Psalm 112:1
Praise the Lord!
Blessed is the man who fears the Lord,
who greatly delights in his commandments!
We live in a world full of people who bristle at the idea of God daring to command them to do or avoid anything. This is strange. These same folks seem to take it as their right to order God about in their prayers; yet, let them be confronted with the word of God, and they battle against the concept that the Lord of all creation might dare expect anything of them.
One way that this response to the authority of God is so sad is that battling the authority of God is a sure way to keep yourself from being blessed. Look at the words of the psalmist. He opens this psalm with praise to God. He is clearly glad to offer God glory.
The psalmist follows up his praise with a beatitude, a statement of blessing. Who is blessed? One thing is for sure, the one who is blessed is not the one who ignores the commands of God. No, the blessed one is the one who fears God. The blessed one is the one who greatly—not just a little bit—delights in the commands of the Lord.
For the lost or worldly person, the idea that the commands of God are pleasant should seem strange. However, to the Christian, the concept of the sweetness of God’s word should be as clear as day. So, Christian, ask yourself, “Do I greatly delight in the commands of God?” Do you love when God calls you to change? Do you think, when you read God’s holy standards, “Yes, Lord, this is truly perfect!” God’s word is perfect, you know. God’s standards are the perfect picture of what is right. Let us learn to fear God and greatly delight in his commands. Along this path is joy and blessing.
Don’t Fix the Gospel (Galatians 1:10)
Galatians 1:10
For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
With the rise of theological liberalism in the nineteenth and twentieth century’s, American Christianity found itself in danger of losing the biblical gospel. Any student of that age can document how scholars, first in Europe and then in the United States, began to question the Scripture and its teachings until an entirely different gospel emerged.
What most do not consider, however, is that these men who denied the atonement and the necessity of mankind to have personal, saving faith in Christ, they were not trying to destroy the gospel in the process. No, if one reads the writings of these men or sees transcripts of their messages, one will find that these men actually believed that they were saving the gospel. They were updating the message of the Bible for a new, enlightened humanity who believed more in science than superstition. Liberals did not intend to destroy the gospel at all; instead, they wanted to save the church.
The problem is, the gospel does not itself need to be saved. Any tweak of the gospel in order to make the message of Jesus Christ more palatable for the lost is actually going to end up stripping the message of, well, the gospel. The cross is foolishness to the lost. The blood of Jesus is an offense to those who do not know Christ and have not come to him for grace. Anything that will sweeten the gospel to the lost is very likely a removal of the heart of the gospel.
I’m not here speaking of contextualization, speaking the gospel to people in words and ways that they can understand. I’m not saying that missionaries cannot learn to dress and speak like the people to whom they are witnessing. But when the changes come in the fundamental message of the gospel, the changes are devastating to the cause of the missionary. As Paul said, trying to please man makes one no longer a servant of Christ.
The gospel is very simple. God is. He is our Creator and Judge. God is holy and loving. We have all rebelled against him, failing to live up to his standards. We have earned, through our rebellion, his wrath for our sins. God must punish our sins because he is perfectly just. God sent Jesus Christ, God the Son, to earth as a man to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Jesus took our place, paid the penalty for our sins, and satisfied the wrath of God for our rebellion. Anyone who will believe in Jesus and turn from their sins will be forgiven by God—salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. This is the gospel, and it must not be changed.
David’s Dancing (2 Samuel 6:20-22)
20 And David returned to bless his household. But Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David and said, “How the king of Israel honored himself today, uncovering himself today before the eyes of his servants’ female servants, as one of the vulgar fellows shamelessly uncovers himself!” 21 And David said to Michal, “It was before the Lord, who chose me above your father and above all his house, to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the Lord—and I will make merry before the Lord. 22 I will make myself yet more contemptible than this, and I will be based in your eyes. But by the female servants of whom you have spoken, by them I shall be held in honor.”
Some passages of the Bible become known more for their legend than their fact. Such a passage is the above event from 2 Samuel 6. When David finally followed the biblical instructions for moving the ark of the covenant, what did he also do?> Did he, as some people still readily claim, dance naked before the Lord and the people? I think it likely that you will have heard someone make this claim, but is it truth? Or, as is so often the case, is the story of David’s Full Monty performance actually more like the warping of a secret in the old telephone game, becoming more and more corrupt as it is retold by careless people?
