2019.07.12 Family Friday - Holy Vision for Family Life (Gouge), pp51-131

On these Family Fridays, we are reading A Holy Vision for Family Life by William Gouge. Over the last several weeks, we covered pp51-131, with the following scribbled notes:

and the following select quotes:

from p88 on how Christ's purpose toward perfecting us as His bride should both establish perfection as the standard at which we aim, and also banish from us all discouragement at our falling short, since Christ will in fact accomplish it.

from p108 on how, since Christ cherishes us as His own body, all of His care--even disciplining care--toward us is exercised in the most affectionate love.

from p110 on how, since Christ can never starve His own body but only always provides for it what is best, we can know that even if we should die for lack of outward means, that is His way of bringing us into our final and most perfect provision.

from p117 on the fact that being made into the very body of our Lord Himself has raised us much higher than anything which Adam had before the Fall.

from p124 on how one of the most needful responses to having Christ Himself as our own head is that--having such an One as Himself to depend upon in this way, we refuse that wicked dishonoring of Him that would occur if we depended upon anything else.

190531FW Prov 31:10-12 - Being or Finding an Excellent Wife

Family worship teaching lesson from the "Proverb of the Day." What kind of wife is more valuable than the greatest earthly treasure? Where does this value appear? How are young ladies to prepare to be such a wife? How are young men to find them?

190107FW Gen 3:16-19 - Thy Kingdom Come: the Curses that Christ Reverses

Family Worship teaching time, following up upon the sermon from Genesis 3:16-19 in corporate worship, this past Lord's Day morning. Parenting. Marriage. Work. Central place in the fall. Central place in display of Christ's victorious redemption of His people. We deserve to be a display of death and the devil; but Jesus, who is HIMSELF the image of God, remakes us into His own image!

Don't Reject Jesus!

That, of course, is exactly what the US Episcopal Church has done by changing the wedding vows in their church order from "union of husband and wife" to "union of two people."

This rebellion against God is so pervasive in entertainment and culture that some believers are susceptible to the idea that it is a small issue that we need to flex upon in order to have influence with others.

But, for those who are genuine Christians, there is no room to flex.

Matthew 19:4-6 And [Jesus] answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

If we can't trust that Jesus is right about the basis of marriage in the creation, the purpose of marriage in joining one man to one woman, and the nature of marriage as a covenantal joining conducted by God Himself...

...then why would we trust that Jesus is right about the basis, purpose and nature of His cross?

We trust Him about our eternal salvation and blessing. Let us also trust Him about this great earthly blessing of marriage.

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!