And the Glory of the Lord Shall Be Revealed

Here is Handel's setting of Isaiah 40:5. Sadly, this not much of a video, but the recording of Messiah used is that of the same conductor featured in those clips I posted earlier.

Isaiah 40:5 (KJV)

5 And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

Happiness Doubled by Wonder

G. K. Chesterton:

I do not, in my personal capacity, believe that a baby gets his best physical food by sucking his thumb; nor that a man gets his best moral food by sucking his soul, and denying its dependence on God or other good things. I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.

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"Thanks"

Rudyard Kipling was being interviewed by a somewhat cynical reporter. “I understand that the money you make from your writings amounts to over one hundred dollars a word.”

Mr.Kipling responded with surprise. “Really, I had no idea.”

“Here’s a one hundred dollar bill,” the newspaperman retorted, “Give me one of your hundred dollar words.”

Kipling took the hundred dollar bill, quietly folded it up, said, “Thanks,” and walked away.

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Ev'ry Valley Shall Be Exalted

Here is the next piece from Handel's Messiah, using Isaiah 40:4 as the text.

Isaiah 40:4

4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:

Lost Capacity for Gratitude

Eric Felten in the WSJ:

The day after Thanksgiving used to be the official launch of the commercial Christmas season. Now Sears is running "Black Friday" specials all through November.

Given half a chance, retailers would probably try to get their plastic garlands hung just after Labor Day. (Ho-ho-ho, it's back to school!) But we've been spared that particular encroachment, thanks to a holiday that has proved capable of standing athwart the relentless forces of Christmas-creep—Halloween. Once a quaint bit of Americana built around the simple pleasures of costumes, candy-grabbing and petty vandalism, Halloween has become a marketable and profitable holiday, putting many official holidays to shame. If only Presidents Day had some sort of free-candy angle.

In contrast to Halloween's stalwart ability to keep Christmas from jumping the queue, Thanksgiving has lost its cultural muscle. The early advent of the Santa season may have less to do with the red-and-green imperative than with the weakness of Turkey Day. What happened to this quintessential American holiday?

Part of his answer:

Could it be we've lost our capacity for gratitude? A successful harvest occasioned thanks back when it was all that stood between us and a long, cold, hungry winter. But now we're divorced from the seasonal rhythms of the farm, where the harvest is celebrated as the payoff of all the year's labors. Even in the midst of this Great Repression we enjoy perpetual plenty. What resonance does a cornucopia have to people who have come to expect ripe blackberries in February? If anything, we should be more grateful, but that's not our nature. Anything we struggle for, we hold dear; anything that comes easy, we take for granted.

Of course, it beyond the apparent affluence and disconnect from agrarian life, the biggest factor (unmentioned in this otherwise delightful guest column) is that we as Americans no longer recognize Someone to whom we should be thankful.

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Comfort Ye My People

Handel used the text of Isaiah 40:1-5 for three different pieces in his famous oratorio Messiah. Here's the first, from Isaiah 40:1-3 in the King James Version.

Isaiah 40:1-3

1 Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. 2 Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD'S hand double for all her sins.

3 The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Next Sermon - Isaiah 40:1-5 on 11/29/09

Leading up to Christmas, we will be taking a break from the Gospel of Matthew to do a four-part series from Isaiah 40. It's actually not a complete break, as you may remember that Matthew quotes this text in the third chapter of his gospel.

For this coming Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent, here is the text for our sermon.

Isaiah 40:1-5

1 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that her warfare is ended,
that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the Lord's hand
double for all her sins.

3 A voice cries:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord;
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
5 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

Relational Sanctification

The previous post (below) gave a different perspective on justification. This is takes sanctification and pushes the relational dimension. In both cases, law/command and obedience are present, but the larger framework and motivation are different.

Joe Coffey:

I met with a man who had been attending our church for four years. He said he needed to ask me a theological question before he could join our church. I never like those kinds of conversations since the question is usually about a distinctive rather than about something central. We met for breakfast, and his question was the best theological question I had ever been asked. He simply asked me how people grow. He said that he knew people were saved by grace, but he wanted to know if I thought people were sanctified through their own sweat equity. I thought for a moment and then told him that the only thing that ever really changed me was love. Ever since the mission trip, I had been feeling that it was more important for me to understand how much Jesus loved me than it was for me to figure out how to love Him. I watched in amazement as relief spread across my friend’s face. He said he had tried for twenty years to be sanctified through his own effort; it had ground him to powder, and he would not go back.

