In the summer of 1782, Charles Simeon (1759–1836) was invited to fill the pulpit of St. Edward’s, Cambridge, for the vacationing Christopher Atkinson. At the time, Simeon was only 22 years old, had come to faith in Christ just three years before, and, by his own admission, “knew not any [sincerely] religious person.”1 Despite these limitations, God used Simeon to pack the pews of St. Edward’s, rivet his hearers, and lead the venerable John Berridge of Everton to compare the sight of this weekly phenomenon to “opening night of a London play.”

That summer was one of adulation and affirmation for Simeon. So one would expect both to follow him to his new appointment just blocks away at Holy Trinity. But they didn’t. For Simeon, the first twelve years there were filled with stiff and steady opposition from the leaders as well as the laity. And over his remaining years at Holy Trinity, 54 in total, Simeon faced a barrage of other challenges, each one formidable enough to potentially end his ministry. Through these very challenges, however, God shaped Simeon into the great gospel influence that he was then and remains now.

Appointment and Opposition

While still a Cambridge undergraduate, Simeon was named a fellow at King’s College, ordained as a deacon in the Church of England, and blessed with his blockbuster summer at St. Edward’s. In November of that year, the pastor of Holy Trinity, Henry Therond, died. Soon thereafter, the Bishop of Ely, James Yorke, appointed the young Simeon as Therond’s successor.

Despite Simeon’s triumph earlier that summer, the people of Holy Trinity quickly rose in opposition to the bishop’s choice. Their man of choice was the more experienced and politically savvy John Hammond. The bishop would not budge in his selection of Simeon, but neither would the people in their preference for Hammond. So, exercising their prerogative, the people hired Hammond as their afternoon lecturer.2 Then, those parishioners with rented pews locked them so that any Sunday-morning churchgoers (those who wished to hear Simeon preach) had to sit on benches rented at Simeon’s expense.3 Finally, after multiple attempts by Simeon to start a Sunday-evening service, the church wardens locked the building altogether, thereby prohibiting any kind of nighttime gathering within the walls of Holy Trinity.

After five years, Hammond left his position as afternoon lecturer. But instead of appointing Simeon as Hammond’s replacement, the congregation hired Butler Berry. Ultimately, in 1795, the people of Holy Trinity replaced the departing Berry with their pastor of twelve years. Simeon was now the minister of Holy Trinity in name as well as in spirit. More than a decade of deep-seated opposition was over. But Simeon’s challenges were not.

Ongoing Challenges

The list of Simeon’s ongoing challenges ranges far and wide, from Cambridge, community, and church to illness, loss, and battles with his own indwelling sin.

Even though Simeon worked for the University of Cambridge, he faced opposition from the university at large,4 as well as members of his own college.5 On at least three different occasions, Simeon was stridently opposed from the pulpit and in print for matters relating to biblically orthodox sermons he had preached before the university.6

Simeon faced opposition not only from inside the university, but from outside of it as well. In 1812, Simeon wrote to Thomas Thomason about two men who were disturbing a pair of religious societies for which Simeon was responsible.7 Five years later, Simeon again shared with Thomason about “a most malignant attempt to injure my character”8 from those in the community.

While Simeon was deeply devoted to the Church of England, he also faced opposition from some within it. In 1808, Bishop Yorke, the one by whom Simeon was appointed pastor at Holy Trinity and with whom he very much got along, died. From that time on, Yorke’s replacement, Bishop Dampier, became a perennial opponent to Simeon.

Simeon was saddled with a pair of enduring physical challenges. He struggled with his speaking voice from his late thirties to his early sixties — at one point leaving him with the feeling that he was “more like one dead than alive.”9 As Simeon was finally resolving his vocal issues, he began struggling with gout, a condition that he first described as a “bruised foot,” but later as “a very long step towards the eternal world.”10

Simeon bore up under the emotional challenges that come with the death of close family and friends — his brothers Richard (1782) and Edward (1813), as well as his close friends and former curates Henry Martyn (1812) and Thomas Thomason (1829). By 1817, Simeon himself was much aware of his own mortality, writing, “I feel that I am running a race against time; and I want to finish my work before ‘the night cometh, in which no man can work.’”11

Finally, Simeon faced lifelong challenges against his own anger and pride. These two tendencies were well-known both to others12 and to Simeon himself.13 As late as 1827, less than a decade before his death, Simeon admitted that he was still working on matters related to his temper.

Example and Lessons

What are some ways Simeon endured these challenges — such that he not only remained in ministry, but did so for 54 years and left a legacy that still bears fruit today? And what lessons might his example have for pastors today?

Attend to your own soul.

In the first place, Simeon endured his many challenges by attending carefully to his own soul. He learned a dictum early in his life that “to soar heavenward” one must “grow downwards in humility.”14 So, Simeon spent long hours every day in God’s word and prayer. In fact, he went to bed early so that he could get up early and give unhurried time to his Lord in these ways.15 He referred to prayer as the “grand means” for one’s “growth in grace,”16 while “a devout reading of Scripture . . . qualifies [one] to speak to others.”17

“Simeon endured his many challenges by attending carefully to his own soul.”

Simeon also attended to his soul by engaging in rich fellowship with others. For example, he was sincerely and deeply devoted to the Reformed content and rhythms of the Church of England, and the weekly worship of his church greatly sustained him. He was also an active part of the Eclectic Club, a group of pastors who regularly met for mutual theological edification. Finally, Simeon convened an annual weeklong retreat for ministers and their wives that was devoted to rest, Bible reading, and extended times of conversation and fellowship. These retreats were of such spiritual encouragement that he reflected on one as follows:

For half a day perhaps I have often known times as precious; but never for nearly three days together. The solemnity, the tenderness, the spirituality, and the love were equal to anything I have ever seen. God was truly in “the midst of us.”18

By diligently pursuing these means of grace, Simeon remained spiritually nourished and up to facing the challenges of ministry.

Attend to the souls of others.

Simeon endured his many challenges by attending not only to his own soul but also to the souls of others. He devoted himself to many projects — all focused on Scripture — that no doubt kept his personal challenges in perspective.

Simeon’s aim for Holy Trinity was to nurture his people by regularly and faithfully preaching the Bible. His aim for Cambridge undergrads was to teach them how to reason according to Scripture (which he did at Friday-night tea parties held in his rooms), as well as how to faithfully exposit the Scripture (which he did at Sunday-afternoon sermon classes also held in his rooms). Simeon’s aim for Britain and beyond was to put the Bible into the hands of as many people as possible. This led to his part in the founding of the British and Foreign Bible Society.

Simeon also worked to send faithful Bible teachers to as many places as he could. So he established the Society for Educating Pious Men for Ministry, of which William Wilberforce was a trustee.19 He also established a trust dedicated to purchasing pulpits throughout England into which biblically orthodox preachers could be placed.20 Finally, Simeon played an integral part in founding the Church Missionary Society21 as well as the Society for the Promotion of Christianity Among the Jews.

“Simeon’s long-term investment in a variety of Bible-focused projects led to a life of ministry stability.”

Simeon’s long-term investment in a variety of Bible-focused projects led to a life of ministry stability. So, for example, instead of being entirely consumed by his early difficulties at Holy Trinity, Simeon spent those years also initiating and developing his missionary interests in India, his sermon classes among undergraduates, and his earliest printed edition on preaching. These efforts beyond the parish kept the challenges at Holy Trinity from holding Simeon back in his overall desire to spread the word of God. Throughout the years, as Simeon faced setbacks in one area of ministry, his progress in others provided encouragement to press on.

Endurance in Every Challenge

Throughout his five-and-a-half decades of pastoral ministry, Simeon’s character was shaped by many of the same challenges that pastors face today. The following questions, each forged on the anvil of Simeon’s life and ministry, can help pastors reflect on our own work and, in doing so, further build up our endurance for a long life of effective ministry.

Like Simeon, do I habitually give myself to the word and prayer? If not, then am I doing what it takes to make the word and prayer a priority in my daily life?

Like Simeon, do I sincerely view my church’s liturgy (whatever form that may take) as a source of spiritual nourishment? If not, then what measures can I take to be fed by it rather than merely preside over it?

Like Simeon, do I regularly take time away for personal edification and encouragement? If not, then with what group of like-minded pastors or gospel workers can I associate for spiritual development and refreshment?

Like Simeon, do I creatively leverage my work in a variety of ways? If not, into what added areas could I extend my gospel burden, my sermons, and my experience?

As long as we pastor imperfect saints, in a fallen world, from a broken body and embattled soul, we will face challenges — some of which may tempt us to give up ministry altogether. But as with Simeon, God has more than enough grace to sustain us as we attend carefully to our own souls, the souls of others, and the Christ who saves us both.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15560308/has-wrath-come-upon-israel-forever

In 1977, California pastor Jack Hayford and his wife visited England during the Silver Jubilee (25th anniversary) of Queen Elizabeth’s accession to the throne (1952). They were struck by the grandeur of the celebration, and the manifest joy of the people in their monarch. While there, they visited Blenheim Palace, birthplace of Winston Churchill, and famous for the magnitude and stateliness some Americans today know only through watching Downton Abbey.

