Paul and Sennacherib

Jesus commands us to pray for those who persecute you. I'm not very good at that. Jesus also tells us to pray for those in prison as if you were in prison yourself. I'm trying to get better at that.

For the last several weeks, i've been praying for the Christian minorities in northern iraq, who have been subjected to a brutal program of ethnic cleansing by the terrorist group IS. But, recently, i've also been praying for the men on the other side, and i think there are two different people we need to remember when we're praying for them.

We need to remember Saul on the road to Damascus. This Hebrew of Hebrews, this leader of the Christian killers was on assignment to round up the members of the Nazarene sect. Convert them, arrest them, kill them, whatever you need to do to bring them back to orthodoxy. Sound familiar? Saul was happy to take on this task, serving the God of his fathers. And then? Knocked off His horse by the glory of the Happy God. Blinded by a light brighter than the sun. And what happened? All the brothers who he'd been trying to kill heard he was now preaching the faith that he was trying to destroy and praised God for him.

Wouldn't it be an extraordinary thing if members of the IS, those rounding up Christians were so moved by their faith, so convicted by their calmness in the storm that they see the glory of God, and are saved? We should pray for that.

But i think we need to remember Sennacherib at the walls of Jerusalem as well. 'Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Serphavain, Henna and Ivvah?' he cried. Well where indeed? This king and his army had swept through the wilderness, wiped out idol worshippers and their false gods, and now had Jerusalem in his sights. No other provincial god had stood in his way, why should this one? But Jerusalem is The City, and their God is The God. And despite the best efforts of man, the plan of this God will not abort. Sennacherib was miraculously defeated, returned home, and was betrayed and killed by his sons.

So pray for the defeat of the IS. Whatever means this takes, whether by US airstrikes, the Kurdish army, internal strife,  or mass conversion to Christ, we know it will come from the hand of the Lord.

Pray their purposes would be defeated, their hubris punished. Pray their feet will slide in time. Pray the time is soon.

On Reading

There are bad reasons to turn to other writers besides the Bible. And there are good ones. One of the bad reasons to turn to other writers is that we find the Bible tame and tasteless. It is anything but tame and tasteless. One of the good reasons to turn to other writers besides the Bible is that we savour the taste of God, not only in the Bible, but also in the way others savour Him. The best writers intensify our taste for the Bible, and especially for God Himself.

Taste and See, John Piper, P11

Amen and amen. If you're finding the Bible 'tame and tasteless,' then other books are not the answers. Prayer is the answer! The Bible is the answer. pray for amazement if you find the Bible dull. Keep laying down the dry wood of the Bible and pray that fire would fall from Heaven. Don't quit! The drama of the Bible is incomparable. Read the Gospels, read the prophets, read the history books, and pray for help.

And if you're thrilled with the Bible, keep reading other books to. Kevin DeYoung's 'Taking God at His Word,' is a great recent example of a book that increased my appetite for the Bible. How do i know? Because i put it down to read the Bible! Invest in Edwards, make your way through the tiny, columned print and hear your heart sing. Invest in a Bible that makes the act of reading a joy. Go get the Valley of Vision.

Find a book that will help you that will teach you to taste flavours in the Bible that you didn't know existed before, and then put it down, open your Bible, and taste and see that the Lord is good.

Praying with the Puritans

Bill Bryson described Puritanism as the fear that someone somewhere was having a good time. Sadly, Bryson speaks for a lot of Christians when he writes that. Jared C. Wilson describes that sort of view of the Puritans as 'theologically and historically tone deaf.' As much as i enjoy Bill Bryson, i have to agree with Jared C. Wilson.

I love the Puritans. From John 'is this a sentence or a paragraph,' Owen, to Jonathan 'come and see the view from up here,' Edwards, i never fail to enjoy the time i spend with these men. The Puritans, at their best were true evangelical, experiential Christians.

Comparing their prayer life to mine is like comparing to sun to the embers in a long forgotten fireplace, but for the last three months, i've enjoyed the privilege of praying alongside these great great men. I've been using Joe Thorn's Valley of Vision reading plan.

