…with Your mouth You have promised and with Your hand You have fulfilled it… (2 Chronicles 6:15).
I rest solely on what God says—He says it and He fulfills it.
I can live on “every Word” He speaks (Deuteronomy 8:3).
“Every Word” of God is flawless and is a protection for me (Proverbs 30:5).
None of God’s Word ever fail (Isaiah 55:11).
God gives us His Word to speak (Jeremiah 26:12; John 12:49; Luke 21:15).
We defeat our enemies by God’s Word in our mouth (Matthew 4:4, 7, 10; Revelation 12:11).
Every Word of God gives life because of the Holy Spirit’s anointing on it (John 6:63).
Every Word of God is a sword (Hebrews 4:12; Revelation 1:16; 2:12, 16; 19:15). Or as my friend Sasha reminds me God’s Word is our S(word)!
There isn’t a more effective shield against enemies, there isn’t a more deadly weapon against temptation, there isn’t a more sure foundation in storms than the Word spoken and fulfilled by God!
Near the end of the movie The Princess Bride, the grandson learns that Wesley, the hero of the story, has apparently died. He asks his grandfather, “Who kills Prince Humperdink,” the arch-villain in the story.
His grandfather replies, “No one. He lives.”
“You mean he wins!?” blurts out the exasperated boy, “Grandpa, why did you read me this story??”
We love to see bad guys get what’s coming to them, don’t we? Some of the baddest bad guys—perhaps in all of history—are the kings of Assyria. When the Assyrians in Nineveh repented and God’s judgment didn’t fall on them, Jonah’s response was much like the grandson in The Princess Bride, “God, why did You send me here?!”
For Judah, this is a short-lived victory because the two kings which follow Sennacherib turn out to be two of the evilest and ruthless kings of Assyria. Yet Nahum’s prophecy still stands: an ultimate destruction is coming. In 605 BC Assyria was defeated by the Babylonians, and the destruction was so complete that Nineveh’s very existence was questioned until archeological discoveries were made in the 19th century.
Why is this prophecy given to us? What are we New Testament Christians supposed to do with this promise of judgment?
Nahum’s name means comfort, so it seems like God’s justice should comfort us. But, interestingly, the root word of his name means to regret or to feel sorry.
Why is this? Think about it: You cannot really know what peace is unless you have been through a period of turmoil. Likewise, you cannot truly understand the relief of being spared God’s judgment unless you fully understand the weight and totality of God’s judgment that should fall on you.
Assyria’s utter destruction is less than a drop in the bucket compared to eternal separation from God. As C.S. Lewis commented about the end of time:
“For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last forever. We must take it or leave it.”
Today (and every day) is the day for heart-searching, acutely feeling the regret of our sin, and then knowing that our forgiven sins are forgotten sins!
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.
Do Not Fear The Spirit’s Wind
The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8)
Sometimes the wind comes with a sweep as though it were going on forever. It comes past and dashes through the trees, sweeping away the rotten branches. Then away it goes across the Alps, dashing down an avalanche in its course, still onward. And as it flies, it blows away everything that is frail and weak. And on, on, on it speeds its way to some unknown goal. And thus it is sometimes the Spirit of God will come right through us, as if He were bearing us away to that spiritual heritage that is our sure future destiny, bearing away coldness, barrenness, everything before it. We do not lament then that we do not pray. We do not believe that we cannot pray. ‘I can do everything’ is our joyful shout as we are carried on the wings of the wind. …
The lower branches of the trees are scarcely moved, but the top branches are rocked to and fro by it. [The wind] is a great leveler! So is the Holy Spirit. He never sees a man high but He brings him down. He makes every high thought bow before the majesty of His might. … Now do not let this make you fear the Holy Spirit. It is a blessed thing to be rocked so as to have our hopes tested, and it is a precious thing to have our carnal confidences shaken. And how blessedly the wind purifies the atmosphere! …
So the Spirit of God comes and cleanses out our evil thoughts and vain imaginations, and though we do not like the hurricane, yet it brings spiritual health to our souls. …
The Holy Spirit is the great testing power, and the result of His operations will be to show men what they are. … Thus also we try the doctrines of men; we bring the breath of inspiration to bear upon them. … True Christians and sound doctrines have ballast and weight in them; they are not moved nor driven away. But empty professors and hollow dogmas are scattered like chaff before the wind when the Lord will blow up on them with the breath of His Spirit. Therefore examine yourselves; try the doctrines and see if they are of God.
