Tag Archives: Holiness

Edward Taylor, Meditation 32

12 Friday Mar 2021

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Thy grace, dear Lord’s my golden wrack, I find

Screwing my fancy into ragged rhymes, 

Tuning thy praises in my feeble mind

Until I come to strike them on my chimes. 

Were I an angel bright, and borrow could (5)

King David’s harp, I would them play on gold.

Summary: In this stanza, the poet speaks of how painful it is for him to write these mediatory poems. If he had access to David’s greater gift, he would use it. 

General Notes:  What a remarkable introduction to a poem. The grace of God is both a wrack and screw. These implements of torture were in actual use by the English government (of which Taylor was a subject, even though he lived in the New England) at the time was written.

This does make an interesting discussion of Taylor’s creative process: He is faced with an extraordinary good. He finds himself compelled to translate the beauty with which he is faced into poetry. 

However, this process has two effects upon him. As has been the case many of the meditations, the contemplation of the grace of God causes in him an overwhelming sense of his own unworthiness and sinfulness. 

In this poem he references a related though distinct response: Here he finds himself inadequate to the process. He is unable to adequately make the translation.

The compulsion to write, to sense of sin and the inability to match the original he experiences like an implement of torture. In fact, when it comes to actual creation of the poem, the process is a torment, because he is the one operating the screw. 

Instrument Of Torture Stock Photos and Pictures | Getty Images

These responses are interestingly not inconsistent with the biblical account. 

This coming into knowing contact with the holy has a profound effect. Consider two stories of the disciples making a realization of the true nature of Jesus:

Luke 5:1–10 (AV) 

1 And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret, 2 And saw two ships standing by the lake: but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets. 3 And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon’s, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down, and taught the people out of the ship. 4 Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. 5 And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net. 6 And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake. 7 And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink. 8 When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord. 9 For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken: 10 And so was also James, and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon. And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men. 

Or in Mark 4, when Jesus stills the storm:

Mark 4:40–41 (AV) 

40 And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith? 41 And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him? 

But more to the point in this particular stanza are two instances from the prophet Jeremiah. In chapter 20, the prophet has determined that he will no longer speak because it has become too painful for him:

Jeremiah 20:7–9 (AV) 

7 O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me. 8 For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the LORD was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily. 9 Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay. 

And the Lord speaking to the prophet:

Jeremiah 23:29 (AV) 

29 Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? 

The pain of the first three gives way to an expression: First, there is tuning (line 4) and then striking the music on chimes (line 5). What we have with the poem before us is the tune struck out on chimes. 

The only adequate response to such grace would be found in a heavenly access ot David’s prophetic poetry. Only in heaven could there be sufficient skill and language for this task.

Poetics:

The stanza used is a quatrain of iambic pentameter followed by a couplet. The rhyme scheme is ABABCC.

The effect of the first three lines is striking:

Thy grace, dear Lord’s my golden wrack, I find

Screwing my fancy into ragged rhymes, 

Tuning thy praises in my feeble mind

Until I come to strike them on my chimes. 

There are two pauses in the first line, one after the first foot (thy grace) and at the last foot (I find). By using two pauses and breaking at the last foot, the words “I find” are joined to the second line. The second and third lines begin with an accented syllable. The iamb at the end of line one followed the accented first syllable in line two drives the poem along, almost as if it were falling downstairs.

By repeating the accent on the first syllable of the third line, it creates a parallel structure. Screwing: tuning. 

What is interesting with the second verb is we move from torment to music: It is as the poem begins with the tuning.

The end rhythms of the second and third lines also match: RAGged RHYMES/FEEble MIND. 

Since all end rhymes contain a long “I”, (find/rhyme/mind/chimes) there are full and near rhymes on every line.

The final couplet work similar to the couplet in a Shakespearean sonnet: there is a discontinuance and comment in the couplet upon that which proceeds. 

Here he moves from the discussion of his own creative process to an aside of what could be: If I were David, if I were an angel, this would be better. 

Richard Sibbes, Sermons on Canticles, Sermon 1.6 (Sincerity and Coming to Christ)

07 Tuesday May 2019

Posted by in Richard Sibbes, Song of Solomon, Uncategorized

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The previous post on this sermon may be found here. 

In this next section, Sibbes makes two related points: (1) If we walk in sincerity, then we may enter into the presence of Christ. (2) We should walk in sincerity (or holiness), because the presence of Christ is the place of our happiness.