I must've bought the Valley of Vision years ago, i think even before i moved to the States, but it was always a bit of a mystery, always a bit overwhelming and even inaccessible. I'd prayed some of the daily prayers, the ministers prayers, and the repentance prayers fairly regularly, but i knew i was missing out. This reading plan has been life to me throughout the day this summer.

The plan has you reading three prayers a day, for five days a week, although about half way through i started reading the last two prayers from Friday on Saturday and Sunday. These prayers take you to places you'd heard of, and dreamed about, but never made it to. To penitential depths and joy filled heights, to seeing the horror of sin through the eyes of men who really got it, to seeing the joys of Christ through the hearts of men who knew Him.

Of course there are dangers to reading someone else's prayers, it can become formal and dry. So don't let it. Lay down the wood, and as for the Holy Spirit to set fire to it. I knew when i was praying, because it would take me nearly twenty minutes to cover maybe two minutes of reading.

Using the prayers at the start of the day was great, and warmed my heart up for the Word, but it was the prayers in the middle and at the end of the day that i appreciated the most. To make time to pray, and to be guided in these prayers was so valuable and so helpful. It's scary how easy it is, even when your desk is eleven paces from a church auditorium, to try and work in your own strength. The Valley of Vision was a lovely, life giving, corrective throughout the day.

It's made my prayer life deeper and richer, and i commend it to you without reservation.

You can buy the Valley of Vision here
And download the plan here.

Lord's Day Eve Prayer (Valley of Vision)

 God of the passing hour,

Another week has gone,

and i have been preserved 

in my going out and my coming in.

       Thine has been the vigilance that has turned

    threatened evils aside;

Thine the supplies that have nourished me;

Thine the comforts that have indulged me;

Thine the relations and friends that have

    delighted me;

Thine the means of grace which have edified me;

Thine the Book, which, amidst all my enjoyments,

    has told me that this is not my rest,

    that in all successes one thing alone is needful,

      to love my Saviour.

Nothing can equal the number of thy mercies

  but my imperfections and sins.

These, O God, I will neither conceal nor palliate,

  but confess with a broken heart.

In what condition would secret reviews

    of my life leave me

  were it not for the assurance that with thee

    there is plenteous redemption,

    that thou art a forgiving God,

      that thou mayest be feared!

While I hope for pardon through the blood

    of the cross,

  I pray to be clothed with humility,

      to be quickened in thy way,

      to be more devoted to thee,

      to keep the end of my life in view,

      to be cured of the folly of delay and indecision,

      to know how frail I am,

      to number my days and apply my heart

        unto wisdom.

True Wisdom is a Precious Jewel

How foolish a thing it is for men to lean on their own understanding, and trust their own hearts. If we are so blind, then our own wisdom is not to be depended upon; and that advice of the wise man is most reasonable, 'trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not on your own understanding.' 'And he that trusteth in in his own heart is a fool.' They therefore are fools, who trust to their own wisdom, and will question  the mysterious doctrines of religion; because they can not see through them, and will not trust to the infinite wisdom of God.

Let us therefore become fools; be sensible of our own blindness and folly. There is a treasure of wisdom contained in that one sentence, 'if any among you seems wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may become wise.' Seeing our own ignorance and blindness is the first step towards having true knowledge,' if any man thinketh he knowest anything, he knoweth nothing as he ought to know.

Let us ask wisdom of God. If we are so blind in ourselves, then knowledge is not to be sought out of our own stock, but must be sought from some other source. And we have nowhere else to go for it, but to the fountain of light and wisdom. True wisdom is a precious jewel; none of our fellow creatures can give it to us, neither can we buy it with nay price we have to give. It is the sovereign gift of God. The way to obtain it is to go to Him, sensible of our weakness and blindness and misery on that account. 'If any lack wisdom, let Him ask of God.' 

