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Surveying the Text: Leviticus

Joe Harby on August 25, 2014

Introduction

The dates of this book are roughly the same as what we find for Exodus. It provides detailed instruction for worship, picking up where Exodus stopped. The name of the book comes from a Greek phrase for “pertaining to the Levites,” that phrase being levitikon, which was then run through a Latin filter. During the course of this book, Israel is still camped at the foot of Mt. Sinai, at the beginning of their 40 years in the wilderness.

The Text

“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy” (Lev. 19:1–2).

Summary of the Text

This book is about ritual righteousness—which must never be detached from actualrighteousness. Here the laws for worship are laid out, the Holiness Code is defined, and the annual calendar for the Israelites is established.

The Levitical Code is set out in the first sixteen chapters (1-16). This is followed by what is commonly called the Holiness Code (17-25). A few miscellaneous things conclude the book (26-27)—blessings and curses, vows and tithes.

The Second Greatest Commandment

This book is where the second greatest commandment is found (Lev. 19:18). It is sometimes easy to assume that the ritual precision that is required by a book like Leviticus means that they somehow didn’t understand the main point. But that is not the case at all.

Cleansing, Consecration, Communion

Whenever someone is exiled from the camp, remember that God dwelt with them in the center of the camp. God is holy, and is in the midst of the camp. This means that the camp had to be be kept holy as well.

Because Christ has come, we no longer worship God by means of actual physical sacrifices. Because of this—even though this is a great blessing for us—we oftentimes do not pay close enough attention to the sacrifices of the Old Testament. They were not all sacrifices for sin. They had a grain offering. They had a whole burnt offering, also considered as an ascension offering. This was a consecration offering, where the entire animal ascended to God in the column of smoke. There was a fellowship offering, also known as a peace offering. A purification offering took care of accidental defilements (4:1-5:13), and the guilt offering was for sin (5:14-6:7).

When sacrifices are mentioned together in the OT, the order is guilt/ascension/peace. This is why many churches (whether intentionally or not) follow a similar pattern—resting in Christ’s fulfillment of all of this—when they confess sin (guilt), when they sing and hear sermons (ascension), and when they partake of communion (peace). The order is biblical, but it also makes natural sense. You wash the day off your hands before coming to the dinner table, and not after.

Both Kinds of Cleanliness

Leviticus focuses on ritual cleanliness, but concerns about hygiene should not be dismissed. It is pretty clear that God, in giving these rituals, also had germs in mind. Cleanliness is next to godliness—but more about that in Numbers.

Jesus in Leviticus

So this book insists on holiness. The holy God has agreed to dwell in their midst, and because He is in the camp, the camp must be holy. The people of God had to be holy because God of the people was holy. We see in this in Levitcus 11:44-5, in our text here, and in Lev. 20:7.

But this is easier said than done. The apostle Paul quotes Leviticus several times to make this point (Lev. 18:5). Obedience means actually doing it, actually being holy. Not only that, but it means doing it by raw effort. “And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them” (Gal. 3:12). And in Romans he describes the same kind of guy, climbing up to Heaven on the rope of sand—the righteousness that is of the law quotes Lev. 18:5, instead of quoting Deuteronomy 30:12 like he should have done. And Jesus paraphrases it to the same effect (Luke 10:28), talking to a man who wanted to justify himself.

Without holiness, no one will ever see the Lord (Heb. 12:14). So how do we get from the righteousness of the law to the righteousness of faith? These verses in the Old Testament are not color-coded. How are we supposed to navigate this?
In the gospel of Christ, something mysterious happens. We are transformed from “strivers” to children, children who can be obedient children (1 Pet. 1:14). And what follows on after that? “Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Pet. 1:16).

Doing must come from being. This means that the foundation must be the absolute grace of God. If you try to attain to being by your doing, you will necessarily fail, time and time again. You can do nothing but fail. What is the problem with the strivers? They do, and they do, and they do some more. The problem is that they spend their lives doing, and nothing gets done.

Everything comes down to whether or not we see Jesus, and you can only see Jesus if you have eyes. And you can only have eyes if God gives you eyes. You can only have ears if God gives you ears.

If you have eyes, if you have God-given faith, you see Jesus everywhere in Scripture. Sometimes He speaks, but He is always present. If you do not have eyes, if you do not have God-given faith, you do not see Jesus anywhere. “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me” (John 5:39).

It is not as though some verses are “law” and other verses are “gospel.” There is no division in the Bible this way. There is no law/grace hermeneutic. There is no way you could publish a study Bible will all the law verses in red and all the grace verses in blue. And why not?