It would be easy to the turn of the argument, so let us consider the elements:

A gracious heart is privy to its own grace and sincerity when it is in a right temper, and so far as it is privy is bold with Christ in a sweet and reverend† manner. So much sincerity, so much confidence. 

First, we need to understand that “sincerity” is not “sincerity” on any and every topic. While Jonathan Edwards is from a later generation than Sibbes, he makes this point well:

From what has been said, it is evident that persons’ endeavors, however sincere and real, and however great, and though they do their utmost, unless the will that those endeavors proceed from be truly good and virtuous, can avail to no purposes whatsoever with any moral validity, or as anything in the sight of God morally valuable (and so of weight through any moral value to merit, recommend, satisfy or excuse, or make up for any moral defect), or anything that should abate resentment or render it any way unjust or hard to execute punishment for any moral evil or want of any moral good. Because, if such endeavors have any such value, weight or validity in the sight of God, it must be through something in them that is good and virtuous in his sight.

 Jonathan Edwards, The “Miscellanies”: (Entry Nos. 1153–1360), ed. Douglas A. Sweeney and Harry S. Stout, vol. 23, The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2004), 52–53. Sincerity is not virtuous in and of itself; but sincerity in a good thing is critical. Without sincerity, one cannot be right before God.

To think righty of sincerity, we must see it as the opposite of hypocrisy:

13. A godly man is a sincere man, ‘Behold an Israelite indeed, in whose spirit there is no guile.’ The word for sincere signifies without plaits and folds: a godly man is plain hearted, having no subtile subterfuges; religion is the livery a godly man wears, and this livery is lined with sincerity.

Quest. Wherein doth the godly man’s sincerity appear?

Ans. 1. The godly man is that which he seems to be; he is a Jew inwardly. Grace runs through his heart, as silver through the veins of the earth: the hypocrite is not what he seems.

A picture is like a man, but it wants breath: the hypocrite is an effigy, a picture, he doth not breathe forth sanctity: he is but like an angel on a sign-post: a godly man answers to his profession, as a transcript to the original.

 Thomas Watson, “The Godly Man’s Picture Drawn with a Scripture-Pencil,” in Discourses on Important and Interesting Subjects, Being the Select Works of the Rev. Thomas Watson, vol. 1 (Edinburgh; Glasgow: Blackie, Fullarton, & Co.; A. Fullarton & Co., 1829), 468.

Sincerity is necessary for true communion with God:

The third thing required to praying with our spirit, is sincerity. There may be much fervour where there is little or no sincerity; and this is strange fire, not the natural heat of the new creature, which both comes from and acts for God, whereas the other is from, and ends in self. Indeed, the fire which self kindles, serves only to warm the man’s own hands that makes it: ‘Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks,’ Isa. 50:11. The prophet represents them as sitting down about the fire they had made. Self-acting, and self-aiming ever go together; therefore our Saviour with spirit requires truth; ‘the Father seeketh such to worship him,’ as will ‘worship him in spirit and in truth,’ John 4:23, 24.

But wherein consists this sincere fervency? Zeal warms the affections, sincerity directs their end, and shews their purity and incorruption. The affections are often strong when the heart is insincere: therefore the apostle exhorts, that we ‘love one another with a pure heart fervently,’ 1 Peter 1:22; and speaks in another place of sorrowing after a godly sort, that is, sincerely. Now the sincerity of the heart in prayer appears, when a person prays from pure principles to pure ends.

 William Gurnall and John Campbell, The Christian in Complete Armour (London: Thomas Tegg, 1845), 751.

Sibbes lays “sincerity” as a necessary element of coming to God:

If our heart condemn us not of unsincerity, we may in a reverend† manner speak boldly to Christ. 

But in making the statement, Sibbes is paragraph 1 John 3:

19 And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him. 20 For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. 21 Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. 22 And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.

1 John 3:19–22 (AV). The condemnation of heart is that we are not of God – that we have not been cleansed.  Sibbes is not using “sincerity” the way many use the word “faith” — as if sincerity were powerful, alone. A sincere idolator is still an idolator.

Sibbes then considers this relationship:

It is not fit there should be strangeness betwixt Christ and his spouse; neither, indeed, will there be, when Christ hath blown upon her, and when she is on the growing hand. But mark the order.

