Steve Lawson on Jonathan Edwards’ disciplined devotion to Scripture and the sweet reward it yielded:
Edwards also strictly regimented himself in the spiritual disciplines of the Christian life, such as Bible study, theological readings, meditation, prayer, and singing. Such spiritual disciplines are necessary for spiritual health; as Donald Whiney writes, they promote “intimacy with Christ and conformity (both internal and external) to Christ. For this reason, Edwards gave himself to spiritual disciplines with great diligence. We see a clear manifestation of this discipline in resolution 28:
28. Resolved, to study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly, and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.
. . . Edwards’ disciplined approach to Scripture was by no means drudgery for him. To the contrary, Bible intake delighted him because it yielded the knowledge of God.
I had then, and at other times, the greatest delight in the holy Scriptures, of any book whatsoever. Oftentimes in reading it, every word seemed to touch my heart. I felt an harmony between something in my heart, and those sweet and powerful words. I seemed often to see so much light, exhibited in every sentence, and such a refreshing ravishing food communicated, that I could not get along in reading. Used oftentimes to dwell long on one sentence, to see the wonders contained in it; and yet almost every sentence seemed to be full of wonders.
Thanks loads to all who elected Obama and supported his takeover of the medical services industry* (although I can hardly blame you for the latter, as constituent support was obviously no concern of Obama & Accomplices). I hope the results give you great satisfaction. What, results already? Indeed. Witness the testimony of artist and fellow North Dakotan Julie Neidlinger, who also thanks you.
* I refuse to use the term “health care” for reasons not relevant today.
Hymns of My Youth: Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven
This week’s hymn, like many in The Concordia Hymnal, is not found in its most common form. The Concordia-assigned tune is Easter Morrow, borrowed from the hymn Easter Morrow Stills Our Sorrow, another of several hymns I find nowhere else.
2 Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven
Praise, my soul, the King of heaven,
To His feet thy tribute bring;
Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,
Evermore His praises sing.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Praise the everlasting King.
Praise the Lord for grace and favor
To our fathers in distress;
Praise Him, still the same as ever,
Slow to chide, and swift to bless.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Glorious in his faithfulness.
Fatherlike, He tends and spares us;
Well our feeble frame He knows;
In His hands He gently bears us,
Rescues us from all our foes.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Widely as His mercy goes.
Angels in the height, adore Him,
Ye behold Him face to face;
Saints triumphant, bow before Him,
Gathered in from ev’ry race.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Praise with us the God of grace.
Well, alright then! I declined to post any audio because I can’t find it done to the “right” tune. But Scott Aniol says it’s a “great hymn, especially to Lauda Anima,” so here you go:
Lauda Anima
And, since I’m already compromised,
Andrews
Update: The tunes above were reversed; I have remedied that, so they are now listed correctly. Also, I have found the Easter Morrow tune here. Of course, it’s used in its original setting, Easter Morrow Stills Our Sorrow, and sung in Norwegian. You can listen to that here.
Today is Independence Day in the United States of America. I have, in the past, always posted some small patriotic item on this day, but today also happened to be the Lord’s Day. Patriotic as I am, and as important a national event as this day is, I am first a citizen of the Kingdom of God. I cannot replace, or even mix, the day’s worship with earthly patriotism. This is the Lord’s Day.
Yet I think the two observances can come together, and perhaps should. But let me suggest that this be no day for national pride among true patriots, but rather an occasion for profound humility. All that we celebrate on this day is a gift from the hand of God. Our nation’s founders — I will not claim that they were Christians, though some were, or that this is or ever was a “Christian nation” — almost unanimously recognized and spoke aloud of a divine Providence, and rightly so. This nation was born, and remains today, because it pleases God to have it so. Any noble acts of men that we commemorate are nothing but extensions of God’s grace. That our nation still stands in spite of the ignoble acts that predominate today is a further display of grace, grace of such immensity that it ought to crush us right down to the ground and force us, prostrate before the God we mock, to confess our sin and plead for mercy.
On the previous two Saturdays, I have begun remembrances of “The Hymns of my Youth.” Along with those hymns, I remember the accompanying order of worship. In that order, immediately following the opening hymn, was a confession of sin. It seems to me that the one place in which I can blend my two citizenships on the Lord’s Day is in confession, and in a plea for mercy, on myself as an individual, and on my nation as a whole. And I think, in this, readers from all nations can join me.
“Almighty God, our Maker and Redeemer, we poor sinners confess unto Thee that we are by nature sinful and unclean, and that we have sinned against Thee in thought, word, and deed. Wherefore we flee for refuge to Thine infinite mercy and beseech Thee for Christ's sake, grant us remission of all our sins, and by Thy Holy Spirit increase in us true knowledge of Thee and of Thy will and true obedience to Thy word, to the end that by Thy grace we may come to everlasting life, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.”
Among the many internet postings yesterday commemorating the anniversary of the United States’ Declaration of Independence, Kathryn Jean Lopez of the National Review Online blog called attention to the final stanza of the John Phillip Sousa march, Stars and Stripes Forever. I had not been aware that there were any lyrics, but now that I do, I like the piece a lot less. The whole thing is pretty poor both rhetorically and poetically, but the last stanza really stands out in a Nebuchadnezzarian* way. Read it for yourself:
Hurrah for the flag of the free. May it wave as our standard forever The gem of the land and the sea, The banner of the right. Let despots remember the day When our fathers with mighty endeavor Proclaimed as they marched to the fray, That by their might and by their right It waves forever.
Other than the fact that he wrote a pile of great marching music, I know nothing of Sousa, but I can glean a couple of facts from that verse:
He was ignorant of American history, particularly of the circumstances of the Revolution, and
He was entirely ignorant of what the Bible says about the rising of kings and nations.
The American Revolution was not won by might or right.† That the war was won at all borders on the miraculous, as the historical record shows.‡
More importantly, admirers of Sousa’s sentiments should take note of the words of Scripture.
He makes the nations great, then destroys them;
He enlarges the nations, then leads them away.
—Job 12:23
And those who think otherwise had better beware.
28 All this happened to Nebuchadnezzar the king. 29 Twelve months later he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon. 30 The king reflected and said, “Is this not Babylon the great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?” 31 While the word was in the king’s mouth, a voice came from heaven, saying, “King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is declared: sovereignty has been removed from you, 32 and you will be driven away from mankind, and your dwelling place will be with the beasts of the field You will be given grass to eat like cattle, and seven periods of time will pass over you until you recognize that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever He wishes.” 33 Immediately the word concerning Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled; and he was driven away from mankind and began eating grass like cattle, and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair had grown like eagles’ feathers and his nails like birds’ claws. 34 But at the end of that period, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever;
For His dominion is an everlasting dominion,
And His kingdom endures from generation to generation.
35 All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,
But He does according to His will in the host of heaven
And among the inhabitants of earth;
And no one can ward off His hand
Or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’
36 At that time my reason returned to me And my majesty and splendor were restored to me for the glory of my kingdom, and my counselors and my nobles began seeking me out; so I was reestablished in my sovereignty, and surpassing greatness was added to me. 37 Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt and honor the King of heaven, for all His works are true and His ways just, and He is able to humble those who walk in pride.
—Daniel 4
I don’t claim to know the mind of God or to be his counselor, but the Sousa doctrine — which is the American doctrine — sounds a lot like Nebuchadnezzar. It is not for me to say that the insanity of Nebuchadnezzar parallels the fallen and still falling glory of the United States, but it would be foolish to deny the similarities.
How will it end for this nation? Well, I’m no prophet, and neither are you. But I can say without any doubt that it does not end well for those who steal God’s glory and credit his blessings to their own might and right.
* Of course it’s a word. You read it, didn’t you?
† The jury is still out, in my mind, as to whether or not the Revolution was a just war. In either case, it was not won by anyone’s “right.” Having said that, I will not be entertaining comments arguing either way.
Today is the 39th anniversary of the death of Louis Armstrong (HT).
Dream a Little Dream
La Vie en Rose
Go Down, Moses
Pastor, blogger, and Louis Armstrong lover Paul Martin once said of Armstrong that “you can hear him smile,” and so you can. But it’s much more fun to see than hear.
You may have noticed the apparent abandonment of my usual weekday schedule in the last couple of weeks. The explanation is that I’ve gotten rather bogged down in routine and have been struggling a bit to find motivation. For the first time in years, I haven’t really felt like reading anything, and it’s been this way almost all year. The cure, I’ve decided, is to 1) read more frivolously, 2) avoid anything thick and heavy, and 3) stop worrying about it. One day — soon, I hope — I’ll pick up Gurnall and my commentaries on John again, but for now I’m going to take up several small items on my shelves still unread. I’m going to attack them with all the gusto of a sleeping cat and see what happens.
First on my list will be What Is the Gospel by Greg Gilbert. It’s one of those nice little books put out by 9Marks, so I feel fairly confident in recommending it without having read it yet. Coincidentally, it is presently being offered free of charge to Kindle users. Those (like me) who would rather not own a Kindle can download the Kindle for PC. I’ve downloaded and used it, and found it quite satisfactory.
Now I am going to see if I can scrounge up a donut and have some coffee. Good day.
