REFLECTIONS

Moral Lessons in Providence

JULY 18

Judges 1; Acts 5; Jeremiah 14; Matthew 28

THIS CHAPTER, JEREMIAH 14, oscillates between poetry and prose, and between God’s speech and Jeremiah’s response. The occasion is the calamitous drought devastating the country. Some reflections:

           

(1) A disaster may be no more than the effluent of the Fall, and not God’s specific judgment on a people. Even then it reminds us of our mortality and our lostness, and calls for repentance (Luke 13:1-5). Nevertheless, a specific disaster may be the immediate and direct judgment of God on a people. Therefore disasters demand self-examination and a humble heart. In exactly the same way, a crippling illness may not be the direct consequence of a specific sin (John 9). But it may be (John 5).

           

(2) Again and again in the Old Testament, God punishes the covenant community for their sins by using the recurrent banes of the ancient world: sword (i.e., war, and sometimes exile with it), famine, and plague (14:11-12). This threefold combination is brought together seven times in the prophecy of Jeremiah. Ezekiel 14 adds a fourth: wild beasts. These are either “natural” phenomena (famine and plague) or are brought about by wicked human conduct (war, and sometimes famine and plague).

           

(3) Because our own culture tries so hard to detach from God what happens in the “natural” world, reserving for him only private or distantly “spiritual” things, we rush to give naturalistic explanations for our wars and famines and plagues instead of at least trying to learn the lessons providence may be teaching us. I am not suggesting that it is easy to read providence. We have seen that Scripture itself warns us against trying to infer too much too quickly (Luke 13:1-5). Nevertheless, not to draw any moral and spiritual lessons from disasters may be nothing more than an index of how far we have sold ourselves to the forces of secularization. We resolutely refuse to “hear” what God says when he speaks to us in the language of judgment—exactly the response of ancient Israel. Indeed, according to this chapter there was a hearty collection of religious leaders who denied any connection between disaster and divine judgment (14:14). It is ever so. So not only will prophets be held responsible for what they say and teach, but the people are responsible for what they choose to listen to. Shall we not learn any moral and spiritual lessons in this bloody twentieth century from two world wars, the arms race, economic collapses, the Nazis, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Biafra, the Balkans, Rwanda, Vietnam, wretched totalitarian regimes of left and right, famines, slavery, the Sudan, racism, AIDS, abortion? Kipling was right: “Lord God of hosts, be with us yet / Lest we forget; lest we forget.”

From—For the Love of God—Volume 2, by D. A. Carson (Crossway Books, Wheaton IL; 1999)

REFLECTIONS

“Building on the firm foundation”
 
1 Corinthians 3:11-12

“Here the apostle informs us what foundation he had laid at the bottom of all the labours among them—even Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone. Upon this foundation all the faithful ministers of Christ built. Upon this rock all Christians found their hopes. Those that build their hopes of heaven on any other foundation build upon the sand. Other foundation can no man lay besides what is laid—even Jesus Christ.

“The doctrine of our Saviour and his mediation is the principal doctrine of Christianity. It lies at the bottom, and is the foundation, of all the rest. Leave out this, and you lay waste all our comforts, and leave no foundation for our hopes as sinners. But of those that hold the foundation and embrace the general doctrine of Christ’s being the mediator between God and man, there are two sorts:

“(1) Some build on this foundation gold, silver, and precious stones, v.12, namely those who receive and propagate the pure truths of the gospel, who hold nothing but the truth as it is in Jesus, and preach nothing else. This is building well upon a good foundation, when ministers not only depend upon Christ as the great prophet of the church, and take him for their guide and infallible teacher, but receive and spread the doctrines he taught, in their purity, without any corrupt mixtures, without adding our diminishing.

“(2) Others build wood, hay, and stubble on this foundation; that is though they adhere to the foundation, they depart from the mind of Christ in many particulars, substitute their own fancies and inventions in the room of his doctrines and institutions, and build upon the foundation what will not abide the test when the day of trial shall come, and the fire must make it manifest, as wood, hay, and stubble, will not bear the trial by fire, but must be consumed in it.”

-Matthew Henry  Expositor, Commentator, Minister  1662-1714

From, A Closer Walk with God; Daily Readings from Matthew Henry; compiled by Martin Manser; (Daybreak Books—Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids; 1987), Page 140.

REFLECTIONS

Senseless Shepherds

“Joshua 20-21; Acts 1; Jeremiah 10; Matthew 24

TWO REFLECTIONS ON Jeremiah 10:

            First, the catastrophic punishment about to befall Judah is traced to her incompetent leaders: “The shepherds are senseless and do not inquire of the LORD; so they do not prosper and all their flock is scattered” (10:21). “Shepherds” in this context includes “pastors” (KJV): it includes all who direct the affairs of the nation—king, priests, prophets, and other leaders.

