I, like so many other Christian #nevertrump-ers, am switching my oath to not support Trump quicker than Ted Cruz changed his promise to support Trump.  Just as Cruz couldn’t have foreseen Trump accusing his father of assassinating JFK, I couldn’t have foreseen the turn of events of the last three months.  Who would have known that FOX NEWS, the only unbiased source of news, would support Trump as soon as he became the clear winner of the Republican nomination?  There can be NO other explanation (don’t even try) than, we all judged him too soon, based on public behavior over the last thirty years.  Without further ado, here are ten reasons that I will #neversaynevertrump :

1.  We Need Fresh Blood

          We need fresh blood in the Republican Party.  Trump’s blood is so fresh that a vile of it is known to be the antidote to Vampirism.  Trump’s blood is so fresh that we have seen him continually learn what it means to be a conservative during this primary season.  At first, all he knew was that the President’s birth certificate was fake and that we need a wall, but he is a quick study.  Whenever he has learned an essential element to getting Republican votes, he has seen the error of his ways.

2.  Trump is a Good Man

          Scratch that, he’s the best man who ever lived.  We know that He would not have slipped up and got caught in Vietnam like John McCain, that’s for losers.  He is so great, that he can say horrible things about people, but they still confess that he is a good man.  I thought Ben Carson was a good man, but Trump thinks Carson is like a pedophile (and Trump knows a lot about insest) or at least a liar, and Ben still supports him.

(If you have not yet realized this is satire, please return to the top and start over.)

3.  Trump is a Christian

          Donald Trump is the only Christian I have ever known that has never had to ask God for forgiveness.  You may doubt his orthodoxy, but there is no other explanation for why he is always pandering for the votes of Christians.  Trump says he is a Christian, and a Christian would never ask Christians to vote for him just because he wants their votes.

4.  Don’t Forget the Game Plan

          Donald Trump is a Republican. Christians must vote Republican. That’s the game plan, according to the pamphlet How to Disciple the Nations published by the Republican National Committee.  We know that the only way to end abortion is to vote Republican in every national race.  Look how much we have gotten by never deviating from this game plan.  Our nation has been brought so far in the direction of righteousness in the last thirty years.  The game plan works!  (That is, if you don’t count abortion and gay marriage.)

          Face it, abortion will only be ended by the federal government.  When the Supreme Court tells governors not to keep babies from being murdered, God surely wants governor’s to obey them.  Every governor has to allow babies to be murdered until enough Supreme Court justices drop dead.  If we keep to the game plan for another century, maybe abortion will end!  It’s not like a state can disobey Congress!  That’s just crazy!  

5.  A Democrat President Will Destroy the Nation Within Four Years

          I know, some of you are getting tired of that doom and gloom.  Sure, it didn’t happen in 92, or 96, or 2008, or 2012.  But we will certainly see the absolute destruction of our nation, nay, the world, if one more Democrat becomes President.  We cannot think longer term than four years.  Doom is nigh.  The Republican party must know they can count on our vote as long as they are slightly to the right of the Democrats. We don’t want them to actually have to earn our votes and put forth righteous policy, that would be arrogant of us.  Did I mention doom is nigh?

          Remember, this is a two party system (it’s somewhere in the Constitution, right?).  And those two parties have never changed (right?).  Maybe if there was a viable third party we would vote for them, but nobody is going to vote for those losers when both the nominees for the major parties are so competent.  Sure, if we lost this election by throwing support behind, for instance, the Constitution Party, we might kick the Republican Party out of the picture in four years, but by then Hillary Clinton will have completely destroyed our nation.

6.  Trump Has the Only Thing you Need for Diplomacy

          How should our nation deal with other sovereign nations?  The answer is obvious:  hostility, strength, and speaking off the cuff.  Why has The President and the Secretary of State done so terribly?  It’s not because of their politically correct, Christ-defying ideology of world unity mixed with a self-serving desire to meddle in smaller nations.  They have done a bad job, for not being strong and hostile and for thinking too much before they tell other nations where they can go!  We need a President who has a politically incorrect, Christ-defying ideology of world unity and a self-serving desire to meddle in smaller nations.

7.  Trump will keep his promises

          We know Donald Trump will keep his promises.  If you’re unsure, ask FOX NEWS.  Don’t ask his first two wives, because keeping promises to the one person to whom you should be most faithful has no correlation to political promises.  Don’t ask any of his creditors, because four bankruptcies have no correlation to what he will say to get votes either.

8.  We need a President Who Will Calm Racial Tension

          There has been a lot of racial tension in this nation.  Why?  Not because we need justice system reforms or because our country needs Jesus. There are racial tensions because Barrack Obama too quickly sides with minorities during police violence.  We need a president who too quickly sides with police during police violence.  That will end racial animosity.

