Last Sunday, I preached a sermon at Jubilee Church in our series on the book of Nehemiah. A video of it is now available to download. You can also download the mp3, listen to it right here, or read my notes below:

“Let me tell you about a most wonderful experience I had early Monday morning, March 19, 2007, a little after six o’clock. God actually spoke to me. There is no doubt that it was God. I heard the words in my head just as clearly as when a memory of a conversation passes across your consciousness. The words were in English, but they had about them an absolutely self-authenticating ring of truth. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that God still speaks today.

I couldn’t sleep for some reason. I was at Shalom House in northern Minnesota on a staff couples’ retreat. It was about five-thirty in the morning. I lay there wondering if I should get up or wait till I got sleepy again. In his mercy, God moved me out of bed. It was mostly dark, but I managed to find my clothing, got dressed, grabbed my briefcase, and slipped out of the room without waking up Noël. In the main room below, it was totally quiet. No one else seemed to be up. So I sat down on a couch in the corner to pray.

As I prayed and mused, suddenly it happened. God said, ‘Come and see what I have done.’ There was not the slightest doubt in my mind that these were the very words of God. In this very moment. At this very place in the twenty-first century, 2007, God was speaking to me with absolute authority and self-evidencing reality. I paused to let this sink in. There was a sweetness about it. Time seemed to matter little. God was near. He had me in his sights. He had something to say to me. When God draws near, hurry ceases. Time slows down . . .”

— John Piper

GOD DOES SPEAK TODAY! THROUGH HIS WORD!

Read Nehemiah 8:1-12

INTRODUCTION
Nehemiah has come, the wall has been built, and the opposition has been dealt with. It’s now time to begin to build the people. God not only rebuilds walls, but restores lives. Fixing the people—that was the real plan. God is less interested in walls and more interested in people. Building the people of God.

How do we go about building the people of God? Nehemiah knew that when it came to fixing lives, he wasn’t the man to do it. Even though he was the leader, he had a sense of teamwork, so he called for Ezra to bring the book, to open the book. Nehemiah realized that it wasn’t only the trowels that were needed; now the people needed to hear from the book of the Law. He made room for the preacher. He knew everyone had a role. He gathered a big group—50,000 people. And they came and listened to the Word of God for six hours! Why would they do that?

1. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE WORD OF GOD 2 Timothy 3:15-17
   “. . . from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.”

   What does that mean? First, this Book is holy. It also means it’s possible for it to save us. And it means it can equip us for everything God has for us. In order to be saved, there are some things we need to understand.

   Romans 10:9-17
   “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. . .So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”

   It’s not a man who will save us. Only Jesus can save us, and the way he saves us is through our understanding of what’s in this Book.

   Psalm 119:130
   “The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.”

   Romans 15:4
   “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

   Matthew 4:4 and Deuteronomy 8:3
   “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

   It sustains spiritual life and shapes our everyday life. Without it we will starve, have no hope, no endurance, no instruction, no wisdom, not be equipped for what God wants us to do, have no faith, and ultimately be foolish and unsaved!

2. HOW DO WE TAKE HOLD OF THE WORD OF GOD? People died in order that we can have this Book in our hands. People were killed just for owning this Book. The Reformation restored the Bible to the common people from the priests, who had maintained an exclusive right to it. And now, in our times, a generation is again emerging that is IGNORANT of this Book!How then do we take the Word of God in?
   • TAKE IT IN CHUNKS
     It’s good to have a system. Use a Bible-reading plan. Maybe have it read to you. Use the CD player in your car. I use Every Day in the Word. It provides OT reading, NT reading, Psalms, Proverbs—a varied diet. Not all meat for a month and no vegetables! Don’t worry if you don’t understand everything! Or use an iPOD (you can subscribe to it as a podcast). Take fifteen minutes a day and you will be able to read or listen to the entire Bible in one year. Don’t feel condemned if you miss a day.
   • PRAY AND MEDITATE ON IT
     Take a phrase and chew on it and pray it back to God. Mull it over. Let it emotionally impact you. Believe it. Ask God for the promises, believe the truths. Change in response to it.Psalm 119:15
     “I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.”

     It’s not just academic; it’s experiential, faith arises. Nehemiah does this in chapter 1 by praying back to God a verse from Deuteronomy—“God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments.” The advantages of meditation gets us up close and personal with the Bible. We can remind God of his promises. Mould ourselves to the Word.

   • STUDY IT
     Get a study Bible, such as the new ESV Study Bible. Use notes, commentaries, books, word study, Grudem’s Biblical Doctrine, Bible software, etc. God wants us to be those who labor at his Word. We work hard at our jobs, why not work hard so you can do the job of life? Don’t be tossed to and fro. Ezra knew that it was his job as priest.2 Timothy 2:15
     “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”

     Sometimes we don’t understand the Bible very well, and sometimes we have no shame in that fact. “Oh, I’m a “spirit person, I’m not a Word person.” But what did the Bereans do?

     Acts 17:11
     “They received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.”

   • SEEK HELP FROM OTHERS
     We need to study this Book, understand it, meditate on it, such that we won’t be blown away. Do we always understand it all? Sometimes we need others to teach us—our church, small groups, someone to lead us individually. In addition, listening to sermons, some perhaps repeatedly, may help our understanding.The Bible is not like normal food in the sense that we can’t get too much of it! We won’t become obese eating too much spiritual food.

     BUT, there is one danger, and that is the danger that we only read it, maybe even study it, maybe even become an academic expert on it, but somehow the vibrancy and the life of God’s Word doesn’t touch us, doesn’t impact us. If we are left untouched by God’s Word, there will be two main consequences in the life of the believer—we will be hearers of the Word, but not doers of the Word. The Word is about action, in our lives and in sharing the gospel. It’s about living in response to it. The second is that we wil become proud of our knowledge and be academic and dry, devoid of the Spirit.

     1 Corinthians 8:1-2
     “Knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.”

   • SEEK HELP FROM THE HOLY SPIRIT
     The goal is to KNOW GOD—not just to “know about” the Bible.Hebrews 4:13
     “For the word of God is living and active.”

     The Word has a power of its own, breathed into it by the Spirit who inspired it! We must read it, meditate on it, pray, study it, marinate it with the Spirit That’s the key. If we do that, the Word of God will make sense to us. THERE IS NO CONFLICT BETWEEN THE WORD AND THE SPIRIT!

     1 Corinthians 2:14
     The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

     We need the help of the Spirit to make it clear to us. It’s tragic that some Christians emphasize the Word, but don’t want to know about the Spirit, and other Christians emphasize the Spirit, but don’t want to know about the Word. It’s time to bring the Word and the Spirit back together. There’s never been a battle between them!

   • MEMORIZE IT and VALUE IT APPROPRIATELYPsalm 119:11
     I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.”

3. WHAT ARE THE EFFECTS OF THE WORD OF GOD?
   • THAT WE MIGHT NOT SIN
     That we will repent. That we will turn our backs on sin and obey God.

     John 14:15
     “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

     The Word adjusts conduct, character, and the course of our lives. Because we are on our way to heaven, we live in a way that is worthy of that calling.

   • TO DEFEAT THE DEVIL
     It’s like a sword in our hands. Ephesians 6 says, “The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” When Nehemiah built the wall, the workers had a sword and trowel in their hands.
   • TO BE THE ANSWER FOR ALL OF OUR PROBLEMS
     The Bible says to ask God for wisdom and he will give it to you—in marriage, relationships, sex, parenting, work, success, money, suffering, etc. We live in a lost world and the world doesn’t know where to go for guidance. But this Book has all the answers.

BUT sadly many Christians read all this and feel “I can’t do it.” MANY CHRISTIANS REMAIN IN THE PLACE OF CONDEMNATION. Many of us came to the same place that the people did when they heard Ezra reading the Law. They come to the place of sorrow and guilt. There was weeping. The Word shows us our sin. Pricks our deadened conscience back to life. Convicts us.

2 Corinthians 7:10
“For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation.”

The Word exists to bring us to the one who is called “The Word.”

John 5:39
“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me.”

Jesus is the hero of every passage in the Bible, even if you can’t see it at first. Every Scripture takes us to Jesus. Because of him, the Word can wash us clean. With the Word marinated by the Spirit we are converted. It’s the gospel that is the power of God to save us. Faith comes. We are born again.

It is so right when we listen to the words of this Book that sometimes we want to weep, we feel helpless, guilty, like we’ve messed up. May I suggest it’s because we have messed up? But God doesn’t want to leave us there. So many people go through life starting each day with “Oh God, I’m sorry for all the things I’ve done. Thank you for forgiving me, but I feel guilty.” And they go through all the sins they’ve committed. Not to say there is no place for confession, there is. But it’s interesting that the Lord’s prayer begins with “OUR FATHER . . .”

The Lord’s prayer doesn’t start with sin—it begins with the fatherhood of GOD. We need to relate to God as a father who has loved us, who has forgiven us, who sent his Son to take our place, to bear our punishment in order that we can be forgiven. He sees us as holy, as if we’ve obeyed every command in this Book. He sees us as if we never did anything wrong. When we understand that, a great joy should well up inside of us!

JOY TO KNOW WE ARE FORGIVEN!

JOY IN JESUS, NOT WORLDLY THINGS—He is the goal of the gospel.

JOY IN JESUS MAKES SIN LESS APPEALING.

SANDWICH MEAT versus SIZZLING STEAK!

JOY OF THE LORD.

Nehemiah 8:10
Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

CONCLUSION
The Word of God brings us through conviction to repentance, and through repentace to joy. Joy is not that everything is perfect, but rather it is a joy the world cannot take away since we know that in the end we will be with Jesus.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has now stated the obvious by finally agreeing with bankers that the world seems to be heading into a recession. It is worthwhile spending a few moments reviewing the reason we seem to be heading for the financial rocks. The answer is quite simple — as nations we owe too much. We are even seeing whole nations in danger of bankruptcy, as individual bankruptcy is becoming big business.

Centuries ago, the Bible understood that debt is something that should be avoided wherever possible. Proverbs 22:7 says: “The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.” Thus the Christian approach to money management, many Christian leaders have argued, is to avoid debt like the plague.

The West as a whole has ignored that advice. The real problem seems to be that even our rich banks have not been able to avoid the temptation to borrow money in order to make more money. It is astonishing that no regulator seems to have seen the danger since even the banks have become slaves to some nebulous thing called “wholesale money markets.” Robert Peston reported the staggering statistic that in the UK “net wholesale funding of our banks went from zero in 2001 to £625bn by the end of 2007.” When a market is your master rather than an individual, if the market changes direction, you are doomed, unless another master bails you out. Now, of course, many banks are slaves of the state and one has to ask how many truly independent banks will be left by the end of this storm.

We might ask why debt is such a problem. The answer is really quite simple, and increasingly even secular commentators are beginning to grasp this. Debt is a form of theft from ourselves. As one commentator put it:

“The world stole prosperity from the future year after year, with the full collusion of governments, regulators, and central banks. Now the future has arrived.”

— The Telegraph

I want to introduce you to a very unusual book by Mark Driscoll and his writing buddy and professor, Gerry Breshears. I would go so far as to say that this is a unique book in that I have never seen anything quite like it.

If their first book together, Vintage Jesus, was a light cheerful book that offended some by its use of humor and at times edgy topics for illustrations, this new book by these two men is more of a grungy, almost dark book. The video over at the ReLit site leaves you in no doubt that this is a book that will wrestle with darkness, pain, and even demonization.

Certainly this book represents just a tiny sample of the ocean of pain that a pastor of a large church has to handle over the years. Some neoliberals argue that people who believe in penal substitutionary atonement do not engage with the real suffering found in the world. This book demonstrates emphatically that in Driscoll’s case this is simply not true. Such critics also argue that the evangelical’s gospel can become overly narrow, eventually focusing solely on the “felt need” of the feelings of guilt many still experience. Guilt, however, is far from the only reason people come to Christ. The New Testament is full of helpful ways we can understand what Jesus did on the cross.

Without in any way softening his commitment to the centrality of Jesus taking the punishment of sin in our understanding of the cross, Driscoll is far broader in his understanding of and application of the cross to hurting people’s lives today. From convicted child molesters, to cheating husbands and raped women, Driscoll shares pen outlines of the destruction manifest in the lives of specific people to whom he has ministered. He then shows in a letter written to each individual how a specific aspect of what Jesus has done on the cross can bring wholeness and salvation to them.

This is a vital book that should be read by every Christian who is serious about reaching out with the gospel into this dark and damaged world. I will share a video of Mark speaking about the book, followed by an excerpt from one of those letters that particularly struck me. You will have to buy the book to see exactly how Driscoll and Breshears apply the gospel to Bill and his violent, abusive father.

