Meditations

God the Warrior

October 1, 2019 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

Our God is a warrior. When the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, the Lord went to battle against His––and their––enemies. The ten plagues are ordered in such a way as to demonstrate that the God of the Hebrews was more powerful than any & all of the Egyptians’ most revered gods. Their gods could not keep what God had determined to deliver.

Each battle shows that what the Egyptians worshipped as a deity, was in fact no god at all. The god of the Nile, defeated. The goddess of fertility––represented as a woman with a frog’s head––defeated. The god of the earth & the goddess of the sky, defeated. And so on, until utter darkness descended on Egypt for three days, mocking their second highest god, Ra. The Lord embarrassed all their idols; He turned what they had honored as deities into the very things that brought ruination upon their land. God went to battle against His enemies, and wiped the floor with them. This contest wasn’t even close.

The final battle, the tenth plague, takes aim at Pharaoh himself. He was the embodiment of the Egyptians’ entire religious system, he was the highest of the gods. For this final showdown, the Lord commands His people to hold a feast, while He brings their captor to utter ruin.

All this should assure us of a glorious truth: God fights for us. Our enemies are defeated. Sin, the devil, the world, defeated. But they are not defeated by you or me. We feast while He fights. He conquers for us, while we enjoy the peace He wins for us. He delivers us, while we partake of the bread of His body and the wine of His blood. We remember in this meal that God delivers His people, in order to commune with His people. This is a victory feast, where we taste the spoils of the great war our King has won.

So come in faith, and welcome to Jesus…

Content in Sunshine and Shadows

September 30, 2019 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

Are you content? Does your current life arrangement gnaw away at you as you’re drifting off to sleep? Maybe you’re single and you want to be married. Maybe you’re childless and want to have children. Maybe you’re in an unpleasant job and you want something that’s a better environment and pays better. Maybe you’re sick and you want to be whole again.

Paul teaches us that godliness with contentment is great gain (1 Tim. 6:6). Knowing Christ as an all-surpassing treasure, makes the Christian able to bear all circumstances with joy and contentment.

If you have plenty, gratitude wells up. If you have little, you rejoice that in Christ You have all things. If your life has taken unexpected––and seemingly unfortunate––turns, you rest at ease in the confidence that God is sovereign over all the details of your story and is working all things, even hard providences, out for your good. If your circumstances are remarkably wonderful––good health, happy family, full tables––you can humbly receive it all from God’s hand as a gracious, undeserved gift.

Godliness is a chest full of eternal treasure. But when augmented by contentment, not only do we find delight in the glorious joys of eternity, but the ebbs and flows, the trials and triumphs of earth become a bank-vault of reasons to praise the Giver of every good and perfect gift.

So, are you faced with hard trials? Thank God for every last inch of that trial. Through it you will taste the sweetness of God’s sanctifying grace. Are you surrounded by blessings? Humbly receive those blessings, and use them to praise God. Then we can truly sing, with godly contentment, the wise words of one old hymn:

And if our dearest comforts fall before his sovereign will,
He never takes away our all – Himself he gives us still.

Hard Truths

September 3, 2019 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

The Lord’s Supper is the most joyous feast this world has ever known. It’s where sinners are welcomed into God’s home, and clothed with white robes of Christ’s righteousness, while a banner of love hovers over the whole festival. Indeed, this is a celebration. And it is not limited in scope to just a certain people group. The nations are invited.

But while the world is invited to the festal celebration, we must remember that joy and reverence preside. Sinful man would love to turn this into a meal where everyone is welcome but there are no rules, no order, no standard, and thus turn it into a feast where appetite presides. Pagan feasts of old often demonstrated this by their debauched and lecherous gluttony.

No. This feast has hard truths which fence it. We’re told in one place that eating this meal without faith, which is eating it unworthily, turns this bread and wine into damnation (1 Cor. 11:29). In another place, we’re told that if someone is living a sinful and unrepentant lifestyle we are not to eat with them (1 Cor. 5:11). When someone is formally cut off from this meal it is known as excommunication. When the church excommunicates someone it’s because they have shown that they prefer the table of sin, and thus unless and until they repent they’re no longer welcomed here.

But these hard truths don’t spoil the meal, any more than a father’s loving discipline and presence ruin a family’s supper. Rather, they ensure that the purity and peace of this celebration remain untainted. These hard truths keep the household in order so that the laughter, songs, and stories around the table might be enjoyed with clear consciences. They serve––not as an impediment––but as a fence around the fellowship of this table. These hard truths ensure that the wine we taste is joy unmingled.

So come in faith, and welcome to Jesus…

Idols Are Cheats

September 2, 2019 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

Idolatry is a vicious cycle. The worshipper defies the commandments of God to not have any other gods, and makes a graven image out of wood, gold, or some other material substance. Then there sits their idol. Cold. Lifeless. Powerless. Deaf.

If you look at the second commandment, and then notice the idols, you might quip, “They must not have gotten the memo.” But though the idol itself sits there in deaf defiance of God’s commands, something terrible is occurring to the worshipper. They are becoming just like their idol. They’ve traded the source of all being, life, and pleasure for an impotent, blind, deaf, and stupid block of stuff.