It seems, from a cursory examination of the passage and a few commentaries, David did not dance in the buff. Instead, he was wearing a linen ephod, a priestly garment. “And David danced before the Lord with all his might. And David was wearing a linen ephod” (2 Sam 6:14). Part of the point of priestly garments, if you recall, is to keep them from exposing nakedness (Exo 28:42-43). Thus, David did not show off anything that would be inappropriate to see.
David’s wife was embarrassed by his behavior, not because David was lewd (though that could be implied in her accusation), but because he behaved in a manner that she did not feel was befitting his station as king. She did not like the idea of the king taking off his symbols of authority and dancing around like a commoner.
Add to this discussion the idea that David was “undignified” in his actions. This is not saying that David was out-of-control, mad, or crazy in any way—regardless of what some popular worship songs have suggested. No, the point is that David would not hold himself aloof as king and refuse to worship the Lord and celebrate the Lord’s glory. The call is not for us to be silly in our worship services or to be chaotic or disorderly in any way; the call is, rather, that none of us assume that we are of too lofty a station in life to humble ourselves before God in the same way as the poorest person on earth.
Oh, and while I’m poking at this story, let me also say that I do not believe that this passage is in any way an argument that dance should be used in modern worship services. The dancing that was done was akin to the kinds of dancing that might occur as celebration in any event. People dance in the aisles of a stadium when their team wins a game. David and others seem to have spontaneously danced for joy. IT was not programmed. It was not an attempt to interpret a song for the benefit of the congregation. It was simply dancing for fun, out of overflowing joy at the presence and honor of God. Such need not be programmed. I’m not calling dance wrong. I’m simply saying that this passage is no argument for the inclusion of programmed dancing in our formal services of worship.
So, stripping the legend from the facts, we still can learn a great deal from David’s actions. He was the king. He did not, however, assume that his kingliness prevented him from humbling himself before the Lord. IT is good for the people of God, when they come to worship, to let go any thought of social rank and to simply, as one body and family, offer praise to God as humble servants of the King of kings.
A Biblical Assisted Suicide, and the Consequences (2 Samuel 1:6-10, 14-16)
2 Samuel 1:6-10, 14-16
6 And the young man who told him said, “By chance I happened to be on Mount Gilboa, and there was Saul leaning on his spear, and behold, the chariots and the horsemen were close upon him. 7 And when he looked behind him, he saw me, and called to me. And I answered, ‘Here I am.’ 8 And he said to me, ‘Who are you?’ I answered him, ‘I am an Amalekite.’ 9 And he said to me ‘Stand beside me and kill me, for anguish has seized me, and yet my life still lingers.’ 10 So I stood beside him and killed him, because I was sure that he could not live after he had fallen. And I took the crown that was on his head and the armlet that was on his arm, and I have brought them here to my lord.”
14 David said to him, “How is it you were not afraid to put out your hand to destroy the Lord’s anointed?” 15 Then David called one of the young men and said, “Go, execute him.” And he struck him down so that he died. 16 And David said to him, “Your blood be on your head, for your own mouth has testified against you, saying, ‘I have killed the Lord’s anointed.’ ”
Here is a passage that I have never personally heard cited in the debate over assisted suicide, but which might indeed apply. A young Amalekite claims to have come across King Saul who was wounded, but not dead. (It is possible, by the way, that this man is lying to make himself look good.) The Amalekite says that Saul cried out to him to be merciful to him and end his life before the Philistines reach him. Apparently thinking he is doing something good, the Amalekite claims to have put Saul out of his misery and then come to report to David.
David, for his part, pronounces immediate judgment upon the Amalekite. Saul was alive according to the claims of this young man, and the Amalekite reached out and took Saul’s life. David seems to have no room in his thinking for this to be OK, even if Saul was miserable, even if Saul was already dying, even if it would prevent Saul’s further suffering. What mattered in this instance, according to David, was that the young man had slain the Lord’s anointed, and this was simply unacceptable, regardless of circumstances.
Of course, one might try to argue that this was a special circumstance because of Saul’s rank as King. I would counter, however, that, according to the testimony, the king had requested this assistance. The problem is, this assistance should not be sought nor should it be rendered. The Amalekite falls as a murderer because he stretched out his hand to take another life without there being any of the extenuating circumstances in which the Lord will allow this to be done (i.e. in battle, for justice, in self-defense, etc).
It seems that, if David is acting as God would have him act (which seems to be the intended teaching of the author of 2 Samuel), we should learn that God does not want us to take action to end the life of another person made in his image simply because that person wants us to. God is the Master of life and death. God has written every last one of our days that he has ordained for us (Psalm 139:16). It is right to leave this issue in the hands of our God.
