Sweet Sorrow The Happy Root of Holy Living July 29, 2010
Posted by brian in : John Piper, Jonathan Edwards , add a commentEdwards:
God glorifies Himself toward the creatures . . . in two ways: 1. By appearing to . . . their understanding. 2. In communicating Himself to their hearts, and in their rejoicing and delighting in, and enjoying, the manifestations which He makes of Himself. . . . God is glorified not only by His glory’s being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and by the heart. God made the world that He might communicate, and the creature receive, His glory; and that it might [be] received both by the mind and heart. He that testifies his idea of God’s glory [doesn’t] glorify God so much as he that testifies also his approbation of it and his delight in it.
Piper: Sweet Sorrow The Happy Root of Holy Living
The Riches of Edwards for All Races July 22, 2010
Posted by brian in : Jonathan Edwards , add a comment
The following is an excellent (am I over using this word?) sermon from the “A God Enhanced Vision of all things” conference in 2003. The sermon is by Burns. In it he asks….
“Why should we listen to Edwards? Edwards owned slaves and died owning slaves and justified owning slaves, African and even Native Americans as well, why should we read Edwards? I want my black brothers and other people of color to really hone in on this. The over-arching reason to me that we should read Edwards is because Edward’s Calvinism formed the basis of early American abolitionism. Those who were staunch opposers to slavery were staunch defenders of Edwards and his theology. Edwards main pupil Samuel Hopkins and others like him, Edwards Jr. and Lemuel Haynes were agitators of the same. These men took their queues from Edwards understanding of what he called disinterested benevolence. Which to him was love “toward being in general, God and His creatures. In essence this love toward God and then toward creatures was the very basis of our expression of love toward our neighbor. Not a love full of self interest, but one than is inclined toward the good and happiness of others.” Hopkins and Jr. and Haynes heard that and they said this is the context by which we can fight against slavery, because slavery does not, it mitigates against ones true happiness. Whereas Edwards is saying in disinterested benevolence, the goal is love toward God and love toward being, but the goal is ones happiness in God of which slavery in and of itself kills…. Whose happiness do you need to seek the most? Is it not those who are the most oppressed? Don’t they need the most liberation, both physically and spiritually? Those are the ones you ought to seek…. It is amazing thing how man can “love God” who they don’t see and hate their brother who they do see. Hopkins said that God makes the sin the occasion of his own glory. God overruled sin in the sense that deeds that individuals intended as evil were used by God as the occasion for good.
Blacks were not saying that slavery was not prompted by God. That is were we need to get. I get in trouble when I say this, and that’s OK. You have to understand slavery in the context of sovereignty to make any sense out of it at all. So the abolitionist didn’t run away from that, they ran to it. They said yes God intended it, but he intended it for your destruction and their elevation and for the advancement of His glory in the succeeding generations of Africans who would came to know and love him….
How do we listen to Edwards? This is to me most crucial. That we should listen to Edwards is true. We should be skilled in Edwards as much as we can. For the African American, or any for that matter, how do we listen to Edwards? How do we listen to a slave owner? There is really only one answer to this question, which has manifold implications. If you want to listen to Edwards, you must embrace the sovereignty of God. The call to this conference is not a call to love Edwards first; it is a call to love the God of Edwards first. The God he preached was the God of the Bible, who is sovereign over all things and events in the universe, even the sin of humanity including the holocaust and slavery. The embracing of this reality does not call for an intellectual and emotional abandoning of history. I don’t want my black brothers to hear me saying that I’m saying forget slavery. That is not what I am saying. What I’m saying is that if you want to understand Edwards, if you want to “get” Edwards you have to read him in the context, and read his life in the context of the sovereignty of God…..
Sovereignty helps you to understand your existence and your history in light of what God has been doing. God is the God of history, God is the God of slavery, and God produced slavery for the goal of his own Glory. The very difficult thing that black have to do, and here is a great quote by Ken Jones pastor of Greater Missionary Union Baptist Church “The challenge of African Americans within the Reformed context, the challenge is that it is a call to embrace the theology of our oppressors and to reject the theology of our liberators.” Think about that. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and I say with much trepidation Martin Luther King. Great as he was socially, theologically he was liberal. Reformed theology, says to the African American, see that man who owned slaves, read him! And you see the man who was fighting for your civil rights, appreciate what he has done, by all means, but theologically don’t hear him. That’s hard, that’s hard! I long for the day when we will have something that is both hand in hand. Reformed thinkers with a true social activism!”
