Moralizing is a Dirty Word

Here is a great quote from Plantinga's Not the Way It's Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin:

Nowadays, "moralizing" is a dirty word in public education, and the consensus on what constitutes good and evil has contracted: for a regnant educational elite, moral tolerance is now the only good, and moral intolerance the only evil. In the kingdom of the elite, classroom wars between good and evil think down to angry border skirmishes between the politically correct and the politically challenged.  The politically challenged are, of course, those doofuses who still use short words whe they talk - words like good, bad, right, and wrong. The politically correct, on the other hand, prefer more leisurely and ironic expressions. To be sure, the politically correct (e.g., those who describe the lazy person as "motivationally dispossessed" and prostitutes as "sex care providers") are still willing to make moral judgments - but only of those who make moral judgments. They say things like this: "It is always wrong to make moral judgments."

Mopping Up the Bloody Mess

Every sin, no matter how small, creates a chasm between us and the other that we are not able to cross. Every transgression makes a mess that we are ill-equipped to clean up. Sin is something so easy to do, but it is impossible to repair. With our actions we fracture other people so badly that even the best of our actions would never restore the relationship to what it once was.

When we sin, we are like a child who just burned down our home - completely guilty and completely helpless. A small action by small fingers, lights a match that burns a big house down.

We don't really believe this though do we? Some sins, like adultery or murder are obviously "that bad." But other sins like lying or lusting are, well, not "that bad." Most of the time we don't notice how bad they are until we are found out by another individual. We see the damage in the tears or expressions of the person against whom we have transgressed.

Because we don't believe the devastating nature of sin, we leave the mess unaddressed - like a husband who expects his wife to be okay after he lets her know he doesn't plan on committing adultery any more; like a wife who simply disciplines herself out of the habit of gossip; and like a college student who reads a book on procrastination in an effort to break the cycle.

We have fooled ourselves into thinking if we stop the behavior the mess will go away. Our right actions will mop the bloody floor. We actually think that we can make the [burned] house come back by saying, "I won't play with fire ever again."

Once more, all of these actions fail to recognize the personal nature of sin - that, though we are in control to commit the sin, we surrender our control (by that very action) to repair it. Once the deed is done, we are completely at the mercy of the other to make things right. Nothing we do will do - no matter how good that doing may be.

Sin makes us, for all practical purposes, dead - and desperate. The life we need must come from the person we have deeply offended. It is their blood on the floor. Our bloody mop has only spread it around. Only their clean mop will do.

And that is why the gospel is so good. Christ, in his great mercy, mops up our mess. He repairs the breech and crosses the chasm. His cleanness takes away our dirtiness. His death brings us life. He personally restores things beyond what they once were. He makes us new.

Changing behavior will never work. Only honest repentance and full reliance upon the person and work of Christ can cure the curse of sin. This is why a change in countenance tends to bring about forgiveness more than change in behavior. This is why we can be both sinner and saint. Humble repentance and faith is the way of life. Christ is the good news we all must hear, love, and proclaim.

Why Does God Allow Sin to Remain After He Saves Us?

Why does God save us and allow us to remain sinful? There are few "problems" more relevant and significant than this in the Christian experience. A person sins and is immediately confronted with the question, "How can I say I love God when I obviously don't love him enough to stop sinning?"

Some then wonder why the Lord allows sin to linger. Some wonder if he actually exists. Some wonder if their faith actually exists; or, whether they will soon be lugging around the label associated with hypocritic Christianity.

In this post, I'd like to list some reasons why the Lord chooses to allow sin to remain in our lives.

The first two reasons come from John Owen (of course I will paraphrase and spare us both the sanctifying headache).  Owen states that sin remains in our lives, as an ember of a flame, dwelling, but without its previous dominion. There are times when the Lord fans this flame to allow us to smell its stench, to get its smoke in our eyes, and to feel its burn in our lives.

This reminds us who we are and what we are capable of. It keeps us humble, dependent, and repentant.

