For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." Rom 9:17
See how much he has been able to accomplish through me, though I did no more than pray and preach. The Word did it all. Had I wished I might have started a conflagration at Worms. But while I sat and drank beer with Phillip and Amsdorf, God dealt the Papacy a mighty blow. Martin Luther
If you think one man cannot make a difference, you have not travelled by plane for a long time. When you approach the gate you now take off your shoes, jacket and belt, remove all metal from your pockets and place your computer on the conveyer belt. You may even get to go through an x-ray machine- all because of one man, Isama Bin Laden. International relations, national government, commerce, education and the home are a few of the things that have been profoundly changed all because of just one man.
Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Heb 13:7-8
"I was born to contend on the field of battle with factions and with wicked spirits. That is why my works abound with war and tempest. It is my task to uproot the stock and the stem, to clear away the briars and under-wood, to fill up the pools and the marshes. I am the rough woodman who has to prepare the way and smooth the road." Martin Luther
I write this because I believe it is essential that we have godly heroes, not only because we need them, but because God said we need them. That is the sense of Hebrews 13:7-8, which says, “Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” We are to remember the men and women who not only spoke the word to us but lived it before us. We are to consider, ponder and reflect upon their faith. We are to consider their lives, not just when they were strutting in public in the brightness of lights, but, rather, when they were struggling in private in the darkness of the nights.
But I said, "Should a man like me run away? Or should one like me go into the temple to save his life? I will not go!" [Neh 6:11-12]
"We are neither to give in, nor opt out. Instead we are to stay in and stand firm, like a rock in a mountain stream, like a rose blooming in mid winter, like a lily growing in a manure heap." -John Stott
In his excellent record of the invasion of “D-Day,” Stephen E. Ambrose tells of his first encounter with General Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force. Seeing he was from New Orleans, Ike asked Ambrose if he knew Andrew Higgins. Ambrose replied, “No sir, he died before I entered the city.” That’s too bad the general replied, “He won the war for us.”
“We are 100 percent certain to suffer, and Christ is 100 percent certain to meet us, to come for us, and restore love’s purest joys.” David Powlison
What would we do without Romans 8:28 and Genesis 50:20? In the hands of pressured believers, they become divine weapons to meet and defeat life’s greatest assaults on our faith and joy in Jesus Christ.
In the right hand we have Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” It is only a matter of time before we will experience suffering so painful and devastating that our faith in the love of God will be shaken. Betrayal by a loved one, the tragic death of a friend, the loss of a job, the news of a life threatening disease, all can cause us to rethink or re-evaluate our faith in God. But this passage rides in to the rescue. Paul declares that for those who love God and are called according to his purpose, the worst of tragedies, the darkest of days, and the greatest of suffering will be turned for our good by our all-powerful and all-loving God. When nothing seems to make sense, we have that truth to cling to. Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is ours in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing!
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. [Ps 139:23-24]
‘He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, and not into light.’ Because I cannot see, nor even assuredly feel, His satisfaction with me, I cannot doubt the leading simply because of the dark. The leading is nonetheless real, the pathway has simply been into a place I didn’t expect or ask for.” Jim Elliot
I think that one of the hardest doctrines for Christians to grasp is the sovereignty of God. How can God be both great and good when so many terrible things happen to Christians? It goes against the popular teaching which either blames bad things upon a lack of faith or credits them to a free-wheeling devil. It is only a matter of time before our idea of God will be tested. One writer put it this way, “The same God who led us out of darkness into light will also lead us from light into darkness.” Abraham is given a promise and is found to be childless. Moses is called to be a deliverer and finds himself on the backside of the desert. Paul is God’s messenger to the Gentiles and is locked up in a Roman prison. David, God’s anointed one, is driven from the house of the king and hides in the cave of Adullam.
C. H. Spurgeon often had cave experiences where he fought bouts of depression. They happened interestingly enough, not when he was failing but when he was succeeding. Instead of celebrating, his success led him into great fits of depression. In “The Minister’s Fainting Fits,” he confessed,
"Who was I that I should continue to lead so great a multitude? I would take me to a village of obscurity, or emigrate to America and find a solitary nest in the backwoods where I might be sufficient for the things that were demanded of me. It was just then the curtain was rising on my lifework, and I dreaded what it might reveal. I hope I was not faithless, but I was timorous and filled with a sense of my own unfitness…This depression comes over me whenever the Lord is preparing a larger blessing for my ministry."
God’s chosen method of shaping his messengers seems to follow this pattern: He calls us and gives us an awesome dream. We start out with great enthusiasm and expectation. Then, suddenly, without warning we wake up one day and find that we have been detoured, sidetracked, put on the shelf, put on ice, deposited in a cave. We thought God’s power and authority would guarantee a direct and unhindered pathway to victory and glory.
