A Whole New Way to Think

"Things aren't always what they seem" is a pretty worn-out cliche, but the concept still intrigues. Much of fictional literature relies on the revelation at the end of the story that what the reader assumed was completely incorrect. Sidney Carton was capable of selfless sacrifice, Mr. Darcy had a great personality, Hester Prynne's lover was the minister, and on and on.

Yet even with our confidence that appearance isn't everything, we are consistently shocked to find that our powers of observation failed . . . again. Here is an example that has captured my thoughts for a few days.

Several years ago, I looked into an open coffin. Inside was the body of young man. In so many ways, he was just starting life. He had just graduated from high school. He never knew college, marriage, fatherhood, retirement . . . His life was swallowed up. By death.

That was the appearance. Here's the truth. He was (and all of us are) mortal. That means "killable." Without meaning to be morbid, I'll remind us that there are thousands of substances, objects, and events that could potentially end our lives. We're killable. But that young man isn't.

I didn't come up with this. In 2 Corinthians 5:4 the apostle Paul says, "For while we are still in this tent, we groan . . . so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life." It's talking about dying. The tent is our body. While we're in it, we're mortal. When we're not, when we've put it off, we aren't.

Wait. Who's "we?" Who groans? Paul's audience. Unquestionably they are assumed to be followers of Christ. Four verses later Paul refers to being "away from the body" as being "at home with the Lord." He is quite clear that not everyone's future home is with the Lord. But it could be. His aim in all this is to "persuade others." Persuade them of what? Persuade them to "be reconciled to God."

How then are we "reconciled to God?" We've got to exchange with Christ. We need what He has, and He took what hinders us. "For our sake [God] made [Christ] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

If you trade with Christ, you are reconciled to God. Your home is with the Lord. It's not here. So while you appear to be at home, you're away. And when you're gone, you're home.

So the young man in the coffin. We were heartbroken that he was no longer with us. But many who knew him felt sure he had traded his sin for Christ's righteousness. He was a follower of Christ. So, although it appeared that life was swallowed up in death, in reality what was killable was swallowed up by never-ending life.

Stepping Heavenward

I have just finished reading the biography of Elizabeth Prentiss, author of the hymn, "More Love to Thee." It is a well written book by Sharon James that gives an honest account of the life of this godly woman. It praises her duly while providing helpful analysis of her writings as well as some of her viewpoints.

Elizabeth Prentiss sought in her life to grow in her love for her Savior as her most famous hymn describes. A friend of hers wrote of her:

Believing in Christ was to her not so much a duty as the deepest joy of her life, heightening all other joys, and she was not satisfied until her friends shared with her in this experience. She believed it to be attainable by all, founded on a complete submitting of the human to the Divine will in all things, great and small (Elizabeth Prentiss, 'More Love to Thee', by Sharon James pp. 208-9).

I would definitely commend the biography to you, but if you are limited to one Prentiss book, I would suggest her own work, Stepping Heavenward. I have read this book three times through, and each time I found more to identify with. Though it is written and set in the 19th century, the emotions and reactions displayed and experienced by the heroine are so characteristic of the way women think, that I believe any Christian woman would benefit from the godly, practical wisdom in it.

If reading more good literature was a resolution for 2009, I would like to try to convince you to add Prentiss's Stepping Heavenward to your list.

From a Cow Pasture

"Well," I started. The thought had brought me comfort all morning, but how does it sound in response to a request for cheering up? "Well, you know Nero once ruled a country."

Happy thought indeed. So did Hitler. So did Ronald Reagan, and Bloody Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, and Louis XIV, and Solomon, and Sennacherib. How did they get there? Ask another monarch named Nebuchadnezzar. He knows.

As this ancient monarch was thinking he had attained to his greatness because of might, brilliance, and strength, the Most High decreed for him a change. One with little hope. Seven years in a field with grass for his meals, dew for his bedding, and cattle for his companions were appointed for him. And all this by his own insane choice. The king would lose his reason.

