Trees Marked For the Axe

"To fix our confidence upon a dying world is folly. It is as if we were building our nests when the tree is being cut down, or decorating our cabin when the ship is likely to be dashed in pieces or is already sinking." 

Is it a time to drive a trade for ourselves when we are just leaving earth, and hope soon to be in heaven? Yet too many among professors are doing this. Their hearts are set upon their money, they build their nest in the golden grove; or they are wrapt up in their children, and, as it were, nestle down among those who spring up as willows by the watercourses. The axe is laid at the root of all earthly comforts, and, therefore, those who are taught of God soar aloft, and make their eyries on the Rock of Ages. What is our friend doing whose eyes are now scanning the page? Where is your heart? What is its dear delight and joy? Is it of earth? Then be sure that to earth it will return. Is your joy a thing of heaven? Then alone is it stable and sure. My soul, the world is passing away, set not thy love upon it. The ship is sinking, care little about the little luxuries of the berth which thou hast for a while occupied in it. Up and away! This is not thy rest. See, before thine eyes the fashion of this world passeth away; look to eternity and to thy God, for there alone is solid bliss. 

Charles H. Spurgeon 

Flowers From A Puritan's Garden, "Trees Marked for the Axe," p. 73

Christ's Predetermined Death

Christ's death, as well as the outcome of His death, was pre-planned by God: it was not a plan B'.

Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain' (Acts 2:23).

Many years ago, Jonathan Edwards preached a sermon entitled, 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.' Today, with the widespread low view of God, many think of God in the hands of angry sinners. God, to many, is a very little 'God' indeed, who is being hindered and limited by the wicked hands of men. One man thinks he can hold God off at arm's length and say to Him, 'I will not!' or that he can, if he choose, open his heart to the Saviour and let Him in. What a burlesque caricature of the 'Almighty God, whose power no creature is able to resist!' Our text does not say that Christ was delivered up to death on the cross by man's wicked hands, but by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. Yet we hear 'the Cross of Jesus' being spoken of as an emergency measure on the part of God. As one writer put it: 'Emergencies change all habits of action, divine and human... The greatest event on earth, the Cross, was an emergency action' (S. D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Prayer, p. 55). What a travesty of the truth! God never gets into an emergency. He is the Creator of circumstances; and no circumstance is or becomes any problem to Him. God is never put into a predicament; and the Cross was no afterthought, suddenly brought in to cope with an unforeseen difficulty. Nor was the death of Christ a calamity which calls for man's sympathy and pity. Neither was His death a mere experiment, uncertain in its results. It was not a mere trial which God put into operation to see what good could be accomplished, or what favourable response to it could be elicited from man. It was perfectly planned in the eternal purpose and counsel of the sovereign God. 'For of a truth against thy holy servant [same word, v. 25] Jesus, whom thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together, to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done' (Acts 4:27-28). Hear the whole purpose of the Cross from the lips of incarnate Truth: 'And 1, if I be lifted up from the earth [on the cross], will draw all unto me' (John 12:32); and 'all that the Father giveth me shall come unto me' (6:37). I delight in this truth and love to proclaim it, that the counsel of the Lord shall stand, and He shall do all His pleasure. Therefore of all that the Father giveth to Christ, He shall lose nothing. By His predetermined death they are eternally saved, and they shall never perish (John 10:28). Every part of the crucifixion was according to the eternal purpose of God which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord (Eph. 3:11).

You can see, then, that the principle cause of Christ's death was no contingency, accident or chance, but the sovereign counsel and eternal foreknowledge of God. It was God who planned it, who ordered it, and who disposed all things concerning it. This in no case implies that the murderers of Christ were forced into their evil act. They acted freely, and did unto Him whatsoever they listed. Yet they are accountable to God for their sin, and are not excused on the ground that it was all the work of God's determinate counsel. Their malice, cruelty and wicked hands God was pleased to use as instruments to accomplish His own holy purpose. From the human side, it was (1) a violent death. He was put to death outrageously by furious men: 'ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.' Yet from the point of view of God's sovereignty, no man could touch Him, except by the will of the Almighty Lord. To the Father's will He was always obedient. So it was (2) a voluntary death. He laid down His life of himself; no man took it from Him. He had power to lay it down, and power to take it again. It was (3) a painful death. 'The cross was a rack as well as a gibbet' (John Flavel). The pains which He suffered were the pains of death and hellish agonies. His body was wracked with pain. He endured bitter sorrow and travail of soul. Further, it was (4) a shameful death. Only slaves, and the basest and vilest of men were crucified. They were made an ignominious spectacle. But Jesus 'endured the cross' and 'despised the shame.'

Now why did Jesus thus die? Not to show us how a good man dies; not to teach us how even before the threat of death to remain true to our convictions; nor to prove that martyrdom is better than compromise. No, it was because in and by His death He must bear the curse of God against sin. The curse of the Law was against all of us, since we all fall short of that divine Law. Christ bore the curse for His people and redeemed them from it. His was (5) a prefigured death. In the Old Testament we have the figure of the lamb being sacrificed as a type of Christ, Who is the Lamb of God. His was (6) a predicted death. He himself had predicted His own death: 'For indeed the Son of Man goes on his predestined way; but woe to the man who is betraying him!' (Luke 22:22, Weymouth). Also, God had foreappointed His death. It was all 'according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will' (Eph. 1:11). Therefore, though He died on the cross, He did not die of the cross. Christ was not a victim of circumstances. No, all circumstances are in the control of God. Nor did Christ suffer a tragic death as a result of caprice, chance, fortune or luck. Banish the thought that the cross was a tragedy, or any sort of an emergency that God was forced into! Yet we come across sermon titles such as 'The Tragedy of the Cross.' Now a 'tragedy' is defined by Webster's Dictionary, First (1828) Edition: 'A fatal, mournful event in which human life is lost by human violence, particularly by unauthorized violence,' and so is 'the fatal outcome of a hopeless struggle.' But that is exactly what the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ was not! 'Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world' (Acts 15:18); and the cross is no exception to this. It was no fatal outcome of a hopeless struggle; but it was the inevitable consequence of an invincible purpose!

Thus it is with the precious blood of Christ. Believers are saved by that blood while on earth, that they may live with Christ in heaven. And the blood which is redemption to them on earth, is confirmation to those in heaven. Because of His shed blood, the saints in heaven have more perfect joy, but not more security, than the saints still on earth. As the gleaning of a 'handful of purpose' from an old forgotten field has it:

But Christ's to the end shall endure,
As sure as the earnest is given;
More happy, but not more secure,
The glorified spirits in heaven.

So it is by His blood that He has opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers; notice, not to all men, but to all believers! That is the extent and intent of His death: 'By him all that believe are justified from all things, from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses' (Acts 13:39). According to II Thessalonians 2:13, 'chosen ... through ... belief of the truth,' believers are the elect.

The world sees this mighty sacrifice held up as the means of pardon and forgiveness for the people of God; and the world hates every bit of it. The ungodly will have nothing of God's mercy in the blood of Christ. With them, it is mercy despised. Yet those who trust in that atoning blood, though they be the greatest sinners, are certain of free, full and final pardon. The very blackest guilt can no more stand under the cleansing power of that blood than a wicked reprobate can stand up under God's wrath and justice. By that Divine blood every stain is washed away. That efficacious blood blots out all the sins of all the elect, even their most obstinate unbelief.

As a certain writer so wonderfully described His death: (1) It was a natural death, that is, it was a real death. He did not merely swoon on the cross, then revive in the coolness of the tomb. The eternal Son of God 'became flesh,' condemned sin in the flesh, and 'tasted death' itself. That the naturalness of it might be the more apparent, He was buried, and lay in the tomb for three days. (2) It was an unnatural death, that is, it was exceptional. Death had absolutely no claim on the Divine Saviour. Death comes by sin, and He had no sin. Peter says, 'He did no sin' (I Peter 2:22); John says, 'in him is no sin' (I John 3:5); Paul says, 'He knew no sin' (II Cor. 5:21). He is 'holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.' Pilate found no fault in Him. Therefore for the Holy One of God to die, it was unnatural. (3) His death was supernatural. It was the death of the Son of God predetermined from all eternity. He was the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. He himself had said, 'From henceforth I tell you before it come to pass, that when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he' (John 13:19).

