Chipping Away

183,300 men! That is the tally of laborers employed in cutting timber, hewing stone, and hauling materials for the building of the temple of the Lord in the days of King Solomon. 183,300 according to 1 Kings 5:13-16! That’s a lot of men … and thus a lot of timber and stone that they were cutting and hauling! Which gets me thinking …

What must it have been like to be one of those men? They must have known what the project was to which they were contributing. They must have known it was going to be grand, that it was going to be beautiful, and that it was going to be for the Lord. And I am sure that, on many days, these facts made the work all the more fulfilling. And yet, if I can put myself in their sandals for a few moments … Though I might have some idea of the grandeur and value of the project, at the end of the day, I am still just planing boards all day; or maybe chipping away on the same piece of stone, for days on end, to form it into the right shape and size. And the job of carrying all that stuff must have been even all the more tedious! So that – while these men knew they were working for the Lord, and building what would be the most important building that ever was built – some days it probably didn’t seem all that grand, or exciting, or moving, or maybe even fulfilling. Many days it must have been hard to see the splendor of the big picture, and much easier just to focus on this giant rock sitting in front of me, or on this tree trunk that has to be planed today. And that doesn’t light the fire the same way as does being on some big ‘adventure’ for God. And yet, whether they realized it or not, each of these 183,300 men (and their repetitive daily labor in the forests and quarries) was vital to the great project!

And it occurs to me that this is how the life of faith works, still today. We, in Christ’s church, are working on a grand project, too (even far grander than Solomon’s temple)! We are Christ’s hands and feet as He builds a kingdom that "will have no end"! Surely it is the most glorious project that was ever undertaken! And, like the 183,300, we know this! And, on our better days, we are glad to be a part of it! But, though we know the big picture, most of our actual work is done on the small picture. Most of our kingdom work is less like being the architect of the temple, and more like cutting away on the same block of stone day after day. Which means that many a time – when keeping the church nursery, or reviewing the catechism with our kids, or handing out bulletins on Sunday morning, or praying for some prayer request on a Wednesday night, or teaching a lesson, or paying a pastoral visit – many a time we may just be doing what is right in front of us, without any great thought about how it all fits in the grand architecture of the kingdom. Sometimes we may even feel rather humdrum about the work that God has given us to do. And, while I do not say that that is good … I also don’t know that it is all that uncommon. We are hewers of stone, cutters of timber, haulers of rock. And, while we ought to realize what privileges these are, the reality is that, even when we don’t set our sights as high as we ought, God is still working through our hands and feet, and the kingdom is still being built! And it will be grand! And when we see it in its completion, we will be so glad for the little bit of sweat and muscle that God allowed us to put in!

So be glad, you servants of the Lord! While you work on your little projects, and chip away at what is right in front of you … God, in Christ, is doing far more than you can yet see. And your part is important. And you’ll be glad, in the end, that you stuck with it!

Integrity

“A just balance and scales belong to the LORD;
All the weights of the bag are His concern.” 
Proverbs 16.11

Picture yourself ambling around the town square, doing your weekly shopping at a medieval bazaar. You walk up to the grain vendor, dig out several scoops of grain, pour them into your sack, and set the sack on one side of the vendor’s scales. And he, for his part, opens his little bag of weights, and begins to put them on the other side of the scale … adding them one by one by one until the two sides are balanced. ‘Okay, Mrs. So-and-So. That’s 31 ounces of grain. So, let me see ... that comes to ... three schillings and a ha’-penny.’ All well and good, right? You fish the change out of your pockets, and head down the aisle to the fish stall. But then a few minutes later, you hear a ruckus being raised at the grain stand and, as you gather on the fringes of the gathering crowd to see what all the fuss is about, you see a very angry customer pulling out his own bag of weights, and weighing them against the grain vendors. And lo and behold, each ‘five ounce weight’ in the vendor’s bag actually weighs only a little over four ounces. And you’ve been cheated … not only on this market day, but on who knows how many other market days in weeks and months past.

That’s what Proverbs 16.11 is talking about – the integrity of weights and measures. God sees when the wheat vendor’s weights are intentionally fixed. He sees when the lady at the butcher shop leans her pinky finger on the back of the scale to add an ounce or two to the weight of every sale. “All the weights of the bag are His concern.” And that is good to know, isn’t it? God knows if we are being cheated. And He will someday settled accounts.

Or is that good news after all?

