Free Stuff Fridays (Crossway)
This week’s Free Stuff Fridays is sponsored by Crossway, who also sponsored the blog this week. They are giving away the new ESV Concise Study Bible. There will be five winners this week and each will receive a copy of each of these Bibles.
Here is how Crossway describes it:
The ESV Concise Study Bible was created to help readers explore the essential meaning of the Bible. Inspired by the best-selling ESV Study Bible, this robust Bible offers fresh content for new believers and seasoned saints alike, explaining difficult phrases, defining key terms, identifying important people and places, and highlighting links between biblical passages.
Featuring 12,000+ study notes; 150+ maps and charts; 15+ illustrations; and an introduction to each book that outlines its setting, background, and key themes, the ESV Concise Study Bible is rich in content yet approachable and easy to carry—perfect for studying God’s Word in any context.
Enter Here
Giveaway Rules: You may enter one time. By entering, you will be added to Crossway’s mailing list. As soon as the winners have been chosen, all names and addresses will be immediately and permanently erased. Winners will be notified by email. The giveaway closes Saturday at noon. If you are viewing this through email, click to visit my site and enter there.
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I Am Under the Unerring Care of God
Whatever circumstances we may encounter in life, whatever difficulties may befall us, whatever suffering we may have to pass through, we can have the highest confidence that none of it has come apart from the knowledge and the will of God. As the Catechism says, God “watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.” This truth must have been on De Witt Talmage’s mind when he preached these precious words many years ago…
You may ask me a hundred questions I cannot answer, but I shall until the day of my death believe that I am under the unerring care of God.
The heavens may fall and the world may burn and the judgment may thunder and eternal ages may roll, but not a hair shall fall from my head, not a shadow shall drop on my path, not a sorrow shall transfix my heart without being divinely arranged—arranged by a loving, sympathetic Father.
He bottles our tears, he catches our sorrows. To the orphan he will be a father and to the widow he will be a husband and to the outcast he will be a home and to the most miserable wretch who crawls up out of the ditch in his abomination crying for mercy, he will be an all-pardoning God.
The rocks shall turn gray with age and the forests shall be unmoored in the last hurricane, and the sun shall shut its fiery eyelid and the stars shall drop like blasted figs and the continents shall go down like anchors in the deep and the ocean shall heave its last groan and lash itself with expiring agony and the world shall wrap itself in winding sheets of flame and leap on the funeral pyre of the Judgment Day…
…but God’s love shall not die. It will kindle its suns after all other lights have gone out. It will be a billowing sea after the last ocean has wept itself away. It will warm itself by the fire of a consuming world. It will sing while the archangel’s trumpet is pealing forth and the air is filled with the crash of broken sepulchres and the rush of the wings of the rising dead! -
The Last (Melodramatic) Hymn
In her time, Marianne Farningham, who was actually named Mary Ann Hearn, was well-known for her devotional poetry, as well as some of her hymns, (though I am not aware of any of those that have really stood the test of time). While most of her poems were topical, some of them were narrative in style, including “The Last Hymn.” Though I admit this one perhaps tips into a bit of Victorian melodrama, I still quite enjoy it. Read—preferably aloud—and hear the tale she tells of a man’s final song.
The Sabbath-day was ending, in a village by the sea,The uttered benediction touched the people tenderly,And they rose to face the sunset in the glowing, lighted West,And then hastened to their dwellings for God’s blessed boon of rest.
But they looked across the waters, and a storm was raging there;A fierce spirit moved above them—the wild spirit of the air—And it lashed and shook, and tore them, till they thundered, groaned and boomed,And, alas! for any vessel in their yawning gulfs entombed.
Very anxious were the people on that rocky coast of Wales,Lest the dawn of coming morrows should be telling awful tales,When the sea had spent its passion, and should cast upon the shore.Bits of wreck, and swollen victims, as it had done heretofore.
With the rough winds blowing round her, a brave woman strained her eyes,And she saw along the billows a large vessel fall and rise.Oh! it did not need a prophet to tell what the end must be,For no ship could ride in safety near that shore on such a sea.
Then the pitying people hurried from their homes and thronged the beach,Oh! for power to cross the waters and the perishing to reach!Helpless hands were wrung for sorrow, tender hearts grew cold with dread,And the ship urged by the tempest, to the fatal rock shore sped.
