Praising the Lord

Praise the Lord, all nations!
Extol him, all peoples!
For great is his steadfast love towards us,
and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever
Praise the Lord
Psalm 117


Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you... Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say, Rejoice!
Philippians 3:1, 4:4

The whole of Christian life is not meant to be lived in reference to what you should and should not do. Often times we encapsulate the way we live into whether we ought to say one thing or do one thing, or ought not to do or say another thing. Much of the manner of our Christians lives consists in obligations. One of the main things Christ came to do was to show us in such a magnificent way that we are not primarily to live under obligations. He came to set us free from a life in reference to obligations and transformed it to a life of gratitude moved from joy in the heart.

One of the interesting things about the way in which Christ taught people was that he did not say "You should be kind to people", nor did he say, "You should not be mean to your neighbor." Jesus said "Live". "the crowds were astonished at his teachings, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes" Matthew 7:28-29. Christ did not call account to something else outside of himself that you should follow. Jesus did not call account to the Law as the final authority - He called account to himself, as that which all should be judged by and reckoned to or against. Just 4 verses earlier Jesus says "Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be... a wise man..." Have you heard the words of the Lord? No? Then pay close attention to the words and pray God's assistance and grace to help you see (Psalm 119:33-40). You say you have heard the words of the Lord? Then, do you obey?

What is the fountain of your obedience? Is it compulsion or out of gratitude? We often live life in the second person. That is to say, we think in our minds, "I should be praising the Lord". We are thinking in our minds about praising the Lord. This is not the way Christ would have us live. I don't believe we are simply to continue thinking about praising the Lord, for if we simply continue thinking about praising him, we will never actually praise him. Your thinking must move away from what you ought and ought not to do. Your thinking must move toward what is, what has been done, what is being done, and what will be done. Only until you move there will you ever actually praise. Instead of looking at the obligations, direct your gaze to the realities the obligations call attention to.

Only those who gaze intently into what Christ has done will actually lift their voice and raise the hearts prayerfully to God. Simply thinking what one must do is the wrong direction. Do not let your heart become rutted in what you ought to do. Go and gaze into the mysteries and glories of the cross, the works of the Lord, and praises of the saints. You will find yourself praising with joyousness or else praising with tears. The praise of joyousness are from times of happy cheer, when the affections grow strong in the Lord and the whole heart is moved to him. The praise of tears are from a sadness of negligence and sin that you abound with but remembering the good grace of the Lord that is poured out on a wicked person like yourself.

Are you glad to do the Lord's bidding? Do you say as the Psalmist "I find my delight in your commandments, which I love" (Psalm 119:47) Have you reason to praise the Lord? Then praise Him. If you are thinking as you go about your day, "O, how I must praise the Lord", then do so. Lift your heart to your wonderful Lord and say to him, "Lord, how good you are to me!"

So then, steer your eyes to Christ. Look upon his deeds, his promises and his works in your behalf. You will find yourself saying things like the apostle John, "Look and see the wonderous way in which the Father has loved us, he calls us children of God! And behold, we are!" (paraphrase of 1 John 3:1)

The Weakness of the Human Will: Part V - "The Terror of Eyes Opened"

What happened for man to have their eyes opened to the knowledge of Good and Evil was the most ruinous thing for all of creation to ever have done. It was Pandora's Box for mankind. As I stated before, "to have the knowledge of good and evil is to be like God"; "to know what to appropriately do with the knowledge of good and evil is to be God." This is the utter terror and danger of this knowledge. God understands all things, discerns all things and perceives all things. To God, knowledge of good and evil is not treacherous for him because he knows how to appropriately handle (this language is very condescending) such things. With man, being a finite creature who is a slave to passions, the knowledge of good and evil proves to be utterly murderous to him.

Because man is a pleasure-driven, pleasure-seeking creature, the knowledge of good and evil was the most treacherous thing to ever be unleashed on mankind. If temptations will always pose themselves as the most immediate satisfaction, and man's main design is to be satisfied, then man can do nothing but choose evil constantly. Man surrendered their ability to refuse evil when they chose to have the knowledge of good and evil. Evil will always appear as a more imminent satisfaction. Mankind now becomes a slave of a new passion: to carry out evil desires (Galatians 5:16-21). Because mankind rejected God's law, they became corrupted. As one seed, though as small as a grain of sand, enters into the soil, it sprouts up and overcomes all that stands in its path. This sin laid the seed that would forever give fruit to the weeds of wickedness. All of man's faculties, their heart, mind, will, soul, became overrun with the vines of sin, corrupting, constricting, and eventually killing man. Sin made all the faculties of man dead to their greatest passion, God.

