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Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices: Reading (How to turn information into transformation)

14 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Theology of Biblical Counseling, Thomas Brooks, Uncategorized

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A WORD TO THE READER

This section of the work contains Thomas Brooks Directions for Reading. He begins with the proposition drawn from the Proverbs, that one must obtain truth. Thus, Brooks is not speaking of all reading, but of reading that which is profitable.

DEAR FRIEND!—Solomon bids us buy the truth (Prov. 23:23), but doth not tell us what it must cost, because we must get it though it be never so dear.

The Puritans were quite careful to distinguish between buying truth and buying anything else. Christian, at Vanity Fair, was only there to be “buy truth”. And Bunyan in the Heavenly Footman advises:

Take heed that you have not an ear open to every one that calleth after you as you are in your journey. Men that run, you know, if any do call after them, saying, I would speak with you, or go not too fast, and you shall have my company with you, if they run for some great matter, they use to say, Alas, I cannot stay, I am in haste, pray talk not to me now; neither can I stay for you, I am running for a wager: if I win I am made, if I lose I am undone, and therefore hinder me not. Thus wise are men when they run for corruptible things, and thus should thou do, and thou hast more cause to do so than they, forasmuch as they run but for things that last not, but thou for an incorruptible glory. I give thee notice of this betimes, knowing that thou shalt have enough call after thee, even the devil, sin, this world, vain company, pleasures, profits, esteem among men, ease, pomp, pride, together with an innumerable company of such companions; one crying, Stay for me; the other saying, Do not leave me behind; a third saying, And take me along with you. What, will you go, saith the devil, without your sins, pleasures, and profits? Are you so hasty? Can you not stay and take these along with you? Will you leave your friends and companions behind you? Can you not do as your neighbours do, carry the world, sin, lust, pleasure, profit, esteem among men, along with you? Have a care thou do not let thine ear now be open to the tempting, enticing, alluring, and soul- entangling flatteries of such sink-soulsf13 as these are. ‘My son,’ saith Solomon, ‘if sinners entice thee, consent thou not’ (Pro. 1:10).

Brooks’ directions are to bring information into one’s heart so that it transforms both conduct and affections. Therefore, these directions for reading are not appropriate for all things which we read. As Paul Baynes writes in Brief Directions for a Godly Life, “That all filthy, lewd and wanton books, yea, needless and unprofitable books be avoided.”

A. Meditation

Remember, it is not hasty reading, but serious meditating upon holy and heavenly truths, that makes them prove sweet and profitable to the soul.

Meditation is a constant element of Puritan spirituality. Thomas Watson writes,

It is better to meditate on one sermon than to hear five. If an angel were to come down from heaven and preach to men; yea, if Jesus himself were the preacher, none would profit without meditation. The bee sucks the flower, and then works it in the hive, and it becomes honey. We must not only suck the flower of the Word, but work it in the hive of the heart.

Thomas Watson, Puritan Gems; Or, Wise and Holy Sayings of the Rev. Thomas Watson, A.M., ed. John Adey, Second Thousand. (London: J. Snow, and Ward and Co.; Nisbet and Co.; E. F. Gooch, 1850), 96–97. And:

Meditate upon what you read. Psalm 119:15: “I will meditate in thy precepts.” The Hebrew word to meditate, signifies to be intense in the mind. In meditation there must be a fixing of the thoughts upon the object. Luke 2:19: “Mary pondered those things.” Meditation is the concoction of Scripture; reading brings a truth into our head, meditation brings it into our heart; reading and meditation, like Castor and Pollux, must appear together. Meditation without reading is erroneous; reading without meditation is barren. The bee sucks the flower, and then works it into the hive, and so turns it into honey; by reading we suck the flower of the word, by meditation we work it into the hive of our mind, and so it turns to profit. Meditation is the bellows of the affection. Psalm 39:3: “While I was musing the fire burned.” The reason we come away so cold from reading the word, is because we do not warm ourselves at the fire of meditation.

Thomas Watson, “How We May Read the Scriptures with Most Spiritual Profit,” in The Bible and the Closet: Or How We May Read the Scriptures with the Most Spiritual Profit; and Secret Prayer Successfully Managed, ed. John Overton Choules (Boston: Gould, Kendall and Lincoln, 1842), 24–25.

