Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: God Fights for His People

In the previous post, I talked about the conquest of the land of Canaan because that is one of the difficult ethical issues that this book brings up, and in the chapter that this sermon will cover brings that to the forefront. However, I would not have had time to cover it in the sermon, so I did it in the devotional. So, if you have not read that, please read it first.

In this sermon, we'll see from this passage how God fights for His people in the battles of this life. We cannot hope to stand alone against sin, the devil, the world, and death itself. Our enemies are far more powerful than we are, but God does not leave us alone. He fights for us, just like He fought for Israel in the battle against Jericho.

If you want to hear more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

I pray that God will use it to magnify His glory in your heart and fortify you for the battles of this Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: God Graciously Reassures Our Faith

In the previous post, we talked about how, when God brought His people into the Promised Land, He gave them a down payment of the abundant provision He would give them when they had conquered the Land. What they ate after that first Passover wasn't remarkable ("unleavened cakes and parched grain"), but it was a sign that God has so much more to come in the Promised Land.

In the same passage, we also see God reassuring the faith of His people through the sacraments of the Old Testament. They were at a very critical point in the taking the Promised Land: the beginning when all their fears would probably be right before their eyes. Yet, God does not just command them to march forward, but He graciously reassures their faith. And, as we will talk about in this sermon, God does the same for us today as we fight the battles of this Christian life.

If you want to hear more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

I pray that God will use it to magnify His glory in your heart and fortify you for the battles of this Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: Rahab's Deception and God's Providence

The passage of the sermon that I will post this coming Sunday is one of the many difficult passages in the books of Joshua and Judges. If you have read the book of Joshua (and Judges), you know there are several difficult stories that present ethical behavior that is challenging (at best) or completely appalling (at worst). I am going to try to address these difficulties in Joshua as we move through this book, but even as I do, we need to remember that almost all of them are secondary issues at best, so I do not plan to bring them up in the sermons. But, I also cannot just leave them unaddressed, so I will try to address them in these posts.

This first thorny issue surrounds Rahab's method of protecting the spies in her house in Jos. 2. She deceives the king of Jericho, telling him that the spies had left, when she was really hiding them on her roof. So, the question that has been debated a lot throughout the history of the Church is: What do we do with that? The NT praises Rahab for her protection of the spies, so how do we reconcile that with her deception here?

First, let me say again, this is not the point of the story at all. This is actually quite a minor detail in the story as a whole, and even the structure of the passage shows us that. The author uses a common Hebrew literary technique called a "chiasm," which looks like this:

     A: Opening information to set up the story

          B: Secondary detail

               C: The point of the passage

          B': Matching secondary detail to parallel the first

     A': Closing information to parallel and close out the opening

There can be more layers in the middle of parallel information, but the point is that the center of a chiasm is the important part of the story--the point of the story, and this literary technique was a way Hebrew authors highlight the most important part of their story. This chapter follows that pattern like this:

     A: V. 1a -- Opening detail telling us Joshua's assignment to the spies
          B: Vv. 2-7 -- Secondary details of how they entered Jericho and were protected
               C: Vv. 8-14 -- Rahab's confession of faith: the point of the story
          B': Vv. 15-21 -- Secondary details of how they left Jericho and escaped
     A: Vv. 22-24 -- Closing detail telling us how the spies report back to Joshua

The beginning and ending hold the passage together, so they are pretty important, but the passage is primarily about Rahab's confession of faith; not her deception. The section that contains her deception is actually the most minor of the passage. So many people get hung up on Rahab's deception and miss her glorious truth that she confesses, and we do not need to get hung up on it.

In fact, I had thought about showing the ways Christians have tried to reconcile the ethics of this passage, but that still gets us distracted from the point even of her actions themselves. If we narrow in on her deception, there is still a bigger and more important theological point: God's providence.

Church family, for Rahab's confession of faith to be genuine and for her actions to be something God uses for good, it is not crucial that we justify her deception. She was a sinner like us. In fact, she was a new believer from a pagan, Canaanite city, so, of course, we should not expect that she have all her ethics straight in her first act of faith. When we do things for God out of faith, we have mixed motives or mixed actions that often, if not always, mix some sin in with the good works we try to do for God. Does that mean God cannot use them? Not at all. Sinful or not, God can use our actions anyway, and Rahab's protection of the spies shows us this. He uses the actions of sinful men and women to bring about His glorious plans (cf. e.g. Ge. 50:20 Ac. 2:23). In fact, since all He has to work with in humanity is sinful men and women, He must be able to use all our actions for His sovereign plan--sinful or not.

Certainly, we cannot use that as an excuse for sinning (cf. Ro. 6:1-2), and certainly we need to think through difficult ethical issues and try to do what is faithful to God's Word. But, the amazing grace and providence of God reminds us that even if we do that and fail, we cannot mess up God's plan; even if we do that and fail, the blood of Christ covers those sins too. So, while we should think through ethical issues and attempt to be faithful to God's Word in the decisions we make, we also can rest in the fact Christ catches us when we fall. This is basically what John says in 1 Jn. 2:1, "My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."

In the sermon from the church service that I will post on Sunday, my congregation confessed together what true faith is from the Heidelberg Catechism, which is a 450-year-old reformed set of questions and answers. Well, that catechism also has a very good question and answer about God's providence--Question 27:

Q. What do you understand by the providence of God?
A. Providence is the almighty and ever present power of God by which He upholds, as with His hand, heaven and earth and all creatures, and so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty—all things, in fact, come to us not by chance but from His fatherly hand.

Friends, we can talk about Rahab's deception and debate whether it was sinful or not (and if you want to talk about it, feel free to ask), but ultimately, what we should see in it is God's providence. He is "God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath" as Rahab confessed, which means He so rules all things that He can use our and Rahab's actions whether sinful or not. He is also the God who grants mercy, as Rahab saw, and He covers all our sins by the blood of Christ when we put our faith in Him. We can rest in that. We can try to live a faithful life and fight the battles of this Christian life as best we can resting in that truth.

But, one might respond and ask as the Heidelberg asks in question 64:

Q. But doesn’t this teaching make people indifferent and wicked?
A. No. It is impossible for those grafted into Christ by true faith not to produce fruits of gratitude.

As we will see in Rahab on Sunday, when God works true faith in our hearts, we will want to serve Him, we will want to live for Him out of gratitude. But, we will also fail in that. When we do, We have His promises in places like 1 Jn. 2:1, "My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: Be Strong and Courageous

This past Friday, I began posting my sermon and devotional series on Joshua from the summer. I began with the first devotional, which argued for the historical veracity of the book of Joshua. Now, here is my sermon on the book of Joshua from Jos. 1:1-9, 16-18: "Be Strong and Courageous."

Since this sermon is the first in a series, I began with an extended introduction to the book of Joshua. It was longer than most normal introductions (about 10 minutes), but that is because before we dive into this important book, we need to understand why it is important and how it is applicable to our lives. In short, the book of Joshua teaches about the Christian life--how to fight the good fight of the faith--and if we view this book rightly, it will fortify us for the Christian life. There more detail below and in the sermon.

The book of Joshua tells us the story of God’s people after they had been redeemed from Egypt under Moses and wandered in the wilderness for forty years because of their sinful rejection of God’s promises. It tells us the story of how God’s people entered into the land of Canaan that God had promised to them and began to conquer it. But, more than that, the book of Joshua is a story about a great period of transition for God’s people.

