Daily Meditation

On Humility

C. S. Lewis

For each of us the Baptist’s words are true: “He must increase and I decrease.” He will be infinitely merciful to our repeated failures; I know no promise that He will accept a deliberate compromise. For He has, in the last resort, nothing to give us but Himself; and He can give that only in so far as our self-affirming will retires and makes room for Him in our souls.

From The Weight of Glory
Compiled in Words to Live By The Weight of Glory: And Other Addresses. Copyright © 1949, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright renewed © 1976, revised 1980 C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Words to Live By: A Guide for the Merely Christian. Copyright © 2007 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

The Problem With Smart People

Posted on Tuesday, November 5, 2013 

By Douglas Wilson 

Blog and Mablog 

The real problem with smart people is that they so frequently aren’t.

The confusion — of which we have many examples, alas — is between having a car with a really high rpm, and having a car that is on the right road. The two need not be the same thing at all.

Look at the Obamawheezer. That baby was designed, crafted, invented, implemented, promoted, urged, and force fed to us by a bunch of really smart people. And by “smart people,” I mean high rpm people on the wrong road. This does not exclude the possibility of some dumb people on the wrong road, doing their part, but in the main these were people who had briefcases in junior high school, with SAT scores that looked like they came from people like that.

Napoleon was smart, and he attacked Russia when it wasn’t springtime. So apparently this is a thing.

The trap that gets these people is the pride that wells up in them when, like Steppenwolf, they get their motor running.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Failure and Success

Dealing With Sin
Written by Douglas Wilson
Friday, June 17, 2011

What are the odds that someone can be very successful, and yet mangage to walk humbly with his God? Well, the odds are pretty thin, say most, but what we neglect to notice is that the odds are not exactly great for those who are unsuccessful either.

Among believers, we have a deep suspicion that success means automatic compromise. If someone rockets to the top, we wonder, "who sinned? this man or his parents that this has happened to him?"

And of course, we have no shortage of examples of failed successes to point to. But our problem is that we don't point to the failed failures. There are a lot of those also. It does not profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul, but neither does it profit him to lose the world and his soul along with it.

In God's calculus, success and failure are determined by His holy standards, which do not include money or fame. They are not included in either direction, and whichever way the money and fame are flowing, the temptations will correspond to that situation. So, whether well fed or hungry, do justice, love mercy, and walk with humility.

Meditation on the Text of the Week

Duty Trumps Humility

He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much. Luke 16:10

Humility is one of the loveliest of the graces. . . . It is an element of character which wins the admiration of all the world. . . . No grace is more highly commended in the Scriptures.

And yet in its shades there hide very specious counterfeits of itself. Many a man, while seriously believing that he was exercising an acceptable humility, has buried his talents in the earth, hidden his light under a bushel, lived a useless life when he might have been a blessing to many, and passed in the end to a darkened and crownless future. . . .

Amid the almost universal strife for the highest places, it is refreshing to find a man who is not scheming for preferment, and who even declines proffered trusts and honours. The exceeding rarity of modesty and humility in men's self-estimates makes these traits shine in very charming beauty when they do appear. We grow so sick of men's pretensions, their bold pressing of their own virtues and excellences upon our attention and their eagerness to assume responsibilities for which they have not adequate fitness, that we very easily glide into the other extreme.

It is especially in the sphere of moral and spiritual work that we are most apt to excuse ourselves from duty on the plea of humility. Even those who quite eagerly accept important positions in secular life, and perform their duties with confidence and effectiveness, shrink from the simplest exercise of their powers in Christian work. . . . Classes go untaught in many a Sabbath-school, and there are thousands of children that ought to be gathered in and trained. Meanwhile, there are large numbers of Christian men and women in the churches, with abundant ability for such service, but who shrink from it and try to satisfy their own uneasy consciences by humbly pleading unfitness for the delicate duties. . . .

So they fold their talent away and bury it, and think that they have acted in the line of a beautiful and commendable humility, in modestly declining such important responsibilities. It does not occur to them that they have grievously sinned.

