[M]an’s only need ultimately is to be reconciled to God. Nothing else. You see if you start with man and man’s needs you find that there are a large number of people who are not interested in your evangelism. They say, ‘But I never do that, I have not been guilty of that sin’. Highly moral, intellectual people, living a good life and trying to help others, sitting in their self-contained homes – they do not see any need of coming to Christ. There is only one way to show that everybody needs Christ, and that is to hold them face to face with God. …You see it affects, of necessity, our whole approach to the unbeliever, the whole matter of evangelism. And so you get wrong appeals. You actually get evangelists sometimes saying, ‘Come! God needs you’. Have you not heard that? It is quite common. Or it is put in the form of the benefits of salvation. “How foolish you are. Come! If you only came this is what you would get’ – and so the things are put before them. And of course when you get to the point of pressure being brought being brought to bear upon people to make an immediate decision, it is still further wrong. – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 11, p. 129
Author: Josh King
Genesis 46:1-30 & From Nothing to Nation
For approximately 22 years Jacob has presumed his favorite son to be dead. Now he has learned he is alive; can you imagine his exuberant expectation? Joseph was 17 when he saw him last, he will be around 40 when he soon sees him again. God comes and makes many wonderful promises to Jacob at Beersheba, and then ends them with a tender personal promise that he will die peacefully with his firstborn closing his eyes. So they loaded up the wagons to move to Egypt and… genealogy!
Is this the worst commercial break ever? If this was on the TV and non-inspired you might throw something at it. We should have known that we couldn’t make it through Genesis without one more genealogy. I hope our study through Genesis has caused you to see the stunning beauty and perfection of Scripture in all its parts. I hope you no longer come to genealogies and sigh outwardly with disgust, but inwardly with delight. I hope you have seen how packed they are with theological meaning. So what is God communicating? Why this list of descendants and why here?
Although Moses does write in such a way that we anticipate the reunion of Jacob and Joseph, and although that reunion communicates to us much about our heavenly Father, that is not the main agenda of this text. This is not simply a sappy sentimental story, but a thick theological tale. God is going with Israel into Egypt, there He will make Israel into a great nation, and He will bring them out again. As Bruce Waltke comments, “Egypt is the womb God will use to form His nation.”
From old Abraham and barren Sarah a nation will come. From these seventy, God will make a nation. Remember Moses wrote Genesis as part of a series called the Pentateuch. Check out how the next volume begins.
These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. All the descendants of Jacob were seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt. Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation. But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them. – Exodus 1:1-7
Prior to Jacob the covenant family had only been multiplying by one. Not the quick route from family to nation. With Jacob the fertility level gets kicked up, but seventy is hardly a nation. But in Egypt, God will form His people.
Some may infer from Exodus 2:24-25 that God had forgotten His covenant. But the Exodus passage speaks specifically about remembering the part of the covenaant regarding bringing them back to the land. God has not forgotten or delayed on His promises during the 400 plus years that Israel will be in bondage in Egypt. Everything is going according to plan (Genesis 15:13-14). God is making His people from nothing in faithfulness to His covenant.
For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. – Deuteronomy 7:6-8
In faithfulness to His covenant God is still making His people from such nothing today.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. – 1 Peter 29-10
Out of nothing, creation; good, holy, and blest. Only Elohim can do this.
Tolle Lege: The Masculine Mandate
Readability: 1
Length: 154 pgs
Author: Richard Phillips
Don’t think that The Masculine Mandate comes from the desk of some effeminate, overeducated minister trying to make a female dominated religion easier to swallow. Before surrendering to the ministry Richard Phillips served as a tank officer in the Army and then taught at West Point finally retiring as a major. At the same time don’t expect more of the same. Don’t expect more Wild at Heart salve for your wounded man-soul. This is Biblical manhood at its clearest. Men, buy this book, and then strive to live by the mandate it shows you in Scripture. What is this mandate? You’ll find it in Genesis 2:15; men were made to work and keep.
