Teach Me Your Decrees

Steven Dilla post at Park Forum:  Experiencing the Greatest Things

Psalm 119.72The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces. 

Near the peak of the late-night ratings battle last December The Tonight Show hosted Jerry Seinfeld. Just prior to the comedy legend’s five minute set, the show had announced that everyone in the audience would receive a television as a prize for attending the taping.

Seinfeld began his set laughing that the audience was so happy about receiving a TV — it is likely everyone had one and absolute that every TV would, one day, end up in the trash. “All things on earth only exist in different stages of becoming garbage,” Seinfeld quipped.

He then challenged the audience to think about the journey nearly every object we buy takes. Most things start 

in a visible place then move to a closet or drawer, and before becoming trash many things make a stop in our garage or storage unit. He joked, “That’s why we have those, so we don’t have to see the huge mistakes that we’ve made.”

If we stop and think about the areas we’ve succeeded — whether money, possessions, accomplishment, or accolade — they almost always let us down. There is a “this is it?” moment when we realize that which we set our hearts upon is really just dust. 

“David had a great deal of gold and silver, far more than any of us have; but yet he thought very little of it in comparison with God’s law,” Charles Spurgeon notes in his commentary Psalm 119. “Many people despise gold and silver because they have not got any. The fox said the grapes were sour because they were beyond his reach. But here is a case, in which a man had as much gold and silver as he could ever want.” 

Success and riches are lovely things — how wonderful is it that God created us to experience them? But David also knew they were insufficient for the greater things God created our hearts to know. 

Seinfeld, in jest, suggests our solution is to become a “thrower-outer.” Adding, “I wish there was a store where I could buy something, pivot and just throw it down the incinerator.”

The Psalmist solution, in earnest, is that we love God more than our prize possessions and accomplishments. For, as Spurgeon concludes, “Riches often take to themselves wings, and fly away; even great wealth may soon be spent and gone; but God’s law never leaves those who love it, nor lets them lose it.”

Deo Gratis - Thanks Be to God

Steven Dilla post at the Park Forum: How Must We In All Things Give Thanks?

Psalm 115.12-13

The LORD has remembered us; he will bless us; he will bless the house of Israel; he will bless the house of Aaron; he will bless those who fear the LORD, both the small and the great. 

How Must We In All Things Give Thanks? | by William Cooper (fl. 1653)

St. Augustine inaugurated that ancient custom among Christians, in whose mouths you should always hear these words: Deo gratias, “Thanks be to God!” When they met and saluted one another, Deo gratias, “God be thanked.” When they heard any tidings of persecution or protection, favor or frown, gain or loss, cross or comfort — still Deo gratias. 

“What,” said Augustine, “shall brothers in Christ not give God thanks when they see one another? What better thing can we speak, or think, or write, than this? God be thanked! Nothing can be more compendiously spoken, nor more gladly heard, nor more solemnly understood, nor more profitably acted, than this; God be thanked!” 

Such a frame of heart had holy Job: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the nameof the Lord.”

And such a one was in the sweet singer of Israel: “I will bless the Lord at all times.” Notable is that of Chrysostom: “There is nothing, nothing we can study, more pleasing to God than to be thankful — not only in good days, but also when things fall cross. This is the best sacrifice and oblation we offer God.”

This made Jerome say, “It is peculiar to Christians to give thanks in adversity. To praise God for benefits, this [anyone] can do. To give God thanks in dangers according to the apostle’s sense, and in miseries — to always to say, ‘Blessed be God’ — this is the highest pitch of virtue. Here is your Christian; such a one takes up his cross, and follows his Savior: no loss or cross can dishearten him.”

To give God thanks for crosses and afflictions is to be numbered among those singular things which Christians are bound to excel in. We ought excel beyond [those who do not believe] in loving our enemies and blessing those that curse — which our Savior exhorts and commands.

We must thank the Lord for afflicting us, and for laying the cross upon us, because it is so far below what we deserve at his hands. To drink as He drank it we cannot — we need not. Thank God, then, that you have such a little share of it — when all was your portion by right and justice. This is worthy of our thanks.

Most Happy in Him

David Mathis: Happiness Honors the King

“Happy are your men!” It was the high point of her praise for the king, at the very height of his kingdom.

This was the moment when the stars all aligned, and the nation shone with her greatest earthly splendor. It had been an arduous and lengthy ascent to such glory. And, as we now know on the other side, it would only be down from here.

The Queen of Sheba had heard that King Solomon had a kingdom to behold, that he was a wise and extraordinary ruler. She had to see it — and see him — for herself. She journeyed to the land of Israel with her great retinue, and after touring his realm, she was so impressed that she was out of breath (1 Kings 10:5).

