This past Sunday I preached on 1 Chronicles 29:1-20, and in that passage David refers to the people of Israel as "aliens and strangers" in God's sight (v. 15). Although in that context the phrase has a different connotation than what we typically understand it to mean, this is common language in the Bible, both in the Old and New Testaments. The most common reference in the latter is probably found in Peter's letter (1 Pet. 2:11).

While I think this idea is certainly helpful for us to keep in mind (given that it is a biblical metaphor), there is also a danger in such a perspective leading to an eschatology shaped by escapism. Indeed, many evangelicals are quick to say that we are pilgrims in this world on our way to heaven. "We're just passing through," is the common catch-phrase of those who adhere to the sentiment.

Here's the thing, though – in one sense, we're not going anywhere. As I've said before, the history of God's redemption of his people is a pattern of God coming to us. The future of God's people is not some disembodied, ethereal existence. Our new Promised Land is "the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God" (Rev. 21:2). As Peter says, on the day of the Lord, "the earth and everything in it will be laid bare" (2 Pet. 3:10) in preparation for this Holy City.

In what sense are we aliens and strangers and pilgrims, then? One way of understanding this does tie the physical world, despite what I've just said. While this world is our home, we are aliens and strangers in it at the present time because our home has been occupied by a foreign enemy. It has become a wilderness; the presence of sin and the kingdom of darkness has obscured the inherent goodness of God's creation and made it unrecognisable. But we don't wait to escape from this wilderness. We wait instead for the Promised Land that God brings down to us after he purifies his creation from sin.

There is a spiritual element to this as well, though. We are pilgrims on a journey to a spiritual destination. Through the death and resurrection of Christ, we have new life (Rom. 6, Col. 3). By the power of the indwelling Spirit, we are given strength to put to death the old self, and to live holy and righteous lives (John 14:15-31, Rom. 8). On the day that Christ returns, we will be glorified – made like him (1 Cor. 15:51-57, Phil. 1:6).

Right now we remain in the wilderness of sin, wandering through it in the pursuit of holiness, longing and yearning for the fulness of Christ's redemption as we see sin wreak havoc in our lives and in our world. As Peter reminds us in 1 Peter 2:11, we need remember who we are so that we do not fall into sin and allow ourselves to be comfortable in this occupying kingdom. Instead, we follow the lead of our God towards that day when he fulfils his promise to forgive our wickedness and remember our sins no more (Jer. 31:34), and to wipe every tear from our eyes. "There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away" (Rev. 21:4).

The Promised Land that awaits us is God's good creation restored and glorified, a place where his people will dwell in his presence forever and where they, having been glorified, will be free from sin and flourish as they live the life that he intends for his people.

That's a Promised Land to look forward to. That's a pilgrimage worth making.

There are quite a lot of incredible images being posted online from the riots in London over the past few nights, like this one of a burning bus. It is hard to believe that these riots are really happening just a couple of hundred miles south of here. In some ways, it is hard to get your head around this, to see people setting random cars on fire, throwing things at store windows, huge numbers of police in riot gear rushing to restrain people hurling bricks at them.

But here we are. As I have been following the events unfold on Twitter, a lot of the blame seems to be focused on policies the Conservatives have implemented. I am certainly not an authority on the political scene in the UK, but these kinds of blanket accusations are never helpful, nor are they accurate, because of the complexity of the situations. Certainly, the economic conditions in Britain right now are not good, but if terrorizing your community is is how you voice your protest to the situation, the issue goes far deeper than your frustration over not having work. This is symptomatic of significant cultural and social problems, and they are just coming to the fore in an ugly way.

This blog is not usually a forum for commenting on current events, but since this is so close to home, there are a few things I think are worth discussing. In the first place, I don't think you can properly understand the situation without recognising that at the core, human beings are religious beings. Everything we do is either in service to God, or to an idol. The events transpiring in London are fundamentally spiritual in nature. Some people have observed that the youths who are organising and leading a lot of the rioting are laughing and seem to think of this as something of a cheap thrill. In reality, though, it is reflective of the idolatry of their hearts. This is, ultimately, an act of worship in service to the false gods they devote themselves to.

