Ruth | Relationships

By Richard S. Adams 5/9/2018

     There is a gentleness about the story of  Ruth that always appeals to me. Maybe because it is such a simple story, with a powerful message, a message never weakened by repeating. We are often unexpectedly blessed when we try to help someone else. Paul told us to focus on others rather than ourselves. Philippians 2:3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.  ESV That is easy to say and like many scriptures we often pass over quickly, but it continues to be my experience that the people God wants me to esteem more than myself are the people who frustrate me.

     Ruth lost a husband, Naomi lost a son. Surely Ruth bore a grief of her own, but her concern was for Naomi. Naomi gave Orpah and Ruth good advice; return to the home of your parents. Orpah did nothing wrong by returning to her own home. The three women had no means to provide for themselves. By returning to their homes Orpha and Ruth might still have a future, but Ruth refused to leave Naomi. She would not abandon the older woman to her own care.

     Ruth was born in Moab and Moab was a frequent enemy of Israel, Naomi’s home. Ruth was raised a pagan, but she was willing to give up her pagan gods and her home to return with Naomi to Israel. The power of love never ceases to amaze me. It seems altogether fitting that the name Ruth means companion; friend; vision of beauty, but these are over shadowed by her virtues of humility and kindness.

     Can the power of relationship be defined? What is relationship? We cannot see it or measure it, but who would deny its existence? I look out our window and see the trees bending in the wind. I do not see the wind, but the trees tell me it is there. As the wind moves the trees, relationships and lack of relationships move us. Disappointing, exhilarating, sad, joyful, full of anger, resentment, jealousy, loving, peaceful, contented and even just plain happy; all find their place in relationships.

     A day without relationship, a day without touch is tragic. As I get older I know more and more people who have lost their spouse and now live alone. There is a reason (of course) that God tells us in His Word to be tender to the widows. Still, as we turn away from God we move faster and faster toward a world without the ability to touch and to be touched. We are becoming more and more numb to the evil in our own hearts. We slaughter a million lives, millions of future relationships each year with no awareness of the future effects of our ‘right now’ choice. It is such a terrible evil that God will indeed punish. The absolutely unbelievable suffering that people are saving up for themselves is just that, unbelievable.

     Would anyone disagree it is more and more difficult to find a modern-day Ruth? Naomi, on the other hand, is everywhere, yet her plight we cannot see ... until it becomes our own.

     I wonder if Ruth had any fear of how she would be treated by the people of Israel? Regardless, she was determined to stand by Naomi. She had no agenda, only taking care of Naomi. How could she know that what she was doing in her ‘right now’ would have such a wonderful impact on forever?

     What can I do right now, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to move someone else the way reading the story of Ruth moves me?

     Ruth became the great grandmother of King David and Paul writes in Romans 1:3–4 concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, 4 who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord,...   NASB95

Articles

     Richard S. Adams | Lover of Christ, husband of Lily, father of four, grandfather of thirteen, Masters in Divinity and Certificate in Spiritual Direction. On staff at George Fox Evangelical Seminary 1/2009 to 7/2018.

• Jan 23     Potholes (2021)
• Jan 24     The Hornet
• Jan 26     Dealing With Disappointment
• Jan 27     Lost (2014)
• Jan 28     Life Support, A Non-Stop Flight
• Feb 5     Prosperity and the Camp Fire
• Feb 7     Job 6:14-23
• Feb 10     Spontaneous Generation
• Feb 14     Hindsight
• Feb 18     The Cure For Despair
• Feb 22     RE: Job's Friends
• Feb 23     Job 23:14
• Feb 25     No Time To Text
• Feb 26     The Labyrinth
• Feb 27     Find A Servant Of God And Ask This Question
• Mar 5     Polemics and Caricature
• Mar 6     Ecclesiastes 3:14 | Grace
• Mar 17     A Walk In The Rain
• Mar 25     The Corona Virus
• Apr 20     Death and My Master's Voice
• Apr 26     The Unexpected Blessing Returns
• May 1     RE: The Anointing at Bethany
• May 10     Ruth | Relationships
• May 25     Jesus and the Passover
• June 2     Extension Cords
• June 18     Lincoln City 6/2/18
• July 14     Tom - Gen andRevelation
• July 15     Knowledge and World Peace
• July 16     The Church as Lobbyist
• Aug 3     Have You Noticed
• Sept 1     Branches Ran Over The Wall
• Sept 2     1 Cor 9:1-2
• Sept 2     Many Young Folks Get This
• Sept 13     Reading God's Word
• Nov 27     The Way The World Is
• Nov 30     The Renewal Of Israel
• Dec 09     December 22
• Dec 11     Open Door
• Dec 20     Replacement Theology

Kingdoms in Conflict

By R.C. Sproul Jr. 6/1/2007

     It is the special gift of the serpent that he is not only able to construct his own diabolical versions of the things of God but that he is able in turn to disguise what he is doing. He creates a fake, and then turns around and disguises it as something safe and innocuous. That is, he is not only the false prince of a false kingdom, but those who are citizens of his realm have no idea that that is where they live. Because, for instance, the separation of church and state is an enshrined principle of these United States, precious few recognize that the statism we have embraced as a culture isn’t merely bad politics, it is bad theology. That is, the problem with statism isn’t ultimately the intrusiveness of the state, but the presumption of the state. The problem isn’t that they control our lives, but that they think they are God. The affront isn’t to our liberties, but to God’s prerogatives. Would that we were more zealous to protect His authority than to protect our petty liberties.

     Consider the Lord’s prayer through the eyes of the average American. While the federal government is writing checks to “artists” whose work consists of crucifixes floating in jars of urine, or images of the virgin Mary covered in elephant dung, it is at the same time seeking to make it a crime to “desecrate” the flag. How many of us understand what desecration is? It means to make unholy, or to treat that which is holy as unholy. Our fathers in Washington insist that their flag must be hallowed, it must be treated as holy.

