http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/16592737/the-nourishing-word
Part 10 Episode 230
How much are you currently relying on the nourishing milk of the word? In this episode of Light + Truth, John Piper opens Hebrews 5:11–14 to help us understand just how much we need the Bible in order to grow to maturity.
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Life Is for Living
“Youth,” an old writer complained, “is wasted on the young.” Why hand the strongest draught of life to those who least know what to do with it? Why entrust bright eyes and boundless energy to those blowing bubbles and scrolling phones and living best friends with frivolity? With too few scars to instruct them, youth, you may know too well, is often wasted on the young.
Oh, if you could bring an old head to young shoulders — how differently life would have gone. To think, really think, about what decisions you were making, what paths you were taking, what hearts you were breaking — if only you knew then what you know now. But you cannot read through and edit life. The past is well-defended and heartless to your pleas.
Life — to be placed on a bicycle before you can balance. You crashed so many times, and others suffered in your falls. You knew not where to go. And yet now, just as you get riding in the right direction, how cruel, it seems to you, to reach the sidewalk’s end. Why do we finally learn to make the most of summer days in breezy autumn?
Where was the Preacher then to instruct you, “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, ‘I have no pleasure in them’” (Ecclesiastes 12:1)? His prophetic voice spoke too softly, and it all passed by so quickly. If only you could go back and live again; this time things would go differently.
Teach Us to Measure Our Days
How vital is it for us to pray with the psalmist?
O Yahweh, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! (Psalm 39:4)
How needful is it to “know our end” before we get there? How precious to “measure our days” before we spend them? How priceless to feel our fleetness before our ship sails?
Who shall teach us to measure our days? Man flatters us and hides our end from sight. We conspire, deceiving ourselves, we gods amidst mortals. Satan slithers still, “You will not surely die” (Genesis 3:4). The world catechizes of nothing beyond its walls. Who shall teach us of the ill-favored end we wish forgotten? Who shall speak the truth to make us wise?
O Lord, teach me my end! Make me know the finish of all flesh for the good of my soul. Bring near my casket; let me read my tombstone. Let the clouds of that day surround me, show me how dark is that silence six feet below. There, let me think. There, let me learn. For “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” (Ecclesiastes 7:2).
Bury me, my Lord — throw dirt upon my aspirations, my dreams, my life — and then exhume what is worthy, what is true, what is good, what is beautiful, that which is pleasing in your sight. I am but a dream, a shadow, a blade of grass blowing in the wind. Show me death to teach me life!
Prayer of the Living
O Lord, in your school, I learn to measure my existence — not by others, but by you.
Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,and my lifetime is as nothing before you.Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! (Psalm 39:5)
In your school, I learn to weigh this life and the vanity of its riches.
Surely a man goes about as a shadow!Surely for nothing they are in turmoil;man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather! (Psalm 39:6)
In your school, I learn to chasten all other hopes.
And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?[My hope is in . . . these relationships, things, achievements? No.]My hope is in you. (Psalm 39:7)
You discipline me, you correct me, you blight the mirages I misjudge as Joy, and lead me to life in you. Oh, teach me the small dimensions of my days! Send forth your cloud by day; shine forth your fire by night. Lead me safely through this dark and dreary land, this cemetery. Teach me to live while I live. Take me to the end of life that I might learn to live this life as I wait for life with you.
Spend Time with Death
We pray this to our Lord because he must teach us how to measure the days he gives. But we must measure our lives through prayerful meditation. Practically, John Bunyan, that tour guide of the faith, advises us to dwell nearer our death.
It is convenient that thou conclude the grave is thy house, and that thou make thy bed once a day in the grave. . . . The fool puts the evil day far away, but the wise man brings it nigh. Better be ready to die seven years before death comes, than want one day, one hour, one moment, one tear, one sorrowful sigh at the remembrance of the ill-spent life that I have lived. (Christ a Complete Saviour, 221)
“Get an eyeful of Christ, a soulful of Christ, and all your wasted days will be redeemed.”
Our problem is not that death comes too swiftly, but that we visit death too seldomly. Reader, are you ready to die? Conclude now, young person, old person, middle-aged person: The grave is thy house. The wages of your sin is death; to dust you must return. But do not stop there, for your soul does not stop there. We must all read past death’s cold chapter. What lies beyond for you? What final destination is death but the turbulent flight? Eternal life or unending death? Is death gain or utter ruin?
