Genesis 17 & All That He Is – For You

Do you realize the preciousness of these words “to be God to you… I will be their God” (Genesis 17:7-8)?  What is the difference between God being God to us, and God being God?  Do not pass lightly by such phrases in God’s Holy Word.  There is life giving, joy sustaining truth in such phrases.  Phrases like this are the place of sweet communion with God.

The difference between these two phrases, “God being God to us” and “God being God”, are as different as a woman being a wife, and a woman being my wife.  In one instance she is a wife, in the other she is a wife to me.  This means that everything she is as a wife, she is for me and to me alone.  This is the language of covenant.  This is the language of intimacy.  God has betrothed Himself to His people in love.

All that God is He is for you.  His beauty, for you.  His goodness, for you.  His kindness, for you.  His glory, for you.  His joy, for you.  His wisdom, for you.  His power, for you.  All His attributes are for you to enjoy and take comfort in.  Even His justice and righteousness, yes, even His wrath are for you.  Because in Christ your wrath has been born, now the wrath of God which works only to exalt His name and to stamp out injustice also works to your joy and good.  All He is, His entire “Godness” is for you.  There is nothing that He is that He is not for you.  To clarify and avoid heresy, by “for you” I mean for your enjoyment and protection.  God’s attributes are not against you, but for you.  You are not the reason He is what He is, but all that He is, He is in your favor.  This is the magnitude of grace we enjoy.  He is both your shield and your exceeding great reward.

The Doctor: Reverence is Not Bondage

The reconciliation of the apparent contradiction lies in the difference between respect and fear.  When you respect a person you do not fear that person.  What you fear is that you may do something that displease him, and that, not because you feat that he may punish you, but sometimes  even because you may feel that, because he is who and what he is, he will not punish you!  Reverence is ultimately based upon love, it is the recognition of this greatness of the privilege of being allowed to approach God.  There is nothing craven about that; there is not torment in it; there is no bondage in it.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 7, p. 224

False Advertising Prayer

To begin the day with prayer is but a formality unless it go on in prayer, unless for the rest of it we pray in deed what we began in word.  One has said that while prayer is the day’s best beginning it must not be like the handsome title-page of a worthless book.  – P.T. Forsyth

The Doctor: His Great Father-heart Towards Us

He is always ready to receive us, and to listen to us, and to grant us His blessing.  He is more ready to give than we are to receive.  Our Lord says, ‘Your heavenly Father knoweth the things that you desire of him before you even ask him.’  All this is a manifestation of the great Father-heart and love of God towards His children, those who are His sons.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 7, p. 163

Genesis 16 & The Atheism of Self-Reliance

Famine comes; self-reliance looks to Egypt (Genesis 12:10).

Barreness persists; self-reliance looks to culturally acceptable means. Pragmatism rather than principle rules.

Self-reliance is the seeking to de-God God. It is functional atheism. It says our God is small, He is not in control, we must bring things about. R.C. Sproul said that “Without sovereignty God cannot be God,” for if there is one maverick molecule it might be the one to undo all his plans. Sproul goes on to say:

If a grain of sand in the kidney of Oliver Cromwell changed the course of English history, so our maverick molecule could change the course of all redemptive history… There are no maverick molecules running around loose.  God is sovereign, God is God.  (Chosen by God)

We are humble creatures. We do not orchestrate the dancing of the stars. Volcanoes do not erupt at our bidding. Earthquakes are not prevented at our wish. We are unable to steer hurricanes. We do not sustain the molecules in our own bodies (Matthew 6:27). True, we should eat well and exercise, but herein lies an illustration of humble obedience and prideful self-reliance. Self-reliance thinks your heath is totally in your own hands. Obedience realizes a responsibility to act as a steward, not as Lord.

We are not in control. We are not sovereign. We are not part of a pantheon. He is the Father; we are to act as His grateful and adoring children, not His equals. We are not to orchestrate, but to play our instrument in humble obedience and reliant faith.

Enjoying the Storm

I love thunderstorms, but I am too comfortable around them.  If I am awake I enjoy them, if asleep I snore through them.  Even the tornado siren fails to stir me.  Yesterday afternoon as I sat in my office I loved to listening to the pouring rain and occasional thunder outside my window.  I had to step out of the office a few times just to appreciate it.  A record setting 4.42 inches of rain would fall.  On the way home my joy began to fade as I noticed the high water levels in my neighborhood.  I remembered the water level in a heavy rain can get close to our backdoor.  It has never flooded in the past, but I thought this might the time.  All the sudden the rain took on a regal robe of majesty.  It was to be respected.

I approach God too casually.  I forget His Holiness, His majesty, His glory, His righteousness, His jealousy, His wrath, His uncompromising commitment to His name.  I forget that He is a consuming fire.  I forget that there is only one reason why I am not under wrath.  There is only one reason why I am no longer condemned.  There is only one reason why His Spirit indwells me.  There is only one reason why I can read His Word, assured of its promises, as illuminated by the Spirit.  There is only one reason why I can pray to Him and approach His throne.  There is only one reason why His magnificence is beautifully glorious and not horrendously terrifying.  That reason is Jesus and the “wonderful, tragic, mysterious” tree.

Knowing God is perhaps like skydiving (I’ve never been).  It is a thrill, an exhilarating, breath-taking stunning joy – only with a parachute.  Take away the parachute and it is utter terror, there is no joy only sheer dread.

