It has been in my experience that when I am most sorrowful for the sinner, I love him the most, and I am moved to plead for him before the throne of the Most High Judge. We are often uncomfortable around the carnal man. His words offend our sensibilities. His ideas counter our convictions. As he converses, obliviously and ignorantly, we begin to see his heart. As a man speaks, so he is. Why do our hearts sometimes despise him? Do we hate him? Why does he anger us? It is here that we see our hearts. It is easy to see the sins of others; it is more difficult to see our own. Hatred, jealousy, bitterness, wrath, backbiting, slander, and gossip are carnal works. They proceed from an unloving, wicked, and impure heart. If one wishes to break this heart, he must know the love of God in the gospel. Consider the following passages of Scripture:
Elisha looks at the messenger Hazael and begins to weep. He experiences great sorrow for the sinner:
And he fixed his gaze and stared at him, until he was embarrassed. And the man of God wept. And Hazael said, “Why does my lord weep?” He answered, “Because I know the evil that you will do to the people of Israel. You will set on fire their fortresses, and you will kill their young men with the sword and dash in pieces their little ones and rip open their pregnant women.” And Hazael said, “What is your servant, who is but a dog, that he should do this great thing?” Elisha answered, “The Lord has shown me that you are to be king over Syria.” Then he departed from Elisha and came to his master, who said to him, “What did Elisha say to you?” And he answered, “He told me that you would certainly recover.” But the next day he took the bed cloth and dipped it in water and spread it over his face, till he died. And Hazael became king in his place. (2 Kings 8:11-15)
Elisha wept because he knew the great sins that Hazael would committ. What sorrow the man of God will experience! He weeps because he loves.
Note, next, the way in which Jeremiah weeps for the wicked Israelites who recieved the just recompense for their unbelief:
Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! (Jeremiah 9:1)
Note next the way in which Paul spoke to the Philippians about the enemies of the cross:
For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. (Philippians 4:18-9)
He speaks of the enemies of the cross with tears! Do we?!
Note next the way Lot related to the sinners around him in 2 Peter 2:7-8:
and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard)
Lot was greatly distressed by the conduct of the wicked; his soul was tormented by what he saw and heard. Do our souls feel a tormenting weight and sorrow for a lost world?
Note next the language of the Pslamist in 119:136, 158:
“My eyes shed streams of tears, because people do not keep your law.”
“I look at the faithless with disgust, because they do not keep your commands.”
The Psalmist has a great zeal for the Lord’s law. Tears fill his eyes when it is broken. Do we share in his heart?
Indeed, there is a real hatred for sin in the Christian’s soul, even as his hatred is tempered by love for the sinner’s soul. It is not some fuzzy love stripped of all justice and righteousness. It is a perfect love, the kind of love that comes from God (1 John 4:7-8). No Christian can say he loves God if he does not love the wretched sinner. For so was the Christian in times past! (Ephesians 2:1-7; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11)
Application:
The key to loving the sinner and hating the sin is to know the heart of God. Do you know his heart? Perhaps, you just know his mind. Perhaps, you just know his truth but walk ignorantly of his person. The man who has not the heart of God will become a Pharisee with his doctrine. Meditate, therefore, heavily upon the love of God in the gospel. Love is from God, and thusly, he sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10). You were not looking for God, but he was looking for you. You were not loving God, but he was loving you. He demonstrates his love for you in the gospel, even when you were still a sinner. You who have been enlightened by the gospel: Walk with grief-stricken joy, and love the heathen around you. He knows not what he does.
Whoever . . . has tasted of the love Christ, and has known, by his own experience, the need and the worth of redemption, is enabled, Yea, he is constrained, to love his fellow creatures. He loves them at first sight; and, if the providence of God commits a dispensation of the gospel, and care of souls to him, he will feel the warmest emotions of friendship and tenderness, while he beseeches them by the tender mercies of God, and even while he warns them by his terrors.
As to your opponent, I wish, that, before you set pen to paper against him, and during the whole time you are preparing your answer, you may commend him by earnest prayer to the Lord’s teaching and blessing. This practice will have a direct tendency to conciliate your heart to love and pity him; and such a disposition will have a good influence upon every page you write. . . . [If he is a believer,] in a little while you will meet in heaven; he will then be dearer to you than the nearest friend you have upon earth is to you now. Anticipate that period in your thoughts. . . . [If he is an unconverted person,] he is a more proper object of your compassion than your anger. Alas! “He knows not what he does.” But you know who has made you to differ.
Working with you for sorrowful love,
Vince R.
For the past week, I have been meditating on Psalm 73:1. It is my spiritual goal to meditate on one verse of this Psalm each week until I finish it. I want to share some of my meditations with you.
Psalm 73:1 “Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.”
There is a longing in us that wants to believe in a benevolent God. We want to believe that God is good–all the time. Even when we hear the age old question: If God is so good, why does he let evil happen?, we still cling to the promise the Scripture gives of God’s omnibenevolence.
But why is it so hard to believe sometimes?
Asaph wrote Psalm 73. He doubted God’s goodness. This desperate poem and song to God truly meditates on the real experience of doubting God’s goodness. Verse one openly proclaims the truth that Asaph has come to doubt. It also answers the question I just proposed. Why is God’s goodness hard to believe? Because our hearts are not pure. I see two things that this verse communicates, both explicitly and implicitly.