Span of Today
Let that thought be a spur to change. Consider how many days have already escaped unfelt, untasted, unvalued. Life has happened to us more than it has been lived thoughtfully, fearfully by us — how much remains? Perhaps not much. The one life we had to live in this world — how unkindly we passed it before our Creator. Youth is wasted on the young perhaps because death is wasted on the young. Life, how valuable; we, how foolish.
Yet consider more. With all the wasted and mishandled days, realize the potential of time remaining. If you are young enough to read these words, you are young enough to hope.
Much can happen in a day. This day, you can place a phone call to a loved one you’ve not spoken with for years. This day, you can extend forgiveness, repair old bridges, heal scarred marriages. This day, we can choose what is right over what is easy. This day, we can confess sin we’ve kept secret for so long. This day, wars can cease, great enterprises begin, revivals ignite, reformation commence, lives change.
This day, Jesus Christ can place scarred hands upon an irretrievable past and amend it, reclaim it. He decisively saves souls within the bounds of today: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion” (Hebrews 3:7–8). He will take your wasted and ruined life. He can make something beautiful from it still. From the barren land, flowers may yet grow.
Within the final breaths of this day, you can hear by faith, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). This day, you can discover the purpose of all days: Jesus Christ. Get an eyeful of Christ, a soulful of Christ, and all your wasted days will be returned to his keeping, and your future days will be sceptered by his care.
Redeemer of Days
One has gone before you to your end, into death, tasting death for his people. He changes the calculus of our days. Even a spoiled life plus Christ equals eternal life. Live 969 years as Methuselah (Genesis 5:27) or 16 like Lady Jane Grey (or younger, as some of our beloved children who died trusting Jesus), if Christ is yours, death is gain. He stands beyond our end; distance from him marks the measure of our days. Our life is fleeting, yes, but we fleet to him.
Hear how Christ can beautifully map upon our brief existence:
Lord, it belongs not to my careWhether I die or live;To love and serve Thee is my share,And this Thy grace must give.
If life be long, I will be glad,That I may long obey;If short, yet why should I be sadTo welcome endless day?
Christ leads me through no darker roomsThan he went through before;He that unto God’s kingdom comesMust enter by this door.
Come, Lord, when grace hath made me meetThy blessed face to see;For if Thy work on earth be sweet,What will Thy glory be!
My knowledge of that life is small,The eye of faith is dim;But ‘tis enough that Christ knows all,And I shall be with Him. (Richard Baxter, “The Covenant and Confidence of Faith”)
Life, how fleeting. Life with Christ, how eternal. Life, how shadowed. Life with Christ, how bright. Life, how regrettable. Life with Christ, how redeemed.
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Would You Have Supported Prohibition in 1913?
Audio Transcript
Happy Friday, everyone. If you have listened for a while, you know we don’t delve into social and legal and political issues on the podcast very often, for various reasons that have been explained over the years. And that means attempts by APJ listeners to get us into that conversation, and whether or not the church should legislate sin, must get creative. And they do get creative — even resorting to hypotheticals, as in the case of today’s question, the most recent creative attempt.
And it comes to us from an anonymous man, a regular listener who writes this: “Pastor John, hello! I often wrestle with the question over what role our government should play in outlawing sin. Specifically, I would like to ask you a hypothetical question here. If you were an influential pastor-theologian back in 1913 America, would you have supported Christian temperance organizations and lent your voice to Prohibition?”
I will try to answer this question honestly, but I confess at the very beginning that this question leads into complex issues of church-state relations, where I do not have as many answers as I would like to have. But I will take you as far as I can, and then you can go further.
World Without Drunkenness
The question of whether I would have supported Prohibition in 1913 might mean, Would I have supported it with all the cultural assumptions I may have shared as a child of my times in that day, and without any of the hindsight that I now have? It might mean that, or the question might mean, Given everything I know now, would I have supported Prohibition if I could get in a time machine and go back?
Now, the answer to the first question is that I don’t know. Nobody knows. You don’t know who you would be. What would you be like? It would’ve been relatively easy to see that a world without drunkenness would be a vastly better world than the one we live in, or the one they lived in back in 1913. And I can imagine myself being persuaded that the benefits of sobriety in families and workplaces would justify taking away some legitimate pleasures that both the Bible and culture would ordinarily allow.
