‘Be angry, and do not sin’

(Eph 4:26) 26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, ESV

     There’s a right way and a wrong way to handle your anger. Moses handled his anger the wrong way and it cost him the Promised Land. Jesus handled His anger the right way, and those who took advantage of the poor were exposed and thrown out of the temple. The Scripture, ‘Be angry, and do not sin,’ means instead of just complaining about the problem, you’re supposed to do something about it. Instead of walking around on a slow burn and keeping those around you on pins and needles, get to the core of your anger and express it the right way. Pastor and author Dr Jack Hyles wrote about how his child was assigned to read a book in school – one that was filled with foul language and questionable situations. The more Dr Hyles perused the book, the angrier he got. Eventually he marched up to the principal’s office and politely but firmly said, ‘My son is not going to read this book: he’ll be assigned a different book to read, and he will not be marked down because of it.’ The principal, taken aback and attempting to argue with Dr Hyles, said, ‘But…’ Dr Hyles interrupted and said softly but sternly, ‘No ifs, ands, or buts about it. He will not be forced to read this book, and he will be assigned another one. Is that clear?’ The principal replied, ‘All right, Dr Hyles, but I don’t understand the fuss. After all, the language in that book is no worse than what’s written on the bathroom walls.’ Dr Hyles smiled and said, ‘Yes, and when that becomes required reading – I’ll be back!’

Ezek 16-17
Heb 11

UCB The Word For Today

     Julius Caesar Watts, better know as J.C., was born this day, November 8, 1957. A college and pro football player, he was a youth minister and in 1994 was elected to the U.S. Congress. In response to the President’s State of the Union Address in 1997, Congressman J.C. Watts stated: “I was taught to respect everyone for the simple reason that we’re all God’s children. I was taught, in the words of Martin Luther King, to judge a man not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character. And I was taught that character is simply doing what’s right when nobody’s looking.”

     Chapter 4

     Of the two difficulties you mention I think that only one is often a practical problem for believers. The other is in my experience usually raised by people who are attacking Christianity.

     The ideal opening for their attacks-if they know the Bible-is the phrase in Philippians about "making your requests known to God." I mean, the words making known bring out most clearly the apparent absurdity with which they charge us. We say that we believe God to be omniscient; yet a great deal of prayer seems to consist of giving Him information. And indeed we have been reminded by Our Lord too not to pray as if we forgot the omniscience-"for your heavenly Father knows you need all these things."

     This is final against one very silly sort of prayer. I have heard a man offer a prayer for a sick person which really amounted to a diagnosis followed by advice as to how God should treat the patient. And I have heard prayers nominally for peace, but really so concerned for various devices which the petitioner believed to be means to peace, that they were open to the same criticism.

     But even when that kind of thing is ruled out, the unbeliever's objection remains. To confess our sins before God is certainly to tell Him what He knows much better than we. And also, any petition is a kind of telling. If it does not strictly exclude the belief that God knows our need, it at least seems to -solicit His attention. Some traditional formulae make that implication very clear: "Hear us, good Lord"-"0 let thine ears consider well the voice of my complaint." As if, though God does not need to be informed, He does need, and even rather frequently, to be reminded. But we cannot really believe that degrees of attention, and therefore of inattention, and therefore of something like forgetfulness, exist in the Absolute Mind. I presume that only God's attention keeps me (or anything else) in existence at all.

     CHAPTER 9.

     How The People That Were In The Fortress Were Prevailed On By The Words Of Eleazar, Two Women And Five Children Only Excepted And All Submitted To Be Killed By One Another.

     1. Now as Eleazar was proceeding on in this exhortation, they all cut him off short, and made haste to do the work, as full of an unconquerable ardor of mind, and moved with a demoniacal fury. So they went their ways, as one still endeavoring to be before another, and as thinking that this eagerness would be a demonstration of their courage and good conduct, if they could avoid appearing in the last class; so great was the zeal they were in to slay their wives and children, and themselves also! Nor indeed, when they came to the work itself, did their courage fail them, as one might imagine it would have done, but they then held fast the same resolution, without wavering, which they had upon the hearing of Eleazar's speech, while yet every one of them still retained the natural passion of love to themselves and their families, because the reasoning they went upon appeared to them to be very just, even with regard to those that were dearest to them; for the husbands tenderly embraced their wives, and took their children into their arms, and gave the longest parting kisses to them, with tears in their eyes. Yet at the same time did they complete what they had resolved on, as if they had been executed by the hands of strangers; and they had nothing else for their comfort but the necessity they were in of doing this execution, to avoid that prospect they had of the miseries they were to suffer from their enemies. Nor was there at length any one of these men found that scrupled to act their part in this terrible execution, but every one of them despatched his dearest relations. Miserable men indeed were they! whose distress forced them to slay their own wives and children with their own hands, as the lightest of those evils that were before them. So they being not able to bear the grief they were under for what they had done any longer, and esteeming it an injury to those they had slain, to live even the shortest space of time after them, they presently laid all they had upon a heap, and set fire to it. They then chose ten men by lot out of them to slay all the rest; every one of whom laid himself down by his wife and children on the ground, and threw his arms about them, and they offered their necks to the stroke of those who by lot executed that melancholy office; and when these ten had, without fear, slain them all, they made the same rule for casting lots for themselves, that he whose lot it was should first kill the other nine, and after all should kill himself. Accordingly, all these had courage sufficient to be no way behind one another in doing or suffering; so, for a conclusion, the nine offered their necks to the executioner, and he who was the last of all took a view of all the other bodies, lest perchance some or other among so many that were slain should want his assistance to be quite despatched, and when he perceived that they were all slain, he set fire to the palace, and with the great force of his hand ran his sword entirely through himself, and fell down dead near to his own relations. So these people died with this intention, that they would not leave so much as one soul among them all alive to be subject to the Romans. Yet was there an ancient woman, and another who was of kin to Eleazar, and superior to most women in prudence and learning, with five children, who had concealed themselves in caverns under ground, and had carried water thither for their drink, and were hidden there when the rest were intent upon the slaughter of one another. Those others were nine hundred and sixty in number, the women and children being withal included in that computation. This calamitous slaughter was made on the fifteenth day of the month Xanthicus [Nisan].

