Audio Transcript

We are reading the Navigators Bible Reading Plan together. And today in our reading, among other things, we read 2 Chronicles 13:1–16:14. It’s a big section with one line worth underlining and memorizing. It’s a line from the mouth of Hanani the seer, the father of the prophet Jehu. Hanani, speaking to king Asa in 2 Chronicles 16:9, gives us this promise: “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him.” It’s a key text for life, one of sixteen essential Bible verses to have memorized to meet life’s hardest battles, according to you, Pastor John. That’s a list you gave us back in APJ 1798, summarized in the APJ book on pages 44–46.

So, the point is that God is eager to work for his people. That’s the main point of that line. As we meditate on this text today, after we read it together, explain three things for us. (1) God’s eyes in this verse. How are they roving and roaming? What theology do you draw from this? (2) God’s support. What comfort do you take from the “strong support” being promised? And (3) explain the qualification of who is “blameless toward [God]” or “whole toward [God],” as the ESV footnote puts it. The KJV translates this as a heart that is “perfect toward him.” The NIV says that it’s a heart “fully committed to him.” The Holman version says a heart that is “completely his.” A listener to the podcast, Sarah in the Philippines, has heard you teach on this text in the past, drawing a distinction between blameless and sinless as not being the same thing. But she needs you to explain the difference.

Well, I love this verse. I really love it because it has a special place in my affections, because my awareness of it came into my life while I was discovering (back in 1968–1969) the preciousness and the truth of the absolute sovereignty of God.

The reason it had this effect on me in those days was that it put the sovereignty of God in the service of his eagerness, like you said — the eagerness of God to help me if I simply trust him. Not to help me if I work for him, but if I trust him, he’s going to work for me. He’s going to be strong on my behalf if I look away from myself and look to my heavenly Father — his broad shoulders, his huge biceps, his strong back, and those bright eyes just full of eagerness to show himself powerful on behalf of those who simply trust in him. So, that was just an amazing picture for me. I don’t know how I had missed it for 22 years or so, but it certainly made the embrace of the sovereignty of God a more precious thing.

The verse says, “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro [they roam about] throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong [I’ll explain that translation in a minute] on behalf of those whose heart is whole toward him” (2 Chronicles 16:9). So, let’s take your three questions.

1. Roaming Eyes

What about those eyes of the Lord roaming in the earth? The phrase “in the eyes of the Lord” in Hebrew occurs 92 times in the Old Testament. It’s really quite amazing. And there are other phrases with “the eyes of the Lord” that don’t include the word in — “in the eyes of the Lord.” And it has several meanings. It can refer to God’s omniscience, like in Proverbs 15:3: “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.” Or it can refer to his awareness and assessment of things, like 2 Chronicles 34:2: “[Josiah] did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.” Or it can refer to God’s special approving and helping gaze, like Psalm 34:15: “The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry.”

Now, in 2 Chronicles 16:9 it’s referring to God’s intense attentiveness and eagerness to act in a certain way toward a certain kind of person. “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is whole toward him.” And it’s a striking contrast to what many people feel. Many people think that if God has eyes and they’re running through the world, they’re scrutinizing the world on the lookout for something to punish. That’s the way a lot of people feel. The eyes of the Lord are snooping. They’re not looking for ways to help; they’re looking for ways to punish.

“God is on the prowl to show himself powerful for us, not against us, when we trust in him.”

That’s the kind of image of religion that H.L. Mencken had when he said that famous thing, remember? “Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone somewhere may be happy.” That’s rubbish. That’s rubbish both for Puritanism and it’s rubbish for the Bible. And this verse says that God’s eyes are roaming around, not looking for someone to make unhappy, but the opposite — namely, what? Now that leads to your second question.

2. Eager to Serve

So, what is he wanting to do? “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is whole toward him.” So, this peculiar form of the Hebrew word is reflexive: “show himself strong.” A reflexive verb in Hebrew — the hitpael here — means the action reflects back on the actor. It’s not wrong to translate it “gives strong support.” But the peculiar reflexive idea of God showing himself to be the kind of person who loves to give strong support would be missing if you only said it that way, I think.