From The Holy Spirit Compared To The Wind
We are wise to fear the Wind of God.
By fear I mean a holy reverencing, an appreciation of the awful weightiness of God’s presence, an ever-growing awareness of the awesomeness of the thought of standing before The Judge of the Universe—the All-holy and All-righteous King of kings. I don’t mean cowering in the corner, afraid to approach God, nor afraid of Him approaching us.
In the first Church in the book of Acts, we see a married couple trying to lie to the Holy Spirit, a sorcerer thinking he could learn “the tricks” of the Holy Spirit, and King Herod trying to claim the majesty of God’s presence for himself (Acts 5:1-11, 8:18-24, 12:21-23). The Holy Spirit dealt powerfully and decisively with all of these pretenders. The result: the power of the Holy Spirit was unmistakably and unquestionably acknowledged! So great fear came upon all the church and upon all who heard these things.
True Christians welcome the wind of the Spirit. He cleanses, purifies, prunes, fills, and empowers. He blows away what is impure so that He can impart more of Himself to us.
Let us never, ever treat the Holy Spirit lightly. Let us never, ever try to put the Holy Spirit in our own little boxes. But let us be open to whenever and however He wants to blow His wind through our hearts.
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.
Unique And Purposeful
You cannot tell from where the wind comes [John 3:8]. You know it blows from the north or from the west, but at what particular place does that wind start on its journey? Where will it pause in its onward flight? You see that it is blowing to the east or to the west, but where is it going? From where did these particles of air originate that rush so rapidly past? Where are they going? By what laws are they guided in their course, and where will their journey end? …
All the true operations of the Spirit are due in no sense whatever to man but always to God and to His sovereign will. … There is arbitrariness about the wind. It does just as it pleases, and the laws that regulate its changes are unknown to man. … So is the mighty working of God! …
There are times when all is still and calm, when everything is quiet and you can scarcely detect the wind at all. Now just so it is with the Spirit of God. To some of us He came like a rushing mighty wind. … To others He comes so gently they cannot tell when first the Spirit of God came. … The Spirit of God, as a sovereign, will always choose His own way of operation. …
The wind not only differs in force, but it differs in direction. … Perhaps there never were two winds that did blow exactly in the same direction. … Now, the Spirit of God comes from different directions. … God causes the wind to blow just that way He wills. He works, also, through different texts of Scripture. You were converted and blessed under one text; it was quite another that was made useful to me. … God never repeats Himself. … Every Christian is a distinct work of divine grace on God’s part that has in it some originality, some portion distinct from all others.
God created you to do unique things that will bring Him glory, so don’t try to copy someone else. You be you. That is how God is most glorified through you!
“The Creator, who sees the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10, Revelation 22:13, John 8:58, and more) is outside of time. Time is a created feature of His universe, like matter and space. It is interesting that the equations of GR [general relativity] have long indicated that time itself had a beginning.”
“The Bible lays a good foundation for a young-earth relativistic cosmology.”
