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What Kind of God?

Published: 12 March 2011
Written by Dean Davis
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Categories: Apologetics

WHAT KIND OF GOD?

“Come, let us reason together . . . ” says the LORD.

(Isaiah 1:8)


Like the sun, like the seasons, like love, birth, life, and death . . . tragedy comes around again and again.

When it does, people ask the same questions again and again.

And when they do, Christians, in fear and trembling, must offer the same God-given answers again and again.

Here is an essay I wrote several years back, in which I attempted to set forth those answers concisely and comfortingly.

As we prepare to walk for a longish season beneath the shadow of the recent tsunami in Japan, my hope is that this writing will be helpful to you and to any of your friends who might be asking the age-old question: “What kind of God would allow such a thing to happen?”

To read the essay, please click here.

The Bearable Word of Grace

Published: 10 March 2011
Written by Dean Davis
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Categories: Devotionals

 

THE BEARABLE WORD OF GRACE

For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched, and that burned with fire; nor to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, such that those who heard begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore.

(Hebrews 12:18-19)

 

Let every gospel preacher take note: Some words are unbearable, and in the secret places of their hearts, the people beg you to speak them no more.

Such was the case at Mt. Sinai, when, amidst a great show of darkness, smoke, fire, and cosmic trembling, God unveiled his Law. But it was not the special effects that terrified the people. No, it was the words themselves.

The people heard them audibly, or at least they started to. Rolling down the mountain like a flood, clapping like thunder, echoing all across the wilderness, these words struck terror in their hearts: “Thou shalt, thou shalt not; thou shalt, thou shalt not.” That was all they heard, and that was precisely what they could not bear.

Why? Because they spoke a death sentence over them. Instantaneously, the dreadful truth registered in their consciousness: they had to obey them, they could not obey them, they must die for disobeying them.

“Through the Law comes the knowledge of sin,” wrote the apostle—and also of man’s condemnation before a holy, sovereign, and altogether just God. The people could not bear to hear the Law because it brought them no hope, no life, and no joy—only a consciousness of a death, hinted at in the fire, tempest, and thick darkness of Sinai.

What, then, did the people do? They did what all sinners do: They rushed to a mediator. “You go and speak to him for us,” said the Israelites, pleading with Moses. “Perhaps he will send you back to us with words we can bear.”

And Moses, prefiguring him who was yet to come, did that very thing.

As Christians, we know that our Lord Jesus Christ is Moses’ anti-type, the true Mediator between God and men. Having lived and died for his people, he has reconciled them to God and his Law. Therefore, as he comes down from Mt. Zion with unveiled face, radiant with joy, he brings us good news.

He speaks bearable words to his people: words about God’s gift of grace; words that fill their heart with hope, life, and gladness.

“The words I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life,” (John 6:63). This is why Jesus’ people can bear them, and this is why they beg to hear them over and over again.

I close as I began: Let every gospel preacher take note. Do you want the people to bear your words? Do you want them to beg you to speak them again and again?

Then let your words—even the hard ones you know you must speak from time to time—be filled with grace, filled with Christ, filled with the glorious good news that “It is finished;” that through simple faith in our Mediator we are now accepted—and infinitely loved—in the Beloved.

Said Peter to Jesus, “Lord, to whom shall we go; you have the words of eternal life?”

Man of God, if you will speak the bearable word of grace, so shall the people speak to you.

 

Overcover Agents

Published: 3 March 2011
Written by Dean Davis
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Categories: Devotionals

 

OVERCOVER AGENTS

For over all the glory there will be a covering.

(Isaiah 4:5)

 

If ever my son asks me to define, in a single word, the essence of manhood, I think I’ll be ready. I’ll take him to Isaiah, read him this enigmatic prophecy of the coming Kingdom of God, and underline the one crucial word: covering.

But I’ll have to explain that I didn’t actually learn the lesson reading Isaiah. I learned it when an unexpected providence made me manager of our local Christian bookstore.

Suddenly, a callow young man with neither business nor administrative experience found himself responsible not only for the smooth and profitable operation of a thriving store, but also for the guidance and safety of several other dedicated employees—all of whom happened to ladies!

Looking back, it seems to me that somehow, in my day-to-day relationship with these women, God quietly but unalterably granted me a revelation of the gist of manhood: to be a man, I discovered, was to stand for the Father in his world, and to cover—that is, to protect and provide for—the creatures he entrusts to our care, especially women and children.

