Her face glowed with joy. Joy just seemed to ooze out of her. I met her for the first and only time at a Bible Study. The leader of the Bible Study told me that she had only been saved a week. He said that she looked 10 years younger now, than what she looked like the week previous. She had been a drug addict and prostitute. When she met Jesus, she not only left the world’s oldest profession, but she also was instantly delivered from the drug addictions that held her in bondage. Jesus always seemed to have a soft spot in his heart for prostitutes. After all, Tamar resorts to prostitution to get what she wanted. Rahab was a harlot. These are both mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus. Many of His acquaintances were prostitutes or at least very promiscuous. Does that mean that Jesus approves of sexual promiscuity or harlotry? No, not at all. It just magnifies His glorious mercy and grace.
What a pathetic family line Jesus comes from! Tamar does some rather unconventional acts in order to get what conventionally should have been hers. In her culture children were the conventional form of social security for a woman. Why didn’t Judah provide what should have been a right, according to her culture?
If not already recognized at this point, eventually Judah would be recognized as the one through whom would come the promise to Abraham, Isaac and Israel (49:8-12). Simeon and Levi had disqualified themselves in the murder of the men of Shechem (34 & 49:5-7). Reuben disqualified himself in defiling his father’s bed (35:22 & 49:3-4). I suspect that Israel (and perhaps even Isaac, 35:29) had some sort of discussion with Judah concerning this before his deathbed. Yet Judah married a Canaanite woman (reprehensible in the eyes of Abraham and Isaac). Why did Judah do that? Then when his two oldest sons were grown and did not produce an heir, but were killed by the Lord for doing some undisclosed evil, He did not follow the cultural mandate of giving Tamar to his third son, for he thought Shela would die too. Maybe he reasoned because he married a Canaanite, perhaps he thought that God would not allow an heir to continue. At any rate he gives no opportunity for his daughter-in-law to produce an heir. Neither does Judah produce another child by Shua. After a long time Shua dies (38:12). Yet he still seems to have a strong sex drive but to be unwilling to produce an heir. Hence, he visits a shrine prostitute. Any child born to a shrine prostitute could not make claim to Judah’s inheritance. It would appear that the heroine of this story is Tamar for she does what is necessary to produce an heir. This is rather bizarre to my western mind.
Does this incident mean that the Lord approves of the behavior in the story? No, not at all. But it does show us the magnitude of His grace. Does this mean that we can presume upon His grace? We had better not! Even as recipients of grace, there are still consequences of sin in the family, just look at Tamar’s family. But it is a great reminder of His awesome grace.
Wonderful grace of Jesus, greater than all my sin.
How shall my tongue describe it.
Where shall His praise begin.
Taking away my burden.
Setting my spirit free!
Oh the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me!
Indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john
PSALM 36
For just one second the light was out. It was long enough to know that I had forgotten how dark utter darkness is. We were in Hezekiah’s tunnel. If you have ever been in a cave or cavern without light or in a photographic darkroom, you know exactly what I am talking about. You can try to see all you want, but it will never happen. In the midst of Hezekiah’s tunnel, I began having thoughts of what if. What if, my cheap $1.00 dollar flash light wasn’t strong enough to make it to the end? What if, I dropped it in the water? What if I did not have the emotional stamina to walk 500 meters in utter darkness? What if, the tunnel had a fork that led you into a loop from which you could not feel your way out? The last question was leading me into unreality. I had read about Hezekiah’s tunnel, and I knew that there were no loops. Sure it twisted and turned a lot, but there were no loops. But then, right before we entered Hezekiah’s tunnel we came to the entrance of the Canaanite Tunnel or the dry path. I had never heard of that before. What if there were other such tunnels at the end, which I had not read about. What if... Darkness is unsettling.
What makes the wicked, wicked? David says that it is, “There is no fear of God before His eyes. He flatters Himself in His own eyes.” The wicked takes the spiritual vacuum in his life and says, “I know what is here, and this god, who is here, is like this. . .” In reality he has no concept of the true God. Will this gracious God leave us to wander in darkness and all its attendant fears? The wicked think they know what true pleasure and delight is. They think that the true God only wants to take those pleasures away. They think that His light depletes their pleasure. They think this because there is no fear of God before their eyes. Will God leave him to wander in spiritual darkness? Will he spend his days wandering in loops of utter spiritual darkness? Have I not at times been there, and are there not times when I am there? I am convinced that this is the plight of every child ever born on the planet earth, save, of course, Jesus.