This makes his sanctifying power more recognizable. David knew it well. At one time he could not keep himself from women. At another, he would not consider the virgin in his own bed. Likewise Abraham, who did not trust the Lord with his wife Sarah, later trusted the Lord with his most beloved son Isaac. This is the Lord's work of saving and sanctifying sinners.

To sum up the first two reasons: The Lord allows sin to dwell in order that we would regularly see our own weaknesses, as well as regularly see his strengths.

Another reason is that we continue to live (after we are saved) in a world with those who are still enslaved in sin. Lingering sin is the plank in our eye, in light of which we must view the moral specks in other eyes. There is something that happens when a person knows their sin well as they engage with others in redemptive conversation.

There is a humility about them. There are no walls around them. They know what it feels like to be gripped by wickedness. They know what it's like to be at war within themselves. They know what it's like to need Christ every hour.

This humility is necessary in evangelism. It is necessary for love, forgiveness, patience, and peace.

Without a constant reminder of our own need of Christ, we become self-reliant, judgmental, and less-than-relevant to the culture around us. Unfortunately, too many churches fail to see the plank in their own eye. They fail to recognize the flame that continues to burn within them. And people, being pretty darn smart, stay away. No one wants to be smacked in the head with a plank! No one wants to be burned by a self-righteous tongue.

The world knows what it feels like to wrestle with sin. This is why artists like Eminem and Lil' Wayne continue to top the charts. They fail, however, to identify the problem. In the words of Eminem, "I can't tell you what it really is, I can only tell you what it feels like..."

On the contrary, many Christians know what the problem is, but fail to admit they know what it feels like. And this is why most Christian media fails to reach, with any sort of significance, the dying world around us. We say, "I can tell you what it really is, but I can't tell you what it feels like."

The Lord allows sin to remain in us so that we can say to a dying person, "I can tell you what it really is, and I can tell you what it feels like. Let's walk through this difficult, but rewarding, life together."

Like it or not, the Lord uses sin in us to bring about his redemptive purposes.

Finally, he allows sin to linger so that we will continually long for heaven. We all must realize that sin will have its final day. This life is but a vapor. Our battle with sin is a short one. This world is obviously not our home.  Soon and very soon, we will go and see the King. That glorious day will inaugurate endless years of sinless relationship with the Lord and others - without tears, without pain, without conflict, and without sorrow.

And he will get all the glory. Why? Because his name is Jesus, the King who saves struggling sinners still.

Confronting Atheism in a World That is Not How It's Supposed to Be

Every time I receive a notification on my phone saying, "Breaking News," my first inclination is to cringe. Lately, breaking news has been nothing less than tragic news - horrifying news about how one person has murderously taken the life of (at least) one other person. It's "breaking news" because it has a tendency to get the attention of the masses. Most people will follow the link out of a deeply strange curiosity - out of a desire to understand why things like this happen.

The Christian faith provides a moral framework by which one can look upon such actions as wrong and inherently evil. Christians can rightly and, without arbitrariness, say, "This is not the way things are supposed to be."

There is another worldview, however, at work in our day. It is the atheistic evolutionary worldview whereby its proponents seek to answer the questions of human existence and experience. Science alone is sufficient to provide us with these answers (given we simply observe the evidence through a naturalistic lens).

To the naturalist, our universe is nothing more than the product one "thing" bumping into another "thing" a long time ago, and producing another "thing" which produced another "thing" when it bumped into some"thing" else (whew!). After billions of years, these chain reactions produced the organism we call human.

For the naturalistic atheist, people are nothing more than the product of genes trying to survive. Staying alive and reproducing other bodies that are good at staying alive is the only purposeful mechanism of cellular life in the world. This is the process of nature to winnow out less-than-efficient molecular organisms. The strong survive. The weak die off. This is just the way things are.

I wonder, however, what the naturalist thinks when he receives the type of "breaking news" I spoke of before. What goes on in his mind when he hears the news of a six year old little girl who was video taped by her father as she was forced to perform oral sex on him (this happened, by the way, a few years back - the man is now, thankfully, in prison).