     When the citizen of heaven prays, he asks God that we on earth might come to obey and rejoice in our Lord as those who have entered their reward already do. We want to be as obedient as those who are in glory. When the citizen of these United States prays, he asks the state to impose our will on other nations, as it is imposed here. He asks that this kingdom would, even with carnal weapons, bring our vision of paradise to bear on every corner of the globe. We call it exporting democracy.

     When the citizen of heaven prays, he asks God for his daily bread. When the citizen of these United States prays, he asks his god to provide his daily bread, his college loan, his mortgage insurance, his health care, his prescription drugs. He asks his god to make sure the stock market keeps climbing. He asks his god to provide jobs and a chicken in every pot. He even is brazen enough to ask for miracles. A hundred years ago a great epidemic passed over this land. Thousands died of influenza, and the nation responded in prayer, to the living God. Twenty years ago, a new epidemic began to spread in America. Once again Americans prayed. The difference this time is they bowed toward Washington, asking the state to cure AIDS.

     When the citizen of heaven prays, he asks God that his debts might be forgiven, as he forgives the debts of others. When the citizen of these United States prays, he asks the state to create more debts, to cover his own debts. He asks the bankrupt state to borrow still more money from the future, so that he too can continue to borrow more money from the future, and pay off those debts in inflated dollars.

     When the citizen of heaven prays, he asks God to lead him not into temptation, but to deliver him from evil. When the citizen of these United States prays, he asks his god to keep him away from evil, to tax his vices, to sue the vice providers, to buy airtime to cajole us all to eat better, and buckle our seat belts, and if all that fails, to pay the doctors to undo our mistakes.

     When the citizen of heaven prays, he affirms that the kingdom, the power, and the glory all belong to our Father. When the citizen of these United States prays, he affirms that the kingdom, the power, and the glory belong to the party with which he is affiliated.

     God tells us not to put our hope in princes and horses, and we, fools that we are, think that because our world is ruled by presidents and nuclear missiles, that we have outgrown this danger. We would be wise to remember this simple historical truth: not a single Christian was martyred in the first century because he believed Jesus was the Messiah, because he believed Jesus was raised from the dead. Every Christian martyr to fall at the hands of the Romans fell for one simple reason — he refused to take the pledge of allegiance. The Roman pledge was rather shorter than ours — Caesar ho kurios — Caesar is lord. Tens of thousands of Christians went to their death because they confessed the first creed of the church — Christos ho Kurios — Christ is Lord. They knew where their citizenship lay. If His kingdom is to come in greater fullness in our day, if His will is to be done in these United States as it is in heaven, then the church of Jesus Christ must learn where they are citizens. For His is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory. Amen.

Prayer and Culture

By Gene Edward Veith 6/1/2007

     I recently headed the translation committee for our church body’s new hymnal and worship book. Our previous hymnal included the choice of a modernized version of the Lord’s Prayer. We found, though, that no one used it. Even the churches that had given themselves over to contemporary worship — claiming that old-fashioned language and time-honored practices were incomprehensible to “modern” or “postmodern” people today — when they deigned to pray the Lord’s Prayer used the old-fashioned, time-honored version, complete with “thy’s,” “art’s,” and “trespasses.”

     The Lord’s Prayer is the ultimate prayer, comprehending everything that we can pray for, and as such it sinks deep into the consciousness and into the culture.

     Prayer still has cultural currency. A TV reporter might be a militantly biased left-wing secularist, but after an interview with the survivors of a hurricane or the family of a murder victim, he often tells them, “Our thoughts and prayers are with you.” Legislatures, including those that acknowledge no laws higher than the ones they make up, still begin with prayer. When a national catastrophe takes place — for example, the 9/11 attacks — presidents declare a day of prayer and mass prayer services are convened in sports stadiums or the National Cathedral.

     At these exercises of national piety, the Lord’s Prayer is no longer used. Whereas some of us can remember beginning each school day with the Flag Salute and the Lord’s Prayer, it is generally recognized that use of a specifically Christian prayer is not appropriate in a religiously pluralistic context. In our new civil religion, not just Christians but Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Sikhs, Hindus, Native American animists, and whatever other religions might be represented in the community, must be dragged out and acknowledged. Sometimes this means each priest, imam, or witchdoctor offer his own distinct prayers, as the assembly bows their heads. Sometimes the assembled but diverse worshipers offer generic prayers that refer to no specific deity.

     But the Lord’s Prayer reminds us that it makes a huge difference whom we are praying to. A prayer calls upon a specific God, one who is named. “Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” The teaching of the Bible about prayer is full of names. Jesus tells us to pray in His name and to hallow the name of the Father. The Holy Spirit is said to pray with us. The point is, for Christians, prayer is Trinitarian. We do not pray to a generic deity, much less to the presiding god of a pantheon. We are praying to someone specific, the Triune God revealed in the Bible, and to Him alone.

     Even in some Christian churches — or, perhaps, used-to-be Christian churches — people are now cringing at invoking “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” and are balking at addressing God as “our Father.” Those are sexist terms, so they say. They address God as if He were a male. Since God is spirit, they maintain, we should use language that is not gender-specific, so as not to exclude women from identifying with the divine. So the persons of the Trinity become “Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier.” Or, as recommended by a liberal Presbyterian task force, “Rock, Redeemer and Friend,” “Mother, Child and Womb,” “Rainbow, Ark, and Dove,” or “Sun, Light and Burning Ray.”

     But praying to “Burning Ray” is not the same as praying to “Our Father, which art in heaven.” Christianity is a revealed religion. God’s Word, indeed God incarnate, reveals the words with which we are to address and think of Him. If we make up our own religious language according to our preferences and sensitivities, we are out of the orbit of Christianity. And the deity that we name “Burning Ray,” being our own creation, is an idol. And as if that were not bad enough, we are repudiating not just the first but the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer: “hallowed be thy name.” Our culture’s new civil religion is inclusive of everyone, but it cannot be inclusive of Christians. When it comes to interfaith worship services, multi-faith prayer meetings, and civic demonstrations of our religious tolerance, Christians must politely excuse themselves.

