Victor Chininin Buele

Lo que hace al Chapulín Colorado el héroe favorito de mi infancia y la razón por la que no hay nadie en el mundo de Marvel como él es que aunque tembleque y miedoso e inútil y sencillo, él siempre respondía al llamado del deber. Muchos han dicho que la valentía no es la ausencia del temor sino que es hacer lo que se debe hacer a pesar de andar muerto de miedo.

Llegó el día. Yaku dirá por el resto de su vida que fue víctima de un fraude electoral de proporciones monumentales. Supongo que el Mashi pudiera decir algo así también. Y me imagino que el vencedor de la contienda ya no seguirá haciendo videos de TikTok porque ya obtuvo sus votos.

Usted pudo haber tenido razones excelentes para votar por Arauz, por Lasso, por el voto nulo, por el voto en blanco. Usted pudo haber tenido razones horribles para tomar cualquiera de esas decisiones.

Y usted puede pasarse los próximos años peleándose con los demás por gente que ni lo conoce a usted y a quienes las preocupaciones y dificultades de su vida en realidad no les quitan el sueño.

Pero la pregunta es necesaria. Y como el Chapulín es un personaje ficticio de nuestras infancias, la pregunta es apremiante: ¿Quién podrá defendernos?

La tristeza del sainete político que nos dio estas opciones no debe ser ignorado por nosotros. Estos falsos mesías que vienen cada cierto tiempo a prometernos la luna, las estrellas y paz en la tierra deben ser desenmascarados y mostrados por lo que son en verdad: seres humanos finitos y altamente incapaces de producir el cambio que todo ecuatoriano anhela.

Somos alcahuetes de alianzas fingidas, de matrimonios políticos por compromiso que tienen los documentos de divorcio listitos incluso antes de que podamos acabar de celebrar el supuesto triunfo.

Nos engañan porque nos dejamos engañar. Ni el hijo del mesías Correa ni el banquero del Guayas tienen la solución. Somos un país complejo y lleno de paradojas. Somos un país conflictivo y con problemas profundos.

En una canción reciente, el artista dominicano Redimi2 escribió lo siguiendo desde el punto de vista de uno de los ladrones que estaban siendo crucificados con el Mesías verdadero, obviamente modernizado y con sabor a música urbana:

Ah, ahí estás tú, el que decías
Ser el enviado, el supuesto Mesías
El que iba a destruir el templo
Y a reconstruirlo en tres días

Fantasías y sensacionalismo
Tus seguidores llenos de fanatismo
Si en verdad eres quien dices ser
Sálvanos y sálvate a ti mismo

Si resucitaste muertos con tu palabra
Si en verdad sanaste tanta gente
Cómo es posible que no puedas liberarte
Si aquí estamos conscientes de que eres inocente

Aunque pensándolo bien, eres culpable
Tu poder se hizo dudable
Demuéstrame que me equivoco
O sálvanos, que esta agonía es insoportable

Willy González, Redimi2, https://youtu.be/oLlB2jvjZHY

Ese es nuestro predicamento. La agonía es insoportable y algunos nos chuman un ratito y nos ayudan a convencernos de que todo va a estar bien y que el Reino del Cielo ya está en Ecuador. Pero tarde o temprano llega el chuchaqui y nos quejamos del dolor de despertarnos a la realidad. ¿Buscará el banquero los intereses del pueblo? ¿Cuáles intereses? ¿Avanzará causas y movimientos que se oponen a Dios o aquellos que buscan darle gloria o ninguno de los dos?

No lo sé. No confío en él. No confiaba en Arauz tampoco. Ni en Hervas. Ni en los sueños quijóticos de Alvarito. Lo que sí sé es lo que debo de hacer por Guillermo Lasso:

Exhorto, pues, ante todo que se hagan plegarias, oraciones, peticiones y acciones de gracias por todos los hombres, por los reyes y por todos los que están en autoridad, para que podamos vivir una vida tranquila y sosegada con toda piedad y dignidad. Porque esto es bueno y agradable delante de Dios nuestro Salvador, el cual quiere que todos los hombres sean salvos y vengan al pleno conocimiento de la verdad.

1 Timoteo 2:1-4 (NBLA)

Entonces debo orar y orar mucho.

En esperanza de que el evangelio penetre hasta lo más profundo de la nación: los corazones abatidos y endurecidos de una nación desilusionada. Porque cuando dejemos de seguir a estos falsos mesías y los corazones sean regenerados podremos tener esperanza duradera y podremos poner los graves problemas de la nación en su correcta perspectiva y trabajar sin cansancio esperando la redención de las consecuencias de los tristes pecados que nos han acechado.

Que Dios bendiga al Ecuador y a su nuevo presidente. Y que busquemos avanzar de alguna manera. Pero más que nada quiero cerrar con la Palabra de Dios por medio de Pablo:

“Y a Aquel que es poderoso para hacer todo mucho más abundantemente de lo que pedimos o entendemos, según el poder que obra en nosotros, a Él sea la gloria en la iglesia y en Cristo Jesús por todas las generaciones, por los siglos de los siglos. Amén.”

Efesios‬ ‭3:20-21‬ ‭(NBLA‬‬)

Victor Chininin Buele

Un texto relacionado a la crucifixión de Cristo que quizá le sorprenda es el Salmo 69. David está cantando acerca de consecuencias muy serias que él está enfrentando por la causa de Dios. Él ha recibido insultos, deshonra, humillación, ha sido hecho un extraño, un extranjero a su propia familia, el blanco de insultos, ofensas, burlas y hasta de las canciones de los borrachos. Todo por Su causa – por la causa de Dios. Con el corazón destrozado se siente vacío y solo con esa soledad que duele hasta los huesos. Y lo peor es que no hay nadie, nadie, nadie que lo ayude, que le tenga compasión, que le dé consuelo.

I. RECONOCIMIENTO DE LA NECESIDAD DE LA SALVACIÓN (1-4, 7-12, 19-21)

¹ Sálvame, Dios mío,
    que las aguas ya me llegan al cuello.
² Me estoy hundiendo en una ciénaga profunda, (en el fango, en el barro)
    y no tengo dónde apoyar el pie.
Estoy en medio de profundas aguas,
    y me arrastra la corriente. (Es una inundación)
³ Cansado estoy de pedir ayuda;
    tengo reseca la garganta.
Mis ojos languidecen,
    esperando la ayuda de mi Dios.
⁴ Más que los cabellos de mi cabeza
    son los que me odian sin motivo;
muchos son los enemigos gratuitos
    que se han propuesto destruirme.
    ¿Cómo voy a devolver lo que no he robado?

Es aquel momento en el que usted sabe en lo más profundo de su ser que no hay otro camino, que no hay otra manera de salir de esta. Que lo único que nos puede salvar es la intervención divina de Dios para rescatarnos. Jesús conoce esta situación muy bien. Jesús conoce esta prisión muy bien. Jesús conoce ese momento en el que el cansancio, los insultos, la vergüenza, la tentación, nos hacen sentir que las circunstancias son imposibles, que no podemos cambiar, que Dios nos ha abandonado.

Este es el momento en el que necesitamos que Dios nos recuerde que aunque estemos en el lodo más profundo, en aguas que nos llegan al cuello y más allá, donde no podemos asentar el pie, donde las aguas de la inundación nos arrastran por doquier, cuando estamos con ojos hinchados de tanto llorar, sin voz para poder hablar, cansados y listos para desmayarnos, com enemigos gratuitos listos para hacernos daño, en ese momento necesitamos que el Señor nos recuerde con Su magnífica gracia que está más cerca de lo que parece en nuestra versión distorsionada de la realidad, que abra nuestros ojos hinchados para ver Su Belleza. Dios está aquí. Y nos da el Espíritu.

