Today we look at how love fulfills the Law. First, the scriptures.
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38This is the great and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:36-40)
Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. (Romans 13:8)
As we have looked at previously, love is a distinguishing characteristic of the Christian. It marks him or her out from the world. Yet we go even further, that the kind of love Jesus expects of us to display is a law-fulfilling love. The two commandments are to love Him, and love people.
But how can God command us to feel something, one might ask. We can’t command feelings, can we? Again, as we have looked at previously, love isn’t a feeling that comes on its own like the wind and blows away when it wants, leaving us either filled and romantic, or dry and loveless. We have the will to choose to love. We gain that will by adhering to the precepts of the Father, who said to love all, even one’s enemies. The will to love comes from the fountain of grace that indwells us, AKA the Holy Spirit.
Now, commandment one is to love the God with all our strength, soul, and mind. The second is to love your neighbor as yourself.
Love doesn’t harm a neighbor. Love protects a neighbor. Love doesn’t slander him, or murder him with ill thoughts, or take his wife. Love doesn’t harm a neighbor by harboring covetousness over his new car/riding lawnmower/pool. Love wants the best for people, always.
It is upon us to rely on the Spirit, ask the Spirit, pray for the Spirit to cultivate in us Godly desires that squeeze out even the desire for violence against our neighbor, violence even in the form of sinful thoughts, never mind sinful actions. The goal is to love one’s neighbor enough so that any desire for harm against him is not even present in our heart.
When we do that, when we love our neighbor as purely as possible, it cycles us back to the first Law, loving God with all our strength,mind, heart, and soul, because we are obeying Him.
Love fulfills the Law.
Now I need to get to work. It seems I have a lot of heart work to do… 🙂 Do you?
Hugh Binning’s book Christian Love is recommended at Banner of Truth Trust, Monergism, Reformation Trust, and other sources. Here is the book blurb-
In this Treatise of Christian Love, the Scottish Covenanting minister Hugh Binning movingly presents the need for Christians to show by their love for one another that they belong to Christ. Basing his remarks on John 13:35, By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another, he argues, ‘This badge that Christ left to his disciples: if we cast this away on every disagreement, we disown our Master, and disclaim his token and badge.’
Binning describes the excellence of Christian love, demonstrating its nature from 1 Corinthians 13. He gives strong reasons why Christians should love one another, and shows that love is rooted in Christian humility and meekness, after the pattern of Christ himself.
We’ve been progressing through the attribute of love as God loves and expects it of His children. It’s love week here at the End Time.
I’d planned next week to explore hate. Not everyone’s favorite subject, I’m sure, but we’ve all experienced it, either prior to salvation when were at enmity with God or afterward when we had fleshly flashes of it.
Today, sadly, we as a nation are once again mourning in the aftermath of a massacre shooting. This was the worst kind, a school shooting.
Yesterday alleged shooter Nikolas Cruz allegedly shot 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, a public school of about 3,000 students outside Boca Raton, FL. In the recent past we’ve endured:
February 14, 2018 – Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School – Parkland, Florida. 17 people killed and at least 14 others injured.
January 23, 2018 – Marshall County High School – Benton, Kentucky. Two killed and 18 injured.
December 7, 2017 – Aztec Hight School – Aztec, New Mexico. Two killed and shooter kills self.
September 13, 2017 – Freeman High School – Spokane, Washington. 1 student killed, 3 injured.
April 10, 2017 – North Park Elementary School – San Bernardino, California. Adult kills student and teacher, then self. Two others injured.
That is a list of just the shootings within the last year, and of course you and I know there are many more, and not just school shootings. In the aftermath, we see quotes like this one from CNN.
“This has been a day where we’ve seen the worst of humanity. Tomorrow is gonna bring out the best in humanity as we come together to move forward from this unspeakable tragedy,” he said.
I would disagree, and the Bible supports me on this. It isn’t the worst of humanity. It’s humanity. It’s easy to think of Cruz as an enemy and hate him. But we have met the enemy, and he is us.
The ground of this pure and unspoiled earth became blood soaked shortly after the Fall, when Cain slew Adam. Even prior to that moment, Eve and Adam behaved violently by disobeying God, moving forward in enmity. They broke His one and only command, thus causing the fall of man from his position God had declared as “very good.” After that, man has not been “very good” but “very bad”. The technical term in Christianity for very bad is “depraved sinner”. After the Fall, this became a world of death instead of a world of life. (Romans 5:17).
So often we are quick to blame others for our failures and shortcomings. We even mask how we do this by employing the “if-only” rationale to excuse our sin. “If only I had been raised differently…I had a better job…you hadn’t provoked me…my husband would listen to me…my church were better….” The list is endless and usually contains genuinely flawed people and circumstances that are blameworthy.
But no circumstance, other person, or activity can ever justify my sin. I sin, Jesus said, because my heart is sinful. That is a shattering reality. But we must humbly face it if we want to be spiritually healed.
