Tag: Providence Reformed Church

Often we will turn to the Book of Genesis to help the curious to see God’s design for marriage. In the Garden of Eden, God created one man, united him with one woman, and formed from them the first family of humanity. This, of course, is the framework for the understanding of marriage that has been broadly accepted throughout all human history. God made marriage as one man, one woman, for life.

 

Any look at society today clearly indicates that we have been tinkering with marriage. This might lead us to ask, when did someone first tinker with marriage? Even more, we might ask if such a person was the kind of person God approved.

 

One need not look far in Scripture to see the first perversion of God’s beautiful plan for the human family. In fact, this warping of God’s design appears in the fourth chapter of Scripture, not long at all after the fall of man and Cain’s murdering of his brother.

 

Genesis 4:19  – And Lamech took two wives. The name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.

 

In Genesis 4, we meet a descendant of Cain named Lamech. This man, in Scripture, is the first to take more than one wife simultaneously. This is the first time in the biblical record that someone tampers with marriage.

 

Now, this chapter of Genesis is given to us to record the history of Cain’s line, and it does not comment very sharply on the actions of its people. However, even here, Moses, the author of Genesis hints to us about what is happening by showing us the character of the man.

 

Was Lamech a godly man? Was he the exception to the evil rebellion against God embodied in the murderous Cain? Was Lamech the kind of guy who wanted to do things God’s way?

 

Just hear a little song Lamech composed telling his story, and you will see that Lamech is not the kind of person after whom we wish to model our lives.

 

Genesis 4:23-24 – 23 Lamech said to his wives:

“Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;

you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say:

I have killed a man for wounding me,

a young man for striking me.

24 If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold,

then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.”

 

So, Lamech sings about his violence and murderous revenge. He sings of killing someone for a wound received. This is not in keeping with the way of the Lord. This is not in keeping with God’s value of life. This is not a godly man. This is not a good man. His arrogant boastfulness over his violence shows us that he is not someone after whom we are to model our lives.

 

Then, remember that it is this violent, arrogant, boastful, aggressive, ungodly man who is the first human to tinker with God’s plan for marriage and the family. Of course I am not trying to say that all who are out to redefine marriage are violent and nasty folks like Lamech—of course they are not. What I am saying, however, is that attempting to redefine marriage from that which God gave us in the beginning is following the pattern of those who oppose God, not those who follow him.

 

Is this the strongest argument for keeping marriage as one man, one woman, for life? Of course it is not. The strongest argument is Genesis 2 along with the words of Jesus in places like Matthew 19. But, it is significant, in developing a biblical theology of marriage, that when we see people changing the boundaries of biblical marriage, it is done by those in opposition to God or by those in obvious sin against the Lord.

The Final Jeopardy Answer is: Hospitals, tax codes, wars, abortion clinics, human traffickers, riots, abusers, cancer, malnutrition, bullying, sorrow, child neglect, heart disease, hospice care, coffins, diabetes,  graves, grief, funeral homes, divorce, rape, addiction, arrogance, apathy, betrayal, adultery, armies, fear, depression, guilt, hatred, failure, sin, pain, and death. 

 

The correct question: What are things that will no longer be with us in the new heavens and new earth?

 

The Bible has told us from Genesis 3 that we live in a world that is fallen, corrupted, mangled by human rebellion against God. While things are not as bad as they could be, all people everywhere have an innate understanding that things are not all that they should be.

 

What do we do with the discouragement that comes as we look at our messed up world. Perhaps it will do us good to remember just one promise of God.

Revelation 22:1-2 – 1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

 

As the apostle John came to the final vision he was given by the Lord Jesus, he saw a holy city situated in a new heavens and new earth. He saw a river of life flowing from the throne of God, a tree of life on the banks of that river, and the leaves of that tree used to purpose. What here is figurative and what is literal? Don’t ask that today. Instead, look at what God wants you to see: healing.

 

At the end, when all is said and done, when the Savior reigns with his people, there is healing. No more are the things that hurt us and ruin us present. No more is there any harm to fear. No more do we muddle through the hardships of life only wishing things could be made a little bit better. In the end, at the very end, and for all of eternity, there is healing.

