The Bible Minute is a short audio program featuring a Bible topic each week.
This week’s topic focuses on an amazing passage in the book of Exodus that marvelously teaches the gospel of Christ. We’ll see the glorious teaching early in Scripture that God will stand in the place of guilty sinners! The Scripture reference is Exodus 17:1-7.
Listen to this week’s episode.
My God, I bless Thee that Thou hast given me the eye of faith, to see Thee as Father, to know Thee as a covenant God, to experience Thy love planted in me; for faith is the grace of union by which I spell out my entitlement to Thee: faith casts my anchor upwards where I trust in Thee and engage Thee to be my Lord.
Be pleased to live and move within me, breathing in my prayers, inhabiting my praises, speaking in my words, moving in my actions, living in my life, causing me to grow in grace.
Thy bounteous goodness has helped me believe, but my faith is weak and wavering, its light dim, its steps tottering, its increase slow, its backslidings frequent; it should scale the heavens, but it lies grovelling in the dust. Lord, fan this diving spark into glowing flame. When faith sleeps, my heart become an unclean thing, the fount of every loathsome desire, to cage of unclean lusts all fluttering to escape, the noxious tree of deadly fruit, the open wayside of earthly tares.
Lord, awake faith to put forth its strength until all heaven fills my soul and all impurity is cast out.
From Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers.
The Bible Minute is a short audio program featuring a Bible topic each week.
This week’s topic covers a type of person in the church that can dangerously be close to the things of God but still be lost and fallen. The Scripture reference is Luke 8:4-15.
Listen to this week’s episode.
If our Lord Jesus Christ had not cried “My God, My God why have You forsaken Me?” on that cross, we would be crying out this hideous howl in the bowels of hell for all eternity: “Oh righteous God, You have forever forsaken me!”
I’ve been slowly reading through probably one of the finest Puritan books ever written entitled The Fountain of Life by John Flavel. Each chapter is a facet of the diamond of the Person and work of Jesus Christ written like only a Puritan can. The statement above is a paraphrase of part of chapter 33 of this excellent treatise on Jesus Christ. I firmly believe that part of what will make heaven so glorious is that we will forever be learning and marveling at Christ. Heaven will be heaven because Christ is there. It truly teaches us that only the Bride of Christ will truly be happy in heaven. Everyone in the world wants to go to heaven – they just don’t want God to be there. But for true believers – the Bride of Christ – one of the many glorious wonders of heaven will be growing in the knowledge of God for all eternity and never reaching the end of Him.
As we marvel at this great truth may we always return to the cross and remember that the cry of our Lord meant that all of God’s goodness was turned away while all of God’s wrath was fully focused on His Son as He made Him who knew no sin to become sin on our behalf so that we may have the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:21) Believers, because of Christ, will never utter those words. Because of Him who reigns victoriously at the right hand of the Father who drank the cup of wrath we now only have the cup of blessing freely offered to us for all eternity.
Oh how we need to put amazing back into grace!
Soli Deo Gloria
The Pony Express was a private express company that carried mail by an organized relay of horseback riders. The eastern end was in St. Joseph, Missouri, and the Western terminal was in Sacramento, California. The cost of sending a letter by Pony Express was $2.50 an ounce. If the weather and horses held out and the Indians held off, that letter would complete the entire 2000 mile journey in a speedy 10 days, as did the report of Lincoln’s Inaugural Address.
It may surprise you that the pony express was only in operation from April 3, 1860, until November 18, 1861–just seventeen months. When the telegraph line was completed between two cities, the service was no longer needed.
Being a rider for the Pony Express was a tough job. You were expected to ride 75 to 100 miles a day, changing horses every 15 to 25 miles. Other than the mail, the only baggage you carried contained a few provisions, including a kit of flour, cornmeal, and bacon. In case of danger, you also had a medical pack of turpentine, borax, and and cream of tartar. In order to travel light and to increase speed of mobility during Indian attacks, the men always rode in shirt sleeves, even during the fierce winter weather.
How would you recruit volunteers for this hazardous job? An 1860′s San Francisco newspaper printed this ad for the Pony Express: “Wanted: Young, skinny, wiry fellows not over 18 years of age. Must be expert riders willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred.”
Those were the honest facts of the service required, but the Pony Express never had a shortage of riders…
Like the Pony Express, serving God is not a job for the casually interested. It’s a costly service. He asks for your life. He asks for service to Him to become a priority, not a pastime.
- Donald Witney, from Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life
Thou art the blessed God,
Happy in Thyself, source of happiness in Thy creatures, my Maker, Benefactor, Proprietor, Upholder. Thou hast produced and sustained me, supported and indulged me, saved and kept me; Thou art in every situation able to meet my needs and miseries. May I live by Thee, live for Thee, never be satisfied with my Christian progress but as I resemble Christ; and may conformity to His principles, temper, and conduct grow hourly in my life.
Let Thy unexampled love constrain me into holy obedience, and render my duty my delight. If others deem my faith folly, my meekness infirmity, my zeal madness, my hope delusional, my actions hypocrisy, may I rejoice to suffer for Thy name.
Keep me walking steadfastly towards the country of everlasting delights, that paradise-land which is my true inheritance. Support me by the strength of heaven that I may never turn back, or desire false pleasures that wilt and disappear into nothing.
As I pursue my heavenly journey by Thy grace let me be known as a man with no aim but that of a burning desire for Thee, and the good and salvation of my fellow men.
From Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers
The Bible Minute is a short audio program featuring a Bible topic each week.
This week’s topic is how to restore those caught in sin from Galatians 6:1.
Listen to this week’s episode.
