Beyond the Political Part I: The Dilemma of Our Times Gen 4:1-17; Matt 5:21-23
Audio: https://www.daleappleby.net/index.php/mp3-sermons/51-recent-sermons/1076-the-dilemma-of-our-times
Video: https://www.stmarksbassendean.church/post/the-dilemma-of-our-times
Introduction
Daniel says the God who “changes times and seasons; removes kings and sets up kings; gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding;” (Dan 2:21). This means can understand “the signs of the times” (Matt 16:3) in which we find ourselves. We need never be seduced by the so-called spirit of the age (zeitgeist), the prevailing beliefs and attitudes of the time, because we are a supernatural people to whom the Spirt gives revelation.
When Paul testifies, “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Rom 1:18, 20), he implies that we can discern the ongoing judgement of the Lord in the world through its intensifying moral depravity (Rom 1:24, 26, 28). In 2 Timothy we read, “in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.” (2 Tim 3:1-5). Since the “last days” began with Christ’s public ministry (Mark 1:14-15 cf. Acts 2:17; Heb 1:2), we are in the ethically distressing times described by Paul.
They are hardly mysterious days, but for centuries the depth of sinful depravity in the Western world was largely covered over by an inherited historical faith confused with biblical Christianity. When I was a child the “right thing” to do was to live by the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule of “whatever you wish that others would do to you, do so to them” (Matt 7:12); but there has been a radical redefinition of righteousness in the secularised Western world of our age. With the shallow veneer of nominal Christianity stripped away we can rediscover just how humanly impossible are the commands of Jesus. this one is especially relevant. ““You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.” (Matt 5:21-23). Whilst “brother” here might be limited to a fellow disciple, it is better to see it as including our neighbour who we must love “as ourselves” (Matt 22:39; cf. 18:21, 35.). We live in the most exciting times that the Western Church has seen in centuries as we rediscover the Spirit of Christ.
The Spirit of the Age (Zeitgeist)
Let me list a few matters that that highlight the spirit of our age. When 50 Australian companies took out a full page ad in The Australian newspaper in support of gay marriage, when insurance companies advocate for climate action, when Rugby Australia terminated Israel Folau’s contract, when 15 sponsors pull out of supporting MKR famous chef Pete Evans over an apparent neo-Nazi symbol on Facebook, when a Sydney law firm drops its Christ-mas party and replaces it with an end-of-year party, when a Queensland law professor needs to step down from his position because of comments about his “transgender” children and when this year there needed to be a petition to reintroduce a nativity scene in the Perth CBD, we were witnessing a seemingly irreversible power shift in Australian culture.
Unfortunately, instead of abiding in the unsurpassable power of the kingdom of God (Rom 1:16; Heb 6:5) much of the Church has been “asleep in the light” (Keith Green) conforming more and more to what elements of secular society thinks is right. On the one side an alarmed member of St Mark’s recently sent me a photo of the rainbow flag flying on the grounds of St Hilda’s North Perth. With the recent ruling by the highest legal tribunal in the Anglican Church that the blessing of civil same sex marriages is constitutional, expect an emerging furore soon in the Church. On the other side, in 2017 a well-known Christian was so uncontrollably angry he shoved a pie in the face of Qantas CEO Alan Joyce in front of a crowd of 500 people because of his support for same sex marriage. The self-righteous political correctness of right and left inundating Western civilisation is obscuring the wisdom of the cross (1 Cor 1:24).
When a notification about a legal conference on raising anti-Christian sentiment in Perth was pulled down by Facebook for “violating community standards”, many were enraged, but few saw this as a gift from God to stimulate his people into showing the selfless love of the crucified Lord for a spiritually ugly world. Let me give an illustration of seeing through the cross.
Some years ago, I ran into a devout brother at a mission conference overseas. When I asked him how he was doing he showed a high level of grief and explained he had been abandoned and felt betrayed by a couple he’d been preparing to succeed him in ministry. I then gave him what I sensed was a word from the Lord. “If Jesus needed Judas for his maturing to perfection (Heb 2:10; 5:9) you have needed a Judas in your life too.”. The Spirit is working through the irrational godlessness of our times to restore in the Church (Eph 1:22-23) an adequate vision of the majesty of Christ.
A friend of mine residing in the U.S. frequently describes the political tensions there as like being in a “civil war”. This would be impossible if Evangelical Christians there were filled with the Spirit of Jesus who spoke the Sermon on the Mount and who inspired John’s words, “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer” (1 John 3:15 cf. 2:9, 11; 4:20). Hate is a failure to love. Many believers have been caught up in the political realm through the deception of the devil (John 8:44). The gospel is powerful enough (1 Thess 2:13) to defeat the spirit of the age but this shouldn’t be equated with most of contemporary Western Christianity’s understanding of the gospel or of sin.
What Not to Do: the tree of Knowledge
Few commentators seem to have come to grips with the deep pervasive power of shame and the utter tenacity of self-righteousness released by the Fall. Satan never appeared as a dark force in Eden (2 Cor 11:14), he seduced Eve by appealing to the high reputation and lovely appearance of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It would make her more “like God…was desired to make one wise”, what could be wrong with that, and it was “a delight to the eyes” she could not resist (Gen 3:5-6). The Fall didn’t make Adam and Eve lesser moral creatures than the high dignity with which they were created, it was just that their sense of good and evil was corrupted into a pure self-righteousness independent of the Word of the Lord. In a TV interview no less an ethical authority than Donald Trump said, “I am not a bad person.” I am sure we have all heard this sort of narcissism from less famous sources. The quest for a righteous image in our own eyes (Prov 2:12) and in the eyes of the group to which we belong dominates human life. Since we are driven to be seen as righteous, it is only ever a question of what is the right thing to do? The so-called culture wars are about contradictory forms of righteousness.
