Weekly Links (12/19/2014)

To take up your cross does not mean to move forward with courage despite the fact you lost your job or your spouse. It means you are under sentence of death; you are taking up the horizontal cross-member on your way to the place of crucifixion. You have abandoned all hope of life in this world. And then, Jesus says, and only then, are we ready to follow him.

(D.A. Carson, Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus)

by Cesar Vigil-Ruiz

Feliz Friday! Here are your week’s links:

That’s all for this week! May God be honored in the growth of understanding of His Word, and our hearts more and more amazed at His sovereign grace.

Soli Deo Gloria

Jesus Was Older than He Looked

by Roger Alcaraz

Here in our college ministry, we’ve been looking at Jesus’ earthly ministry in the book of John. I’ve been most impressed with Jesus’ radical teaching and his amazing love. But what was Jesus’ ministry before he took on flesh? After all, John 1:1 says that Jesus was in the beginning, which begs the question, “What was he doing up to the earthly birth?

Jesus Visits Moses

In Exodus 3:6, it’s clear that God is the one speaking to Moses when he says, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Then when Moses asks God about who he should say sent him, God responds, “I am who I am, tell them I am has sent you.”

I bring this up to show that Jesus is claiming to be the one who spoke from the burning bush. Exodus 3:2 states, “the angel of the LORD appeared to him in the flame of fire out of the midst of the bush.” There is no distinction between the angel of the LORD and God himself. Some argue that an angel came with God in the bush, so that the angel could get Moses’ attention and then God would speak to him. The problem is that there’s no account of God entering the bushes and we see no interaction between the angel and God that we would expect between two separate persons. The natural conclusion is that the angel of the LORD and the LORD himself are seen as separate in person but equal in their nature.

This mirrors the proximity of Jesus and God the Father when Jesus declares that he and the Father are one (John 10:30). Again, he wants himself and the Father to be seen as one and the same. If it were Jesus who appeared to Moses, then perhaps he was involved in the lives of others throughout the OT.

Jesus its Jacob and Manoah

In Genesis 32:26-30 Jacob wrestles with God whom he initially thinks is a man. By the end of the encounter Jacob says, “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” The passage is particularly interesting when looked at along with Judges 13:15-23 where we read about the angel of the Lord appearing to Manoah and his wife. They also initially think he is a man.

You can read the accounts on your own, but to summarize the main similarities: a man appears to both Jacob and Manoah; the man blesses both Jacob and Manoah; afterward, both Jacob and Manoah ask for his name; the man responds to both, “Why do you ask?” Then both realize they should have died because they just saw God.

If we consider the possibility that the angel here were Jesus, then why didn’t he say he was Jesus? After all, he was asked by both for his very name—a perfect opportunity to reveal himself in the Old Testament.

Still, if the angel simply said, “Why do you ask?” then perhaps he just wanted to avoid being worshiped. But the angel added, “…seeing it is wonderful?” (Pene in Hebrew). The only other time this word is used is in Psalm 139:6 when the Psalmist writes about the LORD’s knowledge being too pene to grasp. So the word has the idea of being incomprehensible or being secret, which helps us understand the angel’s response as saying “…seeing it is beyond understanding?” This is how some English translations take it. What a strange response to give. Certainly if this were a man or an angel trying to deny worship, he would not consider himself pene.

So what does it mean that the angel of the LORD’s name was beyond understanding or secret? For this we turn to Ephesians 3:4-5 where Paul writes about “…the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.” The subject here is the mystery of Christ, specifically, that Christ would save Gentiles (v. 6), but part of keeping the ministry of Christ a secret was to veil the person of Christ as well. Therefore, the reason that the angel of the LORD did not reveal himself was because it was not his time to.

Jesus Acts as a Link

This doesn’t mean that every time the angel of the LORD is used in the OT that it is referring to Jesus. It might be the case that every manifestation of God was, in fact, Jesus but some accounts of God’s appearance don’t give us enough detail to know for sure. I could mention other accounts where Christ is seen in the OT, like the mention of two LORDs (Genesis 23:24), or when he visits Joshua (Joshua 5:13-15), or when Isaiah sees a vision of Jesus (Isaiah 6:1-6; John 12:41). But the point isn’t only just to show that Jesus appeared to different people but to see what role he played in the OT.

