TWO INFINITELY STRONG AND TENDER TRUTHS

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Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, “My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.” (Isaiah 46:10)

The word “sovereignty” (like the word “trinity”) does not occur in the Bible. We use it to refer to this truth: God is in ultimate control of the world from the largest international intrigue to the smallest bird-fall in the forest. Here is how the Bible puts it: “I am God and there is no other. . . . My counsel shall stand and I will accomplish all my purpose” (Isaiah 46:10). “God does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of
the earth and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What are you doing?’” (Daniel 4:35). “But he is unchangeable and who can turn him? What he desires, that he does. For he will complete what he appoints for me” (Job 23:13, 14). “Our God is in the heavens; he does whatever he pleases” (Psalm 115:3). One reason this doctrine is so precious to believers is that we know that God’s great desire is to show mercy and kindness to those who trust him (Ephesians 2:7; Psalm 37:3–7; Proverbs 29:25). God’s sovereignty means that this design for us cannot be frustrated. Nothing, absolutely nothing, befalls those who “love God and are called according to his purpose” but what is for our deepest and highest good (Psalm 84:11). Therefore, the mercy and the sovereignty of God are the twin pillars of our life. They are the hope of our future, the energy of our service, the center of our theology, the bond of our marriage, the best medicine in all our sickness, the remedy of all our discouragements. And when we come to die (whether sooner or later), these two truths will stand by our beds and with infinitely strong and infinitely tender hands lift us up to God.

LET US ADORE THE LAMB

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I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. (Revelation 5:4)

Have you ever thought of your prayers as the aroma of heaven? Holy Week has drawn me again to read Revelation 4 and 5. Here is a glimpse of life in heaven. In Revelation 5, we see God almighty on the throne with a scroll in his hand. The scroll had seven seals. They all had to be pulled off before the scroll could be opened. At first, John wept that there was no one worthy to open the scroll and look into it (5:4). But then the elder in heaven says, “Weep not! The Lion of Judah has conquered so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals” (5:5). By dying on the cross, Jesus had earned the right to open the remainder of redemptive history and lead his people victoriously through it. In the next verse, the Lion is pictured as a Lamb, “standing as one slain”
(5:6). Isn’t this a beautiful image of Jesus’s victory on the cross? It is as sure as though a lion had devoured the foe — but the way he achieved the victory was by letting the foe slay him like a lamb! So now the Lamb is worthy to take the scroll of redemptive history from God’s hand and open it. This is such a kingly act that the twenty-four elders of heaven (God’s worship council, as it were) fall down before the Lamb in adoration. And do you know what the golden bowls of incense are? Verse 8 says they are “the prayers of the saints.” Does not this mean that our prayers are the aroma of heaven, sweet smelling before the throne of God and before the Lamb?
I am strengthened and encouraged to pray all the more often and all the more vigorously when I think that my prayers are being assembled and stored up in heaven and offered to Christ repeatedly in heavenly acts of worship. Let’s all bless and honor and adore Christ here below with our prayers, and then doubly rejoice that the worship council of heaven offers them again to Christ as sweet smelling incense before the Lamb who was slain.

GOD CARES FOR YOU

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“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:6–7)

Why is anxiety about the future a form of pride? God’s answer would sound something like this: I — the Lord, your Maker — I am he who comforts you, who promises to take care of you; and those who threaten you are mere men who die. So your fear must mean that you do not trust me — and even though you are not sure that your own resources will take care of you, yet you opt for fragile self-reliance, rather than faith in my future grace. So all your trembling — weak as it is — reveals pride. The remedy? Turn from self-reliance to God-reliance, and put your faith in the all-sufficient power of future grace. We see anxiety as a form of pride in 1 Peter 5:6–7. Notice the grammatical connection between the verses. “Humble yourselves . . . under the mighty hand of God . . . [verse 7] casting all your anxieties on him.” Verse 7 is not a new sentence. It’s a subordinate clause. “Humble yourselves . . . [by] casting all your anxieties on him.” This means that casting your anxieties on God is a way of humbling yourself under God’s mighty hand. It’s like saying, “Eat politely . . . chewing with
your mouth shut.” “Drive carefully . . . keeping your eyes open.” One way to be humble is to cast all your anxieties on God. Which means that one hindrance to casting your anxieties on God is pride. Which means that undue worry is a form of pride. Now why is casting our anxieties on the Lord the opposite of pride? Because pride does not like to admit that it has any anxieties. And if pride has to admit it, it still does not like to admit that the remedy might be trusting someone else who is wiser and stronger. In other words, pride is a form of unbelief and does not like to trust in God’s future grace. Faith admits the need for help. Pride won’t. Faith banks on God to give help. Pride won’t. Faith casts anxieties on God. Pride won’t. Therefore the way to battle the unbelief of pride is to admit freely that you have anxieties, and to cherish the promise of future grace in the words, “He cares for you.”

