Job’s counselors mistakenly thought they could discern the purposes of God in Job’s experience. Their errant conclusions led to erroneous counsel. If nothing else, the book of Job reminds us that the ways of God in any given situation are largely inscrutable. As the Lord shows Job when He appears in the whirlwind, our minds cannot put together all the pieces of the puzzle of God’s providential workings in this world. That is why we, like Job, must respond with humility and trust.

One pearl of wisdom from my father is indelibly imprinted in my memory. “Son,” he said, “I can’t change mistakes I’ve made in life, but there’s no reason for you to repeat them. If you learn nothing else from me, learn from my mistakes.” Those words come to mind when reflecting on the failure of Job’s friends.
Upon hearing of the calamities that crushed Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar traveled from their respective towns “to sympathize with him and comfort him” (Job 2:11). After silently mourning for seven days with Job, they spoke and things took an unfortunate turn. Job’s assessment of their counsel was blunt: “Miserable comforters are you all!” (Job 16:2). He then dismissed them with withering words: “So how dare you give me empty comfort? For your answers remain nothing but falsehood!” (Job 21:34).
How did things go south so quickly? How could these men turn on their friend they intended to comfort? These friends of Job made four key errors—mistakes we should strive to avoid.

They lost track of their purpose.

This trio came with generous empathy for their suffering friend. Horrified at the initial sight of Job, they sat with him in silence for seven days. Watching him scrape his boils with potsherd and hearing his moans through sleepless nights must have been unnerving. Understandably, they were haunted by a question: Why? Why was this righteous man suffering severely? So, they sought to understand the reason behind it all. They lost themselves in their own heads and failed to remember why they were there. Ultimately, their illogical reasoning turned them from compassionate companions to aggressive accusers.
Sitting with sufferers is hard. If we are not careful, we can forget our role and bring added hurt rather than help. Job did not need theological debate, he needed comfort. His friends failed him because they lost track of their purpose for being there.
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Reeves argues that there are multiple types of fear. First, natural fear is the fear of pain, accidents, and death. These are the result of the fall, but they are not sinful in themselves. A second form of fear he calls “Sinful Fear,” which gets its name because it derives from our sin. We fear God as judge because we know we are guilty before Him. Finally, there is the fear of the Lord (I will call it Righteous Fear, though Reeves simply calls it “Fear of the Lord”), which is the center of discussion later in the book.

Books don’t often make grown men cry with joy, but I have heard that Reeves’s book on the Trinity (Delighting in the Trinity) has done so. That book is still on my reading list, but when I heard Reeves recently wrote a book on the Fear of the Lord, I knew I had to read it. I read it to get exposure to Reeves’s work, but I also read it because I am fascinated by the topic of the Fear of the Lord.
Reeves begins with a great question: Is fear good or bad? On the one hand, Jesus came to deliver us from fear (Lk. 1:74–75; Heb. 2:15); on the other, we are called to fear God (Prov. 1:7; Ps. 86:11; etc.). Reeves’s book is designed to “cut through this discouraging confusion” (16). His goal is that readers would be able to “rejoice in this strange paradox that the gospel both frees us from fear and gives us fear. It frees us from our crippling fears, giving us instead a most delightful, happy, and wonderful fear” (16).
Setting us Free from Fear
Reeves argues that there are multiple types of fear. First, natural fear is the fear of pain, accidents, and death. These are the result of the fall, but they are not sinful in themselves. A second form of fear he calls “Sinful Fear,” which gets its name because it derives from our sin. We fear God as judge because we know we are guilty before Him. Finally, there is the fear of the Lord (I will call it Righteous Fear, though Reeves simply calls it “Fear of the Lord”), which is the center of discussion later in the book.
Despite living in times where safety is undeniably greater than at any point in world history, many people live in perpetual fear. Anxiety is rampant. Reeves argues that “the loss of the fear of God is what ushered in our modern age of anxiety, but the fear of God is the very antidote to our fretfulness” (24).
Fear does not merely derive from uncertainty though; it sometimes derives from certainty—the certainty that God is holy and we are not. This realization, present in all humans, contributes to a Sinful Fear that leads men to flee from God. They hate His holiness, and they fear the life of holiness he would bring in their lives. Further, they know He will judge, and they know they will be guilty.
Sinful Fear is the natural state of man before God. The fanning of such fear is the grace of God, awakening the sinner to the reality of his predicament. As the old hymn says, grace teaches the heart to fear, and only then can grace that fear relieve.
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Written by T. M. Suffield |
Sunday, September 19, 2021
The days in the Old Testament seem to be backwards. Of course, I’m sure we can all grasp that they count time differently, so it’s not wrong but different. Except, I would like to contend that the Old Testament’s way of counting days is instructive to us. Honestly, it’s also better. The day starts in the evening as the Sun sets and then continues into the daytime after the night, ending at sunset the subsequent evening. Think, perhaps, of the Jewish observation of the Sabbath to see this in practice: beginning on Friday evening and following through to Saturday evening.