     On days of national prayer, it is a pious act of good citizenship for citizens of every religion to go to their mosques, synagogues, ashrams, or churches to make supplications to whatever gods they believe in to bless this country. To summon them all to do so in one place of worship, though, is not toleration of religion; rather, this shows disrespect for everyone’s religious integrity.

     Christians know that it is wrong to mistreat people of other religions and that faith is not something that can be forced on unbelievers. So Christians should be tolerant. But religious toleration has morphed into religious relativism, the notion that all religions are equally valid. Christians cannot be relativists, but a culture that respects religious diversity can have a place for Christians in all their uniqueness. But now diversity is morphing into what can only be described as polytheism, the cultural need to affirm many gods.

     This is where Christians must draw the line, even if it means exclusion from the public square. After all, Christians suffered martyrdom in polytheistic Rome rather than offer the slightest ritualistic prayer to a deity other than “Our Father, which art in heaven.”

Prayer: A Warrior’s Weapon

By John Piper 7/1/2007

     In Daniel 10, the prophet receives a word from the Lord (v. 1) — a vision of conflict that stunned him with its greatness. So Daniel set himself with tears and fasting and prayer to seek the meaning of the vision, and for three weeks he wrestled in prayer over this vision and sought to know God’s will.

     After three weeks he went out to the banks of the Tigris River (v. 4). There he had a vision that was so awesome he could hardly bear it. To make matters worse (in v. 10), a hand reached out and touched him so that he shook terribly on his hands and knees. Then the voice said (vv. 11–12): “O Daniel, man greatly loved, understand the words that I speak to you, and stand upright, for now I have been sent to you…. Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words.”

     Now this is immensely important for understanding prayer. Notice the words: “I have come because of your words.” Put that together with the words in verse 11: “I have been sent to you.” That is, God sent him. So the point is that God answered Daniel’s prayer as soon as he began to pray three weeks ago. “From the first day that you humbled yourself before your God your words [your prayers] have been heard, and I have come because of your words [your prayer].”

     So this heavenly being has come because Daniel prayed and humbled himself before God and fasted. And the three-week delay was not because God took three weeks to hear. What was it then?

     Verse 13: “The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me.” The reason the messenger of God was detained is because a spiritual being called “the prince of the kingdom of Persia” stood against him. And the reason this angelic messenger got free from this opposition was because the angel Michael came to help him.

     This is the clearest example in all the Bible of what is called by some people a “territorial spirit.” Verse 13 refers to “the prince of the kingdom of Persia.” The natural meaning of this phrase would be that among the supernatural beings opposed to God, at least one is assigned to a territory or, more accurately, to a kingdom, in this case Persia. Presumably his job is to darken the people of Persia — to keep them from having the truth and the light of God’s Word.

     But this spirit is not the only one mentioned. Look at verse 20–21: “Then he [the messenger from God] said, ‘Do you know why I have come to you? But now I will return to fight against the prince of Persia; and when I go out, behold, the prince of Greece will come. But I will tell you what is inscribed in the book of truth: there is none who contends by my side against these except Michael, your prince.’”

     So it appears that there was a spirit over Persia and a spirit over Greece. But it also seems that Michael, the good angel, has some special assignment for Israel, because it says at the end of verse 21: “Michael, your prince.” And the “your” there is plural. This is not a reference to Daniel’s guardian angel, but to Israel’s guardian angel.

     How then shall we do ministry in view of this reality of territorial spirits? First, we ought to take the supernatural seriously and realize that we are in a warfare that cannot and should not be domesticated by reinterpreting everything in the biblical worldview so that it fits nicely with secular, naturalistic ways of thinking about the world. Secondly, notice that Daniel’s prayer that has such powerful effects in the spiritual realm did not focus on angels and territorial spirits. Rather, he was wrestling for truth and for the good of God’s people. He was totally shocked when an angel appeared to him. And he knew nothing about the conflict with the prince of the kingdom of Persia.

     But it’s no accident that the messenger said that his struggle with the prince of Persia lasted exactly the same amount of time that Daniel’s fasting and prayer did — twenty-one days. The reason for this is that the warfare in the spirit realm was being fought in a real sense by Daniel in the prayer realm.

     And so it is with more of our prayers than we realize. But the point is this: Daniel’s praying was not about angels. And probably ours shouldn’t be either. We should wrestle in prayer and fasting for the things that we know are God’s will in our lives and our families and our church and our city and our world. But by and large we should probably leave it to God how He will use angels to get His work done. If God shows us more, we will use it. But the essence of the matter is not knowing the spirits but knowing God and praying in the power of Holy Spirit.

     So let us be about prayer with all our might. May the Lord make us a people who pray like Daniel.

A Supernatural Faith

By R.C. Sproul 7/1/2007

     “The God hypothesis is no longer necessary to explain the origin of the universe or the development of human life.”

     This assertion was at the very heart of the movement that took place in the eighteenth century that we call the Enlightenment or the Aufklärung. This movement spread from Germany to France and then to England. The French Encyclopedists (writers of an encyclopedia during the eighteenth century that promoted secular humanism) were militant in their denial of the need for the existence of God. His existence was seen as no longer necessary because He had been supplanted by the “science” of that period that explained the universe in terms of spontaneous generation. Here we see an example of pseudoscience supplanting sound philosophy and theology.

     Added to this, we have the agnosticism of the titanic philosopher Immanuel Kant, who argued that it is impossible for science or philosophy to acquire knowledge of the metaphysical realm of God. It was declared that all knowledge must be restricted to the realm of the natural. With the combination of Kant’s agnosticism and the hypothesis of the Enlightenment, the door was open wide to a thoroughgoing philosophy of naturalism. This philosophy captured in its wake the academic theologians of Europe in the nineteenth century.

     Out of this came nineteenth-century liberalism with its militant anti-supernatural perspective. The liberalism of that era denied all of the supernatural elements of the Christian faith, including the virgin birth of Jesus, His miracles, His atoning death, and His resurrection. The supernatural was stripped altogether from Christianity. Commenting on this in the twentieth century, the Swiss theologian Emil Brunner described nineteenth century liberalism as mere “unbelief in disguise.”

