Fight Laugh Feast Manifesto 2023

[This was the final charge I gave at FLF 2023 at the Ark Encounter. The audio/video of the Conference is going up here.]

For too long the Christian church has cowered. We have cowered before false gods and false religions and false priesthoods. And while there have always been attempts at bullying God’s people, the modern version of this has come in the form of so-called “secularism,” but this secularism is every bit as religious as the Baals and Dagons and Zeuses of the ancient world, with high priests bowing and scraping at the altars of Darwinism, materialism, and every form of Marxism, including the more recent critical theories, aimed at shaming Christians for the way God has made the world.

The high priests of these false gods and religions have pontificated their incantations claiming big bangs and billions of years of violence and mutations. They have written long bloviating papers for which they have given one another accolades and awards, calling one another brave and brilliant, while chirping and muttering with complete insanity, claiming that people evolved from shrimp, there is no Creator god, no meaning, no truth, and anybody who thinks otherwise is a threat to academia, intelligence, freedom, and democracy. When asked for proof they claimed it was in the geological record (it was not). They claimed it was in the fossil record (it was not). They claimed it was proven by their black cauldron of radio carbon dating (it was not). And when the music played, everyone bowed down, afraid of the consequences, afraid of the mockery, afraid of being cancelled, or simply afraid of looking dumb. 

But it was all lies and fear and propaganda. There is a God in Heaven and He has spoken to us. He spoke the light into existence from nothing. He spoke the sky into existence. He spoke the land and the seas. He spoke the sun, moon, and stars. He spoke the dragons of the deep and birds of the air. He spoke all the creeping and crawling things, and finally He spoke the word Man in His own image, from the dust of the earth and from the side of that first man: glorious woman. And when our father Adam disobeyed, God spoke again. He spoke a glorious promise that the seed of the first woman would rise up and conquer the seed of the serpent. And He spoke that promise in that Garden, and He spoke it again when He saved Noah and his family. He spoke it again to an old man and his barren wife in a strange land. He spoke again in a burning bush and then from a burning mountain. He spoke again and again in the mouths of prophets and kings, and then finally, the fullness of His Word thundered in the womb of a virgin. And that Word became flesh. That Word dwelt among us. And it was that Word that came to make all things new. And although we hated that word, despised that Word and attempted to silence that Word on a Roman Cross, it was by that very act that a New Creation burst into existence. When they thought they had silenced our God, it was in that very moment that all our sinful silence was destroyed, and from His side a New Creation has burst into this world. 

As Francis Shaefer said many years ago, “He is there and He is not silent.” He is there and He has spoken. This Word, from Genesis to Revelation, this Word breathed by the Spirit, is the Word that is sharper than any two-edged blade. It is the sword of the Spirit, every inch, every verse. From creation in six days to the new creation in three days to the New Heavens and New Earth in their fullness on the Last Day.

And so this is the charge: 

Refuse to be embarrassed by any verse in the Bible. Refuse to be ashamed of any of it. Prohibitions against shell-fish? No trimming the sides of our beards? Mixing fabrics? Regulations for slavery? Death penalties for rebellious sons? Creation in six days? A gigantic floating zoo with giraffes sticking their heads out the windows? Burning bushes? Talking donkeys? Dragons and unicorns? Resurrection from the dead? Yeah, we believe in all of that. And we’re not embarrassed by any of it. We are not ashamed. We will not apologize. It’s the Word of God, and it’s all pure gold. Why would we apologize for gold? Why would we be embarrassed by the Word of our Father? There has always been a deep temptation to be one of the cool kids, to be welcomed to the cool table, the inner circle, to be considered intellectually or academically sophisticated and so soft-peddle what God’s word says about certain unpopular topics. 

Christians must stop caring what the world thinks. Christians must stop caring what certain weak and cowardly brothers and sisters think. We have a clear Word not from any mere man. We have a clear Word from our Maker and our Redeemer. The false prophets and wizards mutter and chirp, and we must not care. Let them. Our constant refrain must be: “To the testimony and law: to the Word, to the Word we go; if they don’t speak this word they have no light at all.” 

But this sure Word is the basis for our confidence and courage. The kind of courage we need in our day is the kind of courage that our fathers had when they built this nation. We need the courage of nature’s law and nature’s God. We need the courage and joy of knowing the Creator who has endowed men with unalienable rights and establishes the limited jurisdiction of government to secure those rights. We cannot have that kind of courage, that kind of liberty, and that kind of government apart from that kind of God, the God who created the heavens and the earth in six days and all very good. The God of Noah, the God Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Moses and David, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

And so please stand and let me give you a blessing for this great work: May the God and Father our Lord Jesus Christ, the God who Created the Heavens and the Earth and upholds them by the Word of His power, Who has now begun to remake all things through the resurrection of His Son and by His life-giving Spirit bless you and guard you and your families and churches, and establish you in every good word and work. May He give you the kind of joyful courage that laughs in the face of all danger and mockery, and may you see your children’s children standing in the gates of our cities confounding our enemies, until every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord, and this land is filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. And Amen.