Old things New Podcast

Reformed devotions from all of scripture.
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Regular, reformed Bible devotions from scripture to go deeper with Christ. "Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” - Mt 15:32. rcbhpastor.substack.com

  1. 1D AGO

    Ep 138: A Parable for Pursuing Christian Fellowship (Ecc 4:13-16).

    Pray Read: Ecc 4:4-16. Meditation Now we have a peculiar little story in verses 13 through 16, it’s almost a parable. Solomon tells the story of a foolish old king who did not know how to take advice. We will open this up a bit more later, but for now notice the old king. What was the defining mark of this king? That he did not know how to take advice. He did not listen to people. He had cut himself off from good advice. And so the poor and wise youth was better than the hard-hearted and isolated old king. Envy and laziness both tend towards isolation, but here is another cause: the inability to listen. Listening to no one but ourselves is a sure way to reach a dead end in life. You can have all the riches in the world, but a poor wise man who listens is better than a rich king whose heart is hard. Fearing God requires a listening heart. It requires a heart that listens to God, and a heart that listens to good advice from others. It requires a heart that looks for good advice from others. If we see this tendency in ourselves, the tendency not to talk with others, we ought to take note of this warning. If you simply do not talk to others there cannot be a relationship. That is a danger in itself. The tendency to argue with others, or an argumentative spirit, is an indicator of someone who does not listen. The tendency of inattention, giving people only half of our attention; or perhaps of talking too much, these are not good signs. Someone with a tendency to talk a lot may struggle to listen. There may be a tendency not to show real interest in others, for this foolish king would not have been one to ask sensitive questions of others to better understand them. It may be someone who interrupts, someone who formulates what he wants to say while the other is talking. It may be someone who lacks a genuine interest in the other person as they are speaking, or someone who is quick to form opinions on others. All these things show us tendencies towards isolation and individualism. As and if we follow these patterns ourselves, we live in our own mental bubble, and we are not open-hearted. We are becoming like the old king of the parable. Perhaps it was old-man Solomon reflecting on himself. As Solomon has shown us, being self-focused is a dead end in life. But what then can we do? Perhaps as we have looked at some of these areas, you have noticed some of these patterns in your own life. I certainly have. At different points every one of us will be self-focused in some way or another. So how do we respond? As Solomon points out, rather than living in isolation, we must seek to live in community. We must rather be the poor, wise, youth, if that is what it comes down to. It is the cure of Christian fellowship that we need. Two are better than one (v. 9), and a threefold cord is not quickly broken (v. 12). There is strength in numbers. Better is a poor but wise youth who listens than an old and foolish king who does not. Where does this leave us? Consider a few points of application to ponder. First, it is only as we turn to God that we can find restoration from the isolation that sin brings. As we have seen in these meditations on individualism, isolation is destructive. In the biggest sense, however, our isolation is ultimately an isolation from God. Although we were created to be in relationship with him, through our sin we have cut ourselves off. Even as Christians, when we pursue sin, we are running from God to try to do it ourselves. This world is full of people who do not know God and who have not come to God. If that is you, as you read these words, if you have not come to Christ, then there is one message to hear: if you remain isolated from God, you will find yourself alone in a dead end. Your life will pass you by. Even if you are successful, as the poor, wise young man in verses 13 through 16 was, it will not be long before you too depart from this earth. As that young man was forgotten, so too will we be. And as we come to eternity, if our relationship with God has not been restored, we will find ourselves isolated in damnation for all eternity. If you do not know God, then you need the message of the gospel: God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him may not perish, but have eternal life. Come to Christ, believe in him, and God will restore you to himself. There is only one ultimate answer to isolation, and that is to come to the God of love revealed in Christ. And as Christians this is just as true. Without him we can do nothing. Christ is our daily solution to dealing with the sin that so often threatens to isolate us. To the degree that we allow sin to lodge in our hearts, we will find that God is not near. Keep short accounts with God. Confess your sin regularly across the day. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Here is an application for fearing God and avoiding isolation: keep your heart warm towards God. If you do that, you will have a fountain in your heart, a fountain that works to bring unity and harmony rather than division and isolation. As we are united and restored to God, as we keep near to him, we are also restored to one another. The unity and harmony that we have together in Christ is the basis of finding unity and harmony in our marriages, families, friendships, and churches. Christ is the only true means of unity on a human level. Christ is the key to killing individualism in our own hearts and to drawing together as well. We need to live the gospel out in our human relationships. Humility and confession should feature regularly. Forgiveness and restoration should follow every time. We need to keep short accounts with one another; this is basic to building unity and relationship. A threefold cord is not quickly broken. That text is sometimes used at weddings as a reminder that two humans, bound together with God, will be strong. While that was not Solomon’s purpose, the principle is good. As we cling to one another in friendship and love, and cling together under God, we will be strong. A few further words of application. First, we saw that envy tends towards isolation. Here is application for defeating envy: seek your satisfaction in Christ. Envy looks at what its neighbour has and wants it. But God, in place of this, calls us not to desire anything but him. Delight yourself in God alone, and he will give to you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4). A sure antidote to individualism is a heart that is fully satisfied in Christ. As we are satisfied in Christ, we will no longer envy what others have. We will no longer put up barriers and objectify people. We will delight in Christ, and we will delight in others, and we will seek to help them delight in Christ. So seek your satisfaction in Christ. As a practical way of doing that, think about the things you are doing each day. As you think about those things, ask yourself if they are helping you to be satisfied in Christ, or if they are hindering you. That question is a good internal measure for searching our own hearts. Second, prayerfully look for ways to serve others. We saw in verse 5 the way that laziness tends to isolate an individual and make him useless. Sometimes the reason we feel lonely is because we are not proactive in service. Idleness can perpetuate loneliness. Often, the antidote to isolation may be to prayerfully and actively seek to serve others. If we get up, get active, and seek opportunities to serve others, we may find that our friendship grows as well. Always be praying and looking for ways to be a blessing to others. Christ has blessed us, that we may bless others. SDG. Prayer of Confession & Consecration Father of mercy, we confess that we have loved our own thoughts more than your wisdom, and have isolated ourselves through pride, envy, laziness, and an unwillingness to listen. We have cut ourselves off from you and from others, choosing self over fellowship, and we grieve the coldness of heart that has followed. Please draw us again to Christ, restore us to yourself, and warm our hearts by your Spirit, that we may delight in you above all and keep short accounts with you and with one another. Consecrate us to lives of humble love, attentive listening, and joyful service, that bound together with you and your people, we may reflect the unity and grace of our Lord. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen. Get full access to Old things New. at rcbhpastor.substack.com/subscribe