Because the righteousness that is of the law turns everything to law. Like a King Midas of lead, every passage turns into a leaden dead weight that condemns and is obnoxious. This can even be done with passages that have GRACE written on their forehead. “For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Cor. 2:15–16).

And eyes that have been opened by grace can see the grace of God everywhere and in everything. “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple” (Ps. 19:7).

There is a sharp divide between law and grace. But it does not run between this verse and that one. It runs between the sheep and the goats.

Surveying the Text: Exodus

Joe Harby on August 17, 2014

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Introduction

The three great themes of Exodus are the deliverance God brings to His people, the giving of the law, and the establishment of the tabernacle. There are other important themes as well, such as the recurring disobedience of the people. Remember as we work through the Bible, each book contributes to the grand theme of all Scripture, which is the redemption of God’s people, accomplished in the context of His reconciliation of all things in Heaven and on earth (Col. 1:20).

The Text

“And the Lord said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand, and go. Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us, or not?” (Ex. 17:5–7).

Summary of the Text

What are the dates of the book? The book of Exodus begins with the death of Joseph (c. 1600 B.C.), but most of it centers on Israel’s encampment at the base of Mt. Sinai (c. 1440 B.C).

The first part of Exodus is simply narrative (Ex. 1-20), showing the deliverance from Egypt and culminating in the giving of the Ten Commandments. In chapters 21-24, we find a collection of assorted laws which amplify the Ten Commandments, and then the last part of the book concerns the building of the tabernacle (25-31). Woven throughout the whole thing we find the grumbling and disobedience of Israel.

The Definition of Israel

This is the book that defines Israel for us. There are three distinctives that set Israel apart from other nations. The first is their national deliverance from the tyranny of Pharaoh. They have ahistorical foundation as a people together. Second, on the basis of this deliverance, this exodus, God gives them His law as a sign of His grace to them. Note particularly the preamble to the Ten Commandments. God identifies Himself as the one who brought them out of the house of bondage, and so the law represents moral liberty. Third, God establishes His tabernacle in their midst so that His presence might be with them. This means that God delivered them, Godinstructs them, and God accompanies them.

If you look at the sweep from Genesis to Revelation, you notice the pattern—from Garden to Garden City. The biblical story summarized is Paradise, Paradise Lost, and Paradise Regained. The beginning of an Edenic reestablishment is seen in this book, when the tabernacle is built (an artificial mountain, an artificial Eden). Eden was on a mountain (four rivers had their headwaters there), and God walked with Adam and Eve there. Now cherubim again guarded the way to the mercy seat just as the way back to the tree of life was guarded.

In this book, God adopts Israel as His firstborn son (Ex. 4:22-23). The firstborn of Egypt are all slain, the firstborn of Israel are all spared, and Israel becomes the firstborn of God.

An Unlikely Deliverer

Moses began his career as a likely deliverer. Since God doesn’t work that way usually, He began by turning His likely savior into an unlikely one. When Moses was suitably unsuitable, YHWH appeared to him in the burning bush.

God loves cliffhangers. Throughout Scripture, He delivers His people at the very last moment, and in the Exodus, He does it for millions of people all at the same moment. Pharaoh’s chariots are at their back, and the Red Sea is lapping at their toes, and Moses was perhaps wondering what he had gotten himself into.

A “suitable” deliverance, according to our lights would have been for Moses to face down Pharaoh with an army at his back. Well, he did have an army there, but it was the wrong one.

Ten Plagues

The ten plagues that reduced that era’s great superpower to a smoldering ruin are interesting on various levels. The plagues are first aimed at the various gods of Egypt. Second, the plagues represent a “decreation” move—darkness instead of light, animals dying instead of being created, the first born destroyed instead of established. Third, the plagues provide a kind of counterpoint to the ways in which Israel disobeyed after their deliverance. “Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice” (Num. 14:22).

Grumbling and Complaining

Note the introduction of the grumbling motif into Scripture. After God had delivered the people wonderfully, it didn’t take them long to fall back into unbelief. Also mark the fact that you can only repent of grumbling—you can’t steer your way out of it. Look what happened when Aaron tried to “steer” the people’s apostasy in the golden calf incident. He tried to establish syncretistic worship, using an idol in a festival of YHWH. No good at all.

This is a realistic story of deliverance, not a hagiographic story of the bad guys drowned in the Red Sea, with the good guys wearing white bath robes, saying, “Lo!” and “Verily!” No, they were usually muttering in their tents with the Hebrew equivalent of razzum- scazzum.