 

God has promised that all who are under his grace are destined to be made whole. God will heal the universe. He will make all things new. Heaven and earth will be together, fresh, clean, pure, painless, sinless, glorious. God will be with us, right in our midst in a way that we can see. Life will continue. We will worship. We will be creative. We will work and laugh and play and sing and adventure and imagine and love and rest and grow and learn and travel and have all the best of joy. As C. S. Lewis put it, we will go “further up and further in,” always finding that the place to which we have arrived is larger on the inside than on the outside and never-ending with the glory and majesty of our God.

 

I cannot say what all things being made new will look like. I cannot imagine what food in heaven will taste like. I cannot guess what work and play will be like. But, I know this, God will heal. The leaves of the tree of life, however it works, will be for our healing. All pain will be gone. All wrong will be made right. All hurt will be healed. All the rottenness of this world will be replaced with freshness.

 

May we shape our lives in hope of the healing of the universe. May we value the eternity ahead of us more than the broken here and now. May we invite all people to join us in this future by coming to Jesus in faith and repentance to find his grace and mercy. .May we see that God will not let us down. May we realize that every hurt we face in this life is a reminder of the healing to come in the next. May we long for that day to come and say with the saints of all generations, “Come Lord Jesus!”

Whenever Christians talk about law, especially the law of God, what is our tone? Are we grateful for law? Do we look at an Old Testament book like Leviticus and offer God praise for his kindness in giving the law? Not often is this the case.

 

 

Psalm 147:19-20

 

19 He declares his word to Jacob,

his statutes and rules to Israel.

20 He has not dealt thus with any other nation;

they do not know his rules.

Praise the Lord!

 

At the end of Psalm 147, we see that the psalmist offers praise to God for the kindness of revealing his law to the people of Israel. He sees the writing of the books like Leviticus and Deuteronomy as great mercy and grace. How can this be when we see such things so often as a burden?

 

Just consider the horror that would be ours if God did not choose to reveal to us his standards. Can you imagine how hard life would be if you did not know what God wanted, what pleased him, or what would earn his wrath? Can you imagine how horrible it would be to know that you need to be forgiven by God, but not knowing where to go to gain that forgiveness? Life would be a series of us making up our best rules and hoping against hope that maybe we might hit upon something that God would accept. It would be utter chaos and we would all face wrath.

 

It is a great kindness of God to reveal his law. The law shows us several things. For example, the law of God tells us what is wrong. While we may get tired of restrictions, it is still better for us to know that God is against something than for us to assume that something is OK because we are drawn to it. As with a warning label on poison, we may not want to be told what not to do, but obedience keeps us alive.

 

Also, the law of God shows people how to be forgiven. In the Old Testament, the sacrificial system was in place so that people who had sinned against God could come to him and perform religious actions that expressed their faith and repentance. Leviticus tells us time and time again that, when such sacrifices were made by sinners, they would be forgiven. So, the law is the only way out of the mess that we are in.

 

But, most importantly, the law of God points us to the gospel. The law shows us that, no matter how good we think we are, we do not live up to God’s perfection. The law exists because we are naturally law-breakers. It shows us our failings and helps us to see our need. But, it also shows us that God has a plan, a way in mind to bring justice and forgiveness. The law points us to Jesus.

 

Jesus perfectly fulfilled the law’s requirement of righteousness. Jesus died, making himself the perfectly lawful sacrificial substitute for the sins of those God would forgive. Jesus rose from the grave, proving that his offering for sin was perfectly acceptable and that all the law’s requirements are fulfilled for all who come to him in faith.

 

We should love the law of God because it shows us his ways, shows us our need, and shows us Jesus. It was good and kind of God to reveal his law. May we be grateful. May we read his word. May we be glad to know the mind of the Lord. May we obey the word of God as we rest in the finished work of Jesus for salvation.

Sometimes we hear a truth proclaimed so often that we forget how amazing and glorious it is. I wonder if that is the case with the concept of God saving a people by grace through the vehicle of faith alone. Do we forget how amazing it is that God would save us, not based on doing good things, but on belief?

 

Consider the story of Abram—later Abraham. Abram had been selected by God to carry the blessing of God. In Genesis 12, God promised Abram that it would be through Abram’s family line that the entire world would be blessed (Genesis 12:3). Of course, if you read the remainder of chapter 12, you see that Abram immediately doubted the goodness of God so much that he allowed Pharaoh to think that Sarai was his sister instead of his wife, and she was taken into Pharaoh’s house. Thus, we can see that Abram was not a good enough guy to have earned any favor from God. His failure in chapter 12 amounts to a level of spousal abuse that many of us could not imagine.