“As a little boy you rightly felt angry at your dad, and that anger rightly compelled you to confront his injustice and protect the rest of the family. Therefore, anger can be a righteous virtue, which explains why God gets angry at sin too. The Bible is full of examples of God getting angry at sinners. A few examples will illustrate my point clearly, but a reading of Leviticus 26:27-30, Numbers 11:1, and Deuteronomy 29:24 for starters, speak of God’s anger as being hostile, burning, and furious.

Flaccid church guys will often accept that in the Old Testament God did get angry, but they will say that Jesus was a nice, emotionless, flaccid church guy, just like them, who chose a hollow, fake smile over anger every day. But even Jesus got angry, furious, and enraged . . . [Here Driscoll cites Mark 3:5 and Revelation 19, but one could also add Matthew 21:12-13, Mark 11:15-17, Luke 19:45-46, and John 2:13-17.]

In speaking of God’s anger, I want to be careful not to give permission for us to lose our temper and rage, because that is a sin—the very sin your father committed repeatedly. However, because God is perfect, his anger is perfect and, as such, is aroused slowly (Exodus 34:6-8), sometimes turned away (Deuteronomy 13:17), often delayed (Isaiah 48:9), and frequently held back (Psalm 78:38).

Furthermore, God feels angry because God hates sin (Proverbs 6:16-19, Zechariah 8:17). Sadly, it is commonly said among Christians that “God hates the sin but loves the sinner.” This is as stupid as saying that God loves rapists and hates rape, as if rape and rapists were two entirely different entities that could be separated from one another. Furthermore, it was not a divinely inspired author of Scripture but the Hindu, Gandhi, who coined the phrase, “Love the sinner but hate the sin” . . .

Regarding God’s anger and hatred, it is commonly protested that God cannot hate anyone because he is love. But the Bible speaks of God’s anger, wrath, and fury more than of his love, grace, and mercy. Furthermore, it is precisely because God is love that he must hate evil and all who do evil—evil is an assault on whom and what he loves.

Therefore, Bill, your anger toward and hatred of your father are justifiable and are the healthy response to seeing your dad beat the mother and siblings you love. However, in a mysterious conflict of deep emotions, you continued to love your father just as God continues to love unrepentant sinners whom he simultaneously hates . . .

I know this will be difficult for you to comprehend, Bill, but Jesus has fully experienced what you have, and much more. Jesus was mocked and beaten, though he was without sin. He willingly substituted himself for those he loved and wanted to save . . . ”

From Death By Love by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears, copyright 2008, pages 127-129. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.com.

The Doctor was given his nickname, I believe, not so much because of his medical degree, but rather because of the way in which he used his diagnostic skill to get to the root of the human predicament. This quote is a good example of that:

To fail to control ourselves means a loss of energy. These things can actually be measured. When I say ‘self-control’ I include controlling one’s temper, controlling one’s spirit. Have you ever seen a man trembling in a rage? What energy that man is wasting! He is emitting energy at a tremendous rate because he cannot control his temper, and his own spirit. And, of course, he is but as putty in the hands of the devil. When a man cannot control himself how can he possibly deal with the enemy? Discipline is an absolute essential in an army; it is one of the most important things of all. If an army is not disciplined it is already defeated, it becomes a rabble.

The Bible has much of this kind of teaching. It is a major theme in the Book of Proverbs. The wise man in dealing with this matter says: ‘He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty’ (Proverbs 16:32). What he is saying is that a man who is slow to anger, a man who can control his temper, is a much stronger man in the end than a mighty man who loses his temper. The second man is much mightier by nature, but if he dissipates and wastes his energy by failing to control his own temper he will lose the battle. This first man has nothing like the vital force and capacity, nor the strength of the second, but he controls himself; and a man who can control himself will often beat a man who is very much better at the task, and who has much greater strength, simply because he is reliable and steady.

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Christian Soldier: An Exposition of Ephesians 6:10 to 20 (Edinburgh; Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1977), 101. Also available electronically from Logos Bible Software.

NOTE
This photo of “the Doctor” is quite rare, according to Philip Eveson, principal of the London Theological Seminary, where this portrait hangs inside the Lloyd-Jones library. Although pastor of the Westminster Chapel in London for many years, the Doctor was originally born and raised in Wales, and he also pastored his first church in South Wales.

For more information on Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, see this summary post or the MLJ Recording Trust.

Yesterday, at two different times during the day, I was confronted with the idea of God granting success to people. The first time occurred while I was reading the story of David and Jonathan where, in one chapter, the idea is repeated several times.

1 Samuel 18:5 — And David went out and was successful wherever Saul sent him, so that Saul set him over the men of war. And this was good in the sight of all the people and also in the sight of Saul’s servants.

1 Samuel 18:14 — And David had success in all his undertakings, for the Lord was with him.

1 Samuel 18:15 — And when Saul saw that he had great success, he stood in fearful awe of him.

1 Samuel 18:30 — Then the princes of the Philistines came out to battle, and as often as they came out David had more success than all the servants of Saul, so that his name was highly esteemed.

Then, later in the day, someone reminded me of a verse in Nehemiah:

Nehemiah 1:11 — O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” Now I was cupbearer to the king.

In fact there are also several other examples of God giving success to his people and/or them asking him for it.

Psalm 118:25 — Save us, we pray, O Lord! O Lord, we pray, give us success!

Genesis 39:2 — The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, and he was in the house of his Egyptian master.

Proverbs 3:3-6 — Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you;
bind them around your neck;write them on the tablet of your heart.
So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him,and he will make straight your paths.

It struck me that those of us who believe in the sovereignty of God have a common temptation to react so strongly against “faith” teaching that we feel fearful to ever follow this biblical example and ask for success. But it really does seem that a mark of the Lord being “with” someone is this surprising success that seems disproportionate to a person’s natural ability. This is what the grace of God is all about. It means that God often chooses someone and plucks them from obscurity to be successful. It also means that we should not feel so shy about asking for God to grant us success.

God doesn’t grant such favor in order for us to be proud. Quite the opposite, because it is his to give and he makes us look better than we are, the glory goes to him alone.

1 Corinthians 1: 26-29 — For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

The 26th most read post on this blog is a set of results from a survey I conducted on sex.

The 25th most read post is a set of sermon notes from an old sermon of mine on finding the will of God for your life.

I am thankful today. It may not be my holiday, we may not have anything even remotely like it here in the UK, but as I said last year, I am very glad of the reminder this American holiday represents.

I know that at times I still have a sinful tendency to focus on things that are not going the way I want them to rather than to be thankful for everything that has gone well. I know that even after all these years of growing as a Christian, there are times when self-pity, criticism of others, and ungratefulness rear their heads. I know that in the corner of my heart their lies an area as yet not cleaned by the grace that is washing me day-by-day and making me more like Jesus. That area stubbornly refuses to learn that I am not the center of the universe. Neither will it accept that minor inconveniences to me are not worth getting upset about. It must continually be reminded that if I just learned to actually be more sincerely thankful rather than merely mouthing the words “thank you” in a ritualistic manner, my world would actually be a better place. So apart from all the other reasons I have to give thanks, my own selfish interests would be better served!

The truth is, we all find it hard to say a simple “thank you.”

My dear readers, I do want to thank you today so much for your patience and ongoing interest in these voluminous and persistent writings of mine which threaten to encroach upon your coffee breaks on a daily basis! I do value the time you invest. I appreciate your interest in the matters that interest me. I am grateful to God for his grace, which has meant that some of you find that investment of time to be at times helpful to you.

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One of the interesting things about blogging is the way it seems to go around in cycles. I suppose it’s partly because of the way blogging obviously reflects the rest of our lives. I know that, for me, my blog is just an extension of me. Many times my friends have to stop me when I’m talking to them and say, “Adrian, I’ve already read that on your blog!”

So it felt rather strange when I realized the odd coincidence that this Thanksgiving I’m again returning to a theme that was bubbling up in my thinking at the same time last year. This culminated in a post just days after Thanksgiving titled “Making a Minor Tweak to My Comments Policy.”

Interestingly, I had the same internal conflict then I find I have right now. On the one hand I was upset about some of the comments I received on the blog, and on the other hand I was thankful for many of the comments—”especially from those who disagree with me.” The real problem I face is that sometimes it’s really hard to decide which comments I am happy to publish and which ones I am not. It’s difficult to set any clear set of rules that can be understood by both me and you, my readers. Tone is in the eye of the beholder, as my recent debate with the Pyromaniacs clearly demonstrated.

Last December I realized that my earlier tweak had not been enough, so I made a major change in how I would deal with comments here. I now feel that the change I made last year is no longer adequate. It served me well this past year, but now it’s time for another radical change. My big problem moving forward is that, with all my other responsibilities, I am so busy that something has to give. I have decided that the time I spend making the often agonizing decision about whether or not to publish a comment (and which I probably sometimes get wrong) is going to have to be freed up.

So, at least for now, beginning today, I will no longer publish comments made on my blog posts.

What does this mean? Firstly, for the vast majority of you, it will make little or no difference. I know that only a tiny proportion of my readers even read the comments, let alone add to them. For some of you, though, this will be disappointing. Does this mean I am no longer interested in your feedback? Absolutely not! Does this mean I will stop reading e-mails sent to me? No! In fact, by freeing some time, it may even make it more likely that I can respond to an e-mail privately, or if appropriate and with the permission of my correspondent, on my blog itself.

I will still, as time permits, try to interact with those who disagree with me. I am not retreating into some kind of bunker! From time to time, I will also probably post a link here to such a post and answer it. I may even frequent the comment sections on other people’s blogs.

Why am I doing this? It’s mainly for my own sanity. It’s because I need to reclaim the time I currently devote to scratching my head in deciding whether or not to publish comments. I feel responsible for the words which appear here in the comments section. I obviously do not have any similar responsibility for what people might post elsewhere. I may well find myself quite happy to read even quite critical comments made elsewhere, whereas reading the very same words as a potential comment for publication here would make me anxious about whether or not I should accept it.

I am grateful for my interactions with you, my readers, which have helped me to understand so many things more clearly. It is therefore with some sadness that I now pull the plug on comments. Because of my current time pressures, it is better to stem the flow of comments now than to wait until I am engulfed in a major comment storm at some point in the future.

If you have made any comments you want to save for the future, please go in and copy/paste them, since at some point fairly soon I will be removing all the old comments also.

The following verse has influenced this decision, and I hope will continue to influence my blogging in these post-comment box days:

“The beginning of strife is like letting out water, so quit before the quarrel breaks out.” (Proverbs 17:14)

UPDATE
Not everyone is happy with my decision, as this post over at Peter’s blog demonstrates.

Today is remembrance day. It is the day which we hope ended war forever in the main countries of Europe. It is a day for silence, contemplation, and gratitude. The thought that strikes me is that what is true of nations is also true of individuals. We war and fight with one another, and just as a small event all those years ago erupted into a major war that engulfed the globe, so in our personal relationships small disagreements can spread and sour entire families. In personal relationships, as with war, we have to know when to confront, but also when to simply let a matter lie.

I was challenged again to think—how often do I simply overlook an imagined offence committed against me, and how often do I self-righteously believe I am helping another by pointing out their weaknesses? The Scriptures seem clear that we should overlook a whole lot more of these offences than it is our natural tendency to do. Let me share a few of them with you:

• The beginning of strife is like letting out water, so quit before the quarrel breaks out. (Proverbs 17:14)

• Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offence (Proverbs 19:11).
• The vexation of a fool is known at once, but the prudent ignores an insult (Proverbs 12:16).
• It is an honor for a man to keep aloof from strife, but every fool will be quarreling (Proverbs 20:3).
• Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8).

UPDATE
In January 2008, the following post was identified as the 20th all-time most popular post with readers of this blog. The 21st most popular post was my interview with Mark Dever.

This post introduced us to a remarkable new approach to a study Bible, brought to us by Crossway. In January 2008, I’m still working my way through this, reading it from cover-to-cover. I’m enjoying it very much.

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Crossway has made the preface of its new ESV Literary Study Bible available online. They have also made the text available for electronic purchase. I am very impressed with the introductions they offer to every passage in the Bible. I cannot recommend this highly enough. Too many Christians think that the literary study of the Bible necessarily implies that we do not believe it is inspired by God. This is, of course, not true. The Bible is, after all, a book. You will almost certainly find the comments in this new work totally different to those you have read in any other study Bible. As far as I know, this is the first truly literary study Bible.