*****

Gospel-driven transformation is both liberating and terrifying.

There are some in our church who have not yet rediscovered the Gospel this way. There are others who hear the terrifying part but not the liberating part, and they sit on pins and needles. Many of them will leave soon, I think. But there are many others who have felt the shackles start to fall off, and, like me, they are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.

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Relationship Restored

John Piper:

Justification is not an end in itself. Neither is the forgiveness of sins or the imputation of righteousness. Neither is escape from hell or entrance into heaven or freedom from disease or liberation from bondage or eternal life or justice or mercy or the beauties of a pain-free world. None of these facets of the gospel-diamond is the chief good or highest goal of the gospel. Only one thing is: seeing and savoring God himself, being changed into the image of his Son so that more and more we delight in and display God’s infinite beauty and worth.

Consider an illustration of what I am trying to say. Suppose I get up in the morning and as I am walking to the bathroom I trip over some of my wife’s laundry that she left lying on the hall floor. Instead of simply moving the laundry myself and assuming the best in her, I react in a way that is all out of proportion to the situation and say something very harsh to my wife just as she is waking up. She gets up, puts the laundry away, and walks downstairs ahead of me. I can tell by the silence and from my own conscience that our relationship is in serious trouble.

As I go downstairs my conscience is condemning me. Yes, the laundry should not have been there. Yes, I might have broken my neck. But those thoughts are mainly the self-defending flesh talking. The truth is that my words were way out of line. Not only was the emotional harshness out of proportion to the seriousness of the fault, but the Bible tells me to overlook the fault. “Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?” (1 Cor. 6:7).

So as I enter the kitchen there is ice in the air, and her back is blatantly toward me as she works at the kitchen counter. What needs to happen here? The answer is plain: I need to apologize and ask for forgiveness. That would be the right thing to do. But here’s the analogy: Why do I want her forgiveness? So that she will make my favorite breakfast? So that my guilt feelings will go away and I will be able to concentrate at work today? So there will be good sex tonight? So the kids won’t see us at odds? So that she will finally admit the laundry shouldn’t have been there?

It may be that every one of those desires would come true. But they are all defective motives for wanting her forgiveness. What’s missing is this: I want to be forgiven so that I will have the sweet fellowship of my wife back. She is the reason I want to be forgiven. I want the relationship restored. Forgiveness is simply a way of getting obstacles out of the way so that we can look at each other again with joy.

From God Is the Gospel: Meditations on God's Love as the Gift of Himself

Theology that Wounds Rather than Heals

D. A. Carson on Job and his companions:

There is a way of using theology and theological arguments that wounds rather than heals. This is not the fault of theology and theological arguments; it is the fault of the “miserable comforter” who fastens on an inappropriate fragment of truth, or whose timing is off, or whose attitude is condescending, or whose application is insensitive, or whose true theology is couched in such culture-laden clichés that they grate rather than comfort. In times of extraordinary stress and loss, I have sometimes received great encouragement and wisdom from other believers; I have also sometimes received extraordinary blows from them, without any recognition on their part that that was what they were delivering. Miserable comforters were they all.

Such experiences, of course, drive me to wonder when I have wrongly handled the Word and caused similar pain. It is not that there is never a place for administering the kind of scriptural admonition that rightly induces pain: justified discipline is godly (Heb. 12:5–11). The tragic fact, however, is that when we cause pain by our application of theology to someone else, we naturally assume the pain owes everything to the obtuseness of the other party. It may, it may—but at the very least we ought to examine ourselves, our attitudes, and our arguments very closely lest we simultaneously delude ourselves and oppress others.

From Carson's book, For the Love of God: A Daily Companion for Discovering the Riches of God’s Word (vol. 2; Wheaton: Crossway, 1999), entry for February 17. (This book is available for free as a PDF fromTGC.)

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Faith Is Believing and Expecting

Charles Spurgeon:

Faith is believing that Christ is what he is said to be, and that he will do what he has promised to do, and then to expect this of him.