Lemuel Haynes
Black Puritan, Black Republican: The Life and Thought of Lemuel Haynes, 1753-1833
From Jonathan Edwards’ Sermon “The Christian Pilgrim” June 11, 2010
Posted by brian in : Jonathan Edwards , add a commentThanks Miguel for sharing this with me.
“1. Labor to get a sense of the vanity of this world, on account of the little satisfaction that is to be enjoyed here, its short continuance, and unserviceableness when we most stand in need of help, viz. on a death-bed. — All men, that live any considerable time in the world, might see enough to convince them of its vanity, if they would but consider. — Be persuaded therefore to exercise consideration when you see and hear, from time to time, of the death of others. Labor to turn your thoughts this way. See the vanity of the world in such a glass.
2. Labor to be much acquainted with heaven. — If you are not acquainted with it, you will not be likely to spend your life as a journey thither. You will not be sensible of its worth, nor will you long for it. Unless you are much conversant in your mind with a better good, it will be exceeding difficult to you to have your hearts loose from these things, to use them only in subordination to something else, and be ready to part with them for the sake of that better good. — Labor therefore to obtain a realizing sense of a heavenly world, to get a firm belief of its reality, and to be very much conversant with it in your thoughts.
3. Seek heaven only by Jesus Christ. — Christ tells us that he is the way, and the truth, and the life. (John 14:6) He tells us that he is the door of the sheep. “I am the door, by me if any man enter in he shall be saved; and go in and out and find pasture.” (John 10:9) If we therefore would improve our lives as a journey towards heaven, we must seek it by him and not by our own righteousness, as expecting to obtain it only for his sake: looking to him [and] having our dependence on him, who has procured it for us by his merit. And expect [that] strength to walk in holiness, the way that leads to heaven, only from him.
4. Let Christians help one another in going this journey. — There are many ways whereby Christians might greatly forward one another in their way to heaven, as by religious conference, etc. Therefore let them be exhorted to go this journey as it were in company: conversing together, and assisting one another. Company is very desirable in a journey, but in none so much as this. — Let them go united and not fall out by the way, which would be to hinder one another, but use all means they can to help each other up the hill. — This would ensure a more successful traveling and a more joyful meeting at their Father’s house in glory.”
The Manner in Which the Salvation of the Soul is to be Sought March 17, 2010
Posted by brian in : Jonathan Edwards , add a comment“Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he” (Genesis 6:22).
CONCERNING these words, I would observe three things:
I. What it was that God commanded Noah, to which these words refer. It was the building of an ark according to the particular direction of God, against the time when the flood of waters should come; and the laying up of food for himself, his family, and the other animals, which were to be preserved in the ark. We have the particular commands which God gave him respecting this affair, from the 14th verse, “Make thee an ark of gopher wood,” &c
2. We may observe the special design of the work which God had enjoined upon Noah: it was to save himself and his family, when the rest of the world should be drowned. See ver. 17, 18.
3. We may observe Noah’s obedience. He obeyed God: thus did Noah. And his obedience was thorough and universal: according to all that God commanded him, so did he. He not only began, but he went through his work, which God had commanded him to undertake for his salvation from the flood. To this obedience the apostle refers in Heb. xi. 7, “By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house.
DOCTRINE.
We should be willing to engage in and go through great undertakings, in order to our own salvation.
The building of the ark, which was enjoined upon Noah, that he and his family might be saved, was a great undertaking: the ark was a building of vast size; the length of it being three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. A cubit, till of late, was by learned men reckoned to be equal to a foot and a half of our measure. But lately some learned men of our nation have travelled into Egypt, and other ancient countries, and have measured some ancient buildings there, which are of several thousand years standing, and of which ancient histories give us the dimensions in cubits; particularly the pyramids of Egypt, which are standing entire at this day. By measuring these, and by comparing the measure in feet with the ancient accounts of their measure in cubits, a cubit is found to be almost two and twenty inches. Therefore learned men more lately reckon a cubit much larger than they did formerly. So that the ark, reckoned so much larger every way, will appear to be almost of double the bulk which was formerly ascribed to it According to this computation of the cubit, it was more than five hundred and fifty feet long, about ninety feet broad, and about fifty feet in height.
