by HARVEYOPP | Oct 30, 2015 | Tim Challies
Many Christians have declared Romans to be the finest book of the Bible, the high peak of Scripture. J.I. Packer echoes many pastors and theologians when he says, “All roads in the Bible lead to Romans, and all views afforded by the Bible are seen most clearly from Romans, and when the message of Romans gets into a person’s heart there is no telling what may happen.” He goes on to give 4 reasons that we ought to read, study, and know the book of Romans.
Romans is a book of doctrine. Romans is a book of truth about God taught by God. “You will find that Romans gives you all the main themes integrated together: God, man, sin, law, judgment, faith, works, grace, creation, redemption, justification, sanctification, the plan of salvation, election, reprobation, the person and work of Christ, the work of the Spirit, the Christian hope, the nature of the church, the place of Jew and Gentile in God’s purpose, the philosophy of church and world history, the meaning and message of the Old Testament, the significance of baptism, the principles of personal piety and ethics, the duties of Christian citizenship — et cetera!”
Romans is a book of life. It shows “by exposition and example what it means to serve God and not to serve him, to find him, and to lose him in actual human experience. What has Romans to offer here? The answer is: the fullest cross-section of the life of sin and the life of grace, and the deepest analysis of the way of faith, that the Bibles gives anywhere.”
Romans is a book of the church. In Romans “the God-given faith and self-understanding of the believing fellowship is voiced. From this standpoint, Romans, just because it is the classic statement of the gospel by which the church lives, is also the classic account of the church’s identity. What is the church? It is the true seed of faithful Abraham, Jew and non-Jew together, chosen by God, justified through faith, and free from sin for a new life of personal righteousness and mutual ministry. It is the family of a loving heavenly Father, living in hope of inheriting his entire fortune. It is the community of the resurrection, in which the powers of Christ’s historic death and present heavenly life are already at work.”
Romans is a personal letter. Romans is a personal letter from God to each one of his spiritual children. “Read Romans this way, and you will find that it has unique power to search out and deal with things that are so much part of you that ordinarily you do not give them a thought—your sinful habits and attitudes; your instinct for hypocrisy; your natural self-righteousness and self-reliance; your constant unbelief; your moral frivolity, and shallowness in repentance; your half-heartedness, worldliness, fearfulness, despondency; your spiritual conceit and insensitiveness. And you will also find that this shattering letter has unique power to evoke the joy, assurance, boldness, liberty, and ardour of spirit which God both requires of and gives to those who love him.”
by HARVEYOPP | Aug 28, 2015 | Tim Challies
Sometimes it is the unexpected things that get you. Sometimes it is the words you have heard or said or sung a hundred times over that suddenly leap off the page—words like “My sin, not in part but the whole.” The words come, of course, from the much-loved hymn “It Is Well With My Soul,” a song that joyfully celebrates the freedom that is found in salvation.
“Not in part but the whole.” Have you ever considered your life, your death, and your eternity if you had to face God with your sins only partially forgiven? Can you imagine singing “My sin, not the whole but in part”?
Thankfully, wonderfully, forgiveness is not a partial thing. Forgiveness does not come in half measures; it is all or nothing. It is either extended or held back, freely offered or completely withheld. To be partly forgiven is to be wholly damned. Partial forgiveness is complete condemnation. The Christian and the Christian alone knows the pure delight of God’s full and final forgiveness.
Christian, you can joyfully accept and proclaim “My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin, not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more.” The biggest of your sins is nailed to the very same cross as the smallest. God has forgiven the sins you don’t even remember in the same way and to the same degree as the sins you just can’t forget. He has extended grace for the sins known to the whole world and the ones known only to you and him. And all of this means that you, with the hymn writer, must conclude: “Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!”
by HARVEYOPP | Jul 13, 2015 | Tim Challies
There are times in the Christian’s life where we wait upon God, where we wait for relief from some kind of affliction, and where we wait for a long time for God to answer prayer. I am certain that you have experienced times like these, and know that the temptation in such times is to despair and to demand, to grow angry and impatient. But in The Mystery of Providence John Flavel warns: Though God means to give you the comfort or mercy you long for, he usually first exercises your patience by making you wait. He does that for these 3 reasons:
- Because this is not the right time for you to receive that mercy. Simply stated, God does not judge time as you do. You are in a hurry, but God is not, and he knows the perfect time to dispense his mercy. “For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him” (Isaiah 30:18). Will you wait for his timing?