“She has parted in the middle! Oh, the half of her goes down!God, have mercy! Is His heaven far to seek for those who drown?’”Lo! when next the white, shocked faces looked with terror on the sea.Only one last clinging figure on a spar was seen to be.
Nearer to the trembling watchers came the wreck tossed by the wave.And the man still clung and floated, though no power on earth could save.“Could we send him a short message! Here’s a trumpet! shout away!”‘Twas the preacher’s hand that took it, and he wonder’d what to say.
Any memory of his sermon? Firstly? Secondly? Ah, no.There was but one thing to utter in that awful hour of woe;So he shouted through the trumpet, “Look to Jesus! Can you hear?”And “Aye, aye, sir! “rang the answer o’er the waters loud and clear.
Then they listened,— “He is singing ‘Jesus, lover of my soul,”And the wind brought back the echo, “while the nearer waters roll;”Strange indeed it was to hear him, “till the storm of life was past,”Singing bravely from the waters, “Oh, receive my soul at last”
He could have no other refuge! “Hangs my helpless soul on thee;Leave, oh, leave me not.” —The singer dropped at last into the sea,And the watchers looking homeward through their eyes by tears made dim,Said, “He passed to be with Jesus in the singing of that hymn.” -
To the Impetuous and Impulsive
There is a kind of personality we are all familiar with, I’m sure—a kind of personality that is impetuous and impulsive, prone to act in ways that are spontaneous and ill-thought-out. It’s the personality of Simon Peter whom we know so well from the pages of Scripture—the one of the twelve disciples who stepped overboard to attempt to walk on water, the one who exclaimed, “not only my feet, but my hands and my head as well!,” the one who drew his sword to protect his Savior, and the one who, when he saw him after his resurrection, immediately threw himself overboard to swim for shore. We love him for his brashness, for his boldness, for his uninhibited nature.
I have reflected before on how Jesus was the first to identify some precious quality in Peter, for as soon as he met him, Jesus said, “‘You are Simon the son of John. You shall be called Cephas’ (which means Peter).” Peter and Cephas both mean “rock,” which tells us that from the very first Jesus saw a quality of sturdiness and steadiness to this man. He understood that bound up in an impetuous nature were virtues that would establish him as a leader among leaders in the early church.
I once read an author compare this personality type to a wild river that runs through a mountain range. The river runs swiftly but erratically, fierce in its power and dangerous in its wildness. Yet one day a settler arrives at a spot along its course and sees that he can make use of the river’s energy. And so he builds a flume to restrain the river and direct it. At the point where the water runs fastest he builds a watermill to generate power. Some of the river he directs through channels where the waters, now moving gently, can irrigate fields and cause crops to grow. Another portion of the river he directs to a spot where a town will spring up and where the residents can drink from cool, fresh streams. What was once a force for destruction is now a force for good and for growth.
And in that way, God loves to use impetuous personalities. As people repent of their sins and profess their loyalty to him, he does not eradicate their personalities as if he created them wrong in the first place or as if there is nothing within them he can use or redeem. Rather, he channels their personality, he redirects it, masters it, perfects it. Though he does sanctify his people, he does not completely destroy and then recreate them in such a way that they are all the same. As he uses the wise and the simple, the great and the small, the gregarious and the taciturn, he uses the impetuous as much as the cautious. He tames and tempers their personality in such a way that instead of doing harm it does good and instead of leaving a trail of destruction it leaves a trail of love and service. He takes the boldness, he takes the passion, he takes the zeal, and he directs it to his own precious purposes.
So if you have a personality like Peter’s, take heart. Take heart, for as God used him, he can and will use you. And he will use you not apart from your personality, but through it. He created you, he loves you, and he will use you.
If you have a child or spouse or another loved one who has that kind of brash personality, be thankful. Ensure that you do not assume such a personality is in any way inferior to its opposite. You may need to urge that this personality is tempered by a measure of caution just as a cautious personality may need to be tempered by a measure of boldness. But know that God uses all kinds of people to carry out his good and glorious purposes. Embrace the personality rather than squelching it.
It is God’s pleasure to use us in his service just as he used Peter. And while he does shape and sanctify us, he does not destroy us along the way. The one who gives boldness to the timid gives patience to the impulsive. The one who gives courage to the person prone to inactivity gives caution to the person prone to spontaneity. He uses who we are to carry out his purposes and bring blessing to the world.