The Main Stream

Dear Children,

We are all faced in this life with a choice between living in the so-called “mainstream” or not living there. You’ll hear the word mainstream bandied about a lot in your life, and many of those times it will be used in a logical fallacy that argues in favor of something on the basis that “everyone else is doing it.” Some folks might even go so far as to suggest that something’s wrong with you, or that you’re otherwise a societal outcast because you have foregone the mainstream way of thinking. Unfortunately, this persuades most to just go with the flow; it is, after all, Man’s natural disposition to want to fit in.

The word mainstream is an analogy based on a river and its currents. In the middle, the currents are strong and that’s where the greatest mass of water exists and moves. But then you have the water that’s close to the edge that’s typically shallower and is generally flowing slower, or perhaps almost not flowing at all. A river also flows according to the course set by the happenstance of geography. It is based on the least amount of resistance headed downhill. As with an actual river, the flow of the collective, societal thought is also flowing with great force. I think, therefore, that the analogy is quite accurate. I would also say that I don’t want to be in the mainstream, nor do I think that we are called by God to be there. We can see this in one of my favorite passages, Romans 12:

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.  (Rom 12:2)

Paul could’ve just as easily used the word mainstream instead of world, because in reality, the main flow of this world is based on how the world thinks. Man’s thinking tends to be formed largely by external forces. We think about things according to a framework that’s installed by the collective ideologies of our culture via the institutions of education as well as the entertainment, music, and news media. That framework then becomes the reference point by which the individual is measured and judged by culture. In the final analysis, you will fit in if you conform your thinking to what culture collectively prescribes, and you won’t if you don’t.

Those who are in the middle of the river don’t feel the current. Their reference point is the water around them, which from their perspective, appears to not be moving at all. Rather, if there is any movement to be noticed, one would have to note the river’s banks.

The culture, in the same way, flows in unison. But God calls us to a different set of reference points. He calls us to touch the bottom of the river, to stand up, and to begin our walk to the edge. But as soon as we attempt to stand, the current around us becomes powerfully obvious.

God gives us this gem in the second chapter of 1st John that speaks of the mainstream, or the world that we can expect to exist around us:

Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.   (1 John 2:15-17)

John is giving us here a contrast between the mainstream and our walk with God. Those in the mainstream love the mainstream. They work hard to appeal to the thinking of the mainstream with all of its lusts, and they are proud of the fact that they “fit in.” They also don’t generally like those who don’t go with the flow, their cries for diversity be damned. If you walk out your life with your feet on solid ground, that is to say, not being “carried about by every wind of doctrine,” (Eph 4:14) you’ll surely experience the ire of this world. But for me, being hated by the so-called mainstream is comforting and reassuring. It’s when I find myself in agreement with this world’s thinking that I become afraid. And that is as it should be because Jesus warns us that the world first hated him and that it will hate those who belong to him just as much. He also warns us to be concerned “when all men speak well of [us].” (Luke 6:26).

The idea of being called out of this world’s way of thinking, as it turns out, is not a New Testament idea. We have God calling Noah out of the world and into an ark that separated him and his family from the mainstream. And again, we see God beginning the operation of redeeming His world by calling Abram out of the world as Abram knew it:

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you . . . ”  (Gen 12:1)

After God called Abram into his new life, he gave him a new name, Abraham, the progeny of which, many years later through providence, ended up in Egypt. And then God called His children out of Egypt as well. At last, at the end of the scriptures, we see again as we read in the apocalyptic writing of Revelation, God commanding “His people” to “come out” of what might well be considered the mainstream:

“For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality.”  I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues; for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. “  (Rev 18:3-6)

Remember that the mainstream flows downhill. It doesn’t war against its own flesh; on the contrary, it embraces and celebrates that flesh along with all of its desires. (Romans 1) Rather than waring against the flesh, they war against those who do “war against their flesh.” But Man cannot suppress his deep-down knowledge that all is not well. He knows that he’s in trouble. You’ll find many, therefore, who attempt to console themselves by adopting the parts of the Christian religion that they like. They find consolation by extracting verses from the Bible like the one that promises that God will remember our sins no more. (Heb 8:12) But this promise is clearly only true for those who are hidden in Christ. In the just-quoted passage from Revelations, it’s a downright terrifying thought that God “has remembered her iniquities.”