            The arena in which these leaders are incompetent is not general administration, charismatic sheen, financial acuity, or management potential. They are “senseless,” and their folly is manifest in the fact that they “do not inquire of the LORD.” This cannot mean that they do not go through the mere forms of seeking out the Lord’s counsel, consulting the prophets and treating the prescribed rituals like a talisman that brings good luck. It means, rather, that they do not really want to do what God wants. They do not approach him with the contrition and profound reverence for his Word of which Isaiah speaks (Isa. 66). They do not treat him as if he is radically “other” and fundamentally different from the myriad false gods that surround them. Neither nations nor churches rise higher than their leaders. If our leaders are passionate about knowing and obeying the will of the Lord, our prospects are excellent; if they are dissolute and intoxicated by self-ism, our prospects are dim or even desperate.

            Second, in the closing verses (10:23-25) Jeremiah identifies with his people in a startling way. “I know, O LORD, that a man’s life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps. Correct me, LORD, but only with justice—not in your anger, lest you reduce me to nothing” (10:23-24). These lines might initially be read as referring to Jeremiah the prophet, Jeremiah the individual, and nothing more. Certainly individual believers ought so to be aware of their own sins that they entreat God to spare them from the destruction they deserve. But closer inspection shows that the sins Jeremiah is confessing are the sins of the nation, in particular the smug self-determinism that refuses to acknowledge the sheer Godhood of God, the glorious truth that God alone is God in control. The next verse (10:25) discloses that what Jeremiah wants God to spare is “Jacob,” the covenant people of God. Doubtless punishment is decreed against them, but Jeremiah pleads with God that he will not wipe out the people in his wrath, but reserve the worst measures for “the peoples who do not call on your name.” Thus Jeremiah cries to God for himself, but also for his people with whom he identifies—not unlike Paul in Galatians 2:17-21 and perhaps Romans 7:7ff.”

             

From—For the Love of God—Volume 2, by D. A. Carson (Crossway Books, Wheaton IL; 1999)

REFLECTIONS

“The test of fire”

1 Corinthians 3:13-15

“There is a time coming when a discovery will be made of what men have built on this foundation: Every man’s work shall be made manifest, shall be laid open to view, to his own view and that of others. Some may, in the simplicity of their hearts, build wood and stubble on the foundation, and know not what they have been doing; but in the day of the Lord their own conduct shall appear to them in its proper light.

“For the day shall declare it (that is, every man’s work), because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work, of what sort it is, v. 13. The day shall make it manifest, the last day, the great day of trial.

“There is a day coming that will distinguish one man from another, and one man’s work from another’s, as the fire distinguishes gold from dross, or metal that will bear the fire from other materials that will be consumed in it.

“In that day some men’s works will withstand the trial—will be found standard. It will appear that they not only held the foundation, but that they built regularly and well upon it—that they laid on proper materials, and in due form and order.

“There are others whose works shall be burnt, v. 15, whose corrupt opinions and doctrines or vain inventions and usages in the worship of God, shall be discovered, disowned, and rejected, in that day—shall be first manifested to be corrupt, and then disapproved of God and rejected. A person’s weakness and corruption will be the lessening of his glory, though he may in the general have been an honest and upright Christian. He shall be saved, yet so as by fire, saved out of the fire. He himself shall be snatched out of the flame which will consume his work.”

-Matthew Henry  Expositor, Commentator, Minister  1662-1714

From, A Closer Walk with God; Daily Readings from Matthew Henry; compiled by Martin Manser; (Daybreak Books—Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids; 1987), Page 141.

REFLECTIONS

Ephesians 6:10, 11  Be Strong in the Lord

“Here is a general agreement to constancy in our Christian way, and to courage in our Christian warfare. Is not our life a warfare? It is so; for we struggle with the common calamities of human life. Is not our religion much more a warfare? It is so; for we struggle with the opposition of the powers of darkness, and with many enemies who would keep us from God and heaven.

If Christians are soldiers of Jesus Christ, they must see that they are strong in the Lord. Those who have so many battles to fight, and who, in their way to heaven, must dispute every pass, by means of the sword, have need of a great deal of courage. Be strong for service, strong for suffering, strong for fighting. Let a soldier be ever so well armed externally, if he does not have within a good heart, his armor will stand him in little stead.

Be strong in the Lord. We have no sufficient strength of our own. Our natural courage is as perfect cowardice, and our natural strength as perfect weakness; but all of our sufficiency is of God.

‘Put on the whole armor of God, v. 11, make use of all the proper defenses and weapons for repelling the temptations and stratagems of Satan-get and exercise all the Christian graces, the whole armor, no part be naked and exposed to the enemy.