Alleged shooter Nikolas Cruz shot people because he is a depraved human. But we’re all depraved. The difference is that prior to salvation we have no hope of resisting that depravity. Afterward, it is a constant battle, albeit aided by the ministry of the indwelling Holy Spirit. But it’s in all of us. Ask Abel. There is none good, no not one. When the hate against God that’s inside us grow to such monstrous proportions one cannot restrain it any more, we unleash it in terrible ways. Gossip, slander, adultery, extortion, oppression, murder. It’s all there in all of us.
The gospel is called the ‘good news’ because it addresses the most serious problem that you and I have as human beings, and that problem is simply this: God is holy and He is just, and I’m not. And at the end of my life, I’m going to stand before a just and holy God, and I’ll be judged. And I’ll be judged either on the basis of my own righteousness–or lack of it–or the righteousness of another. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus lived a life of perfect righteousness, of perfect obedience to God, not for His own well being but for His people. He has done for me what I couldn’t possibly do for myself. But not only has He lived that life of perfect obedience, He offered Himself as a perfect sacrifice to satisfy the justice and the righteousness of God.
The only way you can receive the benefit of Christ’s life and death is by putting your trust in Him–and in Him alone. You do that, you’re declared just by God, you’re adopted into His family, you’re forgiven of all of your sins, and you have begun your pilgrimage for eternity.
Praise God He made a way for us to be reconciled to Him. The Gospel is life.
Today we’ll look deeper into that, loving not only those who are easy to love, or loving who we are supposed to love, but loving those who actively hate us. Enemies.
I’ll take a moment here to let you all know something. I enjoy writing, but that’s not the only reason I write blogs every day. I process the Word by writing. When I post a blog essay, I’m not telling you all how to be Christian, though there is some exhortation with each essay. Mainly, I am preaching to myself. I don’t find it easy to love the way the Bible tells us, even to friends and brethren. I certainly don’t find it easy to love enemies. I fail in many ways, every day. So please don’t ever think that I have it all together!
But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. (Luke 6:35).
And again in Matthew:
You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48)
Barnes’ Notes explains:
We are bound to love our enemies. This is a law of Christianity, original and unique. No system of religion but Christianity has required it, and no act of Christian piety is more difficult. None shows more the power of the grace of God; none is more ornamental to the character; none more like God; and none furnishes better evidence of piety. He that can meet a man kindly who is seeking his hurt; who can speak well of one that is perpetually slandering and cursing him; that can pray for a man that abuses, injures, and wounds him: and that can seek heaven for him that wishes his damnation, is in the way to life. This is religion, beautiful as its native skies; pure like its Source; kind like its Author; fresh like the dews of the morning; clear and diffusive like the beams of the rising sun; and holy like the feelings and words that come from the bosom of the Son of God. He that can do this need not doubt that he is a Christian. He has caught the very spirit of the Saviour, and he must inherit eternal life.
It’s easy to love those who love us. It’s simple to treat others lovingly who treat us well. Jesus said even the Gentiles (who do not know love) do the same.
A Christian’s love must be different than what is expected. It has to be different from the kind of love the world is used to. It must be perfect.
But how can our love be perfect? We’re imperfect sinners!
The point is this: you are to be like God. You say, “Well, that standard is too high.” You’re right, and that’s exactly what He wanted the Pharisees to know. You can’t make it. … What Jesus is saying in the Sermon on the Mount is the same thing, “Be perfect.” They’re supposed to say, “But I can’t be perfect.” And that’s when He says, “Right; and if you fall short of perfection, you need a Savior.” And that’s where Jesus comes in, and brings to you what Peter calls the divine nature, and makes you like God, a partaker of His nature. Then God, in a miracle of salvation, does for you what you could never do for yourself – be like God. When you came to Jesus Christ, positionally, you were made like God. You were given His eternal life, His righteousness, you became like Him in that sense. And now you need to bring your behavior into harmony with your position.
Listen: a Christian is not someone who keeps the Sermon on the Mount. A Christian is somebody who knows he can’t, do you see – and comes to Jesus Christ for forgiveness for the sin of falling short, and receives from Christ the forgiveness, and then the power to begin to live these principles. That’s the point of the message.
If that makes you cry, good. It did me. His standards are holy and high, and we can’t make it. It makes me cry out Abba! Father! Help me! Help me to love like you would have me do! And He will.
A note about the photo: It was taken by a friend of mine who works with the American Legion, an American veteran, who was in NYC for a conference on the day of 9-11. He took this photo the day after. He gave this picture to me and spent some time telling me how the day was for him and his colleagues. It was an emotional day for all of us, though it’s hard to believe it has been 17 years since then. I watched in shock as the towers fell (and knew many were dying at that moment), the pit in the ground in PA where the plane dove in, the Pentagon ruptured and a Navy man who lived in our town was killed inside. Whether it’s an individual enemy at work, or a national enemy out to destroy America, and every enemy in between, it is very hard to love your enemies. Yet Jesus did, while He was being nailed to the cross, He pleaded for mercy upon those who nailed Him and wanted Him dead. The truth is, before salvation we were all enemies of God and we all have that depravity in us that wants God dead. Praise Him that before we knew Him, He first loved us.
