The Wisdom of God

I've been reading "The Knowledge of the Holy" by A.W. Tozer on and off as of late, and just a couple minutes ago stumbled upon this gem:

"It is vitally important that we hold the truth of God's infinite wisdom as a tenet of our reed; but this is not enough. We must by the exercise of faith and by prayer bring it into the practical world of our day-by-day experience.

To believe actively that our Heavenly Father constantly spreads around us providential circumstances that work for our present good and our everlasting well-being brings to the soul a veritable benediction. Most of us go through life praying a little, planning a little, jockeying for position, hoping but never being quite certain of anything, and always secretly afraid that we will miss the way. This is a tragic waste of truth and never gives rest to the heart.

There is a better way. It is to repudiate our own wisdom and take instead the infinite wisdom of God. Our insistence upon seeing ahead is natural enough, but it is a real hindrance to our spiritual progress. God has charged Himself with full responsibility for our eternal happiness and stands ready to take over the management of our lives the moment we turn in faith to Him. Here is His promise: "And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will i do unto them, and not forsake them." Isaiah 42:16
(pg. 97)

If only we would trust that God in his wisdom sovereignly is working ALL things for the good of those who love him, who are called according to His purpose. How different would our day-to-day life look?

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True Freedom

"he divided" (Talking about the Father dividing the inheritance in the parable of the Prodigal Son) —

"God, when His service no longer appears a perfect freedom, and man promises himself something far better elsewhere, allows him to make the trial; and he shall discover, if need be by saddest proof, that to depart from Him is not to throw off the yoke, but to exchange a light yoke for a heavy one, and one gracious Master for a thousand imperious tyrants and lords" [Trench]

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Imperfect Men & Perfect Bible

“The Bible Was Only Written by Men...and Men Make Mistakes.”

Greg Koukl's answer:

First, it doesn’t follow that because the Bible’s written by men, that it therefore must be in error. Human error is possible, not necessary. If human error were always necessary in anything man said, this challenge would be self-refuting (“suicide tactic”). If all human claims were necessarily in error, then the claim that the Bible was written by men and men make mistakes would also be in error because it’s a claim made by men who err, defeating itself. It is possible for human beings to produce something without errors. It’s done all the time. What is 2+2? What is the formula for nuclear fission?

Second, this is circular reasoning. If there’s good evidence the Bible can be trusted, then the issue of man’s involvement is moot. A simple question illustrates this: “Are you suggesting with this objection that if God does exist, He’s not capable of writing what He wants through imperfect men?” This is hard to affirm. If the answer is “No,” then the objection vanishes. If the answer is yes, then ask, “Did you ever own a dog? Could you get your dog to sit? If you can get a dumb dog to sit, what makes you think an all-powerful God can’t get a man to write just what He wants him to?” If you first establish that the Biblical record can be trusted, then the second problem—human involvement is irrelevant. If God inspires it then it doesn’t matter if men or monkeys did the writing; they’ll still write exactly what God intends.

Another way of stating it: God can’t err; the Bible is God’s Word; therefore, the Bible can’t err, even if men are involved.

HT: Stand to Reason

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Laying Eggs

C.S. Lewis:

There is no need to be worried by facetious people who try to make the Christian hope of “Heaven” ridiculous by saying they do not want “to spend eternity playing harps.” The answer to such people is that if they cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they should not talk about them. All the scriptural imagery (harps, crowns, gold, etc.) is, of course, a merely symbolical attempt to express the inexpressible.

Musical instruments are mentioned because for many people (not all) music is the thing known in the present life which most strongly suggests ecstasy and infinity.

Crowns are mentioned to suggest the fact that those who are united with God in eternity share His splendour and power and joy.

Gold is mentioned to suggest the timelessness of Heaven (gold does not rust) and the preciousness of it.

People who take the symbols literally might as well think that when Christ told us to be like doves, He meant that we were to lay eggs.

Mere Christianity, book 3, chapter 10 (on “Hope”)

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True Wisdom

“‘Righteousness’ is a social term signifying that people do right by each other as defined by God’s covenants with Israel. In a nutshell ‘righteousness’ means ‘to disadvantage oneself as necessary in order to advantage others,’ and ‘wickedness’ means ‘to disadvantage others in order to advantage oneself.’ A student who takes a reserved book out of the library to get an A, leaving the rest of the class to get a lower grade, is wicked (i.e., a fool). By contrast a student who resists the temptation to check out a rare book from the library so that his or her classmates have the opportunity to read and write an ‘A’ paper, even if it means he gets a lower grade, is righteous (i.e., wise). Righteousness, the disadvantaging of oneself to advantage others, is counterintuitive. Jesus Christ is the supreme example of wisdom according to this definition.”