“In this new picture of the cosmos, gravity and black hole physics play a central role. In particular, an experimentally-measured general relativistic effect, called gravitational time dilation by some authors, causes clocks (and all physical processes) to tick at different rates in different parts of the universe. … By this effect on time itself, God could have made the universe in six ordinary days as measured on earth, while still allowing time for light to travel billions of light-years to reach us by natural means. The theory also appears to explain the two other major cosmological phenomena we see: the red shifts of light from distant galaxies and the cosmic microwave background radiation. Thus, this biblical foundation appears to lead to a young-earth cosmology which is consistent with Einstein’s general theory of relativity and astronomical observations. As measured by clocks on earth, the age of the universe today could be as small as the face-value biblical age of about 6000 years.”
“We don’t study Genesis in order to know the mind of Moses; we study to know the mind of God.”
“We now have very good scientific reasons to think that the amount of carbon dioxide in the pre-flood atmosphere was many times greater than today. That would produce a strong greenhouse effect, a warm climate, and as a bonus, stimulate plant growth to produce the large amount of plant life we find in the fossils. The additional ordinary carbon in the biosphere would dilute carbon 14, so that the pre-flood 14C/12C ratio would be considerably lower due to that effect alone, thus explaining the “old” post-flood radiocarbon dates. In addition, we have evidence suggesting that the earth’s magnetic field was at least ten times greater before the flood than now. That would enable the geomagnetic field to be a very effective shield for cosmic rays, thus greatly reducing the production of carbon 14, making the pre-flood world a healthier place, and further explaining post-flood radiocarbon dates.”
“Gravitational time dilation causes clocks (and all physical processes) to tick at different rates in different places. This means we must consider which set of clocks the Bible is referring to when it makes statements about time.”
“[God’s] intention, among other things, was to give markers in the sky which would allow us to clearly measure periods of time in terms of the earth’s rotation and the earth’s movement around the sun, and thus he further defines ‘days’ and ‘years’ [Genesis 1:14-15]. In other words, God quite reasonably tells us periods of time in terms of our own frame of reference, not in terms of some otherworldly frame of reference, as some authors would have it. So Genesis 1, Exodus 20:11, and other passages are telling us that God made the universe in 6 days E.S.T.—Earth Standard Time.”
“According to the best physics and cosmological knowledge we have today, these ideas lead directly to the conclusion that our cosmos expanded out of a white hole (a black hole running in reverse). As a consequence, gravitational time dilation caused clocks (and all physical processes) both inside and outside the event horizon (the border of the white hole) to tick at vastly different rates from one another in different places.”
“This paper covers a great deal of scientific territory unfamiliar to many readers. But the bottom line is simple: God used relativity to make a young universe.”
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.
Getting Into The Truth
The difficulty is the truth is not so easy to discover. There is no man born in this world by nature who has the truth in his heart. … Then since we are not born with the truth, we have the task of searching for it. … But here is the difficulty, that we cannot follow without a guide the winding path of truth. Why is this?
First, because of the very great intricacy of truth itself. Truth itself is no easy thing to discover. … The most earnest student of Scripture will find things in the Bible that puzzle him. However earnestly he reads it, he will see some mysteries too deep for him to understand. He will cry out, ‘Truth! I cannot find you.’ … But we bless God it is said, ‘When the Spirit of truth has come, He will guide you into all truth’ [John 16:13]. …
We also need a guide because we are so prone to go astray. … David says, ‘I have gone astray like a lost sheep’ (Psalm 119:176). … If grace did not guide a man, he would go astray though there were hand-posts all the way to heaven.
The ‘Spirit of truth’ [is] not an influence or an emanation but actually a Person. ‘When the Spirit of truth has come, He will guide you into all truth.’ … He is infallible. … He is ever-present. …
Man can guide us to a truth, but it is only the Holy Spirit who can guide us into a truth. ‘When He, the Spirit of trying has come, He will guide you into’—mark that word—‘truth.’ … You may be brought to a chamber where there is an abundance of gold and silver, but you will be no richer unless you effect an entrance. It is the Holy Spirit’s work to unbar the two-leaved gates and bring us into a truth so we may get inside it.
