Joel Beeke's Invocaiton for the Michigan State Senate

Natural Born Sinners

You don't have to teach a fish to swim or a squirrel to climb a tree. Spiders don't go to engineering school to learn how to build their astounding webs, they just do it. It is natural. Not exactly a profound observation, I know. But why do we deny the same self-evident truths about our own nature? When a child is born, people gather around to look at the precious little babe, and say things like "What a perfect little angel; so innocent and pure". But new parents soon realize that the "innocent" child is a little bundle of sin. No one teaches the child to lie, or to be selfish, or dishonor their parents, they just do it. It is natural. It's the default human position. They are called the "terrible two's” and not the "innocent and tranquil two's" for a reason. We sin, because we are natural born sinners.

The theological issue is not about whether men have a will; the problem is that man's will is broken and bound. We cannot and will not choose the God of the Bible. Our will is in bondage to sin and we are, by nature, the children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3). Our hearts and minds are naturally contrary to the glory of God and is not "subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Romans 8:7). The heart of man is not naturally seeking God, or praising God, or serving God, because no one seeks God (Romans 3:11).  

Why do people choose one thing over another? Because they want to. But that brings us back to what the Bible says about our nature. We naturally want to fulfill the desires of our hearts, but our hearts are corrupted (Jeremiah 17:9; Ephesians 2:3) which makes us unwilling to come to Christ. Spiritually, it is worse than that. We are born dead in trespasses and sins. We don't need to make a choice, we need to be born again. We need the life giving grace of God.

Martin Luther once said "It is one thing to say that a thing was done by free-will and another to prove it." We can say that we freely chose God, but it's quite another thing to take the Bible and show that man is in a neutral state and that salvation hinges upon the choice that he makes outside of the grace and mercy of God. We just don't understand the clear Biblical teaching on  how bad our situation is and how hopelessly lost we really are. The Bible tells us that we of ourselves will not come to Christ that we might have eternal life. Our only hope is that God comes to us in full, free, sovereign Grace. What is required is not a decision, but a miracle of regeneration. When you realize that you cannot save yourself and will yourself to love God, only then will you see your desperate need of a Saviour.

The Sovereignty of God

 Psalm 115:3  But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.

God is sovereign and that means He does everything He wants, when He wants to do it in exactly the way He wants it to work out – and there isn't anything that can stop Him. Before He created the world, when there was nothing but Himself, God ordained the history of the universe all the way to the end.  God would do as He pleased and nothing would thwart His plan. From the rise and fall of the Roman Empire to the rise and flight of a cardinal on Buffalo Creek, God ordained it and purposed it, He planned it, and He brought it about (Isaiah 46:9-11).

But if you confirm what the Bible says about our Lord's sovereignty, you need to believe it all the way down. You cannot just believe that God is almighty when it comes to the past or that God is almighty when it comes to the uncertain future. Sovereignty cannot  kept only in the realm of governments and far away events of history. To be truly almighty means that God does whatever He wants in all points of life and that includes your life. God is sovereign over sickness and health, finances and weather. God is also sovereign in salvation, from beginning to end – not just in an abstract philosophical way, but God is sovereign over your soul.

There is much preached about the free will of man, but what about the free will of God? Before you tell me about your free will tell me about God's. Before you advocate your choice, what does the Bible say about God's choice? Does God have the freedom to save who He pleases? If God has purposed it, who can frustrate His plan? If the mighty Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar cannot frustrate God's plan, do you think that you can? The plan and the will of God is unchangeable (Isa 14:27; Heb 6:7) which means God's will is free and your will is not.