9.  He will put America First

          America is Trump’s first priority, right after his own fame and power.  That is so different from Secretary Clinton.  She only cares about her own fame and power.

10.  An Unpredictable Evil is Always Better than a Predictable One

          I would much prefer to pet the dog that might rip the flesh from my bones than the one that will certainly pee on my leg.  Trump might evolve back into a New York liberal or a reality television character in the White House, but maybe He will accidentally be the greatest president in history.  On the other hand, can we really afford a third Clinton Presidency?  Remember, doom is nigh!

—–“Baptism is only a ceremony; it cannot do anything.” This assumption is so widespread that it has almost become a pillar of evangelical orthodoxy. I grew up hearing assertions like this made at every baptism ceremony. I and my fellow Baptists took the rite very seriously, but I would often feel like no one, including the preacher, was sure exactly why. Usually he could only explain the importance of baptism by saying, “Jesus said to be baptized, so this should be one of your first acts of obedience.” That’s fine, but one doesn’t have to soak in the Scriptures long to know that God is not arbitrary even if He is sometimes mysterious. So, whatever the reason was that Jesus commanded baptism, we must have missed it.

“If You Want to be Saved, Just Say These Words After Me. . .”
—–We are so confident that human ritual can only be symbolic, but for evangelicals there is one ritual through which God is pleased to work: the sinner’s prayer/altar call. (We’ll call it “the Prayer” from here on out.) We created this ritual. It does not exist in the New Testament. Nowhere does an apostle tell a crowd, “All you need to do is say this prayer after me,” or, “If you will only ask Jesus into your heart.” I am not sure when we invented it, but I am confident it was invented (evolved probably) because it is a lot less ritualistic of a ritual than baptism. The sinner’s prayer is a lot less complicated, more immediate, and completely private.
—–When you think about it, the Prayer is still a ceremony. We want to take man out of the equation. As Doug Wilson likes to say, we want God to save people via lightning bolt. We definitely don’t want a hired minister to have to get involved in the equation, except to preach the gospel. At the end of the day, we’re still telling people that God will forgive, renew, sanctify, cleanse, and adopt them when they do… something.

Repent and Do What? To Get What?
—–The trouble comes when we start paying close attention to the way we do things compared to the Apostles. After Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) the crowd asked, “Brothers, what shall we do?” Peter did not tell them to bow their heads or to walk an isle to pray with him. “Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’” Most evangelicals wouldn’t be caught dead saying Peter’s words in public, but they wouldn’t think twice about telling people to say The Prayer to receive forgiveness and the Holy Spirit. We would say that people became Christians after walking the isle, but Luke goes on to say, “So those who received [Peter’s] word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.”
—–This is just one of many texts that show how we have replaced baptism with the Prayer. We say, “If he understands the gospel and wants to become a disciple have him pray and ask Jesus to forgive him,” but Jesus said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). We say, “If you just said that prayer, then the old you is dead. You have begun your new life in Christ,” but Paul said, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death” (Romans 6:3). We say, “All you have to do is ask Jesus into your heart,” but Paul said, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27). We say, “All you need to do to be saved is say this simple prayer,” but Peter said, “Baptism. . . now saves you” (1 Peter 3:21).

“If You Want God to Cleanse You from Sin, Just Ask Him.”
—–But how can Peter say, “Baptism now saves you”? The Christian life is an act of faith in Christ from first to last. All we really need to do to be saved is to ask God to forgive us based on Christ’s death and resurrection. When we talk about people being saved by saying the Prayer, we are doing the right thing in the wrong language. We have been asking in English (or whatever our native tongue may be), but God said to ask in the language of ceremony: baptism in particular.
—–Listen to 1 Peter 3:21, “Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” First, let me say that Peter does not here say, “Baptism now saves you, but I don’t really mean that.” I have heard many preachers go to great lengths to argue that point. Peter contrasts Old Covenant baptism with New Covenant baptism. In the Old Covenant there were washings which removed dirt and bacteria from the body so that men could approach an earthly sanctuary. New Covenant baptism on the other hand, is “an appeal to God for a good conscience” so that men and women can approach God’s thrown room in heaven.
—–When you are baptized you ask God to cleanse you from sin through Christ’s death and resurrection. When genuine faith is present, God truly does forgive and save people through the ceremony. This is the way most of us have been thinking about the Prayer. The power is in the work of the Spirit, and not everyone who says the Prayer or receives baptism has or will continue in faith. But for those with genuine faith, God washes them in the blood of Christ invisibly and Spiritually as the water washes them for everyone to see.
—–Thankfully, even though many of us have been speaking the wrong language for a few centuries, God is multilingual. Just because God has promised to work through one ceremony, doesn’t mean that His hands are tied to always work there (as when faith is not present) or not to work anywhere else. Even with all of our modern confusion on how to begin the Christian life, I doubt many persevere in the faith who are not eventually baptized. The Westminster Confession of Faith acknowledges both that God works in baptism and that occasionally His working is not at the moment of baptism, “The efficacy of Baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered; yet, notwithstanding, by the right use of this ordinance, the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited, and conferred, by the Holy Ghost” (WCF 28.6).