In essence, Christ was providing a link between transcendent God and man. The OT saints longed for the day they could see God’s face, but at the same time, they were rightfully afraid because no one can see God’s face and live. When Christ appeared to individuals, he revealed a bit of who God is, but it was always incomplete and they couldn’t explain how it is that the infinitely glorious God could be in their presence for them to behold. The answer is Jesus.

For it was in Jesus’ earthly ministry when Jesus makes it plain that “whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:8). Paul adds that “Jesus is the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). These statements aren’t just true of Jesus in the NT but also the OT. So what did Jacob, Manoah, and others like Abraham, David, Isaiah see? They saw the image of the invisible God. They saw the Father. But they saw Him in the second person of the Trinity.

Jesus has always been mankind’s visible access to invisible God and when he showed himself to OT saints, it was a foreshadow of the incarnation. For they knew they were looking at God and yet didn’t know how. Now, because of Jesus’ incarnation, death, and resurrection, we can know God more intimately than ever, even more than all of the OT saints.

How often do we take the revelation of Christ in the NT for granted? If anything, we should be reading about Christ every day and drawing nearer to God, having a greater access to him than even Moses did. We also take hope in the future because even with Christ bringing us to God, there are some things we still long for, like being ushered into glory where we will be in the presence of God the Father, Son, and Spirit in the fullest way possible.

The Amen

by Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Revelation 3:14

The word AMEN solemnly confirms that which went before; and Jesus is the great Confirmer; immutable, for ever is ‘the Amen’ in all His promises. Sinner, I would comfort thee with this reflection. Jesus Christ said, ‘Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ If you come to Him, He will say ‘Amen’ in your soul; His promise shall be true to you. He said in the days of His flesh, ‘The bruised reed I will not break.’ O thou poor, broken, bruised heart, if thou comest to Him, He will say ‘Amen’ to thee, and that shall be true in thy soul as in hundreds of cases in bygone years. Christian, is not this very comforting to thee also, that there is not a word which has gone out of the Saviour’s lips which He has ever retracted? The words of Jesus shall stand when heaven and earth shall pass away. If thou gettest a hold of but half a promise, thou shalt find it true. Beware of him who is called ‘Clip-promise,’ who will destroy much of the comfort of God’s word.

Jesus is Yea and Amen in all His offices. He was a Priest to pardon and cleanse once, He is Amen as Priest still. He was a King to rule and reign for His people, and to defend them with His mighty arm, He is an Amen King, the same still. He was a Prophet of old, to foretell good things to come, His lips are most sweet, and drop with honey still-He is an Amen Prophet. He is Amen as to the merit of His blood; He is Amen as to His righteousness. That sacred robe shall remain most fair and glorious when nature shall decay. He is Amen in every single title which He bears; your Husband, never seeking a divorce; your Friend, sticking closer than a brother; your Shepherd, with you in death’s dark vale; your Help and your Deliverer; your Castle and your High Tower; the Horn of your strength, your confidence, your joy, your all in all, and your Yea and Amen in all.

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Weekly Links (12/12/2014)

To the degree that you have based your life on something other than the Lord, to that degree God’s love and the hope of the gospel will not comfort you. You will not be comforted because you are hungry for another kind of bread. You long for a king who will give you the bread you crave. The bread might be a relationship, circumstance, or position. It might be human love and respect, the desire for vengeances, or a certain economic state. It literally can be anything in creation! But there are only two types of bread: Christ, the living bread, and everything else. We set our hearts either on him or something else. (Paul Tripp, War of Words)

by Cesar Vigil-Ruiz

Feliz Friday! I pray your week has been filled with seeking the Lord in the Word and in prayer. Before the week ends, however, I pray you will be helped by this week’s links.

  • Dallas Theological Seminary professor and textual critic Daniel Wallace writes of lexical fallacies that linguists typically make, which has a lot to do with how we interpret (or misinterpret) Scripture. You might want to bookmark this, so you don’t make the same mistakes.
  • Joe Carter continues his series in apologetics and worldview analysis with an explanation of the moral argument for God’s existence. He highlights a new video from former sociopath, now apologist for the faith, David Wood. This video powerfully and deftly explains the power of the Gospel in turning someone fully and unashamedly rebellious towards God to now a lover and defender of God. WARNING: This video contains gritty details of Mr. Wood’s past, so discretion is advised.
  • What are the moments in parenting that radically change the way you view raising your children? Listen in as three moms explain their paradigm-shifting moments that have caused them to realign their view of motherhood with God’s.
  • Though posted a couple weeks back, Bob Somerville, professor at The Master’s College, wrote a book on the issue of Christians who get depressed. He gives a great interview with ACBC Executive Director, Heath Lambert.
  • Fred Butler has written a short comparison between classical/evidential apologetics (the most popular forms of defending the Christian faith) and presuppositional apologetics (the method advocated by Cornelius Van Til, Greg Bahnsen, James White, and, I would add, Scripture). If you have any interest in learning how to defend the faith, you will gain much from learning the distinctions between these two.
  • From a previous Weekly Links post, I mentioned the current attack on Jesus that was coming out in the form of a documentary from Simcha Jacobovici. New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham has written a thorough response to the claims made in the corresponding book, which can be accessed here. This is certainly an opportunity to speak truth in a culture that is bent on finding reasons to disbelieve. Let’s seize it for God’s glory!
  • Christian theologian and philosopher professor James Anderson wrote an article on worldviews in Ligonier’s monthly magazine, TableTalk. Short, sweet, and to the point.
  • John Piper wrote an insightful post for college students that would do them good: “Don’t Waste Your University Years.“
  • When working at a new job, or even if you’ve been at a certain position for a time, usually training is required for you to be more effective at what you do, or to learn new skills for future projects. When it comes to training in Christ, what does that look like? And why do people seem to shy away from it? Phil Colgan believes it to be viewing training as skill development, and not for a life of godliness and service. I really appreciated this article, and think you will too.
  • What are the benefits of sitting under expository preaching (making the point of a passage in Scripture the point of the sermon), the kind of preaching Lighthouse regularly sits under? Eric Davis at The Cripplegate gives us seven reasons, and if you are in any doubt about this type of preaching, let this post influence and encourage you in your time with us.

That’s all for this week! Looking forward to worshiping together as a church family, and continuing to anticipate the celebration of the birth of our Savior!

Soli Deo Gloria

Book Review: Confessions of a Boy-Crazy Girl

by Kristen Lim

The season of life encompassing junior high and high school can be a tumultuous time of peer pressure, identity crises, and raging hormones. Youth-age girls have the label of being boy-crazy, but I would venture to say that many post-youth single women are boy-crazy as well. To all these single ladies (young and old) I ask, are you boy-crazy? Here are some questions to help determine the answer to that question: Do you believe you’d finally be completely happy if you had a boyfriend? Do you often pick out your wardrobe with the motivation to catch guys’ eyes? Do you change your plans or schedule just so that you can “coincidentally” cross paths with a guy you like? Are you always trying to analyze the behavior of guys to figure out if he likes you? Then according to Paula Hendricks, the author of Confessions of a Boy-Crazy Girl, you are boy-crazy and this book is for you.

Hendricks invites readers to take a peek into her past journal entries describing her experiences with guys and witness how God transformed her heart and life over the years to submit to Christ as Lord of her life, especially in the area of romantic relationships. Hendricks helps her fellow sisters in the faith to flee idolizing prospective boyfriends by renewing the mind with Scripture (Rom 12:2) and holding fast to the truth that God’s plan for each of His children is good (Rom 8:28).

So, what’s so wrong about being boy-crazy? It seems that our culture celebrates and encourages girls to gossip about their crushes and do whatever it takes to garner a guy’s attention. As sinners saved by the grace of God, we should not continue to walk in the ways of the world, but rather walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:16) and search Scripture to gain a better understanding of who God is and what He values in order to better reflect His glory in our lives.

