Morning and Evening: Daily Readings
by C. H. Spurgeon
Wednesday Morning, August 31
On mine arm shall they trust.
Isaiah 51:5
In seasons of severe trial, the Christian has nothing on earth that he can trust to, and is therefore compelled to cast himself on his God alone. When his vessel is on its beam-ends, and no human deliverance can avail, he must simply and entirely trust himself to the providence and care of God. Happy storm that wrecks a man on such a rock as this! O blessed hurricane that drives the soul to God and God alone! There is no getting at our God sometimes because of the multitude of our friends; but when a man is so poor, so friendless, so helpless that he has nowhere else to turn, he flies into his Father's arms, and is blessedly clasped therein! When he is burdened with troubles so pressing and so peculiar, that he cannot tell them to any but his God, he may be thankful for them; for he will learn more of his Lord then than at any other time. Oh, tempest-tossed believer, it is a happy trouble that drives thee to thy Father! Now that thou hast only thy God to trust to, see that thou puttest thy full confidence in him. Dishonour not thy Lord and Master by unworthy doubts and fears; but be strong in faith, giving glory to God. Show the world that thy God is worth ten thousand worlds to thee. Show rich men how rich thou art in thy poverty when the Lord God is thy helper. Show the strong man how strong thou art in thy weakness when underneath thee are the everlasting arms. Now is the time for feats of faith and valiant exploits. Be strong and very courageous, and the Lord thy God shall certainly, as surely as he built the heavens and the earth, glorify himself in thy weakness, and magnify his might in the midst of thy distress. The grandeur of the arch of heaven would be spoiled if the sky were supported by a single visible column, and your faith would lose its glory if it rested on anything discernible by the carnal eye. May the Holy Spirit give you to rest in Jesus this closing day of the month.
Evening, August 31
If we walk in the light, as he is in the light.
John 1:7
As he is in the light! Can we ever attain to this? Shall we ever be able to walk as clearly in the light as he is whom we call Our Father, of whom it is written, God is light, and in him is no darkness at all? Certainly, this is the model which it set before us, for the Saviour himself said, Be ye perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect; and although we may feel that we can never rival the perfection of God, yet we are to seek after it, and never to be satisfied until we attain to it. The youthful artist, as he grasps his early pencil, can hardly hope to equal Raphael or Michael Angelo, but still, if he did not have a noble beau ideal before his mind, he would only attain to something very mean and ordinary. But what is meant by the expression that the Christian is to walk in light as God is in the light? We conceive it to import likeness, but not degree. We are as truly in the light, we are as heartily in the light, we are as sincerely in the light, as honestly in the light, though we cannot be there in the same measure. I cannot dwell in the sun, it is too bright a place for my residence, but I can walk in the light of the sun; and so, though I cannot attain to that perfection of purity and truth which belongs to the Lord of hosts by nature as the infinitely good, yet I can set the Lord always before me, and strive, by the help of the indwelling Spirit, after conformity to his image. That famous old commentator, John Trapp, says, We may be in the light as God is in the light for quality, but not for equality. We are to have the same light, and are as truly to have it and walk in it as God does, though, as for equality with God in his holiness and purity, that must be left until we cross the Jordan and enter into the perfection of the Most High. Mark that the blessings of sacred fellowship and perfect cleansing are bound up with walking in the light.
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A Sovereign and Personal God
by D. A. Carson
Conclusion
What bearing does all this have on prayer?
Before answering that question directly, it is essential to draw one crucial lesson out of the previous discussion. Let us grant that the Bible insists that God is utterly sovereign, and human beings are morally responsible creatures; let us grant that God himself is both transcendent and personal. Let us frankly admit that this involves a significant degree of mystery. The question we must then ask ourselves is this: How can we assure that these complementary pairs of truths operate the right way in our lives? If there is so much mystery about them, will we not always be in danger of using these truths in a way that denies the mystery or contradicts something else we should know?
The answer is simple, but has profound effects. We must do our best to ensure that these complementary truths function in our lives in the same ways they function in the lives of believers described in Scripture.
For example, how does election function in Scripture? How should election function in our lives? It never functions in Scripture to foster fatalism; it never functions to douse evangelistic zeal. Repeatedly it functions to emphasize the wonder of grace (John 6:68-70; Rom. 9). It also functions, among other things, to ensure the certainty of spiritual fruitfulness among God's people (John 15:16) and to encourage perseverance in evangelism (Acts 18:9-10).
