Short meditations

The Public Square
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I thought it might prove helpful to have a place to share short meditations.

Here is mine today:

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. (Matthew 5:6)

Each day He gives us manna in the Word. And it is enough for the day. But we have to collect it in order to eat.

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From my reading this morning.

“You shall not see your brother’s ox or his sheep going astray and ignore them. You shall take them back to your brother." - Deut. 22:1

How much more should I concern myself when I see the son or daughter of a brother in the church straying?

“Is it for oxen that God is concerned?”

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O taste and see that the LORD is good;

How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him! (Psalm 34:8)

God’s refuge is His Goodness. Jesus is our Refuge. “Eat my flesh,” He said, and you will see that Yahweh is good.

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“Surely the Lord GOD does nothing unless He reveals His secret counsel to His servants the prophets.” Amos 3:7

God has given preachers the words of life to pass on to His people. If we refuse to listen to God’s messengers, how can claim to be His children?

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Having so fond an affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us. - 1 Thess. 2.8

Are the sheep as dear to us as they were Paul? Make it so, Lord.

we must remember that those who want to be counted true pastors must entertain the same feeling as Paul––to have a higher regard for the well-being of the Church than for their own life. They are to do their duty with no regard to their own advantage, but with a sincere love for those to whom they know that they are bound and connected. - Calvin

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The promise:

“Indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies.” - Genesis 22:17-18

A pseudo-fulfillment:

“Judah and Israel were as many as the sand by the sea.” 1 Kings 4:20

Though the kingdom was united under Solomon, and had been united through strife under David, the fact that the covenant people are still here referred to as “Judah and Israel” is a reminder of their underlying estrangement from one another. They are two peoples. A divided Israel, no matter how numerous they are collectively, could never be understood as the fulfillment of the promise. The promise is to one seed, not two, and not ten million.

“Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as referring to many, but rather to one, “And to your seed,” that is, Christ.” - Galatians 3:16

Hence it is in Christ, in whom the offspring are revealed as children of promise (Gal. 4:23-24), that the promise to Abraham is fulfilled.

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“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy” (Matt. 5:7)

Calvin (Sermons on the Beatitudes): “What is pity? Briefly put, it is nothing else but the pain we feel at someone else’s sorrow. A man may be healthy and content, with plenty to eat and drink, and safe from any threat of danger. When, however, he sees his neighbor in distress, he is bound to feel for him, to share his sorrow, to shoulder some of his burden and so lighten his load. That is what mercy is.”

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“Briefly put, it is nothing else but the pain we feel at someone else’s sorrow.”

Yes, and so once more we see how empathy is not sin. Jesus looked on them with compassion b/c they were harrassed and helpless, sheep without shepherds. Empathy and compassion are deeply intertwined.

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And from the prior paragraph in Calvin’s sermon: “In this verse, the Lord Jesus Christ takes believers one step further, teaching that as well as being meek and patient when we are afflicted, we must be at one with others in their distress, and so touched with compassion for their suffering as to look for ways of helping them, as if their pain were ours.”

Lord, make us such men!

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Jesus wept at Lazarus’ tomb. He looked on the multitudes with compassion.

God deliver my sheep from my own coldness of heart…

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Beyond ourselves, there is that horror titled “The Sin of Empathy” extremely popular in our own Reformed circles.

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Then the LORD spoke again to Ahaz, saying, “Ask a sign for yourself from the LORD your God; make it deep as Sheol or high as heaven.” But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, nor will I test the LORD!” - Isaiah 7:10-12

It was proper that the king should ask for a sign from the prophet for the confirmation of the prophet’s word (2 Kings 20:8). But Ahaz, acting in unbelief, refused a sign under false piety.

Then [Isaiah] said, “Listen now, O house of David! Is it too slight a thing for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God as well? “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel." - Isaiah 7:13-14

In other words, “You don’t want a sign? Fine. I won’t give you one. But I will extend one to the entire house of David, to be fulfilled in due time.”

Thus it is against the backdrop of unbelief that the wondrous prophecy of Immanuel is given.

God is so gracious. We are so faithless.

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One more today.