     2. Now for the Romans, they expected that they should be fought in the Morning, when, accordingly, they put on their armor, and laid bridges of planks upon their ladders from their banks, to make an assault upon the fortress, which they did; but saw nobody as an enemy, but a terrible solitude on every side, with a fire within the place, as well as a perfect silence. So they were at a loss to guess at what had happened. At length they made a shout, as if it had been at a blow given by the battering ram, to try whether they could bring any one out that was within; the women heard this noise, and came out of their under-ground cavern, and informed the Romans what had been done, as it was done; and the second of them clearly described all both what was said and what was done, and this manner of it; yet did they not easily give their attention to such a desperate undertaking, and did not believe it could be as they said; they also attempted to put the fire out, and quickly cutting themselves a way through it, they came within the palace, and so met with the multitude of the slain, but could take no pleasure in the fact, though it were done to their enemies. Nor could they do other than wonder at the courage of their resolution, and the immovable contempt of death which so great a number of them had shown, when they went through with such an action as that was.

     The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem, by Flavius Josephus Translator: William Whiston

Discernment is God's call to intercession,
never to faultfinding.
--- Corrie Ten Boom
Passionate Prayer: Discovering the Power of Talking with God

In the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for
living his own life and for "finding himself." If he persists in shifting his responsibility to somebody else, he fails to find out the meaning of his own existence.
--- Thomas Merton
No Man Is an Island (Shambhala Library)

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that the stuff life is made of.
--- Benjamin Franklin
The Life of Benjamin Franklin, Volume 1: Journalist, 1706-1730

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
--- T. S. Eliot
T.S. Eliot and Prejudice

     Unlike the other Gospels, which trace the development of Jesus’ ministry over three years, the Gospel of John focuses on the final months of Christ’s life, when the issues had been clearly drawn.

     Jesus, the Son of God, revealed over and over again the truth about life and light, and confronted His listeners with the necessity of choice.

     John 10 through 12 depicts events that lead up to the Upper Room Discourse. In these chapters we see the final confrontation, and catch a glimpse of the ultimate evidence that will soon be offered to prove Jesus’ claims.

     In the Old Testament, the picture of a shepherd and his sheep was often used to illustrate the relationship between God and His people. “The Lord is my Shepherd,” one psalmist said. Another added, “We are the sheep of His pasture.”

     Shepherd was also a term applied to spiritual leaders in the Old Testament. Jeremiah chose harsh words to describe leaders who perverted their spiritual role: “ ‘Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of My pasture!’ declares the Lord” (Jer. 23:1). The prophet declared that God would set His own Shepherd over His sheep when the promised Son of David (Jesus) reigns.

     The people would have had these symbolic pictures of divine leadership in mind when Jesus announced, “I am the Good Shepherd” (John 10:11). Jesus then developed a contrast between Himself and the religious authorities of His day. Jesus was concerned for God’s people, and exemplified the morality of grace. The Jewish rulers, on the other hand, ignored the welfare of their people. They, therefore, were false shepherds.

     By this time, the leaders of Israel were firmly committed not only to rejecting Jesus’ claim to divine authority but to destroying Him as well. So in this message Jesus did not speak to the rulers; He appealed directly to the individuals who made up the nation.

     True Shepherd recognized (John 10:1–6). In Israel sheep were not herded with dogs or by men who walked behind them. The shepherd of the Middle East led his sheep. He knew each one by name, and the sheep recognized his voice. At night several herds of sheep might sleep in the same fold. In the morning, when the one door was unbarred, each shepherd could unerringly pick out his own flock. And each member of that flock would be able to distinguish his shepherd from the others because the sheep would know the shepherd’s voice, just as God’s people would recognize Jesus as the living Word of God.

     The Pharisees who claimed to speak for Moses would be followed, but not by those who belonged to God. The true sheep would hear the voice of the Good Shepherd.

     Good Shepherd identified (John 10:7–17). Now Jesus condemned the leaders of Israel, saying, “All who ever came before Me were thieves and robbers.” Such men care “nothing for the sheep.” Jesus, on the other hand, is the Good Shepherd. The Palestinian shepherd commonly slept in the single opening to the fold through which wild animals might attack. As “the door” Jesus protects His own, by placing His body between the sheep and their enemies. The Good Shepherd guides His sheep to pasture, concerned not only that they have life, but that they “have it to the full.” How deep is the commitment of the Good Shepherd to His sheep? “The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.”

     How clearly this must have spoken to the men and women of Israel. Their rulers, like religious leaders of many times and many faiths, were quick to demand respect and obedience. They were quick to lord it over others; quick to judge, advise, condemn. But no one in Israel would imagine for a moment that one of the authorities would lay down his life for one of the common people. Those leaders might lay down their lives for truth. More than once the men of Israel had refused to fight on the Sabbath, and had been killed easily by pagans. More than one Israelite had offered his body to Roman swords rather than permit a statue of Caesar, or even the Legion Eagles, to enter Jerusalem. To die for a conviction was not that uncommon. But to die for love of the sheep? Never! Truth was important to the authorities; people were not.

     But to Jesus, the sheep—sinners not worth the contempt of the righteous—were worth dying for!

     One with the Father (John 10:18–30). Jesus could die for the sheep because He had the authority from God to lay down His life, and “authority to take it up again. This command,” Jesus continued, “I received from My Father” (John 10:18).

     These words sent the Jews back to the old debate. “He is demon-possessed and raving mad,” some said. But others answered, “Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?”

     Again the Jews asked the central question: “How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly” (John 10:24).

     Once again Jesus explained that His sheep hear and respond to His voice. To such He gives eternal life. He can bestow this gift because, “I and the Father are One” (John 10:30).