God is intimately involved in the lives of His children and wants us to love Him with our whole heart, soul, and mind (Matt 22:37). The first commandment even asserts that we are not to have any other gods before Him (Deut 5:7). Granted, you may not have a little statue in your home that you bow down to, but is having a relationship an idol in your heart? Hendricks defines an idol as “something that, without it, you think you’ll face a ‘hell’—your own personal version of torment and pain” (Hendricks 19). Consider Christ. “And He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed” (1 Pet 2:24). While we were still dead in our sins and trespasses, Christ died for us. We are saved from the wrath of God through faith in Christ. We have peace with our Creator through faith in Christ. We have eternal life through faith in Christ. This is the glorious gospel that should bring us to our knees and cause us to have the same mindset as Paul: “I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ” (Phil 3:8).

Recognizing the idol of a relationship is a critical first step, but the mere acknowledgement of this doesn’t mean it will go away. If you pray that God would do whatever it takes to be free from an idol, and that He would be first in your heart and life, He will be faithful to answer that prayer, though the task is not easy. Jesus emphasized the serious nature of sin, metaphorically going to the extent of cutting off one’s hand if it causes one to sin. He isn’t promoting self-mutilation, but rather describing the intensity and urgency in removing temptations from your life so that you would sin no more. What might this look like in relationships? Maybe staying away from listening to love songs if that sparks thoughts of discontent in your current love life. Maybe abstaining from stalking a guy’s Facebook page. Maybe not watching romantic movies. Beware of legalism and casting judgment on those that may do these activities. The point is for you to refrain from things that easily tempt you to sin (Hendricks 36).

Girls can fall into the trap of being overly consumed with beauty and outward appearance all for the sake of catching the eyes of guys. Every part of our life should be worship to God, even how we dress and choose to behave. “The way you present yourself can either discredit your God in others’ minds or draw them to Him” (Hendricks 46). This is not to say that girls should just wear potato sacks and be unfashionable, but the principle lies in loving God and people, to look out for others’ best interest and their undistracted worship of God.

We can perpetuate boy-craziness in the thought-life. What do you allow yourself to think about?

Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny. (Author unknown)

Too many times we allow our thoughts to run rampant without any awareness that it is a breeding ground to make idols if not actively trained to dwell on what is “true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, or praiseworthy” (Phil 4:8). The current culture is a circus of unbiblical worldviews that can poison the mind and heart with lies. It’s important to be a diligent student of God’s word and be grounded on the solid foundation of God’s never-failing promises. Having thoughts saturated in God’s truth will cause you to see life from His eternal perspective and sovereignty, even the parts of life involving love interests. As Augustine defines God’s providence: “everything that happens does so because God wills it to happen, wills it to happen before it happens, wills it to happen in the way it happens” (Hendricks 131).

Ultimately the key to killing the idols of one’s heart is to invest time in relishing God and learning to treasure Him above all else. So at the end of the day, it is not wrong to pray for marriage or other non-sinful desires. Looking at the example of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, He prayed three times to have the cup of imminent death removed from Him, but He always adds, “not as I will, but as you will. Your will be done” (Matt 26:39). There is a balance of expressing desires to God and also surrendering to His good and sovereign plan for our life. “Will you die to your own small (but dear!) dreams in order to allow God to display His awesome power through your life?” (Hendricks 138).

I’ll leave you with the refrain from “Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus”:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace. (Helen H. Lemmel)

May this be the anthem of your hearts, dear sisters in Christ.

Behold, The Veil Of The Temple Was Rent In Twain From The Top To The Bottom

by Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Matthew 27:51

No mean miracle was wrought in the rending of so strong and thick a veil; but it was not intended merely as a display of power-many lessons were herein taught us.

