THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH

'Yes, we face difficult times, every generation of the church does. But we also face unprecedented opportunities, as cultural Christianity falls all around us. Many of our neighbors around us will burned over by the unkept, and unkeepable, promises of the sexual revolution and of Faustian individualism. Short term, these things will ravage communities and families and churches. But long-term, they will leave people wanting. And so we need to be ready for those who -like the woman at the well in Samaria - need to hear of living water that alone can satisfy. We must labor to preserve something ancient, something ever new, not just for us, and not just for our children, but for our future brothers and sisters in Christ, many of whom hate us right now. Many of them may one day lead us by the power of the Spirit that calls to life that which was dead. In that, we are no different from any other era.' 

Russell Moore, Onward, p.216. 

THE NEXT JONATHAN EDWARDS

'The next Jonathan Edwards might be the man driving in front of you with the Darwin Fish bumper decal. The next Charles Wesley might be a misogynistic. profanity-spewing hip-hop artist right now. The next Charles Spurgeon might be managing an abortion clinic right now. The next Mother Theresa might be a heroin-addicted porn star right now. The next Augustine of Hippo might be a sexually promiscuous cult member right now, just like, come to think of it the first Augustine of Hippo was.' 

Russell Moore, Onward, p.215. 

A PRAYER FOR THE TONGUE

'Lord, save me from the sins of my tongue and the flaws of character that fuel them. Make my words honest (by taking away my fear), few (by taking away my self-importance), wise (by taking away my thoughtlessness), and kind (by taking away my indifference and irritability), Amen.'

Timothy Keller with Kathy Keller, My Rock, My Refuge: A Year of Daily Devotions in the Psalms, p.125.  

PREACHERS & CULTURAL CRITICISM

'Sometimes church leaders will ask me to tell them how they can engage of controversial issues, usually related to the Sexual Revolution, without appearing mean or evil. I always respond that I can't do that. If they stand for biblical principles, and if they call people to repentance, they will indeed seem to be mean, and bigoted and evil. Jesus told us to expect this. "A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master," he said. "If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they malign those of his household." (Matt.10:24-25). The issue is whether we actually are mean or evil. That's what we can control. 

Moreover, a convictional kindness means a doubling of one's potential criticizers. Those who don't like the gospel call to repentance will resent the conviction, and those who don't like the gospel drive to mission will resent the kindness.' 

Russell Moore, Onward, p.196. 

THE DEVIL

'The devil is normal. The ways of the devil are not what the witch-hunters suppose, some preternatural and recognizably dark power. The devil's power is to leave us where we are, under the sentence of accusation, hiding behind whatever we can find - ideology, philosophy, religion, morality, pleasure, success, or whatever - to keep us from paying attention to where we are going. The devil's way is the "course of this world" (Eph.2:1-2). In this fallen world, the devil is normal: it's the gospel that is strange. 

Believers are no longer "captured" by the devil, meaning that his accusing power is defanged by the forgiveness of sins that comes through the gospel. And yet, we are consistently wrestling with our inner satanists, as we struggle to submit to the lordship of Christ, which still seems strange even to us. The line between light and darkness doesn't line up by party affiliation or by moral values, but right through every one of our hearts and souls.' 

Russell Moore, Onward, p.193. 

CHRISTIANS & CULTURE

'If we believe...in the sovereignty of God, then we believe that we are not born at this time, and in this culture, by accident. If we belong to Christ, then this is our assigned mission field. To rail against the culture is to say to God that we are entitled to a better mission filed than the one he has given us. At the same time, if we simply dissolve into the culture around us, or refuse to leave untroubled the questions the questions the culture deems too sensitive to ask, we are not on mission at all.' 

Russell Moore, Onward, p.181. 

HOW THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION HAS FAILED WOMEN

'Despite the promise of women's empowerment, the Sexual Revolution has given us the reverse. Is it really an advance for women that the average adolescent male has seen a kaleidoscope of images of women sexually exploited and humiliated in pornography? Is it really empowerment to have more and more woman economically at the mercy of men who leave them and their children, with no legal recourse? The adolescent girls facing the pressure to perform sex acts on her boyfriend, or lose him, what is this but the brutal patriarchy of a Bronze Age warlord? All of these things empower men to pursue a Darwinian fantasy of the predatory alpha-male in search of nothing but power, prestige, and the next orgasm. That's that's not exactly a revolution.'  

Russell Moore, Onward, p.171. 

THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION AS A BLAST FROM THE PAST

'In some ways, the culture has indeed revolutionized, but even in these ways the revolution is more of a step backward, to old heresies made new by technological and economic tools rather than a move into a brave, new world. The debates over the the definition of marriage, for example, and the malleability of gender are rooted in very old (and biblically mistaken) concepts of a fundamental disconnect between the self as "soul" from the body. The priority of sexual expression as essential to wholeness and well-being is similarly rooted in an almost sacred view of the orgasm as a kind of ecstatic spirituality.' 

Russell Moore, Onward, p.171. 

CHURCH & STATE

'The state may tolerate a vague, generic, nonthreatening religion, but there is, as one Revolutionary-era preacher put it, "nothing more obnoxious to an established religion than the gospel of Jesus Christ." In the fullness of time, a spiritually-empowered Caesar will decide that gospel preaching shouldn't happen, if it disturbs the commerce of the silversmiths of Artemis (Acts 19:21-41), and it always does. The kind of religion the state, any state, will support will always be a "God and country" civil religion that supports the agenda of the politicians.'

Russell Moore, Onward, p.149. 

CHURCH & STATE

'A religion that needs state power to enforce obedience to its beliefs is a religion that has lost confidence in the power of its Deity.' 

Russell Moore, Onward, p.145.