Happy Valentine’s Day! Here are some famous songs about love for you!
All You need is Love
I Wanna Know What Love Is
Love Stinks
Can’t Help Falling in Love
Addicted to Love
Can’t Hurry Love
I Will Always Love You
Love is A Battlefield
I Just Called to Say I Love You
I Think I Love You
Psalm 136
Wait, wut? Psalm 136? Yes! It is a tremendous song about God’s steadfast love. I wrote about it in Love Week essay #1, here.
The world tries to understand love but the world never will know it unless that seeking person is saved by grace through faith. When we abide in Jesus we can then know love. (1 John 4:8).
Still the world sings songs and wonders where it all went. All too often, We’ve Lost that Loving Feeling and wonder what to do After the Love is Gone.
We must understand that love is not a feeling, but a position, a decision.
Although it is often felt in the heart, love is primarily an act of the will. Nowhere is this demonstrated more clearly than in the way God loves us. In the Old Testament, two Hebrew words describe God’s love for his people. The first Hebrew word for love, ahab, means: “to desire, to breathe after; to be inclined toward, to delight in.” The Lord God delights in us and is inclined toward us. He desires–“breathes after”–us with affectionate (ahab) love. Although Ahab is an intense word, it’s only used a handful of times with regard to the Lord. There’s another richer, more powerful word that’s used repeatedly throughout Old Testament Scripture to describe God’s love for us: the Hebrew word chesed.
Chesed speaks of a love that is firmly rooted in choice. It involves loyalty, steadfastness and commitment to a promise. It’s a love that doesn’t depend on the response or behavior of the receiver but rather on the steadfast character and commitment of the giver. Ahab has to do with feelings, whereas chesed implies a mind-set and mode of interaction based on unwavering loyalty to a commitment.
The world will tell us (in its songs) that we are slaves to our feeling of love. We’re hooked on a feeling, addicted to love, finding or losing that feeling. That it makes us Crazy, Fools, and love even has its own Power.
All that makes Love its own god.
Only God has as much power as pagans think love has.
We don’t love the way the world loves. We who are saved have the ability to remain loving in the Christ-like way because it’s a choice in which the power of God in us through the Holy Spirit allows us to persevere. The Gentiles fall in and out of love, find it and lose it, wax and wane within it, because feelings are ephemeral, temporary, and deceptive.
The only love that endures in a pagan is self-love.
A Christian’s love is counter-cultural to the world because the Bible teaches us to consciously deny our self-love and focus our love on others, even unto death. Jesus taught in Matthew 5:43-45-
You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.
Christian marriage between one man and one woman is a major way that God wants to demonstrate His kind of love in the world. He demonstrates in the picture of marriage, the counter-cultural, upside down attitude toward love wherein it becomes a choice and not a snare. When marriages endure through the act of the will and not fail or succeed because we’re reflexively responding to a feeling, it’s His way and not the world’s way.
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 25Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.a 28In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30because we are members of his body.
Wives, submitting? Husbands loving, even unto death? Yes, because we are members of His body. The Gentile is cut off from His body and therefore thinks that love is a feeling, when it is actually a choice.
Love well today, on this Hallmark holiday exalting the world’s version of love. Love as Jesus taught, which is a choice toward others, sacrificial, permanent. Love your friends, wives love husbands and husbands love your wives, love your children, and love your enemies. Because love isn’t a feeling, it’s a permanent choice in Christ.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. (1 John 4:7-9).
I really liked this morning’s devotional from Spurgeon. Spurgeon wrote in the last paragraph. “in matters of grace you need a daily supply. You have no store of strength. Day by day must you seek help from above”.
The Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6 reminds us of this. In verse 6:11 we read that we are to pray: “Give us this day, our daily bread”. The word in the Greek for ‘our daily’ means “for the coming day, for subsistence”, bringing emphasis to Spurgeon’s note that we have no store of strength.
Blessedly, the table of bread is eternal, ever flowing to sustain His people. Spurgeon notes that we will “never go hungry while the daily bread of grace is on the table of mercy.” Like the manna in the desert, sustenance will ever appear, daily.
This Morning’s Meditation
C. H. Spurgeon
“And his allowance was a continual allowance given him of the king, a daily rate for every day, all the days of his life.“—2 Kings 25:30.
JEHOIACHIN was not sent away from the king’s palace with a store to last him for months, but his provision was given him as a daily pension. Herein he well pictures the happy position of all the Lord’s people. A daily portion is all that a man really wants.