At this point, I have the unpleasant duty of correcting some erroneous teaching that has gained prominence in recent years. Since its publication in 2001, the top Christian book on manhood has been John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart. This book has become practically a cottage industry, complete with supporting videos, workbooks, and even a “Field Manual.” In my opinion, Wild at Heart gained traction with Christian men in large part because it calls us to stop being sissies, to cease trying to get in touch with our “feminine side” (mine is named Sharon), and instead to embark on an exciting quest to discover our male identity. I can add my hearty “Amen!” to the idea that Christian men should reject a feminized idea of manhood. The problem is that the basic approach to masculinity presented in Wild at Heart is almost precisely opposite from what is really taught in the Bible. For this reason, this book has, in my opinion, sown much confusion among men seeking a truly biblical sense of masculinity.
We encounter major errors in Wild at Heart right at the beginning, where Eldredge discusses Genesis 2:8: “Eve was created within the lush beauty of Eden’s garden. But Adam, if you’ll remember, was created outside the garden, in the wilderness.” Eldredge reasons here that if God “put the man” into the garden, he must have been made outside the garden. While the Bible does not actually say this, it’s plausible. But even assuming it’s true, what are we to make of it? Eldredge makes an unnecessary and most unhelpful leap of logic, concluding that the “core of a man’s heart is undomesticated,” and because we are “wild at heart,” our souls must belong in the wilderness and not in the cultivated garden. That is, Eldredge assumes and then teaches as a point of doctrine a view of manhood that Scripture simply does not support.
It’s easy to understand how this teaching has appealed to men who labor in office buildings or feel imprisoned by the obligations of marriage, parenthood, and civilized society. But there is one thing Eldredge does not notice. God put the man in the garden. The point of Wild at Heart is that a man finds his identity outside the garden in wilderness quests. In contrast, the point of Genesis 2:8 is that God has put the man into the garden, into the world of covenantal relationships and duties, in order to gain and act out his God-given identity there. If God intends men to be wild at heart, how strange that he placed man in the garden, where his life would be shaped not by self-centered identity quests but by covenantal bonds and blessings.
To work it and keep it: here is the how of biblical masculinity, the mandate of Scripture for males. It is my mandate in this book, therefore, to seek to specify, clarify, elaborate, and apply these two verbs to the glorious, God-given, lifelong project of masculine living:
Work. To work is to labor to make things grow. In subsequent chapters I will discuss work in terms of nurturing, cultivating, tending, building up, guiding, and ruling.
Keep. To keep is to protect and to sustain progress already achieved. Later I will speak of it as guarding, keeping safe, watching over, caring for, and maintaining.
Genesis 45 & How Providence Relates to Forgiveness and Guilt
Finally Joseph reveals himself to his brothers, and in so doing reveals God to them. The revelation they and we receive of God here casts light over the whole Joseph narrative. The Reformation Study Bible comments on Genesis 45:5-8, “These verses, with Joseph’s repeated affirmation ‘God sent me’ form the theological heart of the Joseph narrative.”
Joseph tells his brothers not to be distressed or angry with themselves about their sin. How can they possibly not be angry with themselves? They are repentant, they have sinned horribly; they surely messed everything up by such hideous sin right? Yes, they should repent of their horrible sin, but no, their sin isn’t as big as God’s sovereignty. They didn’t ruin God’s plan by their sin, they accomplished it. Ultimately it is not the brother’s hatred that sends Joseph into Egypt, but God’s love; God’s covenant love for Joseph and his brothers. It is not the brother’s jealously of Joseph that determines the plot of Genesis but God’s jealousy for His glory.
Because they are secondary causes at best, Joseph can forgive; indeed he must forgive, for if he is ultimately to have a beef with anyone, it must be God. Because they are secondary causes, the repentant brothers can rest in Joseph’s and God’s forgivingness.
Learn to apply God’s providence from both angles here. When sinned against know that no human being’s sin against you is bigger than God’s plan for you. When you are the one who sins, the role we much more often play, don’t be so arrogant to think that your rebellion to squelch God’s plan will actually succeed and bring down the kingdom.