The following quote comes from an unnamed Christian artist, asked to define the gospel:
[M]y instinct is to say that it’s Jesus coming, living, dying, and being resurrected and his inaugurating the already and the not yet of all things being restored to himself . . . and that happening by way of himself . . . the being made right of all things . . . that process both beginning and being a reality in the lives and hearts of believers and yet a day coming when it will be more fully realized. But the good news, the gospel, the speaking of the good news, I would say is the news of his kingdom coming, the inaugurating of his kingdom coming . . . that’s my instinct.
* I don’t know if the ellipses represent omitted text, or just a postmodern avoidance of anything as absolute as a period or even a semicolon . . . well, whatever . . .
I agree with that statement, as far as it goes. It contains a lot of truth that the church has, at least in my experience, neglected. Of course, there is a lot missing from it as well, and the missing content is everything that makes the gospel immediately vital to sinners. That makes it a really bad definition of the gospel.
Setting all that — i.e., the content — aside for the time being, there is one thing about that statement causes it to fail horribly, and would even if all essential points of the gospel were present. Can you see it?
I’ll update this post with the answer later tonight.
Later tonight . . .
The answer is indeed the “my instinct” nonsense. My instinct tells me nothing pertaining to propositional truths. As I become more knowledgeable in the Word, and more conformed to the image of Christ (sanctified), understanding the truth will come to seem instinctive to some degree, but knowledge of the truth — and therefore my ability to answer questions like “what is the gospel?” — will always come straight from Scripture.
I think what troubles me most about the “my instinct” answer is not only the implication that there is some extrabiblical way of knowing, but even more, the insinuation that the truth is not to be found in definite terms in the Bible. It leaves us with the picture of a man groping for clues to a mystery, and lacking any clues, is left to make his best guess. If that is the case, what assurance can we have? And what kind of evangelical witness can we have? Imagine:
Philippian Jailer: Sirs, what must I do to be saved? Paul & Silas: Well, we’re not sure, but our instincts tell us . . .
For a better answer than this to the question “what is the gospel?” Greg Gilbert turns first to Romans 1–4, and finds a systematic presentation of the gospel. He summarizes it as follows:
[H]aving looked at Paul’s argument in Romans 1–4, we can see that at the heart of his proclamation of the gospel are the answers to four crucial questions:
Who made us, and to whom are we accountable?
What is our problem? In other words, are we in trouble, and why?
What is God’s solution tor that problem? How has he acted to same us from it?
How do I—myself, right here, right now—how do I come to be included in that salvation? What makes this good news for me and not just for someone else?
We might summarize these four major points like this: God, man, Christ, and response. Of course Paul goes on to unfold a universe of other promises God has made to those who are saved in Christ, and many of those promises may very appropriately be identified as part of the good news of Christianity, the gospel of Jesus Christ. But it’s crucial that we understand, right from the outset, that all those grand promises depend on and flow from this, the heart and fountainhead of the Christian good news. Those promises come only to these who are forgiven of sin through faith in the crucified and risen Christ. That is why Paul, when he presents the heart of the gospel, starts here—with these four crucial truths.
As I have been including the hymn numbers in this series, you may have noticed that the first two, and now this one, are the first three in a row. I assure you that I do not intend to go through the entire Concordia Hymnal. These first three just happen to be among the “hymns of my youth” worth sharing, and CDO* as I am, will naturally be working my way through them in order.
Like most hymnals, the Concordia is arranged according to themes, so this week’s hymn is another from the Worship in General: Praise and Prayer section.
3 Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation!
O my soul, praise Him, for He is thy health and salvation!
All ye who hear, now to His temple draw near;
Join me in glad adoration.
Praise to the Lord, who o’er all things so wondrously reigneth,
Shelters thee under His wings, yea, so gently sustaineth!
Hast thou not seen how thy desires e’er have been
Granted in what He ordaineth?
Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper thy work and defend thee;
Surely His goodness and mercy here daily attend thee.
Ponder anew what the Almighty can do
If with His love He befriend thee.
Praise to the Lord, who with marvelous wisdom hath made thee;
Decked thee with health, and with faithfulness guided and stayed thee;
How oft in grief hath he not brought thee relief,
Spreading his wings to o’ershade thee!
Praise to the Lord! O let all that is in me adore Him!
All that hath life and breath, come now with praises before Him!
I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”
Mine and Thine. Horatius Bonar (1808–1889) “Didicisti quod nihil tui boni præcesserat, et gratia Dei converses es ad Deum.”—Augustine.
All that I was, my sin, my guilt, My death was all my own; All that I am, I owe to thee, My gracious God alone.
The evil of my former state
Was mine, and only mine.
The good in which I now rejoice
Is Thine, and only Thine.
The darkness of my former state,
The bondage all was mine;
The light of life in which I walk,
The liberty is Thine.
Thy grace first made me feel my sin,
It taught me to believe;
Then, in believing, peace I found,
And now I live, I live.
All that I am, even here on earth,
All that I hope to be,
When Jesus comes, and glory dawns,
I owe it, Lord, to Thee.
—Horatius Bonar, Hymns of Faith and Hope, First Series (James Nisbet & Co., 1878).
The Gospel According to John
12 Jesus, therefore, six days before the Passover, came to Bethany where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2 So they made Him a supper there, and Martha was serving; but Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table with Him. 3 Mary then took a pound of very costly perfume of pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4 But Judas Iscariot, one of His disciples, who was intending to betray Him, said, 5 “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and given to poor people?” 6 Now he said this, not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box, he used to pilfer what was put into it. 7 Therefore Jesus said, “Let her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of My burial. 8 For you always have the poor with you, but you do not always have Me.” 9 The large crowd of the Jews then learned that He was there; and they came, not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might also see Lazarus, whom He raised from the dead. 10 But the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death also; 11 because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and were believing in Jesus.
The The chapter we have now begun finishes a most important division of St. John’s Gospel. Our Lord’s public addresses to the unbelieving Jews of Jerusalem are here brought to an end. After this chapter, St. John records nothing but what was said in private to the disciples. We see, for one thing, in this passage, what abounding proofs exist of the truth of our Lord’s greatest miracles. We read of a supper at Bethany, where Lazarus “sat at the table” among the guests,—Lazarus, who had been publicly raised from the dead, after lying four days in the grave. No one could pretend to say that his resurrection was a mere optical delusion, and that the eyes of the bystanders must have been deceived by a spirit or vision. Here was the very same Lazarus, after several weeks, sitting among his fellow-men with a real material body, and eating and drinking real material food. It is hard to understand what stronger evidence of a fact could be supplied. He that is not convinced by such evidence as this may as well say that he is determined to believe nothing at all. It is a comfortable thought, that the very same proofs which exist about the resurrection of Lazarus are the proofs which surround that still mightier fact, the resurrection of Christ from the dead. Was Lazarus seen for several weeks by the people of Bethany, going in and coming out among them? So was the Lord Jesus seen by His disciples.—Did Lazarus take material food before the eyes of his friends? So did the Lord Jesus eat and drink before His ascension.—No one, in his sober senses, who saw Jesus take “broiled fish,” and eat it before several witnesses, would doubt that He had a real body. (Luke xxiv. 42.) We shall do well to remember this. In an age of abounding unbelief and scepticism, we shall find that the resurrection of Christ will bear any weight that we can lay upon it. Just as He placed beyond reasonable doubt the rising again of a beloved disciple within two miles of Jerusalem, so in a very few weeks He placed beyond doubt His own victory over the grave. If we believe that Lazarus rose again, we need not doubt that Jesus rose again also. If we believe that Jesus rose again, we need not doubt the truth of His Messiahship, the reality of His acceptance as our Mediator, and the certainty of our own resurrection. Christ has risen indeed, and wicked men may well tremble. Christ has risen from the dead, and believers may well rejoice. We see, for another thing, in this passage, what unkindness and discouragement Christ’s friends sometimes meet with from man. We read that, at the supper in Bethany, Mary, the sister of Lazarus, anointed the feet of Jesus with precious ointment, and wiped them with the hair of her head. Nor was this ointment poured on with a niggardly hand. She did it so liberally and profusely that “the house was filled with the odour of the ointment.” She did it under the influence of a heart full of love and gratitude. She thought nothing too great and good to bestow on such a Saviour. Sitting at His feet in days gone by, and hearing His words, she had found peace for her conscience, and pardon for her sins. At this very moment she saw Lazarus, alive and well, sitting by her Master’s side,—her own brother Lazarus, whom He had brought back to her from the grave. Greatly loved, she thought she could not show too much love in return. Having freely received, she freely gave. But there were some present who found fault with Mary’s conduct, and blamed her as guilty of wasteful extravagance. One especially, an apostle, a man of whom better things might have been expected, declared openly that the ointment would have been better employed if it had been sold, and the price “given to the poor.” The heart which could conceive such thoughts must have had low views of the dignity of Christ’s person, and still lower views of our obligations to Him. A cold heart and a stingy hand will generally go together. There are only too many professing Christians of a like spirit in the present day. Myriads of baptized people cannot understand zeal of any sort, for the honour of Christ. Tell them of any vast outlay of money to push trade or to advance the cause of science, and they approve of it as right and wise. Tell them of any expense incurred for the preaching of the Gospel at home or abroad, for spreading God’s Word, for extending the knowledge of Christ on earth, and they tell you plainly that they think it waste. They never give a farthing to such objects as these, and count those people fools who do. Worst of all, they often cover over their own backwardness to help purely Christian objects, by a pretended concern for the poor at home. Yet they find it convenient to forget the well known fact that those who do most for the cause of Christ are precisely those who do most for the poor. We must never allow ourselves to be moved from “patient continuance in well-doing,” by the unkind remarks of such persons. It is vain to expect a man to do much for Christ, when he has no sense of debt to Christ. We must pity the blindness of our unkind critics, and work on. He who pleaded the cause of loving Mary, and said, “Let her alone,” is sitting at the right hand of God, and keeps a book of remembrance. A day is soon coming when a wondering world will see that every cup of cold water given for Christ’s sake, as well as every box of precious ointment, was recorded in heaven, and has its rewards. In that great day those who thought that anyone could give too much to Christ will find they had better never have been born. We see, lastly, in this passage, what desperate hardness and unbelief there is in the heart of man. Unbelief appears in the chief priests, who “consulted that they might put Lazarus to death.” They could not deny the fact of his having been raised again. Living, and moving, and eating, and drinking within two miles of Jerusalem, after lying four days in the grave, Lazarus was a witness to the truth of Christ’s Messiahship, whom they could not possibly answer or put to silence. Yet these proud men would not give way. They would rather commit a murder than throw down the arms of rebellion, and confess themselves in the wrong. No wonder that the Lord Jesus in a certain place “marvelled” at unbelief. Well might He say, in a well-known parable, “If they believe not Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.” (Mark vi. 6; Luke xvi. 31.) Hardness appears in Judas Iscariot, who, after being a chosen Apostle, and a preacher of the kingdom of heaven, turns out at last a thief and a traitor. So long as the world stands this unhappy man will be a lasting proof of the depth of human corruption. That anyone could follow Christ as a disciple for three years, see all His miracles, hear all His teaching, receive at His hand repeated kindnesses, be counted an Apostle, and yet prove rotten at heart in the end, all this at first sight appears incredible and impossible! Yet the case of Judas shows plainly that the thing can be. Few things, perhaps, are so little realized as the extent of what desperate hardness and unbelief there is in the heart of man. Let us thank God if we know anything of faith, and can say, with all our sense of weakness and infirmity, “I believe.” Let us pray that our faith may be real, true, genuine, and sincere, and not a mere temporary impression, like the morning cloud and the early dew. Not least, let us watch and pray against the love of the world. It ruined one who basked in the full sunshine of privileges, and heard Christ Himself teaching every day. Then “let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” (1 Cor. x. 12.)