Do they see it "scientifically" as the cause and effect process of molecular survival? Will they go to straight to the scientific method in an effort to figure out what is going on in this poor girl's sphere of the universe? I wonder if they will begin with a hypothesis before they jump to a judgment. I wonder if their initial deepest problem lies in the question "What is this?" rather than the judgment, "This should not be!"

I doubt it.

The naturalistic, evolutionary world view has no category at all for the repulsive feelings every image bearer feels when they hear such a story. A person like Richard Dawkins can only make observations about "what is". He has, however, absolutely no basis for making assertions as to "what ought to be." He can only state that the father did this to his little girl; not that the father should not have done it.

And this is the danger of atheistic naturalism. It reduces humanity to the product of mindless molecular reactions. It handcuffs these "products" from making moral judgments about what "ought" and what "ought not" be. In a society in which this worldview pervades, and where objective morality is reasoned away, only the strong survive. The weak are left to die off.

This world, for the evolutionist, is nothing more than natural selection taking its course - the genetic quest for survival. Some genes are not so efficient (like the father mentioned above), and consequently die off.

Am I saying all atheists condone what this father did? No. I'm not. I know atheists who would deeply desire the man's judicial punishment. All I am saying is, given their worldview, they have no basis for those judicial desires. The fact that they jump to judgments faster than hypotheses, is evidence that people are more than the product of mindless molecular reactions. The deep conviction they have, that "this is not how things are supposed to be," is evidence of the very God they seek to deny.

The Law You Are Resisting Shows What Sin Needs Killing

For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. 1 Jn 5:3

Every human being was created to glorify God and enjoy him forever. The writers of the Westminster Shorter Catechism thought this truth to be most important. It is the first question of the catechism. The second logically follows from the first, as it predicts the obvious question, "How do we know how to glorify God?" The answer to this (in not so many words) is his Word.

The Word of God, and more particularly, the Law of God is his gracious direction that guides us how we might glorify him; and in doing so, we find our most enjoyment. In other words, we were created to follow God's commandments. When we follow them, we are most happy. When we do not follow them, we are most miserable.

Bondage is not, therefore, having to obey the Law of God, but not being able to obey it. A person is enslaved when they cannot live how they were created to live. It's like a dog who walks around like a cat. His life is odd, and though he may wag his tail, there will always be some misery about him until he begins to bark and fetch like a dog.

How then should we understand God's Law in our lives. Often people use God's goodness, grace or forgiveness as an excuse to disregard the Law. When they focus on the commandments, they are too heavy, too burdensome. Christians shouldn't live under such burdens and so the Law must go. But this is the wrong way. This is not glorifying to God. And it is not ultimately what is most enjoyable to humanity.

When the commandments are burdensome, when there is a law that we just cannot seem to follow, the right way to respond is not by dismissing the Law, but by repenting of sin. The Law is holy, remember (Rom 7:12)? We are the problem. Burdens under God's Law are reminders to go to the Lord Christ in repentance and faith. The Law will crush those who do not find shelter in Christ, who was crucified.

Feeling the burden of the Law is a gracious thing. If ever you feel as if you don't want to follow God's Law, pray that the Spirit would search you and point out where you need correction and sanctification. The Law finds our sin, points it out to us, and goes on a rampage to have it out. Whatever Law you are resisting is a testimony of whatever sin needs killing.

But don't try and kill it yourself, or it will kill you. Go to Christ, trust in his life and death on your behalf, rely and depend upon his Spirit to kill whatever wicked way is inside.

Sin In Other People

Every person is sinful.  This is theology we know and even notice in our world.  Though the media may not call it sin, they know it is; and because it is what brings the most traffic, they love it.

While we may respond to the reports of sin by giving our attention, we often fail to know how to address sin when it slaps us in the face.  Americans are really good at trying to avoid it altogether. Billions of dollars are spent on numbing activities such as sports, movies, games, and the like.  Not that these things are bad; but to deny that they can be is plain denial.

Again, every person is sinful.  Relationships will always be spotted with inevitable sinful collisions. Trying to avoid them is like kicking the proverbial can down the road. Only people are not cans. And if you kick them long enough, they become more like pit bulls.  Eventually you're gonna lose a leg, a hand, or worse.