Bruce K. Waltke, “Fundamentals for Preaching the Book of Proverbs, Part 3,” Bibliotheca Sacra 165 (2008): 261-262.

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Sin is a Mountain

“Without justification it is impossible to have real peace. Conscience forbids it. Sin is a mountain between a man and God, and must be taken away. The sense of guilt lies heavy on the heart, and must be removed. Unpardoned sin will murder peace. The true Christian knows all this well. His peace arises from a consciousness of his sins being forgiven, and his guilt being put away. His house is not built on sandy ground. His well is not a broken cistern, which can hold no water. He has peace with God, because he is justified.”

~ J.C. Ryle

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Offended People

Offended?

Kevin DeYoung discusses the tendency among all people-liberal, conservative, christian, atheist-to be offended. Brit Hume, who on national television recently encouraged Tiger Woods to turn to Christianity for a forgiveness that no other religion (he expressly mentioned Buddhism) could provide, has started an eruption of offended people on both sides of the spectrum.

Yet, like a lamb led to the slaughter, Christ suffered wrong. Read the post, it's good.

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What Shall We Say?

In his note on Romans 9:14 in The Reformation Study Bible, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson writes:

Paul recognizes that his previous statement, 'Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated,' cannot be allowed to pass without further comment. Could the distinguishing sovereign purpose of God throw into jeopardy His attribute of perfect righteousness? The idea is clearly unthinkable — 'By no means!' (Rom. 6:2, 5; 7:7). Paul explains why by citing two biblical texts (Ex. 33:19; 9:16) in vv. 15, 17, from which he concludes that God is righteous in showing mercy to some while He hardens the hearts of others. When God shows mercy it is not a person receiving a reward earned by one's own efforts, but God's sovereign free grace extended to persons who are morally incapable of any acceptable effort (Rom. 1:18-3:20). God owes mercy to none, so there is no injustice when mercy is not shown. Mercy is a divine prerogative; it rests on God's good pleasure. When God 'hardens' Pharaoh's heart (Rom. 9:18), He does not create fresh evil in it, but gives Pharaoh over to his already evil desires as an act of judgment, resulting eventually in God's display of 'power' (Rom. 9:22) in the destruction of Pharaoh's army (Ex. 14:17, 18, 23-28).

HT: Ligonier

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Bobby K

Bob Kauflin-Worship Director for Sovereign Grace Ministries-just turned 55 and offered 9 reflections, one of which I thoroughly enjoyed:

6. Worship leaders can be cool. Biblical worship can’t be.
By nature, “cool” describes something that the world esteems as hip, desirable, elitist, and perhaps elusive. Biblical worship is very un-hip, hated by the world’s value system, and a gracious gift from God to those he has redeemed. It involves magnifying the glory of Christ and minimizing our own glory. It means acknowledging our sinfulness before a holy God, expressing gratefulness for the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ for our sins, and responding in humble obedience to his commands. All very uncool activities. So, no need to worry that I’m twice as old as a lot of the people I lead corporate worship with.

ALSO, Bob Kauflin just so happens to be the artist behind the greatest worship CD I own. CHECK IT

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Curing Spiritual Depression

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression, p. 35:

Would you like to be rid of this spiritual depression?

The first thing you have to do is to say farewell now once and forever to your past.

Realize that it has been covered and blotted out in Christ.

Never look back at your sins again.

Say: ‘It is finished, it is covered by the Blood of Christ’.

That is your first step.

Take that and finish with yourself and all this talk about goodness, and look to the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is only then that true happiness and joy are possible for you.

What you need is not to make resolutions to live a better life, to start fasting and sweating and praying.

No! You just begin to say:

I rest my faith on Him alone
Who died for my transgressions to atone.

