Presbyteries are not merely administrative gatherings. There are moments when a church’s character becomes visible. The decisions we make and the spirit in which we make them reveal what we truly value.

One of the great blessings the Lord has given our communion is a number of men who have labored faithfully for many years in pastoral ministry. Many of them are here in our own presbytery, serving the church for 20-50 years—Revs. Mickey Schneider, Galen Sorey, Rich Lusk, and Joe Thacker. They have a trajectory of faithfulness. They have preached the Word week after week, baptized children, buried the saints, shepherded families through trials, and built congregations patiently over decades. Longevity in pastoral ministry is not accidental. It is a testimony to endurance, to faithfulness, and to the grace of God working through ordinary obedience. Scripture reminds us that elders who rule well are worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the Word and doctrine.

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Because of this, we must guard a culture of gratitude and respect toward those who have borne the heat of the day. Our communion will only remain healthy if younger men learn to value the wisdom and stability that come from years of pastoral labor. A denomination that forgets how to honor faithful fathers in the ministry will soon lose the very character that once made it strong.

At the same time, we must be honest about another reality that has begun to appear in some places. There are occasions when men who have not yet borne the weight of pastoral responsibility adopt a posture of constant antagonism toward those who have. Instead of building, they critique. Instead of shepherding, they agitate. Instead of demonstrating fruit in ministry, they define themselves by opposition to those who have served faithfully.

In recent years, we have also seen another troubling influence creep into some of our churches. The internet-driven culture of the so-called “groypers” and similar movements has begun to pollute the atmosphere of Christian discourse. Their instincts are not pastoral, ecclesial, or covenantal. They thrive on provocation, suspicion, and endless internal warfare. Such a spirit is fundamentally at odds with the work of shepherding Christ’s flock. They start threads to undermine the ministry of these fruitful ministers.

If we do not wish to see the same patterns that have disrupted other CREC congregations take root here, then we must be clear-eyed about what is happening. We cannot pretend that these influences are harmless. They erode trust, dishonor faithful pastors, and cultivate a spirit of perpetual agitation rather than joyful obedience in the church.

This is a pivotal time for us as a presbytery and denomination. We must renew our commitment to honor those who have demonstrated faithfulness in life and ministry. We must cultivate a culture that esteems maturity, patience, and the proven fruit of long obedience. At the same time, we must be willing, when necessary, to address and remove patterns of destructive antagonism that undermine the peace of Christ’s Church.

And brothers, this requires courage. If we do not wish to see what is already happening in other churches repeated among us, then it is time to man up and act like shepherds. The Lord has entrusted His flock to our care. That means honoring faithful men, protecting the peace of the church, and refusing to allow corrosive influences to gain a foothold among us.

None of this should be done with bitterness or personal animus. Our aim is always the health of the body and the glory of Christ. But faithful shepherds must be willing to protect the flock. The same love that compels us to honor faithful men also requires us to deal soberly with those whose conduct consistently harms the communion of the saints.

Brothers, the CREC has been blessed because many of its pastors have labored quietly and steadily for decades. We stand on the work of those who planted churches, endured hardships, and shepherded God’s people with patience. Let us be the kind of denomination that recognizes and honors that kind of faithfulness, and that preserves the peace, unity, and maturity of Christ’s Church for the generations that will follow.

May the Lord grant us wisdom, courage, and charity as we deliberate together.

The summary thus far goes like this:

In the 1983 merger, there were over three million members. By the year of the rapture, AD 2,000, they were down to two m…

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Finney observes the following:

To produce a spirit of renewal and revival, “God has found it necessary to take advantage of the excitability there is in mankind, to produce powerful excitements among them, before he can lead them to obey.” He argued, “There must be excitement sufficient to wake up the dormant moral powers.” (ST, Finney).

Music was utilitarian for Finney. “How can I draw people to God through their emotions and tears?” rather than “How can we adore the Triune God?” There is a fundamental difference. One recent theologian was perplexed by how modern Americans read their Bibles. Instead of asking, “What does the text mean?” we ask, “What does it mean to me?” We have become self-interpreters. We have become fascinated with the way something affects us. And if it doesn’t fit my style, I will find something else. We have divided the evangelical church into “Traditional vs. Contemporary.” In other words, if you are between the ages of 20 and 45, you are encouraged to visit our contemporary service, and if you are older, please attend our traditional service at 11.

We have segregated the evangelical church into preferences. Now, there are things preferential in the Church: the color of chairs, curtains, bagels, etc. Nevertheless, we have applied that principle to issues the Bible has already spoken. Worship must be regulated according to God’s holy word. This applies especially to the place our children play in worship. When the contemporary church asks: “Why do our children suddenly decide to worship elsewhere when they are older instead of mom and dad’s church?” The answer is that we have segregated our children for so long that they logically want to be separated from us. They have grown accustomed to worshiping apart from us. We have treated children as if they are a separate corpus. Thus, we have relativized the role of music.