Crossway has kindly given me permission to share the following extract here. It explains twelve literary features of the Bible which together make it unique:

1. A unifying story line.

   Although the overall genre of the Bible is the anthology of individual books and passages, the Bible possesses a unity far beyond that of other literary anthologies. The technical term for a unifying superstructure such as we find in the Bible is metanarrative (big or overarching story). In the Bible, the metanarrative is the story of salvation history—the events by which God worked out his plan to redeem humanity and the creation after they fell from original innocence. This story of salvation history is Christocentric in the sense that it focuses ultimately on the substitutionary sacrifice and atonement of Christ on the cross and his resurrection from death. The unifying story line of the Bible is a U-shaped story that moves from the creation of a perfect world, through the fall of that world into sin, then through fallen human history as it slowly and painfully makes its way toward consummation and arrives at the final destruction of evil and the eternal triumph of good.

2. The presence of a central character.

   All stories have a central character or protagonist, and in the overarching story of the Bible God is the protagonist. He is the unifying presence from the beginning of the Bible to the end. All creatures interact with this central and ultimate being. All events are related to him. The story of human history unfolds within the broader story of what God does. The result is a sense of ultimacy that comes through as we read the pages of the Bible.

3. Religious orientation.

   The subject of literature is human experience, and this is true of the Bible, too, but a distinctive feature of the Bible is that it overwhelmingly presents human experience in a religious and moral light. Events that other writers might treat in a purely human and natural light—a sunrise, a battle, a birth, a journey—are presented by the authors of the Bible within a moral or spiritual framework. Part of this moral and spiritual framework is the assumption of the biblical authors that a great conflict between good and evil is going on in our world and, further, that people are continually confronted with the need to choose between good and evil, between working for God’s kingdom and going against God.

4. Variety of genres and styles.

   Every literary anthology of the Bible’s magnitude displays a range of literary forms, but the Bible’s range may well top them all. We need to be alert to this, because the religious uses to which we put the Bible can easily lull us into assuming that the Bible is all one type of writing. The list of individual forms, if we include such specific motifs as the homecoming story or trickster or love poem, keeps expanding. (A complete guide to these literary forms as we find them in the Bible is Leland Ryken, James C. Wilhoit, and Tremper Longman III, eds., Dictionary of Biblical Imagery [Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1998].) The variety that we find in the Bible stems partly from the large categories that converge—history, theology, and literature, for example, or prose and poetry, realism and fantasy, past and future, God and people.

5. Preference of the concrete over the abstract.

   While the New Testament contains a great deal of theological writing, the general preference of biblical authors is for concrete vocabulary. This is especially true of the Hebrew language of the Old Testament. In the Bible, God is portrayed as light and rock and thunder. Slander is a sharp knife. Living the godly life is like putting on a garment or suit of armor. Heaven is a landscape of jewels. To read the Bible well, we need to read with the “right side” of the brain—the part that is activated by sensory data.

6. Realism.

   The prophetic and apocalyptic parts of the Bible give us a steady diet of fantasy (flying scrolls, for example, and red horses), but the general tendency of the Bible is toward everyday realism. The Bible displays the flaws of even its best characters (Oliver Cromwell famously said that the biblical writers paint their characters “warts and all”). Although the Bible does not delineate the sordid experiences of life in the extreme detail that modern literary realism does, it nonetheless covers the same real experiences, such as violence, murder, sexuality, death, suffering, and famine. Of course the Bible differs from modern realism by showing us that there is a realism of grace as well as a realism of carnality. In other words, the Bible is not content to portray the degradation of a world that has fallen into sin without also portraying the redemptive possibilities of a world that has been visited by the grace of God and is destined for glory.

7. Simplicity.

   Although the Bible is certainly not devoid of examples of the high style, especially in the poetic parts, its overall orientation is toward the simple. The prevailing narrative style is plain, unembellished, matter-of-fact prose. Shakespeare’s vocabulary is approximately twenty thousand words, Milton’s thirteen thousand, and English translations of the Bible six thousand. Biblical writers often work with such simplified dichotomies as good and evil, light and darkness, heroes and villains. Of course there is a simplicity that diminishes and a simplicity that enlarges. The simplicity of the Bible paradoxically produces an effect of majesty and authority.

8. Preference for the brief unit.

   Linked with this simplicity is a marked preference for the brief literary unit. Biblical poets tend to write brief lyrics, for example, not long narrative poems. Most long narratives in the Bible such as the story of Abraham or the Gospels are actually cycles of stories in which the individual episodes are briefer and more self-contained than what we find in a novel. The prophetic books are actually anthologies of self-contained oracles and snatches of narrative. Other familiar biblical genres reinforce this tendency toward simplicity—proverb or saying, parable, lists of individual commands or rules, summaries of what various kings did, occasional letters (epistles) in which the author responds to a list of questions that have been asked or a crisis that has arisen in a local church.

9. Elemental quality.

   The Bible is a book of universal human experience. It is filled with experiences and images that are the common human lot in all places and times. The Bible embraces the commonplace and repeatedly shows ordinary people engaged in the customary activities of life—planting, building, baking, fighting, worrying, celebrating, praying. The world that biblical characters inhabit is likewise stripped and elemental, consisting of such natural settings as day and night, field and desert, sky and earth. Even occupations have an elemental quality—king, priest, shepherd, homemaker, missionary.

10. Oral style.

    Even though the Bible that we read is a written book, in its original form much of it existed orally. This is true because ancient cultures were predominantly oral cultures in which information circulated chiefly by word of mouth. The literary forms of the Bible show this rootedness in an oral culture. The prevalence of dialogue (directly quoted speeches) in the Bible is without parallel in literature generally until we come to the novel. Everywhere we turn in the Bible, we hear voices speaking and replying. The spare, unembellished narrative style of the Bible arises from the situation of oral circulation of the stories. Additionally, many of the nonnarrative parts of the Bible show signs of oral speech—the prophetic discourses and oracles, the psalms (which were sung in temple worship), the epistles (which were read aloud in churches), and the Gospels (where the words of Jesus are a leading ingredient).

11. Aphoristic quality.

    An aphorism is a concise, memorable statement of truth—in the words of English poet Alexander Pope, “What oft was thought, but ne’er so well expressed.” The Bible is the most aphoristic book of the Western world. It is filled with sayings that are part of the common storehouse of proverbs and idioms: “pride goes before destruction” (Proverbs 16:18); seeing “eye to eye” (Isaiah 52:8); a “house divided against itself” (Matthew 12:25). This quality is present not only in the wisdom literature of the Bible, but in all parts of the Bible and most notably in the sayings of Jesus.

12. The literature of confrontation.

    When we read Shakespeare or Dickens, we find ourselves moved to agreement or disagreement, but we do not ordinarily feel that we have been confronted by someone or something that requires us to make a choice. By contrast, when we assimilate the Bible we feel as though we have been personally confronted with something that requires a response. While this choice is ultimately for or against God, the ideas of the Bible, too, require us to believe or disbelieve them. The Bible displays a vivid consciousness of values—of the difference between good and evil—with the result that it is virtually impossible to remain neutral about the ideas that confront us as we read the Bible.

Summary
Perhaps none of the twelve features noted above is unique in itself. But if we put them together, they produce a book that is unique. Reading the Bible is not just like reading another book. It has an affective power and aura of authority that cannot be duplicated. It possesses a quality of encounter that other books do not display, so that as we read we are confronted with the voice and presence of God and are virtually compelled to believe or disbelieve what we are reading. The Westminster Confession of Faith provides an apt summary of the things that make the Bible unique: “the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole [which is to give all glory to God], the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God.”

From The Literary Study Bible, copyright 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. For more information see also my previous posts on the ESV Bible.

The British and the Americans are at war once again. This time it is a more localized conflict than the War for Independence which, for a nation who has a history of over 1000 years, is really just yesterday. Fortunately the weapons of this latest war are words, although these are, of course, more deadly than nuclear bombs. (Proverbs 18:21)

We have American visitors at the moment. My kids are confused. They can’t understand why a room that has a toilet and no bed or bath gets called a restroom or bathroom. But that is nothing compared to what I have just discovered. I mean, an innocent conversation about a lorry overturning on a motorway/highway met with blank looks from my friends. So I tried calling it an articulated lorry, an HGV (heavy goods vehicle), even the odd-sounding word “motor truck” (on Google’s recommendation), and, of course, my favorite description of this type of vehicle—the juggernaut. None of this helped AT ALL. The blank looks continued.

The only way we could communicate was for me to say—‘OK, so you are at Walmart. A vehicle arrives to deliver goods for them to sell. What do you call it?’

The astonishing answer given by these two otherwise sane American girls (who are, incidentally, Christians of marriageable age and available—apply by e-mail to me for prescreening!) was “A TRACTOR-TRAILER!”

My wife and I are not just laughing out loud (LOL) or ROFL, we are CRYING! To me a tractor is a farm vehicle which tows plows, or yes, a farm trailer! Since when does an all-terrain farm vehicle have eighteen wheels?! Wikki is very clear in its definition of a tractor, and it sure isn’t something you would see very often on the roads.

Please, please, please, somebody help us! Give us a sensible name for the vehicle we have agreed to call (in the meantime) a big vehicle that is liable to jack-knife at midnight when the Warnocks are on their way home from holiday!

Stephen van Rhyn
Stephen is the Lead Elder of Jubilee Community Church in Cape Town, South Africa. He is married to Anna and has two young boys, Josh and Ben, and one daughter, Bethany.

See also Andrew Fountain’s notes from this talk, Leadership Lessons From Moses and Aaron.

Together On a Mission 2007 continues to have an impact as the talks are beginning to be made available on the Net. This talk from Stephen Van Rhyn (otherwise known as ‘the other guy’!) is one of the first two made available online for which you can order a CD.

He took us to Exodus 32. Stephen began by explaining that this story teaches us that leadership matters. There was a direct correlation between the spiritual health of the leader and the spiritual health of the people. What we do matters. When Jesus said the crowds were harassed and helpless, they had experienced tremendous healing where ALL were being healed. This was because the people had no leader. There is no leadership responsibility, however small, that is insignificant. The kingdom of God advances on delegated leadership.

The church advances as it multiplies leadership. We are called to plant growing vibrant churches, and if we are to achieve this, great senior leadership is not enough. We need depth — great leadership at every level.

Aaron was seduced by his own success. We need to remember that we all need help. Aaron forgot that he was there because of Moses, and fell into pride and deception. Proverbs 16:18 warns against pride.

Aaron abdicated his leadership. He tried to give the people what they wanted rather than seeking God. The people are leading and he simply implements the desires of the people. This attitude pervades the Church today — give people what they want, take a survey, etc. We should be courageously leading the people to do what is right in the sight of God. We need to love people enough to give them God’s best even if that is not popular. We cannot simply aim to entertain people and give them what they want!

Aaron called for God’s people to sacrifice the wrong things. They weren’t just sacrificing jewelery; they were sacrificing the Word of God and the presence of God. The ten commandments had already been given.

The Church is often reduced to an echo of the culture rather than a prophetic voice. We should be a thermostat, not a thermometer. Matthew Paris seems to understand the Bible more than many in the Church! We need to be those who have a submissive attitude to the Bible.

The presence of God was to be withdrawn. Moses wouldn’t settle for an angel. Christian maturity is an increased desperation for the presence of God. The gifts can mess up our carefully constructed worship services.

Stephen contrasts Aaron’s response to being found out in sin with David’s response. God can deal with sin, but wants us to own up to it. We cannot fool God. When we are honest we find a God who is slow to anger and delights to forgive us. We need to admit what we have done wrong to the God of grace.

Moses’ response indicated five things from which we can learn:

1. Moses sought God.

2. He wasn’t content with personal success at the expense of corporate failure — he didn’t take the option of destroying the people of God.
3. He didn’t stay static in the face of evil. One man can radically change a nation.
4. Moses called Aaron to account. Senior leadership cannot have an “anything goes” attitude. This saved him from destruction.
5. Moses led and lived for the glory of God.

This Piper Friday, I would like to share an extract with you from an old sermon by John Piper. It rightly entwines three themes that were flowing through my head (and hence this blog!) earlier this year: The study of God’s Word, prayer, and the activity of the Holy Spirit. I am increasingly convinced that we need these three things more than anything else! Oh, God . . . make us preachers to be men like this!

“The minister of the Word must not choose between study and prayer. Study without prayer is the work of pride. Prayer without study is presumption. This is what the Proverbs teach: “If you cry out for insight and raise your voice for understanding (that’s prayer), and if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures (that’s study), then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God” (Proverbs 2:3–5).

