afterWORD 1 John 1:1-4, "backsliding"

LifeTruths Families,
What a blessing it was for me this morning, great discussion in Proverbs and 1 John.

John says it all starts with the Eternal God, and He chose to become flesh and dwell among us, to be a high priest who in all points could feel what we feel, yet without sin.  He chose to bring many brethren into the house through suffering like us. 

Therefore, John tells us there was a sound that hit his ears, that he could understand. He looked with awe, came near it, studied it, reached out with full power of his hands and held it, experienced it with power, not just an experience but life, the life of Eternity.  And God is glorified as we are satisfied with a God who desires that we visit, that we come boldly, that we put our hands in His hands and His side, a God that desires not only to visit His people but desires to be touched by His people, and we are satisfied most fully with joy when we cling to Him.

Ok, several asked me at the end of class since I didn't get back to Prov 14:14 about "backsliding" so I thought I'd put a few words in email. (yeah, right).  I'll try to be succinct. I'm open to discussion and different opinions.  Please do let me know if any of this blesses you.


Proverbs 14:14 The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways : and a good man shall be satisfied from himself.
"backslider" in English (use KJV for standardization) only appears here.  "backsliding" appears in Jeremiah 2:19, 3:6, 3:8, 3:11, 3:12, 3:14, 3:22, 5:6, 8:5, 14:7, 31:22, 49:4 and Hosea 4:16, 11:7, 14:4.  Of significant note, Hos 14 says "I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, for mine anger is turned away from him."  (gee, wonder why...maybe Isaiah 53?)

The word in Prov 14:14 is cuwg, pronounced "soog", it s a primary root word meaning to flinch. (Oh, wow!) It can literally mean to go back, retreat, or figuratively mean to apostatize.  In general it is translated "backslider" here, in other places to drive back, go back, turn back or turn away.  I wonder if we joked across a fellowship supper to another Christian saying,  "oh you apostatizer!" if they'd finish their cornbread or just pick up their tea and leave (stopping of course for a piece of cake, especially if it's on a paper plate).

Just to nail it down, that word cuwg, shows up in 14 places in the OT. Try Isaiah 42:17, "they shall be turned back, they shall be greatly ashamed, that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, Ye are our gods."  But it's different than not ever knowing about God, for Zeph 1:4-6 says "I will consume man and beast...and them that are turned back from the Lord and that have not sought the Lord nor inquired for Him."

A bunch of places is Psalms where it ties enemies, shame, and confounding. Like Ps 53:3  "Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one."  David asks God that He not let us flinch:  Ps 80:18 says "we will not go back from Thee: quicken us, and we will call upon Thy name."  (He that hath the Son hath life, he that hath not the Son hath not life")

There is no soft word like this in the New Testament. Closest is what we're coming to in 1 John, "apostate". 

But Ps 53:3 is quoted in Romans 3:  there is none that seeks after God, no not one.  So in a sense, "backsliding" is all of us before He quickens us.  Now the closest description of the full language of Pr 14:14 applied to someone in the church is Hebrews 6.  "it is impossible to taste and turn back..."  The good seed was planted and it brought up thorns (do a search on "thorns" and see how many times the Bible speaks in this way).  Some say this means we should all be moving forward in maturity, others think it means you were a Christian and denied the faith, or you turned back.  Others say the thorns are false converts, not having ever received with joy in the first place. (parable of the guy that buried his talent, or the parable of the sewer where the seed that fell on wayside, on rocky ground, or among thorns.) These were not prepared to receive the seed with everlasting, life altering joy.  Initial excitement, maybe, but not lifetime joy like in 1 John 1:1-4.

"For that which is from the beginning...lifetime...joy..." is the formula , as He sees fit: "for you were once dead in your sins, but God hath quickened you..."

