Borrowed Light

Widen Your Lens

January 12, 2015Nick Horton

Right place, right time. Providence. God-thing. Sovereignty.

All words we use to describe God’s hand in something, usually in a way favorable to ourselves. You know, when you head out to lunch only to realize you forgot your wallet. Yet at the same instant you have your brief panic attack on paying for lunch you see a friend from church, who upon seeing your stricken face and determining the issue offers to pay for your lunch.

Or, bills are due and despite your best efforts there is not enough money this time around. Out of the blue you get a refund from some source or another for roughly the amount you need. Overjoyed, you share your “God-thing” story among your family and friends.

This isn’t a bad thing. It’s helpful to think in this way. We should indeed thank God for all our blessings and realize that every good and perfect gift is from above. (James 1:17)

However, how many of us blame the Devil if anything goes wrong? By wrong I mean not the way we planned it. Didn’t get a promotion. Forgot the wallet and had to return to the office without lunch. No money arrives and you have to be late on a bill or cancel something. Sickness. Death.

Orlando Saer in his book “Big God” calls this the cruise control God. That is, God is like a cruise control driver, able to intervene if he should decided, and also quite capable of letting things go at the same speed. Yet I have to ask, how do we get from Genesis 1:1 to the meddlesome match maker of occasional involvement?

Widen The Lens

God is either in control, or he is not. There is no in between. Reading through Job 36-38 should disabuse us of any notion that God is the divine clockmaker who has made the machine, set it in motion, and walked away. No, he is very much involved. Job realizes the error of his demands for a trial before God for his suffering and seeks only to repent and hide himself under a rock. I feel for the guy, I’ve said similar things at times.

God never answers why Job suffered as he did. He never gives him a reason for what has happened, whether it was punishment or discipline, or not Him at all. He instead fully and completely asserts that he is in control. Of everything.

Job had a narrow angle view, which we can understand. He lost much and suffered greatly. God forced upon him a wider angle view, that Job is not all there is. But why?

God Is Good, All The Time

God asserted to Job that he is both in control and by not answering Job’s demands. that he does not answer to anyone. He does what he wills. Not only that, but he is good. He is always good. Everything he does is therefore ultimately good. However, my intention here is not to develop a deep and convincing defense of the goodness of God. It is to point out that he is always in control.

This causes a lot of heartburn for many folks when they consider the terrible things that happen the world over. Suffering in exponential amounts. Yet, didn’t he say “I make well-being and create calamity” in his word? (Isaiah 45:7) If God is all-powerful and completely omniscient, how can he not be in control of everything?

Are only king’s hearts like water in the hands of the Lord (Proverbs 21:1), or are ours also turned whatever way he wills? God does not operate on potentiality. He operates sovereignly. He doesn’t wait for any number of potential outcomes to occur. If he did so he would be beholden to the decision of man. That places man squarely above God. This cannot be.

He decrees, and it happens. He speaks and light appears. He breathes, and man has life. He dies, and man has atonement. He elects, and man is saved. There is no room for sovereign man, only sovereign God.

Wallets and Debts and God

So then, whether God delivers you from a situation or places you squarely in it, he is still good and still firmly in control. God is not surprised over earthquakes, sickness, jobs, births, or deaths. He is sovereign over all. God doesn’t flick the cruise control off from time to time to for certain things only to idly cruise by, refusing to intervene in others.

God upholds the universe by the word of his power. (Hebrews 1:3) He also upholds your life by the word of his power. He upholds you. Whatever happens to you, God specifically permits. Far from causing you to distrust him, this should drive you to trust him deeply. All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. (romans 8:28)

Whether you are blessed in some awesome way, or wake up with the diagnosis of cancer, it is for your good, Christian. Whether you lose your job or get promoted, it is for your good. All these things are “god-things.” It is all providence. God loves his children and will have their best for them.

What we think is best and what God knows is best often do not align. Trust the one who knows everything to provide for you in all things.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31-39 ESV)

Today in Blogworld 01.12.15

January 12, 2015Mike Leake

You Won’t Believe What Gets Left Out of Every Good Sermon

My friend Tom reminds us preachers to be brave enough to kill our darlings.

Ask Whatever You Wish

We have a tendency to neuter John 15:7, Jon Bloom encourages us not to.

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry [Christ]

We don’t tend to think of the wrath of Christ, but Mark Jones believes we should.