This is the sort of limitation on people’s pleasures and freedoms that we have embraced with regard to smoking, for example. When I was a boy, it would’ve been absolutely unthinkable to tell a person that he could not smoke in an airplane, or in the office where he works, or in a restaurant. Unthinkable. Rebellion everywhere — “Mandates! Mandates!” But little by little, society as a whole has become so persuaded that smoking is dangerous to our health, and so unpleasant to most people, that we are willing for governments and institutions to mandate the prohibition of smoking in most workplaces, and restaurants, and theaters, and transportation.
Now, I like these limitations. I like them so much that it’s easy for me to imagine supporting something like Prohibition for similar reasons. So I don’t know what I would have done in 1913.
Two Problems with Prohibition
But if the question means, “Given everything I know now, would I have supported Prohibition if a time machine could take me back?” the answer is no. I wouldn’t.
“The Bible does not require teetotalism. It prohibits drunkenness. It warns about the dangers of alcohol.”
First, because the Bible does not require teetotalism. It prohibits drunkenness. It warns about the dangers of alcohol. “In the end it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder. Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart utter perverse things. You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea, like one who lies on the top of a mast” (Proverbs 23:32–34).
That’s a great picture. But there’s no prohibition in the Bible. I think a very strong case can be made for total abstinence in our world as a matter of wisdom for oneself, but not as a requirement for others, except maybe in some limited institutional expectations. This is mainly a matter of conscience.
The second reason I would not get in my time machine and go back and vote for Prohibition is that it didn’t work. It had unintended consequences that may have been as destructive as the previous abuse of alcohol itself. And this is because, unlike the limitations on smoking in our day, the long-term societal support was simply not there. It seemed like it was there, because it takes a lot of people to get an amendment to the constitution passed in 1919. But by 1933, the adequate support had disintegrated, and it was reversed.
Guidelines for the Church-State Relationship
Now here’s where the issues are raised, like the one our friend asked in his question: What role should our government play in outlawing sin? That’s part of his question. That’s where it’s all leading, which gets us into the weeds here. I think a more precise way to ask the question is this: How does the state decide what actions should be outlawed that Christians regard as sin? And you’ll see in a minute why I think that’s a better question.
So here are my guidelines — four guidelines for wrestling with the question about the relationship between the revealed will of Christ in Scripture and the law-making power of the state, enforceable with the sword.
First, the church today — the people of Christ on this side of the cross, unlike Israel in the Old Testament — are not a geopolitical entity. The church is not a nation-state. Therefore, the Old Testament legal stipulations — with their punishments like capital punishment for idolatry or cursing one’s parents — are not simply brought over and implemented in the church. The church excommunicates unrepentant idolaters; it doesn’t execute them.
Second, this does not mean that those sins are less grievous or less worthy of capital punishment. It means that the church hands over that judgment to Christ at his coming. There will be a perfect reckoning from the judge of the universe. Christ will settle all accounts. That ultimate reckoning is not the job of church leaders.
“The entire history of Christendom-by-force, from Constantine to the Puritans, was misguided.”
Third, Christian faith, and all the heart obedience of faith that flows from it, cannot be coerced by the sword — that is, by the state. The entire history of Christendom-by-force, from Constantine to the Puritans, was misguided. Any arrangement of church-state relations that sanctions state penalties to promote true heart faith and the heart obedience of faith will eventually corrupt the church.
Fourth and finally, Jesus said in John 18:36, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not of this world.” Now, the inference I draw from that statement and other aspects of the New Testament is that Christ, in this age, does not sanction the use of the sword to punish those who disobey him. This means that the state, to whom God has given the sword, according to Romans 13, should not seek to compel obedience to Christ.
Purpose of the Sword
Now, listen carefully, because I’m going to make some distinctions here that are fine. I’ll leave a lot of questions unanswered, but I think these distinctions really help. Obeying a law that Christ would approve is not the same as obeying Christ, and disobeying a law that Christ would approve is not the same as disobeying Christ.
A person who doesn’t even believe that Christ existed can obey a law that Christ approves. Therefore, punishment for disobeying a law that Christ approves is not the same as punishment for disobeying Christ. I don’t think the state should ever punish a person for disobeying Christ. I think that is the prerogative of church discipline, and I think the most severe form of church discipline is excommunication, not death.
There is a difference between saying that Christ wills that a person be punished by the state for breaking a law Christ approves, and saying that Christ wills that a person be punished by the state for disobeying him. The former is right; the latter is wrong.