Our humility serves us falsely when it leads us to shrink from any duty. The plea of unfitness or inability is utterly insufficient to excuse us. It is too startlingly like that offered by the one-talented man in the parable, whose gift was so small that there seemed no use in trying to employ it. The lurid light that the sequel to his story flashes upon us should arouse us to read the meaning of personal responsibility, and to hasten to employ every shred of a gift that God has bestowed upon us. . . .

It is the faithfulness of the one-talented million rather than of the richly endowed one or two that is needed today to hasten the coming of Christ's kingdom. . . . It is a fearful thing to take a faculty given wherewith to bless the world, and use it in such a way as to leave blight and woe and curse instead of blessing. But it is also a fearful thing to fold up the talent and hide it away. It is the blighting of our own hope of glory, the throwing away of our own crown. . . .

Responsibilities encircle us about. They make solemn all of life's relations. They charge even our lightest acts and our unconscious influence with the most weighty seriousness. . . . We are not put into this world for idle ease, but for most earnest work. They misunderstood the meaning of the Christian life who in olden days fled away to the deserts and dwelt in huts and caves and lonely cells, far from the noise and strife of the world, and they misread the divine writing also who think in these days to serve Christ only in prayer and devotion, while they go not out to toil for Him. . . .

Let no one, then, hide away from the solemn responsibilities of his calling in any imagined humility or lowly estimate of his own abilities. When God calls us to a work, He gives the needed strength. Not one of us knows the possibilities of usefulness that lie folded up in his hand and brain and heart. The Lord can use human feebleness as well as human strength. To him that is faithful in a little, more is given, and more and more.

Dr J R Miller, Week-Day Religion, 1897

Meditation on the Text of the Week

God's Ways Are Not Our Ways

What are you doing here, Elijah?
I Kings 19:9

We all remember the story of the tremendous scene wherein Elijah--the prodigious Tishbite, as an old author calls him--challenges the prophets of Baal to meet him in a contest of worship on Carmel, and defeats them by simply calling on his God; and then draws down rain on the parched ground by the almighty virtue of his prayer. No scene of higher dramatic power is to be found in all the world's literature.

As we read, we see the prophet ruling on the mount; we see him bent in prayer on the deserted summit; we see him when, the hand of God upon him, he birded up his victorious loins and ran before the chariot of Ahab, the sixteen miles through the driving storm, from Carmel to Jezreel. No scene we may say could have been more nicely fitted to his mind or to his nature. Here the king of men was king indeed and his victory seemed complete.

But God's children must suffer for their triumphs. Were there no thorn in the flesh, messengers of Satan, sent of God to buffet them, there would be no one of men who could serve the Lord in the scenes of His triumph without grave danger to his own soul. And Elijah needed to learn other lessons yet. He needed to learn that God's victories are not of the external sort and are not to be won by the weapons of men.

How quickly after triumph comes the moment of dismay.

Now Ahab told Jezebel all that Elihah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying "So may the gods to to me and even more, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time." And he was afraid and arose and ran for this life and came to Beersheba . . ." I Kings 19: 1-3)

We need not wonder at his sudden flight. It is the price that strong, fervent spirits pay for their very strength, that they suffer a correspondingly strong reaction. So it was with the prophet's antetype, John the Baptist, when in prison he lost his faith and sent to ask Him whom God had Himself pointed out to him on the banks of Jordan, whether, indeed, He was the Coming One. . . . But Elijah could not trust God, now, to deliver him from a woman's hate; and that, although her very message bore in it the betrayal of her weakness.

Was there not a deeper spring for this distrust still? With all his training, Elijah did not as yet know his God. His life had fallen on evil days, times of violence that demanded violent remedies for their diseases. And he could not believe in the efficacy of any but violent remedies.

Fresh from Carmel and the slaughter of the priests, he was impatient of the continuance of evil, and expected the miracles of Carmel to be but the harbinger of the greater miracle of the conversion of the people of God in a day. When Elijah awoke on the morrow and found Israel altogether as it had been yesterday, he was dismayed. Had then the triumph of yesterday been s nothing? Was Jezebel still to lord it over God's heritage? What then availed it that the fire had fallen from heaven? . . . . Elijah loses heart because God's ways were not his ways. He cannot understand God's secular modes of working; and, conceiving of His ways as sudden and miraculous only, he feels that the Most High has deserted His cause and His servants. . . .

