Blind to beauty
Oh, how we miss the most beautiful things in life because we’re so focused on ourselves! God’s majesty pours each day from his creation and yet frequently I fail to stop and look and worship myself (see Psalm 65). And there is a word for ignoring God’s beauty — sin (Rom. 1:18-25).
Sinners (that’s all of us) are beauty-blind and this Washington Post article proves it. Watch the video and then read some observations over at the Desiring God blog.
2007 Sovereign Grace Ministries Leadership Conference
Made possible by the overwhelming graciousness of our church family here in Minneapolis, my wife and I with some close friends head off to Maryland tomorrow afternoon for the annual Sovereign Grace Ministries Leadership Conference. I’ve
anticipated this conference since October.
On Saturday nights my wife and I have been reading with our children through R.C. Sproul’s excellent book, The Holiness of God. It will be nice to hear the topic from the man himself. And although he is one of my favorite contemporary authors, I’ve never heard David Powlison speak. Of course there is eager anticipation to hear from C.J. Mahaney. Every time I look at this picture taken at Together for the Gospel I recall him reading (and weeping through) 1 Corinthians 4:7 … “What do you have that you did not receive?” He embodies this humility.
As if that were not enough, my pastor Rick Gamache will be speaking on Watch Your Devotional Life: The Pastor’s Communion with God (Thursday, 9:00 AM). I plan on attending that. And — like a true Puritan nerd — I plan to attend Mark Dever’s seminar Watch the Past: Living Lessons from Dead Theologians (Thursday, 11:30 AM). I’m hopeful Dever will help me better use Puritan literature and give greater details about the life of Richard Sibbes (I bought Dever’s biography of Sibbes at Covenant Life Church about a year ago but haven’t gotten around to reading it yet).
I’m no live-blogging Tim Challies so don’t expect immediate updates, but I’ll write as time allows (probably in the morning) and pass along interesting notes. If you’re attending the conference just look for a tall, handsome young man dressed in the latest threads. If you find him, say hello. And then come find me, too.
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Related 2007 SGM LC sessions:
1. 2007 Sovereign Grace Ministries Leadership Conference
2. R.C. Sproul: “The Holiness of God”
3. Rick Gamache: “Watch Your Devotional Life”
4. Mark Dever: “Watch the Past: Living Lessons from Dead Theologians”
5. David Powlison: “‘In the Last Analysis…’ Look out for Introspection”
Spiritual suicide and personal prayer
“At the bottom and to begin with, there is some absolutely unaccountable alienation of our sinful hearts away from our Maker and our Redeemer. There is some utterly inexplicable estrangement from God that has, somehow, taken possession of your heart and mine. There is some dark mystery of iniquity here that has never yet been sufficiently cleared up. There is some awful ‘enmity against God,’ as the Holy Ghost has it: some awful malice that sometimes makes us hate the very thought of God. We hate God, indeed, much more than we love ourselves. For we knowingly endanger our immortal
souls; every day and every night we risk death and hell itself [i.e. our greatest spiritual dangers] rather than come close to God and abide in secret prayer. This is the spiritual suicide that we could not have believed possible had we not discovered it in our own atheistical hearts. The thing is far too fearful to put into words. But put into words for once, this is what our everyday actions say concerning us in this supreme matter of prayer.
‘No; not tonight,’ we say, ‘I do not need to pray tonight. I am really very well tonight. My heart is much steadier in its beats tonight. And besides I have business on my hands that will take up all my time tonight. I have quite a pile of unanswered letters on my table tonight. And before I sleep I have the novel of the season to finish, for I must send it back tomorrow morning. And besides there is no such hurry as all that. I am not so old nor so frail as all that. Go thy way for this time, when I have a convenient season I will call for thee.’
But even when it is not so bad with us as that, at our very best there is a certain backwardness in prayer to which all praying men have to confess … There is no worse sign of our spiritual danger than the backwardness we have to pray. So weary are we of the duty, so glad are we to have it over, and so witty are we to find an excuse to evade it.”
– Alexander Whyte, Thomas Shepherd: Pilgrim Father and Founder of Harvard (Reformation Heritage; Grand Rapids, MI) 1909/2007. Pp. 55-56.
Thomas Shepard
On occasion I read a book that’s so humbling I just stop reading and pray for my own soul. And that’s exactly what happened Friday when I began reading Alexander Whyte’s 1909 book Thomas Shepard: Pilgrim Father and Founder of Harvard (reprinted in 2007 by Reformation Heritage Books).
Thomas Shepard (1605-1649) was a Puritan known for his experiential preaching and writing. Whyte (1836-1921) meditated on selections from Shepard’s life and writings. The meditations are very rich.
Shepard was a very influential Puritan, a very gifted evangelist and preacher. Yet he constantly saw his weaknesses and shows his dependence upon the power of God. Amidst his success, Shepard’s private writings capture a deep lament that his own influence impaired the spiritual growth of those around him. In one overstatement Shepard writes, “under the blighting shadow of my presence neither old nor young ever really prospered.” Shepard lamented that his children were born — at least to him. His sense of inherent failure and incapacitating sinfulness apart from God’s graciousness makes his thoughts and meditations very humbling.
