I’ve just begun reading Tim Keller’s new book Counterfeit Gods. Literally, the second page of the introduction and I’m already floored with introspection and personal reassessment.

I will share a brief excerpt from Keller’s introduction, though I’m sure there will be quite the slew of quotations in the forthcoming weeks as I creep through the book.

Keller writes:

“There is a difference between sorrow and despair. Sorrow is pain for which there are sources of consolation. Sorrow comes from losing one good thing among others, so that, if you experience a career reversal, you can find comfort in your family to get you through it. Despair, however, is inconsolable, because  it comes from losing an ultimate thing. When you lose the ultimate source of your meaning or hope, there are no alternative sources to turn to. It breaks your spirit.”

This resonated with me in some ambiguous way. See, for me, I often struggle with emotions that are difficult to describe in any other way that despair.  The trouble is, I’m uncertain what was “lost” that was so deeply important that it continually produces this posture in my spirit.

Keller continues in his introduction to convincingly explain that we experience despair when we have some ‘counterfeit god’ as a foundation for our hope and joy.

If then, I believe myself to be experiencing despair, it would it would follow that perhaps I have set up something less than God as a god. This is deeply troubling, yet simultaneously telling and stimulating. I can only pray that as I explore this these ideas that the Spirit would speak and reveal truth.

I have only read the introduction, but I already feel like this is a book that many of us should be reading. It’s very reasonably priced. You can buy it here.

I have recently been provoked to reassess my convictions on various things. This is good. Introspection and reconsideration are good. Willingness to be proven wrong are good. We either come out the other side more attuned to our convictions, or realizing that we were in error.

This is where I am, although I will not dive into specifics. At least not right now.

But at the same time as I am seeking the scriptures to better understand the way I ought or ought not live, I am also being challenge not to allow myself to read more into scripture than is really there. Personally, when I am thoroughly challenged in my conviction (particularly by a respected brother or sister), I will have the tendency to either produce the fault in myself and so win back their approval. Or, for my own conceit, find the justification for my conviction in scripture, whether it’s there to be found or not.

But reading in 1 Corinthians today, I’m challenged particularly by what Paul writes, using Apollos and himself as an example for the church.

1 Corinthians 4:3-5:

“But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.”

Paul has established that in spite of what others might say about him, his conscience is clean—however, that is not evidence enough in itself to to ‘acquit’ him of guilt. Rather, he explains that it is God who is the only one who can truly judge. For us this means God’s Word.

I find myself in a similar position to the one Paul describes here. Although I have a clean conscience, I cannot be confident on that alone. When I am challenged by a brother, I must accept that perhaps I have misunderstood, misread, or misinterpreted the only right foundation for a clean conscience.

But it’s in Paul’s next words that I’m particularly struck.

1 Corinthians 4:6:

“I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another.”

Whether in vindicating myself, or in seeking another’s approval, I should be especially careful “not to go beyond what is written”. I must allow no part of myself to be sacred. Instead, faithfully seek God’s word to establish a right conviction—whether it find me affirmed in the area I was challenged, or find me convicted and repentant of some sin.

But all the while, I rest assure that God’s grace in the blood of Jesus Christ is greater than all and he will guide me to truth, eventually. And in that there will be glory and satisfaction.

The puritan, Ralph Venning (also the author of one of my all-time favorite books, The Sinfulness of Sin) wrote about the grandness of even the smallest sins committed by our leaders. I thought his phrasing was poignant and worth sharing tonight.

“We may occasion other man’s sins by example, and the more eminent the example, the more infectious it is. Great men cannot sin at a low rate because they are examples; the sins of commanders are commanding sins; the sins of rulers are ruling sins; the sins of teachers are teaching sins.”

I gather that Venning’s thought here is also, in part, why “not many” of us should “presume” to be teachers.

But for us in America, I don’t think the most obvious sins are the ones that are transmitted from leaders to congregations. No, those sins we recognize and usually scorn. It’s the more subtle, insidious ones that make it through. Failure to love. Failure to forgive. Failure to steward wisely, and others.