If we are honest, the most common way we deal with sin in others is by making every attempt to have them stop sinning.  We neglect, avoid, yell at, pacify, or even abuse in order to put out the sinful flame in those around us.  No matter what, however, we can never reach sin-deep.  Instead of saving, we end up aggravating.  Why? Because if we use another means other than the gospel, we only treat sin with sin.

We do this because we don't really believe that Jesus can and does redeem us, and others, from the enslaving chains of sin.  He simply takes too long.  I want sin gone now.  But, he apparently doesn't.

The gospel calls us to love and trust.  We are to turn the other cheek, to return good for evil, to bless when we are cursed.  We are to give when others take - to die so that others may live.  I understand this is harder than it sounds - even impossible.  But this is the light of the gospel.  If we don't believe it, we are fools.

The Spirit gives us the faith to trust that Jesus works in the lives of others.  After all, he saved us.  I personally struggle to trust him here.  Even with those closest to me, I feel as if it is my job to save - to get the sin out.  But lately I have been so broken by this activity, I simply cannot do it anymore.  I have found that when I try to be Jesus to others, I turn out to be more a Pharisee.

And as odd as it sounds, he is using the sin in others to humble me and to sanctify me.  He is using the sinful actions of others to point out my own sin.  And he is using all of this to draw me closer to himself, in complete dependence upon his grace, to save me and those I love so much.

We Cannot Repair What We Have Done.

Imagine a child as he sneaks into the corner to play with matches.  As he lights the first match he doesn't notice that he is a bit too close to the curtains.  Before he knows it, the entire house is in flames.  The family escapes and watches their home burn to the ground.

The child, with guilt welling up inside, knowing that his disobedience was the cause of this disaster, looks up at his parents and says these words: "Don't worry Mom and Dad.  I'm going to fix this."

They look down at the child with a depressed, but frustrated face knowing good and well that their five-year-old cannot even come close to repairing what has just been lost.  Sure, he is capable of the damage.  But he is completely unable to repair it.

And that is the irony of our situation.  We have the ability to damage, but the inability to repair.  We are immensely valuable, but extremely vulnerable.  Sin is not only tragic in that it condemns us; it is even more so because it violates an image bearer.  Tragedy lies less in the one who takes and more in that which is lost.

To make matters even worse, we, like the child, move immediately from damage to reparation.  We simply try and fix that which is broken.  When we hurt, we quickly try to heal.

The idea that we can make reparations for our sin devalues the one against whom we have sinned.  We forget that, as image bearers, we carry a divine value - not that we are gods, but that we are created in the image of God.  Penalties reflect the worth of the victim.  And if we believe we can pay sin's penalty, we devalue the One who has been transgressed.  Sin against God demands a divine payment.  We simply do not have the resources to pay.

Further, the reparation idea is extremely prideful as it overvalues our abilities.  In thinking we can repair things, we become God.  Our works have divine worth and are not to be thought of as "filthy rags."  So, not only do we think less of the victim (and of God), but we think too much of ourselves.

Last, reparations can only be made by Christ - the God-Man.  As Anselm so rightly said, "It could not have been done unless man paid what was owing to God for sin. But the debt was so great that while man alone owed it, only God could pay it, so that the same person must be both man and God."

So, when we sin, we should never skim past repentance.  We should value the image of God in the other, and ultimately the God we have sinned against.  And we should recognize our utter inability to repair what our hands have done.  This is why He is the Prince of Peace.  And this is why faith in Christ is critical for every relationship in life.  The Gospel is not about what we can do, but about what He has done.

How Premarital Cohabitation Destroys Marriage and Distorts The Gospel

In a recent post, Glenn Stanton of The Line: Bringing Focus to the Single Years, writes about what cohabitation does for marriage.  In writing this, Stanton shows, even statistically, the many downfalls that often accompany premarital cohabitation.  While the majority of these couples, some 75% of them, see cohabitation as an aggressive step toward marriage, the reality, however, is that this decision is actually proving to be an aggressive step toward abuse and even divorce.