Apart from the sustaining grace of God, mankind now is totally depraved. Though there is strength left in man and he still bears a marred image of God and can do beneficial things, nothing in the ends of the actions of man is good (Romans 3:10-18). The only thing that can now sustain a man's choice to do something that is good is the sheer grace of God. I must define good though, lest someone make hash out the understandings of these things. Good is something done in reference to God to glorify him. This is why Paul quotes David's use of Psalm 14, to show that no man does this in reference apart from some grace of God moving in on a wicked human heart. Apart from the constant sustaining power of God, the human will will always go astray.

The Weakness of the Human Will: Part IV - "The Plot Thickens"

Man always follows their greatest perceived desires. All creatures are slaves to what they desire. Since man always follows whatever is the greatest perceived desire is, the whole of the temptation in the garden now makes sense. Satan tempts man with a new desire - one they probably had not considered (i.e. the woman was deceived) - that desire is to be like God. The implication is that man, being weak in their ability to choose, understood the portion of the temptation of the Serpent's offer - that is, likeness with God means unlimited strength to accomplish your desires. The second part of the offer displays what the power would be used for - discerning between what is good and what is evil, understanding what is beneficial to you and what is murderous to you.

Here we have the content of the offer: 1) Likeness with God, 2) Knowing Good & Evil. The problem with having the Knowledge of Good and Evil is that only God is able to appropriately assess all things and discern all situations, motives and so on. To have the knowledge of good and evil is to be like God. To know what to appropriately do with the knowledge of good and evil is to be God. This is Satan's half truth and I believe is what he deceived Eve through.

In almost child-like fashion, Eve responds to the Serpent: "But God said 'You shall not...'." This is in the same fashion that a child responds to a person who would lead the child away: "My father said not to go there because it is dangerous and i might get hurt." The child does not understand all the dangers that lay in that path, only that she trust the words of her father and knows that he sees all the dangers, that he discerns what is Good and what is Evil in that situation. The Serpent understood this, and again, told yet another deceit. "You won't die. God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good from evil." Half lie: You won't die; half truth: God knows that when you eat of it...eyes opened...be like God.

Not only did Eve not see all the dangers, nor did Adam raise his voice, but the Serpent played off an ignorance that Eve had: To be like God is a good thing. This is where our second observation comes into play: humans are pleasure seeking creatures who will choose what appears best to them. What we will now see is that the Serpent knew exactly what he was doing: He was tempting them. Now, a little note about temptation - I believe that temptation will always present itself as the most immediate pleasure. Understand what I am not saying though. Immediate pleasures are not always temptations (rarely). But I am saying that temptations, when they come, will always pose themselves as the most immediately beneficial thing. This is an important distinction to carry in your mind.

The temptation contained the 3 primary ways that man is satisfied, all wrapped up into one nice little piece of fruit. 1) Physical : "the woman saw that it was good for food", 2) Emotional: "a delight to the eyes", 3) Mental: "to be desired to make one wise". The Serpent was roaring inside and eyes flaring as he saw this unfolding before his eyes. He knew exactly what was happening to God's most precious creation. He presented something to them that contained all of the things necessary to satisfy a human. The Serpent's temptation was 'flawless'.

Now, what happens when man sees this opportunity, it is necessary that they would choose it. They have a choice, but what is presented to them is an offer of such great desire that it overwhelms all other inclinations. I believe that if man would have resisted that temptation, then they would have been able to resist all temptations. But man's resources being limited and their power being finite, they could not resist to the utmost. The reason the would of necessity have chosen it is because what stood before them was the panacea to their situation of power - they could not see what errors stood in the path of the Serpent's offer. The Serpent's offer was thus, "God sees what is good and what is evil and discerns between it. He has told you not to eat this and you believe him because you see that he discerns what is good and what is evil for you. I offer you that same power. Right now you cannot see what is good and evil in this situation, but if you eat of this fruit you will see. You will no longer need to trust God childishly, but you can see for yourselves."

