Advent: Of the Father’s Love Begotten

“Jesus is born!”

Every December we raise our voices in song proclaiming this event. We sing together carols written in the last few centuries; we rightly compose and sing new songs of praise.

But what songs did our brothers and sisters in Christ sing 1500 years ago?

In his introduction to a 1946 translation of Athanasius’ On the Incarnation of the Word of God,  C.S. Lewis writes:

Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books.

As with books, so with carols. We do well to interact with hymn texts not only from our century, not only from the previous three centuries, but also from the early years of the church. Such texts may state biblical truths in a different form from what we are used to; they may emphasize truths that we ignore; they may err in ways that are obvious to us – and so remind us that we most likely err in ways that would be obvious to believers of that era.

In our Advent services this year we have sung a carol written in Greek in the fourth century, “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence.”  Here is another text of that era that is well worth your contemplation: “Of the Father’s Love Begotten,” written by the poet Aurelius Prudentius and translated in the 19th century by John Mason Neale and Henry Baker. Emphasizing the eternal nature of God’s plan of redemption through His Son, each verse ends with the line, “Evermore and evermore” (saeculorum saeculis in Latin). Let’s consider the nine verses one by one, highlighting how each spurs our praise.

Stanza 1:

Of the Father’s love begotten,
Ere the worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega,
He the source, the ending He,
Of the things that are, that have been,
And that future years shall see,
Evermore and evermore!

The second person of the Trinity is begotten of the Father’s love. While we today do not often speak in those terms, consider that first line in light of Luke 3:22 and John 3:16. The author goes on to call Jesus both the source of all creation and the end for which all exists, including all humanity (Colossians 1:16).

Stanza 2:

At His Word the worlds were framèd;
He commanded; it was done:
Heaven and earth and depths of ocean
In their threefold order one;
All that grows beneath the shining
Of the moon and burning sun,
Evermore and evermore!

He speaks – and, as at the tomb of Lazarus, His word has instant life-giving power. Furthermore, He gives not only life but order, with all parts of creation harmoniously working to praise Him, as pictured in Psalm 104.

Stanza 3:

He is found in human fashion,
Death and sorrow here to know,
That the race of Adam’s children
Doomed by law to endless woe,
May not henceforth die and perish
In the dreadful gulf below,
Evermore and evermore!

The author of life becomes man to know death experientially so that we the redeemed might not face death evermore and evermore! See Hebrews 2:14-15 as well as – once again – John 3:16.

Stanza 4:

O that birth forever blessèd,
When the virgin, full of grace,
By the Holy Ghost conceiving,
Bore the Saviour of our race;
And the Babe, the world’s Redeemer,
First revealed His sacred face,
evermore and evermore!

The birth of Jesus – “conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary” as stated in the Apostles’ Creed – is both a historical event, indeed, the hinge of history, and the eternal truth through which we must understand and interpret all that we see.

Stanza 5:

O ye heights of heaven adore Him;
Angel hosts, His praises sing;
Powers, dominions, bow before Him,
and extol our God and King!
Let no tongue on earth be silent,
Every voice in concert sing,
Evermore and evermore!

Given what we have seen, all must praise Him – heavens, angels, powers, and all humans. Understand “concert” not as a performance, but rather as every voice perfectly harmonizing with every other. We all must praise “in concert” for Jesus to receive the praise He deserves.

Stanza 6:

This is He Whom seers in old time
Chanted of with one accord;
Whom the voices of the prophets
Promised in their faithful word;
Now He shines, the long expected,
Let creation praise its Lord,
Evermore and evermore!

Just as in the previous stanza we sing His praises differently yet harmoniously, just so the prophets foretold His coming differently yet “with one accord.” The promise to Abraham, the promise to David, the promise “unto you a child is born, unto you a son is given,” the promise “the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” – each brings out a different facet of the person and work of Jesus, yet all are in accord, and together they describe in significant detail the coming Messiah. And now, says the poet, He shines with glory, as He fulfills all those prophecies.

Stanza 7:

Righteous Judge of souls departed,
Righteous King of them that live,
On the Father’s throne exalted
None in might with Thee may strive;
Who at last in vengeance coming
Sinners from Thy face shalt drive,
Evermore and evermore!

The Creator of all things, the Baby in the manger, the dying Redeemer on the cross, will return as the almighty King and Judge, against Whom no power can stand. He will overwhelm and rightly condemn all who oppose Him. See Revelation 11:15, 19:11-21, and 20:7-10.

Stanza 8:

Thee let old men, Thee let young men,
Thee let boys in chorus sing;
Matrons, virgins, little maidens,
With glad voices answering:
Let their guileless songs re-echo,
And the heart its music bring,
Evermore and evermore!

The poet here expands on Stanza 5: Every person of whatever earthly status has a role to play in praising Jesus from the heart, so that He gets all the glory He deserves. Consider Mark 11:14, John 4:23-24, and Revelation 7:9-12 in this regard.

Stanza 9:

Christ, to Thee with God the Father,
And, O Holy Ghost, to Thee,
Hymn and chant with high thanksgiving,
And unwearied praises be:
Honour, glory, and dominion,
And eternal victory,
Evermore and evermore!

The hymn closes with “unwearied” praise to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Why “unwearied”? The four living creatures in Revelation 4:8 “day and night … never cease to say, ‘Holy, holy, holy!’” We too in the eternal state will never weary of worshiping our God in spirit and truth – and thus will fulfill the purpose of our creation, the purpose of our redemption.

Thank you, Father God, for preserving such ancient texts to help us worship You this Christmas season. May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to you this season – then evermore and evermore.

(The Latin text and a second English translation of this hymn are available here. I encourage you to listen to a lovely a cappella recording of five of these verses here.)

Have You Created a Designer God?

[This week I was reminded of these words written by J.I. Packer in 1958:

“If the human mind is set up as the measure and test of truth, it will quickly substitute for man’s incomprehensible Creator a comprehensible idol fashioned in man’s own image; man wants a god he can manage and feel comfortable with and will inevitably invent one if allowed…. Once people reverse the proper relationship between Scripture and their own thinking and start judging biblical statements about God by their private ideas about God, instead of vice versa, their knowledge of the Creator is in eminent danger of perishing.”

I elaborated on these ideas in a September 2003 sermon on Habakkuk 2:18-20. Here is an edited, shortened version of that sermon – Coty]

Imagine that you are two years old. If you haven’t spent much time with two-year-olds, let me remind you of some characteristics of this age:

  • Two-year-olds believe the world revolves around them (one doesn’t have to be two to believe this! But virtually all two-year-olds think this way.)
  • Two-year-olds have a hard time confusing needs with desires. “I want those gummy bears!” becomes “I need those gummy bears!”
  • Two-year-olds’ desires quickly become commands: “I need those gummy bears!” becomes “Give me those gummy bears right now!”
  • Two-year-olds don’t have a clue about what they really need. During my six years of parenting two-year-olds, I never heard one say, “Daddy, I really need a good night’s sleep tonight. Could I go to bed early?”

With these reminders, now imagine that you are two years old. And imagine that you can choose whatever type of parent you want – a Designer Parent. What type of parent will you choose?

Let’s assume that as two-year-olds go, you are quite wise. So you identify that you need a parent who will provide food, shelter, and care.

As a rare, wise two-year old, you also recognize that you don’t know everything. You choose a parent who will be able to teach you.

Third, you definitely want a parent you can trust – a reliable parent who will never let you down.

So far this doesn’t sound too bad, does it?

But every two-year old would choose this fourth characteristic: You want a parent you can control. You choose a parent who does what you want. Yes, you do want a parent who can teach you facts – when and if you want to learn. But you don’t want a parent who will control you, who will override your will.

What would be the outcome of allowing two-year-olds to design their parents?

Disaster would result.

But we live in a culture that encourages spiritual two-year olds to design their own gods. And when given that opportunity, most people act exactly like the physical two-year olds: they design a god who will work for their good, who can teach them something about the future, whom they can trust – but most of all, whom they can control.

But, friends, the God of the universe – the One and Only Living and True God – is not controllable! He promises to work for the good of His people, He is entirely trustworthy, He leads us into all truth – but our God does whatever HE pleases. He is not our genie, He is not at our beck and call – instead, He is sovereign, He rules over all.

