The Destruction of Disorder and the Kingdom that Cannot Be Shaken

2021 Has Quickly Upstaged 2020.

The thinking of “New Year, New Me,” has been replaced with, “Same ol’, same ol’.” In the last year we saw a pandemic, people cooped up in their homes more than ever before (by force or by choice), an even more contentious presidential election than before (somehow), large-scale, nationwide protests, large-scale, almost nationwide riots, and an election that was fraught with the opportunity of massive credibility loss in different directions. 

This post is largely “stream-of-consciousness,” so bear with me. I won’t pretend it’s polished or well-organized. Second, it’s not speaking for anyone else but me. Third, it’s definitely not speaking exhaustively, authoritatively, or inerrantly. Fourthly, because it may be necessary to explain, mention of comparison between previous riots we saw last year and riots we saw this year are not, by any means, lumping all of them together as though they have/had the same motivations, conditions, circumstances. To try to put it succinctly, though the movements associated with the different protests/riots have myriad differences, they are part of the same story, a story in our culture of rising temperatures and plummeting respect for non-violence, ordered liberty, rule of law, and for fellow citizens. There, disclaimers done. Now, into the stream.

This is me cautiously thinking through the events at the Capitol Hill, protest/riot, as well as the context we find ourselves in right now. The responses may be scattershot, but I hope that they are the opposite of rancorous, they explain things well, and encourage us with hope.

Lawlessness is evil.

This is a very easy statement for me to write..er, type. The mob action and violence that we have seen, and do see, in our culture is evil. The violence and law breaking at the Capitol Building was sinful. Writing that isn’t all that courageous, nor is it that difficult. When people go from protesting to violence and rioting there is a moral line that has been crossed. This is true when we agree with the cause or not—when it’s our “team,” or the other guys. Short of the biblical warrants for just violence and just war, violence is non-permissible. 

Ordered Liberty: A Necessary Aside.

Ordered liberty is an important concept, and it will become important below, so bear with me. Also, Albert Mohler did a much better job explaining this concept on the briefing than I can here, so I recommend that here: The Briefing: January 7, 2021. Ordered liberty is the truth that the only way that real liberty can exist is if the proper laws (and respect for law) exist. Because of sin and the reality that we all have been affected by the reality of sin in our nature, we need proper laws so that “utter” liberty doesn’t devolve into “might-makes-right.” 

If there are no true standards, no laws that apply to the weak and the strong, then whoever has the most power reigns. This is how sin works. Sin tells us that we need no restraints, no nothing, no authority over us at all. We cast off lawfulness because, in the moment, we are tricked into thinking that the authority of law at all is what is truly keeping us from liberty. What do we get from that? Well, look around. 

The reality is that this same phenomenon is true in each of our hearts. Individually, not just corporately, sin tells us that we should cast off all limitations, and tells us to presume that any limitation from anywhere is holding us back. Sin tells us to do what works for us, which turns us all into little tyrannical pragmatists. Sin tells us that righteousness is keeping us back from swimming in a beautiful ocean, when it is actually keeping us from hanging out in the everglades with a bunch of raw meat strapped to us. Eventually, the alligators sink their teeth in. What we need culturally is what we need individually, salvation from the pragmatism, foolishness, and—ultimately—deadliness of sin. Are you a non-Christian who laments what is going on around us, please recognize this is pragmatism on the playground, sin doing its thing. And there is only one answer for that issue, and it’s the kingdom and grace of Jesus (more below).

“Where there is no vision [or revelation of righteousness], the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.”

Proverbs 29:18.

Doubling the Double Standards

Here in our culture there is darn-near constant hypocrisy from our politicians and thought-leaders—plenty enough to go around. The Democrats, Liberals, and Leftists (discrete groups) are hypocritical. The Republicans, Conservatives, and Right (discrete groups) are hypocritical. 

Yes, it is hypocrisy to soft-pedal riots and mob violence for months and then get really upset when there’s mob violence from the other side. Yes, it is hypocrisy to denounce riots for months and then soft-pedal mob violence from your own side. The truth is, someone else’s hypocrisy doesn’t give us license to change our standards or become hypocrites ourselves. If we become double-minded, we haven’t accomplished anything except for losing our own credibility in denouncing anything at all.

No matter which Former Attorney General of the United States says it, “When they go low, we kick them,” (actual quote) is not a moral plan. “They set fire to the federal courthouse, so we break the windows at the Capitol,” (made-up quote) is pragmatic, short-sided, lawless, sinful, and un-Christian. We either have an eternal standard or we do not. Eternal standards, by the way, really are swords with two edges—sometimes it cuts the enemy, sometimes (when you mess up) it cuts you. It is the Christian responsibility to own up to that cutting, no matter who is bleeding. 

