Pray as David prayed

March 13 - 17, 2017

Worship:

Oh Lord, You have been good
You have been faithful to all generations
Oh Lord, Your steadfast love
And tender mercy have been our salvation
For by Your hand we have been fed
And by Your Spirit we have been led

Oh Lord, for by Your hand we have been fed
And by Your Spirit we have been led
Oh Lord, Almighty God
Father Unchanging, Upright and Holy
Oh Lord, You have been good, You have been good
You have been faithful, You have been good

Songwriters
KRIPPAYNE, SCOTT / WOOD, TONY W.

Published by
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

Read more: Twila Paris - You Have Been Good Lyrics | MetroLyrics 

Video: https://youtu.be/hRsHehoRA7o

Witness:

Felt like waxing nostalgic tonight by worshiping to an “old” song sung by Twila Paris back in the 80’s. As I began to sing this song earlier when I made myself a sandwich, I was struck by my immediate reaction to the words, “O Lord, You have been good.” Good? By who’s standard?  I would like to say my mind wrestled with theodicean thoughts of the suffering in the world and my life in particular. There was an element of that in my mind, but my thoughts were more immediate than that. I just struggled to think of what was so good about my life at the moment. I then had to rebuke myself because I forgot not only the fact that He blessed me with 6 kids and 13 grandkids but also that he had ransomed me from slavery to sin and eternal destruction in hell (Col. 1:13; Titus 3:3-7). It revealed to me my shallow thinking at that moment. I was thinking of my lack in the temporal when I possessed the riches of heaven and placed a higher value on them than my eternal possessions. More importantly than that (for focusing on my eternal possessions was still to focus on myself) what of my greatest treasure, God Himself? If all I want is the pleasure of heaven and do not treasure the One who redeemed me and called me into the kingdom of His Son, then I am a most ungrateful child of God, if I am even one at all. I had to confess my attitude to the One who already knew what I was thinking and feeling. My fear is that many professing Christians have this same attitude. It’s not so much that they desire to be with God, but they fear the alternative and love the heavenly dwelling place the Lord promised His followers. Or they worse, they see heaven as boring, but a better option than hell. These thoughts are not original with me. I have heard John Piper speak about this issue. So, instead of plagiarizing his ideas, I will share the transcript to one of his “Ask Pastor John” pod casts. 

 

“Pastor John, my name is Chase, and I’m a senior in high school. I’m wondering if you could shed some light on an issue I’ve been wrestling with the past few months. The best way I can phrase my question is: Does turning to Christ, motivated by a fear of avoiding hell, qualify as a legitimate form of saving faith? In other words, can someone be scared into salvation? Verses like Acts 8:24 and my experiences in the church and in evangelism make me think the answer is no, but I just read Jonathan Edwards’s sermon, ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.’ He seems to think that the answer is yes, and beyond him, Christ warns of hell . . . A LOT. That makes me think the answer is yes, that fear of hell can save. I don’t want the comfortable answer, Pastor John, I want truth! Please help.” What would you say to Chase?

Well, I am really glad that this question comes right now, because it lets me, perhaps, kill two birds with one stone. A while back I spoke in Vancouver at a Look at the Book conference and a man named Andrew approached me — and I am saying his name so that he will know I am talking to him, because I just wrote him a letter today to say: I recorded my answer to your letter.

So we have got Chase and we have got Andrew and we are talking to both of them. And what Andrew asked me was a similar kind of question. He said something like: I have no qualms when you say a person comes to saving faith by seeing the beauty of Christ’s crucifixion and how it displays Christ’s glory. Here is his exact quote now: “Where I get confused is when you have stated that people should not think they are truly converted if they come to Christ for any other reason than for Christ himself.”

Okay, so you can see how similar the questions are. Chase is asking whether you can be truly converted if you are motivated by fear or desire to escape hell. And Andrew is asking whether you can be converted if you come to Christ for any other reason than the motive of fellowship with Christ himself or the enjoyment of the glory of Christ himself. So they really are very similar questions.

It is not bad to be motivated by fear to fly away from hell into the arms of Jesus and there discover that he is 10,000 times better than anything, including hell. That is not bad. In fact, that is normal. I would say that is normal. In other words, many motivations, many impulses, many experiences in life drive us to Jesus. Whether those motivations and impulses and experiences prove to be a means of salvation depends on what we make of Jesus when we get there. It might be a car wreck. It might be cancer. It might be anything. Anything can drive us to Jesus. So what drives us there is not what saves us. What saves us is what happens when we get there.

So now the same response would be true of positive motives alongside Jesus. That is Andrew’s question. We may be drawn by desire for forgiveness or desire to be free from a guilty conscience or the desire to have a meaningful life or the desire to belong to a loving group of people, because these truth people seem nice, or the hope of being free from disease some day. That is a nice promise to have. Now none of those desires is evil. They are all good. And they may function as motives to lead us to Christ who bought all those benefits for us. But again, the question of whether they prove to be means of our salvation is what we make of Christ when we come to him.

