Christ Church

Biblical Child Discipline in an Age of Therapeutic Goo #1

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INTRODUCTION

Over the years I have preached on marriage, and family, and child-rearing any number of times. Seeing that I am about to do it again, I need to begin by noting the way this series will overlap with the others, but also to point out a significant way that it will differ. Some of the basic principles remain constant, of course, and to refresh your thinking concerning those principles, there are a number of our books available, and recordings of previous series. 

But this series of messages is going to be dwelling on biblical child rearing as a profoundly countercultural thing. What does it mean to bring up children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord in a generation that is profoundly hostile to any such endeavor? That worldly hostility is expressed in countless ways—from overt persecution to surreptitious lying, and from surreptitious lying to online seduction and subversion. 

THE TEXT

“Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; But the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.” (Proverbs 22:15). 

“Withhold not correction from the child: For if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell” (Proverbs 23:13–14). 

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

We have two texts before us. The first says that folly is intrinsic to the heart of a child, but the situation is not irremediable (Prov. 22:15). The folly that is closely bound there in the heart of the child can be driven far away from him by means of the rod. This is a rod of correction, meaning that there are things there that must be put right. This does not mean that “beating your kid” is equivalent to gospel. The rod must be applied in context, within the framework of everything Scripture teaches us. 

This leads to the second text. Because this is the case, because folly is inborn, a father should make sure not to withhold correction from his child (Prov. 23:15). The word there refers to a lad, or boy. If the father uses the rod judiciously, his son will not die, sound effects notwithstanding. If the son is beaten with the rod, he will be thereby delivered from Sheol (Prov. 23:14). This short-term pain is a long term kindness.  

ROOT ASSUMPTIONS

Our first glance at these passages is informative, as far as it goes. We can see that the Scriptures are fully supportive of corporal punishment in child rearing. Those who object to every form of spanking “as abusive” are plainly at variance with the Word of God. We will see later that “gentle parenting” is anything but. But my interest here is not to parse the passages with a pro-spanking/anti-spanking debate in mind. What we need to look at first is the apparent callused toughness behind what the passages are saying. There is a different world there, and that is what we must get back to first. 

Children do not begin at a neutral place, and they do not start out their days from some innocent space. As my father used to say, with great affection, babies are “little bundles of sin.” All that is necessary for the sinning to start is the requisite muscle strength and intelligence. Once they have that, their career in sinning starts. The apostle Paul tells us that all of us are “by nature” objects of wrath (Eph. 2:3). We are, all of us, sinners by nature. Is a child in the cradle a walker? Yes, in that he belongs to a race of walkers, but no, in that he has not yet taken his first step. Is the child in the bucket a talker? Yes, in that he is a talker by nature, but no, in that he has not yet spoken his first word. In an analogous way, we are all participants in Adam’s rebellion from the very first instant of our conception. By nature, we are sinners—bad to the bone. And the fact that the parents have not yet seen their sweet baby smoking cigarettes or pounding shots in the crib does not signify anything.

Biblical child rearing begins with answering one question accurately. That question is what is man? The answer is that we were created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27), male and female, and that subsequent to that creation we were estranged from our Creator through the rebellion of our first parents (Gen. 3:6). As a result, we are all entailed in Adam’s sin. The task of child rearing is therefore the same as the task of presenting the gospel to an unbeliever. What is that task? It is that of finding our way back.

Now someone is going to say that our children are baptized, are they not? They are being treated as members of the new covenant community, are they not? Yes, of course. But what do we ask parents when we baptize an infant? What is the first question? “Do you acknowledge your children’s need of the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ, and the renewing grace of the Holy Spirit?” The promise to bring children up in the covenant surely includes the need to instruct children in the terms of the covenant. Remember that Romans 1 teaches us that pagans outside the covenant are big fat sinners, Romans 2 teaches us that the Jews inside the covenant are big fat sinners, and Romans 3 teaches us that they are both the same kind of big fat sinners. Your children must therefore be taught the central covenantal duty of looking to Christ.  