God doing what He pleases means that God is sovereign all the way down. We are mere creatures; clay in the hands of a sovereign Potter who can do with us as He wishes. God being partly sovereign is like a woman being sort of pregnant. You either are or you're not.  The evidence of Scripture is that the God of the Bible is the Alpha and Omega, the Almighty King of kings. Instead of coming to the subject of the salvation talking about man's will, I believe a Christian should first affirm the truth that God is Almighty. Christian, confess that the Lord does whatever He wants in Heaven in Earth. There can only be One sovereign and there cannot be two beings that are absolutely free to do as they please. Only God has the freedom to do everything He wants. God's does what he pleases, even in the salvation of sinners. Hallelujah, the Lord omnipotent reigns! 

Worthless, Temporary, and Profitable - Tuesday with Timothy #50

1Timothy 4:7-8  But refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness. For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.

A good pastor will be in God's Word. He will read it, study it, live by it, and be controlled by the Word of God. While he is feeding himself and those he shepherds on the good Word of the Lord, he is also shunning the worthless, wicked old wives' tales. There are two parts here, the taking in of good and the shunning of the wicked. Too many try to have it all. They try to take in all the wickedness and worthless tales they can get their hands on while trying to balance it all out with a good measure of the Word of God. That isn't how it works any more than having a balanced diet by eating  equal portions of salad and chocolate cake.

Athletes have to watch what they take into the body. They eat the right foods at the right times and avoid the junk food, though tasty, it isn't helpful in reaching their goal. Like the athelete, shun the foolishness. It is worse than worthless. It harms your mind, it wastes your time, it takes up your energy that could be better spent doing something else. Many of the profane myths and stories that make their way into the church come by people who are looking for something new and exciting. People come up with some "deep" teaching that no one else has thought of or that no one else can see. Far from being deep, these fables are garbage and are not worth your time, other than to dismiss them and warn others to do the same.

Instead of wasting your time on worthlessness, do something profitable and exercise toward godliness. Use your time becoming more godly. Read good books. Think about profitable doctrine. Think on good, pure, lovely things. Kill sin in your life. Pray. Serve your church. Love your family.

Paul tells us to exercise unto godliness. This is discipline. Don't make the mistake that anything to do with the spiritual life has to come bubbling up from some inner promptings that you feel deep down in your soul. Yes, reading your Bible is Spiritual, but you have to get up and get out of bed and open your Bible and read. This takes discipline and it takes work.  While God the Holy Spirit is responsible for working in us all that is good in our spiritual lives, He does not do this instantly and without our effort. The means He has chosen is our applying ourselves unto godliness.

Physical exercise is profitable. Keeping your body in shape is a good thing to do, but the benefits are temporary. Exercise will help us live healthy, feel better, and live longer, but exercise doesn't let us live forever. There is point  in the life of every athlete where he can't run as fast or jump as high. No matter how good you take care of yourself, you will start to ache and hurt and slow down. The profit of physical exercise eventually comes to an end. However, if you exercise unto godliness, that is good for you now and forever. Exercising towards godliness is not a waste of time. You have the promises from God of the blessings godliness brings you in this life and you have the promises God has given you in the world to come.

The Autobiography of George Muller

God hears and answers prayer and in his autobiography, Muller tells how the Lord saved him, brought him to the truth and into the ministry and showed him that God answers prayer, even today. The purpose of this book was to give glory to God and show that God answers prayer. I was blessed and encouraged by hearing the many stories and instances of how God provided him all the money to build and maintain the orphanages simply through prayer, without asking for a penny.

There are a couple interludes that are wonderful. I got a lot out of the section on why he preached expositional messages and how he learned that Bible reading before prayer was the key to preparing his heart. Feed the soul before prayer helped him to do both.

I read the unabridged version, so there are a lot of figures in monetary denominations that I'm not familiar with from another era. So and so gave this amount. Received that amount on this date, etc.; it was sort of like having to sit through someone else's business meeting. An abridged version might be a little easier to get through for American audiences.