We do not need tomorrow’s supplies; that day has not yet dawned, and its wants are as yet unborn. The thirst which we may suffer in the month of June does not need to be quenched in February, for we do not feel it yet; if we have enough for each day as the days arrive we shall never know want. Sufficient for the day is all that we can enjoy.
We cannot eat or drink or wear more than the day’s supply of food and raiment; the surplus gives us the care of storing it, and the anxiety of watching against a thief. One staff aids a traveller, but a bundle of staves is a heavy burden. Enough is not only as good as a feast, but is all that the veriest glutton can truly enjoy. This is all that we should expect; a craving for more than this is ungrateful. When our Father does not give us more, we should be content with his daily allowance. Jehoiachin’s case is ours, we have a sure portion, a portion given us of the king, a gracious portion, and a perpetual portion. Here is surely ground for thankfulness.
Beloved Christian reader, in matters of grace you need a daily supply. You have no store of strength. Day by day must you seek help from above. It is a very sweet assurance that a daily portion is provided for you. In the word, through the ministry, by meditation, in prayer, and waiting upon God you shall receive renewed strength. In Jesus all needful things are laid up for you. Then enjoy your continual allowance. Never go hungry while the daily bread of grace is on the table of mercy.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:7-10).
S. Lewis Johnson said of those verses in his sermon The Divinity of Love part 2, “Now, there are three parts to the section. The apostle exhorts us to love in verses 7 and 8, he talks about the manifestation of authentic love in verses 9 and 10,”
God’s love is not a feeling, at least, not like we experience love. In human life, love waxes and wanes from fervent to fleeting and everything in between. It is erotic, brotherly, and sacrificial (eros, phileo, agape). Songs are written about love, people die for love, they live for love. Which is all very amazing, because we do not understand it until we are saved and thus experience God, who is love.
SL Johnson again, on the three kinds of love, (eros, phileo, agape)
One of the commentators somewhere to try to bring it down to our level has said the first word that has to do with sexual love, we might say, is all take. And then the second word is the weaker word, is give and take. And then the final one is all give and that is the true biblical kind of love. The apostle uses that third term that is the will of an individual and the expression of his love in a sacrificial kind of way to put it very simply.
At some point God communicated His perfect love for Himself in the form of the Father-Son-Spirit toward His creation and specifically toward His created humans. DA Carson here says,
What is of interest to us for our topic is the way the texts distinguish how the love of the Father for the Son is manifested, and how the love of the Son for the Father is manifested — and then how such love further functions as lines are drawn outward to elements of Christian conduct and experience. These function in various ways. There is space to reflect on only one of them.
In John 15, Jesus tells His disciples, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you” (15:9). Thus, we move from the intra-Trinitarian love of the Father for the Son to the Son’s love of His people in redemption. Jesus thus becomes the mediator of His Father’s love. Receiving love, so has He loved. Then He adds, “Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love” (15:9b–10).
Consider the gift, privilege, and grace of God’s love to us. Here, John Gill,
As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.
As the Father hath loved me,…. As his own Son, and as Mediator, from everlasting; and in time, in his state of humiliation, throughout the course of his obedience, and under all his sufferings; which he testified more than once by a voice from heaven; which he showed by concealing nothing from him as Mediator, by giving all things into his hands, by showing him all that he himself did, by appointing him the Saviour of the body, and making him the head of the church, by exalting him at his right hand, and ordaining him to be judge of quick and dead.
So have I loved you: Christ loves his as his spouse and bride, as his dear children, as members of his body, as branches in him the vine, as believers in him, and followers of him; which he has shown by espousing both their persons and cause, by assuming their nature, by suffering and dying in their room and stead, and making all suitable provision for them, both for time and eternity.
And there is a likeness between the Father’s love to him, and his love to his disciples and followers: as his Father loved him from everlasting, so did he love them; as his Father loved him with a love of complacency and delight, so did he, and so does he love them; and as his Father loved him with a special and peculiar affection, with an unchangeable, invariable, constant love, which will last for ever, in like manner does Christ love his people; …
Bless the LORD for His love – of and to Himself among His Persons, and through His Son to us. How grateful we should be that we can know love, for God is love and apart from Him, we know not what love its at any time.
Christians know Jesus and thus, they know His love. But many people don’t understand His love, biblically.
Others who aren’t saved, if they know nothing else in the Bible, they know the verse “God is love” from 1 John 4:8…which they use to reject any discussion of sin, wrath, or judgment, half the Gospel. But unsaved people can’t love (in a Christ-like, God-honoring way). (1 John 4:8)
So what does Apostle John mean when he writes ‘God is love’?
Here is a reposted essay from the blog at Grace To You explaining the verse.
That’s a transcendent thought that finds its ultimate expression in the cross of Christ. The most famous verse in the Bible confirms that God’s love was the motive for sending Christ: “For God so loved the world . . .” (John 3:16).