Hundreds of years earlier, God had promised Abraham two things: God would make him a great nation, and He would give him the land of Canaan as an inheritance in which that nation would dwell. The following centuries had seen God’s people vastly grow in number, but they had yet to possess the land of Canaan. In fact, while the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, it may have seemed like God’s promises would never come true. But, under Moses, God redeemed them from slavery, and under Moses, God formed them into a nation through the giving of the Law. But, there was still that very important piece left: the land. God promised Abraham in Ge. 17:8, “I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession.” And, Deuteronomy promises God’s people that this land will be a place where they can find rest. But, they still needed to possess it. And, this book tells us the story of that great transition: God taking the wandering nation and giving them the physical land that He had promised to Abraham.

So, there’s a lot of history in this book, and it’s a very important time in the history of Israel. That’s why modern Bibles categorize Joshua under the “history” books. But, would it surprise you to know that the Jews didn’t categorize Joshua that way? They didn’t. From the time of King David onward, Joshua was placed in the section of books in the OT called the “former prophets”—they viewed Joshua as prophecy. Now, that sounds a little odd to us because we tend to think of prophecy as foretelling the future, and certainly some prophecy has that component to it. But, by and large, the prophecies of the OT were not so much about foretelling the future but forthtelling about the present, i.e. they took God’s Word written and His mighty works performed and applied them to the lives of the people in the present. Prophecy in Scripture is taking the Word and works of God and saying, “This is how this word from God or these events apply to your life. There is a message God has for you in them, and here it is.” In particular, Joshua is a record of how the Word of God written in the first five books of the Bible—the Pentateuch—began to work in the lives of God’s people as they moved through this great transition, and, in fact, God has a message for all His people in this book.

Now, it’s important for us to grasp that difference because mere history is just a record of facts, from which we might learn something but aren’t necessarily compelled to. But, history that’s also prophecy means this book is meant to convict, not simply inform; it’s meant to compel a response, not merely enlighten with information; it’s meant to encourage, not merely report. It’s a message from God to us as much as it is about God’s work in history.

Now, you might read this book and think, “Well, this book is a whole lot of battles, and that does not really have anything for me. I’m a professor, student, teacher, homemaker, business professional, or something else like that.” We may be tempted to think about the book of Joshua, but nothing could be further from the truth. You see, the taking of the land in this book isn’t primarily about property, but it symbolizes for all the Bible and us the spreading of the Kingdom of God itself, which is far bigger than a small piece of land on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. The battles and events of this book are seen by the whole Bible as opportunities to learn what faith really is and how we live a life of faith in God. Even for the OT believers who fought these literal battles, it was all about learning to live and fight by faith in their Savior. And, in fact, ultimately it points us to the work of Christ as our King who fought for us and secured the true Promised Land of the new heavens and new earth that all believers—His Kingdom people—will one day possess.

In fact, we are in a great transition just like the Israelites. We stand on the shores of Jordan, you could say, having been redeemed but also having to fight spiritual battles until we’re given our heavenly Promised Land by our King. And, even as Israel stood on the shores of the Jordan as a nation, their battles were still dependent on faith. In every battle in Joshua (and later on in Judges), it didn’t matter if they had inferior numbers, weapons, or strategies, and in fact, on several occasions God commands them to fight that way. We can’t replicate the strategies for Jericho, Hazor, or most of the other battles because they were battles that had to be fought God’s way in faith that God would provide the victory. They still had to fight, yes, but they had to use His strategies in faith that He would make them successful, even when they looked as ridiculous as simply marching around a city and screaming.

In fact, the NT shows us that even the nation and the land for which they fought was merely a temporary fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham anyway. Canaan could never be the eternal land of rest God promised Abraham. The book of Hebrews shows us that Abraham and the true believers of the OT were never really looking forward to an earthly land but in faith to a heavenly one that Jesus Himself would secure for them through His life, death, and resurrection—the new heavens and new earth that Re. 21-22 describe for us, and that will be eternal rest for us. And, our Savior and His true, eternal Promised Land can also only be possessed by faith.

This is why Joshua has so much to teach us about the Christian life. It‘s a story of God’s redeemed people having to fight by faith in the King who truly fights the battles for them, using God’s ways to possess rest in the Promised Land, which is exactly a mirror of our lives today, although spiritually; not physically. The life of a Christian isn’t something that’s comfortable and easy, and I know you all know that. This life is a relentless, spiritual war that we must fight by faith in our King who truly fights for us, which precedes our eternal rest in the true Promised Land that Jesus secured for us. Church family, from a spiritual perspective, we’re in all-out war—spiritual battles are constant—and Christians have the terrible privilege of being the target of satan—that roaring lion who seeks to devour us, as Peter says in 1 Pt. 5. We do not “wrestle against flesh and blood but against… the spiritual forces of evil,” as Paul says in Eph. 6. Our enemies are no longer literal people that we’re called to drive out like the Israelites, but the Canaanites still exist in here [our hearts] and still need to be driven out. For us, the Canaanites are in our sinful hearts, the temptations of the world, and the attacks of the devil. This is why we need “to fight the good fight of the faith,” as we heard earlier in 1 Ti. 6, looking to our Savior and King who truly fights for us. And, if we see this book rightly as prophecy and history, God can use it to fortify us for the battle of the Christian life. That’s why this book is so relevant for God’s people even today.

If you want to hear more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

 I pray that God will use it to magnify His glory in your heart and fortify you for the battles of this Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor

I am not Very Good at Prayer. Are you?

"It just hurts not to be good at important things like prayer. I recent read this phrase--I want to say it's by Brother Lawrence--who said, 'I decided I was never going to be good at praying, so I'm just going to start not being good at praying. I'm just going to start to pray.' For a performance person, that's freeing: just to say, 'I'm not going to be really good,' and just do it. It won't be something to write a book about. But the the thought that Christ meets us there, not when we get good, but when we're not--doesn't that define grace?" ~ a quote from a pastor in Resilient Ministry

Currently, one the of the books I am reading is Resilient Ministry, and it is an excellent read. It is generally geared towards pastors, but it would be something helpful for a congregant, elder, church staff member, or anyone to read. I am not very far into the book so far, but one of the ways it has already blessed me is to remind me that I am not the only pastor who is not good at personal time in God's Word, prayer, understanding my own emotions, etc.

Are you good at praying? Does it come naturally to you? Do you rarely get distracted, discouraged, or go long periods of time without much prayer? If so, you are much, much better at it than me. I am not very good at prayer. I think that most people think pastors are just naturally good prayers. Why not? I mean, we are "professional Christians" right? (That was major sarcasm, by the way.) Sometimes when people come to me asking for prayer, and I get the sense that they think my prayers are going to carry more weight with God or something like that. Now, do not get me wrong: I love it when people ask me to pray for them, but my prayers are no more effective than anyone else who is in Christ. James says in Js. 5:16, "The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working," but that is not a call to rest in our own works for powerful prayer. It is a call to rest in the righteousness of Christ--the righteous Person--and simply to pray on the merits of His righteousness that He has given to us. That means any Christian can pray with equal standing before God. But, I digress... Again, I am not very good at prayer, and one of the blessings of this book is that it made me realize that I am not the only pastor who feels that way.