     When pictures are drawn, have each member show his or hers, and explain it. In the process your group will develop a much better picture of all that Jesus’ presentation of Himself as the Good Shepherd means to us today.

     Refusal to believe (John 10:31–42). Jesus’ renewed claim to be God the Son was recognized by the people: “Again the Jews picked up stones to stone Him.”

     How strange. “Tell us if You are the Christ.” And when Jesus told them, they tried to kill Him because they did not want to hear the truth!

     The Jews accused Jesus of blasphemy “because You, a mere Man, claim to be God.”

     Jesus stunned them with a quote from the Psalms: “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are gods’? If He called them ‘gods’ to whom the Word of God came—and the Scripture cannot be broken—what about the One whom the Father set apart as His very own and sent into the world?” (John 10:34–36) If those who receive the Word are exalted by the Lord Himself and called “gods,” how much more deserving of that name is the One who is the Word?

     The passage Jesus quoted is Psalm 82:6, “I say, ‘You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High.’ ” The life Jesus offers us is eternal life, God’s life. When we receive Jesus, we become the sons of God.

     As Peter put it, “You are sons of God now; the live, permanent Word of the living God has given you His own indestructible heredity” (1 Peter 1:23, PH). Unable to grasp grace, the Pharisees and other leaders had no concept of what a personal relationship with God meant. They were no more able to understand the gift Jesus offered than they could imagine God could care enough for human beings to become a Man in order to bring us to Himself.

     But while the leaders continued to try to arrest Jesus (John 10:39), many others heard in Jesus the voice of God, and began to believe.

The Teacher's Commentary

13     He who conceals his sins will not succeed;
he who confesses and abandons them will gain mercy.


14     Happy the person who is never without fear,
but he who hardens his heart will fall into misfortune.

                The unrivalled power of prayer

     We know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. --- Romans 8:26.

     We realize that we are energized by the Holy Spirit for prayer; we know what it is to pray in the Spirit; but we do not so often realize that the Holy Spirit Himself prays in us prayers which we cannot utter. When we are born again of God and are indwelt by the Spirit of God, He expresses for us the unutterable.

     “He,” the Spirit in you, “maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God,” and God searches your heart not to know what your conscious prayers are, but to find out what is the prayer of the Holy Spirit.

     The Spirit of God needs the nature of the believer as a shrine in which to offer His intercession. “Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost.” When Jesus Christ cleansed the temple, He “would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple.” The Spirit of God will not allow you to use your body for your own convenience. Jesus ruthlessly cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and said—“My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.”

     Have we recognized that our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost? If so, we must be careful to keep it undefiled for Him. We have to remember that our conscious life, though it is only a tiny bit of our personality, is to be regarded by us as a shrine of the Holy Ghost. He will look after the unconscious part that we know nothing of; but we must see that we guard the conscious part for which we are responsible.

                The Game

It is the play of a being
  who is not serious in
  his conclusions. Take this
  from that, he says, and there is everything
  left. Look over the edge
  of the universe and you see
  your own face staring
  at you back, as it does
  in a pool. And we are forced
  into the game, reluctant
  contestants; though the mathematicians
  are best at it. Never mind, they
  say, whether it is there
  or not, so long as our like
  can use it. And we are shattered
  by their deductions. There is
  a series that is without
  end, yet the rules are built
  on the impossibility of
  its existence. It is
  how you play, we cry, scanning
  the future for an account
  of our performance. But the rewards
  are there even so, and history
  festers with the numbers of the recipients
  of them, the handsome, the fortunate,
  the well-fed; those who cheated this
  being when he was not looking.

     Man in history is not a lifeless tool in the hands of an omnipotent will. The biblical description of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart suggests that God removed freedom from man and thus allows for a conception of history wherein men are lacking in will and are God’s puppets. Maimonides, however, interprets these verses in a way which protects human freedom from the nonrational intrusion of the vertical will of God:

     To sum up, God did not decree that Pharaoh should ill-treat Israel, or Siḥon sin in his land, or that the Canaanites should commit abominations, or that Israel should worship idols. All of them sinned by their own volition; and all accordingly incurred the penalty that repentance should be withheld from them.

     Maimonides writes of prayers for grace:

     What is meant by David’s utterance, “Good and upright is the Lord; therefore does He instruct sinners in the way. He guides the humble in justice; and He teaches the humble His way” (Ps. 25:8, 9)? It refers to the fact that God sent them Prophets to teach them the ways of the Lord and bring them back in repentance; furthermore, that He endowed them with the capacity of learning and understanding. For it is characteristic of every human being that, when his interest is engaged in the ways of wisdom and righteousness, he longs for these ways and is eager to follow them. Thus the Sages say, “Whoever comes to purify himself receives aid”; that is, he will find himself helped in his endeavor.

     Petitional prayers for divine guidance can be understood within the horizontal structure of reality. One can understand God’s response to man’s petitional prayers for divine guidance by understanding how human reason is a manifestation of divine governance. This nonmiraculous understanding of divine grace finds similar expression in Maimonides’ approach to historical redemption. Redemption in history is not initiated by the autonomous will and power of God, but by human repentance (teshuvah):

     All the Prophets charged the people concerning repentance. Only through repentance will Israel be redeemed, and the Torah already offered the assurance that Israel will, in the closing period of his exile, finally repent, and thereupon be immediately redeemed.

     This is the name by which he will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness.
--- Jeremiah 23:6.

     The Lord is our righteousness by imputation.   Classic Sermons on The Names of God (Kregel Classic Sermons Series) (Classic Sermons)    For it pleased God, after he had made all things, to create the human race in his own image. And so infinite was the condescension of the one who lives forever that, although he might have insisted on the everlasting obedience of Adam and his posterity, he obliged himself by a covenant made with his own creatures, on condition of obedience, to give them eternal life. For when it is said, “For when you eat of it you will surely die” (Gen. 2:17), we may infer that as long as they continued obedient and did not eat of it, they would surely live. Genesis 3 gives us a full account of how our first parents broke this covenant and therefore stood in need of a better righteousness than their own in order to procure their future acceptance with God.

