The Foolishness of Building Bigger Barns

5 APRIL

Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth! Isaiah 5:8

SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Zephaniah 1

The prophet now reproves that insatiable avarice and covetousness from which often arise acts of cheating, injustice, and violence.It is not entirely wrong for a person to add field to field and house to house, but so often the person who does so has the disposition of mind that is not satisfied once it is inflamed by the desire of gain.

Accordingly, Isaiah describes the feelings of those who never have enough, and whom wealth can never satisfy. So great is the keenness of covetous men that they want to possess everything. They want everything that is obtained by others, regarding it as something that has been taken from them. All the while they do not realize they need the assistance of others or that a men left alone can do nothing. Their only care is to scrape together as much as they can. They swallow up everything by their covetousness. 

Isaiah accuses covetous and ambitious men of such folly that they wish to have other men removed from the earth so they might possess it alone. They do not realize that if they were left alone, they cold not plow, or reap, or perform other offices indispensable to their subsistence, or supply themselves with the necessaries of life. For God has linked men so closely together that they need the assistance and labor of each other. No one but a madman would disdain other men as hurtful or useless to him. Ambitious men cannot enjoy their renown alone but amid a multitude. How blind, therefore, are those who wish to drive and chase away others so that they might reign alone!

John Calvin

FOR MEDITATION: 

Calvin makes clear the foolishness of insatiable covetousness. Why, then, do we find ourselves constantly moving in this direction? Let us look to the example of Christ and pray for strength to resist this temptation today.

365 Days With Calvin 

Selected and Edited by Joel R. Beeke

A Doorkeeper in God’s House

3 MARCH

For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand. Psalm 84:10

SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: 3 John

Unlike many people who want to live without knowing why, wishing simply that their life may be prolonged, David says that his purpose for living is to serve God. He sets higher value on one day that is spent in God’s service than a long time that is spent among worldly people from whom true religion is banished. Because it is lawful for only priests to enter into the innermost courts of the temple, David declares that, if he were simply permitted to have a place at the porch, he would be content with the humble station of acting as a doorkeeper.

The value that David sets upon being in the sanctuary of God is striking in his comparison that he would be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. David would rather be cast into a common and unhonored place, providing that is among the people of God, than to be exalted to the highest rank of honor among unbelievers. That is a rare example of godliness indeed! Many people want to occupy a place in the church, but ambition has such sway over their minds tat few are content to be numbered among the common and the undistinguished class.

Almost all of us are carried away with the frantic desire of rising to distinction and cannot think of being at ease until we have attained some state of eminence.

John Calvin

FOR MEDITATION: When personal ambition takes over in our lives, we often succeed in turning the house of God into a “tent of wickedness.” If it is better for us to dwell in God’s house, even as a nobody, than to achieve recognition among the ungodly of this world, how then should we live? What changes should we make in our lives?

365 Days With Calvin

Selected and Edited by Joel R. Beeke