     The twentieth century saw a continuation of the impact of naturalism with the so-called neo-liberalism of German theology, particularly as it was manifested in the writings of Rudolf Bultmann. Bultmann saw the Bible as a mixture of history and mythology. He believed that which was mythological had to be removed from the text of the Bible in order to speak relevantly to modern people. Of course, from Bultmann’s perspective, the supernatural trappings of the New Testament were all a part of the mythological husk that had to be stripped away from the ethical core of the Bible. The impact of liberalism and neo-liberalism on the church left it basically as a worldly, nature-bound religion that sought refuge in a humanitarian social agenda. This is the approach to Christianity that has all but completely captured many of today’s mainline churches throughout the world.

     However, in the last few decades, we have witnessed a comeback of sorts of the supernatural. Yet this increasing interest in the supernatural has been driven in large measure by a fascination with the occult. People are now interested in demons, witches, spiritualists, and other occultic phenomena.

     The Christianity of the Bible is a religion that is uncompromisingly supernatural. If we take away the supernatural, we take away Christianity. At the heart of the worldview of both Testaments is the idea that the realm of nature is created by One who transcends that nature. That God Himself is “supra” or above and beyond the created universe. The first principle of the Bible is that God must never be identified with the realm of nature but always and everywhere be seen as the Lord over nature. The difference between the natural and the supernatural is the difference between that which is restricted to this world and that which participates in the realm of the divine, the realm that is above and beyond the reach of what is found in simple nature.

     In no way does this affirmation of supernature in the Bible denigrate the importance of the natural. The natural realm is where God’s work of redemption is played out in space and time. But that work of redemption is not a natural process of human evolution or development; rather, it involves an intrusion from above, from the transcendent realm of God, which addresses the spiritual nature of our humanity.

     With the renewed interest in the supernatural that comes with the occult, we must be ever vigilant to make sure that whatever understanding we have of the supernatural is an understanding that is informed by the Bible and not by paganism. Sheer naturalism is paganism with a vengeance, but so is the occult. What we need is an understanding of the supernatural that comes to us from the supernatural, from the Author of the supernatural, who reveals to us in His Word the content of the supernatural realm — so that our understanding of angels, or demons, or of spiritual beings comes from God’s self-revelation and not from human speculation, neo-gnostic magic, or other forms of pagan intrusions. Again, we must insist that without the supernatural, Christianity loses its very heart, and this writer cannot understand why anybody would attach any great significance to Christianity at all once it’s been stripped of its supernatural elements.

Robert Charles Sproul, 2/13/1939 – 12/14/2017 was an American theologian, author, and ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America. Dr. R.C. Sproul was founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries, an international Christian education and discipleship organization located near Orlando, Fla. He was also copastor of Saint Andrew’s Chapel in Sanford, Fla., chancellor of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine. Dr. Sproul has contributed dozens of articles to national evangelical publications, has spoken at conferences, churches, and schools around the world, and has written more than one hundred books. He also served as general editor of the Reformation Study Bible.

Read The Psalms In "1" Year

Psalm 48

1 Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised
in the city of our God!
His holy mountain, 2 beautiful in elevation,
is the joy of all the earth,
Mount Zion, in the far north,
the city of the great King.
3 Within her citadels God
has made himself known as a fortress.
4 For behold, the kings assembled;
they came on together.
5 As soon as they saw it, they were astounded;
they were in panic; they took to flight.
6 Trembling took hold of them there,
anguish as of a woman in labor.
7 By the east wind you shattered
the ships of Tarshish.
8 As we have heard, so have we seen
in the city of the LORD of hosts,
in the city of our God,
which God will establish forever. Selah

Psalms 56-57

By Don Carson 5/10/2018

     American coins have the words “In God we trust.” In our pluralistic age, it is not unreasonable to respond, “Which God?” Even if the answer to that were unambiguously the God of the Bible, most people, I suspect, would think of this trust in God in fairly privatized of mystical ways. It is distressingly easy to think of trust in God as a kind of religious intuition, a pious sensibility, with only the vaguest perception of what this trust entails.

     David is under no such delusions. Twice in Psalm 56 his description of the God in whom he trusts implicitly gives some substance to the nature of trust. David writes, “When I am afraid, I will trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can mortal man do to me?” (56:3-4, emphasis added). Again: “In God, whose word I praise, in the LORD, whose word I praise — in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” (56:10-11, emphasis added).

     In both passages, David grasps that trust in God is the only solution to his fear: “When I am afraid, I will trust in you . . . in God I trust; I will not be afraid . . . in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” The superscription of the Psalm shows that David wrote it shortly after his horrible experience in Gath (1 Sam. 21:10-15). While fleeing Saul, David hid out in Philistine territory and came within a whisker of being killed. He escaped by feigning madness. Doubtless he had been very afraid, and in his fear he trusted God, and found the strength to pull off a remarkable act that saved his life.

     But for our purposes, the striking element in David’s confession of his trust is his repetition of one clause. Three times he mentions the Lord God whose word I praise. In this context, the specific word that calls forth this description probably has something to do with why David could trust him so fully under these circumstances. The most likely candidate for what this “word” is that David praises is God’s promise to give him the kingdom and to establish him as the head of a dynasty. His current circumstances are so dire that unbelief might seem more obviously warranted. But David trusts the Lord whose word I praise.

     What we need is faith in the speaking God, faith in God that is firmly grounded in what this speaking God has said. Then, in the midst of even appalling circumstances, we can find deep rest in the God who does not go back on his word. Transparently, such faith is grounded in God’s revelatory words.

Don Carson is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, and co-founder (with Tim Keller) of The Gospel Coalition. He has authored numerous books, and recently edited The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures (Eerdmans, 2016).

By Gleason Archer Jr.

Ezekiel

     THE HEBREW NAME Yeḥezeqeʾl means “God strengthens.” The theme of  Ezekiel’s prophecy is that the fall of Jerusalem and the Babylonian captivity are necessary measures for the God of grace to employ if He is to correct His disobedient people and draw them back from complete and permanent apostasy. But the day is coming when Jehovah will restore a repentant remnant of His chastened people and establish them in a glorious latter-day theocracy with a new temple.