But, not being good at praying is no excuse for not praying. The Scriptures command us to pray, and prayer is one of the three objective means of grace (prayer, the Word, and the sacraments) that the Spirit uses to grow us in grace and in the likeness of Christ. We need prayer. The Church needs prayer. So, what does that mean for those of us who are not good at praying?

Well, it means just what the quote above says: we just need to start not being good at praying, i.e. praying "badly" but still praying. Do you get distracted during prayer like I do? Well, you can probably take some practical steps like solitude, specific times for prayer, writing prayers out, etc. (and I will talk about one practical step below), but the most important thing for us to remember is: keep praying and let the blood of Christ cover your wayward mind. Do you sometimes know you have many things to pray for/about but for some reason nothing is coming to mind? Well, again there are many practical things we can do here (and I am about to get to one), but the most important thing we can remember is: persevere in prayer even if your mind draws a blank, confess that to God, ask for the Spirit to help you pray, and trust the blood of Christ to cover your forgetfulness. When you pray, do you sometimes realize you are not really sure where you were going with a thought or think, "Good grief, I sound like the most confused person in the world!"? Well, again, there are probably some practical things we can do like writing out prayers, but, again, the most important thing we can remember is: Christ is our advocate before the Father (1 Jn. 2:1) and the Spirit prays with us and for us when we do not know how (Ro. 8:26). As Richard Sibbes wrote in The Bruised Reed, "God can pick sense out of a confused prayer."

Friends, you might be bad at prayer like me, but that does not mean God does not want our prayers! He is our Father, and He wants us to pray and loves it when we throw ourselves at His feet whether we are good at it or not. My three-year-old is not very good at speaking yet (though he is quite remarkable for his age), but I love for him to come to talk to me no matter how confused it is. I love trying to make sense of his confused thoughts. Remember, God is a Father far more loving than me or any other earthly father. And, Christ's grace covers our bad prayers, so we just need to accept ourselves where we are and be bad at praying but pray anyway!

But, even though we may not be very good at praying, we cannot use that as an excuse for not doing what we can to help our prayer life and grow. I am not going to talk about prayer from a theological perspective here, for their are many great books on that: Prayer by Tim Keller, Approaching God by Steve Brown, The Hidden Life of Prayer by David McIntyre, just to name a few. I just want to tell you about one thing that has helped my prayer life (and perhaps in a future post I will mention a few others things that have helped). It may seem silly to say this, but it is an app called PrayerMate. (I really do feel a little silly for saying an app helped me, but I am not the only pastor who thinks so. Tim Challies wrote "How An App Revitalized My Prayer Life" on it, which is actually how I found out about it.)

What I love about this App, is that it helps you keep track of all those people you want to pray for, and it makes it manageable. Do you ever feel like you have more to pray for than you can remember? Or, if you have a list, do you always make it all the way through? If not, can you remember where you left off or do you start back at the beginning again? Well, this app helps make prayer times manageable by allowing you to create categories of prayer, subjects under each category, and then giving you a set number of prayer subjects from each category each day/time you refresh the app. So, instead of feeling overwhelmed by a list, the app gives you a set number of subjects (however many you choose) from each category, and it rotates through so you do not have to keep track of what you have and have not prayed for lately.

Hopefully, that is not confusing, but if it is, let me try to clarify by giving examples from my use of the app. In mine, have a number of categories:

• God's Perfections & Adoration: This one helps me with adoring and praising God. I have in it God's perfections (i.e. His attributes; you can find the list here) as well as a number of psalms of worship (e.g. Ps. 19, 33, 103). Each time I use the app, I get one of those, so I either pray/praise through a psalm, allowing it to guide me in adoring God, or I spend time praying about and meditating on one of His perfections. I have found this helps make my praise of God more well-rounded--instead of always praising Him for the same things that come to my mind, in a period of time, I praise Him for all that He revealed to us about Himself. 
• Confessions: This category is to help me with repentance. I have in it Ps. 51 as well as a number of prayers of repentance from The Valley of Vision like "Yet I Sin," "Mortification," and "Sins." One cannot pray them rotely, of course, but each time I use the app I get one and they are very helpful as guides that jog my memory of how I need to confess specific sins of my day, week, and life. 
• Personal Godliness: I have this category to remind me to pray about ways in which I know I need to grow in Christ. I have it in the fruits of the Spirit, as well as some other ways I know I need to grow. Each time I use the app, I get one and I spend time confessing how I am sinful in that area, thanking God for any growth I might have seen, and asking for the Spirit help to grow in that area with respect to my ministry (in general) or certain people (specifically). 
• My family: I have all my family members listed in here along with ways I know I need to pray for them. Each time I use the app, it gives me two to pray for. 
• My friends: I have many of my friends in here (and I add new ones as I am reminded to) along with ways I know I need to pray for them. Each time I use the app it gives me two to pray for. 
• My youth: At my church, one of the areas I cover is the youth group. I love my youth group. And, I have a subject for each of my youth and how I need to pray for them. Each time I use the app it gives me two to pray for. 
• I have other categories like missionaries, non-Christians, graduate students (another area of my ministry at my church), and a few others. 

In the end, each time I sit down to pray and use the app, I get 16 out of 152 items/subjects in my list. Now, if I tried to pray for the 152 all the time, I would never finish, and I would probably forget where I left off each time, thus missing some almost completely. But, this app helps make that manageable and keeps me from skipping any of them. 

Now, a few tips:

• It is an app and it is designed specific times that one sets apart in which to pray. It does not replace spontaneous praise, confession, thanksgiving, or petition. Do not depend on it but let it help you. 
• It is an app, which means it is connected to a device with an Internet connection. If you are like me and easily distracted, turn off your WiFi or put it on Airplane Mode while you pray. 
• As mentioned above, it is really designed for designated times of prayer, so pick a block of time that is manageable for you and use it then. I would recommend even setting apart a time of day. You do not have to be legalistic about that time, but put it on your calendar, so you do not schedule things during that time if you can at all avoid it. The app will even alert you at that time, if you want it to. 
• Look and then close your eyes or look and then stroll around the room as you pray. This helps me not to be distracted by the other things I could do on the device. 

I do have a couple of complaints about the app. Its UI is a little cumbersome. It does not have a central syncing location for keeping several devices synced, but it does allow you to export to Dropbox and import from there. However, that means extra steps when you update your prayer list. But, overall, it is excellent and really has helped my prayer life. 

So, if you are not very good at praying, like me, pray anyway. As quoted above, say to yourself, "I'm just going to start not being good at praying. I'm just going to start to pray." Read a book on it or make use of an app to help you. You know what I have noticed since I have started having dedicated times of prayer with the app? I have noticed I pray more spontaneously throughout the day, and distractions are not quite as bad (though I have a long way to go). Remember, if you have put your faith in Christ, you have the Spirit to help you pray when you do not know how and the blood of Christ to cover your not-very-good prayer life. If you learn nothing else from this post, please try to learn to rest in that grace. 