Driving away from the palace, overcome with awe, Hayford found himself reaching for words — language that would transpose the weight of the earthly experience into the key of heaven. As he stretched, the word that seemed most fitting, both to describe the stunning magnificence of the palace, and how it pointed to the superiority of the reigning Christ, was majesty. According to a California newspaper’s retelling of the story,

As the Hayfords pulled themselves from that regal palace and drove away, Dr. Hayford asked his wife to take a notebook and write down some thoughts that were coming to him. He then began to dictate the lyrics, the key, and the timing to a song now being sung by Christians worldwide. (“Story Behind the Song: ‘Majesty,’” St. Augustine Record, August 13, 2015)

Hayford’s impulse to reach for the word majesty, however much he knew it at the time, was profoundly biblical. Majesty is indeed a frequent, and carefully chosen, attribute in Scripture of the living God — a trait often overlooked in studies of the divine attributes, but an important witness of both the prophets and apostles, one that sheds brilliant light on other well-rehearsed attributes, and one that is truly, deeply, wonderfully fit for worship, as Hayford intuited:

Majesty! Worship his majesty!Unto Jesus be all glory, honor, and praise.Majesty! Kingdom authority,Flow from his throne, unto his own;His anthem raise!

Purple Mountain Majesties

Those, like Hayford, who reach for the word majesty often find themselves standing before, or remembering, some natural or manmade wonder that is both imposing and, at the same time, attractive. In our language, as in biblical terms, the word captures not only greatness but also goodness, both bigness and beauty, awesome power together with pleasant admiration.

Mountains might be the quintessentially majestic natural feature. Psalm 76:4 declares in praise to God, “Glorious are you,” and then adds, “more majestic than the mountains.” Alongside the illustrious plain of Sharon, which had its own peculiar glory, Isaiah’s hope-filled prophecy of future flourishing for God’s people hails “the majesty of [Mount] Carmel” (Isaiah 35:2). Yet alongside mountains, we also might attribute majesty to gold, or some precious material or gem, fit for a king, that dazzles the eye with its beauty, as Job 37:22 links God’s “awesome majesty” with “golden splendor.”

Not only natural phenomena, but also the work of human hands, when on a grand scale, might have us reaching for majestic. Lamentations 1:6 mourns the loss of such civic majesty after the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon, and not long after, Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon’s king, professes to have built his city “by [his] mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of [his] majesty” (Daniel 4:30) — this, just before his great humbling.

How, then, does the common use of majesty for mountains and mansions, gold and cities, relate to attributing majesty to God?

What Is Divine Majesty?

In bringing together both greatness and goodness, both strength and beauty (Psalm 96:6), majesty is not only a fitting term for mountain majesties but a particularly appropriate descriptor of God, who is, above all, “the Majestic One” (Isaiah 10:34).

At a critical juncture in the history of God’s first-covenant people, as they assemble under the leadership of Solomon, to dedicate the temple, the king prays, in his great wisdom, “Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty.” Consider those first three — greatness, power, and glory — often associated with majesty elsewhere, as revealing angles into the attribute of divine majesty.

His Is the Greatness

First and foremost is greatness.

The opening verse of Psalm 104 declares, “Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, you are very great! You are clothed with splendor and majesty.” Likewise, after their dramatic God-wrought exodus from Egypt, God’s people sing, “In the greatness of your majesty you overthrow your adversaries” (Exodus 15:7). Later in Babylon, as Nebuchadnezzar tells of his great humbling, and restoration, he speaks of his “majesty” returning to him “and still more greatness was added to me” (Daniel 4:36; see also 5:18). Micah’s famous Bethlehem prophecy tells of a majesty that is greatness in one coming who will “stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth” (Micah 5:4).

“God has not only the might to rule, but also the right.”

Majesty often connotes some greatness in size, as with mountains and mansions: Ezekiel speaks of “majestic nations,” once numerous and powerful, but now humbled by God (Ezekiel 32:18). But that greatness also can include God’s divine right and prerogative, as God, to rule and do as he pleases. As Solomon prayed, “Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours” (1 Chronicles 29:11). God has not only the might to rule, but also the right.

His Is the Power

Majesty also is tied to God’s power and strength. “Yours, O Lord, is . . . the power.”

Not only does Micah 5:4 connect God’s majesty with divine strength in shepherding his people, but Psalm 68:34 forges the bond even stronger:

Ascribe power to God,     whose majesty is over Israel,     and whose power is in the skies.

“Awesome,” says David, “is God from his sanctuary.” He is majestic not only in the power he possesses, but also in the power he generously gives: “He is the one who gives power and strength to his people” (Psalm 68:35). So also in Psalm 29:4, we hear,

The voice of the Lord is powerful;     the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.

While his powerful, majestic voice relates to the audible, the apostle Peter testifies of it becoming visible in God’s incarnate Son: “We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Peter 1:16).

His Is the Glory

Third, as Solomon prayed, “Yours, O Lord, is . . . the glory.”

Of greatness, power, and glory, ties are deepest with the third. Psalm 8, Scripture’s signature celebration of the majesty of God, manifestly sings of glory — God’s glory, set above the heavens (verse 1), and man’s glory, from God, as one he has “crowned . . . with glory and honor” (verse 5). And so that memorable opening line, reprised as the final note, hails the majesty of God’s name:

O Lord, our Lord,     how majestic is your name in all the earth! (Psalm 8:1, 9)

As we’ve seen in Psalm 76:4 (“Glorious are you, more majestic . . .”), divine majesty is so closely connected to divine glory that we might even see the word majesty as providing God’s people with further language for expressing, commending, and marveling at his glory and beauty. Along with splendor (frequently paired with majesty), the term expands our vocabulary for glory.

Our God is so great, so admirable, so wonderful, so awesome in the eyes of his people, and so fearsome to his enemies, that the Hebrew kavod, Greek doxa, and English glory will not suffice. That is, not for his worshipers. We need more terms. We press more words into service. As we seek to keep speaking of him in his beauty, his power, his greatness, his glory, we grope for language: dominion, authority, splendor, majesty. At times, we even pile words upon words, as Psalm 145:5 does with “the glorious splendor of your majesty.”

Majesty, in particular, is emotive, or affective. It indicates greatness in sight or sound that is also wonderful. Bigness that is beautiful. Imposing size that is viewed with delight, imposing power received as attractive. While having significant overlap with divine dominion or lordship, majesty does more. Dominion and lordship are more technical and prosaic; majesty rings more poetic, with the awe of worship.

Meditate on His Majesty

In the end, it may be majesty’s poetic ring that makes it such a precious word, and fit for worship. As Jack Hayford groped for language to voice the wonder rising in his soul far beyond the legacy of English tradition and the largesse of its palaces — that is, reverence for the living God — majesty came not as a technical, functional, denotive term. It had a feel. It communicated soul-expanding awe. It was a mouthing of worship.

“God is not only great but good — good in his greatness and great in his goodness.”

The choice of the word majesty, then, says something about the speaker. Majesty attributes not only greatness, power, and glory to some object, but signals awe and wonder in the one who chooses the word. God’s friends, not his foes, declare his majesty. In Egyptian eyes, God was not majestic at the Red Sea but horrific. His striking size and strength were not for them but against them. But in the eyes of Israel, in the sight of his people, their God was indeed majestic in his greatness and power, and worthy of praise for terrifying and wiping out their enemies (Exodus 15:7, 11).

Perhaps you find yourself in need of fresh language for attributing greatness, and power, and glory to the God whom you worship in Christ. He is not only great but good — good in his greatness and great in his goodness. He is not only big, strong, imposing, indomitable, omnipotent; he is beautiful, attractive, stunning, compelling, glorious. He is the Majestic One, who delivered Israel at the Sea, and his church at the cross. And so, we say with the psalmist, “On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate” (Psalm 145:5).

And we worship his majesty.

ABSTRACT: As a young pastor, Jonathan Edwards yearned for revival — and in time, God was pleased to bring revival, first in 1734, and then into the 1740s as the Great Awakening spread through the Western world. Edwards watched hundreds of formerly apathetic neighbors become earnest seekers of God; he saw evening revelries become gatherings for singing and prayer. Along the way, however, he also observed many spurious signs of spiritual life. His ministry yields insight into both the spiritual means of revival and the genuine marks of revival, and it also gives hope that God might be pleased to bring similar revival today.

For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors, leaders, and teachers, we asked Douglas Sweeney, professor of divinity at Beeson Divinity School, to draw lessons on revival from the ministry of Jonathan Edwards.

The young Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) longed for nothing more than revival. He viewed special works of the Spirit as special tokens of God’s blessing, and he hoped beyond hope that he would receive some himself. He had moved to Northampton while in his early twenties to assist his aging grandfather, Rev. Solomon Stoddard, at the only church in town. Stoddard had led the congregation in occasional seasons of grace, but soon after he passed away, leaving Edwards by himself as the town’s only pastor, the church’s spiritual life began to go downhill. The young people, especially, started sowing wild oats, partying especially after corporate worship services. They seemed deaf to their Lord. Edwards wondered what would become of his ministry.

