In awe of a stuttering and lisping God.

We have no idea how different He is than us, how much more He is than us, how absolute and incomprehensible His utter transcendence is. We are not capable of even beginning the intellectual, spiritual/mystical, or emotional act of conceiving of Him. When we quote, "'My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,' declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts,'" (Isaiah 55:8,9) we barely understand this divine confession. One of the most serious indictments in the Bible - to this rat - occurs in Psalm 50:21, where the LORD laments, "you thought I was just like you." May it never be, O great God! How far down do you have to stoop, to condescend, to speak to us? To surround us with your glory, how dumbed-down did You have to make Your "invisible attributes" to paint the inconceivable detail, joyous beauty, and humbling grandeur of this creation? O Christ, O eternal God the Son, how does an Infinite Beyond get poured out of Your Being so that it could be said of You: "...Christ Jesus...emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant...being made in the likeness of men" (Philippians 2:7)? Every day of eternity will bring a greater, unending, ever-satisfying measure of what has been lost in translation here on this earth. You, the all-sufficient pleasure of the soul, will have to bring us up that unimaginably lofty ladder between this sod we walk and Your throne. We cannot wait!

Let me quote the great Reformer of Geneva:

"For who is so devoid of intellect as not to understand that God...lisps with us as nurses are wont to do with little children?" (Institutes of the Christian Religion, I.13.1)

"If we heard God speaking to us in His majesty, it would be useless to us, for we would understand nothing. Therefore, since we are carnal, He has to stutter or otherwise He would not be understood by us" (Sermon on 1 John 1:1-5).

And so I journeyed with family from the rim of the Rio Grande Gorge to the river itself, descending 700 feet in less than a mile. Beautiful. Stunning. Awesome. This is the most basic, vague, and childish way He communicates Himself to us: His creation.

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If this is the lisp, if this the stutter, how beyond the most glorious descriptions of a million writers of human masterpiece, laboring for a billion years, is our great God and Savior?

Preaching Together at the Table

The Table. Yesterday morning the Spirit highlighted, like turning a crystal in the light, an aspect of the Table liturgy I don't think I'd noticed before: "This is My body, which is for you..." (1 Corinthians 11:24). Not for the world of the children of wrath, but for "the Church of God which He purchased with His own blood" (Acts 20:28). In the Lord's Table we proclaim not a general atonement, but a particular atonement. Curiously, there are many congregations who will go out of their way to exclude visitors from other congregations or denominations, repeat the "for you" aspect of the liturgy, yet spit and get pretty worked up about the issue of limited atonement. Interesting. This rat finds it calmly joyous that the truth of the doctrine of God's grace is proclaimed at His Table, whether or not the participants fully realize what they are saying...we are but little children gathered at the Table...pray we don't make too much of a mess.

I love the corporate preaching of the Table: "...as often as you eat this bread or drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes" (1 Corinthians 11:26). Shouldn't we want to make this proclamation every time we gather? I love it, pray the Spirit will inflame greater love in me, and pray He will do so among the clay lanterns He inhabits. Paul, as he writes this to the Corinthians, is cognizant that there is a potential audience to this corporate preaching of the Table, for later (speaking of tongues and prophecy) he mentions "ungifted men or unbelievers" (I think this is a parallelism referring to one type of person) entering into the congregation's worship gathering (1 Corinthians 14:23,24). All that we do to reach out to visitors (from gimmicks to gift bags), when the sure prophecy of the Word and the corporate proclamation of the Table are the given tools to meet all the needs of the gathered congregation! Sunday after Sunday the Table is mute, lest "it stops becoming special," while we would sing "Amazing Grace" every Sunday if possible! The problem isn't the Table, but our hearts. The answer isn't quarterly observation tacked on to the end of the service, but repentant prayer for a reclamation of the hearts of God's people. Bind us to the Book, O eternal Spirit, and bind us to the Table. Should we stray, break us and bring us back. Teach us to love what You have given rather than seeking new thrills and emotional highs in things that are peripheral.

What about the music? It's not given to be a sacrament linking us to God, but a teaching tool to help us catechize each other through the expression of truth and a heart devoted to God (Ephesians 5:18-21; Colossians 3:14-17). I like how Matthew and Mark record the first Lord's Supper. It was not added as an afterthought to teaching and dynamic music. It took its place alongside the teaching, and a hymn was added at the very end (Matthew 26:30; Mark 14:26). I have nothing against music, especially good music that teaches deep doctrine (www.reformedpraise.org), but let's keep it in the perspective it belongs. Let's keep it tamed under doctrine. Let's keep it respectfully under the authority of the preaching of the Table and the preaching of the Word.

