A few days ago John Piper answered a question about addiction to entertainment. He expressed his concern with our need today to be entertained and to be entertained near-constantly. He then offered a few pointers on escape this addiction. This little article got me thinking and I wanted to offer just a couple of thoughts on the topic.

First, I want to try to define entertainment. The best I can do, at least for now, is this: Entertainment is an escape or distraction or break from normal life. That’s not a great definition, but I think it is a start, at any rate. Entertainment distracts us from the cares and concerns and normalcy of life. It is a form of escapism. It is not necessarily bad to be entertained; but it is meant to be just a part of life, not normal everyday existence. Entertainment is meant to be supplemental, not instrumental. I’ve thought also about amusement. Amusement, if we wish to draw a distinction, is a passive form of entertainment. The roots of the word mean “not thinking” and this clues us in to how it differs from entertainment. A person watching television may be both entertained (as he lets himself take a break from the stress of life) and amused (as he just turns his mind off). A person who is playing Settlers of Catan is entertained, but probably not amused, since playing a game of that nature requires him to use his mind.

Not all entertainment is bad; not all amusement is bad. But I think we have a higher capacity for entertainment than for amusement. I may be entertained by reading a Tale of Two Cities even while not being amused by it. Watching The Office or 24 is pure amusement. The entire purpose is to have me turn off my mind, to stop thinking, and to just go with the story. I think it’s a helpful distinction, then, to see whether we prefer entertainment or amusement. Neither is intrinsically evil, but I think if we ought to be careful to measure both.

I want to point this out as well: entertainment is not a right and should not even be a necessary expectation. The Bible gives us no reason to expect it as a right. Entertainment is a privilege. And historically, the widespread availability and expectation for entertainment is the exception, not the rule. In fact, it has not even been a possibility. And this is at least one of the reasons: here is a small table outlining the cost for a general laborer to enjoy the entertainment of that day, given as a proportion of his daily wage (drawn from Todd Gitlin’s Media Unlimited):

18th century (theater)	More than a full day’s wage
Early 19th century (theater)	1/3
1840s-50s	A little less than 1/3 (25¢)
1870 (minstrel, variety shows)	1/6 (still 25¢)
1880s (melodrama, vaudeville)	1/13 (10¢)
1910 (nickelodeon)	1/40 (10¢)
1920 (movie theater)	less than 1/40 (10¢)
1960s (television)	1/360 (amortizing cost of $200 black-and-white set)
1998 (cable television)	1/100 (amortizing cost of $300 color set plus basic cable

OK, so this is long enough for today. I’ll come back tomorrow with some further thoughts on what to do about entertainment. For now, I’d love to get feedback on what I’ve said here so far. I am really trying to think this through.

The Pacific Campaign of the Second World War has always fascinated me. In many ways, it seemed like a nonsensical series of battles between the United States and Japan. As the Americans sought to curtail Japanese aggression in the East, they fought their way across the Pacific Ocean, moving slowly and deliberately from island to island. Tiny, seemingly insignificant pieces of rock, jutting from the midst of a boundless ocean, hundreds of miles, thousands even, from the nearest mainland, became fierce battlegrounds. Tens of thousands of lives were lost in conquering these tiny little islands. And yet these islands were far more important than their size may have indicated, for they were able to serve as air bases from which strikes could be launched against other islands, and eventually against Japan itself. The insignificant islands were crucial stepping stones across the vast Pacific Ocean.

There are many lessons we can learn from the Pacific Campaign. Some apply to warfare, but others apply far beyond. One of the most important is this: little things lead to big things. This is as true in warfare as it is in the hearts of men and women.

The Spirit constantly challenges me to deal with little sins. As with so many other believers, I often tend to feel that I’m a pretty good guy. I have never committed any of the really “bad” sins. I’ve never killed anyone, I’ve never committed adultery and I’ve never stolen anything big enough for anyone to notice that it’s missing. I pay my taxes, stick near the speed limit, and try not to hate people. But while I have not committed those big sins, I’ve come to realize just how open I have become to the little sins. To use our military metaphor, while the mainland has not yet been conquered, I can see how I’ve gleefully allowed island after island to fall to Satan. Surely concentrated attacks on the mainland cannot be far behind. Surely big sins will follow these little ones.

BRIDGING THE GULF

The Prince of Preachers, Charles Spurgeon, likens Satan’s attacks to bridging a gulf. “If it be desired to bridge a gulf, it is often the custom to shoot an arrow, and cross it with a line almost as thin as film. That line passes over and a string is drawn after it, and after that some small rope, and after that a cable, and after that the swinging suspension bridge, that makes a way for thousands.” Not too long ago, the Toronto press reported on a local man who had committed a horrifying murder. A bit of a loner, this man began to use his home computer to look at pornography. Soon light pornography was not enough to satisfy him and he began to look at things that were increasingly perverse. Before long he was seeking after child pornography. And one day, as he was looking at these horrible acts played out on his computer screen, he looked out his window and saw a young girl walking by all alone. Without planning, without having seriously considered that he might do this, he snatched her from the street. A couple of days later, the police found her body. The man turned himself in and confessed to the crime, insisting that he had not meant to do something so horrifying, so evil. It is likely true that this was not an act that had been planned for a long time. Satan had conquered island after island in this man’s heart until he finally reached the mainland. A series of small beginnings led to a horrible end. Spurgeon warns against allowing these little sins. “Oh! take heed of those small beginnings of sin. Beginnings of sin are like the letting out of water: first, there is an ooze; then a drip; then a slender stream; then a vein of water; and then, at last, a flood: and a rampart is swept before it, a continent is drowned. Take heed of small beginnings, for they lead to worse.”