After five years of anxiety, hard work, and prayer, signs of spring began to appear. Early in 1734, a revival started to stir the nearby village of Pascommuck, roughly three miles from town. Then in April of that year, Northampton’s youth were faced with the unexpected deaths of two of their friends — the first “a young man in the bloom of his youth,” who was “violently seized with a pleurisy and . . . died in about two days”; the other “a young married woman, who had been considerably exercised in mind about the salvation of her soul before she was ill, and was in great distress in the beginning of her illness; but seemed to have satisfying evidences of God’s saving mercy to her before her death; so that she died very full of comfort, in a most earnest and moving manner warning and counseling others.” As Edwards noted of her passing, “This seemed much to contribute to the solemnizing of the spirits of many young persons: and there began evidently to appear more of a religious concern on people’s minds.”1

“The young Jonathan Edwards longed for nothing more than revival.”

Leaning into this concern, Edwards spoke to the youth that fall, recommending that they turn their Thursday evening revelry into a time of “social religion,” meeting in homes throughout the town for Christian fellowship and prayer. No sooner had they done so than the town was forced again to deal with a strange, surprising death — this time of a senior citizen. “Many were much moved and affected” by this tragedy.2 The adults in town followed the lead of their own children, meeting on Sunday nights for fellowship, prayer, and hymn-singing. Soon these spiritual practices led to transformation. Revival roared through town, spreading up and down the Connecticut River Valley.

God’s Surprising Work

Edwards, of course, was biased, but his testimony regarding this revival’s holy fruit suggests a massive outpouring of the Spirit in Northampton. “This work of God . . . soon made a glorious alteration in the town; so that in the spring and summer following [1735] . . . the town seemed to be full of the presence of God: it never was so full of love, nor so full of joy; and yet so full of distress, as it was then.”3

In addition to the changes wrought in individual souls, this revival changed the nature of corporate worship in Northampton. “Our public assemblies were then beautiful,” as Edwards later recalled. “The congregation was alive in God’s service, everyone earnestly intent on the public worship . . . ; the assembly in general were, from time to time, in tears while the Word was preached; some weeping with sorrow and distress, others with joy and love, others with pity and concern for the souls of their neighbors.”4

It amazes one to consider that Edwards was barely 31 years old when he led this great revival. His wife Sarah was 24. Even contemporaries stood in awe of what was taking place. Edwards scribbled a breathless report to a senior colleague living in Boston, who in turn spread the word along his own social network. Soon the news reverberated all the way to England. A detailed account was in demand across the sea, and Edwards stepped up to supply it in the form of his first book, A Faithful Narrative of the Surprizing Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton, and the Neighbouring Towns and Villages (1737). Within three years, this book was printed both in Edinburgh and Boston, and translated and republished in both German and Dutch editions. It inspired other ministers to work toward revival. It compelled George Whitefield to resume his work in the colonies, encouraged John Wesley to practice outdoor preaching in England, and exerted a powerful force on the spread of the Great Awakening, which would crest during the early 1740s.

Edwards gave the credit to the work of his sovereign God. But he knew that God is wont to work through prayer and gospel preaching. In 1747, Edwards published a lengthy treatise on the need to pray for revival. He preached for many years about the importance of praying persistently. Late in 1734, he also began, prayerfully, to preach a gospel series on the sinner’s justification and conversion by faith alone — a series used by God to effect the work of redemption in Northampton.

He commenced this series in November of that year, attributing his church’s own revival to its contents. It began with a talk on “Justification by Faith Alone,” based on Romans 4:5: “To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” He took from the text this doctrine: “We are justified only by faith in Christ, and not by any manner of virtue or goodness of our own.” And he expounded this doctrine with passion, making it clear that justification comes as a gift of God’s free grace, not for anything we do, but because of what God effects when he unites us to his Son, by the power of the Spirit, making us part of his holy church, the mystical bride of Jesus Christ. Our faith is that by which we cling to Christ in spiritual union. God brings it to life in us; we merely exercise it “actively.” And as we cling to Christ and trust in his merit for salvation, God sees that we are one with him and reckons his merit as our own. “What is real in the union between Christ and his people, is the foundation of what is legal,” Edwards postulated famously.5

Marks of the Spirit

Like the Puritans before him, Edwards placed a high premium on the Christian’s union with Christ as the basis of salvation. We are saved, he taught, not merely by assenting to the gospel; even “the devils . . . believe, and tremble” (James 2:19). We are saved, as well, because the Holy Spirit inhabits our bodies, reorients our souls by uniting them to Christ, makes us sharers in the Lord’s righteousness, and bears fruit in our lives.

“This teaching about the Spirit’s role in salvation might have been the defining feature of Edwards’s ministry.”

This teaching about the Spirit’s role in salvation might have been the defining feature of Edwards’s ministry. He lived in a setting where everyone had to go to church and almost everyone affirmed the basic truths of the Christian faith. He worked as a tax-supported servant of his colony’s state church, an institution that he knew was full of merely cultural Protestantism. He loved his people dearly and believed that he would have to give an account someday for his ministry. So he labored tirelessly to help his hearers understand that there is a wide, eternal difference between authentic faith in Christ and perfunctory religion, or nominal Christianity. That difference, furthermore, has to do with the Holy Spirit and his work of regeneration, of quickening the soul, giving it spiritual life in Christ.

After struggling with his predecessors’ doctrines of conversion, Edwards came to see that God does not convert us all in exactly the same way, that the substance of conversion matters much more than the form. He also saw that true conversion was primarily supernatural. It is not something sinners effect by taking the right steps. They can (and should) certainly prepare for conversion, availing themselves of God’s means of grace and praying for mercy. But they cannot make it happen by their practice of religion. God effects conversion. And the main thing he does when he converts penitent sinners is give them a new heart, reorienting their “affections.” He fills them with his Spirit. He engenders in the soul a deep longing to walk with him, to know him better, and to honor him in everything. So when Edwards counseled sinners, he asked about their hearts. He wanted to find out what they loved, how they wished to spend their time, what they aspired to in life. Moreover, his burden during the rest of his revivalistic ministry was to help others discern the Spirit’s presence in their lives — to “try the spirits” (1 John 4:1), distinguishing God’s Spirit from counterfeits.

Edwards’s strategy was to point people away from what we might call externals of religion, red herrings of the faith, qualities he labeled “negative signs” — they neither confirm nor disprove the Spirit’s presence and activity — and toward what he referred to as the “positive signs” of grace, qualities the Bible says result from true revival and conversion. The negative signs included strong emotions, loss of control (either physically or spiritually), and irregular worship practices. Such qualities had often attended God’s regenerating work, but they could also be the products of religious “hypocrites” (a term Edwards used quite frequently), or even of the devil.

Edwards’s positive signs, by contrast, included esteem for Jesus, opposition to the devil, greater regard to the Scriptures, and a spirit of love to God and man, qualities that guarantee that God is active in one’s life. They cannot be fabricated. They are supernatural gifts. And the “chief” of all these gifts, the sign most clearly taught in Scripture as an indicator of grace, was the sign of “Christian practice,” or biblical holiness. This was no red herring. It was the sum of true religion and, in Edwards’s estimation, it had characterized Northampton for a period of several months — like never before in local history — from December of 1734 through summer of 1735.

Whitefield Visits Northampton

Unfortunately, however, this revival of the Spirit and its signs of grace would fade — nearly as fast as they had appeared — during the dog days of summer. Despite (or rather because of) these positive signs of saving grace, the devil was haunting the town by spring, trying to thwart the work of God by spreading melancholy, doubt, and even suicidal urges. The revival came to a halt that summer.

The good news is that Edwards continued grow in grace through the late 1730s and taught his people to do the same, preaching some of the best sermons in the history of the church. This faithfulness contributed to even larger revivals, which culminated regionally in the early 1740s and were tied to the preaching of Edwards’s friend George Whitefield, thought by some to be the greatest preacher in history.

Only 26 years old at the height of this work of God, Whitefield spoke to larger crowds than anyone else in colonial history — at times to tens of thousands — long before the invention of microphones and amplifiers. A poor man from England with distinctly crossed eyes, he was blessed by God with a booming voice, a flair for the dramatic, and a remarkable gift of extemporaneous speech. He preached a basic gospel message from all over the biblical canon. He told stories with charisma. The most compelling stories he told as he progressed from place to place had to do with the spread of revival through the Anglo-American world. He personified the Awakening and its international scope.

During his second trip to the colonies, Whitefield sent a letter to Edwards asking permission to visit his church. Edwards replied warmly. He knew of Whitefield’s record as a winsome gospel preacher, and he longed for help renewing the work of revival in Northampton. By the spring of 1740, Edwards’s parish started to show the signs of another work of God, especially among the youth. Then when Whitefield finally arrived — on Friday, October 17, eleven months after he had written to Edwards — these sparks were fanned into flame.

