From Horatius Bonar: When God's Children Suffer

Sickness prostrates us. It cuts into the very centre of our carnal nature; it exposes in all their deformity "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life". What vanity is seen in these upon a sickbed! These are our three idols; and these, sickness dashes down into the dust. 

Sickness takes us aside and sets us alone with God. We are taken into His private chamber, and there He converses with us face to face. The world is far off, our relish for it is gone, and we are alone with God. Many are the words of grace and truth which He then speaks to us. All our former props are taken away, and we must now lean on God alone. The things of earth are felt to be vanity; man's help useless. Man's praise and sympathy desert us; we are cast wholly upon God, that we may learn that HIs praise and His sympathy are enough. "If it were not for my pain," says one, "I should spend less time with God. If I had not been kept awake with pain, I should have lost one of the sweetest experiences I ever had in my life. The disorder of my body is the very help I want from God; and if it does its work before it lays me in the dust, it will raise me up to heaven." It was thus that Job was "chastened upon his bed with pain, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain", that after being tried he might "come forth as gold" (Job 33:19; 23:10).

Sickness teaches that activity of service is not the only way in which God is glorified. "They also serve who stand and wait." Active duty is that which man judges most acceptable; but God shows us that in bearing and suffering He is also glorified. Perhaps we were pursuing a course of our own and required to be arrested. Perhaps we were too much harassed by a bustling world and needed retirement, yet could find no way of obtaining it till God laid us down, and drew us aside into a desert place, because of the multitude pressing upon us.

None of the family rods is more in use than this, sometimes falling lightly on us, at other times more heavily. Let us kiss the rod. Let us open our mouth wide to the blessing, seeking so to profit by each bodily ailment, slight or severe, that it may bring forth in us the peacable fruits of righteousness. "I know," says one, "of no greater blessing than health, except pain and sickness."

The Reason We Live

This is a cool new song by Joe Romeo. Really catchy chorus. Thanks Joe!

Excerpts on Revival

The following video contains excerpts from various preachers (Leon Ravenhill among them, and I think Ian Paisley, but not sure) on the matter of revival. Not sure how I think about each particular, but the overall effect causes me to search myself and to seek the Lord for that fiery love of the glory of God which will be seen when He is glorified in joy and holiness among His people. Why do we settle for so much less than that?

The Difficulty of Preaching the Text

I have good friends in ministry who often describe preaching as "explaining the Bible". I've felt uncomfortable with this and have been averse to using such a description myself.

Part of the reason I think is that, at its worst, it sounds so terribly patronising! "I, the great and knowledgeable one, and going to explain this complex and mystifying matter that my mind has penetrated through hours in the study, with my knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, and which clearly your minds are not able to do."

I wonder what such a view makes of the perspicuity of Scripture, and of the fact that John tells us that "we all know the truth" or "we know all the truth" (1John 2:20-21) as we have been given the anointing of the Holy Spirit. The clarity of God's word, and the ministry of the Spirit to lead us into all truth means that whenever we hear a preacher we have both an outer guide (Scripture) and an inner one (Spirit) that enables us to assess the speaker. It is not that we need the preacher to enable us to get the meaning of the Scripture.

The problem isn't an intellectual one. Sure, the study and learning of a godly preacher will surely bless and benefit a congregation, but something much more important is going on.

The real task of a preacher is to wrestle with the text as one who is simultaneously saint and sinner, and then proclaim that to a congregation in the same spot! The real problem in our hearing of the word of God is a moral one and not an intellectual one.

A preacher has the task of exposing the false readings we prefer to the actual meaning of the text which makes a moral claim on us. The one who really hears the word of God is he or she who does it. Being sinners still, we tend to be like the son in Jesus' parable who hears the word of the Father, cheers it as wonderful and then goes away and does whatever he intended in the first place (Matt. 21:28ff)!

There are a number of ways that sinners dull the claim of the text whilst still feeling some degree of piety for doing so!

• We reduce the text, refusing to see it in its full Trinitarian and salvific glory. The preacher has the task of making us see the height, and depth, and length, and breadth of the glory and the love of God that every word brings to us.
• We manipulate the text, discarding either the moral claim of the text upon us on the one hand, or else reducing the text simply to a "to do list" on the other. The preacher must remember God's solid foundation which remains firm, sealed with this inscription: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.” (2Tim. 2:19) The preacher must expose the legalist and the libertine in us all.