(HT: David Mathis)

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Trapped in a War

On December 26, 1944, Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda of the Japanese army was sent to the Philippine island of Lubang. His mission was to resist the American advance, and he was ordered to fight on indefinitely. Onoda never got word when the war ended some months later. For thirty more years he went on fighting World War II. He lived in hiding, came out at night to steal food from the villages, shot at people now and then. About ten years into it he found a newspaper article about himself, but he thought it was a trick to get him to surrender. The Philippine government dropped leaflets into the jungle, asking him to come out. They brought loudspeakers in and shouted, “Onoda, the war is over.” One day his own brother stood at the microphone and begged him to give up, but he didn’t believe it. He fought on until 1974, when the Japanese government sent in his old commanding officer, Major Taniguchi, who ordered Onoda to surrender. He finally gave up.

That man’s mind was trapped in 1945, he shut out the good news of peace and lost 30 years of his life hiding in the jungles, loyal to a lost cause. We can be like him today, with our thoughts and feelings trapped in a war that ended long ago.

The night Jesus was born, the angels stepped up to the microphone and shouted, “Peace on earth” (Luke 2:14). For 2000 years God has been dropping leaflets of the good news into the jungles of our minds. Through his cross Christ won the victory over everything against us. It’s time to give up our lost causes, come out of hiding and live again in a new, post-war world of grace, ruled by Christ.

HT: Ortlund

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Repent for the Kingdom of God

We need to repent. Here's a snippet of what RC Sproul thinks:

How quick are you to repent? If you're anything like me, you've just this moment added several more things to repent of. First, pride. I suspect that you, if you are like me, think yourself a pretty decent repenter. You likely wish that others would learn from your wonderful example, and do likewise. Indeed, now that I mention it, you can think of several people that owe you an apology, and aren't you the one for being so gracious about it up until now?

Second, lying. I suspect that you, if you are like me, have in thinking all of the above, lied to yourself in an egregious way. You are deluded, your delusions springing forth from your deceitful heart like so many dandelions on a spring day. Third, pride again. Here your pride is less about you and more about Jesus. That is, our failure to understand what failures we are is in turn a reflection on the work of Christ. We diminish His work on our behalf when we diminish the scope of our own sin. Fourth, unrepentance. That is, because you are a bigger sinner, like me, than you are willing to face, you have not repented for your sins like you ought. You have repented lightly for dark sins.

What should you do? You could get mad at me for pointing this all out. Or, you could repent.

Check the rest out HERE.

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No one can come to the Father but by me

When planning for community group, I read through one of Spurgeon's sermons on John 14:6 "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father but by me."

Spurgeon says:

Do we not each of us in ourselves at times an aptness to come to God in some other way than through Jesus Christ? "Now you have preached well," says Satan; "you have been successful in such-and-such a labor. Ah!" says the devil, "how liberal you have been in such-and-such a cause. Now go to God in prayer." And we go, and we pray with such assurance; we think we are sure to be heard. But perhaps without our knowing it, there is lurking at the bottom of our excellent fluency in prayer an evil thought that surely God will hear us, for we have been so diligent, and liberal. And on the other hand, when we have been committing sin, when conscience chides us, then we go to the throne, and we are half afraid, because we say God will not hear us. Is not that still pride? Why, were we ever better than we are now? Were we not always, and are we not now, as bad as ever we can be? In ourselves is there anything that can commend us to God? Is not the very fact that when in our good state we come boldly, and when in our low state we come timidly, proof that there is lurking in us a secret suspicion that we are to come to God by something that is in us? Oh! if we could but learn this truth and stand to it, that our acceptance with God depends upon nothing that we do or can do, nothing that we can think, or feel, or be, but depends wholly and entirely and solely upon what Jesus is, and what he has done, and what he has suffered, let us once get that thought—and it is in the text—we shall then be able, by the divine assistance of the Holy Spirit, to come to God at all times with boldness, knowing that we were so coming through Christ, and therefore we might always come boldly to the throne of grace.

Though none come to the Father but through Christ, all that come in Jesus' name, not one will he cast out.

John 6:37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.

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Why We Don't Pray

Prayer is essential for the Christian, as much for what it says about us as for what it can do through God. The simple act of getting on our knees (or faces or feet or whatever) for 5 or 50 minutes every day is the surest sign of our humility and dependence on Father in heaven. There may be many reasons for our prayerlessness—time management, busyness, lack of concentration—but most fundamentally, we ask not because we think we need not or we think God can give not. Deep down we feel secure when we have money in the bank, a healthy report from the doctor, and powerful people on our side. We do not trust in God alone. Prayerlessness is an expression of our meager confidence in God’s ability to provide and of our strong confidence in our ability to take care of ourselves without God’s help.