 

But then comes chapter 15 of Genesis. After things are back to normal for Abram and his wife, God promises Abram that he will have offspring, an entire nation of offspring. There are hints that it will be through Abram’s family line that God will keep his promise to send the ultimate Savior of humanity.

 

Genesis 15:5-6 – 5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

 

God took Abram outside one evening, and told Abram to count the stars if he could. Then God told Abram that he would have an uncountable number of offspring from his family line.

 

Now, here is the amazing thing. Feel the strangeness. Abram believed God. That should not amaze you. God is able to do anything. But what is amazing is this: God counted that belief as righteousness.

 

Slow down and consider. Abram was a guilty sinner. He did not deserve goodness from God. He was guilty of at least one thing we would consider vile. Yet, when Abram believed God, simply trusted that God’s promise was true, God treated Abram as if he had been a righteous man. Although Abram was not righteous in himself, God counted his faith as righteousness, and treated him according to the righteousness that God had credited to Abram’s account.

 

Such a crediting of righteousness is amazing, and it is at the core of Christianity. We are not righteous. We have never been righteous. We could never live out righteousness, at least not in a way that would match the standards of God. But God has chosen to credit righteousness to the account of all who will genuinely believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Stop, today, and allow yourself to be amazed at the concept of God crediting righteousness to your account if you have come to Jesus in faith. God looks at you, a sinner who has earned his wrath, and sees all the sin in your record. Were our lives handled in accounting terms, we have nothing but negative numbers in our ledger. God, however, looks at those he has drawn to faith in Jesus Christ. And he counts it as if our accounts are all positive numbers, the perfect righteousness of Jesus. He does this, not because we have ever lived out any positives, but because of his grace through faith in Christ. He sees faith and counts it as righteousness.

 

Of course, we need to recognize that none of us come to faith without the saving work of God done in our dead hearts; thus God gets all the glory for being the cause of our salvation. And, we recognize that, once we have saving faith and life in Christ, our lives will change and our lives will begin to be marked by obedience to Christ and his commands. But, the truth must be seen, we should be amazed; God receives faith as if it were lives of righteousness lived out. This is the only way that sinners like us could ever be saved. And it should give us great joy and hope.

Years ago, I read a devotional post by John Piper called “The Great Work of God: Rain” (you should read that post more than this one). In that post, Piper took time to think in depth about how wonderful it is that God designed rain. It is an amazing thing when we consider the great weight of water that is moved from place to place as the Lord cares for the land.

 

Truly, we do not give God the glory he deserves for the weather. We like to fuss about the weather when it is too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, too foggy, or whatever. But we seldom remember that God tells us that these things are reminders of his power and glory.

 

Psalm 147:15-18

 

15 He sends out his command to the earth;

his word runs swiftly.

16 He gives snow like wool;

he scatters hoarfrost like ashes.

17 He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs;

who can stand before his cold?

18 He sends out his word, and melts them;

he makes his wind blow and the waters flow.

 

 

God sends out things that we take for granted. Why do we do so? Perhaps we ignore the glory of God in weather because we see it so often. Perhaps we ignore the glory of God because we think we can explain it. But, should it be true that, if we know how the work is done, it is somehow less miraculous? While we might understand evaporation or coalescence, does that mean we have the ability to make it happen at our will? While we may grasp the crystallization process that makes snow, does that make snow not wonderful and beautiful? While we may be able, with time and resources, to build homes that keep us warm, does that make the cold any less sobering?

 

In Psalm 147, God clearly wanted the simple elements of the weather, snow and wind and rain and the like, to call us to praise him. Sun and clouds, snow and ice, water falling from the sky, all of these are reminders that we live in a world that is bigger than us, stronger than us, greater than us. All of these are a testimony to the greatness of the God who made us. Let us give him proper praise as we see his glory in the weather.

Let’s talk about influence. What influences you? What do you influence? What do you need to allow yourself to experience in order to be able to influence people around you? What is wise?

 

Living in a fallen world is hard. The people of God are supposed to be a holy people, living pure in a fallen world. But, we cannot be a people who run and hide in the mountains, ignoring the culture around us.