NO NEED FOR SIN LESSONS

So what does all of this mean? Even assuming genuine love for Christ, when the world and the devil come after your kid, they will find that your child’s flesh still wants to serve as a welcoming committee. We are accustomed to speak of childhood innocence, but we must be careful to define our terms. A child is innocent, in the sense that he is immature and inexperienced in sin, as well as in everything else. But this is a relative innocence, not the innocence of an unfallen angel. It is not necessary for you to bring in any tutors to make sure your kids learn how to sin. They have all of that down already. You must have piano lessons, or driving lessons, or cooking lessons, yes. But sin lessons are never needed. There are degrees of corruption that require instruction, but the baseline for all of it is a given.

HARD TRUTH, SOFT HEARTS

It all comes down to our fundamental assumptions about human nature. Do you believe in innate human goodness? Then in that case, you are a Pelagian, and this is going to skew everything about your child rearing. Such soft, flattering words will result in hard hearts. The sinful heart needs a jack hammer, not a feather duster. One of the results of such an assumption is that your home will be a place without gospel, without forgiveness, without grace. 

But do you believe in human depravity? Then you are living in a world where the good news of the gospel will make some sort of sense. Is your home a collection of sinners, saved by real grace? Or is there a tendency to just say that because it is orthodox?

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Our Gibbeted Christ (Good Friday 2024)

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Ever since our rebellion against God in the Garden, the human race has been locked up in the chains of fear, guilt, and shame. We were promised one thing, and we have received another. We planted what we thought were the seeds of our own deification, but when the crop came up, it was nothing but milkweed, thistles, thorns, and brambles. As Bunyan once recounted something similar, when Faithful was telling Christian about his encounter with an old man who promised him many carnal dainties.

“Then it came burning hot into my mind, that, whatever he said, and however he flattered, when he got me home to his house he would sell me for a slave.”

The Pilgrim’s Progress

So I mentioned the three different kinds of chains—whether or fear, guilt or shame. All descendants of Adam and Eve know something of each, but different personalities and different cultures struggle more with one of them over the others. For some, it is overwhelmingly fear—as in animistic cultures. For others it is guilt, which is the peculiar condition of the West. And for still others farther east, it is shame, as can be seen in “honor cultures.” And because all of us bear the image of God, and all of us are sinners, we all know what it is to fear, what it means to be guilty, and how it feels to bow the head in dishonor.

This evening we have gathered to commemorate the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one who was sent into the world in order to die. And He was sent in order to die so that by that death, He might strike these chains off our wrists. In order to understand this, we have to come to grips with the fact that the death of Jesus was a vicarious, substitutionary death. He became the propitiation for our sins, as the Scripture repeatedly declares (Rom. 3:25; 1 John 2:2; 4:10). All of this means that all the consequences of our rebellion—including fear, guilt, and shame—were poured out over Him. These burdens were laid across His shoulders so that He might die with them there, carry them all to the depths of Hades with Him, and then to come back from the dead without them. That is the message. That is why the death of Christ is such good news.

If your sins are now in the depths of the sea, it is because Christ took them there. If the consequences of your sin are now on the deep ocean floor, it is because Christ sank with them to that point, and there abandoned them.

Christ began His ministry through being baptized by John the Baptist. But that baptism was a baptism of repentance (Luke 3:3). Christ had no sin and hence did not need to repent, an incongruity that John the Baptist noted (Matt. 3:14). Christ did this because it was His mission to identify with sinners. And He identified with all of it, every aspect of it apart from the sinning itself (Heb. 4:15). So consider His vicarious passion and death, and how He encountered each of these three things.

We certainly see the fear—and yet without sin. This means He faced that fear, which was certainly present, with steadfast courage. “Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me” (Matthew 26:38). In John 16:21, He uses the word anguish in His comparison. And what are we told about His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane? “And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44). “Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared” (Hebrews 5:7). In that He feared . . . and so obviously, He feared God above all. But He knew the acrid taste of fear on His tongue. He faced it, embraced it, and conquered it.