Have you ever noticed that in Genesis chapter one, the days are the wrong way around?
When I say the wrong way around, I mean backwards to what we expect, and before you rush off to compare the order of creation and question whether it means anything meaningful that the sun and moon come so late (it does, but that’s not our topic today), look at each day.
They’re backwards.
“And there was evening and there was morning, the first day” and each day thereafter. Evening, then morning. That’s backwards. We all know that days start in the morning, unless we’re pedantic enough to insist that they start in the middle of night. If we are that pedant, we are a prime example of what happens when you give a scientist a poet’s job, or when we let people learn the natural sciences before they’re thoroughly grounded in real subjects, like poetry.
But the destructive results of carving the day into twenty-four sections and thinking we’ve done something clever aside, the days in the Old Testament seem to be backwards.
Of course, I’m sure we can all grasp that they count time differently, so it’s not wrong but different. Except, I would like to contend that the Old Testament’s way of counting days is instructive to us. Honestly, it’s also better.
The day starts in the evening as the Sun sets and then continues into the daytime after the night, ending at sunset the subsequent evening. Think, perhaps, of the Jewish observation of the Sabbath to see this in practice: beginning on Friday evening and following through to Saturday evening.
Ok, they count days differently, so what?
Little things like this shape the way we see the world. They subconsciously tell us stories. Day, followed by night tells us a story: we have limited time to work, then our death will come. Make the most of your days in the sun while you can, for they are brief. The best comes at the beginning, the worst at the end: or in other words, youth is better than old age. This is as good as it will get, or nearly, once you hit a peak it’s downhill from there. There is nothing to hope for, for the Sun is dying, slowly, inexorably, and we will perish with it. We are brief. Life is short.
This is the liturgy of the hours, day, then night. It is a story of swelling sadness, of endings, and of the death of God. Everything that is good withers and perishes.
You might think that you are not affected by this, but you are, we all are. The smallest of things done day after day will shape the way we see the world.
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There in the Bible, God Himself gives us the good news of salvation freely offered to sinners. He tells us of the way to escape from perishing in the fires and misery of Hell. He tells us the true way, the only way, the free way, and it is Himself. All who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ alone for salvation will be saved. They will not perish but have everlasting life. Though they die, they shall be with Christ in paradise and will rise again to glory at the last day. Today is a day of good news because that salvation is still offered to all the world.

“Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news, and we remain silent. If we wait until morning light, some punishment will come upon us. Now therefore, come, let us go and tell the king’s household.” So they went and called to the gatekeepers of the city, and told them, saying, “We went to the Syrian camp, and surprisingly no one was there, not a human sound—only horses and donkeys tied, and the tents intact.” And the gatekeepers called out, and they told it to the king’s household inside.”
II Kings 7:9-11 NKJV
What if today you discovered a perfect cure to the Covid-19 virus? You wouldn’t keep the news to yourself but after telling your friends and family you would quickly tell it to all who would listen. For all who heard and acted on the cure it would be a day of great news! In our text today, the cure for Samaria’s deadly plight of starvation was not an imagination but a reality.
At first, the outcast lepers kept the news of Syria’s flight secret. They hid some treasures for themselves. However, they soon realized they were not doing what was good and must share the good news of the day with the King and all of Samaria. They went back to the city with the news. Samaria had been delivered. Life was coming to those who were near death from starvation. It was a day of great news to be told to all who would hear.
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Written by R.C. Sproul |
Saturday, September 18, 2021
God loves to answer questions—the “stupider” the better—because He loves for us to have the ultimate truth we need to complete the sentence “I believe . . . ” He never loses patience with a question, and neither do people who are serving Him. If you take a question to more mature Christians, those who really are men or women of God, you likely will find they don’t think it is so dumb. Maybe they used to struggle with the same thing. Maybe they still do.

