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The word Advent means the appearing—something that bursts onto the scene. At this time of year we are actually thinking about TWO Advents. We look backward in gratitude to celebrate the first Advent of Jesus when He was born in a manger in Bethlehem. And then we look forward in joyful expectation to the second Advent of Jesus when He will return to earth again as King of kings. As we will in this time between the Advents, there are four qualities that we should exemplify—the first is hope.
When the candle is lit, darkness disappears.
Darkness is not the opposite of light, it is the absence of light. In the same way, despair or hopelessness is the absence of hope.
Adam and Eve lived in perfection, but when they tried to do things their way—instead of obeying God’s way—their sin caused them despair. They tried to cover their nakedness, but with a hopeless covering of dying leaves. God came with a promise of full restoration, and illustrated it by covering them with the skin of a sacrificial animal (Genesis 3:7, 15, 21).
Job knew the hopelessness of self-covering and finality of earthly life, and even David—the man after God’s own heart knew this too (Job 6:11-13, 17:13-16; 1 Chronicles 29:15).
But Job and David both knew the hope they could have in their Redeemer (Job 19:25; Psalm 16).
Hope in both the Old and the New Testaments means a patient waiting, anticipating with pleasure, having a confident expectation. It’s a light shining in the darkness that cannot be extinguished—it’s hope that despair cannot darken (Isaiah 9:1-2, 6-7).
At His first Advent, Jesus appeared in our “clothing” so that He could become our sin and then clothe us in His righteousness (Hebrews 2:17; John 1:14; Romans 4:6-8; Hebrews 6:16-20). For this we look back in gratitude.
But we don’t live today merely in gratitude for Christ’s first Advent, but we also live in confident hope of Christ’s second Advent (Acts 1:11; John 14:1-3; 2 Corinthians 5:1-8; Revelation 22:7, 12, 20).
He came into this world of sin,
Made flesh and blood His dearest kin;
He died, that He might take us in,
And keep us till He comes again. —Scott Hubbard
How do we live out this confident hope—
May the God of HOPE fill you with all JOY and PEACE as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with HOPE by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13)
Follow along with all four of the Advent attributes by clicking here.
Because of the miraculous things that God had done through Elisha, word began to spread about God’s power that was on display through this godly prophet. In fact, word even spread to other countries, including the land of Aram where was a highly decorated military commander named Naaman lived. This revered leader was afflicted by leprosy. The king of Aram sent Naaman to Elisha to be cured of this disease (see 2 Kings 5).
When Naaman came to Elisha, he was given instructions to bathe himself seven times in the Jordan River. Initially, Naaman balked at this, but eventually, he humbled himself in obedience and was miraculously healed of his leprosy!
Naaman had come to Israel and Elisha with the intention of buying a miracle (just take a look at the treasures that he brought with him). Elisha would not accept money or gifts from Naaman. Not that there’s anything wrong with a prophet receiving gifts, but not when the intention of the giver is to give a bribe.
This is where Gehazi makes a fatal mistake. Gehazi has a conversation with himself (notice the phrase “he said to himself”) that he should have had with Elisha. He determined that he and Elisha were owed something for their ministry work. Gehazi then compounded this unhealthy conversation by telling one lie after another lie to justify the conclusion he had reached.
Elisha knew that God keeps track, that God keeps perfect records, that God will reward far better than any man ever could. He said, “Is this the time to take money or to accept clothes?” No! We need to let God determine the timing and the gift.
As a result, the leprosy that had left Naaman now attacked Gehazi. In reality, it was a leprosy of his heart that merely appeared on his skin. Gehazi was then dismissed from his ministry position with Elisha.
Sadly, I’ve witnessed many ministry leaders who have derailed their leadership with an “I deserve this” attitude. Thinking “I’m owed this” took their eyes off God and put them on the rewards they thought they should have received. How sad this is!
Our constant prayer should be, “Holy Spirit, guard my heart against the leprosy of entitlement. Help me keep the ‘I’m owed this’ attitude far, far away from my heart’s door.”