The many warnings from Scripture, along with the undeniable sociological statistics, should prove to be a guard and guide for singles (as well as married couples) in an over-sexualized culture.  In other words, the more we are bombarded with false depictions of the “glorious life in premarital cohabitation” via television, radio and other media, the more we need to hear the truth that those who choose to live this way are in rebellion against God, and are, in reality, relational train wrecks.  As said above, the reasons for this are ultimately theological.  Consider a few points.

First, that we may not, and should not, allow the clear distinctions between lust and love to be blurred.  A couple who decides to partake in the glories of marriage before vowing to commitment in marriage are more in lust than they are in love.  A man who decides to rebel against God in pursuing his lusts cannot possibly love the woman he is lusting after as Christ loves the church. 

Second, the bed that the couple shares in cohabitation is not the bed that they will share in marriage.  It is a common saying that lust seeks to fill the bed before the vows and then to empty it after them. Sex before marriage is nothing but selfishly taking from another individual.  This is very different from the biblical picture of sex described as two people selflessly giving to each other.  Lust is not a passive, lifeless reality; but one that is actively rebellious, desiring to kill and destroy.

Last, those who desire to have the consummation before the commitment ultimately distort the gospel.  The saying is true that “love waits.”  True, gospel-centered love, is content with the commitment that is now, and with the promised consummation that is not yet.  The life in-between is one of patient endurance, by the power of the Holy Spirit, that clings to the promise in faith and looks with great expectation to the hope that is to come.   But those who would have the consummation now communicate that there is no future hope, and that there is no Risen Christ who is trustworthy, good, and worth waiting for. 

There is a right way to become married that glorifies the Christ who both ordains it as well as communicates through it (Eph 5).  This same Christ, however, will not allow His Name to be profaned by a pseudo-union that is superficially bound by selfishness and lust.  When two people, on the other hand, commit to each other, consummate the commitment, and move forward to live in a glorious marriage, they proclaim the Lord who selflessly and sacrificially died for His Church, who will come again in the great consummation, and who will live with them forever in glory.

The Overwhelming Message of the Old Testament

The Lord saves blatant transgressors (Gen 3:21)

The Lord saves drunks (Gen 9:1)

The Lord saves cowardly liars (Gen 12)

The Lord saves devious cheaters (Gen 28)

The Lord saves weak murderers (Exod 3)

The Lord saves grumbling ingrates (Exod 14)

The Lord saves sinners by placing their punishment upon Another (Gen 22; Leviticus 16)

The Lord saves freely, by grace alone (Deut 7)

The Lord saves the poor and the fatherless (Deut 10)

The Lord saves pagan foreigners (Gen 17; Deut 10, 24)

The Lord saves dirty sluts (Joshua 2)

The Lord saves wimpy doubters (Judges 6)

The Lord saves sex addicts (Judges 15)

The Lord saves and uses small, insignificant women (Ruth)

The Lord saves womanizing and murderous adulterers (2 Sam 12)

The Lord saves struggling widows with children (1 Kings 18)

The Lord saves those who grow weary serving Him (1 Kings 19)

The Lord continually saves His rebellious people from tyrannous leaders (2 Kings 22)

The Lord saves child-sacrificing, innocent-blood-sheding idolaters (2 Chron 33:10ff)

The Lord faithfully saves His people from the seed of the serpent (Gen 3:15; Esther)

The Lord saves those who humbly come to Him in faith and repentance (Psalms)

The Lord saves the stupid people like me (Proverbs)

The Lord saves the hopeless and depressed (Ecclesiastes)

The Lord saves His people through wounding and healing (Prophets)

The Lord saves horrible sinners by crushing a Suffering Servant (Isaiah 53)

The Lord saves and uses children (Jeremiah)

The Lord saves naked, bloody, cheap, whore-like communities (Ezekiel 16)

The Lord saves miraculously (Daniel 3)

The Lord saves prideful and hard-hearted rulers [Presidents] (Daniel 4)