What about guilt? “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus Christ was never a sinner, but for our sakes, the guilt of sin was imputed to Him. That means that the guilt of our sin, the guilt of your sin and mine, was assigned to Him by His own Father, and then the wrath of God over that sin was poured out upon Him. This is what the word propitiationmeans. Because our guilt was imputed to Him—justly, because He is the new Adam of a new human race—the fist of God struck a blow of holy hatred against sin, and Christ was the one who took the blow. When God struck Christ so that He died, He also struck you, and me, so that we too died. And when He raised us in Christ, we came back to life, without the guilt. Therefore, walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:4).

Perhaps you are wondering about the shame. Again, look to Christ. “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2). Perhaps we have seen too many silver cross necklaces, or crosses on steeples, and we have forgotten what an obscenity it was to be flogged and crucified. Preaching a crucified Messiah was a scandal, an offense, a blasphemy. The law even said that anyone hanged on a tree was cursed (Gal. 3:13). This is what we embrace when we preach the cross. “But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness” (1 Corinthians 1:23).

“Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”Philippians 2:6–11 (KJV)

So are you fearful? Are you guilty? Are you disgraced and ashamed? Then look to Christ, our gibbeted Christ, and in evangelical faith, say farewell to all of that.

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Stand Still and See His Salvation

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INTRODUCTION

One of the things that happened in the medieval period was that the church calendar began to get cluttered up with numerous saints’ days and celebrations, like so many barnacles on the ark that was the church. There were many blessings that resulted from the great Reformation, and one of them was that the number of Christian holidays was pared down to what came to be known as the “five evangelical feast days.” All of them were geared to the life of Christ—Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost. It is our practice here at Christ Church to have all of our celebrations of these days land on Sunday, with two exceptions. In addition to our 52 Lord’s Day celebrations, we also have a service on Christmas Eve, and one on Good Friday. On Palm Sunday, the week before Easter, we also have a sermon that is geared to that theme, and so here we are.

THE TEXT

“And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever” (Exodus 14:13).

“Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you, O Judah and Jerusalem: fear not, nor be dismayed; to morrow go out against them: for the Lord will be with you” (2 Chronicles 20:17).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Theses texts are not directly about Palm Sunday, obviously, but there is a principle here that we need to grasp and remember. Whenever God undertakes on behalf of His people to deliver and save them, He does so on the basis of His grace. But because it is His grace, He determines when and how He is going to manifest that grace. In the meantime, we are in the midst of the trouble that we need to be delivered from, and it is not uncommon for us to become more than a little antsy about the trouble we are in.

Moses has led the people of Israel out of Egypt, and more than this, they had left Egypt as a smoking ruin behind them (Ex. 10:7). The Bible says there were 600,000 men, plus women and children, plus the mixed multitude (Ex. 12:37-38). We are probably talking about a couple million people, on the banks of an uncrossable body of water, and the Egyptian army coming up behind them. In this context, Moses tells them, “Fear not.” In this context, he says stand still. He says wait and see. See what? See the salvation of the Lord.

The same language is used by the prophet Jahaziel when he reassured Jehoshaphat. “Stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord.” That is why, in great faith, Jehoshaphat sent the choir out first. The short form is that believing that salvation is by grace is a stance that commits you to waiting, standing still.

On the mount of the Lord, it will be provided (Gen. 22:14). You have heard me say this a number of times before, and we need to get the principle down into our bones. God loves cliffhangers.

PALM SUNDAY?

So what does this have to do with the context of Palm Sunday? Although God revealed Himself throughout the times of the Old Testament, we sometimes forget how much history was there. From beginning to end, the book of Genesis encompasses more than 2,000 years. The entire rest of Old Testament history is less than that. If you took the span of Genesis, and added it to the end of Genesis again, like two box cars, it would take you down to the time of King Arthur. In other words, Joseph was as close to King Arthur as he was to Adam and Eve. That is a lot of time.

