I knew a man who walked away from Jesus because he did not know what to do on Friday nights. When unbelieving, he knew exactly what to do. As a Christian, he wasn’t sure anymore. Read his Bible? Pray? Hang out with other Christians? It all seemed so, well, unremarkable. Was this it?

Have you felt this way about the Christian life? At times, it feels less momentous than we expect. The means of grace can feel so normal — is it really supernatural? At times we think we hear our spiritual lives speak with the voice of Jacob, but other days we feel only the earthy hands of Esau. Is this really the life God promised? Have we really found what we’re looking for, or shall we look for another? How do we reenchant our love for what feels so ordinary?

Christian, the unimpressive path to glory is no concession. To see this, I want you to meet a man who struggled with the ordinariness of God’s miraculous work.

You Could Be Healed

Naaman was a great man in Syria, a man of war, and although a general highly favored by the king and a soldier fierce on the battlefield, Naaman was losing a different kind of war: “He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper” (2 Kings 5:1). His disease struck behind the shield; smirked at Naaman’s sword. Cry as loud as he might, his gods could not heal him.

Yet an unseen (and unthanked) God stood behind Naaman’s many successes. Naaman was great and highly favored because “by him the Lord had given victory to Syria” (2 Kings 5:1). And this Lord placed a witness to himself within Naaman’s household. “The Syrians on one of their raids had carried off a little girl from the land of Israel, and she worked in the service of Naaman’s wife” (2 Kings 5:2). Acquainted with her master’s disease and her mistress’s distress, she boldly approaches her, “Would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy” (2 Kings 5:3).

A glimmer of hope shines upon a sea of desperation. Could it be true? Hoping against hope, the wife tells her husband. Perhaps he resisted a day, then two, but could it be true? He needed to try. He brings the little girl’s words to the king, “thus and so spoke the girl.” The king approves, writes to the King of Israel: “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you Naaman my servant, that you may cure him of his leprosy” (2 Kings 5:6).

The King of Israel tears open the letter one minute; tears his clothes the next. “Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy?” He sees the threat of war behind the request (2 Kings 5:7). King Ahab’s son is not God (nor in particularly good relations with him). What could he do? Elisha, however, hears the news of the king’s dismay, and tells him to send the man to his door “that he [and the king] may know that there is a prophet in Israel” (2 Kings 5:8).

Terms of Recovery

Naaman’s impressive entourage parks outside: “Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha’s house” (2 Kings 5:9). Knock, knock. Nothing. Knock, knock. Finally, Elisha’s servant comes to the door with the terms of recovery: “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean” (2 Kings 5:10).

Imagine the tense moment of silence after the door thuds shut. Color flashes on scaly cheeks. Jaws clench. Is this guy serious? The provocation hit its mark: he grew furious and stormed off in a rage (2 Kings 5:11–12). We get a transcription of his thoughts as he turns for home:

Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean? (2 Kings 5:11–12)

No, this would not do. Naaman wanted healing to be an event, something more suitable and spectacular. He wanted the prophet to come out and publicly perform the miracle — he might humbly suggest a loud and eloquent prayer to his God accompanied with hand-waving, you know, a manner worthy of miracle-making. Instead, he sends out a servant to point at some murky river.

“Do not be deceived by the littleness of the ordinary means of grace into neglecting them.”

Had not Naaman done his part to set the stage? Had he not traveled many miles carrying hundreds of pounds of silver and gold to profit the prophet handsomely (“in the vicinity of three-quarters of a billion dollars,” IVP OT Background Commentary)? Had he not stood most politely and expectantly at the healer’s door and brought an audience for his powers? Yet, in the crucial moment, the main actor seems to develop stage fright, forget his lines, and send him away just as he arrived.

Would You Do Something Great?

A servant (again) must come help the soldier rethink his tactics. Here, the ESV diverges from other major translations. The majority translation captures the servants’ reasoning this way:

And his servants came near and spoke to him, and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do something great, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” (2 Kings 5:13 NKJV)

If Naaman was told to win the healing by conquering an army that stood between him and the Jordan, would he not have done it? If the prophet told him to recover the rarest plant that grew at the seabed of the Jordan, would he not have accepted the challenge? But just to go dip seven times — why a child could do that.

This seemed way too small, too unnoteworthy to be captured in song. But Naaman, the man accustomed to doing valorous deeds must go to a river where valor is not required. He must leave his heroics on the banks, strip off his pride, and bow beneath Israel’s waters. If he would be healed, he must first be humbled. He would not be saved by his good works or his great ones.

And Naaman did what he would never regret: “he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean” (2 Kings 5:14).

Have We Refused Healing?

Naaman reconsidered and returned to Elisha’s door, not just cured, but saved. He returned not only with the flesh of the little servant Jewish girl, but with her faith, pledging his allegiance to the one true God alone (2 Kings 5:15, 17).

Reader, take this to heart: he nearly turned away from healing and salvation because of his sense of how he ought to be cured. Have things changed today? How many Naamans will look up at the lake of fire because they looked down upon the muddy surface of the Jordan? So many turn from the only name given under heaven by which men must be saved, Jesus Christ, because they prefer the world’s Abana and Pharpar. The foolish way of faith in the crucified Messiah is still despised and rejected of men, “a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (Isaiah 53:3; 1 Corinthians 1:23).

But Naamans also exist who begin dipping, but do not persevere the full seven times. They leave the healing tide because of a false sense of how one ought to be sustained in the faith. These waters don’t feel much different from other rivers they have been in. They dip for a time, feel the ordinariness of the Christian life, and walk away from Jesus because they don’t know what to do on Friday nights.

Deceived by Littleness

If only we could see as the angels do. Let’s reimagine, for a moment, a normal activity of the Christian life: Bible reading. Half-waking you trudge down the stairs, brew some coffee, and open to the next section of Scripture. You come faithfully, expectantly, but is this what the momentous life in Christ looks and feels like? This section of our Affirmation of Faith can transfigure normal times in his word:

11.1 We believe that faith is awakened and sustained by God’s Spirit through His Word and prayer. The good fight of faith is fought mainly by meditating on the Scriptures and praying that God would apply them to our souls.

The good fight of faith is fought mainly by prayerful, meditative Bible reading. Hearing from our Lord, communing with him, bringing his truth into the chambers of our souls, obeying what we read — this is a vital part, a sometimes-unimpressive part, to immortality.

We do not conquer Mount Everest or climb the treetops of the Amazon to receive special revelation and feed faith — we meet Jesus upon the narrow way, the hard way, the simple way of Bible meditation in the Spirit and prayer. Do we take it for granted? Some of us need to be asked: If Jesus dwelled in the Everglades or resided on the moon, and we were told we could hear from him, learn from him, and receive eternal life from him there, would you not make valiant efforts to go to him? Then why do we have three translations of the Bible in our homes that go unread?

As with Elisha, the word comes not in theatrics — not in fire, in thunder, in earthquake — but in a whisper. Will we hear it? As one commentator says, “God often tests us with small things” (Donald Wiseman, 1 and 2 Kings: An Introduction and Commentary, 220). Do not be deceived by the littleness of the ordinary means of grace into neglecting them.

Down to the River

This worn path to glory is exactly how it ought to be. Why? Because the story already has a Hero. Ours are not the shoulders to bear eternity; we are not the ones to crush the serpent’s skull; the spectacle was achieved by the God-man upon the cross and encored at his resurrection. As Naaman, we are not saved by our good or great works, before or after coming to faith; we are saved by his that no man may boast in the presence of God.

So, we quietly go down to the river, or down to the living room, or down to the church gathering, or just down to our knees, and receive from his spoils. We plunge again and again under the waters, and trust him to continue to heal us and sustain us from one degree of glory to the next. We obey his word and believe his promises that he shall finish what he began. We do not tire of this heavenly manna that sustains our souls in favor of Egypt’s steak. Even though we are not often doing anything extraordinary, something extraordinary is happening: God is walking with us, encouraging us, conforming us to his Son’s image, leading us home.

We do not do great things for salvation, nor do we benefit God at all with our wealth. He supplies all of our needs in the person and work of his Son, and gets the glory for it. But we do receive something if we continue upon this humble way: joy now and eternity with him.

What assassin better cloaks himself than Satan? He is a rumor whispered, a rustling of the bush, a cutthroat who leaves no witnesses. Everywhere he devastates, yet, seldom perceived, he attacks by submarine. Out of sight, out of mind, he burrows to the roots; we only see the forest dying.

In the West, a shy assassin, he conceals himself within a joke — a horned Halloweener dressed in red, brandishing a plastic pitchfork. He chuckles along with freethinking societies, nodding that his existence is but a ploy to maintain religious power or a fairy tale to parent naughty children. As Master of the air, this Pied Piper plays his music, his hiss, full of sweetness and song, suggesting softly of fruit able to make one wise.

Scripture unearths and names him. Slanderer. Accuser. Adversary. Tempter. Deceiver. Evil One. Prince of Demons. Great Dragon. His arrows, venomed, sink to the heart. His chariot wheels, when meant to be heard, quake the brave. His crimson fingers colored a third of heaven’s host. Great was their war; great is their war. Their skirmish toppled heaven; the serpent spoke on earth.

If the lights turned on, if we could see with physical eyes the god of this world and his troops arrayed about us, fetal would be man’s position. Staring at the beautiful face, hearing the capturing voice, would we be tempted to worship? Would most kneel, trembling, or try to crown him king? Though he remains absent from news channels, dire is our station; extreme, our contest; savage, our enemy.

“Stand upright, men of God; grip the hilt firmly. Your God is with you.”

Yet forward, Christ calls us; to a bloody victory we march. Onward, to a clash forbidding cliché. Advancing, for as Bunyan reminds us, we have no armor for our backs. But what can stir our blood and steel our mettle before such a terror? As great generals of the earth ride up and down the battlefront to rouse great deeds, men of God reached for words.

A Summons

Overhear Paul’s call to battle as he writes Christ’s troops in Ephesus. To begin, he does not undersell their foe. They cannot meet the like on earth.

We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:12)

Not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces, bodiless battalions. Not against a race of slaves or inferior beings, but against rulers and authorities and cosmic powers. Not against fortresses of stone, but against towers in the heavenlies. We are not outmanned but outspecied. Do trees array for battle against the forest fire? Do sheep march on a pack of wolves? Does wheat charge the sifter? Does flesh dare ascend the hill to demonic spirits? If words hold heat to waken courage, what words can help us keep rank against such terror?

To War

As if he can see the uncertainty in our eyes, the apostle cries, “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might” (Ephesians 6:10). Mount no steed of your own strength. Paul rides to the front lines as the Levites did the Israelite armies of old: “Let not your heart faint. Do not fear or panic or be in dread of them, for the Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory” (Deuteronomy 20:3–4). Stand! Stand! Stand! in the Lord (Ephesians 6:11, 13–14).

Stand upright, men of God; grip the hilt firmly. Your God is with you. Let not unbelief unhorse you now. As the fiends drum and hell hollers, one is with you higher than they, who greets their joint armies with a laugh. Stand firm. Withstand in this evil day. Take not one step back.

He goes forth with his people and clads us in his own armor. David required no great armor of the king, but we need the armor of the greater King David. “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11). Charge not forth in the chain mail of pride. You face battering rams beyond your defenses, strategies beyond your devising, weapons beyond your shielding. “Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm” (Ephesians 6:13).

Spare not one piece: “Put on the whole armor of God.” Fasten on the belt of truth. Clasp the breastplate of righteousness. Shod your feet with the gospel of peace and its readiness. Forget the shield of faith to your own peril. Step not within bow range without your helmet. Go nowhere without his word, God’s two-edged sword. Pray for yourself; pray for each other. Watch over yourself; watch over others. Have each other’s back, left, and right. To war we ride.

To Christ

We dress not only in God’s armor, but go forth with God’s own Son, our own brother in the flesh. “I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep,” Alexander the Great once remarked. “I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.”

Oh, the enemy has much to fear. Though we be regarded as sheep and are killed all the day long, what lion stands among us, before us, beside us. Weep no more, you troubled saint; the Lion of Judah has conquered. Though the giant barks loudly, we have one Man of War among us who does not need all five smooth stones. Though we still must fight if we would reign, he returns with the head of our foe.

“War has never seen the like before: conquest through crucifixion, dominion through death.”

What Brother is better born for the day of adversity than he who was born to bear our adversity? Having refused Saul’s armor, the greater David did not refuse Saul’s flesh. Born in the form of a slave, the eternal Son did not unsheathe weapons of divinity to win the war. See him stand fast, as man, for men. Tempted in the wilderness as man. Mocked, bleeding, dying as man. He wore the peasant’s weakness over his robes of eternity that he might win our salvation through the gory affair.

And how he conquered. He took on flesh to have it torn, a body to have it broken, blood to have it spilled upon the altar — for us. War has never seen the like before: conquest through crucifixion, dominion through death. Men twisted thorns, but crowned him; he hung under the name of “King.” Alexander’s Lion is also the Lamb, slaughtered, risen, reigning.

Will we not say, “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (John 11:16)? What safer place exists than on mission with Jesus? Demons fall distraught before him: “What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?” (Matthew 8:29). He holds the keys to Death and Hades. A sword protrudes from his mouth — one little word shall fell the ancient foe, as Luther put. An iron scepter is in his hands. On his blood-dipped robe he has a name written: King of kings and Lord of lords. His eyes flame with fire. On his head rest many crowns. The armies of heaven follow behind on white horses (Revelation 1:12–16; 19:11–16).

He is our brother, our Savior, our friend. No safer place in all the world than beside him in his conflict. “Let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:13–14).

To Glory

Do not fail to look to the time beyond. Feed your warring spirit thoughts of coming peace. The end has been proclaimed from the beginning. Soon and very soon it shall be asked, Where now are his foes? Where now the boasts of men? Where now those mighty authorities and cosmic powers? Sunk to the bottom of the sea like a stone.

Mighty ones of the earth, show yourselves! Nations gathered against his Anointed, come forth! Shattered they soon shall lie, dashed to pieces like a potter’s vessel. Soon it will be asked, Where now is your taunt, you who refused to kiss the Son? Soon it will be commanded, “As for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me” (Luke 19:27).

So come, my brothers and sisters, heirs of the kingdom, sons of Abraham by faith, mighty men of heaven, precious daughters of the King — while as yet despised of earth and beleaguered. Come, citizens of the unseen world, rulers of the age to come, judges of angels. Rise up, you men of the cross, sisters of the crown, soldiers of Christ endowed with his very Spirit. Come and speak. Come and die. Come and serve. Come and overcome. Come and stand firm. Crawl not after the same grass that entertains the cattle of the earth. Rise up! Partake of the heavenly bread, the heavenly conflict, the heavenly reward.

Do not mind you are outnumbered: “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). Pay no heed to man, in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he? Do you suffer? Think it not strange or worth mentioning compared to the glory that is to be revealed. Grumble not about those scars — very soon, they shall shine in heaven as your crest of glory. “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers” march on. Make good your fealty of faith. For glory. For honor. For immortality. For the King, with the King, in the King’s power. Onward against the foe, brothers and sisters: to war, to Christ, to glory.

“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.

Luckily for Jesus, the disciples were there that day to provide some public-relations help.

The sheep huddled together and devised a question: “Excuse me, Jesus . . . um, Rabbi . . . uh, Master . . . do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard your teaching?”

Jesus hadn’t thrown the first punch. The Pharisees, activists of “cleanliness is next to godliness,” had complained of the disciples’ unwashed hands. “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat” (Matthew 15:2). Without flinching, Jesus counters with a right hook: “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?” (Matthew 15:3).

You see, some Pharisees in that day ran a little religious hustle, giving his money “to God” instead of his parents, whom God commanded they support. Jesus unmasks them:

God commanded, “Honor your father and your mother,” and, “Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.” But you say, “If anyone tells his father or his mother, ‘What you would have gained from me is given to God,’ he need not honor his father.” So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. (Matthew 15:4–7)

He catches these Holy Handwashers with their arms down. As they stumble back, Jesus presses his opponents into the corner:

You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:

“This people honors me with their lips,but their heart is far from me;in vain do they worship me,teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” (Matthew 15:7–9)

Finally, he calls the people over to give the ten count:

He called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” (Matthew 15:10–11)

As the Pharisees exit the ring enraged, the disciples, stunned at the first-round finish, ask Jesus, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” (Matthew 15:12).

Mannerly Messiah

Had we been there, I imagine most would have been tempted to wonder something like this: “Does he know he comes off a little strong?” “Was his manner of bluntness all that it could have been?” “Was that really the most persuasive manner for handling that theological disagreement?”

And I imagine how we might expect a godly leader to answer our concerns: “You know, you’re right. I did not need to embarrass them like that. I did not have to draw the crowd to myself or brand them with Isaiah’s confounding prophecy or apply the fifth commandment so nakedly. I did not have to oppose their traditions with such combativeness. I could have reasoned more and corrected less, and done so less publicly.”

But Jesus answers distinctly. He knows his speech offended the Pharisees, and he does not mind. He doubles down, as we say. And he does so proverbially: “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit” (Matthew 15:13–14). What does he mean?

Uprooting Sensibility

Jesus leans on divine sovereignty in this tense situation of his own making. If they are not of his Father — saved by the Father, chosen by the Father — they will be uprooted. His bluntness, his directness, his risking offense — these were not the issue. The issue was not what he said (for it was perfect), but how they responded. The wind was not to blame but the plant’s roots. Jesus entrusted not only himself, but his teaching, to his Father’s care.

The same word that caused them to stumble could have caused them to repent. The same flame that burns the chaff refines the gold; the same wind that tests the oak uproots the weeds. The Gentile woman of the very next scene seeks healing for her demon-possessed daughter and ends up astounding Jesus as her roots withstand the gust of being called a “dog” (Matthew 15:21–28). Yet the Pharisees blow away. “Leave them alone,” Jesus says. The blind lead the blind into pits. They would repent or they would be offended, but he would speak as his Father taught him without losing sleep at their anger.

“Jesus, if on earth today, would uproot much of our sense and sensibilities.”

Am I wrong to think we need such Christlike men willing to speak plainly and risk offense? Jesus, if on earth today, would uproot much of our sense and sensibilities. His words would be quoted with scorn online. Many frail plants would be uprooted; a politically correct cross would be raised. He came as a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling, and so he remains (Isaiah 8:13; 1 Peter 2:7–8).

Deputy Politeness

What’s the point?

Many Christians today, including pastors, need to be more comfortable giving plain statements that displease, true assessments without the sugary coating. And, like Jesus, remain unmoved when they are received unfavorably. My aim here is category-creation, not precise application. The categories Jesus creates confront the spirit of our age by teaching:

If men are offended, it is no sure proof that sin has been committed.
Such offense is no proof you lack Christlikeness.
At times (even if at seldom times), risking offense is not just permissible but righteous.

A broad space exists between the Citadel of Comfort and the Wilderness of Sin — a tristate area of Rebuke, Admonishment, and Correction. Many prophets, apostles, pastors, and saints have lodged there to the benefit of their hearers, and often at great cost to themselves.

But the enemy of souls would not have any men of God dwell there. He sends deputies called Politeness and Niceness to apprehend and evict. At the sound of lawful reproofs, especially of a creative variety, even the meekest men need to be arrested for that plainness of speech that brings weight to correction. Now, lords Smooth-Tongue and Tickle-Ear enshrine euphemisms, allowing sin to escape while cuffing plainspoken confronters. But Richard Baxter captures the courageous response:

When reproofs themselves prove so ineffectual, that they are more offended at the reproof than at the sin, and had rather that we should cease reproving than that themselves should cease sinning, I think it is time to sharpen the remedy. For what else should we do? To give up our brethren as incurable were cruelty, as long as there are further means to be used. (The Reformed Pastor, 4)

Let’s reclaim this timeless remedy. I hear a description of pastors we need today when Merry speaks of the now heightened Gandalf the White: “He has grown, or something. He can be both kinder and more alarming, merrier and more solemn than before, I think” (Two Towers, 590).

Going Viral

Good men can be more influenced by this embargo than they know. Some grow offended (often on another’s behalf) and quote the apostle with perfect accuracy: “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15), and “correcting his opponents with gentleness” (2 Timothy 2:25). These texts mean something and instruct the Christian. Many of us are agreed that we want our speech to adorn and not hinder the advance of the gospel and the salvation of souls.

But the application of these texts must follow the dictates of holiness, not likeability or our untethered sense of things. Did Paul mean to cast shadows upon the credibility of those fiery arrows shot by the likes of Moses, David, Nathan, Elijah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, Jude, James, Peter, and Jesus himself? Or take Paul himself as an example. To those insisting on circumcision for right-standing with God (and so undermining the gospel and ruining eternal souls), he is not content simply to charge them with error or challenge them to a carefully moderated debate. In at least one place, he fires stronger ammo: “I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!” (Galatians 5:11–12).

Graphic. Personal. Direct. Offensive. Inspired. The cross has its offense (Galatians 5:11). Wishing that false teachers would castrate themselves contains another (Galatians 5:12).

Burning Speech

I am simply trying to move the border further from any assumption that truly godly talk is always smooth, polished, palatable, somewhat predictable. No thorns. No sharpness. No use of the two-edged sword. Only Nerf weapons. For years, what I considered godly speech was calibrated more by a trivial and sin-loving world than by a jealous and sin-hating Spirit. I did not yet appreciate, as John Piper writes,

Sometimes spiritual sleepers need to be shocked. If you want them to hear what you have to say, you might even need to scandalize them. Jesus is especially good at this. (Desiring God, 77)

Giving offense is not an aim of our ministries. But holiness is. God’s glory is. Eternal happiness for immortal souls is. Jesus cared about the crowds and would not have them deceived. Jesus cared about his disciples and would not have them enslaved to man’s tradition or the Pharisees’ umbrage. Jesus cared also about the Pharisees and would not let them perish in silence. He cared too about his Father’s commands and, in speaking, sought the glory that comes from God, not man.

Are we like that? A flesh-indulging mannerliness moves softly through many churches. A spirit of Eliab chides godly zeal as impertinence: “I know your presumption and the evil of your heart, for you have come down to see the battle.” And some earnest men sigh with David, “What have I done now? Was it not but a word?” (1 Samuel 17:28–29).

Have you ever felt like David, surrounded by Eliabs? In sermons, in small groups, they seem to know the evil and presumption of our hearts if we raise our voices, make people uncomfortable, transgress iron laws of likeability. Yet pressures come from without and from within. Baxter identifies the Eliab of our own pride as accomplice to filing off the roughness:

When God chargeth us to deal with men as for their lives, and to beseech them with all the earnestness that we are able, this cursed sin [pride] controlleth all, and condemneth the most holy commands of God, and saith to us, “What! will you make people think you are mad? Will you make them say you rage or rave? Cannot you speak soberly and moderately?” (The Reformed Pastor, 125)

I know that inner voice well, the one that concerns itself not with bringing to bear what God thinks of some sin, but what they will think of me. When pride governs our counseling or ailing accountability, sin is to be nodded at respectfully, thoughtfully, and then asked questions — endless questions — but not confronted directly. Yet I know that when I am deeply concerned with souls (which is too seldom), I wonder at the deceit of sin, the subtlety of Satan, the horror of falling away from Christ. How can I be silent? The closed mouth becomes a shut vent, fuming (Psalm 39:2–3). The mind kindles flame. But what of God? What of eternity? What of your soul?

Redrawing the Boundaries

Let me venture a few applications. To those who hear offense at nearly every uncomfortable word spoken, inhale and remember the line of godly men who spoke in ways and with tones that would provoke equal, if not greater, dismay. Pray for Scripture to govern your sensibilities. As Spurgeon requests from this text,

Do not . . . be needlessly alarmed about our ministry. Just give us plenty of elbow-room to strike right and left. Let not our friends encumber us. Whether they be friends or foes, when we have to strike for God and his truth, we cannot spare whoever may stand in our way. To our own Master we stand or fall, but to no one else in heaven or on earth. (The Weeding of the Garden)

To those frontiersmen always pressing at the boundaries, ensure that prayerfully profitable and not technically permissible is still the aim. To our own Master we stand or fall, and Christ will judge every careless word (Matthew 12:36).

And to all of us, may God give us grace to hate sin more than rebukes for sin, grace to love the Lord Jesus Christ and the souls of men more than the hellish treaty of nominal politeness. “Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy” (Proverbs 27:5–6).

Is the God you think of day to day much happier than you? Do you think the Father bright and abundant or rather frownful and displeased? Does he enjoy his Life? Or is he just a tad bored, waiting for you to cheer him up a bit? What is your God like? We smile less than we might, because we feel little warmth from the smiling God.

We have heard the good news of the holy God, the just God, the three-in-one God, the mighty and compassionate, the faithful and all-wise, the loving and prayer-hearing and covenant-keeping God — but what of the happy God, the blessed God? If we look forward to “enjoying him forever,” do we not first need to be convinced that he is enjoyable? And can a King who stifles song or laughter really satisfy our souls (though he be otherwise strong and wise and good)? Do we color the God of Beauty grey, imagining him who makes the seraph burn and the bird warble to be the Sovereign Eeyore in these Hundred Acre Woods?

Gospel of God’s Happiness

Again, the inescapably personal question: Is your God happy? Is he deeply pleased, eternally bright, the waterfall cascading the edges and satisfying your adopted soul, if born again you be? Can you join to sing,

Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee,God of glory, Lord of love;Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee,Opening to the sun above.

I want my heart to unfold more sweetly, more fully. So, let’s gaze up at the brilliance of the divine happiness together. As with the apostle John, if everything were to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books (John 21:25). Most must be omitted, but even as a little honey can brighten the eyes, a few glimpses of his happiness can freshen our joy in him.

His Pleasure Precedes Us

Mercifully, the Arkenstone jewel of God’s happiness is not the creature — his perfect, holy, complete joy precedes us. God’s happiness is infinite and eternal and untainted precisely because it is independent — he draws from wells we knew not of, that which always was and always will be.

Survey the pantheon of gods, and here alone we find the only Being that can satisfy the soul forever. A fulsome ocean surges within himself — Father, Son, and Holy Ghost — waters of bliss that he invites the redeemed to swim within. God has never been needy or lonely or bored. The salvation of man is a subplot, a minor theme, within an eternal drama of Trinitarian love. Baffling man-centric theologies, John Piper writes,

Within the triune Godhead (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), God has been uppermost in his own affections for all eternity. This belongs to his very nature, for he has begotten and loved the Son from all eternity. Therefore, God has been supremely and eternally happy in the fellowship of the Trinity. (Collected Works, vol. 2, 48–49)

Here we find our glad tidings: His happiness does not depend upon us — thus he can satisfy us. None can pickpocket his pleasure. Not Satan, not the world, not our sin. “It should delight us beyond all expression,” writes Henry Scougal, “to consider that the one who is beloved in our own souls is infinitely happy in himself and that all his enemies cannot shake or unsettle him from his throne” (Life of God in the Soul of Man, 83). The triune God’s delight cannot sag or wobble; his cheerful crown cannot topple from his brow. He does not sink into despair.

Gladness Who Creates

If eternity were an apartment, God did not need a pet to keep him company. The triune God needed nothing upon which to dote or depend. His golden existence never borrows from other suns.

Yet we read, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1) — why? If he is so happy and blessed, why create anything at all? Because God delights to share his fullness, his happiness, his life, his love, his glory — not to complete that fullness, but to extend it to others.

“There is an expansive quality to his joy,” writes Piper. “It wants to share itself. The impulse to create the world was not from weakness, as though God were lacking in some perfection that creation could supply.” To quote Jonathan Edwards, “It is no argument of the emptiness or deficiency of a fountain, that it is inclined to overflow.” Again, Piper writes, “All his works are simply the spillover of his infinite exuberance for his own excellence” (Works, 49).

In the beginning, then, God created the heavens and the earth freely, bountifully, happily. He looked down as an artist painting — stars, fish, mountains, man — “Oh, that is good!” He creates and admires and gives and fills and blesses from a full cupboard.

Delight Comes for Us

The God who didn’t need you to be happy, the heaven within himself that needed not angels or humans, sacrificed to include us in that happiness. He came for us.

The God who did not need us chose us — and at total cost to himself. The blessedness of God increases the gospel’s voltage. If God had thrown all into the lake of fire, downed Adam and Eve in a flood, and moved on, God would have lost nothing. But the great I Am — rising from his own good pleasure as Giver, for his own great name of Love, growing from the everlasting heart of a Father — authored a story, perilous and splendid, full of darkness and light, to communicate himself more fully, and exalt his Son, and so fill our cup to overflowing.

“God’s happiness does not depend upon us — thus he can satisfy us.”

Ours is not just the gospel of God, but “the gospel of the glory of the blessed God” (1 Timothy 1:11). Rightly do angels longingly gaze after it. When time ripened, the eternal Son came. Begrudgingly? Reluctantly? Indifferently? “In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:19–20).

Glimpses of eternal rays pierce through at Jesus’s baptism and transfiguration. The Father’s supreme delight shone down upon his Son: “Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased” (Matthew 12:18; 3:17; 17:5). “Father,” Jesus prayed on the eve of his death, “I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24).

The Son’s whole drama — sung to us as good news — plays out in a theater of eternal love: The Father to the Son, the Son to the Father, and the Spirit lifting the elect to dwell in those clouds.

Happiness Brings Us Home

The God who does not need us to be happy himself promises to make his people happy forever. At the end of our weak service, the Master says, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:23). Enter into the paradise of triune bliss, the Promised Land of milk and mirth, of honey and happiness.

Does your God invite you into his own joy? I find the unfaithful servant of the story instructive. The Master gave him one talent, and he went and buried it. Why did he bury it away?

Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours. (Matthew 25:24–25)

He did not know the Master who invites into his own joy. The Master who smiles and says, “Well done.” He harbored hard thoughts, buried his talents under hard ground, and received a hard wage: “You wicked and slothful servant! . . . Take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. . . . And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 25:26, 28, 30).

How vital it is to know God’s heart. How many talents hide beneath mounds of dirt in our backyards? Do you believe you serve a hard and extorting God? Believer, come to the open window and gaze through Jesus’s words: “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). Stir at your God’s vow: “I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul” (Jeremiah 32:41). Quiet under his singing:

The Lord your God is in your midst,     a mighty one who will save;he will rejoice over you with gladness;     he will quiet you by his love;he will exult over you with loud singing. (Zephaniah 3:17)

Orthodox of Heart

Brother or sister in Jesus, the God you serve from day to day, is he happy? Not just holy, powerful, righteous, or wise, but happy? Not flustered, standoffish, or unimpressed, but happy?

“Is it not a pity,” asks Richard Baxter, “that our hearts are not as orthodox as our heads?” Yes, it is a pity. Oh, how our hearts would burst. How fiercely his happiness would arm us against worldliness. How carelessly we would laugh off lesser pleasures of lust and pride. How we would dare to take greater risks with our talents, empowering evangelism and world missions.

When we see the heights and depths of God’s happiness, how can commands such as “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” seem unreasonable (Philippians 4:4)? How can we resist the psalmist’s summon, “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!” (Psalm 100:1–2)? How can we not endure unwanted trials knowing that we shall soon be before our Lord in whose “presence there is fullness of joy” and at whose “right hand [there] are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11)?

A few more days, a few more sorrows, a few more disappointments, and then . . .

Weeks ago, I discovered how little I really believed in hell. I am not sure how else to explain it. I realized it while at a children’s play area, watching my three little ones run, jump, and waddle about.

Seated on the other side of the play place sat a young Latino man lost on his phone. He had several kids, several tattoos, and no wedding ring. How he dressed and how he carried himself reminded me of the men I grew up with, the young man I was at his age. Having read my Bible and having grown up in the area, I assumed he did not know the Lord. More likely than not, he had never heard the true gospel. More likely than not, he didn’t want to.

In that moment, I imagined myself walking over to share Christ with him, only to have him dismiss me as some corny, churchy, preachy-type (as I might have done at his age). And there we would sit — me wishing I never walked over; he wishing the same.

Instead of getting up, though, I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. And that is when it hit me: I do not really believe in hell right now. How could I? My compassion blew away at a mere inconvenience. Jesus’s doctrine of eternal, conscious torment was no real thing to me. Nor was the eternal blessedness of heaven. Missionaries have crossed oceans, left families, brought their coffins with them to foreign lands; yet there I sat, retreating at the mere thought of rejection. What kind of faith was this?

The scary part, I realize, was that in that same moment, I could have started writing an article about hell, preached an impromptu sermon, debated an atheist on its necessity. Yet, reciting Bible verses wasn’t what was required — believing them was. Across from me sat an immortal soul, and yet there I just sat, unwilling to travel even a few short steps to enter an awkward conversation that could have led him to eternal life.

I wish I could report that I stood up and began preaching. I wish I could tell you that I walked over to that young man and prayerfully spoke words of life to his soul. But I didn’t. To my shame, I suppressed the stirring, indulged unbelief, and heartlessly packed up my kids and left that man just where he sat. Lord, have mercy upon us both.

Bright Red Letters

How would our lives look differently, yours and mine, if we believed that hell is for real? How many trivialities, how many unworthy anxieties, how many small concerns and tiny pursuits would be lit aflame? How many selfish insecurities, how many dull and shallow days, how many unworthy entertainments and lukewarm seasons and cowardly inactivity would simply shatter by believing what Jesus himself told us about the judgment to come?

Our Christlikeness can be rather selective at times, can’t it? Who believed in or spoke of hell more than Jesus? Who else knew with utter certainty what fierce artillery aimed every day at the wicked? All the apostle’s teaching is Christ’s teaching, but what did Jesus himself say about hell? What were his reddest letters? See if your soul can sip even a small sample from just the first Gospel:

“If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” (Matthew 5:29–30; Matthew 18:8–9)

“The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. . . . So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 13:41–42, 49–50)

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’ . . . And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:41, 46)

Outer darkness. A fiery furnace. Destruction of both body and soul (Matthew 10:28). Eternal punishment. Inarticulate wailing. Teeth grinding. “Many” travel there (Matthew 7:13). Jesus’s sermons often fell like napalm, because he loved the souls of men.

“How would our lives look differently, yours and mine, if we believed that hell is for real?”

Jesus gives us shocking glimpses of judgment in scalding and scarlet letters. Scripture contains many more. We need them to rouse us to love, forgiveness, purity, patience, and to God himself. Will we nod at them, close the book, and leave it upon the dresser? Will these words not send us to the nations, to ambush sin, to walk across a playground? Did Christ leave us here to wave at unbelievers as they sprint past us off the cliff? Is this love for God and love for neighbor?

Friendless Depths

We can daringly tell Christ’s message about hell because that message is about much more than hell. It is about a God who took on flesh to drink down the wrath his people deserved.

Knowing the full horrors of hell, oh, manly and heroic he, came to us, became us, stepped in front of us, to save us. He did not experience hell proper — hell begins after the resurrection and the final judgment. But he did face that wrath which makes the lake of fire, we might say with due reverence, into a fiery puddle. The wicked in hell never approach the full weight, never near the full price, never exhaust the divine quiver of the arrows their sins deserve. But to ransom even one soul, the God-man paid the full debt, suffered the full torment, empties a cup of eternal woe. In other words, where the wicked shall suffer incompletely (though still horribly) forever, he plunged to the very bottom of that great lake of wrath to rescue us.

See him, O saint, diving, down, down, down, through to soul-blistering depths, further and further, deeper and deeper, agonizing, alone.

With hand outstretched for the bottom, “he poured out his soul to death” (Isaiah 53:12). Through friendless deeps and misery unmeasured, see this Son of Sorrows swim boldly along the bottom — omnipotent wrath crushing him. See him feel upon the seabed, ah, one lost pearl. A little further, the second. Further still, a third. As the pressure increases beyond bearing, he cries, “I thirst!” yet presses on, though heaven’s troops would stand at his beck and call. He will have his prize, his people. One by one, under heat and wrath-shattering contemplation, he reaches out, Christian, for you, holds you, claims you as his own. Angels are stunned into silence. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” he cries (Matthew 27:46). After six excruciating hours, he collects his last pearl and shouts victoriously, “It is finished” (John 19:30).

For all eternity, Jesus alone reached the bottom of God’s righteous hatred toward sin. He alone absorbed the full wrath of his Father crushing him as “he became sin for us, who knew no sin” (see 2 Corinthians 5:21). No sinner in all of eternity shall submerge the depths he did. None besides the Lion of the tribe of Judah could so conquer. Sinners eternally sip at a challis they cannot hope — or bear — to finish. He did.

Cruel Kindness

Christian reader, do you really believe this?

If we all did, would our cities not be filled with a knowledge of Christ? When we refused to avoid eye contact with those in our everyday lives, as I did that day, how might our local parks, laundromats, coffee shops, restaurants, and sporting events fill with the name above all names?

You and I need to learn a little more gospel impoliteness: to learn to speak when unasked, to go when uninvited, and to tell that name — that only name given under heaven — by which men must be saved. Let Spurgeon’s arrows sink to the heart.

We are so gentle and quiet, we do not use strong language about other people’s opinions; but let men go to hell out of charity to them. We are not at all fanatical, and for all we do to disturb him, the old manslayer has a very comfortable time of it. We would not wish to save any sinner who does not particularly wish to be saved. We shall be pleased to say a word to them in a mild way, but we do not speak with tears streaming down our cheeks, groaning and agonizing with God for them; neither would we thrust our opinions upon them, though we know they are being lost for want of knowledge of Christ crucified. (Words of Counsel for Christian Workers, 32–33)

Humanly speaking, I was willing to let that man go to hell out of a dark sort of charity to him (and a dark sort of charity to me). He probably didn’t want to hear of Christ (as many don’t). He might have rejected it (which many do). But such cowardly calculations are not mine or yours to make. And the historic and biblical doctrine of eternal, conscious, just torment of the wicked should have consumed that cold, fleshly indifference known in plainer tongues as cowardice or hatred.

What would happen in our cities if every Christian (and every church) really believed in the horrors of hell and, with it, the desperate need of every soul for Jesus Christ?

