“His life is bound up in the lad’s.” What symbolism is found in those words! Judah, speaking of the relationship between Israel and Benjamin, sums it up that way. Could this not sum up the closeness of the relationship between God the Father and God the Son? Their life is bound up in each other. And yet we don’t want to push the symbolism too far for Jesus clearly said, “For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself.” The mystery of the Trinity is indeed too complex for me to handle. Yet, I see a small relationship between Israel & Benjamin and the Father and the Son. There is an intense love relationship between the two. Here is another piece of symbolism. Judah in this instance becomes a type of Christ. Benjamin is declared guilty for possessing the stolen divination cup. For the love of the father, Judah volunteers to take the place of Benjamin. For the love of the Father, Jesus volunteered to take our place in death and resurrection. Granted Benjamin wasn’t really guilty. But we were really guilty. The death of the Son satisfied the righteous wrath of the Father against our sin and led us into a position to be restored in relationship to the Father. What awesome love. Let it sink down into your soul. The Father loves the Son. The Son loves the Father. The Father loves us. The Son loves us. All that remains is for us to love them and find our delight in them alone! Indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john
PSALM 42
It was my first five-mile hike in Boy Scouts. About nine o’clock on Saturday morning they transported us five-miles outside of town and dropped us off. We began the summer morning walk back home. About half-way through many of the guys had already finished off their canteens of water. Thirst was beginning to prevail in the group. About three-fourths of the way home, we came to the ruins of an old farm house. The foundations were still there but the walls were long gone. Sticking up out of the ground was the old hand pump. One of the thirstiest of us ran to it to see if he could get some water. Surprisingly, it worked. We huddled around it vying for our turn at drinking at the well to satisfy our thirst.
Anyone who had traveled from Jerusalem to the Jordan and then north to Mount Hermon was accustomed to the desert of the wilderness of Judea. It had to be descended through on the way to Jericho. Were it not for the River Jordan which is fed year-round by the snow melt of Mt. Hermon, it would indeed be a desolate place. In the fifteen mile trek, it would be sufficient time to become severely dehydrated, yet water is abundant for the traveler in Jerusalem and at the Jordan.
The Psalmist longs for the Lord like one of those times when passing through the wilderness with insufficient water on the route. He is experiencing a spiritual and relational drought. Three times He says that his soul is ‘cast down’. A sheep that is cast down is one that has somehow managed to roll over on its back and because of weight and body structure it is unable get up again. If someone does not intervene it will lay there and die. He remembers many waterfalls of the Jordan River coming down from Mt. Hermon and Hill Mizar. He remembers times when it seemed the presence of the Lord was so abundant and refreshing, but those times are long gone. It seems that everyone around him gives verbal reminders of the lack of God’s presence. He uses this imagery to remind himself to hope in that same kind of return to the refreshing presence of God. Sometimes we just need to remind ourselves of the glory of God. Sometimes we just get cast down and can’t get up. In those times in particular we must focus on what the written word says of the glory of God. We have to remind ourselves of the abundance of His refreshing when His manifest presence is come. We have to remember His glory, for it is His glory which brings us hope. We are on a hike. The sources of refreshment are sporadic, but occasionally we come across an old hand pump that reaches down into the depths of God’s aquifer. His presence is an Oasis in the Wilderness. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john
Shortly after leaving the Mount of Olives descending to the Jordan Valley, the landscape turns to this, often called the Judean Wilderness. One can easily see how one could become parched on the journey to the Jordan.
JOB 10
When Richard Nixon’s administration authorized the clandestine operation at the Watergate Hotel, it set in motion a series of events that demanded even more secrecy and cover-ups. We all know the story. Were it not for the persistent searching for wrong doing by two reporters and the leak by “Deep Throat”, the President’s wrong doing might never have been discovered. The reporters had to search hard and long and against many obstacles to reveal the violations of law at the top level. They had to seek out the iniquity that had been committed. When our understanding of the glory of the Lord wanes, we often times fall into viewing God as a super Woodward and Bernstein, who investigates our lives seeking for our iniquity.