 

Sometimes, however, if we are not careful, we will get the mistaken impression that, if we place ourselves in a particular situation, our good intensions will rub off on others more than their negative actions will rub off on us. Have you not ever found yourself more impacted by the world around you then you impact the world?

 

Consider this odd little passage in Haggai 2 about what catches more easily:

 

Haggai 2:11-13 – 11 “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Ask the priests about the law: 12 ‘If someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garment and touches with his fold bread or stew or wine or oil or any kind of food, does it become holy?’ ” The priests answered and said, “No.” 13 Then Haggai said, “If someone who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean?” The priests answered and said, “It does become unclean.”

 

Notice what transfers by touch. If an unclean thing touches a holy vessel, the unclean thing is not made holy. However, if a clean person touches something unclean, they become unclean. Now, I’m quite glad that we are not living in a  world of ceremonial cleanness and uncleanness any longer. I am glad that God, for example, has declared all foods to be clean. But, there is most certainly something for us to learn here from that clean and unclean language.

 

Sinfulness catches easier than holiness. Sickness catches where health does not. Lowering standards spread far easier than raising standards. Houses get dirty naturally and making them clean takes work.

 

As we live, Christians, let us remember that we have to work to not allow ourselves to slide backward. We have to take part in spiritual disciplines to protect ourselves from our natural tendencies to turn away from God. We have to be guarded so as not to adopt the values of a world opposed to the word of the Lord.

 

Now, I’m not recommending a monastic life. Nor am I suggesting a tightness or prudishness in yourself. But, you have to be wise enough to grasp that, if your life is surrounded by the uncleanness of worldly thought, your life will be impacted. If you are passively in the world, you will be influenced far more than you influence.

 

So, may we guard our hearts and our lives. May we watch our minds. May we see to it that we do not allow our lives to be reshaped by the world around us. Instead, may we love the word of God. May we surround ourselves with the people of God. May we be influenced by the things of God. No, we will not hide from the world around us. But, we must be wise enough to love people and understand the world without allowing ourselves to be changed by it. This requires the Spirit of God and a heart that is aware that sin spreads easier than holiness. 

When John the Baptist ministered in Israel, he gained a great deal of popularity. It is hard to say exactly what drew the people to him other than the mysterious work of the Spirit of God. John was not rich. He was not socially slick. He simply told people to repent of their sins and to prepare to meet the Lord’s Messiah.

 

When people came to John, they were making themselves ready, or at least declaring that they were making themselves ready, to meet the promised Savior. It reminds me of Genesis 19, where God commanded the Israelites to wash on the days before he appeared to them on the mountain and delivered the Ten Commandments. The washing was a reminder to the people that they needed to turn from their sins and be cleansed in order to meet the Lord.

 

Keeping all that in mind, it is fascinating to see, in Matthew 3, the two times that John the Baptist objects to baptizing someone. Those objections are very different, and they are very telling.

 

Matthew 3:7 – But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”

 

When the religious leaders of John’s day started joining the crowds, John objected. Perhaps John saw that these men were using his baptism as a way to identify with the people and to gain political popularity rather than as a genuine repentance. Certainly John calls them to show genuine repentance before he was in any way ready to baptize them.

 

But then came Jesus. Again John objected. But this time, the objection is far different.

 

Matthew 3:13-14 13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”

 

This time, John does not call names or find himself offended that an unrepentant sinner is asking for baptism. Instead, John sees Jesus as so very different than all the religious leaders of his time. John actually believes that Jesus is of such a holiness that Jesus should baptize John for repentance, not the other way round.

 

We should learn two things from these two objections of John. From John’s words toward the religious leaders, we need to remember that we are sinners, that we need grace, and that God calls us to repent. God is not at all impressed with a person who refuses to turn from his or her sin and be humble before the Lord.

 

At the same time, we learn from John’s objection to Jesus that Jesus is far greater than any person we have ever met. Whereas the best religious thinkers of John’s day needed to repent, and whereas John—himself a genuine prophet from God—needed to repent, Jesus is holy and perfect. Jesus is God in flesh. He is the perfect Son of God. He lived out perfection and is our only hope to have a right record before the Lord. This objection from John is just one more call for us to turn from our sin and worship the Lord Jesus.