As the Author reads the final sentences of this world’s story, as the final sheep steps into the fold, as the last martyr’s blood spills to the ground, we hear heaven suddenly swell — with silence.

The hallelujahs halt. As a “darkness to be felt” stretched over the land of Egypt (Exodus 10:21), now a silence to be felt stretches over heaven itself. The burning ones bite their tongues from screaming “Holy, holy, holy!” Saints momentarily quiet their songs about the crucified Lamb. The apostle John reports “silence in heaven for about half an hour” (Revelation 8:1). Heaven, that place of highest praise, sinks into the solemn stillness of an army on the eve of battle.

As all quiets onstage, trumpets are distributed to seven archangels, and the spotlight shines on a priestly angel (possibly the Lord Jesus himself), who wades through silence to stand at an altar with a golden censer and much incense. He is to burn the incense before the throne. He performs what the Old Testament priests once did in the temple, when the gathered people went silent, and the fragrant smell of burning incense rose into heaven. But what cloud of aromas now rises before the Lord? Incense from the golden bowls, the prayers of the saints (Revelation 5:8).

At the end of this world, heaven quiets itself to solemnize the prayers of God’s people, rising as worship before God. John writes, “And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel” (Revelation 8:4).

And for what do these prayers plead? In one word: justice.

Appeals of the Apocalypse

The hushed scene picks up from the intermission of chapter 6, where John sees the ascended Lamb break the seven seals one by one. The breaking of the first four seals unleashes different horsemen, who bring violence, famine, and sickness (Revelation 6:2–6). Hades gallops close behind (verses 7–8). Saints are slaughtered during this period of broken seals.

At the breaking of the fifth seal, John sees their host, “under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne” (Revelation 6:9). In silence, overhear the theme of their prayer:

They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” (Revelation 6:10)

“Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been” (Revelation 6:11). That moment arrives in chapter 8. Silence to hear solemn appeals of murdered saints now crying out for God to avenge their blood.

Commentator Grant Osborne strikes the vital note: “The silence in heaven is an expectant hush awaiting the action of God, but that is not to be just an outpouring of wrath but God’s answer to the imprecatory prayers of the saints (6:9–11 recapitulated in 8:3–4). Thus there is worship (the golden censer with incense) behind the justice” (Revelation, 339). The scent of worship will soon rise from the wrath. God’s sentence against the impenitent persecutors is not just a response to sin’s penalty, but to his saint’s prayers.

Before this volcano, mouths do not open, eyes do not shut. How does God respond?

Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake. (Revelation 8:5)

Fire falling, thunder crashing, rumblings, lightning lashing, earth quaking — “Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord, for he has roused himself from his holy dwelling” (Zechariah 2:13). And so begins the final judgment, for verse 5, writes G.K. Beale, “is to be interpreted as the final judgment, not as some trial preliminary to that judgment” (Revelation: A Shorter Commentary, 169).

Prayers to End the World

Again, God’s wrath against the impenitent is not just a response to sin’s penalty, but a response to his saint’s prayers. His children’s pleadings escort that judgment, beckon it forth. “The utterly astonishing thing about this text,” comments John Piper,

is that it portrays the prayers of the saints as the instrument God uses to usher in the end of the world with great divine judgments. It pictures the prayers of the saints accumulating on the altar before the throne of God until the appointed time when they are taken up like fire from the altar and thrown upon the earth to bring about the consummation of God’s kingdom. (The Prayers of the Saints and the End of the World)

Do we find this astonishing? Are we more prone to interrogate (rather than to appreciate) such prayers? “Do our prayers,” asks Beale, “come out of a sacrificial life, or do we come asking God only to throw us life-preservers to rescue us from our own foolishness? The prayers of the saints as pictured there focus on the holiness and truthfulness of God and a desire for that to be manifested in the execution of his justice. Are our prayers directed toward obtaining benefit for ourselves or glory for God?” (168).

Sheltered from much persecution, the sweetness of this incense has not yet pleased me as deeply as it might. It hasn’t needed to. Egypt’s whips have not struck my wife’s back. Pharoah has not tossed my children into the Nile. The unjust judge has not yet denied me a hearing. Romans 12:19 hasn’t met any existential crisis: “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.’” But it has for many saints who have been more profoundly inflicted by injustice and scarred by sin.

Hesitations about imprecatory prayers, especially in the West, often expose (among other things) a lack of sympathy with our persecuted brothers and sisters around the world and throughout history.

Venerating His Vengeance

Whether you and I can relate circumstantially to these prayers for justice, such judgments have their place in our worship. The first thing we see Israel doing after deliverance from Egypt is gathering at the Red Sea, tears of gratitude flowing down their cheeks, voices joining in song to praise God for saving them by sinking their foes like a stone (Exodus 15:5). Saints of old could see the crushing of their enemies as God’s covenant love for them:

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,     for his steadfast love endures forever . . .to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt,     for his steadfast love endures forever; . . .to him who divided the Red Sea in two,     for his steadfast love endures forever;and made Israel pass through the midst of it,     for his steadfast love endures forever;but overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea,     for his steadfast love endures forever. (Psalm 136:1, 10, 13–15)

The psalmist can’t finish sentences detailing God’s righteous judgments without inserting praise for God’s love to his people displayed in the same act. Thus, after the prayed-for judgment falls at the end of time, we hear the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying out,

Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just; for he has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality, and has avenged on her the blood of his servants. (Revelation 19:1–2)

Thy Kingdom Come

When the priestly angel reaches into his golden bowl, will he find our prayer there? While many of us may not often have prayed for God’s retribution to fall upon the wicked, Jesus teaches us to fill up that bowl in the Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:9–10).

Martin Luther once taught us that this is to place all that opposes our God’s dominion into a pile and pray: “Curses, maledictions, and disgrace upon every other name and every other kingdom. May they be ruined and torn apart, and may all their schemes and wisdom and plans run aground” (Luther’s Works [1956], 21:101). “Thy kingdom come” is the positive way of praying, “Destroy every other kingdom that resists your will or stands in your way.”

Or as Piper exults,

What we have in Revelation 8:1–5 is an explanation of what has happened to the millions upon millions of prayers over the last 2,000 years as the saints have cried out again and again, ‘Thy kingdom come. Thy kingdom come.’ Not one of these prayers, prayed in faith, has been ignored. Not one is lost or forgotten. Not one has been ineffectual or pointless. They all have been gathering on the altar before the throne of God.

