Faithfulness in Gospel Ministry in 2011: A Postscript

As we close this series on principles for faithful Gospel ministry -- principles which center on seeing the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ (2Cor 4:6) -- the question to you is: Do you see Him? Is He glorious? Can you find your joy in the exaltation of another? Do you gladly and eagerly say with John the Baptist, “He must increase, and I must decrease”?

If not, I bid you to look and see the glory of Christ revealed in the Gospel that we’ve meditated on here for the past month. See the beauty and the preciousness of the miraculous birth, sinless life, substitutionary death, and undeniable resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, sent to ransom a remnant of worshipers who would proclaim the glory of His grace forever! And pray that God would shine in your heart—pray that He would grant you the eyes to see this Jesus for who He is. The Bible promises that this faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. You have heard much. Now ask God for the heart to believe it.

And for those of you who answer, “Yes,” to those questions, be diligent to heed these principles from the Apostle Paul as you seek to faithfully minister the Gospel in 2011. Remember your purpose is to call the sheep, not entertain the goats; and so you must measure your success by faithfulness to the message. Remember that the problem you’ve been commissioned to solve is that the world is blind to glory. And therefore remember that your proclamation must not be yourselves, but Christ as Lord. And remember that God provides the prescription, overcoming the problem of spiritual blindness with the light of the knowledge of His glory in the face of Christ.

And so preach the Gospel in accordance with the reality that God’s own glory is the great and ultimate end in His love for sinners; and in accordance with the reality that what makes the Good News good news is that rebels’ blind eyes are finally opened to enjoy the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, for which they were created.

Series Outline

1. Principles for Faithfulness in Gospel Ministry: Introduction
2. We Are Not to Amuse the Goats but to Call the Sheep
3. The World's Problem is that They Are Blind to Glory
4. We Do Not Preach Ourselves
5. God's Remedy: The Shining of the Light of Life
6. The Gospel of the Glory: What Makes the Good News Good News
7. Postscript
   

Update: If you'd like to hear this series as preached in one sermon, click here.

The Gospel of the Glory: What Makes the Good News Good News

Last time we delved into God's prescription for the blindness in which the world finds itself. We observed that in 2Cor 4:4 and 4:6 that three levels of God's redemptive work are outlined. And as we progress through each level, we come to greater depth and greater ultimacy in God's work of salvation. We already looked at levels one and two. Now we come to the third.

Notice again the way the Apostle Paul speaks of spiritual life. Above he spoke of spiritual death as blindness to glory. Here he speaks of spiritual life and faith in the Gospel as seeing glory. And that is level three: God has shone in our hearts to give the Light (that’s level 1) of the knowledge, or of the gospel (that’s level 2), of the glory of God in the face of Christ (that’s level 3). This is the deepest level of the redemptive work of God. This is what salvation is about!

In A God-Entranced Vision of All Things, John Piper writes, “The way anybody gets converted…is that God sovereignly causes the darkened soul to see the beauty of Christ in the gospel. Just as He once said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light, so now he says, ‘Let the glory of Christ shine as an irresistible beauty,’ and it does” (263).

The nature of our spiritual death was that were blind to Christ’s glory. But in the miracle of regeneration, you were spiritually awakened so that you could finally see. And because you finally see Him, He is so sweet to you. You love Him! You can’t resist Him! And you forsake the rotting garbage of sin and you embrace Him with the glad, open arms of faith, and you are saved.

Do you see it? Paul calls the Gospel “the gospel of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” What the Good News consists in—what the Gospel is about—is the glory of God in Christ. Seeing and enjoying the glory of God in the face of Christ is what makes the Good News good news!

This is the way the whole of Scripture speaks of salvation. Consider these passages

• Hebrews 2:10 describes Jesus’ ministry of salvation as “bringing many sons to glory.”
• 1 Peter 3:18 says that Christ suffered once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, so that He might bring us to God. To God! Not to a hall of mirrors where we can admire how valuable we are, but to an eternal worship service, where we can admire how valuable He is!
• 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14 is just wonderful. The way Paul speaks about salvation here is amazing. He says, starting in the middle of verse 13: “God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Do you see this? The Gospel is the means by which you will gain the glory of Christ! It is the gospel of the glory! So when we preach the Gospel, we must do it in such a way that acknowledges that what makes the Good News good news is that we can finally see and enjoy the glory of God revealed in the face of Christ.

And I’ve gotta tell you, so many people stop at level two! So many Christians preach the Gospel as if we were the ultimate goal in salvation. But we’re not! Ultimately, the ultimate reason for why God saves any sinner is to manifest His own glory! Listen to what Scripture says about God’s motivation, His goal, in saving sinners:

• Isaiah 43:25 says it as plain as day (God is speaking): “I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake.”
• Ezekiel 36:22 says the same thing more emphatically, “It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went.”
• In the New Testament, Paul tells us in Titus 2:14 that Christ “gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession.”
• And in the opening section in Ephesians 1, Paul says three times that salvation is designed for the praise of God’s glory (Eph 1:6, 12, 14).

This is why the Gospel is not “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life”! So many people preach the Gospel by telling people that Jesus died for them, and then they stop there. As if the Good News is that God just loved [wuvved?] us so much that He couldn’t live without us and so He died to be with us. But for crying out loud, do you hear how me-centered that is? Do you hear how much of us that makes? But that is not what God’s love does. God’s love does not give us a reason to look at the Cross and see our worth!

See, a lot of people are happy to confess that we should be God-centered, but that may be because they secretly think that God is man-centered. Then their God-centeredness is really man-centeredness. They say their joy is in God, but really their joy is in themselves. They're happy to worship God, just as long as God worships them.

But listen: if what you want out of the Gospel, or out of Christianity, is a god who makes you feel good about yourself, you need to repent of your idolatry and come to the God of the Bible through Christ. And if what you offer people in the name of Christ’s Gospel and in the name of Christianity, is a god who will make them feel good about themselves, and will work for their self-esteem, you’re not preaching the Gospel.

The love of God displayed in the Gospel is not that He makes much of us! The love of God displayed in the Gospel is He shines Light that cures our blindness to glory, and thus frees us from our love affair with sin so that—rather than only being able to be satisfied by being made much of—we can be entirely satisfied in the depths of our souls by making much of Him forever!

Yes, God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. But finish the sentence! He did that for a purpose! So that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life! And what is eternal life? John 17:3: Jesus says, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, Father, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” God’s goal in sending Christ was not to show humanity how valuable we were; His goal was to give us the eyes to see how valuable He is! He shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

But because so many people have imbibed our culture’s distorted definition of love as being made much of, many people—maybe some of you reading this—have a hard time feeling loved when they hear that God loves them for His own sake. But loving someone is not making them feel good about themselves—especially, like in our case, when there’s so little to feel good about! Loving someone is doing what is best for them. And what is best for me, and best for you—what will most satisfy our souls and give us true and abiding joy—is to see the glory of God for which we were made.

And there is a wealth of satisfaction in feeling loved that way. I feel so safe, so protected, so loved by the fact that I am not uppermost in God’s affections, but that He is. In fact, we will never understand the sweet fullness of what it means to be loved by God—we will never know the breadth and length and height and depth of this love that surpasses knowledge (Eph 3:18-19)—until we understand that God’s love to us is not first to us, but to Himself.