In his sermon, A Discourse of the Right Way of Obtaining and Maintaining Communion with God, Matthew Barker writes:

We should, with David, “set the Lord always before” our face; (Psalm 16:8;) and not as he that he speaks of, of whom it is said, “God is not in all his thoughts.” (Psalm 10:4.) This is rather to live “without God in the world,” than to live in communion with him. And these thoughts of God should not be slight and transient, but fixed and serious; especially at some times, which we should more peculiarly devote to solemn meditation. Meditation brings the object nearer to the soul, and the soul nearer to it, though locally distant; unites the soul to it; mixeth itself with it; whereby it doth possess it, or is possessed of it.

James Nichols, Puritan Sermons, vol. 4 (Wheaton, IL: Richard Owen Roberts, Publishers, 1981), 48. Meditation is a deliberate focus and pondering of the proposition; it is the exact opposite of a transitory reading.

Brooks is not merely asking for one to read his book, but to wrestle with the book. A serious book which discloses the truth of God deserves our serious consideration. Much of our trouble comes from not considering what we read.

B. Application

The purpose of God’s truth is never for bare knowledge; this is an academic prize. I was once asked by a fellow Christian why I should take the time to know and understand, “After all”, he said, “when we’re heaven we’ll know it all any way.” But we are given truth for the end of godliness, faith working through love; never bare knowledge. Thus,

Thirdly, Know that it is not the knowing, nor the talking, nor the reading man, but the doing man, that at last will be found the happiest man.

As Thomas Watson wrote:

Learn to apply Scripture; take every word as spoken to yourselves. When the word thunders against sin, think thus: God means my sins; when it presseth any duty, God intends me in this. Many put off Scripture from themselves, as if it only concerned those who lived in the time when it was written; but if you intend to profit by the word, bring it home to yourselves. A medicine will do no good unless it be applied. The saints of old took the word as if it had been spoken to them by name. When king Josiah heard the threatening which was written in the book of God, he applied it to himself; he “rent his clothes and humbled his soul before the Lord.” 2 Kings 22:11.

Thomas Watson, “How We May Read the Scriptures with Most Spiritual Profit,” in The Bible and the Closet: Or How We May Read the Scriptures with the Most Spiritual Profit; and Secret Prayer Successfully Managed, ed. John Overton Choules (Boston: Gould, Kendall and Lincoln, 1842), 33–34. The application is to be complete:

We must be careful to apply that which we read wisely to ourselves; persuading ourselves that all duties are commanded us and all sins forbidden us all and all promises to be believed by us. Likewise, we must look that all exhortations and admonitions quicken us; all reprehensions check us; and all threats cause us to fear.

Paul Baynes, Brief Directions.

Christianity is not a matter of bare knowledge, it is a comprehensive manner of life. And, we cannot know as we ought when we refuse to live as we ought:

But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

Hebrews 5:14 (ESV). There is a necessary preparation and transformation of the human heart which makes it fit to receive the truth.

Brooks drives this home with an illustration:

Reader, If it be not strong upon thy heart to practise what thou readest, to what end dost thou read? To increase thy own condemnation? If thy light and knowledge be not turned into practice, the more knowing man thou art, the more miserable man thou wilt be in the day of recompense; thy light and knowledge will more torment thee than all the devils in hell. Thy knowledge will be that rod that will eternally lash thee, and that scorpion that will for ever bite thee, and that worm that will everlastingly gnaw thee; therefore read, and labour to know, that thou mayest do, or else thou art undone for ever.

The fact that knowledge increases condemnation is taught in the Scripture:

20 Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. 21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22 But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. 23 And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 24 But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.”

Matthew 11:20–24 (ESV). They had seen and heard and rejected. The Word of God is a dangerous thing, it will either transform or harden. In Nehemiah 8, the returned exiles are taught the people the Law of God; and when they heard it, they wept. But Herod, who heard the condemnation of John the Baptist, put John in prison. To hear the word of God, and to not listen and comply with the reproof is to be destroyed:

He who is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck,
will suddenly be broken beyond healing.

