Infighting and Those Reservoirs of Guilt

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What is Blog & Mablog?

The point of this podcast is pretty broad — “All of Christ for all of life.” In order to make that happen, we need “theology that bites back.” I want to advance what you might call a Chestertonian Calvinism, and to bring that attitude to bear on education, sex and culture, theology, politics, book reviews, postmodernism, expository studies, along with other random tidbits that come into my head. My perspective is usually not hard to discern. In theology I am an evangelical, postmill, Calvinist, Reformed, and Presbyterian, pretty much in that order. In politics, I am slightly to the right of Jeb Stuart. In my cultural sympathies, if we were comparing the blight of postmodernism to a vast but shallow goo pond, I would observe that I have spent many years on these stilts and have barely gotten any of it on me.

In fighting and those reservoirs of guilt February 2nd, 2026. Introduction. There are two ways to approach this kind of thing. One is to lay out your premises and slowly work up to your conclusion, showing your work as you go. People can then struggle with your conclusion if they want to. The others to state your conclusion start to struggle off with the bang and then to show your reasoning after the fact. If it is a subject that is controversial enough, this second approach starts by touching the brews first and then explains after the fact why you thought it was necessary to do it that way. Today, for reasons that I hope will become obvious, I want to take this second approach. So here it is, the conflicts that are currently tearing America apart are a judgment of God upon us. It is not simply that the conflicts are made up of sins that will be judged by God later on down the road. No, the conflicts themselves are a judgment being visited upon us by God himself, as long as such is the case. It will do no good to visit the insane asylum every weekend in order to argue political theory with the inmates. Now, here's where the brews might be sensitive to us. I am including in this the conflicts that have arisen inside what we call the conservative movement. The frenzy that has our culture by the throat has not left the conservatives alone. The reality is this, outside the movement or inside it. The mere fact that we are seriously debating whether Johnny should be allowed to attend school dressed as a raccoon, whether Hitler was a Christian prince, whether Sodomite dad can be conservative spokesman, or whether a simple application of eyeliner can turn a boy into a girl, means that our excuse-making deflections have gotten to number 11 on the absurdity dial. Those issues are all in the same league, but these are not primarily the sins that God will judge us for. The problem is a host of other sins under our feet. We refuse to repent of those, and so these absurdities are a judgment from heaven on our hard-heartedness. God has ensured that our deflections and excuses and explanations for those sins are the hardening agent in these judgments he has not bored out. The longer it goes, the worse it gets. The harder it gets, the presenting problem is not actually the problem. What does the Apostle Paul expect to encounter when he finally comes to Corinth? He expects to see, quote, debates, envings, wrath, strife, backbiting, whispering, swellings, and tumultz, 2nd Corinthians 1220. In short, he thinks he's going to walk into a Twitter comment thread, with a bunch of ostensible conservatives yelling at each other, and hurling vitriolic names in a way that merely reveals to the wise their internal spiritual condition. But notice that he doesn't intend to waste any time walking around trying to knock any of these nasty crab apples off the tree. No, rather he sets the chainsaw at the root of the tree. What he is going to confront when he gets there is the, quote, uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness, verse 21. I have underlined first what meets him at the front door, and secondly what he knows he will discover and deal with down in the basement. Quote, for I fear, last when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and then I shall be found unto you, as such as you would not. Less their beak, here it is, debates, envings, wrath, strife, backbiting, whispering, swelling, tumultz. And last when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and then I shall be wail many, which have sinned already, and have not repented of, here it is, the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed. Second Corinthians 12, 20 and 21. When someone out there is lauding Hitler and is in a knockdown fight with somebody else because they found that praise to be problematic, that is not the problem. That is God's judgment on the actual problem, which is to be found in somebody's browser history. The reason there is so much infighting in the conservative world currently is because the conservative world has been sexually unholy. The quarrels are the smoke, the porn, the adultery, the lust for multiple women, the abortions, the misogyny, these are the fire. And no, the apostle Paul is not part of the tumultz, the debates, the strife for the whispering, despite what some troll at Corinth might say. Paul is in the conflict to be sure, but his involvement is righteous. Judgment for sin, sins as judgment. When a lot of people are being stupid all at the same time, it is easy for those who are trying to hang on to the old sensible ways to describe the problem as people being stupid. And the solution is thought to be something like, we should just