And so John Piper writes, “God loves His glory more than He loves us and...this is the foundation of His love for us” (Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, 7). Because it is in loving Himself, in magnifying Himself, in displaying Himself, that you and I are able to see and enjoy the only thing that can truly satisfy our heart: the glory of God in the face of Christ.

In summary, then, the Good News is not merely that Jesus died for us! The Good News is that Jesus died for us in order to bring us to God (1Pet 3:18)! The Good News is not merely that God gave His Son for us. The Good News is that God gave His Son for us to bring us to an eternity of seeing and knowing and loving and worshiping Him. The loving, atoning work of Christ in the Gospel is a means to a greater end: that the people God has created would finally glorify Him by enjoying and being satisfied by His glory, for which they were created (Isa 43:7).

As we proclaim this Gospel, let us never forget that it is the gospel of Christ’s glory.


Series Outline

1. Principles for Faithfulness in Gospel Ministry: Introduction
2. We Are Not to Amuse the Goats but to Call the Sheep
3. The World's Problem is that They Are Blind to Glory
4. We Do Not Preach Ourselves
5. God's Remedy: The Shining of the Light of Life
6. The Gospel of the Glory: What Makes the Good News Good News
7. Postscript

God's Remedy: The Shining of the Light of Life

So far we have gleaned three principles that inform our understanding of the Gospel and shape our ministry in order that we might be faithful witnesses of Christ in 2011. We’ve seen from 2Cor 4:3 that our purpose is not to amuse the goats, but call in the sheep, and so we measure our success by faithfulness and not numbers. We’ve seen from 2Cor4:4 that the world’s most fundamental problem is that they cannot see the glory of Christ, and so that is to be the focus of the Church’s mission. Because that’s the case we saw in 2Cor 4:5 that our proclamation must not be anything about ourselves, but must be the Gospel of Christ’s Lordship. And after two brief implication/application-type comments on ways contemporary churches preach themselves (one, two), we finally come to the fourth point: we must know the prescription.

Remember humanity’s predicament. All have sinned and fall short of God’s standard of righteousness, and are thus incapable of enjoying a relationship with their Creator. And because they can do nothing to save themselves, God sends Christ to live and die on their behalf, so that if they believe in Him He pays for their sin and imputes His righteousness to their account. Being declared righteous before God, man can enjoy a restored relationship with his glorious Creator for which he was made. And yet the tragedy is, their minds have been blinded so that when they hear that wonderful news, they can’t see it for what it is. They see no glory in it. It’s simply foolishness, and so they continue to disbelieve and resist it.

But now, Paul says, in magnificent love, God Himself—the same God who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness”—shines in the hearts of His elect to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. God overcomes our resistance to the Gospel by giving us the light needed to see things as they actually are. The prescription, or the remedy, for man’s spiritual blindness is God’s sovereign work of regeneration.

Now, there is a parallelism going on between verses 4 and 6, and comparing them sheds light on some precious realities.

In verse 4 we have: The light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

And in verse 6: The Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

The first thing to notice is that the glory of Christ who is the image of God and the glory of God in the face of Christ are entirely parallel. What’s awesome about this is that Paul is very clearly teaching that the glory of the Father and the glory of the Son are not competing glories. They are the same! The Father is God and is glorious! And Jesus the Son is God and is glorious!

The second thing to notice is that Paul outlines three levels of God’s redemptive work, and as we progress through each level we penetrate to further depth and ultimacy. Examining these three levels of increasing depth of God’s redemptive work and understanding their implications will help us understand the fullness of the Good News, and will keep us from preaching a truncated Gospel.

Level 1: Light

The first level is the one that I just briefly mentioned: the level of “light.” This is the miracle of regeneration whereby God sovereignly imparts spiritual light to the blinded mind, or, to use the other metaphor, whereby He sovereignly imparts spiritual life to the dead heart. Paul compares this act of God to the creation of the world. He says, “the God who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’” is the One who has shone in our hearts. In the beginning, God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. This means (1) that just as God created the world out of nothing, so He created spiritual life in us out of nothing (cf. Rom 4:17); and (2) it means that the new birth is just as much a sovereign act of God as was the original creation of the universe. And if there’s any doubt, let me ask you: How active or cooperative was the creation in its creation?

It wasn’t. It didn’t exist, and then it did. That’s why the metaphor of being born again is so apt: just as a baby contributes nothing to his first birth, so also those who are born again from above are born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God (John 1:13).

Level 2: Knowledge of the Gospel

And so the first level of God’s redemptive work is regeneration. God shines Light where there was once darkness. But notice the second level: God shines the light of the knowledge, or, as verse 4 says, the light of the gospel.

Again, these are parallel. We can understand the second level as the knowledge of the Gospel. What this means is that it is the Light of regeneration that causes the sinner—who once was blind and saw no glory and no beauty in the gospel—to look upon the message of what Christ has done in history to provide salvation for guilty sinners, and to see it as the greatest news they could ever imagine.

Before this light shines, the story of the angelic announcements, the virgin birth, the perfect life, the miracles, the betrayal, the unjust trial, the horrific crucifixion and death, and the resurrection of Jesus— all of it is just a story, like a fairy tale. But now the light has shone, and the eyes of their hearts are opened, and they look upon the old, old story, and It. Is. beautiful!

Level two is the knowledge of the Gospel.

But you know, this is where many Christians -- even many orthodox, conservative evangelicals -- just stop. They don't go beyond this. But there is a third level that we will delve into next time. Don't miss that.

Series Outline

1. Principles for Faithfulness in Gospel Ministry: Introduction
2. We Are Not to Amuse the Goats but to Call the Sheep
3. The World's Problem is that They Are Blind to Glory
4. We Do Not Preach Ourselves
5. God's Remedy: The Shining of the Light of Life
6. The Gospel of the Glory: What Makes the Good News Good News
7. Postscript

We Do Not Preach Ourselves

If, as we have seen in the previous post, that the world’s problem is that they do not see the glory of Christ, the Church’s mission is to preach a message which, by the power of God, overcomes that blindness. And so that is the third principle for faithfulness in Gospel ministry: to know the proclamation. Paul says in 2Cor 4:5, “For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake.”

What does it mean to “not preach ourselves?” It means that we don’t put ourselves forward as the appeal to unbelievers. We don’t make our methodology or our style the draw, or that which attracts and compels others’ participation. Instead, we get ourselves out of the way so as to be merely incidental—merely the finger that points to what counts: namely, the content of the message: that Jesus Christ is Lord.

1 Corinthians 2:1-5 really sheds light on what it means for Paul that he not be preaching himself. He says, “And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.”

What's amazing about that is superiority of speech, human wisdom, and persuasive words were exactly what you needed if you were going to get your message heard in first-century Corinth! Remember, eloquence and oratory were the prerequisites of cultural engagement and credibility in that society. And Paul says, “I determined—I resolved—to be just the opposite. They were seeking wisdom, and all I knew was Christ and Him crucified. They were looking for rhetorical skills and eloquence and I was with you in weakness and fear and much trembling. They wanted someone skilled in the art of persuasion, and my message and preaching had no persuasive words.”

Why, Paul?!

“Because if I did that, I’d be preaching myself! And then your faith would rest on the wisdom of men, and not on the power of God!”

So we don’t preach ourselves. In fact, he says in 1 Corinthians 3:5, “What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Slaves through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.” And back in 2 Corinthians 4:7, Paul says, “Listen, we’re just earthen vessels, just clay pots. We don’t do anything to make much of ourselves because we want 'the surpassing greatness of the power [to] be of God and not from ourselves.'”