Whitefield stayed for three days. He spoke twice on the day he arrived, once in church and once at the manse; once the following afternoon (after another sermon in Hadley, nearly five miles away); and twice more “upon the sabbath.” Edwards reported to a friend that his “congregation was extraordinarily melted by every sermon; almost the whole assembly being in tears for a great part of sermon time.” Edwards “wept” as well, “during the whole time” of the Sunday morning service, according to Whitefield. God’s Spirit was at work, as nearly everyone could tell. While in town for only three days, Whitefield played a crucial role in drawing Edwards’s flock back into the Great Awakening.6

Whitefield was impetuous, at times spiritually arrogant. He had earned a reputation for judging other pastors rashly, claiming that many — maybe most — were unconverted. So as Edwards traveled with him to his next few preaching stations, he advised the young star that it could be dangerous to rely too much on spiritual impulses without help from the word of God. He also said that, while he affirmed Whitefield’s emphasis on the need for clergy themselves to be converted, he believed it inappropriate to judge precipitately which of their colleagues were regenerate — and which were not. Edwards listened to Whitefield preach to several thousand in the fields, thanked him heartily for his labors, and returned home hopeful for the future. Right away, he preached a series on the parable of the sower (Matthew 13), exhorting his people not to be starstruck by Whitefield’s obvious eloquence, but to live as the kind of soil in which the word bears fruit.

Within the next couple of months, Northampton bore abundant fruit. “There was a great alteration in the town,” Edwards testified, particularly among the local children. “By the middle of December a very considerable work of God appeared among those that were very young, and the revival of religion continued to increase; so that in the spring, an engagedness of spirit about things of religion was become very general amongst young people and children, and religious subjects almost wholly took up their conversation.” Even Edwards’s own daughters had come under the work of the Spirit. Many other children, as well, had been affected by the gospel. Edwards later described this time as “the most wonderful work among children that ever was in Northampton.” It rekindled his flame for revival and conversion in New England.7

Pastor as Watchman

During the following spring and summer, Edwards himself was called upon to serve as a traveling gospel preacher. Inspired by Whitefield’s example, he did more of this than ever during 1741. He is best known for a sermon he preached in Enfield, near the border with Connecticut. He had preached this sermon before to his own congregation. As he preached it on the road, however, amazing things happened. Edwards’s text was very brief: “Their foot shall slide in due time” (Deuteronomy 32:35). His doctrine somewhat longer and more memorable today: “There is nothing that keeps wicked men, at any one moment, out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.” He applied this doctrine at length, in words that have gone down in history:

The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present; they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given, and the longer the stream is stopped, the more rapid and mighty is its course, when once it is let loose. ’Tis true, that judgment against your evil works has not been executed hitherto; the floods of God’s vengeance have been withheld; but your guilt in the meantime is constantly increasing. . . . Thus are all you that never passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls; all that were never born again, and made new creatures. . . . You are thus in the hands of an angry God; ’tis nothing but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction.

So goes the famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” a truly frightening piece of work, but one that is also full of love and passionate literary artistry.8

Edwards preached dozens of hellfire sermons during his ministry, many of which survive. Like the Puritans before him, he did so in the manner of the “watchman” of Ezekiel, whom God held responsible to sound a trumpet clearly when his people were threatened with danger. This was serious business. Edwards believed, as he proclaimed at one of his colleagues’ ordinations, that “ministers of the gospel have the precious and immortal souls of men committed to their care and trust by the Lord Jesus Christ.” He believed that he would give an account on judgment day for his ministry. So he preached from time to time on the dangers of damnation. “If there be really a hell,” he wrote in 1741,

of such dreadful, and never-ending torments, . . . that multitudes are in great danger of, and that the bigger part of men in Christian countries do actually from generation to generation fall into, for want of a sense of the terribleness of it, and their danger of it, and so for want of taking due care to avoid it; then why is it not proper for those that have the care of souls, to take great pains to make men sensible of it? Why should not they be told as much of the truth as can be? If I am in danger of going to hell, I should be glad to know as much as possibly I can of the dreadfulness of it: if I am very prone to neglect due care to avoid it, he does me the best kindness, that does most to represent to me the truth of the case, that sets forth my misery and danger in the liveliest manner.9

Such preaching saw success at the apex of the Awakening. Thousands were converted — in America alone — during 1741. The Great Awakening was divisive, but it also crystallized the crucial importance of conversion and of living with eschatological urgency.

Ten Lessons from Edwards’s Ministry

What might we learn from Edwards and his work on revival? Let me conclude by offering ten brief lessons.

First, Edwards and his colleagues show what God has often done — and still wants to do today — by means of urgent, vivid, preaching framed by the doctrines of grace. How many preachers can you name who share Edwards’s ability to render Bible doctrine urgent and Edwards’s commitment to write sermons that leave a beautiful, intellectually compelling, and enduring impression on their hearers?

Second, Edwards and his colleagues demonstrate the great promise of preaching to people’s hearts. As Edwards wrote in Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival (1743), “I should think myself in the way of my duty to raise the affections of my hearers as high as possibly I can, provided that they are affected with nothing but truth, and with affections that are not disagreeable to the nature of what they are affected with. . . . Our people don’t so much need to have their heads stored, as to have their hearts touched; and they stand in the greatest need of that sort of preaching that has the greatest tendency to do this.”10

Third, Great Awakening Christians showed that testimonies matter. I cannot do justice to this topic in this essay. Suffice it to say that what they often called “religious intelligence,” or news of the work of God and the spread of the gospel both at home and abroad, played a central role in spreading the revival. This news was shared orally in evangelistic services. It was also published in Christian magazines and newspapers, used by God to expand people’s horizons and make them feel part of the global cause of Christ.

Fourth, Edwards and his peers showed that prayer matters even more. Edwards preached for many years about the importance of praying persistently. He published a major treatise on the need to pray for revival, An Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of God’s People in Extraordinary Prayer for the Revival of Religion and Advancement of Christ’s Kingdom on Earth. And he exhorted all who listened to participate in transatlantic concerts of prayer for revival.

Fifth, Edwards and pastors like him demonstrated the importance of preaching what the apostle Paul called the whole counsel of God — even the parts about hell and the consequences of sin. God used such preaching to draw thousands to himself. Do we have the wisdom, faith, courage, and spiritual sensitivity to preach this way today, to the honor and glory of God?

Sixth, Edwards and his peers modeled pastoral wisdom in the midst of signs and wonders and spiritual intensity. They often failed to discern rightly. But they tried their best to open their Bibles and interpret the signs of the Spirit all around them, teaching the distinguishing marks of a work of the Spirit of God.

“Edwards and his peers demonstrated that word and Spirit always go hand in hand.”

Seventh, Edwards and his peers demonstrated that word and Spirit always go hand in hand. Against those who taught the word without spiritual vitality, they called for real conversion and walking with the Spirit. Against those who made claims to immediate revelation, or to spiritual impulses not grounded in the Scriptures, they called for theological accountability.

Eighth, Edwards and his peers modeled evangelical ecumenism. They avoided spiritual rashness and judgmental attitudes toward serious Christians, at least when at their best. Some did prove divisive from time to time. But again, when at their best, they showed that Anglicans, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and others can work together for the gospel — giving rise to modern evangelicalism.

Ninth, Edwards and his colleagues did not let anyone despise them for their youth, as Paul said to Timothy (1 Timothy 4:12). Edwards was in his thirties at the height of the Great Awakening. Whitefield was in his twenties. God used them remarkably in spite of themselves.

Finally, the early evangelicals demonstrated the crucial importance of “social religion”: Christian fellowship, Bible study, testimony, prayer, and spiritual singing in small-group contexts. Indeed, they put these practices on the church-historical map. Millions have come to know Jesus as a result.

May God help us all make good use of their example, facilitating revival and renewal in our time.11

Audio Transcript

Well, yesterday we started this five hundredth week on the podcast looking at Christian love and how that love differs from the love of the world. And I want to carry that discussion over to today because there’s another key factor that distinguishes our love. And it’s about the fear of money: specifically, the fear of not having enough money. Money fears kill our love. And money fears kill our worship. These are key points made by John Piper in a 1997 sermon on Luke 12. Here’s Pastor John to make those connections.

So Luke 12:32–34, of the dozens of texts I could have chosen, is all about worshiping God with your money. There are four points I want to make. Many more could be made: I think I counted about ten sermons I’d like to preach on these three verses. But I’ll preach one and make four points.

“When you magnify God through not being afraid about money, you worship.”

In verse 32 in particular, the first point is that God commands us not to be afraid about money, not to have fear about money. When it comes to money things, we’re not supposed to be anxious. Don’t worry. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32 NASB 1995). That little verse is sandwiched before and after with money. Verses 22 and following are all about money: things, clothing, house, and whether you’re anxious about them. And then it’s followed by selling possessions and giving alms and laying up treasures in heaven instead of on the earth. So the first point of this little verse — this beautiful, magnificent promise verse — is don’t be anxious. Don’t be afraid.