How then shall I live? Repentance and revival.

So what do we do? We repent. We recognize that if God has revival in mind—which we ought to be praying for—He won’t be in the business of using His people when His people are still clutching their sins and their idols. Maybe, just maybe, God has been showing you for the past four years that you put far too much trust in princes, horses, Obamas, and politicians (to borrow from Psalm 20). Maybe, just maybe, God has been showing you since early November that you had far too much trust in princes, horses, Trumps, and politicians. 

Beyond that, maybe God is showing us the way that sin makes us pragmatic, pragmatism makes us foolish, and foolishness makes us collapse. Maybe we need to repent of sin in our lives, in our families, and truly commit to the idea of sticking to God’s weapons to fight God’s battles. We aren’t ready to be a part of revival when we are coddling our lust, pornography, anger, pride, slothfulness, idolatry, or pragmatism. Though it’s tempting to grab that baseball bat of hypocrisy, that club of double standards, and try to bash our enemy over the head with it, we are better served to refuse that earthly weapon and use God’s weapons and arguments—the ones that have divine power to demolish strongholds (2 Corinthians 10). 

When you and I are most thinking “make them pay,” and them is your fellow citizens or Christians, then you ought to be most circumspect about the state of your own heart. And by circumspect I mean immensely mournful. We ought to refuse the narratives we are swimming in, the ones that tell us to hate people who live next to us—or be afraid of them. We ought to refuse anything that divides us in our church bodies. We ought to test all things in light of the Word, whether Donald Trump, Joe Biden, CNN, Fox News, ABC, or NBC, says it. 

Christian Hope: The Destruction of Disorder and the Kingdom that Can’t Be Shaken.  

We live in a culture that has lost its grip on reality. We (like so many Christians through history) live where people have lost a grip on morality. We live amidst people that love violence, tribes, and getting their way. That’s the culture we live in. This is a culture that, a few days before the riots at the Capitol, started the newest session of congress by praying to a made-up amalgamation of a god that was somehow Brahma, monotheistic, and known by many other names all at the same time. We can be certain of two things: that isn’t the real God, and when we follow gods that are not God those gods lead us to chaos. Amen and Awoman.

However, Christian, you have a God who rules. Period. He rules over all. He sends nations high and brings them low. He breaks them with bars of iron and turns the hearts of kings [and presidents] how He pleases. While our leaders try to build the Babel higher and higher, God just laughs at them more and more. 

Even more, that God sent His son into the world, and gave that Son the nations as His inheritance. Not just individuals from the nations, but the nations themselves. That Son overcame all things by His death, burial, and resurrection. That Son is the Word, the eternal revelation of the true God’s inexhaustible righteousness, holiness, love, and truth. That Son sits enthroned above all things right now, and every enemy is, right now, being swept under His feet because they aren’t even worthy to be His footstool. 

That Son announced the arrival of His kingdom over 2,000 years ago, and it certainly hasn’t gotten lost in the mean time. That kingdom overcomes evil, lawlessness, and sin. That kingdom is each and every human’s only hope to be saved from the confounding, damning, and self-murdering power of sin. That kingdom comes with the glorious news that we aren’t grafted into it by virtue of having every right opinion, overcoming things on our own, or being righteous on our own. We are placed into it by the free, no-strings-attached grace of God, which breaks the lawlessness in our own hearts and gives us true freedom by the power of Jesus Christ through His work on the cross.

That Son is the only hope of the World. He is the only hope from the tyranny and hellish, deluding power of sin. Run to Him. He stands ready to forgive and receive. Even the worst of us.

That Son’s kingdom has come and is coming. It is working its way through this world like yeast in dough. It is coming in such a manner that Jesus will return and deliver that self-same kingdom to His Father. 

That kingdom is coming to this world. The world I am typing on and you are reading on. The hope of Christianity is not escaping sin or this world—our hope is a kingdom that overcomes and abolishes sin and this present darkness. We have an assurance of overcoming victory, not the dream of a near-escape. 

Your King rules with a rod of iron. It breaks the nations, and it overcomes. It will overcome because our God can do nothing but overcome. Even in the cross He overcomes.

So believe in this King—and believe in this Kingdom. 

‘Why do the nations rage, And the people plot a vain thing? 
The kings of the earth set themselves, And the rulers take counsel together, Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, 
“Let us break Their bonds in pieces And cast away
Their cords from us.” 

He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; The Lord shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, 
And distress them in His deep displeasure: 
“Yet I have set My King On My holy hill of Zion.” 
“I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, 
Today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You The nations for Your inheritance, And the ends of the earth for Your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’”

Now therefore, be wise, O kings; Be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, And rejoice with trembling. 
Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, And you perish in the way, 
When His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.’

Psalm 2

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