It’s only good news, it seems to me, if we are the ones being cheated. But what if we ourselves are the ones doing the fudging? ‘O, I would never do that’ someone says. Hopefully not. But do you give the clerk at UDF her dollar back when she accidentally gives you too much change? Do you smile knowingly when she gives you the wink-wink at charging you for a small when you really got a large? Do you think to yourself: ‘Well, they’re a big company after all. And so it’s no big deal if we recalibrate things just a bit. Nobody will miss the few extra cents. And certainly not when we’re dealing with the government. After all, they bring in billions of dollars. What’s the big deal if I fudge my expense reports a little bit to save a few tax dollars? And if my business books are a little cooked, who will really know?’

Well, the fact is that the government or the convenience store may, in fact, never know. And indeed, the cost of your dishonesty may be so small in their eyes that they wouldn’t do much about it if they did know. But God knows! And God cares about your integrity! “All the weights of the bag are His concern.” And we do well to remember that!

To illustrate this point, the 18th century preacher Lachlan Mackenzie repeated to his people the story of a woman who sold milk, but added water to what she sold until the product was diluted by one third. Well, she eventually went on an ocean voyage with her 'earnings'. And, as the story goes, a monkey that was being transported on the same vessel somehow got into her sleeping space, found her little sack of coins, climbed the rigging of the ship with the sack in hand, and began tossing the coins out of the bag – one into the sea, two onto the deck, one into the sea, two onto the deck – until a third of her earnings were buried in the ocean … exactly the amount she had exacted by her false measurements!*

God sees when we are falsely weighting things in our favor! And He has His ways of evening things out! So learn the lesson! Be a man or woman, a boy or girl, of absolute integrity. For “all the weights of the bag” are under the watchful eye of a just and holy God!


____________________________
*This vignette from Mackenzie's ministry comes from John Kennedy's book The Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire, as quoted by Iain Murray in The Happy Man: The Abiding Witness of Lachlan Mackenzie.  I have summarized, rather than fully quoting, Dr. Kennedy's account.

The Lessons of Recuperation

Last week I spent some time reflecting on three lessons I learned (and, I hope, will continue to learn) from my recent illness. Today I thought it would be good to bring to your attention three further lessons – this set pondered in light of my recovery from that illness. The first set of lessons may have been a little more plain to see – since sickness slows us down and allows us (sometimes forces us!) to think. This second set may be a little less obvious. Because, once we are well again, we tend to rush back into the frenzy, and to pay less attention to what God may be saying to us in it all (which is perhaps a lesson in itself). But I have a little time to think as I sit down before this little weekly column … and so let me see if I can draw some insights from the fact that I am now well again, after a difficult illness.

1. Thankfulness is easily overlooked. On the Saturday and Sunday, I was terribly miserable … and wasn’t sure when I would see any light at the end of the tunnel. On Monday, I was not yet well … but woke up feeling considerably better than I had before. And so I got up and moved around a bit; did a few things; etc. But at the end of the day, one of the things I realized I hadn’t done was to stop and give thanks to God. I had prayed during my sickness. And others had prayed for me. And I believe (in my head at least) that it is the Lord “who heals all your diseases” (Psalm 103.3). But as He began to do so, I just took it all for granted – as though the sole reason for my recovery were the fact that the virus was finally running its course. Now, certainly the virus was running its course. But surely it was the Lord who was superintending that, and making it not as bad or lingering as it could have been. And I ought to have been not only relieved about the virus, but intentionally thankful to the Lord of the virus!

2. Work is good. I cannot honestly say that I was eager to get back to work last Tuesday, after four days away from the responsibility. I like time off as much as you do! But I can say that I’d rather be at work than laid up with the flu! And I can also say that productivity is better than inactivity. It is good for us to work; to be useful; to produce something! In our constant craving for the weekend, perhaps we forget that sometimes. But a few days of productivity after a handful on a sickbed is a good reminder that work is a good thing; that God did indeed create us for usefulness. “Six days you shall labor.” And, even if we do not absolutely love our jobs, the privilege of going to them each day is better than the alternative!

3. Sickness is temporary. I’m not the best sickbed patient, I know. As I said last time, it often seems to me like the worst sickness ever! And I find myself feeling like I will never actually recover. Now, even as I am think such a thought, I know that it’s not actually true. But it just almost feels that way sometimes, doesn’t it? ‘How am I ever possibly going to feel right again?’ But every time, I eventually do. The Lord “who heals all your diseases” keeps granting me to recover … every time. And I should remember that. Our “affliction,” Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4.17, is only “momentary” and “light.” And even when we are afflicted with something that will not actually go away in this life – if we are in Christ, it is still only “momentary” in comparison to the eternity that we will spend with Jesus. Just as the flu doesn’t last forever – neither does cancer, or arthritis, or heart disease, or dementia, or heartache, or any other affliction. We will get better soon. And we will thank God profusely when we do. And we will have an eternity to serve Him with healthy bodies and eager hearts.