—J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels (Baker Books, 2007) [Westminster (PB) | Amazon (HC)].
A couple of weeks ago, I think it was, I came across an article written to the author’s eighteen-year-old self. That author — whom I’ve forgotten, or I would gladly cite — had a lot of good advice for a young person who, being a typical eighteen-year-old, was in need of a lot of good advice. He (or possibly she) concluded by asking readers what they would say, if they could, to their eighteen-year-old selves.
Well, my eighteen-year-old self sure could have used a good talking-to, along with several well-placed boots in the backside. But all that wouldn’t have mattered in the long run, because what I needed most was the gospel. So if I could talk to me-at-eighteen, I’d give me the gospel, over and over.
Skip forward to meet me, post conversion, at twenty, twenty-five, or even thirty, and then I’ve got some speech-making to do. The short version goes like this: “Shut up! You’re embarrassing me!” or, in a more patient mood, “Shut up! You think you know so much, but you’re ignorant, you’ve got a big mouth, and very soon you’re going to feel really stupid, so shut up!”
Channeling someone more polite, I would say it like this:
“You’ve got a genuine zeal for knowledge, but you’re going too fast. You’re swallowing things that sound good, that appeal to your commendable concern for the truth, but you’re not taking enough time to prove whether these things are so. And you’re spouting off at every opportunity about every new thing you learn. Someday, you’re going to look back with regret at the fool you were.
“Choose your teachers more carefully. Don’t give your ear to charismatic talkers who do not have the esteem of wise old men and women. The truth is ancient, and it is not hidden. If it’s new, it’s wrong. If it’s exciting, it’s probably gas. If you think you’re among the few who ‘get it,’ you’re deceived.
“Slow down. Treat all new ideas skeptically. In fact, consider everything think you know with a skeptical eye. Prove it. There’s no hurry. Study all things as exhaustively as you can, and then, when you’ve been convinced and five or even ten years have passed and you’re still convinced, maybe it will be safe to open your mouth dogmatically. Until then, let your elders take the lead. Be content to sit and listen, to question and learn. Be humble. Your elders may be wrong occasionally, or even often, but God didn’t send you to correct them, and he certainly doesn’t need you to save the church from their poor leadership. He’s got that under control. Just wait, you’ll get your chance. And if you’ve kept your mouth shut and your mind and ears open, maybe you’ll be ready. Maybe you’ll be prepared for such a time as this, whatever that time may be.”
Younger readers may object to being painted as gullible and impulsive, and some of you do not, in fact, deserve that assessment. Good for you; I certainly do not want to look down on your youthfulness. But it would be foolish to deny that these are common foibles of youth.
At the same time, old-timers ought to be careful lest they look condescendingly on their younger brothers and sisters. I know plenty of gray heads that seldom think a discerning thought. I am surrounded, in my community, with Prayer of Jabez-caliber theologians in the forty-plus range. I myself, at thirty-something, tasted and nearly swallowed whole a particularly embarrassing heresy that shame prevents me from typing in this space. We all, regardless of age, need to take heed lest we fall.
Greg Gilbert paints a picture of God that most of us would mock. We’ve seen this god in the Christian bookstore, and we’ve seen him in our churches. We recognize this view of God as part of “what is wrong with the church today,” and are glad that we know better. But stop and think; examine yourselves. In our lives, in our attitudes and practices, do we not seem to be followers — if such a god can be followed — of the god represented below?
Let me introduce you to god. (Note the lowercase g.) You might want to lower your voice a little before we go in. he might be sleeping now. He’s old, you know, and doesn’t much understand or like this “newfangled” modern world. His golden days—the ones he talks about when you really get him going—were a long time ago, before most of us were even born. That was back when people cared what he thought about things, and considered him pretty important to their lives. Of course that’s changed now, though, and god—poor fellow—just never adjusted very well. Life’s moved on and passed him by. Now, he spends most of his time just hanging in the garden out back. I go there sometimes to see him, and there we tarry, walking and talking softly and tenderly among the roses. . . . Anyway, a lot of people still like him, it seems—or at least he manages to keep his poll numbers pretty high. And you’d be surprised how many people even drop by to visit and ask for things every once in a while. But of course that’s alright with him. He’s here to help. Thank goodness, all the crankiness you read about sometimes in his old books—you know, having the earth swallow people up, raining fire down on cities, that sort of thing—all that seems to have faded with his old age. Now he’s just a good-natured, low-maintenance friend who’s really easy to talk to—especially since he almost never talks back, and when he does, it’s usually to tell me through some slightly weird “sign” that what I want to do regardless is alright by him. That really is the best kind of friend, isn’t it? You know the best thing about him, though? He doesn’t judge me. Ever, for anything. Oh sure, I know that deep down he wants me to be better—more loving, less selfish, and all that—but he’s realistic. He knows I’m human and nobody’s perfect. And I’m totally sure he’s fine with that. Besides, forgiving people is his job. It’s what he does. After all, he’s love, right? And I like to think of love as “never judging, always forgiving”. That’s the god I know. And I wouldn’t have him any other way. Alright, hold on a second. . . .Okay, we can go in now. And don’t worry, we don’t have to stay for long. Really. He’s grateful for any time he can get.
Yesterday, we were introduced to the god of popular imagination. Today, we’ll see the hypocrisy of those who profess belief in such a god.
Scripture proclaims over and over again that our God is a God of perfect justice and unassailable righteousness. Psalm 11:7 says,
The Lord is righteous; he loves righteous deeds.
Psalm 33:5 declares, “He love righteousness and justice.” And two psalms go so far as to proclaim, “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne” (Pss. 89:14; 97:2)! Do you see what those verses are saying? God’s rule over the universe, his sovereign lordship over creation, is founded upon his remaining forever perfectly righteous and just. That’s why the idea of God as an unscrupulous janitor is so unsatisfying. It makes God out to be unjust and unrighteous. It makes him a god who simply hides sin—or even hides from sin—rather than confronting and destroying it. It makes him a moral coward. And who wants a god like that? It’s always interesting to watch what happens when people who insist that God would never judge them come face to face with undeniable evil. Confronted with some truly horrific evil, then they want a god of justice—and they want him now. They want god to overlook their own sin, but not the terrorist’s. “Forgive me,” they say, “but don’t you dare forgive him!” You see, nobody wants a god who declines to deal with evil. They just want a god who declines to deal with their evil. Scripture tells us, however, that because he is perfectly just and righteous, God will deal decisively with all evil. Habakkuk 1:13 says,
Your eyes are too pure to look upon evil; you cannot tolerate wrong. (NIV)
To do so would be to renounce the very foundation of his throne. Even more, it would be to renounce his very Self, and that God will not do. Most people have no problem at all thinking of God as loving and compassionate. We Christians have done a bang-up job convincing the world that God loves them. But if we’re going to understand just how glorious and life-giving the gospel to Jesus Christ is, we have to understand that this loving and compassionate God is also holy and righteous, and that he is also holy and righteous, and that he is determined never to overlook, ignore, or tolerate sin. Including our own.