1.) God is good, specifically in the person and work of Christ.
There is no doubt that the scriptures declare his goodness uniformly and specifically. Psalm 136 is the text of the congregational song of Israel. It repeats this phrase in its first verse: “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.” It is the phrase that the people of God sing to him when they meditate on his wonderous deeds. Psalm 118 describes this as well. The Psalmist who wrote the longest chapter in the Bible declared it completely: “You are good and do good; teach me your statutes” (119:68). When Moses pleaded to God to show him his glory, this is how the LORD answered him:
“I will make my all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The LORD.” And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy” (Exodus 33:19).
In the New Testament, Jesus chastizes one man for calling him “good teacher.”
“Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone” (Mark 10:18).
It is the apostle John, however, who ties the encouter that Moses had with God with Jesus. He makes it clear that Jesus was not denying his own deity in Mark 10:18, but he was rather pointing out the heart of the man who approached him, for this man cared little about the goodness of God. Though Moses couldn’t see God (Ex. 33:20), Jesus is described as the only one who seen God and can perfectly reflect him.
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth…And from his fulness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (John 1:14, 16-8).
John doesn’t so much emphasize the Mosaic law (condeming man) and Jesus (liberating man) as he is emphasizing God’s glory being made known perfectly in the person of Jesus Christ. “He has made him known.” It is here that we are given the undeniable truth that Jesus is the good God spoken of in the Old Testament.
Indeed, Christ’s miracles manifested his glory (Jn. 2:11), but most specifically, God’s glory in Christ is made known when evil men do not believe in him.
“Though he had done so may signs before them, they still did not believe in him, so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: ‘Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?’ [Isa. 53:1] Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said, ‘He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them’ [Isa. 6:10]. Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess, so they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God” (John 12:43).
It was that frightening vision of God’ s glory in Isaiah 6 that changed, justified, and atoned for Isaiah. It is here that John makes it clear: Isaiah saw Jesus Christ. “He is the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Heb. 4:3). “…the glory of Christ, who is the image of God…the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:4, 6). Every bit of God’s glorious nature is found in Christ. Most especially, God’s goodness is found in Christ. If we look at 2 Corinthians 4:1-6, we see that the glory of God is found in his gospel.
This is the way the writer of Hebrews describes God’s good for his people-
“But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:11-12).
It is because of God’s goodness in the giving of the Son that we have “an eternal redemption” paid for “by means of his own blood.” This is the ultimate way God is good to his people. He gives us his Son so he can bring us to himself. He wants his goodness to be known to his people, so he provides the way for them to experience it. Notice how Jeremiah prophecies of this giving of the Son as the means by which God will finally dwell with his people:
“And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and soul” (Jeremiah 32:38-41).
God is good to his people-with all his heart and soul. This is amazing! But notice this passage’s emphasis on the heart. “I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing them good…” He even speaks of giving his people “one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever.” It is in this sense, then, that we see what God’s goodness does to our hearts.
2.) God’s goodness makes us pure in heart.
If God has nothing but good for his people, and this is most specifically manifested in the gospel, we must consider what the gospel does to us. “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God“ The way in which we draw near to God (and this is the climax of Psalm 73) is through the gospel. The gospel purifies our hearts and thusly allows us to see God the clearest. Matthew 5:8 says it this way: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” There is a direct tie between purity of heart and seeing God for who he is. Note how the apostle John puts it:
“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 John 3:2-3).
The very appearance of God (as he is) and the fervent meditation of God (as he is) inevitably leads to purity. Being near to God thus equals purity of heart. The apostle James says this:
“Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double minded” (James 4:8).
Conclusion:
Thusly, I think we see from Scripture that God’s goodness both demands purity and supplies what it demands. This is grace so amazing! By being close to God and considering him for who he is, the heart is purified.
Application:
If in those times of doubt, when you speculate and intellectualize over the goodness of God with a heart of unbelief, you are committing grievous sin. God’s goodness is not subject to your belief. Your belief is subject to his goodness! God is good to his people. Though evil surrounds you and doubt fills your minds, the goodness of God is not compromised. Your purity is compromised! Hoping in him as he says he is will result in a pure heart.
This has tremendous implications for our holiness because anytime we sin we demonstrate that we are 1.) impure in heart, 2.) far from the true and revealed God, 3.) doubtful of whether or not God is good. Anytime we sin we demonstrate that we doubt if God’s way (of holiness, godliness, honor, integrity, blamelessness, pleasure) is good. It is a heart of unbelief.
God says he is good, and though you cannot now see every way in which his goodness is made known to you, you must hope in him as he says he is. But behold the manifold ways he has revealed his goodness! Have you forgotten the wonderous deeds of the Lord in your life? Have you spurned his blessing of life? Have you begrudged his blessing of family, friends, food, home, and other providences? There is always a reason to give thanks. But if, by some wise and gloriously good plan of God, you have nothing but loneliness, hunger, homelessness, persecutions, and sword, have you spurned God’s ultimate good blessing? Have you forgotten the gospel? He gave his Son! Is that not enough for you? If you, like Asaph, wonder if God is truly good to Israel, you must examine your heart, for it is not God who has ceased to be good, it is your heart that has ceased to be pure.