And throughout the Old Testament, prophecies that God would send could ebb and flow. For ex- ample, in the time of Eli, what was it like? “Now the boy Samuel ministered to the Lord before Eli. And the word of the Lord was rare in those days; there was no widespread revelation.” (1 Samuel 3:1, NKJV ). So it is very clear that one of the purposes of history is to teach the faithful how to wait.

And then we get to the end of the Old Testament, and between Malachi and Matthew there are four centuries of silence. God goes quiet. They still had the Scriptures, and the promises of the Messiah that Scripture contained, and so we need to realize that by the time of the Triumphal Entry, the faithful had been waiting in silence for four hundred years. That would extend from our day back to 1624—a century and a half before the founding of our nation. So the faithful by this point are wound tight. If they keep silent, the stones themselves would start singing. There were also numerous other people involved in what might be called Jesus mobs—also wound tight, but with a very blurry understanding (Luke 20:5-6; 20:19; 22:2; Mark 11:18,32;12:12; Acts 5:26). Lots of people were wound tight. Then there were the corrupt elites sitting on top of the whole thing, trying to maintain control.

It was in that context that Jesus entered Jerusalem, to wild acclaim, in order to go up to the economic center of the city, so that he might start flipping over tables. This was not exactly an “oil on troubled waters” approach. There was a reason Jesus was arrested and crucified.

Now this is the thing we must remember. After waiting for centuries, the faithful finally saw their long-expected king enter Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, just as the prophet had said, and then . . . He went and got Himself killed. The lesson is “stand still and see the salvation of the Lord,” certainly, but the lesson should also be “that the salvation might not be the thing you were anticipating.”

WHY ALL THIS SOUNDS FAMILIAR

They had glorious stories to inspire them, centuries in the past. We have that as well. They had experi- enced a long stretch of spiritual lethargy, with nothing happening, and no prophetic word from God. We have that. They had corrupt managers and handlers of their spiritual establishment, and no appar- ent way to be rid of them. We have that. We have it all, meaning that we have the same kind of mess that requires an intervention from God.

And so what we are to do? The answer is found in our text. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. And this will not come if we are just looking around listlessly. No, look to the expected Christ. And expect Him to do the unexpected.

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Psalm 149: Songs of Triumph

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INTRODUCTION

In Scripture, praise and true authority always go hand in hand. This is because it is faith that overcomes the world (1 John 5:4), and praise always overflows from the confidence of true faith. Evangelical faith sings at the dinner table, sings behind the wheel, sings at the workbench, sings while going to war, and sings in the assembly of the saints. You are the choir militant, and you have been given a new song indeed. Who is given that new song but the elect of God, the 144,000 (Rev. 14:3)?  

THE TEXT

“Praise ye the Lord. Sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise in the congregation of saints. Let Israel rejoice in him that made him: Let the children of Zion be joyful in their King. Let them praise his name in the dance: Let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp. For the Lord taketh pleasure in his people: He will beautify the meek with salvation. Let the saints be joyful in glory: Let them sing aloud upon their beds. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a twoedged sword in their hand; To execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people; To bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; To execute upon them the judgment written: This honour have all his saints. Praise ye the Lord” (Psalm 149). 

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

This is yet another hallelujah psalm. It begins with this word (v. 1), and ends with it also (v. 9). Remember our two pieces of bread. The new song is sung before the Lord, and this new song is sung by new men (v. 1). And this is forever because the new birth is the kind of thing that never ages. This is a corporate duty and a corporate pleasure—His praise in the congregation of saints (v. 1). Israel needs to rejoice in the one who made her (v. 2), and the children of Zion must be joyful in their king (v. 2). Praise Him with dance, and praise Him with timbrel and harp (v. 3). The Lord Jehovah does not just put up with this; He takes pleasure in His people (v. 4). He adorns the meek with salvation. He beautifies them (v. 4). Having been thus beautified, the saints are to rejoice in glory (v. 5), and sing aloud on their beds (or couches). They are to sing while at rest, but also to sing while they are going to war (v. 6). The high praises of God should be in their mouth and a double-bladed sword in hand (v. 6). To do what? To execute vengeance on the heathen (v. 7) and punishment on the people (v. 7). In addition, this militant choir binds their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron (v. 8). They are ministers of God’s judgment, and all His saints have this honor (v. 9). And we conclude with another hallelujah (v. 9).  