Sometimes it is less important to have the right answers than to have the right questions. A man named Saul thought he did not need to ask any questions. He had all the answers. The most important question, according to Saul, was “How can I be good enough for God?” He thought he had that answer down cold.
The only problem was, he was wrong. American humorist Will Rogers could have told Saul, “It’s not what you don’t know that will get you in trouble, but what you know for certain that just ain’t so.” Saul’s problem lay in the question “How can I be good enough?”
The answer, of course, is that he couldn’t. But he didn’t understand the holiness of God. No one who is separated from God understands His holiness. To tell you the truth, not many Christians do either.
Saul had never asked the right questions. I think non-Christians often don’t ask religious questions because down deep inside they have a sneaking suspicion of what the answers might be, and they don’t like them. But Christians also are afraid of questions for the same reason, so they get into trouble. Or they are afraid other Christians will call them “doubters” if they are overhead asking the wrong question. They don’t want to seem unspiritual or stupid. They also may be afraid God will lose patience with them.
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We are sheep and Satan wants to destroy us, so we are wise to be shepherded by godly leaders who care for our souls (Peter’s emphasis in the first five verses of 1 Peter chapter 5). We are wise to be in community. The posture of “I will love Jesus but not the church” is absent in Scripture. We need community because of the suffering in this world and because of Satan’s prowling. We need encouragement, prayer, support, and love from the community of faith.

Our dog Roscoe sometimes wanders away from home, but thankfully he is smart enough to come back home or even smarter to go to Brian and Marianna’s home – friends of ours who live on the next street. Roscoe likely prefers their home to ours because when they watch him for sometimes, they feed him bison as opposed to the boring dog food we feed him. Dogs are smart. When we compare ourselves to animals, we sometimes compare ourselves to dogs because we like to think of ourselves as smart. More than a dozen division one universities have bulldogs as their mascots. We even call ourselves dogs (What’s up dawg? Where my dawgs at?) We don’t affectionally call each other sheep and there are no universities with the fighting sheep as their mascot. Yet the Bible compares us to sheep. The Bible calls us sheep not to devalue us, but to remind us that we cannot get back home on our own. We need Jesus, the Chief Shepherd, to bring us back to the Father.
As the apostle Peter closes his first letter, he reminds us that we are sheep in the flock of God. And because we are sheep we should resist the devil and run to being shepherded, in being cared for in community. While the Scripture encourages us to resist Satan and run to being shepherded, in our foolishness we are prone to the opposite – to resist shepherding and run to evil.
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We need to remember, God is on the throne. Although individuals make decisions to sin and create times of suffering in others’ lives, we can know that God’s plan includes these things. Friends, that means it will be ok. These events fit in God’s overall plan that ends with the return of Christ, His eternal kingdom, and living with Him forever.

Over the past few weeks, headlines from home and around the world weigh heavily on all of us. Last weekend I read an article shared by a friend that encouraged pastors to help with fear and anxiety over the pandemic. Just yesterday, a man asked me to please help remind everyone about God’s place in the world. I agree. You may need to hear this as much as your neighbor: Great News! God is on the Throne!
The Royal Standard

One of the most famous signs to look for over Buckingham Palace or any of the Royal Residences of the Queen of England is the Royal Standard of the United Kingdom, also known as the banners of arms. The centuries-old tradition exists that when the King or Queen is in residence, the Royal Standard flag flies over the residence, which also extends to official vehicles, airplanes, and watercraft.
Why? The presence of the Royal Standard lets everyone know the King or Queen is present. Here. Right now. Especially important centuries ago, the sight of the Royal Standard brought joy into the hearts of their fellow countrymen. If there were hard trials or struggles, the sight of the Royal Standard helped ease hearts and brought calm.
Great News! God is on the Throne!