Fly to the gospel and thusly purify your hearts. What love the Father has made known to you in Him! His goodness and glory washes you from all uncleanliness and unbelief. Purify yourself, and wash your hands by drawing near to God, meditating on who he says he is.
I leave you with four truths from St. Augustine that have helped me:
1.) God always enables that which he commands.
“Lord command what you will, and will what you command.”
If he says to believe him, he will create that in your heart. Plead with him until he makes his goodness pass before you!
2.) Our hearts will never rest until they rest in God as he has reavealed himself to be.
“Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.”
You will have a wayward, tossed, double-minded way about you until you rest finally in the truth of God’s goodness.
3.) Our love for God is compromised when we love anything apart from him.
“He loves thee too little who loves anything besides thee which he loves not for thee.”
God goodness wants you to enjoy his blessings. God’s goodness also wants you enjoy them for him. His goodness will thus take that from you which will result in your losing sight of his goodness. He gives! But he will take away, and this is his goodness, kindness, and mercy. Remember, however, that there is one thing God cannot take away: His promises in the gospel. Find your love for God in this love he has for you.
4.) To truly experience the goodness of God, we require one thing: Humility.
“If I should be asked what is the first thing in religion. I would say that the first, second and third thing therein is humility.”
Doubt and speculation are not admirable. Humble and contrite hearts that tremble at his word is what God looks to. Carnal speculation and fleshly intellectualism do not impress God. He does not command your theodicy; he commands your humility.
Working with you for purity,
Vince R.
God Himself Will Teach You: The Forgotten New Covenant Promise
December 16, 2008
John 6:48 "I am the Bread of Life."
“Jesus answered them, ‘Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me–not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
John 6:43-51
These verses struck me. God himself teaches his people because he reveals himself in Christ. They whom he has called will not suffer from spiritual starvation. They have Christ. This is one of the most often forgotten promises of the New Covenant. [Jeremiah 31:33-34]
“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.’”
Any disciple of Christ knows God. He needs no mere man to disciple him, for God himself will do it. Many years ago the visible church engaged in a movement in which they decided that the biggest problem with the church was a lack of discipleship. No. The problem with the visible church is a lack of true conversion.
Beware the man who says that God’s church is divided and failing! God’s church is intact, flourishing in faith and growing in godliness. The man who says that God’s church is failing has called God a liar. For God himself has said that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. The Body of Christ is being washed in the word by her bridegroom to be presented before him without spot or blemish or any such thing.
Any man who knows God is a member of that body. That man will be taught by God. God will provide the means of grace whereby he will learn of him. Can you not find those means? Ask him for it! Are those means your idols, substitutes for the Savior himself? A religious and theological education is a shameful substitute for the fellowship of the Great Shepherd.
The true convert is driven to the bread of life, himself. Are you driven to that bread? Before he longs for the counsel of wiser men or women in Christ, he desires the counsel found at the feet of his Lord. Indeed, he cannot help but go to him for his sustenance! Are you starving for godly counsel? Why! Go to the Lord and ask of him who gives to all liberally and reproaches us not.
Any man who calls himself a Christian and yet can live his life without feeding on God has profaned God’s name and that man’s conversion is false.
God’s man eats of Christ’s flesh thoroughly and joyfully, and he grows thereby. He smacks his lips with the fulfillment of his soul for God himself has taught him of Christ. The heavenly manna from God has fallen at his feet. He eats it and goes forth in God-wrought obedience to the word of life. Where a man eats of Christ’s flesh, he will grow into the fullness of Christ’s stature. To keep people from going out the back door of our churches, teach them of Christ and even more, teach them how to go to him themselves. Christ’s blood bought your personal fellowship with him, and no man can do it for you. Christ deserves no less than that for which he paid. Indeed, we are foolish when he look to the sweet results of another man’s fellowship with God rather than the results of our own. Ask yourself: Are there any results at all? or Are you the mouthpiece for other men’s walks with God?
Repent and go to him who has bought you so he can teach you himself. Drink deeply of the milk of the word, that YOU may grow thereby. Christ, at the end of these verses, makes this issue a gospel issue. Indeed, that is the root of all starvation. We starve when the gospel is not enough for us. “If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
His flesh was broken for you, just as the bread. Eat of that flesh which was given for you, and believe on him as your only hope of sustenence and salvation. There is no other way to live.
Working with you to eat Christ’s flesh and to walk in the abundance of life,
Vince R.
Worshipping In Tune with the Standard
May 1, 2008
Like I recently said, I want to pick up the guitar. I tried the other night, yuck! It’s so out of tune after all these years. My piano is out of tune somewhat too so that doesn’t really work. I’ll wait, then, until I find someone else who is closer to that “standard” of proper tuning to which we can both conform. Hmm, sort of made me think of Tozer…
“Has it ever occured to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshippers meeting together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become ‘unity’ conscious and turn their eyes from God to strive for closer fellowship.” -A.W. Tozer, Pursuit of God
You want to get closer to your brother or sister in Christ? Why don’t you both ponder the Lord? That’ll help.
Working with you to tune together to that great Standard,
Vince R.
Working Out and God’s Glory: How I lost 78 lb.
