http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15189491/every-christian-serving-with-the-whole-soul
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Hell Can Heal Any Bitterness: Finding Peace in God’s Vengeance
I used to think of myself as a patient man. Then I got married. Then I had a child. Then another one. And another one. Through those precious gifts, God has exposed me to me. I’ve seen just how thin my “vast patience” can run.
Recently, I lost it with my eldest son. He needed discipline, and received wrath instead. I felt the red-hot fringes of my patience. I yelled a sinful yell. Afterward, I needed to kneel down eye to eye, humble myself, and ask my son for forgiveness — and I did. And he forgave me.
As I felt my bloodstream cool, I considered my anger — offended by his lack of respect, inconvenienced by his disobedience, hurt by his defiance, and then seeking some form of vengeance. My raised voice tried to avenge my bruised ego. Even though I love my two sons more than any other boy on earth, and would gladly die for their sake, I was still somehow tempted to fight back, to take up arms and go to war.
As I explored that impulse, I wondered how much more intense it must be for those who’ve actually been injured — the betrayed spouse, the abandoned friend, the slandered church member, the persecuted coworker, the abused child. What flames must course through their veins? How easy must it feel to want to hurt like they’ve been hurt, to make the other person pay for what they’ve done? Have you ever tasted a warm and bitter thirst for vengeance?
Vengeance Is Not Mine
As the apostle Paul unfolds what an authentically Christian community will look like for the church in Rome, he weaves in several vital one-another realities: “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor” (Romans 12:10). Contribute to one another’s needs and welcome one another (verse 13). “Live in harmony with one another” (verse 16). Then he says,
Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. (Romans 12:17)
Followers of Jesus don’t retaliate. When we receive evil — real, shameful, painful evil — we don’t compensate the offender with another offense, but instead with surprising grace and mercy, with a warm meal and a cold drink (Romans 12:20). We respond to our wounds in ways that even the God-hating world can admire (“what is honorable in the sight of all”).
“Believing in hell breeds healthier, more Christian relationships.”
How could a betrayed spouse, an abandoned friend, an abused child possibly respond like that? Paul goes on to tell us two verses later: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” (Romans 12:19). Cravings for personal vengeance dry up and wither when held up before the fires of final judgment, when we remember that God will repay every evil against us.
The Relationally Practical Doctrine of Hell
When Paul writes of God, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” he’s reading from Deuteronomy 32, from the great song Moses sang to the people before he died. Why would Paul turn here when speaking to believers who’ve been sinned against? Because the new people of God, the church, still finds refuge, justice, and hope in the holy and unyielding wrath of God. Moses sings first of God’s righteous fury against the sins of Israel:
A fire is kindled by my anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol,devours the earth and its increase, and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.And I will heap disasters upon them; I will spend my arrows on them;they shall be wasted with hunger, and devoured by plague and poisonous pestilence. (Deuteronomy 32:22–24)
But just before he might wipe out his chosen people for their defiance, he turns his wrath instead against the enemies of Israel, “lest their adversaries should misunderstand, lest they should say, ‘Our hand is triumphant, it was not the Lord who did all this’” (Deuteronomy 32:27). So, he says of those enemies,
“Vengeance is mine, and recompense, for the time when their foot shall slip;for the day of their calamity is at hand, and their doom comes swiftly.”For the Lord will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants. (Deuteronomy 32:35–36)
And why will God pour out such wrath against Israel’s enemies? Because the enemies of God’s people have made themselves enemies of God himself. Notice how their adversaries have now become my adversaries by the end of the song.
I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand. . . .I will take vengeance on my adversaries and will repay those who hate me.I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh. (Deuteronomy 32:39–42)
This isn’t only the God of the Old Testament. This is the God of the Old and New Testaments. The God who wrote the law and the God who wrote the gospel. The Beginning and the End. The God who shows us wondrous mercy in Christ will rain horrible wrath on all who reject and oppose him — a fire devouring the earth, a devastating famine, a poisonous plague, a sword soaked in blood.
Every unforgiven sinner will suffer that awful storm. And every unforgiven sin against you will face the same fate. This is how a betrayed spouse, an abandoned friend, an abused child can suffer harm and not retaliate. They know they will be vindicated and made whole again. Believing in hell, then, really does breed healthier, more Christian relationships.