Pray God chains our hearts and our hands to the corporate preaching of the Table. Not as a window into revival, greater blessing, or "church growth," but because it is one of the three things we are to do when we gather, and it is the most neglected by the children.

Pray.

Everything.

"The Bible is authoritative on everything on which it speaks - and it speaks on everything."

Cornelius Van Til, Defense of the Faith

This Most Beautiful Theater...

"Meanwhile, being placed in this most beautiful theatre, let us not decline to take a pious delight in the clear and manifest works of God....it is...the first evidence of faiths to remember to which side soever we turn, that all which meets the eye is the work of God, and at the same time to meditate with pious care on the end which God had in view in creating it."

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, I.14.20.

Meditations on Word-Focused Praying

Reading Psalm 119 this morning, I was struck by the prayers of the Psalmist to God over the Word. Coming to the Word should always be a prayer-filled event, asking for God the Holy Spirit to be present and teach us through His Word. It's not enough to schedule time and make ourselves read...we must seek the presence of the Author and that He'll bring us to the Word in His timing…let’s look at a few of these prayers.

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Oh that my ways may be established to keep Your statutes (119:5)! Who establishes our ways? The God of the Word. The mind of man plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps (Proverbs 16:9). This is a prayer of the Psalmist, that God would establish his ways in a certain way – not the way he wants, but according to what God wants and has shown in His Word.

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With all my heart I have sought You; do not let me wander from Your commandments (119:10). Why do we struggle through times when we wander from the Word? Well, it’s not just a book. It’s the living Word of God, breathed by the Holy Spirit. When we have divided hearts and our singular desire is not His presence and glory, He gives us over for a season to those things that damage our inner faithfulness to Him. Whether it’s stuff, non-Kingdom priorities, relationships, our own pleasure, His name is Jealous (Exodus 34:14 – we don’t pray to Him using that name, do we?) and He will not allow divided loyalty (Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13), anymore than spouses would allow it in the marriage relationship (which is nothing more than a picture of the relationship with God). Even when we go through a period of closeness and outward fidelity to Him, He knows the heart. Sometimes we are Providentially sent on a period of miserable wandering to highlight the infidelity in our hearts (Jeremiah 29:12,13 – a promise to those exiled for spiritual infidelity). The Psalmist pleads with God to save Him from such a time of wandering from the Word, the place of our primary communion with God. Pray this for yourself, and pray it over those who are wandering.

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Incline my heart to Your testimonies and not to dishonest gain. Turn away my eyes from looking at vanity, and revive me in Your ways (119:36,37). More “defensive” prayer. Consider this preventative to wandering. It’s also almost confessional, isn’t it? I’m reminded of the hymn: “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love. Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it; seal it for Thy courts above” (“Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” Robert Robinson [1735-1790]).

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We’ve all been blessed in life by great Bible teachers. They are all conduits themselves for the Holy Spirit, Who longs to teach us directly (in addition to His gift of human teachers in the Church – Ephesians 4:8,11).

• Blessed are You, O LORD; teach me Your statutes (119:12).
• I have told of my ways, and You have answered me; teach me Your statutes. Make me understand the way of Your precepts, so I will meditate on Your wonders (119:26,27).

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Deal bountifully with Your servant, that I may live and keep Your word (119:17). This is the basis for a prayer for life; not fear of sickness, calamity, or death, but a prayer for a life keeping God’s Word. How backward is this to our fallen nature, which places itself first! The new creation puts God’s Word first. Life serves the Word, not the twisted view of the fleshly christian, who sees the Word as a means to get what he/she wants. Your testimonies are righteous forever; give me understanding that I may live (119:144).

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Open my eyes, that I may behold wonderful things from Your law (119:18). The Psalm recognizes Who the Teacher is. Prayer is the most neglected part of Bible study for us. We have such an intellectual (even the least intellectual among us) attitude about it. It’s a book. Books are read with the intellect. It’s something to be dissected and categorized scientifically, its facts absorbed like so much history or trivia. No! This thing is the breath, the voice, the essence of God. It is alive, and contains more wonderful things than our tiny minds can pull from it. Pray to see the wonder!