There’s one passage that is explicit and poignant when it comes to calling people out of the mainstream. Jesus is crystal-clear in this short passage that tells us that following Jesus is not mainstream, and those in the mainstream are not following Jesus:

Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.  (Matt 7:13-14)

Not only are we to make our way out of the mainstream, and its thought forms and lifestyles, we are to then walk along a narrow stream, so to speak. The water in this path doesn’t push you along with great force. It’s quiet and gentle, and there’s peace to be found in its midst.

I must say that you’re living in radical times. The battles being waged against God and His law are hot and often. The force of the mainstream, which was impeded for a time in the nation into which you were born, has breached the dam. There are tumultuous times ahead for those in its currents. But if you will be found in Christ, while you will not be spared trials and hardships, you will find your feet always planted on the solid rock that cannot be swept away by the raging torrents.

Dear children, we don’t know how strongly our feet are planted until the floods come. But I pray that you and your parent’s feet will be planted firmly. I pray it often that God would fix us fast to His Son in order that we would not be swept away. All around us, it’s happening. Every day, news comes of some church, or man of the church, who has lost his footing and has been swept up by the mainstream. So as the scriptures point out…

You will not be afraid of the terror by night,

Or of the arrow that flies by day;

Of the pestilence that stalks in darkness,

Or of the destruction that lays waste at noon.

A thousand may fall at your side

And ten thousand at your right hand,

But it shall not approach you. (Ps 91:5-7)

…so I pray for you.  May it be so dear LORD, may it be so.

Your father

Providence, God’s Forgotten Hand

Dear Children,

I was born into circumstances that would have the effect of shutting some doors for me for the rest of my life. There was no way, for example, that I was ever going to become the CEO of a large corporation. Nor was I ever going to get a doctorate degree at a university, or become a rockstar. Still, I was also born into circumstances that would open a lot of doors that were shut to most of the rest of the world. There was a lot of opportunity, for example, simply because I was born in America. I was raised by two parents who loved me, and who managed, perhaps because of the rural setting of my childhood, to keep the ugliness of this world at bay until I was older. I was blessed.

You, likewise, were born into a set of circumstances that has also opened and shut doors for you. We can say this with confidence because it’s a universal truth for every human being who ever lived. The question we must all consider as we contemplate all of this is, did these things happen by mere chance, or were all of the large and small particulars surrounding our lives God’s destiny for us? How you answer that question will depend on whether you, in your heart, serve a large or small God. Is God big, all-powerful, and able to protect us from bad things but chooses, for whatever reason, not to? Or does He desire for us a wonderful trouble-free life but just can’t seem to pull it off? The answers you give to questions like that will determine your outlook on life as well as your response to the circumstances, good or bad, that you will ever find yourself in.

If all that is is the result of happenstance, then not only are all things ultimately meaningless, but we can also safely claim that nothing is fair no matter how we define fairness. Some people just so happened to be born with a lot and most others just so happened to be born with not much of anything. Some of us end up somewhere in between with plenty to complain about as we ever compare ourselves to those who are better off. With this mentality, we are ready to assume our status as victims and join the hordes of Hell who are attempting to turn this fallen world into paradise by accomplishing an impossible task: to make the world fair. Please know, dear children, that such is a fool’s errand, and only fools endeavor to undertake it.

But then we consider a sovereign God in light of eternity, who, scripture teaches us, knit us together in our mother’s womb. There were no mistakes. Nothing ever “just happens.” Everything is according to God’s sovereign plan. God gave us our strengths, and He gave us our weaknesses. We were born into exactly the circumstances that He planned for us to be born into, and we were equipped exactly as we were supposed to be equipped. And with this, we navigate life, part of which will be horrible, and part to our liking. But everything changes for us when we consider God’s sovereignty because everything, good or bad, is ultimately God’s providence.