How do the constant exhortations to believe and obey function in Scripture? They never function to picture God as fundamentally at the end of his own resources and utterly dependent on us; they never reduce God to the absolutely contingent. Rather, they function to increase our responsibility, to emphasize the urgency of the steps we must take, to show us what the only proper response is to this kind of God.
How does the repeated truth of God's sovereign providence function in Scripture? It never serves to authorize uncaring fatalism; it never allows me to be morally indifferent on the ground that I can't really help it anyway. Rather, the biblical emphasis on God's sovereignty functions in quite different ways. For example, it give me ground for believing that everything is in God's gracious control, so that all things will work out for good in the lives of God's people (Rom. 8:28).
We must deploy exactly the same approach when we come to prayer.
How does God's sovereignty function in passages of Scripture where prayer is introduced? Certainly it never functions as a disincentive to pray! It can forbid certain kinds of preposterous praying: for instance, Jesus forbids his followers from babbling on like pagans who think they will be heard because of their many words. "Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him" (Matt. 6:8). On the other hand, this prohibition cannot be taken as a blanket condemnation of all perseverance in prayer, since the same Jesus elsewhere urges that such perseverance is important (Luke 11, 18).
God's sovereignty can also function as an incentive to pray in line with God's will. Thus Jesus prays, "Father, the time [lit., hour] has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you" (John 17:1). This is important. The hour in John's Gospel is the time appointed by the Father at which Jesus will in fact be glorified by means of the cross, and thus returned to the glory that he enjoyed with the Father before the world began (John 12:23-24; 17:5). By saying that the hour has come, Jesus is acknowledging that his Father's appointed time has arrived. This does not prompt Jesus to say only "Your will be done." Still less does it breed silence: the hour has arrived and there is not much anyone can do about it, since everything has been ordained by my heavenly Father. Rather, Jesus' logic runs like this: My Father's appointed hour for the "glorification" of his Son has arrived; so then, Father, glorify your Son.
This sort of logic is not in any way unusual. Those who pray in the Scriptures regularly pray in line with what God has already disclosed he is going to do. A wonderful example is found in Daniel 9. Here we are told that Daniel understands from the Scriptures, "according to the word of the LORD given to Jeremiah the prophet" (Dan. 9:2), that the period of seventy years of exile was drawing to an end. A fatalist would simply have wiped his or her brow and looked forward to the promised release as soon as the seventy years were up. Not Daniel! Daniel is perfectly aware that God is not an automaton, still less a magic genie that pops out of a bottle at our command. God is not only sovereign, he is personal, and because he is personal he is free.3 So Daniel addresses this personal God, confessing his own sins and the sins of his people: "So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes" (9:3). In other words, precisely because Daniel is aware of the promise of this personal, sovereign God, he feels it his obligation to pray in accord with what he has learned in the Scriptures regarding the will of that God. Most of the rest of the chapter records Daniel's prayer. Daniel reminds God that while Daniel and the children of Israel have sinned, God is the one "who keeps his covenant of love" (9:4), that God is "merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him" (9:9). "For your sake, O Lord," he prays, "look with favor on your desolate sanctuary. . . . O Lord, listen! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hear and act! For your sake, O my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your Name" (9:17, 19). In other words, he appeals to God to preserve the integrity of his own name, the sanctity of his own covenant, his reputation for mercy and forgiveness.
And the exile ends.
Perhaps the most startling passages that mingle God's sovereignty and God's personhood are those that speak of God relenting. While Moses is on Mount Sinai receiving the tables of the law, the children of Israel succumb to the terrible idolatry of the golden calf. God is furious: "I have seen these people . . . and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation" (Exod. 32:9-10).
But Moses simply will not "leave God alone." The arguments in his intercession are remarkable, appealing to God both as the Sovereign and as the supreme personal Deity. Moses argues that if God carries through with this plan of destruction, the Egyptians will sneer that the Israelite God is malicious and that he led his people into the desert to destroy them. At the same time, Moses reminds God of his own sovereign promises: "Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self [for there is none higher by whom to swear]: 'I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever'" (32:12). In other words, if God destroys his people, will he not be breaking his own promises? How can a faithful God do that? In Moses' eyes, this is not an argument for pietistic fatalism simply trust the promises of God and everything will work out but for intercession. So Moses comes to the point: "Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people" (32:12).
"Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened" (32:14).
A casual reader might be tempted to say, "See? God does change his mind. His purposes are not sovereign and steadfast. Prayer does change things because it changes the mind of God."