The second chapter of Habakkuk addresses this issue. The chapter begins by contrasting the proud one with the righteous one who lives by faith. God then pronounces five woes on the proud one, in each case giving us an example of how not to live by faith. The first four lessons are:

  • True satisfaction comes from God alone;
  • True security comes from God alone;
  • True accomplishment comes from God alone;
  • True honor comes from God alone.

All these “woe’s” have a common structure: the proud one aims to fulfill a good, God-given desire, but he goes about pursuing that desire through evil means. God then issues an appropriate punishment, leading to a lesson about living by faith.

The fifth woe, Habakkuk 2:18-20, brings us to two-year-olds. We will first look at the proud one’s goal and means, then his punishment, and finally the lessons for living by faith.

18 “What profit is the idol when its maker has carved it, Or an image, a teacher of falsehood? For its maker trusts in his own handiwork When he fashions speechless idols. 19 “Woe to him who says to a piece of wood, ‘Awake!’ To a mute stone, ‘Arise!’ And that is your teacher? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, And there is no breath at all inside it. 20 “But the LORD is in His holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before Him.” (New American Standard)

The Goal: To Know the Unknowable, to Control the Uncontrollable; the Means: Idolatry 

Why does the proud one want to have anything to do with an idol?

Because the proud one knows that some things are out of his control. He thinks, “Disease, natural calamity, or my revengeful opponents may be around any corner.  I don’t know what tomorrow might bring! I’ve managed pretty well so far in accomplishing my objectives – but I need some additional power to ensure my position.”

And so he turns to an idol. This is the means he uses to accomplish his purpose. What is an idol?

An idol is any person, power, or spirit that you rely on instead of God for satisfaction, security, accomplishment, and honor.

Note: these are the goals of the first four woes! In effect, the proud one is relying on himself in pursuing those goals – thereby making an idol of himself. Here in the fifth woe, he realizes he needs some additional power to secure his position, and so he turns to a physical idol. But we commit idolatry whenever we rely on something other than God to meet these objectives.

What are the goals of the proud one in verses 18 and 19? There are four:

  • Profit: He wants a “god” who will be on his side, who will work for his benefit.
  • Teaching: The Hebrew word used in verses 18 and 19 has the same root as “Torah”, the word for God’s teaching to Israel, the Law. The proud one wants a “god” who will explain confusing things in this world, who will predict the future, who will instruct him on the best way to live in this world.
  • Trust: The proud one wants a “god” who is reliable, who will never leave him unprotected, who is powerful enough to preserve him from harm.
  • Control (note the proud one calls to the idol, “Awake! Arise!”, or as the NIV renders those verbs: “Come to life! Wake up!”): He wants a “god” who is at his beck and call, a “god” who will act as the proud one wants, a “god” who will profit him according to his desires.

Do you see the inherent contradiction here?

In order to profit us in all circumstances, in order to be worthy of our trust, this “god” must be all-powerful.

In order to be our teacher, this “god” must know more than us – particularly about the future, things unknowable to us. Indeed, if we are to trust him in all circumstances, he must be able to predict the future with complete accuracy.

Yet we want to control this “god”! Yet if we could control him, he would not be all powerful; if we could tell him how best to meet our needs, he would not be all knowing.

So the necessary conclusion: There are no gods like this.  Indeed, there cannot be gods like this. We want an all-powerful god who is under our control. That is a logical impossibility.

Thus, the proud one aims to profit himself, to have a teacher for himself, to have someone to trust – all of these goals are God-given, and God Himself is the only answer for these desires.

Yet the proud one rejects the one living and true God, because that God is out of his control. So the proud one opts instead for a pseudo-god he can control, an idol.

The Punishment: Futility

For the first four woes, God’s punishments are logical and just: the plunderer is plundered, the house the proud one builds for security cries out against the builder, accomplishment disappears, honor turns to disgrace.

For this woe, there is a twist. God does not state an explicit punishment. Instead, the punishment is implicit. What is it?

Look at the terms used to describe the idol in verses 18 and 19:

  • “Speechless”
  • “Mute” or “silent”
  • “Teacher of falsehood.” Or “teacher of lies”. Question: How can a mute teacher teach falsehood? Such a teacher can only tell you what you already know. So the falsehood taught by the idol is actually the lie of the idol’s maker, the false promise of support and wisdom from the idol.
  • “No breath at all inside it.” The Hebrew word for “breath” is also the word for “spirit,” so this phrase can be translated, “No spirit at all inside it.”

So what is the proud one’s punishment? If your teacher is speechless, if one in whom you trust has no breath, no spirit, then he also has no power – and thus you have no protection. In the end, relying on an idol is only relying on yourself. You will get no profit. As the Psalmist says,

Those who make them will become like them, Everyone who trusts in them. (Psalm 115:8)

Will become like them in what sense? Dead, powerless, helpless. This is the punishment. Futility.

Lessons for Living by Faith

God gives us an explicit lesson in living by faith in Habakkuk 2:20:

But the LORD is in His holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before Him.

Do you see the contrasts between the true God and idols?

  • There is no breath or spirit in the idol, but the Lord is really present in His holy temple
  • The one who makes the idol speaks to it, he commands it – yet the idol is mute. In contrast, the true God of the universe is the one who speaks – and before Him, we fall down silent.

With these thoughts in mind, let us draw out two lessons for living by faith:

(1) Living by faith means we receive commands from God; we do not give him commands.

This is a hard lesson, isn’t it? We so much want to be in control. We really do want that genie in the bottle. Like the two-year-old, we really think we know what is best for us and what is best for those we care for – and God doesn’t seem to bring that about!

As Mr. and Mrs. Beaver explain to the Pevensie children in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe:

“Is [Aslan]—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver, “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver…. “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

Our God is not safe. Our God is not tame. Our God is not under our control. Our God does things that we cannot comprehend, that we cannot fathom. But our God is good. He works for the benefit of His people – so let us acknowledge that we are less than two-year-olds in our understanding compared to His; let us acknowledge that He knows infinitely more than us; and let us therefore bow before Him.

(2) Living by faith means relying on the God Who is with us.

The Lord is in His holy temple. (Habakkuk 2:20)

Where is that temple today?

Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? (1 Corinthians 3:16)

If this is true – then why rely on any idol? God is not only with His people at the center of their country in a physical building – God Himself, Jesus Himself is in you! If you belong to Him, if you have repented and come to faith in Him, then you have the gift of God’s Spirit as a down payment of all the blessings God will give you in the future.  And Jesus lives in you.

So on whom should you rely for satisfaction, security, accomplishment, and honor? The God who is in you! And if He is in you, if He loves you more than you can imagine, if He has already given you the gift of infinite cost – His own Son’s death – then how will He not also along with Jesus freely give us all things?

As Isaiah says:

Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, Who leads you in the way you should go. If only you had paid attention to My commandments! Then your well-being would have been like a river, And your righteousness like the waves of the sea.” (Isaiah 48:17-18)

He is the one who teaches us! He is the one who profits us! Listening to Him leads to well-being that flows and flows and flows like a river, that keeps breaking over us like waves at the beach! His love and goodness toward us never end. When God offers us His very presence within us – is it really too much for Him to ask for us to yield all control to Him? Is it really too much to ask that we value Jesus, love Jesus, put Jesus first in our hearts?

Conclusion

So, my friends: Where do you place your trust during the tough times in life? To whom do you turn when

  • People let you down,
  • When illness strikes,
  • When you lose your job,
  • When death hits those you love?

The world today offers you a zillion false gods. The world today offers you ways to discern the future, whether through horoscopes or economic forecasts. And many around us have set up such idols in their hearts. But none work. All in the end are the same as relying on yourself.

So do you trust the God of the universe?

Do you give yourself completely to the One Who gave His Son completely for you?

Do you trust in Jesus Christ and in Him alone – for salvation first, and then for all good things in your life: satisfaction, security, accomplishment, and honor?