And so Paul says: We don’t preach ourselves, because we’re not trying to simply gain converts, fill seats, and get rich. The problem we’re trying to solve by our preaching is the world’s blindness to the glory of Christ. And so we don’t preach ourselves, because no matter how slick or clever our presentation is, that’s not what saves people. That’s not what opens their eyes to see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.

An Epidemic

And dear friends, if there is anything that plagues the contemporary Church today it is an epidemic of preaching ourselves. The Church today seems like it’s trying to solve every problem in the world except the one it’s been commissioned to solve. And it preaches itself to do it. One of the greatest marks of the unhealthiness of today’s Church is that rather than manifesting the glory of Jesus and the offensiveness and foolishness of His cross, the culture-exegetes of today attempt to show the world how much alike we are. In so doing, the Church presents themselves to the world and asks the world to accept them, and go from there.

Unbelievers don’t like hour-long sermons and big Bible words, so church growth strategy says we ought to shorten sermons to 20-minute pep-talks on fixing your emotional problems and personal relationships. On the other hand, the Emerging church reminds us that we’re living in a post-Christian era, and before the 18 to 30 year-olds of this generation darken the door of a church, we’ve got to "contextualize the gospel" and be "missional." If your "target audience" likes exotic coffees, put a coffee shop in your church. If they’re into punk rock music and body piercing, buy a couple of albums and think about a tongue ring. If they’re into Ultimate Fighting, go with them to the bar after work and watch a match on the big screen over some imported beer. You see, once we can show them that Christians are like them—that we’re human just like them and can like the same things that they like—well then they’ll be interested in “trying Jesus.”

As I write that, the passage that screams out in my mind is James 4:4: “Adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

Here’s an actual example from a church’s “About Us” page on their website: “If you’re looking for a place to have some real fun, make some real friends, and explore and experience a relationship with the real God, FCF is the place for you! We believe that church ought to be the most exciting and meaningful experience of a person’s week! That’s why we—”

Now, I agree that church ought to be the most exciting and meaningful experience of a person's week. But how you finish that last sentence speaks volumes about what you believe about Jesus Christ and His Gospel. Right there I want to insert: “That’s why we faithfully exposit the Scriptures week by week, in order to present an exalted view of God, so that our members see and savor His glory that is revealed in Christ, and as a result be so satisfied with the sweetness of Christ that they willingly lay down their lives during the week to love their neighbor as themselves.”

But no, they believe church ought to be the most exciting and meaningful experience of a person’s week. “That’s why we use theatrical lighting, sound, and video. That’s why we have cutting-edge music along with creative and relevant messages that speak to real-life challenges. That’s why we designed and built a kid’s theater and village complete with a real fire truck in the wall, and more!” And it goes on.

Do you see how this is preaching themselves? They offer their church, and its various programs and multimedia presentations as the selling point, rather than the gospel of Christ crucified, risen, and reigning as Lord, which can alone open blind minds to see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. Paul calls this kind of thing peddling the word of God in 2Cor 2:17. And in 2Cor4:2 he calls it adulterating the word of God. And so Paul declares that we as Christians do not preach ourselves, because that will never solve the world’s problem. Rather we preach—that’s our method—Christ Jesus as Lord—that’s our message.

Will Metzger in his classic book on evangelism entitled Tell the Truth, writes, “The model for our witness is not to be a smooth-talking public relations agent”—and I’d add, nor an uber-cool, cultural hipster—“but an ambassador with a proclamation from a King” (36), which is exactly what Paul says a chapter later (2Cor 5:20).

Update: See Paul Washer offer his commentary on what it means for pastors and churches to preach themselves.

Series Outline

1. Principles for Faithfulness in Gospel Ministry: Introduction
2. We Are Not to Amuse the Goats but to Call the Sheep
3. The World's Problem is that They Are Blind to Glory
4. We Do Not Preach Ourselves
5. God's Remedy: The Shining of the Light of Life
6. The Gospel of the Glory: What Makes the Good News Good News
7. Postscript

We Are Not to Amuse the Goats but to Call the Sheep

In the spirit of the New Year and reflecting on and refocusing our mission in the world as the Church, I've recently introduced my plan to lay out four principles for faithfulness in Gospel ministry in 2011. I plan to couple those with four implications, so that we as the Church will be faithful witnesses of Christ in our various spheres of life in the coming year. I'm going to discuss those principles and implications under four headings. We must (1) know the purpose, (2) know the problem, (3) know the proclamation, and (4) know the prescription.

We'll consider the first of those today. The first principle for faithful ministry that Paul gives us in 2 Corinthians 4:3-6 is to know the purpose of Gospel ministry, the aim. Namely: we are calling Christ’s sheep, not the goats, into the fold.

I get that from verse 3, where Paul says, “even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.” Now, where is that statement coming from? Well, as I briefly mentioned on Friday, Paul wrote the letter of 2 Corinthians primarily to defend his own apostleship against the teachings of certain men of Corinth who Paul later dubbed false apostles (2Cor 11:13). These men were teaching that Paul was not a true apostle, and were advancing many attacks against both his character and his ministry, to the point that the Corinthians began to doubt Paul, and thus doubt the gospel he preached.

For example, these false apostles accused him of being under God’s judgment because of his constant sufferings. The thought was that if Paul was really sent from Christ he wouldn't have such opposition and such turmoil, but rather that God would bless him. And so in 2Cor 1:3-11 Paul defends himself by saying that his sufferings for the Gospel are actually a mark of God’s favor. Far from discrediting him as an apostle, sufferings are a badge of his authenticity as a minister of Christ. Further, they accused him of vacillating, and “purposing according to the flesh” (2Cor 1:17) because he had changed his plans about coming to Corinth. And so in 2Cor 1:15-22 he defends himself by saying his word to the Corinthians is not yes and no, but yes, just as all God’s promises are yes in Christ. They also accused him of being uncredentialed, a sort of Johnny-come-lately apostle who wasn’t part of the original twelve. And so in 2Cor 3:2 he asks the Corinthians, “Do we need letters of commendation to you? You are our letter of commendation. The fact that you now know Christ because of the Gospel we preached to you is evidence of our authenticity.”

And now in chapter 4, we find that another accusation was that his message was obscure. Now remember, the Corinthian culture praised human wisdom and cleverness of speech and oratorical persuasion. They highly regarded those who were skilled in rhetoric and oratory, and looked down upon those who weren’t. And so these men were saying, “Hey, look, Paul, only a few people are believing your message. If it was true, and you were really sent from Christ, more people would believe!” And oh, that sounds like today, doesn’t it? “If God was really blessing you, you’d have more people in your church! If you really had sound doctrine—and if sound doctrine really mattered!—more people would believe!” And Paul’s response to this is to tell the false apostles, “You don’t understand the doctrine of election.” It may be that our gospel is veiled—that is, granted: there are many who do not believe our message—but our gospel is veiled only to those who are perishing.

He says a similar thing in 2Cor 2:14-16: “For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life.” As a preacher of the Gospel, Paul calls himself a fragrance of Christ to God. He likens the preaching of the Gospel to the emission of an odor that finds its way into the nostrils of all people. And among those who hear the Gospel there are two kinds of people: those who are being saved and those who are perishing, those whom God chose in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before Him (Eph 1:4), and those whom He did not so choose. And when the elect of God smell the fragrance of the Gospel, it is to them an aroma of life that leads to life. But when the non-elect hear it, it is an aroma of death that leads to death.