Now my guess is that virtually all Christians — and Andrew makes this point explicitly in his note — are motivated by desires that we have in addition to the desire to see Jesus himself and be with Christ himself. In other words, almost everybody comes to Christ with desires for more benefits in addition to being with Christ himself. It seems to me this reality is inevitable, not only because the way we were created and have physical appetites which we can’t stop like hunger or food. I like food because I am made to like food. But it is true also because the Bible itself holds out to us promises and blessings that include satisfaction of those appetites. It pictures the future as a banquet. And there are all kinds of pleasures that are held out to us that are pleasures besides being in the presence of Christ.

So let me throw out a few passages of Scripture that shed light on why I emphasize what I do. Here is Luke 12:4–7: “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not — fear not — you are of more value than many sparrows.”

So we are told to fear God, because he can cast into hell. And then we are told not to fear him because we are more valuable than sparrows. And I think the proper function of fear in those verses is to warn us that it is eternally deadly to fear man. In other words, fear the consequences of God’s judgment and let it drive you to be unafraid of God in the presence of Christ. Let it drive you away from fear of man into trust in Jesus so that you can realize that you are more valuable than sparrows and, therefore, fear not.

And here is another one: It says the same kind of thing in Romans 11:20, “You stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear.” Well, what does that mean? You stand fast only through faith. Trust him. Trust him. Do not become proud, but fear. Fear what? Well, fear not trusting him. Fear becoming proud. Fear the horrible consequences of turning away from Jesus and let it drive you to him and his gracious promises. So I think fear has a powerful, appropriate, biblical function and role to play in maintaining the very faith that overcomes ungodly fear.

So what I want to maintain and to emphasize is that, if we come to Christ only motivated by fear — that is answering Chase’s question — if we come to Christ only motivated by fear or only motivated by desire for something other than the glory of Christ — and that is answering Andrew’s question — in either case we are not converted. I will say that again, because I don’t know if they are going to like it. If we come to Christ and all we feel moving us or holding us there is fear, or if we come to Christ and all we feel holding us in his presence are his gifts and not himself, then we are not saved. And here is why I say that: 1 Corinthians 16:22 says, “If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed.” So if you don’t love the Lord — you just love his gifts — you are cursed.

Here is another one: 1 Peter 3:18 says, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.” And if we don’t want to be with God — if all we want is a disease-free heaven with lots of physical pleasures there and we don’t really care whether God is there or not if I don’t have any pain anymore — then we are not saved.

Here is another one: Philippians 3:8 says, “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count all of them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.” Now here is the key: “in order that.” “I count everything as rubbish in order that.” What does that mean? “In order that I may gain Christ.” I think it means that you don’t gain Christ if you love your rubbish more than him. If you just have rubbish and Christ and you don’t see Christ as superior to the rubbish, you don’t gain Christ. That is the logic of Philippians 3:8. So I want to emphasize that, if we come to Christ only put there and held there by fear or only put there and held there by some gift of Christ and not his glory, no, we are not saved.

So in answer to Andrew’s question: I think he misquoted me. I hope he misquoted me. I mean, I might say things wrong, but I don’t mean to teach that it is illegitimate to desire other things besides Christ when we come to Christ. Rather, what I mean to teach is that, if we do come to Christ with the desire for other things besides Christ, we must desire Christ more than the other things. Is that clear? And the reason is because of Matthew 10:37: “Whoever loves mother or father more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

It is okay to love your mother and father — just not more than Jesus. And if they have died and gone to heaven, it is okay to want to see them some day — just not more than Jesus. We are idolaters if we love any good thing more than we love Jesus. And here is one more point: As we mature, we will come to experience the reality that we taste Christ not simply as sweeter than all other things, but that we taste Christ as the best sweetness in all other things.

So in summary, yes, we can be motivated to come to Christ out of fear and that may be a good thing, provided that, when we come to Christ, we want Christ and not only his gifts and we want him more than his gifts.

http://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/can-souls-be-scared-into-heaven

Ps 26:4-8 4 I do not sit with deceitful men, nor do I consort with hypocrites; 5 I abhor the assembly of evildoers and refuse to sit with the wicked. 6 I wash my hands in innocence, and go about your altar, O Lord, 7 proclaiming aloud your praise and telling of all your wonderful deeds. NIV (’84)

Ps 26:4-8 4 I do not spend time with liars or go along with hypocrites. 5 I hate the gatherings of those who do evil, and I refuse to join in with the wicked. 6 I wash my hands to declare my innocence. I come to your altar, O Lord, 7 singing a song of thanksgiving and telling of all your wonders. Holy Bible, New Living Translation ®, copyright © 1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.

Ps 26:4-8 4 I have not sat with vain persons, neither will I go in with dissemblers. 5 I have hated the congregation of evil doers; and will not sit with the wicked. 6 I will wash mine hands in innocency: so will I compass thine altar, O Lord: 7 That I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all thy wondrous works. KJV

Ps 26:4-7 4 I do not sit with men of falsehood, nor do I consort with hypocrites. 5 I hate the assembly of evildoers, and I will not sit with the wicked. 6 I wash my hands in innocence and go around your altar, O Lord, 7 proclaiming thanksgiving aloud, and telling all your wondrous deeds. ESV

Who are the people identified in verse 4 whom David does not hang out with and find pleasure?. There are two people groups described. Different adjectives and nouns describe the first group in the versions above. The NIV (’84) has “deceitful men.” The NLT has “liars.” The KJV has “vain persons” (interestingly inclusive language is used here in the KJV). The ESV has “Men of falsehood.” There are two words used here though the NLT chooses to use one word, “liars.” The word translated for men or persons is the word math (or mat) in Hebrew.