Do you turn yourself over to His hands, saying, “God, I know I can’t control you! I know I am less than a two-year-old before you. Your understanding, no one can fathom. So, Lord, I trust you; I believe you are indeed working all things together for the good of those who love you, even when that doesn’t look to be the case. God! Make me yours completely!”

So trust in God through Jesus Christ! And keep trusting in Him, turning away from idols and false hopes! For trusting in God is a never-ending task. We must turn to him day by day by day by day by day, leaning not on ourselves but on God’s goodness, power, and faithfulness.

“The Lord is in His holy temple – Be silent before Him, all the earth.”

 

Delighting in the World Without Being an Idolator

An idol is any person, power, object, or spirit that you rely on instead of God for satisfaction, security, accomplishment, or honor. So how can we delight in the world around us – last night’s moonrise, friendships that last for decades, clear crisp days abounding in fall colors, and so many more – without their becoming idols: the source of our satisfaction, our joy?

In “Meditation in a Toolshed,” C.S. Lewis provides us with an image that helps answer that question:

I was standing today in the dark toolshed. The sun was shining outside and through the crack at the top of the door there came a sunbeam. From where I stood that beam of light, with the specks of dust floating in it, was the most striking thing in the place. Everything else was almost pitch-black. I was seeing the beam, not seeing things by it.

Then I moved so that the beam fell on my eyes. Instantly the whole previous picture vanished. I saw no toolshed, and (above all) no beam. Instead I saw, framed in the irregular cranny at the top of the door, green leaves moving on the branches of a tree outside and beyond that, 90 odd million miles away, the sun. Looking along the beam, and looking at the beam are very different experiences.

John Piper uses this image to understand the opening verses of Psalm 19, explaining how we can avoid making an idol of the beauty of the heavens:

We can say that when we ‘look along’ the heavens and not just ‘at’ the heavens, they succeed in their aim of ‘declaring the glory of God.’ That is, we see the glory of God, not just the glory of the heavens. We don’t just stand outside and analyze the natural world as a beam, but we let the beam fall on the eyes of our heart, so that we see the source of the beauty—the original Beauty, God himself.

This is the essential key to unlocking the proper use of the physical world of sensation for spiritual purposes. All of God’s creation becomes a beam to be ‘looked along’ or a sound to be ‘heard along’ or a fragrance to be ‘smelled along’ or a flavor to be ‘tasted along’ or a touch to be ‘felt along.” All our senses become partners with the eyes of the heart in perceiving the glory of God through the physical world.

Rather than an idol – with our adoration focused on the object – we look along the object and adore the source of its beauty.

C.S. Lewis elaborates on this idea at length in Letters to Malcolm. The author writes a letter to a friend who had influenced his view of the world around him. Anything in the world – including any pleasure in the world – is no idol if we look “along” it, up towards God Himself. This quotation helps us to do just that:

You first taught me the great principle, ‘Begin where you are.’ I had thought one had to start by summoning up what we believe about the goodness and greatness of God, by thinking about creation and redemption and’ all the blessings of this life’. You turned to the brook and once more splashed your burning face and hands in the little waterfall and said: ‘Why not begin with this?’

And it worked. Apparently you have never guessed how much. That cushiony moss, that coldness and sound and dancing light were no doubt very minor blessings compared with ‘the means of grace and the hope of glory’. But then they were manifest. So far as they were concerned, sight had replaced faith. They were not the hope of glory; they were an exposition of the glory itself.

Yet you were not – or so it seemed to me – telling me that ’Nature’, or ‘the beauties of Nature’, manifest the glory. No such abstraction as ‘Nature’ comes into it. I was learning the far more secret doctrine that pleasures are shafts of the glory as it strikes our sensibility. As it impinges on our will or our understanding, we give it different names-goodness or truth or the like. But its flash upon our senses and mood is pleasure….

I have tried, since that moment, to make every pleasure into a channel of adoration. I don’t mean simply by giving thanks for it. One must of course give thanks, but I mean something different. How shall I put it?

We can’t – or I can’t – hear the song of a bird simply as a sound. Its meaning or message (‘That’s a bird ‘) comes with it inevitably-just as one can’t see a familiar word in print as a merely visual pattern. The reading is as involuntary as the seeing. When the wind roars I don’t just hear the roar; I ‘hear the wind’. In the same way it is possible to ‘read’ as well as to ‘have’ a pleasure. Or not even ’as well as’. The distinction ought to become, and sometimes is, impossible; to receive it and to recognise its divine source are a single experience. This heavenly fruit is instantly redolent of the orchard where it grew. This sweet air whispers of the country from whence it blows. It is a message. We know we are being touched by a finger of that right hand at which there are pleasures for evermore. There need be no question of thanks or praise as a separate event, something done afterwards. To experience the tiny theophany [that is, ‘manifestation of God’] is itself to adore.

Gratitude exclaims, very properly: ‘How good of God to give me this.’ Adoration says: ‘What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations [‘flashes of brilliance’] are like this!  One’s mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun.

If I could always be what I aim at being, no pleasure would be too ordinary or too usual for such reception; from the first taste of the air when I look out of the window–one’s whole cheek becomes a sort of palate – down to one’s soft slippers at bedtime….

One must learn to walk before one can run. So here. We-or at least I-shall not be able to adore God on the highest occasions if we have learned no habit of doing so on the lowest. At best, our faith and reason will tell us that He is adorable, but we shall not have found Him so, not have ’tasted and seen’. Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are ‘patches of Godlight‘ in the woods of our experience.

So I encourage you: Notice today something particular in the world around you – something pleasurable, beautiful, encouraging. By all means, thank God for it. But then look along the beam, up the beam, back to its source. And so adore the source. In doing so, you not only guard yourself against idolatry. You also fulfill the purpose of your creation.

[The Piper quote is from p. 185-186 of When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy (Crossway, 2004). In addition to the link provided, the first C.S. Lewis excerpt is published on p. 212-215 of God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics (Eerdmans, 1970). The second, longer C.S. Lewis quote is from Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1963-64), chapter 17, p. 88-93. For a longer exposition of this idea, see the April 6, 2014 sermon “Enjoying What God Richly Provides”  text audio.]

What is Man that You are Mindful of Him?

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? (Psalm 8:3-4)

In comparison to God’s grandeur, we are nothing. We are infinitesimal. We are little specks of dust on a spinning ball.

Yet God grants us significance. He takes of His grandeur and stamps some portion on us. So David says He crowns us with glory and honor (Psalm 8:5).

Understand: That glory and honor is from Him – it is derived; it is not intrinsic to us. We have no glory, no status apart from what God has given us.

Many of history’s greatest tragedies – such as American slavery, such as the Holocaust – have come about because one category of mankind decided another category had no such status, no such glory, no such honor – they were subhuman.  But Scripture is clear: In this age, until Jesus returns, all humans have the status of image-bearers of God, no matter who they are or what they do (Genesis 1:27). Every person you encounter has this status – whatever their ethnicity, whatever their economic status, whatever their intelligence, whatever their education level, whether they live in utero or on a deathbed.

But Scripture hints that a time is coming when that will change. After Jesus returns, after the final judgment, there will be a class of humans without glory and honor, without the image of God. This class will not be racially based, nor based on intelligence, nor based on accomplishment. Rather, this class will consist of all those who continue in rebellion against their rightful King, those who are assigned to eternal punishment “away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (2 Thessalonians 1:9). And what will it mean for people to be away from His presence? David says, “I have no good apart from You” (Psalm 16:2). James tells us “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). Thus, whatever good we have, we received from Him (1 Corinthians 4:7). Indeed, God is the source even of ability and craftsmanship (Deuteronomy 8:18, Exodus 31:3).

Imagine, then, that state: No goodness remaining; no creativity remaining; no pleasure remaining; no friendship remaining; no beauty remaining; no productive work remaining; no vocation, no fulfillment. Only pride, self-righteousness, anger, hatred, and rebellion.

To be away from the presence of God is to be without any good, without any glory, without any honor. Thus it seems that those sent away from the presence of the Lord will lose whatever remains of the image of God in them. They will then eat and devour one another for all eternity.

C.S. Lewis captures this idea in The Great Divorce. He pictures those in hell as hating each other, and thus isolating themselves more and more from each other, so that hell seems to be a huge place. But when hell is seen from the perspective of eternal realities, it is a tiny, insignificant speck.