Christ Himself said the same thing to the Jews in John 10:26-27. He said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish. But you don’t believe because you are not of My sheep.” Get that. Not, "You are not My sheep because you don't believe," but, "You do not believe because you are not of My sheep. You are not of those that the Father has given to Me" (cf. Jn 6:37, 39).

And so Paul’s defense is that one should not expect the goats to believe the Gospel; for it is only the sheep that hear the voice of their Shepherd.

The Implications

Now, understand the implications this doctrine has for our ministry of the Gospel. If we continue to take the unadulterated, Biblical Gospel to the world and they continue to reject it, that is not a sign of the weakness of the message. It’s not even necessarily a sign of the weakness of the messenger, but rather it is the outworking of God’s purpose to redeem a particular people.

Now, there are at least two ways this doctrine is abused, and I’m not advocating either of them. First, there are those who are uncompassionate, who take the precious truth of sovereign election to mean that we just bluntly and uncaringly preach a hard message to people, and if they don’t accept it at first hearing, well they’re just not elect. That is an evil way to think. And if there are some of you reading this that struggle with those kinds of thoughts and that kind of an uncaring attitude, I invite you to repent of them, and to hear the words of Jesus who wept over Jerusalem saying: “Oh Jerusalem. How often I wanted to gather your children! Oh if you had known this day the things which make for peace!” And the words of Paul: “We were gentle among you, like a nursing mother caring for her children. I did not cease night and day for three years to admonish each one with tears.” Do not let the doctrine of sovereign election lead you to be uncompassionate. It did not lead there for the Lord Jesus or for the Apostles.

Secondly, there are those who are just plain lazy. They're just too proud to examine their understanding of the Gospel. But get this: if we’re preaching what the Bible calls the greatest news in the universe, and nobody is listening, we have to be humble enough to at least examine whether we are getting in the way of a pure Gospel presentation. We must ensure that what we are taking to the world is indeed the Biblical Gospel.

But if we have taken the Biblical Gospel to our neighbors and our community with the patience and the compassion of Jesus, and they reject it, we must not conclude that we need to start playing rock and roll music and having light shows and performing skits and playing videos in church to attract them. The church is not called to amuse the goats; rather we are to sound the Shepherd’s voice in the Gospel message and call His sheep who know that voice into His fold.

Our gospel is indeed veiled to those who are perishing. And therefore the first principle for faithful ministry that Paul gives us in this text is: success in Gospel ministry is measured not by numbers but by faithfulness to the message. Therefore, in what seems like seasons of external failure, we must not ask what offers the greatest appeal or what will fill the most seats. We must ask, “Have we gotten the Gospel right? Are we preaching the message we’ve received?”

Come back for principle number two.

Series Outline

1. Principles for Faithfulness in Gospel Ministry: Introduction
2. We Are Not to Amuse the Goats but to Call the Sheep
3. The World's Problem is that They Are Blind to Glory
4. We Do Not Preach Ourselves
5. God's Remedy: The Shining of the Light of Life
6. The Gospel of the Glory: What Makes the Good News Good News
7. Postscript

Gilt is Afraid of Fire, But Gold is Not

I thought it would be a nice postscript to the series on lessons from Jeremiah's suffering in the book of Lamentations to post Spurgeon's morning entry from Morning and Evening for October 7.

Treasure his words:

Our heavenly Father sends us frequent troubles to try our faith. If our faith be worth anything, it will stand the test. Gilt is afraid of fire, but gold is not: the paste gem dreads to be touched by the diamond, but the true jewel fears no test.

It is a poor faith which can only trust God when friends are true, the body full of health, and the business profitable; but that is true faith which holds by the Lord's faithfulness when friends are gone, when the body is sick, when spirits are depressed, and the light of our Father's countenance is hidden. A faith which can say, in the direst trouble, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him," is heaven-born faith.

The Lord afflicts His servants to glorify Himself, for He is greatly glorified in the graces of His people, which are His own handiwork. When "tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope," the Lord is honoured by these growing virtues. We should never know the music of the harp if the strings were left untouched; nor enjoy the juice of the grape if it were not trodden in the winepress; nor discover the sweet perfume of cinnamon if it were not pressed and beaten; nor feel the warmth of fire if the coals were not utterly consumed. The wisdom and power of the great Workman are discovered by the trials through which His vessels of mercy are permitted to pass.

Present afflictions tend also to heighten future joy. There must be shades in the picture to bring out the beauty of the lights. Could we be so supremely blessed in heaven, if we had not known the curse of sin and the sorrow of earth? Will not peace be sweeter after conflict, and rest more welcome after toil? Will not the recollection of past sufferings enhance the bliss of the glorified? There are many other comfortable answers to the question with which we opened our brief meditation, let us muse upon it all day long.

This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope.
Yahweh's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
"Yahweh is my portion," says my soul,
"Therefore I have hope in Him."
Yahweh is good to those who wait for Him,
to the person who seeks Him.
It is good that he waits silently
For the salvation of Yahweh.
- Lamentations 3:21-26 -

Series Outline

1. Introduction
   
2. He identifies with, and suffers alongside, his people.
3. He acknowledges that sin is at the root of suffering (even though not all suffering is a direct result of personal sin).
4. He acknowledges God’s absolute sovereignty in his suffering.
5. Piper and Edwards: The Glory of God in Ordaining Evil.
   
6. He recognizes that although God is sovereign, He is not the enemy.
7. He sets his hope entirely on, and rests in, God’s character.
8. Spurgeon: Gilt is Afraid of Fire, But Gold is Not
   

Hope in God's Character

The final installment in this five-part series on lessons about suffering righteously that we can learn from Jeremiah as we study the book of Lamentations has been a long time coming. The big crunch at the end of last semester prompted me to take a break from the blog in December, and visiting home over the last couple of weeks -- during which time I've had the opportunity to prepare and deliver a sermon -- has monopolized much of my time. I apologize for any of you who have been waiting for this final post. I also hope any of you who have surmised that this blog must just have "gone dark" will come back and continue reading, as I plan to post more regularly again.

That said, now we come to the final, and perhaps most important, lesson that Jeremiah teaches us on suffering well and according to righteousness and faith. In the midst of his intense suffering and deep anguish, Jeremiah does not mourn as one who has no hope (1Th 4:13). Rather, he sets his hope entirely on, and rests in, God's character. He hopes in the restoration of God's people according to His character and His covenant.

Even though there has been broad devastation, Israel was not utterly destroyed. Jeremiah attributes that to Yahweh’s compassion, lovingkindness, and covenant faithfulness. Because his words are so powerful, I simply want to reproduce them here. Please read them thoroughly, and give them much thought. The juxtaposition of "affliction," "wandering," "wormwood" and "bitterness," along with "hope," "lovingkindess," "compassion," and "faithfulness," is so striking and spurs the heart unto much worship.

Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness. Surely my soul remembers and is bowed down within me. This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. Yahweh's lovingkindnesses [His chesedim] indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.

"Yahweh is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I have hope in Him." Yahweh is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently for the salvation of Yahweh. It is good for a man that he should bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone and be silent since He has laid it on him. Let him put his mouth in the dust, perhaps there is hope. Let him give his cheek to the smiter, let him be filled with reproach.