Prayer humbles the heart and gives it the tone of Christ and makes it ready and open and sensitive to the truth of Scripture. But it is study that brings in the truth and fills the heart with joy and power.

Meeting the Almighty God
The ministry of the Word is a ministry of prayer because in prayer the minister meets God and has real living dealings with the Almighty so that his preaching and teaching have the aroma of God about them. The ministry of the Word must be a ministry of earnestness and intensity, and where are these to be found if not in our private meetings with God where you learn to know if you are real or just playing games?

One great Baptist pastor, Hezekiah Harvey, put it like this in 1879: “Moral earnestness can never be assumed; it is the attribute only of a soul profoundly feeling the power and reality of divine truth. The man, therefore, who would speak God’s Word with the pungency and fervor of a Bunyan, a Baxter, a Flavel, or a Payson must, like them, be constant and fervent in prayer. The springs of spiritual life opened in the closet will pour forth never-failing streams of life in the pulpit.”

Without much prayer all the study in the world will leave us shallow and lean. Without prayer there creeps in what Richard Cecil called the “low, managing, contriving, maneuvering temper of mind among us.”

E.M. Bounds is right when he says, “What the Church needs today is not more machinery or more novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use — men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men — men of prayer.”

In the light of eternity, we are all beginners in the task of learning to love God. It is the most significant challenge faced by the Christian. When asked what is the greatest commandment, Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” It is a measure of our spiritual weakness that we see this challenge as somehow less critical than the challenge to live morally.

How can I love someone I have never seen? We may experience a form of “love” for a character we read about in a book or see in a movie, but is that anything like the love we feel for someone we actually know? Is our love for God just a form of admiration that we might feel for a hero in a novel or the long-deceased subject of a biography. God is not the long-dead subject of a book. He is a living, breathing Person. How then can we learn to love Him as a real person?

I am convinced that the way we learn how to love God is to think of our relationship with Him in the same way we do with people we can physically see. God wants us to be His friends and to enjoy loving the One who is the most worthy of our love. We grow in our love for God in the same way we grow in our love for anyone else. In this article I will show you ways in which we build our relationships with other people and then apply them to how we can learn to love God Himself.


Love Goes Beyond Mere Feelings
The first thing to consider is, what does love actually mean? Many people think that love is simply an emotional feeling — like the way you feel when your knees go weak when you meet that someone of the opposite sex for the first time. Too often songs and sermons tell Christians to relate to God as if He were their heavenly boyfriend. Not surprisingly, that picture is frequently not very appealing to men. As Mark Driscoll says, “It’s hard to worship someone you can beat up.” We must learn to love the real Jesus—not a weak imitation.

The contemporary concept of love is far from the biblical one. It is dangerous to think of love in merely emotional terms: Love is a “doing word,” a word full of action. It requires choices—hard choices sometimes. Love is about sacrifice, about faithfulness. It requires commitment. It doesn’t always feel so good, and sometimes may even be very painful. As Daniel Bedingfield sings, “Nothing hurts like love, nothing causes your heart so much pain.” Loving God is no different. It, too, will at times be painful.

The first step toward learning to love God is to respond to His love for us. We do this because of what He has done for us: “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Like any other covenant relationship, we decide to love irrespective of how we feel or, indeed, how it appears to us another person is treating us. The extent of true love for someone else is not measured by how we feel about him when everything is going well. Satan’s words could as easily have read, “Does Job love God for nothing?” (Job 1). Our challenge is to love even when we feel things are not going well — to love from the core of ourselves even when we feel despair attempting to take hold.

What is love? Love is a deep-seated orientation of your life towards someone else. It involves your whole being. It usually involves deciding to put the needs of another person before your own. Just ask any parent. Our relationship with God is no different, except that He doesn’t have any needs—we are needy. We come to God determined to centre our lives around Him, and to put ourselves in the position of needy recipients of His grace. He calls us to serve Him and worship Him, but it is not because He is deficient in any way. We come to God as receivers, not givers. We love God as little children love their parents, and serve Him in the same way a good mother will ask her child to help her in the kitchen so the child will learn and so they can be together.


Love Requires Spending Time Together
There are no shortcuts to loving someone. Love demands interaction and communication, and these require an investment of time. Imagine a friend who comes to you complaining about his girlfriend. He explains that their relationship just doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. You ask him how long they have been going out, and what their conversations are like. Your friend replies, “Oh, we don’t actually go out and talk with each other!” Many Christians spend little or no time with God and then wonder why they are not growing in their relationship with Him.

What does spending time with God look like? Clearly one of the most important ways we spend time with God is in prayer. But how do we pray in such a way that we actually feel that we are in the presence of God — that we are in a real conversation with Him? Prayer must not be merely reciting a shopping list to God. Instead of rushing to ask Him to do things for us, we start by praising Him for who He is and thanking Him for what He has done for us. As we do this and experience clear answers to prayer, just as in any relationship, more of a sense of a shared history with God will emerge and love will deepen. The longer we know Him and the more we remember how He has helped us and answered our prayers, the more we will love Him. But prayer is not only about setting aside special periods of time to be with God. It’s that sense of continually communing with Him in our daily routine. It is critical that we also spend time with God in repentance and receiving forgiveness. Jesus said that those who are forgiven much will love much (Luke 7:49).


Love Requires a Deep Knowledge and Understanding of the Other Person
There is no substitute for getting to know and understand God by reading the Bible. We must grow in the biblical knowledge of who God is and what He is like. Many Christians have only a vague idea of the character of God and are unable to identify where the Bible teaches what we assume about Him. To grow in our love for God, the Bible must shape our beliefs about God. I believe it is important that we know why we believe what we do, and that we do not merely parrot theories taught by others.

Do we merely “assume” certain truths about God? Unfortunately, not all of these can be assumed these days. Where C. S. Lewis was able to say, for example, “Everyone who believes in God at all believes that He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow” (Mere Christianity), we can no longer assert it as something generally understood by our culture. If we compromise on these truths and we end up with a God who doesn’t know everything or who isn’t all-powerful, our ability to love such a weakened God is severely diminished.

As we learn more about God—His glory, His perfection, and His existence as the Trinity—I believe our love for Him will grow. We can trace throughout the Bible the unique characteristics of God, and see how Jesus shares every one of these. It is said of Jesus that “in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9). He is the revelation of God to us. The more we learn of Him, the more we love Him.

We must understand God in all his transcendence and immanence. As the book of Exodus describes God: “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty” (Exodus 34:6-7). Many Christians emphasize one or the other of these aspects. It is only as we understand that God is both loving and holy, near to us yet separate from us, that we will learn to love Him for who He is. The following table will help you to allow the Scriptures to shape your understanding of God and the way that Jesus shares all of His attributes:

GOD EXISTS ETERNALLY
God: Psalm 90:2; Revelation 1:8
Jesus: John 1:1-5; John 17:5; Revelation 22:13

GOD IS LOVE
God: 1 John 4:8
Jesus: John 17:24

GOD IS THE CREATOR
God: Romans 11:36; Psalm 104:24; Acts 17:24-25; Ephesians 3:10
Jesus: Colossians 1:15-17

GOD IS OMNISCIENT – HE KNOWS EVERYTHING
God: 1 John 3:20; Hebrews 4:13; Psalm 139
Jesus: John 2:24-25; John 16:30

GOD KNOWS THE FUTURE
God: Isaiah 46:9-11
Jesus: John 13:19

GOD IS NOT BOUND BY TIME
God: 2 Peter 3:8; Psalm 90:4; Exodus 3:14
Jesus: John 8:58-59

GOD IS UNCHANGEABLE
God: Malachi 3:6
Jesus: Hebrews 13:8

GOD IS WISE
God: Romans 16:27; Psalm 147:5
Jesus: 1 Corinthians 1:24

GOD IS TRUTH
God: Numbers 23:19; Titus 1:2
Jesus: John 14:6

GOD IS OMNIPRESENT – HE IS EVERYWHERE
God: Psalms 139:7-10; Jeremiah 23:24
Jesus: Matthew 18:20

GOD IS OMNIPOTENT – HE IS ALL POWERFUL
God: Jeremiah 32:17; Ephesians 3:20
Jesus: Mark 4:41

GOD IS UNCONTAINABLE
God: 1 Kings 8:27
Jesus: Matthew 17:2-6

GOD IS LIGHT
God: 1 John 1:5
Jesus: John 8:12

GOD IS SPIRIT
God: John 4:24
Jesus: John 1:14

GOD IS HOLY
God: Psalm 99:9
Jesus: Luke 4:34

GOD IS RIGHTEOUS AND JUST
God: Luke 18:19; Matthew 5:48
Jesus: 2 Corinthians 5:21

GOD IS JEALOUS AND FULL OF WRATH
God: Nahum 1:2
Jesus: John 2:17

GOD’S WILL ALWAYS ULTIMATELY COMES TO PASS
God: Ephesians 1:11; Job 42:2; Proverbs 19:21; Psalm 115:3
Jesus: Matthew 28:18

• What is Love?
• What is God Like?

INTRODUCTION
There is a series of adverts on TV that arrests me every time I see them. You see someone crying, hugging a loved one. Your heart goes out to them, even before you begin to hear the words of the commentary. But then the commentary starts, and if you are a big softie like me, you feel like you are about to cry — even if you have seen it before. The person says “when I was diagnosed with cancer . . .” For the first few seconds you hear about the terrible impact those words had on the individual. You can picture them in the doctor’s room. Then, the voice says, “Today I was told I have my life back.” You suddenly realize that the person is crying for joy, not anguish, and in their tears a smile appears. You see the impact that a single sentence from a doctor can have.

We sometimes talk about “MERE words,” and yet SOME words mean everything — they can literally bring life and death. Words are powerful. They can steal away hope, and they can give it back again.

Words affect us all the time. I remember when I asked Andrée to marry me. I had shocked her by turning up earlier than she expected with a bunch of roses and a ring that I had designed. As I was kneeling there for what seemed like an eternity, first she laughed, then she cried, then she said, “No . . .” Fortunately, she meant this in disbelief rather than as a rejection! I just wanted to hear one word. That was all, one word. And if that word had been “no” and not “yes” I would have been a very different man!

If our words can feel like they take away life and give it back again, is it any wonder that God’s Words can do the same? It’s no wonder that Ravi Zacharias made the astute observation: “In the beginning was the Word, not video.”

I love the following quote: “. . . in OT times the word was regarded as being alive, and so was portrayed as being sent out of the heart (mind/brain/mouth) of a living person, to leap to the goal at which it was directed. Then, when it arrived, it did the work of the speaker who had sent it forth, for it conveyed the power of the speaker to change the heart or the mind of the hearer of the word.” [1]

We as Christians are a people who value words, although we live in a world that values image. Last week,at our joint celebration,we heard about how the image of God is actually described as the Word of God. It is hard to think of a stronger way that God could express Hs high view of “words” than that. The Bible — so-called “mere words” written down on a page — is what God has left us by which to know Him. The Bible is not God — we don’t worship it. But, as we read it, as we listen to it, the God of the Bible leaps off the page at us. These words shape us. They can save us. They teach us how to live, but more than that, they give us life.

Today we are going to look at God’s reviving Word. In revivals, a hunger for God’s Word returns. Sermons often become longer — sometimes lasting all day! (As an example of this, see Nehemiah 8 and 9). People cannot hear enough of God’s Word. Amazing things happen to people as they hear and read God’s Word during revivals. I could tell you story after story — but I won’t.

If we have learnt anything as we have been studying how God revives us, it is this — what is true of the multitude in a revival can be true of you and I, even outside of a revival. I am convinced that God wants us as a people to become more and more aware of just how God’s Word can revive us and help us become the people of faith we are convinced He wants us to be.

What does the Bible say about words, and God’s Word in particular? Those of you who have been with us for awhile may remember that during the series we preached on Proverbs there was a message on Proverbs 18:21 which says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.”

It is no wonder that the Apostles declared, “We will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” (Acts 6:4)

If there is one place in the Bible that honours God’s Word more than anywhere else, it is Psalm 119. It is the longest chapter in the Bible and it comes just two psalms after the shortest chapter in the Bible — Psalm 117 — which just so happens to be the middle chapter of the Bible. You will find it somewhere in the middle of your Bible.

BACKGROUND ON PSALM 119

• “of David” — a man who loved God “after God’s own heart.”

• He loved God’s law because it was God’s Word. He loved God’s Word because it showed him his God.

• For him, the Word of God was almost exclusively the law, and presumably Judges, Ruth, and maybe Job.

• If he can love these bits of the Bible that are only beginning to reveal God, we should love it all, since progressive revelation means that more comes later.