Study the Gospel

Do you study the gospel or have you been convinced the gospel is just for lost people? The simplicity of the message of Jesus Christ, dying as a substitute, a sacrifice for sinners and rising from the dead, does not mean a shallowness in doctrine. I’m convinced that we will spend eternity pondering and examining the “unsearchable riches of Christ” and will never come to the end of the glories of the gospel. When a person is born again, they are awakened to spiritual truths that are plainly laid out in Scripture. A new convert realizes the gospel is a simple to receive but unsearchable in the vast and rich beauty of how it was accomplished. It should be the desire of the Christian heart to know more about Jesus and our salvation. Doctrine shouldn’t be avoided, but it should be desired. The more we learn about our Saviour, the lovelier He is to us.

The only way we can know the details of the work of salvation is if God reveals His mind to us. I can tell you what happened when the Lord saved me from my perspective, but since I didn’t save myself, that is an awfully poor perspective to use as the foundation of my theology. When I was first saved, I didn’t know much more than I was a sinner deserving Hell, and Jesus saved me. I was a theologian after the mold of the blind man in John 9 “one thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see”. I thought I knew other things about God and the Bible, but I soon discovered those early opinions were very wrong. I had a lot of assumptions about God, sin, and salvation based upon my preconceived notions, personal feelings, and tradition. But it is not the will of God for His people to remain in this state and to walk around with nothing but our experience to guide us in the details of salvation. Since I was saved by Another, and by grace on top of that, I want to have the perspective of my Saviour about the salvation He provides. Jesus saved me, then gave a book that revealed His mind and His will about the matter of salvation. The question is whether we will receive the truth about salvation from the God who provides it, even if it is offensive to our natural thoughts about God.

The gospel of Christ turns the world upside down. It is a paradigm shifting, idol destroying, world changing truth. Join me in the coming weeks in an examination of the topic of redemption. With an open mind and open Bible, seek to study what the Lord tells us about our salvation. Chesterton wrote “The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.” Truth loses nothing from examination, but the more you look and the more you see, the more beautiful it becomes.  

Read Revelation

Revelation 1:3  Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.

The book of Revelation begins with a promise – if you read this book, you will be blessed. Some shy away from the book of Revelation, because it can be difficult to understand, but it's worth the effort. I want to encourage you to pick up your Bible and read the book of Revelation. When you think of Revelation, you may think of only Satan, plagues, the Antichrist and other such scary images. Really, this book is about Jesus. It is, after all, the Revelation of Jesus Christ. The word translated Revelation comes from a Greek word apokalupsis,  where we get the word "apocalypse". It mostly now associated with disaster and chaos, but the word simply means to lay bear, or to disclose a truth of something before unknown. This book is revealing something that was once hidden. Jesus Christ is telling us things that only God can know – things about the future. But this book does much more than tell us about future things. There is instruction for churches, warnings to sinners, and promises for God's people.  When the world is dark and bleak, when we find ourselves in the middle of trials and heartaches, it is good to go and remind ourselves of the inheritance we have waiting for us. To read of the beautiful New Jerusalem, where no evil doer will ever step foot, or to read of the pure river, clear as crystal, that flows from the throne of God. When so much heartache fills our minds and hearts, let us go and refresh ourselves by thinking of that blessed tree of life, that is for the healing of the nations and glory in the thought of the Earth, with "no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him" (Rev 22:3).

You should read the book because it is about Jesus Christ. In this book alone, Christ is revealed to be the redeemer, a righteous judge and the royal Bridegroom. He is shown to be the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords. Christ is described as the Lamb of God, the Lion of the tribe of Judah and the Warrior on His white horse. Jesus is proclaimed to be the Truth, the Amen of God, the head of the Church, and the worthy One. He is worshiped by angels, adored by saints, and feared by His enemies. He is the glorious King of the millennial kingdom, the Alpha and Omega, and the bright and morning star. Though Revelation does disclose to us much about judgment, Satan, and evil, it does so to show how God brings judgment to sin and will ultimately set all things right and restore what sins has destroyed. Even so, come Lord Jesus.

 First published HERE.