Are You Fighting Yesterday’s Battles?
I don’t know about you, but when I hear Patrick Henry’s famous speech or read the zealous writings of the Scottish martyrs I can’t help but get roused to the cause there are fighting for. Sometimes it’s physical freedom from tyrannical Britain
But as every generation has their battles to fight it leads us to the question, what is the battle we are fighting now, in the 21st century. If a soldier doesn’t know his enemy, how is he supposed to fight against him? He will most likely be lead to either the hyper-Calvinistic approach of idleness or the danger of fighting for the wrong side. We have too many Christians today who think they are fighting for Christ but really they are tools of the Devil. That’s sad.
One of the major battles of today (1) is antinomianism with its many manifestations. We immediately point our finger to the blatant Atheist who denies any form of moral absolute and runs to moral relativism and autonomy. But just as four fingers our pointing back at us, we have innumerable amounts of antinomianism that have crept into our very pulpits and churches. Not only have we thrown out the Old Testament as being irrelevant, but we refuse to use the bible as our source of applicant truth to our everyday lives. Somehow we have been deceived into believing our five minutes of devotions at breakfast will counteract the eight-plus hours our children are told the very opposite at school. The rest of the day they spend with their peers under no authority. Even many homeschoolers would rather their children be well versed in Saxon math than the Proverbs, Exodus, Deuteronomy, etc.
When Kipling wrote the famous poem, “The Gods of the Copybook Headings,” he hit upon the coming battle of the next generation and one of the major forms of antinomianism today. He wrote,
On the first Feminine Sandstones we were promised a Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbor and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and our men lost reason and faith
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”1
In a culture that we are allowing are daughters from an early age to watch movies like “Cinderella” we ought to expect such a battle. Girls are taught that femininity consists only in the “Cinderella” picture of useless tasks such as sweeping the floor. The more “fulfilling” career jobs are enticing even the evangelicals who are flocking to Marx’s promise of joy and achievement. The only way to fight this insurmountable enemy is not conforming to the egalitarian mindset so as to be able to reach the world but rather to be its opposite. The devil sees just one victorious daughter as a great obstruct to his strategy. And that’s what we want.
The Ten Commandments, Some of the most important Old Testament laws, too are being neglected today. Not only do our children not know them, parents and leaders aren’t following them. The Sabbath law is one of the many that is abused today. First of all, many Christians don’t belong to an accountable church and “forsake the assembling of (themselves) together.” (2) I also think it a pity that many reformed Christians, myself included, fall into the trap of relaxation, entertainment, and social gathering hidden under the name of “Fellowship” on the Sabbath instead of exhortation and edification. Secondly, the average evangelical today is not consensually following “Do not commit adultery.” Although it may not be happening physically, it is happening spiritually especially through the dating process.
Today I have only examined some of the many ways antinomianism has crept into the western church. I have not even touched upon the world’s manifestations of this. I hope this article encourages you to search yourself diligently that we may be found clean from this rebellion and fit to serve our creator in building his kingdom.