Imaginémonos el versículo 33 como que fuera el coro de esta canción por un momento:

Porque el Señor oye a los necesitados, y no desdeña a su pueblo cautivo.

David canta esto al Señor no sólo porque él comprende su debilidad pero porque él sabe que el Señor escucha a los necesitados y no desdeña, no menosprecia, a su pueblo cautivo.

Dios escucha.  Dios salva.  Dios está aquí.

II. RECONOCIMIENTO SOBRIO DE LA REALIDAD (5-6)

David nos muestra en este salmo un reconocimiento muy sobrio de la realidad.  David sabe quién es y quién es Dios.

⁵ Oh Dios, tú sabes lo insensato que he sido;
    no te puedo esconder mis transgresiones.

Dios sabe todo.  Él es el único santo juez.  No podemos esconder nada de Él.  Él ve lo que nosotros no podemos ver.  Él es Dios.

Y David no lo es.

Él tiene un reconocimiento sobrio de su insensatez, de su necedad.  Sin Dios, sin Cristo, somos insensatos, somos necios, ya que es el necio, el insensato quien dice que no hay Dios (Salmo 14:1).  Y aun ahora, tenemos de vez en cuando tentación no necesariamente de decir que Dios no existe, sino de vivir, de actuar como que Él no existiera.  A veces estamos ciegos y no podemos ver nuestra propia insensatez.

David tiene un reconocimiento sobrio de quién es y de quién es Dios. Dios es sabio. Por sí mismo, David no lo es. Dios es justo, David no lo es. Dios es luz y nosotros sabemos que David ha tratado de esconderse de la luz.

⁶ Señor Soberano, Todopoderoso,
    que no sean avergonzados por mi culpa
    los que en ti esperan;
oh Dios de Israel,
    que no sean humillados por mi culpa
    los que te buscan.

David está pensando en los demás.  Él está en medio del pueblo de Dios. Están cantando juntos.  Imaginémonos a este hombre cautivo cantando estos versos sobrios en la presencia de sus hermanos, cantando juntos a Dios.  Él le pide sobriamente al Señor que salva que no permita que otros, que sus hermanos, sean avergonzados, sean humillados por su culpa.

Obtenemos un mayor grado de claridad acerca de nuestra unión con Cristo en la oscuridad del cautiverio: La misericordia de Dios se vuelve más dulce, Su gracia sin límites, el sacrificio de Cristo más tangible, nuestra debilidad y nuestra inhabilidad de salvarnos se vuelve algo que podemos empezar a comprender. Es la debilidad que produce este tipo de sobriedad.

III. RECONOCIMIENTO DE MI INCAPACIDAD DE SALVARME (13-18)

David ora:

¹³ Pero yo, Señor, te imploro
en el tiempo de tu buena voluntad.

Al reconocer sobriamente su situación y al reconocer sobriamente quién es Dios, ¿qué hace David? Él ora al Dios soberano. La certeza que tiene que Dios escucha a los necesitados le permite a David orar al Señor y esperar el tiempo de la buena voluntad de Dios.

Por tu gran amor, oh Dios, respóndeme;
    por tu fidelidad, sálvame.

David reconoce sobriamente la generosidad y el amor de Dios y esto resulta en confianza en la oración. Yo sé que no me puedo salvar, sálvame Señor. Eres fiel hasta cuando no lo soy. Sálvame, Dios, porque eres bueno y más grande que lo que mis circunstancias han distorsionado. Sálvame, Señor

¹⁴ Sácame del fango;
no permitas que me hunda.
Líbrame de los que me odian,
y de las aguas profundas.
¹⁵ No dejes que me arrastre la corriente;
no permitas que me trague el abismo,
ni que el foso cierre sus fauces sobre mí.

Anteriormente David estaba narrando sus circunstancias. Ahora lo vuelve oración. Él no se queda estancado en una simple descripción de lo mal que le está yendo. Y es obvio que la cosa está fea, bien, bien fea. Él no se queda atrapado en la prisión – Él ora. Sácame, líbrame, no me dejes… Él sabe que Dios puede actuar decisivamente y cambiar con Su poder. Por tanto Él ora: “Líbrame!”

¹⁶ Respóndeme, Señor, por tu bondad y tu amor;
por tu gran compasión, vuélvete a mí.
¹⁷ No escondas tu rostro de este siervo tuyo;
respóndeme pronto, que estoy angustiado.

En este lamento, David pide a Dios que le dé más de Dios, de su presencia, para la corrección de la distorsión, de la mentira que Dios no es bueno, que no podemos confiar en Él y que Él no desea darnos lo mejor por su gracia. Dios, quiero saber que estás cerca. Quiero saber que estás aquí.

¹⁸ Ven a mi lado, y rescátame;
    redímeme, por causa de mis enemigos.

IV. RECONOCIMIENTO DE LA TRAMPA DEL PECADO (22-28)

Ahora la cosa se pone peor.

²² Que se conviertan en trampa sus banquetes,
    y su prosperidad en lazo.
²³ Que se les nublen los ojos, para que no vean;
    y que sus fuerzas flaqueen para siempre.
²⁴ Descarga tu furia sobre ellos;
    que tu ardiente ira los alcance.
²⁵ Quédense desiertos sus campamentos,
    y deshabitadas sus tiendas de campaña.
²⁶ Pues al que has afligido lo persiguen,
    y se burlan del dolor del que has herido.
²⁷ Añade a sus pecados más pecados;
    no los hagas partícipes de tu salvación.
²⁸ Que sean borrados del libro de la vida;
    que no queden inscritos con los justos.

Y ahora, ¿eso con qué se come? ¿qué hago con estos versículos?

Tenemos otra oración en esta canción, en este salmo.  Pero esta oración es muy oscura.  ¿Está el prisionero pidiendo a Dios que ponga en prisión a su perseguidor?

Sí.

Está orando para que sus banquetes y su prosperidad se vuelvan una prisión, una trampa para ellos mismos.
Está orando para que sus ojos sean enceguecidos, que tiemblen, para que la ira de Dios y su indignación caigan sobre ellos.  Ora para que haya desolación en sus vidas.  Ellos fueron los perseguidores de David, los que le trajeron dolor.  Él está orando que Dios no los salve, que los separe de los justos.

¿No huele esto a lo peor de la venganza?
¿No es esto completamente opuesto al evangelio?

Es una maldición. Esto es una maldición.

Cuando encontramos secciones de los salmos como esta, cuando encontramos oraciones como esta, a veces tenemos la tentación de buscar maneras de bajar el tono del texto, de inventarnos explicaciones que nos parezcan razonables. Tenemos una fascinación que nos lleva a saltarnos secciones de la Biblia como esta, secciones que no encajan fácilmente con lo que queremos que diga la Biblia.

Pero, recordemos que el prisionero, que el cautivo, está sufriendo dolor real, soledad verdadera, separación muy dura.  Él sabe que no tiene nada, que no tiene a nadie excepto a Dios y que solamente Dios puede salvarlo de estas circunstancias que parecen imposibles de resolver.

Los horrores que son perpetrados en contra del salmista gritan, claman por justicia.  Pero la venganza no es mía, no es del salmista, es del Señor. Él pagará (Heb 10:30).  Pero, ¿no somos llamados a amar al prójimo? ¿Cómo puedo orar esto por otra persona?

