Method of Prayer by Matthew Henry

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God Preserves His People (John 6:44)

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.

John 6:44

In this verse alone the mystery of God's sovereignty is revealed to His servants.

It is a verse that many reject at face-value; and many more simply do not know it at face-value.

To better understand the import of this verse patience is need to survey the background context. The opening verses of chapter six describe the miracle of the bread and fish. Having but little food to feed the multitudes, Christ miraculously feeds them, with food to spare.

The people were amazed, ready to "take Him by force to make Him king"(v.15). But it was an earthly king they sought and not the heavenly King who should rule their hearts. In fact, when they tracked Him down later (v.24), they were not seeking spiritual bread either. Christ rebuked them accordingly (v.26, 27):

"Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you..."

Thus begins the famous Bread of Life discourse.

And the people still did not understand, asking: "What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?" It was the same old question about what they could do to inherent heaven by doing works pleasing to God. And Jesus answered: "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent" (v.29, see my posting).

He tells them to eat the heavenly bread. They ask for this bread. And Jesus rebukes them again: "I am the Bread of Life...but I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out." (v.35-37).

Here, in verse 37, we have a similar statement to verse 44. It is the Father who gives the Bride to Christ, and that Bride will come to Him. The verb 'will' (cp. 2 Pet. 3:10) means just that: God will bring His people so that they will cling to Christ. This is in marked contrast with the crowd surrounding the Bread of Life yet still seeking food from heaven.

Verse 39 echoes verse 44 as well: "of all He has given Me I should lose nothing," but shall raise them up on "the last day." Verse 40 similarly promises that Christ will raise them up. This clearly refers to the Resurrection and the Great White Throne of Judgment. And as with the previous verses, it is God who is acting upon, preserving and otherwise guaranteeing the salvation of the saints.

In contrast, it is not the saints who are said to preserve themselves. Elsewhere in the Bible, saints are described as striving to be faithful to God but that is because God is faithful to them. They persevere because God preserves them.

Christ states these facts succinctly: "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day."

God's people will come out of the kingdom of darkness to the light of Christ's Gospel only if the Father draws them to Christ. That is the meaning of this verse.

A host of questions certainly arise from many Christians: how can this be? Do I not have free will? What about God's promise to save everyone? and the like.

Dear reader, it is not uncommon that we have more questions than the answers given in the Word. For the Bible was not created for our idle amusement but as a declaration of God's truth. And the truth and mystery of God's mighty power in our salvation is the point of these verses.

Consider: the fact of God's active preservation and protection of His people is asserted by Christ (who cannot lie) in vs. 37, 39, 40 and now in verse 44. If you are God's and He is yours, then you will be raised at the last day unto everlasting life. You are given to the Son by the Father. And you will come to Christ (v.37).

Although Christ does not answer these questions directly, the face-value reading of verse 44 is bore out by the context I carefully summarized. In fact, the persistent unbelief of the Jews--seeking an earthly king, earthly food and earthly works--simply reinforces the proper reading of this text. Men are so dead in their sins that when Christ is before them in the flesh they will not believe (Eph. 2:1,2; Rom. 3:10ff.).

But the evidence of God's sovereign might drawing His people with bands of love is not complete.

After the disciples complain about these hard saying, Christ reminds them that the flesh (physical eating) profits nothing but " 'the words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.' For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him." (v.63ff.)

And Christ continues: " 'Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.' 66 From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more."

What amazing words! What a stupendous mystery. When Christ says 'therefore' he is connecting their unbelief with the fact of God's sovereignty: they cannot come to Christ unless such a movement has been granted to them by the Father.

Dear Christian, do you praise God for His marvelous mercy in granting you the ability to come to Christ? to persevere until the last day? Do you hope to enter heaven because God is drawing you or because you are drawing yourself?

I pray the wonderful love of the Father will draw you yet closer to His Son.