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Jesus said that the devil’s agenda was to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). We see this on full display in the aftermath of the first sin in the way relationships humans had with each other changed.
God said to Eve, “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you” (Genesis 3:16). Dr. Henry Halley commented, “The last two lines of this verse could be paraphrased, ‘You will now have a tendency to try to dominate your husband and he will have the tendency to act as a tyrant.’” And to Adam, God said that he would now have to work harder than ever before to harvest the food he needed for survival, which undoubtedly caused stress in his relationship with Eve. In the very next chapter, the strained relationship between Cain and Able resulted in the first homicide (Genesis 3:17-19, 4:1-8).
In these relationships, intimacy was stolen, closeness was killed, and life was destroyed.
An irreplaceable tool for avoiding this heartache and destruction that sin causes in our relationships is forgiveness.
Peter asked Jesus, “How many times should I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” (Matthew 18:21). In reply, Jesus told a story about a man who owed the equivalent of 20 years of a day laborer’s wages and a man who owed about three months of a day laborer’s wages. The first man who owed so much was forgiven entirely of his debt, but he wouldn’t forgive the paltry amount that was owed to him by the second man.
To the forgiven but unforgiving man, Jesus said, “Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” (see Matthew 18:22-35).
That should be our standard: Not how others treat me, but how God has treated me! Not how much others owe me, but how much God has forgiven me!
Do I want God to put a quota on how many times I can be forgiven? Do I want there to be a limit on how big of an offense God will forgive in me?
If my forgiven sins are forgotten sins (and they are), then I need to treat my brother and sister the same way. This is why Jesus told Peter to stop counting the number of offenses. We are to treat every offense as though it was the first and only offense.
The man who owed so much money asked for more time to repay his debt. But the master did more than that: He forgave the debt—he wiped it off the books completely, as though it had never happened!
When God forgives our sin, He separates our sin from us as far as the east is from the west. He keeps no record of the offense ever having occurred (Psalm 103:10-12).
This is to be our standard too. We are to forgive others as God has forgiven us. Forgiveness will restore intimacy, closeness, and life to our relationships.
This is difficult to do. As Peter pointed out, a brother or sister—someone close to his heart—had sinned against him. But this is why Jesus taught us to pray, “Forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us” (Matthew 6:12). Or as Eugene Peterson paraphrases that verse in The Message, “Keep us forgiven with You and forgiving others.”
May the Holy Spirit help us in this important work of ongoing, complete, and restoring forgiveness!
Question marks invite a conversation; whereas, periods or exclamation points tend to end the conversation. Clearly, God enjoys dialogue.
God sometimes asks questions to get Zechariah to evaluate his surroundings or the prevailing culture. Sometimes God asks Zechariah a question to get him to clarify what he is seeing or thinking.
But without a doubt, most of the questions are posed by Zechariah to either God or to the angelic messenger who sometimes serves as Zechariah’s guide. Not once does God nor the angel tell Zechariah to hold his tongue. Zechariah’s questions are never belittled nor treated as though they were a bother. Nor are his questions ignored.
Rather, every single question is answered.
God enjoyed talking with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, He walked and talked with Enoch, He listened to the questions asked by Job and the psalmists, and here He engages Zechariah in conversation too.
Prayer is never designed to be a monologue—with us just speaking to God—nor is Bible reading designed to be a monologue—with just God speaking to us. Both prayer and Bible reading are used by the Holy Spirit to keep a dialogue active and engaging. You and I should never be afraid to approach God with our questions, nor should we be afraid to listen to the questions God asks us.
The dialogue between us and God builds an intimacy that cannot be developed in any other way. So keep asking those questions!
This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Charles Spurgeon. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Spurgeon” in the search box to read more entries.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on iTunes or Spotify.