March 31, 2008
Similar to Jared of the Subway commercials, I was fat. At a whopping 240 lbs, I was unhealthy, unfit, and unnaturally round. I was not depressed or low on myself, but I did know the facts. I was about 70 pounds over weight. That is not being a good steward of my body.
How, then, and why did I drop the weight?
Mostly, it was a resolution: ”I resolve to drop it,” said I. But it was not so simple as that. People often ooh and aah over the picture that still remains in the lobby of my dormitory when I first came to college with my large stature. They look at me now, and they are impressed. “It must of taken a lot of discipline.”
Yes, it did. But that is not how I did it. No, I am not going to give some grand and overly stated workout plan that will help you complete a similar accomplishment. That is vanity. What I will tell you is eternal.
God is passionate about his glory.
“So, whether, you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” 1 Corinthians 10:31
In those long lonely days in the Fall of 2006 (oh my, has it really been almost two years?), I took my anxious and uncomfortable college experience out on myself. I pummelled my body daily, and not completely the way Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians 9:27. It was more Martin Luther than Paul. It was not good all the time.
Only one meal a day, only one helping per meal. Was it healthy? No.
Did it work? Yes, but that is not the point. The point is this: I was lonely. I needed a way of getting by each new day. That is the truth. It was way for me to get through a difficult time.
So why did I do it? Well, of course, I was unhealthy and overweight, but I was also needing a way to escape.
Jogging will do that for you, especially when you have an introspective and independent way about you like me.
Think about it:
You run from your problems on that treadmill. They disappear behind you as the miles pass away on the digital panel in front of you recording their progressive passage. They wash away with the ounces of sweat that flood your brow and dampen your shirt. It was karthartic to see myself in the mirror in front of me, staring deeply into my own dark brown eyes and saying, “I mortify you now.”
The guy in the reflection merely retorted with the same.
Everyday for eight long months, when people went to dinner, I went to the Young Mens Christian Association, a.k.a. the YMCA, to crush my anxieties under my steady pace. That is how it happened.
But was it godly? That is the question.
The answer to that is yes and no.
When I was consumed with anxiety, frustration, pride, vanity, and arrogance over the state of my body, over the numbers decreasing on that white digitial scale in the corner near the mirror on the right side of the cardio room, over the foods that I ate, over the compliments people shared, then was I ungodly.
Did you see that?
I was ungodly.
But….
When I was consumed with thanksgiving, God-entranced work ethic, God-centered discipline, God-enamored worship, when I cried as I ran because “Be Thou My Vision” rang in my ears with holy and piercing truth as the sweat gathered around the ear pieces in my ear canal, when God himself ran next to me, when God himself helped me lift the bench press bar, when God himself walked the cool-down lap with me, then was I godly.
Do you see that?
I was godly.
Why?
Because I was controlled with the Spirit.
I was not controlled with the flesh.
Do you see in this where I am such a wretch, and do you also see where God gets the glory by controlling me with his Spirit?
I tell you now: I am a prideful, self-centered, egotistical, frustrated young jerk who seeks the glory of man and the acceptance of the culture. There, but for the grace of God, go I.
I should have perished in my blubber, but God dropped my weight because Jesus Christ was crucified for my sins and raised for my justification. To Him be the glory, forever and ever. Amen
To this day, I find I glorify God most in my working out when I do it alone. Men are not there to whom I can compare myself…God is. And when I see I can’t measure up, I am most humbled at his greatness.
So, now, how do you glorify God through working Out?
Lose yourself and find God working out for you.
That’s grace, and so to answer the question, “How did you do it?” I say:
By the grace of God.
Working with you to cast off the flesh and run the race for God,
Vince R.
This was inspired by a ”Ask Pastor John” segment from March 31, 2008 entitled, “How do you glorify God through exercise?” Here is the link to the segment’s audio: http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/MediaPlayer/2695/Audio/
I saw the application almost immediately; I hope you do too.
Grace and Peace.
Psalm 73
“Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart. But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no bands in their death: but their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men. Therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain; violence covereth them as a garment. Their eyes stand out with fatness, they have more than heart could wish. They are corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppression: they speak loftily. They set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue walketh through the earth. Therefore his people return hither: and waters of a full cup are wrung out to them. And they say, How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the most High? Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world: they increase in riches. Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency. For all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning. If I say, I will speak thus; behold, I should offend against the generation of thy children. When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me; Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end. Surely thou didst set them in slippery places: thou castedst them down into destruction. How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! they are utterly consumed with terrors. As a dream when one awaketh; so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image. Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reigns. So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee. Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand. Though shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever. For, lo, they that are far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee. But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, that I may declare all thy works.”
In this passage of scripture, Asaph, the psalmist, affirms the goodness of God almighty. Yet before arriving at this mighty assertion, he goes through a fiery understanding. Allow me to do the same:
When I look around, my heart does fail. There is no hope for people around me, but Jesus Christ and him crucified. Wayland perishes in unbelief. It doesn’t matter that it remains a Christian institution. It is a sort of rabinical school bereft of the one true God.
Oh, of course, the efforts of Christians on this campus are great. The labors of fellow workers hint at the hope of Christ and show His love abounding. I am grateful, wholly greatful, for the labors of the BSM, the FCA, the religion department. But as always, I wonder….Why has God not taken over this campus?