For the Lord will not reject forever, for if He causes grief, then He will have compassion according to His abundant lovingkindness.

I hope you lay hold of the magnitude of those words. They come at the dead center of the book of Lamentations (Lam 3:19-32). Yahweh's great covenant faithfulness and loyal and steadfast love according to His own character and name is the centerpiece of Jeremiah's lamentations in his great suffering.

And that is deliberate. Lamentations has the most deliberate, symmetrical structure of any book in the Bible. In chapters 1 and 2, even in the original Hebrew, there are 22 verses that are composed of 3 lines in each verse, for a total of 66 lines in each of the first two chapters. And each verse begins with the successive letter in the Hebrew alphabet. In chapter 3, there are 66 verses of one line each, again totaling 66 lines in the chapter. And again, each cluster of three verses begins with successive letters in the alphabet. (So, verses 1-3 start with aleph, 4-6 with beth, and so on.) Chapter 4 has 22 verses composed of two lines each, and chapter 5 has 22 verses with one line each.

All of this gives form and shape to Jeremiah's mourning. Because of Yahweh's great faithfulness to His own name, His steadfast, loyal, covenant love expressed in the repeated term chesed (Lam 3:22, 32), Jeremiah's suffering is not just unbridled grief and despair. Yahweh's fresh mercies and abundant lovingkindnesses keep him from losing control and despairing entirely as those who grieve with no hope (1Th 4:13).

Therefore, though Israel has been exceedingly unfaithful to the covenant which God made with them at Sinai, and though God has chastened them greatly because of it, nevertheless their unfaithfulness will never nullify God’s faithfulness to the word which He spoke to Abraham: to give His people the land He promised (Gen 15:17-18). That is why Paul says in Romans 11 that, from the standpoint of God's election, Israel is beloved for the sake of the fathers (Rom 11:28). God will not violate His covenant. Neither will it nullify God's faithfulness to the word which He spoke to David: to send the Messiah to reign over them forever on the throne of David (2Sam 7:10-16; Ps 89:34-35). And so with the New Covenant: "'If this fixed order departs from before Me,' declares Yahweh, 'then the offspring of Israel also will cease from being a nation before Me forever.' Thus says Yahweh, 'If the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth searched out below, then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done,' declares Yahweh" (Jer 31:36-37; cf. Ps 89:36-37). It is for this reason that Jeremiah can come to the end of his lamentations and declare: "Restore us to You, O Yahweh, that we may be restored; renew our days as of old" (Lam 5:21).

And so in our trials of suffering, we also, as God's people, should faithfully turn to trust in His own faithfulness to His promises. He has sworn by the greatest thing by which there is to swear: Himself. God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek (Heb 6:17-20).

We must locate our hope entirely in the covenant faithfulness of God, specifically in His promise of the blessings of the New Covenant: that the Spirit guarantees our inheritance of dwelling with God in His presence forever – that nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ (Rom 8:38-39).

Our hope, just as Jeremiah's, is in the Lord’s grace, His ceaseless lovingkindnesses, His never-failing and always-new compassions, for God will always be faithful to Himself (2 Tim 2:13).


Jeremiah's Five Lessons

1. He identifies with, and suffers alongside, his people.
2. He acknowledges that sin is at the root of suffering (even though not all suffering is a direct result of personal sin).
3. He acknowledges God’s absolute sovereignty in his suffering.
4. He recognizes that although God is sovereign, He is not the enemy.
5. He sets his hope entirely on, and rests in, God’s character.

Recognize the Enemy

After a brief, yet hopefully beneficial, interruption from John Piper and Jonathan Edwards on the God's glory as it relates to His ordaining of evil, we come to the fourth lesson we can learn from Jeremiah about how to righteously respond to suffering.

The third lesson was to acknowledge God's absolute sovereignty in the suffering that we experience, and we noted how active a role God assigns to Himself in the most wicked actions of men. And yet, though Jeremiah attributes the destruction of Israel to God’s sovereign judgment, he neither blames Yahweh nor holds Him morally responsible for the evil inflicted on His people. Quite simply, a Bible-believing Christian has no choice but to admit that God sovereignly and actively brings about the evil events described in Lamentations. But if our understanding of God’s absolute sovereignty leads us to conclude that He is morally culpable, blameworthy, or in any way unrighteous, we’re wrong. The Scripture writers never seek to save God from His sovereignty in evil and sinful events, yet they also never attribute evil to Him directly. Apparently, there is a way for God to ordain that bad things come about without being the immediate, efficient cause for those things; i.e., without being at fault for them.

Rather, Jeremiah spoke about the arrogance of Israel’s enemies (Lam 2:15-16; 3:60-62), and called on Yahweh to judge them for the great wickedness that they had done to God’s people (Lam 1:21-22; 3:63-66; 4:21-22). Though Jeremiah explicitly states that Yahweh employed the Babylonians to accomplish His purpose, he also makes it clear that God’s absolute sovereignty in and over evil does not mitigate human responsibility for that evil.

How is this analogous to our situation when we suffer? Well, the point is: We must recognize who the enemy is in suffering. It is not God. The previous two posts taught us that He brings these events about to conform us more into the image of His Son, and thus to make us fit to see and know and enjoy more of Him, which is our highest happiness. So He is not the enemy. Rather, the enemy in suffering is (1) our own sin, (2) the Enemy, Satan, and (3) the last enemy: death (1Cor 15:26). And so when we go through suffering we can and should pray along with Jeremiah for the destruction of all of these enemies.

Hebrews 2:14-15 tells us that the Son of God became man in order to render Satan powerless. And how did He do that? He freed us who were enslaved to the fear of death so that the Enemy, who had the power of death, had no power over us any longer.

And how did He free us from the fear of death? Answer: by conquering death itself. Because Christ has suffered, died, and yet rose again, demonstrating His triumph over sin and death, we too also will be raised with Him. That's what the entire glorious chapter of 1 Corinthians 15 is about! And it concludes like this:

But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, "Death is swallowed up in victory." "O Death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

That victory taunt, "O Death, where is your victory?..." is a quote from Hosea 13:14. What's so interesting about that is in its original context, it wasn't a cry of victory for God's people. Instead, it was God pronouncing a curse upon His people. He was calling upon the thorns and the sting of death to rouse them against adulterous, idolatrous Ephraim, that unwise son whose iniquity was bound up upon him (Hos 13:12-14). Indeed, Yahweh arouses the sting of death against His people, declaring, "Compassion will be hidden from My sight."

But the stinging reality of the phrase's original context only makes Paul's use of it that much sweeter. Because at the end of 1 Corinthians 15, because of what Christ has accomplished, going before us as our Deliverer, the people of God can take what was once a taunt of victory against them and shout it out as a taunt of victory against their enemy!

And in the midst of suffering, such a taunt can be our cry. "O Death, where is your victory? Where is your sting? Arouse them! Bring your worst! You will nevertheless remain defeated. Your power over me is entirely broken, and your sting is scarcely felt because of the sweet balm of the truth that anoints and salves my soul! Would you remind me of my indwelling sin? I would remind you of His indwelling Spirit, sent to me by my Savior, who bled and died to cancel out the the debt I owed because of the hostile Law. He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross (Col 2:13)! Get behind me, Satan!"

And therefore, my beloved brethren, we may be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that our struggle against the flesh and the fight for joy in the midst of suffering is not in vain in the Lord (1Cor 15:58).

