Author: Josh King

Reasons Why God Blesses Earnest, Constant Prayer

In a sermon taking Genesis 32:26-29 as his text, Jonathan Edwards gives four reasons why God chooses to bestow His blessing on fervent, persistent prayer.  I found these so refreshing and encouraging.

1.  ‘Tis very suitable and becoming that before men have the blessing they should this way show their sense of their need of it and of the value of it.  ‘Tis very suitable that before God bestows his blessing upon them, persons should be sensible they need it.  And ‘tis by their importunity and earnest seeking of it – their not listening God go except he bestows it – that they show their sense of their need of it.

‘Tis very suitable that before God bestows his blessing persons should be sensible of the great value of the blessing and the advantage it will be to them.  They show also a sense of this by the not letting God go except he bestows it.

2.  God’s seeming to deny persons the blessing for a while when they seek tends to lead persons to reflect on their unworthiness of the blessing.  They have that seeming denial to put them upon thinking what they have done to provoke God to withhold a blessing from them.  While Christ seemed to deny the woman of Canaan what she sought, she was put in mind of her unworthiness.  Jesus said, ‘It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and cast it to dogs” (Matt. 15:26).  The leads them to seek in a more humble manner.

3.  ‘Tis very suitable before God bestows the blessing upon a person that he should this way acknowledge him to be the author of the blessing.  This earnestly seeking of it of God so as not to let him go ’til he bestows is a becoming acknowledgement that God is the fountain of blessing and that no other can bestow it but he.

4.  The person by such seeking of the blessing is prepared for it.  He is put into a suitable disposition to receive it, to entertain it joyfully and thankfully, and to make much of it when it is obtained and to give God the glory of it.

Tolle Lege: The Bookends of the Christian Life

Readability: 1

Length: 154 pgs

Author: Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington

The Bookends of the Christian Life is a short little book for the whole of life.  John Wesly once wrote

He breaks the power of canceled sin,
He sets the prisoner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean,
His blood availed for me.

This is the message of this gospel saturated book.  In Christ my sins are done with, I am cleansed from them and stand clothed in His righteousness.  But not only am I cleansed, the Holy Spirit now indwells me to break the power of the sin that Jesus cancelled.  Don’t look here for any amazing originality.  Come here to be reminded about the very core of living the Christian life.  Here the most vital of doctrines are applied to your everyday living.

The Doctor: Christians are Non-Reptilian

So you do not become a Christian in cold blood, unmoved, undisturbed.  You do not sit down in a detached manner and say, ‘Well, I have agreed with that doctrine, and therefore I am a Chrsitian.’  Not at al!  You have been through these stages – conviction, repentance, fear, desire for deliverance, recognition of Him, casting yourself upon Him, thankfulness and praise, glorying in Him, greeting His truth, desiring to know more and more about it!  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 10, p. 174

Genesis 38 & Promiscuous Providence

Oh the tension between the tender and the terrifying that is this passage.

This is not a flannel graph friendly passage.  Sister Sue never taught this in children’s chapel.  If your pastor preaches expository messages and is going through Genesis this might be the only time you hear him say “semen” in the pulpit.  But beware, Moses is not trying to titillate your senses.  Do not use this text as a basis for explicit material as the subject of art.  One could use Moses as a proof for realism, but not sensualism.  Sin is not romanticized here.

So one could misread this text by handling it wrong, treating it more like a romance novel, or a racy drama; or one could misread it by making light of the sins presented here.  Yes, here God’s providence works such that from all this sin comes the Savior.  God’s plan is not thwarted to work all things together for good, not even by the saints own sins.  Yet there is a tension here.  We may not presume upon God’s grace.  Some sinners die, some live.  We are not even clued into the wickedness that was Er’s, God need not give any justification to us.  He would be just to condemn us all to such a sentence for any one minute of our lives.

It is precisely this tension that makes God’s gracious providence so astounding, so outrageous.  God loves and works things, all things, for the good and salvation of such despicable depraved souls.  His providence seems promiscuous.  But alas, these are the only kind of humans for God to love, darkness loving, sin wrecked, cursed, and depraved enemies.  Yet God’s love toward them is holy, for the Son of Perez, our Lord Jesus, would bear the wrath for our sins. 

Here at the cross tension between the terrifying and the tender is revealed most powerfully.  Concerning those crucified beside Christ, one was saved that all may have hope, but only one that none might presume.  It is only in this tension that God’s love truly floors us.  If we lose sight of His terrifying Holiness we may no longer sing that God’s grace is amazing.

Tolle Lege: The Case for Life

Readability: 1

Length: 243 pgs

Author: Scott Klusendorf

Looking to be a better voice for the unborn?  Buy Klusendorf’s The Case for Life.  Klusendorf wisely calls us to narrow the debate to one question:  What is the unborn?  Here we have the advantage.  The burden of proof lies upon pro-choice advocates to prove that the unborn are not humans.  At the very least they must admit they are potential humans.  Intellectually ours is not the weaker position, this book will help you demonstrate that.

Why should you want to be a better advocate?  In the introduction Klusendorf recalls a mentor’s signature quote that haunts him to this day, “Most people who say they oppose abortion do just enough to salve the conscience but not enough to stop the killing.”  Are you comfortable with the death of the innocent?  I am, but I hope to be less so in the future.  This book has pushed me out of my comfort.

