Josh King

[Review] Words from the Fire

Readability: 1

Length: 195 pgs

Words from the Fire is an excellent little book for the Christian on the Ten Commandments. Each commandment is clearly taught, masterly illustrated, proper studied in its context, and then examined and applied in light of Christ. Here is a book for the whole of you, to inform your mind, convict your heart, and direct your will.

[W]e do not celebrate a lawless grace any more than looking to the Old Testament we should see a graceless law. There is grace in the law. Israel, in hearing the Word of the Lord and receiving these words received grace! And if we do not understand that, we slander both the Old Testament and the God who spoke to Israel at Horeb.

The prevailing secular mind-set says that law is simply a product of human experience codified in legislative form. It is just how we learned to live with each other. There is no absolute or transcendent ought. There is merely a phenomenological is.

Adultery begins a breakdown of order that threatens the entire society, for how can we trust each other if we cannot trust our most intimate commitments? …Marriage is the little universe upon which every other human relation depends.

The big lie is that we are what we own, or we can be what we want to own, what we wear, or what we drive. What do we do when we get a new car? We have got to show it to someone, almost like there is no fun to be had if nobody is around to covet it. We provide a drive-by opportunity to covet.

The Doctor: The Application of Sanctification

The doctrine of sanctification has nothing to say to those who are not Christians, but it is vital for those who are. It means the kind of life we are to live because we are Chrsitians. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 12, p. 99

A Weighty Week(end)

As we begin our study in Matthew consider the following quotes.

If we figure that Jesus was about thirty-three years old when He died, He lived around 1,700 weeks. And His four biographers spend a third of their time on only one of those weeks. Have you ever read a three-hundred-page biography where one hundred pages dealt with the subject’s death? Not even for Abraham Lincoln, John Kennedy, or Martin Luther King Jr. do we have such lopsided attention paid to the end of the story. But for Jesus, the ending of His life is the story. – Kevin DeYoung

Nothing is more central to the Bible than Jesus’ death and resurrection. The entire Bible pivots on one weekend in Jerusalem about two thousand years ago. – D.A. Carson

Genesis 49:29-50:26 & The End of the Beginning

By sin man and all creation were cursed. In Genesis 12 we see God’s plan to reverse the curse and bring man into a state of blessedness through Abraham. Abraham is promised three distinct things; land, offspring, and to be a conduit of blessing to all the families of the earth. Our book ends with none of these promises fully realized, but with every reason to expect their fulfillment.

We close with two final requests and deaths. There are many parallels between the account of Jacob’s last words and passing and Joseph’s, although Jacob’s is so much longer. These similarities I believe point us toward the common function or purpose they’re recorded in Scripture. By recalling the promises and making their burial requests both Jacob and Joseph thrust their relatives out of Egypt in hope of the Promised Land. God will visit His people. He will make good on His promises. Egypt is not their home. Their waiting does not mean God is delaying, but rather fulfilling His promises (Genesis 15:12-16).

What Jacob and Joseph do for their relatives, Moses does for his readers. The initial audience wanted to go back to Egypt, but their hearts were never meant to be there. The promises are meant to dislodge their pseudo-homesickness and replace it with a longing for the Promised Land. The promises serve a similar function for us, they buttress a sojourning spirit. They make sin sour and Christ sweet. They eradicate worldly-mindedness and establish heavenly-mindedness.

How can they, how can we be sure of God’s visitation and deliverance? The main point of the last section of Genesis is meant to make the light of faith burst forth in our hearts. Just as God spoke in the beginning such that light came bursting forth, so this last section of Genesis is God speaking, causing faith to burst forth. The last section of Genesis (37:2-50:26) hammers home one doctrine, the providence of God. The 1689 Baptist Confession defines God’s providence this way.

God the good Creator of all things, in his infinite power and wisdom doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, to the end for the which they were created, according unto his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will; to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, infinite goodness, and mercy.

Or Joseph simply puts it this way, “…you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.”