What we fail to realize is that God is more concerned with shaping his messenger than he is in completing the mission. God does not need us to accomplish his will on earth. He could do it without us. He calls us to follow him so that we may drink more deeply and fully from the fountain of his grace. That is why he puts us aside. That is why he stokes up the fire. That is why he deposits us in a cave. He wants to stretch our faith so we can get a far bigger picture of his glory.
Caves are dark, dusty and dirty. They are confining. They keep us from getting on with our projects. No one who is anybody and who is going anywhere would ever choose to stop in a cave. But, that is where God puts the man and woman he would use greatly. When he would use a servant in public, he first shapes him in private. J. Oswald Sanders explains why God does this: “The leader must be a man who, while welcoming the friendship and support of all who can offer it, has sufficient inner resources to stand alone, even in the face of opposition, in the discharge of his responsibilities. He must have no one but God.”
I write from experience. Four years ago I left my church family because I believed God was calling me to a great, Christ-honoring mission. In my head I had it all worked out. The dream had shape and success was written all over it. I would be used by God to honor his name and bless his people throughout the world through the dissemination of his powerful word. I saw no side tracks, no delays- just a straight line to glory. After all, at 66 years of age, delay could be fatal to completion of the dream.
I have had the privilege of traveling and ministering in places I had never dreamed. I have met and fallen in love with precious people from around the world, who are hunger for the Word and who love Jesus. They have opened their lives and their hearts to us. Family, friends and former church members have generously and faithfully supported our efforts with prayer and finances.
But, God is committed to doing much more than sending me to teach in other lands or enabling me to write a book. As strange as it may seem, He is not through growing me, even at the age of 66. He wants my undivided attention to do that so he has deposited me in a cave. My cave looks like this: The doors are not opening like I thought they would. The finances are tight. The writing is unbelievably hard and slow. And, in a few days I am scheduled for an operation that will put me on crutches for the next three months. If that isn’t enough, our house won’t sell! Your cave will have a different contour, but, if you are passionately following the Lord in ministry, you will have one.
Martin Luther once remarked that three things make a theologian: Prayer, meditation [on the Word] and trouble. All believers pray and all believers meditate on the Word, but when they are in trouble they really pray and they really meditate! In those moments, we discover that the little faith that we had when we started is insufficient for the task that lies ahead. We soon learn that the God we are following is far more dangerous and far more glorious than we ever imagined. Trouble turns us into theologians.
In the cave, dark, alone, and deprived of the old securities and supports, a torrent of questions seep through the cracks and crannies of our cavern. “Did I really hear from God?” “Is there some sin in my life that has disqualified me from the task?” “Am I just not cut out for this kind of faith life?” “Is God really active in every detail of my life?” “Am I just a fool who got carried away and now will suffer the consequences of my stupidity?” “Should I seek an easier assignment?” There is a temptation to turn inward, but that is the last place you should dwell. That is a “home field advantage” for the devil. He will eat you up if you stay there. No, in the cave you desperately need an external light, a light that will give divine perspective on your life. That light is found only in God’s Word.
Over three hundred years ago, Nicholas Herman of Lorraine said that early in his Christian life he determined to cut through the entanglements of religious life by nourishing “high thoughts of God.” He was right on. We always get into trouble when we give more weight to our thoughts than God’s thoughts. That is why early morning devotions are more than a daily vitamin for me, they are my life-support! They lift me above the darkness of my problems into the vastness of his promises. “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!” [Ps 139:17] I desperately need God’s perspective on my life. I need to think his thoughts.
Psalm 139 is a great friend for those who find themselves in a cave. Read it. Pray over it. Memorize it. There, the psalmist takes the initiative. Rather than listening to his doubting thoughts, he speaks God's truth. Here is how I personalize Psalm 139. Verses 1-6: God is personally and intimately involved in my life. He even knows a word I would say before it rolls off my lips. Verses 7-12: He is with me wherever I go, in the heavens, in the caves and across the sea. Wherever I am he guides me and holds me fast. Verses 13-16: His awesome purposes for my life commenced before I was conceived and will continue eternally after I am deceased. Verses 17-18: My joy and my treasure is found in God alone. I think about him in the daytime, dream about him at night, and when I awake, there he is waiting for me to get up so we can walk into a new day of adventure. Verses 19-22: His enemies are my enemies and the call of my life is to honor his name, not mine. Verses, 23-24, Finally, I acknowledge the sinfulness of my heart. I welcome the cave for it is while I am quiet and alone with Him that he reveals and removes the “anxious” and “offensive” ways that keep me from enjoying the fullness of the splendor of his glory. When God gets through doing his perfect work in me, in his time, he will put me back to work. Until then, I will pray and meditate and trust the Lord that he will do what is best for me and fulfill his purpose for my life.