You likely have heard it said, possibly by some very hip-looking dude, that “Christianity is not a religion, but a relationship.” It’s a very attractive notion. Religion sounds formal and cold, while relationship sounds warm and personal. It’s all in how you understand the words, I suppose. James speaks of “pure and undefiled religion.” True religion, that which is pure and undefiled, is good. False religion is pure evil. Likewise, relationship can be good, but we all know of bad relationships. Many relationships are as destructive as an airliner colliding with a skyscraper. Furthermore, as we will see, there are different kinds of good relationships. So let’s do away with the religion vs. relationship language, shall we?
Christianity is a religion; it’s a religion of relationship. The major failing (I think) of those who preach religion vs. relationship is, as Greg Gilbert writes, reducing sin to broken relationship. That confusion reflects a misunderstanding of the nature of the Christian relationship with God.
Relationship is an important category in the Bible. Human beings were made to live in fellowship with God. What we must remember, however, is that it was a specific kind of relationship in which they were to live—not the relationship between two equals, where law, judgment, and punishment are out of view, but the relationship between a King and his subjects. Many Christians talk about sin as if it were merely a relational tiff between God and man, and what is needed is for us simply to apologize and accept God’s forgiveness. That image of sin as lovers’ quarrel, though, distorts the relationship in which we stand to God. In communicates that there is no broken law, no violated justice, no righteous wrath, no holy judgment— and therefore, ultimately, no need for a substitute to bear that judgment either. The Bible’s teaching is that sin is indeed a breaking of relationship with God, but that broken relationship consists in a rejection of his kingly majesty. It’s not just adultery (though it is that); it is also rebellion. Not just betrayal, but also treason. If we reduce sin to a mere breaking of relationship, rather than understanding it as the traitorous rebellion of a beloved subject against his good and righteous King, we will never understand why the death of God’s Son was required to address it.
So sang screamed AC/DC. Of course, what they were describing was not the hell of the Bible. Perhaps, in their perverted view of life, what they were describing was not so bad. But we know better, don’t we? We know that hell is a bad place to be — or at least, we should. Yet, to hear some Christians talk — including some who will incur a stricter judgment — hell might not be so bad.
The Bible describes hell in pretty vivid terms. Yet it is becoming more popular to describe hell as nothing more than separation from God. Imagine the following conversation:
Father: Son, I’m warning you that if you continue in the way you are going, there will be serious consequences. One thing will lead to another, and you may eventually end up in prison.
Son: What do you mean, “prison”? What’s “prison”?
Father: Prison is a terrible place. You don’t want to go there. “Prison” means you’ll be separated from me. Is that not a terrifying thought? Oh, my son . . . !
Ridiculous, isn’t it? No one would ever describe a prison sentence in such trivial terms. And who would think they were doing anyone any favors by whitewashing the truth about it? That anyone would do that is inconceivable and incomprehensible. Yet that is exactly what many are doing with hell.
Sometimes people talk about this as if it is just the passive, quiet absence of God. But it’s more than that. It is God’s active judgment against sin, and the Bible says it will be terrifying. Look at how the book of Revelation describes what the end will be like on the day of right and good judgment. The seven angels will “pour out on the earth . . . the wrath of God,” and “all the tribes of the earth will wail on account of him” (Rev. 16:1; 1:7). They will call out to the mountains and the rocks, “fall on us and hide us from 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?” (Rev. 6:16-17). They will see Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords, and they will cower, for “he will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty” (Rev. 19:15). The Bible teaches that the final destiny for unrepentant, unbelieving sinners is a place of eternal, conscious torment called “hell”. Revelation describes it as “a lake of fire and sulfur,” and Jesus says it is a place of “unquenchable fire,” (Rev. 20:10; Mark 9:43). Given how the Bible talks about hell and warns us against it, I do not understand the impulse some Christians seem to have to explain it in a way that makes it sound more tolerable. When Revelation speaks of Jesus treading the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty, when Jesus himself warns of the “unquenchable fire . . . where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:43, 48), my incredulous question is, Why would any Christian have an interest in making it sound less horrific? Why on earth would we comfort sinners with the thought that maybe hell will not be so bad after all?
Today’s hymn strikes me as an excellent replacement for all the “Jesus is my boyfriend” songs that pass for worship these days. Each verse is bursting with devotion to the Savior, and presents biblical reasons for that devotion. The hymn ends quite logically with a plea for the final fulfillment, when we will express our adoration face to face with our Savior, Lord, and King. If this doesn’t arouse the “religious affections,” nothing will!
4 O Savior, Precious Savior
O Savior, precious Savior,
Whom yet unseen we love,
O Name of might and favor,
All other names above!
We worship Thee, we bless Thee,
To Thee, O Christ, we sing;
We praise Thee, and confess Thee
Our holy Lord and King.
O Bringer of salvation,
Who wondrously hast wrought,
Thyself the revelation
Of love beyond our thought;
We worship Thee, we bless Thee,
To Thee, O Christ, we sing;
We praise Thee, and confess Thee
Our gracious Lord and King.
In Thee all fullness dwelleth,
All grace and pow’r divine;
The glory that excelleth,
O Son of God, is Thine;
We worship Thee, we bless Thee,
To Thee, O Christ, we sing;
We praise Thee, and confess Thee
Our glorious Lord and King.
O grant the consummation
Of this our song above,
In endless adoration,
And everlasting love;
Then shall we praise and bless Thee
Where perfect praises ring,
And evermore confess Thee
Our Savior and our King.
I hate to do this, but if you want the melody, you’ll have to settle for the MIDI-from-hell at cyberhymnal. There are four tunes listed. If you click the MIDI for Angel’s Story and try to imagine yourself singing in a little white church with a steeple and bell and real wooden pews, accompanied by two ladies on piano and organ, you might get some sense of how I learned it. Or, if you’re willing to pay $0.89 for a nauseatingly embellished and over-orchestrated version, you can download it from Amazon. If anyone has a tip on a better source, I’d be grateful.
I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”
Blessed and Holy Christina Rossetti (1830–1894)
Yea, blessed and holy is he that hath part in the First Resurrection! We mark well his bulwarks, we set up his tokens, we gaze, even we, On luster of God and of Christ, this creature of flawless perfection: Yea, blessed and holy is he.
But what? an offscouring of earth, a wreck from the
turbulent sea,
A bloodstone unflinchingly hewn for the Temples eternal
erection,
One scattered and peeled, one sifted and chastened
and scorged and set free?
Yea, this is that worshipful stone of the Wise Master
builder’s election,
Yea, this is that King and that Priest where all Hallows
bow down the knee,
Yea, this man set nigh to the Throne is Jonathan of David’s
delection,
Yea, blessed and holy is he.
—Christina Rossetti, Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 1993).
John 12:12–19
On the next day the large crowd who had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, 13 took the branches of the palm trees and went out to meet Him, and began to shout, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel.” 14 Jesus, finding a young donkey, sat on it; as it is written, 15 “Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your King is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.” 16 These things His disciples did not understand at the first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these things to Him. 17 So the people, who were with Him when He called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead, continued to testify about Him. 18 For this reason also the people went and met Him, because they heard that He had performed this sign. 19 So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are not doing any good; look, the world has gone after Him.”