Jesus in Exodus

The Exodus becomes a grand theme in Scripture for all manner of deliverance. It is a rich source of allusion for all subsequent biblical writers (Dt. 4:32-34). “And, behold, there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elias: Who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease [hisExodus] which he should accomplish at Jerusalem” (Luke 9:30– 31).

With all this established, let us return to our text. The apostle Paul throws some additional light on it. “And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ” (1 Cor. 10:4). Christ was the Rock the people drank from, but this means He was also the Rock that Moses was commanded to strike.

They quarreled with Moses, and said he had to give them water. The word here would better be rendered as “lodged a complaint,” or “filed a suit,” or “laid a charge.” Meribah was Lawsuit City. They came first against Moses, but the real issue was whether God was with them or not.

The staggering thing here is not that the people brought a charge, indicting the Lord. The astonishing thing is that God accepted the indictment. Formal charges were filed. God said that Moses was to go in front of the people, with the elders of Israel accompanying him as witnesses. Take a particular rod, He said, the same one you used to turn the Nile to blood. God said that He would then stand before Moses on the Rock, identifying with it. Moses was then to take the rod ofblood, and strike the Rock, and water will flow from it. What flowed from the side of Christ when the Roman soldier struck Him with his spear? Water and blood (John 19:34).

What must the thirsty do? They must drink from the water that flows from Christ (John 7:38). But there is no water unless Moses strikes.

Surveying the Text: Genesis

Joe Harby on August 10, 2014

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INTRODUCTION

Just as Abraham walked through the land that he was promised without settling down to inherit the land, so we walk through the Bible, the land of promise, not yet in full possession of all that has been given to us. We have it already, we don’t have it yet.
As we will have occasion to repeat as we work our way through the Old Testament, the New Testament identifies some of the foundational books of the Old Testament simply by how often they are quoted. By this measurement, the most important books of the Old Testament are Genesis, Deuteronomy, Psalms, and Isaiah. This is one of many reasons why we must pay close attention to the book of Genesis.

THE TEXT

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth . . .” (Gen. 1:1).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Our usual practice is to take a text and then drill down into it. For this series of messages, the approach will be a bit different. We will take our text as a starting point, and then walk through the rest of the book that passage is in, trying to grasp the larger picture. Our approach will be more inductive than deductive, going from the smaller to the greater.

As our text indicates, this is the book of beginnings. Genesis gives us the Creation, the Fall, the Flood, and the call of Abraham and his seed. We have the beginning of the world, the beginning of work, the beginning of marriage, the beginning of music, the beginning of cities, and the beginning of God’s covenantal dealings with mankind. Everything starts here. If you get this book wrong, there will be a great deal wrong later on.

Genesis is framed or bookended by contrasting stories. God delivers His people from a great flood near the beginning of the book, and He delivers His people from a great drought at the end of it. Consider the respective roles of Noah and Joseph.

What are the dates of Genesis? How much time does it span? The book of Genesis extends from the Creation to the death of Joseph in Egypt, which happened circa 1600 B.C. Taking the date of creation as 4004 BC, as calculated by the good Bishop Ussher— the last theologian of note who was also good at math—this gives the book a span of multiple centuries, 24 of them to be exact. One book of the Bible encompasses 40% of all human history. This means that Joseph was as close in time to Charlemagne as he was to Adam. This is a few centuries more than the time of Christ until the present, so this should give us some perspective. So we have to read this one book, Genesis, beginning to end, with a time lapse camera.

The book divides naturally and readily into two sections. The first is found in Gen. 1-11, and has to do with human origins, the Fall, the history of the antediluvians, and the story of Noah. The second section tells the story of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob was renamed Israel, and the twelve tribes of Israel came from his sons. The two sections deal respectively with the beginning of everything, and with the beginning of Israel—the beginning of the world, and the beginning of God’s redemptive purpose for that world.

THE AGE OF THE EARTH

As my earlier commendation of Ussher may have indicated, my perspective on Genesis is that which is called “young earth creationism.” Whether Mahalaleel was Jared’s father, grandfather, or great-grandfather, the fact remains that Mahalaleel was 65-years-old when somebody begat Jared (Gen. 5:15). Just get out your calculators.

But to take this position is not to argue that there are no literary or poetic elements in the first chapters of Genesis. Quite obviously, the first two chapters tell the story of creation from two different vantages, and in two different ways. This is a topic that needs far more time to treat it in adequate detail, but let me just say now that the presence of poetry does not automatically necessitate the presence of extended eons of time.

