Authority and capacity precede invitation

All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give rest for your souls. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you wil find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my load is light. -- Matthew 11:27-30

Jesus' invitation to come to him so that one can find rest for their soul is rooted in Christ's God-given authority and his unique capacity to make the eternal Father knowable (11:27). It is in knowing the Father where there is rest for our souls and Jesus has been given the exclusive right and means to reveal the Father. In that unique role Jesus invites people to come to him so that they may know the Father and there find rest.

There is no catch, no fine print, no hidden clause -- whosover will may come. However, coming requires yoking oneself with Christ and Christ alone.

How can bearing a yoke be 'easy'?
Jesus can assure us His yoke is easy because he alone reveals the Father -- in other words, He does all the work. Yoked to Christ does require going wherever he leads (no doubt we will stumble and even have to be dragged at times as we are yoked to him). However, he alone reveals the God who is life eternal. So where Christ is taking those united to him, in the end, is worth the yoke!

On the ceasing of eating grass and transforming culture

The gospel isn’t primarily about saving or transforming temporal culture, though salvation does have a positive impact on culture. Spiritual work makes material differences. Demoniacs clean up and go to town dressed and in their right minds. Nebuchadnezzars no longer eat grass like cattle, and return to sanity and responsible government. Zacchaeuses quit robbing the citizens and make restitution. But spiritual work isn’t mainly about improving the community. The redemption spiritual work does is far deeper, far bigger, and more long-lasting than the betterment of a temporal village or state. -- Sam Crabtree

'Boys will be Boys' Not an Idea God Knows

When a man wanders into certain beds, he does not find peace there. In the sixties, that time of sexual infantalism, we were frequently urged to make love, not war. The assumption was that lovemaking was a peaceful activity, regardless of who you were in the hay with. But James tells us where war comes from -- warring desires.

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. -- James 4:1-4

Sexual revolutions must necessarily end in blood. And to consider the truth of this we do not need to look off in the distance at all the trouble caused by Helen of Troy. James tell us that men war and fight because of lust. On whom they make war may vary, but the result is the same. The sexual laxity of our nation, to take an example close to home, has resulted to date in 38 million abortions. Considered from another angle, that means 38 million orgasms, 38 million temporarily satisfied men, 38 million good times in the sack that ended badly for the inconvenient by-product. In short, millions of men thought that someone else's life was a reasonable price to pay for the pleasure of getting off.

Friendship with the world is. . . contempt for God. And when we show contempt for God, we soon discover that he is not the frail deity many have assumed Him to be. It is not as though He does not know how to respond when we show contempt for Him. The God of the Bible, as one writer put it aptly, is not a buttercup. When we set ourselves against Him in enmity, He responds in judgment:

Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of the were, as it is written, 'The people sat down to eat and rose up to play.' We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. I Cor. 10:6-8

The stories of the Bible are given to us so that might we might take warning. The God of the Bible judges the sin of fornication both within history and at the end of history. He visits a man with sexual diseases, conflict, guilt, turmoil, lack of peace and satisfaction, a miserable family, and death. At the culmination of history, He closes the gates of everlasting life in the face of those who did not repent of their fornications.

In short, we have to say that God does not take a 'boys will be boys' approach.

-- Douglas Wilson, Fidelity, pgs. 47,48

Being built up in the faith requires knowing what it is

I Timothy 4:15-16 --Take pains with these things; be absorbed in them, so that everyone will see your progress. Be conscientious about how you live and what you teach. Persevere in this, because by doing so you will save both yourself and those who listen to you.

Christians, if they are to be an alternative to postmodern relativism, need to confess their faith, in word and deed. This means knowing what that faith is.

Christians in every church body might begin by returning to their own doctrinal heritage. Lutherans, Calvinists, and other historical churches have formal written confessions of what they believe. . . Other denominations have less strictly defined doctrinal positions, but they still have their confessions of faith and their Bible-based heritage, which they should reclaim. In doing so, they might regain their vitality and testify to a core of Biblical truth that will stand as a blazing witness to the relevatistic culture. Biblical churches with doctrinal integrity will have a stronger witness than muddled, easy-to-please-everyone congregations that do not stand for anything in particular.

Emphasizing doctrine will highlight the doctrinal differences between the various Christian traditions, but this need not mean destructive religious warfare. The various traditions need to be recovered before they can be either appreciated or challenged. Once they are reestablished, debates about which theologies are most in accord with Scripture could resume, because theology would be taken seriously again. Vibrant theological debate would invigorate the church. The ecumenical method of unity -- extinguishing all characteristic beliefs -- has failed.

-- Gene Edward Veith, Postmodern Times, p. 220

2 Timothy 4:1-5 -- I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus, who is going to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 4:2 Preach the message, be ready whether it is convenient or not, reprove, rebuke, exhort with complete patience and instruction. 4:3 For there will be a time when people will not tolerate sound teaching. Instead, following their own desires, they will accumulate teachers for themselves, because they have an insatiable curiosity to hear new things. 4:4 And they will turn away from hearing the truth, but on the other hand they will turn aside to myths. 4:5 You, however, be self-controlled in all things, endure hardship, do an evangelist’s work, fulfill your ministry.

At the tail end of perversion

We live in a time when marital fidelity is under assault. Driven by the forces of relativism, our society attacks sexual faithfulness on numerous fronts. The push for homosexual marriages, for example, comes at the end of the fall into perversion, not the beginning (Romans 1). Faithless husbands began the fall long ago, and our culture, with all its washed-out self-help books, fails to address the real problem—sin.
-- Douglas Wilson

Not the strength of faith that saves

"With a weak faith and a fearful heart, many a sinner stands before the altar. But it is not the strength of his faith, but the perfection of the sacrifice, that saves; and no feebleness of faith, no dimness of eye, no trembling of hand, can change the efficacy of our burnt-offering. The vigor of our faith can add nothing to it, nor can the poverty of it take anything from it. Faith, in all its degrees, still reads the inscription, 'The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin;' and if at times the eye is so dim that it cannot read these words, through blinding tears or bewildering mist, faith rests itself on the certain knowledge of the fact that the inscription is still there, or at least that the blood itself (of which these words remind us) remains, in all its power and suitableness, upon the altar unchanged and unaffected."
- Horatius Bonar

Courage Brother

Courage brother, do not stumble,
Though our path be dark as night;
There's a star to guide the humble --
Trust in God and do the right.

Let the road be rough and dreary,
and its end far out of sight;
Foot it bravely, strong or weary --
Trust in God and do the right.

Perish policy and cunning,
perish all that fears the light;
Whether losing, whether winning --
Trust in God and do the right.

Trust no party, sect or faction,
trust no leaders in the fight;
But in every word and action --
Trust in God and do the right.

Some will hate you, some will love you,
some will flatter, some will slight;
Cease from man and look above you --
Trust in God and do the right.

-- Norman McCleod