First, Christ blows, and then the church says, ‘Come.’ Christ begins in love, then love draws love. Christ draws the church, and she runs after him, Cant. 1:4. The fire of love melts more than the fire of affliction.

Sibbes then considers this blowing & coming. At this point he turns to holiness. He makes a critical observation here about holiness. It is easy to think of holiness as some abstract duty. But Sibbes makes plan, holiness is relational. In doing this, he provides a basis for Sinclair Ferguson’s observation that legalism and antinomianism are both based in divorcing God’s law from God’s person. Sibbes here ties obedience and holiness to love of God and relationship with God:

1. Oh! let us take the apostle’s counsel, ‘To labour to walk worthy of the Lord, &c., unto all well-pleasing, increasing in knowledge, and fruitfulness in every good work,’ Col. 1:9, 10. And this knowledge must not only be a general wisdom in knowing truths, but a special understanding of his good-will to us, and our special duties again to him.

2. Again, that we may please Christ the better, labour to be cleansed from that which is offensive to him: let the spring be clean. Therefore the psalmist, desiring that the words of his mouth and the meditations of his heart might be acceptable before God, first begs ‘cleansing from his secret sins,’ Ps. 19:12.

3. And still we must remember that he himself must work in us whatsoever is well-pleasing in his sight, that so we may be perfect in every good thing to do his will, having grace whereby we may serve him acceptably. And one prevailing argument with him is, that we desire to be such as he may take delight in: ‘the upright are his delight.’ It cannot but please him when we desire grace for this end that we may please him. If we study to please men in whom there is but little good, should we not much more study to please Christ, the fountain of goodness? Labour therefore to be spiritual; for ‘to be carnally minded is death,’ Rom. 8:6, and ‘those that are in the flesh cannot please God.’

Thomas Manton, Twenty Sermons, Sermon 1.1 (Holiness and Happiness)

11 Saturday Aug 2018

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In the second volume of Manton’s collected works is a section “called Twenty Sermons” published together. William Bates, in an introduction to the volume writes,

The main design of them is to represent the inseparable connection between Christian duties and privileges, wherein the essence of our religion consists. The gospel is not a naked, unconditionate offer of pardon and eternal life in favour of sinners, but upon most convenient terms, for the glory of God and the good of men, and enforced by the strongest obligations upon them to receive humbly and thankfully those benefits. The promises are attended with commands to repent, believe, and persevere in the uniform practice of obedience. The Son of God came into the world, not to make God less holy, but to make us holy, that we might please and enjoy him; not to vacate our duty, and free us from the law as the rule of obedience, for that is both impossible and would be most infamous and reproachful to our Saviour. To challenge such an exemption in point of right, is to make ourselves gods; to usurp it in point of fact is to make ourselves devils. But his end was to enable and induce us to return to God, as our rightful Lord and proper felicity, from whom we rebelliously and miserably fell by our disobedience, in seeking for happiness out of him. Accordingly the gospel is called ‘the law of faith,’ as it commands those duties upon the motives of eternal hopes and fears, and as it will justify or condemn men with respect to their obedience or disobedience, which is the proper character of a law. These things are managed in the following sermons in that convincing, persuasive manner as makes them very necessary for these times, when some that aspired to an extraordinary height in religion, and esteemed themselves the favourites of heaven, yet woefully neglected the duties of the lower hemisphere, as righteousness, truth, and honesty; and when carnal Christians are so numerous, that despise serious godliness as solemn hypocrisy, and live in an open violation of Christ’s precepts, yet presume to be saved by him. Though no age has been more enlightened with the knowledge of holy truths, yet none was ever more averse from obeying them.

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 2 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1871), 175–176. In short, the gospel was given to make us fit for God, and the sermons were given to encourage that end. The first two sermons on the text Psalm 32:1-2

SERMON I

Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.’—Ps. 32:1, 2.

Manton begins the sermon with the note that we all seek happiness — of which we were deprived by sin; for happiness is only from God. Therefore, we must be reconciled to God to become truly happy:

The title of this psalm is ‘A psalm of instruction,’ and so called because David was willing to show them the way to happiness from his own experience. Surely no lesson is so needful to be learned as this. We all would be happy: the good and bad, that do so seldom agree in anything, yet agree in this, a desire to be happy. Now, happy we cannot be but in God, who is the only, immutable, eternal, and all-sufficient good, which satisfies and fills up all the capacities and desires of our souls. And we are debarred from access to him by sin, which hath made a breach and separation between him and us, and till that be taken away there can be no converse, and sin can only be taken away by God’s pardon upon Christ’s satisfaction. God’s pardon is clearly asserted in my text, but Christ’s satisfaction and righteousness must be supplied out of other scriptures, as that 2 Cor. 5:19, ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them.’ Where the apostle clearly shows that not imputing transgressions is the effect of God’s grace in Christ. 

 Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 2 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1871), 177. Thus, opens a theme was quite consistent throughout the Puritans: holiness and happiness are inextricably intertwined. Happiness was a common and consistent theme in their writing — which is interesting because they are uniformly portrayed as dour. Yet, there are thousands of reference to happiness in Manton: 264 uses of the word “happy” in volume 2 of works alone. There are more than 1,000 references to happy in Thomas Brooks collected works; over 500 in George Swinocks collected works; more than 1,000 references in Richard Sibbes’ works; et cetera.

The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification (Outline and Study Guide), Direction 1

28 Wednesday Mar 2018

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Walter Marshall, 1628-1680, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification

Direction One: That we may acceptably perform the duties of holiness and righteousness required in the law, our first work is to learn the powerful and effectual means by which we may attain to so great an end. This direction may serve instead of a preface, to prepare the understanding and attention of the reader for those that follow.

 

OUTLINE OF THE CHAPTER

 

  1. The “Great End” is Holiness.

 

  1. This is a manner of life which comports with the moral law of God.

 

  1. Definition

 

  1. The Ten Commandments

 

  1. Or the love of God and neighbor

 

  1. “It consists not only in external works of piety and charity, but in the holy thoughts, imaginations and affections of the soul, and chiefly in love, from whence all other good works must flow, or else they are not acceptable to God; not only in refraining the execution of sinful lusts, but in longing and delighting to do the will of God and in a cheerful obedience to God, without repining, fretting, grudging at any duty, as if it were a grievous yoke and burden to you.”

 

  1. This universal obedience is our goal — but during this time of imperfection — it will be fully achieved.

 

  1. God will be “gracious and understanding” during our time of imperfection.

 

  1. It will be a state we will attain in the age to come.

 

  1. Consider the beauty of holiness.

 

  1. What could greater than to love God.

 

  1. These duties are the end for which we were created.

 

  1. These duties are renewed in us in sanctification and will be our end in glorification.

 

  1. These are not arbitrary duties, but rather are “holy, just and good”. (Rom. 7:12)

 

  1. Therefore they are called natural religion, and the law that requires them is called the natural law and also the moral law; because the manners of all men, infidels as well as Christians, ought to be conformed to it and, if they had been fully comformable, they would not have come short of eternal happiness (Matt. 5:19; Luke 10:27, 28), under the penalty of the wrath of God for the violation of it.

 

  1. We must come to know the means to attain this end.

 

  1. This knowledge is necessary

 

  1. Some falsely think they merely need to know “what to do” and then do it. This misses the mark

 

  1. They have an inadequate understanding of holiness, as if it were itself merely a means to an end.

 

  1. Such people also wrongly think that it is something easy to attain.

 

  1. At this point he makes an apt criticism of much preaching which thinks itself quite “strong” and “biblical”: “Yea, many that are accounted powerful preachers spend all their zeal in the earnest pressing the immediate practice of the law, without any discovery of the effectual means of performance – as if the works of righteousness were like those servile employments that need no skill and artifice at all, but industry and activity.” These preachers are great at making people feel guilty (because it takes no great skill to proclaim the law and point to our flaws; not even Paul “attained”).

 

  1. Here notes eight considerations:

 

  1. We lack the ability to rightly perform the demands of the law. ” If we believe it to be true, we cannot rationally encourage ourselves to attempt a holy practice, until we are acquainted with some powerful and effectual means to enable us to do it.”

 

  1. A consciousness of one’s own guilt before God is not sufficient to achieve holiness.

 

  1. A heathen can have knowledge of his guilt before God without knowing how to attain holiness. The means of attaining holiness come only from supernatural revelation.

 

  1. “Sanctification, by which our hearts and lives are conformed to the law, is a grace of God communicated to us by means, as well as justification, and by means of teaching, and learning something that we cannot see without the Word (Acts 26:17, 18).”

 

  1. The Scriptures alone provide the knowledge of the means of sanctification. 2 Tim. 3:16-17. If God has been good enough to give us such instruction, then we must receive it rightly.