But such a conclusion would be both one-sided and premature. If God had not relented in his declared purpose to destroy the children of Israel, then, paradoxically, he would have proved fickle with respect to the firm promises he gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. On the other hand, if God is to remain faithful to the promises made to the patriarchs, then, as Moses realizes, God cannot destroy the Israelites, and he must therefore turn from the judgment he has pronounced against Israel. It is that very point Moses is banking on as he prays.
We gain additional insight into God's relenting when we compare the prayers of Amos, a true prophet of God, with the prayerlessness of false prophets. Amos learns of God's threatening judgments against the people, and he passionately intercedes on their behalf: "I cried out, 'Sovereign LORD, forgive! How can Jacob survive? He is so small!'" (Amos 7:2). Amos's prayer proves effective. Twice we are told, "So the LORD relented" (7:3, 6). By contrast, God berates the false prophets of Israel precisely because they do not intercede for the people. "You have not gone up to the breaks in the wall to repair it for the house of Israel [an idiom that means they have not interceded with God on behalf of the people] so that it will stand firm in the battle on the day of the lord" (Ezek. 13:5). No one was seriously interceding with God: "I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none. So I will pour out my wrath on them and consume them with my fiery anger, bringing down on their own heads all they have done, declares the Sovereign LORD" (Ezek. 2:30-31).
The extraordinary importance of these passages must not be missed. God expects to be pleaded with; he expects godly believers to intercede with him. Their intercession is his own appointed means for bringing about his relenting, and if they fail in this respect, then he does not relent and his wrath is poured out. If we understand something similar to have happened in the life of Moses, we must conclude that Moses is effective in prayer not in the sense that God would have broken his covenant promises to the patriarchs, nor in the sense that God temporarily lost his self-control until Moses managed to bring God back to his senses. Rather, in God's mercy Moses proved to be God's own appointed means, through intercessory prayer, for bringing about the relenting that was nothing other than a gracious confirmation of the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The really wonderful truth is that human beings like Moses and you and me can participate in bringing about God's purposes through God's own appointed means. In that limited sense, prayer certainly changes things; it cannot be thought to change things in some absolute way that catches God out.
Of course, we are circling around the fundamental mystery, the mystery of the nature of God. This God presents himself to us as personal, and so we can pray to him, argue with him, present reasons to him, intercede with him. But he is also sovereign, the kind of God who works in us not least in our prayers! "both to will and to act according to his good purpose" (Phil. 2:13). His sovereignty does not diminish his personhood; that he is a person does not diminish his sovereignty. He is always not less than sovereign and personal.
The perverse and the unbeliever will appeal to God's sovereignty to urge the futility of prayer in a determined universe; they will appeal to passages depicting God as a person (including those that speak of his relenting) to infer that he is weak, fickle, and impotent, once again concluding that it is useless to pray. But the faithful will insist that, properly handled, both God's sovereignty and his personhood become reasons for more prayer, not reasons for abandoning prayer. It is worth praying to a sovereign God because he is free and can take action as he wills; it is worth praying to a personal God because he hears, responds, and acts on behalf of his people, not according to the blind rigidities of inexorable fate.
It is also helpful to remember that the prayer we offer cannot be exempted from God's sovereignty. If I pray aright, God is graciously working out his purposes in me and through me, and the praying, though mine, is simultaneously the fruit of God's powerful work in me through his Spirit. By this God-appointed means I become an instrument to bring about a God-appointed end. If I do not pray, it is not as if the God-appointed end fails, leaving God somewhat frustrated. Instead, the entire situation has now changed, and my prayerlessness, for which I am entirely responsible, cannot itself escape the reaches of God's sovereignty, forcing me to conclude that in that case there are other God-appointed ends in view, possibly including judgment on me and on those for whom I should have been interceding!
In short, despite the fact that God's nature is in many respects profoundly mysterious to us, we shall not go far wrong if we allow the complementary aspects of God's character to function in our lives the way they function in the lives of his servants in the Scripture. Then we will learn the better how to pray, and why we should pray, and what we should pray for, and how we should ask. We shall discover that the biblical emphasis on God's sovereignty and on God's personhood, if they function in our lives properly, will serve both as powerful incentives to prayer and as direction for the way in which we approach God.
This is an excerpt from A Call To Spiritual Reformation by D.A. Carson. Baker Academic. Grand Rapids, Michigan. 1992. Chapter 9. Pages 145-166.
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