Out line of Ezekiel

I. The prophet’s call and commission,  1:1–3:27

     A. The vision of the glory of the Lord  1:1–28
     B. God’s commission to preach warning and doom  2:1–10
     C. The scroll of condemnation upon the apostate nation for their lack of repentance  3:1–27

II. Prophecies against Judah prior to the fall of Jerusalem,  4:1–24:27

     A. Messages of the fifth year (593–592 B.C.),  4:1–7:27 (destruction predicted by sign, symbol, and sentence)
     B. Messages of the sixth year (592–591 B.C.),  8:1–19:14
          1. Vision of Jerusalem’s idolatry and punishment,  8:1–11:25
          2. Punishment necessary because of its universal corruption,  12:1–19:14
     C. Messages of the seventh year (591–590 B.C.),  20:1–23:49
          1. Israel’s ingratitude since the Exodus; Nebuchadnezzar will turn to besiege Jerusalem; no more Davidic kings until Christ Himself,  20:1–21:32
          2. A catalogue of the sins of adulterous Samaria and Judah,  22:1–23:49
     D. Message of the ninth year (589–588 B.C.),  24:1–27
No mourning for Ezekiel’s wife or for Jehovah’s fallen Israel

III. Prophecies against the heathen nations,  25:1–32:32

     A. Ammon, Moab, Edom, and Philistia (nearest neighbors),  25:1–17
     B. Tyre and Sidon, symbols of proud commercial materialism,  26:1–28:26
     C. Egypt, the symbol of self-confident idolatry,  29:1–32:32

IV. Prophecies of reconstruction and restoration after the fall,  33:1–48:35

     A. Stages of preparation for the new kingdom,  33:1–39:29
          1. Responsibility of the prophet and people; warning and purgation,  33:1–33
          2. False shepherds will give way to the true Shepherd,  34:1–31
          3. The return and revival of captive Israel, after Edom’s destruction; the valley of Dry Bones  35:1–37:28
          4. Destruction of the godless nations (Gog and others) in the last days,  38:1–39:29
     B. The final kingdom and latter-day temple,  40:1–48:35
          1. Millennial temple,  40:1–43:27
          2. Millennial worship,  44:1–46:24
          3. Millennial land and the river of blessing,  47:1–48:35

     Like  Jeremiah, Ezekiel was of a priestly family. His father’s name was Buzi, and he was sufficiently high in rank to warrant inclusion among the hostages whom Nebuchadnezzar took with him to Babylon in 597 B.C. He was settled in a community near Nippur (about fifty miles south of Babylon on the Euphrates River) called Tell-Abib on the Grand Canal (which would be a more accurate translation of “the river Chebar”). This canal, the Naru Kabari of the cuneiform inscriptions, ran from the Euphrates above Babylon sixty miles in a southeasterly direction to Nippur, rejoining the Euphrates below Ur and irrigating the alluvial plain between the Euphrates and the Tigris. Ezekiel was called to his prophetic ministry in 592 B.C. (the fifth year of the captivity of King Jehoiachin) when he himself was about thirty years of age ( 1:1 ). His happy marriage was terminated by the death of his wife in 587 (chap.  24 ). He became a noted preacher among the exiled Jews in Babylonia and was often resorted to both by the elders and the common people, although without much practical response to his message. His last dated discourse ( 29:17–21 ) was in the twenty-seventh year of Jehoiachin’s captivity, or 570 B.C.

Critical Objections to the Genuineness of  Ezekiel

     As recently as the eighth edition of Driver’s ILOT, the genuineness of  Ezekiel had been accepted as completely authentic by the majority of rationalist critics. But in 1924 Gustav Hoelscher advanced the thesis that only a small fraction of the book was by the historical sixth-century Ezekiel (i.e., only  143 verses out of  1273 ) and the rest came from some later author living in Jerusalem and contemporaneous with Nehemiah (440–430 B.C.). In 1930 Professor C. C. Torrey published a discussion of his view that no part of  Ezekiel came from the sixth century, or even from the two centuries succeeding. He dated the earliest stratum of the book of  Ezekiel at 230 B.C. and deduced that it was written in Jerusalem rather than Babylonia. Not long afterward it was reedited by a redactor who gave it the appearance of having been written in Babylonia by one of the Captivity. It should be mentioned that Torrey did not believe in the historicity of the Chaldean destruction of Judah or the removal of the Jewish population to Babylonia in any sort of national captivity. Few scholars, however, have followed him in this skepticism, and in more recent years the cumulative data of Palestinian archaeology (as interpreted, e.g., by W. R Albright) point to a complete cessation of Israelite occupation in Palestine during the greater part of the sixth century. G. A. Cooke, who put out the ICC volume on  Ezekiel in 1937, still adhered to the view that the historic Ezekiel was the basic author of the book, for he felt it would be just as hard to believe in the supposed late redactor as it would be to accept at face value the statements of the text itself. Nevertheless, the more recent trend in Liberal circles is to deny the genuineness of  Ezekiel and to insist that it was really composed in Palestine some time after the restoration from exile. Thus N. Messel in 1945 ventured to date the work at about 400 B.C. Bentzen declared, “The book as it now stands is no authentic work of the prophet Ezekiel.”

     Two main grounds have been advanced for the denial of this book to the sixth-century prophet Ezekiel.

     1. The prophet who pronounced doom upon Israel could not possibly be the same as the one who held forth heartening promises of future blessing. In other words, the historic Ezekiel must have been a preacher of darkness and doom and afforded his nation no ray of light or hope. But it should be pointed out that nearly all the Old Testament prophets who foretell catastrophic judgment also predict subsequent restoration and the ultimate bestowal of covenant grace on the chastened nation of Israel. This observation applies to  Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah, and  Jeremiah, just to name a few of the outstanding examples. Even  Nahum speaks of eventual deliverance and triumph for Israel ( 2:2 ) and the destruction of her foes ( 1:15 ). The same is true in  Zeph. 3:14–20. Only by a rigid dogmatism can these various Old Testament prophets be carved up into different sources and thus preserve the hypothesis that the threatener can only threaten and the promiser can only promise. Even Hugo Gressmann was led by an extensive study of these prophets to this conclusion: “World renewal necessarily follows upon world catastrophe.”