Hands, Feet, Eyes, Ears ... and You

“For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot says, ‘Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body,’ it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body. And if the ear says, ‘Because I am not an eye, I am not a part of the body,’ it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired. If they were all one member, where would the body be?”

1 Corinthians 12.14-19

Those six verses are, of course, an extended metaphor for the church (“the body”) and her members (the body parts). Each member of the church is like a part of the human body – placed where it is, by God, for a specific reason, and with specific roles and purposes. Each member has a part to play – and is important! We, each of us, are like the hands, feet, eyes, and ears of Christ’s body.

Some members of the church, it’s true, may be a little more or less noticeable than others – just like certain body parts seem a little more or less prominent than others. Most of us probably think about our eyes more than our ears; our hands more than our feet. And so it may be in the church. Some of our roles are more or less public. And we may presume, then, that those roles which are less noticeable and less public are less important … and that perhaps no one will really notice or care if they are not fulfilled. Certainly no one will probably be any worse off, right?

But just think about your hands and feet for a moment. Unless you have problems with them, your feet may seem far less important than your hands. After all, your hands are used for a great many more things. Your hands have a great deal more motor skill than your feet. Indeed, you use your hands to put the shoes on your feet each day! Therefore hands may seem a great deal more important than feet. But let your feet become crippled; or let it be that you begin to have severe pain, or broken bones in your feet … and you will soon find that your hands suffer, too! Because many of the very tasks that seem so hand-oriented cannot be done if your feet cannot carry you to the jobsite, or stand up to do the work! And so, “If the foot says, ‘Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body,’ it is not for this reason any less a part of the body.”

So then ... feet cannot assume that they are unimportant just because they don’t do all the things that hands can do. And hands, conversely, cannot assume that feet are dispensable (see v.21)! And all of this is written, of course – not because Paul is interested in anatomy, but in the life of the church! Every member is important, he says – even those members that seem, at first glance, to be less essential! Every member of Christ’s body, just like the members of the human body, has a purpose … without which the rest of the body will function just a little less effectively!

If every church member were a teacher or preacher, who would take care of the finances? Who would care for the children? Who would welcome and show hospitality? And the list could go on! And if no one cared for the money, how would the preacher live? And if no one cared for the children, how would the parents be able to concentrate on his sermon? And if no one greeted, and welcomed, and cared for guests, how much smaller might be his congregation? And what would your preacher do without people praying for him?

O, how important each of you is to the health and well-being of your local church … and the advance of the gospel in your city! Do not sell yourself short by thinking that your role is unimportant. It is vitally so, even if it seems small to you … or goes unnoticed by others. God notices! And the church benefits, whether she realizes it or not! So play your part! Be the best eye, or ear, or foot, or hand, or toenail you can be!

"The ancient paths"

“Thus says the LORD, ‘Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, Where the good way is, and walk in it; And you will find rest for your souls.’” Jeremiah 6.16

It seems to me that those words of God, originally spoken through Jeremiah to God’s Old Testament people, are as apropos today as ever. How readily we either forget (or simply reject) “the ancient paths;” the biblical truths and godly habits that made the great men and women of old what they were!

Sadly, as in Jeremiah’s day, it may often be that we simply want things our way, and don’t really care about what God says. But maybe, too – in this modern culture of ours, with all its technological advances and corresponding bustle – we assume that contemporary living precludes (or even makes obsolete, impractical, or frankly burdensome) the more methodical rhythms of life that Christians, not so long ago, found to be the very life-breath of their faith. How obvious it sometimes seems that, in this rapidly moving culture of ours, we have to live in the fast lane, and not in the well-worn footpaths of our great grandparents. But it is not that simple, is it? If we’ll slow down just a bit, we will often find that “the good way” is to be found on “the ancient paths” – in the same truths and habits that godly people have practiced for centuries, but which have fallen out of fashion in our own fast-paced day. Let me mention three of those “ancient paths” that I earnestly desire to see Christians walking on, once again:

1. Family worship. I wonder how many adult Christians, reading these words, grew up with the daily routine of sitting down together as a family to read the Scriptures, to sing praises to God, and to pray together with mom and dad. Maybe more than I think. But I’d suspect far fewer than I’d like to think. We grew up watching TV as a family, perhaps playing games together, and maybe even eating dinner together (as rare as that may sound today!). And there may well have been health in those things (especially the games and the dinner!). But “the ancient paths” – the godly examples of generations gone by – tell us that there is a peculiar blessing in father and mother leading the family in devotions together, day by day by day. Here is where children became strong in the Lord, in times of old – not simply in a once a week Bible class (helpful as those are), but under the consistent tutelage of mother and father, each night, at home! This is “Where the good way is.” So turn off the TV, put down the video game controller, and “walk in it.” Stepping back in time may mean great leaps forward in faith!