By His Grace,

Taylor

God as Father: Lessons I Learned as a Dad (Part 3)

A few months ago I began a blog series that will be irregular (at best) on lessons I have learned from being a dad about God being our heavenly Father--i.e. what it means for God to be our Father, how that impacts our lives, our relationship with Him as our Father, etc. I have learned quite a bit since I became a dad because the father-child relationship analogy that the Scriptures use has become so much more real to me. Well, recently I have been thinking about another aspect of God's fatherhood and our relationship to Him.

My son Gabriel is almost three now, and that means he is in the stage commonly known as "terrible twos," which should really be "terrible twos and threes or maybe even fours." That means that Gabriel is beginning to understand more and more how he is individual with a will of his own and he is desiring to assert his autonomy more and more. Of course, every parent out there knows what is coming next: tantrums. Gabriel now knows what he wants, knows that he is an individual, and knows he does not want to be told what to do, which means we see a lot of tantrums. This is actually part of their developmental process and is a good sign in the grand scheme of mental and emotional development, though it sometimes feels like hell on earth for parents.

This past weekend, for example, we took him to two Halloween activities in our city on Saturday, and at both there was lots of candy, which is what one would expect. Well, we, of course, try to limit his sugar intake, but depending on the day and activity, we might bend the rules a little and let him have more than he normally would. And, we did that Saturday, letting him have a little more candy than normally we would. That, however, was not enough. At a local church's festivities, we cut off the candy because he had had more than enough and we were about to go home and have dinner, and all of a sudden his world went from being loads of fun to a tragedy that in his mind would rival Oedipus' discovery that the oracle at Delphi had been right all along. And, while he did not attempt to gouge out his eyes, the screaming and crying certainly made it sound like he had.

Such tantrums are common in our life right now, and my "gut" responses vary. Sometimes the tantrums are so over-the-top ridiculous that it is all I can do not to laugh. Often they are frustrating, trying my patience to its limits. Most of the time there is mixed in with other emotions a sense of loving pity--pity because he does not understand all the things involved in denying what he thinks he needs, pity because I do not like seeing him sad, pity because I am trying to do what is best for him and he does not understand, pity because his immaturity is making him overreact. Lately these tantrums have also been humbling for me personally, which may seem like an odd response, but allow me to explain.

In my prayer life, there are times when I "vent" to God about things going on and my opinion of how my life is going. Now, those types of prayers are not necessarily bad or sinful because He wants to know what is on our hearts and He knows them anyway. And, certainly honesty with God in our prayer lives is something we need to develop. But, there are times where my "venting" is really just a "grownup" way of describing a tantrum. When I look at Gabriel with pity while in the midst of a tantrum, lately I have thought, "God, is this what I look like to You when I vent in my prayers? Do I look like a child rolling on the ground screaming because I did not get my way?" I am pretty sure I know the answer to those questions, and I do not like it.

I think that is probably the case much of the time. Even though I might veil it in "grownup" language and might not be screaming while rolling on the floor, sometimes it is about the same thing--I am upset because I cannot understand why God is not doing something the way I think that it should be done, and I doing whatever it takes to convince Him that my way is better. It may not involve stomping and screaming, but it is not really any better than a tantrum. Yet, at the same time, when I think, "God, is this what I look like?" I also think "Wow, you are so patient, kind, and loving to me to put up with this." With a toddler, we can cut him some slack because he has not learned how to deal with his emotions properly, but I have no such excuses. And, yet, if I--a sinner and sub-par father--respond with loving pity, how much more does God as my heavenly Father do that for me?

If I am moved with pity because Gabriel does not understand all the things involved in denying what he thinks he needs, then how much more is that true of God? The gap between God's knowledge and my own is far greater than the gap between my knowledge and Gabriel's--I am much less than a toddler in my knowledge compared to God. As the LORD says in Isaiah, "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." If I am moved with pity because I do not like to see Gabriel hurt, how much more is that true of my heavenly Father who loves me perfectly? Of course, just like I know it is sometimes necessary for Gabriel to experience disappointment for his own good, so He knows that sometimes it is necessary for His good plan for me. Yet, even though it is necessary, it does not mean He does not experience fatherly sympathy for His confused and hurting child. If I am moved with pity because Gabriel does not understand that I am trying to do what is best for him, how much more is that true of my heavenly Father who always works all things for my good? My wisdom (as limited as it is) far exceeds Gabriel's, and, indeed, Gabriel would not throw a tantrum if he knew what I knew. Well, the same can be said of us. God's wisdom far, far, far exceeds our own, and God always answers our prayers in the way we would have them answered if we knew everything He knew and were as wise as Him. But, just as Gabriel does not understand because his knowledge and wisdom are limited, so I do not understand because my knowledge and wisdom are limited. So, my heavenly Father looks upon me with loving pity and says, "My child, you do not understand, but please trust me, for I love you more than you love your own son." And, if I am moved with pity for Gabriel because his immaturity causes him to overreact, how much more is that true of our loving and understanding heavenly Father? Immaturity does not, of course, excuse Gabriel's reaction and neither does it excuse my "grownup" tantrums, but it does move me to fatherly compassion for my son, and I think the same is true of our heavenly Father.

At the end of the day, I still need to do what is best for Gabriel, as God does for me, but thinking about how much I--a very imperfect father--am moved with love, compassion, and pity for my son makes me so thankful for my heavenly Father who is the perfect Father. If I can respond in love and compassion to my son, most certainly God does to me. Even when I throw a tantrum, He looks upon me with fatherly love because He has adopted me and loved me perfectly in Christ.

There is, of course, another side to this: how I would like Gabriel to respond. I know Gabriel cannot understand many of the decisions Erika and I make concerning him, but I would like him to respond by saying, "You know dad, I don't get it, but I know you love me, so I trust you." Obviously that is pipe dream for Gabriel. Every day Erika and I care for him, feed him, clothe him, love him, give him experiences, and so much more, but when what he thinks he "needs" is challenged, he forgets all that. He so easily forgets how much love we have shown him, so trust in those times is hard. But, am I really any different when it comes to my relationship to God--my heavenly Father? Throughout my life God has provided for me, proved Himself faithful over and over again, and never let me down, and yet when what I think I "need" is challenged, I forget all that too. I bet my heavenly Father would like me to say, "You know Dad, I don't get it, but I know You love me, so I trust You."

That is what the Psalms do. Do you know what the most common type of psalm in the book of Psalms is? It is not the hymns, the confidence psalms or the wisdom psalms. It is not the thanksgiving psalms or psalms of remembrance. It is the laments. There are more psalms of lament than any other type of psalm. These psalms express intense sadness, suffering, and confusion about life, and there are more of them than any other type. That alone should tell us something about the Christian life: God's people experience real suffering and pain often. But, the psalms of lament have a characteristic to them that keeps them from descending into "grownup" tantrums.

These psalms (e.g. Ps 13, 22, 26, 42-44, 74, 77, 79, 88, 102, 130, 143) almost always follow a very important structure. They begin with an invocation to God for help. Then, there is a complaint section that may lead to a plea for help, confession of sin, or cry for vindication. And, then, most importantly, all but one of them end with confident praise to God. For example, Ps. 13 ends with:

⁵ But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
    my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
⁶ I will sing to the Lord,
    because he has dealt bountifully with me.

In this psalm, David has not seen any resolution between the beginning and the end, but even when he complains and cries out for God to act, he does not forget what is true about God. Even though it does not feel that way to him, he reminds himself of the truth.