     2. It is alleged that the author of  Ezekiel betrays a Palestinian viewpoint rather than that of an author writing in Babylonia. For example,  Ezekiel is portrayed as enacting symbolic prophecies for the benefit of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, which of course they could not have witnessed had he been living in the land of the Chaldeans more than a thousand miles away. In answer to this it should be pointed out that there is no hint or suggestion in the text of  Ezekiel itself that the prophet performed his symbolic actions in the presence of Jerusalemites actually living in Jerusalem. On the contrary, it indicates that his audience was composed of citizens of Jerusalem who shared exile with him in Tell Abib, Babylonia. In  2 Kings 24:14 we read that when King Jehoiachin was taken into captivity in 597 B.C. with his princes and “mighty men of valor,” the number of captives deported to Babylon (including the craftsmen and skilled workers) numbered no less than ten thousand. Since the great majority of these must have been residents of Jerusalem, there is no difficulty in supposing that Ezekiel had a very considerable audience of Jerusalemites to whom he might preach, right there in Tel Abib by the Chebar.

     Second, it is objected that the author betrays an eyewitness knowledge of such events as took place in Jerusalem itself and which could have been witnessed only by actual bystanders. Thus in chapter  8 the author describes the idolatrous worship of the elders in the Jerusalem temple; in  11:13 he refers to the sudden death of one of their number (Pelatiah, the son of Benaiah). In  12:3–12, he refers to Zedekiah’s attempt to escape from Jerusalem by night; in  21:18 he depicts Nebuchadnezzar consulting omens at a crossroads on the way to Jerusalem; and in  24:2 he refers to his encampment outside the city walls. The only reasonable conclusion to draw, according to these critics, is that the author lived in Jerusalem in the last years before the final destruction of 587 B.C. (Most advocates of this theory, however, make the author subsequent to the Exile and understand his work as a mere fictional account pieced together from oral tradition.)

     Yet it should be noted that many of these references in  Ezekiel are perfectly compatible with the supposition that tidings of the events related might have had opportunity to get to the exiles in Babylon by the time the author wrote what he did. In other cases, an introductory statement is given (e.g., in chap.  8 ) that what the author relates consists of a vision supernaturally imparted to him by the Lord. Only on the basis of antisupernaturalistic presuppositions can the factor of divine revelation be ruled out as an explanation of how Ezekiel could have had such an exact knowledge of what was going on in the Lord’s house back in his native land. Nor can it be successfully maintained that even the assumption of an author living in Jerusalem can satisfactorily explain all the material contained in the text, for some of these visions are obviously of supernatural origin. This is preeminently the case with the vision of the departure of the shekinah glory of the Lord from the temple as set forth in  10:4 and  11:23. Only upon the supposition that Jehovah miraculously conveyed these scenes to His prophet in the form of a spiritual vision can these passages in  Ezekiel be intelligently understood.

A Survey of Old Testament Introduction

The Continual Burnt Offering (Joel 2:12-13)

By H.A. Ironside - 1941

May 10

Joel 2:12  “Yet even now,” declares the LORD,
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
13  and rend your hearts and not your garments.”
Return to the LORD your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love;
and he relents over disaster.   ESV

In a time of deep dejection
Jesus journeyed by,
Saw my heart was dull and empty,
Gently asked me “Why?”

Then I told Him all the story
Of my bitter woe,
How my hopes and joys had perished
Many years ago.

And the tears were softly dropping
As I told Him all,
Yet He did not chide my weeping,
Though He saw them fall.

But when I had told the story,
Lovingly He came,
Filled, Himself, the vacant chambers,
Blessed be His name!

Now no more my heart is vacant,
Nevermore can be;
Filled with Jesus, “Jesus only,”
For eternity!

The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Translated by Henry Beveridge

     BOOK FOURTH.

OF THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH

__________________________________________________________________

ARGUMENT.

In the former Books an exposition has been given of the three parts of the Apostles' Creed concerning God the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sanctifier. It now remains to treat, in this last Book, of the Church and the Communion of Saints, or of the external means or helps by which God invites us to fellowship with Christ, and keeps us in it.

The twenty Chapters of which it consists may be conveniently reduced to three particular heads--viz. I. Of the Church. II. Of the Sacraments. III. Of Civil Government.

The first head occupies the first thirteen chapters; but these may all be reduced to four--viz. I. Of the marks of the Church, or the means by which the Church may be discerned, since it is necessary to cultivate unity with the Church. This is considered in Chapters 1 and 2--II. Of the rule or government of the Church. The order of government, Chap. 3. The form in use in the primitive Church, Chap. 4. The form at present existing in the Papacy, Chap. 5. The primacy of the Pope, Chap. 6. The gradual rise of his usurpation, Chap. 7--III. Of the power of the Church. The power in relation to doctrine as possessed either by individuals, Chap. 8; or universally as in Councils, Chap. 9. The power of enacting laws, Chap. 10. The extent of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, Chap. 11--IV. Of the discipline of the Church. The chief use of discipline, Chap. 12. The abuse of it, Chap. 13.

The second general head, Of the Sacraments, comprehends three particulars,--I. Of the Sacraments in general, Chap. 14--II. Of the two Sacraments in particular. Of Baptism, Chap. 15. Of Pædobaptism, Chap. 16. Of the Lord's Supper, Chap. 17. Of profaning the Lord's Supper, Chap. 18. Of the five Sacraments falsely so called, Chap. 19.

The third general head, Of Civil Government. This considered first generally, and then under the separate heads of Magistrates, Laws, and People.

__________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER 1.

OF THE TRUE CHURCH. DUTY OF CULTIVATING UNITY WITH HER, AS THE MOTHER OF ALL THE GODLY.