“Do you have eyes of flesh? Or do You see as man sees? . . . That you should seek for my iniquity?” How often do we observe and contemplate the glory of the Lord from our own viewpoint. Job is so miserable! He has lost his wealth. His children have all died. His house has collapsed. His health is deteriorating. He is infested with painful boils. His wife has told him to curse God and die. His best friends have counseled him that it is his fault. Yet he cannot find a specific sin which would warrant this punishment. He feels singled out by the Lord. He feels abused and attacked. Is God this kind of being? Does He ever have to search for our sin and iniquity?
God is never in a position to have to do such a thing. He knows the end from the beginning. The idea that He should have to search out our iniquity is in all reality a ridiculous anthropomorphism (describing Him as a man). Indeed, the One who can speak worlds and stars into existence and can mold a human body out of dust has no need to investigate iniquity. He knows it completely. He knew Richard Nixon’s complicity in the Watergate events, before Nixon committed them. He did not need Deep Throat’s tip to find it out. He needs no one else to reveal my sin to Himself. He knows it from eternity. There are works of evil that I have committed that no one else but Him will ever know! When He hunts me like a fierce lion, it is not to prove to Himself or others that I have sinned. It is to reveal to me that I have sinned.
When I step into His light and my sin is revealed, I can confess it before Him. When I confess, He forgives and cleanses me. If my sin was just between me and Him, no one else will ever know that I committed it. If my sin included someone else, then those others will know, and they will know that He forgave me. If my sin was against others as well as God, then I will need to confess to them and request their forgiveness. When I confess, He cleanses and forgives! When I begin thinking that He has eyes of flesh to seek out my iniquity, I have forgotten, or did not ever know, His glory. He knows it all anyway. Why not just repent and walk into the light, confess the sin, receive the forgiveness and cleansing? Now that is glory! Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john
MATTHEW 26:1-25
Sometimes I think that meditating on the glory of God is like riding on a pendulum that swings not in arcs, not in circles, not even in spheres, not even in spheres plus the dimension of time but in spheres plus the dimension of time plus other dimensions which we cannot even conceive. I have a hard time just keeping the arcs in balance. Anyway, a few days after giving the parable that when you have done it for the least of these, you have done it for Jesus, this woman shows up. She wishes to worship the Lord in an extraordinary way. She takes fragrant oil that was probably worth about a year’s wages and poured it upon Jesus’ head. Now, a year’s worth of wages could go a long way in ministering to the “least of these.” Many were indignant at the waste, after all, so many of the “least of these” could have been cared for with the sale of the oil. Jesus rebuked those who were indignant. All of a sudden I feel like I am on the other end of the arc of the pendulum, or maybe even some other dimension.
Some how she caught the teaching of Jesus that in two days He would be crucified and the disciples did not catch the teaching. She understood. The anointing was for His burial. She somehow understood it was for her that Jesus was dying. She glimpsed His glory. She wanted to worship Him extravagantly. Some have been indignant with the church at building elaborate cathedrals while the needs of the poor go unmet. Jesus is sent away as one of the “least of these”. Often times I think their critiques are on target. It seems we are often more interested in building “Christian playgrounds” than taking the Gospel to those who have never heard or ministering to the needs of “the least of these.”
But here is what I think is the balance: No worship expense is a waste if the motivation is 100% to worship and adore Jesus and to minister to Him. Why? Because His glory is so great that He can take that so-called “waste”, which is poured out upon Him, and He can multiply what was poured out so that those who do the pouring can turn around and because of the supply of His glory minister to others. I don’t know. The Scriptures don’t say. But I’d be willing to bet that after the resurrection this woman was a power house in ministering to the “least of these.” What appeared to be a waste became an unbelievable increase because it was completely motivated for the glory of God and not self.
On the other hand, Judas, seeing this, couldn’t take the pendulum ride any longer. He left and sold Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. How do you value the glory of Jesus? Judas thought he had a bargain at 30 pieces of silver. The woman thought she had a bargain at a year’s worth of wages. Our abandoning ourselves in the worship of Jesus is never a waste. His glory is just too great! Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor John
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