In addition, does it not make logical sense that institutions such as Wayland and Hardin-Simmons, do not overtake this portion of Texas at least?!!
Where is God’s awakening in the east? Southwestern, Truett, Baylor, etc, etc, etc. And do you think I think only Baptists are in the kingdom? God forbid! I failed to mention Lubbock Christian and Abeline Christian of the Chruch of Christ, McMurray of the Methodists, Texas Christian of the Disciples of Christ. Where are my brethren of the PCA, my brethren of the Nazarene etc., etc., etc. Seminaries and Christian undergraduate programs abound, but not revival. Where is God’s mighty hand upon this state?!!!
And tragically, we speak only of Texas. Wheaton, Liberty, Golden Gate, Southern, Southeastern, New Orleans, Denver, Calvin, Kuyper, Missouri Baptist, etc. etc. etc.
Think then of Harvard, Yale, Columbia, William and Mary, and Princeton. They were all founded on the firm conviction of propagating the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Eighty-eight of the first one hundred colleges that started in this country were founded as institutions for the spreading of God’s gospel and the training of God’s people to spread it.
Timothy Dewhite, the president of Yale advised the Class of 1814: “Christ is the only true, the living way, of access to God. Give up yourselves to Him with a cordial confidence, and the great work of life is done.”
In 1646, Harvard had a set of rules by which its students must conduct themselves:
1.) Everyone shall consider the main end of his life and studies to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life.
2.) Seeking the Lord gives wisdom; everyone shall seriously by prayer in secret seek wisdom from Him.
3.) Everyone shall so excercise themselves in reading the scripture twice a day, that they may be ready to give an account of their proficiency therein, both in theoretical observation of language and logical and practical and spiritual truth.
Princeton in its early days insisted that the faculty “be convinced of the necessity of religious experience for salvation.” John Witherspoon, the first president of Princeton said this, “cursed be all learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ; cursed be all learning that is not coincident with the cross of Christ; cursed be all learning that is not subservient to the cross of Christ.”
Now imagine these schools today. William and Mary has recently had its cross removed. It was offensive. Such is the cross, I say. Yet in all these things, has God slumbered? Where is He in this country?
What is to become of a country with no god? What is to become of a country who forsakes the one true God? Death, Destruction, Degradation, Desolation, and lastly, Damnation.
”Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.” Proverbs 14:34
This sort of cogitation clouded the mind of Asaph, the psalmist. Yet look at his first verse, and in it, we find the importance of faith and the pivotal truth of the knowledge of God.
”Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart.”
This simple resolution came when he realized this: God is good. God is good to his covenant people. I don’t know who are members of God’s covenant people in this country. On this campus, it’s like finding silver needles in a pile of steele ones. But even that fails to communicate the difficulty. At least those can be tested. No, I do not know the hearts of men. God does, and therein lies my point.
Look at the second part of the verse: “…even such as are of a clean heart.”
God knows the hearts of men. There is nothing hidden before his eyes. The cleansed (notice the active verb) hearts of God’s covenant people (passively received), is contingent for God’s favored goodness. He himself makes the covenant, he himself cleanses the hearts of the covenant people, he himself seals the covenant, he himself keeps the covenant.
“Truly God is good to Israel…”
Then notice the temptation to forget the truth, to lower the concept which we hold of God.
Verses 2-3 communicate Asaph’s doubt. “But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps has well nigh slipped.”
Why is that Asaph?
“For I was envious at the foolish…”
Why is that Asaph?
“…when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.”
Yes, that is exactly what happens to me all the time. “If you can’t beat ’em. Join ’em.” Unholy!
God’s people do not speak that way, period. God IS.
“We may absolutely say, by God’s grace, I am what I am…but God says absolutely, I AM that I AM.” -Matthew Henry
The “God who is there” as Schaeffer put it is still there “where all the nations dead,” as Watts put it.
God IS…
That statement calms God’s people. That statement comforts God’s people. That statement keeps God’s people.
Asaph discovered one way with which to fill the blank. God is good. And what’s more, Asaph saw the grace. “God is good to Israel.” We get to enjoy that goodness….forever.
In verses 4-9, Asaph cogitates the wickedness of the people. Just as I have only lightly done myself in the introduction, we approach another tragic fact. In 1973, Roe v. Wade was decided. That was 35 years ago. What ever child was murdered in that year, could have been running for president this year. My heart hurts because God’s people still applaud and resign, falling like Asaph almost did in verses 2-3. Oh the tragedy of pragmetism over truth. 40 million unborn killed since that year.
“They did not destroy the nations, concerning whom the LORD commanded them: But were mingled among the heathen, and learned their works. And they served their idols: which were a snare unto them. Yea, they sacrificed their sons and daughters unto devils, And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their dauthers, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood. Thus were they defiled with their own works, and went a whoring with their own inventions. Therefore was the wrath of the LORD kindled against his people, insomuch that he abhorred his own inheritance. And he gave them into the hand of the heathen; and they that hated them ruled over them. The enemies also oppressed them, and they were brought into subjection under their hand. Many times did he deliver them; but they provoked him with their counsel, and were brought low for their iniquity.” Psalm 106:34-43
In like manner the psalmist behind Psalm 106 laments the sins of Israel, mingling with the very ones from whom they were delivered. They are like the downcast baby brought up in beauty by the Lord’s precious covenant, yet they went back trusting in their own beauty and commited adultry with the Amorites and Hittes of the land of Canaan. Ezekiel 16.