The issues involved are much greater than how many moments or years have ticked by. Obviously, by itself it is a matter of indifference how much time has elapsed or ticked by. It is nota matter of indifference to say that Scripture is mistaken, or that God used blood- soaked eons to create man, when the Bible plainly teaches that man was the one who created all the blood-soaked eons (Rom. 5:12). So do not, for the sake of a false peace with infidel geologists, give away the biblical answer to the problem of evil.

THE ANTITHESES

We have the foundation of what may be called the antithesis (3:14-15). Throughout all human history, we have a long war—perpetual antipathy between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman.

COVENANTAL ANTITHESES

That antithesis takes shape through covenants, covenants on both sides (Gal. 4:24). Throughout Scripture, God is a covenant making God, and He begins making them with His people in Genesis. He makes a covenant with Noah (9:8-17), and through him, with all mankind. He makes a covenant with Abraham (12:2-7; 15:1-21; 17:3-8), which He renews with Isaac (26:3-5), and again with Jacob (28:13-15).

THE COVENANTAL JUKE MOVE

But the covenant is never made out of clunkity clunkity two by fours. Genesis also establishes God’s pattern of what we might call “election and a twist.” God calls out Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees. This shows God’s sovereign authority to recruit His

children from the children of idolaters. But then Genesis also shows God’s sovereign authority to recruit His heirs from unlikely places among His own children—Isaac, not Ishmael, Jacob, not Esau, Joseph, not Reuben, but then Judah, not Joseph. This pattern started at the very beginning—Abel, not Cain, and then Seth instead of Cain. Another riff on this same kind of pattern is His way—which begins in Genesis—of choosing barren women in order to accomplish this. Remember Sarah.

With this in mind, it is important to follow Judah’s story line. It does not begin in a promising way, but it ends with a promise (49:8-12). Judah starts out with his sins well exposed, but he ends by offering himself for his brother Benjamin (43:8-9).

YET ANOTHER COVENANTAL REVERSAL

One important story in Genesis links to another story in Joshua. Tamar tricked her father- in-law Judah into sleeping with her, and she conceived twins as a result. The first one out had a scarlet thread tied to his wrist (Zarah, 38:28), but his brother Pharez still got out first. Years later, at the battle of Jericho, Achan was executed for his treachery, and he was a descendant of Zarah. Rahab was delivered from the destruction of Jericho because she put a scarlet rope out her window. She and her household were saved, and she then married Salmon, a descendant of Pharez. The scarlet marker of the messianic line was transferred.

JESUS IN GENESIS

A preacher is tasked with the proclamation of Jesus. However valuable Bible survey courses might be, they have no place in the pulpit unless it culminates in the proclamation of Christ. Fortunately, every page of the Bible provides us with material, including every page of Genesis.

The book of Genesis ends with the set-up for the enslavement of the Jews in Egypt. Jacob’s household goes down into Egypt as part of a great deliverance. But however great the crop was this year, there will always be weeds in it the following spring. God always delivers His people, which means He always has to get them into a jam first. God always tells death and resurrection stories.
We have the same death and resurrection pattern in the Genesis flood—and this flood, Peter tells us, is a type of Christian baptism (1 Pet. 3:20-21).

Hagar and Sarah represent two covenants, Paul tells us in Galatians. One represents flesh- service rendered to God while the other represents evangelical heart-service (Gal. 4:24).

There are many ways to do this, but let me finish with the first great gospel promise, found in Genesis, just a few pages in from the beginning of the world. We learn a wonderful thing as we overhear what God said to the devil.

“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15).

Church Discipline and Life

Joe Harby on August 3, 2014

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Introduction

A church that does not or cannot discipline errant members of the congregation is a church with AIDS. It has no means of fighting off infections—whether those infections are moral or doctrinal or both. The infections can be in the heart or the head, but the church has to be able to deal with them.

To change the image, the church is constituted by Word and sacrament. A large number in the reformation tradition have also added discipline to this, but I would prefer to think of the garden itself as growing Word and sacrament only. Discipline is the fence that keeps the deer out. Discipline is not part of the very definition of the church, but without a fence, you won’t have a garden for very long. Fences are essential to gardens, but don’t themselves grow in the garden.

Obviously, a message like this is being preached for a reason—we do have some possible discipline cases in process, and we wanted you to be prepared for this as a congregation. But know that we do not operate on a hair trigger, and we would be delighted to have this be a message that turns out to be more theological than practical.