Man was caught. Here stood before him something so simple, yet so full of terrible wonder, and he failed. Deceived through their desires and understandings, man's will would not resist. A slave to their desires, which before served to benefit them at all times. But now, through a deceived mind, good-man crumbled under temptation, failed to obey the Lord's command, and brought upon themselves the Woe of all Woes. We turn next to that Woe.

The Weakness of the Human Will: Part III - Creatures of Pleasure

Of the many characteristics contained in the statement "Let Us make man in Our image", one of the most profound characteristics is the nature of the pleasure drivenness of man. Unlike any other creature on this earth, mankind is expressed to be one who experience emotions such as Joy, Romance, Treasuring, Cherishing, and so on. All creatures experience pleasure. But not in the same kind of manner that mankind does.

There are differences between 'kinds' and 'degrees'. All dogs are of the same 'kind' of animal, but differ in 'degrees'. Some dogs are black and white, small and fun (like my dog Happy). Other dogs are scruffy, large and elusive, like a wolf. Both are a kind of dog, but they differ in many degrees from one another. But we would not say a bird is the same kind of animal as a dog. A bird is a different kind of animal than a dog. I say all this because I do not want people to have sitting in their minds that humans are just an extension of the Animal Kingdom, who have same 'kinds' of desires, they just differ in degrees (i.e., they are more intense). This kind of thinking, which is rampant in today's psychological world is fraught with error, devalues the worth of man, and ultimately abhors what likeness man was made in and what man was made for, namely, God. The pleasure-drivenness of man is of a different kind than all other earthly creatures: The way and degrees in which we experience joy and pleasure are of a completely different nature than all other earthly creatures. I cannot say anything concerning heavenly creatures because i have no idea and it also doesn't seem that the bible gives much insight on these things (I could be wrong).

One of the most important things to understand is that Man will always choose what achieves the most pleasurable end in his considerations. I take this concept from Jonathan Edwards understanding of the Will (Works of Jonathan Edwards, Freedom of the Will, pg. 4-12. For any with a ridiculous amount of time and patience, this is a very interesting work. Extremely difficult to understand, and I think I understood about 1/4 of it, at least the part I read), who says basically this but in a more difficult 18th century language. This understanding is highly apparent if one examines the temptation account in Genesis 3 (or even more, their own temptations every day, but more on that later). When man looks at a situation and has to decide, he will always choose that thing or option, after all things in his mind are considered, which appears best to him. I won't belabor the difficulties in this idea, Mr. Edwards does that quite nicely in his article.

Now, we must thrust ourselves to the Garden of Eden at the scene of the Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil to see the importance and impact that the 2 key elements have on humanity. Those two key elements are 1) the Human Will is inherently weak, and 2) Humans are pleasure-seeking beings who will choose what looks best to them (if I may put it so poorly).

The Weakness of the Human Will: Part II - The Will is Inherently Weak

Why didn't man resist the temptation? I am asserting that man's will, of necessity, would have failed no matter what. The first thing that we must understand is that if man, though being good, fell, then his will is inherently weak. I say that this is so because if the human will was indefinitely strong and able then it would have been able to bear up and resist the temptation that the serpent posed to them at the tree. It is understood that man is a finite creature and if being a finite creature, all his capacities are finite. I think the faculties of man, such as the heart, mind, will, and soul are all finite entities. They cannot hold all of eternity in them at one moment, the cannot comprehend all things at one moment.

The will, primarily, being finite has its limits. Since man is not God, they are not entirely self-sufficient. Man was created weak - he had to eat, drink, defecate, and so on. If at any point man stopped eating, he would have died. Man was not created in an immortal body. There was a reason why God made trees for them to eat off of. Human flesh is inherently weak and in constant need of support. This is why the Tree of Life was inserted into the Garden of Eden: something had to restore man's frail fleshly body. I'm am confident in thinking that the laws of thermodynamics, namely the 2nd law, (for all you science geeks like me) was in play as much as gravity was. For those of you unfamiliar with the 2nd law of thermodynamics, in simple application, it means that all energy is going from a complex state to a simple state - i.e. all things are burning out. Mankind is as much bound by this law as by the law of gravity, and over time, either man's sheer ignorance (which they had at the Garden of Eden, e.g., Eve was deceived, and a fundamental element to deception is ignorance) leading him to hurt himself or through some cataclysmic event, man would need repairing. All this to say: even 'good man' is inherently weak.

