Revival

A Christian Response to the Attempted Assassination

Like many of you, I’ve been attentive to the news cycle since the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. The news is disconcerting and troubling in the midst of our increasingly divided political climate.

Like many of you, I gathered with my congregation at worship on Sunday July 14. One of our lay elders, Steve Robinson, preached a fantastic message about our hope in God in the midst of trial. Another of our lay elders, Vince Adams, prayed for our country, the former President, the current President, and the political atmosphere in our country. Worshiping with God’s people on Sunday was a reminder of the necessity of trusting in a sovereign God in the midst of turmoil and uncertainty.

As I’ve wrestled with the events of this past Saturday, here are a few observational reminders for us as Christ-followers.

We must align ourselves with truth and justice, not speculation and conspiracy theories. The memes, political commentary, and conspiracy theories are running rampant. From social media to mainstream media; from podcasts to water cooler conversations, opinions, theories, and speculations are prevalent. I’ve had some of these conversations myself. We may never know all the details. Sixty years from now the information surrounding this assassination attempt may be just as convoluted as the information surrounding the JFK assassination. It is our nature to speculate, wonder, and attempt to figure out. These pursuits are not wrong in themselves. But as Christians, we are to pursue truth and justice, not foolish speculations and conspiratorial wonderings. Our cultural moment situated between mainstream media and social media is primed for conspiratorial and political divisiveness. When we inordinately focus on these speculations, we can be driven to fear and anxiety. Fear and anxiety drown out faith and peace in our lives. As a result, the attention of our hearts and minds must be rooted in the eternal Word of God and the truths that bring calmness and peace. God’s Word not only addresses the peace we need in this moment, but even more importantly points to eternity where God’s justice and truth will reign forever.

We must pursue loving-kindness and compassion for our neighbors, even those with whom we disagree politically. Paul wrote, “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another as Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:32). Jesus preached, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). The political division in our country is evident in our communities, on social media, and in many of our relational interactions. Too many people in our country view the other side of the political aisle as true enemies rather than political opponents. Too much vitriol and anger has been spewed through political rhetoric. Christian should not be part of the vitriolic speech and combative, enemy driven terminology. Yes, as Christians our values and morals are in conflict with prevailing culture. And, yes, we should participate in the political processes available to us to engage Christian morality in our culture . But we must remember that our kingdom is not of this world. We do not enter this conflict playing by the world’s rules or the standards of our culture. Our character and conduct must rise above the vitriol and political divisiveness of our land. Our demeanor must reflect that of our Savior and King who teaches us to live for eternal victory in the world to come, not political victories in the world of now.

We need a revival that stems from God’s work in our country and repentance in our hearts. We must lament, pray, and seek God’s face for ourselves and for our country. While we should be grateful the assassination attempt was unsuccessful, we should grieve for the family of Corey Comperatore as well as the shooter’s family. Pursuit of revival will mean personal and corporate repentance and prayer. Pursuit of revival will mean unapologetic, prophetic preaching from our pulpits against the sins of our land. Do not misunderstand. To love one another in compassion and to love and pray for our enemies is not to condone sinfulness or ignore the unrighteousness surrounding us. If you want to see Jesus’ example of prophetic preaching with lament for the sinfulness of his people, read Matthew 23. What this means for us as Christians is a proper balancing of political and revival perspective. The proposed solutions of political parties and candidates can only be partial solutions (if that) to the problems and issues in our land. The real solution, the ultimate need is not for our politics to get fixed, but for our hearts to repent and revival to attend our land. See God’s invitation in 2 Chronicles 7:14. May God bring to our land another Great Awakening where his people are found in lamentation and repentance and those far from God are found and rescued by the Good Shepherd.

We practice faith and confidence in God’s rule by gathering for worship regularly to declare our allegiance to Jesus . Our primary allegiance is to our King. The Kingdom of Jesus is now (the rule of Christ in the spread of the gospel through the works and words of his church) and future (the rule of Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords when he sets up his throne over heaven and earth). The reason our laments, our frustrations, our prayers, our concerns for each other, and our gospel works and words in the world have meaning in the broken world today is that they point to the coming King who will bring peace and perfection when he returns. The way we declare allegiance to Jesus today and prepare for the future is to worship Jesus now–regularly and consistently. Author and theologian N.T. Wright described the role of Christian worship as a declaration of allegiance to Christ and our positive affirmation of the kingdom of Christ (now and to come) as well as our act of protest against the prevailing wickedness in the world today:

All kingdom work is rooted in worship. Or, to put it the other way around, worshipping the God we see at work in Jesus is the most politically charged act we can ever perform. Christian worship declares that Jesus is Lord and that therefore, by strong implication, nobody else is. What’s more, it doesn’t just declare it as something to be believed, like the fact that the sun is hot or the sea wet. It commits the worshiper to allegiance, to following this Jesus, to being shaped and directed by him. Worship the God we see in Jesus orients our whole being, our imagination, our will, our hopes, and our fears away from the world where Mars, Mammon, and Aphrodite (violence, money, and sex) make absolute demands and punish anyone who resists. It orients us instead to a world in which love is stronger than death, the poor are promised the kingdom, and chastity (whether married or single) reflects the holiness and faithfulness of God himself. Acclaiming Jesus as a Lord plants a flag that supersedes the flags of the nations however ‘free’ or ‘democratic’ they may be. It challenges both the tyrants who think they are, in effect, divine and the ‘secular democracies’ that have effectively become, if not divine, at least ecclesial, that is, communities that are trying to do and be what the church was supposed to do and to be, but without recourse to the one who sustains the church’s life. Worship creates or should create, if it allowed to be truly itself—a community that marches to a different beat, that keeps in step with a different Lord.”
–N.T. Wright, Simply Jesus, 217.