The Text

“I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner —not even to eat with such a person. For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who are outside God judges. Therefore ‘put away from yourselves the evil person’” (1 Cor. 5:9-13).

Summary of the Text

Christians often get this text exactly backwards. Paul says that of course we are going to have to associate with dissolute pagans—but we try hard to be prissy about that kind of thing. And he says that we must of course not associate with those inside the church who live like this. This is in fact what distinguishes Christian morality from dry rot moralism. The former guards inside, the latter guards against the other. Pay special attention to that phrase near the end—do you not judge those who are inside? But what happens if we are diligent in this? Trying to guard the church against hypocritical profession is a sure fire way to draw the charge of . . . hypocrisy. Think about it for a moment.

The Five Reasons for Discipline

First, we are to discipline in order to glorify God, and this occurs because obedience glorifies God. We know from His Word that God intends discipline for His church (Matt. 18:15-19; Rom. 16:17; 1 Cor. 5; 1 Thess. 5:14; 2 Thess. 3:6-15; 1 Tim. 5:20; 6:3; Tit. 1:13; 2:15; 3:10; Rev. 2:2, 14-15, 20). God tells us what to do, and because we are His people we are called to obey Him. This answers the objection, “Who do you think you are?” We do not discipline in our own name, or on our own authority.

In the second place, we are to discipline in order to maintain the purity of the church. If we measure the “success” of discipline by whether or not the offender is restored, we will be forced to conclude that sometimes it “didn’t work.” But conducted biblically, church discipline always purifies the church (1 Cor. 5:6-8). It also prevents the profanation of the Lord’s Table (1 Cor. 11:27). It always works.

Third, we are to discipline to prevent God from setting Himself against the church. If we have a choice to distance ourselves from sin, and we choose rather to identify ourselves with it, then what will a holy God do with us (Rev. 2:14-25)?

Fourth, we are to discipline in a desire to restore the offender. We are not promised that the offender will be restored, but this end is nonetheless one of our goals. But at the same time I put this reason fourth for a reason. This rationale is clearly set forth in Scripture (Matt. 18:15; 1 Cor. 5:5; Gal. 6:1). This answers those who think “discipline is harsh and unloving.” The goal is not to destroy the offender; the goal is a confrontation in which we formally protest the fact that the offender is destroying himself.

And last, we are to discipline in order to deter others from sin. The Bible teaches that consequences for sin deter (Ecc. 8:11; 1 Tim. 5:20). The objection here is that “people sure wouldn’t want to mention any of their spiritual problems around those elders!” But the issue in discipline is always impenitence. But if he struggles against sin, as all of us do, then he will find nothing in church discipline except an aid and comfort in that struggle.

Conclusion

Many misunderstand what is actually being done in discipline, or what discipline requires. Discipline is not necessarily shunning or avoiding. It is rather avoiding company on the other’s terms. The heart of church discipline is a refusal of the Supper, which is why church discipline is called excommunication. The person is exiled from (ex) the Table of the Lord (communion). So the individual under discipline is denied access to the Lord’s Supper, as well as that general communion which that Supper seals. The offender must not be denied kindness, courtesy, opportunity to hear the Word preached, the practical duties owed to him by others, or anything else due him according to the law of love. Fundamentally, he is being denied only one thing: the right to define the authority of the Christian faith for himself.

Discipline is inescapable. Either we will discipline those who love what is sinful, or we will discipline those who love what is righteous. But as long as the antithesis between the two exists (which is to say throughout history) we must choose one way or the other. A refusal to discipline those who are threatening the integrity of the church is actually a form of discipline directed against those who love the peace and purity of the church, and who labor and pray for it.

One last thing—the encouragement that is found in this. The doctrine of adoption should be precious to us. And the Bible teaches that absence of discipline is a serious indication that God has not adopted us—which is far more terrifying than the prospect of discipline. This truth applies equally to congregations as to individuals.

“Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed” (Hebrews 12:4–13).

What then should our response to discipline be? God is our Father, Christ our brother. Therefore, lift up your hands that were hanging down. Strengthen your feeble knees. Walk on the straight path, with Christ just ahead of you.

Hard Providence and Trusting God

Joe Harby on June 15, 2014

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Introduction

We live in a world where rough things happen. Despite all our advances in technology, everyone in this room will still die. We still get sick. We still have financial challenges. We have the heartbreak of wayward children. We still have to deal with the perversity of sin that we can still find stirring under our own breastbone. In other words, as it says in Job, man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. How are we to respond? If we want to avoid platitudes, tough times demand tough thinking.

