Both Esau and Jacob were members of the covenant family of God, it was not as if these two men were from different parts of the world, they were literally crib brothers. Of course we have to remember that Jacob was obviously not without his own sin. The scheme drawn up by Rebekah is something else, but irrelevant to the situation. Esau is responsible for himself. In one sense it’s not Jacob’s fault that Esau takes the route of allowing the trial of the moment to change the direction of his life. That comes precisely because Esau had allowed the bitterness of his own heart to make everything be seen through that lens of rage and animosity. 

Whenever the Apostle Paul lists out the “vices” in Ephesians or in another one of his letters a particular item which always strikes me as being in some sense the most personally damaging to the soul of an individual is without a doubt: bitterness. Yet the place where it really stands out to me when I am reading God’s word can be found in Paul’s sermon in the epistle to the Hebrews.
There in chapter twelve he says:
Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled; lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright.
It’s instructive that when Paul is looking for an example to help the people understand what he is getting on about here he goes back almost to the beginning of the history of Israel, the brother of Israel himself. Those familiar with the story know that Esau was hungry. Ironically the great hunter had no food to eat. So, what does he do? Entreat his brother to make him some stew and the price, which in hindsight is more precious than gold, is something which he felt like he did not need at the time. Take a second and think for a moment why this would be an image a Bible writer like Paul would turn to… For it really shouldn’t take much time to see the wisdom here. What Esau did was not just silly in the moment, it was self-defeating in the long term. His hatred of God manifested itself in the way he considered Jacob, and himself.
The larger context of what the apostle is writing about here is the way the believer deals with suffering in the Christian life. His particular concern is that the lover of Jesus recognize that to be embittered towards those who are persecuting them only gives the tormentor power over them. While it is true to say that we are to rise above pettiness that is definitely one of those truths that is more easily said than done. Our minds are not necessarily drawn towards grace as people we are in conflict with are engaged in doing the kinds of things that really get our goat. Of course, no one reading this in America is really going through any kind of real persecution.
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Christ in His humanity could not bear the weight of all the transgressions of the world because the finite cannot handle the infinite. If against God and God alone have we sinned, and if one break of the law is as if we broke the whole of the commandments then our Lord needed to atone for an infinite infinite amount of demerits. That’s why again to fulfill the proper works Jesus had to be first of all born of a virgin, that is without the stain of Adam’s unrighteousness, and of the Holy Spirit so that divinity could take on flesh and be the right sacrifice that we need to be saved from eternal death.

Today in our look at the Larger Catechism we will be spending time considering more about what it means that Jesus Christ is our Mediator. We’ve defined that word enough to be able now to dig deeper into why it matters and to see how it effects our daily walk and life. Some people like to look down on doctrine, saying things like “it’s a relationship, not a religion”. Yet, the problem with thoughts like that is when you utter it you are standing on the shoulders of men who spent a lot of time in concert with the Church in the blessed work of faith seeking understanding. There’s a bit of Paul’s concern at Corinth and Peter’s general worry to those he is writing to in his first epistle. Milk is good, but it’s not filling, it doesn’t make you stronger. There should be a desire to learn more and more of Jesus and His labors on our behalf. Can you get too deep? Sure, I’ll grant it’s possible in the sense of jumping into a pile of wires can entangle oneself, but unravelling them and finding out which cable is for which purpose has its own reward. As we get into the Q/A’s for this week read them, prayer over them, and let’s examine them in turn:
Q. 40. Why was it requisite that the Mediator should be God and man in one person?
A. It was requisite that the Mediator, who was to reconcile God and man, should Himself be both God and man, and this in one person, that the proper works of each nature might be accepted of God for us, and relied on by us, as the works of the whole person.
Q. 41. Why was our Mediator called Jesus?
A. Our Mediator was called Jesus, because He saves His people from their sins.
Q. 42. Why was our Mediator called Christ?
A. Our Mediator was called Christ, because He was anointed with the Holy Ghost above measure; and so set apart, and fully furnished with all authority and ability, to execute the offices of prophet, priest, and king of His church, in the estate both of His humiliation and exaltation.
In his commentary on these questions J.G. Vos helpfully explains why the Mediator had to be God and man in one person, he says:
Because the relation between the works of each of the two natures required that these two natures be united in one person. A divine Mediator could not experience suffering except through a human nature; a human Mediator could not endure the required suffering, except as sustained by a divine nature.
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There is literally nothing more important in this life than the corporate meetings of God’s people as they prep for the heavenly places in Christ. If your local church is opening the doors for worship on the Lord’s Day morning and evening, holding Sabbath School and/or a Wednesday Night bible study/prayer meeting avail yourself of these things. You’re going to need to be strong in faith as the darkness arises. These moments will be quite important as the day approaches. Be strong in Christ and in His word for your blessing.

Growing up is not always for the faint of heart. Grunts and groans as you get up from a chair or walk up the stairs are met with chuckles, but you know we all get there at some point. A new word that has entered the popular lexicon is “adulting”. Young folks use it to describe the switch from having someone else take care of things like paying bills or getting the oil changed in your car to doing it yourself. It’s an eye-opener. Being responsible for yourself is a big step in life. Yet, at some point in time you don’t really have a choice, unfortunately however more and more folks, whether they be Gen Z, Gen X, Gen Y, or Millenial have decided to take up the old Boomer mantra of “Turn on, tune in, and drop out”. Whether they be the drugs which Timothy Leary popularized through his teaching (and which produced that statement) or just the laziness of refusing to deal our culture is one that promotes in several different ways immaturity and irresponsibility. In today’s worship and prayer help we’ll talk a little bit about how this mindset has infiltrated the Church and affects members of the body of Christ, and why that is bad.
A common complaint of the Apostle Paul is the fact that outside of perhaps Thessalonica so many of the converts to the Christian faith were satisfied to take in the milk, and not seek after meat. 1 Corinthians 3 and Hebrews 6 being the most pertinent examples. The question is why does this matter? Milk is good, especially when it’s mixed with sugar and frozen. Paul gives a couple of reasons why both having to do with maintaining the present faith that one has. Babies are naturally defenseless against predators and also have issues feeding themselves. Infant Christians are no different. However, we don’t expect little ones to remain little ones forever. Eventually they get bigger, stronger, and more and more independent. Though no matter how old you are you are never in a position where you need no one else. We are all dependent on someone, yet the kinds of things we need change quite dramatically. All that is to say that when it comes to the spiritual strength required of the believer we do damage to ourselves and our walk with Christ when we refuse to eat the food God provides for us in His grace.
How do we do that?
It’s pretty simple. We live in an age of easy access to information.
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It’s hard to give a defense for the faith that is within you if you can’t give up the things of the world in order to follow Christ. We show the world how we love Jesus a lot more by how we act and prioritize our life than what we say to them in words. If we do not value the things of God then as the example of the Northern Kingdom shows us the Lord will take them away from us, and then where will we be? Our idols can never give what we lose in not having the fulness of Christ in our being and in our soul.

Jet lag is a thing, but I seem to be handling it well and without much trouble. I was a little bit on the struggle bus yesterday for morning and evening worship along with Sabbath School. However, the Spirit was faithful to give me strength and lead me through it all. It helped that we had a luncheon that fueled me with all the great food I may have missed while in Namibia. Bethany folks can cook like no one’s business and the fact that I was honored to receive so many cards and well-wishes for pastor’s appreciation it made it easy to serve. I am truly a blessed man.
Of the many lessons I learned while at the International Conference of Reformed Churches is that the world is at the same time a lot smaller than I once thought and also a lot bigger at the same time. What I mean by that is when I had the opportunity to speak to folks in the local churches in Windhoek they spoke of similar issues (materialism, globalism, busyness, etc…) that our church back in Clover deals with. There truly is nothing new under the sun. Yet, on the other hand the stories I heard from brothers in India, Indonesia, and Northern Ireland reminded me that while we have issues in the United States they pale in comparison to what our brothers and sisters face in Europe, Africa, and Asia. We are truly privileged to experience what little persecution we undergo in North America. That is not to downplay the real troubles we have on the horizon, but we are not quite in the same ballpark as some of our other brothers. In our prayer and worship help today I want to talk a little bit about what we can learn from how they are handling these troubles for when the piper comes calling on our shores.
As I sat and conversated with brothers from South Sudan as an example a thing that one of the men chuckled in jest as he said it was that they have no chaff in their churches. What he meant by that was that in a cultural situation where being named a follower of Christ has fatal consequences in some cases no one is going to pretend to be a believer. He wasn’t communicating that his local congregation was made up of only the elect, but that serious believers made up the totality of the membership.
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All things depend on Him for all of their existence. The fact you are breathing now is because the Lord has so ordered the earth to produce the proper amount and type of air you need in order that your lungs will inflate and deflate to a sufficient degree that your body stays on this side of the grass. A particular actuality that we do not spend enough time mediating on is how much the physical world which we need to survive is held together by its Creator, and how we can do nothing to make the parameters different than how God designed it. 

Today as the divines open our eyes to see the depth of how God works in history and why He does what He does there is an opportunity here to put a plug in for something we are going to begin to do at Bethany ARP Church on Sunday evenings beginning Sunday November 13th. As we close out Ruth the week before we are then going to start a new series in our second service on the Lord’s Day where we’re going to mainly work through this portion of the Larger Catechism. Gaining a better sense of how God operates in His works of predestination and election, and how that plays out in His providence is vital to dealing with the day-to-day troubles we face as believers living in a sin-soaked world. For those of you unable to attend at that time of night for whatever prudential reason they will be recorded and placed on our YouTube channel.
So as not to spend too much more on this let us go ahead and look at the Q/A’s below:
Q. 18. What are God’s works of providence?
A. God’s works of providence are his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures; ordering them, and all their actions, to his own glory.
Q. 19. What is God’s providence towards the angels?
A. God by his providence permitted some of the angels, wilfully and irrecoverably, to fall into sin and damnation, limiting and ordering that, and all their sins, to his own glory; and established the rest in holiness and happiness; employing them all, at his pleasure, in the administrations of his power, mercy, and justice.
Q. 20. What was the providence of God toward man in the estate in which he was created?
A. The providence of God toward man in the estate in which he was created, was the placing him in paradise, appointing him to dress it, giving him liberty to eat of the fruit of the earth; putting the creatures under his dominion, and ordaining marriage for his help; affording him communion with himself; instituting the Sabbath; entering into a covenant of life with him, upon condition of personal, perfect, and perpetual obedience, of which the tree of life was a pledge; and forbidding to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, upon the pain of death.
One of the truths of the Bible as it relates to these questions is the reality that no created thing ever is independent of God. All things depend on Him for all of their existence.
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God in making us out of nothing for the glory of His name has provided for His covenant children something they could never do for themselves. If that is not worth praising the LORD in worship, in our lives, and by laying all things at His feet than we’ve missed the point of the Gospel.

Today in our lesson from the Larger Catechism we are continuing to learn about the nature of God’s grace in His work of making all things of nothing. I think sometimes we gloss over just how incomprehensible it is that our Lord has taken that which does not exist and made it to be. The very fact you are reading this and I am typing this is wholly because God is God and we are not. Our totality is dependent on the nature of Jehovah. It’s part of why we must be obedient unto Him in love. We owe everything to Him and as Stephen Charnock makes clear we become practical atheists when we sin primarily because we act as if we can live without and against the world He has made. That is why it is vital for the Christian to be grounded in the work of creation and worship at the opening chapters of Genesis as God reveals Himself to us in His labors in the space of six days. Likewise there is an important distinction, as we touched on last week, between angels and man. It is not just false, but demonstrably so that we become angels, for our Lord has constituted a difference between us in the very first moment of our being made. Angels are made to worship, to “execute His commandments”, but they are not made in His image. There are all kinds of ways that reality informs our lives. Why do we protect life for instance? Because all human beings are made in God’s image and worthy of service. Before we get too much more into that let us go ahead and take a look at our LC Q/A’s for today:
Q. 15. What is the work of creation?A. The work of creation is that wherein God did in the beginning, by the word of his power, make of nothing the world, and all things therein, for Himself, within the space of six days, and all very good.
Q. 16. How did God create angels?A. God created all the angels, spirits, immortal, holy, excelling in knowledge, mighty in power, to execute His commandments, and to praise His name, yet subject to change.
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It is in the congregation of the holy, those set apart by God to be our keepers and brothers and sisters. If we hope to be fat and flourishing in the spiritual things of the Lord than we cannot neglect His presence, or His people. We are stronger together, and strongest when we are together in His House being fed by His table and bounty.

I was recently listening to a sermon by Joel Beeke where he was talking about the burning desire within the heart of the believer for the righteousness of Jesus Christ. His text was Psalm 71:16 and he was speaking concerning the way in which David in the depths of his troubles with Absalom sought the promise and goodness of God as he struggled with the rebellion of his own son. It is a psalm penned in old age and as the Lord’s king begins to recount the many times in life God was faithful to His trust David is comforted despite his current difficulties to know that regardless of what was happening in the world around him there was always safety in Jehovah’s dwelling place. So many times in the Bible is that same image used to describe the peace the believer knows in the grace and mercy of God that it is probably worthwhile for us to pay attention to it. In today’s prayer and worship help we are going to think through a particular way that the comfort that David knew, and still knows in the Heavens, is available to us as we deal with trials and tribulations in our own day-to-day.
Resting in Christ is a regular returning to the place of safety where we are found under the caring wings of our Savior. David in the psalm noted above says, “Be thou my strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort: thou hast given commandment to me; for thou art my rock and my fortress.”. Something worth taking from the way the Psalmist writes those words is the fact that he recognizes that it is not Jesus who moves away and then David needs to find Him again, but the opposite is true. As he becomes untethered either by his own sin or by his lack of faith (think Peter sinking in the sea) David is brought to peace through the fact that he knows that Christ is always present for him to continually resort. God has told his servant where He is going to be and the great peace that we have is knowing that to be the case, having that commandment, or promise from the LORD that can never be shaken or lost. When we say or read the well-known verse in Philippians 4:6-7, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” we are living out what David is experiencing in Psalm 71.
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Most of the feasts and festivals of the Old Testament were built on the presupposition that each age group needed to be reminded about what God had done for His people. Whether it be the Passover or the building of the Booths on Sukkot each of them help describe in an outward way something real that Jehovah had done for their forefathers, and through them for those living in that day. It only takes one generation to forget what a previous generation knew. 

Over the past several months I’ve been somewhat slowly going through the Book of Deuteronomy in my private devotions. In many ways it is my favorite book in the whole Bible. From beginning to end it is a testimony to the love of God for His covenant people as well as a display of His wisdom. What is basically happening in that portion of Holy Scripture is you have Moses preaching to the Israelites on the plains of Moab to prepare them to go into the promised land. They need to know why they are at the shores of the Jordan and how they are to order their society after the conquest. This generation didn’t grow up in Egypt. They’ve been born since the Red Sea and have experienced so much about the ways of the LORD, but they need to understand more deeply about why God has done things in the manner that He has and also what He expects of them in the future.
Remedial training is helpful for all kinds of folks, but most especially for those who have not been through it before.
Most of the feasts and festivals of the Old Testament were built on the presupposition that each age group needed to be reminded about what God had done for His people. Whether it be the Passover or the building of the Booths on Sukkot each of them help describe in an outward way something real that Jehovah had done for their forefathers, and through them for those living in that day. It only takes one generation to forget what a previous generation knew. The old saying about wealth, that one generation makes it, the next enjoys it, and the last loses it is true of the teachings of the Bible. It was vital that the truth of the LORD be promoted and taught in full measure so that not any of it is lost. However, what happens after Joshua leads the destruction of Canaan is that all those who made the covenant at Shechem soon did that forgetting. They sadly overlooked what Moses had said, what God had promised, and most certainly the warnings God gave if they didn’t keep their pledge to Him.
There is a reason why the Book of Judges is as chaotic as it is.
Those who grow up in the Church can sometimes be like the Israelites of this age. They didn’t necessarily see all the work that went in to founding a local congregation and they weren’t a part of the battles of previous generations. Some call this a “silver spoon” mentality. You are born on Third Base and think you hit a triple.
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Our joy and happiness on the Sabbath morning and evening should come not from the elaborate displays of outward means, but from the inward assurance of gospel peace. Lastly the worship that happens in that room should emulate these principles as well. Really all that should take place in a Presbyterian service are the means of grace: preaching, singing, praying, communion, and baptism. 