Book of Proverbs: The Preacher

Laws from Heaven for Life on Earth, William Arnot, Scottish Presbyterian minister, 1858.

See: books.google.com

Chapter 1: THE PREACHER

The Proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel.

GOD'S word is like God's world: it combines unity of pervading principle, with endless variety in detail The whole Bible, considered as one book, stands entirely apart from all other writings; and yet every several portion of it is distinguished from every other portion, as much as one merely human writing is distinguished from another. This combination results from the manner in which it has pleased God to make known his will One Divine- Spirit inspires; hence the unity of the whole. Men of diverse age, taste, and attainments write; hence the diversity of the parts. Although the books are written by Moses, David, Solomon, they are all alike the word of God: therefore they exhibit a complete separation from all other writings, and a perfect consistency among themselves.

Again, although they are all one as being the word of God, they are as much

the genuine product of different human minds, as the ordinary writings of men are the work of their authors: therefore there is in matter and manner, an unconstrained, natural, life-like diversity.

It was God who "spake unto the fathers," but it was " by the prophets" that he spoke; not by their tongues only, but their understandings, memories, tastes ; in short, all that constituted the men. There is as much individuality in the books of Scripture as in any other books. There is as much of Moses shining through the Pentateuch, as of Gibbon in the Decline and Fall As are the articulating lips to the soul whose thoughts they utter, so are the prophets to the Holy Spirit, whose mind they reveal Every writer was chosen by God, as well as every word. He had a purpose to serve by the disposition, the acquirements, and the experience of each. The education of Moses as one of the royal race of Egypt was a qualification necessary to the leader of the exodus, and the writerof the Pentateuch. The experience of David, with its successive stages, like geologic strata, touching each other in abrupt contrast, first as a shepherd youth, then as a fugitive warrior, and last as a victorious king, was a qualification indispensable to the sweet singer of Israel God needed a human spirit as a mould to cast consolation in,for every kindred in every age. He chose one whose experience was a compound of meekness and might, of deep distress and jubilant victory. These, when purged of their dross, and fused into one by the Spirit's baptism of fire, came forth an amalgam of sacred psalmody, which the whole church militant have been singing ever since,and " have not yet sung dry." Solomon did not, like David, pass his youth in pastoral simplicity, and his early manhood under cruel persecution.

Solomon could not have written the twenty-third psalm— "The Lord is my Shepherd;" nor the fifty-seventh—A psalm of David when he fled from Saul in the cave. His experience would never have suggested the plaintive strains of the ninetieth psalm—A prayer of Moses the man of God—" Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place." But, on the other hand, Solomon went through a peculiar experience of his own, and God, who in nature gives sweet fruit to men through the root sap of a sour crab, when a new nature has been engrafted on the upper stem, did not disdain to bring forth fruits of righteousness through those parts of the king's experience that cleaved most
closely to the dust. None of all the prophets could have written the Proverbs or the Preacher; for God is Dot wont, even in his miraculous interpositions, to make a fig-tree bear olive berries, or a vine figs: every creature acts after its kind. When Solomon delineated the eager efforts of men in search of happiness, and the disappointment which ensued, he could say, like Bunyan, of that fierce and fruitless war, " I was there." The heights of human prosperity he had reached: the paths of human learning he had trodden, farther than any of his day: the pleasures of wealth and power and pomp he had tasted, in all their variety. No spring of earthly delight could be named, of whose waters he had not deeply drunk. This is the man whom God has chosen as the schoolmaster to teach us the vanity of the world when it is made the portion of a soul, and He hath done all things well The man who has drained the cup of pleasure can best tell the taste of its dregs.