Thus we come again to the question: “What is man that you are mindful of him?” The remains of mankind consigned to judgment – having shed all glory and honor, having lost all goodness, all ability, all creativity, and all craftsmanship – will be insignificant. God will no longer be mindful of them. But those redeemed by His grace, those credited with the righteousness of Christ, those granted significance now and forever, will shine forth with His perfected image in them for all eternity (Matthew 13:43).

In this life, no one is subhuman. All have significance. All have the vestiges of the image of God.

But we all have been granted those vestiges for a reason: To glorify Him! To display that image! So: Be astounded at the significance God grants you! Repent, and humble yourself before Him! Then join the heavenly throng, and display His character, now and forever.

Ripping Away the Old Man

Do you want God’s refining? Or would you rather just clean yourself up?

In Malachi 3, God speaks of the “messenger of the covenant”, the coming Messiah:

But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the LORD. (Malachi 3:2-3)

Fire burns. It hurts. It may seem to be destroying. But the fire wielded by God for His purposes in His people cleanses and transforms, so that they might become what He intends them to be: those who offer themselves back to Him, those who delight in Him, those who display His glory to all of creation.

C.S. Lewis gives a marvelous picture of this refining process in the third book of the Narnian Chronicles, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The central character is “a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.” He is transported magically to the land of Narnia together with his cousins, Lucy and Edmund. There they join Prince Caspian on a journey by ship to the End of the World.

After a storm leaves the ship battered and broken, the travelers drop anchor near a mountainous island. To avoid having to work, Eustace escapes inland, climbing over a ridge. He gets lost in the fog, however, and then, as the fog turns to rain, has to take refuge in a cave.  There he finds jewels and treasure of untold value – the hoard of a deceased dragon. He puts a particularly precious bracelet on his arm, and goes to sleep, imagining all the power he will have with this wealth. When he awakes, however, something has happened: “Sleeping on a dragon’s hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself.”

It takes Aslan, the Great Lion, the Son of the Emperor over the Sea, to change him back into a boy. Here is how Eustace tells the story to Edmund:

I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge lion coming slowly toward me. . . . It came nearer and nearer.  I was terribly afraid of it.  You may think that, being a dragon, I could have knocked any lion out easily enough.  But it wasn’t that kind of fear.  I wasn’t afraid of it eating me, I was just afraid of it – if you can understand. Well, it came closer up to me and looked straight into my eyes.  And I shut my eyes tight.  But that wasn’t any good because it told me to follow it. . . .
”At last we came to the top of a mountain. . . . There was a garden – trees and fruit and everything.  In the middle of it there was a well.

I knew it was a well because you could see the water bubbling up from the bottom of it: but it was a lot bigger than most wells – like a very big, round bath with marble steps going down into it.  The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg [where the bracelet was now squeezing his transformed arm].  But the lion told me I must undress first. . . .

I was just going to say that I couldn’t undress because I hadn’t any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. . . . So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place.  And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana.  In a minute or two I just stepped out of it.  I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty.  It was a most lovely feeling.  So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.

”But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before.  Oh, that’s all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I’ll have to get out of it too.  So I scratched and tore again and this under skin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.

Well, exactly the same thing happened again.  And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off?  For I was longing to bathe my leg.  So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it.  But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

”Then the lion said. . . You will have to let me undress you.  I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now.  So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

”The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart.  And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt.  The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. . . .

“Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off – just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt – and there it was lying on the grass, only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been.  Then he caught hold of me – I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on- and threw me into the water.  It smarted like anything but only for a moment.  After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm.  And then I saw why.  I’d turn into a boy again.” . . .

Neither [Edmund nor Eustace] said anything for a while. The last bright star had vanished and though they could not see the sunrise because of the mountains on their right they knew it was going on because the sky above them and the bay before them turned the colour of roses.

[C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader” (Collier Books, 1952), 88-92.]

This is not the end of Eustace’s problems. He still may have dragonish thoughts at times. He may still appear hard and knobbly. There will be more refining. But the decisive moment has come. He is no longer a dragon. The skin is gone. Aslan has transformed him.

This is what Paul commands in Ephesians:

Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God – truly righteous and holy. (Ephesians 4:21-24 NLT)

Where are you in this process? Have you been trying to clean yourself, peeling off layers of ugly behavior, correcting faults, disciplining yourself – but not dealing with the fundamental issue of a wayward heart? Do you fundamentally love the world rather than God? Have Christ’s claws never ripped deep into you, making that fundamental change? Then turn to Him. Repent. And be made new.

Or has the fundamental change taken place in your life – you are no longer a dragon! – but lately have you been breathing fire and acting dragonish once again? This is the situation Paul addresses in Ephesians 4. Put off that old man! Put on the new man! Become what you are! This, too, is a refining; this, too, is painful; this, too, requires some ripping away by our Lord and by His Spirit.

So don’t settle for some version of a self-help gospel. God created you to display what He is like, as a purified priest. Be purified – whatever the cost.

[This is a lightly edited version of a devotion first written ten years ago while preaching through Malachi. You can listen to the sermon that prompted this devotion here.]

What Might God Do in 2016?

What might God do in 2016?

What might God do through you in 2016?

We must be careful when asking such questions. God does not need our skills, our intelligence, our education, our experience, or our wisdom. Indeed, God chooses to work mightily through the foolish, through the weak, through the low, through the despised, “so that no human being might boast” before Him (1 Corinthians 1:27-29). If we even begin to think, “Look how much I have to offer – I’m such an asset to God!” – then we are headed to a fall (Proverbs 16:18).

But God always is at work through small, weak, insignificant people to fulfill His great plans.  On the last night before His crucifixion, our Lord said,

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  (John 14:12-13)

He promises us the opportunity, the power, and the ability, through dependence on Him, to do greater works than He accomplished in His earthly life. He continues to act today – through you. Indeed, the Apostle John tells us, “As [God] is, so also are we in this world.” (1 John 4:17b)

C.S. Lewis captures this idea marvelously. In That Hideous Strength, all humanity is threatened by the forces of evil. All the powerful elements in society have been co-opted by this force. A small band of believers is able to seek assistance from a man from another century; he asks the band’s leader, “Are we not big enough to meet them in plain battle?” The reply: “We are four men, some women, and a bear” (chapter 13). Yet in the end God uses these few not only to overcome but also to embarrass and mock the evil forces.

In Lewis’ Perelandra, the evil man Weston and the follower of God Ransom are both on the planet we call Venus. The first rational beings on the planet, a man and a woman, are in their innocence, and Weston, playing the role of the serpent in the Garden, tries to turn the woman away from God (“Maleldil”). The temptation goes on and on; Ransom sees her slipping away, despite all his efforts. He asks himself:

Why did no miracle come? Or rather, why no miracle on the right side? For the presence of the Enemy was in itself a kind of Miracle. Had Hell a prerogative to work wonders? Why did Heaven work none? Not for the first time he found himself questioning Divine Justice. He could not understand why Maleldil should remain absent when the Enemy was there in person. . . .

“The Enemy is really here, really saying and doing things. Where is Maleldil’s representative?”

The answer which came back to him . . . almost took his breath away. It seemed blasphemous. “Anyway, what can I do?” babbled the voluble self. “I’ve done all I can.” . . . And then – he wondered how it had escaped him till now – he was forced to perceive that his own coming to Perelandra was at least as much of a marvel as the Enemy’s. That miracle on the right side, which he had demanded, had in fact occurred. He himself was the miracle. (Chapter 11)

He was the miracle! God had put him there for His purposes. God was working through him to defeat Evil and to magnify His Name. And just so with you and me. We are God’s miracle, placed in our time, in our place, as His agents to fulfill His plan, His story.

Later, when Ransom wonders at this, he is told:

Be comforted. . . . It is no doing of yours. You are not great, though you could have prevented a thing so great that Deep Heaven sees it with amazement. Be comforted, small one, in your smallness. He lays no merit on you. Receive and be glad. Have no fear, lest your shoulders be bearing this world. (Chapter 17)

Just so with us. We are not great. We gain no merit. We are small. We are a few men and women – without even the bear!