Stories like that of the man who murdered the little girl terrify me. It’s not that I am drawn to pornography or have ever considered seeking out child pornography. Rather, it is the lesson behind the story—the lesson that little things lead to big things. Thomas Brooks, the Puritan, wrote, “Greater sins do sooner startle the soul, and awaken and rouse up the soul to repentance, than lesser sins do. Little sins often slide into the soul, and breed, and work secretly and undiscernibly in the soul, till they come to be so strong as to trample upon the soul, and to cut the throat of the soul.” If this is true in the life of an average guy who murdered a little child, could it not be true in my life?

LITTLE SINS

In God’s Way of Holiness, Horatius Bonar wrote, “The avoidance of little evils, little sins, little inconsistencies, little weaknesses, little follies, little indiscretions and imprudences, little foibles, little indulgences of self and of the flesh, little acts of indolence or indecision or slovenliness or cowardice, little equivocations or aberrations from high integrity, little touches of shabbiness and meanness, little indifferences to the feelings or wishes of others, little outbreaks of temper, or crossness, or selfishness, or vanity—the avoidance of such little things as these goes far to make up at least the negative beauty of a holy life.” Jerry Bridges is astute in pointing out that “it is in the minutiae of life where most of us live day after day.” Few of us are regularly faced with the outright decision of whether or not to commit adultery, but each of us is faced each day with the temptation of stealing a single lustful look or allowing a single lustful fantasy to play out in our minds.

We may think we avoid evil by fleeing the sins we perceive to be greater. But Jesus dealt harshly with such thoughts. “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” “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.” Jesus gave no quarter to sin. He knew that sin begins in the heart and it begins not with a great act of sin, but with many small acts. Surely Cain first grumbled against Abel, and then plotted against him before finally murdering him. Surely David allowed himself to think lustful thoughts and surely he went to the roof of his palace knowing what he might see. Those little sins led to breathtakingly horrifying, ungodly acts of lust and anger.

DECLARING WAR

The truth is, that every sin, whether large or small, is a declaration of war against God. In the recent Israeli-Lebanon crisis, we saw this principle played out. The Hezbollah sent a few troops across the border into Israel. They did not send an entire army, but only a small squad of soldiers. Still, this was as much a declaration of war as if they had sent every solider under their command. Israel perceived this for the statement it was and reacted accordingly. In the same way even a small sin is a declaration of war against God. After all, Adam and Eve did not commit adultery and did not murder—they merely ate a piece of fruit that God had told them not to eat. This may seem only a small sin, but it is a sin that has made all the difference.

I have been challenged in my life to guard against the small sins—those sins that seem so small, so insignificant. I have come to see through Scripture and through human experience how those sins soon lead to others. They are but the beginnings of much greater sins. Each and every one, no matter how insignificant it may seem, is a declaration of war and an act of war against the Creator. And if I do not guard against these sins, soon island after island will be conquered and only the mainland will remain, weak and unprotected. Thanks be to God that He provides the strength and the power to reconquer and reclaim islands that have already fallen to the enemy. He has won battles, but by the grace of God he will be pushed back, further and further from the mainland, and will not win the war.

Some time ago I was reading the site of a Roman Catholic apologist and read a statement that showed a misunderstanding of Protestant theology. And there may be good reason for this error. The author said simply, “Protestants do not believe in confession.” The statement is correct only insofar as Protestants do not practice auricular confession (confessing ones’ sins to a priest in order to receive forgiveness). That statement along with others I have heard and read shows that there is a misunderstanding about the Protestant view of confession. That God calls us to confess our sin is clearly supported by Scripture. The Bible offers us clear teaching on this subject. Yet this is not an aspect of Christian living to which Christians tend to give a great deal of attention. Today I want to look just briefly to the practice of confession.

Leviticus 16:21 shows that confession is an integral part of forgiveness. “Then Aaron shall lay both of his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel and all their transgressions in regard to all their sins; and he shall lay them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness…” Though confession is implicit in asking for forgiveness (an admission of wrong-doing is necessary before one is able to properly ask for forgiveness), the Biblical model is one of explicit confession. The priest did not simply send the scapegoat into the wilderness as a sign of forgiveness. Nor did he simply mumble a few platitudes and consider that sufficient. Rather, he first laid his hands on the animal and confessed the sins of the nation. The implication is that the priest would have confessed specific sins rather than simply offering a vague admission of guilt.

Psalm 32:3-5 shows the burden of unconfessed sin. “When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD”; And You forgave the guilt of my sin.” David says that while he refused to confess his sin his bones wasted away, God’s hand was heavy upon him and his strength was sapped. The burden was psychological, spiritual and probably physical as well. Finally, after David confessed his sin before God he experienced God’s forgiveness. At the close of the psalm we see a radical transformation. David is glad - singing and rejoicing in song. David shows us that confession is a necessary aspect of spiritual health.