It is always possible that you are reading this after having chosen to assist another’s death, and you feel incredibly guilty over what you have done. Remember that the Lord’s mercy is great. Jesus Christ died as an atoning sacrifice for all of the sins of all of God’s people. If you will repent of your sin, confess it to Christ, turn to Jesus and trust in him for mercy, he will forgive you. This does not excuse anything, but it will result in you being cleansed for your sins and made into a child of God.
Right Response to Ugly authority (1 Samuel 26:8-11)
1 Samuel 26:8-11
8 Then said Abishai to David, “God has given your enemy into your hand this day. Now please let me pin him to the earth with one stroke of the spear, and I will not strike him twice.” 9 But David said to Abishai, “Do not destroy him, for who can put out his hand against the Lord’s anointed and be guiltless?” 10 And David said, “As the Lord lives, the Lord will strike him, or his day will come to die, or he will go down into battle and perish. 11 The Lord forbid that I should put out my hand against the Lord’s anointed. But take now the spear that is at his head and the jar of water, and let us go.”
1 Samuel 26:21-22
21 Then Saul said, “I have sinned. Return, my son David, for I will no more do you harm, because my life was precious in your eyes this day. Behold, I have acted foolishly, and have made a great mistake.” 22 And David answered and said, “Here is the spear, O king! Let one of the young men come over and take it.
All of us, at one time or another, have been under leadership that we did not particularly enjoy. Perhaps you have been less-than-pleased with the results of a local or national election. Perhaps you have worked for a boss who is just a tyrant. Perhaps you are in a class with a teacher who is simply impossible to please. How should you respond?
Though God chose to anoint David as King of Israel, King Saul kept occupying that position for several years. Saul mistreated David, falsely accusing David of ambition and trying to kill him on more than one occasion. In two instances, as Saul was hunting David down in the wilderness, David found himself with the advantage over Saul. David could have killed King Saul, but chose not to do so.
Why did David not destroy Saul? David was not averse to killing an enemy. As a soldier, David had shed much blood. However, David refused to stretch out his hand against Saul, because Saul, so long as he lived, was the Lord’s anointed king over Israel. David, though Saul was not at all sane, would not destroy the man whom God had placed on Israel’s throne.
Now, it is also interesting, looking at verses 21 and 22 above, that David did not put himself in a position to be harmed by Saul. When Saul wept before David in much the same way an abusive husband often weeps after an outburst, David did not trust Saul or put himself back under Saul’s roof. Nor did David lash out at Saul or otherwise try to harm him. Instead, David merely pointed out that he was not going to harm Saul, and went on his way.
So, what about you and me in our world? Perhaps God would remind us today that he has indeed anointed those who are in authority over us. Whether these be our pastors, our governors, our bosses, or our president, God has, for God’s own reasons, given these individuals their positions of power. Perhaps we love what they do. Perhaps we do not like them at all. But God would teach us from David’s example never to lash out to do these men or women harm. No one can stretch out his hand against the Lord’s anointed and find himself blameless in the process. This does not mean that we have to trust these people. Nor does it mean that we give them carte blanche to break the commands of our Lord. It certainly does not mean that we allow ourselves to be abused by them. However, like David, we must learn to live within the system if possible, to prayerfully ask God to change what needs to be changed, and to trust that our Lord will accomplish his will for his glory in and through our leadership.
Obviously, there can arise a thousand moral questions from this little pondering of our response to authorities. I cannot address every possibility here. But I think it is good for the people of God to consider if we respond to our authorities—good or bad—in the way that would honor God as David did? Do we show them the respect that is commanded in Romans 13; or how about the prayer? If we trust that God is sovereign and if we believe his word is true, we are to respond to the men and women he places in authority over us with the kind of humility we see in David and which Paul spells out in Romans 13.
Pithy Platitudes , Doctrinal Disaster (Mark 12:24)
Mark 12:24
Jesus said to them, “Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?”
One of the most common and most dangerous things that happens in churches all over the world is something we see in Mark 12. A group of men from the Sadducees comes to confront Jesus with a riddle they themselves cannot solve. Because those men did not believe in the resurrection from the dead, they assume they have Jesus backed into a corner with their question about a woman who was married to seven different men in her lifetime. Sneering, they ask, “whose wife will this lady be in the resurrection?” Jesus responds with the words we see above, condemning their lack of understanding of the Scripture and of the power and plan of God.