All evidence points towards a mankind that was inherently weak. It follows from the nature of reality, that if you are not God, then you are weak. No matter how much power a creature is endowed with; whether that be man with all their capabilities, angels with all their illustriousness, even Lucifer was given power beyond all imaginative categories, and yet each creature is has an inherent weakness.

If man had infinite strength of mind then to pose that they could bear up under temptation would not be far fetched. But any clearheaded human being would know that this is not a plausible postulation.

The Weakness of the Human Will: Part I - 'Good Man' Fell

I sat listening to a lecture today and a question of free will came up during the lecture, something along the lines that some persons assert that God should have made a world where humans were inherently good because if they were so, then they would always willingly choose good. Instantly my thoughts traversed to the garden of Eden. Here is man, unadulturated, pure, holy, clean, and, in its truest sense, good. This is what many people assert that a good God would have done with all people. But here we have man and woman who are good and given the ability to choose between right and wrong and they failed to choose the good.

The question necessarily arises: "Why didn't man resist the temptation that was posed to them by the serpent?" Before we endeavor to draw out some answers to that question, there were many other things in my mind that I considered that tie into that question. What is interesting to note is that there is only one temptation account in the Garden of Eden. This is important because if there was only one moment of temptation, then man fell at the first temptation. Even though man was endowed with complete internal goodness, that goodness coupled with the power of man's will was not enough to restrain him from choosing evil. This is something that I am inferring from the text which may or may not be false, but it is worth noting for the sake of the argument. If this is true, that man fell on the first temptation, then we must consider reasons why he would have fallen. There are three observations that I see that are necessary to understand. 1) Man's will is inherently weak, whether that man be inherently good or not. This is the hinge of the argument. 2) The nature of the offer (temptation) of the serpent. 3) Temptation will always appear as the greatest immediate pleasure to an untrained conscience, and man will always follow their greatest perceived desire, therefore man necessarily would have chosen the temptation that was presented to them.

What is most important for us to distinguish at the outset though is that man did not resist temptation even though they were inherently good. This flies in the face of condemners who say that a simple restoration to internal goodness will suffice for the power to always resist temptation.

Confidently Speaking the Truth

Take away from me scorn and contempt, for I have kept your testimonies
Even though princes sit plotting against me, your servant will meditate on your statutes
Psalm 119:22-23

For the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame
Hebrews 12:2

I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God
Romans 1:16

I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
Romans 7:18-19

We are very lightly struck with the power of the message that God has given us to deliver. Our souls are oftentimes moved for but moments after some excitement, but rarely simply because of the weight of the message we carry. What is more is the fear which we are plagued with so often when moved to speak a message, speak the truth, and confront the lies. Little do we know of the power of God.

This is a peculiar fear that rises within us. What stirs in us to be afraid of telling the truth? What rivals our inclinations to speak to another concerning sin and judgment, and righteousness and life? Fear grips our hearts with swiftness and holds us tightly, plaguing us with all sorts of evil imaginations were we to actually blurt out the truth. But a fear of what? It is a fear of none other than being ashamed. There is a keen difference between being shamed and being ashamed that must be made. To have shame brought against you is not always sinful. If on account of sin you have brought shame upon the cross, upon yourself, your family, or your church, the shame is evident from the disgraceful manner in which you acted. But, as with Christ, shame is not always a result of sin on the recipient of shame. I am sure that one of the allusions that Hebrews 12:2 has in mind is in reference to the shame that multitudes attributed to Christ as he was spread naked upon a cross. I do not think many of us have pondered this thought appropriately, that is, that our God who upholds all things by the word of his power lay naked before the whole world, exposed, so that nothing lay hidden from their sight. There is shame that is so deep that many humans who suffer deeply will not even know the depths of the shame that was heaped upon our savior in that moment. This may very well have been one of the contributing factors to our Savior’s distress in the garden. Knowing the manner in which he was to be killed, Jesus was confronted with two options: Be ashamed or despise it.