The Faith of Our Fathers
—–Here’s the point of what I’m trying to say: if we applied all that we say about the Sinner’s Prayer to baptism, we would be finally able to preach and communicate the way the apostles did. This wouldn’t require a huge theological transition, just the “old switcheroo.” Just take what you have thought about the Prayer ritual and apply it to the true ritual of entry into the New Covenant. Some will immediately dismiss the suggestion that anything happens in baptism as Roman Catholic. I would say it is apostolic.
—–Aside from that, the reformers were not afraid to speak of God acting through the ritual of baptism. Martin Luther defended the position that baptism was more than an empty symbol in his larger catechism,

If hitherto people could consider it a great thing when the Pope with his letters and bulls dispensed indulgences and confirmed altars and churches, solely because of the letters and seals, we ought to esteem Baptism much more highly and more precious, because God has commanded it, and, besides, it is performed in His name. . . . For to be baptized in the name of God is to be baptized not by men, but by God Himself.

Calvin in his commentary on Titus 3:5 was not afraid to speak of God working in baptism,

Now the Apostles are wont to draw an argument from the Sacraments, to prove that which is there exhibited under a figure [symbolism of baptism], because it ought to be held by believers as a settled principle, that God does not sport with us by unmeaning figures [empty symbols], but inwardly accomplishes by his power what he exhibits by the outward sign; and therefore, baptism is fitly and truly said to be “the washing of regeneration.”

Using Baptism Rightly
—–Aside from replacing God’s ceremonies with our own, there is something else that troubles me about the Prayer. We have come to read take “repent and believe” as a synonym for “say the Sinner’s Prayer.” We read a passage like Mark 1:15, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” as saying “The kingdom of God is at hand; say the sinner’s prayer.” We see the words “repent and believe” and think we covered that twenty years ago when we “got saved.” God wants us to repent and believe every day. We have preachers saying idiotic things like, “If you don’t know the time and the place where you were saved, you need to get right with God.” They seem to think we could spend fifty years loving, believing, and following Jesus, then die and have Jesus send us to hell on a technicality that we started off wrong.
—–At the same time, most preachers are afraid folks will use baptism incorrectly the same way they have been using the prayer incorrectly: as false assurance of salvation. If it is bad to use the right ceremony wrongly, it is even worse to use the wrong ceremony wrongly. The beginning of the Christian life is the beginning for a reason. We should never treat it like the end. We begin the Christian life so that we can repent and believe for the rest of our lives.
—–Baptism tells us what Christ has done for and in us so that we can go on from there in faith and repentance. This is exactly how Paul uses the ceremony,

Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. . . . In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness (Romans 6:3-14).

Baptism draws our attention to Christ and tells us how we should continue to live.

Salvation by Works!?
—–Now the huge criticism that will be laid against this position is that any sort of baptismal efficacy is salvation by works. There seems to be three reasons for this misconception. First, people wrongly categorize baptism as man’s work because it involves people doing things. That criticism works just as well against praying the Prayer. Don’t say that God cannot forgive through one ritual, when you have been accepting that He will work through another ritual, even one that we made up!
—–Secondly, Paul connects circumcision with salvation by works in Galatians. Most of us, evangelicals, have been wrongly taught that this connection is based on circumcision being something man does. Rather, when gentile Christians received Jewish circumcision to improve their status with God the ritual actually placed gentile converts into a certain relationship with the law: being required to keep it apart from Christ. “I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law” (Galatians 5:3). Paul never says baptism obliges one to keep the whole law. In fact, Paul says that baptism is a ritual that had already placed the Galatians in a relationship with Christ. “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Galatians 3:26,7). Circumcision commits one to the law upon pain of death, but baptism commits one to Christ.
—–Thirdly, we have some vague notion that Roman Catholics believe God is at work in baptism and a lot of them are confused about salvation by works. There are other doctrines that cause trouble for Catholics; there is no reason to place the blame on baptism. Also, if you formed all your doctrines by doing the opposite of the Roman Catholics, you would definitely end up in hell. You don’t want to believe the opposite of the incarnation, the substitutionary atonement, or the return of Christ to judge and transform the world.