    13 min

  2. FEB 12

    Ep 137: Don’t be a loner (Ecc 4:9-12).

    Pray Read: Ecc 4:4-12. Meditation We’ve seen that envy and laziness as forces of individualism, but Solomon has two more insights to give. Reading from verse 9: “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. 10 For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! 11 Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? 12 And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” Solomon gives us a small picture in these verses, but there is a great deal there to see. The basic point is clear, isn’t it? It is not good to be alone. The one who is alone will not find help in the day of trouble, he will not find warmth in the cold, nor will he have protection in a time of danger. And so let me ask the question plainly: Are you an isolated person? Are you cut off from close relationships? Are the relationships you do have distant? Do you keep to yourself? What Solomon is saying is that this tendency is not good. It is destructive. In terms of our faith, if we do not have companions, we will have no one to lift us up when we stumble. In despair, there will be no one to offer us hope. We might easily fall into doctrinal error or even heresy. And just as our bodies are cold when we are alone in the nighttime of winter, so too our spirits grow cold in isolation. By ourselves, our affections may well grow cold, and we will have no one to warm us. And so the question remains: Do we have close relationships together? And more importantly, do we have a close relationship with the Lord? Do we draw near to him? Do we draw near to each other? God did not create us to do life alone. It is not good for man to be alone. He created us to do life together, to love God, and to love one another. Whatever path in life we walk, we can be sure that walking alone is not good. SDG. Prayer of Confession & Consecration Get full access to Old things New. at rcbhpastor.substack.com/subscribe

    5 min

  3. FEB 10

    Ep 136: Individualism is... lazy? (Ecc 4:5)