• An acrostic poem — “It consists of twenty-two strophes of eight lines each. Each strophe has the same Hebrew letter at the beginning of every one of its eight lines, going in succession, by strophes, from alef, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, as the first letter of each line in the first strophe, to taw, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, as the first letter of each line in the last strophe.” [2]

• Eight different Hebrew words are used to speak of the Law . . . The following Hebrew words are used: (1) torah (see “law” and comments, 1.2); (2) ‘eduth (see “testimony” and comments, 19.7c); (3) mishpat (see “judgment,” 7.6); (4) mitswah, always in the plural, except in verses 96, 98 (see “commandment,” 19.8c); (5) choq, always in the plural (see “decree” and comments, 2.7; “statutes,” 18.22); (6) piqudim, a plural form (see “precepts,” 19.8a); (7) dabar; (8) ’imrah (see “promises,” 12.6; 18.30). Torah is always singular and means the whole law of God, the Mosaic Law; dabar and ’imrah mean “word, saying,” and sometimes have the specific meaning of “promise.” The other words refer to rules or commands or instructions . . . All of these eight words are synonyms; they all refer to God’s Law as contained in the Mosaic legislation recorded in the first five books of the Scriptures. The Law is not seen as having a human origin, but always a divine origin; Yahweh is the author of the Torah. It should be noticed that in every one of the 176 verses in this psalm, God is either addressed or referred to.” [3]

• The Psalm in some way reminds me of the Proverbs, because it does not flow well — it is almost a collection of random words or sayings about God’s Word.

• WESLEY — “. . . the word of God is here called by the names of law, statutes, precepts or commandments, judgments, ordinances, righteousness, testimonies, way and word. By which variety, he designed to express the nature and perfection of God’s word. It is called his word, as revealed by him to us; his way, as prescribed by him for us to walk in; his law, as binding us to obedience; his statutes, as declaring his authority of giving us laws; his precepts as directing our duty; his ordinances, as ordained by him; his righteousness, as exactly agreeable to God’s righteous nature and will; his judgments, as proceeding from the great judge of the world, and being his judicial sentence to which all men must submit; and his testimonies, as it contains the witness of God’s will, and of man’s duty.” [4]

• SPURGEON – “I have been bewildered in the expanse of the One Hundred and Nineteenth Psalm . . . Its dimensions and its depth alike overcame me. It spread itself out before me like a vast, rolling prairie, to which I could see no bound, and this alone created a feeling of dismay. Its expanse was unbroken by a bluff or headland, and hence it threatened a monotonous task, although the fear has not been realized. This marvellous poem seemed to me a great sea of holy teaching, moving, in its many verses, wave upon wave; altogether without an island of special and remarkable statement to break it up. I confess I hesitated to launch upon it. Other psalms have been mere lakes, but this is the main ocean. It is a continent of sacred thought, every inch of which is fertile as the garden of the Lord: it is an amazing level of abundance, a mighty stretch of harvest fields. I have now crossed the great plain for myself, but not without persevering, and, I will add, pleasurable, toil. Several great authors have traversed this region and left their tracks behind them, and so far the journey has been all the easier for me; but yet to me and to my helpers it has been no mean feat of patient authorship and research. This great Psalm is a book in itself: instead of being one among many psalms, it is worthy to be set forth by itself as a poem of surpassing excellence. Those who have never studied it may pronounce it commonplace, and complain of its repetitions; but to the thoughtful student it is like the great deep, full, so as never to be measured; and varied, so as never to weary the eye. Its depth is as great as its length; it is mystery, not set forth as mystery, but concealed beneath the simplest statements; may I say that it is experience allowed to prattle, to preach, to praise, and to pray like a child prophet in his own father’s house? [5]

• EULOGIUM — “This Psalm is a prolonged meditation upon the excellence of the word of God, upon its effects, and the strength and happiness which it gives to a man in every position. These reflections are interspersed with petitions, in which the Psalmist, deeply feeling his natural infirmity, implores the help of God for assistance to walk in the way mapped out for him in the divine oracles. In order to be able to understand and to enjoy this remarkable Psalm, and that we may not be repelled by its length and by its repetitions, we must have had, in some measure at least, the same experiences as its author, and, like him, have learned to love and practise the sacred word. Moreover, this Psalm is in some sort a touchstone for the spiritual life of those who read it. [6]

• BARCLAY says of this word “Law”: “We must be clear, however, what the word law means in the original Hebrew. We have met it in earlier psalms where we found that it is the word Torah. We found that this word does not mean “law” in the classical Roman sense of lex which has formed the basis of our western legal system. Torah actually means “teaching”, so that it means teaching that has come out of the mouth of the Living God. When the disciple hears the words of his master’s teaching, he receives through it a revelation of what is in the mind of his teacher, and so here, of what is in the mind of God. Torah then means both teaching and revelation, in fact, both these at once—from God!” [7]

ON THE LAW
Although Psalm 119 is really about God’s Word in its widest sense, perhaps partly because so much of the Bible that David would have read would have been the law of Moses, he speaks many times about God’s law. David loves God’s law. This is a very different attitude to what we tend to have. So I cannot avoid giving a very brief introduction here to our view of the law. This is not a sermon about that — one day perhaps we will address this more fully — I did address some of this more in my talks on Galatians last year. But just to help us as we approach this psalm, let’s look at how we should view the law.

1. Our Attitude Toward the Law

   • We tend to rebel whenever we hear rules — e.g. “Don’t walk on the grass.” Law teaches us what sin is, and unless empowered by the Spirit, actually provokes us to sin more whilst making us feel condemned.

   • According to Paul, the law exists to lead us to Christ — to make us feel helpless so that we will seek Him for the free gift of salvation which is not dependent on what we have done, but what Christ has done.

   • Those who are Christians tend to say, “We are not under law, but under grace.”

   • Sadly many go one step further and do not want to read the law, nor do they value it as part of God’s Word for us today.
2. Jesus’ Attitude Toward the Law

• Is very different to the over-simplified view many of us have today. Listen to what He said:

• “Scripture cannot be broken.” (John 10:35)

• “For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” (Matthew 5:18)
3. The Solution

• God does want us to live righteously, and so the law does have a role for us.

• We are to see the law as revealing God’s character and making us fall in love with Him — actually much like David does in this psalm.

• As we fall in love with Jesus, our hearts change and we WANT to keep His commandments.

• Paul calls this the “obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5)

• Tim Keller puts it this way: “Religion is — I obey so I can be accepted. The gospel is — I am accepted so I can obey.”

So, with that bit of introduction over, let’s get into our text — Psalm 119. I think that, on the basis of that introduction, for our purposes in our studies we can replace the word “law” for the word “word” whenever we want to. The psalmist speaks about the law and word interchangeably because that was all he knew of God’s Word at that point. If the law was all David knew and he could say all these things about it, how much more should we be able to say the same things of the whole counsel of God, including the law that David knew? So let’s turn to Psalm 119.

You will be pleased to know that I am not going to read the whole psalm today, but I would encourage you, in your own time, to read it over several times.

We are going to pick out a number of verses from this psalm today which speak of the effects of God’s reviving word. What exactly does God’s Word do for us when we read and listen to it?

1. THE WORD OF GOD BRINGS REVELATION

   “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” (Psalm 119:18)

   The psalmist prays to God — and you will notice how much of this psalm is a prayer, if you like a prayer about God’s Word — he asks God to reveal Himself to him in His Word. He says something similar in verse 105: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”

   The last time I spoke, I mentioned that the Bible is clear that we are blind and cannot even see God without His help. We need God to shine into our hearts. Like the writer of that great hymn, “Amazing Grace,” the Christian is aware that “I once was blind, but now I see.”

   “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:6)

   We don’t see the face of Jesus today — how do we see Him? It’s in the Scriptures — that is the place for us to meet God! As we read and pray over the Words of this book, let the God of the Bible leap off the page at us!

   Notice that the revelation is about Jesus — Jesus makes this astonishing claim Himself.

   • “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me.” (John 5:39)

   Through the Scriptures, we are meant to hear God’s voice. Jesus says this — “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27) He means both spiritual guidance and the Bible — we hear His voice in the Bible. As we read the law, even then we see Jesus. He is revealed. The whole book is about Him.

   This experience of looking to Jesus, of revelation, is not a once-for-all experience. I am sure we can all think of moments when either listening to a sermon or reading from the Bible, it is like a light gets switched on in our heads – “I see it now”

   But as we begin to see Jesus there is something else that happens. Remember that God is a reviving God, as we have been saying. So is it any wonder that as we read God’s Word, it revives us? Let’s see what our next verse has to say.

   QUOTES

   • Chicago Statement — “God who is himself truth and speaks only truth has inspired Holy Scripture (HS) in order thereby to reveal himself…”

   • “Insight into the meaning of God’s law depends not only on prolonged study and meditation; it depends also on God’s guidance. So the psalmist prays, Open my eyes; only in this way can he discover the wonderful truths, or teachings, in the Law. It is God who will enable him to appreciate and understand the Law.” [8]

   • “The word of God is central to the life of God’s people. Our God is a God who speaks and it is the possession of that verbal revelation which marks his people off from all others on earth”. [9]

   • Wesley — “Enlighten my mind by the light of thy Holy Spirit, and dispel all ignorance and error.” [10]

   • Boston:
     1. “That there can be no sufficient knowledge of the duty which we owe to God without the scriptures. Though the light of nature does in some measure show our duty to God, yet it is too dim to take up the will of God sufficiently in order to salvation.

     

     2. That there can be no right obedience yielded to God without them. Men that walk in the dark must needs stumble; and the works that are wrought in the dark will never abide the light; for there is no working rightly by guess in this matter. All proper obedience to God must be learned from the scriptures.

     3. That there is no point of duty that we are called to, but what the scripture teaches, Isaiah. 8:20; men must neither make duties to themselves, or others, but what God has made duty. The law of God is exceeding broad, and reaches the whole conversation of man, outward and inward, Psalms 19; and man is bound to conform himself to it alone as the rule of his duty.” [11]

   • Boston — “The scriptures teach but externally. It is the Spirit that teaches internally. The scriptures externally reveal what we are to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man; but the inward illumination of the Spirit of God is necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the scriptures.”[12]

   • William Cowper — “If it be asked, seeing David was a regenerate man, and so illumined already, how is it that he prays for the opening of his eyes? The answer is easy: that our regeneration is wrought by degrees. The beginnings of light in his mind made him long for more; for no man can account of sense, but he who hath it. The light which he had caused him to see his own darkness; and therefore, feeling his wants, he sought to have them supplied by the Lord.” [13]

   • Spurgeon — “The light which they beg is not anything besides the word. When God is said to enlighten us, it is not that we should expect new revelations, but that we may see the wonders in his word, or get a clear sight of what is already revealed.” [14]

   • “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14)

2. GOD’S WORD REVIVES US

   Verse 25 — “My soul clings to the dust; give me life according to your word!”

   As we recognize our desperate state before a holy God, as we get to the end of ourselves, God in His grace comes to us by His Word and says “LIVE!” Again this is definitely referring to what happens when we become Christians — but it is also an ongoing experience of the Christian who immerses himself in the Word of God with prayer. There are a few other places in the Bible where this is also stated:

   • “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.” (Psalm 19:7).

   • “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4, Deuteronomy 8:3)

   • “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)

   We who are privileged to have a complete Bible in front of us should, like David, be always able to find a verse that will sustain us and give us that feeling of a life renewed when we are feeling low. If you are low in energy and life this morning, what do I have to offer you? I can give you a pat on the shoulder and some well-meaning words of support, or I can give you a lifeline from this Book. I know which I prefer!

   This life-giving force of the Bible is also described in a slightly different way in verse 28.

   QUOTES
   “Now we reach the key-word of the whole long psalm. It is the word live. Our biological life is a gift from God. We do not create it ourselves. The Torah, however, uses this word quite differently from Plato and the Greeks. For the Torah, God is the Living God. This Living God offers his children his life, and that is not mere biological life. “It is life in the Spirit, to which physical death has nothing to say.” [15]

   Spurgeon — “When there was so little Scripture written, yet David could find out a word for his support. Alas! in our troubles and afflictions, no promise comes to mind. As in outward things, many that have less live better than those that have abundance; so here, now Scripture is so large, we are less diligent, and therefore, though we have so many promises, we are apt to faint, we have not a word to bear us up.” [16]

3. GOD’S WORD STRENGTHENS US

   Verse 28 — “My soul melts away for sorrow; strengthen me according to your word.”