Tenemos que comprender que la vida es binaria – que sólo existen dos caminos: o somos salvos por Cristo o estamos perdidos por toda la eternidad. No hay más. Necesitamos a Cristo.

Cuando el salmista ora estas palabras, y mucho más aún, cuando Jesús oró estas palabras, y el Padre escucha esa oración, ¿qué significa eso? ¿cuál es el resultado de estas oraciones?

El pecado es horrible. Por eso es que esto suena horrible. La maldición es terrible. Y real. Por eso suena feo.

Y las buenas noticias del evangelio es que este pecado horrible, feo y terrible, puede ser clavado a la cruz ya que Jesús se volvió esta maldición para que tengamos vida y vida en abundancia, vida eterna. Cuando oramos esto estamos pidiendo a Dios que tome el pecado seriamente, como nuestro Santo Juez e intervenga. Y como solamente hay dos posibilidades, este pecado en todo su horror y maldición, (1) será clavado a la cruz de Jesús, una vez para siempre, o (2) continuará llevando a la persona por un camino doloroso y tormentoso hacia la condenación eterna del infierno.

¿Quiere ser prisionero por la eternidad? ¿Ver su vida convertirse en esta maldición? ¿Ver que la trampa se vuelve una horrible realidad? O ¿quiere tener vida eterna con Cristo? ¿Ver su vida ser redimida y cambiada? ¿Ver victoria sobre la trampa?

Los cristianos fuimos liberados de la prisión y podemos ver con sobriedad quién es el Dios que nos salvó y podemos orar por quienes aún son cautivos al pecado.

O puede que usted aún se encuentre en la prisiٴón en este momento.  La invitación es extendida a usted en este salmo para que confiese su pecado y lo clave en la cruz gracias a la obra de redención del Señor Jesús y que pueda recibir vida eterna.  Porque Él es el Señor que oye al necesitado y no desdeña a los cautivos. Dios puede salvarlo y lo salvará.  El no encuentra placer en la perdición de los cautivos, pero envió a su Hijo Jesús para que muera por los cautivos para que encuentren libertad y reconciliación.  Él hace que los rebeldes sean adoptados como Hijos de Dios.

El pecado es una trampa – debemos reconocerlo – y escuchar el llamado.  Si estamos pecando, debemos arrepentirnos y confiar en Cristo.

V. RECONOCIMIENTO DE LA PROTECCIÓN DE LA SALVACIÓN (29-36)

²⁹ Y a mí, que estoy pobre y adolorido,
    que me proteja, oh Dios, tu salvación.
³⁰ Con cánticos alabaré el nombre de Dios;
    con acción de gracias lo exaltaré.
³¹ Esa ofrenda agradará más al Señor
    que la de un toro o un novillo
    con sus cuernos y pezuñas.
³² Los pobres verán esto y se alegrarán;
    ¡reanímense ustedes, los que buscan a Dios!
³³ Porque el Señor oye a los necesitados,
    y no desdeña a su pueblo cautivo.

³⁴ Que lo alaben los cielos y la tierra,
    los mares y todo lo que se mueve en ellos,
³⁵ porque Dios salvará a Sión
    y reconstruirá las ciudades de Judá.
Allí se establecerá el pueblo
    y tomará posesión de la tierra.
³⁶ La heredarán los hijos de sus siervos;
    la habitarán los que aman al Señor.

El que fue cautivo recibe la tierra.

El cautivo, afligido y adolorido, pide a Dios que lo salve, que la salvación de Dios lo proteja.

Y la gratitud será el grito de su corazón, un sacrificio aceptable.

Dios nos conoce – conoce nuestra debilidad y nos da aliento en este salmo – los pobres verán esto y se alegrarán.

Él avivará, reanimará los corazones de los que lo buscan. Él ha dado al creyente un nuevo corazón.  Si no conoce al Señor todavía, Él le puede dar la protección de la salvación—un nuevo corazón.  Él dará libertad de la prisión en la que se encuentra y lo protegerá.  No es una falsa promesa de prosperidad inmediata, de salud y riquezas si cree en Jesús.  Es la buena voluntad del padre darles, darnos el Reino (Lucas 12:32).

Entonces terminamos con la seguridad de la presencia de Dios –Los que aman al Señor vivirán con Él por la eternidad. Eso es lo que se ganó en la cruz y la resurrección de Jesús – libertad en la presencia de Dios por la eternidad. Libres del cautiverio. Libres de las cadenas. Alejados del pecado por la eternidad. Libres incluso hoy. Libres para ser cambiados día a día más y más a semejanza de Jesús.

CONCLUSIÓN

Somos un pueblo miedoso, un pueblo temeroso, un pueblo necesitado. Le tenemos miedo al futuro, a las dificultades, al prójimo, al éxito, al presente, al pasado, a la felicidad, a la enfermedad, a la salud. Parte de ello es por qué hay tantos santos en la iglesia popular de nuestro medio—un santo para cada temor. Parte de ello es por qué muchos buscan refugio constante en el alcohol, las drogas, las compras, el trabajo, los viajes, muchas cosas.

Le pregunto a usted, ¿quiere ser libre? Verdaderamente libre?

¿O quiere seguir siendo esclavo de su terno, de su cartera, de su billetera, de su prestigio, de lo que piensan los demás, de su salud, de su enfermedad, de los que hablan mal de usted, de los que quisiera que hablaran bien de usted, de los que la ignoran, de los que lo maltratan, de su trabajo, de tantas cosas que podemos convertir en ídolos?

1. Debemos orar. Porque a rienda suelta, nosotros nunca, nunca, nunca desearemos la libertad verdadera. Seguiremos esclavizados al pecado y al temor, ansiedad, y horribles consecuencias que acarrea.
2. Debemos invitar a otros a ayudarnos a salir de la prisión. A veces pasamos dándole una manito de pintura al calabozo, comprando un arreglito para poner en la mesa, planchando el uniforme de la cárcel. Miremos a nuestro alrededor—tenemos hermanos y hermanas que nos pueden ayudar a salir del calabozo, que nos pueden ayudar a recordarnos el evangelio, que nos pueden ayudar a proclamar la libertad.
3. Debemos ir a buscar a los cautivos para liberarlos. Tanto que nos han enseñado de los héroes del pasado – de Bolívar, de Sucre, de los héroes que derramaron su sangre por liberarnos en los tiempos coloniales. Juan León Mera estaba tan pero tan preocupado que seamos olvidadizos y que regresemos al yugo que escribió unas estrofas fuertísimas en nuestro himno. Por ejemplo,

“Y si nuevas cadenas prepara
la injusticia de bárbara suerte,
gran Pichincha! prevén tú la muerte
de la Patria y sus hijos al fin;
Hunde al punto en tus hondas entrañas
cuanto existe en tu tierra el tirano
huelle solo cenizas y en vano
busque rastro de ser junto a ti.”

Si nuestra independencia nacional genera semejante emoción, qué más deberemos decir de nuestra libertad en Cristo – ganada por Cristo – una vez para siempre?
“Cristo nos libertó para que vivamos en libertad. Por lo tanto, manténganse firmesy no se sometan nuevamente al yugo de esclavitud” (Gál 5:1).

