Learning to Live in the Story You Are In

As we look around at the unraveling of the last several years, it is easy to become dismayed. Where did this come from? How long has this been going on? Who is responsible? The lament raised by the psalmist David comes readily to mind.

“If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3).

In times of chaos like this, when everything is unsettled, it is easy to become unsettled yourself. The antidote to this temptation is to learn how to read the story you are in. My task this morning is to provide you with some scriptural principles to help you do exactly that.

I want to begin by insisting that it is in fact a story. This may be the point that is tripping you up. It doesn’t look or feel like a story to you, but rather like a cafeteria food fight. It doesn’t look like an old-fashioned cafeteria food fight either, but rather like a cafeteria food fight at the monkey house of the zoo, one where all the chimps are amped up on meth. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to anything. Contradictory data keeps flying past us, and the conspiracy bros. are having a hard time keeping up with it all.  

Well, who is telling the story then? It would not be the sons of anarchy. It is not the deep state. It is not the CIA, or the FBI. It is not the minions of George Soros. Although they would have us believe they are in charge, as the prophet Isaiah point out, all these petty lords of the earth can do is breath through their noses (Is. 2:22). They are midges in a sunbeam, plotting to overthrow the sun.

In the second psalm, the kings of the earth took their stand against the Lord, and against His anointed (Ps. 2:1-2). And what was God’s response? He laughed, and He laughed them to derision. And why? At the end of their very busy day, what did these enemies of God actually do? What did Herod, and Pontius Pilate, and the Gentiles, and the Jews (Acts 4:26-28) . . . what did they accomplish? They ushered in the salvation of the world. They arranged for my forgiveness, and for yours, to be purchased by the blood of the Son of God. That is what they did. If the rulers of this world had known what they were doing back then, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory (1 Cor. 2:8).

And if the dark forces arrayed against us today knew what they were actually bringing about, they wouldn’t be doing that either. Our God is a sovereign God, and He knows how to draw straight with crooked lines.  

Coming back to our earlier metaphor, all the bad guys are merely numbered among the combatant chimps. They are not the author of any of this. They can certainly vaunt themselves for a time, in Ozymandian pride, but when the true Author turns the page, that is it for them. So who is this true Author?

Christians believe that the Author of the story is Almighty God. He turns the hearts of kings in whichever way He pleases. He numbers the hairs of your head. He decrees the position and velocity of every atom in every asteroid in the darkness of deep space. There is nothing in this cosmos that is outside His determinative purpose and will. Do you see that yellow mutt, running around on the last day of the world? Before the world began, before ancient times, God determined the number of hairs that would be on that yellow dog’s back. God is God, and there is no other.

From our vantage point, things certainly look dire, but that is from our vantage point. I can assure you of one thing. God in Heaven is not looking down on the 2024 presidential election cycle in a panic, the thrones and dominions are not all in a doodah, and angels are not scrambling and running through the heavenly courts, yelling “Plan B, Plan B!” We are in a storm, no doubt about it, but the tops of all of our clouds are entirely radiant and white.  

Not only does God turn the hearts of kings, but He also turns the heads of former presidents at just the right moment, such that the bullet grazes the ear, leaving behind the red signature of providence. This was not an example of God lurching forward to intervene in our affairs, but rather an instance of God showing us the steadiness of His hand. I am not here remarking on the greatness of Donald Trump, but rather on the greatness of God. That remarkable event in Pennsylvania was no more providential than the breath in your lungs right now, right this minute. God orchestrates everything all the time through His providence, but sometimes He lets us see it.

Christians confess this truth, but the secularists deny it. And when they deny that God is sovereign over all, they are never content with a simple denial. When they by their doctrine have denied the Almighty the prerogatives of Deity, the first thing they see after that is a job opening. This is why they want you to sink deeper and deeper into their cauldron of boiling totalitolerance. They aspire to Deity, and intend to suffocate you with their good intentions. They, like Isaiah’s Lucifer, want to ascend the sides of the north (Is. 14:13-15). This is why they want cameras at every intersection. This is why they want to record your every keystroke. This is why they want to create algorithms in which you are to live, and move, and have your being. 

The logic is simple enough. If there is no God over the state, then the state is God. If there is no God over the demented state, then the demented state is God. If there is no God over the power-hungry state, then the power-hungry state is God.

If there is no God, then relativism is the case. But if relativism is the case, then anything goes, including the worst forms of absolutism. And that is what they have in store for you—the worst forms of absolutism.

And all societies have an authority, past which there is no appeal. This would be the god of the system. Not whether, but which. It is not whether there will be a god of the system, but which god it will be. In secularism, man is the measure of all things, and man is therefore the god of the current system. Moreover, the laws of every society will be laws that reflect the character of the god of the system. Unfortunately, man is corrupt, and he changes all the time. This is why their laws are corrupt, and why they keep constantly changing. All the reforms they are clamoring for intend to fix the problems created by the previous waves of reforms.

All laws are imposed morality, and the only question concerns which morality it shall be. It is yet another inescapable concept—not whether, but which. Not whether morality will be imposed, but rather which morality will be imposed. The character of the living and true God is immutable, and He is altogether good. That is why law based on His character is the same. He is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.

