“Abortion and sodomy were sins long before they were constitutional rights . . . We are told, ad nauseam, to keep our morality out of politics. It would be more to the point to tell the idolmongers to keep their politics out of morality” (Empires of Dirt, pp. 208-209).
The Problem Was Elsewhere
“Blaming public Christians for being ‘too political’ is like blaming Noah’s ark for being ‘too wet’” (Empires of Dirt, p. 208).
Know the Difference
“An ally fights the same enemy you are fighting, and for the same reasons. A cobelligerent fights them for different reasons” (Empires of Dirt, p. 205).
Who Wants to be Post Darwinian?
“Darwin gave modernity the mechanism it needed to throw off the authority of God’s Word and the sovereignty of the Lord Christ. Darwin is foundational to the secularist modernity project, but there is more. He is also foundational to the postmodern goo cauldron that is our culture today and every form of what I have …
Rascals and Raccoons
“Rascal hearts find the wrong thing to do at the wrong time just as sure as raccoons find the garbage cans” (Empires of Dirt, p. 202).
A Different Ground of Confidence
“I believe that things are getting better over the long haul because of the prophet Isaiah and the Psalms of David, and not because Christianity Today, InterVarsity Press, and the Presbyterian Church in America have inspired me by a rock-ribbed biblicism that grows stauncher by the year” (Empires of Dirt, pp. 201-202).
Principles and Methods
“So if one man wants to drive to the East Coast in a Ford, he has more in common with a man who wants to do the same thing in a Chevy than he does with another man driving to the West Coast in a Ford. Couple this with the fact that it is possible …
Preaching, Not Rearranging
“Ezekiel was told to preach to the bones, not to line up all the femurs in a tidy confessional row. As Lloyd-Jones said about some ecumenical endeavor or other, ‘Putting all the ecclesiastical corpses into one graveyard will not bring about a resurrection” (Empires of Dirt, p. 199).
Usually Stone Cold
“What happens when the fire goes out a generation or two later, and the altar is still there? The natural response is to try to fix things by decorating the altar, bringing in embellishments and bronze gewgaws galore. But without the fire, a decorated altar is still a cold one” (Empires of Dirt, p. 198).
Another Swing of the Battering Ram
“What are we doing? We are besieging strongholds, and the citadels of unbelief will fall. Every sermon is another swing of the battering ram, every baptism is an engine deployed to overthrow the devil, and every administration of the Supper is an inexorable offer of wine for the forgiveness of the world and bread for …