Cuando Jesús fue a aquella sinagoga en Nazaret, le dieron el libro del profeta Isaías.  Él leyó:

^{Lucas 4:18} «El Espíritu del Señor está sobre mí,
    por cuanto me ha ungido
    para anunciar buenas nuevas a los pobres.
Me ha enviado a proclamar libertad a los cautivos
    y dar vista a los ciegos,
a poner en libertad a los oprimidos,
¹⁹     a pregonar el año del favor del Señor».^[e]

²⁰ Luego enrolló el libro, se lo devolvió al ayudante y se sentó. Todos los que estaban en la sinagoga lo miraban detenidamente, ²¹ y él comenzó a hablarles: «Hoy se cumple esta Escritura en presencia de ustedes».

Seamos verdaderamente libres. Hay manera de ser libres. De ser verdaderamente felices. Jesús.

(Adaptado del manuscrito de la predicación del domingo 8 de abril de 2018 en la iglesia cristiana Semilla de Mostaza de la ciudad de Loja)

Victor Chininin Buele

We are in the middle of a series of reflections about a certain counterfeit of Reformed preaching, of expository preaching, that causes great harm to the flock of Christ. So far, I have alluded to the Church of Christ as being sound asleep in the safest part of a ship that is in the sea in the middle of a storm of mythical proportions. Abuse is a storm that destroys sheep, precious sheep made in the image of God, and tosses them to the depths of the sea. Part of the argument is that for Jonah to be sound asleep like that, his conscience had to be hardened to such an extent that the eternal destiny of the people of Nineveh became something so repugnant to him that he would purposefully purchase a ticket to the end of the known world to avoid the call to preach to them because maybe, just maybe God could grant them mercy and repentance (and that is precisely just what God did).

In the previous article, the first mark of this counterfeit was explored: Preaching that breeds doubt in yourself and in everyone else but complete confidence in the mediator preaching.

The task today is to explore the second mark.

Counterfeit Preaching Teaches that Silence Is Grace and that Grace Is Silence

This one is pervasive. And it thrives in the uneasiness we feel at our desire to avoid sin and be respectable, God-honoring people who love our neighbor as ourselves. Let me dissect it.

This feels honorable. And we have plenty of words from the Bible to back up our action and inaction.

The book of Proverbs is a great source of wisdom, but if it’s twisted, it can be a great weapon for silencing. There are gems in God’s Word such as these: “Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets, but he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered” (Prov. 11:13), ” Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets; therefore do not associate with a simple babbler” (Prov. 20:19), or “Argue your case with your neighbor himself, and do not reveal another’s secret” (Prov. 25:9). I don’t use the word gems sarcastically. This is wisdom–God’s wisdom. No if’s, but’s, or objections.

We saw in the last installment how the teaching that the heart is deceitful can be taken past its limits in saying and believing that all that comes from the heart of the person must be suspect, completely neglecting the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer. This second mark builds on top of that. That is, when the person is rightly questioning or asking what his instinct is, it goes and adds secrecy to it. And because the words used to silence come from the Bible, straight from the Bible, they have great power.

This hermeneutic will say, “What is slander? God’s Word defines slander as the revealing of secrets. The Christian, God’s Word says, will keep a thing covered.” “What do we do with the slanderer? We must not associate with them. They’ll just publish anything you tell them, that’s what God’s Word says.” “You must argue your case with your neighbor himself, and not reveal another’s secret. Don’t talk to others. God’s Word says that. They are speaking evil.”

And here is the thing.

The Word does say that.

And it doesn’t.

A key factor is the nature of the secret we are being asked to keep. The other key factor is whose authority is it to deal with the situation, if appropriate.

The Lord Jesus asked people to keep secrets. Just one example. “And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly warned them, ‘See that no one knows about it.’ But they went away and spread his fame through all that district” (Matthew 9:30–31 ESV). Did Jesus commit some impropriety that he was coercing people to be silent about? No. Was he protecting the appearance of godliness in front of a people? No.

It was not yet time for these miracles to be proclaimed from the rooftops.

And the people couldn’t be quiet anyway. Redeemed people don’t keep their sin quiet. Forgiven people tell you all about it because it magnifies their Savior. Freedom cries out from the rooftops. It gets rid of any obstacles that keep them from climbing up there to shout about the grace of Christ in redeeming them and freeing them from their slavery to sin.

This is very important. Jesus never took advantage of Proverbs to silence opposition or to silence those who were asking questions or to dismiss correction and the call to repentance (he never sinned).

And we now live on the other side of the Great Commission. So, we don’t have a reason to keep quiet about the fact that Jesus is the Christ. In fact, it is our full time responsibility to tell every creature that Christ is Lord and to disciple them by teaching them to obey all that Jesus taught.

There are matters of confidence and discretion, and we would agree with the writer of Proverbs, that one must be able to keep a confidence and honor the person who trusted us for advice or counseling. This is part of living in community. In this way, we are guardians of stories. There are things that we will hear that we will be wise to keep in confidence. Two friends tells you they have cancer, and they haven’t shared with anyone yet. They truly need prayer. Pray. People will be making decisions that are not public yet. Yet, these are not sins we are asked to keep but confidences.

The problem comes when we equate a confidence with covering up unrepentant sin. Usually, forgiven sin is not something that goes in a vault. It comes up–as an example, as a testimony, as a praise, as a warning, as a challenge, as an admonishment. And not all stories can be kept secret. When we are told we are guardians of stories or of reputations in order to keep things quiet that shouldn’t be secret, beware of manipulation at work. There are matters that concern law enforcement. There are matters that concern the local church. There are matters that concern spouses that have been sinned against. There are matters that concern elderships. There are matters that concern the general public. There are matters that concern parents.

John Stott wrote a wonderful book Confess Your Sins that wrestles in part with the nuances of public confession. I would commend that to you for your edification. In the case of matters that reach advanced levels of church discipline, he wrote, “It is the local church which has been sinned against; it is the local church to which public confession must be made; and it is the local church which must take responsibility to administer discipline and to use its God-given authority to bind and to loose.” The abuse stories we see coming to light publicly these days show ecclesiastical systems where the local church was not involved in these matters. As a matter of fact, a mark of honor, or of fear, was to not involve them, to handle things in committees, or elderships, or in secret. Once, a saint who heard of a matter of abuse simply asked another saint, “But, did you talk to the regional director of the denomination?” And she walked away in peace. Stott’s point is essential and scriptural: this saint was sinned against as a part of the local church, but she believed this lie that her silence is grace. Reconciliation can’t really occur unless we are honest about the extent of our sins and repent of them fully. There was teaching she believes that led to this response.

The height of manipulation in this preaching is that grace is equated with silence. One day, I was in a Bible study. The teacher announced his text and started reading it. Every single attendee opened to said text and heard the dissonance between the words our eyes were seeing and the words the teacher was reading. It didn’t match up.

Yet no one said anything.

We all assumed it was grace to assume we were all wrong and not the teacher! There was absolutely no reason to be quiet about this. Somebody could have asked, “What are you reading?” Somebody could have said, “You are reading the wrong text.” Somebody could have even made a joke out of it. But, this is in the air we breath. We assume that it is us. It is our fault. That it is somehow better to be the one wrong; after all, we can recite 1 Corinthians 13. That is how abuse thrives. We think we give grace to the abuser, but we cover the abuse.

We think we give the benefit of the doubt. But we forget there is no such thing as neutrality. To be pro-something is to be against something else. Relativism breaks. And we all know it. We try to see things in the best possible light. Until we no longer can do so with a clean conscience. And then, the speech gets labeled as gossip and slander. Not because it is false but because it is uttered. Are we surprised that so many end up sharing with the mainstream media or with social media when we, the saints, those sinned against, those with a responsibility to disciple, love, and care for the sheep, chose to be silent and, more than that, went on to believe false narratives that painted the one coming forward in the worst possible light as we accused them of painting the accused in the worst possible light? I am convinced that people go public when there is no more recourse.