But God . . . visits him; and leads him on to Horeb, where the Law had been given, where it had been granted to Moses to see God's glory, the glory of the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy and truth. Reaching the Mount the stricken prophet seeks a cave and lodges in it. And then the word of the Lord came to him in the searching question, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" (I Kings 19:9) We do not need to doubt that there was reproof in the question; but surely it is not reproof but searching inquiry that forms its main contents. The Lord had Himself led Elijah here, for this lesson. And now the Lord probes him with the deepest of questions.

After all, why was Elijah there? . . . . The honest soul of the prophet gives back the transparent truth:

I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the sons of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant, torn down Thine altars and killed Thy prophets with the sword. And I alone am left; and they seek my life to take it away. (I Kings 19: 10)

Here we see distrust in God and despair of His cause; almost complaint of God, for not guarding His cause better; nay, more, almost complaint of God that He had left His servant in the lurch.

The Lord deals very graciously with His servant. There is no need now for reproof; only the simple command to go forth and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And then the Lord passed by; first a great, strong wind rent the mountains and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but it was not in the wind that the Lord was. And after the wind, and earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, fire; but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, a sound of gentle stillness. Elijah does not now need to be told where the Lord is. The terror of the storm, of the earthquake, and of the flame is as nothing to the awesomeness of the gentle stillness.

And it came about when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. And behold, a voice came to him and said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" I Kings 19:13)

To the question he returns the same answer as before; but surely in deep humility of spirit. . . .

(T)he Lord proceeds to tell him that He has yet work for him to do and sends him back along with instructions which imply that there is a long future for the fruition of His plans. And whether at once or more slowly we cannot doubt that the lesson had its effect and Elijah learned not to lose hope in God's cause because God's ways in accomplishing it are not our ways.

How full all this is of lessons to us! let us at least not fail to learn from it, firstly that the cause of God does not depend on our single arm to save it. "I, I alone am left," said Elijah as if on him alone could God depend to secure His ends.

Second, that the cause of God is not dependent for its success on our chosen methods. Elijah could not understand that the ends of God could be gained unless they were gained in the path of miracles of manifest judgement. External methods are not God's methods.

Third, that the cause of God cannot fail. Elijah feared that God's hand was not outstretched to save and fancied that he knew the dangers and needs better than God did. God never deserts His cause.

Fourth, that it is not the Law but the Gospel, not the revelation of wrath but that of love, which saves the world. Wrath may prepare for love; but wrath never did and never will save a soul.

We close then, with a word of warning and one of encouragement. The word of warning: We must not identify our cause with God's cause; our methods with God's methods; or our hopes with God's purposes. The word of encouragement: God's cause is never in danger; what He has begun in the soul or in the world, He will complete unto the end.

Benjamin B. Warfield, The Cause of God, excerpted from Faith and Life

Doug Wilson's Letter From America

The Hubris of American Exceptionalism

Written by Douglas Wilson
Thursday, February 25, 2010

In an earlier post, I wrote about American exceptionalism with something less than enthusiasm. But this kind of point, however simple it is at the center, still needs to be nuanced around the edges. Some of this is a summary of what I have written elsewhere, so bear with me and here goes anyway.

American exceptionalism is objectionable because it is a false religion, a false faith. It is a smooth and attractive idol, and probably the idol most likely to ensnare conservative evangelicals. The apostle John's warning should be kept in mind at all times (1 John 5:21). David Gelernter has seriously suggested that we treat Americanism as one of the world's great religions. Other treatments of the subject are less adoring, but no less problematic. The problem is that Americanism is seen as a source of ideals, an artesian well of ethics, a fountainhead of standards. This is not just nonsense, it is damned nonsense. I speak metaphorically only, but purveyors of this doctrine need to be splashed around in the village pond for a bit.