    Pray Read: Ecc 4:4-5. Meditation Solomon has another observation on individualism for us in verse five: “The fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh.” Now, like last time, you might be asking again: What has this got to do with individualism? Let me try and show you. Notice the description of this man. The first thing we see is that he is lazy. He sits, he folds his hands, and he does nothing. And as a result, he consumes himself. Notice too that Solomon draws our attention to this man’s isolation. Perhaps you are asking: Where do we see isolation here? Look closely. He does not serve others. He is not with others. He is not talking to others. He is eating his own flesh, focusing on himself. There is an emphasis here on the way he is absorbed in himself, and in doing so he is destroying himself. Just as there is a connection between envy and isolation, so too there is a connection between laziness and isolation. This makes sense when you think about it. It could well be that the reason so many Australians do not get to know each other is because they cannot be bothered. It takes effort to try and get to know your neighbours. It takes a willingness to serve, and sometimes to deal with difficult people. Laziness says, I can’t be bothered. And as it sits there by itself, it is consumed. Now that is true literally in the sense of work. If you do not work, if you are lazy, you will have no money and no food. But it is also true socially and spiritually. Laziness really is a force of spiritual destruction. It isolates the one who is lazy and cuts him off from usefulness, love, and service in the community of God’s people. Laziness in our devotional life will leave us isolated from God. If we are too lazy to listen to him, and too lazy to speak with him in prayer, it will be destructive in our lives. And so again we need to consider ourselves in this area as well. Are we lazy? Are we letting idleness grow in our hearts? Are we apathetic about growing in Christ? Are we neglectful in seeking the Lord? Are we unproductive? Are we generally isolated because we are not putting the effort in to grow in relationships with others? If we are lazy, we will not grow. We will start consuming ourselves. SDG. Prayer of Confession & Consecration Get full access to Old things New. at rcbhpastor.substack.com/subscribe

    6 min

  4. FEB 5

    Ep 135: The Sin of Individualism (Ecc 4:4-8).