And yet we are as God in this world. God will do great works through us. Sometimes through our small, spontaneous acts of love. Sometimes through planning and strategizing on how to glorify His Name. But in all ways, at all times, God is powerfully at work through His people.

So what might God do through you in 2016?

Be confident. Be dependent. Be humble. Be in prayer. And look forward expectantly to how our Lord will use the weak and insignificant to advance His great Plan in 2016.

Reflections on Marriage and Idolatry on our 36th Anniversary

On Tuesday, Beth and I completed 36 years of marriage. As stated last week, the love I had for her on our Wedding Day has grown many-fold as we have shared life these decades, as I have come to know her better and better, as God has worked in both of our lives – often through each other – conforming us more and more to His likeness. Our relationship gives me more joy and delight than anything else in this world.

Could that be idolatry? Can I make my wife an idol?

Yes. Idolatry is a danger whenever we delight in things of this world.

And yet we are to rejoice!

Let’s flesh out how we can properly rejoice in God’s good gifts while avoiding idolatry by looking at Scripture’s commands to husbands and examining the nature of idolatry.

  • Husbands and wives are a unity, one flesh (Genesis 2:24). So we are to love our wives as our own bodies (Ephesians 5:28).
  • Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loves the church (Ephesians 5:25). And Christ delights in His church! He rejoices over His church (Zephaniah 3:17).
  • Indeed, Scripture commands the husband to “be intoxicated always” in his wife’s love (Proverbs 5:15-19). This passage in Proverbs especially emphasizes joy in the sexual relationship – a central part of both husband and wife that is shared with no other.
  • A husband is to recognize, rejoice in, and honor his wife’s character and accomplishments, acknowledging God’s blessings in her (Proverbs 31:10-31).

So Beth giving me more joy and delight than anything else in this world – and my acknowledging that before others – might be biblical, might be healthy, might be God-honoring.

Yet instead it might be idolatry.

How can we make the distinction?

First, let’s clarify what an idol is. An idol is any person, power, or spirit that you rely on instead of God for satisfaction, security, accomplishment, and honor. Such idols can become the primary source of your identity – how you see yourself, how you define yourself.

So Beth becomes an idol if I find joy and satisfaction in her in and of herself, if I act or think as if I can only be happy if we are together, if I rejoice in her without seeing her as a gift from God, a lovely token of His love.

Instead, I am to “rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4:4, emphasis added); I am to give thanks “always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:20, emphasis added – note that this is part of the same passage on being filled with the Spirit in which the Apostle gives his teaching on marriage); I am to “do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Colossians 3:17, again in the context of instructions on marriage), that is, to His glory and praise.

Thus, our Lord Jesus says, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37). Surely the statement carries over to husbands and wives. God must be supreme. Jesus must be our treasure. We must see ourselves as lost, without hope, without joy, without even identity unless we have Jesus. We must say with the psalmist, “Whom have I in heaven but You? And earth has nothing I desire besides You” (Psalm 73:25).

But when the Lord is our delight, when we see ourselves as His people, His sheep, His precious possession, when we do all things to His glory and praise, when we see all the good things in this life as tokens of His love and overflow with thankfulness when we receive them, then we are not only free to delight in our wives (and husbands and friends and health and trees and birds and sun and stars . . .), but we are commanded to do so. For that glorifies God.

C.S. Lewis uses the analogy of standing in a dark toolshed, looking at a beam of light shining through the crack above the door. He sees nothing else – the beam of light, shining on dust, is the most glorious thing visible. But then he turns his head to look up the beam, towards the sun itself. That is the source of the beam’s glory, and that is far, far more glorious.

Just so with us and all things in this world, including our spouses. There is glory in this world – and there is a special, personal display of glory for me in Beth. I can and should delight in her. But if she is not to be an idol, I must look up the beam to the source of all glory – to the One Who created her, Who gave her to me, Who made us one, Who redeemed us and sanctified us so that we would build up and not destroy our marriage, Who continues to work in us to our good and His glory. So my great delight in her becomes the prompt for praise and thanksgiving to the One Who is all-glorious.

Husbands, loves your wives. Delight in them. Be intoxicated with their love.

And look up the beam, thanking and praising Jesus. May He be your greatest delight.

Pleasure to the Glory of God

What is the great commandment, according to Jesus?

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30).

When are we to love God in this way? During a Sunday morning worship service? Yes, but not only then. Surely Jesus means, “Love God with all your being every minute of every day.”

The Apostle Paul commands us, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

What is to be done to the glory of God? All that we do  – even mundane, daily, seemingly trivial activities like eating and drinking. All is to be done to the glory of God.

Love God with all your being every minute of every day. Do everything to His glory – from eating toast to studying math to working at the office.

With those imperatives in mind, consider these questions:

  • How do I love God with all my being while watching Kentucky play UConn, or while watching Downton Abbey?
  • How do I climb Crowders Mountain  to the glory of God?
  • How do I sit on my back porch, enjoying the cool evening to the glory of God?

The Apostle Paul tells Timothy, “God richly provides us with everything to enjoy” (1 Timothy 6:17). Isn’t it then good, right, and proper for us to enjoy what God has given us?

The answer is “yes – but.” We’ll look at both the strong Scriptural support for enjoying God’s good gifts, and the accompanying Scriptural qualifications.

In this series, “Where Do You Find Identity, Security, and Joy: A Scriptural Understanding of Money, Giving, and Material Possessions,” we’ve seen that all we have, including every possession, every skill, every ability, even every minute of time, is a grant from God to be used for His glory. If this is so:

  • Should I buy a flatscreen TV?
  • Should I buy new car?
  • Should I buy tickets to Panthers game?
  • Should I watch the NCAA basketball men’s championship game tomorrow night?
  • Should I hike Crowders Mountain?
  • Should I sit on the porch and enjoy the evening?

As we’ve said time and again, you can’t possibly get the right answers unless you ask the right questions. I aim here to help you ask the right questions, and thus to be able to answer questions such as those above for yourself.

1) God Richly Provides Us With Everything

Let’s begin by considering more closely the Apostle’s phrase from 1 Timothy 6:17: “God richly provides us with everything to enjoy.” What does “richly provide” mean?

It means, in part, that He provides us with an abundance. In particular, He provides us with much, much more than we deserve – for we deserve death. He instead gives us:

  • Life itself
  • Air
  • Food
  • Sleep
  • Brains
  • Purpose
  • The ability to work
  • Whatever material possessions we have
  • Most of all, He gives us the Gospel, the invitation to be reconciled to Him forever, to find our true identity as His children, His heirs.

But “richly provide” means more than “to provide an abundance.” He provides this abundance to a good end.

Consider these passages:

  • Psalm 103:5 [God] satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
  • Matthew 7:11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
  • James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

To provide for us richly is to provide abundantly, for our good. Thus we can say with David:

My cup overflows. Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever (Psalm 23:5b-6 NAS)

So that is what it means. But why does God do it? What does He intend to accomplish by providing for us richly?

Four answers:

First, He rejoices to do His children good. God rejoices in our joy in receiving His gift.

We see some of this in our own families. Those of you who are parents of older children, think back to Christmases with a four-year-old. Such Christmases are always delightful. The child has enough memory of the previous Christmas to be really excited about it, but these memories are vague and shadowy enough that everything is sparklingly fresh. Beth and I had great joy those six Christmases in sharing the joy of our four-year-olds.

Scripture speaks specifically of God’s great joy in doing good for His people. Of the many passages we could look at, let’s turn to Jeremiah 32. The book of Jeremiah as a whole emphasizes the coming destruction of Jerusalem because of the hard-hearted disobedience of the people. Yet God promises that He will bring the people back to the Land – and, even more than that, He promises in chapter 31 that He will establish a New Covenant in which He will write His Law on the hearts of His people. Chapter 32 echoes these New Covenant promises:

And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. 39 I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. 40 I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. 41 I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul (Jeremiah 32:38-41, emphasis added).

God richly provides us with all things to enjoy because He rejoices in doing us good

Pause there. That may seem obvious. But let it sink in.