One last point, PR 14:14  the words "shall be satisfied from himself" are there for vernacular in our language. They don't exist in the transcript.  There are only 6 words in the verse:
"flinch"
"heart--feelings, intellect, will, center of being"
"filled to satisfaction"
"a trodden road or course of life"
"good (in the broadest sense)"
"man"

glad I'm not a translator.  But if you were looking at ancient writings of prose, they like to compare.  So it would make sense to me if it says

"apostates at the core of their being are satisfied with the trodden path, a good man is satisfied not by the path but in [being, doing, having, pursuing, living] good..."

Hmmm, sounds like Matt 7:13-14:  Enter by the narrow gate, for broad is the gate and wide is the path that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter in by it; but narrow is the gate and narrow is the path that leads to life, and there are few that find it.

The satisfaction is not the road but the Master we walk with all the days of our life.  "And to them that believed, He said, 'if you continue in My word, then you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:28-32).

I love you folks. I pray today you find the satisfaction of your very souls to filling. Now pass the tea and let's get some cornbread and pie. no, seriously...

afterWORD Malachi 3 Depth Perception

LifeTruths family,
Sorry we didn't get to do the full survey of the minor prophets in class. There were so many amazing things we discovered this quarter, it would have been great to have recapped at least some of them.  And so many critical ties to the Old and New Testaments in these little messages, oracles, burdens.

One thing I thought would be valuable as a transition from studying the end of the Old Testament to the study of the end of the New Testament is to link you to some very interesting diagrams I mentioned in class by Clarence Larkin. He was an American Baptist preacher who studied, taught, and wrote a lot of interesting detailed descriptions, tying together various prophetic images and times tables through books like Isaiah, Daniel, Malachi, and into Revelation. 

The "mountain peaks" I so terribly drew Sunday is listed on the left side of this page:

http://clarencelarkincharts.com/

Worth a look anyway. It's interesting when you read some of the prophecy of the OT and there is little to no distinction of two comings of Christ, it's just one event, the great and terrible day of the Lord.  And in pockets where they saw something of the first coming (Ps 22, Is 53), the suffering servant, to look upon the One whom they pierced, the receiver of the full brunt of the wrath of God, they couldn't get a full grip on its meaning let alone the depth of its eternal power.  I can't, and it happened.  How could they?  Blessed are they that do not see and yet believe...

You could say they had a depth perception problem.  Of course, we have the same thing looking back. Even Pastor Ray said in his sermon on Sunday that "as far as the east is from the west...if you are traveling east, you never go west."  I wonder if that is at all tainted by the fact that we had Pythagoras, Ptolemy, and Eratosthenes and many others to convince us the world was round, but the Psalmist in writing that line knew only a flat, finite world.  Is it possible to view the NT without having to first acclimate ourselves to the knowledge that the prophets of the OT had when they received their visions?  Maybe perhaps time is not just mountain peaks but itself has horizons like a sphere, and we can only see so far in one direction, whether forward or backward, without losing perspective.

If you click in the middle of that page and see the chart on the Revelation, he tries to line up the various images of prophecy and the full spectrum of human history.  Mind boggling.

One last thing I'll mention as a close of the Minor Prophets (named that by the length of the books, not by the value or extent of their vision), and that is the tie between prophecy, the gospel, and the church.  Malachi heard clearly from the Lord that our righteousness is imputed, about being spared from wrath and remembered as His "own son who works for him" (Mal 3:16-18).  He spoke of the need of an intercessor and revealing His own arm of salvation. He talked of a book of remembrance of those who feared the Lord.  He spoke of giving His people spiritual discernment of those who serve and those who don't, what is of God and what is not of God. These things captured in a mere 3 verses in Malachi will take all of the letters of John, Jude, and Revelation to unpack.

Very exciting! My email signature from Jonathan Edwards captures it in one line what just took me a whole blog to say:
"Grace is but glory begun, and glory is but grace perfected."

afterWORD Nehemiah 7 Love of Truth

Church family, living stones,
This week we talked in Nehemiah 7 (after running all over on a mystery chase) that our first step in "playing our part" is to examine to see if we are in fact genuine, if we can trace our existence as heirs to the Kingdom back to the work of Christ on the cross and a repentance unto faith, without any works of our own to pretend to add to it.