But God’s love didn’t first appear two thousand years ago—that’s where it climaxed. The truth is that all of history bears the undeniable marks of God’s loving nature. From Genesis to Revelation, His great love is displayed on multiple levels and in countless glorious ways. In fact, His unchanging love is older than time itself.
God’s Love Before Time
John MacArthur points out that right from the beginning—in fact, before the beginning—God’s love was the driving force that set the scene for His creation:
In eternity past, within the perfect fellowship of the Trinity, God the Father purposed, as a love gift to His Son, to redeem a people who would honor and glorify the Son (cf. John 6:39; 17:9–15). Thus, though God existed in perfect Trinitarian solitude, He created a race of beings out of which He would love and redeem those who would in turn love Him forever. [1]
It’s overwhelming to consider that God’s plan of redemption originated in eternity past and that His predestined strategy is fueled by His great love (Ephesians 1:4–5).
God’s Love in Creation
God’s love is also on display in the perfect world He created for us. The creation account repeatedly features the phrase, “and God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:10, 18, 21, 25; cf. 1:4, 31). And in His immense love, He created mankind as the capstone of His very good creation (Genesis 1:27–28). That theme continues throughout Scripture. The earth is full of God’s lovingkindness (Psalm 119:64). “The Lord is good to all, and His mercies are over all His works” (Psalm 145:9). “He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17).
But there was a greater purpose behind God’s creative work. He did not create the world as the main attraction, but as the theater where His redemptive plan would take place and His love would be put on display. Even the corrupting blight of sin on God’s creation is integral to the display of His love: His redeeming love would forever remain hidden without sinners to redeem.
God’s Love in Humanity
Furthermore, God’s love is also evident in the fact that He created people rather than robots. God is all powerful, all knowing, and perfectly capable of creating a race of creatures to do His bidding. But He is also relational and created man to reciprocate His love.
He designed sinners to know and love Him by an act of their wills (cf. John 7:17–18), though not apart from the work of His Spirit (cf. John 1:12–13; Ephesians 2:5; Titus 3:5). God’s greatest commandment is that people love Him with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:29–30). [2]
What a privilege it is that we, as sinners, can actually enter into and enjoy a loving relationship with our Creator as His responsive creatures. God is under no obligation to reconcile with His rebellious subjects, but He is “rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us” (Ephesians 2:4). His love is the means by which we can willfully love Him—“We love, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
Is God’s Love Inconsistent?
But what about those who don’t love God? Is His love exclusive to Christians? Or does God love everyone equally? For many, those questions are vexing, as they wrestle with the theological implications of God’s love.
We recently brought those questions to John MacArthur. You can see what he had to say in the following video:
There is a universal aspect to God’s love. This general love of God for all people is most evident in the fact that He delays His wrath upon unrepentant sinners (Genesis 15:16; Acts 17:30–31; Romans 3:25). And while God’s saving love is exclusively bestowed on His elect, He powerfully displays His love for the whole world by offering the gospel to all people (Matthew 28:19).
But that general love of God is temporary—it extends no further than the Day of Judgment. By contrast, God’s saving love is exclusively and eternally lavished on those who believe. It is a love so glorious that the apostle Paul could scarcely contain his superlatives when describing it:
God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:4–7)
God is love. But His love is manifest in different ways over time, and bestowed according to His redemptive purposes. It’s a blessing to all men, but a comfort for only His elect.
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This Grace to You article originally appeared here. Copyright 2007, Grace to You. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
I was listening to RefNet.fm (Ligonier’s 24-hour Christian station) and Psalm 136 was read aloud. The recurring phrase “for His steadfast love endures forever” seeped into my soul and covered it like a balm. The whole Psalm was refreshing in its praise of God. I pray you have an opportunity to find an audio of the Psalm and hear it. Though it was not sung as it originally was, spoken aloud it had a ring of love and truth that was not otherwise impactful to me as I’d read it myself in the past. I dug deeper and looked into the origin of the Psalm and found these study notes. I pray you are refreshed and encouraged as you read them sometime yourself.
Psalm 135-136, from John MacArthur Study Bible Notes.
These two Psalms complete the “Great Hallal.” The composer and occasion of Ps. 135 are unknown but likely postexhilic. Psalm 135:15-20 is strikingly similar to 115:4-11.
Psalm 135
I. Call to Praise (135:1-2)
II. Causes for Praise (135:3-18)
God’s Character (135:3)
God’s Choice of Jacob (135:4)
God’s Sovereignty in Creation (135:5-7)
God’s Deliverance of Israel (135:8-12)
God’s Unique Nature (135:13-18)
III. Concluding praise (135:19-21)
Psalm 136 This Psalm, extremely similar to Psalm 135, closes the “Great Hallal*.” Unique to all the Psalms, Ps. 136 uses the antiphonal* refrain “for His steadfast love endures forever” after each stanza, perhaps spoken by the people in responsive worship. Author and occasion remains unknown.
