by HARVEYOPP | Jul 3, 2015 | Scott Henry
“Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance” (Psalm 42:5).
Psalm 42, which was written by the Sons of Korah, aptly applied to the life of King David, the sweet psalmist of Israel. David had many occasions of heaviness of heart because of the constant turmoil in his life. He suffered the cruel persecution of Saul who hunted him like a wild animal; he suffered the betrayal of his trusted friend Ahithophel; David suffered the heartache of his son Absalom who rebelled against his rule as king; and besides all these things, David had to deal with the daily remembrance of his own sins, and all these things are enough to overwhelm the strongest child of God. David was a man with sinful passions like us. He was not always on the mountain-top of joy, but spent many seasons in the slough of despond. However, David did not give way to despair, nor was he swallowed up by his sorrows. Rather, he responded like a rational creature, created as God’s image, by speaking to himself in order to discover the cause of his depression. He said to himself, “Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me?” David sought to know the reason for his despair. This is often the first step toward recovery from a heavy, depressed heart. As we all know, murmuring and complaining gets us nowhere. There needs to be serious self-examination as we ask ourselves the plain question, “Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me?” What good is giving way to despair? To sit and sulk and feel sorry for yourself is not “redeeming the time” (Ephesians 5:16), nor does it produce the joy of the Lord.
Whatever the reason for your depressed soul, Psalm 42 brings the only cure when it says, “Hope in God.” Whether your trouble arises because of your finances, your family, your friends, or your own sin, Psalm 42 declares the only cure, “Hope in God”, for He lives and reigns forever over the whole universe. Hope in God because He is the One who fed two million Israelites in the wilderness for forty years. Do you think His arm is too short to care for you and your family? God sustained Elijah in the time of famine — can He not also supply your needs? “Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” (Matthew 6:30). The immediate outlook of our circumstances may be dark, but the promises of God to every believer dispel the darkness of despair. Our God is “a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1). Therefore, “Hope in God.” Get your eyes off the circumstances of life, and set your focus upon the God who ordains, orders, and controls every circumstance. Remember that “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all” (Psalm 34:19). Remember that “weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” (Psalm 30:5). Therefore, “Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance” (Psalm 42:5).
by HARVEYOPP | Jun 26, 2015 | Scott Henry
“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).
Notice the Apostle Paul wrote that “all things work together for good to those who love God.” What does it mean to love God? Love for God is an abiding condition of the heart created by God’s grace and Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 5:5: “…because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” So, first of all, love for God is something that God must work in us by His grace. We read in 1 John 4:19 that we love God because He first loved us. Love for God, in its essence, is not a love for God because of all that He gives, but love for God, first and foremost, is love for all that He is, love for Him, love for His person, love for His character, love for His perfections. It’s adoration for God as God. We see this love expressed in Psalm 63:1: “O God, You are my God; early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.”
You see, love for God is esteem, reverence, and worship of God for who He is … the righteous, holy, just, loving, merciful, sovereign, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God of the universe who has mercy on whom He will have mercy and hardens whom He hardens. To love God is to love Him for who He is and not simply for what He gives. Those who love God say with Job, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him”, and their confession agrees completely with the words of Habakkuk 3:17-18: “Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines; though the labor of the olive may fail, and the fields yield no food; though the flock may be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls; yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.”
What about you? Do you love God in the depths of your soul for who He is or only for what He gives? There are many people in churches all across the land who profess that they’re Christians, but as soon as God sends trials, sorrow, suffering, or sickness upon them they turn their back on God. You see, these hypocrites want the blessings, but not the God who gives the blessings. To love God is to desire, treasure, adore, and delight in God; to love Him is to be satisfied with Him! When trials, sorrow, suffering, or sickness come upon us we demonstrate our love for God when we sing with the hymn writer: “Let sorrow do its work, come grief or pain; sweet are Thy messengers, sweet their refrain, when they can sing with me: More love, O Christ, to Thee; More love to Thee, more love to Thee!”
by HARVEYOPP | Jun 26, 2015 | Tim Challies
God’s providence is the single greatest hindrance to the floods of sin that would otherwise gush out of our sinful hearts. If it were not for God’s care and preservation, even we Christians would be far more sinful than we dare imagine. If it were not for God’s gracious interference, our best efforts in holiness would not be enough to keep us from drowning in sin and heaping contempt on the name of Christ. God takes far better care of us than we do of ourselves. For this reason, every Christian owes unending thanks to God for preserving us from what we would otherwise do and who we would otherwise become. This is roughly what John Flavel teaches in chapter 6 of his work The Mystery of Providence. Here are a few of the ways in which God interferes with our desire and attempts to sin against him.