We are redeemed with the 'precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish (in His person), and without spot (in His conduct); who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world' (I Peter 1:20). God in His determinate counsel planned from eternity that the Saviour should die as the sacrifice for sin, that we might live. His death was supernatural also in that it was different from any other death. It was a voluntary death, for He 'laid down' His life of himself. He was led, not driven, as a lamb to the slaughter. He bowed His head, and gave up His spirit. Through all the six hours of excruciating pain on the cross, He had held His head erect. It did not loll helplessly on His chest. When He died, His head did not fall; He bowed His head, reverently and voluntarily. Behold, the majestic bearing of Christ on the cross! But there is further evidence that it was a supernatural death: 'Behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened' (Matt. 27:51-52). The purpose and power of God are very outstanding in the death of His Son. Everything about His death was in the hands and power of God. The Son himself was the mighty conqueror in the battle of the ages (Rev. 6:2), for He killed death dead by His death, and put away sin by the sacrifice of himself (Heb. 9:26). He was not a helpless victim of human violence. By His death He did what was assigned Him to do, as He said, 'This commandment have I received of my Father' (John 10:18). (Cf. A. W. Pink's The Seven Sayings of the Saviour on the Cross).

We insist, therefore, that the death of our Lord Jesus Christ was definite and certain in every respect, historically, naturally, spiritually and effectually. There was nothing accidental, nothing precarious about it. His foreknowledge rendered it certain, for God's foreknowledge is based on His settled counsel and purpose. God foreknows only what He has foreordained. He has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass. So Jesus went to the cross with absolute determination, with His face set like a flint to go to Jerusalem and Calvary. He went, not merely to make possible the salvation of mankind, but to make certain and actual the salvation of believers, 'the elect of God, holy and beloved' (Col. 3:12). He died on the cross, not simply to make sins pardonable, but to 'take away' sin (John 1:29). Therefore, His death was not a mere 'conditional' redemption purely incidental to the mood and inclination of man. It was an actual redemption; He truly, in fact and reality redeems. 'He hath visited and redeemed His people' (Luke 1:68). Thus the Lord Jesus carried out into perfect execution the counsel and will of God. He reveals, sets in motion and brings to its conclusion the whole plan of God. We know that all things cooperate for good for them that love God and are called according to His eternal purpose. Back in eternity there was in the mind and plan of God His people whom He foreknew and predestinated called, predestinated justified and predestinated glorified (Rom. 8:28-30). Now, in time, these people shall be called by Christ through His preached Word, justified by His blood, and, ultimately, glorified at the return of Christ in His glorious Second Advent. Thus the Cross of Jesus is the central link in the chain that connects the entire plan of the salvation of His Church Latent, Militant, Triumphant and Universal, from everlasting to everlasting. The Lord Jesus died according to the counsel of God, and we are saved according to the counsel of God. So the child of God is led to sing, 'Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and afterward receive me to Glory' (Ps. 73:24). The believer by God's grace is destined to glorification. Christ Jesus has merited glory for us on His cross. Through the power of His cross the glory of heaven can alone be realized. Through the power of His cross He will draw His people from the depth of sin, death and hell to the very height of everlasting glory. This He is able to do, since He arose from the dead, 'ever liveth,' and death hath no more dominion over Him. The living Christ has power to save. That gracious power is always in operation, saving men through faith, which is itself the gift of God, calling them, justifying them, sanctifying them, and ultimately glorifying them both in soul and in body. With a true faith, believe and trust the Christ of Calvary, and you will dwell for ever in the house of the Christ of Glory. 

Robert Harbach

Source:http://www.prca.org/resources/publications/pamphlets/item/565-christs-predetermined-death 

For more good reading materials please click the following links:

http://www.prca.org/ 

http://www.cprf.co.uk/

http://www.limerickreformed.com/ 

 

Comfort in the Midst of Death

30 MARCH

Though I walk in the midst of trouble, Thou wilt revive me: Thou shalt stretch forth Thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies, and Thy right hand shall save me. Psalm 138: 7

SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Psalm 23

Here David declares that God chooses to be His preserver, even in that means bringing him back to life in the midst of troubles.