2. The psalms. We may, today, think of many of our hymns as “ancient.” But before hymns became the order of the day (and long before the era of CCM!), Christians were in the habit of singing the psalms – rendered in rhymed, metered verse. And, while we are surely enriched by theologically robust hymns (both old and new), it seems a pity that Christian individuals, families, and churches are often so unacquainted with the psalms, set to music and sung as heart cries to God! So often, as we have said in recent weeks, the psalms put to voice exactly what we were feeling, but hadn’t the words to say – especially when we are struggling. Some hymns do the same, but probably not as many … and rarely, if ever, as powerfully as the inspired psalms. Christians of old had them readily at their disposal, as divinely given aids to prayer and praise. We should, too! So pick up a psalter at your Christian bookstore (or find a free version online) and return to “the ancient paths, Where the good way is.”

3. The Sabbath. How does a modern Christian have time for all these old-time habits? Isn’t there a reason why these things have fallen out of contemporary practice – namely that modern life is incredibly busy and full? Well, yes! That’s exactly part of our problem! So one solution is that we ought to carefully consider our schedules – our extra-curriculars, our overtime, and so on – to see if maybe we’re just a teensy bit overbooked! But you know, the Christians of old were busy, too – what with milking the cows in the morning, and the ploughing the fields until dark, and all the added time that it took to wash clothes, and cook meals, and so on! In fact, though I have no way to prove it, I suspect that the average person two and three hundred years ago was far busier than we are today (if we count busyness in terms of real, productive work). And yet they had time for their souls!

How so? Partly because, unlike many modern Christians … they actually took seriously (and delighted in!) the fourth commandment: “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.” There was a time when it would have been unthinkable for a serious Christian to spend his Sunday pulling in overtime, or mowing his lawn, or sitting at the ballpark, or getting the shopping done, or raiding the smorgasbord! Not because any of those things are bad, in and of themselves … but because there is a full complement of six days on which to do them; and because, on this one day, we have far more delightful engagements to attend to! What a blessing we should consider it to have a whole day free of errands, free of appointments, free of have-to’s, free of pressing studies, and free of the other days’ work! We pay big bucks to get those kinds of freedoms at the resort! But every week God is offering us a day of freedom from secular affairs – completely set aside to rest our bodies and feed our souls. It’s not a very modern thing to do, I know. Some might even snort at our “ancient” ways of thinking. But if Jeremiah 6.16 is right (and of course it is!) then it is in just such “ancient paths” that we will find “the good way.”

The Hard Work ... of Prayer

Paul wrote the book of Colossians to a group of Christians he’d never met. He hadn’t planted the church at Colossae. A man named Epaphras had. And one sentence Paul writes about Epaphras was extremely important to me as I read. You can find it in 4.12: “Epaphras, who is one of your number, a bondslave of Jesus Christ, sends you his greetings …” (and here’s the part I love) “always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers” (emphasis mine).

Most of the time I think of labor (or work) and prayer as two separate things. As I spend time in my office, it usually seems like I am either working … or I am taking a break from my work in order to pray. But I don’t usually think of my prayers as work. But I should. That’s the way Paul and Epaphras both thought. The way to get the most spiritual work done, it seems, is to make prayer a significant part of your work!

In his book, Revival, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who saw the Spirit come in revival in his church in Wales, and whose preaching was blessed perhaps more than any man in the last century once said: “When God acts he can do more in a minute than man with his organizing can do in fifty years.” Good reason to work harder at prayer than at anything else … asking God to do what only He can!

In the previous century, George Mueller raised a thousand orphans, sent thousands of Bibles and tracts all around the world, and all the while pastored a thriving, growing church. And He did it all without receiving a personal salary and without ever doing any fundraising! How did he accomplish it? How did he feed all those mouths without ever asking for money? Well, instead of working at raising money … he worked in prayer, asking God to do what he could not! And God provided every time!

