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Dobbs Celebration Message (King’s Cross)

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Introduction

On June 24, 2022 the landmark Supreme Court ruling was handed down in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, declaring that there is no federal, constitutional right to abortion and returned the matter of abortion to the States. Since Roe v. Wade in 1973, around 65 million abortions have been performed in America. We have determined to celebrate this ruling both because of the monstrosity of the previous rulings of Roe/Casey being struck down and because it has granted God’s people a glorious opportunity to protect more pre-born lives in the states. 

The story of God’s deliverance of the Jews in the book of Esther provides us helpful biblical principles to bolster our celebration of this Dobbs victory. 

The Text: “And Mordecai wrote these things, and sent letters unto all the Jews that were in all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus, both nigh and far, to stablish this among them, that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar, and the fifteenth day of the same, yearly…” (Esth. 9:20-28).

Summary of the Text

Mordecai writes as the new appointed Persian king’s chief counselor, urging the Jews in every province to keep an annual two-day festival (Esth. 9:20-23). This festival was to celebrate the destruction of Haman’s plot to slaughter the Jews, Esther’s courageous intervention, and would be called Purim (Esth. 9:24-26). The Jews received Mordecai’s instruction and determined to remember those days in all their generations (Esth. 9:27-28).  

Free to Celebrate

Part of what this story teaches us is that God is pleased when His people celebrate His goodness and deliverance. A central part of the law given to Israel was a festival calendar, with feast days and sabbath years (cf. Lev. 23). God put His tabernacle in Israel so that they would continually rejoice before Him: “And there ye shall eat before the Lord your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hand unto, ye and your households, wherein the Lord thy God hath blessed thee” (Dt. 12:7). Even part of the tithe was to be spent on celebrating before the Lord: “And spend the money for whatever you desire—oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household” (Dt. 14:26 ESV). This is why Moses warned the people that if the curses of the covenant came upon them, it would be “because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things” (Dt. 28:47). So following the example of Esther and Mordecai, God’s people should look for new acts of deliverance to celebrate. 

Celebrating Imperfect Decisions

Part of what is also helpful in the Esther story is the fact that what is being celebrated at Purim is not a perfect decision. Why doesn’t King Ahasuerus simply rescind his previous immoral order? We are not told, other than the pagan precedent mentioned elsewhere, the Law of the Persians and the Medes “which cannot be revoked” (Esth. 1:19, cf. Dan. 6:8-12). But of course even that so-called “law” is evil since only God’s law is so perfect and holy that it cannot ever be revoked. But King Ahasuerus preserves the pagan Persian precedent and instead of overturning his previous evil order, he issues a new decree giving the Jews the right to defend themselves against their adversaries (Esth. 8:11, 9:1ff). If Purim was a godly celebration of deliverance (and it was), then the Dobbs decision is worthy of celebration when two evil rulings are reversed and the right of the states to defend themselves and their unborn children is restored.

Applications

Don’t Let Up: Christians (and conservatives in general) have a bad habit of failing to implement the principle of war known as “pursuit.” We are like the king of Israel who struck the ground three times, instead five or six (2 Kgs. 13:18-19). In the Esther story, the Haman was hung on the gallows and the Jews defended themselves, killing at least 500 on the first day of deliverance (Esth. 9:6). But Esther asked for more: the sons of Haman to be hung and one more day of self-defense on the part of the Jews (Esth. 9:13-15). 

So too, we must not rest until all human lives have equal protection under the law according to God’s Word. Rape and incest are not reasonable exceptions; we should never punish a child for the crimes of his father. “Morning after pills” and other so-called “contraception” that disturb or do not allow fertilized eggs to implant are abortifacients. We must also be particularly vigilant and wary about the burgeoning IVF and surrogate industry of “boutique families.” If life begins at conception, at the fertilization of an egg, then we must protect and honor those lives, doing all that we can to preserve the natural family intact. 

Keeping the Feast: The story of Esther and Purim is part of the case for the change from a seventh day Sabbath to our Sunday Lord’s Day. It would take something greater than the first Creation (Ex. 20:11) and the first Exodus (Dt. 5:15), but Christ has accomplished a new Creation and a Greater Exodus, and so Christians have been feasting on the First Day of the week ever since. The joy of the Lord is our strength, and if covenant keeping in the Old Covenant was marked by feasting and rejoicing, how much more the New Covenant when Christ has finally accomplished what the Old Covenant pointed to? 

Part of this joyful festivity is also learning to rejoice in all of the little things. If we want God to give us the greater blessing of a complete end to abortion in our land, then we need to be practicing the kind of faithful rejoicing now that would be ready for such glory.  

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The Blessed Life (CCD)

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Introduction

Most folks seek their happiness through subjective whims. “Do what makes you happy” is the motto of man without Christ. But true happiness, true blessedness, isn’t found in the utilitarian’s hedonism. The first Psalm sets the blessed life before us, inviting us out of our own maze of searching for joy, into the straight path of righteousness leading to eternal blessedness.