A careful reader of the Gospels can hardly fail to observe that our Lord Jesus Christ’s conduct, at this stage of His earthly ministry, is very peculiar. It is unlike anything else recorded of Him in the New Testament. Hitherto we have seen Him withdrawing as much as possible from public notice, retiring into the wilderness, and checking those who would have brought Him forward and made Him a king. As a rule He did not court popular attention. He did not “cry or strive, or cause His voice to be heard in the streets.” (Matt. xii. 19.) Here, on the contrary, we see Him making a public entry into Jerusalem, attended by an immense crowd of people, and causing even the Pharisees to say, “Behold, the world has gone after Him.” The explanation of this apparent inconsistency is not hard to find out. The time had come at last when Christ was to die for the sins of the world. The time had come when the true passover Lamb was to be slain, when the true blood of atonement was to be shed, when Messiah was to be “cut off” according to prophecy (Dan. ix. 26.), when the way into the holiest was to be opened by the true High Priest to all mankind. Knowing all this, our Lord purposely drew attention to Himself. Knowing this, He placed Himself prominently under the notice of the whole Jewish nation. It was only meet and right that this thing should not be “done in a corner.” (Acts xxvi. 26.) If ever there was a transaction in our Lord’s earthly ministry which was public, it was the Sacrifice which He offered up on the cross of Calvary. He died at the time of year when all the tribes were assembled at Jerusalem for the passover feast. Nor was this all. He died in a week when, by His remarkable public entry into Jerusalem, He had caused the eyes of all Israel to be specially fixed upon Himself. We learn, for one thing, in these verses, how entirely voluntary the sufferings of Christ were. It is impossible not to see in the history before us that our Lord had a mysterious influence over the minds and wills of all around Him, whenever He thought fit to use it. Nothing else can account for the effect which His approach to Jerusalem had on the multitudes which accompanied Him. They seem to have been carried forward by a secret constraining power, which they were obliged to obey, in spite of the disapproval of the leaders of the nation. In short, just as our Lord was able to make winds, and waves, and diseases, and devils obey Him, so was He able, when it pleased Him, to turn, the minds of men according to His will. For the case before us does not stand alone. The men of Nazareth could not hold Him when He chose to “pass through the midst of them and go His way.” (Luke iv. 30.) The angry Jews of Jerusalem could not detain him when they would have laid violent hands on Him in the Temple; but, “going through the midst of them, He passed by.” (John 8:59.) Above all, the very soldiers who apprehended Him in the garden, at first “went backward and fell to the ground.” (John 18:6.) In each of these instances there is but one explanation. A Divine influence was put forth. There was about our Lord during His whole earthly ministry a mysterious “hiding of His power.” (Hab. 3:4.) But He had almighty power when He was pleased to use it. Why, then, did He not resist His enemies at last? Why did He not scatter the band of soldiers who came to seize Him, like chaff before the wind? There is but one answer. He was a willing Sufferer in order to procure redemption for a lost and ruined soul. He had undertaken to give His own life as a ransom, that we might live forever, and He laid it down on the cross with all the desire of His heart. He did not bleed and suffer and die because He was vanquished by superior force, and could not help Himself, but because He loved us, and rejoiced to give Himself for us as our Substitute. He did not die because He could not avoid death, but because He was willing with all His heart to make His soul an offering for sin. Forever let us rest our hearts on this most comfortable thought. We have a most willing and loving Saviour. It was His delight to do His Father’s will, and to make a way for lost and guilty man to draw near to God in peace. He loved the work He had taken in hand, and the poor sinful world which He came to save. Never, then, let us give way to the unworthy thought that our Saviour does not love to see sinners coming to Him, and does not rejoice to save them. He who was a most willing Sacrifice on the cross is also a most willing Saviour at the right hand of God. He is just as willing to receive sinners who come to Him now for peace, as He was to die for sinners, when He held back His power and willingly suffered on Calvary. We learn, for another thing, in these verses, how minutely the prophesies concerning Christ’s first coming were fulfilled. The riding into Jerusalem on an ass, which is here recorded, might seem at first sight a simple action, and in no way remarkable. But when we turn to the Old Testament, we find that this very thing had been predicted by the Prophet Zechariah five hundred years before. (Zech. ix. 9.) We find that the coming of a Redeemer some day was not the only thing which the Holy Ghost had revealed to the Fathers, but that even the least particulars of His earthly career were predicted and written down with precise accuracy. Such fulfillments of prophecy as this deserve the special attention of all who love the Bible and read it with reverence. They show us that every word of Holy Scripture was given by inspiration of God. They teach us to beware of the mischievous practice of spiritualizing and explaining away the language of Scripture. We must settle it in our minds that the plain, literal meaning of the Bible is generally the true and correct meaning. Here is a prediction of Zechariah literally and exactly fulfilled. Our Lord was not merely a very humble person as some spiritualizing interpreters would have explained Zechariah’s words to mean, but He literally rode into Jerusalem on an ass. Above all, such fulfillments teach us what we may expect in looking forward to the second advent of Jesus Christ. They show us that we must look for a literal accomplishment of the prophecies concerning that second coming, and not for a figurative and a spiritual one. Forever let us hold fast this great principle. Happy is that Bible-reader who believes the words of the Bible to mean exactly what they seem to mean. Such a man has got the true key of knowledge in looking forward to things to come. To know that predictions about the second advent of Christ will be fulfilled literally, just as predictions about the first advent of Christ were fulfilled literally, is the first step towards a right understanding of unfulfilled prophecy.
—J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels (Baker Books, 2007) [Westminster (PB) | Amazon (HC)].
Every now and then — quite often, actually — something annoys me to the point of earning a good rant. I’ve been thinking about this one for some time now, but a post last week got me thinking about it even more. That post dealt with relationship, specifically the relationship between God and man.
Today I want to talk about another kind of relationship, one that has only recently been invented. I think it first caught my attention a few years ago during one of Jerry Seinfeld’s standup routines. “When you’re in a relationship,” he began, and then proceeded to make some entertaining comment about something humorous regarding male-female interaction. The phrase immediately struck me as odd. It had weird vagueness about it, something familiar yet alien. What only a few decades earlier would have been a husband-wife joke was now . . . something else. In a relationship? What in the world can that mean? After all, I’m in relationships with
God
My wife
My children
Extended family members
My church
Friends and other acquaintances
Bankers and various other businesses
The mailman, garbage collectors, etc.
The cat
Obviously, “in a relationship” is meaningless — which is no accident. “In a relationship” is now common parlance for “I’m ‘going steady,’ but since I’m an adult (or at least I ought to be) and am taking full advantage of the carnal pleasures reserved for marriage, I need a more adult-sounding description for my behavior.” It’s a relationship that’s all about getting, with minimal commitment required. That non-binding attribute is essential, and the vague description serves to maintain it. It’s a meaningless description for a meaningless relationship.
Let me suggest to you now that any relationship you’re in — thinking specifically about romantically-inclined male-female relationships — that doesn’t expect permanence, the object of which is not marriage, is unbiblical, and therefore immoral.
Facebook offers several relationship statuses:
Single
In a Relationship
Engaged
Married
It’s Complicated
In an Open Relationship
Widowed
The Bible’s list is shorter:
Single
Betrothed
Married
Widowed
If you made your own list, which would it most resemble? If asked for your “status,” how would you answer? “In a relationship” will not do.
As a teenager, I attended various Bible camps and retreats. At each of those events, it seems that there were always some young participants who didn’t quite fit the mold. They didn’t like rules, didn’t respect authority, or had some other fault that marked them as not spiritual like all the other “good” kids. Sometimes, it was undeniable that these were unbelieving kids who were there because their parents sent them, or some other less than ideal reason. There were many others, however, who were described by some in low tones with, “Yes, he’s a Christian, but he’s not living it [i.e., his faith].” I’m not sure exactly what was meant, but I’m assuming these were kids who had at some point been talked into asking Jesus into their hearts or some such nonsense*, but had not yet, or no longer were, surrendered to him as Lord. I was pretty young and ignorant at the time, but even as one who could have been described as “not a Christian, but faking it,” that seemed fishy to me. The gospel I had been taught in those same places hadn’t made allowance for that.
Years later, I learned that there was actually a theology that excluded lordship and repentance of sin from the gospel. Its proponents call it “Free Grace,” and teach that salvation is received simply by faith in Christ (with which we should agree), but that faith should not be expected to actually change anything. In other words, faith without works is not dead. Those who say otherwise are accused of teaching “Lordship Salvation,” of adding works to faith as a requirement for salvation. But, like two sides of a coin, faith and repentance are not separable. Greg Gilbert explains:
Jesus’ message to his listeners was, “Repent and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). If faith is turning to Jesus and relying on him for salvation, repentance is the flip side of that coin. It is turning away from sin, hating it, and resolving by God’s strength to forsake it, even as we turn to him in faith. So Peter told the on-looking crowd, “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out” (Acts 3:19 NIV). And Paul tells everyone “that they should repent and turn to God” (Acts 26:20). Repentance is not just an optional plug in to the Christian life. It is absolutely crucial to it, marking out those who have been saved by God from those who have not. I have known many people who have said something like, “Yes, I’ve accepted Jesus as Savior, so I’m a Christian. But I’m just not ready to accept him as Lord yet. I have some things to work through.” In other words, they claimed that they could have faith in Jesus and be saved, and yet not repent of sin. If we understand repentance rightly, we’ll see that the idea that you can accept Jesus as Savior but not Lord is nonsense. For one thing, it just doesn’t do justice to what Scripture says about repentance and its connection with salvation. For example, Jesus warned, “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3). The apostles, when they heard Peter’s story about the conversion of Cornelius, praised God for granting to the Gentiles “repentance that leads to life” (Acts 11:18), and Paul speaks of “repentance that leads to salvation” in 2 Corinthians 7:10. Moreover, to have faith in Jesus is, at its core, to believe that he is who he really says he is—the crucified and risen King who had conquered death and sin, and who has the power to save. Now how could a person believe all that, trust in it, and rely on it, and yet at the same time say, “But I don’t acknowledge that you are King over me”? That doesn’t make any sense. Faith in Christ carries in itself a renunciation of that rival power that King Jesus conquered—sin. And where that renunciation of sin is not present, neither is genuine faith in the One who defeated it. It is as Jesus said in Matthew 6:24: “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” To put one’s faith in King Jesus is to renounce his enemies.