But that word, providence, seems to have morphed in more recent times. It now means that God is providing for us affluence, peace, and health. If God did not provide for us what we define as good things, then, by that definition of providence, He didn’t provide. And in even more recent years the word providence has seemed to almost disappear from our vocabulary altogether as our culture and church increasingly sees the world through the Secular Humanist lens they were trained to see them through by the state schoolhouse. I would that you be aware that this kind of thinking has not always been the way for Christians. In days of old, the farmer would plant his field and then pray for rain. If rain came, it was the providence of God and God was praised. If the rain didn’t come, it was the providence of God, and He was praised all the same. God either brought the rain, or He didn’t. But He was praised either way. We might also consider Joseph. By God’s providence, he was sold into slavery by his own brothers and then suffered. By providence, God did not send rain into Canaan and a famine ensued. By God’s providence, Joseph was in Egypt to give the family refuge from the famine. None of this was by random chance. God had a plan, and he provided for it. It’s how the entirety of scripture reads.

I, of course, am not talking about a false dilemma here. God’s providence does not relieve us of the responsibility to love our neighbor no matter what the conditions are that God’s providence brings our way. It’s not as if we are to believe our human existence is a battle between two beliefs, one being that powerful governments can bring about “fairness” based on a vague notion of that word, and the other being that we suppress fairness because it might disrupt our “white-privilege” advantages. That would be a myopic and Godless view. It is by God’s providence that men of all races have become slaves to governments and masters alike in all ages, and it is by His providence that they cast off the restraints of slavery and have enjoyed liberty. Such is the lesson of Man’s History. Without an understanding of that history, there can be no meaningful grasp of God’s providence. Wickedness and righteousness have ever been in bloody conflict in this world, and to take the Marxist course of conflating “fairness” with material equality, is to purposely ignore that very history, even the histories of Israel brought to us in the scriptures. The vast bloodletting of last century is a testament to this willing ignorance. May Man once again understand God’s providence in the context of eternity.

It’s my hope, therefore, that providence would be the lens through which you interpret your life, with the light of scripture shining on it. I can promise you that really bad things are going to happen to you during your short life in this land east of Eden. But I can also promise that not one small, bad thing will happen by mere random chance. No, all will be by God’s providence, and knowing that, along with God’s grace, you’ll endure the hardships, you’ll be thankful for every good thing, and praise will flow from you through it all.

Again, dear children, we must never forget who we are and were. We are “Man,” and Man is corrupt; we are now redeemed and our sins are hidden. Our only hope is in Jesus Christ, to be clothed in His righteousness, and for him to dwell in us. Nothing bad ever happened to a good man. So all good things that we receive as “Man” are ultimately unfair because we instead deserve God’s wrath. 

But if there ever was a thing more unfair than anything else in the history of Man, it is that God’s wrath was poured out on His innocent Son rather than us, which was also the providence of God. That I am not as smart, handsome, wealthy, personable, talented and good as I would like to be is nothing compared to the great love that was poured out for me on the cross. I am in no position to make claims of victimhood, come what may. I was redeemed in eternity before a holy and righteous God through His providence. When bad things happen I get to accept them therefore with praise. “I am redeemed! Whatever my lot, He has taught me to say, it is well with my soul.”

Now, dear children, I know that the things I’m saying conflict with our experience in these vessels of clay. From our early years, this flesh pounds its fists and shouts, “That’s not fair!” But as your mind is renewed, your salvation ought to become a great thing in your thinking. And for it to become great, you must realize what you were saved from, and that Jesus did not die for anyone who was worthy of His sacrifice. You’re not a victim. Good things do happen to bad people. Life is not fair, and we would do well to praise our God through Jesus that it’s not. That is, after all, Providence.

Your father

Surviving Spiritual Vertigo

Dear Children,

When I was training to be a pilot, one of the things I had to master was flying the airplane by sole reference to its instruments. Before I experienced the feeling of flying without being able to see the natural horizon, it was difficult for me to imagine how it would feel. To be unable to determine up from down seemed impossible. But I would learn that, when you’re inside of a cloud, with the way that the forces are exerted against your body, it really is impossible to know that very thing. When you first enter a cloud it’s easy because you are oriented. But that orientation is short-lived as you quickly become confused. Without flight instruments, death is almost a certainty once you’ve lost outside references. That’s why when you first begin flying by instruments, you find yourself staring at them intently; you are sorely aware that your very life depends on it.