  • The old law of ordinances was put away, and like a worn-out vesture, rent and laid aside. When Jesus died, the sacrifices were all finished, because all fulfilled in Him, and therefore the place of their presentation was marked with an evident token of decay.
  • That rent also revealed all the hidden things of the old dispensation: the mercy-seat could now be seen, and the glory of God gleamed forth above it. By the death of our Lord Jesus we have a clear revelation of God, for He was ‘not as Moses, who put a veil over his face.’ Life and immortality are now brought to light, and things which have been hidden since the foundation of the world are manifest in Him.
  • The annual ceremony of atonement was thus abolished. The atoning blood which was once every year sprinkled within the veil, was now offered once for all by the great High Priest, and therefore the place of the symbolical rite was broken up. No blood of bullocks or of lambs is needed now, for Jesus has entered within the veil with his own blood.
  • Hence access to God is now permitted, and is the privilege of every believer in Christ Jesus. There is no small space laid open through which we may peer at the mercy-seat, but the rent reaches from the top to the bottom. We may come with boldness to the throne of the heavenly grace. Shall we err if we say that the opening of the Holy of Holies in this marvellous manner by our Lord’s expiring cry was the type of the opening of the gates of paradise to all the saints by virtue of the Passion? Our bleeding Lord hath the key of heaven; He openeth and no man shutteth; let us enter in with Him into the heavenly places, and sit with Him there till our common enemies shall be made His footstool.

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Weekly Links (12/5/2014)

“How could we not be storytellers? We worship God the writer, God the written, and God the reader. How could we not create? We are created in God’s image, and he creates. He created us so that we would do this. He came down into our world to show us how it is done; his name is Immanuel. God loves cliffhangers. He loves nailbiters. On the mount of the Lord it will be provided. Exile and return stories are everywhere. So are death and resurrection stories. So are the elder-shall-serve-the-younger stories. And the whole thing will come together at the last day, as promised in Romans 8:28, with trillions of plot points all resolved and no remainder. And the great throng gathered before the throne will cry out, with a voice like many waters, saying, ‘That was the best story we ever heard’” (Douglas Wilson, The Romantic Rationalist).

by Stephen Rodgers

My apologies for the lateness of the ‘links. The Rodgers’ household has been a comedy of errors the last couple days. But, it’s Friday…and free stuff! So it’s all good.

(I’m going to call this the “how then shall we read?” edition, because I think that’s hilarious.)

  • Christianaudio.com’s free book of the month is The Dawning of Indestructible Joy by John Piper. You should get it. ‘Tis the Season.
  • Logos’ free book of the month is Opening Up Genesis by Kurt Strassner. I don’t know much about this one for good or for ill. If you read it before I do, let me know.
  • The December edition of Tabletalk magazine is out, under the title of “Who Do You Say I AM?” Their archive of past issues can be found here, and my own attempt at getting them all in one place can be found here. Either are worth a look; pick whichever you prefer.
  • Credo Magazine has a new issue on the topic of prayer. And if you like their, past issues can be found here.
  • Themelios issue 39.3 is out and available for download. If you still have time to read through their back issues from the last couple decades…you can find the archive here.
  • And last but not least, it looks like the crew at 9Marks is rebranding / redesigning their eJournal website. My attempt at organizing their back issues can be found here.

Alright everyone, see you Sunday!

Pro Rege

Children’s Ministry Is Like Football*

by Ryan McAdams

* You probably know the sport as “soccer.”

Visit a youth soccer (football, from now on) match of your choosing on any given Saturday, and you’ll likely hear coaches barking instructions like stay back, Tanner, you’re a defender! or kick it up front! Once they’ve moved beyond the all-bunch-around-the-ball stage, you’ll see the kids find a certain sense of comfort in the position to which the coaches assign them, to the point that a kid will rarely leave the general zone of his position. (Many in and outside of the United States have pointed to this as a major flaw in the United States’s youth soccer development system.) In fact, the early development of the sport of football would also look this way, too, with two or three defenders, and up to eight forwards on one side of the pitch (field), and the same match-up in reverse on the other side, with the defenders desperately trying to kick the ball to the other side of the field, and nobody running in between.

But, in the early 1970s, while football had advanced to include midfielders, the Netherlands, under visionary coach Rinus Michaels began to introduce a concept in their play, which they named “Total Football.” They thought that every member of the team should have the ability to play in any position on the pitch. For the old positionally rigid teams, this would pose a problem when one of the Dutch defenders decided that he saw an opportunity and took off down the field to join the other attackers. Additionally, nobody expected defenders to have any skill in dribbling or passing, but opposing teams found that with these skills, the Dutch could keep the ball almost indefinitely. Indeed, this philosophy reached its zenith in the 1974 World Cup Final, where the Dutch scored their first goal after about a minute of play, and the Germans hadn’t touched the ball once. You may think, I don’t remember the Dutch winning a World Cup, and you’d be right – they actually lost that match 2-1, with most observers claiming that the Dutch simply had more interest in passing and playing with the ball than scoring after that first goal.