To object to American exceptionalism (for I am an American objectionalist) is not to maintain that there is nothing unique about Americans or American history. It is to say that there is nothing religiously unique. We are sinners like everybody else, we need God's grace like everybody else, we are thoughtless when prosperous like everybody else, and peevish when not prosperous like everybody else. Take off an American's boots, and you will find ten toes. Son of a gun.

Now one of the unique things that is striking about the wisdom of our founders is that they knew this. The constitutional arrangement they made for us presupposes that we are just like everybody else. The founders did not trust Americans with the kind of power that Obama wants, the kind that Congress wants, the kind that the Supreme Court wants, the kind that the Republicans want, the kind the Democrats want, and the kind that most American voters have hitherto wanted to surrender to the aforementioned. The founders knew that Americans were good, old-fashioned me-firsters, and so they built enough booby traps in the constitutional arrangement to make it look like the beginning of an Indiana Jones movie. They did this to trip up those sneaky, grasping, mendacious Americans -- especially the kind that are tempted to run for Congress.

Reflect on what Madison said in Federalist #51.

But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

The founders knew that we were in no way unique, and that really was unique. As long as we kept that Calvinistic humility in place, we were greatly blessed. And there is nothing wrong with acknowledging and rejoicing in that blessing. We need to return to it.

So American gratitude is something else entirely. That is not what I am shooting at when I go after exceptionalism. Acknowledgement of God's great blessing is not just okay, but is rather mandatory. But note how it works.

Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day: Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied; Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the LORD thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage (Deuteronomy 8:11-14).

If anyone could believe in exceptionalism, and have actual verses to point to, it would have been the Hebrews. And yet note that God warns them of this pattern, which is as old as dirt. He included them. Nothing is as ordinary and boring as nationalistic hubris. Displays of this sin with the stars and stripes waving in the background are just as obnoxious and just as wicked as when anybody else does it -- and everybody else has done it. Read a book, somebody!

When you are on the top of the world and on the top of your game, you can go the Ozymandian route -- you can descend into madness like Nebuchadnezzar -- or you can pour out your thanksgiving to the God of heaven. If you choose the latter route, it is because you have recognized that you and your entire nation breathe through your nostrils. And if you want to use that breath to thank Him, you must mention His name, and you have to use the name of His Son in order for Him to hear you. Do it like they taught you in Sunday School.

Liberals are ungrateful whiners. They are ungrateful because they don't think there is anything to be grateful for. They are surrounded by unbelievable blessings, greater than any people in the history of the world have known, and they avoid the grace of gratitude by complaining about the pollution, the fact that we stole it from the Indians, the additives in the bread, and the fact that it is all propped up by CIA assassinations overseas. No need to thank anybody for the meal if you think the cook poisoned it.

Conservative exceptionalists (who conserve nothing but this most scarlet of sins) are ungrateful because they deny what the 100th psalm says -- they insist that it is "we ourselves" that set this bright and shining light on the hill. There was an old guy up there praying, but we chased him off. Said his name was Winthrop. Then we really got the fire going, for all the world to see! Bring your huddled masses yearning to be free! These so-called conservatives aren't grateful because they think they did it all themselves. No need to thank anybody for the meal if you think you're the cook.

Left and right, united in their ingratitude. One is mopey in that ingratitude, hair in his eyes, and the other is sleek and fat, with eyes like Wall Street grease, but they both share a true common bond. They do not honor God as God, and they do not give Him thanks.

Most of the outrage from the idolatrous right that was directed against the Rev. Jeremiah Wright for his "God damn America" sermon was not because of the typical leftist loopiness that caused Wright to say it, but the fact that he even had a category in his mind for saying it. But let me tell you this -- people who don't have a category in their minds for the wrath of God are prime candidates for that wrath. When the sky and oceans have fled away, and the nations are assembled before the great, white throne, will there be any fools who will be elbowing their way to the front of that great and terrified assembly? Will there be any fools on that day who have no category in their minds for the concept of judgment? A nation that slaughters over a million kids a year is a nation that really needs to stop and reflect. That reflection, if it takes a right turn, might become repentance.

So what is this sin of exceptionalism? It is here: "And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth" (Deuteronomy 8:17).