Or as I love to illustrate it, imagine there is a colossal roller coaster that dwarfs all others.  It has more twists, loops, and drops than all its competition combined.  You are intrigued and become consumed with riding it.  But then you discover it is a terror for it has no harnesses.  All who dare approach it die, there are no survivors.  It breaks your thrill seeking heart to discover that this magnificent coaster would not be your joy, but your undoing.  God is the eternal, infinite joy our hearts were made for.  As Augustine said, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.”   Yet you cannot enjoy this God for all His power is against you.  But there is a safety harness.  He is Jesus.  We only enjoy all that God is in Jesus.  No one would ever ride a respectable roller coaster without a harness.  Approaching God with reverence and fear means constantly clinging, loving, appreciating, and worshipping the harness.  The storm is only truly enjoyed from the vantage point of safety.

 

Related Posts:

The Doctor: It’s Not the Fall That Kills Ya

The most terrible aspect of falling into sin is not so much that I have failed, or that I have fallen, or that I am miserable, or that I need release, but that I have failed God and misrepresented Him, and that men and women in the world will know nothing about His praise, His glory, His virtues, His excellencies.  They will say that to be a Christian makes no difference, that Christians are like themselves after all.  They will ask, Where is the difference?  So they may dismiss Christianity and Christ.  It is as we realize that we are His representatives, that we are the channels that He has chosen by means of which He will show forth His own glory, His own excellency, His own power and the wonder of His ways, that we shall proceed to deal with the problem of sin.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 7, p. 147

Hymns I’m Angry I Didn’t Learn as a Child (10)

I love the deep, rich, vision of a God who is an overflowing fountain in this song, not a lonely watering trough.  I especially love how the first stanza speaks of His aseity, that is His self-sufficiency and independence.  What do you think?

Thou Wast, O God: And Thou Wast Blest
By John Mason

Thou wast, O God: And thou was blest
Before the World begun;
Of thine Eternity possest
Before Time’s Glass did run.
Thou needest none thy Praise to sing,
As if thy Joy could fade.
Could’st thou have needed any thing,
Thou could’st have nothing made.

Great and Good God, it pleased Thee
Thy God-Head to declare;
And what thy Goodness did decree,
Thy Greatness did prepare:
Thou spak’st, and Heav’n and Earth appear’d,
And answer’d to thy Call;
As if their Maker’s Voice they heard,
Which is the Creatures’ ALL.

Thou spak’st the Word, most mighty Lord,
Thy Word went forth with speed;
Thy Will, O Lord, it was thy Word,
Thy Word it was thy Deed.
Thou brought’st forth Adam from the Ground,
And Eve out of his Side;
Thy Blessing made the Earth abound
With these Two multiply’d.

Those three great Leaves, Heav’n, Sea and Land;
Thy Name in Figures show;
Brutes feel the Bounty of thy Hand,
But I my Maker know.
Should not I here thy Servant be,
Whose Creatures serve me here?
My Lord, whom should I fear, but Thee,
Who am thy Creatures Fear?

To whom, Lord, should I Sing, but Thee,
The Maker of my Tongue?
Lo! Other Lords would seize on me,
But I to Thee belong:
As Waters haste unto their Sea,
And Earth unto its Earth;
So let my Soul return to Thee,
From whom it had its Birth.

But Ah! I’m fallen in the Night,
And cannot come to thee;
Yet speak the Word, Let there be Light,
It shall Enlighten me:
And let thy Word, most Mighty Lord,
Thy Fallen Creature raise;
O make me o’er again, and I
Shall sing my Maker’s Praise.

Genesis 15 & Fear Not

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nEIpGwUQxI]

I probably should have preached this chapter in three segments, one on justification, one on covenant, and one on how both of these relate to Abram not being afraid.  I went straight to the third one because I wanted you to see how fear dispelling and courage generating these truths are.  Theology is for life.  We do not dive into doctrines like justification by faith and covenant to gain intellectual superiority.  We dive into it to know our God, to understand His mighty salvation, and then to live properly in light of it.  If the gospel is true then fears are stupid.  Why should Christians not fear?  God.  The more we know God, the less room there is for fear, of anything else. As Richard Baxter said, “If He be thine enemy, it is no matter who is thy friend; for all the world cannot save thee, if He do but condemn thee.”

I say your fears are stupid, my fears are stupid, not to insult you, but to free you.  If you are in Christ here these words from your sovereign heavenly Father, “Fear not.”  It is a command, but it comes so gently you don’t recognize it as one.  We will have fears, but our God speaks to us in His Word, He whispers to us of His might, faithfulness, love, sovereignty, and wisdom.  God deals gently with Abram’s fears as He tries to live in obedience.  As a father hugging his son in the scariest of moments know that the father hugs you.  The hug is soft on the inside but hard as iron from without.  You need not fear, He is your shield (Genesis 15:1).

One saint who was plagued with fears, loneliness, and depression all His life was William Cowper, a contemporary of John Newton, and William Wilberforce.   What gave Cowper hope and life was the gospel.  God spoke gently to Him, and now God speaks gently through him still through his hymns.  When full of fears and doubts, like Cowper, reflect on the cross and the blood of the new covenant.

There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood
By William Cowper

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day;
And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.
Washed all my sins away, washed all my sins away;
And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood shall never lose its power
Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.
Be saved, to sin no more, be saved, to sin no more;
Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.

E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.
And shall be till I die, and shall be till I die;
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.

Then in a nobler, sweeter song, I’ll sing Thy power to save,
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.
Lies silent in the grave, lies silent in the grave;
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.

Lord, I believe Thou hast prepared, unworthy though I be,
For me a blood bought free reward, a golden harp for me!
’Tis strung and tuned for endless years, and formed by power divine,
To sound in God the Father’s ears no other name but Thine.

God Moves in a Mysterious Way
By William Cowper

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.