The Lord has “handed over” the fundamentalists of the secular left to an addiction to personal and minority rights and privileges whilst the religious right gets high on being pro-life above every other issue of justice. These polarisations have no reasonable resolution because the dynamics of guilt and shame that compel us to rationalise and self-justify are embedded in the fallen human heart so deeply they can only be absolved by the blood of the cross.
What’s Really Happening?
The “cancel culture” phenomenon is a demonic public shaming movement (Zech 3:1) whose weapons are disgrace and humiliation to make white people feel guilty about accumulated privilege through the invasion of the land and dispossession of Indigenous peoples. On the other side, treated as irredeemable, are those who represent traditional values and who work hard to deny or repress any guilt and shame. To motivate us to return to the true dimensions of the gospel as all saving power of God (Rom 1:16) I need to teach on the polluting power of sin.
In recent decades theologians have added shame to guilt as one of the major results of the Fall. After the marriage of Adam and Eve “the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (Gen 2:25). Yet immediately after they sinned their eyes were opened to the knowledge of good and evil and they saw themselves as naked and covered over with fig leaves (Gen 3:7) hiding from the presence of the Lord (Gen 3:8). Adam and Eve felt guilty about what they had done wrong, but they also felt disgraced and unworthy at the centre of their being. Shame is a sense of the loss of the glory of God (Hab 2:16-17; Phil 3:18-19). A sense of being less than we should be.
The uncontrollable dynamics of guilt and shame come out in the story of Cain and Abel. Firstly, this original murder story in Genesis 4:1-16 can be seen as a vicious spiral of guilt. Cain is sinfully angry with the Lord because his offering is not acceptable to God. When the Lord approaches him about this he goes into denial, kills his brother, is spoken to by God again, goes into more guilt and denial and so on. His wrongdoing produces guilt which produces anger-rebellion which leads to more wrongdoing and on and on. The role of the Lord in this story must not be misunderstood.
God is not accusing or ruthless. He questions Cain in a kindly way, warns him of the consequence of denial of personal responsibility then questions again, “Where is Abel your brother?” (4:9). Cain persists in lies, rebelliousness and self-justification, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” (4:9). Because in his guilt Cain fears being killed like he killed his brother (4:14) the Lord graciously marks him as a sign of protection (4:15). Another equally valid dimension to this story concerns indelible shame.
With respect to their offerings Abel is honoured and Cain is shamed (v.4-5) before God. Anger results and Cain’s face is downcast/he looked dejected (v.5-6). God calls Cain to turn from his sin and honour him so he can “lift his face up” again (v.7). “Shame of face” (2 Sam 19:6; 2 Chron 32:21; Ezra 9:7; Ps 44:16; 83:17; Jer 7:19; Dan 9:7 cf. Ps 34:6) is a common expression throughout the Old Testament. Rage is a frequent cover up in honour-shame cultures and revenge is even more common in these cultures than in guilt-based societies (cf. Gen 4:8,24; 34:25; Jdg16:28). A shame-rage spiral follows which results in Abel being killed (v.8). Harmony is destroyed. Now Cain fears punishment. God confronts him (v.9). and his punishment is separation and exclusion from God’s face, a shaming penalty (v.14,16).
1 John 3:12 warns us, “We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous.” Cain resented his brother’s righteousness (Heb 11:4), and we must accept that every tendency to judge others in order to feel morally better about ourselves is inspired by the one who has been a murderer from the beginning i.e. the devil (John 8:44).
Conclusion
Winning an argument, being “right” or rational, political lobbying or “lawfare” in today’s “culture wars” cannot successfully bring victory and glory to Christ. The weapons we must fight with are not of the flesh but possess divine power to the pulling down of strongholds (2 Cor 10:4). Any disposition towards others made in the image of God that is polluted by anger, accusation and judgement is, according to Jesus, equivalent to killing in the eyes of God (Matt 5:21-23). “Truth” mixed with ordinary selfish human anger is hopelessly defiled (Eph 4:26-27). Only the blood of Jesus that cleanses away all sin can bring peace to the conscience (Heb 9:14) and free us from these powers to face life as it really is in a fallen world.
Contrary even to the British law of the time this land was invaded and the original inhabitants the Lord placed here (Acts 17:26) were subject to dispossession in a way that has benefited every successive non-aboriginal generation. Racism, sexism and lots of other “isms” and “phobias” are realities in a fallen world. But they are NOT final realities and must not be treated as if they were because the faithful Creator and Redeemer has something much better in store.
The story of Cain and Abel is foundational to the history of human civilisation in this present evil age (Gal 1:4). At the end of the story “Cain went away from the presence of the Lord” (Gen 4:16) in despair. Then against God’s decree that he be a wanderer on the face of the earth (Gen 4:13) this arch-rebel went and built a city. The descendants of Cain are always driven to “build a city”; but because they cannot agree about what that city should be like they are in constant conflict. This is the problem we face today in the political-social realm. There is however another city, “whose designer and builder is God” (Heb 11:10). This city is built on a totally different foundation than the city of this age, its eternal foundation is the love and blood of the cross. This will be our topic next week.