Understanding the lovingkindness of the LORD

“Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness of the LORD.”

This is the last line from Psalm 107. This Psalm gives examples of different ways in which the LORD is kind and loving toward Adam’s race. I have written previously about expressions of God’s wrath in Nature, and that it really is no surprise, once the truth about man’s natural emnity toward God, and God’s righteous indignation about it is grasped. The only surprise about things like devastating storms and fires and such is that they don’t happen more often.

The real shocker is in this Psalm where God’s acts of kindness to His ungrateful enemies are set out by several examples. Yes, God does express His wrath, but more often, He expresses His lovingkindness in the ways that He makes things “Turn out alright.”

And yet the point of the Psalm is that God’s lovingkindness toward us, His enemies, is taken for granted. It is not recognized as a mercy and a kindness, a lovingkindness from the Sovreign God. We usually just act like it should be that way. The fact is it should never be that way. The point of the refrain in this Psalm, “Oh that men would praise the LORD for His wonderful works to the children of men!” -- is that they almost never do.

Nevertheless, God goes on thanklessly, both chastening man in His wrath, and at the same time wooing us toward repentance through His lovingkindnesses.

A Hot Stake or a Cold Chop

The other day my friend John (www.cowart.info) and I were having breakfast, as we are wont to do about every other week or so. Then we went back to his house and had a pretty interesting discussion. I have had to think about it for some time. John, I know you are reading this. Set me straight if I misstate something.

John expressed concern that the way the Gospel is presented is without hope. He said, moreover, that even the way I present it offers no hope. (Imagine! This is the cost of friendship -- having to hear an honest assessment about one’s self.) He went on to say that it distresses him that the miraculous moves of God we hear about always seem to take place somewhere else, at some other time. We discussed the possibility that some of these reports, the extra-biblical ones anyway, may be overstated. We also talked about fake miracles that seem to abound these days. We considered the Billy Graham Crusade that took place here a few years ago. The promo was that Jacksonville would never be the same. But it’s just about like Mr. Graham found it -- unchanged -- well, except for an increase in local government corruption. John said it was really nothing but a Republican political rally with some Christianity sprinkled in.

More about hope: by hope, John appeared to mean hope that God is going to help me with the rent, or heal my child, or fix my toothache, etc., if I believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I listened to John and tried to process what he presented. After leaving and thinking about this conversation for days, it appeared to me that our discourse moved around three ideas:

1. That God ought to do more miracles since there are so many people who need them, if He is really good.
2. That if He would, we would not have to rely on faith. We could see some miracles for ourselves.

I have struggled for two weeks now trying to think how to write this. I seem unable to express my thoughts without becoming over-complex. In outline, they are these:

1. There is an assuption that if God is really good, He will do as I think He should about my and others’ problems. This in turn assumes I am good and my goodness is the measuring rod of God’s goodness.

2. It also assumes that we do not deserve God’s unbridled wrath. But according to the Bible, we are criminals against His law, we hate Him by our inherited nature, we are willing participants in the kingdom of His enemy, Satan, and we want nothing to do with Him (God). We make up fake gods who are like us (see #1).

3. It ignores that hope only has meaning in the face of despair. If we understand our true condition before God, we should be in the depths of despair. We should not expect to have any hope.

With these in mind, I contend that the Gospel as it is presented in Scripture is that God has made an arrangement in the form of a covenant to forgive anyone who will believe on His Son, Jesus Christ as his or her substitute. This implies an admission that what happened to Jesus should happen to us. So the point of hope is that God will forgive us. I don’t see any other kind of hope presented in the New Testament except that God will forgive us on these terms, and as a result will not torture and then exterminate us in the world to come, as we deserve. I have not seen anything in the preaching of the Apostles that involves getting a new refrigerator, or even a good used one, God giving me money or anything else. He may do these things. But the presentation of the Gospel does not include this, and for many, believing on the Son of God has meant a cold chop or a hot stake, or imprisonment or poverty, or persecution. What is offered is the promise of resurrection from the dead (which all will experience) and that, at the judgement, those who belong to Christ will be passed over for judgement, and therefore will enter into eternal life.

Regarding miracles to confirm my faith: No amount of miracles is enough for those who are dependent on them. For those who recognize that the miracles that have occured in confirmation of God’s revelation in history and have been recorded in Scripture, no more are necessary, whether God ever does another one or not.

A Broken World

I was sitting at a club I belong to the other day. I was reading, as I frequently do there. A woman came up pushing a stroller with a child too big to be in a stroller. She told us she was waiting for her daughter who was attending a religion class.

But I was interested in this child. It was clear that he had some kind of congenital brain damage. He reminded me of a cousin whom I have not seen in many years. She had a similar distorted facial expression, undirected eyes, and spastic, unpurposeful movements.