 

  1. We can know our deficits by means of nature, but we cannot know the way of sanctification without revelation. ” The learning of it requires double work; because we must unlearn many of our former deeply- rooted notions and become fools, that we may be wise.”

 

  1. Without knowing the means of sanctification as set forth in the Scripture, we can be easily led into false doctrines. Unless know the means for sanctification given by God, we will led astray.

 

  1. In short, we will have no success in sanctification, unless we follow in the way appointed by God.

 

  1. A final note on the errors which befall those who do not learn the way appointed by God:

 

The heathens generally fell short of an acceptable performance of those duties of the law which they knew, because of their ignorance in this point: (i) Many Christians content themselves with external performances, because they never knew how they might attain to spiritual service. (ii) And many reject the way of holiness as austere and unpleasant, because they did not know how to cut off a right hand, or pluck out a right eye, without intolerable pain; whereas they would find ‘the ways of wisdom’ (if they knew them) ‘to be ways of pleasantness, and all her paths to be peace’ (Prov. 3:17). This occasions the putting off repentance from time to time, as an uncouth thing. (iii) Many others set on the practice of holiness with a fervent zeal, and run very fast; but do not tread a step in the right way; and, finding themselves frequently disappointed and overcome by their lusts, they at last give over the work and turn to wallow again in the mire – which has occasioned several treatises, to show how far a reprobate may go in the way of religion, by which many weak saints are discouraged, accounting that these reprobates have gone farther than themselves; whereas most of them never knew the right way, nor trod one step right in it, for, ‘there are few that find it’ (Matt. 7:14). (iv) Some of the more ignorant zealots do inhumanly macerate their bodies with fasting and other austerities, to kill their lusts; and, when they see their lusts are still too hard for them, they fall into despair and are driven, by horror of conscience, to make away with themselves wickedly, to the scandal of religion.

 

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

 

  1. Do you think worth your time and effort to seek holiness?

 

  1. What is the value of holiness? See, e.g., 1 Thess. 4:7; Heb. 12:14; 1 Peter 1:16; 2 Peter 3:11.

 

  1. What does it mean to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength?

 

  1. What does it mean to love your neighbor as your-self?

 

  1. Read through the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7). Do you see that Jesus’s teaching describes you?

 

  1. Have you ever attempted to seek after holiness? What did you did you do? How well did it work?

Walk With Christ

08 Saturday Oct 2016

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Preaching, Romans, Sermons, Uncategorized

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(The following is the rough draft of a manuscript sermon to be preached on October 9 in Fountains Hills, Arizona. At the end are some application questions for small groups discussion)

Walk With Christ

I have a duty this morning, to teach you what is called a “distinctive” of Harvest Bible Chapel. That means it is something which we emphasize and something which may distinguish our fellowship from other Christian groups.

My point is very simple: God saves us so that we will walk with him. We are saved from sin to obedience. We are saved to walk with Christ. I am going to say something similar over and over: We are saved to walk with Christ.

A week ago, my family and I went to the see the Space Shuttle at the Science Center in Los Angeles. We looked at the tires, and the computers, and control panels and cockpit. We watched movies of take-offs and looked at exhibits, and then walked under and around the actual shuttle. We spent an hour looking at and around the space shuttle, but it was alway the space shuttle which had our attention.

This morning will be like that: we are going to look all sorts of passages and ask all sorts of questions, but in the end our position will be the same: You must walk with Christ. I must walk with Christ. It is our duty, our destiny, our honor and our joy. There is going to be a lot of repetition, but there will also be many parts. Just remember this will be like walking around the great space shuttle exhibit: Here we are looking at the space suits, there we are looking at the giant thrusters, but we are always looking at the space shuttle.

I am going to come back to this idea that we must walk with God. First, I am going to show you that we must walk with God. Then I am going to consider some objections to walking with God. Some people think this is legalism. Some Christians are ignorant of the need to walk with God. Some other Christians — probably most of us — know that we are to walk with God, but it seems beyond us and struggle with hope and despair.

Therefore, I am going to prove all that we must walk with God. I will tell the legalist that walking with God is not error: instead it is the entire point of salvation.

The Christian who just doesn’t know about holiness, who has been confused: for you, I will try to un-confuse you.

And finally, for those who veer between hope and despair, I will seek to bring some comfort and stability.

So on to our main point: You must walk with Christ if you are a Christian.

