Author: Josh King

The Doctor: the Non-Existance of Exhaustiveness

A friend of mine who used to attend here regularly and who has now gone to glory – a very good man – once said to me, rather jocularly but very kindly – “You know, I sometimes think that the Apostle Paul must be amazed when he sees what you get out of his epistles!”  Poor man!  By now my friend has discovered that the Apostle Paul is amazed how little that most people, and I with them, get out of his great epistles.  – D. Martyn Lloyd Jones, Romans Vol. 1, p. 227

For reference as to how much The Doctor got out of Paul’s epistles this comes from a Sermon on Romans 9:10-11, his seventeenth sermon out of Romans at that point.

Tolle Lege: Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices

Each year I try to pick out some particular study of theology and plan some reading on it.  This year I am devoting some reading to spiritual warfare and the first book on my list was Thomas Brook’s Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices.  If by spiritual warfare you are thinking casting out demons and such this is not the book to read; it deals with the much more ordinary and common warfare which Satan wages on our souls every day.  There are four main sections to the book and an appendix.  The first section deals with several devices Satan uses to draw the soul to sin, the second several devices he uses to keep men from holy duties, the third several devices he uses to keep souls in a sad doubting condition, and the fourth several devices he has against particular sorts and ranks of men.  After presenting a particular device he then presents remedies to counter it.  What are the remedies?  Truth, scriptural truth; this is why I think you should read this book.  It gives an awareness of the real spiritual battle you wage every day, it exposes Satan’s lies, and it gives you truth to meditate on to counter those lies.  I don’t think every section will be equally helpful to all.  I found the first most powerful and from there the book dwindled in its impact on me.  Regardless I think the first section should be read by all Christians.  Brooks is one of the more accessible Puritan writers and the paperback version has likely been modernized in language (though I didn’t read this version most of the Puritan Paperbacks I have compared have been).

Many long to be meddling with the murdering morsels of sin, which nourish not, but rend and consume the belly, the soul that receives them. Many eat that on earth that they digest in hell. Sin’s murdering morsels will deceive those that devour them. Adam’s apple was a bitter sweet; Esau’s mess was a bitter sweet; the Israelites’ quails a bitter sweet; Jonathan’s honey a bitter sweet; and Adonijah’s dainties a bitter sweet. After the meal is ended, then comes the reckoning. Men must not think to dance and dine with the devil, and then to sup with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; to feed upon the poison of asps, and yet that the viper’s tongue should not slay them.

As long as there is fuel in our hearts for a temptation, we cannot be secure. He that hath gunpowder about him had need keep far enough off from sparkles.

Thou art as well able to melt adamant, as to melt thine own heart; to turn a flint into flesh, as to turn thine own heart to the Lord; to raise the dead and to make a world, as to repent. Repentance is a flower that grows not in nature’s garden.

The Doctor: Why We Are

We do not become the beloved because of anything that we do.  We are what we are because he first loved us.  It is His love that initiates the movement that brings us out of that terrible plight and predicament in which we are all are as the result of sin.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 1, Pg. 159

Hebrews 10:26-39 & Warnings that Scare

What warnings and threats scare us can tell us what we really value.  Having the TV taken away from you might not scare you a bit, but the threat of only being allowed a few outfits and restricted from buying any new clothes is deadly serious.  The threat of having computer privileges revoked will not curb any sinful tendencies, but to be banned from the Playstation is your functional hell.  What is your functional hell?  The thing that when threatened causes panic?  Is it weight gain, being unfashionable, your reputation, your physique, your intelligence, cash flow, car, losing your job?  All these hells pale in comparison to the true hell.  And if hell is hell to you, why is it hell to you?  If the fires of hell do not terrify you it is because you have what you treasure.  One day you will lose it all, all the heavens of this earth, but that will not be the cause of your deepest agony.  Hell will be hell not because of the absence of earthly treasures, but because the greatest being in the universe is eternally wrathful in His disposition towards you.  The day when you finally see something all glorious and worth giving your all towards will be the day when eternally you are separated from Him, never to enjoy any of the pleasures that are found explicitly and infinitely in Him.  Far better your hell to be temporal and heaven eternal, than your heaven to be temporal and your hell eternal.  May the true hell terrify you, not the petty hells of this earth.  And in the midst of the hells of this earth, if you are Christ’s, rejoice, heaven is yours, great is your reward.  

The critical question for our generation—and for every generation—is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?  – John Piper

Most Influential Books

Outside of God’s Holy Word, what are the most influential (not necessarily the best, but the ones that most radically shaped who you are) books you have read.  Here are mine:

  1. Desiring God by John Piper
  2. The Cross of Christ by John R.W. Stott
  3. The Mortification of Sin by John Owen
  4. The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer
  5. Spiritual Depression by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

The Doctor: Revival Not Contingent Upon Me

If you work your way through the Old Testament, this is what you will find.  There were dead, lifeless periods when you would think that everything had come to an end – that God’s ways were forgotten.  How did these dead periods suddenly give way to something else?  Was it that people got together and organized something?  Never!  Not on a single occasion!  Invariably it happened like this: that when they were utterly hopeless, and downcast, and really thought the end had come, God suddenly, unexpectedly, and in the most amazing manner did something.  It is God who revives His work.  You and I tend to be anxious, over-anxious, about the work, don’t we?  Like that poor man Uzzah, we put out our hand to steady the ark, forgetting that he was struck dead for attempting to do so.  And there are many people today who seem to think that they must do something to safeguard God’s cause.  My dear friend, you need not trouble; God revives His work, but in His time, in His way, and with the person or persons whom He has chosen.  The Old Testament history is amazing in that respect.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans, Vol. 1, p.96