When I see something like this, as we all do from time to time, it sets me to thinking about the nature of things -- of the Universe and of God. What pricks my interest is that when I saw this child, I knew something was wrong. This can only mean that I know that something is right and that this is a breach of it. A skeptic could argue that my concept of right in this sense is just based on my perception of normal, or on a social construct that is longstanding but only arbitrary.

But if I go back hundreds of generations in my thinking, I must conclude that somewhere there were some people who did not have this tradition behind them, and yet knew from within that something was wrong, implying that they also knew something was right and this is a breach of it -- that something is broken here.

The Bible says there is a God. Common sense demands there is a God, the pratting of Athiests notwithstanding. Either the Universe has always existed, which it obviously has not because it would have run down by now; or it created itself, an absurdity; or there is an all wise God of unlimited intelligence and ability who made it.

The Bible states this is the case and then goes on to say that when He made it, He said it was good. But it is clear when I see things like this poor child and his poor mother that something is broken. What was good, what I inately know to be “right”, is no longer good. Somehow it is broken. And I know it is even if no one tells me so.

So when I see things like this, I know that we live in a world that is no longer good as God made it. It does not mean God is not good. It means that man in his sinful nature, acting according to his free will, has ruined it starting with the original disobedience recorded in Genesis chapter three.

The Bible says that Christ came into the world to bear away the sin of Adam’s race and to eventually put everything back right. He will impose righteousness on people who have been forgiven by believing on Him for forgiveness of sin. He will destroy all those who chose not to, putting them out of existence, so that God may be all in all. Then God will be glorified in His creation.

Napoleon's testimony to Christ and the Bible

"I know men, and I tell you Jesus Christ was not a man. Superficial minds see a resemblance between Christ and the founders of empires and the gods of other religions. That resemblance does not exist. There is between Christianity and other religions the distance of infinity. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and myself founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon sheer force. Jesus Christ alone founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men will die for Him. In every other existence but that of Christ how many imperfections! From the first day to the last He is the same; majestic and simple; infinitely firm and infinitely gentle. He proposes to our faith a series of mysteries and commands with authority that we should believe them, giving no other reason than those tremendous words, 'I am God."

The Bible contains a complete series of acts and of historical men to explain time and eternity, such as no other religion has to offer. If it is not true religion, one is very excusable in being deceived; for everything in it is grand and worthy of God. The more I consider the Gospel, the more I am assured that there is nothing there which is not beyond the march of events and above the human mind. Even the impious themselves have never dared to deny the sublimity of the Gospel, which inspires them with a sort of compulsory veneration. What happiness that Book procures for those who believe it!"

Napoleon Bonaparte as cited in "Tributes to Christ and the Bible by Brainy Men Not Known as Active Christians" in The Fundamentals vol. III p. 364 published by Baker Books, 1993.

My best skill

I have a project to work on this morning, the next step in finishing a screen porch I have been building on the back of my house. I find that it takes more effort to get started on these things than to actually do them. This problem has lead all my life to a problem with procrastination.

I looked into joining a new local Procrastinators Anonymous program to get some help with this. But they keep postponing the first meeting.

The upside of this procrastination thing is that I have watched movies on video and dvd that I would have never had time to see; I have taken marathon naps that would never have been taken and dreamed of places I will never be able to go to.

As I get older I find that I have less energy (what’s up with that) to overcome inertia in getting anything started. And as tasks pile up undone, I get a little depressed because of all the things I need to do, which makes me want to go take a nap.

I have discovered that I do much better with the jobs waiting to be done if I start by making a list on a 3x5 card of about six things. It is easier to do the card, which gives me a run-up on starting the first task on the card. Let’s see, I’m looking for a card. Huuumm!. I don’t see one. I think I’ll go back to bed for a while and see if I can find one there.

What does this have to do with my Christian faith? Nothing I know of. Just that I have meant to relate these things before, but I am just now getting around to it.

Woman at the well-4

In John’s Gospel chapter 4 the Lord Jesus is talking to a woman of ill reputation at a well. They were talking about water on one hand and eternal life, figured by Jesus as “living water” which, in that day, meant running water.

His point to the woman was that the water of eternal life that he would give for the asking would be, to one who drank, the source of unending life.

This analogy is over against the analogy of the water from the well which was hard to maintain, and ran out too soon -- very much like this mortal life, the days of which “are soon cut off, and we fly away” (Psalm 90).

There are many things that could be said about this passage. I could write on it for weeks. But this is probably the last installation on this passage. And I want to point out something a bit obscure.

There is a theme in John’s Gospel that runs just under the surface about how the Jewish officials and those who followed them responded to Jesus Christ on one hand, and how those who were not of this privileged class, namely, Commoners among the Galileans, commoners in Jerusalem and surrounding area, Gentiles like the Roman Nobleman who comes up a little later on, and Samaritans responded on the other. In brief, the sections where Christ is in Jerusalem, the Jews, as John (himself a Jew) called them, saw more miracles and signs than most of the members of the other classes.