While we may not run into many who claim Christ without believing in the resurrection of the saints, we do have many people in our churches who assume that they have doctrine figured out. Without resorting to the hard work of genuine study of the Bible, people in our churches often take for granted theological and moral positions that are in direct contradiction to the word of God and its teaching. Often, these folks have heard a pithy saying or oft repeated phrase, and have digested it as biblical doctrine without any look for themselves at the word of God.
What is a fair example? How about some of the legalistic positions of days gone by? Let’s pick something as simple as playing cards. Because card playing in years gone by was connected with both fortune-telling and gambling, some Christians decided to declare any playing of any card game to be sinful. The problem was, while those believers wanted to protect themselves from evil, they actually developed a standard of righteousness that was beyond the clear teaching of God’s word. In a word, they became legalists.
Take another example. How about the question of going to a restaurant or doing yard work on a Sunday. To some believers, any activity that can be construed as work in any way on a Sunday is sin. How did they come to this conclusion? These believers came to their conclusion by applying the Sabbath regulations of the Old Testament to Christian behavior on Sundays. However, they fail to see that Christ has fulfilled the law of the Sabbath, that the Sabbath rest is a rest from any attempt to work one’s way to God, and that the Lord’s Day, while similar, is not the Jewish Sabbath. Finally, they fail to recognize the regulation of Romans 14 which calls Christians to be convinced in their own minds about how to treat the days of the week, but to not judge others who differ from them in their views.
The point here is not to call Christians to give up all their beliefs about gambling or Sabbaths. The point is to call believers to truly examine the Scriptures for what they believe. The reason we are sometimes wrong about our beliefs is that, as Jesus said, we neither know the Scriptures nor the power of our God. When we know the Scriptures, truly examining the word of God for all our beliefs, we will walk away from legalism and toward a zeal for good works that will honor God. Some of our standards we will keep, because those standards are upheld in the word. Some of our standards, we will throw away, as we realize that our beliefs have not been recorded in God’s word, but have merely been man-made regulations passed down from generation to generation without biblical warrant.
Christians, we will honor God more when everything we believe is based on first-hand knowledge of the scripture. We will please God more when we believe right doctrine from experience with the word, and not from believing platitudes that have endured for generations without Scriptural support.
Who Wins, the Word or My Emotions? (2 Corinthians 7:14-16)
2 Corinthians 7:14-16
14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,
“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
I once had a strange encounter with a church’s pastor search committee. I had been working in Korea for only 1 year, and was home for a vacation. I got a call from a man who asked me to have lunch with him. It turned out that he brought his entire search committee with him even though I told him quite clearly that I was not interested in a move.
During our conversation, one of the committee members asked me this question: “Would you perform a wedding for a Christian and a non-Christian?” I told him that, according to 2 Corinthians 7, God forbids his children from intermarrying with the lost. The man then replied to me, “Well, you wouldn’t’ have married me and my wife.” His experience was that he was not a believer when his supposedly Christian wife married him. At the time of the meeting, they had both become believers. I responded by telling him that, though God graciously sometimes allows our decisions not to lead us to disaster, to choose to disobey god’s direct command is still sin. The man’s response to me: “You know, I often hear that answer from you guys who are just out of seminary, but as you get older, your tone will change.”
What the search committee member was trying to tell me was that his personal experience—his wife married a non-Christian with positive results—actually trumped the strict command of the Bible. How common is this view? Look around your church. How many ladies do you see in church without their husbands who are not saved? For some reason, it has been the practice of the church for years to ignore God’s command for his children only to marry other Christians, and this with devastatingly sad consequences.
Of course, from this passage, we should learn that Christians must only marry Christians. But we can also learn from how this command is so often disobeyed. Refusing to follow God’s commands is deadly. To read the word of God, see the command, and then turn from it with a shrug and assume it does not apply to you is very dangerous.
What has God’s word called you to do? What has God’s word called you to be? Are you shrugging off any commands of god for the sake of your emotions? Are you assuming that what you have experienced is more solid and trustworthy than God’s word? O Christians, be careful. Honor God by following his commands as they are written in his word.
Almost Obeying (1 Samuel 15:8-9)
1 Samuel 15:8-9
8 And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive and devoted to destruction all the people with the edge of the sword. 9 But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fattened calves and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them. All that was despised and worthless they devoted to destruction.