TIMBREL AND HARP

The timbrel is a small hand drum, or tambourine-like instrument. It is in the percussion family, and Miriam and the women of Israel used it when they danced on the shores of the Red Sea. “And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances” (Exodus 15:20). The harp here was not like our modern harp, but was likely closer to a lyre, or even a guitar. Josephus tells us it had ten strings (see Ps. 144:9) and was played with a plectrum (or pick). 

REJOICING IN GLORY

We are not fit or worthy to praise the Lord in our own strength or in our own name. In order for us to walk in a manner that is worthy of God (Eph. 4:1; Col. 1:10; 1 Thess. 2:12), we must be made worthy. It is all of grace. It is the same with our praise. In order for our praise to be beautiful enough to offer up to God, God must beautify it first. And He does this by beautifying us. In salvation, God justifies His people, declaring them to be perfect. He beautifies them with the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and in that glorious imputation of the purest righteousness, the end result is that we are equipped to rejoice in glory, and to sing everywhere and in everything.

God has made us in such a way as that we must seek glory. We cannot help seeking glory—it is something that we simply must do. This impulse is not eradicated by the fall, or by the presence of sin. What sin does is distort what we find to be glorious. For the unconverted, they must either seek out dark glory (as satanists and sodomites do), or the must seek out vain glory (as the impotently religious do). When Christians seeking to be faithful come along and react to this by abnegating all forms of glory. But this is Buddhism, or Stoicism, not Christian faith.

What is sin but a failure to pursue glory properly? “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). 

“Who will render to every man according to his deeds: To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile” (Romans 2:6–10). 

Those who want to be saved should be in pursuit of what God tells us salvation consists of. It consists of the beauty of the Lord, the glory of God, and the golden weight of the Spirit’s presence. You cannot pursue salvation without pursuing Him, and He is glorious. 

NEW COVENANT WEAPONS

One of the differences between the old covenant and the new has to do with the weaponry. There are still wars and police actions in the time of the new covenant, but this is not how the kingdom is supposed to advance. 

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled” (2 Corinthians 10:3–6). 

At the same time, the advance of the kingdom does result in tumults, riots, protests, slanders, and more. Just read casually through the book of Acts. But our weapons are mighty, and we reveal that we know that they are mighty when they are wielded by Christians who are singing. As Spurgeon put it, “even the tumult of our holy war is part of the music of our lives.” Let the jangling and clashing in the background serve as an interesting form of percussion.

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Psalm 148: Praise That Plunges

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INTRODUCTION

This is a psalm of praise in action. It begins in the highest heaven, and descends to the deeps, and invites everyone and everything in between to join in with this chorus of praise. Moreover, this wonderful psalm concludes with a promise that is attached to all heartfelt praise. God is exalted in a particular kind of praise, and He makes sure to exalt that kind of praise in turn. There is a reciprocity in praise that will usher in tremendous blessings when we come to understand it.

THE TEXT

“Praise ye the LORD. Praise ye the LORD from the heavens: praise him in the heights. Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts. Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light. Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the LORD: for he commanded, and they were created. He hath also stablished them for ever and ever: he hath made a decree which shall not pass. Praise the LORD from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps: Fire, and hail; snow, and vapour; stormy wind fulfilling his word: Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars: Beasts, and all cattle; creeping things, and flying fowl: Kings of the earth, and all people; princes, and all judges of the earth: Both young men, and maidens; old men, and children: Let them praise the name of the LORD: for his name alone is excellent; his glory is above the earth and heaven. He also exalteth the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints; even of the children of Israel, a people near unto him. Praise ye the LORD” (Ps. 148:1-14).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