God stirs up other people, and especially other Christians, to keep us from fulfilling the evil we had planned to do. I heard some time ago from a young man who had his heart set on viewing pornography for the very first time. But just as he sat down in front of his computer his phone buzzed, and he found that his friend was calling simply to ask how he was doing in his battle for sexual purity. Just like that his intention to sin was thwarted for another day. God had intervened through the hand of another person.
God sometimes interferes with the very means or tools we had intended to use for evil purposes. The Spanish intended to invade England to overthrow the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I, but God used a mighty storm to break apart the Spanish fleet and end the threat. Perhaps that power outage or that computer crash you experienced, though an inconvenience, was actually a great mercy. God uses means both known and unknown to us to hinder us in our pursuit of sin.
God sometimes brings pain or sickness to our bodies in order to prevent us from sin. He uses these little evils to prevent the carrying out of much greater evil. Eternity may reveal that the headache that drove you to bed yesterday was actually a gift of God to prevent you from committing some great sin.
God sometimes uses his well-timed Word or even human wisdom to prevent his people from committing acts of sin. When Asaph’s mind became filled with thoughts of the prosperity of the wicked, God dissolved his ingratitude through worship (see Psalm 73). How often have you considered sin, but been drawn aside by wisdom that has suddenly flooded your mind, or wisdom someone has quietly spoken to you?
God sometimes prevents his people from falling into sin by taking their very lives. Who knows what sin God has prevented, and what shame he has stopped, by graciously taking the lives of one of his saints before that person was able to commit so grave a sin. What seems like the ultimate evil may well have been the ultimate gift.
God’s kind providence keeps us from being as sinful as we would otherwise be. So, Christian, thank God for his providence, and prepare to be amazed when, in eternity, God gives you the gift of seeing how often and to what extent he has kept you from sin.
by HARVEYOPP | Jun 25, 2015 | Uncategorized
Last week, in preparation to preach from Philippians, I began tracking how often I grumble. How often do I complain either out loud, under my breath, or in my mind? I’m ashamed to say it was far more than I would have suspected.
Paul says we should do all things without grumbling or disputing (Phil. 2:14). He then goes on to describe four characteristics of what we will become when we do so: blameless, innocent, children of God, and above reproach. He’s not talking about salvation with these terms; that was accomplished by grace through faith in the death and resurrection of Christ. He’s instead talking about how others will perceive us. He’s talking about an outward revelation of an inward reality.
I’m a little surprised by Paul’s description of this outward revelation. Why not focus on bigger issues? Wouldn’t our salvation be better evidenced by things refraining from lying or stealing or murdering our neighbor? Actually, no. Societal pressures can limit all of these things, even in non-believers. But what comes out of my mouth when things don’t go my way indicates whose kingdom I serve.
In the context of that chapter, Paul has been talking about Jesus’s self-sacrifice and willingness to put others first. Paul encourages us to model this example with a humble mindset and unselfish behavior. But selflessness can be a rather abstract idea, and our loophole mentality can cause us to weasel out of considering the importance of others. So Paul offers us a practical, though nearly impossible, task: Don’t grumble. About anything.
Why We Must Stop Grumbling
Don’t grumble about anything? Even traffic? Even the long line at the DMV? Even the weather? Even politicians? Even that annoying church member? Yes, even those things. By not grumbling we shine light in the world for a crooked and perverse generation.
Is Paul really saying that if I quit grumbling about things, I will appear as a light in a dark world? I admit I was a bit skeptical. But I really do think that’s what he meant, since for me to stop grumbling several things have to happen.