    Pray Read: Ecc 4:4-8. Meditation There is a prevailing sickness in our culture today. You will find this sickness quarantined behind closed suburban doors and high fences. You will see its symptoms in next door neighbours avoiding eye contact and a friendly wave. There are train carriages full of this disease all across our major cities each day. You notice it when you look up from your phone and realise that almost everyone on board is glued to their screen. This disease leaves people bedridden night after night as they sit alone, watching an endless stream of episodes on flickering screens. And worse still, we might even find symptoms of this disease in our own hearts if we look closely, in our tendencies to avoid other people and to close ourselves off. You see it sometimes in churches as well. People standing after church by themselves for awkward minutes on end. Closed circles of people who know each other well and talk to no one else. People not knowing each other’s names. The sickness I am talking about is the disease of individualism, the compulsive tendency that we each have to be self-oriented and self-contained. This disease has always existed among sinful people, and it is something we will all need to fight against, even as Christians. And even if you are “a social person”, you will probably still find that you are not immune to this sickness. As we will see in our passage, it is possible to be surrounded by people and yet still live in a radically individualistic way. It is possible to interact with others and yet still be almost entirely self-absorbed, self-focused and self-contained, with other people becoming a means to an end for our own goals. As Solomon continues to lead us through the vast labyrinth of life, in our passage he notices something else in this broken world and brings it to our attention: the plague of individualism. And without question, what he will show us is that individualism is a dead end. It is a sin that we must resist, and an influenza for which we must find a cure. Individualism is a sure way to avoid growing in the fear of the Lord. There is, however, a positive side to Solomon’s message here. As we have seen before, Solomon does not want to lead us down dead-end paths. He is not a despairing old skeptic. He is a man of wisdom, and he wants to show us the pathway to life. He wants to teach us how to live life in a fallen world in the fear of God. And again, as we will see here, what he shows us is that we are not designed to love and fear God alone. We are designed to live together. To fear God is to live together. You find this right there at the creation in Genesis 2:18: “The LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone.’” Walking through the labyrinth of life is best done in the company of others. In our next meditation we will look at the cure for individualism, but first we must understand the problem. So let’s consider the disease of individualism. I want us to be better able to spot this tendency in our own hearts, and I want to show you, as Solomon does, just how much of a dead end isolation really is. Generally speaking, individualism, thinking, and behaviour that is self-absorbed and self-contained, rears its head in all sorts of ways. In broad terms, it really is just a basic aspect of sin. While we were created to put God first, others second and self last, sin gives us a new equation: self first, others second, God last. In that sense, sin is individualistic by definition. So we are not going to see everything there is to see about individualism. There is too much to cover. But in our particular passage, we are given some unique insights as we listen to the voice of Christ speaking through Solomon. As we know, all wisdom ultimately comes to us from God in Christ, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:30. Never forget that Ecclesiastes is a book of God’s wisdom, not merely Solomon’s. We see Solomon’s first observation in verse 4: “Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbour.” This may have been written thousands of years ago, but it is a cutting-edge commentary on modern Australia. We see this, do we not? A busy economy, people industriously toiling away in life. But Solomon looks below the surface and says that this toil, generally speaking, is driven by envy. We live in an economy of envy. You see this in workplaces. Our vocations were designed to be a means of glorifying God and serving others, yet in verses 7 and 8 we see a worker who lives alone and works for no one but himself. Instead of serving one another, what we so often find today is that work revolves around climbing the ladder. What people call career progression is often nothing more than corporatised envy. Pursuing excellence is one thing, and it is to be encouraged. But pursuing excellence does not necessarily mean being better than everyone else or being in charge of everyone else. God did not design work to be driven by envy, but by love service. You might ask at this point, what does envy have to do with individualism? But that is exactly the point. We may not realise it at first, but envy is actually a characteristic of individualism. If you are absorbed by getting what others have, who is your attention focused on? You see it there in verse four: the man does not love his neighbour, he objectifies him. He does not rejoice in his neighbour’s prosperity. His neighbour becomes nothing more than a benchmark for his own goals and desires. Envy, by definition, is individualistic. It does not treat other people as people. It separates people and poisons relationships. We can see many examples of how envy poisons communities around us. People toil in their careers, treading on others to get higher, sacrificing their families in the process. We see it on social media, where people are absorbed by impressing others and envying what others have. There is a lifestyle many Australians pursue: holidays, a beautiful partner, lots of money, not having kids so that those things are easier to obtain. These pursuits often feed on envy. And envy is a dead end. It will not lead you to the fear of God. It will lead you down a winding labyrinth path until you find yourself sitting alone in a dark corner. Solomon opens up the individualism of envy further in verses seven and eight: “Again, I saw vanity under the sun: one person who has no other, either son or brother, yet there is no end to all his toil, and his eyes are never satisfied with riches, so that he never asks, ‘For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?’ This also is vanity and an unhappy business.” You see it clearly. This man works and works and works. His eyes are never satisfied with riches. He never stops to ask himself, ‘Who am I doing this for?’ He has no one in his life. No son. No brother. He is alone, consumed by individualism, and yet he is still not satisfied. What Solomon is saying is that this too is a dead end. It is hevel. This man will work and work and work, and in the end he will have no one. He will die. His riches will disappear. His life will be over, and he will have nothing. This is what envy does. It isolates its victims and destroys them. So we must examine our own hearts. Do we see envy at work within us? Are we workaholics, so focused on toiling and earning that we push all other people out? Is your life a lonely life? It may be that the reason for that loneliness is an all-consuming devotion to work. Our work can become a means of filling our own cravings rather than a means of serving God and serving others. Work can take up all our time and leave us with no time to serve anyone else. Consider this, pray, and tune in to the next meditation to look at the cure! SDG. Prayer of Confession & Consecration Get full access to Old things New. at rcbhpastor.substack.com/subscribe

    13 min

  5. FEB 3

    Wait… did Solomon just say there’s no afterlife? (Ecc 3:17-4:3).