To build such a structure, with all those apartments and divisions in it which were necessary, and in such a manner as to be fit to float upon the water for so long a time, was then a great undertaking. It took Noah, with all the workmen he employed, a hundred and twenty years, or thereabouts, to build it For so long it was, that the Spirit of God strove, and the long-suffering God waited on the old world, as you may see in Gen. vi. 3: “My Spirit shall I not always strive with man; yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.” All this while the ark was a preparing, as appears by 1 Pet. iii. 20: “When once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing.” It was a long time that Noah constantly employed himself in this business. Men would esteem that undertaking very great, which should keep them constantly employed even for one half of that time. Noah must have had a great and constant care upon his mind for these one hundred and twenty years, in superintending this work, and in seeing that all was done exactly according to the directions which God had given him.
Not only was Noah himself continually employed, but it required a great number of workmen to be constantly employed, during all that time, in procuring, and collecting, and fitting the materials, and in putting them together in due form. How great a thing was it for Noah to undertake such a work! For beside the continual care and labor, it was a work of vast expense. It is not probable that any of that wicked generation would put to a finger to help forward such a work, which doubtless they believed was merely the fruit of Noah’s folly, without full wages. Noah must needs have been very rich, to be able to bear the expense of such a work, and to pay so many workmen for so long a time. It would have been a very great expense for a prince; and doubtless Noah was very rich, as Abraham and Job were afterwards. But it is probable that Noah spent all his worldly substance in this work, thus manifesting his faith in the word of God, by selling all he had, as believing there would surely come a flood, which would destroy all; so that if he should keep what he had, it would be of no service to him. Herein he has set us an example, showing us how we ought to sell all for our salvation.
Noah’s undertaking was of great difficulty, as it exposed him to the continual reproaches of all his neighbors, for that whole one hundred and twenty years. None of them believed what he told them of a flood which was about to drown the world. For a man to undertake such a vast piece of work, under notion that it should be the means of saving him when the world should be destroyed, it made him the continual laughing-stock of the world. When he was about to hire workmen, doubtless all laughed at him, and we may suppose, that though the workmen consented to work for wages, yet they laughed at the folly of him who employed them. When the ark was begun, we may suppose that every one that passed by and saw such a huge bulk stand there, laughed at, it, calling it Noah’s folly.
In these days, men are with difficulty brought to do or submit to that which makes them the objects of the reproach of all their neighbors. Indeed if while some reproach them, others stand by them and honor them, this will support them. But it is very difficult for a man to go on in a way wherein he makes himself the laughing stock of the whole world, and wherein he can find none who do not despise him. Where is the man that can stand the shock of such a trial for twenty years?
But in such an undertaking as this, Noah at the divine direction, engaged and went through it, that himself and his family might be saved from the common destruction which was shortly about to come on the world. He began, and also made an end: “According to all that God commanded him, so did he.” Length of time did not weary him: he did not grow weary of his vast expense. He stood the shock of the derision of all his neighbors; and of all the world year after year: he did not grow weary of being their laughing-stock, so as to give over his enterprise; but persevered in it till the ark was finished. After this, he was at the trouble and charge of procuring stores for the maintenance of his family, and of all the various kinds of creatures, for so long a time. Such an undertaking he engaged in and went through in order to a temporal salvation. How great an undertaking then should men be willing to engage in and go through in order to their eternal salvation! A salvation from an eternal deluge; from being overwhelmed with the billows of God’s wrath of which Noah’s flood was but a shadow.
I shall particularly handle this doctrine under the three following propositions.
I. There is a work or business which must be undertaken and accomplished by men, if they would be saved.
II. This business is a great undertaking.
III. Men should be willing to enter upon and go through this undertaking though it be great, seeing it is for their own salvation.
Click here to read the full sermon
A Divine and Supernatural Light Immediately Imparted to the Soul by the Spirit of God March 16, 2009
Posted by brian in : John Piper, Jonathan Edwards , add a comment[Craig, this is the second one. Listen to this one and “A God-Entranced Vision of All Things” a couple of times and then call me!]
2 Corinthians 3:18-4:7
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. 4:1 Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. 2 But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. 3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. 4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.
