An old preacher who lived about 100 years ago used a very good illustration to explain the matter. He said: “Here is a statement which appears to be contradictory, ‘All things work together for good to them that love God”. How can that be? The good things I see, are working in that direction, but look at those other things – they seem to be working in the opposite direction. How can you say that things which are working in the opposite directions are for my good? The old preacher answered by using the illustration of a watch. He said, “Take your watch and open it. What do you see? You see that one wheel is turning in an anti-clockwise direction, but it is attached to another wheel that is working in a clockwise direction. You look at the machinery and you say, ‘This is mad, this is quite ridiculous; here are wheels turning in opposite directions; the man who made the watch must have been a madman.” But he wasn’t. He has so arranged the watch and put in a main-spring to govern all the wheels, that when it is wound up, though one wheel turns this way, and another that way, they are all working together to move the hands round the face of the watch. They appear to be in contradiction but they are all working together to the same end. Our lives are like that. Look at life, and you ask at first what is happening? I can see that certain things are good for me, but other things seem to be al against me. But think again of the great Watchmaker who has planned it all. Do not jump to the conclusions, look for the ultimate purpose, look for the ultimate end. And if you do so with a spiritual eye you will soon begin to see that God knows what He is doing.” – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 8, pp. 169-170
Author: Josh King
Tolle Lege: He is Not Silent
Length: 169 pgs
Author: Al Mohler
I am deeply thankful to God for Al Mohler. I believe God’s hand has powerfully been on him as the president of Southern Seminary. I think He is Not Silent might be Mohler at his best, showing the deterioration of preaching in light of the glory that it is meant to be.
In the end, our calling as preachers is really very simple. We study, we stand before our people, we read the text, and we explain it. We reprove, rebuke, exhort, encourage, and teach – and then we do it all again and again and again.
Preach the Word! That simple imperative frames the act of preaching as an act of obedience, and that is where any theology of preaching must begin. Preaching did not emerge from the church’s experimentation with communication techniques. The church does not preach because preaching is thought to be a good idea or an effective technique. The sermon has not earned its place in Christian worship by proving its utility in comparison with other means of communication or aspects of worship. Rather, we preach because we have been commanded to preach.
True preaching begins with this confession: we preach because God has spoken. That fundamental conviction is the fulcrum of the Christian faith and of Christian preaching.
I fear that there are many evangelicals today who believe that God spoke but doubt whether he speaks.
Preaching is therefore always a matter of life and death. … The question that faces us as preachers is not how we’re going to grow our churches or inspire our people. It is not even how we can lead them to live more faithfully than they did before. The question that faces us is: Are these people going to life or are they going to die?
The expositor is not an explorer who return to tell tales of the journey but a guide who leads the people into the text, teaching the arts of Bible study and interpretations even as he demonstrates the same.
The preaching ministry is not a profession to be joined but a call to be answered.
Standing on the authority of Scripture, the preacher declares a truth received, not a message invented. The teaching office is not an advisory role based in religious expertise but a prophetic function whereby God speaks to His people.
Rarely do we hear these days of a church that is distinguished primarily by its faithful, powerful, expository preaching. Instead, when we hear persons speak about their churches, they usually point to something other than preaching. They may speak of its specialized ministry to senior adults, or its children’s ministry, or its youth ministry. They may speak of its music or its arts program or its drama team, or of things far more superficial than those. Sometime they may even speak of the church’s Great Commission vigor and its commitment to world missions – and for that we are certainly thankful. But sadly, it is rare to hear a church described first and foremost by the character, power, and content of its preaching.
The Doctor: Our Trouble in Prayer Is Our Little Troubles
Our trouble usually is, that we are so deeply concerned about our little problem and our particular difficulty, that we forget everything else, as if our problem was the one thing that mattered in the whole universe. Pray for the success of God’s kingdom, for the spread of His Kingdom, for the success of His work. It is always safe to pray for a greater knowledge of God, a greater knowledge of His love, a greater knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, a greater understanding of His love towards you. You need never hesitate about offering such prayers; they are always acceptable to God, they are always well-pleasing in His sight. He delights in them, and the more we pray in that way the more God will be pleased with us. Prayer for greater holiness, greater sanctification, greater strength, and help in the battle against sin, is always right. – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans, Vol. 8, p. 152
Genesis 26:1-33 & Consonance and Dissonance
The first verse of this chapter tells us that there is both consonance and dissonance between Abraham and Isaac. As his son takes the stage there is a famine, not the same famine, but a famine just as there was in the days of his father. We are to distinguish yet remember.
Abraham would face two famines, Isaac one. God would allow Abraham to sin in self-reliance by going to Egypt, He would prevent Isaac from sinning. With Abraham He would protect the covenant using the miraculous, both plagues (Genesis 12:17) and a dream (Genesis 20:6), whereas with Isaac subtle providence would be his tool (Genesis 26:8). Still it is the same covenant, the same promises, the same faithfulness, the same God who permeates both of their lives.
God’s mysterious ways and methods may be different, he may sovereignly order circumstances in a different way, but His covenant faithfulness is unchanging. Do not look to circumstances as a gauge of God’s faithfulness, look to His covenant, look to His Christ. God will be with Isaac exactly as He was with Abraham (Genesis 26:3) exactly as He will be with you.