When our church leaders fail to uphold the ultimate worth of Jesus by their lifestyles and their public and private choices, they expand their guilt by permitting their congregations to do the same. Our elders approve the installation of a $10,000 decorative fountain in the atrium of the new church building; the congregation learns that there is no shame in a $40,000 mid-sized sedan, when a $12,000 used sedan would be more than sufficient.

For three transgressions and for four God would not stay the judgment pronounced on seven different peoples. But on only one of them God was angry for the injury to himself.

In the first two chapters of Amos, God pronounces judgment on Gaza, Damascus, Edom, the Ammonites, Tyre, Moab.

But to Israel he says this (Amos 2:6-7):

    "For three transgressions of Israel,
   and for four, I will not revoke the punishment,
because they sell the righteous for silver,
   and the needy for a pair of sandals—
…

a man and his father go in to the same girl,
   so that my holy name is profaned”

I had to stop and think about this. It was specifically the people called by God’s name that their sin not only stood in its own as a heinous crime. But was much worse than that. Their sin was actually profanity against God’s holiness.

Today, when the people called by God’s name fail to emulate his character to the broken world around them it’s not only a bitter failure, but it’s a caustic reflection of God himself. The church’s abhorrent behavior toward each other and the world is many people’s only picture of God.

Is it any wonder they don’t listen to us?

Sir Thomas Browne writes about the heart’s wickedness as it stands in tension with the devil’s temptations:

“Our corrupted hearts are the factories of the devil, which may be at work without his presence; for when that circumventing spirit has drawn malice, envy and all unrighteousness unto well-rooted habits in his disciples, iniquity then goes upon its own legs; and if the gates of hell were shut up for a time, vice would still be fertile and produce the fruits of hell…”

It’s easy to blame our struggles and sin on temptation from the devil—or adverse spirits in general. And were we still in a state of perfection, like Adam and Eve were, this might be accurate. But the reality as it stands today is that we don’t need the devil’s influence to do evil.

Often, we do it all by ourselves.

One of the things I’ve been finding most interesting as I’m reading through Job this time is the fact that the individuals are talking to each other. The majority of the book is heated debate.

Is Job guilty? is Job innocent? His friends contend that if he is suffering in this way, he must be guilty of heinous crimes. While Job, on the other hand, insists that he is innocent, but God is free to inflict judgment where and when he sees fit and that although he is innocent, God is finding him guilty. Of course, neither is quite true and in the end, God humiliatingly sets everyone straight.

In a sense, the book of Job is one big heated theological argument between friends. I find this interesting. Of all the times to argue over the details.

In all of their arguing, I don’t believe that Job’s friends ever pray for him. In fact, Job only pseudo prays for himself. The debate seems to take place of that. I think this is too often the accepted practice. We all think we’re great at solving each other’s problems—and sometimes we are—but in the end, God will probably have to set us straight and we’ll see we should’ve spent more time praying for each other.

Samuel Rutherford writes:

“The devil’s war is better than the devil’s peace. Suspect dumb holiness. When the dog is kept out of doors, he howls to be let in again.”

Rutherford is right, and we don’t usually think of it like that in the moment. But as he says, we should “suspect dumb holiness”.

What does that mean? It means, that when holiness just happens and we’re not struggling with one thing or another, there’s reason for us to be suspicious. It may be that we’re simply in a time of blessing and rest. But, more commonly, it may mean that we’ve unwittingly settled into a quiet, corrosive pattern of sin, so that the Enemy has no need to make a ruckus.

I know that for me this pattern has generally proven true.

As strange as it may seem from the inside, when I’m struggling it’s usually an indication that I’m in a healthy place. While on the flip side, when all things seem to be going well, it’s usually a symptom that I’m not struggling when or where I ought to be.

Again, not a rule of any kind, but a fairly consistent pattern.