Meditation on the Text of the Week

Songs That Define the Kingdom

For though the Lord is exalted,
Yet He regards the lowly;
But the haughty He knows from afar.
Psalm 138:6

The Kingdom of God has many enduring and persistent themes. Our text reveals one of them. It pleases the Lord to lift up the eyes of His countenance upon the lowly, but to resist and hold at arms length those who are proud.

This theme is repeated throughout Scripture. Significantly, it is found at the portal to the coming of the Davidic kingdom, which is itself a quantum leap in redemptive history, both a foundation and a foreshadowing of the coming forth of the Son of Man Himself. The enduring realities and characteristics of God's Kingdom become apparent in the person and throne of David. These realities are all foreshadowed in the Song of Hannah in I Samuel 2:

The Lord makes poor and rich
He brings low, He also exalts,
He raises the poor from the dust,
He lifts the needy from the ash heap,
To make them sit with nobles
And inherit a seat of honour;

David epitomized this ideal, as did Hannah herself. Saul, the “blind alley king”, was raised up first by the Lord to teach us all the lesson: Saul looked the part of a king. He was tall, noble. He won the acclaim of the people because of regard for the countenance of men. Through a pair of Unbelieving glasses, Saul was the Man! Haughtiness and arrogance wrapped around him like a cloak. His faux-humility was a stench.

David, by contrast, was a nothing. Of a no-account family (following sheep was an ignoble occupation in Israel), he was despised and mocked by his brothers. It's not an honourable estate when one is disregarded by one's own brethren, who themselves are no accounts. David alludes to these realities in the “climax” of his kingdom, when the Lord declared He would make an eternal covenant with him. In response David says to the Lord: “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that Thou has brought me this far?” (II Samuel 7:18)

God's Kingdom breaks down the haughty and the proud, and lifts up the humble and the no-accounts. This central theme is picked up in another song, which also is sung by a woman, at the portal of the coming of He would would be called, Son of David. The Kingdom of God is announced by these words:

My soul exalts the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour.
For He has had regard for the humble state of His bondslave; . . . .
He has done mighty deeds with His arm;
He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones,
And has exalted those who were humble.
Luke 1: 46—55

An abiding characteristic of the Kingdom is that the Lord overturns those who are proud and arrogant, and raises up the humbled and the lowly. It is fitting that the songs of these two poor and humbled women reveal how His Kingdom will come.

The King Himself epitomized these realities. He was dirt poor, despised, slandered, hated, and rejected. But the Lord raised Him up and exalted Him, giving Him a Name which is above every name. Furthermore, the King Himself hammered these truths home constantly. He proclaimed that it was the poor in spirit and those who mourn who would be blessed. He was not interested in those who thought themselves well and healthy; He had come for those who knew themselves to be sick and in need of a physician.

He contrasted absolutely His Kingdom with the kingdoms of this world. The Gentiles, He said, lift themselves up against others. A defining characteristic of “gentileness” was an arrogant lording it over one another, of little Napoleons seeking glory, fame, and honour, oppressing people of every hand to convince themselves that they had been successful in their quest. Our King warns of those who “have their reward in this life” for the Kingdom has passed them by. He insisted that the greatest among us would be those who are the servants of all. He peremptorily rejected the disciples arrogant debates as to who would be the greater in the Kingdom. He rebuked them sharply, and would have none of it. It was Gentile talk. He put a child in their midst as the exemplar of the Kingdom. If you would be in the Kingdom, He said, you would have to be like this little child.

Now, of course, this has been perverted by the City of Unbelief, amongst whom the Marxists have attempted to claim that righteousness has to do with economic and social class. The poor are intrinsically good; the rich are evil, they say. Now, like all Satan's assertions this is a half-truth. In the cities of Unbelief—in “Gentileland”—one could only become great by oppression, exploitation and evil deeds. As their own wise men say, you can only make an omelette by breaking a few eggs.

It is also true that the poor and the needy are often hungry for the Gospel—for they know their neediness; their life of suffering has made them long for the Gospel. Just as there are few atheists in the fox-holes at the front line, so there are few amongst the poor and wretched of the earth who will not listen eagerly to the invitation to come to Christ and be saved. But in these cases, the poverty and lowliness has become a means of grace. It has not made the poor righteous. It has only highlighted their own sense of unworthiness and need.