Jonathan Edwards, Man's Natural Blindness in Religion, Works Vol 2 Pp 255-256

The Kingdom of God is like

The Kingdom apparently exists in ever changing resemblances. Jesus does not say what it is, only what it's like.

It's like a tiny seed. It's like a big tree. It's like something inside of you. Like a pearl you'd give everything to possess, like wheat growing in weeds, like a camel going through the eye of the needle. Like the way the world looks to children. Like making wise use of the master's money. Like getting a day's pay for an hour's work. Like a crooked magistrate fixing things in your favour. Like a narrow gate, a difficult road, a lamp on a stand. Like a wedding party. Like a wedding party where all the original guests have been dis-invited and replaced by random passers-by. Like yeast in dough. Like treasure, like a harvest, like a door that opens whenever you knock. Or like a door you have to bang on for hours in the middle of the night until a grumpy neighbour wakes up and gives you a loaf. 

The Kingdom is - whatever all these likenesses have in common. The Kingdom, it seems to be saying, is something that can only be grasped in comparisons, because the world contains no actual examples of it. And yet the world winks and shines the with possibility of it.

Unapologetic, Francis Spufford, Pp124-125

Provo. In Three Tweets.

Last week Rachel and I got back from Provo, where we'd spent a few days ministering and sightseeing with some great friends of ours. Here are three tweets that well sum up what i'm thinking about, post Provo.

Any step away from the sufficiency and supremacy of Jesus in all things is a step towards cultdom.
— Ed Goode (@Ed_Goode) July 7, 2014

I don't think cultdom is a word, (and neither does my spellchecker) but you know what i mean. Provo is 98% Mormon, which means that everyone you meet is LDS, or lapsed LDS, or pick and choose LDS. There are some weird and not so wonderful things that the LDS church teaches and practices, but in the final reckoning, it all comes down to their view of Jesus. Simply, for the LDS Church, as for every other derivation from Christianity, and every other false religion, Jesus isn't quite enough. Sure, just like everyone else, they want Jesus on their team. They want Jesus in their paradigm, but as a cheerleader, not as a Saviour. As an example, not as a payment. Every step we take away from 'Jesus paid it all,' is a step towards a man focused, man pleasing, man imagined religion.

As indicated by the next tweet:

A man just asked, "How do you guys make it without temples, no priesthood, and no authority?" Bryant said, "We have the Bible." #winprovo
— Logan Michael Wolf (@loganwolf85) July 4, 2014

Provo hosts one of the biggest 4th July festivals in the country, so for part of the trip we helped work the New Morning Church booth there. We were sort of out of the way down an alley, so my suspicion is this guy wanted to come and find us. You see how tweet one links with tweet two? Jesus isn't sufficient in the LDS system, so they need a priesthood and temples. Jesus isn't sufficient in the LDS system, so neither is He authoritative. It's a killer. Get away from Jesus, and His Word and you're on sliding scale with women bishops on one end, and your own planet when you die on the other. In our lives, and in our ministry, we must be careful, we must labour all the time, to make sure that we're not just paying lip service to Jesus, but heart service. If not, we'll be cut adrift into the wasteland of our own ideas, and today's cultural mores.

Want to experience a foreign missions trip without leaving the States? Go to Utah.
— Ed Goode (@Ed_Goode) July 9, 2014

I've spent all of nine nights in Provo, so i'm no expert, but it's a different place. Provo is blessed/plagued with moralism. Blessed, because your car probably won't be keyed by a drunk college student in the middle of the night, plagued, because everyone thinks their OK, jack. It feels different. Their history is not America's history, their way of life not America's way of life. Their monuments are not America's monuments. I think it was CS Lewis that said if the devil ran a town the churches would be full (think about it) and i can only imagine he was on his way home from an undocumented trip to the Beehive state when he wrote those words. In ministry, and particularity youth ministry, particularly in the Bible belt, we must slough off every temptation to present a moral Gospel, and instead, with Bibles open and guns ablaze, preach the risky, dirty, bloody, leper-touching, i'm alive so let's have breakfast on the beach, Gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.