Too often when we struggle with prayer we focus on the wrong things. We focus on praying better instead of focusing on knowing better the one to whom we pray. We focus on our need for discipline rather than our need for God. Almost all of us want to pray more frequently, and yet our lives seem too disordered. But in God’s mind our messy, chaotic lives are an impetus to prayer instead of an obstacle to prayer.

You don’t need to work and work at discipline nearly as much as you need faith. You don’t need an ordered life to enable prayer, you need a messy life to drive you to prayer. You don’t need to have everything in order before you can pray. You need to know you’re disordered so you will pray. You don’t need your life to be fixed up. You need a broken heart. You need to think to yourself: “Tomorrow is another day that I need God. I need to know him. I need forgiveness. I need help. I need protection. I need deliverance. I need patience. I need courage. Therefore, I need prayer.”

If you know you are needy and believe that God helps the needy, you will pray. Conversely, if we seldom pray, the problem goes much deeper than a lack of organization and follow through. The heart that never talks to God is the heart that trusts in itself and not in the power of God. Prayerlessness is unbelief.

Prayerfulness, on the other hand is an evidence of humility and faith, which is why God loves it when we pray.

HT: DeYoung

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Holy Idols?

“…In trying to explain the universality of religion, Sigmund Freud asked why it is that people are so incurably religious. He claimed that we have invented God to deal with things in nature that we find frightening. He explained that by inventing God we personalize or sacralize nature. We feel deeply threatened by hurricanes, fires, tornadoes, pestilence, and armies, but we do not have the same terror concerning our personal relationships. If someone is hostile toward us, there are many ways we can try to defuse that anger. We can try to appease the angry person with words or gifts or flattery. We learn how to get around human anger, but how do we negotiate with a hurricane? How do we mollify an earthquake? How do we persuade cancer not to visit our house?

Freud thought that we do it by personalizing nature, and we do that by inventing a god to put over the hurricane, the earthquake, and the disease, and then we talk to that god to try to appease him.

Obviously, Freud was not on the Sea of Galilee when the storm arose and threatened to capsize the boat in which Jesus and his disciples were sitting. The disciples were afraid. Jesus was asleep, and so they went to him and shook him awake, and they said, ‘”Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?’ Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace, be still!’ And the wind ceased and there was a great calm” (Mark 4:38–39).

There was not a zephyr in the air. You would think the disciples’ gratitude would have led them to say, “Thank you, Jesus, for removing the cause of our fear.” Instead, they became very much afraid. Their fears were intensified, and they said to one another, “Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him!” (v. 41). They were dealing with something transcendent.

What we see in the disciples is xenophobia, fear of the stranger. The holiness of Christ was made manifest in that boat, and suddenly the disciples’ fear escalated. This is where Freud missed the point. If people are going to invent religion to protect them from the fear of nature, why would they invent a god who is more terrifying than nature itself? Why would they invent a holy god? Fallen creatures, when they make idols, do not make holy idols. We prefer the unholy, the profane, the secular—a god we can control.”

—R. C. Sproul, Romans: The Righteous Shall Live By Faith, St. Andrew’s Expositional Commentary (Crossway, 2009) p. 45. Paragraph breaks mine {gasp}.

HT: Miscellanies

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Bullseye

John Stott, writing 27 years ago (I Believe in Preaching, p. 69):

It is difficult to imagine the world in the year A.D. 2000, by which time versatile micro-processors are likely to be as common as simple calculators are today.

We should certainly welcome the fact that the silicon chip will transcend human brain-power, as the machine has transcended human muscle-power.

Much less welcome will be the probable reduction of human contact as the new electronic network renders personal relationships ever less necessary.

In such a dehumanized society the fellowship of the local church will become increasingly important, whose members meet one another, and talk and listen to one another in person rather than on screen. In this human context of mutual love the speaking and hearing of the Word of God is also likely to become more necessary for the preservation of our humanness, not less.

HT: http://takeyourvitaminz.blogspot.com/

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Lewis Again

“The moment you have a self at all, there is a possibility of putting yourself first—wanting to be the centre—wanting to be God, in fact. That was the sin of Satan: and that was the sin he taught the human race. Some people think the fall of man had something to do with sex, but that is a mistake. (The story in the Book of Genesis rather suggests that some corruption in our sexual nature followed the fall and was its result, not its cause.) What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could ‘be like gods’—could set up on their own as if they had created themselves—be their own masters—invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.