Do not read this wrong: it may be grace to be silent. Deuteronomy 17/Mathew 18 call us to make a diligent inquiry, to not admit charges without reliable witnesses. But once things are clear, and the right jurisdiction is identified (whether it’s a person who’s been sinned against, or abused, or a spouse that has been lied to, or the other elders, or the body of the church, or law enforcement), we can’t use grace as an excuse for inaction.

Jesus had a lot to say. And here is the thing with secrets: they are the canary in the mine. They speak volumes about the heart.

Victor Chininin Buele

This third installment of this series will focus on a certain counterfeit of Reformed teaching and preaching that creates and fosters cultures of shame and abuse, of self-protection and inward focus. And not just within the church but within the homes of those who sit under such teaching. In the first post of the series, I argued that the sleep of Jonah was in part the result of a hardened heart that was actually able to be sound asleep in the midst of a storm of unprecedented proportions. Abuse in the church is a storm that continues mostly undeterred. In the last post, preaching from the sleep of Jonah is what I described as the dangers of a certain counterfeit of Reformed teaching and preaching that lacks specificity and tangible application, that showcases brilliant application that is about somebody else, or about a group that is to be excluded, or it asks us to turn our eyes outwardly to others and away from our own need for Christ, or overemphasizes grace or law, or trivializes our sin (everybody sins, we are imperfect, all pastors fall short of 1 Timothy 3/Titus 1). And just in case you think this is about finger pointing, fully aware that when I do so, three fingers point at myself, the last post features the analysis of a critical sermon I preached. This is not only about somebody else.

The communication of such things, of course, is hardly ever explicit. That would be flat out heresy that nobody in these elderships, or boards of deacons, or congregations could ever affirm explicitly. It is all subtle. I have come more and more to appreciate the title of David Johnson and Jeff VanVonderen’s book The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse.

This preaching is subtle. I do not know if the people preaching these sermons are that evil. They could be. And some must be. I do not know if they just believe their own tales. They just might. Or maybe they are that good at faking sincerity and transparency. Or something along in the spectrum. Diane Langberg’s writing has helped me break free from the intellectual desire to try to understand these preachers. If Satan is the father of lies, which is true, we cannot possibly expect to make complete and perfect sense out of a worldview of lies, built upon lies, and sustained by lies.

I cried when I heard one of my pastors preach late last year. It had been rainwater in a long walk through the desert. My daughter knew. She just knew. This was different. When a seven-year-old who does not profess Christ hears and knows and articulates the difference, that’s something that caught my spiritual and intellectual curiosity.

I’m going to make four points about this counterfeit of real, Reformed preaching, though far more could and must be said.

This kind of preaching: (1) breeds doubt in yourself and in everyone else but complete confidence in the mediator preaching, (2) teaches that silence is grace and that grace is silence, (3) demonizes doubt and challenge, and (4) praises and commends homes that reflect this culture.

This installment focuses on the first characteristic of this reprehensible counterfeit.

Counterfeit Preaching Breeds the Wrong Kinds of Doubt and Confidence

A key element of this preaching that sounds so biblical and commendable is the breeding of doubt. There is a Scripture for that: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9 ESV).

A frame of reference gets built upon this that grows and grows over time: I must doubt myself. If I’m thinking x, I must account for the fact that my heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. And this line of thinking gets plenty of traction because that is precisely what we must do in Christ. In Reformed preaching, this is consistent cognitively with the doctrine of the radical depravity of humankind. We know experientially that we are not inherently good; otherwise, there would be no need for so much money and efforts and work spent in trying to persuade ourselves that we are good.

So, you get a group of people who are aware of their sinfulness and proclivity towards sin. And they may even be fully committed in an Owen-like sense to kill sin before it kills them. You add the admonition to not trust the heart. There is no “follow your heart” philosophies here. It sounds right.

But over time, doubt is planted: You are unreliable. Your reasoning is unreliable. Your interpretation of your reading is unreliable. Your understanding of Scripture is unreliable. Your emotions are unreliable. Your gut feelings are unreliable. Your motives are suspect. Your affections are unreliable.

And not just in particular circumstances but always. Your first instinct is going to be to assume you are wrong. And being wrong is taken to mean that you are sinning.

This completely ignores a critical point: while the Christian has not been fully glorified yet, the Holy Spirit indwells the believer already. Yes, the believer can sin, have sinful emotions, foul reasoning, sinful reactions. Absolutely. The heart must be tested. But is it always sinful? Not always! Not every thought, deed, impression, or emotion of the believer is to be considered unreliable. Radical depravity does not mean that everything I do is depraved. Even if I were not a believer. God restrains the worst of all of us through His common grace.

This also ignores another critical point, equally important: the believer has Spirit-empowered understanding of God’s clear, true, unchanging, unimpeachable Word. We can check our thoughts, emotions, reasoning, impressions, or gut feelings against the Scriptures. If I have a suspicion that something is not right, I must go to the Scriptures, in prayer, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to my community, check with my fellow brothers and sisters, ask questions, keep asking, keep going back to the Word.

This preaching thrives because we are golden calf makers. We will make an idol out of anything. God’s good blessings turn into our counterfeit gods all the time. Gifted communicators are no exception.

At some point, cultures where I am always assumed to be wrong and sinful will need to have one way to discern the voice of God. And the gifted communicator becomes our man, our north, our hope, our ruler, our mediator, our golden calf. We want it easy: We want to know what God says about this or that. And we doubt our ability to come up with God’s answers on our own. Should I move? Should I marry this girl? Should I buy this house or rent? Should I move to a country in the 10/40 window? Should I eat at KC Joe’s? Should I shop at Target or not? Should I wear a mask or not? Should I vote for Trump or for Biden?

And when the gifted communicator seems to be right most of the time, we make a beeline past the Scriptures and straight to him. Because he is almost always right, I will just go ask him.

And our doubt becomes full confidence in the mediator.

In my former denomination there is a practice of congregational participation, and there is a microphone open for it during the service. Because the denomination is continuationist (it believes in the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in our day), it is assumed that from time to time, the Holy Spirit will impress upon somebody in the congregation the gift of a word of encouragement (or prophecy since this was once called the prophecy mic and still may be in some local churches). The catch is that somehow there has to be a sifting of what’s from the Spirit and what’s not from the Spirit. And the senior pastor is usually the one who hears the impression/prophecy first and then allows or disallows the participation. Since we are golden calf makers, it becomes very easy to equate this gatekeeper with the mediator. And we start assuming that because this person said something was right, it is. Or worse yet, it is from God.

I say that to illustrate the extreme example of something that happens far more subtly in other local churches. You may not have a participation mic, or you may believe certain gifts ceased with the apostles, but pastors get questions all the time–people come and present “theoretical” scenarios or sometimes will even own up that it is from them sometimes. People come and ask us how far is too far in a relationship before marriage, or about a certain ethical dilemma, or if they should move in together (after they’ve done it), or about their addictions and secrets, or about the morality of their choices or purchases. They know that their choice was/is sinful, but what they want (what we want, I should say) is to get the “man of God” to tell us that we are in the up and up. That we are accepted. That we are justified. Even if we won’t stop doing what we want to do.

To tidy up: this first mark, so to speak, of the counterfeit preaching that leads to abuse is this:

We end up mistrusting everything that comes from us but trusting completely everything that comes from the gifted communicator. We end up doubting the work of the Holy Spirit of God in our life, but trusting it completely and unquestionably in the life of somebody who may not be indwelled by the Spirit at all.