Friends, in these troubling times, there is much greater news than that signified by the Royal Standard! God is on the throne!
By referring to God being on the throne, please realize it is much bigger than simply that. God is the Sovereign of the universe. God’s sovereignty includes His complete and total independent control over every creature, event, and circumstance at every moment in history. God is in complete control of every molecule in the universe at every moment, and everything that happens is either caused or allowed by Him for His own perfect purposes.[1]
The prophet Isaiah describes this control. He writes:
Declaring the end from the beginning,And from ancient times things that are not yet done,Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,And I will do all My pleasure,’ (Isaiah 46:10)
The Lord of hosts has sworn, saying,“Surely, as I have thought, so it shall come to pass,And as I have purposed, so it shall stand: (Isaiah 14:24)

Spirit of Fear is a large part of how the evil powers will attempt to control everyone. It is already started. My brethren. Stay in prayer. Obey the Lord. I am convinced that the Church Age is nearly over, but rough times are ahead for us until our Lord takes us home. Now is the time to be those mature believers who draw near to God as we resist the Devil in every part of our lives. Do not be deceived!

7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJV)
Over on Gab today I watched a video of how the whole world has been deliberately dumbed down through consumerism. What I mean is those who bought into loving the world and the things of this world have never really matured as our parents or grandparents did who were much more self-reliant. The result of this has produced a few generations of spoiled people easily manipulated through fear. What fear? They fear that things will change and what they depend on or what they love will be taken away. Their cushy lifestyles are threatened by a so-called pandemic and they will do whatever they are told to do get back to that so-called “normalcy.”
I know people personally who have gotten the Covid-19 virus. One died, the rest have recovered and are doing fine. I know a couple right now that are going through that process. Yes, it is a real virus. No one is saying it is fake, however, the national recovery rate of this virus is still over 99% regardless of whether those who are infected have been vaccinated or not. So why are our governments trying to lock everything down and make people wear useless masks and make everyone fearful?
These governments are caving into a hidden power that threatens them with assassination or war or whatever to make them comply to their global agenda. What is the result? Lies, lies, and more lies to make everyone even more fearful to make them comply and controllable. The person I watched in the video said that consumerism has dumbed down the people to make them easy to control.
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When culture rushes down on your family and the professing church is trying to imitate the world itself, how will your family keep from being swept away in its path? Only through the Word of God! Family worship, on a daily basis, is your hope that they will stand like steel piers against the prevailing tide.

When our children were younger we began the day with the hymn we are currently memorizing. When Laura was five, she sang for all of us the second verse of “I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord” by the Yale president of the late 1700s, Timothy Dwight. With a determined look, she sang out,