The reason why it can never succeed is this. God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”

—C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (HarperOne, 1980), pp. 49–50.

HT: Miscellanies

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My Prayer

Prayer for Mercy- Isaiah 63-64

15 Look down from heaven and see,
from your holy and beautiful [5] habitation.
Where are your zeal and your might?
The stirring of your inner parts and your compassion
are held back from me.
16 For you are our Father,
though Abraham does not know us,
and Israel does not acknowledge us;
you, O Lord, are our Father,
our Redeemer from of old is your name.
17 O Lord, why do you make us wander from your ways
and harden our heart, so that we fear you not?
Return for the sake of your servants,
the tribes of your heritage.
18 Your holy people held possession for a little while; [6]
our adversaries have trampled down your sanctuary.
19 We have become like those over whom you have never ruled,
like those who are not called by your name.
Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down,
that the mountains might quake at your presence—
2 [1] as when fire kindles brushwood
and the fire causes water to boil—
to make your name known to your adversaries,
and that the nations might tremble at your presence!
3 When you did awesome things that we did not look for,
you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
4 From of old no one has heard
or perceived by the ear,
no eye has seen a God besides you,
who acts for those who wait for him.
5 You meet him who joyfully works righteousness,
those who remember you in your ways.
Behold, you were angry, and we sinned;
in our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved? [2]
6 We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
7 There is no one who calls upon your name,
who rouses himself to take hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us,
and have made us melt in [3] the hand of our iniquities.

8 But now, O Lord, you are our Father;
we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
9 Be not so terribly angry, O Lord,
and remember not iniquity forever.
Behold, please look, we are all your people.
10 Your holy cities have become a wilderness;
Zion has become a wilderness,
Jerusalem a desolation.
11 Our holy and beautiful [4] house,
where our fathers praised you,
has been burned by fire,
and all our pleasant places have become ruins.
12 Will you restrain yourself at these things, O Lord?
Will you keep silent, and afflict us so terribly?

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To the Cross!

Incoming Spurgeon greatness:

http://spurgeon.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/john-bunyans-blunder/

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Death's Death

“We cannot but hate death,
even when we have ceased to fear it,
and know that for us its sting has been extracted.
We hate it,
and thrust it from us;
loathing its advances,
and waging daily war with it—
seeking by every appliance of skill to overcome it and ward off its stroke.

We hate it because of its
shadow,
and its coldness,
and its silence.
We hate it as the great robber
of our loves and joys,
who gives nothing but takes everything.
It cuts so many ties;
it rends so many hearts;
it silences so many voices;
it thins so many firesides;
it comes with its dark veil,
its screen of ice,
between friend and friend,
between soul and soul,
between parent and child,
between husband and wife,
between sister and brother.

Of human sympathies it has none;
it concerns not itself about our joys or sorrows;
it spares no dear one,
and restores no lost one;
it is pitiless and dumb;
it is as powerful as it is inexorable,
striking down the weak,
and wrestling with the strong
till they succumb and fall. …

Its history is one of evil,
not of good;
of wrong,
and sadness,
and terror;
of breaking down,
not of building up;
of scattering,
not of gathering;
of darkness,
not of light;
of disease,
and pain,
and tossings to and fro,
not of health and brightness. …

Death has been the sword of law for ages;
but when it has done its work on earth,
God takes this sword,
red with the blood of millions,
snaps it in pieces before the universe,
and casts its fragments into the flame. …

We preach Jesus and the resurrection;
Jesus the resurrection and the life;
Jesus our life.
We bring glad tidings concerning this risen One,
and that finished work of which resurrection is the seal;
glad tidings concerning God’s free love in connection with this risen One.
The knowledge of this risen One is
forgiveness,
and life,
and glory.

Oh then, what is there in our dying world like this to impart consolation and gladness?
We shall not die,
but live.
Eternity is a life,
and not a death;
a life with Christ,
and a life in Christ.
For the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne
shall lead us to the living fountains of waters,
and God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes.”

—Horatius Bonar, Light and Truth: Bible Thoughts and Themes (Dust & Ashes, 2002), 5:229—236.

HT: Miscellanies

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