I found this quote tonight in Wiersbe's 50 People Every Christian Should Know, in chapter 11 (pgs 65-66) on John Henry Newman (1801-1890). 

It is unfortunate that Newman did not known the better evangelical men of that day. He saw only (or perhaps only wanted to see) a ministry that emphasized correct doctrine and dedicated zeal, but lacked Christian character and true spiritual power.  R.W. Church described evangelicals as people with "an exhausted teaching and a spent enthusiasm."  The evangelical churches were "respectable" and popular with men of position, but (added church) "they were on very easy terms with the world."  If there was one thing Newman hated with a holy zeal, it was a religion of words without reality, words that described an experience but failed to effect it in the lives of people...
One final observation: When I read Newman's sermons, I find myself examining not only my own heart but also my preaching.  I find myself asking: Am I a faithful physician of the soul? Am I preaching to the conscience?  Am I faithful to declare truth, not simply my "clever ideas" about truth? Do I offer Christ as the only Redeemer?  Do I get beneath the surface and help my hearers where they need it most?

It strikes me to ask privately and openly about my part in our fellowship or any fellowship for that matter, whether preacher, teacher, encourager, worker, or witness of His goodness.  If I am genuine, wonderful. If I am zealous for the right reasons for the right purposes in our time together, great.  If I am genuine but not of the most use by our Master, then I must more faithfully render my role or more honestly understand it.  I challenge each of us, in the fellowship of the class, in the local body, in the body of Christ, and to the world around us to "know whom I have believed..."

Are you genuine?
What is your role?
Where is your zeal placed?
Are you a conveyor of the love of truth?

afterWORD Nehemiah 5-6 Prophet's Reward

Well the follow up list is much worse than usual today. We covered Nehemiah 5 and 6 yesterday and I managed to miss a couple cross references worth showing today.

1. small group discussion [Judges 10:1-5]
For those who missed, as you know we've been doing a small group discussion on verses from the book Pastor Ray preached from. This week was Judges 10:1-5, two complete stories in those 5 verses. Each week we take the passage and answer one of the gospel storytelling questions:

• what did you like about the story?
• what did you not like about the story?
• what does the story tell you about man?
• what does it tell you about God?
• what are you going to do with it?
• who are you going to go tell now?

Tola and Jair. The question was "what are you going to do with this?" Tola and Jair served 23/22 years respectively. Tola did his work, up in the mountains, died and was buried. Jair had 30 sons, 30 towns named after him that still are there today. So what are you going to do about it? Seek a name, serve whether you have no name and no one remembers?

Go read Gen 50:24-25
Ex 13:19
Joshua 24:32
And ask the question, how did those bones get there? Who carried those bones around for 40 years and during the conquest of Canaan?

here's the afterWORD:
Now read Heb 11:22. Joseph was accounted for his faith to say "take my bones with you." Jesus said, "he who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward."  What kind of faith does it take to serve in the shadow, to do the labor and toil? And what kind of faith does it take to serve the faith of others?


2. Nehemiah 5-6. We walked through the two passages and found that Nehemiah was an amazing leader, but so much moreso he was a tremendous example of following.
a. he "consulted with himself" (sought deeply what the right thing to do was, evidence God had endowed Him with the Spirit for this task)
b. he made a "covenant with the people" and entered a faithful relationship
c. he "continued the work" always dedicated wholly in fear of God to the burden for the people the Lord had given him
d. he interpreted "counsel with prayer" and sought the Lord's character in what others outside and inside told him, even testing the prophets against the Word of God to find them false.

