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One of the great challenges in Scripture is the challenge of rightly handling the blessings of God. The Giver gives His gifts, and the recipients receive them gratefully. But it is not long before what was initially accepted as sheer grace grows slowly into what is falsely assumed to be an entitlement. We take grace for granted, and so it is that this grace corrodes slowly into something else. And as we look over the pages of Scripture, we can see that this is an error we fall into for two cents.
As Cotton Mather once put it, “Faithfulness begat prosperity, and the daughter devoured the mother.” Or as Scripture states it, “Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked.” And so remember, as we consider these things, that there is more than one kind of wealth—there is spiritual wealth also. And the same kind of things can happen in that realm as well.
“When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which he hath given thee. Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day: Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied; Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage; Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint; Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end; And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth. But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day” (Deut. 8:10–18).
When you have eaten and are full, the initial response is good (v. 10). That is the response of blessing the Lord on account of His kindness to us. But then the warning is given—beware that you do not forget the Lord (v. 11). This forgetfulness is defined as forgetting His Word, in not keeping His commandments, judgments and statutes (v. 11).
When things go well for a time, it is then that the heart is lifted up. It is then that the heart gets fat and sassy (vv. 12-14). The first thing they forgot was the law of God. The second thing they forgot, as listed here, is all the deliverances of God (vv. 14-16). They forgot the word of God, and they forgot the interventions of God. So instead of seeing the blessings as a gift from the hand of God, the recipient starts to think that it all came from his own hand (v. 17). But God is the one who enables us to do anything. He enables us to accumulate the goods that establish His covenant (v. 18), but we see from the preceding that these goods also provide the temptation to veer away from His covenant.
We should remember all of this with particular application to the doctrines of grace that we have been considering. In all of church history, the Puritan and Reformed stream of the Christian Church has received, in wonderful ways, the Deuteronomic blessings that Scripture promises—pressed down, shaken, and running over. And the Reformed, and those with a Calvinistic heritage, have also been most prone to the sin warned against here.
This is a covenantal sin, and I am afraid that the Protestant West is guilty, guilty, guilty. “How have we forgotten?” someone might say. We defend ourselves against the charge that we have forgotten His great grace to us by maintaining that we don’t remember anything. Some defense.
Where does this slow slide into ingratitude begin? When your goods are multiplied, when your stuff is abundant, then it is easy for your heart to be lifted up. And when your heart is lifted up, you become the ultimate oxymoron—the proud Calvinist, proud of the fact that he understands so well that we can take pride in nothing.
Remember the proud Pharisee in the Temple, the one who went home unjustified. And what did he say that resulted in him going home unjustified? What he said was actually one of the five solas — “I thank thee, God, that I am not like other men” (Luke 18:11).
But what do you have that you did not receive as a gift? And if as a gift, then why do you boast as though it were not (1 Cor. 4:7)?
“But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: Thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; Then he forsook God which made him, And lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation” (Deut. 32:13–15). But the contrast that Scripture sets before us, over against waxing fat and kicking, is not waxing skinny and just sitting there. No, not at all. “Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things;” (Deut. 28:47). The fatal contrast is between those who possess and forget and those who possess and remember.
As we consider the various movements and revivals and stirrings that have characterized church history, one of the most notable things about them concerns the men who were instrumental in bringing these things about. I would lay long odds against any of them—I am talking about men like Wycliff, Calvin, Luther, Tyndale, Knox, et al.—being able to land a job in any of the institutions named after them. What is this pattern? Why does it happen this way?
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers” (Matt. 23:29–32).
When a ministry starts, the visionary has a world to gain, and he sees the world to be obtained. There are many who catch the vision, and who are inspired to come with him. But there are others who join up because they have nothing better to do, and nothing really to lose. David was walking by faith, but some of the outcasts who joined him at the Cave of Adullam were muttering about other issues (1 Sam. 22:2).
When there starts to be some measure of success, when they are finally getting somewhere, those who had nothing to lose . . . now have something to lose. They have built up a cozy respectability for themselves, and no need to go rocking the boat, sonny. Consider what happened to the apostle Paul, on more than one occasion (2 Tim. 1:15; 2 Tim. 4:10; Phil. 1:13–17).
And here we come to the point. The great adversary of Calvinism is not Arminianism. The great adversary of Calvinism is Mammon, and it has to be said that the Calvinist work ethic (related to all the things we have been considered) is one of the greatest engines for the production of Mammon that the world has ever seen.
As so the choice is what it has always been—Christ and His gifts, or chasing Christless gifts in the wilderness.
“And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness” (1 Cor. 10:4–5).
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Introduction:
When these precious doctrines of ours—referring to the sovereignty of God over all things—are twisted in such a way as to perpetuate gloom, severity, introspection, accusations, slander, gnat-strangling, and more, the soul is not safe.
Whenever God delivers His people in a remarkable way, as the years go by, the new wineskin will turn gradually into an old wineskin. Part of this process is that the number of unregenerate people starts to grow, but they are stuck with the vocabulary of the previous great reformation and revival. This gives them new material to work on, new material to distort. Given enough time, distort it they will.
The Text:
“And they shall be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder, and upon thy seed for ever. Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things; Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee” (Deut. 28:46–48).