In the following example Whyte uses the journal of Shepard to reveal the dangers of loving our books to the neglect of our families. This is an excellent lesson for all bibliophile/husband/fathers like myself.
“As I go over and over Thomas Shepard’s Meditations and Spiritual Experiences I find these four faults of his filling Shepard’s heart and conscience with a great remorse. First, his too great love for books and his too much time spent in his study. Had Shepard been a celibate priest instead of a Protestant and Puritan pastor, his love for his books and his long hours in his study would all have been to be commended. But with his family neglected, his pulpit and his class studies became his besting sin. He laments in one place his ‘ragged style’ in writing, as well he may. But far better write a ragged style than bring up and send out ragged children into the world. Shepard lived among his books before he was married, and he continued to live too much among them after he was a married man and father of a family. And that bad habit of his was very near being the ruin of his household life. Ministers, says Samuel Rutherford, of all men are made up of extremes. Some ministers ruin themselves and their families and their people, and all beyond redemption, by their sinful neglect of their sacred studies. And then there is one minister here and another there like Thomas Shepard, who imperil their own and their children’s souls by their intemperate and untimeous devotion to their books and to their desks. But the beauty of Thomas Shepard was that he discovered his mistake and set himself to rectify his mistake before it was too late. He continued to love his books and to labor at his sermons, but he gave more and more time and thought to make his children living epistles to be known and read of all men.”
– Alexander Whyte, Thomas Shepard: Pilgrim Father and Founder of Harvard (Reformation Heritage; Grand Rapids, MI) 1909/2007. Pp. 36-37.
‘I have seen the Lord’
A Short Resurrection Sunday meditation
I’m intrigued by the various responses to the empty tomb. For me the distinction is seen most clearly in the contrasted reaction of the disciples and Mary Magdalene (see John 20:1-18).
You probably know the story well. On the first day of the week Mary Magdalene sets out before dawn to the tomb where Jesus’ body was laid. To her surprise, the stone had been rolled away and Jesus was gone. Mary runs to Simon Peter and the other disciples to tell them of the news. Peter and another disciple run to the tomb to see for themselves. Sure enough, the burial clothes were there, but Jesus was gone. Perplexed, the disciples walk back home.
But Mary Magdalene returns to the tomb for another look. Maybe this time Jesus’ body will be there (like when we look in a drawer for something that’s lost and a few minutes later return to the same drawer thinking our object of concern must be there and we missed it). Mary did not miss the body of Jesus. He was gone. Mary breaks down. As has often been the case in these horrible few days, tears fill her eyes and her head rests in her hands. She is in no hurry to return home.
Now two angels sit in the tomb and ask Marry a question, “Woman, why are you weeping?” For the second time this morning Mary reveals her heart in these words: “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” Now a man chimes into the conversation, saying, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Thinking this man was the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” This is Mary’s third plea to see Jesus.
The story takes a dramatic turn when Mary realizes the gardener is really the One she is seeking after. “Mary,” is the only word Jesus needs speak. Mary recognizes Jesus, her heart is flooded with joy and her legs run with new strength to tell the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!”
It’s an amazing story with renewed power each time I read it.
But my question is this: Why did the Resurrected Jesus first reveal Himself to Mary Magdalene before the other disciples? The answer seems to be obvious. Mary was not asking, “Is Jesus here or not?” Her persistent question — asked to anyone in the vicinity of the tomb — was simply, “Where is He?” For Mary, the answer to her question was not found in the tomb, but in a Man. Where have they laid Him? Take me to where you put Him. These were her questions.
In this Resurrection season it’s a question I ask of myself: Am I content this Resurrection Sunday to see an empty tomb and go home, or will I seek the presence of Jesus? Will I be content with a sermon and a service, or will I wait in anticipation for Jesus to manifest Himself to me?
Jesus promises “he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him” (John 14:21). It’s this promise we see fulfilled in the pleas of Mary Magdalene.
So praise God that He has spared you from the wrath you and I deserve. Praise Him for His Son, in Whom our unrighteousness is traded for His righteousness and our death for the life we have in His Resurrection. But also, as Spurgeon reminds us, use this opportunity to seek the manifestations of Christ. “Seek such spiritual manifestations if you have never experienced them; and if you have been privileged to enjoy them, seek more of them … God bless you, and lead you to seek these manifestations constantly” (sermon 29).
Pursue Jesus and especially that you would “see Him” during this Resurrection weekend. Don’t be too quick to walk home.
Holding the cup
by C.H. Spurgeon
“The darkest hour of Christ’s life was when his Father forsook him — that gloomy hour when his Father’s remorseless hand held the cup to his Son’s own lips, and bitter though it was said to him, ‘Drink my Son — ay, drink;’ and when the quivering Savior, for a moment, having man within him — strong in its agonies for the moment, said, ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.’ Oh! it was a dark moment when the Father’s ears were deaf to his Son’s petitions, when the Father’s eyes were closed upon his Son’s agonies. ‘My Father,’ said the Son, ‘Canst thou not remove the cup? Is there no way else for thy severe justice? Is there no other medium for man’s salvation?’ There is none! Ah! it was a terrible moment when he tasted the wormwood and the gall” (sermon 61).
Tony Reinke 