The God of the universe, the Creator of the vast expanse of the heavens, the Creator of the 7 billion people alive today, delights to do you good. He not only does you good. He rejoices to do so.

Before we look at other reasons God has for His rich provision, consider briefly one way God does us good: He restores our energy. He refreshes us. Again, as Psalm 23 tells us: “He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul.”

This has implications for the questions we posed at the outset. For while God may restore our energy through the Scriptures, or through a wonderful time of prayer, He may also do that through some form of enjoyment or recreation: Reading a good book, watching a movie, going on a hike, going out to dinner.

A second reason that God provides for us richly is to spark gratitude and thankfulness. The Apostle writes Timothy:

Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving (1 Timothy 4:4).

Everything God created can and should spark thanksgiving on our part. The same Apostle tells us elsewhere that we eat in honor of the Lord – that is, to the glory of the Lord – when we truly give thanks to Him for the food (Romans 14:6).

Jesus Himself lived this out. He consistently gave thanks to the Father. Nine verses in the New Testament refer to Jesus giving thanks for food.

So we have part of the answer to the question: How do we eat and drink to the glory of God? We acknowledge that everything morsel we eat is a good gift from Him, that we are completely dependent on Him for life and every provision, and so we give thanks.

A third reason that God provides for us richly is to spark adoration and praise. He gives to us so that we might praise Him.

Now, we must be careful here. Scripture does not say, “He gives to us so that we might adore Him instead of enjoying the gift.” Rather, the Bible emphasizes time and again that there is no conflict between our joy and our adoring Him. Indeed, the two are closely intertwined. As the psalmist says,

The peoples must praise you, O God,
all the peoples must praise you.
The nations must be glad and sing for joy. (Psalm 67:3-4a, own translation)

Psalm 35 is especially helpful here”

Let those who delight in my righteousness shout for joy and be glad and say evermore, “Great is the LORD, who delights in the welfare of his servant!” 28 Then my tongue shall tell of your righteousness and of your praise all the day long (Psalm 35:27-28).

When we recognize that God Himself delights in our welfare, we rejoice in what He has done, and we rejoice in Who He is – we tell of His praise all the day long.

So C.S. Lewis, reflecting on such biblical truths, writes:

I have tried . . . to make every pleasure into a channel of adoration. . . .

Gratitude exclaims, very properly, “How good of God to give me this.” Adoration says: “What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations [that is, flashes of light] are like this!”  One’s mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun.” (Letters to Malcolm, p.89-90)  

Think of these first three reasons for God’s rich provision together: God rejoices to do us good, He richly provides to spur thanksgiving, and He provides so that we might praise and adore Him. A key dynamic in moving from His gifts to our right response is to see everything good in our lives as tokens of His love.

Here is my wedding ring. It has some value simply because it is made from gold. I could take it to one of these shops offering to buy gold, and they would give me some money in exchange for it.

But I’m not tempted to do that! Why not?

For me, the value of the ring is far, far greater than the value of the gold it’s made of. The ring is a token of Beth’s love for me, a picture of 34 years of her faithfulness to our marriage covenant, a reminder of who she is and how deeply she loves me.

Just so with all pleasures, with all God’s good gifts. Yes, each has some value in and of itself. Sitting on the porch on a spring evening is a joy! But the value of that pleasure is far, far greater when we see it as a token of God’s love, as a gift from Him symbolizing His lovingkindness, and all that entails.

The fourth reason God provides for us richly is a bit more challenging to see: Our joy itself can be adoration of Him.

To flesh this out, and to distinguish this fourth reason from the third, imagine sitting on my porch this evening. There’s a light breeze. The birds are chirping. We’re enjoying a beautiful sunset.

If we then subsequently think, “God is behind all this. This evening, these chairs, the breeze, the birds, the sunset are gifts from Him for us! What type of God grants such gifts to His children!” That’s an example of the third reason. The pleasure leads to adoration of Him.

The fourth reason is different. Lewis argues that ideally the adoration should be automatic: Not, “The sunset is startling beautiful,” and then, “I adore you God for creating such a joy.” Rather, he compares the right response to reading: I look at a printed page and observe the word “cat.” I am not at all conscious of a series of thoughts such as, “This pattern of dots is pronounced C A T,” and only then, “That stands for a furry, quasi-domesticated animal one of which I have owned for 17 years.” That’s not how it works. Instead, I see “cat” and immediately think of the animal – indeed, I immediately think of Madison jumping up into my lap.

Something similar should happen whenever we experience pleasure, suggests Lewis. Adoration of God is to become so natural to us that we adore Him as we experience any pleasure. Thus he writes:

This sweet air whispers of the country from whence it blows. It is a message. We know we are being touched by a finger of that right hand at which there are pleasures for evermore. There need be no question of thanks or praise as a separate event, something done afterwards. To experience the tiny theophany [that is, the tiny experience of God] is itself to adore. (Letters to Malcolm, p. 90)

I believe Lewis is right. While I can’t point to a verse of Scripture that says this explicitly, I encourage you: Read the Gospels with this idea in mind. In particular, look at Jesus. Consider the way He lived. Note His consistent adoration of God the Father. I think Lewis has captured a key element of Jesus’ life.

Indeed, this is a key part of what it means to do all to the glory of God, what it means to love God with all our being: To be so wired that we see God’s hand behind even the simplest joys, and so to adore Him in every experience.

So God richly provides us with all things to enjoy. He delights to do us good. We are to respond with thanksgiving, adoration, and praise.

2) The Pleasure Trap

But pleasure often does not prompt thanksgiving, adoration, and praise to God. Instead, pleasure can be a dangerous trap. The very gifts God provides to generate thanksgiving and adoration can turn our hearts away from Him, away from our greatest good.

Let’s consider four ways that pleasure can work to our detriment instead of to our good.

First, pleasure can be a distraction.

Pleasure, entertainment, amusement obviously can dominate our spending, and thus lead us not to save enough, not to give enough, not to provide enough for our families. That is a form of distraction.

But also, pleasure can distract us from the reality of the world around us. Astute cultural observers have commented on this danger from a secular viewpoint for decades. George Orwell in 1984 and Ray Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451 both imagine societies in which the government seduces large segments of the population with amusements so that they don’t recognize their slavery and rebel. In non-fiction, Neil Postman’s prophetic 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death highlights factors which have only grown stronger in the last two decades.

We see similar points in Scripture. For example, the Preacher in Ecclesiastes writes:

Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure. . . . Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 2:10-11)

We do this, don’t we? We experience sorrow, and we try to distract ourselves from that painful reality. Through amusements or drink , we pretend the events didn’t really happen, and succeed in fooling ourselves for a  time.

The most important distraction is away from God Himself. There is an irony here, for as we have seen God intends all pleasures to point to Him. Yet one way we often avoid thinking about God, about eternity, about our obligations to Him, about our status before Him, is to distract ourselves with pleasures: a video game, a sporting event, a novel, a movie, a TV show.

Pleasures can be a distraction from reality.

Second, pleasure can lead to nothing else.

We’ve seen that our pleasures should be pointers to God, tokens of his love, leading to thanksgiving and adoration. But often they do not. We easily become so enamored with the pleasure, we miss what the pleasure should point to. We, in effect, delight in looking at our wedding rings – rejoicing in the gold, in the shape, in the sparkle – and forget all about our spouses.

This myopia, this forgetfulness, is characteristic of children. When receiving gifts, it is easy for kids to delight in the gift itself, forgetting even to give thanks to the giver. Children often need to be trained to be thankful. Just so, we need to leave such childish ways behind, recognizing the One behind every pleasure.

Third, pleasure can lead to dissatisfaction.

This trap comes about when, instead of rejoicing in the moment, thanking and adoring the God behind the gift, we long for more of the same, and worry that we won’t have it in the future. We considered this lack of contentment a few weeks ago, citing Ecclesiastes 5:10 among others:

Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income (NIV).

Finally, even seeing the God behind every pleasure can lead to the trap of spiritual pride.

I can sit on my porch, rejoicing in the day, thinking, “These fresh smells of spring, that light breeze on my cheek, lead me to praise God. Isn’t that wonderful!  I am so much more spiritually attuned than those around me!” Such pride is a close kin to that exhibited by the Pharisee in Jesus’ story about him and the tax collector (Luke 18:9-14).