Proverbs 29:1 (ESV)

Application of this to Counseling:

These directions for reading are likely the most common reason that Biblical Counseling fails. The Counselor conveys information and permits to be bare information. The counselee hears something, consents, even admits to its importance. But, after leaving the counseling time, the poor Christian proceeds into the world with more information but the information is inert.

Even the homework given typically does little good because it most often information conveyance. While information is insufficient: Information is a necessary but a sufficient cause for change: the information must drive down into the heart and transform affections and conduct.

Brooks is here underlying the primary elements of turning information into transformation: Meditation – which transforms the thought and affections; and obedience. Conduct and sustained thought do much to drive knowledge into the bones and blood.

Precious Remedies Against Satans Devices: Introductory Epistle (a model for pastoral ministry)

12 Wednesday Dec 2018

Posted by in Elders, Ministry, Thomas Brooks, Uncategorized

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Thomas Brooks’ work Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices begins with a pastoral letter to his reader(s). He first lays out the pastoral office:

Beloved in our dearest Lord, Christ, the Scripture, your own hearts, and Satan’s devices, are the four prime things that should be first and most studied and searched. If any cast off the study of these, they cannot be safe here, nor happy hereafter. It is my work as a Christian, but much more as I am a Watchman, to do my [1] best to discover the fulness of Christ, [2] the emptiness of the creature, [3] and the snares of the great deceiver

Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 1 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1866), 3. In short we are weak, the Devil is deception, but Christ is greater than both our weakness and the Devil’s snares.

There are several “devices” of Satan, because there are various weaknesses and failings of human beings; therefore, the Devil sets his snares to match his prey:

Satan loves to sail with the wind, and to suit men’s temptations to their conditions and inclinations

This work of Satan is no ideal threat; it is a constant, ubiquitous malice which works throughout the world:

From the power, malice, and skill of Satan, doth proceed all the soul-killing plots, devices, stratagems, and machinations, that be in the world. Several

 When we consider both the irrationality of our own sin, and the insanity of the world writ large, we are at loss if we do not consider the malevolence of Satan. Satan, in Paradise Lost (Book I, lines 643-649) realizing that God will not be overthrown by direct war turns his malice to deceit:

Henceforth his might we know, and know our own
So as not either to provoke, or dread
New warr, provok’t; our better part remains [ 645 ]
To work in close design, by fraud or guile
What force effected not: that he no less
At length from us may find, who overcomes
By force, hath overcome but half his foe.

This malice everywhere present in the world. Now Brooks’ willingness to attribute great effect to Satan is certainly odd in this world. To even posit Satan’s existence, much less agency, is to be considered a bit odd if not ignorant (or perhaps deranged). This is of course a great act of his deception:

He is supposed to be Turkish. Some say his father was German. Nobody believed he was real. Nobody ever saw him or knew anybody that ever worked directly for him, but to hear Kobayashi tell it, anybody could have worked for Soze. You never knew. That was his power. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.

The Usual Suspects. Having laid out his plan, Brooks then prays for his reader. This is a marvelous model of prayer:

My desires for you are,

‘That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ that passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God,’ Eph. 3:16–19;

and

‘That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increased in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all might according to his glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering, with joyfulness,’ Col. 1:10, 11;

‘That ye do no evil,’ 2 Cor. 13:7;

‘That your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge, and in all judgment;’ ‘That ye may approve things that are excellent, that ye may be sincere, and without offence till the day of Christ,’ Philip. 1:27, 4:1; and that ‘our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power;’ ‘That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ,’ 2 Thes. 1:11, 12.

And that you may be eminent in sanctity, sanctity being Zion’s glory, Ps. 93:5;

that your hearts may be kept upright, your judgments sound, and your lives unblameable.

That as ye are now ‘my joy,’ so in the day of Christ you may be ‘my crown;’ that I may see my labours in your lives; that your conversation may not be earthly, when the things you hear are heavenly; but that it may be ‘as becomes the gospel,’ Philip. 1:9, 10.