From The Holy Spirit: The Great Teacher
I have often said that the greatest Expositor of Scripture is the Holy Spirit. He is the One who inspired the biblical authors, and He is also the One living in a Christian to illuminate the biblical texts.
Before you open your Bible, pray this prayer from the psalms, “Open my eyes to see wonderful things in Your Word” (Psalm 119:18). And then listen to the Spirit’s voice as He takes you into the truth that will enrich your life and bring God greater glory. Just like those first Christians who were baptized in the Holy Spirit became skilled in their understanding of Scripture, you can experience the exact same thing today!
I have a whole series of messages on the power of Pentecostal Christians that you can read by clicking here and here.
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.
In Pursuit Of Truth
The disciples had been instructed concerning certain elementary doctrines by Christ, but He did not teach His disciples more than what we should call the ABCs of religion. He gives His reasons for this in the twelfth verse: ‘I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now’ [John 16:12]. His disciples were not possessors of the Spirit. They had the Spirit so far as the work of conversion was concerned, but not as to the matters of bright illumination, profound instruction, prophecy, and inspiration. Jesus says, ‘I am now about to depart, and when I go from you, I will send the Comforter to you. You cannot bear these things now. Howbeit, when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth’ [John 16:13]. The same promise that He made to His apostles stands good to all His children. …
We think it is right that the Christian ministry should be not only arousing but instructing, not merely awakening but enlightening, that it should appeal not only to the passions but to the understanding. We are far from thinking doctrinal knowledge to be of secondary importance. We believe it to be one of the first things in the Christian life, to know the truth and then to practice it. …
What we call curiosity is something given us of God impelling us to search into the knowledge of natural things. That curiosity, sanctified by the Spirit, is also brought to bear in matters of heavenly science and celestial wisdom. … A true Christian is always intently reading and searching the Scriptures that he may be able to certify himself as to its main and cardinal truths. …
Depend on this: The more you know of God’s truth, all things being equal, the more comfortable you will be as a Christian. …
Knowledge of truth will make us very serviceable in this world. We will be skillful physicians who know how to take the poor distressed soul aside, to put the finger on his eye and take the scale off for him that heaven’s light may comfort him. … There is nothing like the real truth and the whole truth to make a man useful.
From The Holy Spirit: The Great Teacher
Throughout the public ministry of Jesus, the Gospels tell us of His apostles simply not understanding that Jesus was fulfilling Old Testament prophecy in all that He was doing. But all of that changed after the Day of Pentecost when then followers of Jesus were baptized in the Holy Spirit!
Beginning with Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost and throughout the rest of the New Testament, we see how the Christians took Old Testament Scriptures and applied them in the new understanding the Holy Spirit gave them of the work of Jesus. As a result, radical changes began to take place not only within the Church but throughout society as well.
As Spurgeon noted, “The same promise that He made to His apostles stands good to all His children.” That promise of the Holy Spirit’s empowerment, illumination, creativity, and application of Scripture is still available for all Christians today!
Don’t limit your Christian testimony or your effectiveness in the world by keeping the Holy Spirit relegated to some unknowable, mysterious work. Allow Him to be the driving force in all that you think and do!
I have a whole series of messages on the power of Pentecostal Christians you can read by clicking here and here.
Have you ever noticed that it seems a lot easier to say, “God bless you” than it does to say, “God bless me”? Why is that?
Do I feel unworthy of His blessing? If I am a Christian, I need to remind myself that I am in Christ, and He is in me, and He has brought me into the Father. This means that I am as blessed as the Father blesses the Son (John 14:20; Ephesians 1:3-6). God is blessed by our being blessed!
Or perhaps I feel that “God bless me” is an arrogant prayer, while saying “God bless you” is a humble prayer. There is an EGO that God always blesses, and He delights to show us what that is!