Does this sound to you like a straw man argument? I’m sure it could. Especially if you are deep in the middle of it. And if in your situation it is not extreme (yet) but are just somewhere along the spectrum, it still doesn’t make it right. This is not to caricaturize anyone, but this is to help the church see these areas where we are vulnerable. We try to uphold right doctrine, but wolves can thrive inside precisely because of this commitment to the doctrine of the radical depravity of man.

That is, yes, our hearts can lead us astray and our thoughts are not only not always right but can be sinful. We must be aware of that. Jeremiah 17:6 is true. I must be aware of my propensity to sin. I must be aware of the part of my nature that is still prone to wander to sin. But this does not mean I must doubt everything: every thought, every emotion, every impression, every gut feeling, every concern, every joy, every affirmation I want to give to somebody.

For that we have the Holy Spirit. Trust in God, pray boldly, search the Scriptures, dialog with your church family inside and outside of the local church. Remember that the Spirit dwells in you and is transforming you daily. Remember that you have a Spirit-empowered understanding of God’s Word that is actually renewing your mind daily. And you are not alone. He placed you in a family with other brothers and sisters in Christ, and your family transcends the four walls of a church building or a given neighborhood or city.

Victor Chininin Buele

The last post argued that the sleep of Jonah in chapter 1 was in part the result of a hardened heart that was actually able to be sound asleep in the midst of a storm of unprecedented proportions. It left the reader with the question: Are we asleep? Who has God called you to reach that you would rather, and literally, see burn in hell?

Today I want to try to wake up the Reformed preacher from the sleep of Jonah.

One very challenging question I have been considering for the better part of three years is this–how can it be that the resurgence of “Reformed” preaching has not decreased, but perhaps even increased, abuse inside of the church?

I had thought this was a problem of antinomianism, that is, in its most comically tragic form, a “let’s do whatever we please because we are saved” attitude. I figured legalism was far from it because legalism would be such a strict outward observance of Biblical principles (even if the heart is not engaged or willing or delighting in God) that it could not possibly be part of the equation. Sinclair Ferguson cleared that up for me in The Whole Christ showing that both antinomianism and legalism have the same root: a belief in the lie of Eden that God is not good, he is not loving, he cannot be trusted, and he is not for us. Some choose to go super strict about it–I will not even touch the tree so that I won’t be able to eat the fruit if I don’t touch it! Some choose to go super liberal about it and say, “What’s wrong about it? Go eat all the fruit you can. What’s the worst that can happen? Diabetes? Nah! There’s grace/insuline for that!”

One of the first reasons I started to ponder this question was because I had the task to restart the exposition of the book of Luke at a church that had gone through the horror of seeing her senior pastor’s sin of sexual immorality exposed. I needed to pick up the exposition in Luke 17:11-37. So I went and read Luke 1-17, but I also went and listened to the last sermon that was preached in the series and a few others.

I had preached at that church a few months earlier a sermon about the law from the book of James. I remember that the pastor cleaned up after me, so to speak, and took off the edge I purposely left hanging in there. He added grace and gospel to my message. It’s not that I didn’t preach the gospel or that I didn’t speak about grace. But the text was about the law, so there was a certain edge there that was unfortunately flattened. I told my wife about it. I felt frustrated that my point was undone, but it was not my church. Life moved on. I didn’t really ask why!

So, there I was, listening to the man’s sermons. Expository sermons. In the Reformed world, we place a big emphasis on expository preaching–preaching “straight” from the Bible where the message of the sermon is the message of the text. We even go through long series going through the same book of the Bible, verse by verse, to not miss anything. If there is a subject I normally wouldn’t want to talk about, preaching this way will force me to deal with it and not skip it. In theory, there is no way for this to fail. The preacher is to submit to the Word, find its authorial intent (divine and human), find a way to communicate it effectively and apply it faithfully.

This man preached almost 17 chapters of Luke while living in gross sin. And a number of other books prior to that.

How did this happen?

I noticed that the sermons didn’t have skin in them. The applications didn’t get to the heart. Yet, they sounded like terrific expositions of Scripture. I do not recall finding any technical exegetical errors or excursions into La La Land. I could see how a people could listen to years of that and walk away every Sunday being absolutely thankful to God for the sermon and feeling edified. I do not recall hearing of any conversions at the church from the preaching, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were. The Bible shines through as it is living and active, and it is not restrained by the sin of the mouthpiece.

But that doesn’t give us an excuse to not ask anything or, worse yet, to make this key mistake of justifying gross sin or explaining it away because of what we perceive to be the fruit of a ministry or the gifts of the minister.

These sermons did not get to the hard confrontation of calling the human being, made in the image of God, to own his sin, to name it, to reject it fully, to turn from it specifically and completely, and to live for God. In the condition of this man’s heart, there is no way in the world he could have asked these kinds of questions without being laid bare himself at the pulpit. So, he didn’t. And every Sunday, things got worse. And the church, who called him to minister to them, was asleep. Asleep comfortably in the sleep of Jonah.

When application is about somebody else, or it asks us to turn our eyes outwardly to others and away from our own need for Christ, or overemphasizes grace or law (that is, it asks us to believe the lie of Eden that God is not good, trustworthy, and loving), or trivializes our sin (everybody sins, we are imperfect, all pastors fall short of 1 Timothy 3/Titus 1), we need to pay attention. Not to the application, though. Something is wrong. Ask questions. Pray boldly. Speak frankly. Fear God and not man.

Preaching like this is a counterfeit. Allow me to illustrate:

The title of my sermon restarting the Luke series was “In the Midst of You”, and I made three larger points, three signs of the Kingdom: (1) The Kingdom enters a time of complacency and ingratitude, (2) the Kingdom brings in the outsider and shows some of the insiders to have been false sons, and (3) the Kingdom means the end of the law for righteousness. My application, very much guilty of the same style of preaching that I am describing, was this: (1) be thankful, (2) seek to identify God’s miraculous power as you go about your daily life, and (3) guard your heart against relying on the law for your righteousness.

Abstract. Abstract. Abstract.

Can you see how you could have walked away from my sermon (which in essence was no different than the previous sermon by the man preaching while living in sin) and be thankful for the teaching and inspired by the application? And yet, my application does almost nothing for you.

It doesn’t confront you with anything. Be thankful! Great. Does it actually confront my lack of thankfulness? Am I complacent and ungrateful? What specific event or presence or lack of a gift from God showed me to be unthankful or complacent? What sin is behind my response? What am I doing to hide it? This application has a point–thankfulness is the antidote to complacency. But the complacency has to be exposed and understood, confronted and challenged. I have to let the text confront me and call me to repentance. And repent! There is a way this application sounds right but does absolutely nothing for my soul. I can write down “Be thankful” in my notes and maybe say an extra prayer before a meal throughout the week but let it do nothing more in my heart. Sin loves to hide there.

Seek to identify God’s miraculous power as you go about your daily life sounds wise and deep, practical and life-changing. I even quoted Chesterton for good effect. It lacks specificity again. It does very little. And in reading the text again, I think the connection between the exegesis and this application is very thin–there was a miracle in the text; therefore, appreciate miracles.