Yet look here.
“NEVERTHELESS, he regarded their affliction, when he heard their cry: And he remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his mercies.” Psalm 106:44-45
That Psalmist remembers God as well. God acted according to his character, “the multitude of his mercies.”
Yes, Asaph’s attitude brought him into doubt. Look at verse 11-14. He wonders if God truly knows. “…is there knowledge in the most High?” What blaspehmous doubt and unbelief!
“Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me. Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.” Isaiah 46:9-10
Do you doubt your God? Do you claim to crawl upon his throne, stick your wormy finger in his face, and say what have you done? Unholy…
“And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?” Daniel 4:35
Why does evil and wickedness abound in our country? It is our fault. God is still good. He does whatever he pleases. Psalm 115:3 Surely, it does not happen apart from his will.
“Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?” Amos 3:6
God is good, and God does good. It’s our fault when wickedness reigns. We are the cause of evil. God has simply permited it and willed to be, in his good pleasure.
We have not “cleansed our heart in vain” as Asaph once thought. God is still sovereign over all. All…
He comes to himself in verse 15 and 16 when he imagines the horror and ungodliness of blaming God almighty, and speaking of his salvation as vain. “If I say, I will speak thus; behold, I should offend against the generation of thy children. When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me;”
But what helped Asaph come to the conclusion of verse 1?
Look at verses 17-20.
First, The realization of Justified Judgment.
Realize first the importance of fellowship with God. He goes first into the sanctuary of God in verse 17.
“Until, I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I there end.”
He realizes God’s justice when he enters into closer fellowship with God almighty. God is just. Upon meditation in God’s presence, “then understood I there end.”
In verse 18, he understands God’s sovereign judgment in actively placing them in slippery places where their doom is sure.
In verse 19, he understands God’s swift judgment when he actively brings them into desolation “in a moment!”
In verse 20, he understands God’s sure judgement when he promises he will have judgment, when he “awaketh.”
Second, The realization of Foolish Failing.
In verses 21-22, Asaph understand the foolishness and stupidity of doubting the most high.
“Thus my heart was greived, and I was pricked in my reigns. So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee.”
Yes, a heart greived because of foolish forgetfulness of God’s faithfulness. Beastly iniquities because of idiotic ignorance of God’s Infinite attributes. “To Thee there’s nothing old appears/Great God there’s nothing new,” writes Watts. Amen…
Third, The realization of Sweet Security.
In verses 23-26, Asaph tells of God’s sweet eternal preservation of his people. Look at the ”Nevertheless” that brings glory to my soul,
“Nevertheless, I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and aftward receive me to glory.”
Yes, despite the doubting, God still IS….amen.
I am continually with him…that is an ongoing action that does not cease!!
What’s more, he holds my hand. Praise his Personality!
What’s more, he guides me with his perfect counsel. Praise his Perfection!
What’s more, he will (that’s an eternal promise) receive me to glory. Praise his Preservation!
Then, the cogitation of things eternal in verse 25.
“Whom have I in heaven but thee?” Exactly! Does heaven without God sound glorious to you? God forbid!
He IS….have not I made that clear? Heaven is where God is.
“And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.” Revelation 21:2-3
Yes, God is heaven.
“…and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.”
Yes, God…be my one desire upon the earth, not my members, not my king, not my army, not my chariots, but God…be my desire. You alone have made the earth. If you were hungry, you would not tell me, for the earth is yours and the fulness thereof. You, who keep your people, shall neither slumber nor sleep. Amen.
In verse 26, we see the security of the cleansed heart as promised in verse 1.
“My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.”
Flesh and hearts will deceive and fail, but the question is: Who resides therein? God IS….the strength. God IS….the portion…forever.
“Look unto me, all ye ends of the earth, and be ye saved, for I am God, and there is none else.” Isaiah 45:22
As the preacher preached to Charles Spurgeon the day he was saved, so I preach to you…”look” simply means to look, to behold something. “Unto me” means simply this. Look to God, don’t look to yourself. All the ends of the earth means everybody, and thus we may be saved from our iniquity and inquity of the wicked about us. God is God, and there is none else.
Lastly, the realization of Differing Destinies.
Verses 26-27 simply describe two different destinies. Notice the first,
“For, lo, they that are far from thee shall perish: thou has destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee.”
Notice their proximity to God, himself. “Far from [him]“
They whore around committing adultrey against God like the young woman of Ezekiel 16. What is their destiny? They will perish. They will be destroyed.
Then the main and most important exhortation of this Psalm is found in the good destiny.
“But…” Note the opposing conjunction.
“But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all thy works.”
Notice the proximity to God himself. “Near”
What does that create? Knowledge of Him.
What does that create? Trust in Him. “I have put my trust in the Lord GOD”
What does that create? Obedience to Him. “that I may declare all thy works.”
Yes, the logic is amazing. The meditation is complete. Know your God and take comfort in the knowledge thereof.
He is Good. That’s the Attribute.
He is Good to His people. That’s the Grace.
What can you add to your life by worrying about this country? Nothing.