    Pray Read: Ecc 3:16-4:3 Meditation Verse 21 is one of those awkward Ecclesiastes sayings. It’s one of those verses that makes Christians want to avoid the book altogether – and plenty, it would seem, do just that. I want to take a moment to explain it. Let’s just start by reading it together: “Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth?” Straight away you are probably thinking, hang on, the New Testament talks about an afterlife. Is Solomon saying there is no afterlife here? What does he mean? Well, he means exactly what he says. Let me put it this way. If someone from your church, let’s say, was to die in the next few seconds, would you be able to tell me where their spirit is? No, you would not, would you? In verse 16 Solomon makes the point that he is observing life under the sun. And from life under the sun, we literally cannot see the spiritual realm. What happens to animals when they die? We do not know. That is Solomon’s point in verse 21. We have no idea. What about the spirit of a man? You do not know for sure. It may have gone up to heaven, it may have gone down to hell. That is not to say we cannot have assurance or confidence that a faithful believer has gone to heaven. In God’s grace, we can have confidence. But only God knows categorically where a person goes. That is Solomon’s point. From where we are standing, we do not categorically know a person’s eternal destiny. There is a level of mystery in the afterlife for us, and we need to acknowledge that and leave it with God. Some commentators say that Solomon is denying the afterlife altogether in this verse, as though he were some kind of cynical agnostic. Perhaps you have thought that yourself. There are three reasons why that reading is deeply flawed. First, it clearly contradicts other very clear passages of Scripture. If you say Solomon does not believe in the afterlife, you deny the infallibility of scripture. That interpretation is therefore heretical. Second, Solomon has already spoken about the afterlife in this passage. In verse 17 he refers to God’s coming judgment. He would not speak of judgment if everything ended with death. Third, Solomon plainly admits the afterlife later in the same book. Ecclesiastes 12:7 says, “the spirit returns to God who gave it.” To read verse 21 as a denial of the afterlife is irresponsible exegesis and a pathway to heresy. So Solomon has taken us on a journey. He has shown us that injustice and suffering exist. He has shown us that judgment is coming. He has shown us that none of us are innocent, and he has pointed us towards righteousness. As we wrap this up, there are two pieces of application. Really, we have been on the gospel journey together. The problem of suffering should lead us to repentance and restoration with God. But Solomon also gives us insight for living with injustice in the world as Christians, because even after we are saved, injustice remains. The first application comes in verse 22: “So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him?” At first glance, this feels almost random. Solomon has been talking about oppression, injustice, death, and judgment, and suddenly he says, go and rejoice in your work. But it is not random at all. It is profoundly helpful. It shows us how to live by faith in a world full of oppression. There is great injustice in the world today. But what can you do about it? Of all the oppression and evil that exists, how much can you actually change? The truth is, very little. We cannot even stop ourselves from committing injustice half the time, let alone fix society. Even people in positions of power are largely impotent in the face of it all. That is not to say they cannot do good. William Wilberforce shows us that they can, and as far as we are responsible, we should do what is right. But the world is broken. As Solomon has already told us, What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.” So Solomon is saying this. Do not break your mind trying to fix everything. Just do the work God has given you to do, and enjoy it. You are not the Messiah, and God is not asking you to be. He is asking you to be faithful with what he has placed in your life. Rejoice in it. Leave justice to God. Judgment day is coming. He will sort it out. The second application comes in chapter 4:1–3. “Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them. On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.” This is troubling language, but Solomon is not making a doctrinal statement. He says, “I thought.” He is recounting his own thoughts in despair. With all his wisdom, the oppression he sees overwhelms him. The pain is so great that he feels it would be better never to have been born. Ecclesiastes needs to be read more like a psalm than an epistle. We are being given a window into Solomon’s inner struggle. And the application for us is this. Be wary of despair. The injustice of the world can weigh so heavily on us that it pulls us down into hopelessness. If that happens, do not deny the reality of suffering, but do not be swamped by it. Flee to Christ for refuge. As we consider the pain of this world, we remind ourselves that God will judge and make all things right. And this should even move us to pity our oppressors. They will answer to God. Do you want them to get what they deserve? No. We are called to pity them and bring Christ to them. There is only one true oppressor in this world, and his name is Satan. Everyone else is enslaved to him. Spiritual slavery is the worst oppression of all, and the source of every other injustice. And so when you are tempted to despair, let it drive you to Christ, and let it move you to bring the good news to others. Do not try to save the world. Live faithfully. Take the joy of Christ into every room you enter. Trust God. Leave justice with him.“Vengeance is mine,” says the Lord, “I will repay.” Live faithfully, rejoice in Christ, and bring the good news to the captives. The light that has shone in Christ is greater than all the world’s evils. He has called us out of darkness into his marvellous light. And for now, that is enough. SDG. Get full access to Old things New. at rcbhpastor.substack.com/subscribe

    12 min

  6. JAN 20

    Ep 133: Innocence is possible. Yes, yours... (Ecc 3:17).

