Context: In church history, the book of Isaiah is sometimes referred to as “the Romans of the Old Testament.” Why? Because of its massive theological teaching about our sinfulness and of God’s salvation of his people. Isaiah was a staggeringly literary writer. His metaphors, images, diction, and poetry are simply unlike anyone else’s. In chapter one of his book, he begins in vv. 2-3 by comparing the people of Judah to beasts, recalcitrant beasts who refuse to hear and understand: “Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.”
Connection & Application: Isaiah wrote in the 700s B.C. to a nation and culture that knew the right things to do, but that largely refused to obey. Sound familiar? We are undergoing a cultural revolution in America and the West that is nothing short of spiritual, intellectual, and moral suicide. And yet God’s Word remains steadfast, constant, and sure. Hear again from Isaiah: “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken” (Isaiah 1:19-20).
It is a mystery to me why exactly I have an infatuation with trees. But I do. And I just accept it. Today as I was out for some afternoon PT, one of my favorite species of trees was in bloom: sycamores. Their bark is the subject of treehounds and poets. Robert Frost wrote not only of birches in New England, you remember.
As I got the miles in, I stopped more than a few times under the sycamores that ran parallel to the stream. I smelled the meadow, too, freshly mowed by tractors. A hawk was in the middle of the meadow, wigs beating as he pierced his catch with his black aquiline beak in regular bloody dips, like a murderous pumpjack. I could see the bloody veined viscera of the field mouse.
When I gazed up again and again through the limbs of the sycamores and up into the sky, I was not an old man for a few moments but rather a boy again in my small town where I spent much of my adolescence, at Grandma and Granddaddy’s place, where a giant sycamore grew massive and seemingly forever, and where it was surrounded by azaleas and monkey grass Granddaddy had planted, and behind the house were his pear trees and the garden, and scuppernong vines, and a massive red oak under which he parked his 1968 shortbed Ford with a 3-speed on the column.
I was back there. All at once. Just by standing under the sycamore trees today that ran along the stream. Back to where it all began in so many ways–in ways that money cannot purchase, in ways where God speaks to tender-souled boys who love trees, those who planted them, and those who sowed seeds of love.
Context: Esther 7 is one of the most gospel-saturated chapters in the entire Bible. How? Well, the truth about Haman’s evil was made known to King Ahasuerus by Esther. She tells the king, “If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be granted me for my wish, and my people for my request. For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated” (Est 7:3-4).
King Ahasuerus demands to know how such a plan of a Jewish holocaust came to be, and Esther tells him: “A foe and enemy! This wicked Haman!” (Est 7:6).
The result? King Ahasuerus had Haman hanged. To add insult to injury, Haman was hanged upon the very gallows he’d had constructed to (he thought) have Mordecai executed. But it wasn’t to be. Haman received his comeuppance. Poetic justice.
Encouragement: I cannot speak for others, but there are many days when I can grow quite discouraged when I think about my country’s cultural trajectory. It’s impossible to trust politicians; it’s impossible to trust the news; it’s hard to find trustworthy people many days. But I encourage myself in this: God knows us; He knows us through and through. The Bible teaches that He knows our every thought and intention. We are exposed always before the eyes of the Almighty. And because He is good, and because His justice is unchangeable, God and God’s people win in the end. God delights in thwarting evil.
And if you ask, “How? How does God thwart evil?” The Hamans of this world; the Judas Iscariots of this world; the false; the tares; the God-haters have a season, but God and His people inherit the kingdom. Look to Calvary. Look to the cross of Christ. It is there that evil was conquered once and for all, but do more than just look to Christ’s work there: flee to Him and His finished work, and do so in repentance and total faith in Him. And then you will begin to understand the gospel.
Principle: Wise leaders reward virtue in their ranks.
Context: Wicked Haman had planned evil for Mordecai and the Jews. Mordecai and Esther (Jews themselves) risked it all, however, and courageously spoke to King Ahasuerus. Well, Esther did, that is, at the wise bidding of her uncle Mordecai.