     Here then opens the scene of divine philanthropy—God’s love to humanity. For what we could not do, Jesus Christ undertakes for us. And that God might be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus, he took the nature of a servant, even human nature. In that nature he obeyed and thereby fulfilled the whole moral law in our stead; he also died on the cross and by that became a curse for, or instead of, those whom the Father had given him. As God and human in one person, he satisfied at the same time that he obeyed and worked out a full and perfect righteousness for all to whom it was to be imputed.

     Here then we see the meaning of the word righteousness. It implies the active as well as passive obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. Generally, when talking of the merits of Christ we only mention the latter—his death—whereas his life and active obedience are equally necessary. Christ is not the Savior we need unless we join both together. Christ not only died but lived; not only suffered but obeyed for, or instead of, sinners. And both these jointly make up that complete righteousness that is to be imputed to us, as the disobedience of our first parents was made ours by imputation. This is what [Paul] elsewhere terms our becoming in Christ the righteousness of God. This is the sense in which the prophet would have us understand the words of the text—the church itself “will be called,” having this righteousness imputed to her, “the LORD Our Righteousness” (Jer. 33:16). A passage, I think, worthy of the profoundest meditation of all the descendants of Adam.
--- George Whitefield

     John Duns Scotus was born in Scotland, studied theology at Oxford, England, and was ordained. About 1304 he migrated to Paris and obtained his doctor’s degree. Pressing on to Cologne, Germany, he taught theology for about a year before dying on November 8, 1308, at a relatively young age, probably under 40. A monument was erected to John Scotus in the Franciscan church in Cologne in 1513, reading: “Scotia (Scotland) gave me birth, England nursed me, Gaul educated me, Cologne holds my ashes.”

     Scotus possessed a brilliant mind that shook up medieval theology. He had few qualms about criticizing earlier Catholic theologians—Thomas Aquinas and Anselm and the others—and he delighted in rattling students by challenging established beliefs. But, like many theologians, he was better at questioning than answering. His own theology is difficult to follow, and for that reason he is known to church history as “The Subtle Doctor.” He has perplexed and frustrated so many students that the word “Dunce” was coined from the “Duns” in the middle of his name.

     Scotus became the first major theologian to advocate the doctrine of Mary’s immaculate conception: that Mary herself was conceived without any sin, that she was pure and sinless from the moment of her conception. At a public debate in Paris, it is said, Scotus pummeled the followers of Thomas Aquinas with 200 arguments on this subject, and the two camps waged one of the most bitter controversies in the pre-Reformation church.

     Yet Scotus didn’t teach his position as dogma, but as probability, writing: “Upon this question I say that God was able to effect it that Mary was never in original sin. He was able also to effect it that she remained in sin for a moment or for a certain time and was cleansed of it in the last instant of that time. Which of the solutions really took place … God knows.”

     His position on the subject nonetheless became established church teaching when Pope Pius IX proclaimed it a dogma in 1854.

     Keep your minds on whatever is true, pure, right, holy, friendly, and proper. Don’t ever stop thinking about what is truly worthwhile and worthy of praise. You know the teachings I gave you, … So follow my example. And God, who gives peace, will be with you.
--- Philippians 4:8,9.

          Morning - November 8

     “As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord.” --- Colossians 2:6.

     The life of faith is represented as receiving—an act which implies the very opposite of anything like merit. It is simply the acceptance of a gift. As the earth drinks in the rain, as the sea receives the streams, as night accepts light from the stars, so we, giving nothing, partake freely of the grace of God. The saints are not, by nature, wells, or streams, they are but cisterns into which the living water flows; they are empty vessels into which God pours his salvation. The idea of receiving implies a sense of realization, making the matter a reality. One cannot very well receive a shadow; we receive that which is substantial: so is it in the life of faith, Christ becomes real to us. While we are without faith, Jesus is a mere name to us—a person who lived a long while ago, so long ago that his life is only a history to us now! By an act of faith Jesus becomes a real person in the consciousness of our heart. But receiving also means grasping or getting possession of. The thing which I receive becomes my own: I appropriate to myself that which is given. When I receive Jesus, he becomes my Saviour, so mine that neither life nor death shall be able to rob me of him. All this is to receive Christ—to take him as God’s free gift; to realize him in my heart, and to appropriate him as mine.

     Salvation may be described as the blind receiving sight, the deaf receiving hearing, the dead receiving life; but we have not only received these blessings, we have received CHRIST JESUS himself. It is true that he gave us life from the dead. He gave us pardon of sin; he gave us imputed righteousness. These are all precious things, but we are not content with them; we have received Christ himself. The Son of God has been poured into us, and we have received him, and appropriated him. What a heartful Jesus must be, for heaven itself cannot contain him!


          Evening - November 8

     “The Master saith, Where is the guestchamber, where I shall eat the passover with my disciples?” --- Mark 14:14.

     Jerusalem at the time of the passover was one great inn; each householder had invited his own friends, but no one had invited the Saviour, and he had no dwelling of his own. It was by his own supernatural power that he found himself an upper room in which to keep the feast. It is so even to this day—Jesus is not received among the sons of men save only where by his supernatural power and grace he makes the heart anew. All doors are open enough to the prince of darkness, but Jesus must clear a way for himself or lodge in the streets. It was through the mysterious power exerted by our Lord that the householder raised no question, but at once cheerfully and joyfully opened his guestchamber. Who he was, and what he was, we do not know, but he readily accepted the honour which the Redeemer proposed to confer upon him. In like manner it is still discovered who are the Lord’s chosen, and who are not; for when the Gospel comes to some, they fight against it, and will not have it, but where men receive it, welcoming it, this is a sure indication that there is a secret work going on in the soul, and that God has chosen them unto eternal life. Are you willing, dear reader, to receive Christ? then there is no difficulty in the way; Christ will be your guest; his own power is working with you, making you willing. What an honour to entertain the Son of God! The heaven of heavens cannot contain him, and yet he condescends to find a house within our hearts! We are not worthy that he should come under our roof, but what an unutterable privilege when he condescends to enter! for then he makes a feast, and causes us to feast with him upon royal dainties, we sit at a banquet where the viands are immortal, and give immortality to those who feed thereon. Blessed among the sons of Adam is he who entertains the angels’ Lord.