Most Christians have, at one time or another, learned the acronym A.C.T.S. as a model for prayer. Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication is a good and a logical way of ordering prayer. There is logic in this model. Giving God the adoration due his name will inevitably prepare us for confession. Focusing on God’s attributes will help us see where we have fallen short of his standards. A part of our adoration is focusing on the attributes of God that we shared with him before our fall into sin. For example, we may give God glory for being perfect in holiness. As we do this it opens our eyes to the fact that this perfection is God’s standard for us. He demands and expects no less from us. Once we have established who God is and what he has done we cannot help but see how our lives and character fall short of the perfection he demands. The reaction of a contrite and broken heart can be nothing other than confessing our sinfulness before him as we begin to pour out our requests before him.

So what does confession actually look like? Here are a few pointers:

Confession is specific. Like most things in life, and in the Christian life in particular, speaking in specifics is superior to speaking in generalities. We commit specific sins and thus need to confess them specifically. Consider, for example, someone who struggles with feelings of jealousy. Praying “I confess that I am a jealous person” is less specific than praying “I confess that I am jealous of the talents You have given to someone else.” The more specific we are, the more we show to God that we have thought about our sins and that we are truly sorry for them. A vague admission of sin shows that we are only vaguely repentant.

Confess the consequences. True confession involves looking not just at the sin we commit but also at how this sin has affected us. It is more than an admission of guilt but is a process of soul-searching to see where sin has taken root in our lives. So we need to search our souls and then confess not only the sin but also the effects of the sin. “I confess that I am jealous of the talents you have given to someone else” is a good place to start, but praying “I confess I am jealous of the talents you have given someone else, and this makes me resentful towards you for not blessing me in this way. It also damages my relationship towards this person…” shows that I have searched my soul and seen how my sin has affected me.

Confession precedes forgiveness. Confession leads us to ask for forgiveness. Confessing leads us to fall on our faces before God, literally or figuratively, to ask for forgiveness. A confession is not, in itself, enough. In our court system a criminal may plead guilty for a misdeed, but this does not necessarily indicate that he is sorry for what he has done. Similarly we need to ask God for his forgiveness, not just confess our sins to him.

Confession before someone we have harmed. There may be times where our sin requires us to confess and ask forgiveness from someone our sin has affected. We must be careful with this because there are times when our sin should remain only between ourselves and God, especially if revealing it to others would only hurt them further and damage relationships. Knowing when it is appropriate to confess before men and when it is best to confess before God is a matter of wisdom, dependent on knowing the Word of God and being filled with his Spirit.

Confession before Men. At times it may be wise to confess our sins before a friend or other trusted individual. This is an aspect of confession that we often overlook, perhaps because it is not part of our Protestant heritage or perhaps because it is so unnatural for us to want to confess sin to others. Confession is therapeutic (in the best sense of the word). While we may not have to confess our sins to a person we have sinned against (again, this is dependent on specific situations), it may still be helpful to confess this sin to a close friend so this person can then pray with us, pray for us, and help us believe in God’s assurance of forgiveness.

On his album The House Show, Derek Webb provides a lengthy spoken introduction to his song “I Repent” where he says that often it might just be the best thing for us if our deepest, darkest sins, the ones we work hardest to hide, were exposed to the world and broadcast from the rooftops. After all, if our sins were exposed, we would have no way of hiding from them and we would have to deal with them. Of course this is exactly how our sins have been exposed to Jesus. Jesus sees and knows them all. Yet, praise be to God, if we know him, all our sins have been forgiven! Having confessed our sin and asked for forgiveness, we have God’s assurance that he has forgiven us. “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” We need to believe in this promise, believing that our sins have been paid for by Christ. Naturally, our reaction should now be one of joy as we thank God for allowing Christ to take our sin upon himself. Finally, having confessed to him and having thanked him for forgiveness, we can pour out our requests to him, asking that he would help us turn from our sin and become more and more like his Son.

Confession, then, is an integral part of the Protestant faith and a necessary part of our Christian walk. While vastly different from Roman Catholic confession, it is no less important a part of the faith.

When I was a child my father would occasionally take me to work with him. Dad did not work in an office so this was not a typical “take your child to work” situation. Dad was a landscaper and a day with dad was a day in the hot sun. It was a day of hard work, hauling, digging, planting, watering, tending. As a child I would grow discouraged at how little I could do in comparison to dad. By the time I had hauled a couple of flats of plants from the truck to the garden, he would have hauled a hundred. By the time I had dug a hole big enough to fit a rose, he would have finished a dozen. Even when I did get something done quickly, he would almost inevitably tell me that I had done it poorly and would tell me to go back and do it properly. After a while I would wonder if there was any reason at all to even help him. What could I really accomplish in comparison?

And yet at the end of the day dad would thank me for my help and would stop and buy me an ice cream or another treat. And he would give me a few dollars as payment for what I had done. Despite false starts, despite carelessness, despite weakness, I really was able to help dad out. Together we got the job done, even if my half of the work was, well, a lot less than half.

A few days ago I was reflecting on how good God is to allow us to work with him and to sometimes do his work on his behalf. When we share the gospel with unbelievers or when we preach the gospel to our brothers and sisters in Christ, it is easy to see our own inadequacy, our own shortcomings. It is easy to grow discouraged, knowing how little we can accomplish. Why bother with our fractional percent when God is the one who must provide all of the power?