In the midst of suffering, as we recognize our enemy, we can look back to celebrate the demise both of our sin and of Satan that took place at the cross. And we can look forward to celebrate their final and consummate destruction, when we will have put on the imperishable (1Cor 15:54) and when death and Hades will have been thrown into the lake of fire (Rev 20:14).

It is right for Jeremiah to call for Yahweh's judgment upon the Babylonians for their responsibility in causing the intense suffering of an entire nation. In the same way, it is right for us to call for God's judgment upon and eradication of our own sin, upon the Enemy himself, and upon death, the last enemy (1Cor 15:26).


Jeremiah's Five Lessons

1. He identifies with, and suffers alongside, his people.
2. He acknowledges that sin is at the root of suffering (even though not all suffering is a direct result of personal sin).
3. He acknowledges God’s absolute sovereignty in his suffering.
4. He recognizes that although God is sovereign, He is not the enemy.
5. He sets his hope entirely on, and rests in, God’s character.

The Glory of God in Ordaining Evil

Before posting the next post in the series on learning from Jeremiah about suffering righteously, as a complement to Monday's post about God's sovereignty in suffering, I thought I'd reproduce a piece of a conference message given by John Piper, entitled: "Is God Less Glorious Because He Ordained that Evil Be?" In this message, he enlists the help of Jonathan Edwards in explaining how God's sovereign ordination of the existence of evil serves His glory, rather than denigrates from it. That is mainly answered by a long quote from Edwards towards the end of this post. At the beginning I give some of Piper's presentation on how God can ordain or decree what seems contrary to His will (e.g., God desires that all men be saved, 1Tim 2:4, and yet has decreed that not all men be saved, because not all men are saved).

I hope you'll be benefited by this. These are deep waters. Tread humbly, but drink deeply.

Two Aspects or Senses of the Will of God

In one sense God wills that what he hates come to pass, as well as what he loves. Edwards says,

God may hate a thing as it is in itself, and considered simply as evil, and yet . . . it may be his will it should come to pass, considering all consequences. . . . God doesn't will sin as sin or for the sake of anything evil; though it be his pleasure so to order things, that he permitting [I would push back here, and say "ordaining"], sin will come to pass; for the sake of the great good that by his disposal shall be the consequence. His willing to order things so that evil should come to pass, for the sake of the contrary good, is no argument that he doesn't hate evil, as evil: and if so, then it is no reason why he may not reasonably forbid evil as evil, and punish it as such.

This is a fundamental truth that helps explain some perplexing things in the Bible, namely, that God often expresses his will to be one way, and then acts to bring about another state of affairs. God opposes hatred toward his people, yet ordained that his people be hated in Egypt (Genesis 12:3; Psalm 105:25 – "He turned their hearts to hate his people."). He hardens Pharaoh's heart, but commands him to let his people go (Exodus 4:21; 5:1; 8:1). He makes plain that it is sin for David to take a military census of his people, but he ordains that he do it (2 Samuel 24:1; 24:10). He opposes adultery, but ordains that Absalom should lie with his father's wives (Exodus 20:14; 2 Samuel 12:11). He forbids rebellion and insubordination against the king, but ordained that Jeroboam and the ten tribes should rebel against Rehoboam (Romans 13:1; 1 Samuel 15:23; 1 Kings 12:15-16). He opposes murder, but ordains the murder of his Son (Exodus 20:13; Acts 4:28). He desires all men to be saved, but effectually calls only some (1 Timothy 2:4; 1 Corinthians 1:26-30; 2 Timothy 2:26).

What this means is that we must learn that God wills things in two different senses. The Bible demands this by the way it speaks of God's will in different ways. Edwards uses the terms "will of decree" and "will of command." Edwards explains:

[God's] will of decree [or sovereign will] is not his will in the same sense as his will of command [or moral will] is. Therefore it is not difficult at all to suppose that the one may be otherwise than the other: his will in both senses is his inclination. But when we say he wills virtue, or loves virtue or the happiness of his creature; thereby is intended that virtue or the creature's happiness, absolutely and simply considered, is agreeable to the inclination of his nature. His will of decree is his inclination to a thing not as to that thing absolutely and simply, but with reference to the universality of things. So God, though he hates a things as it is simply, may incline to it with reference to the universality of things.

So Why Does God Ordain that there Be Evil?

It is evident from what has been said that it is not because he delights in evil as evil. Rather he "wills that evil come to pass . . . that good may come of it." What good? And how does the existence of evil serve this good end? Here is Edwards' stunning answer:

It is a proper and excellent thing for infinite glory to shine forth; and for the same reason, it is proper that the shining forth of God's glory should be complete; that is, that all parts of his glory should shine forth, that every beauty should be proportionably effulgent, that the beholder may have a proper notion of God. It is not proper that one glory should be exceedingly manifested, and another not at all. . . .

Thus it is necessary, that God's awful majesty, his authority and dreadful greatness, justice, and holiness, should be manifested. But this could not be, unless sin and punishment had been decreed; so that the shining forth of God's glory would be very imperfect, both because these parts of divine glory would not shine forth as the others do, and also the glory of his goodness, love, and holiness would be faint without them; nay, they could scarcely shine forth at all.

If it were not right that God should decree and permit and punish sin, there could be no manifestation of God's holiness in hatred of sin, or in showing any preference, in his providence, of godliness before it. There would be no manifestation of God's grace or true goodness, if there was no sin to be pardoned, no misery to be saved from. How much happiness soever he bestowed, his goodness would not be so much prized and admired. . . .

So evil is necessary, in order to the highest happiness of the creature, and the completeness of that communication of God, for which he made the world; because the creature's happiness consists in the knowledge of God, and the sense of his love. And if the knowledge of him be imperfect, the happiness of the creature must be proportionably imperfect.

So the answer to the question in the title of this message, "Is God less glorious because he ordained that evil be?" is no, just the opposite. God is more glorious for having conceived and created and governed a world like this with all its evil. The effort to absolve him by denying his foreknowledge of sin (as we saw this afternoon) or by denying his control of sin (which we have seen this evening) is fatal, and a great dishonor to his word and his wisdom. Evangelicals who are seeking the glory of God, look well to the teaching of your churches and your schools. But most of all, look well to your souls.

If you would see God's glory and savor his glory and magnify his glory in this world, do not remain wavering before the sovereignty of God in the face of great evil. Take his book in your hand, plead for his Spirit of illumination and humility and trust, and settle this matter, that you might be unshakable in the day of your own calamity. My prayer is that what I have said will sharpen and deepen your God-entranced world view, and that in the day of your loss you will be like Job who, when he lost all his children, fell down and worshiped, and said, "Yahweh gave and Yahweh has taken away. Blessed be the name of Yahweh."

Acknowledge God's Absolute Sovereignty in Suffering

The first two lessons we've learned from Jeremiah are that (1) we ought to suffer along with our brothers and sisters who suffer and (2) we must acknowledge the role of sin in our suffering. The third lesson we can learn form Jeremiah's righteous response to suffering is that we must acknowledge God's absolute sovereignty even in the unpleasant and painful circumstances.

