Our brother Al Mohler once said somewhere that "optimism is naive, but pessimism is atheistic."  I think he's right.  On non-ultimate matters (our government's fate, our culture's response to the Gospel, the world in rebellion against God) we can be agnostic or even pessimistic.  But on ultimate matters--God's glory, His victory in procuring a people to His eternal praise, the triumph of the church--there is nothing but ultimate optimism presented in the Bible--Old Testament or New.  Jesus promised in Matt. 16 that His church will prevail.  We see from visions in Ezekiel, Daniel, Revelation, and prophecies in Isaiah and the Gospels that, in the end, and FOREVER,  GOD WINS!! 

This is the kind of joy-giving perception that allowed Jesus to endure the cross, scorning its shame, and so it is for us.  The western church has too often allowed Marxist/securlarist critiques to rob us of the joy we should have in our confidence of final and forever fellowship with God. 

And so hymns about the afterlife vanish. 

In my own denomination's hymnals, hymns about the afterlife drop in number from over 100 in the late 19th century to about 15 in the latest Baptist Hymnal (1991).  Remaining hymns are neutered.  The Baptist hymnal (1975 & 1991) both omit the wonderful 5th stanza from Cowper's great hymn "There is a Fountain".  If you have the 1956 Baptist Hymnal you can still find it.  "When this poor lisping stammering tongue Lies silent in the grave, Then in a nobler, sweeter song I'll sing Thy power to Save."  Our reluctance to sing about the grave in church on Sunday only reveals how much our hopes have been entrusted to this life--and we do not wish to conceive of them being lost.  Our treasures have been put too much in this world.

The wonderful optimism that is Christian is all about being adopted by the Father we rejected, and being forgiven by the husband we cheated on.  It is about being accepted by the Righteous Judge, and about being embraced by the Friend we betrayed.  All of this is sure in Christ.  About all of these matters, there is no room for pessimism.

On other more temporary issues--how the community will respond to our church--how much our various cultures will affirm freedom for Christian proclamation and practice--we have no Biblical promises, such as "everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will NOT be persecuted."  In fact, the Spirit's promise to us is the opposite (see II Tim. 3:12).

In this world, God gives times of refreshing and seasons of great Gospel growth, and times of more overt opposition to the Gospel.  I'm not convinced that we can read the Bible in such a way as to know what is coming to us in the next decade on this level.  But ultimately, in light of Revelation 22:4 and Matt. 16:18 and Ezek. 48:35 and Daniel 12:2-3 and I Thess 4:17-18, there is no room for final pessimism in Christianity.

"He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?"  Romans 8:32.  This is seriously good news.  And for the Christian, it is completely unavoidable.

Dear Friends,

Many of you have written in wondering where we've all gone.  CJ has been either sick or travelling.  I have been either sick or travelling.  Ligon no doubt has been using his time well over at Ref21.  And the whole world knows about Al!  (Who, by God's grace, is doing well.  I was with him last night.)  The best laid plans of mice and men go astray, as has our new year's resolve about restructuring this blog.  SO, until we get our act together, I'll resume posting my own thoughts, every now and then.

And now for the Missing Persecution.  I have been studying Daniel and preaching on it here in DC at CHBC.  Its main themes are obvious--God's complete sovereignty over those worldly rulers that look so powerful and permanent.  A sub-theme, however, that has drawn my attention both in my own meditation and prayers, and in my sermons, is the theme that the saints will be ferociously attacked.  Ultimate victory is certainly promised.  But there is no thought of an optimistic postmillenial variety that I can find in the dreams and visions of the book.  Instead, there is suffering UNTIL God brings an end to it.  This fits not with themes of some modern motivational speakers (about having your best life now), but with the Bible--Jesus' theme in his teachings & life of suffering then glory.

This theme, however, of the guarantee of persecution sits strangely with we western Christians today.  It is, quite simply, not our usual experience.  We conservative evangelicals tend to think that NOW is a struggling time for the church in the US and that the past was the glory period when we were at peace with the world, and the world with us.  Certainly there were some society-wide moral common assumptions, which functioned, in part, for the good of all.  But there was also persecution.

Maybe I need to remind myself of ways God has already given the church in America here persecution.  State persecutions of other protestants throughout the colonies in the 1600's & 1700's.  African-American Christians being treated as property, with all the chilling implications and entailments of that.  Giving churches over to heretical teachers.   (Can you imagine if many or even most of the otherwise conservative, orthodox churches began affirming homosexuality and performing same sex weddings?  And if they did so for centuries?  If that seems unimaginable to you, consider the prevailing attitudes to slavery for over 2 centuries in many of the otherwise most orthodox churches in America.)  Theological unbelief seizing hold of school after school.  There has certainly been persecution of the church here in North America.  And yet we seem unacquainted with even the thought of it today.  I fear that in my heart (if not my head) I think affluence is normal.  And then I read a book like Daniel, and I see prophesies of one "waging war against the saints and defeating them" for a season, the saints being handed over to one who is evil, the saints being oppressed, the power of the holy people being broken.  I could go on and on.

Oh God, prepare my soul, and those of my brothers and sisters to bring You glory in whatever way would most redound to Your glory.