Above all, it pleases the Lord to lift up the nothings-of-this-world for the greater glory of His own Name. It increases His fame and renown. It leads His people to exult in Him and declare that He has done all things well.

But as the Kingdom comes and takes greater and greater hold over “Gentileland” a strange thing happens: according to our text, the kings of the earth will no longer be avatars of arrogance and pride. Rather, they will be true sons of the Kingdom itself. They will be clothed with humility before God.

All the kings of the earth will give thanks to Thee, O Lord,
When they have heard the words of Thy mouth.
And they will sing of the ways of the Lord.
For great is the glory of the Lord.
Psalm 138: 4—5

The kings of the earth, having been themselves raised up and become great through the greatness of their service and servanthood, will themselves glorify God Who has regarded the lowly. In such things the glory of the Kingdom resides. Even so, maranatha. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

Meditation on the Text of the Week

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit

Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted.
The troubles of my heart are enlarged; bring me out of my distresses.
Look upon me in my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins.
Psalm 25: 16—18

The Kingdom of God is surely not of this world. We do not mean to imply by this some platonic heresy which sees the Kingdom as an ethereal, other-worldly, cosmic abstraction. Rather, we mean that the Kingdom of God is utterly unlike anything which the fallen world of sinful man could conceive, let alone create.

The kingdoms, the principalities and powers of this world—to the extent they refuse to kiss the feet of the exalted Son of God—are of this world in the ethical and spiritual sense. They are of sin and evil. The Kingdom of God, whilst in this world, is instituted and established and ruled by the Son of God, and is not of this world and its systems. Consequently, the Kingdom is unlike anything else the world has ever seen.

One of the distinctives of the Kingdom is portrayed in our text. Its subjects and people are lowly of heart, afflicted, weighed down. They are troubled and distressed. They are burdened with the consciousness of their sins and disobedience and unfaithfulness. In pronouncing the arrival of the Kingdom, the Son of God declared, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven; blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” In the Kingdom of the Son, this mourning is not just an affectation, a mere public mask of hypocritical humility; it is deeply and genuinely known and felt.

The kingdoms of this world of Unbelief are based on mana, power, and gravitas. The Kingdom of the Son is one where its subjects—even those holding high office—know and confess themselves in truth to be lowly, humbled, and wretched. Their hope is in God Who saves and forgives their sin for the sake of the Son who was punished in their place. They do not look to the mana or power of men.

So, David, in this Psalm—one of the greatest kings of all time, one of the few whom Christ honoured by acknowledging that He was and is David's son—confesses his weakness and affliction. He was far from the man he ought to be.

In his life, David suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune at the hands of wicked men. Even Michal, his own wife, despised him. Some of his sons hated him so much they sought to kill him. But His enemies had “just” cause to conspire against him. They had grounds for slander, ridicule, and calumny against him. For his sin and shortcomings were not mere foibles or slips: they were extreme and gross. David was the ultimate hypocrite, non?

Here is where the Kingdom is utterly unlike the principalities and powers of this world. The Kingdom of God is made up only of gross sinners. It is a Kingdom made up of the vilest of characters, the most evil of men. It is also a Kingdom of men who know this to be true for a fact. It is a Kingdom full of ashamed and broken people, without exception.

But, in confessing this truth about themselves to God, and in looking to Christ alone as the satisfaction for their evil thoughts, words, and deeds, God declares them holy, sinless, and righteous. God declares them to be a people of mana and power. They become the holy and righteous ones, in whom He delights. Since God is now for them, for Christ's sake, who can prevail against them? Nothing and no-one, says He.

John Bunyan, in his peerless Pilgrim's Progress, introduces several characters to us who have determined to enter the Kingdom by “another way” than the wicket gate. But that narrow way is the only way. Only those afflicted by their sinfulness can enter. That is what makes the gate so narrow. And the gate is low. To enter, one is forced to bow down. Those who wanted the Kingdom to be different or who sought to negotiate via another entrance were lost.

This is what makes the Kingdom utterly unlike any power or principality of this world.