James K.A. Smith, in his excellent book, Desiring the Kingdom, puts forth the idea that human beings are primarily directed to act according to what they love or desire. We do what we do because of what we love, and because we are oriented toward a vision of human flourishing. The problem comes when our ultimate love is reserved for anything but God. We then serve idols and pledge ourselves to distorted ideas of what it means to be human. And so, while the situation in London right now might be allieviated presently by means of significant police presence, and in the future by means of different economic policies, these will never get to the root of the problem. We are not really addressing the issue if we are not addressing the underlying problem of sin and idolatry.

Secondly, and pertinently, the church needs to speak into this situation because these sorts of events testify to the ongoing battle that rages for the heart of the city. We have a tendency in the modern West to avoid talk of the spiritual and the supernatural, but we cannot deny and must not ignore that cities are prime targets for the forces of evil. In the face of this, we need to loudly proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God, sharing the love of Jesus, and embodying the true justice, peace and freedom that come from acknowledging his Lordship over all of life. It is in worshiping and serving the risen Christ that human beings find their true worth and dignity. The rioting in London testifies to the despair of a generation that is searching and longing for these things. Local churches in the city right now need to seize on to the opportunity to bring hope into a desperate situation.

As the evening draws near again, and the people in London continue to deal with the unrest caused by the riots and the fear of what another night might bring, the collect for Aid against all Perils from the Evening Prayer service in the Book of Common Prayer is fitting:

Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Lord, have mercy.

I first heard about Pripyat a couple of years ago. Pripyat is an abandoned city built in the 1970s primarily to house those who worked at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, located in the north of the Ukraine close to the border of Belarus. It was abandoned in 1986 following the disaster at the plant. The ferris wheel you see in the photo to the left has become somewhat iconic—an amusement park had been built there just prior to its evacuation. It was never officially opened.

The nearly 50,000 residents of Pripyat were evacuated in short order. They were not allowed to take any of their belongings with them, save the clothes on their backs. In the years following the disaster, as radioactive levels in the region began to drop, looters ran rampant through the city, taking every valuable thing in sight. Though the city still stands today, it is decaying; not only have the looters done a great deal of damage to the existing structures, but the natural environement and time have taken their toll as well.

It is easy for us, I think, to look at disaster like Chernobyl as just an abstract even in history. We are far removed from it, not so much by time, but by the vast expanse that separated the worlds of the Soviet Union and the rest of the Western world.

Earlier today I was looking at photos of the abandoned city, and on the website where I had found them, a number of people had commmented that the images were "hauntingly beautiful." To be honest, I was quite disturbed by the comments. There is nothing "beautiful" about Pripyat. To begin with, its construction was typical of the Soviet era—long rows of uniform apartment blocks entirely lacking in character and aesthetic sensibility, built to house the faceless masses that would keep the communist machine running. And then an explosion, following which 50,000 people are forced to leave their whole life behind, carrying with them only their memories, whatever they could fit in their pockets, and for many, radioactive isotopes in quantities that would later claim their lives or the lives of their loved ones.

Perhaps the decaying, empty city is appropriate, reflective of the incredible brokenness of the lives of its residents, almost irreparable. It hardly needs to be said that here we see the effects of sin in an especially poignant way.

It is hard for us to enter into that brokenness, to understand what they went through. There was a short film shot partly on location in Pripyat in 2008, called The Door (it was nominated for an Academy Award) Only fifteen minutes long, the film conveys in a powerful way that brokenness, and the horror the residents of Pripyat lived through that fateful year. If you watch this film, I am certain that you will never again be able to think of the disaster at Chernobyl as an abstract historical event. I've embedded it below.

Κύριε ἐλέησον. Lord, have mercy.

Regeneration, for Herman Bavinck, is not a matter of something entirely new being created within us, but instead is a re-formation of human nature to what it was originally intended to be. There is no new substance added to what is already there, he writes in the first chapter of volume four of his Reformed Dogmatics. He then extends the discussion to creation, and makes this profoundly important point:

Finally also the re-creation that will take place in the renewal of heaven and earth (Matt. 19:28) is not the destruction of this world and the subsequent creation out of nothing of another world but the liberation of the creature that is now subject to futility. Nor can it be otherwise, for God's honor as Savior hinges precisely on his reconquest from the power of Satan of this human race and this world. Christ, accordingly, is not a second Creator, but the Redeemer and Savior of this fallen creation, the Reformer of all things that have been ruined and corrupted by sin. Neither, for that matter, is sin a substance, but consists in lawlessness (άνομια); it is an actualized privation (privatio actuosa) that has indeed violated the form (forma) of the entire created world but did not and could not destroy its substance or essence. Hence, when the re-creation removes sin from creation, it does not deprive it of anything essential, nothing that was essentially and originally characteristic of it (though it was "by nature") and belonged to its essence. For sin is not part of the essence of creation; it pushed its way in later, as something unnatural and contrary to nature. Sin is deformity. When re-creation removes sin, it does not violate and suppress nature, but restores it.