Esther spoke and the king listened. Haman, confident that his star was on the rise, just knew he was going to be promoted in front of the formation. He was sure he was to be the center of attention. He was sure that his toady-like, sycophantic behavior had curried sufficient favor with King Ahasuerus, and that he was to be the man of the hour.
But what Haman did not realize was that Mordecai and Esther had fasted and prayed, had remained faithful servants to the king, and Mordecai had even alerted the king to plots upon his (the king’s) life (Est 6:2). The king then gave orders that Mordecai, a captive Jew, should be lauded. Mordecai’s quiet faithfulness was rewarded.
Haman was crestfallen and humiliated. His pride and his duplicity would be his downfall. But there was still more judgment to come. More blessing was to come to Mordecai, Esther, and their people.
And more woe and humiliation were to come to Haman and his ilk.
For now, just be encouraged: Sometimes what seems so (and you’ll pardon the grammar) ain’t necessarily so. Wise leaders know their people, and reward virtue in their ranks.
What does the history of Esther (and the book that bears her name in the Bible) have to do with history, with leadership, and with the true church? A lot. Follow me: It was the late 400s B.C. in Persia (present-day Iran). Many Jews were dispersed due to persecution under the pagan empires of Assyria and Babylon. Two characters figure prominently in the book of Esther, Hadassah (Esther) and her uncle, Mordecai. Esther was an orphan and Mordecai essentially stepped in as a father-like figure and raised her. Esther was physically striking, i.e., beautiful. And God would eventually use both Mordecai and Esther as examples of how Godly courage, Godly conviction, and faithfulness to God were used by God for purposes of judgment against sinners and redemption of believers.
Every Good Story Has Conflict: The villain in the book of Esther is Haman. He plots a holocaust in the 5th century B.C. against the Jews. His plan is simple: kill them (Est 3:6, 9). Haman was about as dark and villainous as anyone in history. He was the consummate narcissist, a grifter, a politician, and utterly shameless.
And yet God was going to use Jewish captives, those with seemingly no worldly power, as types to both thwart the evil plans of Haman but also as types and shadows of how God uses His people to judge evil and defeat Satan. But what is called for is Godly courage, Godly conviction, and faithfulness to God.
Mordecai fasted, prayed, and eventually prevailed over Esther’s initial reluctance to confront the king over Haman’s wicked machinations. Mordecai’s words to his niece are famous: “And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Est 4:14).
And Esther’s response is likewise famous: “Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish” (Est 4:16).
Encouragement: I will continue the story in the next installment, but here’s the rub: God does not necessarily use those with the most brawn or the best looks or the most connections. God instead uses His people because they live out Godly courage, Godly conviction, and faithfulness to His revealed will. More to follow.
The book of Proverbs is the master example of alternatives:
Wisdom vs. Folly
Prudence vs. Rashness
Teachability vs. Hardness of Heart
Faithfulness vs. Betrayal
Humility vs. Hubris
The list could go on and on. But there’s an issue that’s in Proverbs 1 that is terrifying in its teaching: There are times when God laughs at human sin and anguish and distress. Yes, it’s true. Stick with me for a moment.
Verses 20-25 of Proverbs 1 all stress one theme: The wisdom of God calls out to all. She (it’s literary personification) “cries aloud in the street” (Pr 1:20a) She asks, “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?” (Pr 1:22).
Here’s the Rub: God sometimes gives people over to their folly as just judgment for our refusal to listen to God’s wisdom.
Here’s what Scripture teaches:
24Because I have called and you refused to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded, 25 because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, 26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when terror strikes you, 27 when terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. 28 Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently but will not find me. 29 Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, 30 would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof, 31 therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way, and have their fill of their own devices. 32 For the simple are killed by their turning away, and the complacency of fools destroys them; 33 but whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster.”
God sometimes appears to go silent. Why? As judgment for our folly. Verse 26 should shake us to our core. Why? Because it teaches that God actually laughs at our calamity, that He mocks us. And in verse 28, He says He will not answer. But we don’t have to wonder why. It’s right there in the text. Verses 29-30 read, “Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD, would have none of [His] counsel and despised all [His] reproof.”