          MAY JESUS CHRIST BE PRAISED

     German hymn, c. 1800
     Translated by Edward Caswall, 1814–1878

     I will extol the Lord at all times: His praise will always be on my lips. (Psalm 34:1)

     Forms of worship services vary according to the cultural backgrounds, personalities, and traditions of the believers. Some Christians feel that true worship is best achieved when it is conducted in a structured, liturgical, and meditative setting. Other believers prefer a more free, spontaneous, informal praise and testimony type of service. Forms of worship are not important in themselves. In fact, a variety of worship forms is healthy within the evangelical community. However, we must never get so caught up in the forms and means of worship that we fail to focus on the object of all worship—the praise of Jesus Christ!

     One of the important sources of English hymnody is the wealth of worthy hymns translated from earlier Greek, Latin, and German sources during the mid 19th century. Many English writers’ interest in the hymns from these other cultures was largely a part of a movement within the Anglican church known as the Oxford Movement. The rediscovery of earlier and ancient hymns became especially important during this time. One of the leaders of this movement was Edward Caswall, a well-known scholar, minister, and translator. Caswall is also the translator of another important hymn about our Lord, “Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee.” Throughout his life Caswall kept adding new verses to “May Jesus Christ Be Praised” until eventually this hymn included 28 stanzas.

     These words still have an important place in our church services as they direct our attention to the basic purpose of all worship:

     When Morning gilds the skies, my heart awaking cries: May Jesus Christ be praised! Alike at work and prayer to Jesus I repair: May Jesus Christ be praised!
     Does sadness fill my mind? A solace here I find: May Jesus Christ be praised! Or fades my earthly bliss? My comfort still is this: May Jesus Christ be praised!
     In heav’n’s eternal bliss the loveliest strain is this: May Jesus Christ be praised! The pow’rs of darkness fear when this sweet chant they hear: May Jesus Christ be praised!
     Be this, while life is mine, my canticle divine: May Jesus Christ be praised! Be this th’ eternal song thru all the ages long: May Jesus Christ be praised!

     For Today: Psalm 5:3; 57:7; 69:34; John 14:6, 9; 20:31; Revelation 11:15; 17:14

     What does the term worship mean to you? Is your understanding founded on the praise of Christ? Identify activities in a church service as well as in our own devotional lives that are often substituted for the true worship of God. Determine to praise Christ throughout the day with this hymn ---

     Instruct. 5. Hence is inferred the providence of God, and his government of the world. His power, as well as his wisdom, gives him a right to govern: nothing can equal him, therefore nothing can share the command with him; since all things are his works, it is fittest they should be under his order: he that frames a work, is fittest to guide and govern it. God hath the most right to govern, because he hath knowledge to direct his power, and power to execute the results of his wisdom: he knows what is convenient to order, and hath strength to effect what he orders. As his power would be oppressive without goodness and wisdom, so his goodness and wisdom would be fruitless without power. An artificer that hath lost his hands may direct, but cannot make an engine: a pilot that hath lost his arms may advise the way of steerage, but cannot hold the helm; something is wanting in him to be a complete governor but since both counsel and power are infinite in God, hence results an infinite right to govern, and an infinite fitness, because his will cannot be resisted, his power cannot be enfeebled or diminished; he can quicken and increase the strength of all means as he pleases. He can hold all things in the world together, and preserve them in those functions wherein he settled them, and conduct them to those ends for which he designed them. Every artificer, the more excellent he is, and the more excellency of power appears in his work, is the more careful to maintain and cherish it. Those that deny Providence, do not only ravish from him the bowels of his goodness, but strip him of a main exercise of his power, and engender in men a suspicion of weariness and feebleness in him; as though his strength had been spent in making them, that none is left to guide them. They would make him headless in regard of his wisdom, and bowelless in regard of his goodness, and armless in regard of his strength. If he did not, or were not able to preserve and provide for his creatures, his power in making them would be, in a great part, an invisible power; if he did not preserve what he made, and govern what he preserves, it would be a kind of strange and rude power, to make, and suffer it to be dashed in pieces at the pleasure of others. If the power of God should relinquish the world, the life of things would be extinguished, the fabric would be confounded, and fall into a deplorable chaos. That which is composed of so many various pieces, could not maintain its union, if here were not a secret virtue binding them together and maintaining those varieties of links. Well, then, since God is not only so good, that he cannot will anything but what is good; so wise, that he cannot err or mistake; but also so able, that he cannot be defeated or mated; he hath every way a full ability to govern the world: where those three are infinite, the right and fitness resulting from thence is unquestionable: and, indeed, to deny God this active part of his power, is to render him weak, foolish, cruel, or all.

     Instruct. 6. Here is a ground for the worship of God. Wisdom and power are the grounds of the respect we give to men; they being both infinite in God, are the foundation of a solemn honor to be returned to him by his creatures. If a man makes a curious engine, we honor him for his skill; if another vanquish a vigorous enemy, we admire him for his strength: and shall not the efficacy of God’s power in creation, government, redemption, enflame us with a sense of the honor of his name and perfections? We admire those princes that have vast empires, numerous armies, that have a power to conquer their enemies, and preserve their own people in peace. How much more ground have we to pay a mighty reverence to God, who, without trouble and weariness, made and manages this vast empire of the world by a word and beck! What sensible thoughts have we of the noise of thunder, the power of the sun, the storms of the sea! These things that have no understanding have struck men with such a reverence, that many have adored them as gods. What reverence and adoration doth this mighty power, joined with an infinite wisdom in God, demand at our hands! All religion and worship stands especially upon two pillars, goodness, and power in God; if either of these were defective, all religion would faint away. We can expect no entertainment with him without goodness, nor any benefit from him without power. This God prefaceth to the command to worship him, the benefit his goodness had conferred upon them, and the powerful manner of conveyance of it to them (2 Kings 17:36): “The Lord brought you up from the land of Egypt with great power, and an out-stretched arm; him shall you fear, and him shall you worship, and to him shall you do sacrifice.”