Has Beth Moore Become a False Teacher?

This may not be a popular link and I’m not sure if you’ll watch the entire video (I must confess I didn’t) but there is certainly stuff in here worth considering.

This is just adorable:

What to Do When Someone Is Wrong on the Internet

January 9, 2015Mike Leake 3 Comments

If you spent any amount of time engaging folks online you likely chuckled (or wept) at the comic above. You’ve likely watched in horror (or engaged to your dismay) a flurry of ridiculous comments on an online thread.

Yes, someone is wrong on the internet today. And they are probably wrong about very significant things. Things like God, the Bible, and all branches of theology. So what is a person to do?

As a fan of John Newton—and since we are doing a year with John Newton—I find it helpful to ask this question of Newton. If he were alive today what would he do if he discovered someone to be wrong on the internet? How did Newton suggest we engage in controversy?

It is not difficult to find Newton’s answer. In his nineteenth letter in his 41 Letters on Religious Subjects, Newton wrote a letter entitled On Controversy. It was originally a response to a young man that was about to set pen to paper to engage an Arminian on questions of salvation. In other words—someone was wrong on the internet.

Newton’s chief concern in controversies is to speak the truth in love—for the good of others and for the good of our own souls.

The Good of Your Opponent

Here Newton reminds his inquirer that he must aim for the good of his opponent. He should first and foremost pray for him. After praying for him Newton is confident that the opponent will be seen with the eyes of grace. He will see that, “The Lord loves him and bears with him; therefore you must not despise him, or treat him harshly. The Lord bears with you likewise…”

This is why, if you are reading Newton with us, I had you read Olney Hymn 8. In that hymn I believe you see the foundation of Newton’s philosophy of engaging in controversy. Newton could see himself even in one like Esau—and he knew that the only thing that caused him to differ from one like Esau was God’s redeeming grace. This is the same thing that he is saying to his inquirer in On Controversy.

If we can see our opponents with eyes of grace and through the lens of eternity then this will impact how we engage them. As Newton encouraged, “not to strive, but in meekness to instruct those who oppose”.

The Good of Others

Because this young man was going public with his controversy Newton encouraged him to consider the manner in which he engaged this controversy. His character and tone will be given opportunity to glorifying God in the hearts of not only those who differ but also those who agree.

Newton is spot on—especially to us Calvinists—when he says:

And I am afraid there are Calvinists, who, while they account it a proof of their humility that they are willing in words to debase the creature, and to give all the glory of salvation to the Lord, yet know not what manner of spirit they are of. Whatever it be that makes us trust ourselves that we are comparatively wise or good, so as to treat those with contempt who do not subscribe to our doctrines, or follow our party, is a proof and fruit of a self-righteous spirit.

The Good of Your Own Heart

If you must engage in controversy watch your own heart. Newton is correct that “we find very few writers of controversy who have not been manifestly hurt by it”. And so if you embark on controversies be aware of the dangers.

One of the chief dangers in engaging in such a controversy is the danger of making things too personal. Even when being ill-treated this gives an opportunity to show the glory of Jesus.

I don’t think Newton thought controversy would actually advantage your own heart much—instead it was more of a necessary evil of which we had to be careful to protect our hearts during.

Conclusion:

So what would Newton do if he found someone wrong on the internet? I don’t think that he would say that we must never engage in controversy. Even on such a sticky matter as Calvinism (it was just as much so in his day) he considered the “service to be honorable” but also dangerous.

For Newton if something was of first importance—or even something closely related to the gospel then he would humble engage in controversy. But he would do so with an eye not only to being declared right in words and position but correct before God in his character. For Newton it was often more important how we engaged in controversy rather than whether or not we did.

He abhorred controversy, and as he would rather, as he said to John Ryland Jr., “aim at plain and experimental things, and endeavor rather to affect your hearers’ hearts with a sense of the evil of sin, and the love of Jesus, than to fill their heads with distinctions.” (Wise Counsel, 15)

So I think Newton would say, engage in controversy if you must but do so as one that accurately models Christ.

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What do you think? Upon your reading of Newton how do you think he would answer this question?

Is there anything else in your reading of Newton that you would like to share?

For Next week:

Jan 16 To a Student of Divinity & Olney Hymn XXVIII
He-Man option: Wise Counsel p19-24, & p349-352