As I was thinking about these things, I came across a great illustration in Gorden Cheng’s Encouragement: How Words Change Lives (published by Matthias Media). He describes an occasion where his work, foolish though it may seem, really does make a difference.

*****

When the entire family decides to plant baby lettuce on a Saturday afternoon in the backyard, certain realities apply and certain home truths about family dynamics and gardening knowledge must be taken into account. My wife is extremely well aware of these realities; the rest of us are somewhat aware in a descending order that begins with me, and gradually drops down to our seven-year-old (who, truth be known, is starting to get quite good and is beginning to ask question about my ability in this area), down to our four-year-old and finally to our three-year-old. The latter two contribute enthusiasm and a certain degree of, let’s say, unrestrained passion about how things ought to be done and who ought to do them first. As a direct result of this scenario, it is fair to suggest that every single task that needs to be completed in the garden takes three to five times longer than if Fiona (my wife) were to do it herself. Digging a furrow takes longer. Putting plants into the furrow takes longer. It is an activity fraught with risk both to the baby lettuce and to the dogs underfoot. At least one adult is employed for the entire gardening period keeping an eye on the most recent location of the pitchfork, and helping recover small plants from under a layer of newly thrown mulch. Snails, as the oldest of us have now realized, are not potential pets—but we haven’t yet had the heart to tell the two youngest, and so the location of their mollusc collection has also turned out to be one of those things that just has to be carefully monitored.

But for all the slow, distracting and sometimes dangerous things that happen in our garden, there is no doubt that all of us really are gardening. Every single one of the children’s mistakes, and a good number of mine as well, will be overruled by grace. The good things we do really are good things. In the kindness and providence of God, the children (and I) are becoming better gardeners than when we first began. When we stand in the garden in the summer sunshine we will be happy because we really did it.

And that is how it is with God and us, his fellow workers, in his church. We really are helping him. Those who see our efforts may laugh at what we do. We ourselves may become frustrated and upset by mistakes and lack of competence. We may become dimly aware, from time to time, that what we thought was useful and helpful was, unfortunately, nothing of the sort. But provided that we keep our focus on what God says in his word, and continue to speak that same truth in love, the gospel we speak will continue to transform our own lives and the lives of others. And that gospel work will result in a growth that bears fruit into eternity.

In The Lord of the Rings Tolkien writes about a kingdom called Gondor which for many years has had no king. While waiting for the rightful heir to come and claim his throne, a series of stewards has been placed in charge of the land. The steward in charge at the time of the events described in the book is named Denethor and he has two sons, Boromir and Faramir, both of whom figure prominently in the story (and subsequently, in the movie). As steward of the land, Denethor had the power of the king but without the title and without the full measure of honor. He was able to make decisions and to pass judgment. He received the respect and admiration of the people of the land. His primary task was to do whatever was best for the land in the absence of its rightful ruler. In all he did he was to remember his position—to remember that he was not and never would be the king. As a constant reminder of his temporary position he was forbidden to rule from the king’s throne.

“…awe fell upon him as he looked down that avenue of kings long dead. At the far end upon a dais of many steps was set a throne under a canopy of marble shaped like a crowned helm; behind it was carved upon the wall and set with gems an image of a tree in flower. But the throne was empty. At the foot of the dais, upon the lowest step which was broad and deep, there was a stone chair, black and unadorned, and on it sat an old man gazing at his lap.”

That man, of course, was the steward. Where the king was allowed the full honor of sitting upon the throne, surrounded by splendor, the steward was consigned to rule from a plain, unadorned chair that sat at the foot of the throne.

Denethor was not a very good steward. He dreaded the day the king would return, for he knew that with the return of the king would come his own return to obscurity. He jealously guarded the power that had been given him and did not look forward to the day when he will have to relinquish the kingdom to its rightful owner. This attitude affected his every decision, and he often ruled based on his own desire for preservation rather than on the basis of what would be best for the kingdom he was sworn to protect. We find him saying:

“…the Lord of Gondor is not to be made the tool of other men’s purposes, however worthy. And to him there is no purpose higher in the world as it now stands than the good of Gondor; and the rule of Gondor, my lord, is mine and no other man’s, unless the king should come again.” To this Gandalf replied “Unless the king should come again? Well, my lord Steward, it is your task to keep some kingdom against that even, which few now look to see.”

The steward was failing in his duty to properly care for what had been entrusted to him. We learn later that he had been going beyond the care of his office and had become corrupted by the enemy. His abuse of what had been entrusted to him led to his own corruption.

This concept of stewardship is one that has been largely lost to our time and our culture. We understand ownership, borrowing, leasing and mortgaging but have little knowledge of stewardship. Yet it is a crucial concept in the Bible. Scripture tells us that we are to regard all that God gives us as if we are stewards, not owners (See, for example, Luke 12). This is true of wealth; it is true of talents; it is true of opportunities and children and spouses and property and businesses and everything else. Where God has given richly, much is expected in return. At no time does God give us full and final ownership of what He has given us. He gives us but the opportunity to be stewards of his gifts.