And then, this exhortation to guard the heart against relying on the law for your righteousness also falls short. The congregation was about to start fleshing out the consequences of sexual sin that hid for a long time in their midst. It was hidden. Lies had to be told and believed. Deception took a root in people’s lives. And this application completely missed the point in light of that. A person hiding gross sin was reminded that no person can save himself by doing the right works of the law and by not doing what the law forbids. Hear: GRACE! It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to translate this exhortation to: “I may be indulging in ungodly sexual pleasure, hiding it from my wife, hiding it from the men who are supposedly walking with me, but I’m good because Scripture says there is no one righteous, not even one. Praise Jesus for His grace for such a wretch as me!” This sermon completely missed the point of the text for this people in that particular day in those particular circumstances.

Preaching like this allows sin to hide and thrive. It doesn’t call us to do anything. It redefines repentance and results in such a rejection of any application that requires costly obedience and honest discipleship, that anyone who calls you to repentance turns into a Pharisee, and we know what Jesus had to say to the Pharisees! So, you can continue to walk down the wide, open road of sin, whistling and singing Amazing Grace, even receiving praise for your sermons and receiving praise from the sermons for your sinful behavior. Not explicitly, of course. That would be heretical. And when the mouthpiece in the pulpit is the one hiding the sin, manipulation and spiritual maneuvers can be very hard to identify. It is the water in which you swim.

I saw in the Twitter world something last week that summarizes the point very well: “Want to know if you have a healthy pastor? Disagree with them.”

Try it sometime, Biblically of course, it may expose what needs to be exposed.

Fellow preachers–we must repent of preaching that hides and empowers abuse. These are misrepresentations of the character of God who compassionately sent His Son Jesus to die for all our sins, past, present, and future and raised Him up from the dead to sit at His right hand and intercede for us, who sent us the Spirit that we may have life and live out the good works prepared beforehand by Him. They do not edify the sheep.

This is preaching from the sleep of Jonah. We are fast asleep in the deep, safe recesses of a study in the middle of a church that is trying to weather a storm of cosmic proportions. Wake up, fellow Jonah. Who has God called you to reach that you would rather, and literally, see burn in hell? It may look like having to get ahold of yourself, own your sin, repent of it publicly, and let somebody else preach. It may look like having to turn back on your fear of losing the congregation or not be liked by them and actually give them real and concrete applications that will help them kill sin and delight in Jesus.

Next time, I will venture a bit into another flavor of preaching from the sleep of Jonah that redefines respect and submission in ways that foster and empower abuse to be perpetuated and never opposed.

Victor Chininin Buele

The President-elect has been saying that his grandmother would not tell him to keep the faith but to spread it. Now, I’m not advocating for spreading the President-elect’s faith, of course, but he managed to get inside of my thinking with that phrase.

We are multipliers. That’s our nature. The blessing at the creation, reported in Genesis, was to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. There is so much to do! There is work to be done excellently, classes to be taught, bread to be baked, women to be rescued, children to be raised, a nation to be saved. We cannot possibly do it all.

I have been homeless, from an ecclesiastical point of view, so to speak, for a bit. I’ve learned a lot.

Multiplication is unavoidable. The question is what are we multiplying?

We will multiply, but if what we are multiplying is the wrong kind of leaven, the whole thing will be bad. That is, it is not just about spreading the faith but about what kind of faith it is that we are spreading.

We become what we worship. I’ve been saying that phrase a lot as I’ve been preparing a class about worship that I’m teaching. Greg Beale came up with it, of course, to summarize the biblical teaching about idolatry. I didn’t make it up myself.

So, what have I learned? Churches become what is sown in them. If you sow self-preservation, they become ingrown monuments to self-preservation. If you sow sacrificial giving, you get to watch a couple depart the comfort of a rising career in Kansas City to go serve in the east where they will very likely face severe persecution for daring to bring the message of salvation in Jesus Christ.

We now know what it feels like to “date” the church as the now-not-a-Christian Josh Harris plastered in a little book once. We know what it is like to walk in and to have literally no one notice that you exist. We know what it is like to have severe reservations about something and not know how to get out. We know what it is like to raise concerns and have them shut down. We know what it is like to have your children ask you why they heard a gospel different than the one they themselves can read in their Bibles. We know what it is like to have children ask legitimate questions you have no good answer for whatsoever.

We now hope we can see the overlooked, not ignore the red flags, not fear the appearance of conflict, not confuse boldness with harshness, not confuse questions with an anti-church mentality, not disregard questions asked whether they seem thoughtful to us or not, not avoid the difficult conversations that sorrow and pain bring about.

We long to see Jesus Christ magnified in Kansas City, disciples growing and thriving, multiplying the good news of Jesus, not a message that kind of, sort of looks like him if you twist your head 63 degrees to the right, put on 3D glasses, squint real hard, and step up a ladder to see.

The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Christ has come. There’s work to do.

Like I heard many times coming out of that TV screen, “get busy living, or get busy dying.”

Víctor Chininin Buele

In case you are not familiar with my usual points: I do not support Vice President Biden. I will not call President Trump’s lack of observable fruit of repentance moral flaws. I do not believe it is morally neutral to think that secularism and scientism are not religions. And true freedom of religion and speech, not to say common sense, love, and compassion, are there to help us better our arguments and lives by being challenged where we need to be challenged and grow. That is, we can’t just call any and everyone the worst human being on earth for holding a divergent position than our own.

With that said, there is hardly anything to celebrate in America this weekend. The last four years brought plenty of devastation, and the next four years will also bring plenty of devastation.

This is a season of judgment, of living the results of what we have sown. We cannot possibly walk out of this one smelling like roses. We have been injecting young minds throughout the nation and the globe with the idea that there is no such thing as truth. Only to have this brilliant observation, the absolute truth that there is no absolute truth, proven to be worthless in front of our very eyes as we have seen lie after lie play out in our very own handheld screens. The President and the media, the not-the-mainstream-media media, the establishment and the opposition, the Republicans and the Democrats have asked us to not believe what we see, hear, and think. We have asked ourselves not to believe what we see, hear, and think. We have killed our consciences.

At the end of the story, we don’t like the challenge of truth because it exposes us. Every claim has an answer.

We are a highly pragmatic society. We prop up little gods because we want what we want, and they promise to give it to us faster, sooner, and better than the other god. Both parties have grossly overlooked obvious sin in the lives of the candidates. Both are liars. It is documented that Vice President Biden lied about his education. It is not fake videos. It actually happened, and he could not become president back then because of that. But today, it has been washed away and not by repentance. I need not waste my time writing about President Trump in this department as they are sites live right now showing statistics about this. And frustrated fact checkers showing their homework to the country, jumping up and down, trying it in bold, red letters, catchy videos without even beginning to make a dent. It just doesn’t register, like when the five year old boy tries desperately to show his mom that he can jump from the roof down to the bushes without breaking a bone. Watch me, mom! Watch, watch, watch! Or I may actually have to jump…

We hate direct questions because we can’t fudge with them. When we take down the lies we tell ourselves to justify the things that we do, we know we have been exposed, so we work feverishly to keep the covers on, no matter what the cost may be. We are expert lawyers at making poor excuses sound like sophisticated legal, scientific, and irrefutable arguments.

Murder becomes a euphemism. Immorality becomes flaw. Fornication and betrayal become an affair. Lawlessness becomes peaceful protesting. Lying becomes hyperbole. Abuse becomes tone. Prejudice becomes inclusiveness of all but that kind over there, those ones are evil. Sin becomes tolerance. Tolerance becomes permissiveness. Racism permeates our hearts.

We want the right to not be told we are wrong. We want the right to not hear the truth that we are sinners in desperate need of grace. We want the right to not have to amend our ways. We demand change in the streets, but we abhor it for our own hearts.