God is good at bringing something glorious out of something that is terribly disappointing. It happens in the lives of his people. It happened in the history of his temple.

 

Haggai 2:9 – The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts.’ ”

 

During the days of Haggai, the people of Judah were working on finishing the rebuilding of the temple. Under the Babylonian Empire, the temple dedicated by King Solomon was destroyed. After the captured people returned, they were to rebuild that glorious place of worship.

 

Sadly, the house that was rebuilt was far smaller and far less grand than was the original. People wept at the sad little sight when compared to the splendor of Solomon’s temple. And, I am sure, people wondered if things would ever be right for the people of God again.

 

Then God made the promise of verse 9 above. He promised that the glory to come to the temple was greater than anything that the temple had ever seen before. Think of the depth of that promise. When Solomon dedicated the temple, a cloud of the glory of God settled on it. How could this smaller, less beautiful, less magnificent temple experience a greater glory than the cloud?

 

The answer comes in the New Testament. You see, there is a glorious day when the Lord Jesus enters the temple that was dedicated during the days of Haggai. It is nearly five-and-a-half centuries later. King Herod had modified the structure of the temple and the hillside on which it rested. Herod added treasure, but not glory to the temple. But, when the Lord Jesus walked into the temple, the new temple saw something that had never before been experienced. God in flesh, the God-man, walked into the temple. He displayed the glory of God in a new way, an unexpected way. He showed that God had come to rescue his people and to open his family to all nations.

 

What situation do you face that seems irredeemable? Where do you look at a world that is smaller than it should be, less beautiful than it should be, and more hopeless than it should be? Perhaps you can learn from the promise to Haggai fulfilled. God said that he would bring greater glory to that new temple even though it looked impossible. God does that, you know. He fulfills his promises. And, when Jesus enters a life, there is greater glory than you could have ever imagined.

How clear was God’s plan and intent when he sent the Son of God to earth? Did Jesus come to offer a general possibility of salvation, or did he come to save a particular people for himself?

 

Those topics popped up in my mind when reading through Matthew 1 at the beginning of my Bible-in-a-year plan. It’s funny how, even in reading the most familiar passages, sometimes a single word will leap off the page. This time, it was the word “his.”

 

Matthew 1:21 – She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

 

Whom will Jesus save? From what will he save them? Notice that the Scripture is plain. Jesus came to save “his people.” He did not come simply to save a potential people. He did not come to save some people maybe. He came to save his people, people he was already claiming. He came to save them from their sins, not merely to provide a covering for sin in general.

 

O, I know that lots of people have had big theological arguments on this topic, and it’s far from my desire that we have such a fight about it here. However, I do think, for those who see the significance of “his” here, we can rejoice in the glorious plan of God. Jesus came with a specific purpose. He came knowing what he would do. He came intending to save his people, not just people. He had his children in mind. He lived, died, and rose from the grave to rescue, not a faceless mob of those who might come, but individuals like you and like me.

 

I believe that there is glory to be seen in the fact that the Savior came to rescue his people and not just folks in general. I think it is beautiful to know that Jesus took on flesh with a particular purpose that could not be thwarted. He did not fail. He did rescue his people from their sins. And he knew exactly what he was doing.

 

I also would argue that this passage should put fire in our evangelism. There are people out there who will come to Jesus. There are people whose sins are covered by the Savior. We must, absolutely must, present the gospel to people with honesty and clarity. We must call all people to turn from their sins and trust in Jesus for salvation. And, all who turn will find that they were already included in the “his people” for whom the Savior came to die.

Heath Lambert. Finally Free: Fighting for Purity with the Power of Grace. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013. 176 pp. $9.31.

 

Every pastor should have in his library a book or two to help a person who is fighting against the temptation of pornography. Sadly, very few of the books out there are actually helpful. Some books strive so hard to be real and down-to-earth that they actually describe far too much and become salacious. Other books give into modern psychological explanations of addiction and fail to address the deep sin issue at the heart of porn. Still others are so simplistic as not to be useful.

 

In Finally Free, I believe that Heath Lambert has found a solid balance of truth, Scripture, and righteousness that will truly be helpful to someone desiring to repent of watching porn. This book is not given to all the porn horror stories. Nor is it a detailed luck at the harm that the porn industry does. Instead, it is a faithful and honest look at what tools are available to the Christian who desires to live a holy life.