How can we be sure of full and final deliverance of a happy “The End”? The end of the beginning points us to God’s providence. The same providence that was at work in Christ’s first coming (Acts 4:25-28), is at work now. This time of waiting does not mean God is delaying, but rather fulfilling all His promises.

The Doctor: Dusty Theology?

People who give the impression that theology is as dry as dust show either that they do not know their theology or that they are very bad teachers. There is no such thing as dry-as-dust theology. True theology always moves the heart… – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 12, p. 31

Tolle Lege: Scandalous

Readability: 1

Length: 168 pgs

Author: D.A. Carson

Praise God for great books on the cross of Christ. For the ones that not only feed your mind but warm your heart. D.A. Carson’s Scandalous was such a book for me. This easily makes my list of top books on the cross. I listened to these sermons soon after Dr. Carson preached them at Mars Hill. I remember being overjoyed when I heard they would be turned into a book. It came, I read it, I was not disappointed. Here is a taste of what you can expect.

The deeper irony is that, in a way they did not understand, they were speaking the truth. If he had saved himself, he could not have saved others; the only way he could save others was precisely by not saving himself. In the irony behind the irony that the mockers intended, they spoke the truth they themselves did not see. The man who can’t save himself—saves others.

One of the reasons they were so blind is that they thought in terms of merely physical restraints. When they said “he can’t save himself,” they meant that the nails held him there, the soldiers prevented any possibility of rescue, his powerlessness and weakness guaranteed his death. For them, the words “he can’t save himself” expressed a physical impossibility. But those who know who Jesus is are fully aware that nails and soldiers cannot stand in the way of Emmanuel. The truth of the matter is that Jesus could not save himself, not because of any physical constraint, but because of a moral imperative. He came to do his Father’s will, and he would not be deflected from it. The One who cries in anguish in the garden of Gethsemane, “Not my will, but yours be done,” is under such a divine moral imperative from his heavenly Father that disobedience is finally unthinkable. It was not nails that held Jesus to that wretched cross; it was his unqualified resolution, out of love for his Father, to do his Father’s will—and, within that framework, it was his love for sinners like me. He really could not save himself.

Dilemma wretched: how shall holiness
Of brilliant light unshaded, tolerate
Rebellion’s fetid slime, and not abate
In its own glory, compromised at best?
Dilemma wretched: how can truth attest
That God is love, and not be shamed by hate
And wills enslaved and bitter death—the freight
Of curse deserved, the human rebels’ mess?
The Cross! The Cross! The sacred meeting-place
Where, knowing neither compromise nor loss,
God’s love and holiness in shattering grace
The great dilemma slays! The Cross! The Cross!
The holy, loving God whose dear Son dies
By this is just—and one who justifies

Genesis 49:1-28 & Blessing, Blessing, Blessing

We only took a few steps on our journey through Genesis before man was cursed. From that point on you long for the one who will crush the head of the serpent so that “his blessings flow far as the curse is found.” In Genesis 12 we gain further insight as God reveals that it is through Abraham that all the families of the earth are to be blessed. Now as Genesis begins to close we see blessings being pronounced three times by Jacob, grandson of Abraham.

In Genesis 47:7-10 Jacob blessed Pharaoh, in 48:15-20 he blesses his grandsons through Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, and finally here he blessed his twelve sons. So the book that began with a curse now ends with a triad of blessings all coming through Israel. In case the triple emphasis isn’t enough the narrator caps this pronouncement by emphasizing blessing three times as well (Genesis 49:28).

But let’s focus in some more. Can we look more specifically within the nation of Israel for where the serpent shattering, curse reversing hope of the nations will come from? Will he be the child of the donkey Zebulun? Or Dan the serpent? Perhaps Naphtali the doe? Will a king come from the wolf, Benjamin? No, none of these will suffice. The pronouncements are too concise. But there are two sons who receive extended treatment; together they comprise 40% of our text. Surely the fruitful bough of Jospeh will again bring deliverance and blessing? No, it is the Lion of the tribe of Judah whom all the brothers shall praise and bow down to. It is one from Judah who will crush all enemies and restore a paradise better than Eden.