I think we can learn something about how we should pray when confused or in pain from these psalms. It is okay for us to pour out our hearts to God and cry out to Him in pain and confusion. In fact, it is good for us to do so, but when we do that, we must never act arrogantly towards God--thinking we know better--or question His character--accusing Him of wrongdoing. The psalms of lament always ground their complaint in the goodness of God and then come back to that goodness with faith at the end, even when everything in the life of the psalmist seems to testify to the contrary. The psalms of lament combine honest, intense expressions of grief with truthful, biblical, faithful reminders of who God really is.

When we pray and "vent" like that, then we are not throwing a "grownup" tantrum but are doing exactly what we want our children to do: saying, "Dad, I don't get it, but I know You love me, so I trust You." That is a righteous lament; not a toddler tantrum.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Exodus: A Great Salvation -- The Egyptians Favorably Disposed

In the next and final post in this series, the sermon will discuss the tenth plague and the Passover. Part of the passage I did not have time to discuss is the part where the Hebrews "plunder the Egyptians" because God makes the Egyptians "favorably disposed" towards the people in order to give them their valuables. This is an interesting turn in the story. Ever since Ex. 5:2, Pharaoh's heart has gotten harder and harder towards God and the people, and God was sovereign over that, as we saw in the last sermon. Yet, we also see in our passage for Sunday that God will sovereignly make the Egyptians favorable to the Hebrews. Listen to how D.A. Carson talks about this part of the passage:

THE CRUSHING PLAGUES have followed their ordained sequence. Repeatedly, Pharaoh hardened his heart; yet, however culpable this man was, God sovereignly moved behind the scenes, actually warning Pharaoh, implicitly inviting repentance. For instance, through Moses God had already said to Pharaoh, “I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. You still set yourself against my people and will not let them go” (9:16-17). Yet now Pharaoh’s patience entirely collapses. He warns Moses that he is not to appear in the court again: “The day you see my face you will die” (10:28). 

So the stage is set for the last plague, the greatest and worst of all. After the previous nine disasters, one would think that Moses’ description of what would happen (Ex. 11) would prompt Pharaoh to hesitate. But he refuses to listen (11:9); and all this occurs, God says “so that my wonders may be multiplied in Egypt” (11:9). 

In Exodus 11 – 12 there is yet another almost incidental description of God’s sovereign provision. Exodus 11 tells us, almost parenthetically, that “the LORD made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people” (11:3). This is followed in Exodus 12 by the description of the Egyptians urging the Israelites to leave the country (12:33). One can understand the rationale: how many more plagues like this last one could they endure? At the same time, the Israelites ask for clothing and silver and gold. “The LORD had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians” (12:36). 

Psychologically, it is easy enough, after the event, to explain all this. In addition to the fear the Israelites now incited among the Egyptians, perhaps guilt was also operating: who knows? “We owe them something.” Psychologically, of course, one could have concocted a quite different scenario: in a fit of rage, the Egyptians massacre the people whose leader and whose God have brought such devastating slaughter among them.
In reality, however, the ultimate reason why things turn out this way is because of the powerful hand of God: the Lord himself made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people. 

This is the element that is often overlooked by sociologists and others who treat all of culture like a closed system. They forget that God may intervene, and turn the hearts and minds of the people. Massive revival that transforms the value systems of the West is now virtually inconceivable to those enamored with closed systems. But if God graciously intervenes and makes the people “favorably disposed” to the preaching of the Gospel….

Check out the original post over at the Gospel Coalition's website, and remember that God is sovereign over the human heart and will bring the fruit of the gospel wherever He chooses. This world is not a closed system. As Father Christmas said in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, "Aslan is on the move!" and all the snow and the ice is melting.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Exodus: A Great Salvation -- The LORD is Sovereign

One of my favorite annual periodicals is the Darwin Awards. If you haven’t heard of those, sometime you should look them up. The subtitle for this prestigious set of awards is “Chlorinating the Gene Pool: Commemorating Those Who Improve Our Gene Pool by Removing Themselves from It,” if that gives you any idea of what’s coming. They are morbid (but generally quite amusing) stories from the previous year of people who died, or rather brought about their own deaths, in, shall we say, unintelligent ways. While preparing for this sermon of this post, one story from the 1999 Awards kept coming back to my mind. It’s the story of a lawyer and two of his friends on a fishing trip, and it goes like this:

A lawyer and two of his buddies were fishing on Caddo Lake in Texas. A lightning storm hit the lake and most of the fisherman immediately headed for the shore. But not our friend the lawyer. He was alone on the rear of his aluminum bass boat and his buddies were in the front. This gentleman stood up, spread his arms wide (crucifixion style) and shouted:  “Here I am Lord! Show yourself to me!” Needless to say, God delivered. The other two passengers on the boat survived the lightning strike and are reported to have joined the Ministry immediately.

I couldn’t help but keep thinking of that story as I was preparing for this sermon because as silly as that story is, that is essentially what Pharaoh did ch. 5, which we talked about last sermon. Remember, Pharaoh has refused to let God’s people go and impertinently asked, “Who is the LORD that I should obey His voice?” He, like the lawyer in our story, thinks that YHWH is no threat at all to him, so he challenges YHWH, basically declaring war Him. And, the plagues--which we talked about from a historical perspective in the last post--are God’s response. As God says 7:4-5, “I will lay my hand on Egypt… by great acts of judgment. The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD,” and Pharaoh will learn this too, though it takes a lot of righteous judgment and a long time because of his stubborn hardness of heart. And, essentially God answers Pharaoh’s question and judges Egypt by manifesting His sovereignty over everything in existence. In fact, His sovereignty is more clearly displayed in this story than almost anywhere else in Scripture.

If you want to find out more of how the plagues display God's sovereignty, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here. I pray that the Holy Spirit will use it to magnify Christ in your heart and mind to the glory of God.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Exodus: A Great Salvation -- The Source of the Plagues

In the sermon of the next post, we will take a look at the first nine plagues that God unleashes on Egypt in order to drive Pharaoh to release His people. One thing that often comes up with the subject of the plagues of Ex. 7-12 is whether the plagues were divine intervention from God or just natural disasters that the Egyptians misinterpreted. Modern minds that want to deny any supernatural intervention in our universe have come up with all sorts of attempts to explain them naturally, but all of those attempts fail. I did not have time to go over that in the sermon that will be in the next post, so here we will look at why such attempts cannot explain the biblical data adequately.

First, we should note that in some of the miraculous events in Scripture God does use natural causes in supernatural ways. In some cases, God does appear to be using the laws of nature, but He uses them in a way that would be highly improbable or next to impossible without His divine intervention. Take, for example, the crossing of the Red Sea in Ex. 14. There the text tells us specifically how God divided the sea: "the LORD drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided." (v. 21) Do you see God's use of natural forces there? God used wind that blew all night long to divide the water and dry the ground. Now, technically that is possible given the right environmental factors, but the timing, magnitude, and duration of the wind makes it not logical to believe it happened merely by chance. To say it happened by chance, we would have to say that "Moses stretched out his hand over the sea" (v. 21) at just the right moment (and he knew to do that how?), we would have to say that the wind blew all night long at just the right magnitude and in just the right direction without varying at all (no lulls in the wind at all), and we would have to say that after all the Hebrews had made it through again "Moses stretched out his hand over the sea" (v. 27) at just the right moment when the wind stopped (again, he knew to do that how?) and the water came crashing down on the Egyptians. Such a sequence of perfectly timed events is really not possible with God's invention, even though He did use the forces of nature. Well, the same reasoning can apply to the plagues: even if there is a natural component to some or all of them, the timing, magnitude, and duration of events shows that the divine hand of God must be behind them.