Who is equal to such a task, himself being the sinner who comes to the word of God in the same way?

The preacher must himself let the searching word of God do in him what he is hoping the searching word of God will do in his congregation. Pain, agony, sweat, blood, tears must mark the hours of the preacher's preparation. Only then will he come with the love, joy, grace and goodness that will be necessary in the pulpit.

The Loneliness of Revelation

Currently I am reading Helmut Thielicke's collection of sermons entitled, How To Believe Again. I was struck by this section:

'Our text [Matt. 16:13-23] reaches its climax in the words that are now spoken. For Peter feels himself driven to a confession the madness of which (there's no other way to put it) hardly hits us any more because, in the meantime, the words have become all too familiar. They have long since become a Christian cliché. But at the time this confession was uttered, it must have been a powerful shock to those who heard it...

'When Jesus broke the silence that followed this precedent-shattering statement (and there must have been a pause of astonishment and confusion) he explained to Peter and the onlookers that this statement itself was a miracle. It was miraculous that such words could be uttered at all. "Flesh and blood," mere instinct or mother-wit, could not have discovered this secret. For one moment the walls of fog that mysteriously shroud the figure of Jesus of Nazareth are parted, and the eyes of an incomprehensible majesty gaze upon a stunned Peter.

'At that moment Peter is the loneliest man on the face of the earth. He is almost as lonely as the Master himself. Formerly Peter was a man like everybody else. He was a man like you and me. He affirmed God's providence when things suited him, and he protested when they got in his way. He wanted to do the right thing, the consciousness of his sin weighed on him like a millstone. He had not settled matters with his own conscience and therefore, with good reason, steered clear of the circuit of the eternal Judge.

'That's the way it usually is with all of us. Peter was no different from you and me. But now, at one blow, all that changes. Now he is the only one who has felt the scales drop from his eyes. Now he sees that God's heartbeat can be touched and felt and heard, despite all of life's riddles, all the world's horrors, and even judgment itself. You are the assurance (Peter is now able to confess) that there is no "Fate," but that, far above our heads, there are higher and loving thoughts about us. You are the assurance that there is something other than the eternal law of crime and punishment, that there is a Father who forgives our incriminating past and gives us the miracle of a fresh start.'

The loneliness of the discovery of grace—by revelation and not by wit or work—is a loneliness in the world in which we are placed, but which is visited by the presence of God our Father, Christ and the blessed Holy Spirit. Any person who has borne witness to the truth of Christ will know the bitter sweetness of confessing him and having others know nothing of what is shared.

The loneliness of revelation is also part of the impetus for the proclamation of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Where we forget the loneliness of what we have we may well show that we forget the sadder and deeper loneliness of the person without God, an alien in this creation intended to be his home.

"Oh that world might taste and see the riches of his grace: the arms of love that compass me would mankind embrace... Happy if with my latest breath I might but gasp his name; Preach him to all and cry in death, "Behold, behold the Lamb!"

My heart and my flesh and my God...

My heart and my flesh and my God...

The loveliness of the Lord causes the worshipper of God to cry out that his soul faints for the Lord, that his heart and his flesh cry out for the living God (Psalm 84:1-2). The one who dwell in His house, who finds strength in Him, who has set decidedly on pilgrimage (which means steadfastly living in anticipation of coming into the Lord's presence), and who trusts in Him—that one is truly blessed. He finds that in the dry valley, pools open up, refreshment comes and he is enable to persevere until he comes to the Lord at the end.

In Psalm 73 Asaph (David's choir master; 'director of music ministry' in Israel) recounts how his faith and hope almost failed. He was vexed to see the progress and prosperity of wickedness. They have no struggle with illness or trouble, and they clothed themselves with an arrogant disregard of those who do. What is worse is that they seem to be the heroes in their culture! Their prosperity and progress seem to be proof that in fact God is not the Lord of all, that His righteousness does not rule the world, that in fact godliness with contentment is not great gain at all. Their progress seems to imply that the Lord is blind, and that faithfulness to Him is a vain thing. In this vexation of spirit, Asaph became oblivious to all the loveliness of God. Like a brute beast, he could not understand the language of the Lord's righteousness. Bitterness closed him up to the refreshment of his soul.