I. Call to Praise (136:1-3)
II. Causes for Praise (136:4-22).
God’s Creation (136: 4-9)
God’s Deliverance (136: 10-15)
God’s Care and Gift (136:16-22)
III. Concluding Praise (136:23-26).
*antiphonal = of music, especially church music, or a section of a church liturgy) sung, recited, or played alternately by two groups.
Four years ago I posted a few articles looking at and critiquing the women of She Reads Truth (SRT) and IF:Gathering.
This week a reader emailed a question to me. She wanted to know what I thought of the women of IF and SRT now, after four years had gone by. She asked mainly about She Reads Truth. I’ll update my thoughts on that movement on another day, but today I’m going to focus first on the IF:Gathering:
She asked great questions and valid ones, to be sure. I had thought about doing an update, and her question spurred me to do it. In God’s providence and timing, last week the two women of Sheologians, Summer White and Joy Temby, did a podcast reviewing IF:Gathering. Yay! I listened to it. I am including notes on their insights and review. My thoughts will follow.
As a side note, the Sheologians ladies (Summer White and Joy Temby) mentioned how difficult it is to do discernment ministry. Not that the Sheologians, or even I, focus solely on discernment. But whenever we feel called to write about a person, teaching, or movement in the discernment spheres, it is hard. It is hard on the soul to listen and hear such things said about our God or against our Jesus. It is hard to write negatively. It is hard to think of the people that will be hurt by the conclusions we come to. It’s hard – but it’s important. So we do it.
We don’t do it lightly. I pray, I do hours of research, of course consult the Bible, and I check in other discernment ministries, like I did with the Sheologians. I work hard to be accurate and fair, being biblical without compromise despite a certain person’s or movement’s popularity. That said, here is a synopsis of Sheologians’ PLUSES and PRAISES of IF:Gathering:
They said that the IF ladies produce a conference well, and they know a lot about organizing and using social media and the internet to get their message out.
They mentioned that the Huffington Post did an article about the women and their movement a few years ago, noting in the article the movement’s emphasis on social justice. Sheologians said that if even a secular publication notices a Christian movement, it’s something. I’ll make a few notes about the social justice and popularity below.
The Sheologians noted that the IF website and live gatherings are known for their beautiful long tables laden with flowers backlit by fairy lights, gifts, womanly takeaways, and Pinterest-perfect backgrounds and tablescapes. Summer White wondered, what is the IF:Gathering attracting people TO? If you stripped away all of this, would they still come? Is the movement focused solely on aesthetics? Summer said that Jennie Allen addressed this in her speech, downplaying the aesthetics part of their movement and was relieved because of Jennie’s assurances.
Note- Not an IF:Gathering, just a simulation of one*
The Sheologians praised the IF:Gathering emphasis on the local church as important, and liked that the IF ladies stated that biblically equipping women is their goal. Summer White said that in Jennie Allen’s speech, Allen said that it is the church that must grow. That if the IF:Gathering disappears, who cares as long as local church is strong. This was the right priority, they said.
Many minutes went by in Jennie Allen’s speech without scripture, no Gospel talk, no talk of sin. When sin was mentioned, it was framed as part of our ‘brokenness’ or just that the devil was after you.
When Allen did mention sin 20 minutes into the speech, she made joke about sin, undermining confession of sin and undermining local church by joking about not confessing sin to people you’re in an actual relationship with.
The Sheologian women noted that Jen Hatmaker and Sarah Bessey have spoken at the conference. Both these women are overtly and obviously heretical. This is a problem.
Too much of a focus on emotionalism at the conference. There was a wrackingly grief laden testimony from a women whose small child died. Sheologians agreed that faith through grief can help, but there seems to be an over-emphasis with IF ladies. Also, that is the extent of it, there is no scriptural digging. Lots of emotion but not a lot of Jesus. They noted that story time is only beneficial as long as it ultimately points to Jesus.
Women do not need more emotionalism, we get that in our daily life we need to be pulled away more than running to it.
Jennie Allen got the Trinity wrong in her 2014 book Restless. She wrote that the Holy Spirit is a form of Jesus Christ. He most definitely is not, Summer White said. He is the Third Person of the Trinity. He is God.
There’s a lot of ‘God told me’, which is another mixed message since they talk a lot about women being in the scriptures, so why the emphasis on God directly telling them things, Summer White mused.
Sheologians’ Conclusion
Ultimately the Sheologians noticed that the IF Ladies say one thing and do another. They say they want to promote the local body, but joke about confessing sin to people you actually worship with.
You can’t preach the importance of the local body when you’re going to remove the necessity of confessing sin to people you’re in a relationship with.
You can’t preach importance of local church when you invite speakers who also undermine that doctrine with their heresies and various declarations against the church.
They could not take the IF ladies’ stated commitment to the Bible seriously when they constantly speak of directly hearing from God.