To compound this intense fear, there is this phenomenon known as vertigo that can harass you. Vertigo is when your inner sensations begin to disagree with what your instruments are telling you. And to add even more to this fear is the mistrust of your instruments that was drilled into you during training. To head off an instrument failure causing you to get killed, you are taught a thing called cross-checking your instruments to ensure that they’re all telling you the same thing. When one fails they’ll begin to disagree with each other and you’ll know that one of your instruments is malfunctioning. In the end, it should be obvious that the fear can become intense, because after all, your very life no less hangs in the balance.

So there you are, alone in a cloud, with your body screaming at you that your instruments are lying. Your heart races. You are fighting panic. You realize that your life depends on thinking straight, ignoring your feelings and cross-checking your instruments. This is not hyperbole, at least it wasn’t for me. These are real memories. But as time has passed, and I’ve gained more experience, vertigo has become a novelty. It’s now a thing that I find amusing and which is easily ignored. 

I have found that these concepts easily transfer to my spiritual life. As a young Christian I loved my new life. But then I would hear things that would threaten my new beliefs. I can remember watching a television show on PBS about the Bible. It, of course, was from a Secular Humanist’s perspective. That show almost shipwrecked my faith as a new believer. There were also questions that I would encounter, specifically designed, it seemed, for the not-so-renewed mind. All of these gave me the same spiritual feeling as vertigo gave me physically… not knowing which way was up, and being very afraid.

You will discover, if you indeed have a reference point, that the culture you are living in is spinning out of control. The “pilots” have destroyed their instruments and are flying by the “seat of their pants,” doing what “seems right to them.” (Pr 14:12) Their reference point is the inside of their airplane, that is, the airplane could be up-side down and they are satisfied that, “up” is still toward its ceiling. But you don’t have to live this way. The scriptures tell us that, “His word is a lamp to our feet and a light unto our path.” But we must trust His Word, trust it with our very lives, and as if eternity itself was hanging in the balance… because it is. I can tell you that it won’t always be difficult, especially in your young lives. But I can tell you that the older you get the more everything will make sense, and that “flying” by the scriptures will easily deliver you safely past the fog of confusion that is your zeitgeist.

I pray that you learn to love the scriptures and that you would trust them. I also pray that you would grow up into maturity that easily sees right through the nonsense that is currently passing itself off as wisdom, and that you would teach your own children from their youngest years to do the same.

Your father

The Tale Of Two Men

Dear Children,

I have a story for you to think about. It concerns two men who, by happenstance, received an unearned and undeserved fortune. The men were identical in many ways except that one was extremely wealthy and the other was extremely poor. 

When the wealthy man learned of his good fortune, he was, as you might imagine, pleasantly surprised and happy. But, as you also might imagine, the news was not a life-changing event for him.

The poor man, on the other hand, was not only poverty-stricken, he was blind. He couldn’t work to earn a living and he wondered every day where his next meal would come from and where he would be sleeping that night. Understandably, the news of such good fortune would radically alter this man’s life.

It seems rather obvious which of these two men would be the happiest upon hearing of such news. There is, of course, a catch. I said earlier that these two men were identical in many ways. But in a spiritual sense this is not true. No, from a spiritual perspective, all men are like the poor man. They, indeed we, are all poverty-stricken and blind in our condition before God. However, some men do not see their spiritual poverty, nor do they grasp their standing before a holy and righteous God. But the scriptures are clear regarding this condition of ours. We are all blind, naked and poor and are in desperate need of some good news. To the extent that a person realizes this, that person can also receive with great joy the Gospel, and his life will forever be changed.

I draw this comparison from Revelations 3:

Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. ‘Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent.  (Rev 3:17-20 NASU)

The Gospel involves two parts. There is the “you,” who fits the description of being poor and blind when it comes to righteousness and your ability to grasp the extent to which you have fallen short of it. And then there is God, who is holy, righteous, perfect, and just. The Gospel is all about reconciling that sort of man to God.