What About the Thief on the Cross?
—–There are some groups that think pretty woodenly about how God works in baptism, the nearly universal response to them is, “What about the thief on the cross? He was saved without being baptized.” This criticism is the right response. God can work how He wants. That man didn’t even say the sinner’s prayer. He got Jesus back and then asked Jesus to return the favor. Jesus said He would.
—–We shouldn’t let exceptions keep us from believing God when He promises to act in a certain way. Sometimes we are like Naaman (2 Kings 5), who wanted God to heal him of leprosy and then thought it was too absurd that all God wanted him to do was take a bath. Thankfully, Naaman had a believing servant who rebuked him, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!”
—–I am certain that the thief on the cross would have obeyed if given the chance to be baptized. I am not worried about straightening out anyone’s conversion story to align with the Bible, as long as they are trusting Christ and fighting sin today. I would have a hard time treating anyone as a Christian who refuses baptism, just because they don’t want to be ceremonial. That’s pretty high-handed. In that case, I would want to be like Naaman’s servant and rebuke their pride and unbelief.

Do you Dare to Talk Like an Apostle?
—–If we are going to follow the example of Christ’s apostles, then we should be inviting folks to get baptized (who have not previously been baptized) after gospel presentations. On a personal level we should be inviting them to church to get baptized. Let them come down and get washed (dip em, douse em, or sprinkle em) in the name of the Trinity. Then teach them how to be Christians in all of life, trusting Jesus in everything they do. If we don’t teach them to stop with baptism, baptism will be a great start to the Christian life.
—–Another way we will be apostolic is not to spend all our time preaching on the beginning of the Christian life, whether it be the Prayer or baptism. If you are convinced about what I am saying about baptism, don’t become obsessed with it. The author of Hebrews gives evangelicals a shocking warning about this sort of focus,

Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.

The terrifying thing about this passage is that so many preachers spend every Sunday preaching about washings, repentance, and faith, but never move on to how the gospel transforms all of life. The author of Hebrews says that not maturing in the faith leads to falling away from the faith. So whatever you decide about the beginning of the Christian life, we must be learning to live every day in the grace of Jesus Christ.

The confession, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” is not the same as saying, “God is sovereign over the world.” Before Jesus ascended to the thrown that He said, “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18). He did not humble Himself and die and rise again to receive an authority which He already had by virtue of His deity.

When we say, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” we confess that what God said in Psalm 2 has come true, “I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill” (v.6). God says to this King, “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You will rule them with an iron scepter; you will dash them to pieces like pottery”(v.8,9).

Saying, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” is akin to saying Obama is President, but, of course, completely different in terms of magnitude. I tell my son, “Jesus is king of the whole world.” That is what the confession means. Jesus (Yahweh saves, God the Son in the flesh) Christ (The Messiah–Prophet, Priest, and King–of God’s people) is Lord (the man who rules over the all nations). The One who loves us, died for us, and cleanses us–our Brother–is the one who rules the world.

That is why we can be confident no matter who the ruler of any particular nation is, because they are all on our turf, our inheritance.

In part 2, I addressed how being truly pro-life means treating God’s gift of children as mercy rather than embracing the curse of an unfruitful womb.

“SHE WILL BE SAVED THROUGH CHILDBEARING”

Many evangelicals assume, due to an unbiblical view of salvation, that Christianity is not concerned with earthy things like bearing children. The apostle Paul says, however, “She will be saved through childbearing–if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control” 1 Timothy 2:15. That statement is prone to all sorts of misunderstanding. Paul is referring to God’s promise to Eve, mentioned above, that her offspring would crush Satan’s head. Her redemption came through childbearing ultimately when Christ crushed Satan’s head on the cross to give the Church forgiveness and victory over the devil (Rom 16:20). But, Paul says, “If they continue in faith and love and holiness.” So, he is pointing believing women back to the pattern God gave to Eve. They are not saved because they have babies. But they are saved as they embrace their God-given roles as mothers as an outworking of their faith and love and holiness.

Childbirth, additionally, is still oriented toward future salvation. As I said earlier, it is only reasonable for unbelievers to hate fruitful Christians because it is a sign they are losing the war. Christians should love fruitfulness for the opposite reason: when combined with faithful parenting, childbearing is one of two weapons for spreading the kingdom throughout the earth (the other being evangelism). Many of the New Covenant promises are towards fruitfulness or faithfulness of children. “And I will multiply on you man and beast, and they shall multiply and be fruitful. . . . And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. (Ezekiel 36:11, 27). All the promises of God are yes in Jesus Christ (2 Cor 1:20). The outworking of Christ becoming our curse for us is greater fruitfulness, in that we trust that our childbearing will not be frustrated by the tendency toward apostasy which characterized the Old Testament assembly of God. Rather we labor to train our children, believing that Christ will make our work fruitful through the Spirit.