First, I need to humble myself to realize that my small grumblings really are sinful and offensive to God. This kind of humility chips away at my pride.
Second, I need to get to the bottom of the issue. I need to ask God to graciously show me where and why I grumble. During my weeklong experiment, in every instance I grumbled because things weren’t going my way. Grumbling usually blames someone or something else: an inefficient worker, an unjust system, an inconvenient incident. But the thought occurred to me this week: Why do I deserve this line to go faster or that person to act a certain way or my day to have a certain type of weather? I don’t.
Awareness of my grumbling showed me where I desire my kingdom, rather than God’s kingdom, to flourish. That is always the issue. When I grumble in response to circumstances, I am stating that the values of my kingdom matter more than the values of God’s kingdom. I am stating that people should work better for my sake, that systems should function in certain ways for my benefit, and that the weather should conform to my particular desires. I am the focus of my life.
Grumbling Hinders Humility
Third, I need to recognize that tendency to focus on myself and, instead, look to Jesus. He is the perfect example of what to do when kingdoms conflict. He was God’s kingdom on earth—and the kingdom of the world constantly clashed with him. Yet he didn’t “consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself . . . he humbled himself becoming obedient.”
Paul knew that to conquer the grumbles, you have to submit to God’s kingdom, to die to self. And when you submit to God’s kingdom, this attitude will pervade not only your words but also your actions. Conquering the grumbles may seem like a small part of building God’s kingdom, but because of what it requires, it’s a foundational building block. When in humility we seek to stop grumbling, we necessarily start building God’s kingdom instead of our own. Then his light shines through us in a dark world, allowing others to see God more clearly.
At a local fast-food restaurant I visit there is an employee who always smiles as he cleans the tables and picks the trash off the floor. Instead of complaining or rolling his eyes at the mess that some people make, he sings about Jesus, quietly, almost inaudibly. He is a light, often receiving smiles in return from customers as he passes on to another mess. By refusing to grumble he is showing what it means to live in God’s kingdom. May his tribe increase and our grumbles decrease.
by HARVEYOPP | Jun 25, 2015 | Tim Challies
It is our duty to reflect on life’s circumstances and to look for God’s hand in them. It is our duty because God works in and through our circumstances and, by his providence, matures and strengthens us in them. In his work The Mystery of Providence, John Flavel writes about the importance of doing this very thing: reflecting upon God’s performance of providence. He offers 7 reasons that this is our duty.
God commands it. God expressly commands that we seriously and diligently reflect on our circumstances and acknowledge his providence. This is true whether we perceive them to be acts of mercy or acts of judgment. We are responsible before God to investigate each one of them. If we fail to do this we fail to uncover these evidences of God’s favor and, instead, display our own lack of faithfulness.
Neglecting it is a sin. We know the importance of reflecting on God’s providence because to fail to do so is called a sin. To be unobservant in this way is displeasing to God.
The Bible draws special attention to God’s acts of providence. Consider, for example, God’s great work of deliverance in leading his people out of Egypt and into the promised land. God immediately calls on his people to observe and consider it. God calls upon all men to “come and see” the great works that he has done. These calls are meaningless unless it implies a serious duty.
We cannot praise God without it. How can we praise God if we do not praise him for the things he has done and is doing? Think again of how often the biblical writers consider what God has done and then give him praise and thanks. If we neglect this duty, we defraud God of the praise we owe him, and we remove the opportunity to worship his name.
Without it we lose the benefit of the works God has done. God’s great works are done so that we can praise and thank him for them. We need to consider what God has accomplished for us and for others. This is the food our faith feeds upon in times of distress. In troubled times we shall find ourselves starving if we do not taste of what God has done.
We slight God without it. It is through God’s providence that he draws near to us. We slight him—we turn away from his presence—if we do not rejoice in his providence. It is contemptuous of us to ignore him when he is present with us.
We cannot suitably pray without it. Unless we observe God’s providence, we cannot pray in a way that is suitable to our circumstances. Sometimes we are to pray prayers of praise and other times prayers of contrition. We cannot know how we are to pray unless we observe his providence and read it properly.
In each of these ways we owe it to our God to consider his providence in each of our circumstances.
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