For Believers Who Find Themselves in Darkness
Written by J. C. Philpot |
Sunday, August 14, 2022
We want the clouds to part and the light of God’s countenance to shine into our souls to show us where we are, and what we are, and make it clear that we are still interested in the love of the Father, the blood of the Son, and the teachings of the Holy Ghost. It is here we often return to the word of God’s truth for enlightenment.
Light arises in the darkness for the upright… — Psalm 112:4
We sometimes get into such dark paths that we seem altogether lost, and feel as if there were no more grace in our souls, like one who is still dead in trespasses and sins. And whether we look back at the past, or view the present, or turn our eyes to the future, one dark cloud seems to rest upon the whole.
In those moments, with all our searching, we cannot find to our satisfaction that we have one spark of true religion, or one atom of grace, or one grain of vital godliness, or any trace that the Spirit of God has touched our consciences with His finger.
Related Posts:
You Might also like
-
Shadows of Bethlehem 02 | Rachel’s Tears
As Rachel was expiring from childbirth she named her son Benoni: son of my sorrows. And then Jacob’s cherished wife dies. Jacob had worked under Laban’s tyrannical demands for fourteen years in order to claim Rachel as his bride. She’d been barren for long years before bringing forth his beloved son Joseph. And now his bride perished in anguished sorrow. Jacob buried her in Bethlehem (Ramah is relatively nearby to Bethlehem). Rachel had prayed, “Give me children or I die” and it was in bringing forth her second son that she died. This baby boy was both a son of sorrow and a son of his father’s right hand.
The hallmark of Christmas is joy. Ear to ear grins. Hot chocolate mustaches. Gleeful shouts as presents are unwrapped. But your joy, true joy, is given to you by the grief of the Man of sorrows. The story of Christ’s birth, which brought glad tidings and peace on earth, is swiftly followed by a grisly tale of the ravenous wolf of sin. The Advent story, to put it another way, is no Hallmark movie. It doesn’t airbrush away the vileness of depravity, nor does it paper over the weight of our grief & suffering. The Advent story tells us that Jesus had come to engage in fierce combat with that ancient dragon. Christ in the manger is not a story of escapist sentimentality. It is the first jab & parry in the war He’d come to wage on evil.
The Text
Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.
Matthew 2:16-18
Tyrannical Brutes
The slaughter of the infants of Bethlehem is staggering. Herod stands in a long line of brutes who use their throne to slaughter the innocent. Pharaoh killed the Hebrew infants. Saul deputized Doeg (an Edomite like Herod) to slaughter the priests in Nob for helping David. Nebuchadnezzar starved the Jews of Jerusalem (during the two year siege, circa 587BC), and then as he marched them off to exile he brutally slaughtered many of them (Cf. Lam. 2:19-22, Ps 137:8-9, 2 Ki. 25:20-21).
The thing which set Herod off was the wise men refusing to cooperate with his design to destroy the Christ-child. Herod had been informed that Bethlehem was prophesied to be the birthplace of the new davidic king (Micah 5:2), and he knew that the star had appeared less than two years before, implying the baby was no older than that. Caesar Augustus is said to have stated that he’d rather be one of Herod’s swine than one of his sons. Herod’s brutality was well-known. But in the slaughter of Bethlehem’s sons, his wicked wrath is put on full and gruesome display.
Adam & Eve submitted to the Serpent, and reduced mankind to the level of brute. The first tyrant bludgeoned his brother. Man’s depravity always leads to murder. It leads to devouring others. The coming of Christ the King is good news, and this is put in stark relief when contrasted with the reign of Man in bondage to sin and Satan. Herod is the City of Man. He is a mirror held up to us to see the depravity of the human heart. But in Christ, the Kingdom of God has come upon us.
Weeping Exiles
Matthew tells us that this slaughter was a fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy in Jeremiah 31:15, “Thus saith the LORD; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.”