GOD REGARDS THE LOWLY

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“The eternal God is your dwelling place and underneath are the everlasting arms.” (Deuteronomy 33:27)

You may be going through things right now that are painfully preparing you for some precious service to Jesus and to his people. When a person strikes rock bottom with a sense of nothingness or helplessness, he may find that he has struck the Rock of Ages. Psalm 138 says: “Though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly.” You cannot sink so low in despairing of your own resources that God does not see and care. In fact, He is at the bottom waiting to catch you. As Moses says, “The eternal God is your dwelling place and underneath are the
everlasting arms” (Deuteronomy 33:27). Yes, He sees you trembling and slipping. He could (and often did) grab you before you hit bottom. But this time he has some new lessons to teach. The psalmist said in Psalm 119:71, “It was good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.” He does not say it was easy or fun or
pleasant. In retrospect, he simply says, “It was good for me.” In love’s service, only the wounded soldiers can serve.” I believe some of you are being prepared right now for some precious service of love. Because you are being wounded. Do not think that your wound has come to you apart from God’s gracious design. Remember His word: “See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god besides me . . . I wound and I heal” (Deuteronomy 32:39). May God grant a special grace to you who are groaning under some burden. Look eagerly for the new tenderness of love God is imparting to you even now.

GOD REJOICES TO DO YOU GOOD

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“I will make with them an everlasting covenant that I will not turn away from doing good to them . . . . I will rejoice in doing good to them.” (Jeremiah 32:40–41).

Can you think of any fact more encouraging than that God rejoices to do you good? He doesn’t begrudgingly fulfill his promise (Romans 8:28). It is his joy to do you good. And not just sometimes. Always! “I will not turn away from doing good to them.” But sometimes our situation is so hard to bear we just can’t muster any joy.
Remember Abraham: “In hope he believed against hope” (Romans 4:18). God has always been faithful. O how glad I am that the thing that makes Almighty God happiest is doing good for you and me!

ARM YOURSELF WITH PROMISES

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“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8)

When Paul says to put to death the deeds of the body “by the Spirit” (Romans 8:13), I take him to mean that we should use the one weapon in the Spirit’s armor that is used to kill. Namely, the sword. Which is the word of God
(Ephesians 6:17). So when the body is about to be led into a sinful action by some fear or craving, we are to take the sword of the Spirit and kill that fear and that craving. In my experience, that means mainly severing the root of sin’s promise by the power of a superior promise. So, for example, when I begin to crave some illicit sexual pleasure, the sword-swing that has often severed the root of this promised pleasure is: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). I recall the pleasures I have tasted of seeing God more clearly from an undefiled conscience; and I recall the brevity and superficiality and oppressive aftertaste of sin’s pleasures, and with that, God has killed the conquering power of sin. Having promises at hand that suit the temptation of the hour is one key to successful warfare against sin. But there are times when we don’t have a perfectly suited word from God in our minds. And there is no time to look through the Bible for a tailor-made promise. So we all need to have a small arsenal of general promises ready to use whenever fear or craving threaten to lead us astray. Be constantly adding to your arsenal of promises. But never lose sight of the chosen few that God has blessed in your life. Do both. Be ever-ready with the old. And every morning look for a new one to take with you through the day. (Piper)

ENDURE THE EXPLICABLE

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All the promises of God find their Yes in him. (2 Corinthians 1:20)

When Christ died he purchased for you the “Yes” to all God’s promises (2 Corinthians 1:20), and that includes the promise to use his sovereign power to govern all the inexplicable, maddening detours and delays of your life for
wise and loving purposes. He is doing a thousand things for you and for his glory in your disappointed plans. We need to believe God for good, unseen purposes, when all we can see is evil and frustration. There is too much evil and injustice in the world. Trust God!