This point cannot be made strongly enough, especially in evangelical circles where creation is often not of great concern. But the fact is, as Bavinck so clearly states, that if creation is not restored, sin gains victory and the Lordship of Christ is rendered null and void.

Revelation 3:1-6 contains Jesus' letter to the church at Sardis. It is likely that the church was large, rich, and influential, giving it the appearance of being a thriving congregation. But the tone of the letter is largely negative, and contains a stern rebuke and call to repentance.

Simon Kistemaker has authored a commentary on the book of Revelation and makes the important point that the letters to the seven churches in the province of Asia are not intended only for the churches they are addressed to, but are intended for the Church as a whole. I found this to be especially clear in reading the letter to the church at Sardis. Kistemaker comments:

The gospel that the local Christians proclaimed and applied was too weak to be offensive...the kind of gospel that the inhabitants of Sardis heard from the Christians posed no threat to their pagan religions...

Of the seven churches Sardis was among the lowest in spiritual fervor. Its accommodation to its religious environment shielded the church from persecution, for hardly anyone took notice. Its inoffensive lifestyle yielded religious peace with the world but resulted in spiritual death in the sight of God. Apart from a few faithful members who kept the fire of the gospel burning, the church itself was gradually dying, like a fire that lacks fuel and air...

Almost the entire church had capitulated to the surrounding world of pagan religion and Judaism, and instead of being an influence on the culture, it had become influenced by that culture (149, 150).

Reading this, my immediate reaction was equate the climate of the church of Sardis with the general character of modern evangelicalism. The church at Sardis is a concrete example of some of the problems I've tried to highlight before that plague the modern Church. In both cases, the concession to cultural influence is one of the main factors in the declining fidelity of the churches.

Some promising and important things emerge from the letter, however. Despite the stern words of Jesus, His grace shows forth in issuing the call to repent. Christ is withholding His judgment from the church to give them time to repent and return to Him. This call to repentance is not just for the Sardisian church, it is for the Church universal. While His grace is evident in the allowance of time for repentence, we cannot ignore that Jesus also declares that there will be severe consequences for the failure of the church to remain faithful in her love for Him and in holding on to the gospel.

This should be a great encouragment to us as well. Despite our sinfulness and misdirection, Jesus grants us time to repent and return to Him. We need to recognize that his words of rebuke also apply to us to the extent that we have been unfaithful to Him. And like the church in Sardis, the consequences of losing our first love are very real. However, His promise stands that if we confess our sins and repent, He will cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). If we remain faithful and persever to the end, what was promised to the church in Sardis is promised to us as well, that we will be clothed in white garments and never have our names erased from the book of life.

"He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches" (Rev. 3:6).

To the best of my knowledge, I heard Richard Pratt mention this once in a lecture I had on my iPod, though I can't say for sure. At any rate, I'm sure you are all familiar with this opening scene from the 1994 movie, The Lion King. The whole song and accompanying video paint what is supposed to be a beautiful picture of the earth and the creatures of the earth in their natural state.

But this is exactly the problem. That entire "circle of life" that is the subject of this song is not something to be glorified and lauded as natural. Instead, it should be understood as a terrible thing. It is one of the most awful and vivid pictures of how sin has distorted the creation. This is the reason why the prophet Isaiah looks forward to the day when "the wolf shall dwell with the lamb" (Isaiah 11:6-9). How can we sit and watch one animal devour another on the Discovery Channel and believe that this is the way it was meant to be?

Weigh in. What do you think?

Just to be clear, I don't want to seem like the angry guy who is critical of everything. I'm not like that at all. Posts like this and this are just a reflection of my deep concern for the state of the Church, and my hope and prayer that people would learn to embrace a wholehearted faith, one that is fully committed to the Lordship of Jesus Christ over all of life.

The Church, especially in our day, makes so many efforts to satisfy the desires of its members. People are continually spoon-fed exactly what they want. The Church is marketed this way. It promises an encounter with a God who will fit your agenda, one who will make you feel loved and accepted no matter what. Perhaps evangelicals are not as flagrant about it as figures like Joel Osteen, but subtlety doesn't make it any less of an issue. It is a troublesome concession to a consumerist and individualistic culture.

