Are Your Sheep Without a Shepherd? Are You a Sheep Who Politely Declines Shepherding?

In Mark 6 today, v34 was striking: "And Jesus, when He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. So He began to teach them many things."

Jesus was moved with compassion for them, and the shepherding to which that compassion moved Him was "to teach them many things."

May He sustain me (and you, dear pastors who might read this) in this calling, that He would not be moved with pity for my congregation because they lack shepherding. May He give me to be His instrument, here, "to teach them many things."

But it was also sad to me to think of those who underutilize the shepherding that they have. How much, cumulatively, they have missed, who absent themselves from the evening sermons, who absent themselves from the midweek sermons, who do not avail themselves of the teaching in the devotional booklets and recordings, who do not attend (or at least review) the Sabbath School lessons. It does not take long for a great amount of the teaching of Scripture to be missed by such as these. In Jesus's estimation of things, are they not in a pitiable condition, because they might be taught many things, but politely decline it?

Oh that we would love our souls in a manner after that in which Christ loves them!

One area that has been a weakness is the house-to-house teaching highlighted by the apostle in Ac 20:20. May the Lord give me grace to be moved with compassion for a flock (cf. 20:28) that certainly needs more of it.

The Covenant Blessing of God As Our Shield

Recently, while in Job 1–2 in the M'Cheyne calendar readings, after recently working through Deuteronomy 28 with the family, I noticed how much overlap there is between Satan's own preferred attacks on Job, and the curses that fall upon the church for unfaithfulness. It really is an amazing parallel. I won't take the time just now to highlight all of the specifics in common between them, but would encourage you just to read or listen to both sections. What emerges, in the composite of two passages, is an implication that Satan would always attack us, except that the Lord raises Himself as a "hedge of protection" (Job 1:10) around us. How sweet it is to know that our God has given Himself to be our shield! And, how grievous it is, then, when our own unfaithfulness becomes the occasion for the withdrawing of that protection. 

It's Too Easy to Become a Tool of the Devil

In a recent sermon on how families profit from sermons, Dr. Beeke was working from the parable of the soils in Luke 8. Many of us have just been through that parable in the M'Cheyne readings in Mark 4. One of the points that he makes is how hard Satan works to distract us from the Word. I'd encourage you to listen to the whole thing. The following clip from 19:35 may whet your appetite:

"Remember children, Satan will oppose your listening to God's word with might and main, knowing that if you truly hear it, and you truly bow under it, and you truly go out to live it, He will lose you. So Satan will do everything he can to try to disturb you before the sermon begins, to distract you during the sermon, and to dismiss the sermon from your mind as soon as it's finished. Oh, he loves it when you go right out into the vestibule and talk about the score of a ball game last week or something like that, some crazy thing like that, when you've just been in the presence of Almighty God and you've just heard a matter of life and death and you shake it off like that hearer who just cast it away as soon as the seed was sown." (emphasis mine)

That bit about the conversations after worship struck me. Consider Jesus's own explanation of the parable (nearly identical in all parallels): "Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved." (Luke 8:11–12)

It's been some time since we emphasized having Lord's-Day-appropriate conversations, but I had never quite thought of it from the angle of the parable of the soils. When we hear the Word, Satan labors to snatch those thoughts right away from us. But if we immediately distract each other with whatever's new out in the world, he doesn't have to labor so much, does he? From Jesus's own explanation of the parable, that would make us tools of the devil.

That's sobering in both directions, isn't it? Both that we might be tools of the devil, and that someone who seems quite friendly could actually be acting as an enemy to our soul in the moment.

One of my great joys, in recent Lord's Days, has been to hear snippets of conversations in which so many are being friends to one-another's souls. What a glad privilege it is to be used by the Lord, to help the Word take root and bear fruit! But it's so easy to become a tool of the devil. The Lord give us grace to tremble at His Word (cf. Isa 66:2). 

Different levels of functional legalism

When correcting moral defects, how is your approach different from an unconverted but outwardly pious Jew? If it isn't, you are functionally anti-Christian and should be concerned about whether you are converted at all.