Today the youngest lad will be playing in his league’s baseball tournament. I’m no sports fan, but baseball is the greatest team sport in the world, and I can enjoy it in limited quantities; still, I wouldn’t bother with it if my own blood wasn’t playing. I have enjoyed watching the occasional Major league game. Occasional? I should say rare, certainly less than a dozen in my entire life. I don’t think I’ve watched any all the way through, with the exception of the one Twins game I attended back in the late eighties.
Watching youth baseball presents some additional challenges. Seeing an outfielder miss a fly sent his way as if by GPS, not because he wasn’t quick enough or coordinated enough, but because he was distracted by something in the grass at his feet, is a minor difficulty. As with most sports, I think, tolerating the fans is the most trying aspect of the game. Don’t get me wrong, these aren’t hockey or soccer fans. There is rarely any cussing, no one gets killed, and there are no satanic horns blowing. In fact, the spectators are almost always reasonably well-behaved.
But seriously — who yells “Good eye! Good eye!” to boys who refrain from swinging at balls that sail three feet over their heads? The genius sitting directly behind me, that’s who.
They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.
—1 John 2:19
I’m grieving over a friend today, hoping the verse above doesn’t describe his end. I can’t even remember what I had intended to blog today. Let me instead draw your attention to the following resources from Grace to You that are relevant to this situation. Eat them up; you never know when you might need them.
This morning, I began reading the fifth volume in John Piper’s biographical series, The Swans are Not Silent. In this volume, entitled Filling Up the Afflictions of Christ: The Cost of Bringing the Gospel to the Nations in the Lives of William Tyndale, Adoniram Judson, and John Paton, Piper draws vital theological lessons from three men whose lives are chronicles of sacrifice and suffering for the sake of the gospel. In his introduction, he sets the tone by presenting an important fact of Christian life: suffering and martyrdom are not merely unfortunate results of service to Christ in a lost world; they are part of God’s design. Piper writes:
The truth that is especially illustrated by the lives of these servants is that God’s strategy for breaking through Satan’s authority in the world, and spreading the gospel, and planting the church includes the sacrificial suffering of his frontline heralds. Again I emphasize, since it is so easily missed, that I am not referring only to the fact that suffering results from frontline proclamation. I am referring also to the fact that this suffering is one of God’s intended strategies for the success of his mission. Jesus said to his disciples as he sent them out:
Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. (Matthew 10:16)
There is no doubt what usually happens to a sheep in the midst of wolves. And Paul confirmed the reality in Romans 8:36, quoting Psalm 44:22:
As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the say ling; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
Jesus knew this would be the portion of his darkness-penetrating, mission-advancing, church-planting missionaries. Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword (Romans 8:35)—that is what Paul expected, because that is what Jesus promised. Jesus continued:
Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors an kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. (Matthew 10:17–18)
Notice that the “witness” before governors and kings is not a mere result or consequence, but a design. Literally: “You will be dragged before . . . kings for a witness to them [eis marturion autois].” God’s design for reaching some governors and kings is the persecution of his people. Why this design for missions? One answer from the Lord Jesus goes like this:
A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. . . . If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household. (Matthew 10:24–25)
Suffering was not just a consequence of the Master’s obedience and mission. It was the central strategy of his mission. It was the way he accomplished our salvation. Jesus calls us to join him in the Calvary Road, to take up our cross daily, to hate our lives in this world, and to fall into the ground like a seed and die, that others might live. We are not above our Master. To be sure, our suffering does not atone for anyone’s sins, but it is a deeper way of doing missions than we often realize. When the martyrs cry out to Christ from under the alter in heaven, “How long before you will judge and avenge our blood?” they are told “to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been” (Revelation 6:10–11). Martyrdom is not the mere consequence of radical love and obedience; it is the keeping if an appointment set in heaven for a certain number: “Wait till the number of martyrs is complete who are to be killed.” Just as Christ died to save the unreached peoples of the world, so some missionaries are to die to save the people of the world.
For the first time in this series, I think I’m presenting a hymn that should be familiar with many of you, and unlike any of the previous installments, I actually have this one in my mp3 library. My copy is from the Together for the Gospel Live album of 2008. With the difficulty I’ve had finding audio for some of these hymns, I’ve been thinking I might have to record them myself. Well, I guess it’s come to that now. I can’t quite make out my voice from the crowd, but I’m in there somewhere (I wonder what’s happened to my royalty checks?). the Concordia tune is Coronation, the same as the Together for the Gospel recording, and probably the most familiar and suitable for congregational singing. I am familiar with two other tunes, Diadem and Miles lane; both are very nice, but I’ve always liked Diadem, which requires a slight lyrical rearrangement as well.
7 All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name
All hail the pow’r of Jesus’ Name!
Let angels prostrate fall;
Bring forth the royal diadem,
And crown Him Lord of all!
Bring forth the royal diadem,
And crown Him Lord of all!
Ye seed of Israel’s chosen race,
Ye ransomed from the fall,
Hail Him Who saves you by His grace,
And crown Him Lord of all!
Hail Him Who saves you by His grace,
And crown Him Lord of all!
Hail Him, ye heirs of David’s line,
Whom David Lord did call;
The God incarnate, Man divine,
And crown Him Lord of all!
The God incarnate, Man divine,
And crown Him Lord of all!
Let ev’ry kinded, ev’ry tribe,
On this terrestrial ball,
To Him all majesty ascribe,
And crown Him Lord of all!
To Him all majesty ascribe,
And crown Him Lord of all!
O that with yonder sacred throng
We at His feet may fall;
We’ll join in the everlasting song,
And crown Him Lord of all!
We’ll join in the everlasting song,
And crown Him Lord of all!
I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”
I am a little world John Donne (1572–1631)
I am a little world made cunningly Of Elements, and an Angelike spright, But black sinne hath betraid to endless night My worlds both parts, and (oh) both parts must die. You which beyond that heaven which was most high Have found new sphears, and of new lands can write, Powre new seas in mine eyes, so that I might Drowne my world with my weeping earnestly, Or wash it if it must be drown’d no more: But oh it must be burnt; alas the fire Of lust and envie have burnt it hereto fore, And made it fouler; Let their flames retire, And burn me ô Lord, with a fiery zeale Of thee and thy house, which doth in eating heale.
Now there were some Greeks among those who were going up to worship at the feast; 21 these then came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and began to ask him, saying, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” 22 Philip came and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip came and told Jesus. 23 And Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. 26 If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.
There is more going on in some people’s minds than we are aware of. The case of the Greeks before us is a remarkable proof of this. Who would have thought when Christ was on earth, that foreigners from a distant land would have come forward in Jerusalem, and said, “Sir, we would see Jesus”? Who these Greeks were, what they meant, why they desired to see Jesus, what their inward motives were,—all these are questions we cannot answer. Like Zaccheus, they may have been influenced by curiosity. Like the wise men from the East, they may have surmised that Jesus was the promised King of the Jews, whom all the eastern world was expecting. Enough for us to know that they showed more interest in Christ than Caiaphas and all his companions. Enough to know that they drew from our Lord’s lips sayings which are still read in one hundred and fifty languages, from one end of the world to the other. We learn, for one thing, from our Lord’s words in this passage, that death is the way to spiritual life and glory. “Except a grain of wheat falls into the ground, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” This sentence was primarily meant to teach the wondering Greeks the true nature of Messiah’s kingdom. If they thought to see a King like the kings of this world, they were greatly mistaken. Our Lord would have them know that He came to carry a cross, and not to wear a crown. He came not to live a life of honour, ease, and magnificence, but to die a shameful and dishonoured death. The kingdom He came to set up was to begin with a crucifixion, and not with a coronation. Its glory was to take its rise not from victories won by the sword, and from accumulated treasures of gold and silver, but from the death of its King. But this sentence was also meant to teach a wider and broader lesson still. It revealed, under a striking figure, the mighty foundation truth, that Christ’s death was to be the source of spiritual life to the world. From His cross and sufferings was to spring up a mighty harvest of benefit to all mankind. His death, like a grain of seed, was to be the root of blessings and mercies to countless millions of immortal souls. In short, the great principle of the Gospel was once more exhibited,—that Christ’s vicarious death (not His life, or miracles, or teaching, but His death) was to bring forth fruit to the praise of God, and to provide redemption for a lost world. This deep and mighty sentence was followed by a practical application, which closely concerns ourselves. “He who hateth his life shall keep it.” He that would be saved must be ready to give up life itself, if necessary, in order to obtain salvation. He must bury his love of the world, with its riches, honours, pleasures, and rewards, with a full belief that in so doing he will reap a better harvest, both here and hereafter. He who loves the life that now is so much that he cannot deny himself anything for the sake of his soul, will find at length that he has lost everything. He, on the contrary, who is ready to cast away everything most dear to him in this life, if it stands in the way of his soul, and to crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts, will find at length that he is no loser. In a word, his losses will prove nothing in comparison to his gains. Truths such as these should sink deeply into our hearts, and stir up self-inquiry. It is as true of Christians as it is of Christ,—there can be no life without death, there can be no sweet without bitter, there can be no crown without a cross. Without Christ’s death there would have been no life for the world. Unless we are willing to die to sin, and crucify all that is most dear to flesh and blood, we cannot expect any benefit from Christ’s death. Let us remember these things, and take up our cross daily, like men. Let us, for the joy set before us, endure the cross and despise the shame, and in the end we shall sit down with our Master at God’s right hand. The way of self-crucifixion and sanctification may seem foolishness and wasteful to the world, just as burying good seed seems wasteful to the child and the fool. But there never lived the man who did not find that, by sowing to the Spirit, he reaped life everlasting. We learn, for another thing, from our Lord’s words, that if we profess to serve Christ, we must follow Him. “If any man serves Me,” is the saying, “let him follow Me.” That expression, “following,” is one of wide signification, and brings before our minds many familiar ideas. As the soldier follows his general, as the servant follows his master, as the scholar follows his teacher; as the sheep follows its shepherd, just so ought the professing Christian to follow Christ. Faith and obedience are the leading marks of real followers, and will always be seen in true believing Christians. Their knowledge may be very small, and their infirmities very great; their grace very weak, and their hope very dim. But they believe what Christ says, and strive to do what Christ commands. And of such Christ declares, “They serve Me, they are Mine.” Christianity like this receives little from man. It is too thorough, too decided, too strong, too real. To serve Christ in name and form is easy work, and satisfies most people, but to follow Him in faith and life demands more trouble than the generality of men will take about their souls. Laughter, ridicule, opposition, persecution, are often the only reward which Christ’s followers get from the world. Their religion is one, “whose praise is not of men, but of God.” (Rom. ii. 29.) Yet to him who followeth, let us never forget, the Lord Jesus holds out abundant encouragement: “Where I am,” He declares, “there also shall my servant be; if any man serves Me, him will my Father honour.” Let us lay to heart these comfortable promises, and go forward in the narrow way without fear. The world may cast out our name as evil, and turn us out of its society; but when we dwell with Christ in glory, we shall have a home from which we can never be ejected.—The world may pour contempt on our religion, and laugh us and our Christianity to scorn; but when the Father honours us at the last day, before the assembly of angels and men, we shall find that His praise makes amends for all.