The Cross as Vengeance
Not all sins against us will be repaid with hell, though. Because our own sins, in Christ, won’t be repaid with hell. God will punish every sin against you, either in conscious, eternal torment or in the crushing of his precious Son. John Piper says,
God will lift from you the suicidal load of vengeance and carry it to one of two places. He will carry it to the cross if the person repents, or he will carry it to hell where they will be forever. And you can’t improve upon either of those. If they’re in hell, you don’t need to add to their punishment. If their load was borne and forgiven and paid at the cross, you would dishonor the Lord if you didn’t share in the forgiveness. (“How to Battle Bitterness”)
Christ bore the horrors of Deuteronomy 32 — a fire devouring the earth, a sword soaked in blood, a crown of piercing thorns, a back ravaged by scourging, a cross of shame and agony — for all who would believe in him, even those who have hurt you. Would you try and improve on the vengeance of the cross? Do the sufferings of the sinless Christ seem somehow insufficient when it’s you who have been wronged? Christian, remember that God’s wrath once burned against you, his plague crept toward you, his sword stood high above you — and then Jesus bore that hell for you.
This resistance in us to entrust our injustices to God is why Paul goes after pride in the same verses: “Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil” (Romans 12:16–17). Why are we reluctant to relinquish justice over the sins against us? Why do we assume we’d be a better judge than God? Because of a coddling and corrupting pride. Because we gladly overestimate our own sense of wisdom and righteousness in these painful situations, and because we grossly underestimate our need for God’s forgiveness, understanding, and justice.
If the sins against us were left in our courtrooms, before our broken and impartial benches, they’d be woefully mishandled. But thanks be to God that he himself judges every last case, that each and every wrong will be repaid with flawless justice. He doesn’t overlook a single offense or lighten a single sentence. He will either nail the sin to the cross, or he will consume it in hell. Can you bear to believe that? Can you surrender your secret cravings to retaliate, the bitternesses you quietly sip and refill?
So Far as It Depends on You
One last thread deserves attention in Romans 12. When it comes to the sins people commit against us, Paul isn’t content with a merely defensive strategy (“leave it to the wrath of God”), but encourages the forgiven and soon-to-be vindicated to actively and persistently pursue peace — if possible, even with their offenders.
Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. (Romans 12:16–19)
You can see how the two thick and colorful threads weave themselves together in this distinctly Christian love: let God enact your vengeance and do all you can to make peace. Don’t settle for a cold, distant truce when it comes to these offenses, but fight for the warmth of harmony.
And not only within the church, but strive to “live peaceably with all,” the apostle says. That means even the unbelievers — the neighbors, the coworkers, the friends, the parents, the children — who sin against you. The perfect justice of God — in hell and on the cross — makes this kind of miraculous peace relationally possible. We can hold out meaningful, heartfelt peace even to those who despise, harass, persecute, and harm us.
Very often, our enemies will not receive it (that’s why Paul says “so far as it depends on you”), but if they do, it just might be the day they, like you, are rescued from wrath and step into joy-filled peace with God.
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Ingredients for a Theology of Feasting
Audio Transcript
Happy Monday! We launch a new week and close in on 1,700 episodes in the podcast. Thank you for all the support and prayers and encouragements over the years. And as we march forward, I’m also investing some time curating the archives to notice where some of our content gaps remain. And while doing so, Pastor John, I found one of those gaps. We have several episodes on fasting. What is fasting? What does it mean? What does it accomplish? How do we do it? And so on. But by contrast, we have relatively little on feasting. And yet feasting is a major category in Scripture — far more prevalent in the Bible than fasting is, actually. So on this Monday, Pastor John, can you give us a little theology of feasting in ten minutes, as you understand it?
A little theology of feasting in ten minutes? Maybe the way to think about this episode on feasting is that the biblical points that I will make are the raw materials of a theology of feasting. That would make me feel a little bit better.
Commemorate God’s Mercy
First, we need a definition. I’m going to start with a popular definition — namely, feasting is the enjoyment of abundance. That’s my short-term definition. I’m not even going to say that it is limited to the enjoyment of food, because you could feast your eyes on scenery, you could feast your ears on music, you could feast your nose on sweet aromas, you could feast your taste buds on honey, feast your skin and body on sexual pleasures.