WHEN GOD BECOMES 100% FOR US

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Among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. (Ephesians 2:3)

All of God’s wrath, all of the condemnation we deserve, was poured out on Jesus. All of God’s demands for perfect righteousness were fulfilled by Christ. The moment we see (by grace!) this Treasure and receive him in this way his death counts as our death and his condemnation as our condemnation and his righteousness as our righteousness, and God becomes 100% irrevocably for us forever in that instant. The question this leaves unanswered is, “Doesn’t the Bible teach that in eternity God set his favor on us?” In other words, thoughtful people ask, “Did God only become 100% for us in the moment of faith and union with Christ and justification? Paul says in Ephesians 1:4–5, “[God] chose us in [Jesus] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ.” With the term “100%” I am trying to preserve a biblical truth found in several passages of Scripture. For example, in Ephesians 2:3, Paul says that Christians were “children of wrath” before they were made alive in Christ Jesus: “We all once lived [among the sons of disobedience] in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” Paul is saying that, before regeneration, God’s wrath was on us. We were under wrath. This changed when God made us alive in Christ Jesus and awakened us to see the truth and beauty of Christ so that we received him as the one who died for us and as the one whose righteousness is counted as ours because of our union with Jesus. Before this happened to us, we were under God’s wrath. Then, because of faith in Christ and union with him, all God’s wrath was removed and he then became, in that sense, 100% for us. Therefore, exult in the truth that God will keep you. He will get you to the end because in Christ he is 100% for you. And therefore, getting to the end does not make God to be 100% for you. It is the effect of the fact that he is already 100% for you.

GOD OPENS THE HEART

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One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. (Acts 16:14)

Everywhere Paul preached some believed and some did not. How are we to understand why some of those who are “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1, 5) believed and some did not? The answer why some did not believe is that they “thrust it aside” (Acts 13:46) because the message of the gospel was “folly to them, and they [were] not able to understand” (1 Corinthians 2:14). The mind of the flesh “is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot” (Romans 8:7). Those who hear and reject the gospel “hate the light” and do not come to the light lest their deeds should be exposed (John 3:20). They remain “darkened in their understanding . . . because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart” (Ephesians 4:18). It is a guilty ignorance. The truth is available. But “by their unrighteousness they suppress the truth” (Romans 1:18). But why then do some believe, since all are in this condition of rebellious hardness of heart, dead in our trespasses? The book of Acts gives the answer in at least three different ways. One is that they are appointed to believe. When Paul preached in Antioch of Pisidia, the Gentiles rejoiced and “as many as were appointed to eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48). Another way of answering why some believe is that God granted repentance. When the saints in Jerusalem heard that Gentiles were responding to the gospel and not just Jews, they said, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life” (Acts 11:18). But the clearest answer in Acts to the question why a person believes the gospel is that God opens the heart. Lydia is the best example. Why did she believe? Acts 16:14 says, “The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.”

THE HOUR OF UNUSUAL THREAT

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“If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.” (1 Peter 4:14)

Many Christians in the world today do not know the life-threatening danger that comes with believing in Christ. We have gotten used to being free from such persecution. It seems like the way things must be. So our first reaction to the threat that things might be otherwise is often anger. But that anger may be a sign that we have lost our sense of being aliens and exiles (“Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles . . .” 1Peter 2:11). Perhaps we have settled in too much to this world. We don’t feel as homesick for Christ as Paul did: “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20). Many of us need the reminder, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you” (1 Peter 4:12). Have you ever wondered how you will do in the hour of final trial? The gunman has you in his sights and asks, “Are you a Christian?” Here is a strong word to give you hope that you may do better than you think. “If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you” (1 Peter 4:14). This encouragement from Peter says that in the hour of unusual threat (whether insult or death) there will be “a Spirit of glory and of God resting on us.” Doesn’t that mean that God gives special help in the hour of crisis to those who suffer because they are Christians? I don’t mean he is absent from our other sufferings. I just mean that Peter went out of his way to say to those who suffer “for the name of Christ” will experience a special “resting” on them of “the Spirit of glory and of God.” (Piper)