   God’s Word really is robust and strong enough for us to lean on it when we are feeling weak and depressed. I knew someone who suffered from depression who quite literally used to take God’s Word as though it were medicine three times a day. Over time she was strengthened and eventually did not require medication any more. Now, of course, depression can sometimes be biological, and that is not to say that antidepressants do not sometimes have their place. But, there is no doubt that God’s Word, if you let it shape you over years, will go a long way towards strengthening you and lifting you up.

   As I was preparing, I felt God drop into my heart that there were some here who have struggled with depression and feel that there is nothing you can do. You feel a failure. Well, I want to tell you that even great men of God like Elijah, and in modern history Spurgeon, suffered from depression, so you are not alone. But God would say to you today, there is something that you can do in addition to taking medication, if that is needed. You can feast yourself on God’s reviving and strengthening Word. It may take years — don’t expect a quick fix — but consistent exposure to God’s Word will help you — come and talk to us afterwards if this is you, and we would love to give you some ideas about which verses would be especially helpful for you to add to your daily medication list.

   There is another thought that came to me as I was studying these few words. For God’s Word to strengthen us reliably it has to be trustworthy and reliable — imagine, if you will, someone who says, “I will cover you” to Jack Bauer and then doesn’t — some today who believe the Bible has errors in it — we addressed this in our Bible study — but I want you to know this is God’s Word. If God doesn’t lie, then neither can His Word!

   • “The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.” (Psalm 119:160)

   • “Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)

   It is important that we fill our minds with God’s truth and not lies. That we focus on righteousness and not sin. That we — as Paul puts it — fill our minds with what is pure. In fact, as we read the Word, it begins to do something to us so that our appetites and desires change. The Word changes us, as we shall see in verse 37.

   QUOTES
   Berkouwer —”There can be no doubt that for a long time during church history certainty of faith was specifically linked to the trustworthiness of Holy Scripture as the Word of God … From its earliest days the church held that Scripture is not an imperfect, humanly untrustworthy book of various religious experiences, but one with a peculiar mystery” [17]

4. GOD’S WORD CHANGES US

   Verse 37 — “Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways.”

   It is interesting that it is mentioned here that God changes our eyes from looking on and valuing things we shouldn’t, and that it is “according to his ways” or words. But, we cannot ask God to do something like this for us and then do nothing about it ourselves! Job puts it this way: “I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?” (Job 31:1)

   Paul says: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (Philippians 4:8).

   This amazing change that happens on the inside of us — from desiring to look at sinful things and then commit sin, to desiring to do good — is called repentance in the New Testament. But it comes from the Word of God – it is God’s message that has the power to change us from sinners to saints.

   • “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” (Romans 1:16)

   Repentance is a gift from God — you may remember that verse in Elijah’s prayer that said it is God that turns us around. There are many others who say the same thing. And yet one of the paradoxes is that God also commands us to repent and “choose life.” The book of Acts, for example, is clear in its instructions to anyone listening who is not a Christian — you are COMMANDED to repent. Our problem is that we are commanded to do the impossible. This is why becoming a Christian is about coming to the end of yourself and asking God to help you. For those of us who are Christians, as we seek the face of God in prayer and in His word, there is a glorious promise for us.

   • “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (1 Corinthians 3:18)

   Seeking the face of God is a familiar theme in the Scriptures. We become what we eat. We become what we gaze on. Are you feasting on Jesus? As we think about seeing God’s very face, as we learn more about God’s holy character in the Bible, there is something else that should happen to us. Something that perhaps we don’t like to talk about so much, but it is something that is very much a hallmark of every revival I have read about. Let’s see what this is by reading verse 38:

   QUOTE
   Wolfgang Musculus — Notice that he does not say, I will turn away mine eyes; but, “Turn away mine eyes.” This shows that it is not possible for us sufficiently to keep our by our own caution and diligence; but there must be divine keeping.” [18]

5. GOD’S WORD PRODUCES A HEALTHY FEAR OF GOD
   Verse 38 — “Confirm to your servant your promise, that you may be feared.”

   We like the first half of this verse. We want God to fulfill His promises to us. There is great joy in seeing God’s promises fulfilled — in seeing God act. But it also has what may seem to us to be a surprising result. Like Peter, who fell at Jesus’ feet and said, “Away from me for I am a sinful man,” the activity of God reintroduces us to the very biblical concept of the fear of God.

   • ” … this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word …” (Isaiah 66:1)

   The thing that marks out historical revivals more than almost anything else is an outbreak of the fear of God. Even in my own experience of a mini-revival, there was something of a sense of the holiness of God which I have rarely experienced before or since.

   We see this in the Bible — last time I preached, I mentioned the case of Ananias and Sapphira. We pray “God, send us the experience of the book of Acts,” but do we include that experience? Not surprisingly, when they died it is said that great fear fell on the Church. There is a seriousness of God that is felt at those times. C.J. Mahaney once preached a whole series on everyone God killed in the Bible. Not surprisingly, perhaps it led to more salvation than they had seen up until that point, as well as Christians putting their lives straight.

   There is much joy in revivals experienced by the newly-saved and the long-time Christian, but there is also many tears experienced by those coming under conviction of sin who have not yet received salvation.

   Isaiah 6 is a good illustration of this. Isaiah comes face-to-face with God and says, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

   God is still the same God today and is definitely not to be messed with!

   God touches Isaiah’s lips to take away his guilt — only God can deal with guilt — and commissions him. Sadly for Isaiah, incidentally, he is commissioned into a period of time that was precisely the opposite of a generalized revival. He gets personally revived and is sent out to tell others who, he has been warned, will not listen. He must have really struggled with that. Somehow, though, even for Isaiah, God intended him to be full of hope.

   We see in verse 49 that hope is one of the outcomes of allowing God’s Word to come to us and joining it with our faith.

   QUOTES
   “The fear of God is distinct from the terror of him that is also a biblical motif (see FEAR). Encompassing and building on attitudes of awe and reverence, it is the proper and elemental response of a person to God. This religious fear of God is a major biblical image for the believer’s faith. In fact, there are well over a hundred references to the fear of God in the positive sense of faith and obedience. To “fear” God or be “God-fearing” is a stock biblical image for being a follower of God, sometimes in implied contrast to those who do not fear him. The very frequency of the references signals that the fear of God is central to biblical faith, and the relative absence of this ancient way of thinking in our culture should give us pause. It is important to note, however, that the preponderance of references occur in the OT, perhaps implying that a permanent change (though not an abrogation) occurred with the incarnation of Christ, who calls his disciples friends rather than servants (John 15:15).

   What images should we associate with this mysterious “fear of God?” The actions most frequently associated with fear of God are serving God (Deuteronomy 6:13, 10:20; 1 Samuel 12:24) and obedience to his commandments (Deuteronomy 31:13; 1 Samuel 12:14). The fear of God is linked to wisdom (Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 9:10, 15:33) and is part of the covenant between God and his people (Psalm 25:14, 103:17–18). To fear God is to be in awe and reverence of him (Ps 33:8; Malachi 2:5 RSV) and to trust him (Psalm 40:3, 115:11). Fearing God means hating and avoiding evil (Proverbs 8:13, 16:6). It is not too much to say that fearing God is virtually synonymous with having saving faith in him. Deuteronomy 10:12–13 is an apt summary of what is encompassed in the fear of God: “And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees” (NIV).

   The fear of God is a fundamental quality of those who have an experiential knowledge of who he is.” [19]

6. GOD’S WORD GIVES US HOPE

   Verse 49 — “Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope.”

   • See also verse 74 — “Those who fear you shall see me and rejoice, because I have hoped in your word.”

   • And verse 81 — “My soul longs for your salvation; I hope in your word.”

   • So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17)

   Hope is infectious . . . as is despair. We should surround ourselves with those who will instill hope into us! But our hope must come from the Scriptures and not a false whipped-up hope.

   I can speak personally about how this works. As I was a bit tired out before Christmas, I asked Tope for a break from preaching for awhile. This was a good thing as everyone needs a break from time to time. But I lifted my foot off the accelerator a bit regarding my study of God’s Word, and was also not praying as much — obviously when you are preparing to preach you study more and pray more. But what I found was that as my break from the hard work of preaching lengthened, my level of hope was slowly being reduced. I found myself feeling even quite fearful. I remember even having the thought come into my mind, “Perhaps I’ve forgotten how to preach.” But there were also a couple of personal situations where I was beginning to allow fear to have a foothold.

   So, how did I deal with this? Well, two things seem to have lifted me. The first was that I received prayer on Saturday morning. The second was that as I went back to a more rigorous Bible study program and begun to pray more, I found that hope began to return and fear subsided.

   It is God’s Word, soaked in prayer, that gives us hope, that lifts us, that gives us life!

   God wants us increasingly to be almost aggressive in how much we place our hope in His Word. Many prayers in the Bible remind God of His promises and almost “sue” him to act. I believe God responds to that kind of prayer — prayer that is mixed with God’s own Word.

   So far we have seen that God’s Word brings revelation, it revives us, it strengthens us, it changes us, as the great hymn says “it teaches our heart to fear,” but it also relieves that fear. Is it any wonder that this Word is so precious to the psalmist? What else is there that can do all this to us when we are troubled? What else can comfort us in all our troubles as we see in verse 50?

   QUOTES
   Spurgeon — “The argument is that God, having given grace to hope in the promise, would surely never disappoint that hope. He cannot have caused us to hope without cause. If we hope upon his word we have a sure basis: our gracious Lord would never mock us by exciting false hopes. Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, hence the petition for immediate remembrance of the cheering word.” [20]

   

   Richard Sibbes — “When we hear any promise in the word of God, let us turn it into a prayer. God’s promises are his bonds. Sue him on his bond. He loves that we should wrestle with him by his promises. Why, Lord, thou hast made this and that promise, thou canst not deny thyself, thou canst not deny thine own truth; thou canst not cease to be God, and thou canst as well cease to be God, as deny thy promise, that is thyself. ‘Lord, remember thy word’ ‘I put thee in mind of thy promise, whereon thou hast caused me to hope.’ If I be deceived, thou hast deceived me. Thou hast made these promises, and caused me to trust in thee, and ‘thou never fullest those that trust in thee, therefore keep thy word to me.’” [21]

7. GOD’S WORD COMFORTS US

   Verse 50 — “This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life.”

   What a wonderful verse that is! God comforts us when we are struggling because of His promises. When Mark Dever was trying to summarise the entire message of the Bible, he just said this — the Old Testament is “promises made” and the New Testament is “promises kept,” although, of course, we have plenty of promises kept in the Old Testament and made in the New Testament! We should get a hold of God’s promises and let them comfort us, revive us, strengthen us, and give us hope.

   God’s Word really is a comfort — not the latest gadget, nor the bottle, but His faithful Word. The more we see Him being faithful to His Word, the more we will find our faith rising within us. There are now only two more things that I want to address that the Word of God does for us. The first is, in a sense, a summary of all we have said so far. What does God’s Word do? It gives us grace. Verse 58.

   QUOTES
   Spurgeon — “The worldly man clutches his money bag and says, “this is my comfort”; the spendthrift points to his gaiety, and shouts, “this is my comfort”; the drunkard lifts his glass, and sings, “this is my comfort”; but the man whose hope comes from God feels the giving power of the Word of the Lord, and he testifies, “this is my comfort.” Paul said, “I know whom I have believed.” Comfort is desirable at all times; but comfort in affliction is like a lamp in a dark place. Some are unable to find comfort at such times; but it is not so with believers, their Savior has said to them, “I will not leave you comfortless.” [22]

   “What the Word has already done is to faith a pledge of what it shall yet do.” [23]

8. GOD’S WORD GIVES GRACE TO US

   Verse 58 — “I entreat your favor with all my heart; be gracious to me according to your promise.”

   GRACE is what we need to save us — so it is no wonder that Paul said to Timothy that the Scriptures are “… able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” (2 Timothy 3:15)

   It is interesting to see the way that Paul links wisdom and salvation there, for the last thing that I want us to address today from Psalm 119 is, in fact, wisdom. Or as the psalmist says, “good judgment” or discernment (verse 66).

9. GOD’S WORD GIVES US WISDOM

   Verse 66 — “Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe in your commandments.”

   Is it any wonder that the Jubilee membership course says the following:

   The BIBLE is the WORD OF GOD
   • The sole basis of our belief is the BIBLE. We believe that all Scripture is inspired by God and that it was given through men chosen by God.

   • We believe that the Bible, all sixty-six books, contain God’s revelation to man, and that the Scriptures are infallible and inerrant.

   • We therefore take all our teaching and insight for living from the Bible.”

     — Jubilee Church Membership Course

   “We don’t stand above the Bible, we stand under it.”