We’ve all heard the jokes about Presbyterian’s being anti-fun, the so-called frozen chosen. The seen, but not heard denomination. The post you are about to read is going to sound like it came from the official spokesman of the “Presbyterians against anything nice” coalition. Maybe it’s true, maybe I am the grumpiest Presbyterian alive, but my goal here today is not to get hits or cause trouble. Rabble rousers are boring people. Men who seek out controversy don’t have enough to do and they aren’t really seeking to win converts to their position. They just like to see the fight.
At the end of the day I’m really a harmless little fuzzball who just wants Presbyterians to be Presbyterians, Baptists to be Baptists, and Anglicans to be Anglicans. Good fences make good neighbors. If you know where the other person stands it makes it easier to know where you stand.
The topic I’d like to get into today is about the meeting space. Some call it the “sanctuary”, others the “preaching hall”, and whatever you want to call it is fine by me. I’m not interested in getting into arguments over words. There are legit reasons why some people demur from the sanctuary term, and why others like it as a description of where we meet for worship. Christians who are members of long-standing congregations likely are used to a more traditionally-expressed term than church plants and/or younger churches. But regardless of where you meet or what you call it there are certain things as Presbyterians we should expect to see, and not see.
In this brief piece I want to talk about some of the reasons behind the austere look favored by the Reformed, where it came from, and why it matters. To be sure there is a sense in which in the New Testament it doesn’t matter where we meet with God’s people. As men and women who descend from Covenanters who hid in vales and caves to lift up the psalms to the Lord and be fed by His word we should acutely feel that. This is also a very American, if not Western, question. I’ve never been to the nations of Africa, but it is a safe assumption through pictures and the witness of native believers that what is expected in Malawi is different than what is to be understood in South Carolina. Part of the beauty of Presbyterian worship is that you don’t need a fancy place with a bunch of pomp and circumstance. All you need is a Bible and Christians. The Scriptures contain the text for instruction and the book of songs to sing, the people have the voices to raise to Heaven.
What more do you need?
Having set the stage let’s get to…setting the stage. One of the first things that marks a Presbyterian meeting place is that the pulpit should be in the center. The Reformers replaced the altar with the stand upon which the Minister placed his Bible. The symbolism was meant to testify to the fact that the preaching of the word was at the forefront of Christian worship. Having a split chancel (two pulpits up front, one to the left and one to the right, usually one larger than the other) usually grants the central space to a table. This is a return back to the Roman rite. As vital and important as the Supper is to the souls of believers we don’t believe it is the primary means of grace.
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To go back to Jeremiah 32:38 it is because of the promise the people have of belonging to something bigger than themselves, “They shall be my people and I will be their God.” That is the source and foundation of all of our hope and peace. We belong body and soul to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and we will have our needs met in no other. It is because of this majesty that we see the way the martyrs and the elders bow and shout at the foot of the throne of God.

As you likely already know the Lord’s Prayer is repeated, not verbatim for reasons we’ll get into here in a second, in Luke 11. Most of the content is the same, but the last petition (among other differences) which is in the prayer in Matthew 6 is absent from the latter. One of the things this teaches us is about how Christ intended for us to use the Lord’s Prayer. It’s not a mantra we repeat, but a model for the way in which we are to approach our Heavenly Father so it makes sense that they don’t match up one for one. Each in their own way gives help to our devotional life and grants support for hearts that are seeking to bring troubles to the Lord of peace.
With that being said I rarely, if ever, get into technical stuff in these lessons. It’s not really the place for it and not really why I do these bi-weekly devotionals. Yet, it is important at this point to know something about translations of the Bible and Q.107. If you have an ESV you’ll notice that the words used in Q.107 are completely absent. If you have an NASB you’ll see something like this: [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’]. Now, why do I mention it? There are those (like the translators of the ESV/NASB and others) who do not believe that this last clause of the Lord’s Prayer is Christian Scripture. Without getting even further into the weeds here we all know that the English Bibles we use are translations from the Hebrew in the Old Testament and Greek in the New Testament. There are two “families” of manuscripts that while agreeing 98% of the time have some differences, and Matt. 6:13 (plus John 7:53-8:11, 1 John 5:7, etc…) is chief among them.
As you also already know I prefer the KJV for private devotions and preach and teach from the NKJV on Wednesday nights, Sunday mornings, etc… I do that for a reason, because I believe that the “Received Text” (see our Westminster Confession of Faith Ch. 1, Section 8 for more info) which undergirds the KJV/NKJV is from the more faithful family of Greek manuscripts. I also believe that the word of God is inerrant not just in the autographs (the actual copies that the Bible writers wrote), but in the apographs as well (the copies passed down to us).
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