Church music is for the whole man. It’s for the equipping of the complete man from infancy to the aged. History is made up of happy major chords and sad minor chords. It is a story of joy and sorrow. Therefore, our music must reflect the vitality and the deep anguish of the Scriptures.

Biblical Church music should be reverential, joyful, exuberant, shout-worthy, mournful, lamentable, and war-like. Music dresses us in priestly garments (Eph. 6:10-20). It ought to shape our way of thinking about everything. Church music ought to appeal to you and your children.

In Psalm 8, God says I have declared my praise from the mouths of infants. You should sing a hymn and then say, “I am more aware of who God is because of what I have just sung.” You should have Psalms 2, 98, and 110 going through your minds as you work from Monday through Friday. They communicate God’s plans for his people and his promises to deliver them from evil. God’s hymns need to take you back to when you were ill, and God rescued you, when a loved one was diagnosed with cancer, and God poured grace and mercy. God’s music needs to take you to his works on your behalf. You need music that elevates the power of God from a magical figure to the magnificent creator of every star and planet, God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is a distinctness to corporate worship music. In other words, what you sing with God’s people on Lord’s Day worship should sound very different than workout or wedding reception music.

In the Temple, Yahweh God made its worship entirely different from anything outside. This was one way God kept Israel separate from the other nations. Music is not preferential. It is God-rendered. We sing; therefore, we are what God wants us to be.

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We are reminded that in the year of our Lord 2024, millions of infant martyrs still cry from heaven, “How Long, O Lord?” Out of the mouths of babes and infants, heaven cries for the vindication of the saints.

All Saints Sunday is the church’s opportunity to see that the world is not as it should be and that heaven is not silent. Heaven was not silent when the saints were torn by lions, and heaven is not silent when saints are torn in the womb.

Heaven is not silent! And her cries are growing louder day after day. And today, as we gather to worship with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, we join their cry! We pray, sing, worship the Lord of martyrs, the Lord who conquers death, the Lord who vindicates his saints!

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But there is a difference between a healthy optimism because Jesus is Lord and stupid optimism because of our strategy department or our tiny group of revolutionaries online.

Jesus is Lord! But this is not an enticement to utopianism but to incremental societal changes, just as we expect to see in our own sanctification.

James B. Jordan wrote a superb essay some decades ago entitled “Yuppie Postmillennialism,” criticizing those who thought victory would come without suffering and hard decisions. He observes:

If we are to have a true Christian renaissance in the United States, it will not be a superficial yuppiefied religion that brings it. True Christianity must have equal time for Ecclesiastes as for Proverbs in its One Year Bibles.

This is quite a sobering warning for us in the days and weeks ahead. We live in a fallen world, which means that if we think we can bring in the kingdom in our own way and through our own strength, and our own perfectionist tendencies, we are utopionizing history. But the right way to view history is by acknowledging that we live in Ecclesiastes, and therefore we need wisdom, discernment, and patience as we seek to make God’s blessings known far as the curse is found.

And this is why we gather this morning: God is preparing us with training wheels in worship. We think we are ready to march and conquer, and then God jumps in and says, “Wait, be patient, sit down for a meal first, and worship Me.”

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If it can be demonstrated that even the ‘least of these’ can articulate faith, then the defense of infant baptism becomes robust and compelling.

The premises which must be met are the following:

a) There must be examples of a covenant people that manifest faith in their infancy as a society.

b) There must be distinct examples of infants manifesting faith throughout the Scriptures.

c) There must be examples of infants partaking in the Church’s sacramental life.

d) There must be examples of faith expressed by those who do not fit the profile of intellectual self-awareness. The premise indicates that every baptism is an infant baptism, whether at eight days or eighty years. Everyone who professes faith in Christ is in his infancy.

e) There must be examples of Jesus bonding, covenanting, and offering benedictions to infants.

f) The Bible must contain examples of faith expressed through the typology of seeds. This would indicate that faith is a gift planted, which must increase through nurture and admonition.

When these six premises are fulfilled, it is undeniable that children can profess faith. This faith, I contend, transcends mere intellectual articulation of information. It is a profound trust in the authorities who guide us to Jesus, a submission to the life of the faith community that worships Jesus, an incorporation into the new humanity created by Jesus, and a participation in the songs of the Bride that exalt Jesus.