The Lord saves those who simply seek Him by faith alone (Amos 5; Hab 2:4)

The Lord saves from His awful lionlike wrath (Amos)

The Lord saves savage nations (Jonah)

The Lord saves resentful and stubborn ministers (Jonah)

The Lord saves even though every single person deserves to die (Minor Prophets)

The Lord saves His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21)

The Lord's name is Jesus (Matthew 1:21)

The message of the Old Testament (as well as the New!) is overwhelmingly clear.  Salvation is of the Lord (Jonah 2:9).  Many of us have grown up thinking that the God of the Old Testament is the God of wrath, while the God of the New Testament - Jesus Christ - is the God of grace.  This could not be farther from the truth.  The glory of all of the Scriptures, especially the Old Testament, is that God relentlessly pursues sinners to save them.

What's Wrong With The World?

It is one of the marks of fallen man to blame shift, to see to it that responsibility not be taken for his sinful actions.  Well, let me be clear.  Fallen man means to see to it that someone else take the responsibility for his sinful actions.  It began with Adam in the Garden.  And it has continued, faithfully, throughout history, even to you and me.

This is who we are and not necessarily merely what we learn from others.  A boy misses a ball - it was the sun's fault.  A husband cheats on his wife - it was his wife's fault.  A politician fails to follow through with promises - it was the other party's fault.  The world is filled with chaos and disaster - it is God's fault.  And on and on it goes.  We like taking responsibility for our successes, but not for our failures.

I am reminded of G.K. Chesterton's response to the London Times question, "What's wrong with the world?"  Chesterton replied,

Dear Sirs, 
     I am.
Sincerely yours,
G.K. Chesterton

Chesterton got it.  He understood that, in a fallen world, we could forever sit in our pathetic chairs and blame everyone else for our own failures.  It's not hard to find flaws in other humans; and if that is an acceptable means of diverting responsibility, then it becomes a most common practice.  A man who takes responsibility moves; but a man who does not, just sits and points at others.

One of the glories of the gospel, however, is that it frees us from this tiring, lazy and relationship-fracturing practice.  Because the Lord Jesus Christ is authoritative, present and in control, we are free and responsible to obey regardless of the sinful actions of others.  We live unto the Lord; and He is faithful as well as able to ensure that we are not tempted beyond our ability (1 Cor 10:13).  We only need to repent and believe - to humble ourselves and trust Him.

In other words, we don't have to try and pin the blame for our sins upon another person.  We have the grace of having the root cause of our sin identified for us.  The Scriptures tell us that we are what is wrong with the world.  After all, if we are never sinful and everyone else is always sinful, then we exempt ourselves from the category of humanity Christ came to save - sinners.  This does not give us an excuse to sin; but cause to repent and believe the gospel.

The Tyranny of Retirement

I wrote another article for Holy Culture entitled The Tyranny of Retirement.  This article focuses on a common mindset that we need to work so that we can make enough money to finally be set free from work - to retire.  I argue that work isn't the problem, fallenness is.  Retirement is not the goal, redemption is.

The message and advice of our culture is tyrannous and dangerous. Focusing our attention upon work itself will do nothing but dig our graves deeper. It misses the problem entirely. Our problem is not work, no matter how difficult that work may be. The problem runs much deeper than what we can or cannot do with our hands. Our problem is sin-deep. And, as implied above, we don’t need retirement – we need redemption.

Simply put: We don’t need to work in order to be free; rather, we must be freed in order to work.  
You can read the rest of the article here.

I would like to make one point of clarification.  I am not saying that retirement from a job is a bad thing.  I am saying that retirement from work should not be the goal of human existence.  When it is, it is tyrannous and enslaving.  Work, when understood from a biblical perspective, is a blessing and deeply satisfying.

Addressing the Problem of Evil

Many people have wrestled with what is commonly called "the problem of evil."  The logical syllogism behind the argument goes something like this:

1. If God is all-powerful, He is able to prevent evil
2. If God is good, He wants to prevent evil.
3. But evil exists.

Conclusion: either God is not all-powerful, or He is not good.