When correcting moral defects, how is your approach different from a converted Jew before the revelation of the Son, conscientious union with Him, and the outpouring and indwelling of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of the ascended Christ? If it isn't, you may be converted, but you are functionally sub-Christian.

Col 4:6

Wouldn't it be wonderful if our highest horizontal priority in every relationship was to do the other person spiritual good? And how would our speech and conduct change, if that was the case?

Christian Nationalism? First Things First.

By all means, let nations be Christian. Christ is not only Prophet, and Priest, but King. And the government of every nation owes explicit allegiance and submission to Him.

But as transgression of the first table of the law is rampant in their homes and congregations, men who are waking up about the second table are in danger of letting zeal run without knowledge. 

It is a trap to think that one can make a nation Christian, when the home and the church have yet to recover the right worship of God as the rhythm of our days and weeks, and the heartbeat of lives lived in communion with Him, and therefore diligently offered as sacrifice unto Him.

"Christian" Music?

I got to work from a beautiful conference room in a hospital most of today. When I turned to go home, the maps app told me that the drive would be 20 minutes longer if I returned at that time, due to traffic. So I got a $1 bottomless drink and worked from a Wendy's. 

They're playing what I assume are the current "Christian hits." Even when quoting or alluding to Scripture, the songs don't sound at all like Scripture (generally) or the Psalms (specifically). Many of these songs are even unintentionally blasphemous. Musically, the timbre is so indulgent of the self rather than expressive of greater realities. It's been quite the experience (enough to take the time to break from work to post this).

And to listen to it, you would think that man's biggest problem is that his feelings have been hurt and that he feels badly about himself. It occurs to me that American Christianity is ultradistorted, not experiencing "real" suffering like the vast majority of the church throughout the whole of history. And, of course, we are theologically distorted by our ignorance of the immensity either of God's glory or of the evil of the guilt/power/presence of our sin.

The Sum of the Law

In opening WSC 42 to my children yesterday, we noted that the sum of the law is our relation to the Lawgiver. The second great commandment flows from the first because man is made in God's image. 

One thing I forgot to tell them this time (though we have done, many times) is that man's being made in God's image is because of how God had decreed to make the ultimate display of Himself and His glory in the Son: as the incarnate God and Savior. 

In this way, the sum of the law is intimately tied to knowing Jesus as God, glorifying Jesus as God, loving Jesus as God, and enjoying Jesus as God. 

Apart from this, there is neither loving God nor loving neighbor. The proper way to love God is to know and love Him especially through His Son. The proper way to love oneself is to love God in this way. And the proper way to love our neighbor is to aim, in all of our law-keeping, at his loving God in this way.

Impietism More Widespread and Dangerous than Pietism

I realize that there is a possible danger of becoming so reflective about spiritual things that one does not labor well in this life—to be a soul without a body, here, so to speak. And I understand that there is an introspection that is not spiritual at all, for it dwells little upon the Lord Himself and much upon the labyrinth of one's own thoughts and affections. Yes, there is such a thing as false piety. And it may or may not be helpful to call it "pietism" (aside from the fact that this is a technical term for splinter-movements within Lutheranism).

But I don't think I have ever met such a person. Ours is an age of epidemic, lethal impiety. The visible church is full of those who profess faith but have little thought of God, take little time with Him, make much of the temporal and little of the spiritual. They treat the means of grace as if they have little effect upon real life, spiritual pleasures and blessings as if they are worth much less than temporal. Of such the churches are full. And yet there are many who constantly warn against "pietism" in the churches, warning against too much of an emphasis upon certain habits and realities that actually comprise a necessary and crucial biblical piety. 

So, dear reader, watch out for those who are always railing against "pietism." It may be that they are selling you a soul-destroying impietism, by which you will assure yourself of spiritual life and forgiveness and godliness, where there really is none.

Does the ARP Form of Government Really Give the General Synod the Right to Dissolve a Presbytery?

In my recap of Day 2 of the General Synod, I wrote of the two options that were before us at the time: "(1) General Synod dissolves Second Presbytery (which it has the right to do, for any reason, without process, in the form of government)."

I must clarify, now, and admit that I was simply relaying what we were told on the floor of the General Synod meeting.