     Because this attribute is a main foundation of prayer, the Lord’s Prayer is concluded with a doxology of it, “For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory.” As he is rich, possessing all blessings; so he is powerful, to confer all blessings on us, and make them efficacious to us. The Jews repeat many times in their prayers, some say an hundred times, העולם מלד , “The King of the world;” it is both an awe and an encouragement. We could not, without consideration of it, pray in faith of success; nay, we could not pray at all, if his power were defective to help us, and his mercy too weak to relieve us. Who would solicit a lifeless, or he a prostrate suppliant, to a feeble arm? Upon this ability of God, our Saviour built his petitions (Heb. 5:7): “He offered up strong cries unto Him that was able to save him from death.” Abraham’s faith hung upon the same string (Rom. 4:21), and the captived church supplicates God to act according to the greatness of his power (Psalm 79:11). In all our addresses this is to be eyed and considered; God is able to help, to relieve, to ease me, let my misery be never so great, and my strength never so weak (Matt. 8:2): “If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean,” was the consideration the leper had when he came to worship Christ; he was clear in his power, and therefore worshipped him, though he was not equally clear in his will. All worship is shot wrong that is not directed to, and conducted by, the thoughts of this attribute, whose assistance we need. When we beg the pardon of our sins, we should eye mercy and power; when we beg his righting us in any case where we are unjustly oppressed, we do not eye righteousness without power; when we plead the performance of his promise, we do not regard his faithfulness only without the prop of his power. As power ushers in all the attributes of God in their exercise and manifestation in the world, so should it be the butt our eyes should be fixed upon in all our acts of worship: as without his power his other attributes would be useless, so without due apprehensions of his power our prayers will be faithless and comfortless. The title in the Lord’s prayer directs us to a prospect both of his goodness and power; his goodness in the word Father, his greatness, excellency, and power, in the word Heaven. The heedless consideration of the infiniteness of this perfection roots up piety in the midst of us, and makes us so careless in worship. Did we more think of that Power that raised the world out of nothing, that orders all creatures by an act of his will, that performed so great an exploit as that of our redemption, when masterless sin had triumphed over the world, we should give God the honor and adoration which so great an excellency challengeth and deserves at our hands, though we ourselves had not been the work of his hands, or the monuments of his strength; how could any creature engross to itself that reverence from us which is due to the powerful Creator, of whom it comes infinitely short in strength as well as wisdom?

     Instruct. 7. From this we have a ground for the belief of the resurrection. God aims at the glory of his power, as well as the glory of any other attribute. Moses else would not have culled out this as the main argument, in his pleading with God, for the sheathing the sword which he began to draw out against them in the wilderness (Num. 14:16): “The nations will say, Because the Lord was not able to bring these people into the land which he sware to them,” &c. As the finding out the particulars of the dust of our bodies discovers the vastness of his knowledge, so to raise them will manifest the glory of his power as much as creation; bodies that have mouldered away into multitudes of atoms, been resolved into the elements, passed through varieties of changes, been sometimes the matter to lodge the form of a plant, or been turned into the substance of a fish or fowl, or vapored up into a cloud, and been part of that matter which hath compacted a thunder-bolt, disposed of in places far distant, scattered by the winds, swallowed and concocted by beasts; for these to be called out from their different places of abode, to meet in one body, and be restored to their former consistency, in a marriage union, in the “twinkling of an eye” (1 Cor. 15:22), it is a consideration that may justly amaze us, and our shallow understandings are too feeble to comprehend it. But is it not credible, since all the disputes against it maybe silenced by reflections on Infinite Power, which nothing can oppose, for which nothing can be esteemed too difficult to effect, which doth not imply a contradiction in itself? It was no less amazing to the blessed virgin to hear a message that she should conceive a Son without knowing a man; but she is quickly answered, by the angel, with a “Nothing is impossible to God” (Luke 1:34, 37). The distinct parts off our bodies cannot be hid from his all-seeing eye, wherever they are lodged, and in all the changes they pass through, as was discoursed w hen the Omniscience of God was handled; shall, then, the collection of them together be too hard for his invincible power and strength, and the uniting all those parts into a body, with new dispositions to receive their several souls, be too big and bulky for that Power which never yet was acquainted with any bar? Was not the miracle of our Saviour’s multiplying the loaves, suppose it had not been by a new creation, but a collection of grain from several parts, very near as stupendous as this? Had any one of us been the only creatures made just before the matter of the world, and beheld that inform chaos covered with a thick darkness, mentioned Gen. 1:2, would not the report, that from this dark deep , next to nothing, should be raised such a multitude of comely creatures, with such innumerable varieties of members, voices, colors, motions, and such numbers of shining stars, a bright sun, one uniform body of light from this darkness, that should, like a giant, rejoice to run a race, for many thousands of years together, without stop or weariness; would not all these have seemed as incredible as the collection of scattered dust? What was it that erected the innumerable host of heaven, the glorious angels, and glittering stars, for aught we know more numerous than the bodies of men, but an act of the Divine will? and shall the power that wrought this sink under the charge of gathering some dispersed atoms, and compacting them into a human body? Can you tell how the dust of the ground was kneaded by God into the body of man, and changed into flesh, skin, hair, bones, sinews, veins, arteries, and blood, and fitted for so many several activities, when a human soul was breathed into it? Can you imagine how a rib, taken from Adam’s side, a lifeless bone, was formed into head, hands, feet, eyes? Why may not the matter of men, which have been, be restored, as well as that which was not, be first erected? Is it harder to repair those things which were, than to create those things which were not? Is there not the same Artificer? Hath any disease or sickliness abated his power? Is the Ancient of Days grown feeble? or shall the elements, and other creatures, that alway yet obeyed his command, ruffle against his raising voice, and refuse to disgorge those remains of human bodies they have swallowed up in their several bowels? Did the whole world, and all the parts of it, rise at his word? and shall not some parts of the world, the dust of the dead, stand up out of the graves at a word of the same mighty efficacy? Do we not annually see those marks of power which may stun our incredulity in this concern? Do you see in a small acorn, or little seed, any such sights, as a tree with body, bark, branches, leaves, flowers, fruit—where can you find them? Do you know the invisible corners where they lurk in that little body? And yet these you afterwards view rising up from this little body, when sown in the ground, that you could not possibly have any prospect of when you rolled it in your hand, or opened its bowels. And why may not all the particulars of our bodies, however disposed as to their distinct natures invisibly to us, remain distinct, as well as if you mingle a thousand seeds together? they will come up in their distinct kinds, and preserve their distinct virtues. Again, is not the making heaven and earth, the union of the Divine and human nature, eternity and infirmity, to make a virgin conceive a Son, bear the Creator, and bring forth the Redeemer, to form the blood of God of the flesh of a virgin, a greater work than the calling together and uniting the scattered parts of our bodies, which are all of one nature and matter? And since the power of God is manifested in pardoning innumerable sins, is not the scattering our transgressions, as far as the east is from the west, as the expression is, Psalm 103:12, and casting such numbers into the depths of the sea, which is God’s power over himself, a greater argument of might than the recalling and repairing the atoms of our bodies from their various receptacles? It is not hard for them to believe this of the resurrection, that have been sensible of the weight and force of their sins, and the power of God in pardoning and vanquishing that mighty resistance which was made in their hearts against the power of his renewing and sanctifying grace. The consideration of the infinite power of God is a good ground of the belief of the resurrection.