May we gather weekly to do all the work of the mission by worshiping the Savior King to whom we belong. May we pursue revival in our preaching and our prayers. May we act with the compassion and loving-kindness of Jesus our Savior. May we live our lives seeking truth and justice.

Photo by Pedro Lima on Unsplash

Of Hurricanes, Catastrophes, and Diseases

I originally wrote this post a year ago reflecting on hurricanes and earthquakes, but its lessons are pertinent today.

As I post today, August 30, 2021, we are facing new catastrophes. Hurricane Ida has devastated the Louisiana coast. Our world is facing an international crisis in Afghanistan with the disintegration of the Afghan government, the takeover of the Taliban, and terrorist attacks. Our nation remains politically divided, and we are experiencing the Covid delta variant.

Some of you reading this are facing exhaustion and and frustration at your situation and the circumstances around us.

Questions arise: “Are we experiencing the judgment of God? Are we living in the last days? What might take place next? How should we respond?”

Let me offer some answers that I hope are biblical, theological, and practical.

Question: Are we experiencing the judgment of God? Answer: Yes. For millennia God has judged wickedness and depravity through supernatural, natural, and geopolitical means. God sent supernatural plagues on Egypt as judgment for their enslavement of his people. God sent a storm and a great fish after Jonah when the prophet ran from God’s command to preach in Nineveh. God send a locust plague on Israel as prophesied by the prophet Joel. And God used kings and armies all throughout biblical history to bring judgment upon his people and even the wicked nations around his people as a means of judgment. I believe we are experiencing the judgment of God for our wickedness. But we need to remember something about God’s judgments. They are mean to be restorative and redemptive before they are meant to be permanent. The reason God sent the prophets to Israel and Judah in the OT to warn them of coming judgment was to encourage his people to repent. Our experiences over the last couple of years may or may not be direct judgments of God on specific people for specific things. But most certainly they represent the general judgment of God on a world full of wickedness and rebellion. The bigger question we should ask ourselves is this: “Does God have our attention?”

Question: Are we living in the last days? Answer: Yes. Jesus taught in Matthew 24 that false messiahs, earthquakes, famines, wars, tribulation, and persecution are signs of the last days. We are seeing many of these things take place around us. There is a caveat. The first disciples experienced some of these things during their days on earth as well. Every generation since the ascension of Christ has believed that Christ might return during their lifetime. Many theologians over the 2000 year history of Christianity have identified different individuals as the Antichrist (from medieval popes to Adolf Hitler). The last days are the days of the church. Does this mean Jesus will return soon? In our generation? He certainly could. We should be ready. But he might not. There might be hundreds of years before he returns. Yet we must remember we are living in the last days. God’s judgments and chastisements are meant to turn our eyes to him. They are meant to shake us from our apathy and motivate us to preach the gospel and live the love of Christ to a hurting and sinful world.

Question: What might take place next? Answer: It would be foolish to speculate on details, but we can expect more judgments, trials, difficulties, tribulations, and persecutions. Many Christians over the ages have experienced persecution for their faith. For the most part, Christians in America have been spared persecution. That might be changing. With gubernatorial overreaches that have banned churches from meeting as well as the cancel culture, Christianity is being marginalized. We now live in a culture that celebrates depravity and idolizes immorality. All this is taking place in a nation whose foundations were built on the Judeo-Christian worldview. Our national rejection of God will most certainly spurn further judgments. Writing on this subject more than forty years ago, Francis Schaeffer articulated the judgment of God:

“Unlike Zeus whom men imagined hurling down great thunderbolts, God has turned away in judgment as our generation turned away from him, and he is allowing cause and effect to take its course in history.”

Francis Schaeffer, Death in the City.

Question: How should we respond? Answer: Repent, Pray, Preach the Gospel. It is fascinating sometimes how enamored we as God’s people are with the end times, tribulation, and judgment of God. Yet what should convict us deeply is the fact that the majority of God’s judgments and chastisements in the Bible are aimed not at the depraved nations, but at his rebellious people. Church, judgment begins with the house of God (1 Peter 4:17). Our circumstances should drive us to self-examination, confession, and repentance. We must reject any idols we discover and turn to Christ fully and completely. We must also pray. Our hope can only be found in the sovereign and living Lord. We connect with God through prayer. If we are not doing so already, we must pray for revival, awakening, and the salvation of sinners. Finally, we must be unashamed to preach and share the gospel. If nothing else, natural disasters, diseases, wars, and conflicts remind us how fragile and temporary life on this earth is. The only hope for people around us (family, neighbors, co-workers, friends, the nations) is the gospel. Church, it is time to wake up, hear the messages God is shouting to us, and proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.

Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash.