Amazed and Thankful

Would not Martin Luther King Jr, if he were alive today, be amazed and thankful that 45 years since his I Have a Dream speech a black president would be nominated for the President of the United States.

I am grateful for the progress in the United States of America on this particular issue.*

*This blog post is not an endorsement of Barack Obama.

Ezekiel's Refrain

A quick ESV search shows me that 22 times the book of Ezekiel says "...then they will know that I am the Lord." The other three times in the Bible it is used, is twice in Isaiah and once in Genesis. The search also shows me that 13 times in the book of Ezekiel it is put this way: "then you will know that I am the Lord." Numbers pops up as another book that mentions it once in this way. One finds a bit of overlap between the verse when searching the difference in this phrase between "you" and "they" in the Bible and in Ezekiel, but the point is clear God desires that "you" and others ("they") know Him.

God through the mouth of the prophet Ezekiel wants to be known as who He is. This refrain in Ezekiel is a key theme of the book. Often, as I mentioned yesterday, it is connected to judgment:

"And my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity. I will punish you according to your ways, while your abominations are in your midst. Then you will know that I am the Lord, who strikes." Ez. 7:9

"Then they will know that I am the Lord, when I have set fire to Egypt, and all her helpers are broken" Ez. 30:8

"I will make you a perpetual desolation, and your cities shall not be inhabited. Then you will know that I am the Lord. " Ez. 35:9

But it is also connected to mercy:

"And I will multiply on you man and beast, and they shall multiply and be fruitful. And I will cause you to be inhabited as in your former times, and will do more good to you than ever before. Then you will know that I am the Lord." Ez. 36:11

"And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.” Ez. 37:14

God is a merciful judge. He wants to be known as the God who gives mercy and the God who will respond in judgment. But as James says in James 2:13: "Mercy triumphs over judgment." Thank God for His great mercy. Ezekiel like James shows us this wonderful gift of God. But what is often forgotten is the phrase right before that in James which is also made clear in Ezekiel: "For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy." That is sobering.

May we know the Lord and seek to know Him better. He is full of mercy, and He will come again in judgment.

They Shall Know that I am the Lord

In reading Ezekiel I find everywhere that God wants to be known.

He wants to be known as the Lord--the Sovereign One. God is the possessor of all things, the ruler of all, and master of all. So when peoples and lands forget He comes in judgment to remind them.

Judgment is one of God's means of helping people to know Him. Not exactly a spiritual discipline instituted by us, but sometimes a form of discipline instituted by God to show a nation or a person that He is the Sovereign and He desires to be known as so.

"And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations and disperse them throughout the countries. Then they will know that I am the Lord.” Ez. 30:26

I think its best to know that He is the Lord before judgment comes, and this knowledge is practical because we deny the knowledge of Him as Lord when we trust other idols or we treat the things in life as if they are our own.

It is better to figure this out before we need to be reminded.

The Danger of Dualism and the Renewal of All Things in Jesus

"A dualistic conception of regeneration was the cause of the rupture between the life of nature and the life of grace. It has, on account of its too intense contemplation of celestial things, neglected to give due attention to the world of God's creation. It has, on account of its exclusive love of things eternal, been backward in the fulfillment of its temporal duties. It has neglected the care of the body because it cared too exclusively for the soul. And this one-sided, inharmonious conception in the course of time has led more than one sect to a mystic worshipping of Christ alone, to the exclusion of God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. Christ was conceived exclusively as the Savior, and His cosmological significance was lost out of sight.

This dualism, however, is by no means countenanced by the Holy Scriptures...and further, that the object of the work of redemption is not limited to the salvation of individual sinners, but extends itself to the redemption of the world, and to the organic reunion of all things in heaven and of earth under Christ as their original head. Christ himself does not speak only of the regeneration of the earth, but also of a regeneration of the cosmos...

In keeping with this, the final outcome of the future, foreshadowed in the H. Scriptures, is not the merely spiritual existence of saved souls, but the restoration of the entire cosmos, when God will be all in all under the renewed heaven on the renewed earth.

Thereby of course Calvinism puts an end once and for all to contempt for the world, neglect of temporal and under-valuation of cosmical things. Comsical life has regained its worth not at the expense of things eternal, but by virtue of its capacity as God's handiwork and as a revelation of God's attributes."

Abraham Kuyper. Lectures on Calvinism. 118-120.

Antichrist and Beast

Eschatology (one's end times belief) gets a bit muddled when one interprets the Antichrist and the Beast solely as lone figures at the last 50 years of the world as we know it. In fact, the church in focusing solely on these infamous iconic figures and structures as a one-time reality, the church falls prey to the antichrist and beast itself. Is not several antichrists and several beasts more biblically accurate? We look for just the Antichrist rather then antichrists and the Beast rather then beasts. Pastor Douglas Wilson makes great points on this subject in a recent blog post:

"So what is the sin of being an antichrist. Through long-standing misunderstandings about eschatology, the definition of this sin has gotten almost completely distorted. A common understanding is to see The Antichrist and The Beast as the same character out of poorly written end times novels. But this is not the case at all. In Scripture, a beast is a civil ruler, persecuting the Church. An antichrist is a false teacher from within, one infected with all the latest ideational leprosy. For a beast, think Stalin, Hitler, Nero. For an antichrist, think of a mild, soften-spoken Anglican bishop -- one who denies that Jesus was God enfleshed." (HT: Douglas Wilson)

I Will Melt You

God's wrath is a frightening thing. Ezekiel is full of God's anger toward Israel for their idolatry. The wrath of God is like a furnace that melts precious metal.

"Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to me; all of them are bronze and tin and iron and lead in the furnace; they are dross of silver. 19 Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have all become dross, therefore, behold, I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem. 20 As one gathers silver and bronze and iron and lead and tin into a furnace, to blow the fire on it in order to melt it, so I will gather you in my anger and in my wrath, and I will put you in and melt you. 21 I will gather you and blow on you with the fire of my wrath, and you shall be melted in the midst of it. 22 As silver is melted in a furnace, so you shall be melted in the midst of it, and you shall know that I am the Lord; I have poured out my wrath upon you.” Ezekiel 22:18-22

It is good to know that Jesus has absorbed the wrath of God for sinners. Those who trust Jesus are saved from God's wrath. Those who do not have the hot furnace of the wrath of God on their heads.

"Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him." Jn. 3:36

"Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God." Ro. 5:9

The blood of Jesus not only washes away sin, but removes the wrath of God.

Before the Face

"But it remained the special trait of Calvinism that it placed the believer before the face of God, not only in His church, but also in his personal, family, social, and political life. The majesty of God, and the authority of God press upon the Calvinist in the whole of his human existence. He is a pilgrim, not in the sense that he is marching through the world with which he has no concern, but in the sense that at every step of the long way he must remember his responsibility to that God so full of majesty, who awaits him at his journey's end..."

Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism, 69-70.

Sam Storms the Pastor

Sam Storms is back in the local church. Not that he ever left the local church, but that he is now becoming "Senior Pastor" of Bridgeway Church in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. This is great for two reasons:

• One, knowing there are men like Sam in local churches is very encouraging.
• Two, knowing that Bridgeway has a podcast should mean that Sam Storms sermons will be available every week.

Yes, I'm greedy for sermons and adding Sam to regular sermon listening and gym workouts is a joy to my heart.

Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler, and the Example of John Piper

I think it is wonderful how John Piper has been giving young pastors the pulpit at Desiring God conferences. John has now invited Mark Driscoll to two conferences, and I have no doubt that he has received a lot of criticism for that among some of his good friends and the wider evangelical community. It is intriguing too to think that not only does John invite Driscoll, but that he has Mark speaking on the biblical use of "harsh language" at DG's latest conference, a topic of which Mark has received the most criticism for in his ministry.

Now John is inviting another gifted young pastor--Matt Chandler. Matt, a pastor of the Village Church in Texas, will be speaking at the forthcoming Bethlehem Conference for Pastors in '09 on the theme of evangelism. John has given him the task of "help[ing] us think about...saving those who think they are saved." After listening to Matt regularly I am convinced that topic is perfect for him and that he will serve the pastors well. Matt has been known to take the Bible to the backside of Bible-belt Christianity that, at times, resembles something more akin to unbelieving Pharasaism. More importantly Matt is thoroughly Gospel-centered. He consistently draws people back to the Gospel in his sermons and is a great example of saturating every sermon with Jesus.

I am thankful for older godly men like Pastor Piper who is willing to give young pastors this opportunity.

May God raise up more older pastors in local churches who are willing to cultivate the gifts of young men and be mentors of them in their community. The pattern that Paul lays out in modeling his life in relationship with Timothy is one that all pastors should be following. I do not think this is only a pastoral responsibility, but that many older Christian men in general should take upon themselves the responsiblity of training young men not necessarily to be pastors but to be godly men.

Thank you Pastor John for being an example of this to wider evangelical world.

Guardian Angels

Charles Spurgeon:

"We have each of us a guardian angel to attend us. The meaning of the passage, “In heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven,” surely is that every Christian has a guardian angel, who flies about him, and holds the shield of God over his brow, keeps his foot lest he should dash it against a stone, guards him, controls him, manages him, injects thoughts into his mind, restrains his evil desire and is the minister and servant of the Holy Ghost, to keep him from sin, and lead him to righteousness. Whether I am right or wrong, I leave you to judge; but perhaps I have more angelology in me than most people have. I know my imagination has sometimes been so powerful that, when I have been alone at night, I could almost fancy that I saw an angel fly by me, when I have been out preaching the Word."

AGES Software. "God's Providence."