And so it happened just as the Most High declared. And then comes what I consider the most amazing event in the account. Nebuchadnezzar regained his mental capacities and returned to his palace where he was greeted as the king, restored to his throne, and consulted for advice. Imagine being a dignitary in the Babylonian royal court. Day after day you approach the palace and see the deranged former king arrayed in a cloak of shimmering vegetation with his regal hair resembling eagles' feathers. With a sigh you pass by and think of the glory he once had as you wonder what could have overcome him, and you shudder with a vague fear that perhaps you too could be so afflicted. But gradually the sight loses its horror as you grow accustomed to the king-turned-beast and proceed with matters of state.

Then one day, unaccountably, there is no beast-man crawling around the pasture with the contented cattle. As you shrug and turn to enter the palace, you are greeted by a larger-than-normal crowd of courtiers and attendants paying no attention whatsoever to you. For they are showering their king with words of welcome and expressions of delight at his return. Your own heart swells in gratitude as you think of the many pressing questions which his majesty is now fit to resolve. Great is Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon!

So what was his experience all about anyway? How would he respond to the election of one whose patriotism, experience, compassion, and wisdom have been demonstrably questionable at best? I think Nebuchadnezzar would have us pause before crediting a fawning media or an uninformed, change-thirsty populace. You see, he learned the hard way that "the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of men." Nebuchadnezzar would say now as he said then:

His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, "What have you done?"

And I suppose the king of Babylon would have us follow his example even now and "praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble."

(Account and quotations taken from Daniel 4.)

Ezekiel 16

I read a story yesterday—a story sad, wonderful, and all too true.

There was a man walking in a field alone when he heard a pitiful sound. It was the sound of newborn baby. The man stopped and stared. This child, a girl, had been born moments ago it appeared. But no one was around. The child had been delivered and cast, unwanted, into a vacant field to die in her blood. The man decided to give the child life. He took the girl away from the field and saw to it that she was able to live.

Many years later, the man encountered this girl, now a woman, again. She had grown up, but her appearance remained undesirable. She lived in poverty with no hope of advancement in life. But the man had other plans for this woman. Though she had nothing to commend herself, he took her as his wife and clothed her in the finest of apparel and gave her many jewels and ornaments of love. Silver and gold, rubies and diamonds adorned the once neglected and bloody body. You see, this man was the king. He had unlimited resources at his disposal for honoring his beloved. And she was honored above all other women in the kingdom. Clothed in the finery of royalty, she possessed a beauty unrivaled by any. She began to notice the admiring looks of many others besides her king.

How wonderful to be sought after! She began at first to try to attract the attention of passing men. When she met with success in this venture, she was spurred on to greater and greater improprieties, until, at last, she was not content to live in the palace with her husband and king. She preferred the company of the worthless and vile. She drank in their adoration and bawdy professions of infatuation. She disregarded the king’s attempts to draw her back to her home.

Messengers were dispatched from the palace. “My lady, our gracious and kind king requests that you reject the lovers whom you are now pursuing. Return to your husband and he will receive you again.”

But the messengers returned to the king bewildered. “My lord, she will not come. She loves her liaisons too much to return to your care. My lord. I shrink from describing to you her debauched condition. She plays the harlot with anyone who will have her. Nothing is too low for her to engage in. My lord, it is not as though she has need of provisions and thereby must sell herself. You have promised to provide all she needs and more. And she takes no money. No, my king. She—my lord, how shall I tell you? She takes nothing from them but rather bribes her lovers to come to her. It is your silver and your gold she gives away in this fashion. Your majesty, will, I suppose, reject her from being queen. She will, no doubt be destroyed as many others who have not done as much.”

The covenant stood. The king had made her a promise. Go again. Warn her of the end of her ways!