The three divisions of this chapter are,--I. The article of the Creed concerning the Holy Catholic Church and the Communion of Saints briefly expounded. The grounds on which the Church claims our reverence, sec. 1-6. II. Of the marks of the Church, sec. 7-9. III. The necessity of cleaving to the Holy Catholic Church and the Communion of Saints. Refutation of the errors of the Novatians, Anabaptists, and other schismatics, in regard to this matter, sec. 10-29.

Sections.

1. The church now to be considered. With her God has deposited whatever is necessary to faith and good order. A summary of what is contained in this Book. Why it begins with the Church.

2. In what sense the article of the Creed concerning the Church is to be understood. Why we should say, "I believe the Church," not "I believe in the Church." The purport of this article. Why the Church is called Catholic or Universal.

3. What meant by the Communion of Saints. Whether it is inconsistent with various gifts in the saints, or with civil order. Uses of this article concerning the Church and the Communion of Saints. Must the Church be visible in order to our maintaining unity with her?

4. The name of Mother given to the Church shows how necessary it is to know her. No salvation out of the Church.

5. The Church is our mother, inasmuch as God has committed to her the kind office of bringing us up in the faith until we attain full age. This method of education not to be despised. Useful to us in two ways. This utility destroyed by those who despise the pastors and teachers of the Church. The petulance of such despisers repressed by reason and Scripture. For this education of the Church her children enjoined to meet in the sanctuary. The abuse of churches both before and since the advent of Christ. Their proper use.

6. Her ministry effectual, but not without the Spirit of God. Passages in proof of this.

7. Second part of the Chapter. Concerning the marks of the Church. In what respect the Church is invisible. In what respect she is visible.

8. God alone knoweth them that are his. Still he has given marks to discern his children.

9. These marks are the ministry of the word, and administration of the sacraments instituted by Christ. The same rule not to be followed in judging of individuals and of churches.

10. We must on no account forsake the Church distinguished by such marks. Those who act otherwise are apostates, deserters of the truth and of the household of God, deniers of God and Christ, violators of the mystical marriage.

11. These marks to be the more carefully observed, because Satan strives to efface them, or to make us revolt from the Church. The twofold error of despising the true, and submitting to a false Church.

12. Though the common profession should contain some corruption, this is not a sufficient reason for forsaking the visible Church. Some of these corruptions specified. Caution necessary. The duty of the members.

13. The immoral lives of certain professors no ground for abandoning the Church. Error on this head of the ancient and modern Cathari. Their first objection. Answer to it from three of our Saviour's parables.

14. Second objection. Answer from a consideration of the state of the Corinthian Church, and the Churches of Galatia.

15. Third objection and answer.

16. The origin of these objections. A description of Schismatics. Their portraiture by Augustine. A pious counsel respecting these scandals, and a safe remedy against them.

17. Fourth objection and answer. Answer confirmed by the divine promises.

18. Another confirmation from the example of Christ and of the faithful servants of God. The appearance of the Church in the days of the prophets.

19. Appearance of the Church in the days of Christ and the apostles, and their immediate followers.

20. Fifth objection. Answer to the ancient and modern Cathari, and to the Novatians, concerning the forgiveness of sins

21. Answer to the fifth objection continued. By the forgiveness of sins believers are enabled to remain perpetually in the Church.

22. The keys of the Church given for the express purpose of securing this benefit. A summary of the answer to the fifth objection.

23. Sixth objection, formerly advanced by the Novatians, and renewed by the Anabaptists. This error confuted by the Lord's Prayer.

24. A second answer, founded on some examples under the Old Testament.

25. A third answer, confirmed by passages from Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Solomon. A fourth answer, derived from sacrifices.

26. A fifth answer, from the New Testament. Some special examples.

27. General examples. A celebrated passage. The arrangement of the Creed.

28 Objection, that voluntary transgression excludes from the Church.

29. Last objection of the Novatians, founded on the solemn renewal of repentance required by the Church for more heinous offences. Answer.

1. In the last Book, it has been shown, that by the faith of the gospel Christ becomes ours, and we are made partakers of the salvation and eternal blessedness procured by him. But as our ignorance and sloth (I may add, the vanity of our mind) stand in need of external helps, by which faith may be begotten in us, and may increase and make progress until its consummation, God, in accommodation to our infirmity, has added such helps, and secured the effectual preaching of the gospel, by depositing this treasure with the Church. He has appointed pastors and teachers, by whose lips he might edify his people (Eph. 4:11); he has invested them with authority, and, in short, omitted nothing that might conduce to holy consent in the faith, and to right order. In particular, he has instituted sacraments, which we feel by experience to be most useful helps in fostering and confirming our faith. For seeing we are shut up in the prison of the body, and have not yet attained to the rank of angels, God, in accommodation to our capacity, has in his admirable providence provided a method by which, though widely separated, we might still draw near to him. Wherefore, due order requires that we first treat of the Church, of its Government, Orders, and Power; next, of the Sacraments; and, lastly, of Civil Government;--at the same time guarding pious readers against the corruptions of the Papacy, by which Satan has adulterated all that God had appointed for our salvation. I will begin with the Church, into whose bosom God is pleased to collect his children, not only that by her aid and ministry they may be nourished so long as they are babes and children, but may also be guided by her maternal care until they grow up to manhood, and, finally, attain to the perfection of faith. What God has thus joined, let not man put asunder (Mark 10:9): to those to whom he is a Father, the Church must also be a mother. This was true not merely under the Law, but even now after the advent of Christ; since Paul declares that we are the children of a new, even a heavenly Jerusalem (Gal. 4:26).