The choice of Solomon as one of the writers of the Bible, at first sight startles, but on deeper study instructs. We would have expected a man of more exemplary life—a man of uniform holiness. It is certain that in the main, the vessels which the Spirit used were sanctified vessels. " Holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." But as they were all corrupt at first, so there were diversities in the operation whereby they were called and qualified for their work. There were diversities in the times, and degrees of their sanctification. Some were carried so near perfection in the body, that human eyes could no longer discern spot or wrinkle; in others the principle of grace was so largely overlaid with earthliness, that observers were left in doubt whether they had been turned to the Lord's side at all But the diversity in all its extent is like the other ways of God; and He knows how to make either extreme fall into its place in the concert of his praise. He who made Saul an apostle, did not disdain to use Solomon as a prophet. Very diverse were the two men, and very diverse their lifo course; yet in one tiling they are perfectly alike. Together in glory now^they know themselves to have been only sinners, and agree in ascribing all their salvation to the mercy of God.

Moreover, although good men wrote the Bible, our faith in the Bible does not rest on the goodness of the men who wrote it. The fatal facility with which men glide into the worship of men may suggest another reason why some of the channels chosen for conveying the mind of God were marred by glaring deficiencies. Among many earthen vessels, in various measures purged of their filthiness, may not the Divine Administrator in wisdom select for actual use some of the least pure, in order by that grosser argument to force into grosser minds the conviction that the excellency of the power is all of God ?

If all the writers of the Bible had been perfect in holiness —if no stain of sin could be traced on their character, no error rioted in their life, it is certain that the Bible would not have served all the purposes which it now serves among men. It would have been God-like indeed in matter and in mould, but it would not have reached down to the low estate of man—it would not have penetrated to the sores of a human heart. For engraving the life lessons of his word, our Father uses only diamonds: but in every diamond there is a flaw, in some a greater and in some a less; and who shall dare to dictate to the Omniscient the measure of defect that binds Him to fling the instrument as a useless thing away ? When God would leave on my mind in youth the
lesson that the pleasures of sin are barbed arrows, he uses that same Solomon as the die to indent it in. I mark the wisdom of the choice. I get and keep the lesson, but the homage of my soul goes to God who gave it, and not to Solomon, the instrument through which it came. God can make man's wrath to praise him, and their vanity too.

He can make the clouds bear some benefits to the earth, which the sun cannot bestow. He can make brine serve some purposes in nature which sweet water could not fulfill. So, practical lessons on some subjects come better through the heart and lips of the weary repentant Icing, than through a man who had tasted fewer pleasures, and led a more even life.

Two principles cover the whole case. " All things are of God ;" and " All things are for your sake" We can never be sufficiently familiar with these two: (1.) The universality of God's government; and (2.) The special use for his own people to which he turns every person and every thing. All Solomon's wisdom and power, and glory and pleasure were an elaborate writing by the finger of God, containing a needful lesson to his children. The wisdom which we are invited to hear is Divine wisdom; the complicated life-experience of Solomon is the machinery of articulation employed to convey it to the ears of men. In casting some of the separate letters, the king may have been seeking only his own pleasure, yet the whole, when cast, are set by the Spirit so that they give forth an important page of the word of truth. The thought recurs, that the king of Jerusalem was not from his antecedents, qualified to sit in the chair of authority and teach morality to mankind. No, he was not: and perhaps on that very account the morality which he taught is all the more impressive. Here is a marvel:

NOT A LINE OF SOLOMON'S WRITINGS TENDS TO PALLIATE [mitigate] SOLOMON'S SINS.

How do you account for this? The errors and follies were his own; they were evil. But out of them the All-wise has brought good. The glaring imperfections of the mar's life have been used as a dark ground to set off the lustre of that pure righteousness which the Spirit has spoken by his lips."

For A Day in Thy Courts

For a day in thy courts [is] better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.

Psalms 84:11 KJV

I grew up singing the Psalms. At least occasionally. However, my theological understanding never caught up with my increasing ineraction with the Psalms: what exactly were they about?

Praise. Sure. God. Certainly. But how was it applicaable to me--to the 21st century?

First of all, context is important. This verse is embedded in a larger worship-context (v.1, 2, 4, 10). In fact, this verse lists "courts" and "house" in contrast to "tents." Does this mean that we need to live at the local church building?