But this is where the glory of the Lord Jesus comes in. He is the fountain of life. He is the fountain of true pleasure. In His light we see light! When He is before our eyes, when there is a true fear of Him, we can see reality. Yes, we see the ugliness of things around us, but we also see that His pleasures can eventually wash the ugliness away. Drinking from and walking in His waters washes away the ugly dryness of our souls. It causes true beauty to gradually emerge and begin growing. We don’t have to try to manipulate the darkness because we see His reality. Hezekiah’s tunnel was truly refreshing. As we walked through the cool waters of the tunnel with our little flashlight, we were refreshed from the heat of the day above ground. Jesus is the same way. As we walk in the waters of His cleansing fountain, in the light of His path, we are cleansed, healed and refreshed and gradually see the true nature of reality. The whispers of ‘what if’ fade away in the pleasure of the fountain of His water and the glow of His light. Indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john
JOB 4
We sat in the dark stillness of the church’s building praying. As we lifted up our praise, an overwhelming sense of the presence of the Holy One filled the room. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. I knew that there was a manifest presence of God in this room. It was an experience that occurred with some regularity as we sought to meet the Lord together. I was a high school student, most of the others in room were college-aged young men who delighted in the presence of God. We knew that God was there, and to be honest at times it was quite eerie. None of us have turned out to be supermen in the Kingdom of God, but for the time and place, God used us. I dare not say any more than, “God was there.” To say anything beyond that might be to presume upon God.
Eliphaz has this experience with God before he comes to speak with Job. Is it not interesting how so many people can have an experience with God, and suddenly they think themselves experts in what God is doing in other people’s lives? Now certainly, God chooses to speak through people to other people about what He desires, but we must be careful that we do not go beyond what He reveals. There is certainly truth in what Eliphaz says. “Can a mortal be more righteous than God? Can a man be more pure than his Maker?” In the spirit visitation Eliphaz learns a clear truth about our relationship with God. We cannot be more righteous than God. We cannot be more pure than our Maker. After all the definition of pure precludes being more pure than pure, otherwise the former ‘pure’ was not pure to begin with. If Eliphaz would have left his counseling with Job at that, he would not have been at fault, but he went beyond that.
We can learn one thing from Eliphaz’s flawed reasoning. We cannot be more pure than God. We cannot justify ourselves before God. However, we can come to Him in humility. We can confess our impurity. We can confess our unrighteousness. We can trust him to remove our impurity and unrighteousness as far as the East is from the West. That is what makes Him glorious. Our low estate may or may not have anything to do with our personal impurity. But if we come to him in humility, He will remove the impurity. Ultimately He will one day remove our low estate; maybe not in this life, but it will happen. That is what makes Him glorious! Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john
MATTHEW 23:1-22
I remember my football coaches. They came up with all kinds of schemes to make us stronger and more agile. It wasn’t because they were lazy but because they wanted to produce the best in us. Some of you may know what I am talking about when I mention a blocking sled. We had a two man blocking sled that he would stand on while we had to hit and drive the sled all over the playing field. He would have all kinds of comments as we drove it, especially if we were not doing as well as he thought we ought to be doing, which was most of the time. But he never came down and helped us drive it. He just yelled a little louder.
The Scribes and Pharisees had many rules that they had come up with to “help people gain the righteousness of God.” They ranged from memory cards strapped to the forehead, to special greetings, to beautiful flowery prayers, to special evangelism techniques, to special rules for tithing, to special oaths which were breakable and oaths which were not breakable. They were kind of like my football coaches who stood on the blocking sleds. They kept calling out cajoling and criticizing, maybe encouraging. But they never came down and helped someone keep the burden of the law. They were an ever reminder that one could not meet the righteous demands of the Law. Yet they gave the false illusion that the demands of the Law could be met, when actually, they couldn’t.
Not so with Jesus. He still holds a high standard for the Law. As a matter of fact, He raised the standard presented by the rabbis of the day. But unlike the rabbis, He got off of the sled. He took the weight of the sled, the Law upon Himself. What we could not fulfill, He did. He did it vicariously upon the cross and in His resurrection. But He didn’t stop there. When He ascended into heaven, He sent His Holy Spirit to live within us so that through Him we might have the power to live out the Law’s demands of righteousness. He drives the sled through us. He doesn’t stand on it cracking a whip and yelling about our deficiencies. He calls us to yield to Him, to take His yoke upon ourselves. Now that is glorious! Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor John
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