2. When in the Creed we profess to believe the Church, reference is made not only to the visible Church of which we are now treating, but also to all the elect of God, including in the number even those who have departed this life. And, accordingly, the word used is "believe," because oftentimes no difference can be observed between the children of God and the profane, between his proper flock and the untamed herd. The particle in is often interpolated, but without any probable ground. I confess, indeed, that it is the more usual form, and is not unsupported by antiquity, since the Nicene Creed, as quoted in Ecclesiastical History, adds the preposition. At the same time, we may perceive from early writers, that the expression received without controversy in ancient times was to believe "the Church," and not "in the Church." This is not only the expression used by Augustine, and that ancient writer, whoever he may have been, whose treatise, De Symboli Expositione, is extant under the name of Cyprian, but they distinctly remark that the addition of the preposition would make the expression improper, and they give good grounds for so thinking. We declare that we believe in God, both because our mind reclines upon him as true, and our confidence is fully satisfied in him. This cannot be said of the Church, just as it cannot be said of the forgiveness of sins, or the resurrection of the body. Wherefore, although I am unwilling to dispute about words, yet I would rather keep to the proper form, as better fitted to express the thing that is meant, than affect terms by which the meaning is causelessly obscured. The object of the expression is to teach us, that though the devil leaves no stone unturned in order to destroy the grace of Christ, and the enemies of God rush with insane violence in the same direction, it cannot be extinguished,--the blood of Christ cannot be rendered barren, and prevented from producing fruit. Hence, regard must be had both to the secret election and to the internal calling of God, because he alone "knoweth them that are his" (2 Tim. 2:19); and as Paul expresses it, holds them as it were enclosed under his seal, although, at the same time, they wear his insignia, and are thus distinguished from the reprobate. But as they are a small and despised number, concealed in an immense crowd, like a few grains of wheat buried among a heap of chaff, to God alone must be left the knowledge of his Church, of which his secret election forms the foundation. [517] Nor is it enough to embrace the number of the elect in thought and intention merely. By the unity of the Church we must understand a unity into which we feel persuaded that we are truly ingrafted. For unless we are united with all the other members under Christ our head, no hope of the future inheritance awaits us. Hence the Church is called Catholic or Universal (August. Ep. 48), for two or three cannot be invented without dividing Christ; and this is impossible. All the elect of God are so joined together in Christ, that as they depend on one head, so they are as it were compacted into one body, being knit together like its different members; made truly one by living together under the same Spirit of God in one faith, hope, and charity, called not only to the same inheritance of eternal life, but to participation in one God and Christ. For although the sad devastation which everywhere meets our view may proclaim that no Church remains, let us know that the death of Christ produces fruit, and that God wondrously preserves his Church, while placing it as it were in concealment. Thus it was said to Elijah, "Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel" (1 Kings 19:18).

3. Moreover, this article of the Creed relates in some measure to the external Church, that every one of us must maintain brotherly concord with all the children of God, give due authority to the Church, and, in short, conduct ourselves as sheep of the flock. And hence the additional expression, the "communion of saints;" for this clause, though usually omitted by ancient writers, must not be overlooked, as it admirably expresses the quality of the Church; just as if it had been said, that saints are united in the fellowship of Christ on this condition, that all the blessings which God bestows upon them are mutually communicated to each other. This, however, is not incompatible with a diversity of graces, for we know that the gifts of the Spirit are variously distributed; nor is it incompatible with civil order, by which each is permitted privately to possess his own means, it being necessary for the preservation of peace among men that distinct rights of property should exist among them. Still a community is asserted, such as Luke describes when he says, "The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul" (Acts 4:32); and Paul, when he reminds the Ephesians, "There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling" (Eph. 4:4). For if they are truly persuaded that God is the common Father of them all, and Christ their common head, they cannot but be united together in brotherly love, and mutually impart their blessings to each other. Then it is of the highest importance for us to know what benefit thence redounds to us. For when we believe the Church, it is in order that we may be firmly persuaded that we are its members. In this way our salvation rests on a foundation so firm and sure, that though the whole fabric of the world were to give way, it could not be destroyed. First, it stands with the election of God, and cannot change or fail, any more than his eternal providence. Next, it is in a manner united with the stability of Christ, who will no more allow his faithful followers to be dissevered from him, than he would allow his own members to be torn to pieces. We may add, that so long as we continue in the bosom of the Church, we are sure that the truth will remain with us. Lastly, we feel that we have an interest in such promises as these, "In Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance" (Joel 2:32; Obad. 17); "God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved" (Ps. 46:5). So available is communion with the Church to keep us in the fellowship of God. In the very term communion there is great consolation; because, while we are assured that everything which God bestows on his members belongs to us, all the blessings conferred upon them confirm our hope. But in order to embrace the unity of the Church in this manner, it is not necessary, as I have observed, to see it with our eyes, or feel it with our hands. Nay, rather from its being placed in faith, we are reminded that our thoughts are to dwell upon it, as much when it escapes our perception as when it openly appears. Nor is our faith the worse for apprehending what is unknown, since we are not enjoined here to distinguish between the elect and the reprobate (this belongs not to us, but to God only), but to feel firmly assured in our minds, that all those who, by the mercy of God the Father, through the efficacy of the Holy Spirit, have become partakers with Christ, are set apart as the proper and peculiar possession of God, and that as we are of the number, we are also partakers of this great grace.

4. But as it is now our purpose to discourse of the visible Church, [518] let us learn, from her single title of Mother, how useful, nay, how necessary the knowledge of her is, since there is no other means of entering into life unless she conceive us in the womb and give us birth, unless she nourish us at her breasts, and, in short, keep us under her charge and government, until, divested of mortal flesh, we become like the angels (Mt. 22:30). For our weakness does not permit us to leave the school until we have spent our whole lives as scholars. Moreover, beyond the pale of the Church no forgiveness of sins, no salvation, can be hoped for, as Isaiah and Joel testify (Isa. 37:32; Joel 2:32). To their testimony Ezekiel subscribes, when he declares, "They shall not be in the assembly of my people, neither shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel" (Ezek. 13:9); as, on the other hand, those who turn to the cultivation of true piety are said to inscribe their names among the citizens of Jerusalem. For which reason it is said in the psalm, "Remember me, O Lord, with the favour that thou bearest unto thy people: O visit me with thy salvation; that I may see the good of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation, that I may glory with thine inheritance" (Ps. 106:4, 5). By these words the paternal favour of God and the special evidence of spiritual life are confined to his peculiar people, and hence the abandonment of the Church is always fatal.

     Christian Classics Ethereal Library / Public Domain

     Institutes of the Christian Religion