That as the fishes which live in the salt sea yet are fresh, so you, though you live in an uncharitable world, may yet be charitable and loving;

That ye may, like the bee, suck honey out of every flower; that ye may shine in a sea of troubles, as the pearl shines in the sky, though it grows in the sea;

that in all your trials you may be like the stone in Thracia, that neither burneth in the fire nor sinketh in the water;

That ye may be like the heavens, excellent in substance and beautiful in appearance;

that so you may meet me with joy in that day wherein Christ shall say to his Father, ‘Lo, here am I, and the children that thou hast given me,’ Isa. 8:18

My desires to you are,

That you would make it your business to study Christ, his word, your own hearts, Satan’s plots, and eternity, more than ever;

That ye would endeavour more to be inwardly sincere than outwardly glorious; to live, than to have a name to live;

That ye would labour with all your might to be thankful under mercies, and faithful in your places, and humble under divine appearances, and fruitful under precious ordinances;

That as your means and mercies are greater than others’, so your account before God may not prove a worse than others’;

That ye would pray for me, who am not worthy to be named among the saints, that I may be a precious instrument in the hand of Christ to bring in many souls unto him, and to build up those that are brought in in their most holy faith;

and ‘that utterance may be given to me, that I may make known all the will of God,’ Eph. 6:19;

That I may be sincere, faithful, frequent, fervent, and constant in the work of the Lord, and that my labour be not in vain in the Lord; that my labours may be accepted in the Lord and his saints, and I may daily see the travail of my soul, &c.

 Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 1 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1866), 5-6.

 

John Ruskin (Sesame and Lillies): On Pride as the Motive

11 Tuesday Dec 2018

Posted by in Literature, Uncategorized

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Practically, then, at present, "advancement in life" means, becoming
conspicuous in life; obtaining a position which shall be
acknowledged by others to be respectable or honourable.  We do not
understand by this advancement, in general, the mere making of
money, but the being known to have made it; not the accomplishment
of any great aim, but the being seen to have accomplished it.  In a
word, we mean the gratification of our thirst for applause.  That
thirst, if the last infirmity of noble minds, is also the first
infirmity of weak ones; and, on the whole, the strongest impulsive
influence of average humanity:  the greatest efforts of the race
have always been traceable to the love of praise, as its greatest
catastrophes to the love of pleasure.

I am not about to attack or defend this impulse.  I want you only to
feel how it lies at the root of effort; especially of all modern
effort.  It is the gratification of vanity which is, with us, the
stimulus of toil and balm of repose; so closely does it touch the
very springs of life that the wounding of our vanity is always
spoken of (and truly) as in its measure MORTAL; we call it
"mortification," using the same expression which we should apply to
a gangrenous and incurable bodily hurt.  And although a few of us
may be physicians enough to recognise the various effect of this
passion upon health and energy, I believe most honest men know, and
would at once acknowledge, its leading power with them as a motive.
The seaman does not commonly desire to be made captain only because
he knows he can manage the ship better than any other sailor on
board.  He wants to be made captain that he may be CALLED captain.
The clergyman does not usually want to be made a bishop only because
he believes that no other hand can, as firmly as his, direct the
diocese through its difficulties.  He wants to be made bishop
primarily that he may be called "My Lord."  And a prince does not
usually desire to enlarge, or a subject to gain, a kingdom, because
he believes no one else can as well serve the State, upon its
throne; but, briefly, because he wishes to be addressed as "Your
Majesty," by as many lips as may be brought to such utterance.

James Denney: Wrong Roads to the Kingdom.3

09 Sunday Dec 2018

Posted by in Ecclesiology, James Denney, Uncategorized

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The last post on this sermon may be found here

The last of our Lord’s temptations is the one which has been most variously interpreted, which is another way of saying the one which has been least certainly understood. The tempter takes Jesus to a high mountain, shows Him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and says, “All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me”.

James Denney, The Way Everlasting: Sermons (London; New York; Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911), 198. This is a peculiar temptation: what could possibly work in this? Jesus had the right of rule over the world — he is now sitting as King of kings and Lord of lords:

The possibility of the temptation lies in the two facts that the sovereignty over the world belonged of right to Jesus, as the Son and representative of God, and that an immense and actual power in the world was unmistakably wielded by evil. Could Jesus make any use of that power? Could He, in order to obtain a footing in a world where evil was so strongly entrenched, give any kind of recognition to evil? Could He compromise with it, acknowledging that it had at least a relative or temporary right to exist, and making use of it till He could attain a position in which He would be able to dispense with its aid? This is the real question in the third temptation.