You will be living your lives in a culture that has rejected God, yes, this is true. But, if you continue in your faith, you will also be living your lives among a Christian subculture that is no longer aware of half of the Gospel. The first man represents much of that Christian subculture. This culture loves the grace part of the Gospel. It loves the promise of our sins being forgiven. It loves the saved-from-Hell part. But, like the rich man, the life of this man is not impacted much by the free gift of salvation. In this culture, there seems to be a general sense that God owes us His salvation because we are intrinsically worth saving.

But here is the truth about the half of the Gospel that the modern affluent Christian downplays. Man is depraved. I am convinced that we have no idea the actual depths of our true despair before God. It may well even be beyond our ability to grasp. Yet, while we all probably have a trace of the wealthy man in us, to the extent that we realize that we are really the poor man, that we really are wretched and blind, to that same extent we will fall in love with the Gospel. But to the extent that we cannot grasp our true condition, to that same extent we are likely to pervert the Gospel, or even become ashamed of it. Such a man has become evident in your day. The Gospel has become, “God loves you and He has a wonderful plan for your life.” A message like that is akin to telling a rich man that he’s getting some extra cash. The rich man says, “Oh, that’s very nice, thank you.” But that’s not how one who understands his true standing before God responds to the true Gospel. The proper response is more like that of Paul’s, who exclaimed “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”  (Rom 7:24-25)

Compounding the reality of our own condition, there’s another truth about the Gospel that concerns the attributes of God. He is holy, righteous, perfect, and just. Such words deserve meditation. And because of these attributes, and because of the condition of Man, it is right, true, and just that God’s wrath would abide on Man, which, as it turns out, is the sore point with the Gospel. Man uses a different standard to judge his own righteousness than does God. Man tends to use himself as the standard. But God uses a different standard than corrupt Man, He uses Himself for the standard, and that standard is perfection. Man must, therefore, judge himself according to God’s standards if he is to have any chance of getting a glimpse of his true condition. And again, therein lies the problem. When Man adopts God’s standards of righteousness, he must accept that he is not only condemned, his condemnation is the only holy, righteous, perfect and just verdict that can be given. Man must accept that he is poor and blind. Before Man’s eyes are opened to his own condition in the light of the glory of God, the whole Gospel is foolishness and repulsive to him. On the other hand, the response of the man who truly understands the Gospel is praise in reckless abandon.

You live in a material world dear children. It goes without saying, therefore, that every minute of every day of your life will not be lived in an exuberant thanksgiving for the Gospel. But never let yourself stray very far from the reality of it. Spend time meditating on the significance of what Jesus accomplished on the cross. Consider who He is and that He came into this sinful and rebellious world to reconcile Man, who was dead in his sins, by dying on the cross. Meditate on the holiness and righteousness of God, and His love for those who have been reconciled to himself. Never forget the eternity that you were saved from, nor the eternity that you were saved into. Examine yourself often.

I will close this letter by including the lyrics to a song written a couple hundred years ago in an age in which the Gospel had not yet been so perverted. It is drawn from Exodus 33 wherein God protects Moses from himself as a type and shadow of the coming Savior. It is a beautiful metaphor that highlights Man’s condition and God’s providence through hiding Man in the cleft of Jesus which is symbolized by the rock. It is a prayer put to song, which, as you know, I love. But consider the doctrine of the Gospel presented in this song. The writer understood two things: his condition, and God’s holiness.

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in Thee;

Let the water and the blood,

From Thy wounded side which flowed,

Be of sin the double cure;

Save from wrath and make me pure.

Not the labor of my hands

Can fulfill Thy law’s demands;

Could my zeal no respite know,

Could my tears forever flow,

All for sin could not atone;

Thou must save, and Thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring,

Simply to the cross I cling;

Naked, come to Thee for dress;

Helpless look to Thee for grace;

Foul, I to the fountain fly;

Wash me, Savior, or I die.

While I draw this fleeting breath,

When mine eyes shall close in death,

When I soar to worlds unknown,

See Thee on Thy judgment throne,

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in Thee

I pray that you would rush to cross and cling with all your might.  I pray that the good news of the Gospel would fill your every heart with gratitude, praise, and thanksgiving. With prayer and love,

Your father