3) Pleasure to the Glory of God: Asking the Right Questions

Here, then, are questions to ask yourself to help you to make the right use of the pleasures in your life, while avoiding the traps:

  • How can I cultivate from every pleasure thanksgiving to God and adoration of God? Do I recognize every pleasure as a gift I don’t deserve from the One who loves me more than I can imagine?
  • Have I used pleasure and entertainment as distractions from reality, even from God Himself? Can I instead plan enjoyable events that will ground me in reality, and serve other purposes God has for my life?

For example, if I tend to live in a Christian bubble, having little contact with non-Christians, can I spend some of my time devoted to recreation doing what I enjoy with non-Christians?

Or, if I am having a hard time finding time to be with my children, can I share some of my recreation or exercise time with them?

  • The budgeting question: How much time and money am I spending on pleasure and entertainment? Is that overall amount consistent with what the Bible teaches? Do I really believe Jesus’ statement, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35), and does my budget reflect that?Is the way I’m spending that budgeted amount the most effective at prompting thanksgiving and adoration, building up my relationships with family and friends, and restoring my energy so that I can effectively serve where God placed me

Beware of cultural pressures and expectations in this area, especially when planning big events like weddings and graduations. Entire industries exist to try to get you to spend lots of money when you are not considering the opportunity cost of those expenditures. In such situations, don’t worry about the expectations others may have. Decide what would be important and meaningful to you, what will help you to make lifelong memories, and spend money in those areas. Then save in other areas.

The point is not necessarily, “Spend less on entertainment.” Rather, spend your entertainment budget wisely.

Conclusion

Close your eyes. Think of some specific pleasure you experienced in the last couple of days. Acknowledge that that pleasure was completely undeserved. For Scripture tells us that God created us for His glory, yet we turned our backs on Him. Indeed, the first sin, the most fundamental sin, was thinking we know better than God how we can find joy, fulfillment, and pleasure. And wages of that sin – the just response to the sin we all have committed – is death, the absence of everything good. Yet God in His mercy gives us life, breath, and everything – including that recent, undeserved pleasure.

So thank Him for that pleasure. Adore the One who created and offered you that pleasure.

Then respond to His invitation. For He calls you:

  • “Come to Me, where you will find pleasures forevermore.
  • “Come to Me: And you will find right now, in this life, in relationship to me, more joy than you ever thought possible.
  • “Come to me via the sacrifice of my Son on the cross, and His death will pay the penalty for all your sins, so that you can be the object of my delight. And I will rejoice to do you good forevermore.”

That’s the God we have.

That’s the God we are to love with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength.

That’s the God we are to glorify in all that we do, even in eating and drinking.

So come to Him – and may every joy then lead to – and be –  adoration of Him.

 

Joy is the Serious Business of Heaven

[This Sunday we consider Paul’s statement in 1 Timothy 6:17 that God “richly provides us with everything to enjoy.” No one has influenced my understanding of this phrase more than C.S. Lewis. What follows are excerpts from chapter 17 of his Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (if this sounds familiar, I included about two-thirds of these excerpts in a post last fall honoring Lewis on the 50th anniversary of his death). Ponder these ideas – and then make every pleasure into a channel of adoration. – Coty]

It’s comical that you, of all people, should ask my views about prayer as worship or adoration. On this subject you yourself taught me nearly all I know. . . .

You first taught me the great principle, “Begin where you are.” I had thought one had to start by summoning up what we believe about the goodness and greatness of God, by thinking about creation and redemption and “all the blessings of this life.” You turned to the brook and once more splashed your burning face and hands in the little waterfall and said, “Why not begin with this?”

And it worked. Apparently you have never guessed how much. That cushiony moss, that coldness and sound and dancing light were no doubt very minor blessings compared with “the means of grace and the hope of glory.” But then they were manifest. So far as they were concerned, sight had replaced faith. They were not the hope of glory; they were an exposition of the glory itself.

Yet you were not – or so it seemed to me – telling me that “Nature,” or “the beauties of Nature,” manifest the glory. No such abstraction as “Nature” comes into it. I was learning the far more secret doctrine that pleasures are shafts of the glory as it strikes our sensibility. As it impinges on our will or our understanding, we give it different names-goodness or truth or the like. But its flash upon our senses and mood is pleasure.

But aren’t there bad, unlawful pleasures? Certainly there are. But in calling them “bad pleasures” I take it we are using a kind of shorthand. We mean “pleasures snatched by unlawful acts.”  It is the stealing of the apple that is bad, not the sweetness. The sweetness is still a beam from the glory. That does not palliate the stealing. It makes it worse. There is sacrilege in the theft. We have abused a holy thing.

I have tried, since that moment, to make every pleasure into a channel of adoration. I don’t mean simply by giving thanks for it. One must of course give thanks, but I mean something different. How shall I put it?

We can’t – or I can’t – hear the song of a bird simply as a sound. Its meaning or message (“That’s a bird”) comes with it inevitably-just as one can’t see a familiar word in print as a merely visual pattern. The reading is as involuntary as the seeing. When the wind roars I don’t just hear the roar; I “hear the wind.” In the same way it is possible to “read” as well as to “have” a pleasure. Or not even “as well as.” The distinction ought to become, and sometimes is, impossible; to receive it and to recognise its divine source are a single experience. This heavenly fruit is instantly redolent of the orchard where it grew. This sweet air whispers of the country from whence it blows. It is a message. We know we are being touched by a finger of that right hand at which there are pleasures for evermore. There need be no question of thanks or praise as a separate event, something done afterwards. To experience the tiny theophany is itself to adore.

Gratitude exclaims, very properly, “How good of God to give me this.” Adoration says: “What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations are like this!”  One’s mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun.

If I could always be what I aim at being, no pleasure would be too ordinary or too usual for such reception; from the first taste of the air when I look out of the window–one’s whole cheek becomes a sort of palate – down to one’s soft slippers at bedtime.

I don’t always achieve it. One obstacle is inattention. Another is the wrong kind of attention. One could, if one practised, hear simply a roar and not the roaring-of-the-wind. In the same way, only far too easily, one can concentrate on the pleasure as an event in one’s own nervous system—subjectify it—and ignore the smell of Deity that hangs about it. A third obstacle is greed. Instead of saying, “This also is Thou,” one may say the fatal word Encore. There is also conceit: the dangerous reflection that not everyone can find God in a plain slice of bread and butter, or that others would condemn as simply “grey” the sky in which I am delightedly observing such delicacies of pearl and dove and silver. . . .

One must learn to walk before one can run. So here. We-or at least I-shall not be able to adore God on the highest occasions if we have learned no habit of doing so on the lowest. At best, our faith and reason will tell us that He is adorable, but we shall not have found Him so, not have “tasted and seen.” Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are “patches of Godlight” in the woods of our experience. . . .

I do not think that the life of Heaven bears any analogy to play or dance in respect of frivolity. I do think that while we are in this “valley of tears,” cursed with labour, hemmed round with necessities, tripped up with frustrations, doomed to perpetual plannings, puzzlings, and anxieties, certain qualities that must belong to the celestial condition have no chance to get through, can project no image of themselves, except in activities which, for us here and now, are frivolous. . . . It is only in our “hours-off,” only in our moments of permitted festivity, that we find an analogy [to the joys of heaven]. Dance and game are frivolous, unimportant down here; for “down here” is not their natural place. Here, they are a moment’s rest from the life we were placed here to live. But in this world everything is upside down. That which, if it could be prolonged here, would be a truancy, is likest that which in a better country is the End of ends.  Joy is the serious business of Heaven.

From Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1963-64), chapter 17, p. 88-93. Italics are in the original; boldface is my emphasis.

C.S. Lewis on Prayer

C.S. Lewis died 50 years ago today. God used him powerfully in my life, as in the lives of so many others. In celebration of and thankfulness for his life, this morning I read one of his less well known works: Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1963).