Summary of the Text:
In the 28th chapter of Deuteronomy, the people of Israel are being instructed on the nature of the blessings and curses that will come upon them in accordance with their covenantal obedience and disobedience. That whole chapter makes for sobering reading. The blessings are outlined in the first 14 verses. But beginning at verse 15, the bulk of the chapter is dedicated to a description of the curses that will come upon them. Not only will God curse them, but He will rejoice over their destruction (v. 63). But right in the middle of it, in our text, we are told why the people of God veered away from the blessings that follow obedience and into the dark world of insanity and disobedience.
It was because, while they had the blessings, they did not treat them or respond to them as blessings. Responding to blessing with greed or with guilt incurs wrath. The required response was gratitude. The curses will rest upon them for a sign and a wonder, and on their descendants as well (v. 46). The reason is then given. They are cursed because they did not serve God with two attitudes of thanksgiving—with joyfulness and with gladness of heart (v. 47). On top of this, they were not joyful and glad in heart because of all the stuff (v. 47). And that is why they will be turned out, consigned to the cruelties of their enemies, to the point of their final destruction (v. 48).
Lifted Out of the Mire:
As we will see later in this series, when we come to describe the sin of man, the heart of man is desperately wicked. Who can understand it (Jer. 17:9)? But part of this desperate wickedness and confusion can be seen in the refusal to get up when God declares an invitation to do so. We must humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God (1 Pet. 5:6). But if we have humbled ourselves in truth, then we won’t kick and squall when He does the next thing, which is to exalt us, lifting us up into gladness. If the humility does not end in gladness and triumph, then the humility did not begin (really) in humility at all.
“Glory and honour are in his presence; Strength and gladness are in his place” (1 Chron. 16:27).
“And the children of Israel that were present at Jerusalem kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with great gladness: and the Levites and the priests praised the Lord day by day, singing with loud instruments unto the Lord” (2 Chron. 30:21).
“The hope of the righteous shall be gladness: But the expectation of the wicked shall perish” (Prov. 10:28).
“And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,” (Acts 2:46).
Some Historical Observations:
So we are addressing a biblical concept, but are not using a biblical word for it. Where do we get this word Chestertonian for what we are talking about?
“But there is no understanding the period of the Reformation in England until we have grasped the fact that the quarrel between the Puritans and the Papists was not primarily a quarrel between rigorism and indulgence, and that, in so far as it was, the rigorism was on the Roman side. On many questions, and specially in their view of the marriage bed, the Puritans were the indulgent party; if we may without disrespect so use the name of a great Roman Catholic, a great writer, and a great man, they were much more Chestertonian than their adversaries” (C.S. Lewis, Selected Literary Essays, p. 116, emphasis mine).
As participants in a great and true reformation, this attitude really was characteristic of the early Protestants, for the first century or so. Lewis again: “From this buoyant humility, this farewell to the self with all its good resolutions, anxiety, scruples, and motive-scratchings, all the Protestant doctrines originally sprang” (English Lit, p. 33).
And here is the central point—this demeanor, this Spirit-given, Christ-exalting demeanor—is an essential part of the program. It is not an add-on extra.
Leaning Toward Resurrection:
The suspicion that is directed against an exuberant gratitude for stuff is a suspicion that places the things of earth in some kind of a competition with the things of heaven. This world competes with the eternal things, and so what we must do is get a five gallon bucket of dour paint thinner, and pour it over all our material possessions. We try to make Heaven thick by making earth thin. This is wrong-headed, and incurs the latter half of Deuteronomy 28 to boot.
What we must do is receive all God’s covenantal blessings, as thick as we can conceive of them, and then imagine how much thicker Heaven will be. We receive them, in the name of Christ, as hors d’oeuvres, to whet the appetite, to make us long for more. We are not trying to get out of a prison. We are trying to get out of the entry room, and into the mansion.
In George Herbert’s lovely poem, Sunday, he describes the Lord’s Day as “the next world’s bud.” Later in the poem, he calls Sunday “a day of mirth.” This is no incongruity. James, the Lord’s brother, suggested that if someone was merry he should sing psalms (Jas. 5:13).
“Puritan poets . . . knew that part of their work in this world was to wean their affections from the unmixed love of it. But they also knew that this world was God’s metaphor for His communicable glories and that another part of their duty was to see and utter that metaphor, to use the figural value of this world to turn their attentions and affections to the next” (Daly, God’s Altar, p. 81).
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Deuteronomy 16 and 1 Corinthians 5
1. “Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed.”
The death of Christ as fulfillment of the Passover sacrifice.
– Exodus 12: Passover in Egypt
– Exodus 13: Instructions for future Passover celebrations
– Deuteronomy 16: Passover in Jerusalem
Note: All that the Passover typology teaches us about the death of Christ is true, but that is not all there is to say about his death.
2. Feast of Unleavened bread
“No leavened bread will be seen among you nor leaven seen among you”
– Removal of leaven and leavened products from your households – Biblical injunctions and application in Paul’s day.
– Relationship with the Passover and the Exodus.
3. “Let us Keep the Feast”
– A little leaven leavens the whole lump
– You really are unleavened
– Cleanse out the old leaven
– Let us Keep the Feast
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