Hudson Taylor, following Mueller’s example, organized one of the most successful missionary societies of modern times—China Inland Mission. And he, like Mueller, did so without ever asking anyone for money to support the missionaries, and without making any great pleas for more workers to join the mission. So, how did CIM ever succeed in sending and supporting so many missionaries? Well, Taylor explains it by saying that he “moved men through God—by prayer.”

Now, this is not to say that we shouldn’t do the work of evangelism, or fund-raising, or office managing, or ditch-digging. “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might” (Ecclesiastes 9.10). But it is to say that we should no longer view our prayers as different from our labor for the Lord, or even as a support for our labor, (and certainly not as a distraction from our labor!). Rather we should view prayer precisely as the labor itself  … maybe the most important of all the work we do every day!

The Most Powerful Sermon I Never Heard

To get you ready for good habits in the new year, here is post from the blog of David Murray, professor of Old Testament and Practical Theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, MI.  I do hope you'll click through and read the whole article!

One of the most powerful sermons in my life was totally silent.

22 years ago, I was in the Isle of Lewis, Scotland, courting my hoped-to-be wife, Shona. I’d been brought up in the large and loud city of Glasgow, but Shona was raised in Ness, a little village at the most distant tip of the one of the most distant island in Scotland.

The island was one of the few places left in the world where everything closed on Sunday – apart from churches. No shops, no buses, no planes, no gas stations, no sport. Nothing!  ...  Sound like a nightmare? More like a dream; close to paradise, actually.

Keep reading (please!)...

A Lesson from the Ant

“Go to the ant, O sluggard, observe her ways and be wise, which, having no chief, officer or ruler, prepares her food in the summer and gathers provision in harvest.” 

Proverbs 6.6-8

It’s a powerful little picture Solomon paints, is it not? Why aren’t ants hungry all winter long, buried beneath the cold, hard soil with no food to eat? Because they worked hard during the rest of the year – stripping, foraging, and storing away food! And we should go to them, Solomon says, and observe them, and be wise. How so? What do the ants have to teach us?

Among other things, they give us a warning against idleness. Again, the reason why the ants are not hungry in winter is because they are not idle in summer and fall! They’re busy! In fact, if you literally determine to go to the ants, you will find that this seems to be their hallmark. Brush back the edges of any ant-hill and you will find hundreds of the little fellows, crawling this way and that, always being productive.

Solomon says there is a lesson in that! Busy people succeed. Idle people struggle (see Proverbs 6.10). And that’s true on more than one level. It’s true, first of all, on the simple level of making ends meet. The ants have enough food because they work … hard. And the lesson is plain. We must work hard, too. We must be busy with our hands, making ends meet. And if we do not – if we are idle – we’ll suffer for it in our stomachs. That’s not to say that idleness is the only reason why people struggle financially. There are many reasons. Indeed, some of the hardest working people are forced to live from paycheck to paycheck. But the fact remains that, if we are lazy and sedentary, things will only be worse! Idleness causes hungry stomachs and empty bank accounts.

But idleness also causes suffering of a different kind. I think it is fair to say, after 12 years of pastoral counseling – both with Christians, and unbelievers – that a significant number of the sin problems people deal with would be largely solved if the persons in question had a little more responsibility on their plates. For instance, gossip is usually at its worst among people who have little else to do with their time (1 Tim 5.13). In addition, sinful fretting over this and that, and obsessions with what other people do or think, and bitterness over past hurts, all seem to lay down their deepest roots in the empty soil of long days with nothing productive to claim our time. Also, the people with the biggest substance abuse problems are often the same folks who have far too much time on their hands. Addiction to pornography and video games occurs most in young men who have all evening every evening to do a whole lot of nothing. Overeating is often largely a product of boredom. And the list could go on … proving the old adage that ‘idle hands are the devil’s workshop.’ It’s an old adage because it’s true!

Does that mean that, if we’ll just get busy, all our sin habits will fade away? No! Our sin problems have, as their ultimate root, our sin natures … which will not disappear no matter how busy we may be. The busiest people in the world are still sinners. But they probably don’t have time to sit on the phone and talk bad about other people. They probably don’t have time to tool around for hours on the internet. And so, while their busyness in no way eradicates their sin nature, it certainly does give that nature less free time to work with!

So let us all consider the ants, and get busy. There are far too many people who need encouragement; far too many ministries that need helpers; far too many tongues, tribes, peoples, and nations that need praying for; and far too many Bible truths that need studying for any of us to spend too much time twiddling our thumbs! Let us redeem the time, therefore. We’ll get a good example if we “go to the ant”!