So when you turn to the Bible, you find that the word feast does not always have this connotation even of abundance in view. If you do a word search on the word feast in the Old Testament, it’s just full of “prescribed feasts,” as they’re called in English. And they include Passover, Feast of Firstfruits, Feast of Weeks, Feast of Pentecost, Feast of Trumpets, Feast of Booths.
And you can see these spelled out. They take their beginning in Leviticus 23, and then they’re unpacked all over the place. They don’t all imply abundance, but rather — and here would be a modification of the definition biblically — a communal sharing of a celebrated meal with a focus on some remembrance and thankfulness of some event of God’s mercy (something like that). And it might be very simple. I mean, unleavened bread is not what you think about when you think about a big Thanksgiving dinner.
So, we need to be careful and be sure that when we see the word feast in the Bible, we determine from the context whether it implies the enjoyment of abundance, or something more simple — some celebration of some remembered event in a focused and communal and simple way.
Four Biblical Truths About Feasting
But I’m going to focus on what we ordinarily mean by feasting. That’s what I think you’re really asking, over against fasting — namely, a joyful shared experience of some abundance, usually food and drink. And so I have four observations as I look at the Bible about such feasting — the raw material, maybe, of a little theology of feasting.
1. Feasting can be good — and bad.
First, the Bible is clear that feasting in and of itself may be a very good thing or a bad thing, depending on other factors.
“Mere abundance of food and drink does not make for a happy family or happy community. There must be more to it.”
For example, Proverbs 17:1 says, “Better is a dry morsel with quiet than a house full of feasting with strife.” In other words, mere abundance of food and drink does not make for a happy family or happy community. There must be more to it.
Another example would be Ecclesiastes 10:16–17: “Woe to you, O land, when your . . . princes feast in the morning! Happy are you, O land, when your . . . princes feast at the proper time, for strength, and not for drunkenness!” In other words, there’s a time for work and a time for feasting, and there are good purposes for feasting, and there are fleshly, worldly, sinful reasons for feasting. Feasting in and of itself may or may not be good.
Another example: Ecclesiastes 7:2 says, “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.” In other words, the good and rightful pleasures of feasting cannot teach you the deepest things about life and death. I have never heard anybody say they went deepest with God, learned most of God, on easy days or at feasting.
One more example: God says to Israel in Amos 5:21, 24, “I hate, I despise your feasts. . . . Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” In other words, if our feasting is a cloak of pleasure covering lives of lovelessness and injustice, the feast has become a stench in God’s nose.
So, those are examples of what I mean when I say feasting in and of itself may be a very good thing or a bad thing, depending on other factors.
2. Feasting rejoices in God’s kindness.
God intends that the abundance he provides for our physical enjoyment, the enjoyment of our senses, should echo in our hearts with thanksgiving to God and be made holy by the word and prayer. I’m simply echoing 1 Timothy 6:17, where Paul says we should set our hope on God, “who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.” In other words, the sights and sounds and smells and tastes and touch of good things that God has made are not mainly tests to see if we will make them our god and become idolaters, but rather, they are mainly pleasures to send our hearts joyful and thankful back to God. That’s their main purpose for existence.
“The difference between unholy and holy feasting is not what’s on the table, but what’s in the mind and in the heart.”
Paul puts it like this in 1 Timothy 4:4–5: “Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.” So, the difference between unholy feasting and holy feasting is not what’s on the table, but what’s in the mind and in the heart. Is the mind grasping the God-centered meaning of these things from the word of God, and is the heart sending up joyful prayers of thanksgiving as we taste more of the goodness of God in the very things we’re eating?
3. Feasting is our destiny.
One of the beautiful ways God describes the destiny of those who will accept salvation, his invitation, is a final feast with him in the age to come. Isaiah 25:6: “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine. . . . He will swallow up death forever.” That’s a magnificent picture of our hope beyond this age, beyond the grave.
Jesus says in Matthew 22:2–10, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.” The king sent out the invitation to the world: “Come to the wedding feast!” That’s what world missions is. I mean, my book is called Let The Nations Be Glad. It could be called Let The Nations Come to a Feast.
And to his disciples at the Last Supper, just before he gave his life for our sins, Jesus said in Luke 22:29–30, “I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom.”