I think Samuel Chadwick's remark is pretty good counsel for cave dwellers. “If successful don’t crow. If defeated don’t croak.” "His grace hath brought me safe thus far, his grace will take me home." God is still ruling, still leading and still committed to doing a great work in your life. Caves are necessary but they are not permanent. You will come out with your faith stronger and convinced more than ever before that God is great and God is good!
And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen. [1 Peter 5:10-11]
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On the far side of every risk- even if it results in death- the love of God triumphs. This is the faith that frees us to risk for the cause of God. It is not heroism, or lust for adventure, or courage or self-reliance, or efforts to earn God’s favor. It is childlike faith in the triumph of God’s love- that on the other side of all our risks, for the sake of righteousness, God will still be holding us. We will be satisfied in him. Nothing will have been wasted. John Piper, “Don’t Waste Your Life,” p.95
On Sunday, March 29th, Police Officer Justin Garner, 25, was the first responder to a report of gunshots at a nursing home in Carthage, North Carolina. As he arrived on the scene, he heard shots coming from the facility. Recognizing that lives were at stake, he chose not to wait for back-up and rushed to the sound of the gunfire. In the hallway, he confronted the shooter, who had already killed seven of the elderly patients. The two exchanged shots. Both were wounded, but the carnage was stopped. Later, Carthage Chief of police, Chris McKenzie, credited Garner with saving many lives and then added, "I don't think you could classify anything yesterday other than heroic."
“Sanctify them by your truth. Your Word is truth.” John 17:17
Christianity is not a series of truths in the plural, but rather Truth spelled with a capital "T." Truth about total reality, not just about religious things. Biblical Christianity is Truth concerning total reality- and the intellectual holding of that total Truth and then living in the light of that Truth. Francis Schaeffer
Troubled times cry out for tested truth. When faith in our foundations falter and the wisdom of the world wilts, where do we go for counsel? What authority can discern- what is true from what is false, what protects from what destroys, what works from what fails and what is right from what is wrong? We are living in a day of great confusion. Every hour we see a line of experts pass across our TV sets giving their take on what is wrong and how to correct it, but no one really knows. Fear is building as our system shakes. Where do we go for counsel that will not fail us?
“There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, Sovereign over all, does not cry: Mine!” Abraham Kuyper
We have been trying to show that the walk of faith is in fact a fight for joy. This is crucial to know so that we can prepare for battle, and when we find ourselves in the midst of a fire fight, we can know that it is not something unusual that is happening to us. Instead, we can fight and rejoice and persevere, knowing that God is still in charge; the devil has been defeated; Jesus is returning; and when he does, all of the battles and all of the scars we have received will be swallowed up by overflowing joy in the return of Jesus. [1 Peter 4:12-13]
The coddled Western world will sooner or later give way to great affliction. And when it does, whose God will hold? Where are Christians being prepared for great global sorrows? Where is the Christian mind and soul being prepared for horrors to come? Christians in the West are weakened by wimpy worldviews. And wimpy worldviews make wimpy Christians. God is weightless in our lives. He is not terrifying magnificent. His sovereignty is secondary [at best] to his sensitivity. John Piper: “Spectacular Sins”
When I left the pastorate some years ago, I knew I would miss my church family, but I had no idea how much. The privilege of feeding and leading such an awesome church family was a great and satisfying pleasure. Now I spend most of my time reading and writing alone in my study. But, it occurred to me over the holidays, that God has given me a “pulpit” through writing, that not only reaches my Santa Barbara family, but my extended family of over forty years of ministry. What a privilege! It is my prayer that GMTB will be used by God to help you to know and experience His awesome glory and grace that is known through believing and trusting in the Christ of Scripture.
Read more: Spiritual Warfare #6 God's Sovereignty and the Coming Catastrophe
“How can I obtain or recover a joy in Christ that is so deep and so strong that it will free me from bondage to Western comforts and security, and will impel me into sacrifices of mercy and missions, and will sustain me in the face of martyrdom?” John Piper: When I Don’t Desire God, p20
Last week as we were driving to our mid-week prayer service, my wife was trying to help me drive my car. “Speed up. Slow down. Go around him.” I tried to be godly in my response by not saying anything, however my countenance gave me away. As we approached the church, I decided to ease the pressure by changing the focus. So, I said to Barbara, “Boy it would be great if for one week all of my pressures would go away.” There was a moment of silence and then she said, “Where do you want me to go?” Cute!
Read more: Spiritual Warfare #5 The Objective of Spiritual Warfare