The Text

“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.”

Psalms 1:1-6

Summary of the Text

In this Psalm which forms the preface for the entire Psalter we have set before us a fork in the road, with one path leading to covenantal blessedness the other leading to covenantal misery & curses. This Psalm has two mountains in it, on one side is the Mount of Blessedness (vv1-3) and on the other the Mount of Judgement (vv4-6).

The blessed man is identified by what he doesn’t do. He doesn’t slow down to match pace with the aimless wanderings of ungodly counselors (v1); he doesn’t station himself where he knows he will brush shoulders with sinners; he doesn’t nestle down into the couch of scoffers (v1). Rather, he delights in Yahweh’s Law, and makes it his muse evening & morning (v2). This sort of man can be likened to a tall & flourishing tree which has been planted–by Another’s hand–in an Edenic garden (Cf. Gen. 2:8-10); this tree of the Lord’s planting will be fruitful, it will flourish, and it will be faithful (v3).

But emphatically, it is not so with the ungodly (v4). They are like the useless chaff which is fanned into the fire (v4). At the day of judgement, these ungodly ones will not stand, nor can they masquerade any longer in the congregation of the righteous (v5). While the Lord continually knows the way of the righteous, all the ways in which the ungodly have charted for themselves will come to a fearful end (v6).

Slow-Burn Apostasy

God’s people, both corporately and individually, are continually presented with the temptation to a slow-burn apostasy. Each day you are faced with choices to either grow & flourish in righteousness, or to slowly but surely deteriorate into the lifelessness of sin. This life of the blessed man is set forth as a refusal to go along, slow down, or capitulate to the counsel, habits, or scorn of the ungodly. Think of Solomon’s simple admonition: “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not (Pro. 1:10).”

In our current moment, many who have grown up in the church have demonstrated that they’ve kept their ear open to the whisperings of the ungodly counsel. They’ve kept looking out of the corner of their eye to make sure they don’t stand out as unfashionable in their manner of life or their way of thinking. The word “deconstruction” has been used to put a respectable sheen on a trajectory of apostasy. Rather than delighting in the law of the Lord, many Christians have sought to rework the fundamentals of their faith––trimming here, nipping there––in order that it might not stand out so much from the pattern of the world.

Notice how someone who “deconstructs” tends to end up with a worldview that is not offensive at all to the worldly way of thinking, living, or doing. This is what Paul warns us of in 2 Corinthians 6:14, there is no fellowship between blessings & curses. All too frequently, saints listen to the counsel of the ungodly which leads them to partially participating in the ways of sinners, which eventually (without repentance) lands them in the gutter of mocking God’s Word.

Delighting in the Word

Notice that the thing that delineates the blessed from the ungodly is their posture towards Yahweh’s Law. The blessed man is marked out by his delight in the Lord’s Law. Whenever God has been pleased to send a revival, it always is marked by a great delight in searching out the Scriptures (2 Ki. 22, Acts 17:11, ad fontes, Nadere Reformatie). This is why you must read and sing and study and muse upon the Word of God daily.

Think of a time when you’ve been outwitted by someone who you perceived to be more knowledgeable than you on the topic. If you’ve contented yourself with settling for ignorance, snake-oil salesmen will easily dupe you. But if you delight in the Word and obey the Word, you will never be moved (Cf. Ps 15). 

False doctrine (i.e. ungodly counsel) always leads to false living (i.e. the scorner’s seat). But it should be noted that the scoffing from the scorners is done in order to cover up the shame of their guilt. Anything but an apocalypse. The Word cuts us open, the Word is light for the path, the Word is bread from heaven, the Word is a sword to battle error, a fire to purge the gold of dross.

If you are diligent to hear & heed the Word, you will not be left shamefaced at the judgement. And this Word declares to you that there is none Righteous. The Word declares that this blessing comes to you not by your doing, but as a gracious gift of God’s covenant mercies

The Tree of the Lord

It shouldn’t escape our notice that in this Psalm God plants a tree of life in a fertile, well-watered garden. This is the inner sap of the life of blessing. God has planted a tree. This tree is Christ.

You will be thwarted in your efforts to live a holy life and avoid the ways of the ungodly if you do not first see that it is only by being grafted into the vine of Christ whereby you may bear this fruit. It is by covenantal union with Christ that you are planted in the damp forest of God’s blessing. But the fearful warning is that by refusing to hear God’s Word that salvation is by Christ alone, you will come, in the end, to find yourself as nothing by chaff. Nothing but fuel for the fire. Nothing but a dry branch that must be pruned.

The Psalter begins with this Psalm which sets before us blessings and curses, life and death, Christ or chaos. There are only two paths: a desert wasteland of endless searching for fleeting pleasures or the fruitful tree of the Lord watered by Living Waters (Is. 44:1-6).

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