The great thing is that my heart's affections are not the strength of my heart. My flesh may fail, my heart may fail. My heart may fail. Bitterness, held grievances, frustration and even unbelief may (and often do!) invade the fortress which is meant for worship and trust and purity. But even then I am secure, for my security is not in my flesh, nor in my heart, but in my God. There is one in heaven for me, on my behalf. The death and the resurrection and the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ have done something for me that my failures cannot undo. Even in the bitterness and blindness, he is with me, and is leading me and teaching me, giving me his counsel. And so I progress through the barren places, and I find there refreshment, not from the strength of my faith, my heart, my love, but from the presence of the Lord. And afterwards He will take me into glory. There no frustration or grief or bitterness or unbelief will ever enter again.

Geoff Bingham, a dear friend and mentor, a teacher and encourager in the great grace of God, died early on Wednesday morning and entered the joy of the Lord.

I came to know Geoff through his ministry with university students when I was a young and woolly student at Adelaide University. I had only recently become a believer in Christ, and I wonder now how much of that was of God. Certainly as Geoff taught the grace of God in those days I found myself swinging between two opinions - why does he teach such obvious things? and why does he teach such obscure things? I needed still to discover the secret of the Father's sovereign grace in Jesus Christ. For all my confusion about Geoff's teaching, I found that there was something inescapably compelling about what he brought from the Scriptures.

Through Geoff, and through those who had learned from him, the day came when the truth of God's Fatherhood broke in upon me like a river of flooding love. I came to know that the grace of salvation was in the Father's heart and initiative, and not something forced upon Him by a loving Jesus. It changed my whole life.

Liz and I spent the early days of married life travelling nearly every Saturday morning to hear Geoff teach at the New Creation Teaching Centre. Geoff saw our family grow, and saw us grow as we learned something of being parents. We learned from him that even our family life has to be subordinated to the kingdom of God, and that we must not make an idol of family. At times, this learning seemed to be imparted fiercely, but we know that Geoff has loved us even when it seemed he was strong in his approach to us. Liz and I compared notes today and agreed that quite likely without Geoff's teaching and ministry our marriage may not have lasted the stresses and strains of sin that has had its play in our lives. The grace of God, which we found in his opening of the Scriptures, has been the rock of our lives.

Geoff always wore his heart on his sleeve. He was an unfeigned man. The Geoff you knew was the Geoff with all his warts and wonders. He could be so because he knew that he was a sinner justified freely by the grace of God in Christ.

At one New Creation Ministry School Geoff gave a study on the ministry of encouragement. It was the last study of the school and the culmination of all that had been taught over the week. I was moved to the depths of my being by Geoff's study, and wept and wept for the beauty of the Lord, the glory of His grace, the love of the Father, the kindness of God for the salvation of the world. I simply could not stop the flow of tears of joy that came from the goodness of the Gospel. Geoff was one of only a couple of people who seemed to understand what was happening in me.

Geoff and Laurel have been encouragers and supporters of Liz and me in our ministry. He has helped in the parish at Largs, visiting to preach. He was available for me to come and to talk through the things that were on my heart, and also to bring to me things that I needed to think through. He prayed for me, and cared for me.

I have learned from Geoff how important it is to exercise faithfulness in friendship, and to give to those from whom you receive. A giant of a man like Geoff, towering in his ability, energy and self-control, is one from who I gladly received. I failed to see for too long just how much there is reciprocity in all human relationships, and how much friendship which expresses itself to others in their needs, and seeks to understand their needs, is the gift of the Holy Spirit, and is in fact an expression of the life of God among us.

Geoff's poetry made a large impact on me, and perhaps his simplest and most profound poem, Angel Wings is the best way for me to wind up these personal reflections which could go on for so much longer.

Angel wings, beating my face,
Forcing me into grace.

Dear eyes, loving my soul,
Drawing me to the goal.

Strong word, piercing my brain,
Bringing me holy shame.

Pain's cry welling within,
Lifting me up from sin.

Red hands, clotted with blood,
Thrusting me up to God.

Angel wings, beating my face,
Forcing me into grace.