The Text

“In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (1 Thess. 5:18).
“Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;” (Eph. 5:20).

Summary of the Text

The context of the Thessalonians exhortation is this. Paul is delivering a rapid-fire series of exhortations to them, including esteeming your leaders, being at peace with one another, warning the unruly, comforting the feeble, and so on. He then tells them to pray without ceasing, and comes to deliver our text. Right afterward, he says not to quench the Spirit. Now this cluster of exhortations shows that Paul is not assuming that the Thessalonians are somehow living in a la-la land, where it is quite easy to “give thanks in everything.” There are tough challenges in the same breath. This is not an exhortation only for those who live under marshmallow clouds and glittery rainbows, and who cavort in the meadow with sparkly unicorns.

In Ephesians, we find something similar. Right after a warning that the “days are evil” (Eph. 5:16), leading on to a caution about drunkenness (v. 18), Paul tells them to fill up on psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and tells them to “give thanks for all things.” This is what it means to be filled with the Spirit.

Reasoning Within the Constraints of Scripture

We are Christians, and so we should want to do as we are told. We should not want, under pressure, to reinterpret what God must have “meant.” We were not told to be “realistic.” We were told to give thanks in and for everything. This means that it is time for us to put on our big boy pants. “Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men” (1 Cor. 14:20).

We have to learn how to argue our case with God, as the psalmist frequently does. We must avoid, at all costs, murmuring in our tents, the way the children of Israel did in their tents in the wilderness. We may press our case with God, but we may never forget that His infinite and holy character is the only possible foundation for any sane argument. If that foundation is missing, then we have no argument, we have no complaint, and nothing is wrong with what is happening to us. You may appeal to God, and you may do so with loud cries. Jesus did that (Heb. 5:7). You may argue with God. Many holy men and women did that. You may not accuse God. You may not try to become a devil to God. You may not adopt into the premises of your argument anything other than the promises of God, grounded as they are in the character and attributes of the immutable and holy One. In short, whenever you argue with God, both of your feet must be firmly placed on the covenant of grace.

One Premise You Must Have

If God is up in Heaven, wringing His hands, and saying “oh dear” along with the rest of us, there is no possible way for us to do this. Since God wants us to do this, requiring it as He has, He wants us to get this premise down into our bones. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). We live our lives “according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Eph. 1:11). And God saved us by grace through faith because we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).

So we are not being asked to thank God in and for an isolated anything. Everything that happens is part of a purpose, plan, plot, stratagem, and so on. God is running a play. God is telling a story, and so you thank God for this verb’s place in the story. God is not telling you to thank Him for that same verb in an infinite, godless vacuum. No—there is no such place.

Of Course Not

Now it is psychologically impossible for us to thank God for the sin when we are in the middle of committing it. But that is a limitation created by the sinning. Such a limitation does not place our disobedience outside the story—others may thank God for how He is using our sin for His glory. Remember that whenever we thank God for the cross of Jesus Christ—which we are to do constantly—we are thanking Him for the worst murder that was ever committed on this planet (Acts 2:23; Acts 4:27-28). We are thanking Him for the murder, and we are thanking Him in it. What we are not doing is joining in with the spirit of murder.

Now for the Hard Part

When the pain is sharp, when the burden is heavy, when the event is uncertain . . . the wait is long. We don’t mind waiting when we have something to divert us, but if the pain, or the burden, or the anxiety prevent us from being diverted, all we have is a long and interminable wait. “Wait on the Lord: Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: Wait, I say, on the Lord” (Ps. 27:14).

“But why do we have to wait?” we complain. We are happy to have patience, so long as we can have it now. But God does not want you in a day-at-the-beach story. He wants you in an adventure story. And have you ever noticed that your worst experiences are frequently the best stories later?

Walk it Through

Take “lousy experience x,” the thing that just happened to you this last week, and which still has you reeling. How do you process it? What precisely are you to do? You pray a prayer, something like this: “God in Heaven, I understand and believe that You govern all things for Your glory and our good. I believe that You are my Father, and that You do all things well. Therefore, I want to thank You in my trial and for my trial. Specifically, I want to thank You for lousy experience x, and ask You to receive my praise, as I sing the Doxology. ‘Praise God from whom all blessings flow.’”

Say to Them of Fearful Heart…

So it is not enough to speak the truths of God. We must speak the truths of God, supported by thereasons of God. “Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: Behold, your God will come with vengeance, Even God with a recompence; He will come and save you” (Is. 35:4).

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