190604FW Prov 4:14-19 - The Paths of the Wicked and the Righteous

Family Worship teaching time in the "Proverb of the Day." The wicked and righteous are on two completely different paths. To one, wickedness is as natural as eating bread and drinking wine, and it will destroy them. To the other, righteousness is a glory in the infancy of its dawning, and a guarantee that it will be completed, because that righteousness can genuinely exist only in Christ!

190603FW Gen 11:10-32 - Christ-Driven History and Living

Family Worship teaching time in Genesis 11:10-32, following up upon the morning sermon from the Lord's Day morning worship service. This genealogy shows how Christ-driven and gospel-driven history really is, in the providence of God. It calls for our lives to be the same--especially as we recognize that God loves to use our weakness to glorify Himself in Christ in the gospel.

190111FW John 7:37-53 - Humble Thirst for the Rock that Is Christ

Family Worship teaching time, following up upon the gospel reading from John 7:37-53 in corporate worship, this past Lord's Day morning. At the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus identifies Himself as the true and eternal Rock from whom our hearts can be filled with streams of living water, by His Holy Spirit. He calls to the thirsty to come to Him and drink. But, as with the Pharisees, if we think that we are made righteous by knowing the law or that we are better than others, we will not be thirsty. Such pride will keep us from coming to Jesus and send us to unquenchable fire!

181229FW Gen 3:12-15 - Good, Serpent-Crushing, News

Family Worship teaching time, anticipating the sermon from Genesis 3:12-15 in corporate worship, tomorrow morning. God elicits a horrifying response from Adam, a disappointing response from the woman, but no response at all from the serpent. Why? Because He asks the serpent no question--simply declares a curse! He promises His own sovereign work in regeneration, and that He will maintain a covenant line of those who belong to Him, over-against those who belong to the serpent. Ultimately, the only way that this can be effective is because He Himself will come, born of a woman, to destroy the devil and his works! ... And God promises all of this before He has even declared the consequences of Adam and his wife's sin! The first time that the bad news of the curse was announced, it was already in the context of the good news of the gospel!!

2018.01.17 Devotional Gleanings

But on this condition we will consent to you: If you will become as we are, if every male of you is circumcised, then we will give our daughters to you, and we will take your daughters to us; and we will dwell with you, and we will become one people. But if you will not heed us and be circumcised, then we will take our daughter and be gone.”
And their words pleased Hamor and Shechem, Hamor’s son. So the young man did not delay to do the thing, because he delighted in Jacob’s daughter. He was more honorable than all the household of his father.
Genesis 34:15-19

The abuse of covenant signs for false moral superiority and to wield as a tool against others is as old as covenant signs.

Then God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there; and make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother.”
And Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you, purify yourselves, and change your garments.
Genesis 35:1-2

How is it that foreign gods lasted so long in Jacob's house, with his knowledge? Many a sad tale can be told of the spiritual state of a man's household simply because he tolerated it. But how much more marvelous, then, is the patience of God who brings Jacob back to when he at first began to know God and invites him to worship. Let us put away all that is against the Lord, and come back to Bethel, where we first knew Him, and worship!

There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil.
Job 1:1

Let all prosperity gospel, material and spiritual, die here. God's own topic sentence for the book of Job is a quadruple statement of his godliness. Yet, he is plunged into the second-most terrible material pain and spiritual darkness in all the Bible. The most terrible? The only One in Scripture we know for sure to have been most godly, even our Lord Jesus Christ. Who is there who will take a brother in great distress and tie upon his back the burden of being of stronger faith or purer character than the man whom the Lord Himself introduces with a quadruple statement of godliness?! Let such a brother never think that he is being a 'friend'!

Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!”
But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
Job 2:9-10

What a frightful thing is a spiritually unstable wife, who counsels her husband from passion rather than patience! She is unto him such a spiritual calamity that Satan attacked Job, in part, by leaving his wife alive!

So all the demons begged Him, saying, “Send us to the swine, that we may enter them.”
Mark 5:12

Even if the Lord should providentially assign unto us a messenger from Satan that He refuses to take away for a time (2Cor 12), let us remember that they can only do unto believers what Christ intends for our good. They are on their faces before Him as condemned beggars!

And when the Sabbath had come, He began to teach in the synagogue. And many hearing Him were astonished, saying, “Where did this Man get these things? And what wisdom is this which is given to Him, that such mighty works are performed by His hands! 3 Is this not the carpenter, the Son of Mary, and brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And are not His sisters here with us?” So they were offended at Him.
Mark 6:2-3

Dear preachers, if a congregation, that has had Christ Himself directly deliver the sermon, can respond to what they themselves admit is the most powerful message they ever heard by taking offense at the preacher's person, do not be surprised when the same occurs with you!

Now King Herod heard of Him, for His name had become well known. And he said, “John the Baptist is risen from the dead, and therefore these powers are at work in him.” When his disciples heard of it, they came and took away his corpse and laid it in a tomb.
Mark 6:14, 29

Herod knew they had taken the body of John to bury and so perceived expectation of resurrection. Let us who hope for the resurrection of the dead take care what is done with our corpses!

For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
Romans 5:10

Let those who believe in Christ for forgiveness of sin marvel. They have not received merely a dead atonement, but a living Redeemer who, having once atoned for them, now works for them and in them forever and ever by His almighty power!

Good News: Jesus Will Judge the Living and the Dead! (Acts 10:39-43)

And we are witnesses of all things which He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom they killed by hanging on a tree. Him God raised up on the third day, and showed Him openly, not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen before by God, even to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead. And He commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that it is He who was ordained by God to be Judge of the living and the dead. To Him all the prophets witness that, through His name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins.”Acts 10:39-43

Jesus' role as judge is fundamental to the message of the gospel. This is true, of course, because it is a reminder of why we must flee to Him to receive remission of sins. Until those are canceled from our account, we are in no condition to appear before the Judge!

But it is also important because it reminds us that God is just. The days of evil and sorrow are numbered, and all sin will most certainly be judged. Truly, it is the view of the world of those who do not believe in Christ that cannot stand up to the "problem of evil." For, they know that evil is evil, and they know that this is a problem, but they have no solution for how it can be resolved.

For us, however, the real problem is not that evil is not dealt with in others. For surely it will be, and since that judgment is eternal, what difference does it make if it begins a couple thousand years sooner or a couple thousand years later?

The real "problem" in the equation, then, is the reasoning behind this deferred judgment. The answer? The Judge has undergone His own judgment, and extends full clemency to all who believe in Him during this period of deferment. He is patiently bringing to faith in Himself every last one for whom He died, and refuses to bring the judgment even a moment before this is fully accomplished (cf. 2Pet 3:3-9).

On that day, then, when we who have believed in Him stand before Him, we will do so with clean accounts. All sin remitted. All penalty already satisfied at His cross.

Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for usRomans 8:33-34

It is appointed for you to die once, and after that judgment. If you were to die today, and were to stand before the Judge, would you be standing before the One for whom you have rejected all other views of reality? Would you be standing before the One who is your only hope, your only purpose, your only Master, your only ultimate joy and desire?