Five Ways to Magnify God

But now there’s a deeper point in this verse. And the deeper point is that when you’re not afraid concerning money, you magnify five things about God, and that’s worship. When you’re not afraid or anxious or fearful about money, you magnify five things about God (in this one verse). And when you magnify God through not being afraid about money, you worship. Here are the five things. These are precious things that we want to magnify about God.

1. Magnify him as shepherd.

When we’re not afraid about money, we magnify God as our shepherd. “Fear not, little flock” (Luke 12:32). The word flock means we’ve got a shepherd, and we are sheep. And therefore, Psalm 23 kicks in: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want” (Psalm 23:1). That word is the old Elizabethan word for lack: “I shall not lack. I shall not be in want.” That is, if I have a shepherd like this, who loves to give me the kingdom, I will not lack for what I need. Therefore, if I believe that and thus exclude fear, I will magnify his shepherd-love.

2. Magnify him as Father.

If I do not fear concerning money, I show that I treasure God as my Father. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32 NASB 1995). So not only are we sheep who have a shepherd; we are children who have a Father. He’s multiplying images for us here to get rid of fear. Don’t be afraid — you are sheep who have a shepherd. Don’t be afraid — you are children who have a Father.

“Don’t be afraid — you are sheep who have a shepherd. Don’t be afraid — you are children who have a Father.”

Now, what does that imply? Well, verse 30, two verses earlier, makes plain what it implies. “All these things [eat, drink, wear, money] the nations of the world eagerly seek; but your Father knows that you need these things.” Now, he didn’t say that to mock us. He said that because, knowing that we need these things, he’ll work to provide what we need in order to magnify his Fatherhood. But now be careful. Do not come to God with an agenda defining for him what you need. Come to God and learn from him what you need. The word need today in America is so inflated that it scarcely has any meaning in a universal context anymore.

So, if we are fearless about money, we magnify him as shepherd, we magnify him as Father, and that is worship.

3. Magnify him as King.

If we’re not afraid concerning money, we show that we treasure God as our King. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32 NASB 1995). Who has right and authority to give us the kingdom? No peon disposes of the kingdom. The king disposes of the kingdom. And therefore, not only is he a shepherd loving us as sheep and our Father loving us as children; he is King ruling over us, providing for us, exerting sovereignty and power on our behalf as subjects against our enemies, including the lack of things we need. If we trust him as King and shepherd and Father, and thus overcome our fear of not having enough money, then we magnify him, and he is worshiped.

4. Magnify him as generous.

If we are fearless with regard to our money, we magnify him as free and generous. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32 NASB 1995). Not sell you the kingdom, not rent you the kingdom, not lease you the kingdom for payments — mortgage payments, rent payments, lease payments. He will give you the kingdom. He loves to give you the kingdom, which means he’s generous. And therefore, we let his shepherd-like, fatherly, kingly generosity work on our fear, our anxieties.

Now I’m talking a battle here. We’re not talking about something that happened yesterday and doesn’t happen tomorrow. We’re talking a weekly thing, a paycheck-by-paycheck thing, or unemployment check by unemployment check. We’re talking about a battle. The way we battle is by preaching to ourselves what I’m preaching right now. That’s the way I do it. It’s not automatic for John Piper to be fearless about money, though I get paid plenty. It isn’t automatic for me. It isn’t automatic for you.

We are battling fear and anxiety every day, not to mention greed. And we do it by saying, “He’s shepherd to me. He’s Father to me. He’s King to me.” And he’s not — as shepherd, Father, and King — folding his arms, standing off in the corner, saying, “Maybe you’ll get the kingdom. I’ll watch your performances.” That’s not the way he does it. Give, give, give, free, free, free is what the Lord does.

5. Magnify him as happy.

And when we overcome our fear and live free of fear, we magnify our God as happy in his giving. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32 NASB 1995). Or another version says, “it is [his] good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (NKJV) — or another version, “it pleases him” (NIV). He is pleased to give you the kingdom. He wants to do this. He is not selfish. Simony is not his virtue (or vice). He is a generous God.

Trust Your Providing God

So the first point of this message is to trust him as shepherd. Trust him as Father. Trust him as King. Trust his generosity. And trust the fact that it’s lavish because he loves to do it. Preach these things to yourself, and attack fear and anxiety in your life with these truths — so that when you overcome fear about money, God gets the glory as these five glorious things shine out of your life.

And if anyone asks you, “I know that you’re in financial straits, and yet at work you seem to be caring about others and happy. How is that?” Then you say, “Can I share five things with you about my God?” And he is worshiped.

Years ago, my husband and I met a retired sociologist in Ontario who had studied groups of immigrants now in Canada. He told us, “In all my research, I have never seen an ethnic group that has thrived as much as the Dutch Canadians. In general, they have multigenerational nuclear families and success in their work. They are contributing to their communities, and they are content.” When I asked him how he explained their thriving, he said, “It’s from their Protestant work ethic; their dedication to God, family, and church; and the blessing of the Lord.”

What is the Protestant work ethic? Max Weber coined the term in his 1904 book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. He stated that since the Reformation, Protestants have lived out their faith by diligently working in the vocation God has assigned to them. Weber believed Protestants worked efficiently and lived with discipline and frugality in order to give evidence of their salvation. Protestants themselves, however, would say they work to glorify, thank, and obey God.

But the so-called “Protestant work ethic” goes back further than 1904, or even John Calvin and the Reformation. It is really the biblical work ethic, and it goes back to creation.

Our Enduring Mandate

In paradise, Adam and Eve tended the garden of Eden. After the fall, sweat and pain entered the story. But even though some of our work is now burdensome, God gives blessings, joy, and fulfillment also. The creation mandate to be fruitful and multiply, to replenish and subdue the earth, and to exercise dominion over the earth still holds (Genesis 1:28).

Throughout most of human history, parents and children worked hard simply to survive, to have food on the table and a roof over their heads. It’s the same in much of the world today. But in the West, we have a more comfortable lifestyle; we have technology and machines that do many of our everyday tasks.

So, does this mean that we and our children can take it easy? No, the biblical work ethic still applies. God designed us to follow his pattern in working six days a week and resting one (Exodus 20:8–11). He still calls us to do whatever our hand finds to do with all our might (Ecclesiastes 9:10). He still says if we are able-bodied but don’t work, we shouldn’t eat (2 Thessalonians 3:10).

Teaching Our Children to Work

How do we as parents instill this biblical work ethic in our children? What might diligence look like in their lives? Let’s approach this task by answering the why, when, how, and what.

Why

First, why do we teach our children to work diligently? Because they too will be called to fulfill the creation mandate, and we are assigned to train them. We have approximately eighteen years to prepare them for adult life. It’s a gradual process that requires patience, repetition, wisdom, and prayer. Our goal is to equip them to provide for themselves and their family, and to contribute to the well-being of their community by loving and serving their neighbors, all to God’s glory. Then they will experience the by-product of a peaceful conscience and a sense of purpose and fulfillment.

When

Second, when do we start? Start very young with a few little tasks. Bless them such that they never remember a time that they did not work. Help them realize a big part of life is work, and that work is good. Fan the sense of excitement in very small children when they do what mommy and daddy do. So, involve them in the everyday tasks of running the household — running to get a diaper for mommy to change baby, picking up trash, loading and unloading the dishwasher. Buy toys that relate to work, like a toy lawn mower or kitchen. Ride that wave of excitement as it lasts, and then continue to require the work even when it’s not as fun.

That’s when they learn another lesson — perseverance. Remember, if they are able to toss their toys about like a tornado, then they are able to gather them into a bucket. Play is a huge part of childhood, and it’s valuable for learning about the world all around them, but between birth and adulthood, they learn to gradually decrease play-time and increase work-time. Sitting in front of a screen numbs them and stunts their mental growth, whereas creative play and work develop their minds.

How

Third, how do we accomplish this task? It’s not easy. Some children are naturally diligent, but most are inclined to resist at times. You can’t do it alone. Rely on God — find his wisdom in the Scriptures, especially in Proverbs, and pray for discernment and love. Pray for his guidance as you plan with your spouse. Decide what work is reasonable to expect from each child according to his or her age and ability. Set an example of diligence yourselves. Have the expectation firmly planted in your mind, “Our children will work,” and let your attitude and words convey this.

“Have the expectation firmly planted in your mind, ‘Our children will work.’”

Also have a plan in place to deal with resistance when it happens. Implement natural consequences, such as, “If you don’t put your dirty clothes in the hamper, they won’t get washed.” Then carry through with the warning. Stay calm, firm, and positive. Discipline your children when they are young so that they learn self-discipline as they grow up. Persevere; you are in this for the long haul. Remember, hard-working children, like Rome, are not built in a day.

What

Finally, what are some practical ways to instill a biblical work ethic in our children? The word together comes to mind. We are a family; we live, eat, work, play, and worship together. We serve each other. Working together is great “together time.” We have our little ones alongside us when we do dishes, take care of the yard, and clean the house. We teach them as we go.