I had a physics teacher who used to say, “Cadets, you love to play and wallow in the mud of your youthful arrogance.” That’s us. Please, let us live in here. It’s nice. This is not mud, how dare you, bigot, to say this is mud? Go to the priest on the internet, perhaps wearing a white coat, who will show you the chemical composition of this material I’m wallowing in to be gold. Yes, the finest gold, the best gold, tremendous gold. Sad!

Reading Isaiah 1 this morning was difficult. I have absolute confidence in the absolute truth that God is in the business of redeeming a sinful but repentant people to Christlikeness. But to repent, we have to hear both the bad news and the good news. Yes, it is worse than you admit it is. You are worse than you want to show. But Jesus Christ came into the world for you, to live the perfect life you can never live, to make atonement for your sins, all of them, the vilest, the Trump-like ones even. Because you know when you look at yourself in the mirror, the orange color is there in your skin, too. What you hate in him, you desperately try to hide in you. And it is vile. That’s why the cross is so vile. It was an abomination. The Son of God became an abomination because we are a walking abominations, and for Him to be just, truly just, not Brett Kavanaugh kind of just or Sonia Sotomayor kind of just, He must also be the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. He died and rose again. Unbelievable as it sounds, test the evidence, run it through the principles of historiography. But ultimately, He must give eyes to see and ears to hear. There is hope, true hope, glorious hope, eternal hope of a better country, of a better patria. Turn. Now. Turn. You don’t have to believe the lies of the flesh, the world, and the devil. You can know truth, and you can have life and life abundantly that transcends the feeble circumstances that surround us.

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause. Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.

Isaiah 1:16-18

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Víctor Chininin Buele

Why waste our collective time, writing and reading, if I know already that you won’t change your mind? Precisely because of that. And that matters because language matters. And because the gospel message, through language, is the only thing that will regenerate your mind.

Iosif Brodsky knows a bit about language since he was strongly urged to emigrate from the Soviet Union basically for being a poet, a free thinker. He once said, “You think evil is going to come into your houses wearing big black boots. It doesn’t come like that. Look at the language. It begins in the language.”

There is something going on that has been bothering me during this entire election cycle. It’s been going on for years, though.

I keep reading things like these:

“Evangelicals in general who support Donald Trump recognize, that he has character flaws.”

“All of us are human, and none of us are without sin, Trump is human like the rest of us.”

“I will vote for the policies I believe most accurately represent God’s will for human flourishing. I will not make a big show of it or make apologies for my chosen candidate’s character flaws.”

I could quote many more, and you may have just made similar statements. Granting all the context and nuance that these and other statements may offer, they magically transform sin into flaw. A line of reasoning is advocated that (1) all human beings sin, (2) Trump is a human just like the rest of us, and (3) at that point the necessary conclusion that Trump sins is not quite articulated but left in the air, hanging, unresolved yet implied. Logic fills the void. So, the need for explaining it away is needed. The air is then filled with a much more respectable-sounding word: flawed. And that is something we can all relate to easily. So, next! I am flawed, you are flawed. “We are a happy family!/With a great big hug/And a kiss from me to you/Won’t you say [you’re flawed], too?” Enough, Barney!

The obvious yet unfortunately necessary disclaimer: This is not an anti President Trump only tirade or a pro Biden motivational speech. I can do the same exercise with Vice President Biden or with Victor Chininin Buele. My point here is to use the caricature in front of us to illustrate something critical. And Trump makes for such a poignant illustration. He is us on steroids, naked and shamelessly unashamed, out in the open, and twitted at crazy hours.

The point is that there is absolutely nothing false about the biblical truth that all human beings sin (Romans 1-3). If this were not true, there would be absolutely no need for the gospel, and with there would be no need for Jesus Christ. Simple fact. What this truth is not, when we rightly understand the gospel, is an excuse to sin flagrantly. And since my wife always prefers that I would stick to biblical terms and descriptions of sin, let me rephrase: This simple fact that we all sin and fall short of the glory of God is not an excuse to live unrepentantly in sin.

We don’t need a lot to illustrate the need for justification. First, we go and do something super dumb, like watch a bad movie, buy something stupid, say something embarrassing, you name it. We immediately rush to find a way to explain it to ourselves. (Actually, we say, it was a great movie, a smart investment preparing for the future, the needed word that needed to be said).

This is a deep part of our sinful, fallen nature. Once we have found a way to deceive ourselves that wrong is right, bad is good and even desirable, we become evangelists because we desperately need others to affirm what we’ve done, approve of us, and close the cycle. We start telling others how wonderful that terrible movie was. Because we can’t just own it. We start telling others to go buy the product because we can’t face it that we made a mistake. Because we do this for relatively simple stuff like hoarding toilet paper during a global pandemic, for example, we don’t pay much attention to this sequence of self-justification and self-deceit.

And that is where I want you to hear the language.

This is how we allow sin in our lives. We tell ourselves it cannot possibly be a big deal because both everyone else sins and others, like Trump, for example, sin way more than us, or their sin is worse than ours. This is how we self-justify our walk away from the pursuit of holiness. We’ve taken our eyes off of Jesus and His Word and have diverted it instead to excuse-making. And in that simple line of argument with ourselves, we’ve deemed our sin to not be a sin. And as it becomes systemic and permanent in our hearts and lives, well, we just associate our identity with it—we are flawed! The societal expectation to require others to love us just as we are (that is, without calling us to repentance and change) comes in, and there we are: self-justified in our self-described flaws but needing to run to any and every instrument of self-medication possible to quiet a guilty conscience. Because we know that when the night comes, and the land is dark, and the moon is the only light we see, that’s when we know we’ve sinned. We can’t hide anymore from God. And even if we over medicate and fall asleep deadening our conscience, sooner or later, we wake up.

And that is also how we allow wolves into our churches. We are pragmatic. We are sinners, and yet we want to see change. We want to see the gospel at work. We want results. We want to see lives changed. But we get mixed up. The world’s definition of success gets into us as we trade the concept of sin in our personal lives for the more palatable idea of flaws or mistakes. Then, this infiltrates the church. We are far more likely to overlook sin when things look just like we want them. Or even trending up to look just like we want them. Actually, the promise of something is far more entangling than getting the thing itself. Especially if we are constantly persuaded that the goal is just over here, almost within reach. We can see that promised land, y’all!

And wolves come in, walk on the red carpet we set to welcome them, eat our food, drink our beer, come into our homes, get to know us and our sins and our secrets. They set shop in our church, get paid by us, give us what we want to hear and see. We see their anger, sure, their wrath, their immorality, their covetousness, their lusts, their greed. We see what John Piper highlighted as the New Testament sins of “unrepentant sexual immorality (porneia), unrepentant boastfulness (alazoneia), unrepentant vulgarity (aischrologia), unrepentant factiousness (dichostasiai), and the like,” but we explain them away. We lie and say to ourselves and then to others when we become evangelists for our guy that we are all sinners just like Pastor Steve up there. He is so vulnerable and raw, honest and transparent! He struggles like I do! We are all flawed and say silly things from time to time… It’s just the tone. Our man, he gets results! That’s what we say.

Never underestimate the things you will say and do to justify your own sin. The Word is true—the wages of sin is death. Devastation follows sin.

So, let’s watch our language, shall we? If we don’t call out sin without euphemisms, we will never be able to repent of it. And without repentance, there is no regeneration. No regeneration means no renewal.

Is that what we want to leave behind? Lives consumed by selfishness? Churches consumed by wolves? A nation consumed by sin?