Connection and Encouragement: Sometimes when I look around at our culture, I think to myself, “Surely, we cannot get any dumber. Surely, Lord, we’ll come to our senses. Surely, we’ll not embrace further madness,” but then clown world continues to play out. It is truly madness run amok, day in and day out, and the forces of darkness are running roughshod. Wisdom seems to have been rejected and folly embraced. And we are told by ‘leaders’ to call light darkness and to call darkness the light. And for those who care, we go, “Why? What’s happened?” I think the answer is right here in Proverbs 1. We’ve rejected God, rejected wisdom, and instead embraced nihilism and sheer folly.
Take hope in this: God invariably preserves a remnant of people through the storms. His purposes will be fulfilled. And He calls out still, just like in Proverbs 1, “but whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster” (Pr 1:33).
You may remember some of America’s other proclamations. One was President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. It freed slaves. Staggering how different is America 161 years after President Lincoln.
I read the proclamation online. Then when my wife and I were invited to dinner by some friends Saturday evening, one of them brought it up to me, too. My mind immediately returned to Augustine’s writings about the sacking of Rome, of internal rot, of wickedness being rewarded, of corruption being the regimen, and of how God gave people over in order to demonstrate His righteousness. Funny how history unfolds over and again, and yet we act like things are new, that God has somehow changed, and that somehow we’re exempt from consequences of our sin.
I hope that biblical church leadership equipped the saints with truth and encouragement today on the holiest of Christian days (speaking in a calendarly way). How could biblical shepherds not speak to this? This was Nebuchadnezzar 2024. Fall down and worship purple-haired reprobation, genital mutilation, paganism, and the god of depravity, or be ready for what’s coming your way–whether fiery furnaces, lions, exile, or death.
Did you hear anything about it? Were you equipped? Were you fortified? Were you trained for the warfare that is invading your mind, your former borders, and your zip code?
You will, dear reader, be made to care.
In the late 50s of the 1st century A.D., Paul wrote a letter to Christians. Paul was living in an extraordinary time. The Messiah had come, been betrayed, spat upon, mocked, whipped, crowned with thorns, stripped, and crucified. And just like the Old Testament and Christ Himself had predicted in explicit detail, He rose again three days later. Skeptics became believers; Saul became Paul; persecutors became evangelists and pastors; and the New Testament churches were planted and multiplied.
Their leaders shared these historical truths of redemptive history. Christ was prophesied; Christ came; Christ died; Christ arose; Christ will come again.
These things matter, beloved. They matter because reprobation is nothing new. Rome fell. Nebuchadnezzar was taken down. Pharaohs were drowned in seas of God’s sovereignty. Herod was eaten by worms. Caesars were raised up and brought low. Ahasuerus was quickened. Haman was hanged. Judas committed suicide. And on and on it goes.
Why? Because all of Romans 1:18-32 remains true, dear ones. Because vanilla TED Talks save no one but rather abandon sinners to their damnation.
Not telling the truth that saves is hatred rather than love.
To paraphrase Edgar in the last scene of King Lear, “The weight of this sad time we must obey,/Speak [what is true], not what [pagans would have us say].”
I was very very close to my maternal grandparents. They have both passed on now and gone to their inheritance but I see and do many things that remind me of them. Today, for example, my body was all messed up because of my flight schedule. I flew from Idaho to Colorado. Then I flew from Colorado to Georgia. Then I drove from the airport in Atlanta 3 hours to my apartment. By the time I laid down, the sun was coming up, and I had to get up. I cannot sleep when there’s light. Anyway, this is not to whine. After all, lots of people have crazy schedules sometimes and sleeplessness is not unique to me.