There are areas where Christians can be distinguished from one-another and still be Christians. Some Christians baptize the infants of believers; some do not. Some Christians believe we are now in the millennium; some think the millennium is still to come. These distinctive are important, but they do not distinguish between those who are Christians and those who are not.

This morning we are going to discuss the distinctive of “walking with Christ”. No Christian can be a Christian who does not walk with Christ. I not know how one can claim to be Christian, a follower of Jesus, if she does not walk with Christ. This must be an emphasize of a Christian Church, but it is sad that it might actually make a Christian Church “distinct” in any manner.

You see, the idea and command to walk with Christ is everywhere in the Scripture. Jesus gave the Church one command, make disciples. You can see this in Matthew 28:19-20, the Great Commission:

19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Matthew 28:19–20 (ESV)

Do you see that language, “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you”. That means that disciples of Jesus have to do something. It is inherent in the idea of being a disciple: one who is a learner and a follower. A Christian knows Christ, loves Christ and follows Christ:

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

James 1:22 (ESV). To be a Christian is an active, passionate pursuit of holiness:

Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

Hebrews 12:14 (ESV). Or John:

16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

1 John 3:16 (ESV). Or Paul in Ephesians:

4 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called,

Ephesians 4:1 (ESV). It is in the Old Testament also:

1 Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2  but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

Psalm 1:1–2 (ESV). All of these passages and dozens more besides make the point that being a Christian is very much a matter of how we live. Being a Christian is a matter of holiness, of leaving behind sin, or walking with God.

Peter writes:

13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

1 Peter 1:13–16 (ESV). You must be holy, you must walk worthy; there is no option, there is no wiggle-room on this point?

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Shepherds Conference 2016, Albert Mohler, Jr.: A Preacher’s Job Description

11 Friday Mar 2016

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There is no more restless creature on earth than a preaching watching another preacher preaching (and wanting to preach).

The very first time I could preach at the Shepherds Conference, I came prepared to preach on 1 Corinthians 1 — and I was sitting with Eric Alexander and he asked me what I was preaching on 1 Corthians 1. He said, Marvelous, I’m not preaching on 1 Corinthians 1. John MacArthur came in. Eric asked John MacArthur what he was preaching on. He said, I’m preaching on 1 Corinthians 1. Eric said, I’m not preaching on 1 Corinthians 1. He turned to me and said, You’re not preaching on 1 Corinthians 1. I was recently with Steve Lawson and he asked me what I was preaching on at Shepherds Conference. I said, Malachi chapter 2. Steven said, I think you’re safe.
Malachi 2:

1 “And now, O priests, this command is for you.
2 If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the LORD of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart.

3 Behold, I will rebuke your offspring, and spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and you shall be taken away with it.

4 So shall you know that I have sent this command to you, that my covenant with Levi may stand, says the LORD of hosts.

5 My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him. It was a covenant of fear, and he feared me. He stood in awe of my name.

6 True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity.

7 For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts.

8 But you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the LORD of hosts,

9 and so I make you despised and abased before all the people, inasmuch as you do not keep my ways but show partiality in your instruction.” http://esv.to/Mal2.1-9
There is a job description of a preacher.
What is the covenant with Levi: Exodus 32: the curse against Levy in Genesis is turned to a blessing, where Levi is made the priest

10 And the LORD said to Moses,

11 “Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the people of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I did not consume the people of Israel in my jealousy.

12 Therefore say, ‘Behold, I give to him my covenant of peace,

13 and it shall be to him and to his descendants after him the covenant of a perpetual priesthood, because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the people of Israel.'” http://esv.to/Num25.10-13
17 “For thus says the LORD: David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel,

18 and the Levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings, and to make sacrifices forever.”

19 The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah:

20 “Thus says the LORD: If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night will not come at their appointed time,

21 then also my covenant with David my servant may be broken, so that he shall not have a son to reign on his throne, and my covenant with the Levitical priests my ministers.

22 As the host of heaven cannot be numbered and the sands of the sea cannot be measured, so I will multiply the offspring of David my servant, and the Levitical priests who minister to me.” http://esv.to/Jer33.17-22
A perpetual priesthood.
We often forget the teaching role of the priests:
10 You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean,

11 and you are to teach the people of Israel all the statutes that the LORD has spoken to them by Moses.” http://esv.to/Lev10.10-11
Malachi 1:1

The oracle of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi. http://esv.to/Mal1.1

A job description in prepositions: From, to, by

We are to take what God has spoken and deliver it to the people. We are to deliver the Lord’s oracle. His job description was in his name: we are to deliver the oracle of the Word of the Lord to God’s people.  