Know him, trust him, obey him.
Working with you to draw near to God for the glory of His name and for revival in this country,
Vince R.
What Does It Mean to “Love” God?
November 17, 2007
It was asked of me recently on the way home from a bible study. I had dealt with this concept only this past Spring 2007 and into the Summer. How so? I heard a sermon on Romans 8:28 by John Piper. I was heartily convicted when I was exhorted to examine myself in light of its massive, overwhelming promise, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to His purpose” (KJV).
In his Desiring God Radio broadcasting on March 22, 2007, John Piper said, “Day by day, there are people that walk through painful experiences and do not trust God to help them get through these things then turn them for good. And those painful experiences then, will be wrath for them. They will be the foretastes of final and eternal pain. Or they walk through pleasure…not giving any thanks to God at all and not turning those pleasures into a moment of worship whereby they see in and through those pleasures the beauty of God and cherish Him above those pleasures. And those pleasures will come back on their head as condemnation in the end. All things will work for bad for those who do not love God and are not called according to His purpose. And we don’t want to be that way. I’m sure you don’t. We want this promise to be true for us, and so we need to…take it and figure out if we qualify. Is it ours” (2007)?
This is quite the query. How often do we forget the qualifications of this beloved promise? I was struck to the heart. So what does Piper propose? In this first examination, he asks: “Do you love God this morning? If you don’t, this promise is not yours” (2007).
Piper begins by explaining that we must examine what it does not mean. He cites three things that it does not mean to highlight what it does mean. I pray that if you don’t love God, this essay will make it clear so that you can take steps to embrace him as your only hope and satisfaction.
Point 1.
Love for God does not mean meeting God’s needs.
While it may seem obvious, I think we can get this confused because that is exactly how we do and ought to love one another. This love is horizontal, but it cannot be vertical. “If you try to take that definition of love and move it into your God relationship, you will blaspheme” (Piper, 2007). He cites one verse to shatter that proposition. I will use the verse preceding as well to clarify the context within the KJV.
Acts 17:24-25 says this: “God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all things.”
”God is radically different from people. Our love for him is very different than our love for each other. It is never, ever, ever meeting needs. You do not meet God’s needs because God has no needs. He has no deficiencies that we can supply. He has no defects that we can reverse. He has no needs that we supply. Therefore…the essence of love to God is always and without exception receiving…Now I said ‘essence’ because I know that we do use the word ‘love’ to cover, not only its essence, but often its fruits, its behaviors. And so sometimes we think of ourselves as giving praise, giving honor, giving service, giving obedience. It’s a very dangerous use of language, not wrong, just dangerous. Because the essence of loving God is receiving from God…I mean that joy in God is always a receiving of pleasure from the object of our delight” (Piper, 2007).
Point 2.
Love for God is not love for his gifts.
Piper includes: forgiveness of sins, justification, escape from hell, resurrection to a pain-free life.
“Loving God does not mean being glad that your sins are forgiven. Loving God does not mean, in its essence, being glad that you are imputed righteous. Loving God does not mean, in its essence, gladness that I have escaped from hell. Loving God does not mean, in its essence, gladness that I will be free from disease someday and have an everlasting life of pleasure. We know that that’s not the essence of loving God because people who don’t love God are glad for all those things. Nobody wants a guilty conscience and [they are] very happy if you can tell them a way to get rid of it. Nobody wants to go to hell and suffer forever, and they’re very happy to escape from that. Whatever means they can use to get out. Everybody will love the prospect of eternal joy, and everybody would like to be counted righteous when they don’t have to be righteous. And none of them has to love God” (Piper, 2007).
Piper continues with this piercing illustration: “If they can convince themselves in their minds that ‘I’m forgiven because of Christ, I’m justified because of Christ, I’ve escaped hell because of Christ, and I’m going to heaven because of Christ, and frankly, I like television better than Christ.’”
I’m convinced that there are tons in today’s church just like that. “They’re really happy to be safe, and they have no heart for God. NONE!” (Piper, 2007)
Point 3.
Love for God is not the things that love prompts you to do.
“The Love of God, the love for God, might prompt you to leave mother and father and lands and houses and declare the name of God among the nations. But leaving mother, leaving father, leaving houses, leaving lands, declaring the glory of God is not the love [for] God. The essence of the love [for] God is not the fruit of the love [of] God” (Piper, 2007).
He remembers John 14:15 when Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” Piper explains that he’s heard so many people take that text and make “keeping the commandments the definition of love. That exactly the opposite of what the text says!” (Piper, 2007)
“‘If you love me,’” Piper explains, speaking as Jesus in this verse, “‘then you will do a certain thing and the doing is not the loving. This is the root; this is the fruit” (2007).
He cites the incident when Jesus explained this to Peter in John 21:15-17. “‘…Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?’ He saith unto Him, ‘Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee.’ He saith unto him, ‘Feed my lambs.’”
Piper asks the question, “Did Jesus say, ‘Well good, that’s all that needs to be said [because] clearly you’re doing everything I command you to do. Because that’s what love is’? He did not say that because that’s not what [love for God] is. He said, ‘If you love me, Peter, feed my sheep’” (Piper, 2007).