The revelation came, I am sure, in the little things: figuring out how to schedule lunches or days off so that the ladies wouldn’t get needlessly tired or miss events that were important to them; sending them home sick, even when they wanted to stay; lifting heavy boxes from their arms; stepping in between them and difficult customers; even coaxing the owner to give them a raise!

And what was the payoff in all these little chivalries? Well, beyond the love and respect of my staff, it was simply this: I experienced my manhood. Why? Because I experienced my God covering these women through me, his man. Having granted me a small stewardship of his authority and loving oversight, he fulfilled me as a man.

If we are Christians, the Kingdom that Isaiah foresaw is here, though we do indeed groan till it appears in fullness. Therefore, over all our assemblies —over our personal walk with Christ, our home, our place of work, our church, our chosen sphere of service in the community—a glory should be seen: an orderliness, an integrity, a beauty, a holy joy.

But it can only be seen if there is a covering over the glory.

And there can only be a covering if God can get his men.

Father, you know how difficult it is for men to be men, especially in our day when the world has turned gender roles upside down. You know how difficult it is to lead when we would rather follow; to stand and fight when we would rather run. At a time when so many have been abandoned by the men in their lives, help your sons to become “overcover agents.” Help us more and more to provide and protect, whether spiritually or physically; to cover the weaker vessels whom you are pleased to entrust to our care. In the Name of Him who showed us the way. Amen.

Lest Israel Glory Against God

Published: 28 February 2011
Written by Dean Davis
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Categories: Devotionals

 

LEST ISRAEL GLORY AGAINST GOD

And the LORD said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claim glory for itself against Me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’”

(Judges 7:2)

 

Fantasy # 1

I have just died (hopefully it didn’t hurt too much). There is a small gathering at church, with friends and family in attendance.

The presiding pastor opens the meeting for comments. My dear friend Lawrence steps up to the podium, offers some gracious remarks, and closes with this:

“You know, whenever I would call Dean and ask how he was doing, he would say, ‘Pretty good for a guy who’s still trying to figure out what he’s going to be when he grows up.’

“Well, now he knows.”

—————–

Don’t laugh. I can’t begin to count the times I’ve found myself in the fetal position—spiritually AND physically—groaning before God, wishing, hoping, praying that I might see a straight path—a clear life course— spreading out before me. Alas, it’s going on 40 years since I first met the Lord; and yes, by his precious grace I’ve definitely had the pleasure of doing a few things in his name. Yet somehow I still don’t feel I’ve gotten the complete picture; that I have seen, or said, or accomplished . . . enough.

Do you ever experience this malaise? If so, our text from Judges—and a few others like it—may be of some help.

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The Islamic Worldview

Published: 25 February 2011
Written by Dean Davis
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Categories: Comparative Religions, Worldview Studies
He shall be a wild man; his hand shall be against every man,

and every man’s hand against him. He shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.

(Genesis 16:12)

In the film version of Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring, there is a memorable line that is much to my purpose in this post.

Weary with toil, sick with grief, heart stretched to the breaking point between the call of fear and duty, Frodo is standing alone beside a river, rehearsing the words of a recent conversation with Gandalf.

“I wish the ring had never come to me; I wish none of this had ever happened,” said Frodo.

To which Gandalf replied, “So do all who live to see times like these. But that is not for us to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

And so it is today.

Though we could wish it otherwise, once again the spirit of Ishmael is abroad in the world. Wild, angry, hostile to every man, it requires, alas, that every man of good will should respond and raise his hand against it.

I wrote the following essay to help Christians do that very thing. For again, the battle is upon us, and like it or not, we must equip ourselves to fight: for the souls of Muslim people, for the souls of those whom they seek to enslave, for the preservation of our way of life, and for the glory of the one true and living God.

Hopefully, we will not have to fight with bombs and bullets. But most assuredly, we will have to fight with truth, spoken in love.

Here, then, is a brief summary of the Islamic worldview. I offer it to assist you in understanding the gist of Islam, and also to suggest some ways in which we all might be able to help our Muslim neighbors experience the glorious liberty of the sons of God . . . and peace in the presence of those who would dearly love to dwell with them as brethren.

To read the essay, please click here. 

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