When the Babylonians took the Jews into exile, they released Jeremiah at Ramah: “Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had let him go from Ramah, when he had taken him being bound in chains among all that were carried away captive of Jerusalem and Judah, which were carried away captive unto Babylon (Jer 40:1).” Jeremiah then is taken down to Egypt by a remnant of Jewish leaders (Jer. 42-43). Meanwhile, Jerusalem’s young men in particular were being cruelly slaughtered at Riblah (Jer. 52:27). There are echoes of Jeremiah in the story of Joseph whisking his wife and son down to Egypt (in fulfillment of another prophecy, Cf. Mt. 2:15), while Herod’s henchmen slaughter Bethlehem’s boys.
This is the context for Jeremiah’s prophecy. His prophecy had a two-fold fulfillment; first in the events that shortly followed his prophecy. But these events themselves become a type of the slaughter of Bethlehem’s sons. Both Nebuchadnezzar & Herod are non-davidic kings slaughtering the sons of Israel. A theme we’ll revisit in a future sermon. For now, it suits our purpose to simply make mention of it.
Read More
Related Posts: -
What Does “Scripture Alone” Mean, and Why Should You Care?
What led the Roman Catholics astray was their understanding that the church birthed the Word of God, rather than the Word being the foundation of the church (Eph. 2:20). Yes, God gives us consciences, good sense, and even the traditions of the church from which we can glean insight into life, but knowledge of salvation is found in Scripture and Scripture alone.
When we talk about sola scriptura, we are talking about the fact that it is God’s word—not man’s—that gives us the instruction we need to attain everlasting life. It’s not to say that Christians should only read the Bible and nothing else. If your sink gets clogged, a plumbing manual will be of more use than anything in the Old or New Testament. Sola scriptura means that the Bible gives us everything we need to know about everything that truly matters—specifically, our salvation.
The Sufficiency of Scripture
At the time of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, the Roman Catholic Church did not deny the importance of the Word of God but rather its sufficiency. Rome said Scripture was insufficient to reveal to us the way to heaven. Rather, Rome argued that we needed something in addition to Scripture: the traditions of the church. According to theologian Michael Horton in The Christian Faith,The Council of Trent [in the sixteenth century] established the view that Scripture and tradition are actually two forms of God’s Word—”written” and “unwritten”.” (p. 188)
What led the Roman Catholics astray was their understanding that the church birthed the Word of God, rather than the Word being the foundation of the church (Eph. 2:20). Yes, God gives us consciences, good sense, and even the traditions of the church from which we can glean insight into life, but knowledge of salvation is found in Scripture and Scripture alone.
Read More -
Effeminacy Is Not Working for the Christian Church
If Christians want to rebuild and bring the “nones” back to church, then perhaps it’s time to try something beyond feel-good sermons and feminized emotional appeals. Perhaps it’s time for churches to go back to the roots of their own religion and reject today’s trendy, effeminate Christianity.
Sitting in a pew last summer, waiting for a small funeral service to start, I saw a young woman walk to the podium and begin to speak. To my surprise, she introduced herself as the minister who would be conducting the service, and then she began to lead those gathered to remember the departed through the songs, prayers, and eulogizing typical of funerals.
While the presence of this female minister initially came as a surprise, further consideration led me to realize that her presence was simply a natural consequence of the women’s liberation movement and the heightened emphasis on empathetic feelings in today’s society. Somewhere along the line, we got the idea that Christianity is a soft, nurturing religion. By those standards, the presence of a woman in the pulpit seems the most natural thing in the world.
Yet is such a course really working for the Christian church? A recent article from Christianity Today suggests otherwise.
Citing the steady rise of religious “nones”—those individuals who claim no affiliation with any religion—author Ryan Burge claims that individuals without a religious affiliation have risen from roughly 5 percent in the early 1970s, to almost 25 percent in recent years. Burge posits that these numbers are not as dire as they seem. Many of the “nones” should really be labeled “somes,” for they attend church occasionally and still entertain religious thoughts, such as belief in God.
Burge closes his article by quoting Wheaton College professor Ed Stetzer, who summarized the “nones’” problem by saying “’It would… be a mistake to think church as usual will appeal to the nones.’”
“Of course!” many would say. “This is exactly why church needs to become fresh, new, and original! Stop being so hard on sin! Become more nurturing!”
Read More