Tolle Lege: A Call to Spiritual Reformation
Readability: 2
Length: 226 pgs
Author: D.A. Carson
D.A. Carson’s A Call to Spiritual Reformation is currently my favorite book on prayer. In fact it is probably my favorite Carson book. It is one of my favorite books ever!
The book is composed of a series of sermons surveying Paul’s prayers in his epistles. I have heard Cason and others testify that God greatly blessed these messages when they were originally delivered and a marked difference in power was measured from those days. I certainly can testify that as I read the book I was deeply convicted, taught, and had sweet communion with God. God has used these sermons to impact my prayer life, I am certain He will use them to impact yours.
Do you not sense, with me, the severity of the problem? Granted that most of us know some individuals who are remarkable prayer warriors, is it not nevertheless true that by and large we are better at organizing than agonizing? Better at administering than interceding? Better at fellowship than fasting? Better at entertainment than worship? Better at theological articulation than spiritual adoration? Better—God help us!—at preaching than at praying?
What is wrong? Is not this sad state of affairs some sort of index of our knowledge of God? Shall we not agree with J.I. Packer when he writes, ‘I believe that prayer is the measure of the man, spiritually, in a way that nothing else is, so that how we pray is as important a question as we can ever face’? Can we profitably meet the other challenges that confront the Western church if prayer is ignored as much as it has been?
Tolle Lege: A Sweet and Bitter Providence
Readability: 1
Length: 154 pgs
Author: John Piper
This is a readable little book about Ruth dealing predominantly with the theme of providence. While A Sweet and Bitter Providence is not my favorite book on Ruth, nor one of my favorite Piper books, it is full of good, solid, digestible truth. Here are a few tidbits.
Is God’s bitter providence the last word? Are bitter ingredients (like vanilla extract) put in the mixer to make the cake taste bad?
Knowing how this book ends gives us a sense, as we begin, that nothing will be insignificant here.
Seek refuge under the wings of God, even when they seem to cast only shadows, and at just the right time God will let you look out from his Eagle’s nest onto some spectacular sunrise.
A follower of Christ in any ethnic group is a closer relative to us than any blood relativewho rejects our Savior.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rObFF1dsi2U]
The Doctor: Don’t Tie Joy to Power in Ministry
Martyn Lloyd-Jones was one of the most influential preachers of the century. A few weeks before he died, someone asked him how, after decades of fruitful ministry and extraordinary activity, he was coping now he was suffering such serious weakness it took much of his energy to move from his bed to his armchair and back. He replied in the words of Luke 10:20: ‘Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.’ In other words, do not tie your joy, your sense of wellbeing, to power in ministry. Your ministry can be taken from you. Tie your joy to the fact that you are known and loved by God; tie it to your salvation; tie it to the sublime truth that your name is written in heaven. That can never be taken from you. Lloyd-Jones added: ‘I am perfectly content.’ – From A Call to Spiritual Reformation by D.A. Carson
Hymns I’m Angry I Didn’t Learn as a Child (14)
Snagged this from Keller’s Counterfiet Gods. “It is finished,” oh the depth of gospel truth contained in those three words. My favorite lines are the ones Keller quotes, the lines of the last stanza, “cast your dealdy ‘doing’ down…”.
It is Finished by James Proctor
Nothing, either great or small—
Nothing, sinner, no;
Jesus died and paid it all,
Long, long ago.Refrain
“It is finished!” yes, indeed,
Finished, ev’ry jot;
Sinner, this is all you need,
Tell me, is it not?When He, from His lofty throne,
Stooped to do and die,
Ev’rything was fully done;
Hearken to His cry!Refrain
Weary, working, burdened one,
Wherefore toil you so?
Cease your doing; all was done
Long, long ago.Refrain
Till to Jesus’ work you cling
By a simple faith,
“Doing” is a deadly thing—
“Doing” ends in death.Refrain
Cast your deadly “doing” down—
Down at Jesus’ feet;
Stand in Him, in Him alone,
Gloriously complete.Refrain
Genesis 43-44 & From Enoch to Philadelphia
All the Bible is God shouting to us, “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.” Unfortunately we like the disciples want to build altars to Moses and Elijah. Judah impresses us here, but don’t settle for second hand glory. Let his moonlight excite you to discover the source.