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Those who heavily criticized Megan’s book found themselves in a conundrum: they could challenge her assertions and research (an arduous task since the book was heavily footnoted) or nitpick it to death by challenging a college reference of one of the characters. I don’t know how Megan can handle such egregious factual errors like listing of someone’s wrong academic institution and still live with the accuracy of thousands of detailed document references.

I remark sarcastically, only to observe that nitpicking is one of those things Screwtape encourages his deacon demon nephew to pursue to throw the righteous off track. And I find it surprising that such tactics become the focus of many. But what happens when such noble icons of the evangelical eco-system who have pretended to play the neutral game for a long time come out and speak their mind? What happens when they say what we all know but realize they shouldn’t have said it out loud? What happens when third-wayism becomes just a code word for Kamalaism? What happens when that happens?

When you hate Donald J. Trump so much that you would instead support the apologists for transgenderism, pro-death, open borders, LGBTQI+, and more to take the purity march. At that point, you prove that Basham’s book was merely the beginning of an unveiling. There are forces behind the scenes that are actively seeking the destruction of Orthodoxy, the moral theology of the Western Christian tradition, and the very fabric of this country.

No, there isn’t a single Christian rationale for voting for Democrat in this election season. No, there isn’t a single rationale to play the Donatist game and support a candidate so outrageously proud of her disdain for truth. No, niceness packaged as Gospel is a peculiar form of compromise. As C.S. Lewis noted, the politics of N.I.C.E. is not nice at all. In fact, they are more difficult to save (Mere Christianity).

What was considered the “Gospel-centered” movement has always been a mirage, an attempt to use the power of God unto salvation as a mask to subvert conservative politics. It was a facade to sneak in political caricatures in the name of meekness and humility. It was a cultural way of bringing sonship theology back into the mainstream. They argued that they were not political, but their politics was always headed in one direction.

But nothing is left to hide because there is nothing left to defend. The Frenches are out of the bag, and the Gospel Coalition has been reunited again. At least this time, we all know what we are dealing with, and at last, Megan’s point, and the point we have been making for years, is out for everyone to see. The trees were shaken and their fruit is evident.

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Every time unbelievers expected the Church to perish, she persevered. When the world expected her to bow before her imperatives, she overcame the odds and did the opposite.

As we look around today, more than ever, we need to live out our faith with utmost seriousness. But how does this seriousness fleshes itself out? When you ask an unbeliever to characterize a Christian, it’s not uncommon for some to say that Christians are sad. This was Nietszche’s critique of Christianity—that we are dull! That’s an unfortunate assessment because the Christian who walks around in constant sadness does not represent the Gospel well. He perpetuates the claim of the unbeliever that we are a joyless people.

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For Augustine, love was the way to transcend individualism; to abandon selfishness. In fact, he defined sin as misdirected love. He notes that true love is reflected in God’s own nature. God is love, St. John says. Augustine echoed that theme throughout his writings.

To say, “I love you,” only has meaning if it reflects how God wants that love directed. If “I love you” is used as a tool for manipulation, or false passions, or heresy, it is not love expressed but sin. For sin is misdirected love. Love gone wrong; love unrestricted by biblical truth; love going the opposite way of righteousness.

This morning, we come to share in that sacrificial love of God in Jesus Christ. Christ never misdirected love. Christ directed love towards sinners and we come as those forgiven by that love.

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Let us come to worship the God of Love: Father, Son, and Spirit!

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These are not insipid presentations attempting to find common ground with a 20th-century Jesus created after the image of some modernist figure. These individuals were astoundingly orthodox and deeply committed to the biblical Christ.

Among these ministries was a distinct gospel work done to Iranians. This network was created by former Muslims. In Iran, Bibles are prohibited, no church gatherings are permitted, and suicide and drug addiction have increased dramatically. These are the effects of a Christ-less culture. Yet, this ministry provides Satellite TV and 24/7 broadcasts of Gospel messages, biblical teachings, and Christian content across Iran and other Farsi-speaking regions like Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The underground church network is blossoming in this dark world, and thousands of Iranians are converting to Biblical Christianity.

As I sat in that room with those saints and greeted many of them, I was struck by the diversity of worlds gathered—Charismatics, Baptists, and Presbyterians invested in communicating the Gospel through the media, using technological tools to proclaim a message of blessedness to all the world.

I reveled in that evangelical ecumenicity. I was delighted to see distinct theological traditions, yet unafraid to defend the Western tradition against leftist oligarchies seeking to shut down the ability to spread the power of God unto salvation.

The Gospel is going far as the curse is found. If we keep our eyes toward the prize of the upward calling, perhaps we can see such endeavors as opportunities to renew our zeal for that word above all earthly powers and build a stronger Protestant coalition in the coming years!