    Pray Read: Ecc 3:16-18. Meditation Let’s face it, the last two meditations have been heavy going. And yet, even in this seemingly grim passage, Solomon gives us a spark of hope. As we consider this spark in light of the gospel, it bursts into full flame. Solomon has already shown us that injustice exists, that judgment is coming, and that none of us are innocent. But here is where he wants to take us next: Innocence is possible. And yes, that means innocence for you and me. Look closely at verse 17. Solomon says that God will judge the righteous and the wicked. There is hope there, isn’t there? Because if you can be righteous, then you can be innocent, and you will be judged not guilty. So tell me, which camp do you want to be in? The righteous or the wicked? There is really no question, is there? Righteous people are innocent people. They are people who have a right standing with God. The immediate problem that this presents for us is that there has only been one righteous person in the history of the world. To our dismay, as we saw last time, we are excluded from the category of “righteous” because we are all guilty. Psalm 14 makes it clear that all people are corrupted, and Romans 3 says the same thing. Now you might be thinking that this does not sound very hopeful so far. Fair enough, so far it’s not very hopeful. But here is the thing. While the problem is that there has only been one righteous person, and we are thus excluded, therein also lies the solution. That man, that one righteous person, was Jesus Christ. Jesus lived a blameless life. He never did anything to be ashamed of. He never had any secret or evil motives. He never lied. He was perfect, and he was the Son of God. And it is through Jesus, the Bible teaches us, that God has made it possible for our slate to be wiped clean. Because Christ laid down his life so that anyone who believed in him could trade their guilt for his innocence. To all who would believe in Christ, they will be forgiven. Read the Gospel of John. It’s all there! Be ye doers of the word… For anyone who believes in Christ, who has confesses their sins to him, owns up to their guilt, turns from their sins, and asks for forgiveness, when that judgment day comes there will be no fear and no guilt, because Christ took it all on their behalf. And so when God the Father opens the books against us on judgment day, and every sin we have ever committed is brought out, those sins will also be crossed out with red ink, or more accurately, they are crossed out with Christ’s blood. You see, in Christ, God’s justice and his mercy have kissed each other. Because he takes our punishment, we can be declared innocent and righteous. Death and judgment approach, but in Christ there is refuge. He is a strong tower for the weak. He is hope to the hopeless. He is forgiveness to the guilty. He is the bread of life, the light of life. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He is God with us. He is Immanuel, salvation to his people. He is everything, and upon him we stake all our help. Our help is in the name of the Lord, Maker of heaven and earth. We cannot be under any delusion on this point. Salvation is one hundred per cent a work of God. And that is not just talking about conversion either. He is everything and does everything. He saves us from ourselves each and every day, and he will bring us safely home. SDG. Prayer of Confession & Consecration O righteous and merciful Father, we confess that we stand guilty and exposed before your judgment, with no innocence of our own to plead and no refuge in ourselves.Yet we praise you that in Jesus Christ, the one truly righteous One, that you have offered to trade all the guilt of sinners for his blameless life. We come to you for mercy in him, please wash away the guilt of our sins with his blood. Please help us to sincerely turn from our sins, even as we commit ourselves to do it. We rest our whole hope in Christ alone, we thank you that you have provided him to be our strong tower and daily salvation. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen. Get full access to Old things New. at rcbhpastor.substack.com/subscribe

    7 min

  7. JAN 15

    Ep 132: Coming to terms with real judgment (Ecc 3:17-18).