Stewardship is more difficult than we may think. How tightly we like to cling to those things that we regard as ours. How tightly we cling to our money and how quick we are to set our hope in the uncertainty of riches (1 Timothy 6:17). How difficult it is to release our children to the care of God, knowing that we are but stewards of them for the short time God grants them to us. How prone we are to hold fast to all of the wrong things. How hard it is for us to understand that we do not occupy the throne. No, we are those who sit in the steward’s unadorned stone chair, far below, in the shadow of the throne.

Denethor held fast to the wrong things. Drunk with corruption and power and unwilling to hand over the kingdom, Denethor, steward of Gondor, eventually took his own life, ending his years of poor stewardship. He would rather die than give up the power that he thought was his. He would rather die than humble himself before the king.

Denethor’s son, Faramir, took his father’s place as the next in a long line of stewards. And no sooner did he do this than Aragorn, the heir to the throne, returned to Gondor. Faramir was faced with all that was so important to his father. Would Faramir be like his father? Or would he be a faithful steward?

“Faramir met Aragorn in the midst of those there assembled, and he knelt, and said: “The last steward of Gondor begs leave to surrender his office.”…Then Faramir stood up and spoke in a clear voice: “Men of Gondor, hear now the Steward of this realm! Behold! One has come to claim the kingship again at last. Here is Aragorn son of Arathorn…Shall he be king and enter into the city and dwell there?” And all the host and all the people cried yea with one voice.”

Moments later, when the new king has been crowned, it is Faramir who leads the cries of “Behold the king!”

Faramir was everything his father was not. He was a good and faithful steward who looked forward to the return of his king and who was willing and ready to hand what had been entrusted to him to its rightful owner. Faramir proved his character.

It is said that Queen Victoria, who reigned over England for over 63 years said, “I wish Jesus would come back in my lifetime. I would lay my crown at His feet.” Would you do the same? Will you lead the chorus of “Behold the King!”?

A couple of weeks ago I spoke at a Families & Technology seminar in Auburn Hills, Michigan, and enjoyed the opportunity to spend some time focusing on how technology is changing the world and perhaps even changing the Christian faith. I was surprised during my research to see just how much technology has changed, well, everything! I gave two talks and thought I’d share my introduction to these seminars. In the days to come I may spend a bit more time reflecting on technology and the Christian life. I’d love to get some thoughts from you on what topics related to technology, media and Christian living may be of interest to you.

In the meantime, here is something to get us started…

In his account of the Lewis and Clark expedition, historian Stephen Ambrose notes “A critical fact in the world of 1801 was that nothing moved faster than the speed of a horse. No human being, no manufactured item, no bushel of wheat…no letter, no information, no idea, order, or instruction of any kind moved faster. Nothing ever had moved any faster.” For all the benefits and greatness of American society it was “a society whose technology was barely advanced over that of the Greeks. The Americans of 1801 had more gadgets, better weapons, a superior knowledge of geography, and other advantages over the ancients, but they could not move goods or themselves or information by land or water any faster than had the Greeks or Romans.” Though they lived 1800 years after Jesus, they could make their way across America no faster than Jesus had made his way across ancient Palestine.

A radical transformation was afoot.

Beginning in the middle part of the 19th century the steam engine forever transformed travel. For the first time in human history, people could move faster than the horse. The “iron horse,” as the locomotive was known, began to tirelessly take people across the nation far faster than a horse could run. Even the first locomotives were capable of running at twenty or twenty five miles per hour. While the United States boasted only 40 miles of rails in 1830, just ten years later it had increased to almost 3,000 miles and, ten years after that, it was narrowing in on 10,000 miles. By the end of the century America well over 160,000 miles of rails, and this in a nation that is 3,000 miles across. Goods, people and information could now move at unprecedented speeds, but information was about to catapult further ahead.

In 1844, Samuel Morse, using a telegraph, famously sent the words, “What hath God wrought” through 37 miles of cable stretching from the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the Capitol in Washington to Mt. Clare Depot in Baltimore. As he did so, he inadvertently kicked off the Information Age. Within two decades, almost all of America was wired and cables stretched across the Atlantic ocean, linking whole continents. India was connected by 1870 and Australia by 1872. Families, friends, nations, continents were bound together in a completely new way. It changed everything.

After thousands of years of near stasis—all of human history to that point—the world very suddenly became radically smaller. Military commanders who once had to send orders by horse could now communicate instantly with troops a continent away. Local newspapers that had once written of little more than local news with occasional bits of stale national news, were able to report on international events almost as they happened. It is little wonder that Associated Press was founded just four years after Morse sent his telegram. The speed of transformation is breathtaking. In the span of a century the horse, once the mainstay of both transportation and information, was reduced to a form of entertainment. The world was never the same again.

Incredibly, I think we could safely and rationally argue that this transformation was minor compared to the digital revolution we are in the midst of today.

“As [Jesus] passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him’ (John 9:1-3).” And, of course, Jesus spits on the ground, creates mud, has the man wash away the mud and performs a miracle so that this man, blind from birth, finally sees. I love this little story—just a very brief episode in the life of Jesus and one that could so easily pass us by. The disciples asked a simple but misguided question; Jesus mercifully answered with wisdom that has comforted so many of his people.

Two years ago the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada recommended that all expectant mothers undergo screening for fetal abnormalities such as Down’s syndrome. This was a break from common practice in which only women who are thirty-five and older receive such screening.