Mercy Finds The Loophole
And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imaginationof man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.” (Genesis 8:21)
To begin, then, with the text, we have here a most painful fact that man’s nature is incurable. ‘The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.’ You will remember, before the flood, in the fifth verse of the sixth chapter, it is written, ‘Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intentof the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually’ (Genesis 6:5). After the flood it was just the same. …
You might have hoped that after so terrible a judgment, when only a picked and peculiar few, that is, eight, were saved by water, that man began anew with better stock.… It is not one wit so. The same God who, after looking at men, declared that his imagination was evil before the flood, pronounces the very same verdict upon them afterward. …
I believe that God might justly have condemned the whole race of Adam on account of Adam’s sin and their own guilt. But I do think that this was a blessed loophole through which His mercy could, as it were, come fairly to the sons of men. ‘No,’ He says, ‘I made them not distinct individuals but a race. They fell as a race; they will rise as an elect race. “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). And ‘For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19).’ …
I must have more than nature can give me. More than my mother gave me, more than my father gave me, and more than flesh and blood can produce under the most favorable circumstances. I must have the Spirit of God from heaven.
From Human Depravity And Divine Mercy
When Adam and Eve sinned, God wasn’t scrambling to come up with a Plan B. Jesus is described as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8), meaning that God had His merciful plan of redemption ready before He even created humans!
The atoning sacrifice Jesus made on the Cross was the “loophole” that God’s mercy used to pardon our sins. We can never earn our salvation because we are still people with evil hearts. But we can put our faith in the One who took our punishment upon Himself so that His righteousness can be our righteousness.
O what a Savior! O what mercy God has shown! O how great is His love for us! How shall we escape appropriate retribution if we neglectand refuse to pay attention to such a great salvation…? (Hebrews 2:3)
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To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:9-14)
I think the NIV footnote on verse 11 is the most accurate rendering of “the Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself.” The footnote says, “He prayed TO himself.” He made himself God, which, if you will recall, is exactly how satan tempted Adam and Eve—you will be like God (Genesis 3:5).
In a portion of William Cowper’s poem Truth, he addresses the pride of the Pharisee, and warns us that this could be our pride too if we aren’t carefully guarding our hearts.
Who judged the Pharisee? What odious cause
Exposed him to the vengeance of the laws?
Had he seduced a virgin, wrong’d a friend,
Or stabb’d a man to serve some private end?
Was blasphemy his sin? Or did he stray
From the strict duties of the sacred day?
Sit long and late at the carousing board?
(Such were the sins with which he charged his Lord.)
No—the man’s morals were exact. What then?
‘Twas his ambition to be seen of men;
His virtues were his pride; and that one vice
Made all his virtues gewgaws [gyoo-gaws] of no price;
He wore them as fine trappings for a show,
A praying, synagogue-frequenting beau.
The self-applauding bird, the peacock, see—
Mark what a sumptuous Pharisee is he!
Meridian sunbeams tempt him to unfold
His radiant glories, azure, green, and gold:
He treads as if, some solemn music near,
His measured step were govern’d by his ear;
And seems to say—“Ye meaner fowl give place;
I am all splendour, dignity, and grace!”
Not so the pheasant on his charms presumes,
Though he, too, has a glory in his plumes.
He, Christian-like, retreats with modest mien
To the close copse or far sequester’d green,
And shines without desiring to be seen.
The plea of works, as arrogant and vain,
Heaven turns from with abhorrence and disdain;
Not more affronted by avow’d neglect,
Than by the mere dissembler’s feign’d respect.
What is all righteousness that men devise?
What—but a sordid bargain for the skies!
But Christ as soon would abdicate His own,
As stoop from heaven to sell the proud a throne.
When the writer of Hebrews says that we can approach the throne of grace boldly, it is clear that it is not because of our righteous deeds, even if they are as exacting and as perfect as a Pharisee. We can only come boldly into God’s presence because we come in the name and the righteousness of Jesus. “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God.”
Adding “in Jesus name” to the end of our prayers isn’t a password that opens the storeroom of Heaven, but it is a reminder that we have nothing in ourselves to commend us to God. We come boldly only in Jesus.