So, imagine that John Doe was raised a Buddhist, but was converted during college. He marries a good Christian woman, Loretta, whose parents were believers but not very faithful to Christ. One important aspect of their choosing each other was their common desire to raise up the next generation of believers. With that goal in mind they each work hard to raise their children in the Word and to model repentance and forgiveness to them. For decades they labor in faith and weep and pray as children struggle with the temptations of the world. The fruit of their labor is seven children, six of whom have more or less healthy relationships with the Lord, and one they are still praying for. They look back on where they came from and they see God’s mercy in saving them and using them to bring so many faithful Christians into the world. They see death in their past, and life in their future in the form of (Lord willing) hundreds of great-great-grandchildren who are faithful to Christ.

DREAMING BIG

Having just spent a considerable amount of time discussing the calling of Christian women, let me address men. Men, listen, read the Scriptures and learn to value fruitfulness as they do. Encourage your wives to value fruitfulness. Work hard and live at a lower standard of living so that your wife can use her strongest years in her calling as a mother. The primary problem in the church is men who do not value what God values. They consider the “blessings” of a quiet, uncrowded, restful, richly-decorated house to be more valuable then the actual blessings of children. They would rather their wives “man up” and get to work earning money, than to waste time pursuing Eve’s calling to be life-giver (what the name Eve means).

In a hundred years their posh houses will be falling apart, or, if well-made, inhabited by some very fruitful Muslims. Their handful of descendents will wonder what they can do to have a greater impact in their communities. As their churches age and die, they have fewer and fewer distractions in worship. No more babies cry, children do not have to be taken to the restroom, and there are no teenagers to reprimanded for texting their friends. The elderly congregation hires a rock band and a pastor with spiky hair in a desperate and blatant attempt to lure young people from the church down the road.

On the other hand, imagine the great-great-great-great-grandchildren of the Duggar family in a century. Perhaps, they have grown exponentially to number in the millions. (Do the math.) If so, they have a powerful influence on a small city. They are the leaven, leavening the whole lump. Mercy, love for life, and hard work have replaced a culture of despair and fear. Even those who hate them, cannot argue with their numbers. Like the OT church in Egypt, they could be set to take over an entire nation in three hundred more years.

That can happen when blessings are treated like blessings. We must learn not to dream of small, insignificant things. Rather we must consider the incomparable value of children—children who (if God is gracious) will never cease to live as worshipers of God forever and ever along with their innumerable children and grandchildren. We must make our first priority, outside of loving our wives, to raise a house-full of sons and daughters to love Jesus. We must look forward to family reunions—that we may not live to see—where great-great-great-grandchildren converge on an ancestral home every few years to sing hymns to the Lord, praising God that they exist because we did not despise His mercy.

In part 1, we saw how this fallen world deserves nothing but death and dead [barren] wombs, and that God is abundantly merciful in not only withholding judgment but also in giving life to our offspring. For that reason, abortion is a rejection of God’s mercy.

THOU SHALT DRESS COOL

Not only does understanding womb in this way strengthen the pro-life case, but it also expands what we should mean when we say, “pro-life.” You see, pro-life should not simply be anti-murder, for the Christian. One is not pro-life simply because he does not want people killing other people. One is pro-life when he embraces the life that God has mercifully provided in a fruitful womb.

I have to praise Catholics for having a much fuller understanding of how God’s mercy looks in history than most Protestants. I recently went to a Catholic wedding and was impressed that embracing that life was actually part of the wedding vows. And, really, it is impossible to immerse oneself in the Bible without changing one’s perspective on fruitfulness. One is constantly confronted with the yearning of God’s people for offspring and for statements like, “Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate” (Psalms 127:3-5).

Unfortunately, even among Christians, our culture turns things upside down and views fruitfulness as a curse. All one has to do is to bring up the Duggar family in a conversation. While I do not agree completely with their view of contraception, I see no room for criticizing people for doing exactly what God’s people are commanded to do. It is not surprising that unbelievers hate this; it means the Church is going to outnumber them. But when believers criticize the Duggars, it is like saying, “Those people are just way too honest. They value truth way too much.” These people are raising dozens of happy children to be faithful Christians, and all Evangelicals can say is, “Those kids dress weird.” When exactly did God command Christians to dress cool?

DASH THEM AGAINST THE ROCKS

Back to contraception, in my opinion it is potentially a blessing. (Although most forms of chemical contraception should not be used because many of them will make the uterus unable to sustain the egg if it happens to be fertilized, which sometimes happens, thus killing a human being.) I think there are times when wisdom needs to be used in family planning. Most importantly, because at some point pregnancy and labor may become detrimental to a woman’s health. Additionally, not all of us have the wealth or wisdom to properly raise nineteen kids like the Duggars. We still must have faith that God can provide much more than we expect, and we should definitely not let our desire for an early retirement make us reject the gift of children.