At first it takes more time, because they are learning. Don’t expect perfection, but do expect effort and gradual improvement. If and when our children show the smallest shadow of defiance or disobedience, deal with it immediately. This is foundational for teaching children to work. And it’s foundational for life itself.

“We are a family; we live, eat, work, play, and worship together. Working together is great ‘together time.’”

Before long, the kids are contributing to the well-being of the family. When they are little, praise them and celebrate success, so they develop a positive attitude to work. As they grow older, continue to show age-appropriate affirmation and appreciation.

In Due Season

From my years of teaching and mothering, there are a handful of lessons and principles I would want to make sure our children learn. Many of these may take years to instill in them!

Teach them values as you teach them to work, such as honesty, purity, and humility (to name a few).
They need to take responsibility for their space and their stuff; tidiness and organization make life a lot less stressful.
Nurture perseverance so that they can approach a task involving multiple steps confidently, not getting overwhelmed.
Provide them with boring and repetitive tasks, because that’s just part of life.
Set goals. Picture the end product — a clean room, a repaired toaster, or a delicious meal.
Give them a variety of experiences in different subjects — mechanics, science, gardening, art — so they can learn life skills and find their talents. Teach them to love learning.
Instill confidence to overcome obstacles. Teach them that failure can be used for good when they learn from their mistakes. Encourage them by saying, “You can do this!” Celebrate successes.
Nurture excitement to start a new project or build something. Then make sure they finish.
Pay them for some of their work (except for the work expected of family). Then teach them how to tithe, save, and spend their money, so they understand, “No effort equals no pay. Extra effort equals extra pay.”
Provide the joy of service — of giving to others with no expectation of a reward, of helping someone in need.

As a final reminder, the work of salvation is one type of work that neither parents nor children can do. But the good news of the gospel is that Jesus Christ died for sinners like us, so that we can be saved. Pray for the Holy Spirit to work faith and repentance in all of our lives, either for the first time or afresh. Then we can truly enjoy our work. We will see it as the gift of God. We get great joy from glorifying him. And in due season, we and our children can enjoy the fruit of our labors and rest with peace in our hearts.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15553544/how-does-israel-fill-up-their-sins

Audio Transcript

We have a big week ahead because today we launch week number five hundred on the podcast. That is incredible. That’s a lot of sustaining grace, and not possible without you. So thanks for your prayers, support, questions, and listens. We don’t take any of this for granted. Thanks for listening while you wait in airport terminals, ride in subways, do your daily mundane chores (dishes, laundry, walking the dog), drive to work, or shuffle your kids around town, or even listen through your iPhone speakers at the end of your day. However and whenever you listen, thank you for making this podcast a part of your busy life — now for five hundred weeks.

We begin week number five hundred with a question from a listener named Joe. “Pastor John, hello and thank you for this podcast. What would you say is the difference between the kind of love that is produced in the Christian’s heart for others through the new birth (1 John 4:7; 1 Peter 1:22–23), compared to the charitable and often self-sacrificial love that we often see demonstrated in the world among non-Christians? How would you explain this difference?”

The difference between secular love and Christian love is that secular love is not rooted in the cross of God’s Son, and is not sustained and shaped by the power of God’s Spirit, and is not acted for the glory of God the Father. So the source of it is different, the sustaining power of it is different, and the goal of it is different. Let’s think about each of these one at a time and see if we can fill it out.

Rooted in the Cross

First, there’s a different source of these two loves. First John 4:19 says, “We love because he first loved us.” And how did he first love us? Well, John says in 1 John 3:16, “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” So, Christian love is rooted in Christ’s sacrifice for me and for you.

By this our sins are forgiven. We’re justified, accepted, and loved by God. We have the hope that everything in life will work together for our good and bring us to everlasting joy, so that fear and greed, the great barriers to love, are taken away as we trust what God is for us in Christ. When Paul calls Christians to have compassion in Colossians 3:12, he prefaces that command with three identifiers of who we are. He says, “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts.”

Now, this is the root of the source of compassion. God chose me. God consecrated me — made me holy, set me apart for himself. God loves me. And all of this is provided for us because of Christ’s death in our place. There is no other way. That death for us provided the hope from which love flows. Colossians 1:4 says, “We heard . . . of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.” That hope is purchased by Jesus on the cross.

Christ’s death also provided the joy from which love flows. Second Corinthians 8:2 says, “In a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.” In other words, joy overflows in love. Christian love is the overflow of joy in God that meets the needs of others, and that joy is a blood-bought joy from the death of Jesus.

So, the first difference between secular love and Christian love is that our love is rooted in and is the overflow of the work of Christ and its effects in our lives.

Shaped by the Spirit

Second, Christian love is sustained and shaped by the work of God’s Spirit, where secular love isn’t. Paul calls it the “fruit of the Spirit” in Galatians 5:22. It is the Spirit that takes the death of Christ, causes it to be real for us, and gives us new hearts so that the death of Christ has a love-producing effect on us. First John 3:14 says, “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.” Love in our lives is the evidence that the Spirit of God has brought us from death to life.

“Love in our lives is the evidence that the Spirit of God has brought us from death to life.”

The Spirit not only gives us life at the beginning of our Christian walk (in the new birth), but he sustains our faith and life as we go along, moment by moment depending on his power so that we can make the sacrifices necessary that love demands. It’s the Holy Spirit that sustains our faith so that we can continually lay hold of the promises of God for hope, for joy that frees us for love.

We could go on and on about how the Spirit forms and sustains our capacities to love by overcoming the great love killers of fear and greed and selfishness; by directing our hearts over and over again to the truth of God’s commands and promises, where we get the wisdom and boldness we need to love; and by humbling our pride so that we don’t need to be somebody, and instead, we can take thought for the interests of others and not just our own — and on and on. The work of the Spirit sustains and shapes Christian love, but not the love of the world.

Aimed at Glory

Third and finally, Christian love has a different goal — not an entirely different goal, but a radically different goal. It’s not entirely different from the unbeliever who loves. It’s not entirely different because secular love often aims at the physical and emotional and psychological and relational and economic well-being of other people. And Christians care about these things. There’s overlap. But when Christians ask, “What is good for people in all those areas — what’s really good?” the answer is always essentially different from the answer of secular people, because for Christians what’s good for human beings is always defined so as to include their relationship to God in Christ.

What is good for people is that they trust Christ, depend on his Spirit, walk in obedience, and live for the glory of God. Therefore, when Christians talk about seeking the physical good of a person, for example, we do so in the hope that they will experience this physical good as a gift of God and receive it in the name of Jesus and rely on the Holy Spirit to use it for his glory. If all those Godward dimensions are missing, our love is falling short of its goal, and we grieve.

“Christian love is keenly aware that life on earth is a vapor followed by an eternity.”

Christian love is keenly aware that life on earth is a vapor followed by an eternity either of exquisite happiness in the presence of God or eternal suffering cut off from his presence. And therefore, Christians care about all suffering, but especially eternal suffering. The Bible tells us to do everything to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31), so we should love people for the glory of God.

Love That Enthralls

And when someone asks, “Is it truly love for a person if we are motivated by the hope that God will be glorified through our love for this person?” I know people ask that question. I’ve heard it recently. And the answer is yes, it is love — the greatest love.

The reason the answer is yes — it is love when you love someone in order that God would be glorified — goes like this: Love is doing whatever it takes to enthrall the beloved with the greatest and longest happiness, even if it costs you your life. And what will enthrall the beloved with the greatest and longest happiness is the glory of God — all that God is for them in Jesus. Therefore, love for people means doing all we can at whatever cost to ourselves — like Jesus did — to help people be enthralled with the glory of God now and forever.

When they are enthralled with all that God is for them in Jesus, then they are satisfied fully and forever, and God is glorified in their being satisfied in him. That’s what makes us tick at Desiring God — this glorious, profound biblical insight. Therefore, loving people and glorifying God are not alternatives. They’re not at odds. They are profoundly one thing.

So, in those three ways, Christian love is different from secular love. They have a different source (the death and resurrection of Christ), a different sustaining power (the work of the Holy Spirit), and a different goal (full and everlasting joy in God).

Many of the most common troubles in the Christian life come from relating to God as if he were like us — as if his kindness were as slight as our kindness, his forgiveness as reluctant as our forgiveness, his patience as fleeting as our patience. Under impressions such as these, we walk uneasily through the Christian life, insecurity rumbling like distant thunder.

John Owen (1616–1683) goes so far as to say,

Want of a due consideration of him with whom we have to do, measuring him by that line of our own imaginations, bringing him down unto our thoughts and our ways, is the cause of all our disquietments. (Works of John Owen, 6:500)

If we were God in heaven, we would have grown impatient with people like us long ago. Our anger rises quickly in the face of personal offense. Our frustration boils over. Our judgments readily fire. And apart from the daily renewal of our minds, we can easily measure God “by that line of our own imaginations,” as if his thoughts matched our thoughts, and his ways our ways.

Thank God, they do not. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9). Our human nature has no ruler to measure God’s goodness; our natural imaginations cannot grasp his heights. His kindness is not like our kindness, his forgiveness not like our forgiveness — and his patience not like our patience.