Yes & No.

Yes insofar as Heaven will be a state of continuous worship unfathonable to our earthly minds. Hebrews 12:22-24 combines our earthly worship with "company of angels..to..the firstborn who are registered in heaven."

No insofar as God has not required this from us this side of eternity. We still have six days of work.

Secondly, the language is important. "Courts" and "house of my God" clearly refer to where God dwells. In the OT language, temple, court, house and tabernacle speak first of all to the physical local in Jerusalem. They speak secondly (and ultimately and most significantly) of God's spiritual dwelling among His people. This is not to deny God's omnipresence. It is to point out that God has chosen in a unique and special manner to manifest His presence at the temple.

And how did the average Jew participate in God's presence? Through public worship. They were required to bring sacrifices whenever sin was discovered (peace offerings, etc.). Three times a year the men were to attend public worship (Ex. 34:22, 23). And these sacrifices (just another form of worship) were accomplished at the temple. The priests were always present at the sacrifices and actually enacted most the sacrifices solely.

Thus you can see how important is the knowledge of the NT. The entire book of Hebrews points out that the sacrifices, temple and priests all pointed to Christ. To understand the person and work of Christ in OT language was to attend public worship wherein various and sundry sacrifices graphically pictured sin and redemption.

So what? How does this apply to you today?

If you wish to echo this godly desire of David, then desire public worship. Jesus told the Samaritan woman that worship in Jerusalem would not longer be required (John 4:23). What He did not say was that public worship itself would no longer be required (Acts 20:7). Who would really believe that?

It is in public worship that you have a foretaste of heaven. It is there that God especially dwells amongst His people's praise. Where two or more are gathered in God's name there He especially is.

A day in the public worship of God is better than a thousand days anywhere else. I had rather be a lowly servant in the church of my God than to live with the wicked of this world.

SDG

Salvation is Impossible for Man

But he said, "What is impossible with men is possible with God." Luke 18:27 RSV

The earth-shattering Reformation of the 1500s started on this premise: what is impossible with men is possible with God.

If we want that Reformation today in America, then we need to take to heart that lesson. If we want the Spirit to be shed abroad in our churches, then this verse must become real in our heads and in our hands.

The previous verses report that the disciples were amazed with Christ's doctrine of salvation: that is was harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God than to enter into the eye of a needle. And it was not just any rich man that Christ was talking about, but that very rich ruler who claimed to have obeyed the Ten Commandments his entire life (v.20, 21). Christ immediately went for the spiritual jugular: "you think you've obeyed the Commandments? How about giving up on your self-righteousness and obey me? Give up on your lust for wealth and repent and believe in me (follow me)" (v. 22).

What does this have to do with possibilities and impossibilities? you may astutely ask.

Everything.

Dear reader, Christ is telling you and me that salvation is impossible outside of God. In that Jewish day and age, this impossibility is concretely displayed through the impossibility of the rich man to enter into heaven. The listeners got the point: "WHO THEN CAN BE SAVED?" (v.26).

And Christ's answer was not: "those who desire it enough," "anyone who wants to," or even "just those who repent and believe" (which is certainly true!). No, He held his ground to bring his listeners to the point of needing a savior. He perceived that to tell his audience at that time to repent and believe was to tell them something they would think was within the reach of everyman. Instead, He walled them up within themselves to see how truly hopeless their sinful situation was.

Salvation is impossible if only man is involved. It is not simply that God calls and man in and of himself says "yes"--no, such a situation is impossible! For man is dead in trespasses and sins (Eph.1:1-3). That is the Bad News. Christ said it was impossible for man to be saved without the possibility-changing, almighty, effectual work of God the Sovereign.That is the Good News!

John summarizes this possibility-changing God as the one who births His own: man cannot birth himself--that is impossible (John 3:4,8), only God can do that.

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, [even] to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. John 1:12-13 KJV

SDG