MY THOUGHTS
My warning about the IF:Gathering remains the same as four years ago, if not more fervent. Imagine, a woman who writes a book misrepresenting the Trinity formed a movement that same year where they intend to equip other women. This cannot be.
Direct revelation, ergo, Bible not sufficient
Their continual stance IS direct revelation. Regarding direct revelation, Jennie Allen revealed at the first IF:Gathering how IF got started. The ladies’ penchant to say ‘God told me’ that Summer noticed is in actuality not just a millennial-youth casual phrase. It is based on something terribly unbiblical. Here are Founder Jennie Allen’s words, transcribed from a video clip, actual video below:
For one second I want to give you a behind the scenes of where this all came from. About 7 years ago, a voice from the sky…[nervous laughter] which doesn’t often speak to me, but that day, there was this whisper. It was the middle of the night actually. It was ‘gather and equip your generation. … and for two days my bones hurt.
Doesn’t OFTEN speak to her?
Jennie went on to advise that
not all voices from the sky are God, FYI, but if it IS God he will give you what you need to accomplish what he spoke.
And this women who can’t figure out the Trinity can figure out which voice from the sky is God’s and which is the devil’s?
Margaret Feinberg was a speaker this year at IF:Gathering 2018, and is known for her book “God Whispers: Learning to Hear His Voice” and is a woman who even a liberal book reviewer called an evangelical mystic.
To me, this destroys any credibility the IF Ladies have in urging women to dive into scripture. Obviously for the IF women, it’s important to dive into scripture, as long as there isn’t a voice from the sky giving other orders or whispering into your ear. Then the Bible goes by the wayside.
Popular
HuffPo wrote of the movement back when it first started, piercing the notice of even that secular publication. I always go back to Luke 6:26 which I call the curse of popularity.
Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for according to these things their fathers used to treat the false prophets likewise.
Their first conference sold out in minutes. They were popular even at the start and are gathering even more steam as time goes on. This to me is suspicious, because of the verse. People don’t generally clamor in droves to a solidly Gospel Bible study, in fact, they reject it. Whenever something is instantly wildly popular, be suspicious.
Social Justice
The IF:Gathering is based on social justice, not a Gospel emphasis. They want to equip women with the biblical grounding SO THAT they can be ‘unleashed’ (whatever that means) to go out and promote “healing and reconciliation in the world.” The following is transcribed directly from their own words, an affirmation to the US Federal Government on their non-profit IRS returns,
To gather a new generation of women, equip them with the tools to know God more deeply and live out their purposes and unleash a movement to promote healing and reconciliation around the world.
This new wave of evangelical women is fueled by an ever-growing online culture of high-profile women bloggers and savvy social media types who have laid the groundwork for the new focus. [in Christianity of social justice]
While Christians are called to display kindness and charity to those less fortunate, and to meet saints’ needs, it is not our calling to rectify the sins of man globally. Social Justice is not the Gospel. Here is GotQuestions on Social Justice.
Emotionalism
Though we as women do feel things deeply, and it is our calling and privilege to nurture, we go overboard with the emotions sometimes. Emotional testimonies are not the Gospel.
The IF:Gathering IRS statement of purpose unfortunately includes an attitude of feelings regarding Bible verses rather than equipping women through teaching its intended meaning. Here is their statement of purpose transcribed. Links are below in the resources section.
“IF:Equip- A holistic, strategic, deep way to connect online with a like-hearted community and relevant resources. We hope to prepare women around the world to know God more deeply and to live out their purposes by sharing comments and feelings about daily passages posted online.”
Associations
The Sheologians made mention of several speakers whom the IF ladies had invited to speak at their annual gathering that illustrated problematic associations. Associations are not by themselves an indicator of solidity in a teacher or program, but it is to be taken into consideration. The Bible strictly warns to stay away from those who promote heresy. Mark and avoid them, (Romans 16:17), shut the door and do not even let them into the house. (2 John 1:10).
False teachers corrupt the divine standard and pollute the word, drawing away the unwary and are out greedily to kill, steal, and destroy. Therefore coffee klatches, sympathetic conversations, and mild-mannered toleration is not the biblical method for dealing with them, and are unwise in the extreme to employ.
In its first IF:Gathering, the speakers included feminist heretic Sarah Bessey and Bible-rejecter and church hater Jen Hatmaker.
This year’s Gathering, which concludes tonight, includes
IF:Gathering’s Board of Directors for each of tax years 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 consisted of Larry Cotton with his wife Diann also as a Director. Sadly from the NY Times last week we learn that Pastor Cotton, who led Austin Stone Community Church, was “placed … on leave last Friday while it investigates “his qualification for his current role of leadership.” This was due to Cotton’s alleged participation in the coverup of a 1998 allegation of sexual abuse by a youth against one of the other pastors working with Cotton at the time, Andy Savage. While the statute of limitations has run out and Savage will not be prosecuted, the fallout of the accusation includes investigation of Cotton into his possible part in the incident and alleged coverup, so he is relieved of ministerial duty. It will be interesting to see what the IF Ladies, especially Jennie Allen, who called both Larry and Diann mentors, will say or do, if anything.