     Instruct. 8. Since the power of God is so great and incomprehensible, how strange is it that it should be contemned and abused by the creatures as it is! The power of God is beaten down by some, outraged by others, blasphemed by many, under their sufferings. The stripping God of the honor of his creation, and the glory of his preservation of the world, falls under this charge: thus do they that deny his framing the world alone, or thought the first matter was not of God’s creation, and such as fancied an evil principle, the author of all evil, as God is the author of all good, and so exempt from the power of God , that it could not be vanquished by him. These things have formerly found defenders in the world; but they are, in themselves, ridiculous and vain, and have no footing in common reason, and are not worthy of debate in a christian auditory.

     In general, all idolatry in the world did arise from the want of a due notion of this Infinite Power. The heathen thought one God was not sufficient for the managing all things in the world, and therefore they feigned several gods, that had several charges; as Ceres presided over the fruits of the earth; Esculapius over the cure of distempers; Mercury for merchandise and trade; Mars for war and battles; Apollo and Minerva for learning and ingenious arts; and Fortune for casual things. Whence doth the other sort of idolatry, the adoring our bags and gold, our dependencies on, and trusting in, creatures for help arise, but from ignorance of God’s power, or mean and slender apprehensions of it? First, there is a contempt of it. Secondly, An abuse of it.

     1. It is contemned in every sin, especially in obstinacy in sin. All sin whatsoever is built upon some false notion or monstrous conception of one or other of God’s perfections, and in particular of this. It includes a secret and lurking imagination, that we are able to grapple with Omnipotence, and enter the lists with Almightiness; what else can be judged of the apostle’s expression (1 Cor. 10:22), “Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy; are we stronger than he?” Do we think we have an arm too powerful for that justice we provoke, and can repel that vengeance we exasperate? Do we think we are an even match for God, and are able to despoil him of his Divinity? To despise his will, violate his order, practise what he forbids with a severe threatening, and pawns his power to make it good, is to pretend to have an arm like God, and be able to thunder with a voice equal or superior to him, as the expression is (Job 40:9). All security in sin is of this strain; when men are not concerned at Divine threatenings, nor staggered in their sinful race, they intimate, that the declarations of Divine Power are but vain-glorious boastings; that God is not so strong and able as he reports himself to be; and therefore they will venture it, and dare him to try, whether the strength of his arm be as forcible as the words of his mouth are terrible in his threats; this is to believe themselves Creators, not creatures. We magnify God’s power in our wants, and debase it in our rebellions; as though Omnipotence were only able to supply our necessities, and unable to revenge the injuries we offer him.

     2. This power is contemned in distrust of God. All distrust is founded in a doubting of his truth, as if he would not be as good as his word; or of his omniscience, as if he had not a memory to retain his word; or of his power, as if he could not be as great as his word. We measure the infinite power of God by the short line of our understandings, as if infinite strength were bounded within the narrow compass of our finite reason; as if he could do no more than we were able to do. How soon did those Israelites lose the remembrance of God’s outstretched arm, when they uttered that atheistical speech (Psalm 78:19), “Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?” As if he that turned the dust of Egypt into lice, for the punishment of their oppressors, could not turn the dust of the wilderness into corn, for the support of their bodies! As if he that had miraculously rebuked the Red Sea, for their safety, could not provide bread, for their nourishment! Though they had seen the Egyptians with lost lives in the morning, in the same place where their lives had been miraculously preserved in the evening, yet they disgrace that experimental power, by opposing to it the stature of the Anakims, the strength of their cities, and the height of their walls (Num. 13:32). And (Num. 14:3). “Wherefore hath the Lord brought us into this land to fall by the sword?” As though the giants of Canaan were too strong for Him, for whom they had seen the armies of Egypt too weak. How did they contract the almightiness of God into the littleness of a little man, as if he must needs sink under the sword of a Canaanite? This distrust must arise either from a flat atheism, a denial of the being of God, or his government of the world; or unworthy conceits of a weakness in him, that he had made creatures too hard for himself; that he were not strong enough to grapple with those mighty Anakims, and give them the possession of Canaan against so great a force. Distrust of him implies either that he was always destitute of power, or that his power is exhausted by his former works, or that it is limited, and near a period: it is to deny him to be the Creator that moulded heaven and earth. Why should we, by distrust, put a slight upon that power which he hath so often expressed, and which, in the minutest works of his hands, surmount the force of the sharpest understanding?