And that’s part of what makes this verse so precious and powerful. God’s eyes are roaming around — stalking, so to speak, to put a different twist on it — stalking, like in Psalm 23:6: “Goodness and mercy shall follow me [stalk me, pursue me] all the days of my life.” And they’re doing it in order to be on behalf of someone. He wants to show himself strong on behalf of someone, not against someone.

So, when I came to see 55 years ago that this inclination of God to show himself strong was for me and not against me, what I saw was that it was flowing out of his total self-sufficiency, where he has no need of my services at all. Instead, he wants to serve my good. And Acts 17:25 became part of that season of discovery: “[God is not] served by human hands, as though he needed anything.” So did Isaiah 64:4 in those days: “No eye has seen a God [like] you, who acts for those who wait for him.” The same thing is in Psalm 147:10–11: “His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs [strong legs] of a man, but the Lord takes pleasure . . . in those who hope in his steadfast love.”

That whole cluster of texts came alive for me as I was discovering the sovereignty of God and how his total and complete lack of need for me made him eager to serve me when I depend on him. It was just a glorious discovery.

3. Those with Whole Hearts

Which leads now to the last question you ask about: Who gets to qualify for this? Who is blameless — or who is whole? “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong” — on behalf of whom? — “those [my translation] whose heart is whole toward him.” I think translating it “those whose heart is blameless” is hard for English readers to grasp because almost everybody thinks of the term “blameless” as perfection, and if that were the case, he wouldn’t help anybody. There aren’t any perfect people except one.

The phrase “whole heart” was used, for example (just to show its limits), to contrast Solomon with David. “When Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not [whole]” — or wholly true — “to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father” (1 Kings 11:4). Oh my goodness. David was anything but perfect, but on the whole — no pun intended — he repented as he should and stayed true to the Lord. And so, he could be contrasted with Saul, who turned away from the Lord. David stayed with the Lord and was said to have a whole heart for God.

I think there’s a good picture of it in James 1:8, when it talks about doubting and praying for wisdom. It says that when we pray for wisdom, we should not be “double-minded.” What does that mean? I take it to mean that part of us says, “God is good; God is reliable; God will help me,” and part of us is saying, “No, God is not good; he probably is not going to do any good at all when I pray.” A whole heart says, “I trust God to be wholly good to me. He’s going to give me all the strong help I need to do his will. My heart’s not split in half. I’m whole toward God. Half of me is not saying God is unreliable while half is saying he is reliable.”

I think that’s what a whole heart is, and that’s the point here in 2 Chronicles 16:9. Asa — this is the king who has been good and doesn’t end so well in his life — was helped in his victory over the Ethiopians and the Libyans, it says, “because you relied on the Lord” (2 Chronicles 16:8). Your heart was right toward God. You looked away from yourself, and you depended on me. I gave you the victory. I showed myself strong on your behalf.

So, conclusion: Let’s ask God to shape our whole mindset, our whole disposition, toward God. He is on the prowl to show himself powerful for us, not against us, when we trust in him.

Audio Transcript

Good Monday morning, and welcome back to the podcast. We have talked recently about the tensions inside a home when a Christian is married to a non-Christian. This dynamic can happen for several reasons, sometimes intentionally. A Christian may sin and knowingly marry a non-Christian. We saw this in APJ 1560. Or two non-Christians marry, and one eventually gets saved. We saw this in APJ 1029. Or two professing Christians get married: one proves their faith over the years, or is genuinely converted, and the other falls away over time. We have seen this dynamic in APJs 680, 1690, and in 1839 just a couple weeks ago.

I don’t know which category fits today. We have limited information. But, Pastor John, six times over the years we have gotten an email from a woman named Rose. Her emails are always the same. They’re always brief. They’re always one sentence, the same sentence — this one: “Pastor John, how do I pray for my husband to be saved?” What would you say to Rose?