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God-centered Anger

Tullian Tchividjian:

God-centered anger is when you get angry because God has been dishonored and his ways have been maligned. Self-centered anger is when you’re angry because you have been dishonored or your ways have been maligned.

In my book [Unfashionable] I highlight Mark 3:1-5 which provides us with a memorable example of God-centered anger.

One day Jesus “entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand.” Meanwhile the Pharisees in the crowd “watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him.” Jesus didn’t hold back: “He said to the man with the withered hand, ‘Come here.’ And he said to them, ‘Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?’ But they were silent.”

Notice carefully what comes next: “And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.”

Jesus, the God-man, was angry. And then we read immediately that he was also grieved, seeing the hardness of the Pharisees’ hearts.

Here is a super-important characteristic of God’s anger that we need to understand: God’s anger is a grieving anger. It grieves because it sees the devastation that sin has on human life.

He later concludes:

The world so often senses our anger—but do they ever sense our grief? They think we’re angry simply because we’re not getting our way, but I’m afraid they don’t feel our sorrow over sin’s negative, dehumanizing effects. We fail to communicate our anger in a way that says, “You were made for so much more than this.” They assume our anger is only because we’re not getting what we want. No wonder they tune us out.

When we see the restlessness and wreckage in people’s lives because they’re not in relationship with God and they’re living sin-filled lives, it should stoke our anger—an anger that arises because we love them and we grieve to see them living for something so destructive when God created them to live for something beautiful and satisfying.

Self-centered anger is not a grieving, love-fueled anger; that’s what God-centered anger is. So does your anger rage because your love for God and your love for others is radical? When people see us hating what God hates because our love for God and people is real and deep, they may be more open to hear what we have to say.

Three Questions of Bible Study

From an interview with theologian Gerald Bray:

What are the questions we should ask when approaching a passage of Scripture?

The first question we must ask of every biblical text is simply this—what does it tell us about God? What does it say about who he is and about what he does?

The second question is: what does this text say about us human beings? What are we meant to be and what has gone wrong?

The third and final question is: what has God done about this and what does he expect of us in the light of what he has done?

Asking these questions and seeking answers to them will help us interpret the Spirit’s message to Christ’s people and to each of us as individuals.

Go here to read how he uses these questions with a tough-to-apply passage-- genealogies.

Next Sermon - Matthew 21:1-17 on 11/22/09

This is the text for this coming Sunday's sermon.

Matthew 21:1-17

1 Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.” 4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying,
5 “Say to the daughter of Zion,
‘Behold, your king is coming to you,
humble, and mounted on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’ ”
6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. 8 Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” 10 And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” 11 And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.”

12 And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 13 He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”

14 And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, 16 and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read,
“ ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies
you have prepared praise’?”
17 And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there.

More

Richard Sibbes:

There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us.

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Pakistan - Christian Janitor Died Saving Muslim Students

Click here for the text of the story at CNN.

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Well Read

J. C. Ryle:

It is poor work to read the Bible from mere curiosity, and for speculative purposes, in order to fill your head and store your mind with opinions, while you do not allow the book to influence your heart and life. That Bible is read best which is practiced most.

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How Can God Allow Suffering and Evil in the World?

How can God allow suffering and evil in the world? from A Passion for Life on Vimeo.

Ask for Grace

Matthew Henry, commenting on Matthew 20:20-28:

We know not what we ask, when we ask for the glory of wearing the crown, and ask not for grace to bear the cross in our way to it.

As quoted in Carson's commentary on Matthew

Next Sermon - Matthew 20:17-34 on 11/15/09

Here's the text for this coming Sunday's sermon.

Matthew 20:17-34

17 And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, 18 “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death 19 and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.”

20 Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons, and kneeling before him she asked him for something. 21 And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.” 22 Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?” They said to him, “We are able.” 23 He said to them, “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” 24 And when the ten heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers. 25 But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 26 It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, 28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

29 And as they went out of Jericho, a great crowd followed him. 30 And behold, there were two blind men sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was passing by, they cried out, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” 31 The crowd rebuked them, telling them to be silent, but they cried out all the more, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” 32 And stopping, Jesus called them and said, “What do you want me to do for you?” 33 They said to him, “Lord, let our eyes be opened.” 34 And Jesus in pity touched their eyes, and immediately they recovered their sight and followed him.