 

Let me share with you a few examples of the kind of wise counsel present in Finally Free. In the first chapter, Lambert challenges people not to become so self-focused in their struggle as to miss that so much of the sin of watching porn is that very self-focus. Lambert writes:

 

“Meditating on how miserable and pathetic you are only perpetuates the sinful self-centeredness that led you to look at pornography in the first place. Condemning self-talk still has you standing center stage as you reflect on what you think about what you have done, and as you describe what you think you deserve because of what you did. It’s all about you. The problem is there is too much you in all this. You need Christ. And the only way to break the vicious cycle is to get outside of yourself to Jesus.”

 

Lambert is so correct there. Too often we will fail in an area of sin, and then spend time attempting to mentally punish ourselves for our failure. While we must not accept and tolerate sinfulness in ourselves, to think that our self-punishment will help us is to deny the gospel and sin further by continuing to place ourselves at the center of our universe.

 

In chapter 7, Lambert addresses the dangerous myopia that can arise as a person struggles against an obvious sin like porn. He shows us that, if we are not careful, we will develop an arrogance in other areas of life as we measure our righteousness or sinfulness against our watching or not watching of porn.   Lambert says:

 

“If you want to cut the root of porn with the ax of humility, you must consider the other sins in your life as well. You are sinful in more ways than one. You have other problems besides the desire to see pornographic images. It will be good for your soul and for your growth in Christ to consider other sins besides the one that has you reading this book. It is humbling to consider other sins for which you need the forgiving and transforming grace of Jesus.”

 

One real piece of wisdom Lambert offers in chapter 6 of this book addresses the role that a man’s wife plays in helping him battle his sin. The author tells us that it is unwise and unhelpful for a wife to attempt to be her husband’s accountability partner, especially in an area like pornography. He is not arguing that a man should not have a solid and challenging accountability partner, but simply that a man’s wife has another role to play. Lambert writes:

 

“You may have noticed that this chapter didn’t address the topic of having your wife be an accountability partner. That’s intentional. I don’t think your wife should fill that role. You should treat your wife as your wife. She should be free to treat you as her husband. It is a deadly poison for a marriage when a wife becomes a cop policing her husband’s activity, asking him all kinds of questions, and examining his Internet reports. Your wife needs to know you have a faithful accountability partner doing those things so she can have peace of mind as she focuses her energy on being married to you.”

 

In chapter 8, Lambert demonstrates to us the connection between gratitude and holiness. One of the failings of the man or woman watching porn is that he or she has stopped being grateful to God for all of the good things that God has given. Instead, the person giving into the desire to see what is not right to see has decided that God’s good gifts are not good enough. Lambert says it this way:

 

“Porn is only consumed by thankless people. The desire for porn is a desire to escape from what the Lord has given you into a fake universe full of things you do not have and will never have. Porn is the trading of gratitude for greed. Porn trades joy in the reality God has graced you with for greed in the counterfeit world he has not. Defeating porn requires a grateful consideration of God’s good gifts to you.”

 

Finally, in the conclusion of the book, Lambert brings the arguments of the nine solid chapters to bear. Christians are called by God to fight the good fight against sin with the tools God has given us. Those tools include grace, sorrow, accountability, confession, your spouse or singleness, humility, gratitude, and a dynamic relationship with Christ. Of course, there are still other tools we can use, but God has given us enough to battle and defeat this sin through the power of his word, his holy Spirit, and our local church. As Lambert says to us:

 

“Christian, hear the Word of God: the impurity of pornography stands in direct opposition to who you are in Christ. The blood of Jesus beckons you to holiness. You are summoned to look like Jesus. Therefore you must flee from living like an unbeliever and inflicting sexual harm on others. You must run passionately away from porn and toward holiness, love, self-control, and grace.”

    

I hope that the above insights will be enough to help my readers to see that I believe Finally Free to be a solid, go-to work to help men and women in the battle against pornography. Pastors, men’s groups, accountability groups, youth groups, biblical counselors, husbands, and wives all may find ways for this book to be useful. It is biblically faithful and strong. It is also helpful for more than those who struggle with porn, as its principles of repentance and accountability are genuinely helpful for a variety of our struggles. I wholeheartedly recommend this book.