Zach’s Theological Musings

  In a recent post I mentioned an observation that people who have a dishonoring attitude toward their parents often take on, in some sense or another, a “surrogate parent” (or “parents”) to fill the void. As an addendum, I would like to warn against a particularly subtle, deceptive, and destructive way this can happen: when God is put in the position of “replacement parent”.

  Now, make no mistake about it, God definitely is the ultimate, true Father of all who have received and believed in His Son Jesus Christ (John 1:12). But that is just as true for those who have a great relationship with their biological parents as it is for those who have a sour relationship with them. His role as true, eternal Father does not replace the role and respect due to the physical, earthly mother and father He ordained to give to each of us. Receiving His Heavenly Fatherhood only intensifies, rather than diminishes, our responsibility to honor our earthly parents in ways pleasing to Him.

 And [Jesus] said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,

   “‘This people honors me with their lips,
   but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me,
   teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

 You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”

 And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”‘ (that is, given to God)—then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.” (Mark 7:6-13)

  I think Americans have a hard time wrapping their heads around the above passage. Did Jesus really scold people for “giving money to God” (we could say, “giving to the Lord’s cause”) rather than to their parents? Yes, that is my understanding of this passage. But doesn’t Jesus command us to hate our “own father and mother…” compared to our love and devotion to Him? Yes, absolutely. I will be the first to acknowledge and proclaim that fidelity to God trumps everything else in life (Matt 10:34-39). So if God wanted you to give your money to the temple rather than your parents, then by all means that is what you must and should do. But that’s not the way He wants it. The way He wants us to honor and obey HIM is through honoring our parents, which includes providing for them in their old age. If you wrap a pious explanation around sinful disobedience to God’s command, it remains just as repulsive, in fact more so; not only is your heart far from the Lord, but you have “covered over your tracks” by honoring Him with your lips. This kind of hypocrisy made Jesus quite angry.

  Just as then, so now, the “traditions of men” (e.g. pop-evangelical psychology) reject and make void the commandments of God whenever we (explicitly or implicitly) tell people that it is OK to dishonor their parents because God is now their real Father.

  Christian citizens submit to human governments because God the Great King commands them to. Christian wives submit to their husbands because Christ the Forever Bridegroom commands them to.  Christian children (including adult, grown children!) honor their parents because the Father commands them to. The Lord’s Kingship, Husbandship, and Fatherhood do not undermine our human-to-human responsibilities. Indeed, because I have a Benevolent King I can deal with the wickedness of human leaders, because a woman is so deeply known and pursued by the Lover of her soul she can live with her husband’s shallowness, because our Father in Heaven raises and cares for us in all the right ways we can accept the fact that our parents didn’t.

  When we are not fully satisfied in God, all human relationships go awry because we will inevitably try to extract the infinite satisfaction we were designed for from finite beings. When we are fully satisified in God, then no one can disappoint us because we need nothing from them, the only “need” we have is spread the love, forgiveness, understanding, mercy, grace, and kindness that overflows from us in abundance (Rom 13:8). The image of a “God-shaped vacuum” appears to have come from the following quote by Blaise Pascal:

What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself. [Pascal, Pensees #425]

Our fallen, sinful parents leave a “Father-shaped vacuum” in each of our hearts. When God fills that vacuum we are not freed from the obligation to honor our parents, we are freed to honor them fully, from the heart, regardless of circumstances and without expecting anything in return.

  Note that I posted a new page of online sermon recommendations from my dad.

  One preacher on that list is Paul Washer. Washer is an American missionary to Peru, director of HeartCry Missionary Society, and itinerant preacher when back in the USA. Because of the nature of Washer’s ministry you may not find from him a verse-by-verse exposition through books of the Bible. While I praise God for granting Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones 13 years before he died to make it 4/5 of the way through Romans with his church this way, Washer’s role as intinerant preacher also carries certain advantages. In particular consider: if you had only one hour, or two hours, or one hour per night for a week, what would be the most important, crucial, urgent message to bring to American “evangelical” Christians? Washer hits the nail on the head better than anyone I’ve heard.

  Washer frequently likes to ask the question, “When is the last time you wept over your own sin?” My honest answer (though I may wish my answer was different): probably the last time I listened to a Paul Washer sermon.

Audio:

1. Selection of Washer sermons available through HeartCry missionary society.
2. Many more Washer sermons available at SermonAudio.com.