“My lady?”
“What do you want?”
“My lady, you are transgressing against your king. Shall he not destroy you?”
“The king has said nothing.”
“Nothing, my lady? He sends again and again to urge you to return, to warn you of your impending destruction! Has he not cut off many others whose wickedness did not exceed your own?”
And with a toss of her head and short laugh, the queen dismissed the warning, “I am the chosen of the king. He could not destroy me. He will not. I will go on just as I am. If he wishes me to stop, he must stop me.”

Time passed. Messengers spoke again and again to the queen. They returned every time with heavy hearts to report still more atrocities.
“My lord? The queen—I cannot continue.” His voice broke into sobs.
Another spoke up, “She bore you a son, your majesty. The child was rightfully yours.”
“Yes, was!” began a third, more vehemently than the other two. “The wicked woman you loved and honored so has slain your child. With her own hands she has sacrificed him to her gods.”
“At the urging of her lovers,” was the heartbroken conclusion.

The messengers knew the end of the queen. Her ways would lead her to a pit out of which she could never climb until she reached the very lowest point. The king had no choice but to allow the lovers, who all along had wanted nothing but her riches, to ravage her until she was bereft of every joy she had ever known. Every joy but one. The love of her husband, her king, remained unchanged through all her treachery. And some day, the king knew, after her unfaithfulness had been completed, she would return. And to the awe of the messengers and the servants, he would forgive her. He would restore her to more prominence than she had before. And all the world would worship and adore a King so loving, so faithful to His promises.

The King is Yahweh. He chose for Himself a nation. The nation behaved like the queen. And Yahweh will restore her; He will make her beautiful and splendid once again. But in that day, she will not turn to others. She will have a new heart and an unfailing loyalty to her Beloved.

And here the story cannot, nor can any one story, contain the whole of the truth of the situation. Because the King is infinite. And His plan extends beyond an unfaithful ethic group. He deserves to be worshiped by all peoples of every language. He has determined to bring poor, vile sinners of every kind into His great banquet hall. And the story of the queen is held up to those people groups as a gleaming example of the richness of the faithfulness of the covenant of a God who will forgive the worst of treacheries and will pardon all iniquity and sin for any who come to take shelter in His abundant righteousness.

Prayer for Others

I love the idea of praying in the Bible's words. Yesterday I read a prayer I don't think I had prayed before. Wouldn't you love to know that someone is praying this for you?

That you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light (Colossians 1:9-12).

It goes on, contrasting the Light just mentioned with the domain of darkness in which I used to dwell. It gives all the credit to God and His dear Son. It extols the greatness and wonder of a Savior so magnificent that I am entirely unable to comprehend the depth of wonder and the height of ecstasy that the apostle experienced in conveying the Spirit's words about the incomparable Christ. I must read it again. And yet again. And still I despair of ever truly coming to an understanding that does justice to the truth. And so I am reminded of my need for prayer.

How?

How can Mrs. Sarah Boardman, settled indefinitely in a "little bamboo hut, . . . so frail that it could be cut open, as Mrs. Boardman says, with a pair of scissors," in the middle of a jungle full of hissing snakes, howling wild animals, and bandits robbing them of their valuables--how can she say this?

"We are in excellent health, and as happy as is it possible for two human beings to be upon earth. It is our earnest desire to live, labor, and die among this people."

The simple answer is that she did not derrive her soul satisfaction from her situation, but from her Savior. Her appeal to her sister, I am sure she would repeat to all of us.

"Oh if you are a child of God, how great is your happiness; you can think of death without fear. The troubles and griefs of life do not distress you as they do the poor worldling, who looks only to the enjoyments of this life for comfort. If a Christian, you have sweet foretastes of that joy which is unspeakable and inconceivable by mortals. Though a sinner still, you feel that your sins are pardoned, and that through the merits of a crucified Saviour you will at last be accepted of God. I would fondly hope, my dear sister, that this is your happy case. But if not, oh who can tell your dreadful danger? . . . Oh, my sister, reflect. . . . If you have not yet turned to the Saviour, delay no longer."

I urge you, my sisters, reflect.