And the book of Revelation tops it off with the angel crying, “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9). To which I respond, “Blessed indeed to be a part of the bride of Christ on that day.”
4. Feasting shows off Christ’s supreme value.
In some measure now, and then perfectly at the last day, God himself will be our feast. Psalm 36:7–8: “How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind . . . feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights.”
I think if we meditate on those four observations about feasting from Scripture, in the context of the whole Bible, we will be able to move wisely between fasting and feasting, between the joy of self-denial and the joy of abundance, in a way that shows the supreme value of Christ in our lives.
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Give Thanks Against Temptation: The Spiritual Power of Gratitude
No one had ever seen a more unusual band of soldiers. Or heard. As the men slowly advanced toward the front lines, no armor glinted in the sunlight; no war cry pierced the air. Instead, colorful robes adorned these soldiers’ shoulders, and they were armed with nothing but a song. And at the heart of the song were two words that seemed severely premature: “Give thanks.”
Give thanks to the Lord, for his steadfast love endures forever. (2 Chronicles 20:21)
So sang the vanguard of King Jehoshaphat’s army; so marched his first men into war.
Their enemies, surely disoriented, perhaps took some courage, thinking Judah’s warriors had lost their minds. But as the next minutes would show, the soldiers’ song of thanks proved more powerful than any sword. For “when they began to sing and praise, the Lord set an ambush against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah, so that they were routed” (2 Chronicles 20:22).
Judah’s enemies were routed by song, vanquished by praise. And the first sounds to fill the expectant air of war were those two surprising words: “Give thanks.” Many a war today is won with the same words, even if our foes have changed. Many a sin lies slain, many a lie gets daggered, and many a devil flees at the sound of this weapon called “thank you.”
Weapon Called ‘Thank You’
Often, in Scripture, thanksgiving arises after deliverance — after God has answered the prayer, brought the rescue, trampled the enemy. But among the many examples of post-deliverance thanksgiving, we find several striking examples of the saints thanking God before the battle begins — as a weapon of war.
Alongside Jehoshaphat’s army, we might recall what Daniel did when faced with King Darius’s insane decree: “Whoever makes petition to any god or man for thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions” (Daniel 6:7). Daniel would not, could not, endure a month of prayerless days, much less make petition to a creature of dust. So, “he got down on his knees three times a day and prayed, . . . as he had done previously” (Daniel 6:10).
Were I Daniel, my prayers would no doubt plead and beg and earnestly ask for deliverance. Daniel, however, did more: he “gave thanks before his God” (Daniel 6:10). Let kings rage and lions roar; Daniel will still be heard saying “thank you” to his God. And with this weapon, he silenced fear, proclaimed God’s faithfulness, and so trusted in his God all through the awful night.
“Under God, thanksgiving can become not only the raised cup after battle, but the drawn sword beforehand.”
Chief among gratitude’s soldiers, however, stands our own Lord Jesus, who knew how to thank his Father before the four thousand were fed (Mark 8:6), before Lazarus shook off his graveclothes (John 11:41), and even before his own betrayal. “He took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them” (Matthew 26:27). Maundy Thursday heard the agonized prayers of Gethsemane; it heard also the stunning sounds of gratitude. And in part through that “thank you,” Jesus saw more clearly the joy set before him, “that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom” (Matthew 26:29), and he found strength to trust until the empty tomb.
Under God, thanksgiving can become for us an army marching forward, declaring God’s steadfast love against the hordes of unbelief. It can become not only the raised cup after battle, but the drawn sword beforehand.
Counting Blessings, Killing Sins
Consider now your own life. You are no soldier marching toward battle, no Daniel facing the lions’ den, no Savior engulfed in darkness. But in Christ, you have many strong and subtle foes. And Godward gratitude is one of your sharpest swords.
Take worry. How do you repel a rising anxiety and welcome the peace that passes all understanding? How does your embattled mind become garrisoned by the forces of grace? Not only by “[letting] your requests be made known to God,” but also by doing so “with thanksgiving” (Philippians 4:6–7). “Father, though worry weighs on me so heavily, thank you. You have proved your faithfulness so many times; you will prove your faithfulness again.”
