We must be so wise about who we associate with and what we are attaching ourselves to in these evil days.
Sisters and brothers in the Lord, please don’t get caught up in movements that appeal to the flesh. Even if *your* motivations for participating are sincere and rooted in truth, those who put forth the rallying cries may not share your convictions or concern for sincerity and truth.
And, if we can all be really honest with each other, our motivations are *not* always rooted in truth. We *can* get swept up into actions and support for things that appeal to our flesh in a variety of ways.
We need to step back and remember how often…
— our anger has not been righteous in the past;
— our indignation has been self-focused in the past;
— our disgust has been ill-informed in the past;
— our moral high ground has been built on the tossing waves of the sea in the past;
— our hatred of perceived sin was founded upon misunderstandings in the past.
Please don’t stop reading here if you perceive that I’m saying don’t get involved in things. That is *not* what I’m advocating for. I think the people of the Truth ought to be involved in every conversation where truth is even whispered. The Lord Jesus is Lord of the Truth because He *is* the Truth — He is to have total domination over anything that calls itself “truth” or “knowledge.”
So, what are we calling for?
1. Patience
It is usually not fully possible to form a cogent opinion on something that suddenly appears and demands immediate action. At least wait until your instinctual responses, your emotional reflexes, are fully under your Spirit-empowered control.
2. Just Weights & Balances
Do not hold others to standards that *you* could not live up to if you were in the other person’s position, under equal circumstances. Do not hold unfair or unreasonable measures of judgment against any person, even government officials (remember Luke 6:20-38). Your standard is truth.
3. What You Attest
Your job as a Christian is to proclaim Christ to the world; you must testify to His Person and work. You must declare His victory and promised salvation to *all* who will repent of their sins and trust in God’s grace alone, through Christ alone, by faith alone, according to Scripture alone, to the glory of God alone. While we are fully cognizant that the world does not proclaim this, recognize if the movement you’re drawn to allows for you to attest to Christ. If it is pro-freedom, sincerely, the movement won’t be anti-Gospel or any-freedom to testify to the victory and greatness of your King. That doesn’t mean you need to jump on a soapbox with a megaphone (unless that is your calling), but it does mean that you have a sense of the basic presuppositions at play regarding your ability to proclaim Christ.
4. Discern: Right & Almost Right
You don’t have the freedom of presuming that the cause you’re attaching yourself to has got everything right, or the requirement to affirm everything a particular cause says or does. Just like in Christian doctrine with your favourite teachers and preachers: you don’t have to agree with everything if you truly do have a disagreement rooted in biblical truth. But root out what you *do* disagree with and be extremely aware of how/if that disagreement has real implications for your participation.
5. No Overcorrections
Do not slam yourself back and forth between the ditches of action and inaction. If you exercise Spirit-fueled patience, a Spirit-guarded sense of justice, a Spirit-directed attestation to truth, and a Spirit-characterized sense of discernment, then be involved in everything you can. You are not going to do all of these things perfectly because your name, title, and person are not Jesus Christ, the Son of God. But, by His grace, you can move in this trajectory. Basically, don’t presume you will be perfect at examining yourself and your motives, but also don’t stop examining yourself and your motives.
There are too many weak, sensually pandering, captivating of weak… persons, cowardly, crafty and subtle, destructively arrogant, self-centred, bloviating, hidden false teachers who will say so much of the above with the express goal of making you shut your mouth and cripple your activities. I’m looking at The Gospel Coalition, especially of TGC Canada.
Do not shut your mouth.
Do not cease your activities.
But let us do so looking to God and His word.
Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your hand to do it.
Do not say to your neighbor, “Go, and come back, and tomorrow I will give it,” when it is there with you.
Do not devise harm against your neighbor, while he lives securely beside you.
— Proverbs 3:27–29 LSB
God, through *His* Word, and not any pseudadelphos, or person entrenched in this world’s philosophy, defines:
⁃ what is truly good,
⁃ what withholding good truly means,
⁃ to whom good is truly due,
⁃ whether it is in your hand to truly give,
⁃ who your true neighbour is,
⁃ what true harm is,
⁃ whether your neighbour truly dwells in security beside you.
The righteous knows the cause of the poor, the wicked does not understand that knowledge.
Scoffers set a city aflame, but wise men turn away anger.
— Proverbs 29:7–8 LSB
God, through *His* Word, and not any pseudadelphos, or person entrenched in this world’s philosophy, defines:
⁃ who the righteous truly are and if you’re among them,
⁃ what the cause of the poor truly is,
⁃ who the poor truly are,
⁃ who the wicked truly are and if you’re among them,
⁃ what true understanding and knowledge looks like,
⁃ what a scoffer truly looks like and if you’re among them,
⁃ what it means to set a city aflame and why that is evil,
⁃ what a wise man is and if you’re among them,
⁃ what it means to truly turn away anger and if you have the wisdom to do so.
Open your mouth for the mute, for the justice of all those passing away.
Open your mouth, judge righteously, and render justice to the afflicted and needy.
— Proverbs 31:8–9 LSB
God, through *His* Word, and not any pseudadelphos, or person entrenched in this world’s philosophy, defines:
⁃ what it truly means to open your mouth for the mute,
⁃ who the mute truly are,
⁃ what true justice means for those who are truly passing away,
⁃ what it truly means to be someone passing away,
⁃ what righteous judgment truly means
⁃ what rendering justice truly looks like,
⁃ who is truly afflicted and needy.
If we would understand God’s right and true definition ls of these things, we would be much better armed with the information required to join, or not join, a cause or movement. We must remember that we have only one primary Cause:
The Cause of Christ, and one true Movement, the Movement of the Gospel throughout the Earth.
We must move that good news in service of that Cause, and we must teach all that flows out of that Cause as both necessary and important. But we must not attach ourselves to movements that would seek to obtain our desired effects via other causes. Doing so will bring about certain failure, or worse: successes that harden our heart toward our pre-eminent first love.
We must be Gospel-centered; not doing so to remain “neutral” or mute on so-called “neutral” or “political” issues, but because the Gospel is the only Cause capable of producing a righteous effect in any sphere, whether civil, familial, personal, or ecclesiastical. We are to be Gospel-centered by putting the gospel at the center of every sphere in our lives, including any cause or movement we support. If we truly do this, our conduct will always trend toward accordance with the truth, love, and righteousness worthy of the Gospel.
This is a warning against is becoming a “partisan hack” instead of a Christian concerned for the truth, someone who cares more for the cause than the truth. A sort of “Christian pragmatist” who uses any available weapon, argument, ammo, or assistance available to attack the perceived enemy. A person whose love for conserving our current culture and way of life is more important in their heart than the God who grants that heart to beat.
The problem is that faulty arguments and faulty allies, movements, and causes are like faulty weapons – they tend to blow up in one’s face or result in friendly fire.
We need to be, we must be, more effective in forwarding the cause of truth. We need to cling to biblical principles, not because we’re too “spiritual” or meek to cause societal disruption or offence, but because the sword of the Spirit, God’s Word, is far sharper, deadly, and precise than worldly bludgeons of disgruntled blue-collar working-class outrage mob.
We advance the cause of justice inasmuch as what we’re calling “justice” is what God calls justice. And we don’t need to expect victory or defeat in order to be successful. We only need to stand firm in truth, in the mission of Christ, according to His Word.
That’s all that is expected of us.
The King of glory will take care of every outcome.
Blessed contributions to this article come from Lowell McAllister. You can read some of his other Crimson Ink Contributions here.