Oh, how I wish I could see into Rose’s sorrowful heart and pinpoint where she feels the greatest difficulty in praying for her unbelieving husband. Is it how often she should pray? Is it how to avoid vain repetitions when you’ve been praying the same prayer for years and years — hundreds of times, thousands of times? Is it how to keep on praying after decades of seeing no evident change? Is it particular texts that she’s struggling with and how to apply them? Is it loss of desire, maybe, or loss of hope, or loss of love in her own heart? Is it the cooling of trust in God? Is it practicalities like, “Do I pray out loud? Or do I pray in a closet? Or how many times a day?” Is it whether it dishonors the husband to pray for him in groups, maybe? I’ve had women ask me that. Is it whether to pray for him in his presence? “Can I do that? Can I pray for him in his face?” Is it whether to pray for others to reach out to him or whether to pray directly for his soul? Oh, how I wish I could see where the point is that she is asking about.

But maybe it’s just a heart cry: “Help — anything you can say, Pastor John, that might encourage me or keep me going.” And so, I don’t know the details of her struggle, except that it’s been a long time, evidently, because of her repeated requests.

Hope-Sustaining Sovereignty

And what I like to do is suggest a way of praying for unbelieving loved ones that I have found hopeful. It’s premised (I have to say this; it’s really crucial to say) on the biblical conviction that God is sovereign and, whenever he chooses, he can overcome all resistance and save the hardest sinner. I do not believe that human beings have final veto power over the sovereign will of God.

Some might think that this kind of absolute sovereignty over the human will, which I deeply believe is biblical, would create a sense of fatalism, maybe, or discouragement that God may not choose to save our loved one in the end. But looked at another way, it actually creates hope, this sovereign God. It means God really can save no matter what the unbeliever does or has done. Nothing can stop him.

“God really can save no matter what the unbeliever does or has done. Nothing can stop him.”

This means no amount of passing time, no amount of accumulated sin, no degree of hardness of heart, no sneering antagonism, no public mockery, no angry resistance — nothing can hinder his salvation if God wills to take away the hardness and save. To me, that’s the only hope we have that unbelievers would be saved, because they’re all dead in their trespasses and sins — and dead is dead. There’s nothing I can do. If God doesn’t do it, people perish. I would’ve perished.

Our Generous Father

So, building on this conviction of God’s hope-sustaining sovereignty, I love to pray the promises of God, especially the new-covenant promises of salvation. But before I mention a few of those, I find it encouraging to remind myself — I must do this every week or so from Scripture — that God really does delight to answer the prayers of his children. I need to see that. I need to be reminded of that in his own words. He’s not a begrudging Father.

So for example, I return often to Matthew 7:9–11:

Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

Or Luke 12:32: “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

“God really does delight to answer the prayers of his children.”

Surely Jesus told us these things to encourage us to pray, to remind us that we should think of him this way — a generous Father to his children. He loves to see us pray: a Shepherd eager to bless, a King eager to give to his subjects. And then, with that fresh reminder of God’s eagerness to hear our prayers and answer them, I turn to the promises of the new covenant.

Turning Promises into Prayers

Now, remember that the new covenant, according to Ezekiel 36, is different from the Mosaic covenant because it doesn’t just come with demands from outside; it comes with enablement to do the commands from inside. He says, “I will cause you to walk in my statutes” (Ezekiel 36:27). “I’m not going to just give you statutes — I will cause you to walk in my statutes.” That’s the key of the new covenant. And Jesus said that this new covenant was secured by himself by his own blood. He held up the cup at the Last Supper: “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20). He bought it, and so it is sure.

So here are some of the precious new-covenant promises that I turn into prayers for beloved unbelievers.

‘Become his God.’

Ezekiel 11:19–21:

And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

So, pray like this for your husband: “Dear Father, I pray for my precious husband that you would, in your great mercy, bought by the blood of Jesus, take out the heart of stone and give him a tender, soft heart toward you. Put a new spirit in him. Give him a new disposition to love your word and keep it. Become his God. Make him your child.”

‘Circumcise his heart.’

Or here’s another new-covenant promise, from Deuteronomy 30:6. God looks to the day when a prophet like Moses will arise — namely, Jesus — and promises this for his chosen ones:

The Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

So, you pray, “O Father, none of us loves you first and turns your heart to love us. We can’t love you unless you in your great, free, gracious love first circumcises our hearts. You must cut away the old nature of self-exaltation and self-rule. You did this for me. I didn’t deserve that any more than my husband does. O God, I plead with you, circumcise his heart so that it is set free from resistance to your truth and goodness and beauty. Cause him, O Lord, to love you because of Christ.”

‘Grant him repentance.’