(Quotations taken from The Three Mrs. Judsons, Arabella Stuart, Particular Baptist Press, 2001, pp. 145, 155-156, emphasis mine.)

Ezekiel 16

I read a story yesterday—a story sad, wonderful, and all too true.

There was a man walking in a field alone when he heard a pitiful sound. It was the sound of newborn baby. The man stopped and stared. This child, a girl, had been born moments ago it appeared. But no one was around. The child had been delivered and cast, unwanted, into a vacant field to die in her blood. The man decided to give the child life. He took the girl away from the field and saw to it that she was able to live.

Many years later, the man encountered this girl, now a woman, again. She had grown up, but her appearance remained undesirable. She lived in poverty with no hope of advancement in life. But the man had other plans for this woman. Though she had nothing to commend herself, he took her as his wife and clothed her in the finest of apparel and gave her many jewels and ornaments of love. Silver and gold, rubies and diamonds adorned the once neglected and bloody body. You see, this man was the king. He had unlimited resources at his disposal for honoring his beloved. And she was honored above all other women in the kingdom. Clothed in the finery of royalty, she possessed a beauty unrivaled by any. She began to notice the admiring looks of many others besides her king.

How wonderful to be sought after! She began at first to try to attract the attention of passing men. When she met with success in this venture, she was spurred on to greater and greater improprieties, until, at last, she was not content to live in the palace with her husband and king. She preferred the company of the worthless and vile. She drank in their adoration and bawdy professions of infatuation. She disregarded the king’s attempts to draw her back to her home.

Messengers were dispatched from the palace. “My lady, our gracious and kind king requests that you reject the lovers whom you are now pursuing. Return to your husband and he will receive you again.”

But the messengers returned to the king bewildered. “My lord, she will not come. She loves her liaisons too much to return to your care. My lord. I shrink from describing to you her debauched condition. She plays the harlot with anyone who will have her. Nothing is too low for her to engage in. My lord, it is not as though she has need of provisions and thereby must sell herself. You have promised to provide all she needs and more. And she takes no money. No, my king. She—my lord, how shall I tell you? She takes nothing from them but rather bribes her lovers to come to her. It is your silver and your gold she gives away in this fashion. Your majesty, will, I suppose, reject her from being queen. She will, no doubt be destroyed as many others who have not done as much.”

The covenant stood. The king had made her a promise. Go again. Warn her of the end of her ways!

“My lady?”
“What do you want?”
“My lady, you are transgressing against your king. Shall he not destroy you?”
“The king has said nothing.”
“Nothing, my lady? He sends again and again to urge you to return, to warn you of your impending destruction! Has he not cut off many others whose wickedness did not exceed your own?”
And with a toss of her head and short laugh, the queen dismissed the warning, “I am the chosen of the king. He could not destroy me. He will not. I will go on just as I am. If he wishes me to stop, he must stop me.”

Time passed. Messengers spoke again and again to the queen. They returned every time with heavy hearts to report still more atrocities.
“My lord? The queen—I cannot continue.” His voice broke into sobs.
Another spoke up, “She bore you a son, your majesty. The child was rightfully yours.”
“Yes, was!” began a third, more vehemently than the other two. “The wicked woman you loved and honored so has slain your child. With her own hands she has sacrificed him to her gods.”
“At the urging of her lovers,” was the heartbroken conclusion.

The messengers knew the end of the queen. Her ways would lead her to a pit out of which she could never climb until she reached the very lowest point. The king had no choice but to allow the lovers, who all along had wanted nothing but her riches, to ravage her until she was bereft of every joy she had ever known. Every joy but one. The love of her husband, her king, remained unchanged through all her treachery. And some day, the king knew, after her unfaithfulness had been completed, she would return. And to the awe of the messengers and the servants, he would forgive her. He would restore her to more prominence than she had before. And all the world would worship and adore a King so loving, so faithful to His promises.

