REFLECTIONS

“You crown the year with Your goodness.” Psalm 65:11.
 

“GODLY men in olden times felt God to be very near them and they attributed everything they saw in nature to the direct operation of His hand. They were not accustomed to speak of “the laws of matter,” “the operation of natural forces” and “the outcome of diverse causes” but they thought more of the First Cause, the foundation and pillar of all existence—and they saw Him at work on all sides. Hear how the Psalmist sings, “You make the outgoings of the morning and evening to rejoice. You visit the earth and water it. You prepare them corn when you have so provided for it. You water the ridges thereof abundantly; you settle the furrows thereof: you make it soft with showers; you bless the springing thereof. You crown the year with Your goodness.” God was very near in those days. As Herbert says—

“One might have sought and found You presently

At some fair oak, or bush, or cave, or well.”

If the result of our philosophy has been to put God farther off from the consciousness of His creatures, God save us from such philosophy and let us get back again into the simple state in which we were children at home and God, our great Father, worked all things for us. Let us note the distinct mention of God throughout the psalm, for it is well worthy of notice, and let our speech be more after the olden sort—with less of our supposed knowledge in it and a good deal more concerning the presence and the goodness of God.”

-Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)

REFLECTIONS

God’s Decree in Bethlehem

“Sweet thought! He is the Christ of the little ones! “You, Bethlehem Ephratah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall He come forth unto Me that is to be ruler in Israel.” We cannot pass away from this without another thought, which is, how “wonderfully mysterious was that providence which brought Jesus Christ’s mother to Bethlehem at the very time when she was to deliver!” His parents were residing at Nazareth, and why should they need to travel at that time? Naturally they would have remained at home; it was not at all likely that His mother would have taken a journey to Bethlehem while in so peculiar a condition! But Caesar Augustus issues a decree that they are to be taxed; very well then, let them be taxed at Nazareth. No! It pleases him that they should all go to their city, but why should Caesar Augustus think of it just at that particular time? Simply because while man devises his way, the king’s heart is in the hand of our Lord! Why, what a thousand chances—as the world has it—met together to bring about this event! First of all, Caesar quarreled with Herod; one of the Herods was deposed; Caesar says, “I shall tax Judea, and make it a province instead of having it for a separate kingdom.” Well, it must be done, but when is it to be done? This taxing, it is said, was first commenced when Cyreneus was governor, but why is the census to be taken at that particular period—suppose—December? Why not have had it last October? And why could not the people be taxed where they were living? Was not their money just as good there as anywhere else? It was Caesar’s whim, but it was God’s decree! Oh, we love the sublime doctrine of eternal absolute predestination! Some have doubted its being consistent with the free agency of man; we know well it is so, and we never saw any difficulty in the subject. We believe metaphysicians have made difficulties; we see none ourselves. It is for us to believe that man does as he pleases, yet notwithstanding, he always does as God decrees! If Judas betrays Christ, “thereunto he was appointed”; and if Pharaoh hardens his heart, yet “for this purpose have I raised you up, to show forth My power in you.”

Man does as he wills, but God makes him do as he wills! No, not only is the will of man under the absolute predestination of Jehovah, but all things, great or little are of Him! Well has the good poet said, “Doubtless the sailing of a cloud has providence as its pilot; doubtless the root of an oak is gnarled for a special purpose; God compasses all things, mantling the globe like air.” There is nothing great or little that is not from Him; the summer dust moves in its orbit guided by the same hand which rolls the stars along; the dewdrops have their father, and trickle on the rose leaf as God bids them. Yes, the dry leaves of the forest, when hurled along by the tempest, have their allotted position where they shall fall, nor can they go beyond it! In the great, and in the little, there is God—God in everything, working all things according to the counsel of His own will. And though man seeks to go against his Maker, yet he cannot; God has bound the sea with a barrier of sand, and if the sea mounts up wave after wave, yet it shall not exceed  its allotted channel. Everything is of God, and unto Him who guides the stars and wings sparrows, who rules planets and yet moves atoms, who speaks thunders and yet whispers zephyrs, unto Him be glory, for there is God in everything!”

-Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)

REFLECTIONS

Are we faithful to seek and pray to God in our troubled times?
 

“In this information-rich age, many of us have learned to be as brief as possible. That was one of the areas in which my own doctoral supervisor helped me a great deal: though my prose style is still too rambling, whatever leanness and precision it has owes itself to his thorough correcting of my work a quarter of a century ago. Efficient managers learn to be brief; computer programmers are rated on how briefly they can write precise code to do what needs to be done. Only a few contemporary authors (e.g. Tom Clancy and James Michener) get away with long, rambling books-and even the editors have drastically trimmed them.

Yet here we are, reading through Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, with Ezekiel to go, and we find ourselves circling around the same handful of themes again and again: sin in the covenant community, threatened judgment, the enacted judgment, first for the northern tribes, then for Judah. We recognize the subtle differences, of course: history, apocalyptic, oracle, lament, prayers. Here in lamentations 5, the fifth dirge is cast as a long prayer: “Remember, O Lord, what has happened to us; look, and see our disgrace” (5:1). But haven’t you caught yourself saying to yourself more than once, “I know this is the Word of God, and I know it is important, but I think I understand now something of the history and the theology of the exile. Couldn’t we get on to something else?” We live in an age burgeoning with information, we cry for brevity, and the Bible at times seems terribly discursive. So we scan another chapter as rapidly as possible because we already “know” this.

But that is part of the problem, isn’t it? Read through this chapter again, slowly, thoughtfully. Of course, it is tied to Israel six centuries before Christ, of the destruction of her cities and land and temple, to the onset of the exile. But listen to the depth and persistence of the pleas, the repentance, the personal engagement with God, the cultural awareness, the acknowledgment of God’s sovereignty and justice, the profound recognition that the people must be restored to God himself if return to the land be possible, let alone meaningful (5:21). Then compare this with the brands of Christian confessionalism with which you are most familiar. In days of cultural declension, moral degradation, and large scale ecclesiastical frittering, is our praying like that of Lamentations 5? Have the themes of the major prophets so burned into our minds and hearts that our passion is to be restored to the living God? Or have we ourselves become so caught up in the spirit of this age that we are content to be rich in information and impoverished in wisdom and godliness?”

- D.A. Carson Theologian and Professor  1946-

REFLECTIONS

Aging in Grace

“Old age is not something our generation likes to talk about very much, at least not in realistic categories. We talk about preparing for retirement, but only with the greatest reluctance do we prepare for infirmity and death. Very few talk about these matters openly and frankly-without, on the one hand, dwelling on them (which shows they are frightened by them), or, on the other hand, suppressing them (which again shows they are frightened by them).

It is much more responsible to learn how to age faithfully, to learn how to die well. This the psalmist wanted. “Do not cast me away when I am old; do not forsake me when my strength is gone…Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, O God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your might to all who are to come” (Ps. 71:9, 18). From his youth, he knew, God had taught him (71:17). Now he prays against abandonment in old age.

At one level, the psalmist is primarily asking that God will protect him against outside attacks when he is too old and inform to resist (71:10ff). This would be a special concern if the author of this particular psalm is David or some other Davidic king. A nearby nation that would dare attack Israel when David was forty might be emboldened when David was pushing seventy. Though most of us are not kings, it is right and good to ask god for special protection when we grow so elderly and inform that it is easy for others to take advantage of us.

But David’s vision is more comprehensive than mere protection. He wants so to live in old age that he passes on his witness to the next generation. His aim is not to live comfortably in retirement, but to use his senior years “to declare your power to the next generation, your might to all who are to come.” That is a prayer eminently worth praying. Should not senior saints be praying for grace to pass on what they have learned to a new generation? Perhaps this will be one on one, or in small groups. Perhaps one of them will take under his or her wing some young Christian or abandoned waif. Perhaps some experienced prayer warrior will teach a young Christian leader how to pray. And when there is too little strength even for these things, we shall pray that God’s grace will so operate in our weakness that God will be glorified in us: perhaps we shall teach younger Christians how to persevere under suffering, how to trust in the midst of pain, and how to do in the grace of God.”

-D.A. Carson Theologian and Professor  1946-