What is evil, however, is our culture’s contraceptive outlook on life. Our culture views children as a burden and, therefore, despises the mercy of God. Those who make their womb barren are choosing the curse. When God brings judgment on a people their fruitfulness as well as their offspring are destroyed. So abortion, for instance, is a self-inflicted judgment (a judgment we want others to avoid). When someone says, “God is going to judge this nation for killing the unborn,” the Biblical response is, “Yes, but the judgment has already started. What is greater judgment than your children being killed?” That sounds a little radical, but the Bible is radical. “O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed. . . . Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!” (Psalms 137:8-9). “Ephraim must lead his children out to slaughter. Give them, O LORD– what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts” (Hosea 9:13-14). When a person decides they are going to not have children, they are choosing to wipe their own name off the face of the earth.

American Christians, often out of ignorance, choose to err on the side of barrenness. They do not realize that when the Duggar’s say, “Children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward” they are not just quoting a Bible verse (Psalm 127:3). They are using shorthand for a truth that runs throughout the Scriptures, which takes too long to explain to those who do not have ears to hear.

In part 3, I will discuss what exactly that truth is that Christians who embrace fruitfulness understand.

A PLACE OF MERCY

When I was just out of high school, I heard a Christian pro-life advocate arguing against abortion on the radio. Interestingly, in order to illustrate the tragic irony of abortion, he pointed out that the Hebrew word for womb (racham) is derived from the word for mercy (râcham). The place that is supposed to be a place of mercy for a helpless child is a place where he can be brutally murdered at the consent of his mother. One can easily imagine how the Hebrew mind formed a link between the womb and mercy. When a person is deeply moved to compassion she feels it in her stomach (where the womb is, if I may be less than precise). The unborn child rests within the mercy of her mother, and all of us who have had a mother know that she always holds us there.

The more one studies the Scriptures (especially if you know Hebrew), the more one realizes that God loves puns (maybe that’s where our earthly fathers get it) and He loves mixed metaphors. For that reason, it would be short-sited to imagine that this is the only way that mercy and the womb are linked in the mind of God. A while back, as I was reading through Proverbs, I realized another link between the words. Proverbs 30:15-16 says, “Three things are never satisfied; four never say, ‘Enough’: Sheol, the barren womb, the land never satisfied with water, and the fire that never says, ‘Enough.’” What do all four of those things have in common? They are all four results of curse or judgment. Sheol = hell, that one’s obvious. A drought stricken land=cursed land (Deut 28:22). Similarly, the barren womb is also a sign of curse (Deut 28:18).

Now, that is not to say that everyone who is barren is cursed in particular by God (all you have to do is read the Bible and see how many of the women that God favored were barren). A person with a barren womb is, however, cursed in the same sense that all creation has been groaning under a curse since Adam’s rebellion (Rom 8:19-23). When God made mankind, He blessed them by making them fruitful (Gen 1:28). The world was not meant to have barren wombs. The result of Adam’s sin, however, was death to all mankind (Romans 5:12). Surprisingly, God did not kill Adam and Eve (physically) on the day they ate the fruit, as He indicated (Gen 2:17). More surprisingly, even in the midst of judging Adam and Eve, God promised life to them, “I will put enmity between you [the serpent] and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen 3:15). He not only was going to let them live for many more years, but He gave Eve a living womb to produce more children. Outside of the garden, Eve praised God, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD” (Gen 4:1).

That brings us back full circle. Because of the fall, barren wombs are what the world deserves, because we sinned in Adam. When God allowed Eve to be fruitful, it was mercy. So, that, it seems to me, is another connection between the Hebrew words. Every fruitful womb is a sign that God is merciful to mankind, providing life in the midst of sin.

MERCY DECAPITATED AND THROWN IN THE TRASH

Viewing the connection between racham (womb) and râcham (mercy), in that manner strengthens the pro-life case. Many times, we will say things like, “If a woman can choose to have sex she needs to accept the consequences and take care of the baby.” This is true enough, but I am afraid that sometimes people hear, “God has punished your sin by giving you a baby, and now you need to willingly take your punishment.” The reality is much different.

As Christians we know, “The wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23). We sin very often and God should strike us dead the first time we ever sin and every time since. So, when a couple of college students sin by having sex outside of marriage, God would be just to strike them dead immediately. Instead, He mercifully lets them live. What is more ridiculously gracious, is that sometimes He gives life to her womb. Instead of killing her, or simply letting her live, God gives her a son or daughter who is made in their (and His) image. That is mercy. Obviously, she has put herself in a position where God’s grace looks like punishment, but life is full of such contradictions. If she would only value that child, there is no telling what kind of work God might do in her life. Perhaps she might see that she had made an idol out of the freedom she had as a young person, and she would grow to love to give herself for others. Perhaps, God might open her eyes to see the glory of the Son of God given for sinners.