One image Scripture uses to speak of Christ is that He is our True Elder Brother. He is the firstborn among many brothers (Romans 8:29). We are fellow heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17). As we survey Genesis brotherly love is profoundly absent. The first brotherly relationship ends in fratricide. This last section is titled “the generations of Jacob” (Genesis 37:2). It is about these brothers, the nation of Israel in embryo. In the ESV “brother” occurs ninety-nine times in this last section. As we come to the close of this book brotherly love is restored. And oh how gloriously God does it.
Instead of taking life, a brother will give up his life. He will pay the penalty for the “guilty” and suffer the consequences. He will suffer bondage that the “thief” may go free (Genesis 44:32-33). Which brother does this? The brother who previously pragmatically suggested they fully benefit from Joseph plight. He wanted to keep their wallets fat and their consciences light (Genesis 37:26-27). Now his conscience is stricken, out of love for his father (Genesis 44:34). Likely having lost two sons of his own has put his heart in tune with his father’s. Who is this brother? Judah, who is to become the kingly tribe (Genesis 49:10), the tribe of David, from which the Messiah will come, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.
God, to magnify His Son, “exorcises” the “spirit of Cain” from the brothers and fills them with the Spirit of Christ. He not only is relocating them from Canaan to Egypt, but from Enoch (the city built by Cain in Genesis 4:17) to Philadelphia.
We are not types of Christ as Judah was, but God’s providence is nonetheless at work to conform us to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29). He disciplines us as sons to make us look like the Son.
Genesis 42 & Can There Be Right in Our Wrongness?
Sometimes there can be right in your wrongness. We are frail sinful creatures. All our good is mixed with evil. When I was a high school student I overheard a struggling pastor say he didn’t know if he could bring his teenagers to church camp. I anonymously sent him some money to be used for this purpose. I’m sure there was some initial pride involved in the deed. Within the last couple of years I was speaking with my mom about this pastor and she reminded me of the act. It took a while for her to remind me, I had nearly forgotten the deed. But now every time I read Matthew 6:3-4, I think, “I did that once.” In our right there is always some wrong mingled in. But have you ever considered that by God’s grace in your wrong, there can be right?
God uses the brother’s wrong conceptions of what God is doing, to bring about the actions God desires. The brothers seem to think God is exacting payment for their sins (Genesis 42:21-22, 28). God is working to bring about their repentance, by their wrong conception of Him. These brothers are not experiencing God’s wrath for sins, but His covenant faithfulness. God is not exacting payment from them. They couldn’t foot the bill. The wages of sin is death. There are only two sufficient payments for sin, eternity in hell, and the cross. Jesus paid for all their sins. God’s chastisement is not an exacting of payment, but a mark of love.
This is not to say our wrong perceptions of God are ok. They are not, they are sin. Sin is not legitimized, but God grace is glorified. Tozer was absolutely right when he wrote, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” Yet God graciously leads us to repentance of our sins and to a true knowledge of Him. Oh matchless grace greater than all our sin.
God uses their sinful perceptions of His providence to bring about repentance. God uses Joseph to unify, sanctify, and preserver the covenant family. He uses a famine to provide the world with the Bread of Life. This should not surprise us. He used the cross to break that Bread, and extract the wine that we might partake and have eternal life. God ordained the greatest sin ever as the act whereby our sins were washed away.
ADDENDUM:
As soon as I posted this I read this J.I. Packer Quote on Justin Taylor’s blog.
It is certain that God blesses believers precisely and invariably by blessing to them something of his truth and that misbelief as such is in its own nature spiritually barren and destructive.
Yet anyone who deals with souls will again and again be amazed at the gracious generosity with which God blesses to needy ones what looks to us like a very tiny needle of truth hidden amid whole haystacks of mental error. . . .
Every Christian without exception experiences far more in the way of mercy and help than the quality of his notions warrants
No Other Boast 