   — Tope Koleoso

Next time I speak to you, God willing, I intend to speak about how practically we stand under the Bible. I will leave you today with one verse that summarises what our response to all this should be:

• “They received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.” (Acts 17:11)

Let’s receive this reviving Word with all eagerness, and in every way, allow ourselves to be moulded by this wonderful Book God has given us. It’s the only Book that can give life, can save us, can show us how to live. It really is God’s reviving Word. AMEN.
________________

END NOTES
OT=Old Testament
[1] George Angus Fulton Knight, Psalms: Volume 2 (The Daily Study Bible Series, Louisville: Westminster, John Knox Press, 2001, c1982), p.223.
[2] Robert G. Bratcher and William David Reyburn, A Translator’s Handbook on the Book of Psalms (Helps for Translators,New York: United Bible Societies, 1991), p.996.
[3] Ibid.
[4] John Wesley, John Wesley’s Notes One the Bible, Ps 119.
[5] C. H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, Ps 119:1.
[6] Cited in C. H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, Ps 119:1.
[7] George Angus Fulton Knight, Psalms: Volume 2 (The Daily Study Bible Series,Louisville: Westminster, John Knox Press, 2001, c1982), p.215.
[8] Robert G. Bratcher and William David Reyburn, A Translator’s Handbook on the Book of Psalms (Helps for Translators, New York: United Bible Societies, 1991), p.1002.
[9] D. A. Carson, New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition (Revised edition of: The New Bible Commentary, 3rd ed. / edited by D. Guthrie, J. A. Motyer. 1970; 4th ed.; Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Illinois, USA: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994), Ps 118:24.
[10] John Wesley, John Wesley’s Notes On the Bible, Ps 119:18.
[11] Thomas Boston, Thomas Boston Sermons (Joseph Kreifels).
[12] Ibid.
[13] Cited in C. H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, Ps 119:18.
[14] C. H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, Ps 119:18.
[15] George Angus Fulton Knight, Psalms: Volume 2 (The Daily Study Bible Series, Louisville: Westminster, John Knox Press, 2001, c1982), p.226.
[16] C. H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David (Joseph Kreifels), Ps 119:25.
[17] G. C. Berkouwer, Holy Scripture (Translation of De Heilige Schrift; ed. Jack Bartlett Rogers; Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans Publishing. Co., 1975), p.11.
[18] Cited in C. H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, Ps 119:37.
OT=Old Testament
RSV=Revised Standard Version
NIV=New International Version
[19] Leland Ryken et al., Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (Electronic edition; Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2000, c1998), p.277.
[20] C. H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, Ps 119:49.
[21] Cited in C. H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, Ps 119:49.
[22] C. H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, (Joseph Kreifels), Ps 119:50
[23] Robert Jamieson et al., A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments (On spine: Critical and Explanatory Commentary; Oak Harbor, Washington: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), Ps 119:50.

“Some claim that penal substitution makes God guilty of injustice, inflicting punishment on an innocent man. Such a doctrine, they say, plainly contradicts the Scriptural teaching that guilty people, and only guilty people, should be punished: ‘Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent — the LORD detests them both’ (Proverbs 17:15).

Some who believe in penal substitution have replied by pointing out that Christ suffered willingly, or by noting that God gave himself in Christ to suffer in our place. But while these things are gloriously true, neither actually answers the objection. If guilty sinners are acquitted and an innocent third party is punished, then irrespective of his willingness an injustice has been committed, and it is unthinkable that God would do such a thing.

How are we to respond? The flaw in the argument is the unstated premise that Christ is unrelated to the believer, an unconnected third party. This is not true, for believers are in union with Christ — he is in us, and we are in him, indwelt by his Spirit (e.g. John 17:21; Romans 6:5; 8:1; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Colossians 1:27; Philippians 1:1). It is for this reason that the imputation of our guilt to Christ and his righteousness to us, his punishment and our acquittal, are just in the sight of God. The apostle Paul captures both sides of the exchange in a single verse: ‘God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God’ (2 Corinthians 5:21). “

As I return to blogging, I cannot help but think of a verse in Proverbs which haunts a chatterbox and prolific blogger like me. What implications does it have for us?  Does it mean we should write less and think more?  I suspect so!

“When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.” (Proverbs 10:19)

This is not a mere intellectual exercise, but has two goals:

1. To know, worship, and follow God more.

2. For our beliefs about God to be clearly grounded in the Bible.

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” (Deuteronomy 29:29)

Arguments for God’s Existence

• Intelligent design of the universe (teleological).
• God as the ultimate cause – that which came first (cosmological).
• The greatest being we can conceive (ontological).
• The presence of a universal basic set of ethics (moral argument).
• The spiritual nature of mankind – the mind/body problem.
• The God-shaped hole in all cultures.
• Christianity does people good (pragmatic argument).
• But . . . we cannot use our reason to prove God’s existence, for that would make our reason above God.

The Bible Assumes God Exists and People Know

• “In the beginning, God created …” (Genesis 1:1)
• “…his invisible attributes…have been clearly perceived…” (Romans 1:18-22)
• “The fool says in his heart, There is no God.” (Psalm 14:1)
• God is unknowable and invisible, but chooses to reveal Himself.
• “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways…” (Romans 11:33-34)
• “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12)

God Has Both Transcendence and Immanence

• Christians often emphasise one or the other.
• Jesus – the revelation of God.
• “…the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power…” (Hebrews 1:1-4)
• “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” (John 1:18)
• “Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him.” (John 12:41)
• “If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him … Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” (John 14:7-10)

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

• “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (John 1:1-3)
• “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:23)
• “You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” (Romans 8:9-11)
• “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4:6)

The Trinity Reflects a Chain of Authority

• “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.” (John 15:26)
• “But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.” (1 Corinthians 11:3)
• “The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.” (John 14:10)
• “God has put all things in subjection under his feet…when all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.” (1 Corinthians 15:27-28)

We Believe in One God in Three Persons

• “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” (Genesis 1:26)
  “…baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28:19)
• “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.” (Matthew 4:10)
  “I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God.” (Isaiah 45:5)
• Jesus accepts worship: “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28)
• “Let all God’s angels worship him.” (Hebrews 1:6)
• Jesus shares seventeen attributes unique to God – “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” (Colossians 2:9)

1. God is an Independent Community – Because of His Self-Sufficiency and Trinity, He Doesn’t Need Us!

• “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.” (Acts 17:24-25)
• He didn’t make the world because he was lonely.
• “God is love.” (1 John 4:8)
• Jesus: “Father . . . you loved me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17:24)

2. God is the Creator of Everything.

• God: “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” (Romans 11:36)
• Jesus: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:15-17)
• The Spirit: “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” (Genesis 1:2)

God created diversity

• “O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.” (Psalm 104:24)
• “…so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 3:10)

3. God is Eternal – He Always Existed

• God: “Before the mountains were brought forth or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” (Psalm 90:2)
  “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.’” (Revelation 1:8)
• Jesus: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:1-5)
• “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” (Revelation 22:13)
• “Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” (John 17:5)
• Spirit: “…through the eternal Spirit…” (Heb 9:14)

4. God is Omniscient – He Knows Everything

• God: “For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.” (1 John 3:20)
• “No creature is hidden from his sight…” (Hebrews 4:13)
• “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!” (Psalm 139:17)
• Jesus: “…needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.” (John 2:24-25)
• “Now we know that you know all things.” (John 16:30)
• Spirit: “For the Spirit searches everything…” (1 Corinthians 2:10-11)
• Psalm 139:1-6

God knows the future

• God: “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose . . . I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.’” (Isaiah 46:9-11)
• Jesus: “I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am.” (John 13:9)
• “God knows everything that ever was, everything that now is, and everything that is to be; all that is actual and all that is possible. Therefore God knows in advance all the free acts of all free creatures.” (John Edgren)
• “Everyone who believes in God at all believes that He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow.” (C. S. Lewis)
• Openess Theology denies this.

5. God is Not Bound by Time

• God: “. . . with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” (2 Peter 3:8)
• “For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.” (Psalm 90:4)
• “I am who I am.” (Exodus 3:14) or I am what I am, or I will be what I will be – God’s name Yahweh.
• Jesus: “Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.’ So they picked up stones to throw at him.” (John 8:58-59)
• Wayne Grudem: “God views the whole span of history as vividly as He would if it were a brief event that had just happened. But He also views a brief event as if it were going on forever. God sees and knows all events – past, present, and future – with equal vividness. Though He has no succession of moments, He still sees the progression of events at different points in time.”

6. God is Unchangeable

• God: “For I the Lord do not change.” (Malachi 3:6)
• Jesus: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8)
• God both does and doesn’t have regrets!
• “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me.” (1 Samuel 15:11)
• “The Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret.” (1 Samuel 15:29)
• But God does truly relate to us.
• “If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it.” (Jeremiah 18:7-10)
• John Piper: “So the repentance over Saul means not that he did not know what Saul would be like, but that he disapproves of what Saul has become and that he feels sorrow at this evil in his anointed king, and that he looks back on his making him king with the same sorrow that he experienced at that moment when he made him king, foreknowing all the sorrow that would come. For God to say, “I feel sorrow that I made Saul king,” is not the same as saying, “I would not make him king if I had it to do over, knowing what I know now.” God is able to feel sorrow for an act that He does in view of foreknown evil and pain, and yet go ahead and will to do it for wise reasons.”

7. God is Wise

• God: “. . . the only wise God.” (Romans 16:27, see Psalm 147:5)
• Jesus: “Christ…the wisdom of God.” (1 Cointhians 1:24)
• Holy Spirit: “. . . the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and under-standing, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.” (Isaiah 11:2)

8. God is Truth

• God: “God is not man, that he should lie…” (Numbers 23:19)
• “God, who never lies.” (Titus 1:2)
• Jesus “I am the way, and the truth, and the life…” (John 14:6)

9. God is Omnipresent – He is Everywhere

• God: “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence…” (Psalm 139:7-10)
• “Do I not fill heaven and earth, declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 23:24)
• Jesus: “ For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” (Matthew 18:20)
• But, it is not wrong to speak of God “coming.”
• “…we will come to him and make our home.” (John 14:21)
• “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send…” (John 15:26)

10. God is Omnipotent – He is All-Powerful

• “… Nothing is too hard for you.” (Jeremiah 32:17)
• “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think…” (Ephesians 3:20)
• Jesus: “Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?” (Mark 4:41)

11. God is Uncontainable

• God: “…heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you…” (1 Kings 8:27)
• Jesus: “…he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light…” (Matthew 17:2-6) (Building a tent to contain him was foolish!)

12. “God is Light.” (1 John 1:5)

• Jesus – “I am the light of the world.” (John 8:12)

13. “God is Spirit.” (John 4:24)

• Jesus “And the Word became flesh…” (John 1:14)

14. “God is Holy.” (Psalm 99:9)

• Jesus “I know who you are the Holy One of God.” (Luke 4:34)

15. God is Righteous and Just

• God: “No one is good except God alone.” (Luke 18:19)
• “. . . your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)
• Jesus: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

16. God is Jealous and Full of Wrath Against Sin

• God: “The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and wrathful…” (Nahum 1:2)
• Jesus: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” (John 2:17)

17. God is Sovereign – His Will Always Comes to Pass

• God: “. . . according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.” (Ephesians 1:11)
• “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” (Job 42:2)
• “… it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.” (Proverbs 19:21)
• “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.” (Psalm 115:3)
• Jesus: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” (Matthew 28:18)

But he is not responsible for sin.

• “God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one…” (James 1:13-14)

WHO IS JESUS?

Jesus Shares All the Attributes of God

• He was eternally one of the three persons in the Trinity. He is frequently described with the word “lord” which is used 6,814 times in the Septuagent for Jehovah/Yahweh. Jesus is also fully man and a real man’s man.
• “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him . . . the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1) “And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables.” (John 2:15)

Jesus Was Truly a Man

• He was born of a normal human mother.
• He “grew and became strong” (Luke 2:40) and “increased in wisdom and in stature
  and in favour with God and man.” (Luke 2:52)
• He was hungry.” (Matthew 4:2) and he said, “I thirst.” (John 19:28)
• He got “wearied” from a journey (John 4:6) and he slept. (Luke 8:23)
• He was not a “Clark Kent” figure only pretending to be vulnerable.
• There were things that Jesus, the man, did not know. “But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Mark 13:32)

Jesus Felt All Our Emotions

• He “marvelled.” (Matthew 8:10)
• “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The sceptre of your kingdom is a sceptre of uprightness; you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.” (Psalm 45:6-7)
• “Jesus wept.” (John 11:35)
• “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.” (Matthew 26:38)
• John Piper: “Jesus was fully human and fully God – he was not God with a human veneer – like a costume. He was a real flesh and blood man, a carpenter’s son.”
• Mark Driscoll: “It’s hard to worship someone you can beat up.”
• Wayne Grudem: “An infinite God came to live in a finite world. In Jesus, God and man became one person . . . For Jesus Christ was and always will be, fully God and fully man in one person.”