    Pray Read: Ecc 3:16-18. Meditation In our last meditation we faced up to the hard reality that injustice exists. Now, if the average western person was writing the script, our next play would be this: injustice needs to be dealt with. Makes sense. But if we want justice, we need to realise things might not turn out how we expect. Qohelet does take us on a next step, and it seems counter-intuitive at first blush. We think: injustice exists, therefore God should stop it. But no, Solomon takes us somewhere else. Injustice exists, he says, and now the next thing you need to understand is that judgment is coming. What exactly, then, is the connection between injustice and judgment? Follow closely with Solomon’s thought in the text. In verse 17 we read, “I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work.” A day approaches, Solomon says, when God will judge the righteous and the wicked. Now straight away we want injustice and suffering to disappear, but Solomon’s answer is far better. Yes, injustice exists, but God is coming, and he is going to set things straight. Every single evil act in history will be accounted for, and punishment will be dealt out accordingly. Abusive fathers will get what is coming for them. Tyrannical dictators will answer for the ocean of blood on their hands. Even the least and most careless word will be recalled and brought up for judgment. Every mean-spirited act we have ever committed. Every selfish decision we have ever made at the cost of another person. Every failure to care for those under our charge. Every brash, callous, or cruel word we have ever spoken. Every lustful thought, every dollar stolen, every opportunity abused, every duty neglected. Every single sin in the history of the world has been recorded. And the day of judgment is coming, unstoppably, irreversibly, and with absolute certainty. Justice is coming. God will judge the righteous and the wicked. We cannot deny that injustice and suffering exist, but you can bet your life that God will make it right. He is a God of justice. And there is some consolation in that, isn’t there? All the wrongs we see in the world, people will answer for them. Even the wrongs against us. The day approaches when every single one of them will be accounted for. “Vengeance is mine,” says the Lord. So we have seen two things from Solomon. We have seen that injustice exists, and that God’s judgment is coming. But Solomon takes this one step further. The idea that judgment is coming is comforting. It is good to know everything will be made right. But it is also concerning, because everything will be made right. And that means judgment is also coming... for us. We will not be exempt. Our secret pride will be uncovered. Our pretensions, posturing, and manipulating will evaporate. No lie will work with God. There will be no hiding of the truth or blame-shifting with him. It may work with everyone else, but not with God. We will be absolutely laid bare and shown up for exactly what we are. Everything we have done in secret will be brought to light. Our secret lusts and fantasies will be flushed out of our minds and displayed. Secret motivations that we covered with smiles will be revealed. Hurtful words pretending to be caring will be shown up for what they really are. Our secret feelings of anger, hatred, and bitterness will be revealed. Everything. Think about the thing you are most ashamed of in your life. Think about the things in your that make your face burn. They will be displayed on a proverbial IMAX movie screen for everyone to see on judgment day. Judgment is coming, and with judgment comes punishment. Can you see what Solomon is doing here? He is teaching us a new approach to the problem of suffering. He is teaching us that we too are actually a cause of suffering. We are not innocent bystanders. Solomon does not seek to explain suffering away. He shows us where the blame belongs, and it is not with God. Look at verse 18: “I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts.” We have no grounds to complain about injustice, because we ourselves are the cause. We are a race of beasts. We bicker, and fight, and hate, and rage. We complain, and drink down bitterness every morning like it was coffee. We abuse people for our own ends and manipulate them to get what we want. And no one is innocent. If we are looking for an explanation as to why God permits injustice, this is one of the key reasons. He permits it to exist to show us that we are guilty and beastly. He permits it to bring us to repentance. If God simply cleared out all the injustice in the world, we would all drown like rats on a sinking ship, because we are the cause of it. In permitting injustice to exist, God is giving us opportunity to repent. So let this lesson sink in clearly. The reason injustice exists in the world today is so that you can repent. This is the truth. It really is us who are to blame. We have inflicted pain on others. We have dealt unjustly. We have abused and manipulated and hated. We have walked this world with a total orientation of selfishness. We have been beasts, not men. We have traded compassion for hard-heartedness. We have traded kindness for rudeness and harshness. We have traded patience for a quick temper and anger. We have traded love for lust, service for selfishness, and grace for greed. We are guilty. In Psalm 130 the psalmist writes, “Lord, if you should mark iniquity, who can stand?” And so we are called to see this and repent. Solomon is pretty brutal here. Brutal, but honest. He drops these severely troubling realities into our laps and then he just leaves them there. Let them do their work in your heart, and be sure to follow-up with the next meditation where we will look at the pursuit of innocence. Prayer of Confession & Consecration Get full access to Old things New. at rcbhpastor.substack.com/subscribe

    11 min

  8. JAN 8

    Ep 131: Coming to terms with injustice (Ecc 3:16).