James Denney, The Way Everlasting: Sermons (London; New York; Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911), 199–200. Would Jesus be willing to make an “alliance of evil in establishing his kingdom?” (p. 200).

And so this temptation continues to exist for the church:

It hardly needs to be said that this temptation also remains with the Church. Evil is still a great power in the world, and as long as it is so the question will continue to arise whether it is not a power of which we can make some use for the kingdom of God. It is all the more sure to arise because evil is strong enough to cause great trouble and suffering to those who refuse to transact with it.

 James Denney, The Way Everlasting: Sermons (London; New York; Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911), 200.  There are a myriad of ways in which evil proposes a transaction.  Perhaps someone who is powerful and wealthy seeks influence in the church? Denney gives this example — and I have spoken with many pastors who have been offered financial security in exchange for a compromise in doctrine or winking at sin.

But there are other ways in which a pastor may be compromised — seeking political connections and power (and indeed, the state may be jealous when the church does not support the state; just today, I read of a nationally prominent politician who complained of voters listening to “the pulpit” rather than politicians on matters of morality and policy). There is the fact of being shunned, called names whether “ignorant” (God as creator, Jesus having risen from the dead) or hateful (Biblical sexual morality).  The world will make demands from every direction, and will cause great trouble for those who refuse to pay the world protection money.

James Denney, Wrong Roads to the Kingdom.2

07 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by in Ecclesiology, James Denney, Matthew, Uncategorized

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The first post on this sermon may be found here

The Second Temptation entailed an appeal to the spectacular:

Then the devil taketh Him unto the Holy City, and he set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto Him, If Thou art the Son of God, cast Thyself down: for it is written, He shall give His angels charge concerning Thee; And in their hands they shall bear Thee up, lest haply Thou dash Thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, Again it is written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God

Denney explains the heart of the temptation as follows:

The second temptation is of quite a different kind. As Jesus looked out upon the society around Him, He saw that one of the simplest ways of winning ascendency over men was to appeal to their love of the marvellous. If He only dazzled their senses sufficiently they would throng to His feet, and He would be able to do anything with them He pleased….The idea is that miraculous works, dazzling, overwhelming, dumb-foundering, are the basis on which the kingdom of God can be built. Overpower the senses of men with wonders, and you will win their souls for God. This was for Jesus radically false, and it contained a temptation which He steadily resisted. He never worked a miracle of ostentation or display: His miracles had all their motive in love, and it was the love in them which bore witness to God.

James Denney, The Way Everlasting: Sermons (London; New York; Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911), 195. There is an obvious and direct appeal to the function of the Church:

This temptation also has its lesson for all who are interested to-day in the coming of God’s kingdom. There is always a tendency in the Church to trust to methods which appeal rather to the senses than to the soul, or which are believed to be reaching the soul though they never get past the sense. They may be cruder or more refined, sensational or connected with the symbolic side of worship, but the common character of all is that they fall short of being rational and spiritual.

James Denney, The Way Everlasting: Sermons (London; New York; Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911), 196. He continues:

How little there is in the Gospels about methods and apparatus! Jesus had no church nor hall; He spoke in the synagogues when He had the opportunity, but as willingly and prevailingly in the fields or by the the seashore, in a boat or a private house. He had no choir, no vestments, no sacraments, and we may well believe He would look with more than amazement upon the importance which many of His diciples now attach to such things. “He spake the word unto them,” that was all. The trust of the Church in other things is really a distrust of the truth, an unwillingness to believe that its power lies in itself, a desire to have something more irresistible than truth to plead truth’s cause; and all these are modes of atheism. Sometimes our yielding to this temptation is shown in the apathy which falls upon us when we cannot have the apparatus we crave, sometimes in the complacency in which we clothe ourselves when we get it and it draws a crowd. This is precisely the kind of crowd which Jesus refused to draw. The kingdom of God is not there, nor is it to be brought by such appeals. It is not only a mistake, but a sin, to trust to attractions for the ear and the eye, and to draw people to the church by the same methods by which they are drawn to places of entertainment. What the evangelist calls “the word”—the spiritual truth, the message of the Father and of His kingdom—spoken in the spirit and enforced by the spirit, told by faith and heard by faith—is our only real resource, and we must not be ashamed of its simplicity.

