Summer Thriller

For someone who reads theology all year round, it’s nice to have a light, non-note-taking summer read that gets the heart racing and strains the eyeballs in afternoon-long episodes of reading on the porch. And thanks to C.J. Mahaney’s recommendations, I found a book for that exact purpose.  

Riveting, sorrowful, and well-worth the time, James L. Swanson’s book takes an historical, hour-by-hour look at the events following Lincoln’s assassination. There’s so much I didn’t know, like the fact that John Wilkes Booth’s team of conspirators also targeted William Seward and Andrew Johnson. 

This quote, from Boston Corbett, the man who shot Booth, fascinated me (I hope it doesn’t give away too much):

“While Booth’s body lay before me, yet alive, but wounded, and when I saw that the bullet had struck him just back of the ear, about the same spot that his bullet hit Mr. Lincoln, I said within myself, ‘what a fearful God we serve’” (pp. 340-41).

Needy is the Best Place to Be

While the world continues on its kick about self-autonomy, independence, and self-reliant living, Jesus turns the world upside down. Instead, it’s those who realize their desperate need and who go to Jesus that are truly happy. 

The two blind men in Matthew 20, fully aware of their desperate need of Christ, cry out more and more in the face of a taunting, rebuking crowd. 

“Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” The crowd rebuked them, telling them to be silent, but they cried out all the more” (vv. 30-31).

The men’s plea for mercy shows that they knew that God didn’t owe them anything, but rather, that they could only ask on the ground of His generosity. They are aware of their need, and they are aware of Christ’s power.  

The question is, what makes a person bold in approach to Christ in the face of ridicule—fearless of what man may say or think or do to him? 

The answer is desperate need coupled with knowledge of one’s own wretchedness before God and confidence in the gracious character of God (Ps. 145:8-9). The blind men were fearless about the crowd because they knew how helplessly sick and diseased they were, and they knew that Jesus could heal them. 

Men dying of cancer don’t delay in going to the doctor, no matter what others say. 

So, turning the world on its head, Jesus blesses those who know they are needy, who know that they can’t merit God’s salvation, and who trust that God is gracious to give them abundantly all that they desire. 

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3).

Needy is the best place to be before a generous and loving God whose blessing we can never earn.

With tears in our eyes, we go on sowing

There are those times when, despite the use of God-appointed means, joy seems to tarry. Darkness hovers all about us, and there is a serious threat to our souls that we stop doing what is clearly our duty to do. 

How do we press on when joy escapes us? We think and pray like the psalmist: 

“Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like streams in the Negeb! Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him” (Psalm 126:4-6). 

The real question in view is, ‘How do we plow and sow the seed of the Word in our hearts in seasons when heart work is tremendously hard work?’ Clearly our hearts need the work, for without breaking up the fallow ground or planting the seeds of the Word, there will be no rich harvest of joy in God. But what do we do when that work doesn’t seem to be producing any fruit? 

We listen to Scripture in faith. We keep sowing, and we keep plowing through the fields of our hearts, all the while with tears streaming down our brokenhearted faces, knowing that God has promised: as you keep laboring over your heart according to Scripturally appointed means, God will bring joy. 

Yes, there are times when it seems like all the work we do in our hearts is coming to nothing. But, ultimately, God who dwells richly in us through His Spirit will produce a harvest of righteousness through sanctification. So we don’t hide our sorrow. Instead, we keep on sowing, trusting in God’s promise: He who goes out weeping and sowing will come home with shouts of joy. 

There is a dark night, but there is always the light of the morning. 

What sound does a lion make?

What could be better, after a long day of meetings, than coming home, enjoying some time in the Word and with Bishop Ryle, and then being delightfully amused by my son?

Thanks to the grandparents’ book purchase, he is learning animal noises. And the one he has down pat?

“What sound does a lion make?”

“RAHHHHHHH!”

I think that might have been one of the best moments of my day. Thank God for unexpected smiles, from unexpected things.   

Come Away With Me

Jesus said that he was not honored in his home town, among his closest family and friends. 

“A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household” (Matt. 13:57). 

What struck me about this passage is that those who are often times most familiar with Jesus are most prone to unbelief. But why? 

It’s because they see Him all the time, and instead of responding in awe and faith, they merely say, “Yeah, there goes Jesus again, doing another miracle.” They have become so acquainted with Jesus that He doesn’t awe them anymore. 

I am reminded in my own life that, especially in the ministry, it is easy to become so familiar with the holy things of God that they no longer become awesome, faith-inspiring, joy-producing works of God. So what do we do? 

The same thing Jesus did—not because He was bored with Himself, but because He had weighty things going on in His life, like the death of his friend John the Baptist: 

“Now when Jesus heard [that John was beheaded], he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself” (Matt. 14:13). 

And, when we meet Jesus in a desolate place, just like the crowd that followed Him there, we are fed in abundance: 

“And they all ate and were satisfied” (Matt. 14:20). 

There is a time to minister. But there is also a time to go away, to a desolate place, and be fed spiritually by Jesus and renewed in the things of God. 

 

Who is sufficient?

The inadequacies pastors feel have, up until now, been a somewhat distant (yet real) theme for me. But now, after preaching and laboring amidst God’s people, I understand Paul’s cry: 

“For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Cor. 2:15-16). 

Who is sufficient to be the aroma of God? Who is sufficient to proclaim God’s perfect and wondrous Word to the church and to the world? Who is sufficient even to have a part, though but a means, to the spread of the aroma of God’s glory in Christ throughout the world? Not me.

But, Sunday afternoon, the soul cries out for the living God (Psalm 42:1, ff.), and these words are like a stream of cool, refreshing water on a parched land:

“[The knowledge of God's providence] cannot but bring strong security to the soul, to know that in all variety of changes and intercourse of good and bad events, God, and our God, [has] such a disposing hand. Whatsoever befalls us, all serves to bring God’s electing love, and our glorification together, God’s providence [serves] this purpose to save us…God [often] [disposes] little occasions to great purposes” (Soul’s Conflict, Sibbes, p. 206).   

Not in our sufficiency or strength, nor in our wisdom, but in the wisdom and power of God do we draw the courage to speak oracles of God, for His glory. And what hope this is, that even in the weakest, smallest effort to do justice to God’s Word, He is often pleased to do His bidding.