"And the man cried against the altar by the word of the Lord and said, “O altar, altar, thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name, and he shall sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who make offerings on you, and human bones shall be burned on you.’” - 1 Kings 13:2

Prophecy given.

Fast forward. Amon was the son of Manasseh, and the father of Josiah. Bad dude:

“[Amon] walked in all the way in which his father walked and served the idols that his father served and worshiped them. He abandoned the Lord, the God of his fathers, and did not walk in the way of the Lord.” - 2 Kings 21:21-22

Then he gets murdered.

“And the servants of Amon conspired against him and put the king to death in his house.” - 2 Kings 21:23

Uh oh! We’ve seen this many times before as we read about the northern kingdom of Israel. The dynasty in Samaria was constantly changing hands as kings would be betrayed by their men. Looks like the same is about to happen in Judah.

Plot twist:

“But the people of the land struck down all those who had conspired against King Amon, and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his place.” - 2 Kings 21:24

What transpired between verse 23 and 24? What made the counter-conspirators loyal to the king? Were these men who had joined Manasseh in his repentance in the years prior? Were they godly? We’re not told, and no further insight is offered in the parallel passage in 2 Chronicles 33:24-25.

What shall we make of it? Shall we speculate?

No. Josiah had to be king, because God said so. That’s the way to read the story.

"I am watching over my word to perform it.” - Jeremiah 1:12

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‘The Church does not need brilliant personalities but faithful servants of Jesus and the brethren. Not in the former but in the latter is the lack. The Church will place its confidence only in the simple servant of the Word of Jesus Christ because it knows that then it will be guided, not according to human wisdom and human conceit, but by the Word of the Good Shepherd.’

Bonhoeffer, Life Together

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The sons of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” Exodus 16.3

I’ve always thought Exodus 15-16 are good passages for Thanksgiving, providing a warning to us not to grumble. God will preserve His people according to His promises. He can make bread fall from heaven. He can make money fall from the sky. But it is hard not to grumble, as the Geneva Bible adds this footnote:

verse 3 – So hard a thing is it to the flesh not to murmur against God when the belly is pinched.

Our Elder Brother never murmured when His belly was pinched.

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Psalm 122:1 I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD.”

It gladdens the heart when others encourage us to go to church.

Go to church today.

Receive joyfully from your Father the wonderful gifts He has for you.

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“…thus we came to Rome. And the brethren, when they heard about us, came from there as far as the Market of Appius and Three Inns to meet us; and when Paul saw them, he thanked God and took courage” (Acts 28:14-15).

Some Christian brothers walked 43 miles, then others 33 miles, surrounding Paul as he came into the city. Such a tender scene. Of course Paul thanked God and took courage. We all owe these brothers a debt of gratitude for their tender support of our beloved Paul.

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For the last few months, I’ve been plodding through Nehamiah Coxe’s Covenant Theology a couple pages at a time. Reading about the Noahic covenant.

"Although the grace of the new covenant was spiritually held out in this covenant with Noah (which was struck with him for all his posterity) yet the grace and blessing were not by this means bestowed on all mankind. They surely all have an interest in that covenant that signified, and in some ways included, spiritual blessings but those blessings do not pertain to all who have their signs. Instead they remain the peculiar right of those who by faith receive them, “who are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13).

Quite remarkable to think about. All of Noah’s offspring (i.e. all mankind, Gen. 9:9) hold a kind of objective status in the covenant of Noah, and enjoy the grace of God in a tangible way under the covenant sign (the rainbow, by which God stays his wrath against Adam’s race, Gen. 9:14-15, cf. Rev. 4:3). Still, only the faithful truly take hold of the substance of that covenant, which shall be revealed at the judgment, when earth and sky and rainbow have passed away, and all flesh stands naked before the great white throne (Rev. 20:11).

As a separate thought, this observation struck me as another example of the solidarity held between Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians. Peel back our disagreements concerning the proper application of the New Covenant sign of baptism and there is important common ground to be found in our understanding of the Noahic covenant, in which we find a sign that is seminal to the later sign of baptism.

Though a man may enjoy the sign of God’s covenant mercies, still, he must be born again.

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