Let's look at one of the most sophisticated attempts to explain the plagues naturally. Greta Hort published the best attempt to give natural explanations to all the plagues in "The Plagues of Egypt" in 1958 (in the German journal Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, pp. 48-59), and it is often still referenced by those who try to attribute the plagues to natural events. Her theory can be summarized as follows:

1. Massive flooding in the Abyssinian plateau upstream from Egypt washed red clay into the Nile, and that clay, combined with two particular types of algae, made the Nile appear "blood red." And, in the fish that died from the pollution of the Nile, anthrax bread, which comes into play in the successive plagues.
2. Frogs left the uninhabitable Nile, invading Egypt, but the frogs were infected with anthrax and so they soon died as well.
3. As floodwaters receded, the pools and dead frogs became a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes (more likely than gnats) and flies, both of which were infected by anthrax as well.
4. The mosquitoes bit humans and animals, and animals consume the flies, so both became infected with anthrax as well--it killed the animals that ingested them and infected the skin of the humans that were bitten.
5. In the seventh plague, the hail was just an extreme weather condition that destroyed crops.
6. In the eighth plague, the locusts bred as a result of the extremely wet ground from the hail and rain.
7. Finally, the darkness was a sandstorm (which, Hort claims, is why Bible says in 10:21 that it could be "felt").

I hope that while simply reading through those, you can already see how they are thoroughly unconvincing unless you are really looking for a reason to deny supernatural involvement by God. Here is an article that shows the many scientific inaccuracies in this theory (like the types of algae, what animals anthrax can infect, etc.). But, as mentioned above, such an attempt to create a purely natural chain of events (that breaks down after plague six, by the way) cannot at all account for the timing, magnitude, and duration of the plagues, so we do not even need to dig deep into the details to show that this does not work (though the article linked above is still worth a read):

1. The Nile turned to blood "in the sight of Pharaoh" (7:20), i.e. not gradually from an upstream flow, and it was not just the Nile but "all the water in Egypt" (7:20) and "even in the vessels of wood and in the vessels of stone" (7:19). Did Moses go upstream, see the red water flowing, run quickly (at 80 years old) down to Pharaoh, grab his attention, and then claim it was a plague from God? How did it get in all the surface water everywhere in Egypt?
2. The frogs came at least a week later (7:25), which is a long time to tolerate an uninhabitable river. Furthermore, the frogs did not come out gradually, but the Nile "swarmed with frogs" (8:3) and those frogs were so numerous "covered the land of Egypt" (8:6) so that they were everywhere, even in kneading bowls and ovens (8:3). So, that many millions of frogs were just sitting on the bottom of the (uninhabitable) Nile ready to march out at Moses' command?
3. The "biting insects" (mosquitoes probably more likely than gnats) of the third plague did not emerge gradually from cesspools but out of the dust of the ground when Aaron smacked it with his staff. And, it was not just a few insects but swarms that covered man and beast (8:17). Here also, even the magicians realized it was the "finger of God" (8:19). So, Moses saw the eggs were about to hatch and quickly commanded Aaron to smack the ground near some to claim a miracle?
4. The flies of the fourth plague were not breeding concurrently with the mosquitoes in the cesspools but a distinct plague that came out of the air. It was also not just a few flies but swarms to the point where "the houses of the Egyptians were filled with swarms of flies" (8:21). And, finally here, Goshen was protected from the flies. How exactly could that many flies in that timing come from cesspools? Furthermore, why would such flies avoid Goshen?
5. Here, it is claimed that anthrax killed the livestock. Perhaps that could be true, but it was all the livestock (9:6) and one would wonder if really every single one would have been infected. Furthermore, again, the Hebrews' livestock were fine (9:4). How could a disease like anthrax be so selective?
6. The boils did not arise slowly and gradually as the result of mosquitoes transferring anthrax but immediately after Moses tossed the soot in the air. (9:8-9). And, again, only the "all the Egyptians" were infected (9:11). How could it have been so abrupt? How could it have been so selective as to avoid the Hebrews?
7. Here, the causality link in Hort's theory breaks down. She just has to say that for some reason the first six things happened and then a storm "such as never has been in Egypt from the day it was founded until now" (9:18) just happened to arise. And, it came when Moses "stretched out his hand toward heaven" (9:22). Did Moses just happen to time it perfectly? Did he just somehow know the storm of the millennium was coming?
8. The locusts did not breed and arise gradually from more cesspools created by the storms, but when Moses stretched out his hand (10:13) they came in one an "east wind" (10:13) and they "covered the face of the whole land, so that the land was darkened" (10:15). When God was done, He sent a strong "west wind" that "drove them into the Red Sea" (10:19). Again, here her theory fails to account for the timing, magnitude, and duration.
9. While a sandstorm that lasts for three days has happened, such a theory cannot account for "pitch darkness" (10:22) again when Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven (10:22). Did he just happen to see the sandstorm coming and run quickly to Pharaoh, throw his hand in the air, and claim it was a plague? How did it plunge the land into "pitch darkness"? And, again, why was Goshen not affected by this darkness/storm (10:23)?
10. And, the tenth plague is not really the subject this week, but Hort says the tenth plague was not the death of the firstborn but the destruction of the last remains of the "first-fruits" of the harvest. And "due to a corruption of the Bible text" the word "firstborn" was misinterpreted. Yet, that completely ignores the context of Ex. 11:1-13:6, which describes in great detail the death of the firstborn. So, was the whole text "corrupted" but somehow created a cogent story line? And, how does Hort know what the original said since she claims we do not have it?

I hope now you can see how this attempt and others that claim natural causes for all the plagues are woefully inadequate. One does not even need to dig into the scientific detail but merely read the text to see that is the case.

So, could God have used natural forces in a supernatural way to bring about these plagues? Sure, He could have at least at some points, but the point is that the timing, magnitude, and duration of the plagues make purely natural explanations require more faith on our part than simply taking Scripture at its word. No, the plagues were real, judgment events that came from the hand of God. And, in the sermon of the next post, we will talk about what that means for us.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Exodus: A Great Salvation -- Who is the LORD?

As we continue through our series in the story of the exodus, let me ask you: What is the most important information you can know in this life? If you could ask one question or maybe actually two and have them immediately answered with complete accuracy, what questions would be most crucial to ask? Well, the text—Ex. 5:1-6:13—for this sermon's post asks those questions and shows us how God answers them.

In the text, we see the two most crucial questions we can ask: one is clear and the other subtle, but ironically, they both come from the lips of God’s enemy: Pharaoh. He asks, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice…” The first words we hear from the mouth of this Pharaoh (who’s not one of the original Pharaohs from chs. 1 and 2) ask the most important question any human being can ever ask: Who is the LORD? Or, who is God? Now, there’s a second, subtle question in Pharaoh’s statement that’s almost just as important: Who am I? Here, Pharaoh sets up one of the major themes of the Pentateuch—the first five books of the Bible—because from here on out, these questions will get answered: Who is the LORD? And, who are His people? Pharaoh needs these questions answered if he’s going to let the people go. The Hebrews need these questions answered if they’re to relate to God, worship Him, and serve Him properly. And, really, every human being needs to answer these questions on some level in order to live and order their life.