We pray for God’s dominion, a dominion that will overthrow all others. We pray for King Jesus to return, knowing judgment must come with his heaven (Revelation 1:7). We desire God’s righteous justice to be satisfied — at the cross or in hell. And we desire most of all that our Savior come so that the dwelling place of God is again with man — thy kingdom come!

Not one of our prayers for Christ to come, to bring his kingdom, and to make all our deepest wrongs right will be lost. They are gathered in a bowl, soon to be burned as incense before the throne and scattered as fire upon our enemies. Some of us stare at the skies, joining that solemn silence, groaning for justice, and aching for home. He will not disappoint. He will not delay a moment longer than his Father determines. As we wait, we close the distance and assault the interval with one beautiful weapon: prayer. Come, Lord Jesus!

When I first began at Desiring God, a monitor hung on a wall in the office. Of many other useful functions, it showed our staff how many people were on the website in real time. If you looked at the smaller type at the bottom, you could see how many users were on particular pages. So, for a new article published that morning, you might look over and see a few hundred people on the page. You could watch the numbers rise as the article spread, and see it top out a few hours later, and begin its slow decline.

Over time, that monitor, like Sauron’s lidless eye, came to stare at me. I watched as some of my articles were shot down mid-flight. By afternoon, the article dipped into the dozens. The warm tingle would wash over me: insecurity. I worked hard on that article. I thought more people would read it. Is this really God’s call on my life?

I remember resonating with Shakespeare when he described man as not being able to feel what he owns, but by reflection (Troilus and Cressida, 3.3.99). He meant that a man could not know himself to be what he thought himself to be unless others acknowledged it. Was I any good? I could only know by reflection. Warm admiration or high numbers on a screen needed to tell me so. If a writer publishes an article, but it doesn’t receive any compliments, was it even worth writing? The temptation begins to creep in: Will they be impressed? Will it be good enough to be envied?

That screen not only showed me my own numbers, but others’. I’m sure you can imagine the temptation: Dashboard, dashboard on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all? Though not all writers, we all know the enticement, don’t we? They may track different stats, but we each have our monitors.

Sickly Eye

What is envy?

Envy: The favorite son of pride, the dark appetite that turns allies into enemies and angels into demons.

Envy: The rival moon unable to share the sky with the sun, for fear to discover itself to be the lesser light.

Envy: The genesis of human murder, a sin of which Abel’s blood still speaks.

Envy: The disease that festers with God’s blessings . . . given to others.

Envy: That bitter wind that chills the king’s throne, even after victory, as it hears the singing in the streets, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands” (1 Samuel 18:7 NASB).

When Pride heard that song, the text tells us, “Saul eyed David from that day on” (1 Samuel 18:9). The bloodshot eye set on others’ successes, the inward grimace when others are better noticed, better complimented, or (you hate to admit it) simply better than you at the thing that you’re good at. Do you know that sickly eye that looks down upon brothers, spear in hand, and thinks, I will pin David to the wall? We all have our javelins. We have our ways of explaining why our rivals aren’t really that talented or wonderful or beautiful or godly at all.

Envy, the bewitchment that bids a man kill his brother or a man his God: “Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?” Pilate once asked. “For he perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priests had delivered him up” (Mark 15:9–10).

Wisdom of Demons

It was during that season of temptation that God gave me grace to do what my flesh protested: I took a brother aside one day and confessed to him my temptations to envy him and his recent success. It was a humbling, embarrassing, sin-slaying light. Are you tempted to envy anyone close to you? Consider confessing the temptation to them that you might war together against this demonic wisdom.

“Demonic” is no hyperbole. The apostle James writes, “If you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic” (James 3:14–15).

How do we resist? To answer, I want to bring in C.S. Lewis’s fictional demon, Screwtape, to help us, not with the diagnostic (in which Lewis excels), but to guide us to a cure. In letter 14 of The Screwtape Letters, the demon writes to his nephew,

The Enemy wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another. The Enemy wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his own favor that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbor’s talents — or in a sunrise, an elephant, or a waterfall. (71)

Don’t you want that kind of heart? The kind that says with Moses, whatever your particular giftings, “Oh, that all were prophets!” (see Numbers 11:29). Or, “Oh, that all were mature mothers, powerful preachers, resourceful men living to the glory of God!” To be like Paul, so about his Master’s business that he remarks of jealous ministers,

Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. . . . The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? [Only that in every way they should be silenced? Only that in every way God would curse their ministries?] Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. (Philippians 1:15–18)

O Lord, give us hearts like this.

Doctrine of Given Gifts

Screwtape goes on to highlight a doctrine that God has used in my life to bring down the monitors from the walls of my heart.

The Enemy will also try to render real in the patient’s mind a doctrine which they all profess but find it difficult to bring home to their feelings — the doctrine that they did not create themselves, that their talents were given them, and that they might as well be proud of the color of their hair. (72)

They might as well be proud of the color of their hair. Fellow Christians, your gifts — are you ready? — are gifts. You only and always exercise gifts from God — and that for the building up of others. Whenever you begin to think that you really are something after all, ask Paul’s question, “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).

Engraved over our best successes, our best works, our best moments will be two words: Things Received. Or one word: Grace. This doctrine frees us to live in community with others more (and less) talented than we are, and — dare I say — even celebrate the achievements of others.

Brooms to Sweep the Floor

John the Baptist is such a good example for us. His disciples tempted him toward envy: “Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness — look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him” (John 3:26). What is the first thing out of his mouth? “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven” (John 3:27).

Let me share with you a poem I wrote a decade ago, meditating on this scene between John and his disciples:

Disciples

Rabbi, I have news to tell,I’m afraid you will not take it well,Another brother has set sailTo the man across the way.

You said he’d take our sin away,But our brothers, night and day?I wonder what you have to say,Should he now rise to reign?

On the other shore he now remainsAre both baptisms just the same?Is ‘Baptist’ also in his name?We wait for your reply. . . .

John

A man cannot receive but from on High,His sandals, I still dare not untie,My question for you is simply whyAre you still with me upon this shore?

He who comes after me ranks before.I baptize with water, nothing more.I am but the broom to sweep the floor,Before the King comes in.

Behold, the One of David’s kin,The Bridegroom with his Bride to win,The Lamb who takes away your sin,And heals all our disease.

He who buckles sinner’s knees,Has not the Spirit in degrees,The One of whom the Father’s pleased,And all creation hails.

It’s not as though the mission fails,When the Master over the slave prevails.All disciples set your sails,To the One across the way!

He must increase; we must decrease. Our talents are given us for Christ. We are but brooms to sweep the floor before the King comes again.