    Pray Read: Ecc 3:16. Meditation One of the most common objections to Christianity you will ever hear is this question: If there is a God, why does he allow suffering? Nobody likes it when things hurt. Perhaps people have raised this question with you before. There are unbelievers who deny God, and then the reason they give is because they think he should not or would not allow suffering if he really existed. Maybe you’ve asked this question yourself. So what do we say? What is our answer? Why does God allow suffering? I want to reframe the question slightly. When someone says, “Why does God allow suffering?”, the assumption is that we should not have to suffer. In other words, an injustice has occurred. We are assuming that the suffering should not have happened in the first place. And so the question of suffering is, more fundamentally, a question of injustice. Solomon tackles this question head on in the Book of Ecclesiastes, and in the verse we are meditating on particularly. He doesn’t address it academically or theoretically. He takes on the question in all its grim reality. As we think of starvation in some countries, oppressive dictatorships, and things like the slave trade, this question looms large. More personally, as we consider the wrongs we have suffered at the hands of others, our faith may be tested. And so the question is there: Why does God permit suffering to exist? This is a big topic and a challenging question. In previous meditations I have likened Ecclesiastes to a labyrinth, a giant maze that is puzzling and perplexing. As Solomon addresses the problem of suffering here, we are faced with another enigma. This question leads us into a part of the labyrinth where it is easy to get lost and despair. There are many twists, turns, and dead ends when it comes to this issue. Solomon is going to lead us down a series of paths to help us understand it in the next section of chapter three, and this is a journey that we need to take to understand how we may fear God in a fallen world. In this meditation, we set out on that journey. The first thing we need to do with the problem of suffering and injustice is to admit that it is a reality, and we see this in verse 16. We need to admit that injustice is real, come to terms with it, be honest and say that it exists. A Christian cannot answer the question by pretending it’s not there. This is exactly where Solomon begins in verse 16: “Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness.” Solomon does not pull any punches or deny the truth. Injustice is a reality. We certainly see this in the world around us. Over the last hundred years (at the time of writing) we have seen the injustice of the Nazi regime, or Russia under Stalin as he robbed and oppressed his citizens. We see it in Australia today. We see the injustice of abortion. We see it on a very personal level too. In chapter 4 verse 1 Solomon says: “Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them. On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them.” There are many people crying in the world in this moment. Sex slaves and paupers, orphans with nowhere to go. There are bruised and battered women and children living under the roof of tyrannical Australian husbands and fathers. There are husbands living under the constant oppression of the sharp tongues of their wives. Perhaps you yourself have been abused in some way. Injustice is everywhere. Even something as simple as being teased by someone, even a friend, or being accused unjustly can hurt deeply. As Christians, we do not try to hide from the truth. We do not pretend that life is all roses and butterflies. One of the strengths of Ecclesiastes is that it tackles the issues of life head on. We must face up to this painful reality: there is profound suffering and continual injustice in the world today. But there is a flip-side to this coin. We ought to admit that there is injustice, but you cannot have injustice unless justice itself is both real and possible. We see this clearly in verse 16: “in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness.” There actually is a place of righteousness. But how do we know what justice really is? The answer is simple: God is the standard of justice, and he reveals that standard to us in his word. As Psalm 33:4 says, “the word of the Lord is upright.” Without the word of God, there is no standard of justice. So as soon as we confess that injustice exists, we must also affirm that God is the standard of justice. Fearing God in a fallen world does and must include a humble submission to God, and an acknowledgment that he is and has set the standard and measure of justice. If you reject God, you do not have a standard of justice. You are left with billions of different opinions about what justice is. If there were no God, injustice would not be possible, because justice itself would not be real. This insight should equip us in evangelism. An unbeliever may say that if God existed, there would be no suffering. But without God, the idea of injustice and suffering does not make sense, because there is no standard. So when a non-believer asks, “Why is there suffering and injustice in the world?”, you can respond lovingly, patiently, prayerfully, but firmly, by asking: By what standard are you measuring justice? SDG. Prayer of Confession & Consecration Get full access to Old things New. at rcbhpastor.substack.com/subscribe

    12 min
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Regular, reformed Bible devotions from scripture to go deeper with Christ. "Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” - Mt 15:32. rcbhpastor.substack.com

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    Reformed devotions from all of scripture.
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