In Malachi we see a judgment upon the people and upon the priesthood.
And it ends with the theme of the messenger

WHERE DOES THE PREACHER START?

With the fear of God. 
Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live? http://esv.to/Deut4.33

The language of “life and peace”  — because it is a dangerous place. To hear the voice and live. It is a miracle you lived through Sunday morning in the pulpit. I made a promise to Levi and made a covenant of life and peace — and I am gave them to him. God made and kept his promise.

But it was also a covenant of fear.

Saw a book in a Christian bookstore: God’s not mad at you

It’s really good news if God is not mad at you. But what if he is? Then it’s not good to be told that God’s not mad at you. The Gospel of Jesus Christ begins with God is mad at you.

How many Churches say they are looking for a preacher who fears God?
How often this is explained away: God is not mad at you. It’s not “fear”.
But the fear of the Lord is fear. It is more than that, but it is not less than that.
The fear of the Lord is the corrective for so many things. It is a corrective for taking things lightly — God kills people for taking his things lightly.
Martin Luther described two kinds of fear: servile and filial. Servile: being in the hands of one who is unrighteous and means you harm. Filial fear is the fear a son has for his father.
The fear of the Lord is clean, it is sanctifying. That is where the preacher has to begin. The fear of the Lord is the rightful response of the creature before the creator. Our culture seems to only understand servile fear. This comes from a culture with a breakdown of the family where children have no fear of their father (filial). Kierkegaard: most people don’t have fear, they merely have anxiety. Anxiety is (in part) and being too preoccupied with the self. 

Fear: “he stood in awe of my name”. This is the fear of the Lord defined

We are among a people who have no desire for awe — they merely want spectacle. How many living people today have experienced even a moment of awe.

What would that be? Isaiah 6. How do we know this is clean? Think of how Isaiah responds, I am a man of unclean lips.

How many of us have ever experienced (even) a moment of awe.

If we rightly understand what we are doing genuine Christian worship, that is what we should experience.

We have built up defenses against experiencing awe. We don’t let others expect and we don’t bring that.

Related: right now, we can’t handle much awe. 
2 Peter 

 16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
17 For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,”

18 we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.

19 And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts,

20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation.

21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. http://esv.to/2Pet1.16-21
The Gospel is built upon what happened — we were eye witnesses. But we have something even better, the Word.Peter: we heard the majestic glory. We were with him. It couldn’t have been too long after that that Peter ate lunch, got tired and slept, he got irritated and was anger. We like to think that after we saw such things we wouldn’t sin again or even eat or sleep.

Right now we have a hard time handling awe. 
Preachers: we are right now preparing God’s people for an eternity which will be nothing less than awe. We’re not ready for that yet. If we’re not yearning that …

What did he stand in awe of? My name
Do not take God’s name in vain (lightly): that would be the end of a lot of so-called preaching. God will not hold him guiltless who will take God’s name in vain.
Phil. 2 — at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow. It doesn’t say in the presence of Jesus, it says at the name. 
He stood in awe of my name: How would ministry be different if we saw that as the first requirement of a true Gospel ministry.

Nike theology: No fear.

OT: start with the fear of the Lord

If our ministry does not begin with the fear of the Lord, it will end with the fear of the Lord.
SECONDLY, THE PREACHER’S WALK

There is no more moral calling. Above reproach. 
Holiness and true ministry always go together. The demand of the ministry is that we walk with the Lord.

Holiness is being conformed to the image of God.Ryle: suppose for a moment you could enter into heaven without holiness …how could you possibly be happy (Ryle, Holiness).

The one who is called to preach and teach must be defined in moral terms.
He must walk in peace and uprightness: 

Job description: Wanted, Messenger of the Lord of Hosts. He must fear the Lord and stand in awe of his name. He must walk with the Lord in peace and uprightness, and turn many from iniquity

THIRD: THE PREACHER’S TASK

6 True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity.

7 For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts.

This is to be our aspiration: True instruction was in his mouth — not even one wrong word. We should be deadly afraid of saying even one wrong word.