James Denney, The Way Everlasting: Sermons (London; New York; Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911), 197–198.

Denney would be horrified were he to see the nonsense and spectacle which is used to draw attention to church. We can see by means of Denney’s sermon that this spectacle is succumbing to the Devil’s temptation.

Here is a video discussion which well addresses this issue:

Sin Usually Enters as a Flatter

06 Thursday Dec 2018

Posted by in Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard, Uncategorized

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For it goes so easily to join the dance of pleasure; but when it has gone apace, and it is pleasure which dances with the man against his will – that is a heavy dance! And it is so eay to give rein to the passions – audacious speed, one scarcely can follow it with the eye! – until passion, having taken the bit in its teeth, goes with a still more audacious speed – the man himself is not audacious enough to look where they are going! – carries him forcibly along with it! And it is so easy to permit a sinful thought! – it is so easy, it does not here apply as in other instances that it is the first step which costs, oh, no it costs nothing whatever, on the contrary, the sinful thought pays for itself at an exorbitant rate, it costs nothing – until at the conclusion, when thou must be pay for this first which did not cost anything; for when the sinful thought has gain entrance, it exacts a fearful price. Sin usually enters a man as a flatter; but then when the man has become a slave of sin – that is a frightful servitude, a narrow, prodigiously narrow way to perdition!

 

Soren Kierkegaard, For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourselves! And Three Discourses, trans. Walter Lowrie (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), 86-87.

Some Notes on Hosea 2:2-13

03 Monday Dec 2018

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Notes on Hosea 2:2-13. 

Verses 2-13 constitute an indictment and sentencing for the adulterous wife:

Hosea 2:2–13 (NASB95)

Introduction/Original Charge:

2 “Contend with your mother, contend,

The word “contend” can be used to introduce a formal legal charge. Here, it is used to introduce the charge against Israel for violating the covenant:

For she is not my wife, and I am not her husband;

This is the both the guilt and the sentence. The Lord is calling for a divorce. In the next couplet, he specifies the wrongdoing. But interestingly, he phrases it as a plea for her to stop:

And let her put away her harlotry from her face
And her adultery from between her breasts,

Her evil is written on her face. It is obvious to everyone. She plainly is experiencing no shame about her sin:

Proverbs 30:20 (NASB95)
20 This is the way of an adulterous woman:
She eats and wipes her mouth,
And says, “I have done no wrong.”

In verse 5, she will be explicitly condemned for acting “shamefully”.

A note on shame:

There are three ways to consider shame:
1. A shameful action
2. Being put to “shame”, that is at the mercy and control of another
3. The subjective experience of shame, which should cause one to stop one direction and take a new direction.

[Sometimes there are those who are sinned against and who experience shame and then have a subjective experience of shame which does not require repentance. For instance, someone who has been wrongfully treated (put to shame) may feel ashamed, even though they have done nothing wrong.]

The First Sentence and Accusation.

The prophet will go through three rounds of sentencing. Each section begins with a statement of the consequences which will befall the wife, followed by an explanation of why the sentence is warranted:

Here is the first accusation:

3 Or I will strip her naked
And expose her as on the day when she was born.
I will also make her like a wilderness,
Make her like desert land
And slay her with thirst.
4 “Also, I will have no compassion on her children,
Because they are children of harlotry. [Dt. 28:32]

Some notes on the sentence. There allusions here to both the exodus and Eden. Eden was a land of water and abundance. Adam and Eve were naked and not-ashamed. The exodus was through a howling wilderness which delivered the Israelites into a fertile well-watered land. Dt. 8:10, 32:10. There is a fundamental de-creation which takes place here. Israel is being cast out of the land and into the wilderness. Is. 41:18, etc.