Christ does will that a person be punished by the state for breaking a law that he approves, but Christ does not will that a person be punished by the state for disobeying Christ. All of which implies that Christians should consult Christ in his word when thinking through what sins should be prohibited by law, because the use of the sword to enforce Christ-approved laws is not the same as using the sword to enforce obedience to Christ.
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Why Did Jesus Use Spit and Mud to Heal?
Audio Transcript
Welcome back. John 9:3 is a classic text for us at Desiring God when it comes to understanding God’s good design in human disability. In six APJ episodes, we’ve talked about the man born blind and Jesus’s explanation for why he was born blind. It’s just a profound story, a profound revelation of God’s purposes.
But today we’re looking at a different part of that story. You’ll remember that Jesus spit on the ground, mixed his saliva with dirt, made mud, applied the paste to the man’s blind eyes, and then sent him off to wash it all off in a pool. And that’s where his eyesight was restored. Let me read this account in John 9:1–7: “As he [Jesus] passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’” There has to be a reason why, right? “Jesus answered, ‘It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.’” There’s the key text. Why does disability exist? It’s a profound response, with wide-ranging implications. Then we read this. “Having said these things, [Jesus] spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam’ (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.” Here’s Pastor John.
He healed him with mud. Why? He could have said, “Eyes open,” and they would have opened. He’s done that. He used mud and spit. I have a lot of ideas why. I’ll just give you the one that’s most obvious in the text, least controversial. I think it’s manifest.
Stirring Controversy
Namely, he used mud because he knew it was Saturday, the Sabbath, and it’s against the law to knead dough or clay or mud. One of the 39 interpretations of the Pharisees as to what it means not to work on Saturday was you can’t knead dough. And the word for “dough” is identical (pēlon) to the word “mud” or “clay.” It’s like brickmasons: “Hey, give me some more mud,” and all they mean is a big clump of moldable cement. Or it’s like women working with their bread, because they could call it mud. They usually don’t, but it’s the same word.
He knew exactly what he was doing. “I’m going to break the law; I’m going to do it in a way that breaks the law” — the law as the Pharisees understood it. Why would he want to do that? Because he’s the Lord of the Sabbath, and he wants to show that he is — or to show what the point of the Sabbath is: rest. Why? Why do you need rest? Healing. If you don’t rest, you die. Rest is weekly therapy for dying bodies. Get well; stop working. So I’m just really illustrating with this, What else would you do on the Sabbath but make eyes see? Especially if you’re God and you want to show that you’re the Creator and Sustainer and Healer.
But I don’t think any of those is the main reason why he did it. I think the main reason was to trigger the controversy.
Miracles Through Human Means
Yes. And it sure did that. But there’s a second reason why Pastor John thinks Jesus used the means of spit and dust and mud and a pool — a second reason Pastor John didn’t deliver from the pulpit, likely due to time limits. But it’s included in his written manuscript online, the sermon notes he had with him in the pulpit. So I’ll read this second one myself. Here’s what he wrote in his manuscript.
“God usually uses means in doing his wonderful works in this world.”
The second reason for the mud is to show that God usually uses means in doing his wonderful works in this world. Jesus could have simply spoken, and the man’s eyes would have been opened. But most of the wonders of God in the Old Testament were brought about by the use of human means. “The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord” (Proverbs 21:31). God is decisive in the victory, but he uses means. He doesn’t need the horse, but he uses the horse.
Ponder this in the bigger picture of life for a moment. What this means is that God does not despise the physical world he has made. He uses the means of food to sustain life. He uses the means of sex to beget children. And he uses a thousand remedies to bring about healing — from sleep to penicillin, from vitamins to radiation, from sunshine on the skin to cough syrup for the throat.
“If our hearts are alive and humble and worshipful, we will not stop until we see God at the bottom of everything.”
And lest you think this removes the mystery of God’s wonderful work, consider boring down through layer after layer after layer of physical causes for why antibiotics work against strep. Forty or fifty layers down into the molecular, subatomic activities of the smallest particles, or non-particles, there comes a point where there is no explanation inside this closed material system. The final explanation is always God. And if our hearts are alive and humble and worshipful, we will not stop until we see God at the bottom of everything.
Glory of His Work
It is no small thing to believe that God uses means to accomplish his purposes. And his purposes are that the glory of his work would be displayed. And therefore, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1). And so does all the rest of creation, if we have eyes to see.
Jesus used mud. We may use mud — or medicine. The difference is how close to the surface the miracle is. Let your life be full of wonder at the works of God — and full of worship.