3. afterWORD
When Nehemiah spoke to the leaders and the priests about financially enslaving their own people, who he was trying to buy out of slavery said, "shall I now by our brethren from you?!" And "they had nothing to say." Romans 3:10-18 makes an inescapable case that no one seeks after God. Rom 3:19 says the Law is so comprehensive, complete in exposing our guild, it leaves us utterly indefensible, and it stops our mouths (Rom 3:19)

Nehemiah could have take the governor's portion but chose not to be a burden to the people God had given him a burden to serve. Put in context of Tola, Jair, and Nehemiah, look back at Romans 3:1-9. Whether you claim tradition, upbringing, position, or name, they do not offer you righteousness in God. Rather, as we serve we must remember "we are no better than they" and that the burden we have for others should be Christ-centered, aimed at showing them God's glory and righteousness--not our own. So whether we have rights or not, a name or not, we can't make God famous or more righteous or more glorified by our righteousness (ours is but filthy rags). Rather

a. our transparency and passion for "truth" can show God's glory in His work in us through faith (v4)
b. our transparency in failure can show God's righteousness in contrast, even His righteous judgment (v5-6), for we cannot earn anything of ourselves
c. our pursuit of holiness for the joy of His glory shown through us or even in spite of us is our only hope when under attack of slander of the enemy and lies of the false brethren (v7-9)
d. including ourselves in "for all have sinned" gives us the only hope of showing the exceeding glory of God in that "the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (v10-23)



Conclusion.
Lord, fill us with a burden for others constrained only by a fear of You. Fuel the burden with a pursuit of your glory, in context of, through admission of, because of, in spite of, and regardless of our sin. That all might believe and repent and give You the glory You alone are due.

afterWORD Ezra 9-10 Married to Perfection

Life Truths family,
This week's afterWORDs are not mine.  Suggest you have a hanky ready though.  I'm not going to lie to you, this may hurt a lot.  But "He pierces with the Word that He might then apply the balm of the Word."

This week we founded our conversation on the principle of justice: starting in Joshua 19 (recall we're doing a weekly small group discussion from the Bible book Pastor Ray is preaching through). It was of sorts a running start through Ezra 1-8 in order to look squarely into the deep hurt, agony, and struggle by all accounts in Ezra 9 and 10. This is where the repatriated Israelites put their foreign wives and children away for the purity of the remnant's sake.  Right? Wrong?  I think in general what came through our conversation left a lot of loose ends about what in the world this means about holiness, sanctification, consecration, and purity in individuals, families, marriages, and what role faith should play now that we've not only heard OF God but seen Him face to face in the person of Christ...

And then last night, the other foot fell:

“The creation of the world seems to have been especially for this end: that the eternal Son of God might obtain a spouse, towards whom He might fully exercise the infinite benevolence of His nature and to whom He might, as it were, open and pour forth all that immense fountain of condescension, love and grace that was in His heart, and that in this way God might be glorified.”
–Jonathan Edwards, “The Church’s Marriage To Her Sons, And To Her God,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 25, Sermons and Discourses 1743-1758. Ed. Wilson H. Kimnach (WJE Online Vol. 25), 187.

What we learned through the words of Ephesians and 1 Peter, through the life example of Hosea, and through the shed blood of Christ on the cross--who "while we were yet sinners" ""for the joy set before Him" "gave Himself for [the church]"  "endured the cross, despising the shame" "that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she should be holy and without blemish."

afterWORD?  In the language of creation, God brought all of creation to His Son to show that there was not a mate for Him to be found of this world.  And the bride He took was weak, deceivable, deceived, fallen, riddled throughout with unrighteousness and replete with selfish and self-corrupting unholiness. We were and are infused with our world, but we are redeemed and married to perfection.  For what is man that You should be mindful of him? and what is man that he could be holy?

But Jesus didn't put us away as an act of holiness or justice...Instead, His justice is swallowed up in love.  Through all His power in holiness, giving all of Himself even to the point of bloodshed, He "exercise[s] the infinite benevolence of His nature...and pour[s] forth all that immense fountain of condescension, love, and grace that [is] in His heart, and that in this way God might be glorified."