Tag: worldliness

An Unconscious Conspiracy

“Confronted with this kind of violent reaction when they seek to mold their congregations into instruments of evangelism and social healing, pastors gradually settle down and lose interest in being change agents in the church. An unconscious conspiracy arises between their flesh and that of their congregations. It becomes tacitly understood that the laity will give pastors special honor in the exercise of their gifts, if the pastors will agree to leave their congregations’ pre-Christian lifestyles undisturbed and do not call for the mobilization of lay gifts for the work of the kingdom. Pastors are permitted to become ministerial superstars. Their pride is fed as their congregations are permitted to remain herds of sheep in which each has cheerfully turned to his own way.”

—Richard F. Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1979), 207. Quoted in Collin Hansen, Timothy Keller: His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2023), 97.

But the Morrow Comes

“The arithmetic of your short-lived days may on Sabbath make the clearest impression upon your understanding—and from his fancied bed of death, may the preacher cause a voice to descend in rebuke and mockery on all the pursuits of earthliness, and as he pictures before you the fleeting generations of men, with the absorbing grave, whither all the joys and interests of the world hasten to their sure and speedy oblivion, may you, touched and solemnized by his argument, feel for a moment as if on the eve of a practical and permanent emancipation from a scene of so much vanity.

But the morrow comes, and the business of the world and the objects of the world and the moving forces of the world come along with it—and the machinery of the heart, in virtue of which it must have something to grasp or something to adhere to, brings it under a kind of moral necessity to be actuated just as before. In utter repulsion toward a state so unkindly as that of being frozen out both of delight and of desire does it feel all the warmth and the urgency of its wonted solicitations—nor in the habit and history of the whole man can we detect so much as one symptom of the new creature—so that the church, instead of being to him a school of obedience, has been a mere sauntering place for the luxury of a passing and theatrical emotion; and the preaching that is mighty to compel the attendance of multitudes, that is mighty to still and to solemnize the hearers into a kind of tragic sensibility, that is mighty in the play of variety and vigor that it can keep up around the imagination, is not might to the pulling down of strongholds.”

—Thomas Chalmers, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 45-46. Chalmers said this while preaching on 1 John 2:15.

Desolate and Unpeopled Vacancy

“A man will no more consent to the misery of being without an object because that object is a trifle, or of being without a pursuit because that pursuit terminates in some frivolous or fugitive acquirement, than he will voluntarily submit himself to the torture because that torture is to be of short duration. If to be without desire and without exertion altogether is a state of violence and discomfort, then the present desire, with its correspondent train of exertion, is to not to be got rid of simply by destroying it. It must be by substituting another desire and another line or habit of exertion in its place—and the most effectual way of withdrawing the mind from one object is not by turning it away upon desolate and unpeopled vacancy, but by presenting to its regards another object still more alluring.”

—Thomas Chalmers, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 33-34. Chalmers said this while preaching on 1 John 2:15.

The World Holds Us In Its Thrall

“Still, it is not enough to recognize that life is short and fleeting, that our course will soon be done and that therefore we need not faint. We must also look to the hope to which we are called. Why? The reason we are not keen to dedicate ourselves to God is that we see no benefit for ourselves, no tangible gain. If only God were there to cheer us on! Now God does not wait for us to serve him first before he blesses us. Nevertheless he does not want to make life in this world so easy for us that we risk falling asleep. We remember that he said that those who are interested only in present things have already received their reward (Matt. 6:2, 5, 16). Our Lord on the other hand bids us fix our sights on the kingdom of heaven. This life is full of many anxieties and troubles which surround us on every side. All the sufferings which we endure are so many jabs of the spur by which God goads us, in order to draw us to himself, to turn our thoughts to heavenly things and to withdraw us from this world.

That is why Paul speaks particularly here of hope. What he suggests is that we should not be surprised if men are more than cool when it comes to serving God. That is because their eyes are fixed on earthly things which are their sole concern. Instead of contemplating the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ we turn away; the world holds us in its thrall, dazzles us with its seductions and robs us of all sense. Let us learn, then, that the one true way to serve God is to pass swiftly through this world, conscious that God has placed us on earth on the condition that we journey as strangers and do not make our nest here. And although he may grant us periods of rest we must continue on, as we look to him and to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is certain that until we reach that goal, however grand we may appear to be, all within us is simply vanity.

The first rule of a well-ordered life is to understand that God has not arranged for us to lodge here forever; he wants us to reach out to him in the certainty of the blessed coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thus to the word ‘hope’ Paul adds ‘the appearance of the glory of the great God and of our Saviour Jesus Christ’. Paul appears to say: ‘My friend, we are not meant to aim as if by chance at the kingdom of heaven, in the vague hope that we may reach it. We know who has made this promise to us. God is trustworthy, so let us rely on his faithfulness’.”

—John Calvin, trans. Robert White, Sermons on Titus (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2015), 212-213. Calvin said this while preaching on Titus 2:11-14.