This evening, like my maternal grandfather invariably did in all the years I was blessed to have him in my life, I craved cereal before bedtime. I know it’s not healthy, but I was craving it–badly. I love a particular brand of raisin bran-type cereal, and so I drove to the store around the corner from my apartment and picked up a box and a half-gallon of the milk I prefer, and a few other small items. When I got to the register to pay, a very kind black woman about my age came over to the register. She so much reminded me of folks that I gravitate towards that I almost had to pinch myself.
“Hey, hon,” she said. “How you doin’?”
“I’m fine, ma’am. You? I just found myself craving some cereal. So I’m here,” I said. She was so sweet, I just felt comfortable opening up to her.
“You’re good, hon. That’ll be $17.37,” she said. I paid for the cereal, milk, and other items.
I used my debit card and paid. Normally the cashiers at this establishment are perfunctory and about as interested in customer service as I’d be in a college calculus class–totally checked out. But not this lady. She helped me bag the few items. Then she said something that warmed my soul.
“Enjoy your cereal, hon. And Happy Easter.”
I felt myself smiling like a little boy. “Happy Easter to you, ma’am. I hope you have a good evening.”
I feel ashamed now that I did not even notice the woman’s name. I would like to write a positive review of her for the store to be cognizant of; she deserves it. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve become an old man and tend to romanticize the past or what. But when you meet people who are truly kind … well, I won’t speak for others … but when I meet such people, they stick out. They make my heart happy. They remind me of people with manners and what we used to call common courtesy. It is no longer common.
But this dear lady at the store tonight, as I went to grab a few items, and eat a bowl of cereal, and reflect upon my beloved grandparents, I just want her to know that I appreciated it. It’s the small things, I suppose, that are in fact not small or insignficant at all.
There’s a remnant of beautiful and kind folks who still speak respectfully, and still say, “Happy Easter” to one another in a culture that in so many ways has lost its soul. Thank God for kindness and the other remnants of the true, good, and beautiful.
I’ve been a fan of the band Genesis for many years, especially during the Peter Gabriel years. I’m indebted to my old college buddy Ken for educating me to the deeper things of Genesis when we were in our 20s and were both drawn to ‘prog’ rock bands like Rush, King Crimson, Yes, Genesis, et al.
Genesis has a song with the title “Watcher of the Skies.” In Idaho, I find myself watching the skies constantly. The weather patterns seem to change both rapidly and constantly, and I’m often gazing at the skies and the mountains underneath as if answers are forthcoming if I’ll just attend. When the clouds move over the mountains, the sunlight that gets through makes it appear that the earth is a conveyor belt of images.
In the Genesis song, the lyrics run like this:
Watcher of the skies, watcher of all His is a world alone, no world is his own He whom life can no longer surprise Raising his eyes, beholds a planet unknown
Creatures shaped this planet’s soil Now their reign has come to end Has life again destroyed life? Do they play elsewhere? Do they know more than their childhood games?
Judge not this race by empty remains Do you judge God by his creatures When they are dead? For now, the lizard’s shed its tail This is the end of man’s long union with Earth
From life alone to life as one Think not now your journey’s done For though your ship be sturdy No mercy has the sea Will you survive on the ocean of being? Come ancient children, hear what I say This is my parting counsel for you on your way
Sadly now, your thoughts turn to the stars Where we’ve gone You know you never can go Watcher of the skies, watcher of all This is your fate alone, this fate is your own
On your own, your own On your own, your own
Gabriel and the fellows from Genesis are all Brits, and I’ve no idea of the context of the song’s genesis (I could not resist the pun), but when I find myself gazing around me and up at the skies, then down at the visual patterns that slide, shift, morph, and move, one could do worse things than be a watcher of these mysterious skies.
I was approaching Boise, Idaho on the flight from Atlanta. And as we descended below the lowest clouds, and the snow on the ridges surrounding Boise came into view, I completed this reading of DeLillo’s Players, a novel that is utterly DeLilloesque in its exquisite and precise diction, accurate in its observations of human behavior, revealing of the sadness just below the surface in contemporary life, and a wonderful read from the prophetic master of the most connected and yet isolated culture we have ever seen.