In Hebrew literature, the key point is found in the middle of a poem or story. In Psalm 67, that would make the middle verse: May the nations be glad and sing for joy, for You rule the peoples justly and guide the nations of the earth. Selah. (v. 4)
The nations rejoice because God judges fairly and God guides the nations. Selah—pause and take that in. The natural attitude is actually a God-negative attitude—“I prefer to be in charge … I don’t like anyone telling me what to do!” But the unnatural attitude is a God-positive attitude—“I trust God more than I trust me, so I’m glad He is in charge … I trust God to judge justly more than I trust world institutions, so I’m glad He is the final Judge!”
This is very good news:Only God can rule and judge correctly! Men have biases and agendas; men are selfish and self-seeking; men seek their own glory and their own advancement. So the psalmist wants us to Selah/pause to remember that only God can lead and judge in a way that brings Him glory and brings us blessing. God is blessed by our being blessed!
Working outward from verse 4, we see verses 3 and 5 are identical, teaching us that our God-honoring desire should be for all peoples in all nations to experience the blessing of an intimate relationship with God.
A similar theme is sounded in the “bookend” verses of 1-2 and 6-7: We are asking God to bless us so that “all the ends of the earth will fear Him.” Once again we Selah/pause to consider this: Do I have the right EGO to request this blessing? Remember: There is an EGO that God always blesses.
In his book Lead Like Jesus, Ken Blanchard identifies two types of E.G.O.s in our relationship with God:
Negative E.G.O.—Edging God Out
Positive E.G.O.—Exalting God Only
The negative EGO says things like, “Bless me” and “Shine on me.” The positive EGO says, “Bless me so that I can be a blessing to others” and “Shine Your light on me so that others will see You.”
Jesus told us to not let the light of our life be hidden. We are blessed by God so that we can be a blessing to all of the peoples in all of the nations. We desire that all may know the joy of serving a Righteous King. We want everyone to know the praise that comes from Exalting God Only.
Oh God, be merciful to me. Cause Your face to shine on me. Bless me indeed so that I may teach others to fear You, so that they may come to know You as their All-Righteous, Good, and Loving King!
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.
Seeing God In Jesus
For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6)
Paul knew not merely God, but God in Christ Jesus! Not merely ‘the glory of God,’ but ‘the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ (2 Corinthians 4:6). The knowledge dealt with God, but it was Christward knowledge! He pined not for a Christless theism but for God in Christ! This, beloved, is the one thing that you and I should aim to know. …
Even when your thought sweeps round the stars and circumnavigates space, you feel that heaven, even the heaven of heavens, cannot contain Him. Everything conceivable falls short of the inconceivable glory of God! When you come, however, to gaze upon the face of Christ Jesus, how different is the feeling! Now you have a mirror equal to the reflection of the eternal Face, ‘in Him dwells in the fullness of the Godhead bodily’ (Colossians 2:9). His name is ‘Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God’ (Isaiah 9:6). He is the image of God, ‘the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person’ (Hebrews 1:3). If your conception of Christ is truthful, it will coincide with the true idea of God and you will exclaim, ‘This is the true God and eternal life’ (1 John 5:20). Like Thomas, you will salute the wounded Savior with the cry, ‘My Lord and my God!’ (John 20:28). …
How softly breaks the divine glory through the human life of Jesus; a babe in grace may gaze upon this brightness without fear! When Moses’ face shone, the people could not look at him, but when Jesus came from His transfiguration, the people ran to Him and saluted Him! Everything is attractive in God in Christ Jesus! In Him we see God to the fullest, but the Deity so mildly beams through the medium of human flesh that mortal man may draw near and look and live.
From The Glory Of God In The Face Of Jesus Christ
If you would like to know God more intimately, look more closely at Jesus.
Read through the Gospels slowly, focusing on what Jesus was saying and doing. Let the Holy Spirit transport you to those dusty Israelite roads, where you can walk with Jesus and get a new glimpse of the majestic glory of God.
…with Your mouth You have promised and with Your hand You have fulfilled it… (2 Chronicles 6:15). 
Craig T. Owens 