Josh King

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.

Think and Pray?

~ “I’ll think about it an pray,” usually means “I’ll procrastinate and disobey.” – Stolen from Thabiti Anyabwile

Tolle Lege: The Practice of Godliness

Readability: 1

Length: 226 pgs

Author: Jerry Bridges

If an author impacts me both with the ugliness of sin and the beauty of the atonement I am deeply thankful for them. I always exit a Jerry Bridges book extremely thankful. This sequel to The Pursuit of Holiness is no exception.

In a way The Practice of Godliness is the positive of his excellent book Respectable Sins. After laying the foundation that godliness is rooted in devotion towards God he goes on to cover the various godly traits such as joy, holiness, contentment, humility, thankfulness, and the fruit of the Spirit.

The practice of godliness is an exercise or discipline that focuses on God. From this Godward attitude arises the character and conduct that we usually think of as godliness. So often we try to develop Christian character and conduct without taking the time to walk with Him and develop a relationship with Him. This is impossible to do.

Where can we find the time for quality Bible study? I once heard that question asked of a chief of surgery in a large hospital. Twenty-five years later, his answer continues to challenge me. He looked his questioner squarely in the eye and said, “You always find time for what is important to you.” How important is the practice of godliness to you? Is it important enough to take priority over television, books, magazines, recreation, and a score of activities that we all somehow find time to engage in?

Some virtues of Christian character, such as holiness, love, and faithfulness, are godly traits because they reflect the character of God. They are godlike qualities. Other virtues are godly traits because they acknowledge and exalt the character of God. They are God-centered qualities that enhance our devotion to God. Such are the virtues of humility, contentment, and thankfulness. In humility we acknowledge God’s majesty, in contentment His grace, in thankfulness His goodness.

[S]o often when we sin we are more vexed at the lowering of our self –esteem than we are grieved at God’s dishonor.

The Doctor: No Right to Look

Is it not clear, then, for all these reasons, that if the Lord Jesus Christ is not crucial, central, vital, and occupying the very centre of our meditation and our living, our thinking, and our praying, that we really have not right to look for revival? And yet, what is the position? If you go and talk to many people, even in the Church, about religion, you will find that they will talk to you at great length, without ever mentioning the Lord Jesus Christ. – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Revival, p. 45