You do another people in your study while you prepare your message. You need patriarchs and prophets in the room with you, so that their message is your message. Do you really mean to say it that way? We need evangelists and apostles and fathers.
With need Athanaius with us so that we know that we stand in the pulpit we are standing contra mundum.

We need Reformers and Puritans and Jonathan Edwards: there is only a thing membrane between the people to whom you are preaching and the wrath the God — don’t waste a word. We need Spurgeon in the room with us.

There is a congregational responsibility. People should seek instruction from his mouth. Who made you the doctrinal guardian of this congregation? God did.
For he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts.
Why would God use human vessels as his instruments? I haven’t a clue — except the Lord of Hosts is right and do what will bring him glory. Evidentially it brings God great glory to bring to use such frail vessels.
Every opportunity we have to preach we are to deliver a message which did not come from us; it is a message which came from the Lord of Hosts. The Lord of the all the armies of the cosmos.
The Lord of Hosts is the Lord of All.

What would happen on Sunday morning if the people understood that what you were doing is bringing a message from the Lord of Hosts. Then don’t show up on Sunday morning with anything other than a message from the Lord of Hosts.

We grow in holiness by what we love

04 Thursday Feb 2016

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1 Peter 2:1–3 (ESV)

2 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

The Spiritual Chymist, Meditation XXIV

06 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by in Uncategorized, William Spurstowe

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The previous post in this series may be found here

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Upon Gravity and Levity

The stoic philosophy was famous for paradoxes, strange opinions, improbable and beside common conceit [thinking] for which it was much admired by some an is greatly controlled and taxed by others. Howbeit, not Stoicism only but every art in course of life and learning has some paradoxes or other, the Christianity has many more which seem like nothing less than truth and yet are as true as strange.

What can be more contrary to the principles and maxims the philosophers then to hold that there is your grass from eight total privation to a habit? It was that which the Epicureans and the Stoics derided in Paul when he preached the resurrection from the dead, and yet Christians build all their happiness and confidence upon it.

What can seem to carry more contradiction in it and the saying of our Savior, He that will lose his life shall find it? And yet it is the truth of that importance whosoever follows not Christ counsel will certainly miss of life.

What will happily appear more novel and strange then that which I shall now add by inverting the axiom and affirming this truth, Light things fall downwards, and heavy ascend upward. Lighter they are, the lower they sink; and the heavier they are, the higher they rise: and yet this riddle has a truth in it. In Scripture the wicked that must fall as low as hell are resembled the things of the greatest levity as well as vileness, dust, chaff, smoke, fame, scum; and the saints that must ascend as high as Heaven I likened to things of weight as well as worth: to wheat, the heaviest of which is the best; to gold, which is of metals the weightiest as well as richest; to gems and precious stones, that are valued by the number of carats which they weight, as well as by their luster with which they sparkle.

Yea, God has his balance to weigh men and their actions, as well as his touchstone to try them. He is a God of knowledge, by whom actions are weighed, says Hannah in her song. And if he find great men a lie and vanity upon the balance he will not spare them. What is the fear judgment did God execute upon Belshazzar who being weighed and found wanting was in the same night cast out of his kingdom and from the land of the living?

And what a dreadful sentence has Christ foretold shall come up on his mouth and they great day against those who have made a vain an empty profession of his Name; who are bid to depart from him and go accursed into everlasting fire, not for doing evil against his but for not doing of good onto them? A form of godliness without the power will condemn, as well as Real an open wickedness. To be found too light and God’s scale maybe a bar to heaven, as well as the load of many sins.

Oh remember who has said it, Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. How gladly then I would persuade Christians at the best way to climb to Jacobs ladder which has its foot on earth and its top in glory is to be fully laden with all fruits of holiness.

The burden of Christ is not a pressing weight but a winged thing which carries the soul upwards and helps it to soar aloft towards God himself. None are crowned with the greater glory or set up on higher grounds then they who have their fruit under true holiness above others.

Be Ye Holy, 1 Peter 1:15

23 Sunday Aug 2015

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1 Peter 1:13–25 (ESV)

13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. 20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you 21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, 23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; 24 for

“All flesh is like grass

and all its glory like the flower of grass.

The grass withers,

and the flower falls,

25  but the word of the Lord remains forever.”

And this word is the good news that was preached to you.

How Knowledge, Desire & Conduct Work Together 1 Peter 1:13

15 Saturday Aug 2015

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1 Peter 1:13–15 (ESV)

13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,