Addendum: Last night I mentioned how Genesis 26:12-17 is a favorite passage for proponents of the “prosperity gospel”. Al Mohler has written a post reflecting upon the life of Oral Roberts. Concerning the prosperity gospel he writes:
Prosperity theology teaches that God promises his people financial gain and bodily health. It is a false Gospel that turns the Gospel of Christ upside-down. The true Gospel offers forgiveness of sins and leads to a life of discipleship. Following Christ demands poverty more often than wealth, and we are not promised relief from physical ills, injury, sickness, or death. Christians die along with all other mortals, but we are promised the gift of eternal life in Christ.
8 Years, More than Tears
Bethany,
Your 20’s are years normally fraught with big decisions. I regret many decisions made at that time, mostly my choices regarding my education. The one decision I do not regret is the best one I made, you. This decision was owing more to God’s grace than personal wisdom. I thank God that my many rash and unstudied decisions led to our lives colliding.
The past eight years include the most painful and hard seasons of my short life, however, they are also the best years of my life. I love my God more, I love you more. Marriage is hard, marriage is glorious. Our God has been gracious.
Happy Anniversary,
Yours
Tolle Lege: Polishing God’s Monuments
Readability: 1
Length: 294 pgs
Author: Jim Andrews
I’ve read a good number of books on suffering; Polishing God’s Monuments might be the best one. In it deep theology comes to you refined out of the fires of affliction. The big issues are not dodged, and personal experience is not lacking. In addition Jim Andrews is simply an incredible crafter of words. The book is a mixture of theology and biography. Jim Andrews tells of the unimaginable suffering of his daughter and son-in-law. The biography is not meant to outshine the theology, he uses their story to illustrate principles and glory in the truths that undergird them. If you read just one book on suffering, make it this one. The main principle of the book is that in the midst of suffering we must polish God’s monuments. We must look to our past, this includes all of redemptive history, and “polish”, that is remember our God, and that who He was, He is, and forever will be. We don’t look back to live in the past, but to anticipate the God of all grace and peace in the present.
God’s people are buffeted in two ways: sometimes we suffer for the faith and other times we suffer with faith. Either way our faith remains a work in progress.
The logic of monumental faith is simple. If God loved and cared for me in the past; if God displayed his wisdom and power for me in the past; if God in his essential and moral being is the same yesterday and today and forever; if I myself am on the same spiritual page as before when the Lord showed his glory on my behalf, then nothing in this baffling instance has changed except his secret purposes.
God has not changed, and you have not changed, but his purpose is different this time around. Be still, rest in the shade of his monuments, and wait patiently for him to finish his work. In the end he’ll be there just as he was before.
For us it has been polish or perish.
The truth is a life of suffering is a better benchmark of God’s favor than a life of surfing. God’s love is more likely to reveal itself in the presence of pain than in the absence of it.
The Doctor: “Lord Teach Us to Pray!”
Anyone who has never felt the need of being taught to pray is really telling us that he never has prayed, and that he does not know what prayer means. – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 8, p. 146
Hymns I’m Angry I Didn’t Learn as a Child (12)
I found this gem while looking back through Pink’s The Sovereignty of God. I love the last stanza.
I Worship Thee, Most Gracious God
By Frederick W. Faber
I worship Thee, most gracious God,
And all Thy ways adore;
And every day I live, I seem
To love Thee more and more.When obstacles and trials seem
Like prison walls to be,
I do the little I can do,
And leave the rest to Thee.I have no cares, O blessèd Will,
For all my cares are Thine;
I live in triumph, Lord, for Thou
Hast made Thy triumphs mine.He always wins who sides with God;
To him no chance is lost;
God’s will is sweetest to him when
It triumphs at his cost.Ill that He blesses is our good,
And unblest good is ill;
And all is right that seems most wrong,
If it be His sweet will.
Genesis 25 & A Bowl of Beans
Profane people are willing to relinquish things of lasting spiritual value because they live to satisfy their basic appetites. – Allen Ross in Creation and Blessing
A bowl of beans! There are historical attestations of birth rights being sold. In a poor family this might involve selling the birthright for a lamb or a goat. This was a wealthy family that God had richly blessed. Esau trades the eternal, for the temporal.
Do you count the gospel, all the promises of God that are yours in Christ as a treasure hid in the field worth selling everything for or as something less than a bowl of beans?
Tolle Lege: Does Grace Grow Best in Winter?
Readability: 1
Length: 86 pgs
Author: Ligon Duncan
C.J. Mahaney commends Does Grace Grow Best in Winter? saying,
If you are presently suffering, this book is for you. And if you are not, this book is still for you—in preparation for the trials that will undoubtedly come. Regardless of your current circumstances, Does Grace Grow Best in Winter? will help you perceive God’s purpose in suffering, receive God’s grace in trials, and draw near to our great high priest, who suffered the unimaginable horrors of the cross for us.
Here is a succinct yet thoroughly Biblical treatment of suffering. It does not aim at being simply sentimental, or inspirational but rather faithful to Scripture and therefore lastingly beneficial.
Remembering the mystery of God’s providence redirects our attention from why to God. Though we seek answers to our question of why we suffer, God brings comfort by answering the question of who is mysteriously working in our suffering.
Jesus suffered without us. We may be tempted to think that Christ cannot understand our particular situation. We may assume that there is some point of discontinuity between our experience and his that makes it impossible for him to really sympathize with us. But here is the glorious news. It is precisely because there is discontinuity between you experience and Jesus’ experience that he is able to sympathize with you in all things. In fact, Jesus has experienced something that, by God’s grace, the Christian will never have to experience.
No Other Boast 