Have you ever found yourself almost willing to obey? Have you ever thought that you were going to follow God to a point, but not to go too far? Have you ever wanted to tell God that you would do one thing, but not another? If so, you were disobedient.
1 Samuel 15 is the account of King Saul’s final disobedience before God told him through Samuel that he would lose the kingdom. God had charged Saul with destroying an enemy people completely. Saul was willing to obey to a point. He was willing to destroy the things he wanted to destroy. But, when it came to destroying treasures and spoils that Saul wanted to keep, he turned up his nose at the command of God.
You know, it is very easy to think like King Saul. It is easy to obey God when you want to. It is hard to obey in areas where, well, obeying is hard. It’s sort of like a child who finds eating chocolate cake easy, but broccoli hard. However, to be obedient to God, we must be determined to follow him when following is easy and when following is not.
This would be a good place for you and me to take time to think pretty clearly about how we obey. Where is obedience easy? Great, keep that up. Where is obedience hard? Where are you tempted to tell God, “I won’t give you that much?” In those places, remember what disobedience cost Saul. Remember that partial obedience is disobedience. Ask God to grant you the heart and character to follow him all the way.
Gospel Smells (2 Corinthians 2:14-16)
2 Corinthians 2:14-16
14 But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. 15 For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, 16 to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?
For many years of my life, I went to New Orleans to share the gospel with revelers during mardi Gras. This was always a fascinating time of ministry. We were not, by the way, the harsh guys with the bullhorns and cruelly worded signs. Instead, we often had our most productive conversations with people who were walking away from those guys.
One year, in New Orleans, I remember thinking to myself, “What possible good am I doing here?” People were not responding very positively to our presentations of the gospel. No one was being radically saved on the Bourbon Street sidewalks. Instead, everything we did seemed to meet with as much apathy as anything.
At some point in thinking this issue through with other brothers in Christ on the street, we stumbled upon the truth of the verses above. We first worded it this way: “We are being a witness, either to someone’ salvation or their condemnation.” What we meant was that our sharing of the gospel to the inebriated masses in the Crescent City was not empty. Either a person would be saved, eventually, and look back and perhaps remember that they had heard the gospel truth in New Orleans as one step on their path to conversion. Otherwise, a person would not be saved, and as they eventually would stand before God, they would remember that they did hear the true gospel at least once on the streets of New Orleans. Either way, that gospel witness would be recalled in their story of salvation or condemnation.
It was interesting, then, to happen across the same sentiment in the life of Paul in 2 Corinthians 2. Paul talked of his gospel witness as a smell. To some, the message of the cross stinks. To others, it is glorious. To some, the cross will lead them to death, as the cross is the center of their rejection of God and is love. To others, the cross is beautiful, as it is the place where they find God’s mercy and become his child.
Christians, right now, you are a smell. So, make as much smell as you can. Tell people about Jesus. Share the gospel. You might see people saved. You might not. Either way, it is your job to be faithful. Perhaps your presentation of the cross and the risen Savior will stink to them and be one more charge against them on judgment day. Perhaps your witness will only be one more way in which the Lord will tell them that he put his grace in front of them to receive. Or, perhaps your presentation of the cross will smell sweet. Perhaps your gospel presentation will be one part of what God uses to plant a seed, water it, or harvest a saved soul. Either way, you are used by God to accomplish his will for his glory.
Ebenezer (1 Samuel 7:12)
1 Samuel 7:12
Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer; for he said, “Till now the Lord has helped us.”
“Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.”
Have you ever sung the above verse of “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” and caught yourself thinking more of Ebenezer Scrooge than of the word of God? This is a gorgeous line of poetry, but it only has weight in our lives if we remember what the hymn writer is saying.
In 1 Samuel 7:12, Samuel has just seen God bring great deliverance to his people. After a particular victory over their Philistine foes, Samuel sets up a stone in memory of the fact that God has faithfully protected his people. The point of the stone was to remind the people, every time they saw it, that God has always been faithful in the past and surely will continue to be faithful in the future.
What about you? Do you have an Ebenezer? Can you look back to a point in your life where you have seen God be faithful to you? Have you marked down that place and said, “I know God has been faithful to me here, and I will trust him with my future?” If so, great. If not, think back over your life. Think of a time when God has taken care of you. Mark it down. Remember it. Then, when you find yourself tempted to despair, look back at your marker stone, your Ebenezer, and sing out those glorious lines: “Hither by Thy help I’m come, and I hope, by Thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home.”