     3. It is contemned in too great a fear of man, which ariseth from a distrust of Divine power. Fear of man is a crediting the might of man with a disrepute of the arm of God, it takes away the glory of his might, and renders the creature stronger than God; and God more feeble than a mortal; as if the arm of man were a rod of iron, and the arm of God a brittle reed. How often do men tremble at the threatenings and hectorings of ruffians, yet will stand as stakes against the precepts and threatenings of God, as though he had less power to preserve us, than enemies had to destroy? With what disdain doth God speak to men infected with this humor (Isa. 51:12, 13)? “Who art thou, that art afraid of a man that shall die, and the Son of man that shall be made as grass; and forgettest the Lord thy Maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundation of the earth; and hast feared continually every day, because of the fury of the oppressor?” To fear man that is as grass, that cannot think a thought without a Divine concourse, that cannot breathe, but by a Divine power, nor touch a hair without license first granted from heaven; this is forgetfulness, and consequently a slight of that Infinite Power, which hath been manifested in founding the earth and garnishing the heavens. All fear of man, in the way of our duty, doth in some sort thrust out the remembrance, and discredit the great actions of the Creator. Would not a mighty prince think it a disparagement to him, if his servant should decline his command for fear of one of his subjects? and hath not the great God just cause to think himself disgraced by us, when we deny him obedience for fear of a creature: as though he had but an infant ability too feeble to bear us out in duty, and incapable to balance the strength of an arm of flesh?

     4. It is contemned by trusting in ourselves, in means, in man, more than in God. When in any distress we will try every creature refuge, before we have recourse to God; and when we apply ourselves to him, we do it with such slight and perfunctory frames, and with so much despondency, as if we despaired either of his ability or will to help us; and implore him with cooler affections than we solicit creatures: or, when in a disease we depend apon the virtue of the medicine, the ability of the physician, and reflect not upon that power that endued the medicine with that virtue, and supports the quality in it, and concurs to the operation of it. When we depend upon the activity of the means, as if they had power originally in themselves, and not derivatively; and do not eye the power of God animating and assisting them. We cannot expect relief from anything with a neglect of God, but we render it in our thoughts more powerful than God: we acknowledge a greater fulness in a shallow stream, than in an eternal spring; we do, in effect, depose the true God, and create to ourselves a new one; we assert, by such a kind of acting, the creature, if not superior, yet equal with God, and independent on him. When we trust in our own strength, without begging his assistance; or boast of our own strength, without acknowledging his concurrence, as the Assyrian; “By the strength of my hand have I done this; I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man” (Isa. 10:13). It is, as if the axe should boast itself against him that hews therewith, and thinks itself more mighty than the arm that wields it (ver. 15), when we trust in others more than in God. Thus God upbraids those by the prophet, that sought help from Egypt, telling them (Isa. 31:3), “The Egyptians were men, and not gods;” intimating, that by their dependence on them, they rendered them gods and not men, and advanced them from the state of creatures to that of almighty deities. It is to set a pile of dust, a heap of ashes, above Him that created and preserves the world. To trust in a creature, is to make it as infinite as God; to do that which is impossible in itself to be done. God himself cannot make a creature infinite, for that were to make him God. It is also contemned when we ascribe what we receive to the power of instruments, and not to the power of God. Men, in whatsoever they do for us, are but the tools whereby the Creator works. Is it not a disgrace to the limner to admire his pencil, and not himself; to the artificer, to admire his file and engines, and not his power? “It is not I,” saith Paul, “that labor, but the grace, the efficacious grace of God, which is in me.” Whatsoever good we do is from him, not from ourselves; to ascribe it to ourselves, or to instruments, is to overlook and contemn his power.

The Existence and Attributes of God

Blind for the Glory of God
John 9:1-12 | John MacArthur

When Unbelief Investigates a Miracle
John 9:13-34 | John MacArthur

The Hopelessness of the Stubbornly Blind
John 9:35-41 | John MacArthur

John MacArthur | Grace to you

I Am the Door
John 10:1–10

I Am the Good Shepherd
John 10:11–21

I and the Father Are One 1
John 10:22-42

I and the Father Are One 2
John 10:22-42

I and the Father Are One 3
John 10:22-42

John MacArthur | Grace to you

John 9:1-7
Here's Mud In Your Eye
Jon Courson

click here
09-15-1991

John 9
Jon Courson

click here
09-18-1991

John 10:27-30
You're In Good Hands
Jon Courson

click here
09-22-1991

John 10:1-21
Jon Courson

click here
09-25-1991

John 10:39-42
Resorting Unto Jesus
Jon Courson

click here
09-29-91

John 10:22-23
Would Jesus Celebrate Christmas?
Jon Courson

click here
12-25-1994

John 10:22-42
Happy Holidays!?!
Jon Courson

click here
12-09-2007

John 10
Jon Courson

click here
12-05-2010

John 9
Jon Courson

click here
02-21-2018

John 10
Jon Courson

click here
02-28-2018

Jon Courson

John 9:1-12
When I can't figure out God's plan
Paul LeBoutillier


01-18-2017

John 9:13-34
The Danger of how Pharisees think
Paul LeBoutillier


06-18-2017

John 9:35-41
Delivered from the darkness
Paul LeBoutillier


08-17-2020

John 10:1-21
The Voice of the Shepherd
Paul LeBoutillier


06-18-2017

John 10:22-42
Jesus and the Father as One
Paul LeBoutillier


06-19-2017

Paul LeBoutillier | Calvary Chapel Ontario, Oregon

John 9
Skip Heitzig

John 10:1-24
Skip Heitzig

John 10:21-42
Skip Heitzig

Skip Heitzig | Calvary Chapel

John
      |

Teaching To Come
     

John
     

Teaching To Come
     

John
      |

Teaching To Come
     

John
     

Teaching To Come
     

Brett Meador