I love Thy church, O God.Her walls before Thee stand.Dear as the apple of Thine eye,And gravy on Thy hand.
My boys collapsed on the floor with laughter. The word is “graven!”
I value family worship, not only because it is sometimes humorous, but because it is glue that holds families together, stimulus for some of the family’s best discussions, and provides real strength for family member’s lives — it can become the heart, in fact, of family reformation.
The Puritans, long misunderstood, had an exceptional view of the family. We can learn from them even though we might not accept all they had to say. They often talked of the home as the “little church,” and the father as the pastor of his little flock. Lewis Bayly said, “What the preacher is in the pulpit, the same the Christian householder is in his house.” Family worship is the natural outcome of such a view. In homes without a believing father, the mother may fulfill this oversight role for children.
The practice of family worship (with or without children at home) is as forgotten to the church today as the dust in our attic, but this simple and effective method of restoring family spirituality is the most potent tool we have available to us—and every one of us can do it!
Why is Family Worship Critical?
First, family worship is critical because the placing of the Word of God in the hearts of our family members is indispensable to their conversion.
Paul reminded Timothy that, “From childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3: 15).
Peter said that we are “born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible through the Word of God which lives and abides forever” (1 Pet. 1:23). This incorruptible seed of saving life (corresponding to the natural biological seed) is inseminated in the dead soul via the Word of God alone.
The Puritans believed this with a passion. This was the rationale for their long sermons, the catechizing of children, the morning messages in those cold church buildings prior to the work day, the daily meditating on the Word in private, and especially the practice of family worship. For the Puritan, family worship took place two times a day, as the “morning and evening sacrifice.” It was through this means that his children and wife, and any other guests or helpers in the home, might receive life!
Richard Baxter, one of the most famous of the Puritans, saw his village of Kidderminster, England transformed through this method. He stated:
I do verily believe that if parents did their duty as they ought, the Word publicly preached would not be the ordinary means of regeneration in the church, but only without the church, among practical heathens and infidels.
Second, it is critical because the Word alone enables your family to withstand the prevailing currents of an evil culture.
In the 2 Timothy 3 passage we find a torrent of base culture descending on young Timothy. “. . . In the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers… disobedient to parents…without self-control. . . headstrong . . . lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (vss.1-4).
How will you be able to rescue your family from the effects of such a culture? Only through the Word of God, according to Paul. The Word makes Timothy as the “man of God,” “thoroughly equipped for every good work” necessary to strengthen the church. His toolbox is complete and “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (vs. 16) so that the people under his charge can withstand the flood of culture described in the previous verses.
In the same way, the shepherding father of the home (or the mother in homes without a father, which was Timothy’s situation) is made adequate to help his or her family. Paul tells Timothy, therefore, to “preach the Word! Be ready in season and out of season” (4:2).
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth… (4: 3-4).
When culture rushes down on your family and the professing church is trying to imitate the world itself, how will your family keep from being swept away in its path? Only through the Word of God! Family worship, on a daily basis, is your hope that they will stand like steel piers against the prevailing tide.
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The Lord Jesus Christ came to the world and kept the whole law for a wayward people. He bore the wrath of God for us sinners and died on the cross. Perhaps for a righteous man one would die but Jesus died for unrighteous men. Who has ever shown such mercy like that? Not Mary, nor Elisha, Paul, or Peter. 

And when these lepers came to the outskirts of the camp, they went into one tent and ate and drank, and carried from it silver and gold and clothing, and went and hid them; then they came back and entered another tent, and carried some from there also, and went and hid it.
II Kings 7:8 NKJV
Who is as merciful as the Lord?
When Vatican II wrapped up in 1965, Mariology was brought to a new official level in the Roman Catholic Church. The catechism gave her the title, “mediatrix” (RCC #969). Numerous Popes prior to Vatican II and afterwards titled her “co-redeemer” (Benedict, 1918, John Paul II, 1980). Popes and Priests of Rome regularly refer to Mary as the “Spouse of the Holy Spirit,” “Queen of the Apostles,” “the Ark of the New Covenant,” and of course the 9th part of the Rosary begins “Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our Life… most gracious advocate.”
When witnessing to Roman Catholics they often ask me, “would you rather go to the mother for help and mercy or to the son?” Pope John Paul II said it this way, “who will better communicate to you the truth about him (Jesus) than his Mother? (John Paul II’s Book of Mary, p. 23). The question is meant to come across as sound reason – surely we would go to the mother of the Lord for mercy rather than to the Lord because who could be more merciful than a mother? After all, she is the mother of mercy and most gracious advocate…right?
These ideas about Mary have many presuppositions including: that Jesus Christ could be less merciful than some other; that Mary is more merciful than Jesus Christ; that Mary can hear all people; that she is omniscient; and that Mary has power to show mercy to all who call upon her.
When looking at Scripture we see something quite different from Rome’s arguments.
But You, O Lord, are a God full of compassion and gracious, long suffering and abundant in mercy and truth.
Psalm 86:15
Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.
I Chronicles 16:34
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