These signs certified him as the Son of God and the promised Messiah.

The religious officials had more access than anyone in the history of the world to the Holy Scriptures which pointed to him with clear identifying signs. The people of the other groups had much less access, both because they were commoners, and because they were members of groups who were more or less marginalized by the religious officials.

Yet, when the LORD God, the ultimate Author of these writings was made flesh and presented himself, the religious officials refused to recognize him. They only saw him as a threat to their wealth, power, and privilege.

John recounts several incidents in which Jesus went up to Jerusalem, the capital of official religion, and was discounted, rejected, and even in peril of his life, even though he opened the eyes of the blind, raised the dead, and other things. These things just don’t happen. We all know this. So when they did happen before thousands of eyewitnesses, they were “signs” that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, the Saviour, the Judge of all mankind, as he said he was. The religious officials were never able to deny that these things happened. They just refused to draw the obvious conclusion.

The reason John gives for this in chapter twelve is that God had blinded their eyes and closed their ears and hardened their hearts as an act of judgement.

In contrast, however, is this woman. What great sign did Jesus do to convince her that he was the Messiah, the Saviour who should come into the world?

Apparently there was, in the corrupted religion of the Samaritans, a fable that when Messiah showed up, he would be like -- I don’t know -- like Madam Ruby -- that he would be able to tell people things about themselves that he normally should not know. And when Jesus told her to go get her husband -- well you go read the account -- she dropped her pot and ran into the city and rounded up all her men friends to come meet him. She ran around the streets saying, “This is him. He told me everything I ever did.” He didn’t, of course. He just told her one thing. But it was enough.

Nothing was enough for the officials.

So, dear reader, what is enough for you? There is, in the Bible, more than enough evidence for you to know that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, and for you to believe on him for the forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal life. The Bible and the Biblical Christian Faith will stand up to honest investigation.

But you: will you insist that you already know it all like the religionists in John’s Gospel? Then your sins remain, because you insist that you see. (John 9:41). Or will you admit you do not. Like the woman who heard about the living water, will you turn in your heart and say, “Well, give it to me. I need it.”

In either case, you will have to answer to none other than Jesus Christ himself. He said that the Father had committed the judgement of all mankind to him, because he was also a man.

Woman at the well-3

John chapter 4.
Jesus has come to sit on a well, an ancient well that was at least sixteen centuries old, that belonged to Jacob. It is about noon. A woman comes out to draw a pot of water for the house. The fact that she came at this time indicates that she was a social outcast. Women usually went in a group early in the morining and late in the evening to get water. But if she came with the other women they would have abused her. Why? Because she was -- well -- she was like you and I, with one little difference. Most people knew her dirty little secrets. Most people don’t know yours and mine.

She came out and found Jesus sitting, and he asked her to run her jug down into the well and get him a drink. He, in turn, offered her “living water” (everlasting life) that, by drinking, one would never thirst again. You can read the whole conversation for yourself. I just want to point out a few things.

1. In the same way that Jesus did not have anyway to get water out of the well, the woman had no way to get the water that Jesus offered. Actually Jesus could have gotten water from the well by some other means, but the woman was completely dependent on Jesus to even know about the water of everlasting life, as well as to have it.

2. It was something everyone needed, but he only offered it to her and her friends. It was his water and he could choose to give it to whom he would. Some, in fact, many, were passed over. It is conceivable that only some of the people she invited from the city ever came out to receive the gift. In another place, Jesus said that many are called, but few are chosen.

3. He gave it to her because he wanted to, and after she had been made known of the living water, eternal life, she was able to recognize her need for it and she asked Jesus for it. If he had not made the first move, she could not have made any move at all, nor would she have known that she needed to or could or must. That was a ridiculously long sentence. My point is that she asked for it.

4. It was given to her freely, sovreignly, and by God’s foreknowledge and determinate counsel (remember, it said “he must needs go through Samaria.”

What stands out to me is that this woman was truly converted because Jesus converted her. I have become more and more appalled at the way we in evangelical circles tell people that by walking down an aisle and filling out a card and praying a prayer, they can “get born again” or “get saved”. Such words do not appear in Scripture. The Scripture’s way of saying these things is “be born again” “be saved” “be converted”. They are all passive. They are all done by God to the person, just like the drink of living water was given to the woman. She could not “get” it.

It is no wonder in my mind that so many people in churches show no evidence of having been reborn, made new, changed. They haven’t been. They have done something religious and joined the club and that is all. But often people have been robbed by this type presentation. We fail to tell folks that they are estranged from God and that He is working through their conscience and circumstances to bring them to the place of conversion. We fail to exhort people to seek the Lord diligently, and ask to be converted, so that we can believe the Gospel of Christ and be saved by Jesus. We are remiss to say that we must repent and bring forth evidence of repentance.

“Seek you the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon” Isaiah 55:6-7