Hebrews 10:19-25 & Jerry-rigged Spirituality

I grew up in Eakly, so I can legitimately and authoritatively speak concerning the subject of jerry-rigging.  Contrary to popular folklore, anything cannot be fixed with duct tape, bailing wire, and a pair of pliers.  It is true that much can be temporarily “patched” or maintained with the aforementioned items, but “fixed” is an exaggeration.   Jerry-rigging seems great, until it kills you.  Everything is cool until the bull decides to alleviate his huge, raging , travel-nervous bladder and urine flies in your face instantly causing a swerve instinct; and swerving with a ton of top heavy bull flesh…

Likewise spiritual jerry-rigging seems great too, until it kills you. 

Too many get excited about the “therefore” in scripture for the wrong reason.  After 4 chapters of assiduous focus on the High Priesthood of Christ we can now mercifully move on to some practical stuff, some stuff that really effects how I live right?  Like approaching one of those long drawn out Texas towns we pray there will be a loop to let us bypass the scenic tour of downtown.  We want to bypass the slow tedious theology and get on with the fast pace of our lives.  Just tell me what to do in order to arrive at my destination of blessedness in the fastest possible manner.  No one takes the scenic routes anymore.  We jerry-rig our spirituality to spit out results.  Our machine is operated on the philosophy of pragmatism, not principle.

The deal is that everything that precedes the therefore is there for a reason.  If you strip away the theology you subtract the impetus towards what follows it.  You end up with a non-Spirit spirituality.  Theology is the study of God.  When you want to take God and His ways out to be left with a set of seven  practical spiritual steps you are left with law.  “Just tell me what to say to get you in bed, I want the benefits without the commitment,” that is the language of spiritual jerry-rigging.

Theology produces the vegetable garden of “let-us” in Hebrews 10:22-24.  Jerry-rig the theology out of the system and you will only grow a pseudo-let-us that has the bitter taste of law.

The Doctor: the Understanding of, Not the Doing of Sin Brings the Greatest Joy

An inadequate understanding of our sinfulness is probably the greatest single cause of our failure to rejoice always in the Lord always, and to realize that this message is the greatest good news the world has ever received. …The positive road to joy is always via the depth of sin. …It ought to be impossible for us to use the word ‘gospel’ without bursting forth, as it were, into a hymn of praise and thanksgiving.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 1, pp. 58, 59

Tolle Lege: Spectacular Sins

I hate watered down answers to the problem of pain, they do not sustain.  I hate it when Christians feel ashamed of the greatness of God, the sovereignty of God, the wisdom of God, and the goodness of God in the midst of catastrophe.  When God is made less of in an attempt to make us feel better in our pain the bandage will soon fall off and the deadly wound will be revealed to not have been healed.  This book is no such answer.  It gives strength to suffer not by making less of God, but much of God.

At the all-important pivot of human history, the worst sin ever committed served to show the greatest glory of Christ and obtain the sin-conquering gift of God’s grace. God did not just overcome evil at the cross. He made evil serve the overcoming of evil. He made evil commit suicide in doing its worst evil.

Evil is anything and everything opposed to the fullest display of the glory of Christ. That’s the meaning of evil. In the death of Christ, the powers of darkness did their best to destroy the glory of the Son of God. This is the apex of evil. But instead they found themselves quoting the script of ancient prophecy and acting the part assigned by God. Precisely in putting Christ to death, they put his glory on display—the very glory that they aimed to destroy. The apex of evil achieved the apex of the glory of Christ. The glory of grace.

My aim is to show that sin and evil, no matter how spectacular, never nullify the decisive, Christ-exalting purposes of God. No, my aim is more than that. These spectacular sins do not just fail to nullify God’s purpose to glorify Christ, they succeed, by God’s unfathomable providence, in making his gracious purpose come to pass. This truth is the steel God offers to put in the spine of his people as they face the worst calamities. There will be tenderness in due time. But if the back of our faith is broken because we think God is evil or absent, who will welcome him when he comes with caresses?

Tolle Lege: Job

The best gift I received this Christmas was one I already had, kind of.  Previously the same poem was available under the title The Misery of Job and the Mercy of God by John Piper with photography by Ric Ergunbright.  This reissue, titled simply Jōb, with illustrations by Chirstopher Koelle is amazing; the art is married to and seemingly birthed out of the poetry.  This is excellent tonic for the suffering soul.  I highly recommend that you do three things in relation to it:

  1. Buy it for yourself.
  2. Read / Listen (an audio recording comes with the gift set) to the book with your family
  3. Buy extra copies to give away to the suffering.

And now come, broken, to the cross,

Where Christ embraced all human loss,

And let us bow before the throne

Of God, who gives and takes his own,

And promises – whatever toll

He takes – to satisfy our soul.

Come learn the lesson of the rod:

The treasure that we have in God.

He is not poor nor much enticed

Who loses everything but Christ.

 www.jobthebook.com

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zWQ8EjoN94]