The passage well deserves our attention, for by nature we are so averse to suffering that we wish we might live safely beyond the shot of its arrows. We shrink from close contact with even the fear of death as something altogether intolerable. At the slightest approach to danger, we are immoderately afraid, as if our emergencies preclude the hope of divine deliverance.

Faith's true office is to see life in the midst of death. It is to trust the mercy of God, not to procure us universal exemption from evil, but to quicken us in the midst of death every moment of our lives. For God humbles His children under various trials so that His defense of them may be more remarkable and that He may show Himself to be their deliverer as well as their preserver. In the world, believers are constantly exposed to danger. David offers the assurance that He will be safe under God's protection from all of His enemies and their efforts. He declares His hope is in the hand of God, which is stretched out for His help and will be invincible and victorious over every foe.

From this we are taught that God chooses to exercise His children with continual conflict, so that, having one foot as it were in the grace, they may flee with alarm to hide themselves under His wings, where they may abide in peace.

John Calvin 

FOR MEDITATION: Rather than shrinking from enemies or danger, let us place our confidence in the Lord; He alone is willing and able to save us. This ought to give us a sense of peace, even in a world of trouble where enemies abound. What do you think David meant when he said, "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies" (Ps. 23:5a)? 

365 Days With Calvin 

Selected and Edited by Joel R. Beeke

When God Removes Any Comfort From Us

We must be patient when God removes any comfort from us.

If God takes away any of our relations – ‘I take away the desire of thine eyes with a stroke’ (Ezek. 24:16) – it is still our duty patiently to acquiesce in the will of God. The loss of a dear relation is like pulling away a limb from the body. ‘A man dies every time he loses his own kith and kin.’ But grace will make our hearts calm and quiet, and produce holy patience in us under such a severe dispensation. I shall lay down eight considerations which may act like spiritual medicine to kill the worm of impatience under the loss of relations:

1. The Lord never takes away any comfort from His people without giving them something better. The disciples parted with Christ’s corporal presence and He sent them the Holy Ghost. God eclipses one joy and augments another. He simply makes an exchange; He takes away a flower and gives a diamond.

2. When godly friends die, they are in a better condition; they are taken away ‘from the evil to come’ (Isa. 57:1). They are out of the storm and have gone to the haven: ‘Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord’ (Rev. 14:13). The godly have a portion promised upon their marriage to Christ, but the portion is not paid till the day of their death. The saints are promoted at death to communion with God; they have what they so long hoped for, and prayed for. Why, then, should we be impatient at our friends’ promotion?

3. You who are a saint have a friend in heaven whom you cannot lose. The Jews have a saying at their funerals, ‘Let your consolation be in heaven.’ Are you mourning somebody close to you? Look up to heaven and draw comfort from there; your best kindred are above. ‘When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up’ (Ps. 27:10). God will be with you in the hour of death: ‘though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Thou art with me’ (Ps. 23:4). Other friends you cannot keep. God is a friend you cannot lose. He will be your guide in life; your hope in death; your reward after death.

4. Perhaps God is correcting you for a fault, and if so, it becomes you to be patient. It may be your friend had more of your love than God and therefore God took away such a relation, so that the stream of your love might run back to Him again. A gracious woman had been deprived , first of her children, then of her husband. She said, ‘Lord, Thou hast a plot against me; Thou intendest to have all my love.’ God does not like to have any creature set upon the throne of our affections; He will take away that comfort, and then He shall lie nearest our heart. If a husband bestows a jewel on his wife, and she so falls in love with that jewel as to forget her husband, he will take away the jewel so that her love may return to him again. A dear relation is this jewel. If we begin to idolize it, God will take away the jewel so that our love may return to Him again.