Piper’s interpretation says this, “If you love me, then you will act like it.” The love is first, the acting-like-it is second. The second ’flows out of’ or ‘is a result of’ or is ‘the fruit of’ the first. Acting-like-it is the fruit of loving God. “The acting is not the essence of the loving” (Piper, 2007).
So what is it?!!!!
“What I’m saying,” Piper continues, “is that ‘love for God’ is the heart’s esteem for God before it produces anything else. The heart’s esteem for, admiration of, delight in, cherishing of…God…before it produces anything” (Piper, 2007).
“Love for God is not, in its essence, a deliberated choice. Love for God is not, in its essence, a deed. It is a reflex of the newborn heart, the called heart, to the beauty of God in Christ. You don’t decide to taste honey as sweet. If you have living tastebuds, and you put it on the tongue, it is sweet. If your taste buds are dead, it isn’t sweet. And you can rummage around with all kinds of decision and it will stay non-sweet” (Piper, 2007).
It is the new life which God gives that produces love for God. It is the reborn heart’s reflex to the sight of God’s glory. Just as your tastebuds must be alive to taste something for what it is, so you must be called by God, called according to his purpose in order to love Him.
I see the question coming because I asked it. “Why is this so important? What’s the big deal, Piper?”
He answers, “I stress this because I don’t want to produce hypocrites…I don’t want to go to my grave [and people say] ‘John Piper helped produce a big church of hypocrites.’ And that’s exactly what we produce, I believe, by equating deeds of love with love [itself]. If the essence of love is the deeds that love does, they can be imitated” (Piper, 2007)
In other words, when love equals deeds of love [love=deeds of love] then anyone can do these “deeds of love,” and they can do them without ever having “loved God.” It is hypocrisy. “Imitated love is hypocrisy. If the deeds of love do not come from this deep wonderful God wrought miraculous reflex of delighting in God for himself, we beget hypocrites,” Piper continues (2007). “I fear there are many in the church: Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox who’ve been taught all their lives ‘do, do, do, do, and God will approve and you’ll be safe.’”
“This text says, ‘You want God to work for you, you want him to work everything together for your good. Don’t start with doing, start with loving. Experience something…of him.”
And so I continue on with my story. When I first heard this sermon, I was convicted in heart. But I didn’t know why? Perhaps it was the obvious questions: “Do I really love God, do I just love him for his gifts, and do I just love being forgiven?”
Or perhaps it was just this: “What in the world did Piper just say?!!!”
I can tell you from that moment that I have heard this sermon many times. I have kept it hidden in my heart, and I have tried to discern it. I am convinced, as I have slowly listened to it in this tenure (in order to copy it for this essay, oddly enough) that it is, indeed, true. This morning, Charles Spurgeon reminded me of its truth. His text was this:
“The Lord is my portion, saith my soul” (Lamentations 3:24).
He wrote these beginning truths. (For safety reasons, I will only portray a portion. John Piper’s comments have no copyright. Praise the Lord!)
“It is not “The Lord is partly my portion,” nor “The Lord is in my portion;” but He Himself makes up the sum total of my soul’s inheritance. Within the circumference of that circle lies all that we possess or desire. The Lord is my portion. Not His grace merely, nor His love, nor His covenant, but Jehovah Himself.”
Indeed, God himself is the object of my love if Romans 8:28 should apply to me.
But how do I cultivate this in my life?
I think, perhaps, we must study the very character of God. His very essence, which while totally infinite, is still very real in my life. God is Holy. God is Righteous. God is Gracious. God is Steadfast. God is Just. God is Faithful. God is Good.
I think one should commit himself to studying and understanding and meditating and knowing who God is. When he does this, he will grow to love God, himself, more everyday. We must love God for who He IS.
So I say this: Know who God is and you will love him more and more. And there are only two sources which reveal to you who He is. The two sources are His self-revelations: His Creation and His Holy Word which both witness to His Son and are enabled by His Spirit.
I think it was Jonathan Edwards who said, explaining the trinity, “Jesus Christ is the expression of God’s love for himself. The revelation of all that God is [paraphrased].”
The two revelations (General and Specific) reveal God Himself because they point to Christ, the Incarnate Word. At the beginning, the Father spoke, the Son created in obedience to the Father, and the Spirit moved in obedience to the Son.
Also, Jesus Christ is the reason the Holy Spirit wrote the Bible. It witnesses to Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Jesus Christ is the very “image of God,” as it says in 2 Corinthians 4. Jesus Christ is the ”brightness of His glory” and the “express image of his perfection” as in Hebrews 1.
We are to know Christ, the only name under heaven whereby men must be saved. We know him by the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. When we know Christ, we know God the Father. Through all of this: We Know God, Himself.
Oh, the depth and wisdom of God! Humble yourselves under his mighty Hand.
So then….
How can we love that which we do not know? Know Him.
It is written on a decal on the back of my car. “Know Him.” Just now, I get a glimpse of the glory of its exhortation. What illumination…
Working with you to love Him through knowing Him,
Vince R.
Works Cited
Spurgeon, Charles. Morning and Evening Complete and Unabridged Classic KJV Edition. Hendrickson: USA, 1991. 642
All Things for Good Part I, Romans 8:28. By John Piper. Desiring God Radio. Introd. Bob Allen. Minneapolis, MN. 22 Mar. 2007.