Once she had gathered herself and regained enough wind to speak, praise spilled out:

The report was true that I heard in my own land of your words and of your wisdom, but I did not believe the reports until I came and my own eyes had seen it. And behold, the half was not told me. Your wisdom and prosperity surpass the report that I heard.

Happy are your men! Happy are your servants, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom! (1 Kings 10:6–8)

She could have praised his buildings, his palace, the efficiency and order of his kingdom, and its prosperity, and not have gone this far: “Happy are your men!” Many despots, from Herod to Hitler to Saddam Hussein, could impress their guests with bells, whistles, and entertainment beyond imagining. But happy people? No heavy-handed monarch can coerce that.

Limitless finances and force can build an impressive kingdom, but they cannot make the people happy, not for long. The highest praise for a king is the happiness of his subjects.

We know it’s true from everyday life. The happiness of a wife is the glory of her husband. The flourishing of a child is an honor to his parents. The collective joy of a local church is a tribute to her elders (Hebrews 13:17).

The height of a leader’s glory is the happiness of those in his care.

Joy Deeper Than Sorrow

Don’t mistake “happy” for light and thin, as if “happiness” is something merely external and circumstantial, while “joy” is deep and enduring. There is no biblical distinction between happiness and joy. The Bible is lavish in its pleasure-language. The queen just as well could have declared, “Joyful are your people!” Or, “Satisfied are your subjects!”

“The height of a leader’s glory is the happiness of those in his care.”Tweet

The queen’s praise is genuine; Solomon’s subjects are truly, deeply, impressively happy under his wise and gracious rule. That doesn’t mean they are only happy. There is space for dynamism in this delight. Genuine happiness has room for sorrow — for the ups and downs of life in a fallen world, even in a safe and secure kingdom.

The queen praises a happiness in Solomon’s subjects that is real, consistent, and reliable. It is a settled and stable satisfaction of heart and mind, and flourishing of life, under Solomon’s wise and trusted leadership.

Fissures in the Foundation

And so this visit from the Queen of Sheba, and the praise she lavishes on Solomon, marks the pinnacle of Israel’s earthly kingdom. The rest of 1 Kings 10will celebrate Solomon’s great wealth.

Then follows these dreadful words:

Now King Solomon loved many foreign women . . . from the nations concerning which the LORD had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love . . . and his wives turned away his heart. (1 Kings 11:1–3)

Even at the height of Israel’s earthly kingdom, there were fissures in the foundation. As soon as his reign had been established, he married Pharaoh’s daughter (1 Kings 2:46–3:1). Then he spent almost twice as long building his own house as the Lord’s (1 Kings 6:38). When 2 Chronicles 9 tells the story of the Queen of Sheba’s praise, we hear, “Happy are your wives!” (2 Chronicles 9:7).

Greater Than Solomon

The wisdom of Solomon and the prosperity of his kingdom were great, and his people’s satisfaction in him was his great honor, but the clock was ticking.

Soon his kingdom would decline, and split in two, and in time the people would be carted off into exile. Eventually, they returned, but remained subjected to foreign rule. It would be then, at the low point of the people’s despair and dissatisfaction, that one of Solomon’s distant descendants would point to an even greater day to come, under the wise rule of an even greater king.

The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. (Matthew 12:42)

Solomon may have built the Lord’s house, but his greater descendant would bethe Lord’s House, the very place of God’s dwelling with man. And if Solomon’s wisdom and sovereignty made for happy subjects, how much more will the one who is greater than Solomon?

In this greater kingdom, the deep and enduring joy of the redeemed is the glory of their Redeemer. And so, for the honor of our King, it is profoundly important that we pursue as much happiness as possible — in him.

There is space for sorrow in this kingdom. We weep with those who weep. We mourn. We suffer. We even find ourselves slandered and opposed and persecuted for his name. But we are a profoundly happy people. We are “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10). Beneath all the pain, we have a deeper pleasure, and we unapologetically pursue such happiness.

Because our King is most honored in his subjects when we are most happy in him.

Greater Sense of Wonder

Excerpt from John Piper:  How Do I Explain Election Over Brunch?

Audio transcript

Andrew from Benton, Kansas, writes in: “Pastor John, You once described how you would explain Christian Hedonism to somebody over lunch (at Pizza Hut). Realizing divine election may take a bit longer, what is the easiest way to share this with someone, and with what key Scripture would you explain it, over, say, a weekend brunch?”

Ok, so we are moving from a Christian Hedonism Pizza Hut lunch to an election lunch. [A weekend brunch.] Brunch, brunch, ok. All right. Good.

...