It is called the armor of God, because He both prepares and bestows it. We have no armor of our own that will be armor of proof in a trying time. Nothing will stand us in stead but His armor. The armor is prepared for us, but we must put it on.

 

The reason why the Christian should be completely armed is that he may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil-that he may be able to hold out, and to overcome in spite of all the devil’s assaults, all the deceits he puts upon us, all the snares he lays for us, and all his machinations against us.”

-Matthew Henry  Expositor, Commentator, Minister  1662-1714

From, A Closer Walk with God; Daily Readings from Matthew Henry; compiled by Martin Manser; (Daybreak Books—Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids; 1987), Page 107.

REFLECTIONS

“The Prayer Of Love

Gracious Lord,

Thy name is love,

 in love receive my prayer.

My sins are more than the wide sea’s sand,

 but where sin abounds, there is grace more abundant.

Look to the cross of Thy beloved Son,

 and view the preciousness of His atoning blood;

Listen to His never-failing intercession,

 and whisper to my heart, ‘Thy sins are forgiven,

 be of good cheer, lie down in peace.’

Grace cataracts from heaven and flows for ever,

 and mercy never wearies in bestowing benefits.

Grant me more and more

 to prize the privilege of prayer,

 to come to Thee as a sin-soiled sinner,

 to find pardon in Thee,

 to converse with Thee;

 to know Thee in prayer as

  the path in which my feet tread,

  the latch upon the door of my lips,

  the light that shines through my eyes,

  the music of my ears,

  the marrow of my understanding,

  the strength of my will,

  the power of my affection,

  the sweetness of my memory.

May the matter of my prayer be always wise, humble, submissive,

 obedient, scriptural, Christ-like.

Give me unwavering faith that supplications are never in vain,

 that if I seem not to obtain my petitions

 I shall have larger, richer answers,

 surpassing all that I ask or think.

Unsought, Thou hast given me the greatest gift,

 the Person of Thy Son,

 and in Him Thou wilt give me all I need.”

-A Puritan’s Prayer from The Valley of Vision  Edited by Arthur Bennett  Published by The Banner of Truth Trust  Carlisle, PA  2002

REFLECTIONS

Helpful Insights

About Romans 12:2:

“To offer up our bodies in living sacrifice to God means conforming not longer to the pattern of this world, but being transformed by the renewing of our minds (12:2). In other words, what is at issue is not merely external behavior, while inwardly we remain in the grip of carefully masked hate, lust, deceit, envy, greed, fear, bitterness, and arrogance. What is at issue is the transformation of the way we think, bringing our minds in line with the ways and Word of God. That will produce all the change in behavior that is necessary and wise-and that change will be radical. By this fundamental transformation, we shall be enabled to test and approve in our own experience what God’s will is-and find it “good, pleasing and perfect” (12:2). In the light of Romans 9:9, doubtless the motivating power for this transformation is the Spirit of God. But that magnificent truth does not absolve us of resolve, it empowers us.”

About King Saul:

“Here is a man who thinks of himself as the center of the universe; whatever gods exist must serve him. If the covenant God of Israel does not help him as he wishes, then Saul is prepared to find other gods. This is the black heart of all idolatry.”

About Paul:

“He was very well aware of how easy it is the skew the Gospel, to trim it a little, to get around the bits we think our hearers will find awkward or offensive. So he knew that to preach the Gospel faithfully, he would have to preach it fearlessly. This does not reflect an “in your face style”. It means, rather, that Paul wanted to speak without fearing what his hearers would think or say about him, or what they might do to him, lest he compromise the Gospel he came to announce.”

About David:

“Here is a man of faith who knows he must be grounded in the One who inhabits eternity, or else he amounts to nothing.”

About 1 Peter 1:23:

“(2) More precisely, Christians have been “born again, not of perishable see, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God” (1:23). That which has transformed us and granted us new life from God himself has not been physical impregnation, but spiritual new birth, brought about by the enduring word of God.”

About 2 Chronicles 15:

“We should not be embarrassed by the blessing of God on integrity and righteousness. Righteousness exalts a nation: it lifts it up and strengthens its hand. This is not merely sociological inference: it is the way God has structured things, the way he providentially rules. Inversely, corruption attracts the wrath of God, and sooner or later will bring a nation down.”

““They overcame him by…the word of their testimony.” This does not mean that they frequently gave their testimonies. It means, rather, that they constantly bore testimony to Jesus Christ; in short, they constantly proclaimed the Gospel. This is what spells Satan’s defeat. Keep silent, and Satan wins.”

-D.A. Carson  Theologian and Professor  1946-