The problem here is that when you give people what they want, eventually you will come to a point where you won't be able to give them what they need. But if you give them what they need and they come to realize that as a need, it will then become what they want. John Owen is a perfect case in point here. I just finished reading The Mortification of Sin in Believers (which I strongly encourage you to read), and what he writes is very difficult to swallow. Nobody wants to hear about how great their sin and misery are, yet that is precisely what is needed. We easily become complacent with the condition of our hearts and are persuaded by the notion that if we just do a certain number of things right, everything will go well with us now and in eternity. This idea is only amplified when all we hear week after week is that God loves us and accepts us unconditionally if we put our faith in Him, that He is gracious and merciful, and that Jesus will help us make our lives better.

Certainly, these things are true and cause for rejoicing. But it is only half the story. God loves us and accepts us unconditionally in spite of our sin—and not just the occasional commission of sin, but that wretched, natural state of sin that we are all enslaved to and that inclines us to hate God and our neighbor (Rom. 3:23; Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 5). Yes, our God is gracious and merciful, but far more so than many believe. God's grace is not just material wealth or good health, but is the radical love that grasps on to us, rescues us from certain death, and declares, "You are mine!" even as we are striving with everything we have to run away from Him (Col. 1:21-22). Jesus certainly makes our lives better, but not just by improving our marriage or helping us choose which movies to watch, but in that He is our King who brings us under His rule by laying down His own life for us and reconciling us to God (Rom. 5:6-11).

This is what people need. They need to hear how great their sin and misery are. They need to hear how despite their total enslavement to sin, God calls them unto Himself to be His own and brings them into His fold. They need to hear that they are called to be a holy people, set apart, foreigners and aliens in the land. They need to hear that all of life is to be lived in service to Him, for His glory. They need to hear that they are part of a bigger story, that they are God's people, living under His rule, and blessed by Him. They need to hear that the end goal is not some disembodied state of bliss in an intangible, spiritual realm, but that they are wholly involved as God's people in His mission and in bringing all things in heaven and earth under the Lordship of Christ (Eph. 1:9-10).

Our culture, and many in the Church, do not want something that demands so much from us and that makes such a total claim. To them, that is the antithesis of freedom. However, to the contrary, this is freedom in the fullest sense of the word. This is what it truly means to be alive. We know true joy when we, as creatures, live as the Creator intended us to. This only begins when we cease to live for ourselves, and instead consecrate ourselves to God, pursuing holiness.

I was talking briefly with a friend yesterday who made the comment, "I've been quite perplexed lately at the way evangelicals seem to understand 'make disciples' as simply meaning 'share the gospel.'" It is a point well taken. We can tell them all these good things about grace and about love and about Jesus, but that is not enough. A confession of faith requires a complete surrender to Him. Jesus Christ makes a total claim over our lives and demands that we live in holiness. The Gospel, our faith, is radical and transformational. It leaves nothing untouched. If it does, then it is an insufficient Gospel, even a false Gospel.

Augustine has famously said, "Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee." We will only realize this when we have come to believe the Gospel in its entirety and when we have taken up our cross to follow Him. The Lord has called us to be holy, as He is holy (Lev. 19:2; 1 Pet. 1:13-16). May this become our desire, and may our song be, "Take myself, and I will be, ever, only, all for Thee."

Klaas Schilder, from his book, Christ in His Sufferings:

And for the Saviour, fully aflame as He is with love for mankind, it is far worse suffering to meet a satan of flesh and blood than to confront that one great Devil who is sheer spirit. Jesus Himself is human. He called Simon Barjona a friend. And a friend’s opposition to the task which God placed upon the Son of Man is a burden outweighing a thousand times the enmity to Him and the Father breathed out by the Demon of the pit.

Hearing His bride speak and act satanically, seeing a human being, one of those for whom He is giving His life, become an instrument of Satan, observing the flesh in Simon Peter assert itself to take exception to heaven’s law of atonement through fulfillment, and all that, mark well, at the moment of Christ’s prophesying — that must have been Jesus’ severest suffering up to this time. For He knows all the while that this same rebellion of flesh against spirit will presently nail Him to the cross.

I actually shuddered when I read this the first time.
— (HT: John Barach)