Month: February 2012

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I Am Not in the Hands of Men

 

[God’s] rule is everlasting, and his kingdom is eternal.

All the people of the earth are nothing compared to him.

He does as he pleases among the angels of heaven and among the people of the earth.

No one can stop him or say to him, ‘What do you mean by doing these things?’

Dan. 4:34b-35 NLT

Trusting God is a challenge even for the most mature believer when our lives are turned upside down by situations that surprise us with deep pain and stun us with their sudden brutality  The Bible encourages us that God is there in the pain, he is acting, and he is loving. Our circumstances scream that he has forgotten us and does not care, but scripture assures us that we are not in the hands of men, but God’s hand is there, there in our pain. By the Cross of Christ, we know that God has experienced our suffering. By the promises of God, we know that we are held in the palm of his hand.

For how many a soldier in a concentration camp, weak with hunger and smarting under the whip of the torturers; for how many a person huddling in the last extremity of ghastly dread in a bomb shelter; for how many on the endless gray road of a refugee trek was it not the great experience suddenly to know: I am not in the hands of men, despite everything to the contrary; another hand, a higher hand is governing in the midst of all man’s madness and canceling all the logic of my calculations and all the images of my anxious sick imagination?

I am being led to the undreamed-of shore, the harbor, the Father’s house. And always when things grow dark, suddenly that marvelous helping hand is there. If there is anything that is really bombproof, then it is this, that God is there . . . “

Helmut Thielicke, The Waiting Father, trans., Robert Doberstein (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), 36. [paragraphing mine]

HT: Ray Ortlund

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Pastors Boldly Dare

For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.

1 Cor. 1:22-23

Preaching has fallen on hard times. Multi-media presentations, internet viral videos, smart phone apps, and movies streaming to our computers; all these media platforms engage and distract our attention. We have constant electronic stimuli ready and available for our time and entertainment. By comparison, many find preaching boring and tedious. Yet, preaching is the instrument that God has ordained to win souls, to impart grace to the faithful, and to release the Holy Spirit as encouragement to hurting hearts.

Let the pastors boldly dare all things by the word of God . . . Let them constrain all the power, glory, and excellence of the world to give place to and to obey the divine majesty of this word. Let them enjoin everyone by it, from the highest to the lowest. Let them edify the body of Christ. Let them devastate Satan’s reign. Let them pasture the sheep, kill the wolves, instruct and exhort the rebellious. Let them bind and loose thunder and lightning, if necessary, but let them do all according to the word of God.

John Calvin, Sermons on the Epistle to the Ephesians, p. xii.

HT: Credo Magazine