The Decrees of God and the Will of His Creatures

In II Chronicles 18 we get a rare insight into God working to accomplish His purpose through the will of his creatures. In this account, the creatures are a good but stupid king, Jehoshaphat; and evil, pompous king, Ahab; the apostate clergy of the day, the four-hundred false prophets from the state-accredited seminary; some demons looking for something to do; a righteous prophet, a horse, and a bored, tired soldier with an extra arrow to get rid of.

The Westminster Confession compresses the Bible's teaching about how God accomplishes His purpose in the world:

Article III: God's Purpose -- "The eternal purpose of God includes all events; it is holy and wise and does not deprive man of freedom nor make God the author of sin. God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, no is violence offered to the will of the creatures nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established."

However, how God does this is never really explained in the Scriptures. We have the facts without most of the means given in the Bible. But in this passage, we get a little window into God's working.

Jehoshaphat, the good but not-so-bright king of Judah (the southern kingdom), decides to join forces with Ahab, the evil king of Israel (the northern kingdom). It is God's stated purpose to destroy Ahab, whom he hates. Jehoshaphat foolishly joins forces with him. God uses his foolishness, drawn on by his success as king.

As the two kings are meeting in war council, the evil king, being a pseudo-religious man, wants to hear from the preachers as to what he should do. He has four-hundred on staff, all state-approved apostate reverends, including the Most Holy Right Reverend Sounding-brass, and Bishop Tinkling-cymbal. They come before the kings and put on a show, telling king Ahab to go to this battle and that he will win and prosper. But while this is going on here on earth, there is a council in heaven. The Lord calls an assembly of spirits, evil spirits, and asks for a volunteer to go deceive Ahab. One says he will go be a lying spirit in the mouth of the false prophets, and he is sent to accomplish this mission. The false reverends, possibly unbeknownst to them, become the mouthpiece of a lying spirit, commissioned by the Lord to deceive Ahab to go to the battle. Ahab takes the bait.

An aside, this makes me wonder how often the false pastors of our day, whether Liberals or Word of Faith teachers, or the Robert Schuller types, or the Oral Roberts types, or the Prosperity teachers, how often are they just speaking out of their own ignorance and desire for success and money, and how often are they agents of demonic deception to mislead people who have rejected the truth of the gospel and are now subject to God causing them to believe a lie, that they might be damned? (II Thessalonians 2: 10-12)

Jehoshaphat has sense enough to request a true prophet of the Lord. Micaiah is brought in, whom Ahab hates "because he never says anything good about me," and tells Ahab he will be killed in the battle. He condemns the state-approved prophets for being false, and is sent to prison for being a faithful preacher.

The kings prepare to go into battle.

Ahab talks Jehoshaphat into putting on Ahab's uniform. The enemy general gives orders to an assassination squad to go after Ahab and kill him. The assassination squad goes after Jehoshaphat, thinking he is Ahab because of the clothes. Ahab, though he disregarded Micaiah, has disguised himself as a regular soldier in regulation armour.

The battle rages, the assassination squad goes after Jehoshaphat and almost kills him. But they realize they have the wrong man. They cannot pick Ahab out of the soldiers, and so fail in their mission to find and kill him. But toward the end of the day, when the battle was finishing (armies did not fight at night or in bad weather back then), when Ahab thought he had beat Micaiah's prediction, God moved something or someone in such a way that the horse pulling Ahab's chariot, or the driver of the chariot, attracted by something, moved the chariot into exact position so that --- and while that happened, an archer, who had one arrow left, for no reason that he knew, put the arrow in the bow and shot it at nothing in particular --- so that the arrow met Ahab exactly as the horse had moved him, where two pieces of his armor joined. And the arrow went through the little opening in the armor, killing him.

Now, Jehoshaphat acted freely in his foolishness; Ahab acted freely in his wickedness and arrogance. The demons who were summoned by the Lord in the heavenly council acted in accord with their nature, freely; the false prophets acted freely in seeking to please the king for their own advantage; the lying spirit acted on them with their consent, because they were practitioners of religious deception for gain; the horse pulling the chariot moved into position because he was drawn by something that interested him; the chariot driver let the horse do it because the battle was over and he was tired; the soldier with one more arrow shot it just to get rid of it so he could go home and have a beer; and the arrow found it's mark, and God killed his man.