The King is Yahweh. He chose for Himself a nation. The nation behaved like the queen. And Yahweh will restore her; He will make her beautiful and splendid once again. But in that day, she will not turn to others. She will have a new heart and an unfailing loyalty to her Beloved.

And here the story cannot, nor can any one story, contain the whole of the truth of the situation. Because the King is infinite. And His plan extends beyond an unfaithful ethic group. He deserves to be worshiped by all peoples of every language. He has determined to bring poor, vile sinners of every kind into His great banquet hall. And the story of the queen is held up to those people groups as a gleaming example of the richness of the faithfulness of the covenant of a God who will forgive the worst of treacheries and will pardon all iniquity and sin for any who come to take shelter in His abundant righteousness.

What would you say?

What if you received this letter?

I have now to ask whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure to a heathen land, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean; to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death?

Not exactly persuasive, is it? But the writer, Mr. Adoniram Judson, continues:

Can you consent to all this, for the sake of Him who left His heavenly home and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing immortal souls; for the sake of Zion and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with a crown of righteousness brightened by the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Saviour from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?

When I read that, I went from thinking, "How could her father have said 'Yes'?" to "How could he have said 'No'?"

(Quotations taken from The Three Mrs. Judsons by Arabella Stuart, Particular Baptist Press, 2001, pp. 7-8.)

My Life as a Seed

But someone will say, "How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?" You fool! That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies; and that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body just as He wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own (1 Corinthians 15:35-38).

This passage and the following verses give so much material to stimulate the imagination! We will be raised one day (or at least, if we don't die before the Lord's return, we will be changed). So, if we are not now what we one day will be, what will we be like? It sounds like Paul is urging us to think way beyond anything we are accustomed to in this life. What we will be when we see our Savior as He is so far surpasses what we currently are, that the change can be compared to a seed and its plant. Seeds are unremarkable. Seeds are basically the same on the outside as other seeds. Seeds are buried. But what comes to life? Oh, here we have beauty, variety, something useful, something to display!

Now, I'm thinking about the beauty we have on this world. There are talented, intelligent, gifted, generous, noble, and beautiful people. But, Christians, we're seeds. Just wait until we're planted and spring up with joy unspeakable! Think for a moment of what a whole garden of us will look like! There's Moses. Over here, Job. Paul, James, Augustine, Luther, Newton, Spurgeon. Me, you. The folks in your church. Thomas Kelly got it right:
Then we shall be where we would be,
Then we shall be what we should be,
Things that are not now, nor could be,
Soon shall be our own.

Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality (1 Corinthians 15:51-53).

That Nothing Be Lost

I know my generation is not characteristically conscientious about conserving resources. My grandparents' generation is. I imagine that there have been people in every generation who took their possessions for granted, glibly presuming upon replacing things with little sacrifice on their part. But they have historically been in the minority. Today, however, it is difficult to find someone (other than our grandparents) who understands the mindset of Mrs. Jonathan Edwards.

In the Memoirs of Jonathan Edwards, the author makes this observation:

She was conscientiously careful that nothing should be wasted and lost; and often when she herself took care to save any thing of trifling value, or directed her children or others to do so, or when she saw them waste any thing, she would repeat the words of our Saviour--"That nothing be lost;" which words she said she often thought of, as containing a maxim worth remembering, especially when considered as the reason alleged by Christ, why his disciples should gather up the fragments of that bread which he had just before created with a word (The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 1, Hendrickson 2005, p. lxxxvii).

Not only do these sentences reveal something of Sarah Edwards's good stewardship of resources, but they impressed me with her astute biblical application. How many times have I read those verses and skimmed over that quotation of Christ as ancillary to the "real" lesson of the recorded event? Necessary to advance the action, but not really pertinent to what was being communicated. And not just that narrative, but dozens more in Scripture are written for my admonition.

The challenge for me in this passage from the life of Mrs. Edwards is to see that nothing of God's gifts of resources or of instruction be lost on me.