‘Slow to Anger’

The God we meet in Scripture is a relentlessly patient God. He usually accomplishes his plans along the winding path. He fulfills his promises without haste. He compares his kingdom to a mustard seed.

The greatest displays of God’s patience, however, appear in response to our sin. “God is patient” means not mainly that God waits a long time, but that God shows longsuffering kindness to sinners (Romans 2:4). As God declares to Moses on Mount Sinai, he is not just “slow,” but “slow to anger” (Exodus 34:6).

Consider the context of that famous declaration. Israel has just left slavery, redeemed by God’s mighty hand. They have watched the Red Sea swallow Egypt’s army. They have stood before a mountain wrapped in smoke and lightning, the entourage of the Almighty. They have been covered by the blood of the covenant. And then, in some of their first moments of freedom, they exchange the glory of the living God for a cow (Exodus 32:1–6).

Judgment follows (Exodus 32:25–29, 35) — striking yet restrained, tempered by a mysterious mercy. God does not destroy them; he does not forsake them. Instead, he reveals his glorious, incomparable name, like an unexpected dawn in an all-black sky:

The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. (Exodus 34:6)

Why does full judgment tarry and mercy beckon? Because, unlike us, God is “slow to anger.” His wrath visits the unrepentant (Exodus 34:7), but only after taking the slow path. Meanwhile, his mercy stands ready to run.

Here on the slopes of Mount Sinai began a song that would be sung by Israel’s prophets and psalmists, sages and kings, even under the nation’s darkest nights (Nehemiah 9:17; Psalm 86:15; Joel 2:13). The living God is a patient God. And in the shadow of his patience we find hope.

Patience Toward His Enemies

God’s patience, like his love, has special significance for his chosen people — the slow-to-anger God of Exodus 34:6 is none other than “the Lord,” Yahweh, the God Israel knows by covenant (Exodus 3:13–15). And yet, amazingly, the record of God’s dealings in Scripture reveals a marked slowness to anger not only toward his covenant people, but toward those who hate and oppose him.

The most forceful examples of God’s wrath, for instance, begin as examples of his patience. The flood waters swallowed the earth only after “God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared” (1 Peter 3:20). God lingered for four generations before cleansing Canaan of its idolatry, for, he told Abraham, “the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete” (Genesis 15:16). And nine warning plagues fell on Egypt before the devastating blow to the firstborn (Exodus 11:4–8).

God’s wrath may be “quickly kindled” when the time for judgment comes (Psalm 2:12), but until then, he warns and invites (Psalm 2:10–11). God’s patience toward his enemies extends so far, Owen observes, that his people sometimes cry out, perplexed, “How long before you will judge?” (Revelation 6:10; Psalm 94:3). And still he patiently waits.

God, the patient potter, bears with the rebellious clay of his creation. He endures vessels of wrath with “much patience” (Romans 9:22), Paul tells us. How much more, then, does he deal patiently with vessels of mercy?

Patience Toward His People

When Paul rehearsed his testimony to Timothy, he framed it as a story of God’s patience:

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. (1 Timothy 1:15–16)

God saved this “blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent” (1 Timothy 1:13) so that no humble, broken sinner would think he’s out-sinned the patience of God. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus is patient toward his people — perfectly patient. As patient as the prodigal’s father, waiting on the porch (Luke 15:20).

Nor does his patience end when former rebels like us heed his summons and become his sons. As Israel’s faithful celebrated again and again, God not only “was” slow to anger; he “is” slow to anger (Psalm 103:8). His patience, like his love, endures forever (Psalm 136). To what else can we ascribe his ongoing kindness, his every-morning mercies, his present help, and his ready forgiveness, through all the fluctuations of our souls? Today and every day, “He does not deal with us according to our sins” (Psalm 103:10), but according to his great patience.

“In Christ, your life tells a story of divine patience.”

In Christ, your life, like Paul’s, tells a story of divine patience. God was patient with you as you wandered from him — scorning his Son, treasuring sin, scarcely giving him or his gospel a thought. He is patient with you now, as you daily find need for forgiveness. And he will be patient with you tomorrow, and the next day, and until the day of Jesus Christ, when he finally finishes the good work he’s begun (Philippians 1:6).

And why? Because, some several centuries after Moses, God once again revealed his slow-to-anger name. This time in flesh and blood.

Patience Supreme

In Jesus, the God-man, the song of God’s slowness to anger swells to its crescendo.

Jesus’s ministry was one of patience, for to be with us was to bear with us (Luke 9:41). He lived here as light among darkness, sinlessness among sin, the straight among the crooked — as the unrivaled prince of patience. We occasionally see the pain of his patience, as when he says, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?” (Matthew 17:17). But he mostly kept the cost hidden, pouring out his soul to his Father (Luke 5:16), and receiving from his Father the patience needed as his enemies slandered him, his neighbors rejected him, his disciples misunderstood him, and the crowds tried to use him.

And thus he also died. Though twelve legions of angels stood ready for his summons (Matthew 26:53), he never called. Instead, Patience incarnate took the lashes, the thorns, the nails, allowing his creatures to mock him with the breath he gave, all while pleading for their forgiveness (Luke 23:34).

In the cross of Jesus, we see not only that God is patient, but how God can be so patient. How could he, “in his divine forbearance,” pass over former sins (Romans 3:25) — and how can he, in his divine forbearance, continue to show us mercy? Because the patience of God, in the person of Christ, purchased our forgiveness (Romans 3:23–24). God’s patience rests on the passion of his Son. And therefore, his patience will last as long as our resurrected Christ pleads the merits of his blood (Hebrews 7:25) — which is to say, forever.

Let Us Return

English pastor Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667) once prayed, “Teach me . . . to read my duty in the lines of your mercy.” And what duty do we read in the lines of God’s merciful patience? In the words of Isaiah, “Return to the Lord” (Isaiah 55:7).

“Whoever and wherever we are, God’s patience invites our repentance.”

The patience of God is a beckoning hand, an open door, a pathway home. It comes to us as Jesus came to Matthew at the tax booth: not to condemn us, and not to comfort us in our sins either, but rather to turn us again to “seek the Lord while he may be found” (Isaiah 55:6), whether after a miserable lapse or simply a regrettable moment. Whoever and wherever we are, God’s patience invites our repentance.

And what do we find when we return to him, confessing and forsaking our sins? We find a Father running to meet us (Luke 15:20). We find a Savior who has already been knocking (Revelation 3:20). We find a God who abundantly pardons and plentifully redeems (Isaiah 55:7; Psalm 130:7). We find a Lord whose patience is perfect (1 Timothy 1:16).

One day, we will stumble and sin no more; the good work begun at our conversion finally will be complete (Philippians 1:6). But until then, the patience of God is not bound to the measure of our weak imaginations. It is not the pinched, passing, shallow patience we so commonly find among men, and within ourselves. His patience, like his peace, surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7). Return to him, then, now and forever, and in returning find rest.

The people of Israel had been enslaved for hundreds of years in Egypt. The time for their deliverance had come, and God sent Moses to lead the people out of Egypt after ten devastating plagues and by a mighty defeat of Pharaoh at the crossing of the Red Sea. They camped first at Marah. From Marah they moved to Elim. From Elim to Dophkah. From Dophkah to Alush. And from Alush to Rephidim (Numbers 33:8–15), where we meet them in this text.

According to Exodus 16:1, they entered this region only six weeks after their deliverance. It is as though everyone in this room had seen God divide the Red Sea with your own eyes on May 1, 2022. This generation of Israel in just the last months had seen some of the greatest miracles in the history of the world.

There are four scenes in Exodus 17:1–7. Every one of them is brimming with implications for your life. As we read the text, I’ll pause after each scene to see if we can summarize its main point.

Scene 1: A Waterless Camp

All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin [pronounced “seen,” a transliteration of the Hebrew proper name Siyn, with no reference to what we mean by “sin”] by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. (Exodus 17:1)

Main point: God led his people to a campsite with no water.

This was his plan. He led them there. You can see this in middle of verse 1: they moved “by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim” (Exodus 17:1). “By stages” means that there were two other stages between the wilderness of Sin and Rephidim (Dophkah and Alush). Moses makes no mention of them here because he has one point to make: God is commanding the movements of Israel (pillar of cloud by day, pillar of fire by night, Nehemiah 9:19), and his command brings them to Rephidim, which has significance for one reason in this story: there is no water to drink.

If you are a Christian, this is your life. God “works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11). “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that” (James 4:15). “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases” (Psalm 115:3). Hundreds of you came to this conference encamped at Rephidim — where there is no water. As far you can see it’s wilderness in every direction and, from a merely human standpoint, your circumstances are going to end badly. There is no human way out. And this text says: You are not there by accident. Your ways are ordered by the Lord (Proverbs 20:24). And one of the purposes of these seven verses, and this sermon, is to help you see and feel why that is good news.

So, the main point of Scene 1 is: God has led his people to a campsite with no water.