- These difficult circumstances have not accomplished in your heart what God means for them to accomplish. Though you may be earnest and impatient in your desire for what you believe are better circumstances, God will wait until the trial has accomplished his purposes.
- The more you pray and the more you search your heart, the sweeter the relief will be when it comes. God means to overwhelm you with his grace, and it may take fervent prayer and humble patience for you to respond to his mercy in the right way. “It will be said on that day, ‘Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation’ (Isaiah 25:9 ESV).”
As a sinful human being you are prone to judge your circumstances by your senses and observations. Always consider that God’s heart can be toward you even while his hand appears to be against you. If your circumstances continue unabated you may be tempted to think that your prayers have been useless and that you are without hope in the world. You may even go so far as to conclude that God is angry with you and has closed his ears to your prayers. But the God who has saved you will never turn his back on you.
Instead of believing such lies, consider these 6 things:
- God is delaying his mercy for your benefit. God is waiting so that he may extend grace to you at the perfect moment. Right now you are in the time of preparation where God is readying the comfort he means to give you. A foolish child plucks an apple while it is green. But when that apple is ripe, it drops off of its own accord and is far more delicious and wholesome. Wait with wisdom and patience. It will be worth the wait.
- A heart that trusts in God is far more precious than any comfort. It is a greater mercy to have a heart that trusts in God than to enjoy the comfort you are sure you need. Flavel says, “A frame is better than a fruition.” A heart oriented toward God is much more precious and enduring than any peaceful or comfortable circumstance.
- Mercy is never nearer than when your heart and hope is lowest. Light shines the brightest when you are sure that only darkness remains. God’s mercy will be all the brighter when your heart is in its darkest state.
- God delays his mercy because you are unfit to receive it. God’s mercy may be waiting for you to become ready to receive it. God may holding it back for your own good, even while you grumble and complain about his lack of haste.
- Remember that any mercy you desire is only and entirely a gift of grace. You do not deserve God’s mercy and have no claim to it. Because of this, the only proper way to wait for it is with patience and gratitude. You are waiting for a gift, not for your just reward.
Consider how many people are forever cut off from all hope of mercy. Consider those who are perishing without grace and how for them all that remains is the further expectation of wrath. This might have been you if not for the grace of God. So wait for God’s mercy with patient humility.
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 | 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.
by HARVEYOPP | Jun 10, 2015 | Tim Challies
Martin Luther once compared the Christian to a drunk man trying to ride a horse. It’s a comically apt comparison. This man scrambles up one side of the horse, and promptly falls off the opposite side. So then he climbs up from that side, and falls right off the other. Luther meant to say that as Christians, we are prone to extremes. When we are not veering too far in one direction, we are swerving too far in the other.
One of the areas in which we are given to extremes is the area of Satan and his demons, and their work in this world. Some Christians are so obsessed with Satanic activity that they can hardly talk about anything else. Other Christians are so oblivious to it that they would rather not talk about it at all. Yet, as is so often the case, the Bible directs us to a much better middle ground where we are aware but not obsessed, where we are mindful of Satan’s activity but equally convinced of Christ’s victory.
The Bible does assure us that Satan is active in this world. Even though he is a defeated foe and, as Luther said, “his doom is sure,” he remains a dangerous foe. He is like a rattlesnake who, though crushed, continues to thrash in his death throes. His bite remains deadly and dripping with poison.
Satan hates God and hates anyone created in the image of God. He has made a long and intense study of humanity. He knows our strengths and weaknesses. He knows our secret desires. Satan knows how to custom-craft temptations to fit each one of us. In his book Tempted and Tried, Russell Moore suggests a way to think about how Satan may be tempting you:
Imagine you could do anything, you could make it happen exactly as you wish, and could then go back and reverse time so that it had never happened—no consequences for your life, your work, your family, or Judgment Day. What would it be? Whatever comes to mind might be a pretty good insight into where it is your desires are being formed.
What would it be? Your answer will be different from my answer. We are unique beings, with unique desires and unique temptations. Wherever you could sin without consequence and without judgment, wherever you could fulfill an evil desire without fear of repercussion, that is exactly the kind of place Satan will tempt you. As he steers you toward sin, he will eventually convince you that you can sin without consequence. He will convince you that you can get away with it. After all, this is the lie he told Adam and Eve all along, namely, that they could sin with impunity. And while the times change, his strategies remain much the same.
Where you would sin if you could sin—that very well may be the place you will sin when you are tempted to sin.
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