“By two great lies was man led away from God. By the same two lies has the estrangement been kept up. On these two lies the world has been feeding ever since the Fall. Their fruit has been woe and death—‘Ye shall not die’ and ‘Ye shall be as gods.’ …
“The world’s history is the same. Our race has been eating the fruit of lies [Hosea 10:13]; not simply of sin, but of lies. The sorrows, sighs, tears, pains of our race are the fruit of lies—the original lie of Paradise, and a thousand such since then. …
“The two original satanic lies are continually coming up, and along with them myriads of others, all leading us astray. Each day brings forth the lie, the fruit, the eating thereof. satan, or the world, or the flesh, or a friend, or a book, or a scene whispers the lie; it is fair and specious, we believe it; it brings forth fruit, we eat of it, and the end is bitterness and disappointment. We feed on lies. … We persuade ourselves that this world is good, and pleasant, and excellent, so we pursue it in preference to the world to come. …
“Jesus says, ‘Yes, ye shall not surely die, but that deliverance shall not be in the way you think. Death is the wages of sin, yet I bring life to the sinner, everlasting life, life through the belief of the Truth, even as death came through the belief of a lie. Yes, ye shall be as gods, but not in your way. I will make you partakers if the divine nature, not by eating the forbidden tree, but by eating of Me.’”—Horatius Bonar, in Light and Truth: The Old Testament
This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Charles Spurgeon. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Spurgeon” in the search box to read more entries.
The Humility Of Christ’s Birth
Moreover, there was a peculiar wisdom ordaining that Jesus Christ should be the Son of the woman, and not of the man, because ‘that which is born of the flesh is flesh’ (John 3:6). Had He been born of the flesh, and merely flesh, He would, naturally, by carnal generation, have inherited all the frailties and the sins and the infirmities that man has from his birth. He would have been conceived in sin and shaped in iniquity, even as the rest of us. Therefore He was not born of man, but the Holy Spirit overshadowed the virgin Mary and Christ stands as the one man, save one other, who came forth pure from His Maker’s hands, who could ever say, ‘I am pure.’ Yes, and He could say far more than that other Adam could say concerning his purity, for He maintained His integrity and never let it go! And from His birth down to His death He knew no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth….
Let us take courage here. If Jesus Christ was born in a manger in a rock, why should He not come and live in our rocky hearts? If He was born in a stable, why should not the stable of our souls be made into a house for Him? If He was born in poverty, may not the poor in spirit expect that He will be their friend? If He thus endured degradation at the first, will He count it any dishonor to come to the very poorest and humblest of His creatures and tabernacle in the souls of His children? Oh no!
From The Birth Of Christ
If Jesus was only God, He would never have been able to stoop to love us.
If Jesus was only Man, He would never have been able to help us.
Only the God-Man has both the power and the love to save use. Truly there is no one like Jesus!
No one like Jesus our troubles can see
No one can feel them so keenly as He
No one like Jesus our burdens will bear
He and He only can answer our prayer
No one like Jesus could die for our sins
No one but Jesus can make the heart clean
No one but Jesus such mercy can show
He and He only such love can bestow
Jesus, Jesus
Precious Savior
Oh, how I love You
Love and adore You
Thank You, thank You
Precious Jesus
Oh, how You love me
Oh, what a Savior to me —Fanny J. Crosby, No One Like Jesus
But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9).
There are consequences for sin (because God is Just) and there is a remedy for sin (because God is Love).
Adam and Eve sinned.
They lost their innocence before God, they were expelled from the Garden of Eden, they would experience pain in childbirth, they would have to scratch to provide their food, they would experience relational turmoil, and most devastatingly of all, they faced the potential of being separated from God’s presence forever.
These are all just penalties for sin.
But don’t miss God’s love in this too—
God came to them in the cool of the day, not in the instant of their sin
He came walking in the Garden, not hurling lightning bolts of judgment
He came with questions, not accusations
He cursed the devil and the ground, but not Adam and Eve
He provided for the final defeat of satan, not the final defeat of mankind
He killed an animal to clothe their nakedness, not leaving them vulnerable
He didn’t allow them to become immortal while still in their sin
There are painful consequences for sin—this is Justice.
But even in justice, never lose sight of the fact that GOD IS LOVE ❤️
And some other blog posts you could read to go deeper on this topic:
Craig T. Owens 