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Grace & Peace: Lord’s Prayer 1

Douglas Wilson on

At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen (Matt. 6:9-13).

Before considering the Lords Prayer phrase by phrase, we should begin by taking it in as a whole. In English, it takes less than twenty seconds to say, and it seems strange that the Lord said that we were to pray after this manner. Haven’t we all read the impressive stories of prayer warrior missionaries who wrestled in prayer for hours until they were finally able to punch the principalities and powers on the nose?

And yet, when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, the way John the Baptist taught his disciples, He gave them an even shorter version of this particular prayer (Luke 11:2-4). Jesus explicitly teaches us that prayer ought not to be a big production we shouldn’t make a show of praying in church or on street corners (Matt. 6:5). Men like praying for men under the guise of praying to God. Jesus says to hide the fact that we pray (Matt. 6:6). On top of that, He says that we ought not to think that God is in any way interested in the word count and to the extent that He is interested in it, He wants us to make a point of going short (Matt. 6:7)

Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few (Eccl. 5:2).

Of course we would be veering to the opposite extreme if we said that it was a sin for prayer to go long. Before the Lord selected His disciples, He prayed all night (Luke 6:12), and in the Garden of Gethsemane, He prayed long enough to lose the disciples who were with Him (Matt. 26:41). But even with that granted, it seems that Christians who know their prayer life to be inadequate should begin by simply praying the Lords Prayer, as brief as it is.

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Grace & Peace: Revelation #35

Douglas Wilson on

“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11)

“I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent” (Rev. 3:18–19).

The church at Laodicea was spiritually poor, and the likely reason was that they were not poor at all when it came to material goods. Laodicea was a wealthy city—it was a center for banking, and also had a thriving wool and linen industry. They were also famous for a medical school, and for an eye ointment that was made there out of Phrygian powder.

The Roman historian Tacitus once wrote this about the city’s recovery from a major earthquake in 60 A.D.: “Laodicea arose from the ruins by the strength of her own resources, and with no help from us” (Annals, xiv.27). They were rich, and the church there was an apparent partaker of the general wealth. And this meant in turn that the Christians were tempted to provide a sort of pious echo of that pagan wealth instead of offering a true alternative to it.

And so the Lord challenges them to receive true riches in place of their shadow riches—but He makes a point to use images drawn from their shadow wealth. Buy refined gold from me, gold refined in the fire (banking). Buy white raiment to cover your nakedness (textiles). Anoint your eyes with a spiritual eye salve (medicine). For more on this background, see Storms and Beale.

There were some severe spiritual problems in the six other churches of Asia, but the Lord somehow finds something to commend with them. But not here. This church really was, from front to back, wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. And yet . . .

What is the Lord’s response to this wretchedness? He invites them to be zealous in repentance. And He invites them this way because, as He puts it, He loves them. Why did He rebuke and chasten them? “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.”

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Grace & Peace: Revelation #31

Douglas Wilson on

“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11)

“Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.” (Rev. 3:10).

The saints in Philadelphia had remained faithful during trial up to this point, the Lord promised to deliver them from a future trial, the kind of trial that was going to come upon the entire world. The word translated temptation here can be rendered either as temptation or trial, and when the Lord adds that He is going to “try them that dwell upon the earth,” He is using the same root in a verb form. This is going to be a time of testing, a time of trial, and the church at Philadelphia wouldn’t have to deal with it. The reason they wouldn’t have to deal with it is because they already passed their test.

The word they kept was the word of the Lord’s patience, which means they had gone through something that had called for patience. When they were being tried, the world was not being tried, and when the world received its great test, the church at Philadelphia would not.

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Grace and Peace: Revelation #28

Douglas Wilson on

“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)

 

“And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth” (Rev. 3:7).

 

The church at Philadelphia is next, and is a church that is simply praised and encouraged. They had done well, and are not admonished for any significant sin. The words to the angel of the church at Philadelphia are words from the one who is identified as “holy” and as “true.” So this continues as a series of messages to the churches from the Lord Jesus.

 

This opening greeting to the church also contains a messianic reference from a prophecy by Isaiah. A man named Shebna had been comptroller during the reign of Hezekiah. He was a prideful man, and because of this was ejected from his place (Is. 22:15-25). He had built himself a very fancy sepulcher, which Isaiah mocked, and the lintel of which now occupies a place in the British Museum. Shebna was a conceited man who had removed a godly man named Eliakim from his place. Shebna was likely a traitor, or some kind of double-dealer, a man with secret communications with Judah’s enemies. Ambrose Bierce calls a mausoleum the final and funniest folly of the rich, and in this case at least, God agreed. He was building a grand memory for himself in a country he was betraying, and God promised that he would be hauled off to die somewhere else.

 

After Shebna had received his comeuppance, Eliakim was placed in Shebna’s role. There, as a faithful steward, the key of the house of David would be laid upon his shoulder. When he opened something, no one could shut it. When he shut and locked something, no one could open it. He would be permanently settled. As such, this Eliakim is a type of the Lord Jesus. Jesus is the steward of all human history, having replaced a treacherous steward, that is, the devil.

 

Because the key was in the possession of the Lord Jesus, the opening for the church at Philadelphia was a true opening, and would remain such.

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Grace & Peace: Revelation #26

Douglas Wilson on

“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11)

“Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee” (Rev. 3:3).

But a handful of the saints in Sardis were still in good shape, as we will see in the next verses. They are the ones to whom this exhortation applies because they were the ones who could hear it.

christ kirk - prayer - moscow idahoThe exhortation is an odd combination of “hold on” and “repent.” If you had held on to this point, what is the need for repentance? If you need to repent, shouldn’t the charge be to grab on? The solution to this is to remember that this is a letter to a congregation that was both dead and virtually dead. There were many who needed to grab on, and a small number who needed to hold on. In that kind of situation, where you have a basic identity shared with those who are far away from God, the charge is to repent. We might describe this as vicarious repentance. Those in Sardis who had not defiled their garments were repenting on behalf of those who had.

The prophet Daniel offered a great prayer of confession (Dan. 9:4) even though there was no evidence that he had done any of the things he was confessing. This is because we are not just distinct individuals. He was an Israelite and Israel had sinned. The saints in Sardis were in a church that had a reputation for being alive and yet was dead. American Christians belong to a church that has grievously backslidden. How can you tell which Christians have not backslidden? They are the ones who are willing to admit that they have.

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