—J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels (Baker Books, 2007) [Westminster (PB) | Amazon (HC)].
Oo-hoo-hoo! Look who knows so much, ah? Well, it just so happens that your friend here is only mostly dead. There’s a big difference between mostly dead, and all dead. . . . Mostly dead is slightly alive. —Miracle Max
I made passing reference last week to “kids who had at some point been talked into asking Jesus into their hearts or some such nonsense.” Having invited and received challenges to that statement, today I’d like to explain why I would say something so outrageous.
The fundamental question here is, “What must I do to be saved?” How you answer that question will depend on whether you are a synergist (God, through Christ, provides fully for your salvation, but you must cooperate in receiving it), or a monergist (man is neither willing nor able, God must do it all). I’ll begin by presenting both sides.
1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
—Ephesians 2
The monergist begins with the fact that the natural man is dead. He is not “mostly dead,” having some ability in himself. But aren’t we called upon to do something? When the Philippian jailer asked his famous question, Paul and Silas did not say, “Nothing! You’re dead! You can’t do anything!” did they? No, they replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:30–31). Surely, God has not commanded the impossible, has he? This should not be difficult to accept. Scripture intentionally makes it quite clear that salvation is impossible. First, we are told that justification is by faith (Romans 3:27–28, 5:1; Galatians 2:16; etc.). Then we are told that faith comes by hearing (Romans 10:17), but that hearing, we cannot understand:
But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.
—1 Corinthians 2:14
In other words, forget it; you’re out of luck. But wait! “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ.” Now we are no longer “the natural man.” 1 Corinthians 2:14 is not the end of the story.
But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. 15 But he who is spiritual appraises all things . . .
Does the one who has been “made alive together with Christ” now need to accept Christ or invite Jesus into his heart?
Yesterday was one of the hottest days of this relatively mild summer. In order to demonstrate that I can beat the heat, I caught a cold, along with the most painful sinus infection I’ve ever had. So there. Take that, rays of the sun desperately trying not to disappoint Al Gore. The down side to this victory is that I spent the afternoon and most of the night in such excruciating pain that I couldn’t think, and this morning staring vacantly into the space in front of me — which is all an excuse for not following upon yesterday’s “to be continued.”
Until I do, you have my permission to meditate upon this:
Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; 2 this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” 3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
The view of conversion that I am going to present today — that of accepting Christ or inviting Jesus into one’s heart — is not necessarily part of anyone’s official theology. It is simply common practice among every evangelical group with which I have experience, particularly the Lutheran denomination in which I was raised. In that church, it certainly is not dogma, and does not fit at all with what is taught concerning conversion. Just to be sure, I spent the morning scouring my Luther’s Small Catechism Explained in Questions and Answers by H. U. Sverdrup and found nothing like it. Yet, when evangelistic sermons were preached, it was walking the aisle time.
Here is how it worked:
The preacher would present a gospel that was, as I remember it, very Lutheran; that is to say, theologically sound. Then he would, it seemed, toss Luther and slip into fundamentalist Baptist mode. A very emotional appeal would be made, asking the listeners to consider whether or not they knew they were saved. Then came the pitch. The pitch could come in a couple of ways. It could be an invitation to come forward to the altar, where the presumed penitent would be led in a prayer of confession, a request for forgiveness, a confession of faith, and either a declaration of accepting Jesus as Savior or an invitation for him to “come into my heart.” Or, more often, the preacher would take a more seeker-sensitive route, sparing his listeners from the embarrassment of a public confession.
“Now, with every head bowed and every eye closed . . . Maybe you’re here tonight and you’re not sure you’re saved . . . If you’d like to receive Jesus as your savior, raise your hand. Just slip it up, no one’s watching you . . . Pray with me . . .”
Now, what’s wrong with that? What is wrong with a confession of sin, a plea for forgiveness, a confession of faith? The answer, of course, is nothing. These are necessary elements of Christian faith. And even if accepting Jesus or asking him into your heart is not required, what’s the harm?
The problem is that the message is false. Regardless of what might be preached from the pulpit on Sunday, or taught from the catechism on Wednesday, the message of the moment is that reciting a prayer saves. It’s the ultimate evangelical abra-cadabra. Say the magic words, and presto, you’re saved! Anyone can do it. You needn’t be born again (John 3:3), crucified and raised with Christ (Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 2:5–6), or have been given a new heart (Ezekiel 11:19; 36:26). All that will be accomplished by praying the prayer. This is what is known as “decisional regeneration,” and it brings us to two tragic consequences of this practice.
First, it draws many to the altar who have simply been manipulated by good salesmanship. They may be afraid of going to hell, or have been moved by the sufferings of Christ; they may have been sold on the benefits of being a Christian. They may have experienced a variety of emotions, without having been born again. Yet here they are, reciting the prayer, and being assured that they are now saved — that is, if they really meant it.
Which brings us to the second tragic consequence: the loss of assurance for those who truly have been saved. If my salvation hinges on a moment in time when I prayed a prayer, how can I know it’s real? What if I wasn’t sincere enough, what if I wasn’t sufficiently repentant? Am I ever perfectly, completely repentant? Is my faith ever pure? The answer is an emphatic No! So the more honestly I examine myself, the more I must doubt my salvation. Why must I doubt my salvation? Because, ultimately, I am trusting in something I did to get it, rather than what Christ did to secure it. And I am thinking of faith as something I need to have to get my salvation, rather than something I have because I have been raised from death to life, because I am no longer “natural” but “spiritual.”
I’ve had this conversation several times, and in the end, when the other party understands that a prayer doesn’t save, that there is no holy handshake to seal the deal, they still want to know what to do to get sinners across the line into the kingdom of God. You can’t just preach the gospel and send them home, can you? No, that’s not what I’m saying. I am saying that if we really believe that there is nothing we can do to be saved, that Christ has done everything, we’ve got to stop saying, “Now, do this . . .” Instead, say, “Do you believe that Christ has made satisfaction for your sin? Are you trusting in him alone? If so, then he is your savior. You can believe that your sins are forgiven, that you have been made acceptable to God.” Then, in place of the altar call, offer counsel to any who desire it. Teach them to pray biblically, confessing sin, seeking forgiveness. Encourage them in their faith, or continue preaching the gospel to those who still lack it.
Preach sin and death; preach Christ and the cross; preach faith and repentance. Give assurance to those who believe, and counseling to all who desire it. But please: do away with emotional manipulation. Do away with “every head bowed, every eye closed, repeat after me.” Trash those horrible revivalist gospel songs. Stop preaching for decisions, and start praying for transformations.
Addendum: I thought I had written something like this before. I was right.
I scanned my shelves this morning and counted Bibles. In my office alone, I found three reader’s Bibles, eight Study Bibles, one Parallel Bible, two Greek New Testaments, one Harmony of the Gospels, and one Harmony of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. If I lost all those, I could still find at least two complete Bibles and a couple of nearly complete Bibles in commentary sets, plus the Gospels, Psalms, and other books in various other commentaries. I also have a Douay-Rheims, a New World Translation, and an NIV parked between Charles Finney and Rick Warren, but I’m not counting those. Then there are the ten-or-so paperbacks I’ve got for giving away. If I went through the whole house, I’m sure I could find a dozen and a half more.