Here is our plight. Though we are not thrown into crucibles of such atrocities as Jesus was, nonetheless we are still confronted with being called shameful for what we preach, for what we believe, for what we live. There is a situation though that most poignantly highlights our feelings of being shamed on account of the cross. It is not simply telling the gospel, how ever difficult we may find it at times to speak of it to others. It is much more general than this. We are often fearful of being shamed for simply speaking the truth, speaking it confidently and speaking it clearly. Our generation is filled with a host of cowards. Men and women who are so fearful of confronting sin that we sit silently under the most perverse of conversations and situations, and we convince ourselves constantly out of the convictions that are stirring in those moments. This generation cowers in fear, preferring to maintain the status quo than to be cast out and shame heaped on their heads. Our interest is only toward our own concerns and whether those concerns will be maintained. It is on account of this that a feeling of being ashamed arises.

Shame is not altogether evil, as declared. But feeling ashamed is something that a believer should not dwell upon for too long. If you have dealt wrongly and sinned, being ashamed of your actions is appropriate, but only for a time. If you dwell indefinitely on your sin and shame it is evidence to you that you have forgotten the cross. But, if you have not dealt wrongly and have done right and sought the Lord about it, there should be no reason to be ashamed of what you have done. But so often this is not so. So often we are razed with fear of being shamed, to the point that we sit silent. It does not need to be this way. Why must we be afraid of speaking to another about Christ? Why must we be afraid of confronting another’s sin? Why must we be afraid of telling the truth? It is such an oddity. The only reason for such a thing is that there is something inside us warring vehemently against living in such an illuminated way.

Our enemy inside is yelling at us in all sorts of manners, conjuring every sort of excuse that it can think of to turn us from doing what our convictions have set at hand. It knows what a deadly thing we are setting out to do to evil and it will have no part of it, it will not go out without raising a fight. This is what we must constantly bear in mind when our convictions have grabbed hold of us and shake us awake to what must be done. The propositions that sin is giving to you, that you will be thought low of, that you will be disregarded, that you will alienate those you speak to may be true, but these offers are more costly than to not speak. Your silence puts souls on the line. Your speaking shows where they are at. But you must bear in mind: no soul was ever saved by remaining silent – “how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Romans 10:15) – but sometimes the news is devastating. A doctor is evil if they tell a patient that all is well when all the while cancer is running rampant in the body, eating them alive. So then, we are evil if we remain silent when all the while sin runs rampant around us, rending all of their souls.

On what basis do we not remain silent? It is easy enough to say, “Do not be a coward, but speak up.” But that would leave you no better than before because your work would come from resting in your own ability to raise up in yourself the affections to do what is at hand. You would have trusted in yourself, which is just as pernicious to your soul as remaining silent. Your basis for not remaining silent rests on the fact that what you say, the words you speak, are bound with the power of God. Any word said to confront a sin, to encourage a brother or sister, to tell of the gospel, are infused with the power of God to transform any and all souls whom God wishes to renew – “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life…” (John 10:25-28). Therefore, your courage does not come from some latent ability that God has instilled in you to speak boldly and courageously. We have found the contrary from constantly failing – “I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out”. We must understand that if a person is not convinced when we speak a message of truth or their heart does not change it is because God has not granted repentance (Acts 11:18; 2 Timothy 2:25). Their heart changing does not depend upon a connection of the right things to say but on the sovereign grace of God. Bear in mind though, that the changing of the heart does depend upon being spoken to. If we speak, we have done all we can do and no more, except entrust it to the Lord. Saving persons does not lie in the power of men. We must also understand that to be shamed because we have called account to our God is no shame at all – it is all joy (James 1:2). We do not stand or fall before men, for what can man do to you, kill your body? Slander you? Curse you? We must take the advice of Christ to “fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell” (Matthew 10:28), and follow his example – despise the shame. We must loathe the shame that comes against us and look away from our own concerns and interests. We must look to the joy that sits before us.

Do not be afraid of what man can do to you because the words you speak are the power of God