Jehoshaphat was later chastened in chapter 19, "Shouldest thou help the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord? Therefore wrath is upon thee."

What are some lessons here?
1. God always gets his man.
2. He uses His control of nature to induce His creatures to act, according to their own desires and inclinations, to freely choose what He has eternally ordained to come to pass.
3. His purpose cannot be thwarted.
4. He acts in ways and by means that are not normally observable to us.
5. He uses evil people, people who are His enemies, to accomplish His purposes. See Psalm 17: 13-14 "Wicked men who are thy sword, men who are thy hand."
6. Most important, that we should discount our own understanding and put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, obey Him, and keep His commandments, and not cast in our lot with His enemies.
"Trust in the Lord and do good. So shalt thou dwell in the land."
"Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life."

Here I sit with my cup of tea, pondering.

I was reading in Genesis and my curiosity got snagged on 3:22. “And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us: and now, lest he put forth his hand and take of the fruit of the tree of life and live forever . . .” and the account goes on about Adam and his wife being driven out of the garden so that they would not be able to access this tree, which deprivation consequently caused them to succumb to death.

The verbs are what intrigue me in this passage. It is a pivotal passage in the overall story of redemption.

So I did what I always do. I got my Hebrew Old Testament, and a reading lexicon and an analytical lexicon and Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar and I began to work through the passage. I just love this kind of study. I live on it. I’m a nurd.

The reading is not that difficult. I am no Hebrew scholar, but I can read if I have a lexicon handy. But what engages me in this particular passage is a phenomenon called “the consequence of the verb” which, according to Gesenius, is a peculiarity of ancient Hebrew. Verb consequence has to do with the way the tenses work together in a narrative. It was fun. I was at this for hours, reading the lexicons and all of their comparitive references for the structure, and Gesenius’ pages of text with notes and cross references and notes and references about the notes and references -- on and on.

Now I know this is getting boring. But I am telling you this to tell you the upshot of all of it. I was intrigued that Adam, according to the story, was not immortal, that is, he was not immune to death (because he was threatened with it); and that God deprived him from access to the tree, the fruit of which would have enabled him to go on living indefinitely, which is what the word “forever” means in this context. His “forever” would have eventually been limited by his mortality which would have been held at bay by continuing to eat from this tree of life.

But even if he had not eaten of the forbidden tree, and if he had continued to have access to the tree of life and had gone on in an ever-living condition, he still would have been unable to inherit the kingdom of God, because he was a mortal -- just flesh and blood.

I Corinthians 15 teaches us that this cannot be. Adam still, at some time how ever long, would have had to undergo the immortalization that is now promised to believers in Jesus Christ in the resurrection to immortality and incorruption -- the beginning of a forever life that really will go on endlessly (because we will then be immune to death) in a world that has been put back right. All this has been made possible through the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ as a sin offering for His people.

Adam sinned. (Genesis 3)

We sinned in him. (Romans 5:12)

We sin on our own. (Romans 3:23)

Christ died on behalf of sinners. (Romans 5:8)

Christ’s righteousness is imputed to sinners who cast themselves on His mercy. (Romans 3:23-24)

By this, even though we die in this world, we are given the gift of resurrection to immortality and eternal life in the world to come . (John 11:25-26).

Well I have pondered myself past midnight, and the clothes are finished in the dryer. Enough pondering for one day.

The Value of a Diminished Life

This is a funeral homily that I gave at the funeral of my aunt. I have been asked to put it in writing and post it.

The Value of a Diminished Life

We are gathered here today to pay our last respects to our sister, aunt, cousin, Rosa Belle. Rosa Belle was born in a small, now almost non-existent town in North Florida in 1924. She was the oldest child of Faire Belle and Cephas.

We are all well aware that Rosa Belle was significantly handicapped. A part of this handicap was mental and may have been congenital. But at about the age of five years, as my father has told me, she was severely injured in an accident. She was pushing my father around in a wooden crate in the little house where they lived. Her mother had a gallon can of water boiling on the stove. Somehow Rosa Belle pulled the can of water over on her and the boiling water poured down the right side of her neck, right arm and down the right side of her body. She was badly burned. There was little medical help and less money to get it. So the burns healed into disfiguring and disabling scars.