Associations matter.
I believe enough credible and long-term information exists to illustrate that submitting to Bible studies generated by these women is not healthy for your spiritual life. That pursuing unleashing,global healing and reconciliation, and social justice is not the Gospel call to women for a long-term or even short term lifestyle. That these ladies are to be avoided. There are other women to learn from. My stance is that women do not have to learn from women. They can and should learn from men. But if you feel compelled to search for women to learn from, Bible studies or devotionals to obtain, here are a few choices. I also enjoy and take inspiration from the older missionary stories, such as Gladys Aylward whose story is captured in A Little Woman or Elisabeth Elliot, or biographies of theologians’ wives such as Martin Luther’s wife Katherine Von Bora, or Susannah Spurgeon for example.
Ladies, please stay away from IF:Gatherings.
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In the Tribulation, agriculture will wither under a scorching sun.
Dorothea Lange, Abandoned farm north of Dalhart, TX. 1938.
At the end of the end days, during the Tribulation where all men living on the earth will be judged in wrath, there will be three sets of successively worsening judgments (or four sets, if the Seven Thunders of Revelation 10:1-4 are judgments).
There will first be the 7 Seal Judgments of Revelation 6, they open the Tribulation. Then the wrath of God is demonstrated through 7 Trumpet Judgments of Revelation 8-9. These are terrible judgments, but by God’s grace, some repent through them. After that there are the 7 Bowl Judgments. Revelation 15 opens with the 7 Bowl Judgments.
Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and amazing, seven angels with seven plagues, which are the last, for with them the wrath of God is finished. (Revelation 15:1).
These are the most terrible of all. They are so bad that no one is even allowed in the heavenly throne room sanctuary until they are concluded.
And one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God who lives forever and ever, 8and the sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the sanctuary until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished. (Revelation 16:7-8)
One of the Bowl judgments God pours on the people of the earth the plague of a hot sun. By this point in the Tribulation, no one is repenting. They know that God is sending His wrath onto the world, but they shake their fist at Him and refuse to repent. By this time, battle lines have been set in eternal stone. In Revelation 13 people either took the mark of the beast and thereby signaling their worship of satan, sealing their doom, (Revelation 14:9-10), or they refused the mark, thereby signaling their worship of the Lamb who lives forever, sealing most to their martyrdom.
The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch people with fire. They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory. (Revelation 16:8-9).
God makes the sun hotter, so hot that men will be on fire if they are exposed to it. God is powerful and controls the sun!
Let us look to a happier time, the Millennial Kingdom. God’s Prophets had much to say about this period in earth’s history, also. The Kingdom will be set up on earth after the Tribulation is over, and the Old Testament saints and Tribulation saints have been resurrected. Those who refused the mark of the beast and lived will populate this kingdom, too. Because they are mortal, they’ll re-populate the earth. It is at this time the resurrected Old Testament saints whom Jesus promised land and an earthly kingdom with Him (the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Messiah) on the throne, will have all their promises fulfilled. This is Israel’s gift.
In Isaiah 30:23-25 we read that during this time of the Millennium Kingdom,
And he will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous. In that day your livestock will graze in large pastures, 24and the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork. 25And on every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be brooks running with water, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.
John MacArthur says of this time:
In the Messianic Kingdom of that future day, agriculture, cattle raising, food production, and water resources will prosper. The prophet predicted the redemption of nature. (cf. Rom 8:19-21)
In Isaiah 30:26 we read of further blessings:
Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when the Lord binds up the brokenness of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.
The light of the sun will be seven times hotter?
MacArthur again:
The benefits from the natural bodies of light will be much greater. Increase of the intensity of their light will work to people’s advantage, not to their detriment as in Revelation 16:8-9.
In the Millennial Kingdom, a gentle, bright sun seven times
warmer will flourish the earth’s crops
When we read that God is sovereign overall creation, He is sovereign. He created the sun. As the Potter, He can make it do what He wills. During the Tribulation, it will be a mechanism for judgment, scorching men, who curse it. In the Millennium, the sun will be a mechanism for prosperity, and men will bless their Creator for giving them plenteous sunshine, healthful, glowing, and beautiful.
We groan, and cannot wait for redemption of our mortal bodies into glorified vessels worthy of seeing our Holy God. The creation groans too. When the creation is redeemed, it will rejoice also.
For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (Romans 8:20-21).
This is how the creation will be set free. The sun will shine upon peaceable kingdom, over a flourishing agriculture, making men and crops thrive. Our Creator is majestic in power and sovereign over creation. He is to be worshiped, loved, praised. Our Jesus who was with God at the creation and who sustains all creation and without whom nothing was made that was made, is our hope. He is the hope of all creation. Our eternal Hope, who reigns forever.
the-end-time.org 