One of the things that is striking throughout the book of Lamentations is that Jeremiah finds no solace in attributing the destruction of Yahweh's covenant people to second causes. Rather, he attributes the agonizing desolation of Israel to Yahweh Himself. He declares that "Yahweh has caused her grief" (Lam 1:5) and has "inflicted" this pain "in His fierce anger" (Lam 1:12); it is He who has knit together this yoke, who has given her into the hands of her enemies, who has rejected her, and has trodden her as in a winepress (Lam 1:14-15). You'll notice that he does not speak of God merely "allowing" such devastation. Instead, he speaks of God actively accomplishing that which He had purposed to do:

• Lamentations 2:17 – Yahweh has done what He purposed; He has accomplished His word Which He commanded from days of old. He has thrown down without sparing, And He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you; He has exalted the might of your adversaries.
• Lamentations 4:11 – Yahweh has accomplished His wrath, He has poured out His fierce anger; And He has kindled a fire in Zion Which has consumed its foundations (cf. Lam 2:1-7).
  
• Lamentations 3:37-38, 43-44 – Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass, Unless the Lord has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High That both good and ill go forth? … You have covered Yourself with anger And pursued us; You have slain and have not spared. You have covered Yourself with a cloud So that no prayer can pass through.

And again, as we did with the discussion on acknowledging sin, we have to be careful not to draw a direct parallel in this situation, and perhaps in many other situations. In Jeremiah's case, God is explicitly inflicting punishment. This may or may not be so when we suffer. But even if He's not explicitly punishing or disciplining, it is still wrong to locate the origin of these unpleasant events somewhere outside of God.

Job's case makes that clear. He did not attribute His suffering to second causes, but always recognized that God was sovereign in his afflictions (Job 1:21; 2:10; 12:9-10). And God commended him for that (Job 2:3; 42:7). And lest you think Job was somehow confused about who caused his sufferings since he was never privy to the opening interaction between God and Satan, the inspired text of the narrator of the book of Job agrees at the end of the book: "...and they consoled [Job] and comforted him for all the adversities that Yahweh had brought on him." Get that. Not, "...all the adversities that Satan had brought," and not even "...all the adversities that Yahweh allowed." These were adversities that Yahweh himself had brought upon Job.

The lesson for us, then, is that when we suffer, we should not seek to save God from His sovereignty. If we do that, we cut the legs out from under the solid, robust theology of God's absolute sovereignty that we depend on and cherish so much in those very times of suffering. To try to soften God's involvement with sin by reducing it to a mere permission rather than a definite ordinance is to weaken the spine-strengthening power that is supplied by Romans 8:28. To insist by our word choice that God merely allows evil and suffering rather than intentionally and wisely brings it about in order to glorify Himself and thus most greatly bless the creature destroys the very theology of sovereign grace that is (1) such a comfort to our souls in such troubling times and is (2) precisely that for which God means to receive glory and honor.

God means to be glorified in being recognized as the ultimate Mover and Determiner of all things. Let us not seek to rob Him of that.

I am Yahweh, and there is no other,
The One forming light and creating darkness,
Causing well-being and creating calamity;
I am Yahweh who does all these.
- Isaiah 45:7 -

Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass,
unless the Lord has commanded it?
Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
that both good and ill go forth?
- Lamentations 3:37-38 -

Jeremiah's Five Lessons

1. He identifies with, and suffers alongside, his people.
2. He acknowledges that sin is at the root of suffering (even though not all suffering is a direct result of personal sin).
3. He acknowledges God’s absolute sovereignty in his suffering.
4. He recognizes that although God is sovereign, He is not the enemy.
5. He sets his hope entirely on, and rests in, God’s character.

His Mercies Are Over All His Works

So, seminary and other responsibilities have totally gotten the better of me for the month of October. Thanks to all of you for being patient with me. I do still intend to get those few posts out eventually on learning how to suffer righteously from Jeremiah in the book of Lamentations. For now, here's something that I came across from a site called Creation Moments. It's pretty amazing. It's a sort of "Isn't Evolution Wonderful?" kind of thing that Dan Phillips does from time to time. May we worship God for the wonder of His creation. For He but spoke, and it was done. He commanded, and worlds came into being and stood at attention (Ps 33:9).

Genesis 35:17 - When she was in severe labor the midwife said to her, "Do not fear, for now you have another son."

Ever since Old Testament times, midwives have been helping mothers during the birthing process. They are especially valuable should there be difficulties since they not only offer an extra set of hands, but experience in dealing with common problems. Some of the scientists who were studying amoeba behavior observed some very strange behavior which suggests that some amoebas, too, employ midwives.

The scientists were studying an amoeba that lives in the digestive tract of reptiles. As all amoebas, they reproduce by splitting in half. Scientists noted, however, that this particular species is not very good at it. Up to a third of the time, the amoebas fail to split. They begin the process but never manage to complete it. When that happens, the amoeba is doomed to exist as long as it can with two sets of genetic information.

But as scientists watched, when an amoeba had difficulty dividing, other amoebas would move in on it and help the division process, thereby serving as a midwife. Further study revealed that the amoeba having difficulty dividing releases a chemical which apparently summons help to finish the process. The midwife amoeba have been seen traveling up to 40 times their own length to help in the birthing of a new generation.

The Bible teaches us that God cares for all of His creatures. Here we see that He provides even for the needs of the lowly amoeba. How much more does He love us and provide for our needs!

Yahweh is good to all, And His mercies are over all His works.
All Your works shall give thanks to You, O Yahweh,
And Your godly ones shall bless You.
They shall speak of the glory of Your kingdom And talk of Your power;
To make known to the sons of men Your mighty acts
And the glory of the majesty of Your kingdom.
Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
And Your dominion endures throughout all generations.
Yahweh sustains all who fall And raises up all who are bowed down.
The eyes of all look to You, And You give them their food in due time.
You open Your hand And satisfy the desire of every living thing.
Yahweh is righteous in all His ways And kind in all His deeds.
Yahweh is near to all who call upon Him, To all who call upon Him in truth.
He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him;
He will also hear their cry and will save them.
Yahweh keeps all who love Him, But all the wicked He will destroy.
My mouth will speak the praise of Yahweh,
And all flesh will bless His holy name forever and ever.
- Psalm 145:9-21 -

Defining and Defending Biblical Apologetics

There's so much that I want to say about this video from James White. But every time I set my hand to write, I recognize that what I want to say is exactly what he's said in the video. (You might also check out this post, which is best read in the context of this entire series.)

But just for some context, James White is president of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a Christian apologetics ministry based in Phoenix, Arizona, and is an elder at Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. He hosts a weekly radio program called The Dividing Line, and this segment is taken from the show on June 24th, 2010. White is entirely devoted to a presuppositional approach to defending the Christian faith, and in the below video he explains how the theology of the Bible itself requires that one be a presuppositional apologist if one is to be consistently Biblical.

I know 42 minutes is a long time, but I promise you it is well worth your time.

But though He had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him. … For this reason they could not believe, for Isaiah said again, "He has blinded their eyes and he hardened their heart, so that they would not see him with their eyes and perceive with their heart, and be converted and I heal them."

- John 12:37, 39-40 -

Where the Contemplation of Our Freedom Should Point Us

I referred to the following post in last year's Independence Day post at For Our Benefit. It's entitled, "What Price Freedom?" and was written by PyroManiac Dan Phillips. Last year, I noted that I copied his post because everyone had written something with a 4th of July theme, and I, being a rookie blogger, didn't have anything prepared. I copy Dan's post this year, though, not (merely) because I wasn't ready for an Independence Day theme, but because I honestly don't think I could write -- or find elsewhere -- something better.