The horror of abortion, is that two people have received a token of God’s mercy toward them in the form of a baby. The young lady goes to a “clinic” to destroy God’s merciful gift. A doctor slices or boils in chemicals this gift and sucks him out with a vacuum.

Thankfully, many women repent and are forgiven after abortions. But can you imagine standing before the Lord, having thrown away His mercy? As much as I hate to do this kind of thing. . .

Picture a young man who pressured his girlfriend to have an abortion standing before the risen Lord at the resurrection of the unjust. The young man is on his knees, begging that Jesus would not send him to the lake of fire, “Lord, have mercy. Please do not throw me into that place of destruction and darkness.” Jesus says, “I have been merciful to you your whole life and you never responded. Not only that, but I mercifully gave you a daughter. I provided offspring for you, and you rejected my mercy. You went out of your way—taking off from work—to make sure that your girlfriend killed my mercy. Therefore, I will cast you into destruction, just as you payed to destroy that little one.” On the day of judgment, Christ will not be merciful to those who have been unmerciful toward an innocent child—a child who is herself a gift of mercy.

In part 2, I will address how being truly pro-life means treating God’s gift of children as mercy rather than embracing the curse of an unfruitful womb.

My firstborn son was born a few weeks ago, surprisingly early. This experience was not quite what I expected. Everyone talked about how I would experience new categories of emotions that I had not known before. That was true enough. Meeting him for the first time was amazing, but soon it became hard to believe how he had actually come into the world or that he was ours. It almost felt the same as before he was here, but someone had handed us a baby to feed. I loved him, but it was not an overwhelming feeling. That feeling intensified and I expect it to keep intensifying.

I did not think that having a child would be that type of change, however. You see, there are certain changes that you grow into. One day someone says that you are husband and wife, and then the next day you are really happy, but things feel strangely normal. Then several months down the road you start to learn what it means to be married. Fifty years go by (I imagine) and then the change that happened at the altar has grown so big that it could push the earth off its axis if those bonds were ever to break. I did not think I would have to grow into being a parent.

That is the way things are, however, and it amazes me. My boy fit in just fine, even though he completely interrupted our schedules. It is slowly sinking in that there is another person in the room who is more than just an extension of ourselves.

Today I suddenly realized something else. Time makes the change grow, but so do trials. I really felt like a husband when our actual income did not match our expectations. I know that people who go through a rough few years in their marriage, come out the other side (assuming they persevere) really thankful for each other. When it looked like their might be serious issues with “Lil’ Bit,” we felt the change that had taken place a few days earlier and it was all of a sudden a crushing weight.

Then it hit me. “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:2,3). I had realized for a while that being a Christian was probably the slow-growing type of change too. The New Testament has so much to say about perseverance (and many Evangelical churches miss that emphasis). A person’s faith is proven to be genuine if it lasts, if they persevere. They do not simply have to hold onto Christ for a long time, however, but they must endure trials along the way. That faith deepens, their joy increases, and their loyalty becomes more unshakable as they walk through the shadow of death. That is why older Christians have so much wisdom. Even if their theology is deficient (Lord be merciful to me), they have suffered with Christ and they have lived with him for a long time. The change that happened at their conversion has grown and the savior is real to them in a way that cannot be comprehended by a person as young as I.

When I was even younger and was operating under a paradigm that drove me to frequent doubts about my salvation, I always wondered why one of the marks of a believer was the presence of the Spirit inside them. I could pretend to be Pentecostal and imagine I was hearing something if I got really quiet, but I knew that would be a lot of jive. “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom 8:16). I asked myself over and over, “Where is the Spirit? If He is supposed to bear witness with my Spirit then I am in trouble, because I feel pretty much like I am alone in here.”

Dr. Russell Moore has some helpful things to say about this verse in Adopted for Life. He points out that the witness that His Spirit communicates to ours occurs as we persevere through trials (see 8:17). It communicates to us as we desperately cry to God, as infants, “Abba, help me,” (as in verse 15). So, the Spirit does communicate with ours over time. Our confidence grows as He gives us grace to persevere. But then trials come and we really feel that He is witnessing to us. So check it out, “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:3-5). Those old Christians really can feel their hearts overflowing with God’s love, because the presence of the Spirit has grown through time and trials.

This brings me to the issue of baptism. When I read the Scriptures, I have a hard time getting around the conclusion that baptism is the normative (although God is not bound) means of receiving the Holy Spirit. Just read the book of Acts; the apostles need the sign of tongues to let them know that different groups have been given the Holy Spirit in Christ, but otherwise they seem to expect the Spirit to be poured out just as surely as the water is poured out. And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).