Because of these disabilities, Rosa Belle was limited in her education. She had to be taken out of school early. She was unable to live away from her parents for the rest of their lives. She was limited in her associations to immediate family and had few friends. She had no independent life, yet she was mentally aware enough to know how here disabilities diminished her life.

After both her parents died, she moved into an assisted living facility. There she discovered the world of coloring. She loved to color. How much less the grinding boredom of most of her life would have been if we had known this. We could have kept her in coloring books and crayons.

As we think about this life of suffering today, we must address an obvious question: What was the purpose of this diminished life in God's plan? What value can we understand to attach to such a life? And what lessons can we learn from it?

1. In Romans eleven, the last few verses, St. Paul teaches that God's ways are so wise and His purposes so high that they are past finding out.

The "why" of God in allowing things like this, as the Psalmist says, is "too high for us; we cannot attain to it."

2. In Daniel four, the LORD God taught a world dictator an important lesson in the only way he would learn it and like only God can teach it. In reciting the lesson back, Nebuchadnezzar said, "I praised the most High . . . . He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. And none can stay His hand, or say to Him, "What doest thou?"

God does as He wills. He is not caught off guard. He is not and cannot be frustrated in His purposes. His will cannot be thwarted. He accomplishes all that He sets out to do.

3. In Exodus chapters three and four and in John chapter nine, we are instructed that handicapped and diminished lives are created as such by the Lord in order that He might be glorified through them. This is a hard lesson.

The Lord uses the harsh effects of sin in a fallen, broken world to bring glory to Himself.

4. In Matthew chapter twenty-five we see that the Lord Jesus appears in disguise in the world, masquerading as "the least of these" to test how we might treat Him.

Jesus often appears in our world in the costume of a diminished life.

So, we ask again, what is the value of a diminished life?

Its value is that God uses it to accomplish His purpose for good in a fallen, broken world in such a way that, in the end, His creation will glorify Him.

And what lessons may we learn from such a life?

1. The fear of the Lord: These weighty disabilities and their sequelae should remind us that the Lord is to be feared for what he could do to each of us.

2. Gratitude: Those whom God has permitted or caused to suffer so should make us give thanks to God that He gives us better and more than we deserve. He is kind to the wicked and the unthankful. That is us.

3. Compassion: We, as recipients of God's abundant and undeserved kindness through Christ in our day to day lives, have an obligation to show compassion to the suffering as indirectly repaying kindnesses to Christ Himself.

4. Hope: As the diminished life reminds us that we live in a fallen world, so it awakes in us the intuition that God must set things right. Thus we are made keen and receptive to the doctrine of a future life and the restitution of all things, which are the results of God's ultimate act of kindness, the forgiveness of our sins through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son.

Moses, in Psalm ninety reminds us of our mortality:

Lord, thou hast been our refuge from one generation to another.

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made, thou are God from everlasting, and world without end.

Thou turnest man to destruction; again thou sayest Come again, ye children of men.

For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

The days of our age are threescore and ten; and though men be so strong that they come to fourscore years, yet is their strength then but labor and sorrow; so soon passeth it away, and we are gone.

So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

St. Paul tells us in I Corinthians fifteen of the promise of a resurrection to immortality for those who put their trust in Jesus Christ:

Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.

Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall al be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, Where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

And Jesus teaches us in John fourteen that He is the way to the Father and to eternal life:

I go to prepare a place for you. And I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, ye may be also. I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Let us pray:

O merciful God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Resurrection and the Life; in Whom whosoever believeth, shall live, though he die; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Him, shall not die eternally, who also hath taught us by his holy Apostle Saint Paul, not to be sorry, as men without hope, for those who sleep in Him; We humbly beseech thee, O Father, to raise us from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness; that, when we shall depart this life, may rest in Him; and that, at the general Resurrection in the last day, we may be found acceptable in Thy sight; and receive that blessing, which Thy well-beloved Son shall then pronounce to all who love and fear Thee, saying, Come, ye blessed children of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world. Grant this, we beseech thee, O merciful Father, through Jesus Christ, our Mediator and Redeemer. Amen

Unto Almighty God we commend our departed loved one and we commit her body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection unto eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ; at Whose coming in glorious majesty to judge the world, the earth and the sea shall give up their dead; and the corruptible bodies of those who sleep in Him shall be changed, and make like unto His own glorious body; according to the mighty working whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself.

Thus ends the service.