But, the reality is that certain players do have certain strengths and weaknesses, and so you have many present-day teams which have adopted part of the philosophy of Total Football without completely abandoning the idea of distinct roles. One of the major tenets of Total Football which helped to cement its legacy was the way in which the teams adjusted and viewed space. In the scenario I previously described, a defender who saw an opening would join the attackers, but this only initiated a chain reaction of sorts. Ideally, the other ten players on his team would understand his intention, know where he was and where he was going, and adjust to cover the space he vacated in the defense. The entire team would adapt to the situation and support each other in the common goal of scoring and preventing scoring from their opponents. Forwards would run back to help in defense if an opposing player began to break away, or wide defenders would run forward along the sidelines into open space to give their attacking players another passing option.

And this brings us to Children’s Ministry. Like football, Children’s Ministry (or any ministry, really) can crystallize into a specific routine, like the message and post-message discussions happen first hour, and singing and activity happen second hour. (Coincidentally, this approximates our Sonlight elementary school ministry schedule.) This schedule has nothing inherently wrong in it, but we can focus so much on our position/routine that we neglect the goal of our ministry. Those of us who serve in the Children’s Ministry and the children’s parents work on a team to instill God’s Word in the children’s hearts. Just like most modern-day clubs take ideas from Total Football, yet still retain the sense of positions, God has very clearly given the parents the primary role of shepherding their children, and the children’s ministries must work to support the parents in their shepherding.

To this end, as the Sonlight ministry, we must have the flexibility to adapt to the changing needs of our parents and abilities of our staff. So, if the first-hour message and second-hour singing and crafts helps the parents teach God’s word to their children best, then we keep it. But, if not, we must have the humility to move into other space and try different things. We facilitate communication lines between the parents and staff so that we can work together for their children’s edification, and so that we as the staff can understand the parents’ intentions and situations and fit ourselves to the current state of the playing field. This may lead to Sonlight looking radically different from one year to the next while always instructing the children in God’s word. But if Sonlight is simply responding to the new set of children and changing needs of the parents, then that difference should not cause concern. Rather, show concern if Sonlight never changes.

And Thou Saidst, I Will Surely Do Thee Good

by Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Genesis 32:12

When Jacob was on the other side of the brook Jabbok, and Esau was coming with armed men, he earnestly sought God’s protection, and as a master reason he pleaded, ‘And Thou saidst, I will surely do thee good.’ Oh, the force of that plea! He was holding God to His word-‘Thou saidst.’ The attribute of God’s faithfulness is a splendid horn of the altar to lay hold upon; but the promise, which has in it the attribute and something more, is a yet mightier holdfast-‘Thou saidst, I will surely do thee good.’ And has He said, and shall He not do it? ‘Let God be true, and every man a liar.’ Shall not He be true? Shall He not keep His word? Shall not every word that cometh out of His lips stand fast and be fulfilled?

Solomon, at the opening of the temple, used this same mighty plea. He pleaded with God to remember the word which He had spoken to his father David, and to bless that place. When a man gives a promissory note, his honour is engaged; he signs his hand, and he must discharge it when the due time comes, or else he loses credit. It shall never be said that God dishonours His bills. The credit of the Most High never was impeached, and never shall be. He is punctual to the moment: He never is before His time, but He never is behind it.

Search God’s word through, and compare it with the experience of God’s people, and you shall find the two tally from the first to the last. Many a hoary patriarch has said with Joshua, ‘Not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you; all are come to pass.’ If you have a divine promise, you need not plead it with an ‘if,’ you may urge it with certainty. The Lord meant to fulfil the promise, or He would not have given it. God does not give His words merely to quiet us, and to keep us hopeful for awhile with the intention of putting us off at last; but when He speaks, it is because He means to do as He has said.

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