Scene 2: An Angry Protest

Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, ‘Give us water to drink.’ And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?’ But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” (Exodus 17:2–3)

Main point: God’s people did not trust that God’s providence is good, but accused Moses and God of harmful purposes.

In verse 2, the people take issue with Moses. Whatever is happening here — whatever it is — is not happening fast enough, and so they demand water. “Give us water to drink!” In essence Moses responds, “Your quarrel is out of place. It’s not a quarrel with me. When you quarrel with me you are trying God’s patience.” “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” (Exodus 17:2).

“Story after story after story in the Bible, including this one, is God’s roar from heaven: ‘Trust me.’”

Then in verse 3, we hear the heart of the indictment. They don’t ask, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt?” They ask, “Why did you bring us out to kill us and our children?” They aren’t questioning God’s timing. They are questioning his goodness. They aren’t saying that God is incompetent to give them water. They’re saying he doesn’t intend to. His purposes aren’t saving. They are murderous.

When Moses says, in verse 2, “Why do you test the Lord?” there’s a warning in those words. Don’t try God’s patience. It runs out for people who don’t trust him, who despise his ways. We know how the story of this generation ends.

None of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test [tried my patience] these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it. (Numbers 14:22–23)

We may not understand all the reasons why God chooses a waterless encampment for us. But story after story after story in the Bible, including this one, is God’s roar from heaven: “Trust me. Trust me.” They didn’t. That’s Scene 2.

Scene 3: A Life-Giving Presence

So Moses cried to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” And the Lord said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. (Exodus 17:4–6)

Main point: God’s life-giving presence toward absolutely undeserving people goes on. His patience has not run out. Not yet.

What is God’s answer to Moses’s question in verse 4, “What shall I do with this people they are almost ready to stone me”? His answer is, “I’m going to give them water to drink.” But to make it as amazing as possible, he describes four ways that this miracle of life-giving grace comes about.

First, the miracle will be public. “Pass on before the people” (Exodus 17:5). They indicted us in public. We will be vindicated in public, “before the people.”

Second, it will be well attested by the elders. “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel” (Exodus 17:5). This will become part of what they know and teach and how they judge the people.

Third, this miracle will be seen as a continuation of the miracles of the ten plagues in Egypt. “. . . and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go” (Exodus 17:5). Moses only struck the Nile once with his staff. “In the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants he lifted up the staff and struck the water in the Nile, and all the water in the Nile turned into blood” (Exodus 7:20). In other words, “With this staff I turned water into blood. Today I will turn a rock into water.” Same staff. Same power. Same God. Same grace. True then. True today in your waterless wilderness.

Lastly, this miracle of life-giving grace will come about by the Lord’s presence. This is best of all. This is most wonderful. “Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink” (Exodus 17:6). “I will stand before you on the rock.”

“God says ‘My presence is your life. I brought you out of Egypt to myself. You think you need water? You need me.’”

He might have said, “I’m done with this rebellious people” and withdrawn his presence. But he didn’t. And he might have said, “I will not defile my presence with this sinful people anymore. I will go to the top of mount Horeb and unleash my lightning bolt, and strike this rock and bring water from the depths of the earth.” But he didn’t do that either. He said, “When you strike the rock, I will be standing on the rock.”

Why would he do that? Because what the people need more than water is the presence of God. The steadfast love of the Lord is better than life (Psalm 63:3). What, after all, has been the point of God choosing the people of Israel, making a covenant with her, leading her down to Egypt, bringing her out by a mighty hand, and taking her out into the wilderness? Here’s the way God says it in Exodus 19:4–5:

You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples. (Exodus 19:4–5)

He is saying, “I am taking my stand on the rock that will give you life, because my presence is your life. I brought you out of Egypt to myself. You think you need water? You need me.”

So the main point of Scene 3 is: God’s life-giving presence toward undeserving people goes on. His patience has not run out.

Scene 4: A Memorial of Failure

And he [Moses] called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?” (Exodus 17:7)

Main point: Moses memorializes their failure to believe in God’s saving presence.

The story does not have a happy ending. There is no repentance. There is no awakened faith. There’s not even any water, just a promise of water. “The people will drink” (Exodus 17:6). No doubt the water came. God keeps his word. But Moses means for the story to end on a note of failure: Israel’s failure, not God’s.

Moses doesn’t name the place “Grace abounding,” or “Water from the Rock,” or “God is faithful.” He names it Massah and Meribah. Massah means “testing.” Meribah means “quarreling.” Then he makes the meaning explicit: “. . . because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord” (Exodus 17:7).

Scene 4 harks back to Scene 2 where Moses said, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” (Exodus 17:2) And that’s where the story ends — memorializing Israel’s quarreling and testing — almost. Moses has one final indictment at the end of verse 7. He means for us to see the greatest failure in the light of the greatest gift. So verse 7 ends, “They tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not” (Exodus 17:7). God had said, “I will stand before you on the rock” (Exodus 17:6). The people said, “We don’t even know if he’s here or if he intends to kill us.”

Don’t Harden Your Heart

So, we step back now and ask, “What is Moses’s aim — God’s aim — in telling us this story?” The way Moses tells the story, failure is foregrounded. The story begins and ends with Israel quarreling with Moses and testing God. It begins and ends with unbelief. They don’t trust God. They harden their hearts against him. “God brought us into this waterless encampment and he doesn’t intend to be here for us.” And the trumpet blast of this text, echoing throughout the Bible and today, is: Don’t be like that.

“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work” (Psalm 95:7–9).

“Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years’” (Hebrews 3:7–9).

“[They] all ate the same spiritual food [manna], and all drank the same spiritual drink. . . . Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. . . . We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did. . . . Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction. . . . Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:3–12).

In other words, this failure of Israel to trust God in the wilderness reverberates through the whole Bible. And the message is: “When God brings you into a waterless encampment, and you see wilderness stretching in every direction with no way out, don’t be like Israel! Trust him. Trust him. He brought you into the wilderness. He can bring you out. He led you to Rephidim where there is no water. There’s only a dry rock. And he will take his stand on the rock and be your life.”

Will he? Even in 2022?

Confidence for Waterless Campsites

For many of us, the great obstacle to joyful confidence in the waterless wilderness is not that God can’t save us, but the question, “Will he?” And the great obstacle to believing that he will is our sin. How can God be a just and holy God, and do what he did in Scene 3?

Surrounded by a thankless people who say that God brought them out of Egypt to kill them, God says, “Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock . . . and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink” (Exodus 17:6). How can God be righteous and act as though the despising of his name had so little consequence? Our very hearts cry out, “I have scorned the name of the Lord, in all my doubting and all my unbelief and all my despairing in my wilderness. Will God not simply join me in the belittling of his name by sweeping my sins under the rug of the universe? How can I ever be saved — how could they ever be saved — by a righteous and holy God?”

In the mind of the apostle Paul, there was no greater problem facing humankind. How can God uphold the righteousness of his name while showing mercy to God-belittling, God-despising sinners? How is Scene 3 in this passage even conceivable? God offering himself as our life while surrounded by the outrage of people indicting him as evil?

Paul has an answer to this greatest of all moral problems. I’ll read it you from Romans 3:25:

God put [Christ] forward as a propitiation (a satisfaction of God’s justice) by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

Thunderclap of Justice and Mercy

When God passed over the sins of Scene 2 and Scene 4 and poured out mercy on sinners in Scene 3, was he unrighteous? Was he belittling his own name? Was he taking his holiness lightly? No. Because he knew what he would do in 1,400 years to vindicate his righteousness.

“The death of Jesus is a thunderclap of this truth: No sin is ever merely passed over! Ever.”

The death of Jesus is a thunderclap of this truth: No sin is ever merely passed over! Ever. It will be paid for in hell. Or it was paid for on the cross. No quarreling with God’s word, no testing of God’s patience, ever goes unpunished. Ever. God’s righteousness is absolute. And the unspeakable mercy of Scene 3 (Exodus 17:6) is owing directly to the blood of Jesus. “[The blood of the Son of God] was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins” (Romans 3:25).

Every undeserved blessing shown to God’s elect in the Old Testament was bought by the blood of Jesus. When Paul made that strange statement in 1 Corinthians 10:4 about Israel in the wilderness, “They drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:4), this is what I think he meant:

The undeserved blessing of water from the rock, the undeserved blessing of manna from heaven, the undeserved blessing of deliverance at the Red Sea, the undeserved blessing of guidance day and night in the wilderness are all owing to cross of Christ. How right it is, then, to say, the rock was Christ, the manna was Christ, the deliverance was Christ, the pillars of guidance were Christ, because God’s guilty people could enjoy none of that without the blood of Christ.

And so it is for you who are in Christ. You who despair of your sinful selves and know that God owes you nothing. So it is for you. Every undeserved blessing you will ever receive is owing to the death of Christ. “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). Not just he can give us all things, but he will. He will. He will give us everything we need to do his will, and glorify his name, and make it home.

When he leads you into the waterless encampment of Rephidim, and there is no human hope, trust him. “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). Everything you need has been purchased, above all, himself, for your enjoyment now and forever (1 Peter 3:18).