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The eccentric but poignant comedian and provocateur George Carlin once observed that “Meow” means “woof” in cat. The concept of language can be interpreted mechanically as a kind of tyrannical tool to beat up the opponent, and as Carlin observed, it can also be easily misinterpreted. However, it’s important to remember that the hearer plays a crucial role in this process. What seems to be words of comfort can be absorbed as threats, highlighting the subjectivity of language interpretation in our time. But the Bible seems to be quite concise and objective about it. Thus, if we are not willing to listen to what is said, we will hear what isn’t.

One of my favorite poets wrote,

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language

And next year’s words await another voice.”

Words can easily be lost in time but resurface when someone least expects it. Language can be forgotten, but whoever utters the next words can be the actor of perpetual remembrance. St. James noted that the tongue is like fire. So, if you are, as Eliot notes, next year’s voice, be the voice that sets fire in the right environment with the right tone and the right target.

We should not take the name of the Lord in vain, which is to say, we should not carry language or God to any environment where it would constitute a vain cause. Language is to be used Coram Deo. Wherever language is uttered, God is. He was there when Ezekiel referred to the sexual organs of the enemies and he was there when Elijah comforted the widow.

For this reason, the Bible offers language for all times and all seasons. The language that some will view as tyrannical is actually comforting. The language that is meant to be comforting is actually manipulative. Everything in its season. This includes language.

But the art of using language, especially hard prophetic language, is an art that needs to be properly exercised. On the same token, soft and tender language also needs to be used discerningly. We cannot make judgments that condemn one and not the other.

In this lengthy essay (3,500 words), I have attempted to defend hard language. Soft language may have ten thousand defenders, but hard language may have dozens. I want to be in both camps, and those who think that hard language is unacceptable will have to deal with a plethora of biblical and classical traditions that articulate language that will make our 21st-century sensibilities say “meow.”

Some may interpret my “meows” as “woofs,” which is fine. Misunderstanding is part of the game. However, I have attempted to make misunderstandings fewer by offering some paradigms to consider in this conversation.

I hope it bears some good fruit.

~Pastor Uriesou Brito

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It is hard to over-emphasize the role DeSantis has had in turning this state of 23 million people towards conservative ideals. His steadfastness and perseverance in ridding academia of DEI and Woke policies are impressive.

Trump’s affirmation is a massive boost for the pro-life cause, and the president needs to double down on the negation of Amendment 4. In God’s good kindness, we will eradicate abortion in Florida!

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In sum, what you bring to your salvation is filthy transgressions, corrupt thoughts, wildly unrestrained imagination, and theological leprosy times a thousand. So, this would be a good time to really mean your confession; this would be a good time to pledge to God that you will go forth and strive to improve your baptism, that you will live a life of faith before your children, friends, and church.

Who is sufficient to cover that many transgressions? Who is sufficient to conform you to holiness? Who is sufficient to make the law of God desirable? Who is sufficient to cleanse your unrighteousness?

Did we in our own strength confide,
our striving would be losing,
were not the right Man on our side,
the Man of God’s own choosing.
You ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is he;
Lord Sabaoth his name,
from age to age the same;
and he must win the battle.

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Sociology because it creates patterns and rhythms for community tables. Cultures are strengthened by weekly engagement around the table. A family that eats together stays together.

Anthropology because we see the humanity of Christ displayed in actual elements rather than imitations. There is no spiritual Jesus appearing, but by the Spirit, we commune with the Ascended Messiah.

And economy because bread and wine are not created ex nihilo but undergo a process of maturation. There is a liturgical work that takes place for grain to become bread and for grapes to become wine.

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As a new school year begins, I want to ask God’s blessings and favor on you who instruct, whether in the classroom or at home. Perhaps a good exhortation may come from the lips of our rotund friend, G.K. Chesterton, who once wrote: “When it comes to life, the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.”

Teaching is a spiritual exercise. It is not a dispensing machine of facts. Teaching is a deeply emotional and intellectual exercise. You are not only helping the formation of other humans, but you are shaping your own.

In instructing, one faces the many duties of confronting, challenging, restoring, and rebuilding oneself and pupils. In many situations, gratitude seems as distant as possible from reality. But in such scenarios, you must contemplate the engaging and spiritually charged journey of passing wisdom to another image-bearer.

Remember to give thanks through every tear and laughter. When gratitude is forgotten, education suffers from the misery of idolatry, for idolatry entails forgetting the Creator and his gifts.

Seek gratitude after the good and hard days. Embrace gratitude as a caffeinated arrow of grace in your life. Teach. Give thanks. And persevere. The Lord be with you.

Prompte et Sincere,

Pastor Uriesou Brito

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