If you want to hear more of how Ex. 5:1-6:13 asks and answers these crucial questions, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here. I pray that the Holy Spirit will use it to magnify Christ in your heart and mind to the glory of God.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Exodus: A Great Salvation -- The Call of the Weak

For the past few weeks, I have been blogging a series of sermons and devotionals on the first twelve chapters of the book of Exodus that I preached and wrote over the summer. These chapters contain the actual story of the exodus, which is a great salvation that points us to God’s ultimate salvation that Jesus accomplished. We’ve seen God setting up that salvation in ch. 1 and the first part of ch. 2, and then we’ve also seen God preparing His savior and the people through suffering from the second half of ch. 2. In today's post, we’re going to see God’s official call of Moses.

The text for this sermon is a selected reading from Ex. 3-4, which recounts to us God's call of Moses and Moses' response. Moses' response is, shall we say, less than flattering for him, and if you know the story, you know what I am talking about. But, let's not be quick to judge Moses. Put yourself in Moses’ position here. He’s about 80 years old at this time. He has settled into the life of a shepherd and has been roaming the wilderness with his sheep for about 40 years. At this point, Egypt is probably a fading memory and any hope he had of being the one who delivers the Hebrew people has probably faded even more. Then, one day, which probably started out like a normal day, he brings his sheep to the base of a mountain. While there, he sees a burning bush, and probably does not think much of it at first, but then, after some amount of time, he notices that it’s burning but not actually burning up, so he goes to check it out. And, then, all of a sudden, the bush starts talking to him, and the bush knows his name. Then, immediately the bush introduces itself as God Himself and calls Moses to go back to Egypt and deliver the Hebrews from Pharaoh. Now, how do you think that would have hit you, if you had been Moses? Perhaps you fancied yourself a deliverer when you were young and well-to-do, but after 40 years of sheep herding, you’ve probably mellowed and maybe even given up on the idea of being a deliverer. Even when you tried to be a deliverer, you weren’t, shall we say, in your prime, and with each passing year in the wilderness, that dream fades, tracking somewhat with the deterioration of your body. So, you’ve become “set in your ways” and are content to live out your life as a shepherd. But, then, seemingly “out of the blue,” God calls to you from a burning bush and says, “Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” How do you think you’d feel? Probably not really up for it, I would think.

Well, I wonder if stuff like this does happen to us at times in our lives. Perhaps it’s not quite so dramatic, for to be sure we no longer hear God’s voice out of a burning bush, but maybe at some point we had grand ideas about what we can do for God whether it’s in our own personal holiness or in the world around us, until the circumstances of God’s providence blindsided us and we kind of settled down. Yet, then, somewhere in that more settled life, an opportunity comes before us: maybe God brings to mind a particular sin with which we’ve gotten comfortable and we can no longer ignore it, or maybe someone in the church asks us to do something that we’ve never really considered or been trained to do, or maybe a situation at work challenges us to stick out more as a Christian, or something else, and we’re worried that it might be God subtly saying, “Come, I have this for you…” because, like Moses, we’re not really up for it. Well, I think this passage can help because here we see God’s call of the weak, and if we’re honest with ourselves, we should probably be thinking, “Uh… yeah… that’s me.”

If you want to hear more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here. I pray that the Holy Spirit will use it to magnify Christ in your heart and mind to the glory of God.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Exodus: A Great Salvation -- Our Bridegroom of Blood

In the next sermon in this series, which will be posted later this week, we'll talk about the call of Moses, and since we have limited time in the story of the exodus, I cannot address everything in chapters 3-4. One of the things that I had to skip in the sermon is the rather difficult verses of Ex. 4:24-26. In the context of the story, Moses has argued with God about taking his call to bring the people out of Egypt, but by 4:17 Moses finally accepts his call. Then, in 4:18-20 Moses gets permission from his father-in-law to leave, and in 4:21-23, God tells Moses that Pharaoh will not agree to let the people go, indeed God Himself will harden his heart (cf. Ro. 9:14-18). So, things seems to be tracking along just fine. But, then, seemingly out of the blue, 4:24-26 comes into the story:

²⁴ At a lodging place on the way the Lord met him and sought to put him to death. ²⁵ Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses' feet with it and said, “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!” ²⁶ So he let him alone. It was then that she said, “A bridegroom of blood,” because of the circumcision.

When we come to that, reading through the story as normal, we are generally surprised by it, even after knowing the story, because we wonder, "What is God doing here? God has just called Moses to deliver the people, so why does He seek to kill him here?" It does not seem to fit at all, at least as first brush.

We must first ask, "Why is God angry at Moses?" Well, the text does not say directly, but it seems pretty clear that God is angry at Moses for not circumcising his son--Gershom. That's clear enough to Zipporah, for she immediately acts to correct the sin without any overt prompting from God Himself, and she saves Moses' life. (By the way, one thing I have not had time to bring out so far is that throughout these first four chapters, all the heroes in various situations of dire need have actually all been heroines, i.e. women. This is one thing that sets the Scriptures apart from almost all other ancient documents: it is not afraid to show God working through women, who were not at all seen as equal to men in these ancient cultures. To make a woman the heroine would have been embarrassing to almost all ancient cultures, certainly ancient near eastern cultures. Such a factor lends to the historical veracity of these stories because if an ancient person were making them up, they would not put these "embarrassing" details in the stories.)

But, that prompts the question: Why was that so important that God would seek to kill Moses for not doing circumcising Gershom? Moses argued with God, and He was patient with him. Yet, when he did not circumcise his son, He became angry to the point of death. Why is that? To answer that, we have to remember that circumcision was no minor thing with God but the distinguishing mark that set apart His people who were part of His covenant community. It was the visible proof of being one of God's people that went all the way back to Abraham in Ge. 17. Therefore, if Moses intended to serve the God who was about to deliver His people based on His covenant promise to Abraham, Moses needed to fulfill his covenant obligations and circumcise his son. In fact, later on, the Hebrews all have to do the same thing before they celebrate the Passover and are delivered from Egypt (Ex. 12:43-49). Not doing so is kind of like wanting "to have your cake and eat it too": i.e. I want the covenant benefits but without fulfilling the obligations. In fact, even here we can be pointed to the gospel obligations of obedience to Christ: if we want Him to be our Savior, He also must be our Lord (cf. Js. 2:14-17; 1 Jn. 3:10). This does not mean our salvation is at all dependent on our works, for it is most certainly by grace through faith alone, but faith that does not seek to obey Christ is "dead faith" as James says, and not true, saving faith. As the Westminster Confession of Faith says in 11.2: "Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification: yet it is not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but works by love." Faith alone saves, but saving faith is never alone.