Or take sexual temptation. How do you create an atmosphere in your heart that chokes the lungs of lust? Not only by removing “filthiness,” “foolish talk,” and “crude joking” from mouth and mind, and not only by remembering that “everyone who is sexually immoral . . . has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God,” but also by filling your soul with the fragrance of gratitude. Instead of sexual sin, Paul says, “let there be thanksgiving” (Ephesians 5:4–5). For lust cannot live in an utterly thankful heart, a heart that gratefully knows God as its treasure.
Or take bitterness. How do you “let the peace of Christ rule in your heart” when someone in your community drives you crazy (Colossians 3:15)? How do you go on forgiving and forbearing instead of allowing anger to kill your love — or bitterness to cool it (Colossians 3:13–14)? In part, by obeying the command to “be thankful” (Colossians 3:15). When we sincerely thank God for his mercy in Christ, when we gratefully trace the kindness that covers our sins, another day of love feels a little more doable.
We’re not talking here about a bland and banal, cross-stitched and clichéd “count your blessings.” We’re talking about war. Thanksgiving is an act of war. We count our blessings to kill our sins.
Begin and Abound
A habit of thanksgiving, however, rarely comes easily — especially in the grip of temptation. Far easier to allow worry over the walls, to cede ground to lust, to open the gates before bitterness, than to boldly raise gratitude’s flag. And understandably so. When Paul travels to our sin’s twisted center, he finds there an ancient thanklessness: “Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Romans 1:21). Sin never says “thank you” — not sincerely, not from the heart.
So, how might naturally thankless people wield the weapon of thanksgiving? We might consider a two-part plan: begin and abound.
Begin
A habit of thanksgiving grows, in part, from beginning our prayers with gratitude and praise. On some regular basis, then, we might resolve to say “thank you” before we say “help me.” Before we voice whatever burdens feel most pressing, we might pause, remember, and spend some time naming God’s past faithfulness, his present help.
Such a practice holds dangers, of course, because thanksgiving holds no value apart from what John Piper calls thanksfeeling. Habitually “thanking” God from a thankless heart warrants the rebuke of Jesus: “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me” (Matthew 15:8). In fact, perhaps the worst prayer in the Gospels begins with “thank you” (Luke 18:11–12).
At the same time, Scripture gives us warrant to begin with thanksgiving; it also gives us hope that such a practice may nourish into our hearts not only the words, but the feeling too. The Levites of old “were to stand every morning, thanking and praising the Lord, and likewise at evening” (1 Chronicles 23:30). Whatever the circumstance, each day found the Levites adorning the dawn with thanksgiving and bedewing the dark with gratitude.
“Thanksgiving is an act of war. We count our blessings to kill our sins.”
In the New Testament, Paul commands us to “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18) — indeed, to thank God “always and for everything” (Ephesians 5:20). Such commands suggest more than mere spontaneity. By grace, resolving to thank God “always” can push us to remember our many reasons for thankfulness. And remembrance, like a net thrown into the heart’s waters, often catches fresh feelings.
As you begin with thanksgiving, then, remember particular answers to past prayers. Remember the gifts God has scattered so generously about you. Remember how much you have that you don’t deserve — and how little you have that you do. Remember the main reason for gratitude named in the Old Testament: “For he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!” (1 Chronicles 16:34, 41). And then trace that goodness and love in the figure of your dying Savior, resurrected Lord, ascended King, and coming Groom.
As we do so, the Lord may well set a table before us in the presence of our enemies — our own worry, our lust, our bitterness — and our cup will overflow with thanks.
Abound
If we regularly begin with thanksgiving, we may find ourselves slowly doing more: abounding in thanksgiving. Paul names such abounding as one of the central pillars of the everyday Christian life:
As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. (Colossians 2:6–7)
Abounding in thanksgiving is not a discrete practice; it’s not a step of prayer on the way to petition. Abounding in thanksgiving is a lifestyle. When we abound, we find gratitude rising from our hearts as our bodies rise from bed. We say “thank you” unplanned, unpremeditated, as our eyes catch red falling leaves or the morning’s frosted dew. We bow our heads before meals not merely by brute force of habit but by a living impulse of the heart.
And when the forces of temptation advance, we wield thanksgiving like a weapon well used and close at hand. With Jehoshaphat’s singers, we march toward the battle with song. “Thank you!” we sing, and the sword descends. “I trust you!” we shout, and sin lies slain.