and
contort to make it mean the opposite of what it says. And yet women are highly
honored by God, and ought to be by man, when they truly live up to their high
calling of womanhood, of being made in the image of God female. We see that
glory, and praise, in the Proverbs 31 woman:
"Who can find a virtuous wife?
For her worth is far above rubies.
The heart of her husband safely trusts her;
So he will have no lack of gain.
She does him good and not evil
All the days of her life.
She seeks wool and flax,
And willingly works with her hands.
She is like the merchant ships,
She brings her food from afar.
She also rises while it is yet night,
And provides food for her household,
And a portion for her maidservants.
She considers a field and buys it;
From her profits she plants a vineyard.
She girds herself with strength,
And strengthens her arms.
She perceives that her merchandise is good,
And her lamp does not go out by night.
She stretches out her hands to the distaff,
And her hand holds the spindle.
She extends her hand to the poor,
Yes, she reaches out her hands to the needy.
She is not afraid of snow for her household,
For all her household is clothed with
scarlet.
She makes tapestry for herself;
Her clothing is fine linen and purple.
Her husband is known in the gates,
When he sits among the elders of the land.
She makes linen garments and sells them,
And supplies sashes for the merchants.
Strength and honor are her clothing;
She shall rejoice in time to come.
She opens her mouth with wisdom,
And on her tongue is the law of kindness.
She watches over the ways of her household,
And does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children rise up and call her blessed;
Her husband also, and he praises her:
“Many daughters have done well,
But you excel them all.”
Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing,
But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be
praised.
Give her of the fruit of her hands,
And let her own works praise her in the
gates."
Nothing is freer than being renewed in what
you are, as a man or woman made in God's image, as such, to serve Him by your
masculine or feminine natures. For God is a good and just God, merciful,
forgiving our sins as we repent of them and trust in Him, and strengthening us
by His Spirit to follow Him into all righteousness once again.
The mutilation of the minds, bodies, and
souls of mankind must stop. Today what is promoted or at least permitted down
main street is the LGBTQ+ death cult agenda. It mixes witchcraft, self-hatred,
self-mutilation, utter destruction of men and women as male and female, and
does so militantly against others. They find "love" in idolatry and
community of self-destruction and weakness, and hardly anyone loves them enough
to tell them these hard truths, but also are sober enough to realize that many
of these persons are not only dangerous to themselves, but seek to evangelize
others, adults and even children, into their delusion.
Meanwhile, many churches stand idly by,
because they've softened on sin, embracing heterosexual lusts rather than
faithful, monogamous marriages, have had poor examples of fathers and
grandfathers, mothers and grandmothers, and the generational rot has set in. Or
they simply are too afraid to rock the boat for righteousness. Only by
repenting of this, lamenting it, and by word and deed striving for
righteousness and teaching these good truths in love to our children, will this
be overcome, even though it will take several generations.
Our church, Heritage Reformed, recognizes
these sober realities, and is committed to pursuing the long,
multi-generational reform needed, rooted in people and place, a true community,
fighting with joy to see righteousness pour forth from our hearts, homes, and
communities once again. Our strong words and strong actions are only meant to
root out sin, in our own hearts and in others, and for those who recognize
their sin, to give the comforting words of God's grace in mercy and Christ to
heal the wound of sin being ripped out, so that Christ and His righteousness
can be knitted in to make us whole again.
Let us not go limping along any longer. Let
us pursue in earnest the glorious picture seen in Isaiah 11, where righteous
judgment, destruction of the wicked, and conversion of the repentant, yields
peace and harmony around the holiness and Truth of God in all the nations of
the earth, such that the wolf dwells with the lamb, the leopard lays with the
young goat, the calf and the lion are together. And a little child leads them
all:
"There shall come forth a Rod from the
stem of Jesse,
And a Branch shall grow out of his roots.
The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him,
The Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The Spirit of counsel and might,
The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of
the Lord.
His delight is in the fear of the Lord,
And He shall not judge by the sight of His
eyes,
Nor decide by the hearing of His ears;
But with righteousness He shall judge the
poor,
And decide with equity for the meek of the
earth;
He shall strike the earth with the rod of
His mouth,
And with the breath of His lips He shall
slay the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt of His loins,
And faithfulness the belt of His waist.
“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,
The leopard shall lie down with the young
goat,
The calf and the young lion and the fatling
together;
And a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
Their young ones shall lie down together;
And the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s
hole,
And the weaned child shall put his hand in
the viper’s den.
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My
holy mountain,
For the earth shall be full of the knowledge
of the Lord
As the waters cover the sea.
“And in that day there shall be a Root of
Jesse,
Who shall stand as a banner to the people;
For the Gentiles shall seek Him,
And His resting place shall be glorious.”
Come and worship with us at Heritage. https://www.heritagereformedchurch.com/
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