Dr. Andre Lalonde, a clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Ottawa and the executive vice president of the SOGC, said the society decided to issue the recommendation so that a greater number of women would have the option to terminate their pregnancies should fetal abnormalities be detected.

“Yes, it’s going to lead to more termination, but it’s going to be fair to these women who are 24 who say, ‘How come I have to raise an infant with Down’s syndrome, whereas my cousin who was 35 didn’t have to?’” Dr. Lalonde said. “We have to be fair to give women a choice.”

“How come I have to raise an infant with Down’s syndrome…?” Amazing words, those, and shockingly selfish. They are ones that perhaps any parent may wonder at his or her worst moments, but ones that we would hope not to hear as justification for a matter so serious, so devastating, as abortion. But even this is an old-school argument when it comes to abortion. In recent years the issue of abortion has evolved from “Is this what you want?” (a matter of personal inconvenience) to “Is this what you want for your family?” (a matter of wider inconvenience) to “How can you do this to us?” (a matter of societal inconvenience). Those who learn that their child may be born with Down’s syndrome or another condition will feel pressure to abort this child for the good of society. They will be told, even if only tacitly, that to bring a disabled child into the world is unfair to everyone in society. It is, after all, my tax dollars that will need to support this child through special education and special vocation, and my children whose tax dollars will pay for his retirement.

Not many parents today would wrestle with the issue of who sinned that a child was born blind (or with weak eyes—a condition deemed sufficient by some to abort a child in the United Kingdom) or with Down’s Syndrome. Neither would they wrestle with whether this child should even be born. Blindness would be sufficient cause for many parents, and perhaps even most parents, to abort the child and try again, hoping for a better result the next time. And yet this particular blind man, the one Jesus met, was to serve a purpose that had been sovereignly ordained since before the dawn of time.

F.F. Bruce makes an important point about this story: “This does not mean that God deliberately caused the child to be born blind in order that, after many years, his glory should be displayed in the removal of the blindness; to think so would again be an aspersion on the character of God. It does mean that God overruled the disaster of the child’s blindness so that, when the child grew to manhood, he might, by recovering his sight, see the glory of God in the face of Christ, and others, seeing this work of God, might turn to the true Light of the World.” John MacArthur summarizes “God sovereignly chose to use this man’s affliction for His own glory.”

I love Matthew Henry’s treatment of this passage. He draws out two applications for the fact that this man was born blind so that the works of God might be displayed in him. The first is that “the attributes of God might be made manifest in him.” Among the attributes of God seen in the life of this man are God’s justice in making sinful man liable to such grievous calamities and His ordinary power and goodness in supporting a poor man under such a grievous and tedious affliction. God’s goodness was specially and miraculously manifested in curing him. The second application is “that the counsels of God concerning the Redeemer might be manifested in him. He was born blind that our Lord Jesus might have the honour of curing him, and might therein prove himself sent of God to be the true light to the world. Thus the fall of man was permitted, and the blindness that followed it, that the works of God might be manifest in opening the eyes of the blind. It was now a great while since this man was born blind, and yet it never appeared till now why he was so.” This man had been born blind so that the power of God might be displayed in him.

Henry draws a final application: “the intentions of Providence commonly do not appear till a great while after the event, perhaps many years after. The sentences in the book of providence are sometimes long, and you must read a great way before you can apprehend the sense of them.” Those who abort their children do not read to the end of those long sentences. Rather, thinking selfishly and looking only a few words ahead, they make the terrible decision to end a life, destroying the gift of God. Henry also writes “Those who regard [God] not in the ordinary course of things are sometimes alarmed by things extraordinary. How contentedly then may a good man be a loser in his comforts, while he is sure that thereby God will be one way or other a gainer in his glory!” (You may, as I did, have to read that last sentence a few times to gain the sense of it.) Those who choose abortion are unwilling to lose their comforts that God may gain His glory. This glory may not be miraculous as it was in the case of the man born blind, but God is glorified in every life that enters this world. Every one of us testifies to the Creator’s wisdom, power, love and goodness. Countless millions have been destroyed and tossed away and we have never been able to rejoice in the gift of life God gave them. We have not been able to marvel in the attributes of God displayed so clearly in their lives.

When we abort those who are infirm, physically or mentally, when we choose not to read those long sentences in the book of providence, we destroy boys and girls, men and women, in whom we ought to see the works of God displayed. We miss out on marvelous opportunities to see the works of God displayed in their lives. We miss opportunities to see God’s glory increase, even if this involves a requisite decrease in our own comfort. This ought to be a small price to pay.

Several months ago I was asked to submit an article to Tabletalk Magazine. The editors had read an blog entry I had written dealing with the subject of accountability and asked if I’d be willing to write a condensed version and submit it for publication. I was glad to do so and the result appeared in this month’s Tabletalk. You may have read a version of this article in the past but, if you care to read it again, you can find it now in a condensed and edited edition. It goes like this:

Admiral Lord Nelson once remarked that “every sailor is a bachelor when beyond Gibraltar.” This was a statement about anonymity, a rare concept even just a few short generations ago. Nelson knew that once his sailors moved beyond the bounds of the British Empire, beyond society’s systems of morality and accountability, they underwent a transformation. Every man became a bachelor and sought only and always his own pleasure. Those who have read biographies of John Newton will see there a vivid portrayal of a man who was a gentleman at home but who was vulgar and abusive while away. Given only a measure of anonymity he became a whole new man.

