Collision

Our culture is headed for a collision, one that relates to the image of God. The faithful understand that an attack on the image of God is an attack on God – kinda like what happens when the grandkids visit, and one of them grabs a big black marker and draws a moustache on the photo of granny in the hallway. You could argue that the little fella didn’t actually do anything to Granny. But we all know he did.

The collision we are heading for, and which is now upon us, is between those who uphold the image of God and those who want to trash it. Those who mock women, and those who think womanhood and manhood, are a glory to be preserved (1 Corinthians 11:7, Revelation 21:2).

Those who want to trash the image of God have a well-documented lineage, dating back to those dudes who, in a murderous rage, wanted Lot’s angelic visitors and, if they couldn’t have those, would settle for trashing a couple of Lot’s young daughters.

And murderous rage is where all attacks on the image of God lead. If mutilating the image of God doesn’t get rid of God in our midst, they will kill it. This is the progression of degeneration that Paul lays down in Romans 1:26-27, 29-31.

I had hoped I would die peacefully at a ripe old age. But given the downhill trajectory of Western culture, this is looking unlikely for me – and a pipe dream for my kids. Preparation is needed. In the days ahead, those who hate the image of God will dispense with their pleas of acceptance and cries of victimhood and seek to kill those who oppose them. Along the way, both they and we will encounter shame, and it’s that shame that I want to consider here.

As the collision between these two worlds becomes more intense, those who oppose God will become increasingly shameless in their wickedness and, at the same time, attempt to shame the faithful.

Being shameless and being unashamed may have certain similarities on the surface, but there is an ocean of difference between them.

God has spoken into the world, and the shameless ride roughshod over those commands, with proud heads held high. The righteous hang those commands as a garland around the neck, unashamed of the gospel of their Lord. The shameless refuse to be ashamed when any decent person would be ashamed, and the unashamed refuse to be ashamed when they are persecuted because they refuse to go along with the shameless.

There are those who glory in their shameless conduct (Philippians 3:19), and then there are those who glory because they are unashamed.

 If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory[a] and of God rests upon you. 15 But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. 16 Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. (1 Peter 4:14-16)

A man who competes in a female MMA fight against a woman, fractures her skull – and then celebrates the victory – is shameless, much like an adulterous woman.

Such is the way of an adulterous woman; She eats, and wipes her mouth, and say, “I have done nothing wrong.” (Proverbs 30:20)

By contrast, suppose a preacher got up and said that, based on his reading of scripture, it seems to him that there are only two genders and that it would be an abomination (Deuteronomy 22:5) for a man to dress and act like a woman. And suppose someone in the congregation tweeted a snippet from the sermon, and Twitter went nuts as though someone had thrown a cat into the shark tank. And suppose the preacher involved refused to bend an inch, and simply ignored all the demands for an apology, and simply said that he thought it was pretty clear from scripture already and that he also thought it was time we came to terms with it. This man would be what we should call unashamed.

He should not be ashamed because of the slander, the silencing, or the accusations of misogyny, transphobia, white supremacy, or whatever other label is thrown at him. In part, he can withstand the persecution because he knows the outcome of the shameless.

Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among the fallen; when I punish them, they shall be overthrown, says the Lord. (Jeremiah 8:12)

Knowing the way things are and where they are going is something God shows us so that we will be prepared to duck, wage war, or otherwise act faithfully and not abandon the Gospel when the day of testing comes to our own door. Which it will.

But the other thing we need to do as we prepare for the coming collision is to know our own hearts and know what standards are governing our hearts. This will make the difference between those who are marked for judgement as shameless and those who remain unashamed at the coming of the Lord (Mark 8:38).

Okay, so the residents of Sodom had gathered on Lot’s front porch to rape Lot’s house guests, but they still had their standards and were most offended that Lot had forgotten our Lord’s admonition to “judge not lest ye be judged” (Genesis 19:9).

As we brace for the collision ahead, we will find one of three standards operating in our own hearts.

First, the hypocrites will acknowledge the standards of God but will not live according to them. They praise them but do not live according to them because the cost would be too high. As in the days of our Lord, this standard represents a large part of the church today.  The second kind of heart will be the heart of the struggling sinner. Struggling sinners acknowledge the standards of God, love them and publicly and privately attempt to live in accordance with them, with varying degrees of success.

But the third heart, the shameless heart, defies the standards. He mocks the standards. He mocks womanhood. He mocks manhood. He mocks any standard that bears the image of God. He wails, and gnashes his teeth at them. And this defiance, once hidden, is now on full display.

Amy Grant is a sad case in point and an example of what happens to an unguarded and unprepared heart. Amy started out singing of the need to grow up into maturity and chow down on solid doctrine. She sang about the dangers of listening to the father of lies and the glorious praise owed to the God of Heaven and Earth. Today she can be found celebrating the “wedding” of her lesbian niece and receiving all manner of pointless honours from men (John 5:44).

The only thing left for her to do is to rebuke the church for its unloving, doctrinally fixed and judgemental ways.

In the final analysis, the question is not whether you will blush but rather what makes you blush (Psalm 31:17). Is it the shameless deeds of this world, or will it be the words of Christ (Luke 9:26)?

When our salvation comes around, we will see that this salvation consists of us not being ashamed of Christ and His word. And we will not be ashamed in the day of light because we were not ashamed in the times of darkness.

For the Lord God will help Me; Therefore I will not be disgraced; Therefore I have set My face like a flint, And I know that I will not be ashamed. (Isaiah 50:7)

The cornerstone of our ability to live in this way is our relationship to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The key to being unashamed about God’s word on sexual purity, or economics, or the colour of your skin, or your gender; is to be unashamed and unapologetic of Jesus Christ.

If a believer acts shamefully, as many believers have done in the face of the current perversity jihad, then he should be ashamed. But if he stands firm, and encounters the fury of the mob, then he is suffering precisely because he is a Christian. That being the case, he has no business being ashamed, not at all. Rather, the torrent of abuse that he endures should be reckoned as a good reason to rejoice and glorify God (1 Peter 4:16).