Now, getting back to Moses: not only did Moses need to be obedient to the covenant if he was to be the leader of God's people but circumcision also had a lesson in and of itself that Moses needed to learn. One of the reasons God instituted circumcision as His sign that set His people apart as His covenant community is that "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins" (He. 9:22). In other words, God was teaching Moses through this encounter the basic element of salvation: the shedding of blood. Moses was placed under the shadow of death for his sin of neglecting God's covenant sign and then saved by the blood of that sign. Moses needed to learn that sin cannot be forgiven without the shedding of blood. In fact, this whole experience was a test (much like Abraham learned in Ge. 22 when he was called to sacrifice Isaac), showing Moses firsthand what ultimate salvation would require--the shedding of the blood of a Substitute. But, who is this Substitute?

As odd as it may sound, these verses point us to Jesus Himself. Every human is under God's wrath because we have failed to keep His laws in total. As Paul says in Ro. 3:23-25, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith." A "propitiation" is a sacrifice that satisfies God's wrath against sin. That was what was needed temporarily for Moses, and it is what is needed for all who would desire peace with God. Yet, in our case, we do not have to shed our own blood or the blood of an animal (for those can never take away sins altogether, He. 10:4), but the very blood of Christ Himself satisfies God's wrath for us. Jesus is, in a sense, our "bridegroom of blood," who satisfied God's wrath with His blood for us, so God relented just as He did with Moses. Jesus is the ultimate and final Substitute. It was the "circumcision of Christ" (Col. 2:11) that satisfied God's wrath against us. Let us praise Him for His sacrifice, and even in this strange text, be reminded of what He has done for us.

By His Grace,
Taylor

God as Father: Lessons I Learned as a Dad (Part 2)

A few months ago I began a blog series that will be irregular (at best) on lessons I have learned from being a dad about God being our heavenly Father--i.e. what it means for God to be our Father, how that impacts our lives, our relationship with Him as our Father, etc. These are generally lessons I have known in my head from a theological standpoint, but they are things that did not really become existential realities to me until I became a dad. Do you know what I mean? It is one thing to know something in your head, but then when you experience it or a relationship you have reflects it, you really know it. Well, that is what I mean when I say these are lessons I learned from being a dad.

Recently, my wife and I had our second son--Corban Lewis Rollo. He is almost three weeks old now, and over the past few weeks another truth about God as our Father that I "knew" has become real to me in a relational, existential sense.

I must confess, before Corban was born, I knew I would love him, but in the back of my mind I was worried that I would not be able to love him as much as I love Gabriel. I was worried that because Gabriel was the "apple of my eye," Corban would not be able to be as special to me as my firstborn. That is not because or anything in Corban or even really anything in Gabriel, but it is because of a limitation of love I thought I had. You see, I love Gabriel about as much as I thought I could ever love any child. He was special to me in a way that I thought could never be replicated or divided. I thought that because I am a finite, sinful being, there might be a limit to how much I could love my children and Gabriel had almost all of that. I could not imagine having a capacity to love more than I already did with Gabriel. To put it another way, I worried there would not be room in my heart for another child. So, in my mind, I was worried that either Corban would get whatever small amount was left over or if I were to love my boys equally, my love for Gabriel would have to be reduced by the amount of love given to Corban. It is like I have a glass of water, and it is all the water I can give, so in order to give equal amounts of water to two people, I would have to divide the glass in half. But, then Corban was born.

What has amazed me over the past few weeks with both Gabriel and Corban is that the limitation I thought was there on my ability to love simply disappeared. I love Gabriel as much as I could love any child, and I have also discovered that I love Corban as much as I could love any child. I was worried that since Gabriel was special to me, Corban could not be, but over the past few weeks I have realize they are both special to me in a way that cannot be divided but can be duplicated. That is not to say the boys are the same, but they are equally precious in my eyes in a way I thought was not possible. How can a finite, sinful man like me have such a capacity to love? How can a fullness of love not be divided and yet equally given to both? How can there all of a sudden be a second glass of water for the second son? I am not really sure, to be honest, but I have discovered that is the case. And, I think all the parents out there would agree, and those with more children than me would be able to testify that the same thing can happen many times over.

Well, today I was driving and considering the love of God as our Father. I think sometimes we Christians say, "God loves me with an infinite love" or something like that, but then in the back of our minds we think, "But, God loves all the other Christians that way too, so I must not be very special to Him." We know verses like 1 Jn. 4:10 that tell us "In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins," and yet, I think we look around on Sunday morning and in the back of our minds worry that His love cannot be very special for us since all these Christians are His children too. Am I really special to God? Can I be the "apple of His eye" without that being reduced when all the other elect are that as well? If my experience as an earthly, sinful, terrible father is any indication, the answer to those questions is a resounding "Yes!"

Jesus did not make us children of God and tell us that we can cry "Abba, Father!" without it being better than anything we earthly fathers can give our children. If I--a generally pathetic excuse for a father and a finite human being--can love my sons equally as much as I can love any child (without reducing the love for each as an individual), then how much more is that true of the heart of our perfect, heavenly Father, who is infinite and "is love"? If I, in my finite capacity, can love my children individually as much as I can love any child without short-changing either of my boys, how much more is that true of the infinite, eternal, and unchangeable God? God loves us as His adopted child in Christ and loves other Christians that way as well, but that in no way means each of us as an individual is not supremely special to Him, not the "apple of His eye," not loved as much as a child of God can be loved. If my love can duplicate without reduction, the God who is love, must be even better. How wonderful is that?

O child of God, bask in that love today and always.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Exodus: A Great Salvation -- Salvation Set Up

As I mentioned in last week's post, I had the pleasure of preaching a sermon series on the first twelve chapters of Exodus over the summer—i.e. the exodus story itself. Last week I talked about the preliminary issue of the historical nature of the account and made an argument for its historical veracity. Today's post is the first sermon itself: "Salvation Set Up," which covers Ge. 50:22-Ex. 2:10.

This sermon series began in Ge. 50 because while the exodus story is a riveting, historical epic, it’s not something out of the blue. Like most great epics, Exodus begins in the middle of things, with the adventure already underway in Genesis. In fact, in the Hebrew, the book begins with the word “And,” showing us that while we may be starting a sequel of sorts, the story is the same story that God has been writing since the beginning of the world—the story of redemption that began in Ge. 3:15, builds throughout the whole OT, and climaxes with Jesus.

The story of the exodus is part of the grand narrative of the OT, and it serves as a bridge between God’s promises to the patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—to the initial fulfillment of those promises here on earth, setting the stage for the descendents of Jacob to become the nation of Israel and to be taken by God into the earthly promised land. In fact, the story of the exodus lays the foundation for the entire OT, and its importance extends even into the NT. The exodus is the great miracle of the OT, and thus the rest of the OT looks back on the exodus as the paradigm, the pattern of God’s great salvation—past, present, and future. For example, Ps. 106 is one of the many passages that look back on the exodus and say, in effect, "This is the God we serve! He saved us from Egypt. He redeemed us out of slavery. He brought us into the promised land. That means we’re His people, and He will take care of us today. So, we will trust Him and worship Him."

Now, this paradigm of salvation extends even into the NT because the story of the exodus is really, from a spiritual perspective, the story of Jesus and His work of redemption—it’s a picture and a sign pointing us forward to the ultimate salvation that Jesus accomplished.

So, if you want to hear more about how this passage sets up the story of the exodus and even points us to Jesus, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here. I pray that the Holy Spirit will use it to magnify Christ in your heart and mind to the glory of God.

By His Grace,
Taylor