You are, thank God, not actually living in the world they think they can build. But you are living in a world where they are certainly making the attempt. They are consumed with an insane lust to make the world according to their designs, because a very green and leprous libido dominandi has them by the throat. And because their lust for this sovereignty has far outstripped their competence, everything under their charge is disintegrating. They are in the position of the sorcerer’s apprentice, and everything is spiraling away from them. Pieces are flying everywhere.   

Your preparations for living in a time like this include recognizing that God is the Author of all of it. But more is needed than a simple recognition that God is the Author. While such recognition is more than God’s enemies will admit, and it is good as far as it goes, it is not sufficient. You are a character in the story He is telling, but more than just a simple acknowledgement is needed. You have an Author of your story, but you need to be on good terms with the Author of this story.

Jesus and His disciples were figures in the gospel story, certainly. But so were Pilate, and Herod, and Judas. It is no great blessing simply to be in the story. The bad guys are in the story too.

So what does it mean to be on good terms with your God? The Bible calls it reconciliation. We are a sinful people, living in a fallen world. All of us were by nature objects of wrath (Eph. 2:3), and we were enemies of God in our hearts and minds, in our hands and mouths. All of us. In this dire situation, God sent His Son to offer terms of reconciliation.  “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” (Romans 5:10).

We are put right with God when we recognize our own complicity in the sin that surrounds us, and we repent of it. We repent of it while looking at the cross of Christ, where He died as an efficacious substitute for all of His people. He died there, in fulfillment of the Scriptures, He was buried in accordance with the Scriptures, and God raised Him to life so that we could walk in newness of life. On the basis of this gospel, you must be converted to God. You must be born again.

This being the case, what do we do now? We are still confronted with the chaos of a world gone mad. We must still navigate this stretch of the river, which is nothing but miles of white water. We have recognized that God is the Author, and we have been reconciled to the Author through the blood of His Son. What now?

The early church father Athanasius was valiant in his stand against a compromised and compromising church. Many bishops had folded and had made their peace with the heresy that Jesus was merely a creature. But he stood firm and so was told that the whole world was against him. By this was meant that the whole world of bishops was against him. To which he replied, “then let it be known that Athanasius is contra mundum, against the world.” We are similarly in a troubled time, and so we must be valiant in a similar way. We not only have to be contra mundum, but we must also be contra mundum nugosum. “Against clown world.”

But how do we do that? We return to the first question that I raised at the beginning. When the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? I want to leave you with three specific tasks, and I trust you will find them encouraging. These are things that the righteous can do, and which the righteous must do.

First, worship God. Assembling before the Lord on the Lord’s Day, with His people, is the most important thing you do in your life. Man was created to worship God. We are not, in the first instance, homo sapiens, as the Greek philosophers would have it, but rather are homo adorans, worshiping man.

God has framed this world with an iron law, which is that you become like what you worship. This is why worship is so central. We who worship God are being transformed, from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor. 3:18). This is our life, this is our light, this is our joy. This principle is also why the idolaters will come to nothing. The iron law applies to them as well.

“Their idols are silver and gold, The work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they speak not: Eyes have they, but they see not: They have ears, but they hear not: Noses have they, but they smell not: They have hands, but they handle not: Feet have they, but they walk not: Neither speak they through their throat. They that make them are like unto them; So is every one that trusteth in them” (Psalm 115:4–8).

They serve gods that are deaf, dumb, and blind, and so we see the progress of this inexorable law. The worshipers of these gods grow what? Increasingly deaf, dumb and blind, and the fact that they call it being “differently abled” does not help them in any way.

Second, all your basic duties are near and clear. Love your wife. Respect your husband. Educate your kids in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Get them out of the government schools. Stop looking at porn—you can’t fight the enemy if you are fraternizing with the enemy in that way. Excel in your work. Did you wrong a brother in that business deal? Go and put it right. Don’t fret about all the things you cannot reach. Make sure that you are being responsible within the radius of your influence. Deal with all the things you can reach.  

Third, rejoice that God has created you, and has placed you in this hour. He has done the same with your wife and your kids. All of you are assigned to this hour.

“Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10).

The joy of the Lord is our strength. We are not called simply to fight with the evil around us, but rather we are called to fight this evil with a song in our hearts. If God has assigned to us the role of being dragon slayers, why should we be distressed to discover the existence of dragons?

The great Jehoshaphat once sent the choir out in front of the army, and he won an astounding victory. It was one of the great moments in all redemptive history (2 Chron. 20:21), and that is the kind of thing that we are called upon to imitate. We should have no desire to be surly conservatives, or despondent conservatives, or timid conservatives. And why? Because they are the conservatives who never conserve anything, and we have had quite enough of that foolishness.

The heart of unbelief wants to say that God is a blunderer, and that He makes mistakes in the assignments He gives us. This is what is being said, for example, when someone claims that they are a woman trapped in a man’s body, or vice versa. But if we object to that nonsense, and we do, how is it consistent to complain that God mistakenly caused us to be born into the wrong generation?

You were born for this hour. All of this surrounding mayhem is our duty station. We were put here on purpose. We were written into this role by the Author of the story.   

Chesterton once said, wonderfully, that the one taste of paradise on this earth was to fight in a losing cause . . . and then not lose. He also said, in The Everlasting Man, that Christianity has died many times. The Christian faith has died many times, but this should not distress us at all—for we worship a God who knows the way out of the grave.

This was a message presented at the Turning Point conference 2024.