We have here another hallelujah psalm. It begins with yet another hallelujah. Praise ye the LORD (v 1). But this is praise that begins on the high dive—in the heavens, praise Him from the heights (v. 1). The residents of this high heaven are summoned to praise Him—the angels and heavenly host (v. 2). Moving through the high places, the sun, moon and stars are called into the rising praise (v. 3). The heaven of heavens, and the waters that are above the heavens are told to join in (v. 4). Let everything that is high praise the name of their Creator (v. 5). He is the one who established them for good and all (v. 6).

But then the psalmist takes a leap, and all that praise plunges to earth—praise the Lord, you dragons and deeps (v. 7). What down here shall praise the Lord? Well, fire does, and hail, and snow, and vapor. Then there are the stormy winds that do His pleasure (v. 8). Remember the astonishment of the disciples—even the winds and waves obey Him (Matt. 8:27). The choir includes both mountains and hills, fruit trees and cedar trees (v. 9). We then move out to the animal kingdom—beasts, cattle, and birds (v. 10). And don’t forget the creeping things (v. 10). One of the things we know about our Creator is that He has, as the fellow said, “an inordinate fondness for beetles.” There are over 400,000 species of beetle.

We come finally to the human part of the choir. At the risk of sounding like a Christian nationalist, kings and princes are told to praise Jehovah (v. 11). As Calvin noted, they might be among those who are the most reluctant to do so, and so they are singled out. But all the people, and all judges, receive the same summons (v. 11). Executive, legislative, and judiciary—praise ye the Lord. The psalmist leaves no one out—young men, old men, maidens, and children (v. 12). All are to praise Him, and the reason is then given to us—His name is excellent, and His glory transcendent (v. 13). And then comes the great promise. When we exalt Him, He exalts us (v. 14). He exalts the kind of praise that exalts Him. This is actually the meaning of revival—when the Spirit of God anoints and adorns the worship of God. So praise ye the Lord.

NOT DEAD MATTER

The cosmos is not simply an inert collection of atoms. It is not a mass of dead matter. The cosmos is teeming with life—angels, the heavenly host, principalities and powers, thrones, and dominions. And there are some things that are commonly assumed by modern materialists to be simply inanimate objects, but Scripture tells us otherwise. “Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is, but only what a star is made of.” The heavenly host—exhorted here to sing louder—is the very same heavenly host that came down and announced to the astonished shepherds that they needed to go into town to see something (Luke 2:13). And then there are things in this stretch of the Psalms that really are inanimate—cymbals, say. Nevertheless, everything that makes noise need to be employed in this triumph of praise.

So there is far more here than human beings looking at the stars and praising God for them. Rather, this would be the stars themselves doing the praising. A cascading waterfall praises God. Thunder in the mountains, and echoing valleys, praise the Lord. Cows grazing in the meadow, apparently not doing much, are praising God. All the insect life on the floor of that meadow—that too is a constant stream of praise.  

RECIPROCITY AND REVIVAL

We live in an astonishing world. When God gives the gift of a quickening revival, we get a glimpse of that astonishing world—both material and spiritual, both creational and redemptive, and we begin to praise. The praise catches fire—and the Holy Spirit is that fire—and the praise ascends to Heaven, tracing its way back up by the path that this psalm came down. The psalm is given by God from the heights, and it lands in the deeps. We pick it up, and offer it back to God. And what does He do?

He exalts our horn. A praising people is exalted by God, and one of the things He exalts is the nature of that praise itself. God Himself inhabits the praises of His people (Ps. 22:3), which is what makes it glorious. This is why we can go out to battle with the choir in the vanguard. This is the beauty of holiness, which does not mean the cuteness of holiness. It is truly dreadful, and awesome, and terrible, and worthy of all praise (2 Chron. 20:21). The God who created the choir of all creation is the same God who anoints that same choir. And when He does this, there is no standing against Him.

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