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My soul cleaves to the dust; revive me according to Your word…My soul weeps because of grief; strengthen me according to Your word. Remove the false way from me, and graciously grant me Your law (119;25,28,29). Grief, depression, sorrow. O, would that God would put this conviction in our hearts, that the remedy is not an outward change in circumstance, but an inward application of the Word of life to our weary souls! Even in moments of joy, pray that the next valley is lit by the light of the Word.

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Teach me, O LORD, the way of Your statutes, and I shall observe it to the end. Give me understanding, that I may observe Your law and keep it with all my heart. Make me walk in the path of Your commandments, for I delight in it…Establish Your word to Your servant, as that which produces reverence for You (119:33-35,38). The Psalmist doesn’t ask once, does he? Look at all the ways he has to describe the Word: statutes, law, commandments, word. It’s always reminded me of lovers who have a multitude of secret names for each other. The Psalmist isn’t a “five-minute devotion” kind of guy. God has gifted him with a wonderful, multi-faceted, passionate, singular fidelity and intimate love for the Word. If that’s not something worth praying for, I don’t know what is! What’s the goal: “…that which produces reverence for You.” How can we say we love this God without showing Him reverence? How can we show Him reverence when we aren’t devoted to the source of that reverence?

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The earth is full of Your lovingkindness, O LORD; teach me Your statutes (119:64). Natural revelation, the imprint of God’s character and attributes on creation (Psalm 19:1; Isaiah 6:3; Romans 1:20), inspire the Psalmist to go back to the Word. Nature doesn’t teach us the Word, though. It inspires us to a conception of a God of beauty, order, and power, but we still ask God to teach us through His Word.

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Teach me good discernment and knowledge, for I believe in Your commandments (119:66). Do we really believe His way is best, or is this just some religious confession that isn’t reflected in our lives? The Psalmist comes to the Teacher with this offering: belief.

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O accept the freewill offerings of my mouth, O LORD, and teach me Your ordinances (119:108). Part of our prayer before studying the Word or hearing it taught (and during and after these times, too) is not just asking for teaching only, but an offering of praise for the previous times of teaching, for God’s promise and provision to teach, for the marvelous fruit the Word has produced in your spirit-life, and for the closeness of relationship with the matchless God the Word provides. Let my lips utter praise, for You teach me Your statutes (119:171).

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Deal with Your servant according to Your lovingkindness and teach me Your statutes. I am Your servant; give me understanding, that I may know Your testimonies (119:124,125). God is not the cold, impersonal professor. He deals with us and teaches us according to His character, the embodiment of lovingkindness. He knows the reason and purpose of our creation. He knows what is best for us (an existence of giving Him praise and enjoying His glory). On this basis (a God-centered reality as opposed to the false self-centered reality) He will teach. Your hands made me and fashioned me; give me understanding, that I may learn Your commandments (119:173). Not only does the Creator enable His creation to enjoy His love through His Word, but His goodness: You are good and do good; teach me Your statutes (119:68).

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Make Your face shine upon Your servant, and teach me Your statutes (119:135). The Word itself is an unfathomable expression of God’s radiant glory. The more we spend time in the Word and Spirit (as He answers our prayer to give us opportunity), the more we’ll reflect and enjoy that “shining.”

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Let my cry come before You, O LORD; give me understanding according to Your word (119:169). Job’s experience is not unique – when difficulties come, we all seem to be surrounded with people who don’t give us God’s wisdom for dealing with the situation. Their advise will often appeal to our fleshly desires for revenge, justification, or wallowing self-pity. The Psalm asks for correct, God-oriented thinking. This takes a maturity and a willingness to die to those parts of ourselves that want to come out on top in difficult situations (rather than embracing the cross).

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I am a stranger in the earth; do not hide Your commandments from me (119:19). We need to confess this every day. Unless we remind ourselves before God of this truth, there is an almost irresistible tendency to start feeling at home here. His Word should be the constant flag of a foreign country lifted up before us here on our pilgrimage. If He hides His commandments from us, we would immediately forget our true home. Your statutes are my songs in the house of my pilgrimage (119:54). Songs! Not brief times of study we force ourselves to endure to assuage a guilty conscience! Songs touch the emotional seat of our souls, don’t they? We don’t sing songs to stimulate ourselves intellectually. They are capable of radically modifying our mood, and equally capable of expressing the inexpressible. This is how the Psalmist views the word in land far from home. Pray this becomes your passion!

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I hope this has given you some ammunition as you pray for yourself, those close to you, and all of the Church of Jesus Christ. O, that we, the Bride, would come to desire to enjoy all we can of the Bridegroom in His Word. May this be our prayer.