Video:

1. Ten Indictments Against the Modern “Church”.
2. Video regarding persecution coming to America, “counting the cost” of following Jesus, and (what Josef Tson would call) “Stolen Martyrdom” — that when you are persecuted your persecutors will probably not hurl against you accusations about the true nature of what they don’t like about you, but rather will simply hurl accusations designed to you hurt you most deeply and do the most damage (4 min): http://media.sermonindex.net/17/SID17663.wmv.
3. A so-called “shocking message” delivered to youth evangelism conference in 2002. Apparently this is where Washer began to be known as a preacher that people either loved or hated. Basically, it is a “classic” Washer message on the true gospel, true vs. false assurance of salvation, and a call to examine yourself. I would say the “shocking” part is that perfectly clear, oft-repeated teachings of Scripture are so neglected that when someone simply speaks out to affirm them it is considered “shocking” (59 min): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuabITeO4l8.
4. “Whosoever will may come. What will it cost you to become a Christian? Absolutely everything. Absolutely everything. What does God promise you? Eternal life, and a cross. What is it worth? All the value that is God. All the value that is God.” (1 min): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLIJM4B6_ZM&feature=related.

  Excerpt from Jonathan Edwards, “God Glorified in the Work of Redemption”:

“The redeemed have all their objective good in God. God himself is the great good which they are brought to the possession and enjoyment of by redemption. He is the highest good, and the sum of all that good which Christ has purchased. God is the inheritance of the saints; he is the portion of their souls. God is their wealth and treasure, their food, their life, their dwelling place, their ornament and diadem, and their everlasting honor and glory. They have none in heaven but God; he is the great good which the redeemed are received to at death, and which they are to rise to at the end of the world.

The Lord God, he is the light of the heavenly Jerusalem; and is the ‘the river of the water of life’ that runs, and the tree of life that grows, ‘in the midst of the paradise of God.’ The glorious excellencies and beauty of God will be what will forever entertain the minds of the saints, and the love of God will be their everlasting feast. The redeemed will indeed enjoy other things; they will enjoy the angels, and will enjoy one another: but that which they shall enjoy in the angels, or each other, or in anything else whatsoever, that will yield them delight and happiness, will be what will be seen of God in them.”

HT: Nick R.

Subtitle: Exegeting Creation.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed…” 

  The English word “poem” comes from the Greek root “poiema” which refers to a created thing/something made. For example, both Genesis 1:1 (in the Greek Septuagint) and Romans 1:20 use a form of this word to describe God’s work of creation (see also “workmanship” in Ephesians 2:10). The physical world is a “poem” coming from the very mouth of God. Creation doesn’t just “exist”, it tells a story. It is God communicating.

  John Piper says it like this, “The universe and everything in it is God’s work of art. What’s the point of this word? The point is that in a poem there is manifest design and intention and wisdom and power. The wind might create a letter in the sand, but not a poem. That’s the point. God acted. God planned. God designed. God crafted. He created and made. And in doing that, Paul says in [Romans 1] verse 19, God made himself evident to all mankind. The universe is a poem about God.” (Sermon at Bethlehem Baptist Church, September 27, 1998)

  It cannot be denied that throughout the Scriptures God uses similies, metaphors and allegories which draw on the physical world to teach spiritual lessons. It seems to me to be almost as surely undeniable that God planned all of this before He created the world. In other words, long before Jesus taught His disciples that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, He designed mustard seeds to be like the kingdom of heaven, in order that He might teach about the kingdom of heaven using mustard seeds.

  Commenting on Jesus’ parables in Matthew 13, Matthew Henry reminds us to hear the word of God preaching to us in all of God’s creation around us: “Christ chose to do thus, … That common actions might hereby be spiritualized, and we might take occasion from those things which fall so often under our view, to meditate with delight on the things of God; and thus, when our hands are busiest about the world, we may not only notwithstanding that, but even with the help of that, be led to have our hearts in heaven. Thus the word of God shall talk with us, talk familiarly with us, Prov 6:22.” (from Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: New Modern Edition, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1991 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.; Matt 13:1-23)

  Here is just a sampling of some ways we can look at God’s creation and be reminded of Biblical truth:

1. God made rocks to be so strong and firm in order that we might understand what it means that, “The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge.” (Psalm 18:2) And whenever you see a stone structure you can be reminded that we as Christ’s disciples are living stones being built up into a spiritual house, leaning in on Him as our Chief Cornerstone (I Peter 2).
2. God designed a solar system in which we observe the sun faithfully coming up day after day without fail in order to help us appreciate God’s faithfulness to His covenants and especially His covenant people. “Thus says the LORD, “If you can break My covenant for the day and My covenant for the night, so that day and night will not be at their appointed time, then My covenant may also be broken with David My servant so that he will not have a son to reign on his throne… ” (Jeremiah 33:20ff).
3. Why is there hair on your head (at least for most of us)? Hair teaches us many things about God. For one thing, it illustrates how God knows us better than we know ourselves (Matthew 10:30). Hair is also a testimony to mankind’s lack of control over the affairs of the world, even himself (Matthew 5:36). Hair is even a reminder of the extent of our salvation, that even though we be put to death by our enemies in this world, yet in Christ “not a hair of your head will perish” (Luke 21:18). It is not so surprising then that Paul even dedicated half a chapter to issues about hair in I Cor 11.
4. Fishing, farming, gardening, and baking all have a great deal to say about Judgment Day and life in the Kingdom of God. Just see Jesus’ parables.
5. If you eat a Fig Newton be sure to remember the signs that Jesus is coming soon (Matthew 24:32ff).
6. Trees and foliage thrive along the edge of a river, and they do it by God’s design for our sake, that we might grasp our own need to sink our roots into the Living Waters (cf. Psalm 1).
7. Fire is hot! I thank God for the gift of painful yet temporary burns in order that I might learn to fear Him and avoid His wrath in the never ending Lake of Fire.
8. Dust is a humbling reminder of what we came from as well as the destiny of these current bodies (Gen 2:7, Gen 3:19). However, we can also have hope and be encouraged when we look at dust and remember God’s covenant with Abraham and his seed (Gen 13:16).

  We could go on and on, and in future blog posts I probably will. All the different animals, plants, minerals, seasons, weather conditions, relationships, social patterns, human and celestial events, are ultimately about God, Christ, and the gospel.

  That’s all for now. It’s time for me to go think about the regal Lion of Judah while I brush my teeth (Gen 49:12).

  The literal concept behind the root of the Greek words for humility, from what I can tell, is basically “lowliness” - “not rising far from the ground” (Thayer & Smith). Now, sometimes the word “humility” is taken to mean something like “considering yourself as more more lowly than you really are”. But what a proud concept of humility that is! As if considering ourselves to be lowly required some form of deception or pretending!

  Philippians 2:3-4 says,

Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Many years ago my proud heart was struck with the new idea (!) that this passage was not calling me to “act as if” others were better than myself, but to live according to the reality of the fact that my (genuine) interests really are no more significant than anyone else’s (genuine) interests. My interests usually feel more significant to me than the interests of others, but that feeling is not in line with reality.

  Ten years later, I keep going back to this passage and preaching to myself that others’ interests really are at least as great as my own. There is nothing about me which is more important than anyone else. And every time my heart responds with, “Huh? Really?” So I keep reminding myself, and hopefully the truth will sink in more and more.

  The reality of the universe is that God is at the center and billions of people, of whom I am only one, are gathered around Him to bow the knee (Phil 2:10). It is not God and Zach at the center, with everyone else gathered around. Certainly that fact is obvious to you (unless your name is also Zach), but it is a challenge for me to accept it. It is not even God, followed by God’s inner circle of Zach and a few others, and then all those other people in the outer circles. No! Can you believe it, it is only God in the center!?

  In fact, there is a further reality check that keeps me in my place. It appears that perhaps there is an inner circle, and I’m not part of it! I mean, Jesus told His apostles that they would sit on twelve thrones (Matt 19:28), and then there are the twenty-four elders who sit on their twenty-four thrones (Rev 4). Now I don’t know who these twenty-four elders are, but out of all of God’s people throughout all of history, am I going to be one of the twenty-four elders? Nope. Now, I suppose that the meaning of these passages is debatable. Perhaps everybody gets a throne. Or perhaps the “twenty-four elders” are symbolic of something else. I don’t know. But I tell you what: if God does want to exalt some of His saints above others for all of eternity then I say He has every right to do that!And if I am at the boundary of the outermost circle, as long as I get to partake of the beautiful radiance of His glory that He promised to all of us who trust in Christ (I will hold Him to that promise), then that is great. What more can you ask for — a throne? A crown? Come on.

Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee,
Who wert and art and evermore shalt be.

  Looking through the uses of “humble” and “humility” it seems to me that, with one exception, the Bible is never talking about man making himself to be lower than he really is. When we are called to humble ourselves, it is not a call to play make believe, but rather a call to get in touch with reality. The one exception is Phil 2:8, “And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!” Jesus made Himself lowly in a way which was not inherent to His nature.  For the rest of us human beings, as utterly dependent creatures, lowliness is inherent to our nature. Therefore I would propose the following as perhaps not complete definitions, but at least as food-for-thought definitions:

Humility — Man’s accurate assessment of himself in light of reality

Pride — Man’s false assessment of himself

Glorious — God’s assessment of Himself (which obviously is accurate)