Or think of the instruction and the promise in 2 Timothy 2:24–26. It applies, I think, to all of us who at any time use the word in prayer to try to lead an unbeliever out of darkness. It says this:

The Lord’s servant [now that would be me, that would be this wife] must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

So, we pray, “Father, even though no one deserves to be saved, no one deserves the gift of repentance, no one deserves escape from the devil, nevertheless, you are a God of mercy. I know this because I escaped when I was just as blind and snared in deadness of heart as my husband. Here I am praying, loving you, trusting you — amazing grace in my life! So, you are a God of mercy, and if you will, you can grant repentance, and liberation, and faith, and life. I know you have mercy on whom you have mercy. I know you are free and all-wise, and as your child, I am asking that, for the glory of your grace, you would give repentance to my husband.”

Do Not Lose Heart

And we could go on, of course — on and on, in fact — turning the promises and the works of God into prayers.

We could turn Acts 16:14 into this: “Lord, open his heart like you did Lydia’s.” Or we could turn 2 Corinthians 4:6 into this: “Father, shine into their hearts with the light of the gospel of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” Or we could pray the words of Jesus in Luke 18:27: “Lord Jesus, you said of the conversion of the rich man, ‘What is impossible with man is possible with God.’ So do the impossible, I pray. Convert my husband.”

So, Rose, we are with you in this great work of wrestling in prayer for your beloved unbeliever. Let’s not forget the words of Jesus in Luke 18:1: “always . . . pray and [do] not lose heart.”

In an age when so many pastoral failures, missteps, and sins are posted for public exhibition, it’s easy to allow our warmth toward the church to grow cold. Through a scrutinizing lens, many scowl at the church with suspicion and sheer amazement that anyone would want to be part of such a seemingly dysfunctional family. Sometimes, the church can seem to be anything but beautiful.

Does Jesus look at the church with the same scowl?

‘You Are Beautiful’

John Gill, an eighteenth-century English Baptist pastor, helps us answer this question by drawing our attention away from our introspection to the words of the bridegroom in Song of Solomon 1:15: “You are beautiful, my love; behold, you are beautiful.” Interpreting Song of Solomon as an allegorical portrayal of an exchange between Christ and his bride, the church, Gill writes, “These are the words of Christ, commending the beauty of the church, expressing his great affection for her; of her fairness and beauty” (An Exposition of the Book of Solomon’s Song, 57). Jesus sees his bride through a lens of love, not disdain; beauty, not disgust.

“Jesus sees his bride through a lens of love, not disdain; beauty, not disgust.”

How can beautiful be the adjective Jesus uses to describe the church? After all, she’s composed of sinners — forgiven sinners, yet still sinners. She’s plagued by division, is besieged with scandal, and sometimes appears to have lost her first love. Even the apostle Paul reminds us that only at the end of the age will she be found “without spot or wrinkle or any such thing” (Ephesians 5:27). What does Jesus see in his bride that would cause him to exclaim, “You are beautiful, my love”?

1. The Beauty of His Father

God’s beauty is most radiantly displayed through the biblical concept of glory. Moses experienced this glory when God passed by him, revealing only the afterglow of his splendor (Exodus 33:12–23). When God’s glory engulfed the temple, the priests were unable to perform their service of worship (2 Chronicles 5:14). The prophet Isaiah was prostrate in the dirt when he witnessed God’s glory radiating from his eternal throne (Isaiah 6:1–5). Jonathan Edwards, eighteenth-century pastor-theologian, identified God’s beauty as the differentiating feature of God himself: “God is God, and is distinguished from all other beings, and exalted above ’em, chiefly by his divine beauty, which is infinitely diverse from all other beauty” (The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 2:298). God’s beauty isn’t derived from external sources but emanates directly from the perfection and holiness of his being.

The supreme expression of God’s beauty is his Son, Jesus Christ, who himself is the image and radiance of his Father (2 Corinthians 4:4; Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3). The incarnate Christ is how God most vividly expresses his beautiful love to sinful creatures. The culmination of that love is selecting a bride for Christ that she too might reflect the same beauty. Edwards believed that this bride, the church,

is the great end of all the great things that have been done from the beginning of the world; it was that the Son of God might obtain his chosen spouse that the world was created . . . and that he came into the world . . . and when this end shall be fully obtained, the world will come to an end. (Unpublished sermon on Revelation 22:16–17)

The church is a gift from God to his Son as a beautiful expression of divine love “so that the mutual joys between this bride and bridegroom are the end of creation” (Works, 13:374). Therefore, as the Son reflects his Father, the church, as his eternal bride, reflects the Son.