Refuse to bow to God’s King, and you are surely cursed. Kiss the Son and know the blessedness of taking refuge in Him (Psalm 2), for “He comes to make His blessings flow as far as the curse is found.” Indeed you are more blessed in Christ than you are cursed in Adam – blessed, blessed, blessed, superlatively blessed.

Genesis 47:28-48:22 & The Terminus of Genesis

From a literary standpoint our book is now coming to resolution. A plethora of themes that we have followed through our book crop up again in our text. Blessing, covenant, faith, sojourning, fruitfulness, God’s faithfulness, God’s Providence, and God’s promises are all touched on again here.

But form a theological aspect our book is unresolved. They are in Egypt not Canaan land, less still are they in that heavenly city that Abraham looked forward to (Hebrews 11:10, 16). They are only a small group of seventy; multiplying more than they have been, but not yet a nation. And God is indeed with them (Genesis 48:21), but not in the manifest way He will be when He dwells among them manifestly in the Tabernacle, and that too is yet a shadow of something greater to come.

So where do all the themes of Genesis find their ultimate, full, and final resolution.

In the second Adam tempted not in a lush garden, but a barren wilderness, who loves the word of God instead of disobeying it, by whose obedience we are blessed instead of cursed.

In that Seed of the woman who crushes the head of the serpent and defeats all of our enemies (Genesis 3:15).

In the Son whose blood does not cry out for our condemnation like Abel, but for our pardon (Hebrews 12:24).

In the singular Offspring of Abraham, through whom all the families of the earth are truly blessed (Galatians 3:16).

In the true Lamb, who like Isaac carried his own wood up the hill, while His Father held the knife and the fire, yet unlike Isaac was not spared, as He was the substitute.

In He who is Jacob’s Ladder, the one meeting place with God where man can meet and be blessed and not cursed (John 1:51).

In the true and better Joseph who though sinned against, is raised up by God as King of Kings using His power not to destroy but to forgive, pardon, and provide for his brothers.

In our true elder brother who like Judah gives up His life for the innocent because of His love for the Father (Genesis 44:33-34).

All of this and so much more from Genesis finds its terminus in Christ. He is the fulfillment of all the Scriptures. In Him all the promises of God to us are “Yes!” (2 Corinthians 1:20).

The Doctor: The Times

Once I was travelling to the West Country to preach. We arrived at the train at Reading and a young man came into my compartment holding in his right hand a Bible and a copy of The Times and I know immediately what he was going to do that day. He was going to give an address on prophecy and I turned out to be right. There was nothing clever about my deduction. It was the fact that the man had a bible and The Times together and I happened to know the mentality which did that! The detailed news and information in The Times all foretold in the Bible, in the prophecy of the Bible. And so people expect to find these details and so on, and thus they have identified Napoleon with the man of sin, and then Hitler and perhaps Stalin after that. It is a wrong approach to prophecy altogether because prophecy does not give us those details. The Scriptures themselves say so. We are not to be concerned about the times and the seasons. – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 11, p. 229

The Incarnation is Preparation

And consider now not only the life that Jesus sacrificed for us, but consider also what the sacrifice involved. To get to the point where he could die, Jesus had to plan for it. He left the glory of heaven and took on human nature so that he could hunger and get weary and in the end suffer and die. The incarnation was the preparation of nerve endings for the nails of the cross. Jesus needed a broad human back for a place to be scourged. He needed a brow and skull as a place for the thorns. He needed cheeks for Judas’ kiss and soldiers’ spit. He needed hands and feet for spikes. He needed a side as a place for the sword to pierce. And he needed a brain and a spinal cord, with no vinegar and no gall, so that he could feel the entire excruciating death—for you. – John Piper in a sermon entitled The Depth of Christ’s Love: Its Cost