In short, you didn’t come from an embryo.  You were once an embryo.  At no point in your prenatal development did you undergo a substantial change of nature.  You began as a human being and will remain so until death.  Sure, you lacked maturity at that early stage of your life (as does an infant), but you were human nonetheless.

Next time somebody says you shouldn’t impose your beliefs on other, ask, ‘Why not?’  Any answer he gives will be an example of imposing his beliefs on you!

If you’ve had an abortion, you don’t need an excuse.  You need an exchange – his righteousness for your sinfulness.

The Doctor: Believe In Your Innermost Citadel

[I]n the vast majority of instances, the word heart in Scripture means the centre, the very innermost citadel, of the personality.  Or, if you like, it means the whole personality.  So when the Scripture says that with heart we believe that God has raised Him from the dead, it means that with the whole of our being we believe that.  ‘With the heart man believeth unto righteousness’: with the whole of his personality, not merely his feelings, not merely his intellect, but the totality of everything that he is.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 10, p. 14

Genesis 37:2-36 & Providence

We have now entered into the last section of Genesis (37:2-50:26). This book ends the way it began, leaving us in awe of God. The Joseph stories are not primarily written for us to glean trite moral lessons from, they are there to teach us about God. Really this whole section has one unified majestic point – the providence of God. Genesis begins by stunning us with God’s creative power, it concludes stunning us with His power. God not only calls all things into being, He sustains His creation, guides it, and governs it towards His ends. The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith says the following of God’s providence:

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.

How do we know that this is the point of the story? Our initial clue are the prophetic dreams given to Joseph by God. They function as an interpretive gird in this section the same way that Jacob’s ladder (Genesis 28:10-22) did for the eighth section (25:19-35:29). But this is not the only interpretive key we are given. The theological climax of what this section is to teach us is not explicitly stated until the end. The primary cause in sending Jacob to Egypt was not his brothers; it was God (Genesis 45:5-8). What God does is not simply turn his brother’s evil for good, but plan and will his brother’s evil for good (Genesis 50:20).

The great puritan John Flavel said, “The providence of God is like Hebrew words – it can only be read backwards.” The story of Joseph is a story of God’s providence, it must be read backwards. In fact all of the Old Testament is a story of God’s providence, it must be read backwards. Or as Sinclair Ferguson wrote, “…the events, imagery, and language of the Old Testament are like a shadow cast backward into history by Christ, the light of the world.” Later in the same great book, In Christ Alone, he goes on to write:

The invisible is more substantial than the visible;
The future shapes the past;
The new is more fundamental than the past.

What does all this mean?

Simply put, it means that the story of the Lord Jesus, his person and work, is not a divine afterthought, a heavenly plan B hurriedly scrambles together when plan A went horribly wrong. No, the coming of Christ was in the plan before the fall. Everything that preceded it chronologically actually follows it logically.

Jesus is the true and better Joseph. He is the righteous, elect, and anointed Son, lifted up by His Father and hated by men, for He exposes our disobedience. He is sent as a lamb to the slaughter, not ignorantly, but knowingly by His Father. He is handed over to the Gentiles, suffering for our salvation. After going to the lowest depths bearing the wrath of God, His Father raises Him up, sets Him in the position of supreme ruler, and then using this new power Jesus saves those who have so horribly sinned against Him.

This is the supreme story of God’s providence (Acts 4:27-28). All of history centers around it.

Tolle Lege: Same Kind of Different as Me

Readability: 1

Length: 235 pgs

Author: Ron Hall and Denver Moore

Truth is bigger than fiction.  I think one purpose of fiction is to wake us up to the bigness of real life.  Fiction exists only in man’s imagination.  It is flat.  It comes from man’s mind.  God’s mind is infinitely bigger.  Humans are infinitely more amazing creatures than trolls or elves, for humans are made in the image of God.

None of this is to say that fiction or art is not stunning.  But if Lord of the Rings can so stun, stir, and inspire, how much more the reality of living all of life imago Dei?

Here is a true story that illustrates my argument.  The story of Denver Moore and Ron Hall and Ron’s wife Debbie who brought them together, is filled with love, suffering, beauty, pain, death, hope, joy, and glory.  It is a great story well told.  My eyes are not big enough for me.  This book lends me good eyes, eyes to see my God and humanity, eyes that see Avatar as small.

Read these quotes and see if you want to see with these eyes as well.

Until Miss Debbie, I’d never spoke to no white woman before.  Just answered a few questions, maybe – it wadn’t really speakin.

Denver smiled a bit and sidled up to a cautious question.  ‘I know it ain’t none of my business, but does you own something that each one of them keys fits?’

I glanced at the keys; there were about ten of them.  ‘I suppose,’ I replied, not really ever having thought about it.

‘Are you sure you own them, or does they own you?’

Money can’t buy no blessins.

You’d be surprised what you can learn talkin to homeless people. … Sometimes to touch us, God touches someone that’s close to us.

How do you live the rest of your life in just a few days?

I was embarrassed I once thought myself superior to him, stooping to sprinkle wealth and wisdom into his lowly life.

‘But sometimes we has to be thankful for the things that hurt us,’ I said, ‘cause sometimes God does things that hurt us but they help somebody else.’

The truth about it is, whether we is rich or poor or something in between, this earth ain’t no final restin place.  So in a way, we is all homeless – just working our way toward home.

Just tell ’em I’m a nobody tryin’ to tell everybody about Somebody who can save anybody.

The Doctor: Our Main Problem

Our main problem is not our particular sins.  The main problem of every person born into this world is the problem of his standing before God.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 10, p. 53