When Christ regards his bride and exclaims that she is beautiful, he beholds the reflection of his Father’s everlasting beauty and infinite love, who chose and saves this bride and gives her as a gift to his Son. Since Christ’s ascension to the right hand of God, there is now no more brilliant exemplification of God’s perfect beauty in the world than his church.

2. The Sufficiency of His Cross

Jesus doesn’t see any intrinsic beauty emitted by the church, for she has no beauty apart from him. He looks at the church through blood, his blood. As if looking through the varied luminous colors of a stained-glass window, Jesus beholds the church through the multifaceted wonder of redemption — blood, election, righteousness, forgiveness, regeneration, justification, union, and grace. Only in union with his perfect substitutionary sacrifice on the cross and glorious triumphant resurrection are filthy sinners washed white as snow (Psalm 51:7). Because of our sin, what God requires of us is paid in full by our bridegroom on the cross.

“Because of our union with Christ, God’s love of his Son now includes love of his Son’s bride.”

With all of its flowing blood, lacerated flesh, and stench of death, the cross becomes the epicenter of cleansing for sinners, where Christ looks lovingly upon his darling bride and declares, “My love, you are beautiful.” Reflecting on the sufficiency of the cross, Edwards writes, “Christ loves the elect with so great and strong a love, they are so near to him, that God looks upon them as it were as parts of him” (Works, 14:403). Because of our union with Christ, God’s love of his Son now includes love of his Son’s bride. When Christ exclaims that his bride is beautiful, he does so through the lens of the sufficiency of his cross and makes the church the sole recipient of the love that ceaselessly flows between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

3. The Fulfillment of His Mission

The New Testament is unmistakably clear that God has commissioned his church as the principal agency for heralding the gospel of Christ. This commission in Matthew 28:18–20 stands as the summit of the church’s mission for all subsequent generations. Beginning in Jerusalem, the disciples understood this assignment with vital urgency and launched the beautiful good news of Christ into all the earth (Acts 1:8). No church has the freedom to tamper with, tweak, add to, or subtract from the good news of Jesus Christ — we are called to herald it to the nations, for there is nothing more beautiful and lovely in the sight of Christ than the Holy Spirit regenerating, calling, and transferring sinners from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light.

All evangelistic and missionary endeavors are fueled by the assurance that Christ is enthroned as the head of his church and has promised to ransom men and women from “every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:8–9).

This assurance fueled the Genevan Reformer John Calvin to write to the king when evangelistic efforts were harshly suppressed in his homeland of France:

Our doctrine must tower unvanquished above all the glory and above all the might of the world, for it is not of us, but of the living God and his Christ whom the Father has appointed to “rule from sea to sea, and from the rivers even to the ends of the earth (Psalm 72:8).” (Prefatory address to Institutes of the Christian Religion)

Calvin reminds the church that the gospel “is not of us,” but originates from God. Entrusting his church with the task of heralding the gospel, God has chosen her to be an honored vessel to house and disseminate his glorious treasure (2 Corinthians 4:7). When Christ beholds the church, he sees the voice, hands, feet, and heart of the gospel message in rescuing sinners.

The Bride Is Welcome

Jesus doesn’t lament the church he has rescued or look for another to capture his attention. Christ welcomes the church as his beautiful treasure and joy. The church isn’t just about organization, leadership, function, and vision. Jesus sees more. His gaze reveals the beauty of our Father, the sufficiency of his cross, and the fulfillment of his mission in the world. He sees sinners being rescued, redeemed, and renewed.

The bride is now waiting and watching for our bridegroom’s appearance, when he will bid us “Welcome” for all eternity to bask in the glory of his eternal presence (2 Timothy 4:8). Until then, Jesus bids us to join him in gazing upon his bride and exclaiming of her, “Behold, you are beautiful!” (Song of Solomon 1:15).