Here is the first rationale/explanation: She thinks that the idols (her lovers) have provided her good things:

5 “For their mother has played the harlot;
She who conceived them has acted shamefully.
For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers,
Who give me my bread and my water,
My wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’

There is nothing wrong with what she desires: These are all good things. The trouble here is two-fold: First, she wrongly thinks the idols have provided her prosperity. Second, she does not know that the Lord has given her all good things. These things were all promised to her in the Mosaic Covenant. Dt. 28

Consideration of idolatry: Idolatry as a wrongful means to obtain a good thing. Idols are not ultimate, but rather functional: one uses an idol to get something else. The Lord was considered as an idol: I want “x”, if the Lord won’t get it for me, I’ll go somewhere else. The application is obvious.
The Second Sentence and Accusation

6 “Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns,
And I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths.
7 “She will pursue her lovers, but she will not overtake them;
And she will seek them, but will not find them.

The Lord will stop her from pursuing her “lovers”. For the language of wall see Lam. 3:7-9.  The language of thorns recalls the curse of Genesis 3.

This sentence is no strictly punitive: rather it is meant to correct and change her. That is seen in the next couplet which comes in the middle of this section (thus giving it an emphasis):

Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my first husband,
For it was better for me then than now!’

Here is the first hint of hope, which will be developed at length in the next section.

Second Rationale:

8 “For she does not know that it was I who gave her the grain,
the new wine and the oil,
And lavished on her silver and gold,
Which they used for Baal.

The wife does not know. She is not an atheist, per se; rather, she doesn’t understand God. This is an instance of the “noetic effect of sin”, the effect sin has upon our understanding. James Boice says this is like an adulterous wife using her husband’s money to pay her lover.

Third Sentence and Accusation:

9 “Therefore, I will take back My grain at harvest time
And My new wine in its season.
I will also take away My wool and My flax
Given to cover her nakedness.

All things are the Lord’s even after he has given them to us. 1 Chron. 29:14. This begins an interesting rhetorical parallel. The prophet repeates and restates some theme from the first and second charges (and rationales). This first accusation in part three echoes the Second Rationale, above. This alternation increases the intensity of the charge and sureness of God’s judgment.

There is again the echo of Eden: God had provided a means to cover her shame, which she has misused.

10 “And then I will uncover her lewdness
In the sight of her lovers,
And no one will rescue her out of My hand.

The first sentence/accusation.

11 “I will also put an end to all her gaiety,
Her feasts, her new moons, her sabbaths
And all her festal assemblies.

The Second Sentence/Accusation

12 “I will destroy her vines and fig trees,

I will make her a wilderness: First Sentence/Accusation

Of which she said, ‘These are my wages
Which my lovers have given me.’
And I will make them a forest,
And the beasts of the field will devour them.

Second Sentence Accusation

13 “I will punish her for the days of the Baals
When she used to offer sacrifices to them
And adorn herself with her earrings and jewelry,

From the original charge.

Third Rationale:

And follow her lovers, so that she forgot Me,” declares the Lord.

Two things here: First, this is another noetic effect of sin. Second, this raises the theme of memory and forgetting. We are what we remember ourselves to be (imagine awakening with amnesia. Your thoughts would be where am I? Who am I?). The matter of forgetting and remembering is very important in Deuteronomy. See for example:

Deuteronomy 6:

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

10 “And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, 11 and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, 12 then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

Deuteronomy 8:11–20 (ESV)
11 “Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, 12 lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, 13 and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, 15 who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, 16 who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. 17 Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ 18 You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. 19 And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. 20 Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.

Since they have forgotten, they will be returned to the wilderness to remember.

The Anchor Bible commentary on Hosea (Friedman) noted the three accusations (She thought, she does not know, she forgot).

James Denney, Wrong Roads to the Kingdom.1

29 Thursday Nov 2018

Posted by in Ecclesiology, James Denney, Uncategorized

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James Denney in his sermon “Wrong Ways to the Kingdom” considers the three temptations of Jesus and applies them to the functioning of the Church. While his sermon was published in 1911, the applications he makes concerning the Church have more pertinence today than when he published them.

The basis upon which he applies the temptations of Christ to the entire Church are based upon the nature of Christ’s work:

They are not the temptations of a private person, but of the person whose calling it was to establish the kingdom of God in the world; and they have the interest for all of throwing light on the true nature of that kingdom by exposing alike false though seductive conceptions of it, and false though alluring paths which might be supposed to lead to it. It is a wrong way to put this if we say that the temptations are not personal, but official; there is no proper sense in which the term official can be connected with Jesus. They are the temptations of the person whose calling it was to bring in the kingdom of God, and they recur to every one who is interested in the same age-long task. They are the temptations of all churches, of all Christian workers, of all who have ideals in their life at all. It is necessary to be on our guard against false ideals, and even more against false methods of pursuing true ones.