tell the people to stop being stupid. The scriptures teach us that when Jehovah comes down in judgment on a people, he has many tools in his toolbox. He might, for example, bring a devastating hailstorm, Exodus 9, 18-26, Joshua 10-11, or perhaps it could be a drought, 1st King 17-1, Amos 4-7, or an invading army, Joel 2-11, or Locusts, Exodus 10-4-6, or a plague, 2nd Samuel, 24-1-25. But there are also times, and we are in one now, when he strikes at people with a judicial blindness and with a spiritual stupor, Isaiah 28, 7 and 8. And this should therefore come a time when the sensible observers, the few remaining, should stop attributing it to a faulty educational system and say, rather, this is the finger of God. Exodus 8, 19. I've made this general point a number of times before, but it really does bear repeating. Philippians 3-1. Faithful Christians really need to get their minds around this. As we have tended to push the judgments of God out to the end of the world, out to the Eskitan, we look at various disorders around us, recognize the sin involved, and then we say that there will come a time in the future when God will judge that sin. He will deal with it then. And of course, there's truth in that, but there's much more to it. What we fail to recognize is that God does not simply judge at the end of history. He also executes his judgment in history in real time. Moreover, it is often the case that he judges us with our sins. So he does not judge us for our sins at the end of the world. He judges us with our sins in the middle of our story. He judges us for sin with our sin. Quote. The mouth of strange women is a deep pit. He that is a port of the Lord shall fall therein. Proverbs 22-18. Notice the order. He is not a port of the Lord because he committed adultery. Rather, he committed adultery because he was a port of the Lord. A prime example I've used before is the sin of our pride parades. Certainly, these are activities that will be judged at the last day. But they are also a judgment in themselves. They bring judgment certainly, but they also are a judgment. How can we say this? The wrath of God is visited from heaven, Paul says. Romans 118. God's wrath, his judgment, is manifested. How is it manifested? Well, God gives them up to their perverse desires, Romans 124. And when he does this, they run headlong into the judgment. Mercy is given to us by God when we say to him, thy will be done. And as poured out over our heads when God says to man, thy will be done. He gives us up. He gives us over. He lets go of the reins of restraint and we rush, like the gathering swine, to our own destruction. God lets us go in his wrath and unruly man, thinking he is now free, organizes a pride parade. Now, splintered coalitions as judgment. I mentioned earlier that God has various tools of judgment at his disposal. One of them is that he causes coalitions to break up and start fighting with one another, instead of fighting the enemy that came out to confront. He did this to the Midianites when Gideon came after them. Quote. And the 300 blew the trumpets and the Lord set every man soared against his fellow, even throughout all the host. And the host fled to Beth Shita in Zerarath, and the border of Abel Mehola, undetabbed Judges 722. And this was the form of deliverance that God used when Jehosevath sent the choir out in the vanguard of his army. Quote. And when they began to sing and depraise, the Lord set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab and Mount Seer, which were come against Judah, for they were smitten. For the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of Mount Seer, utterly to slay and destroy them. And when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seer, everyone helped to destroy another. Second Chronicles 20, 22 through 23. And when Jonathan and his armor bearer attacked the Philistine outpost, the result was a very great panic with the same results, Philistines fighting Philistines. Quote. And when they were killed, they were killed by the people who were with him, assembled themselves. And they came to the battle, and behold, every man's sword was against his fellow. And there was a very great discomfort for Samuel 1420. Conclusion. Doubling down under such judgment, persevering in this mindset is only prolonging the judgment, and it will only get worse. It will only get more and more demented, and with less and less ability to see how demented it has gotten. And the only way out is simple repentance. In the sin by his proper biblical name, not the symptom sin, the root sin. Name that sin in the presence of God and offered up to him in the name of Jesus Christ. Ask him to deal with it, and with all the root issues, all of them. Make every form of restitution necessary. It was not enough for the Narnians to be, quote, unquote, against Miras. It was not enough for them to see him as the, quote, unquote, real threat. The proposed coalition against Miras had three components, Caspian and those with him, Nickabrick and those with him, and then the hags, were wolves and ogres that Nickabrick wanted to recruit. Caspian could fight alongside Nickabrick with a clean conscience and would love to, but not alongside those that Nickabrick wanted to bring along. Let the reader understand. In short, a red-pilled resurgence is not going to get us out of here, as we can now plainly see. We need reformation and revival. We always did, and we still do. If you are enjoying these videos and would like to support this channel and the work of Canon Press, join up at Canon Plus. Just click the link, create an account, and have a look around.