Lewis is properly humble about the shortfalls of his own prayer life:

If God had granted all the silly prayers I’ve made in my life, where should I be now? (28)

For me to offer the world instruction about prayer would be impudence. (63)

And his speculations, while always stimulating, in my opinion sometimes stray from their biblical moorings. But you will profit from meditating on the following quotes. The lengthy quotations from chapter 17 have been especially powerful for me.

So thank you, Father God, for the life of C.S. Lewis – for your sovereignly drawing him to Yourself, for his devotion to you, for his careful thought about You and Your Word. Continue to use his writings for the glory of Your Name – and may we, like him, strive to make every pleasure into a channel of adoration.

(Should you want to explore more of Lewis, Desiring God’s fall conference on him was excellent. All the talks are available online. I particularly recommend those by Joe Rigney and Kevin Vanhoozer. ) – Coty

[A writer] has substituted religion for God—as if navigation were substituted for arrival, or battle for victory, or wooing for marriage, or in general the means for the end. But even in this present life, there is danger in the very concept of religion. It carries the suggestion that this is one more department of life, an extra department added to the economic, the social, the intellectual, the recreational, and all the rest. But that whose claims are infinite can have no standing as a department. Either it is an illusion or else our whole life falls under it. We have no non-religious activities; only religious and irreligious. (30)

One of the purposes for which God instituted prayer may have been to bear witness that the course of events is not governed like a state but created like a work of art to which every being makes its contribution and (in prayer) a conscious contribution, and in which every being is both and end and a means. . . . Let me hasten to add that [prayer] is also an end. The world was made partly that there might be prayer; partly that our prayers . . . might be answered. But let’s have finished with “partly.” The great work of art was made for the sake of all it does and is, down to the curve of every wave and the flight of every insect. (55-56)

How or why does such faith [in particular answers to prayer] occur sometimes, but not always, even in the perfect petitioner? We, or I, can only guess. My own idea is that it occurs only when the one who prays does so as God’s fellow-worker, demanding what is needed for the joint work. It is the prophet’s, the apostle’s, the missionary’s, the healer’s prayer that is made with this confidence and finds the confidence justified by the event. The difference, we are told, between a servant and a friend is that a servant is not in his master’s secrets. For him, “orders are orders.” He has only his own surmises as to the plans he helps to execute. But the fellow-worker, the companion or (dare we say?) the colleague of God is so united with Him at certain moments that something of the divine foreknowledge enters his mind. Hence his faith is “evidence” — that is, the evidentness, the obviousness — of things not seen. (60-61)

On the one hand, the man who does not regard God as other than himself cannot be said to have a religion at all. On the other hand, if I think God other than myself in the same way in which my fellow-men, and objects in general, are other than myself, I am beginning to make Him an idol. I am daring to treat His existence as somehow parallel to my own. But He is the ground of our being. He is always both within us and over against us. Our reality is as much from His reality as He, moment by moment, projects into us. The deeper the level within ourselves from which our prayer, or any other act, wells up, the more it is His, but not at all the less ours. Rather, most ours when most His. . . . To be discontinuous from God as I am discontinuous from you would be annihilation. [68-9]

It is well to have specifically holy places, and things, and days, for, without these focal points or reminders, the belief that all is holy and “big with God” will soon dwindle into a mere sentiment. But if these holy place, things, and days cease to remind us, if they obliterate our awareness that all ground is holy and every bush (could I but perceive it) a Burning Bush, then the hallows begin to do harm.  . . . We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito.  And the incognito is not always hard to penetrate. The real labour is to remember, to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more, to remain awake.

Oddly enough, what corroborates me in this faith is the fact . . . that the awareness of this presence has so often been unwelcome. I call upon Him in prayer. Often He might reply—I think He does reply—“But you have been evading me for hours.” For he comes not only to raise up but to cast down; to deny, to rebuke, to interrupt. The prayer “prevent us in all our doings” is often answered as if the word prevent had its modern meaning. The presence which we voluntarily evade is often, and we know it, His presence in wrath.

And out of this evil comes a good. If I never fled from His presence, then I should suspect those moments when I seemed to delight in it of being wish-fulfillment dreams. That, by the way, explains the feebleness of all those watered versions of Christianity which leave out all the darkest elements and try to establish a religion of pure consolation No real belief in the watered versions can last. Bemused and besotted as we are, we still dimly know at heart that nothing which is at all times and in every way agreeable to us can have objective reality. It is of the very nature of the real that it should have sharp corners and rough edges, that it should be resistant, should be itself. Dream-furniture is the only kind on which you never stub your toes or bang your knee. You and I have both known happy marriage. But how different our wives were from the imaginary mistresses of our adolescent dreams! So much less exquisitely adapted to all our wishes; and for that very reason (among others) so incomparably better.

Servile fear is, to be sure, the lowest form of religion. But a god such that there could never be occasion for even servile fear, a safe god, a tame god, soon proclaims himself to any sound mind as a fantasy. I have met no people who fully disbelieved in Hell and also had a living and life-giving belief in Heaven. (75-76)

It’s comical that you, of all people, should ask my views about prayer as worship or adoration. On this subject you yourself taught me nearly all I know. . . .

You first taught me the great principle, ‘Begin where you are.’ I had thought one had to start by summoning up what we believe about the goodness and greatness of God, by thinking about creation and redemption and’ all the blessings of this life’. You turned to the brook and once more splashed your burning face and hands in the little waterfall and said: ‘Why not begin with this?’

And it worked. Apparently you have never guessed how much. That cushiony moss, that coldness and sound and dancing light were no doubt very minor blessings compared with ‘the means of grace and the hope of glory’. But then they were manifest. So far as they were concerned, sight had replaced faith. They were not the hope of glory; they were an exposition of the glory itself.

Yet you were not – or so it seemed to me – telling me that’ Nature’, or ‘the beauties of Nature’, manifest the glory. No such abstraction as ‘Nature’ comes into it. I was learning the far more secret doctrine that pleasures are shafts of the glory as it strikes our sensibility. As it impinges on our will or our understanding, we give it different names-goodness or truth or the like. But its flash upon our senses and mood is pleasure.

But aren’t there bad, unlawful pleasures? Certainly there are. But in calling them’ bad pleasures’ I take it we are using a kind of shorthand. We mean ‘pleasures snatched by unlawful acts.’  It is the stealing of the apple that is bad, not the sweetness. The sweetness is still a beam from the glory. That does not palliate the stealing. It makes it worse. There is sacrilege in the theft. We have abused a holy thing.

I have tried, since that moment, to make every pleasure into a channel of adoration. I don’t mean simply by giving thanks for it. One must of course give thanks, but I mean something different. How shall I put it?

We can’t – or I can’t – hear the song of a bird simply as a sound. Its meaning or message (‘That’s a bird ‘) comes with it inevitably-just as one can’t see a familiar word in print as a merely visual pattern. The reading is as involuntary as the seeing. When the wind roars I don’t just hear the roar; I ‘hear the wind’. In the same way it is possible to ‘ read’ as well as to ‘ have’ a pleasure. Or not even’ as well as’. The distinction ought to become, and sometimes is, impossible; to receive it and to recognise its divine source are a single experience. This heavenly fruit is instantly redolent of the orchard where it grew. This sweet air whispers of the country from whence it blows. It is a message. We know we are being touched by a finger of that right hand at which there are pleasures for evermore. There need be no question of thanks or praise as a separate event, something done afterwards. To experience the tiny theophany is itself to adore.

Gratitude exclaims, very properly: ‘How good of God to give me this.’ Adoration says: ‘What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations are like this!  One’s mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun.

If I could always be what I aim at being, no pleasure would be too ordinary or too usual for such reception; from the first taste of the air when I look out of the window–one’s whole cheek becomes a sort of palate – down to one’s soft slippers at bedtime. . . .

One must learn to walk before one can run. So here. We-or at least I-shall not be able to adore God on the highest occasions if we have learned no habit of doing so on the lowest. At best, our faith and reason will tell us that He is adorable, but we shall not have found Him so, not have’ tasted and seen’. Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are, patches of Godlight ‘ in the woods of our experience. . . .

In this world everything is upside down.  That which, if it could be prolonged here, would be a truancy, is likest that which in a better country is the End of ends.  Joy is the serious business of Heaven. (From Chapter 17, p. 88-93)