Enjoy. And Praise God for His gift of freedom. Political freedom, absolutely. But infinitely more important, praise God for freedom from sin.

“…and from Jesus Christ, the Faithful Witness, the Firstborn over the dead, and the Ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us, and loosed us from our sins by His blood; and He made us a kingdom, priests to His God and Father — to him be the glory and the might unto the ages of the ages! Amen!” (Revelation 1:5-6, my rendering)

In America, we enjoy a degree of freedom unknown throughout most of the history of the world. This freedom had its formal birth with the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, in which the 13 colonies declared themselves independent of Great Britain, and which ended with the words “for the support of this declaration…we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”

Was that just big talk, or flowery rhetoric? Well, the 56 signers were marking themselves as traitors to the Crown. “By the end of the war, almost every one had lost his property; many had lost wives and families to British guns or prisons; and several died penniless, having given all to the Revolution” (Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen, A Patriot’s History of the United States [Sentinel: 2004], 81).

Americans enjoy freedom today because of the blood spilt by thousands of men and women from before 1776 until this very day. Our freedom, as Americans, is not free. If it hasn’t cost us personally, it surely has cost someone else!

But my mind turns today to a far deeper bondage, however, and an infinitely greater freedom — and to the far more dreadful price that was paid for that freedom.

It is found in Revelation 1:5b: “To Him who loves us, and loosed us from our sins by His blood.”

I'd like to focus on two aspects only of that text: the love of Jesus, and the cost of that love.

As to the love of Jesus, we can discern four aspects here:

First, Christ's love is FREE. God is, by definition, the one and only truly free Being. He is under no external controls, subject to no overrides nor limitations. He can will and do anything in accord with His nature. Therefore, He was under no external nor moral compulsion to love guilty rebels. No committee or authority had petitioned nor ordered Him. Certainly His love was provoked by nothing in us — no foreseen faith, no anticipated holiness, as if the ultimate cause lay in us.

More accurately, He loves in spite of the continued rebellions, treacheries, and unbelief of the objects of His love. When He loves, He loves because He loves. It is the only satisfactory and Biblical answer.

Second, Christ's love is DISTINGUISHING. The text says that He loves "us." The context defines "us" as “His servants" and "his servant John" (1:1; cf. v. 4), as “the seven churches” (1:4), and as people who were “loosed …from sins… made… a kingdom, priests to his God and Father” (1:5-6). They are contrasted with false, pretend-Christians (chapters 2—3).

They stand apart from those who try to hide “themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” (Revelation 6:15-17).

It was a targeted love, a definite love, a particular love. There were people — "us" — whom Christ meant to free. Not "offer freedom to," but free, "loose."

Would anyone dare say He failed to free even one soul whom He determined to deliver?

Third, Christ's love is ETERNAL. John calls Jesus “Him who loves us.” The verb is present in tense, but it is a participle, not a finite verb. It marks no starting point, it erects no terminus. It isn't “Jesus loved us," nor "Jesus will love us.”

Being a verbal noun, it is a characteristic of Jesus'. It was true when John wrote it, it is true as we read it, it will be true through all the centuries and millennia and ages of eternity. Before the world began, He set His love on His own. When the last rebel fist has been shaken, and judged, still He will love His own.

This characteristic trumps all of the fears of God’s people. “But I am unworthy!” So are we all; yet Christ is He “who loves us.” “But I sin!” So do we all; yet Christ is He “who loves us.” “But I am going through a dark, awful time!” So have we all; yet Christ is He “who loves us.”

There is no “use by” date, no expiration, no sunset provision. Because it is eternal, it is invincible; nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.

Fourth, Christ's love is revelatory of HIM, not of US. If ever you find yourself starting a sentence, “Well, I think God loved me because I…” — bail out! Quick! Step away from the stupid statement! The only true and Biblical way to finish that is, “God loved because God loved." And the fact that God loved, and the wretches whom God loved, and the invincible fierceness with which God loved all say a great deal about God — and nothing about me.

Away with all self-help pop-psychologizing, that tries to find self-esteem in the Cross. Many say, “God loved me so much that He gave His Son to die for me — so I must be worth a lot! I must be worthy! I must be special!” I can’t easily imagine a more perverse line of reasoning. What the Cross says about us is that we’re helpless, we’re hopeless, we’re lost and doomed, and only the most extreme, radical, scandalous act on the part of God could redeem us from the wreck and ruin in which we’d buried ourselves!

The Cross says horrible things about us, as we are in ourselves, as Christ finds us! But it says wonderful things about God!

In fact, as a brief aside, to speak of loosing is to assume binding. That is, only those who are bound are interested in deliverance from their bonds. So what is it that binds us? The world, the flesh, and the Devil -- mighty, ubiquitous, tireless forces. [Sheerly because of the length of this post, I expand on this point elsewhere.]

Now let's turn to the COST undertaken by Jesus, because of His love: He freed us from our sins “by His blood.” We'll focus on three aspects.

First, Christ's blood is PRECIOUS blood. It is precious because of whose blood it is. It belongs to God’s Messiah, the Anointed One, the Faithful Witness, the ruler of the kings of the earth. It belongs to the blood of God incarnate; the Bible calls it the blood of God (Acts 20:28). This blood is of infinite worth. Dare anyone set a limit on the value of this blood? I would not! (It is a great misrepresentation of the Calvinist position to think that we do. We see its value as limitless, and its aim as specific.) Thus could Christ shed it on behalf of, and actually accomplish the redemption of, countless scores of multitudes of sinners from every nation, tribe and language.

Second, Christ's blood is PURE blood. The blood that looses us from our sins is itself that of a sinless Man. This is the blood of the one Man who did not share Adam’s guilt, and did not replicate Adam’s sin. It is the blood of one who never violated God’s law in thought, word or deed, who kept every bit of God’s law in thought, word and deed. Can the contrast between the Lord Jesus and those for whom He died be any starker and more immense?

Third, Christ's blood is POWERFUL blood. The apostle John does not say that Jesus made it possible for us to loose ourselves from our sins by His blood. Nor does He say that Christ made loosing from our sins available by his blood. Rather, Jesus Christ actually loosed us from our sins by His blood!

Christ's blood is powerful, and it is effectual. Can any imagine that a drop of that blood would be wasted, would fall to the ground defeated and impotent? I cannot.

Notice the wonders He accomplishes by His blood (vv. 5b-6). Before, we were lost, rebellious, hopeless, impure slaves. After, we are a kingdom, and we are priests. We need no mere man to rule us. We need no man to stand for us before God. We are members of Christ’s kingdom, and priests to God through Him.

This, my brothers and sisters, is freedom!

But at what a cost!

Now, it's beyond us to know who reads our posts. So let me just say, Dear Reader, if your thinking is, “Oh, I don’t need such a drastic conversion; religion is all very well for weak men and old ladies, but I have a fulfilled and meaningful life. I must follow my heart. I don’t need fairy tales to brighten up my life,” then you are still a slave to the world, the flesh, and the Devil. The worst slave is the one who has grown accustomed to his chains.

What power on earth can save us from these things? No power on earth! Only Christ can — but at what a dreadful price! No mere example, or teaching, or method can save. Only the blood of God incarnate can loose us from our sins! Do you know that freedom?

If you do, praise and honor Him alone who loves you, and loosed you from your sins at such a staggering price!

If you do not, throw yourself on the mercy of God, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, look to Him this day!