Christian orthodoxy affirms both the omniscience of God and the goodness of God.  Consequently, the conclusion above has been the chief weapon used in the battle against Christian theism.

In working through The Doctrine of God, I am now on the chapter that addresses the problem.  I am personally satisfied with Frame's address, as well as his critiques of various unbibilical attempts to solve the problem.  While I cannot give a complete summary of the chapter I can give a few points to whet the appetite.

Frame begins by identifying the difference between natural and moral evil.  Natural evil is that which brings suffering, unpleasantness, or difficulty into the lives of creatures.  Moral evil is the sin of rational creatures. The answer to the problem of natural evil is relatively clear in Scripture (Gen 3:17-19; Rom 8).  The answer to moral evil, on the other hand, demands more attention.  And this is where Frame spends most of his time.

The defense that best answers the problem of moral evil (while it may not sufficiently answer all questions) is the greater-good defense.  The verse that captures this best is Rom 8:28, "in all things God works for the good of those who love Him."  Frame comments, "It is essential to realize that even though God does bring evil into the world, He does it for a good reason.  Therefore, He does not do evil in bringing evil to pass."

There are many safeguards that he puts in place to keep the reader from running off of the "Scriptural cliff."  I will list only a few.  He says that good should be defined as that which brings most glory to God, and not what brings the most comfort (or whatever) to us.  Second, God's standards should be used to govern our concept of goodness.  We cannot just pull "goodness" out of the subjective air.

The last one I will mention is that we must evaluate God's actions over the full extent of human history, and with eternity in view.  In a million years of glory, we will look back on the relatively short time of "evil" and see with greater vision how the evils brought about the greater good.

We must always confess that God has a role in bringing evil about, and that in doing so He is holy and blameless.  The analogy that Frame gives that helps the mind to capture this is that of an author and a story.  Shakespeare wrote the murder of Duncan into his play, but Macbeth is the one who is to blame.  While the analogy stops short in some ways, it does provide a way of seeing that God is not to be blamed for the sin of His creatures.

Finally, we must never forget that God ordained the most evil event in history - the Cross of Christ.  We must also never forget that this ordination brought about the greatest good - our salvation.

Don't Take The Soul Out Of The Sinner

Doug Wilson says it well in his book Future Men: "Sin is parasitic and cannot function without some good attributes that it seeks to corrupt.  Consequently, faith must distinguish that which must be preserved and developed and that which must be abandoned as sin."  This truth is tremendously profound, and if understood and applied correctly, can be used to keep many from the follies of lawlessness and legalism.

Athletic events and concerts are simply a case of faithful worship gone bad.  Sin, as a slave master, has so corrupted the individual that the image of God within is used for evil ends.  As Christians who have been called to the ministry of reconciliation, we must, in a surgeon-like way, seek the mortification of sin while preserving/developing the person's faith and worship.

So when we see thousands screaming their heads off at a Dave Matthews concert, we should marvel at the desire, ability and capacity within each individual to worship another.  Their relentless faith in an individual provokes the sacrificial spending of time, energy, and resources.  I think of the stories of people who camp out for days just to get tickets!  How can we not see glorious attributes here built so deeply within the image of God?.   How can we not marvel at the strength of faith and worship?

What do we do?  We simply tell them they are stupid.  Why?  Well, I can't speak for everyone, but I can give a reasonable stab at it.  Its because most critical Christians are jealous.  We are being out-worshipped.  We only wish we had a taste for Christ that they have for Dave.

In short, to squelch the passion would be fatal, leading to an all-too-familiar stoic legalism.  To leave the passion unattended and without redirection would be fatal as well, leading to a reckless lawlessness.  We must only redirect the worship by proclaiming, in the Gospel, a superior Object of worship.  The gospel alone has the power to kill the parasitic sin while bringing life to the dead heart.  And the gospel alone has the power to restore and redeem the image of God in the individual, to draw their worship back to Christ.

But before we go out to proclaim that Good News, we should probably pray that the Spirit would ignite a passion within us that at least resembles the worship seen here (only the object of our worship would be Christ).