This greatly conflicted with my experience of having a personal relationship with Christ when I was a teenager but not getting baptized until I was 18. I did not feel any different when I came out of the water, but I knew that the Holy Spirit had been struggling with me for years. So, how could I accept that I had received the Holy Spirit at a time when I had not felt Him (and 9 years after He had really started to make His presence known to me)?

I think I found the answer in the slow change. The experiences of the Holy Spirit convicting me of sin and turning me toward Christ were genuine, and I might have indeed received the Spirit when I was younger (as I said baptism is the normative way, not the exclusive way). The Bible, however, would tend to suggest that the Spirit was poured out upon me at my baptism. I could not feel it, because the change that my baptism brought about was still very small. That change has been growing and it will grow until I die. I do not have to fear trials because I know that I will only become more and more confident that the Spirit has been given to me.

Perhaps, why rebaptism is so widely practiced in various denominations is because of this slow change. Christians receive the Spirit, but they only really perceive Him through a later crisis experience. At that point, they believe they need to be Baptized again to demonstrate what has happened to them. Perhaps they think they have received the Spirit (and maybe they did), when they have only begun to notice something that has been going on since the time of their baptism. The change has grown, and they think they need to repeat the act that created the change in the first place.

We could think of this another way. I did not feel married for a long time (and the feeling is often not very overwhelming now). Let’s say that after five years of marriage I was really overwhelmed with how much I love my wife. I decide, “Man, I must really be married now, because I did not feel it before. I better have another wedding ceremony because I do not think the first one was genuine,” when all along that initial ceremony created the change that I am only now starting to perceive.

Or, we could live with my boy for a few months and then decide one day, “Gee wiz! We are parents,” (that actually will happen many times), “his birth must not have made us parents, because we really are now. Let’s have a ‘Parentage Ceremony’ to show that we are truly this boy’s parents.”

The problem with this prevailing mindset is that the Bible never gives an example of anyone being rebaptized. (Don’t anyone say, “But it was not really a baptism if you were not saved. You just got wet.” I can here you now, and that is silly. But for your sake, “The problem with baptism is that the Bible never gives an example of anyone going through a public washing ceremony twice in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”) The greater problem, however, is that too much of an emphasis on whether or not I began the faith correctly can place one’s soul in danger.

I am not making this stuff up, “Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings [baptismon], the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment” (Heb 6:1-2). The writer of Hebrews then says that we need to do this because those who reject Christ cannot be restored once enlightened (v.4-6). So, focusing on these elementary things rather than focusing on growing toward maturity puts one in danger of apostasy! Crazy, right?! There are churches (you know the ones I am talking about) that every week only talk about the things mentioned in this passage: repentance, faith, baptism, laying on of hands (maybe not this one) and the return of Christ. Whether or not someone in that congregation needs to “really” believe this time and get rebaptized, however, is the last thing he needs to worry about. He needs to just start living a life of repentance and push ahead toward maturity in faith and love.

This can be understood in terms of marriage as well. Imagine the pitiful marriage where both partners spend all their time worrying about how they can get back the excitement they had when they first started dating. (Unfortunately this is not hard to imagine because this seems to be the cultures prevailing attitude.) These people do not move on toward mature acts of service for each other, but to greater and greater discontentment. This discontentment leads to kinky sex and then to adultery and the breaking of the marriage covenant.

It can also be understood in terms of childbirth. Imagine the parents who are always focused on the initial joys of having a baby. (Unfortunately this is not hard to imagine because we see three-year-olds getting pushed around the mall in strollers and high schoolers being coddles like they are still in diapers all the time.) Where does that lead? It leads to adult children who are like a mouth full of toothaches. Parents have so focused on the beginning so that they never moved on to building upon that initial foundation.

So, what’s my conclusion. I do not really know. This is a whole lot of dots being connected for me. I hope it connects some dots for you. Most of all I hope you let the change that happened at your baptism grow. Persevere through temptation and trial until God’s love is your ever-present joy. Never stop fighting sin and trusting in Christ. And remember, the daily struggle of turning toward Christ matters 1,000 times more than you walking the isle one more time to try to settle it with Jesus.

Lord, have mercy on us.

Well, if you tried to access the web site within the past 24 hours, you might have gotten a “Page Not Found” error. I’m very sorry about that, but it took until this morning for me to figure out that the MySQL database was the culprit. One of the WordPress tables in the database had crashed and a manual repair command was the only way to fix it. Go figure! It took my hosting company way too long to tell me what was wrong, but I’m thankful that they figured it out and sent a link to me on how to repair it myself.

Now it is all back up and running smoothly!

And I thought it got hacked… but once again, I’m just a nobody in this global world of webs!  🙂