The point, as you’ve probably guessed, is that that’s a lot of Bibles. I admit that I seldom give much thought to this abundance of treasure. Only occasionally do I think of the history of the Bible — my English Bible, to be precise — and what it cost and who paid the price so I could have just one.
Five hundred years ago, men like William Tyndale paid the ultimate price to bring the Bible, in English, to common folks like me.
Having promoted the Reformation teachings of Luther, Tyndale had fled King Henry VIII and England and gone into hiding on the continent. Eventually, Henry was “inclined to mercy,” and an English merchant named Stephen Vaughn was commissioned to find Tyndale and ask him to return home to England. Vaughn, having found Tyndale, informed the King in a letter, “I find him always singing one note.” John Piper writes:
The thirty-seven-year-old Tyndale was moved to tears by this offer of mercy. He had been in exile away from his homeland for seven years. But then he sounded his “one note” again: Will the king authorize a vernacular English Bible from the original languages? Vaughan gives us Tyndale’s words from May 1531:
I assure you, if it would stand with the King’s most gracious pleasure to grant only a bare text of Scripture [that is, without explanatory notes] to be put forth among his people, like as is put forth among the subjects of the emperor in these parts, and other Christian prices, be it of the translation of what person soever shall please his Majesty, I shall immediately make faithful promise never to write more, nor abide two days in these parts after the same: but immediately to repair unto his realm, and there most humbly submit myself at the feet of his royal majesty, offering my body to suffer what pain or torture, yea, what death his grace will, so this be obtained. Until that time, I will abide the asperity of all chances, whatsoever shall come, and endure my life in as many pains as it is able to bear and suffer.
In other words, Tyndale would give himself up to the king on one condition—that the king authorize an English Bible translated from the Greek and Hebrew in the common language of the people. The king refused. And Tyndale never went to his homeland again. Instead, if the king and the Roman Catholic Church would not provide a printed Bible in English for the common man to read, Tyndale would, even if it cost him his life—which it did five years later.
Tyndale was forced to do all of his translating and writing as an exiled fugitive. Multitudes were tortured and killed for smuggling his books into England, or for simply possessing them. In 1535, he was befriended by an Englishman named Henry Philips. Philips, over several months, won Tyndale’s trust with the intention of betraying him. On October 6, 1536, at the age of forty-two, Tyndale was strangled and burned at the stake.
I make no apologies for the fact that I have certain litmus tests for those who would earn my respectful attention. For example, if an astronomer writes a book favoring geocentricity, I will automatically write him off as a nut. He will not be credible as an astronomer. Heliocentricity is (unlike — chuckle — global warming) an undeniable matter of fact.
Of far greater importance, and more interest to me, are theological litmus tests. I understand that there are disputable matters, but most of Scripture is quite clear, and there are some things that are beyond question. They are settled matters. If you can’t get them right, you will not earn my esteem as a teacher.
Consider Exhibit One: N. T. Wright. I picked up a copy of What Saint Paul Really Said because a friend was going on about how misunderstood he was, so I decided to give him a fair chance. I made it as far as page 22, in which Wright belittles ignorant boobs who still use Paul “to legitimate an old-style ‘preaching of the gospel’ in which the basic problem is human sin and pride and the basic answer is the cross of Christ.” Strike one (if you’ll forgive the sports metaphor) and two! That sin is the basic problem of mankind is a settled matter. That the cross of Christ is the answer — the only answer — is the gospel! Now I’m supposed to hear him out on justification? Love to, but sorry, I’ve got more pressing obligations at the moment. Now, where did I put that Sudoku book?
While Wright’s condescending attitude towards “old-style ‘preaching of the gospel’” is bad enough, more fundamentally erroneous is his über-intellectual approach to Genesis.
Watch this video from the theologically bankrupt BioLogos Forum (“[pseudo]Science and Faith[lessness] in Dialogue”).
According to Wright, the historicity of Adam and Eve and the days of creation is not important. These mythical stories are only true in that they represent whatever it is that really happened. This is where I would say “strike three,” except that the poor man is standing at the plate with a hoola-hoop instead of a bat. And this brings me to Litmus Test Number One: Can you get Genesis right? Can you manage to read the very first story in the Bible, in which God says, “I did this,” and believe that God did indeed do that? Or have you become so smart that you have no time for the obvious?
Unless some need for specific knowledge of N. T. Wright’s work arises, I won’t be reading any more. His credibility is irretrievably gone; not primarily because he blows it on justification, but because he couldn’t start at the beginning and get it right.
Now, here’s someone who can get it right, explaining why getting the opening chapters of Genesis right is so vitally important:
The Battle for the Beginning Genesis 1:1–31 Everyone knows that evolutionists and creationists dispute how the universe began. And regardless of which side of the battle line you’re on, most people harbor strong feelings about the issue of origins. Yet there are a host of important questions at the core of the battle that relatively few in either camp have bothered to ask—much less answer:
Why is the issue of origins so universally controversial?
How can creationists support biblical claims that so obviously seem to contradict modern science?
Whose side of the argument does scientific evidence support?
What roles should science and the Bible play in a person’s beliefs about the physical universe?
With the curiosity of a student and the precision of a veteran Bible teacher, John MacArthur takes you to the heart of the battle in his study The Battle for the Beginning. Based on an in-depth examination of Genesis chapter 1, The Battle for the Beginning takes you on an instructive, fascinating journey into the Bible’s own claims about creation, evolution, and the vital issues at stake.
Here’s another hymn that should be familiar to anyone (any American, at least) raised right. Cyberhymnal lists no less than seven tunes (and nineteen verses!) for this one. The one you will likely recognize, Azmon, composed in 1828, is certainly not the first used for this 1739 Charles Wesley hymn. Not surprisingly, the Concordia tune, Chesterfield, is nowhere to be found in association with this particular hymn. Oddly, while I remember singing this hymn in church, it was always to Azmon. Also odd is the fact that where I do find the Concordia tune, it’s not called Chesterfield, but Richmond. Curious, eh?*
The hymn is O for a thousand Tongues to Sing. It is well worth noting that, like the previous hymns, the subject of each verse is God and his glorious attributes. As you take note of that, contrast it with the many “worship” songs today in which God is the object and the singer is the subject.
10 O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing
O for a thousand tongues to sing
My dear Redeemer’s praise,
The glories of my God and King,
The triumphs of His grace!
My gracious Master and my God,
Assist me to proclaim,
To spread through all the earth abroad,
The honors of Thy name.
Jesus! the name that charms our fears,
That bids our sorrows cease;
’Tis music in the sinner’s ears;
’Tis life, and health, and peace.
He breaks the pow’r of reigning sin,
He sets the pris’ner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean;
His blood availed for me.
He speaks, and, list’ning to His voice,
New life the dead receive;
The mournful, broken hearts rejoice;
The humble poor believe.
Edwards also strictly regimented himself in the spiritual disciplines of the Christian life, such as Bible study, theological readings, meditation, prayer, and singing. Such spiritual disciplines are necessary for spiritual health; as Donald Whiney writes, they promote “intimacy with Christ and conformity (both internal and external) to Christ. For this reason, Edwards gave himself to spiritual disciplines with great diligence. We see a clear manifestation of this discipline in resolution 28:
28. Resolved, to study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly, and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.. . .I had then, and at other times, the greatest delight in the holy Scriptures, of any book whatsoever. Oftentimes in reading it, every word seemed to touch my heart. I felt an harmony between something in my heart, and those sweet and powerful words. I seemed often to see so much light, exhibited in every sentence, and such a refreshing ravishing food communicated, that I could not get along in reading. Used oftentimes to dwell long on one sentence, to see the wonders contained in it; and yet almost every sentence seemed to be full of wonders.
Hurrah for the flag of the free. 
[H]aving looked at Paul’s argument in Romans 1–4, we can see that at the heart of his proclamation of the gospel are the answers to four crucial questions: 
Skip forward to meet me, post conversion, at twenty, twenty-five, or even thirty, and then I’ve got some speech-making to do. The short version goes like this: “Shut up! You’re embarrassing me!” or, in a more patient mood, “Shut up! You think you know so much, but you’re ignorant, you’ve got a big mouth, and very soon you’re going to feel really stupid, so shut up!”
gaze, even we, 
The truth that is especially illustrated by the lives of these servants is that God’s strategy for breaking through Satan’s authority in the world, and spreading the gospel, and planting the church includes the sacrificial suffering of his frontline heralds. Again I emphasize, since it is so easily missed, that I am not referring only to the fact that suffering 
I assure you, if it would stand with the King’s most gracious pleasure to grant only a bare text of Scripture [that is, without explanatory notes] to be put forth among his people, like as is put forth among the subjects of the emperor in these parts, and other Christian prices, be it of the translation of what person soever shall please his Majesty, I shall immediately make faithful promise never to write more, nor abide two days in these parts after the same: but immediately to repair unto his realm, and there most humbly submit myself at the feet of his royal majesty, offering my body to suffer what pain or torture, yea, what death his grace will, so this be obtained. Until that time, I will abide the asperity of all chances, whatsoever shall come, and endure my life in as many pains as it is able to bear and suffer. 