But the aim of the conversation would be to awaken in both of us a greater sense of wonder that we are saved and that we owe it all to God, that apart from him we can do nothing and, therefore, all of our lives should be lived in the constant amazement that we are saved and that he would die for us and that he would give us sight instead of blindness and light instead of deadness. In fact, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:28–29, “God chose, God elected, things that are not to bring to nothing things that are so no that no human being might boast.” In other words, election strips us of boasting, but “let him boasts, boast in the Lord” (v. 31). So the bottom line of the goal of that lunch is humility in us and all glory to God.

Help Us Love Good and Hate Evil

Bethany post:  Why We Want Objective Good

Our post-modern culture may teach that there is no such thing as an objective good or an objective evil, but no one really wants to believe that this is true. For when there is no objective standard, then “might makes right” — and that is unacceptable.

When there is an objective standard, John Piper says, “the simplest peasant in Russia, the simplest Jew in Germany, the simplest slave in Georgia or the simplest Christian prisoner in Rome can say to the most powerful Stalin, the most powerful Hitler, the most powerful plantation owner or the most powerful Caesar, ‘Excuse me. No, sir, this is wrong. Your power does not make it right. There is a God above you and there is a right and a wrong outside of you and your might does not make it right.’”

God defines objective good and objective evil. Good is that which honors Him and helps others, and evil is that which dishonors Him and hurts others. And He calls us to conform our emotions to this reality.

Yet loving an objective good and hating an objective evil – although somewhat easy to talk about when it comes to international injustices – gets complicated when we start talking about our own hearts.

In the Gulag Archipelago Alexander Solzhenitsyn reflected, “Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts … even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil.”

Prayer

Lord, Jesus himself is the ultimate objective good. There is nothing better for us than him. In light of this reality, we beg you to give us your mercy for the miracle of new affections. Help us love good and hate evil, especially the evil in our hearts. Lift our eyes to Jesus, who died at the hands of evil to bring us the ultimate good. Let us not merely reject evil and choose good; let us hate evil and cling to good. Change our affections and, thereby, change our lives. Amen.

The Heavens Proclaim His Righteousness

The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice;
    let the many coastlands be glad!
Clouds and thick darkness are all around him;
    righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
Fire goes before him
    and burns up his adversaries all around.
His lightnings light up the world;
    the earth sees and trembles.
The mountains melt like wax before the Lord,
    before the Lord of all the earth.

The heavens proclaim his righteousness,
    and all the peoples see his glory.

Ps 97: 1-6

God Centeredness

Don Carson:  Deuteronomy 10; Psalm 94; Isaiah 38; Revelation 8

INTERSPERSED WITH THE HISTORICAL RECITAL that makes up much of the early chapters of Deuteronomy are bursts of exhortation. One of the most moving is found in Deuteronomy 10:12-22. Its magnificent themes include:

(1) A sheer God-centerdness that embraces both fearing God and loving God (Deut. 10:12-13). In our confused and blinded world, fearing God without loving him will dissolve into terror, and thence into taboos, magic, incantations, rites; loving God without obeying him will dissolve into sentimentalism without strong affection, pretensions of godliness without moral vigor, unbridled lust for power without any sense of impropriety, nostalgic yearnings for relationships without any passion for holiness. Neither pattern squares with what the Bible says: “And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him . . .?” (Deut. 10:12).

(2) A sheer God-centeredness that pictures election as a gracious act. God owns the whole show — “the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it” (Deut. 10:14). He can do with it as he wishes. What he has in fact done is “set his affection” on the patriarchs, loving them, and in turn choosing their descendants (Deut. 10:15; cf. Deut. 4:37).

(3) A sheer God-centeredness that is never satisfied with the mere rites and show of religion: it demands the heart (Deut. 10:16). That is why physical circumcision could never be seen as an end in itself, not even in the Old Testament. It symbolized something deeper: circumcision of the heart. What God wants is not merely an outward sign that certain people belong to him, but an inward disposition of heart and mind that orient us to God continually.

(4) A sheer God-centeredness that recognizes his impartiality, and therefore his justice — and acts accordingly (Deut. 10:17-20). He is “God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome” (Deut. 10:17). Small wonder then that he accepts no bribes and shows no partiality. (Never confuse election with partiality. Partiality is favoritism that is corrupted by a willingness to pervert justice for the sake of the favored few; election chooses certain people out of God’s free decision and nothing else, and even then justice is not perverted: hence the cross.) And he expects his people to conduct themselves accordingly.

(5) A sheer God-centeredness that is displayed in his people’s praise (Deut. 10:20-22). “He is your praise; he is your God” (Deut. 10:21). Those who focus much on God have much for which to praise. Those whose vision is merely terrestrial or self-centered dry up inside like desiccated prunes. God is your praise!