In days past, anonymity was both rare and difficult. People tended to live in close-knit communities where every face was familiar and every action visible to the community. Travel was rare and the majority of people lived a whole lifetime in the same small geographic area. Os Guinness remarks that in the past “those who did right and those who did not do wrong often acted as they did because they knew they were seen by others. Their morality was accountability through visibility.” While anonymity is certainly not a new phenomenon, the degree of anonymity we can and often do enjoy in our society is unparalleled in history.

We need accountability. Left to our own devices, we will soon devise or succumb to all kinds of evil. As Christians we know that we need other believers to hold us accountable to the standards of Scripture. Passages such as Ecclesiastes 4:12 remind us that “a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” The Bible tells us that “iron sharpens iron” (Prov. 27:17) and that we are to “stir up one another to love and good works…encouraging one another” (Heb. 10:24-25). Life is far too difficult and we are far too sinful to live in solitude. We need community. We need accountability. And God has anticipated our need by giving us the local church as the primary means of this accountability.

Keep Reading at Tabletalk…

Like all Christians, I love my quiet time. I am always thrilled at the prospect of sitting down for a few quiet moments before a busy day to spend some time alone with God—a few moments one-on-one with my Creator. I love to open the Bible and to carefully and systematically read the Word of God, allowing it to penetrate my heart. I love to sit and think deeply and meditatively about the Scriptures and to seek ways that I can apply God’s word to my heart. I love to pray to God, pouring out my heart in confession, praise, thanksgiving and petition. It is always the best and greatest part of my day. I couldn’t live without my quiet time.

But that’s not reality, is it?

I sometimes love my quiet time. I am sometimes thrilled at the prospect of sitting down to spend some time with God; too often, though, I dread it. I’d rather catch up on the news or spend some time writing or reading a good book or find out how badly the Blue Jays beat the A’s the day before. My quiet time is often invaded by little children, demanding my time and attention. Too often I hate to make my way through a difficult book of the Bible and dread spending another day reading through the prophecies of Isaiah. Thinking requires more time and effort than I am willing to give and it usually seems that a quick, cursory prayer is enough to make me feel that I’ve done my duty and asked God to bless my day and to forgive me for being a jerk with my kids the night before. I skim Scripture, breathe a prayer, and settle down to my breakfast.

That’s a little closer to reality, right?

In The Discipline of Grace, Jerry Bridges provides two scenarios and then a question. In the first, he describes a good day. “You get up promptly when your alarm goes off and have a refreshing and profitable quiet time as you read your Bible and pray. Your plans for the day generally fall into place, and you somehow sense that presence of God with you. To top it off, you unexpectedly have an opportunity to share the gospel with someone who is truly searching. As you talk with the person, you silently pray for the Holy Spirit to help you and to also work in your friend’s heart.” We’ve all had days like that. But we’ve also all had days like this: “You don’t arise at the first ring of your alarm. Instead, you shut it off and go back to sleep. When you awaken, it’s too late to have a quiet time. You hurriedly gulp down some breakfast and rush off to the day’s activities. You feel guilty about oversleeping and missing your quiet time, and things just generally go wrong all day. You become more and more irritable as the day wears on, and you certainly don’t sense God’s presence in your life. That evening, however, you unexpectedly have an opportunity to share the gospel with someone who is really interested in receiving Christ as Savior.” Bridges then asks if you would enter into those two witnessing opportunities with a different degree of confidence. Think about it for a moment. If you’re like most Christians, I suspect you would feel less confident about witnessing on a bad day then on a good day. You would feel less confidence that God would speak in and through you and that you would be able to share your faith forcefully and with conviction.

Why is it that we tend to think this way? According to Bridges, we’ve come to believe that God’s blessing on our lives is somehow conditional upon our spiritual performance. In other words, if we’ve performed well and done our quiet time as we ought to have done, we have put ourselves in a place where God can bless us. We may not consciously articulate this, but we prove that we believe it when we have a bad day and are certain that on this day we are absolutely unworthy of God’s blessings. This attitude “reveals an all-too-common misconception of the Christian life: the thinking that, although we are saved by grace, we earn or forfeit God’s blessings in our daily lives by our performance.”

Perhaps you, like me, have too often turned quiet time into a performance. If you perform well for God, you enter your day filled with confidence that God will bless you, and that He will have to bless you. You feel that your performance has earned you the right to have a day filled with His presence, filled with blessings, and filled with confidence. And, of course, when you turn in a poor performance, you feel that God is in heaven booing you and heaving proverbial rotten vegetables in the form of removing His presence and, in the words of a friend, “dishing out bummers.”

Quiet time becomes tyrannical when you understand it as a performance. Bridges provides a pearl of wisdom. “Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.” Whether you are having a good day or a bad day, the basis of your relationship with is not your performance, for even your best efforts are but filthy rags. Instead, your relationship is based on grace. Grace does not just save you and then leave you alone. No, grace saves you and then sustains you and equips you and motivates you. You are saved by grace and you then live by grace. Whether in the midst of a good day or bad, God does not base His relationship with you on performance, but on whether or not you are trusting in His Son.