James Denney, The Way Everlasting: Sermons (London; New York; Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911), 190–191.

Denney’s text is Matthew 4 which means he ends his sermon with the temptation to give homage to Satan (as opposed to Luke who ends with the temple).

The first temptation is to turn stones into bread.

From this Denney notes that the relationship with God must supersede physical and practical matters: However important temporal realties must be, they are temporary and not ultimate:

Must we take our life into our own hands as though God were a word without meaning? Jesus endured this temptation and overcame. Even under the pangs of hunger he held fast not simply His integrity like Job, but His Sonship. His relation to God remained deeper, more vital, more certain than anything that could befall Him; no privation or pain whatsoever would make Him renounce God, or live in any other relation to Him than that of a trustful and obedient child. And is not this power to assert the superior reality of the inward and spiritual against all that is outwardly disconcerting the very pith of true religion? We need not pretend to understand the purpose of all privations, or say that we can justify the ways of God with man to the last detail: but if there is not in man a power to assert his sonship through privations and in spite of them, our Lord has lived in vain.

James Denney, The Way Everlasting: Sermons (London; New York; Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911), 192. This does not mean that Jesus was unconcerned with the temporal and physical concerns of life:

Once, moved with compassion, He did feed five thousand men in a desert place.

But here is the issue as it applies to the Church? What was the effect of taking care of a physical need?

But what was the result? It was that this first temptation recurred: they wanted to take Him by force and make Him their king. This was the kingdom they wanted, a kingdom built on bread. But it was not the kingdom Jesus had come to set up. He withdrew Himself from that multitude, and retired to pray with God alone. He sent out the Twelve to face the rising storm on the lake, and in laborious toil and imminent danger of death forget this spurious hope.

Jesus rejected the “kingdom of bread” as the basis for his kingdom:

And soon after, in the synagogue at Capernaum, He spoke the searching words that drove the bread-seeking disciples from Him and showed the true basis of the kingdom. “Ye seek Me, not because ye saw the signs, but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto eternal life.” Jesus was the friend of the poor, who went about doing good, but He felt it to be a temptation of the devil to base His kingdom on bread, and to count upon an allegiance evoked by loaves and fishes.

James Denney, The Way Everlasting: Sermons (London; New York; Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911), 193.

Denney then turned the issue to the matter of the present day. First, the Church is always tempted to turn itself into a social agency, a kingdom of bread. In response to this temptation, the world turns it into an accusation: Why aren’t you (only) a kingdom of bread? Why aren’t you solving this social problem? To which Denney retorts, What would be left of such good work if the church removed itself?

We are seeing the results now as Christian organizations which do not adhere to contemporary moral positions (such as on sexuality) are forbidden to operate? How much foster and adoption work will be left when Christians who adhere to a biblical morality are forbidden to foster and adopt and run agencies which help with such things?

Denney ends with a discussion of what could be called “social justice”. At the time of his writing, there was no “social justice” concerns which would go beyond or would have been contrary to biblical concerns (for instance, concern for the poor is unquestionably a biblical issue). Denney provides some guidance for us here which we should consider:

There are times when these are very unpopular things to say, and when there is therefore a strong temptation not to say them, but they were all said by Jesus. What comes first is sonship to God, faith in the Father, the love, trust, and obedience of a child; to this, everything else is to be postponed, in the possession of this every trial is to be overcome. The Church dare not enlist under the banner of those who think that a programme of what are called social reforms—the kind of reforms which can be carried in Parliament—will bring in the kingdom of God. It cannot do this any more than Jesus could enlist under the banner of those who would have made Him a king by force. It may quite well be its duty to sympathize with such reforms and to promote them; but it is its specific function to make plain that in the kingdom of God a perpetual primacy belongs to the spiritual, and that it may be the trial of any child of God, in humble faith in the Father, to maintain his sonship through hunger, pain, and death.

James Denney, The Way Everlasting: Sermons (London; New York; Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911), 194–195.