Strong’s says this about the word:    OT:4962tm^ ‎math (math); from the same as OT:4970; properly, an adult (as of full length); by implication, a man (only in the plural):(Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright © 1994, 2003, 2006 Biblesoft, Inc. and International Bible Translators, Inc.)

The second word used is the word shaw’(or šāw’).

Vine’s gives the following meanings of this word: Shaw’ OT:7723, "deceit; deception; malice; falsity; vanity; emptiness.(from Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, Copyright © 1985, Thomas Nelson Publishers.)

So BDB translates the phrase here as:

            worthless men

              (from Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, Unabridged, Electronic Database. Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2006 by Biblesoft,                         Inc. All rights reserved.) 
           

But the TWOT has this to say about the word in this context:

    That the primary meaning of ‎š¹w° ‎is "emptiness, vanity" no one can challenge. It designates anything that is unsubstantial, unreal, worthless, either materially or morally. Hence, it is a word for idols (in the same way that ‎hebel ‎"vanity" is also a designation for (worthless) idols, for example). Ps 24:4 may then be rendered, "He who has not lifted up his mind to an 'idol'." Dahood (Psalms, 1, AB, p. 151) lists the following passages: Ps 26:4; Ps 31:7 *; Ps 119:37; Isa 1:13; Jer 18:15; Job 31:5 with this implication, although some are dubious, the last one and Isa 1:13 especially.
(from Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. Copyright © 1980 by The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago. All rights reserved. Used by permission.)

If the word was used by itself, I could see it referring to idols but joined with the word “men” it would seem to speak to their character in this context and not their religious practices. Unless “deceitful men” meant idol worshipers here. That may be included, but I think it goes farther than that. These men, whose character was marked by lies, deceit, and empty words and actions.

The second people group in verse 4 are identified as “hypocrites” (NIV, NLT, ESV) or “dissemblers” (KJV). I looked up the word dissembler and found this definition:

a person who professes beliefs and opinions that he or she does not hold in order to conceal his or her real feelings or motives

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/dissembler

The Hebrew word here is ʽalam. Strong’s says this word means:

    

OT:5956OT:5956 <l^u* ‎`alam (aw-lam'); a primitive root; to veil from sight, i.e. conceal (literally or figuratively)
(Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright © 1994, 2003, 2006 Biblesoft, Inc. and International Bible Translators, Inc.) 

BDB adds:

¨l^u* Ithose who conceal themselves, i.e. their thoughts; dissemblers
(from Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, Unabridged, Electronic Database. Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2006 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.) 

So, here we have a group identified by the secretiveness of their real thoughts and feelings. On the outside, they may even appear to be righteous or benevolent, but their real views are revealed to those who “consort” with them. This can apply to individuals or clicks or secret societies. They are hypocrites, saying one thing and doing another or professing publicly one thing and privately another.  The first group of people in verse 4 lie mainly with their lips and the second, with their lives. However, there is a sense in which both words refer to the same type of people as we shall see in verse 5.

If we were to look for biblical examples of these type of people, we might cite such passages as:

Matt 5:33-37 (see also James 5:12)

"Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.' But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God's throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
NIV

Matt 23:27-28

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
NIV

Others could be cited. David declared he did not fellowship with such people. The Apostle Paul quoted to the Corinthians a well-known axiom of his day:

Do not be misled: "Bad company corrupts good character."1 Cor 15:33 NIV

Solomon gave this sage advice:

Do not set foot on the path of the wicked
or walk in the way of evil men.Avoid it, do not travel on it;
turn from it and go on your way.For they cannot sleep till they do evil;
they are robbed of slumber till they make someone fall.They eat the bread of wickedness
and drink the wine of violence.
Prov 4:14-17 NIV

As David prayed in verses 1-3, we need to pray that God would examine our lives to see if we practice the very same things that we are trying to avoid. David said elsewhere:

Search me, O God, and know my heart;test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,and lead me in the way everlasting.
Ps 139:23-24 NIV

We must allow God’s word to cut away that which is false in us. While we may be blind to our own faults (Ps. 19:12), nothing is hidden from God.

For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.Heb 4:12-13 NIV

This means reading, memorizing, and meditating on His word. It also involves self-examination.

First, to see if we are truly in the faith.

Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you — unless, of course, you fail the test 2 Cor 13:5 NIV

Second, to take action according to what God has revealed to you.

Let us examine our ways and test them,and let us return to the Lord.
Lam 3:40 NIV Because he considers all the offenses he has committed and turns away from them, he will surely live; he will not die.Ezek 18:28 NIV

Let me end with these words from the Apostle Peter:

  

Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours:
 Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
 Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

2 Peter 1:1-11 NIV