Greg Johnson of St. Louis Center for Christian Study wrote an interesting tract entitled “Freedom from Quiet Time Guilt.” Johnson wrote about something I had only recently realized myself. “That half hour every morning of Scriptural study and prayer is not actually commanded in the Bible.” Imagine that. He goes on to say, “As a theologian, I can remind us that to bind the conscience where Scripture leaves freedom is a very, very serious crime. It’s legalism rearing its ugly little head again. We’ve become legalistic about a legalistic command. This is serious.” We have somehow allowed our quiet time, in its length, depth or consistency, to become the measure of our relationship with God. But “your relationship with God—or, as I prefer to say, God’s relationship with you—is your whole life: your job, your family, your sleep, your play, your relationships, your driving, your everything. The real irony here is that we’ve become accustomed to pigeonholing our entire relationship with God into a brief devotional exercise that is not even commanded in the Bible.” So what, then, does Scripture command? It commands that the Word of God be constantly upon your heart. You are to pray, to read the Scripture and to meditate upon it, but you are to do so from a joyful desire, and not mere performance-based duty. You are to do so throughout your whole life, and not merely for a few minutes each morning. Like Johnson, you will come to realize that the “goal isn’t that we pray and read the Bible less, but that we do so more—and with a free and needy heart.”

So do not allow quiet time to become performance. View it as a chance to grow in grace. Begin with an expression of your dependency upon God’s grace, and end with an affirmation of His grace. Acknowledge that you have no right to approach God directly, but can approach Him only through the work of His Son. Focus on the gospel as the message of grace that both saves and sustains. And allow quiet time to become a gift of worship you present to God, and a gift of grace you receive from Him.

Years ago a Christian band called Hokus Pick used to tour Canada once or twice a year. They were a great bunch of guys who truly loved the Lord. I would often catch them in concert and even promoted a handful of shows for them. Every time they toured, they did so with a different opening band and their tongue-in-cheek boast was that every band who opened for them immediately broke up after the tour. I guess this wasn’t far from the truth, though I’m sure it was mere coincidence. One of the bands that toured with them was called Doulos. I don’t think they survived for long after the tour, but one of their songs continues to be a favorite of mine. It is called, simply. “Again.” The song captures something precious to me.

my mouth is empty
shame surrounds me
I feel what I say can’t be heard or shouldn’t be
again I’m jumping into darkness
not knowing if my feet will land again

again I’m caught and made innocent
as I land in a pool of blood
how many times can the gift of life be given
I stand still and weep again

As we would expect, the song is tied together in the chorus. It is a simple chorus, containing only one line. “How long till I become holy.” But the line is not sung with great joy and excitement, but rather almost as a groan or a cry. “Oh, how long till I become holy?” I assume this song was inspired, at least in part, by Romans 8. And if you look to that passage, you may be struck by the sheer volume of groaning in the verses. It is not just believers who groan, but rather it is Christians, Creation and the Holy Spirit who are said to be groaning.

“For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.” The world was made perfect and holy, but through the sin of our first parents, Creation fell with us. And now, as if to show that this is an unnatural state, all of Creation cries out to God for the end of such sin and torment. The hills wait for the day when they can sing praise to God and the trees wait to clap their hands in joy and freedom. This personification of nature, as found in Isaiah, shows us that the whole world waits with us for redemption and the end of sin.

“And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” Christians, those who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, also groan as we wait for the final consummation. We groan inwardly as our spirits cry out to God. We know that sin is foreign to us as beings created in the image of God and our hearts cry out for an end to sin. Some also cry outwardly, eagerly anticipating the end of pain, suffering and physical affliction. It is this cry that is the subject of the song. “Oh, how long till I become holy?” How long must it be, Lord, before you take away this death and this corruption? How long before you make me who I so badly want to be? How long before you take me to the presence of the One I long to see?

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” But we do not groan alone. No, for we have Divine aid. The Holy Spirit intercedes for us in our cries to God. When I feel weak in prayer, the Holy Spirit is there, helping me. Even when I do not know how or what to pray, the Spirit knows, and stands between myself and the Father, presenting to him prayers that express what is best. Where I am limited by limited knowledge, the Spirit is not. He takes my prayers and conforms them to the Father’s will before bringing them before the Throne of Grace. When I pray in Jesus’ name, humbling myself before His sovereignty, I offer my will and desires to him, and truly seek “the good” that Paul speaks of in Romans 8:28. I acknowledge that in my humanness I would make a mess of even the most trivial decisions; I trust that God knows best.

And so until that great day when the world is finally perfected, the Holy Spirit groans with the Creation and with believers, as together we cry out for the new heaven and the new earth. And with the songwriter and with Christians through the ages, I groan at the burden of my own sin. But despite my hatred of sin I do the very thing I least want to do and jump once again into the darkness only to find myself caught again in a pool of blood. I am forgiven again and wonder within myself just how many times God can forgive me and just how long His patience can last. Often I pause to weep, either at the depth of my own depravity or at the height of God’s grace. And all the while I cry out, “Oh, how long? How long, oh Lord, before you make me fully, truly, purely, finally holy?”

Here’s one I dug out of the archives and tidied up some.