5. A godly relation is parted with, but not lost. That is lost which we have no hope of ever seeing again. Religious friends have only gone a little ahead of us. A time will shortly come when there shall be a meeting without parting (1 Thess. 5:10). How glad is one to see a long-absent friend! Oh, what glorious applause there will be, when old relations meet together in heave, and are in each other’s embraces! When a great prince lands at the shore, the guns go off in token of joy; when godly friends have all landed at the heavenly shore and congratulate one another on their happiness, what stupendous joy there will be! What music in the choir of angels! How heaven will ring with their praises! And that which is the crown of all, those who were joined in the flesh here shall be joined nearer than ever in the mystic body, and shall lie together in Christ’s bosom, that bed of perfume (1 Thess. 4:17).

6. We have deserved worse at God’s hand. Has He taken away a child, a wife, a parent? He might have taken away His Spirit. Has He deprived us of a relation? He might have deprived us of salvation. Does He put a wormwood in the cup? We have deserved poison. ‘Thou hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve’ (Ezra 9:13). We have a sea of sin, and only a drop of suffering.

7. The patient soul enjoys itself most sweetly. An impatient man is like a troubled sea that cannot rest (Isa. 57:20). He tortures himself upon the rack of his own griefs and passions, whereas patience calms the heart, as Christ did the sea, when it was rough. Now there is a sabbath in the heart, yes, a heaven. ‘In your patience possess ye your souls’ (Luke 21:19). By faith a man possesses God and by patience he possesses himself.

8. How patient many of the saints have been, when the Lord has broken the very staff of their comfort in bereaving them of relations. The Lord took away Job’s children and he was so far from murmuring that he fell to blessing: ‘the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord’ (Job 1:21). God foretold the death of Eli’s sons: ‘in one day they shall die, both of them’ (1 Sam. 2:34). But how patiently he took this sad news: ‘It is the Lord: let Him do what seemeth Him good’ (1 Sam. 3:18). See the difference between Eli and Pharaoh! Pharaoh said, ‘Who is the Lord?’ (Exod. 5:2). Eli said, ‘It is the Lord.’ When God struck two of Aaron’s sons dead, ‘Aaron held his peace’ (Lev. 10:2,3). Patience opens the ear but shuts the mouth so that it has not a word to say against God. See here the patterns of patience; and shall we not copy them? These are heart-quietening considerations when God sets a death’s-head upon our comforts and removes dear relations from us.

Thomas Watson

The Godly Man’s Picture, pp. 120-123

A Land of Pure Delight

20 January

And the LORD spake unto Moses that selfsame day, saying, Get thee up into this mountain Abarim, unto mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over against Jericho; and behold the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel for a possession: and die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people; as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people.

Deuteronomy 32: 48-50

SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Philippians 1:20-24

We naturally fly from death; no one hastens toward it of his own accord. Thus Moses would never have voluntarily entered the tomb unless he could hope for a better life to come.

Wherefore, though our carnal sense may be averse to death, let our faith prevail to overcome all its terrors, for, as Paul teaches, God’s children, who desire not to “be unclothed,” still long to be “clothed upon, that mortality may be swallowed up of life” (2 Cor. 5:4). Even so, Moses’ obedience was remarkable; he prepared himself no less willingly for death than as if he had been invited to some joyful banquet. He and other holy men had so consecrated themselves to God that they were ready to live or to die according to God’s pleasure.

Note the consolation that is referred to here; the pain of Moses’ death was alleviated by the permission he received from God to behold the land of Canaan. For this reason Moses was commanded to go to the top of the mountain. Though Moses would have been satisfied with the mere promise of God and even the deprivation of this blessing, he may not have been made more cheerful at the thought of leaving his people on the threshold of their inheritance. Faith does not altogether deprive God’s children of human feelings, but our heavenly Father in His indulgence has compassion on their infirmity. Thus, though Moses was sorry to be withheld from entering the Promised Land, he was supported by a seasonable remedy, that he might not be hindered in his course by this impediment.

John Calvin

FOR MEDITATION: Isaac Watts writes, “Could we but climb where Moses stood/ And view the landscape o’er/ Not Jordan’s stream nor death’s cold flood/ Should fright us from the shore.” How do we view death? Does a glimpse of the Promised Land ease our fears as we approach our end?

365 Days with Calvin

Selected and Edited by Joel R. Beeke