O LORD,
When the world’s unbelievers reject Thee, and are so forsaken by Thee that Thou callest them no more, it is to Thine own Thou dost turn, for in such seasons of general apostasy they in some measure backslide with the world.
O how free is Thy grace that reminds them of the danger that confronts them and urges them to persevere in adherence to Thyself!
I bless Thee that those who turn aside ay return to Thee immediately, and be welcomed without anything to commend them, notwithstanding all their former backslidings. I confess that this is suited to my case, for of late I have found great want, and lack of apprehension of divine grace; I have been greatly distressed of soul because I did not suitably come to the fountain that purges away all sin; I have labored too much for spiritual life, peace of conscience, progressive holiness, in my own strength.
I beg Thee, show me the arm of all might; give me to believe that Thou can do for me more than I ask or think, and that, though I backslide, Thy love will never let me go, but will draw me back to Thee with everlasting cords; that Thou dost provide grace in the wilderness, and can bring me out, leaning on the arm of my Beloved; that Thou can cause me to walk with Him by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein I shall not stumble.
Keep me solemn, humble, devout, faithful, resting on free grace for assistance, acceptance, and peace of conscience.
From Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers
“Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.” – Jude 24-25
One of the most glorious doxologies in all of Scripture, we end this epistle on false teachers and the call to sound doctrine with a glorious closing doxology on the glory of God. This doxology reminds us so importantly that there is nothing within ourselves that prevents us from falling into error except the grace and power of God in the indwelling gift and pledge of the Holy Spirit of God.
Jude focuses on God – all to Him! It is because of God and Him alone that we persevere , that our eyes are open to the glorious truths of Scripture all to His glory in the face of Christ Jesus. Only by His Spirit are we kept from stumbling into apostasy – we owe all to Him! Only He, through His righteousness applied to us in Christ, can allow us to stand before Him holy and blameless. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
Soli Deo Gloria! To God alone be the glory! To the only God – the Triune God of all creation by His glory in the face of Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. To Him alone be all glory, all majesty, all honor, all dominion, and all authority!
This doxology in Jude reminds me of the Gloria Patris…
“Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.”
Soli Deo Gloria!
There are times when a saint is called to trust in a withdrawing God. “[Let him] that walketh in darkness and hath no light… trust in the name of the Lord” (Isaiah 50:10). This requires a bold step of faith – to venture into God’s presence with the same temerity as Esther into Ahasuerus’s. Even when no smile lights his face, when no golden scepter is extended to summon us to come near, we must press forward with this noble resolution: “If I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:16).
Which leads our faith one step further: we must trust also in a “killing God”. We must declare with Job, “Though He slay me, yet I will trust in Him” (Job 13:15) It takes a submissive faith for a soul to march steadily forward while God seems to fire upon that soul and shoot his frowns like poisoned arrows into it. This is hard work, and will test the Christians mettle. Yet such a spirit we find in the poor woman of Canaan, who caught the bullets Christ shot at her, and with a humble boldness sent them back again in her prayer (Matthew 15:22-28).
Your work and your life must go off the stage together. Persisting to the end will be the burr under your saddle – the thorn in your flesh – when the road ahead seems endless and your soul begs an early discharge. It weighs down every other difficulty of your calling. We have known many who have joined the army of Christ and the liked being a soldier for a battle or two, but have soon had enough and ended up deserting. They impulsively enlist for Christian duties, are easily persuaded to take up profession of religion, and are just as easily persuaded to lay it down. Like the new moon, they shine little in the first part of the evening, but go down before the night is over.
Taking up the cross daily, praying always, watching night and day and never laying aside our armor to indulge ourselves, sends many sorrowful away from Christ.
From The Christian in Complete Armour by William Gurnall
O LORD,
May I never fail to come to the knowledge of the truth, never rest in a system of doctrine, however Scriptural, that does not bring or further salvation, or teach me to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, or help me to live soberly, righteously, godly; never relying my own convictions and resolutions, but be strong in Thee and in Thy might; never cease to find Thy grace sufficient in all my duties, trials, and conflicts; never forget to repair to Thee in all my spiritual distresses and outward troubles, in all the dissatisfactions experienced in creature comforts; never fail to retreat to Him who is full of grace and truth, the Friend that loveth at all times, who is touched with feelings of my infirmities, and can do exceedingly abundantly for me; never confine my religion to extraordinary occasions, but acknowledge Thee in all my ways; never limit my devotions to particular seasons but be in Thy fear all the day long; never be godly only on the Lord’s Day or in Thy house, but on every day abroad and at home; never make piety a dress but a habit, not only a habit but a nature, not only a nature but a life.
Do good to me by all Thy dispensations, by all means of grace, by worship, prayers, praises, and at last let me enter that world where is no temple, but only Thy glory and the Lamb’s.
From Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers
From three dark places Christ came forth this day;
From first His Father’s bosom, where He lay,
Concealed till now; then from the typic law,
Where we His manhood but by figures saw;
And lastly from His mother’s womb He came
To us, a perfect God and perfect Man.
Now in a manger lies the Eternal Word:
The Word He is, yet can no speech afford;
He is the Bread of Life, yet hungry lies;
The Living Fountain, yet for drink He cries;
He cannot help or clothe Himself at Need
Who did the lilies clothe and ravens feed;
He is the Light of Lights, yet now doth shroud
His glory with our nature as a cloud.
He came to us a Little One, that we
Like little children might in malice be;
Little He is, and wrapped in clouts, lest He
Might strike us dead if clothed with majesty.
Christ had four beds and those not soft nor brave:
The virgin’s womb, the manger, cross, and grave.
The angels sing this day, and so will I
That have more reason to be glad than they.
-Rowland Watkyns, fl. 1662
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