In 2 Kings 18, Judah was in deep yogurt. The northern kingdom of Israel had already fallen to the Assyrians. While Hezekiah was the best king of Judah since David (vv. 3-6), and even though idolatry and contraband worship at high places had been purged from the land, and despite a past successful rebellion against Assyrian hegemony, Judah was invaded by King Sennacherib of Assyria, who successfully destroyed much of the country before besieging Jerualem (vv. 13, 17), putting his general Rabshakeh in command. Rabshakeh then commenced a propaganda campaign against the soldiers of Israel, mocking their king and their God. His speech made five points (vv. 19–35, with a reprise in 19:8–13): Continue reading “A Land Like Your Own Land”
Category: Killing Sin
Is Worldliness Really Such a Big Deal?
One of the core struggles of the Christian life is the tension between living in the world and being profoundly different from it. According to the Bible, we are in the world, but not of the world. We were once proud of and defined by worldly things and accomplishments, but now we count them all as loss in exchange for Christ. We understand that we are citizens of heaven, merely pilgrims passing through this present world. We know we need to lay aside what lies behind and press on to the goal—Jesus Christ. But in practice Christians usually fall short. Continue reading “Is Worldliness Really Such a Big Deal?”
Am I Ever Safe from Sinning?
As Christians, we all know from Romans 7–not to mention from personal experience–that we are still very sinful, and continue to do so even after God has forgiven us. And we also hate that, or at least know we should, see again Romans 7. We notice, as we strive to put to death the deeds of the flesh that we might live, that sin is hard to fight. No matter how hard we fight, we still fall into sin sometimes. The devil is indeed prowling about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. When we hear God tell Cain that sin is crouching at his door, we feel God is really speaking to us. And sadly, sin doesn’t stop crouching at our door just because we’re at church or are on a spiritual high or just read our Bibles or just came from the most amazing small group ever or are actively serving God on the missions field. No matter how God centered the things around us may be, we can still sin. We are never safe from sin. Even–perhaps even especially–when God is directly blessing us or giving us direct experience of His presence, we can fall into sin. This shocking truth is quite biblical. Let’s call it the immediacy of sin. It can be quite easily traced through the entirety of Biblical history. Continue reading “Am I Ever Safe from Sinning?”
Perverting the Means of Grace
Here is one of the largest issues in the Christian life: How do you handle your personal sin? Or in one particular, how do you react when you fall? Do we attempt to make up for sin by subsequent good actions, for example Bible reading and confessional prayer? While it is quite clear that these actions do follow from a mourning of sin (1 John 1:9 essentially commands the believer to confess sins to God), in my mind I can confuse these actions as somehow atoning for my sin, somehow erasing and balancing out my past actions, somehow zeroing out debt owed to God. It is exactly this trap that the people of Judah fell into during the last years before the Babylonian captivity. Let us consider the historical record. Continue reading “Perverting the Means of Grace”
Citizens & Sons 