Jesus Remains a Man Forever

• “…a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have…” (Luke 24:38-43)
• “This Jesus…will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:11)

How Can Jesus be Both Man and God?

• Error 1 – A human body, but not a human mind or spirit – Mickey Mouse suit.
• Error 2 – Two persons in one body – circus “horse” suit.
• Error 3 – One new nature – neither God nor man! -Drop of ink in water.
• The Solution: Two natures, but one person (see Power Point for graphical images of these – thanks to Wayne Grudem for the illustrations!)

Some Things are True of Only One of Jesus’ Natures

• Jesus’ human nature ascended to heaven and is no longer in the world – John 16:28 “I am leaving the world.”
• But . . . his divine nature is everywhere present. -Matthew 28:20 “I am with you always.”
• Jesus felt weak and tired. (Matthew 4:2; 8:24; Mark 15:21; John 4:6), but in His divine nature He was omnipotent. (Matthew 8:26-27; Colossians 1:17; Hebrews 1:3).
• Jesus was 30 years old and existed from eternity!
• A false objection: “Omniscience and ignorance, omnipotence and impotence cannot coexist. The former swamps the latter.” (A.N.S. Lane)

The Two Natures and Jesus’ Death

• “. . . it is not correct to say that Jesus’ divine nature died, or could die, if “die” means a cessation of activity, a cessation of consciousness, or a diminution of power. Nevertheless, by virtue of union with Jesus’ human nature, his divine nature somehow tasted something of what it was like to go through death. The person of Christ experienced death. Moreover, it seems difficult to understand how Jesus’ human nature alone could have borne the wrath of God against the sins of millions of people. It seems that Jesus’ divine nature had somehow to participate in the bearing of wrath against sin that was due to us (although Scripture nowhere explicitly affirms this). Therefore, even though Jesus’ divine nature did not actually die, Jesus went through the experience of death as a whole person, and both human and divine natures somehow shared in that experience.” (Wayne Grudem)

A BIBLICAL SUMMARY – KEY VERSES

• “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty . . .” (Exodus 34:6-7)
• “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose . . .I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.” (Isaiah 46:9-11)
• “…who, though he was in the form of God …” (Philippians 2:6-11)

WHAT WE SHOULD SAY ABOUT GOD

• Together for The Gospel 2006
  -We affirm that the Bible reveals God to be infinite in all his perfections, and thus truly omniscient, omnipotent, timeless, and self-existent. We further affirm that God possesses perfect knowledge of all things, past, present, and future, including all human thoughts, acts, and decisions.
  -We deny that the God of the Bible is in any way limited in terms of knowledge or power or any other perfection or attribute, or that God has in any way limited his own perfections

• What does Jubilee Believe About God?
  -“Life in Jubilee Church can be summarised as: loving God, loving each other, and loving the world.” (Membership Course)
• Jubilee is a member of the Evangelical Alliance and holds to its Statement of Faith:
  “We Believe in . . .
  -The one true God who lives eternally in three persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
  -The love, grace, and sovereignty of God in creating, sustaining, ruling, redeeming, and judging the world.”

This God Chooses to Take Delight in Us!

• God: “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17)
• Jesus: “. . . who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame.” (Hebrews 12:2)

He Wants Us to Delight in Him!

• “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I will say, rejoice.” (Philippians 4:4).
• “Delight yourself in the Lord; and he will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37:4).
• “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.” (John 14:1)

CONCLUSIONS

• If we believe in a good, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present, all-wise, all-loving God who is in control of every detail of the universe and works it all out for our good, how can we not worship Him and trust Him with our future?
• When we know God better, we become more like Him.
• “And we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)
• “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord.” (Psalm 27:4)
• “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.” (Jude 24-25)

I preached the next sermon in our series on proverbs this morning. The message can be downloaded on the Jubilee Church London website or listened to right here in this embedded player thanks to odeo

UPDATE:  Tope Koleoso has more recently preached on alcohol, and speaks about his experiences having grown up in tetotal African Christianity.

Prov 23, Jer 2:13, Prov 14:27, 1 Cor 6:9-20, Eph 5:15-18, John 7:37
This chapter is about discipline – children mentioned in there but we can only discipline our kids to the extent that we are disciplined ourselves.

We see here that far from the modern advice to let it all hang out and pursue our rights for pleasure the writer is telling us to be careful of our appetites – and to tame them – to discipline them. He uses drink as an illustration of this –

The Evils of drink

The writer of proverbs asks us to consider what one must pay for excessive drinking -
Woes, pain, confusion, bruises, desperation – “give me one more drink”!

22% of UK men and 9% of women drink over the recommended amounts and are at risk of alcoholism and alcohol related sickness
Deaths due to Alcohol in the UK doubled in the last few years –
4,144 in 1991 to 8,380 in 2004 plus road deaths

What are you drinking?
Its not just drink….

• -88,800 deaths due to smoking in 2004
• In Great Britain in 2005, 72 per cent of current smokers aged 16 and over reported that they wanted to give up smoking, with health reasons being the most common reason given for wanting to stop.
• Almost 1 in 5 teens have taken drugs in the last year – significantly more than smoke, and just a little less than drink
• Drugs
• Porn
• Spending money

BUT ALSO seeking after anything other than God for ultimate fulfilment and pleasure:-

“for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. (Je 2:13).

• What is it that I believe I cannot be happy without?
• What is it that I crave?
• What is it that I believe I must have?
• What is it that I spend most of my spare time thinking about?
• What is it that I most worry about losing?
• What is it that I seek my happiness in the most? (or to use older language delight in?)
• What do I love more than God?

(Taken from John Piper) I added one more

• What is the one thing I am thinking of right now that he cant possibly mean

What keeps us drinking?
-Sense of need – the wine/cigarette/whatever is my friend- HAS A CONVERSATION WITH US – some friend! Give it a chance and it will steal all your money, take all your time, break up your marriage, cause others to look at you with contempt, make you stink, give you diseases, kill you and condemn your soul to hell!
“Be killing sin or it will be killing you.” John Owen
-Pleasure
-denial
-helplessness

How to STOP drinking
-recognise the extent of the problem
-Turn to Jesus – AA “higher power … helpless…”
Prov 14:27 “The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, that one may turn away from the snares of death”
1 Cor 6:9-20
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be enslaved by anything. “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. … Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

CAN YOU GLORIFY GOD WHILST WATCHING PORN WHILST DRINKING TO EXCESS WHILST SMOKING?

WRATH IS COMING – TURN TO GOD TO HIDE FROM HIS WRATH IN HIS SON

Then, having believed in Jesus, then what?
-just DO IT or rather DON’T DO IT!
- practical steps – flee, etc.. you CAN stop as you aren’t doing it right now!
God COMMANDS US to repent!

Legalism vs fleeing from sin – the decision needs wisdom for the alcoholic it is obvious….even for some who have not been alcoholics…

2 christian approaches to drink that are acceptable depending on the individual, their personal beliefs and situation – abstinence and moderation. Asked Tope and Stuart, both happy as our elders for people to hold either position – just NOT to be drunk or addicted!

Personally at different points of my own life I have lived by both approaches and I hold my current position on this issue very lightly – I would change in an instant if I felt it appropriate.

Someones story I found “I haven’t touched alcohol since January 1st, 1996. I don’t plan on touching it ever again. Several different reasons affect this decision. First, with Christ in my life, I have no need to fill the emptiness with drinking like I used to. Second, I do not want to give in to temptation and have that demon control my life again. Even though I have faith in Christ, I am aware that the flesh can be weak. I also am concerned that taking up drinking again could fall into the category of testing God. Third, I have friends who drink, many times to excess. I want to show them that life with Christ is the only dependency I need. I know and am the first to address that the Bible does not tell us to have a zero-tolerance for alcohol. Everything in moderation. That’s why I don’t tell anyone that they can’t drink. For some people who I recognize as having a problem I will suggest they explore why they drink so much. This is my question: Can someone who is an alcoholic but has not had a drink since before baptism ever reach a point in life where he or she can have a glass of wine with dinner and treat it as if drinking a soda, glass of tea or water?”

MY REPLY TO THAT QUESTION – “I am sure that there are some recovered alcoholics who learn to be able to drink in moderation, I just haven’t met any yet. Every successful dry ex-drinker I have met abstains totally.”

Same principle for all addictions. If you are not addicted but know you are seeking your joy in something good, a temporary fast can be of help….

NT puts it this way….

Eph 5:15-18 Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”

1, Be wise/careful
2. Do not get drunk – instead be disciplined (opposite of debauchery)
3. BE FILLED (or be being filled!)
4. IT’S A COMMUNITY THING – NOT AN INDIVIDUAL THING….

BUT more then that need to FILL self with something else….-DRINK from another fountain – fear of the lord is a fountain of life….

All sins are attempts to fill a void – if you are full of Jesus far from a void you will have a fountain inside welling up to bless others!
don’t get drunk get filled

“..when the soul is exercised to communion with Christ, and to walking with him, he drinks new wine, and cannot desire the old things of the world, for he says “The new is better.” He tastes every day how gracious the Lord is; and therefore longs not after the sweetness of forbidden things, — which indeed have none. He that makes it his business to eat daily of the tree of life will have no appetite unto other fruit” John Owen. Temptation (144).

“Would you want to watch a football game where all the players were no better than you? Or watch a movie where the actors could act no better than you and were no better looking than you? Or go to a museum to see pictures by painters who could paint no better than you?” Why are we willing to be exposed in all these places as utterly inferior? How can we get so much joy out of watching people magnify their superiority over us? The biblical answer is that we were made by God to get our deepest joys not from being superior ourselves but from enjoying God’s superiority. All these other experiences are parables. God’s superiority is absolute in every way, which means our joy in it may be greater than we could ever imagine.” PIPER

“On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said,  ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ “ (Jn 7:37).

When you have a river flowing from inside of you, self control becomes easy!

Hi, my name is Adrian Warnock and I am a blogaholic…it’s been three days since I last posted on my blog …

Yes, I know posts have been appearing in this time, but I cheated by writing them earlier and having my editorial assistant publish them and post a couple of links whilst I was away!

Anway, despite my addiction to the written word, I am a great believer in the power of the SPOKEN word. I believe that there is a reason why the Bible says that faith comes by HEARING the word of God.

As such, I want to give you today two great clips from John Piper – one audio and one video. They are both fairly short excerpts, and it will take just a few minutes of your time to listen to them both. Between them, they could change your life forever. They have the power to impact you emotionally and spiritually in a way that merely reading the words would most likely entirely fail to do. It really won’t take long to listen/watch. Please, take up my challenge and do so!

But just before I share these with you, I would also like to open the opportunity to you, my faithful readers, to comment on this post over the weekend in one of the following ways:

• To link to a quote or excerpt from a Piper sermon that you have loved.

• To share a quote or thought that these Piper quotes spark in you.
• To talk about or quote from any source that discusses how we can make Christ our source of pleasure and how to wean ourselves from the pathetic idols that this world offers us – drink, drugs, sex, food, money, power, and the rest.

OK, so the main reason for this request is that I plan to speak on Proverbs 23 and Ephesians 5:15-18 at the weekend, and I am wondering if there is anyone out there who wants to suggest any thoughts that might be helpful! There’s no shame in asking, is there? Some prayers would also be greatly appreciated!!

Just so you know (if you don’t already) it is quite okay to add a link to a related site here in my comments section – just type something that looks like the following <a href=”http://www.yourlink.com/text.htm”>Here is my link</a> into your comment.

Anyway, back to these two clips which could change your life. I pray the Holy Spirit will grip you as you listen to them. The first comes from the recent DGM conference and may be of some interest to you as during it Piper refers to Driscoll in a very positive way. Listen to this one first (just right click on the word listen and click save if a normal left click doesn’t work.

Enjoy that? Well, here comes the video. When you have watched this, I will give you the links for the transcript, and better yet, the full audio and/or video of both sermons!

Well, again, I hope you liked that! The transcripts and further media files for both talks are available at Desiring God. I do hope you now want to go and read/listen/watch the first as well as the second. Then, when you have done so, please don’t forget to come back and contribute to my open blog mic – perhaps you might just share a snippet that will help me prepare!