Idols are cheats. They promise joy, pleasure, and blessing. But they demand that you sacrifice your joy, pleasure, and blessings to them. They demand that you shed your blood to make them happy.

Is your idol gold? Does your life revolve around the accumulation of material wealth, such that you sacrifice your family, your peace of mind, your integrity on its altar? Is your idol power? Do you kneel to kiss the toe-ring of upward-mobility, fearing what may occur if you lose your place in the pyramid of society? Is your idol sex? Do you believe the lie that gratification of that desire is yours by right, and thus you partake of the sacrament of consuming others bodies at the price of their shame and your so-called pleasure?

If you continue to worship these idols, you will soon be dead, deaf, and dumb. They cannot offer you life. They will only cheat you out of your joy. So, topple them. Grind them to powder. Burn them to the ground. As Spurgeon once said, “Down with all idols, up with King Jesus.”

Fear’s Torment

August 27, 2019 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

Think of the “pit in your stomach” feeling you get when you are afraid. The most fearful I’ve ever been was in the days following a harrowing experience. Years ago my family was awakened in the middle of the night by a gas line exploding a hundred yards from our home. Fortunately, neither we nor our home were harmed. But for the next several days, whenever a cupboard slammed shut, or something made a loud bang, we all jumped with fright.

Fear brings torment. It leaves us miserable. It leaves us continually “on edge.” It cripples. It eats away at the inside. It foments and brews new things to fear.

However, my fright from that explosion subsided due to loving parents who took special care to let my sister and I sleep in their room for a few nights, made some special meals, and other deliberate acts of love. Their love dispelled the choking, black smoke of fear.

Sinners are innately fearful creatures. The fear of God’s impending wrath and judgement on their sin looms large. But God’s love is so great that He sent His Son to pay the price for Your sin, that He might dispel all your fear.

The Lord declares to you in this supper that you are welcome, you are beloved, you are reminded of the salvation He gives from your sins. Here is assurance that though your sin deserved His white hot wrath, because you have trusted in His Son, all you will taste is the wine of His love and the bread of His fellowship. Here is love that casts out fear. Here is God’s voice to the fearful:

“Come in faith, and welcome to Jesus…”

No Prosthetic Hands

August 26, 2019 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

Jesus commands us that, “if thy hand offend thee, cut it off (Mk 9:43).” He repeats this for the foot and eye, with the point being: take the battle against sin seriously. Better to lose limbs than let sin conquer you. Better to live free and die, than to live in slavery to sin and die spiritually.

In this room are a wide-variety of sins. The sin which you might find such a struggle to overcome might not be the sin which the person to the left of you finds they are beset by, and the person on your right could be facing some other sin entirely. But each of you need to face your sins and temptations square in the face and resolve to do whatever it takes, by the sanctifying Spirit of Christ, to resist your sins.

Confessing your sin is a sort of cutting off of your hand. It is acknowledging the wickedness of your sin, and your admission that it is vile in God’s sight. It is you separating yourself from your sin. But the routine of confessing your sins (whether in your daily walk, or at a set point in the weekly liturgy) should not be taken as a permission slip to go out and get a new hand to facilitate your sin tomorrow. Jesus didn’t say that if your hand causes you to sin cut it off but it’s ok to go get a prosthetic replacement. He didn’t say to pluck out your eye and then replace it with a robotically enhanced one.

So, confess your sin. Cut off anything which facilitates that sin you need to confess this morning. Delete that app. Leave that group of friends. Cut up your credit card. Unsubscribe from that streaming service. Don’t go to that party. Don’t hit the snooze button. In other words, make no provision for the flesh…kill it, mortify it, and triumph over it in the death and resurrection of Christ which enables you to be victorious over your sin.

Worship as Human Murmuration

August 12, 2019 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

Worship is to be a well-executed service; like a dance, a play, a high-quality restaurant, a coronation, an inauguration, a beautiful wedding. In each of these examples, thought goes into when each element happens, who does it, and how. It isn’t slapped together mindlessly. And if it is, we notice it, and sit there, squirming at the awkwardness.

This is an exhortation to know your part as we work together in worshipping our Lord. We are to be like those massive flocks of birds as they “dance” through the air with seemingly flawless execution and unity. It is an amazing thing to witness how massive flocks of birds, or schools of fish, or herds of wildebeests, comprised of thousands of members act as one unit. Those creatures are obedient to the Lord out of their instinct. They render Him praise in their own creaturely way.

But we, made in God’s image, are to render our worship to the Lord consciously. We are to be like a flock––many individuals seemingly moving as one body––but we are to do so deliberately, with determined steps, aware that we are doing so to the Praise of God’s glory.

So, say “Amen” with vigor and unity. Sing with strength and harmony. Stand, kneel, sit, listen, and lift your hands on cue, with all your might, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind. Prepare each week as individuals and families to meet with God. We ought not to stumble in mindlessly to meet with the King of kings. We ought to make ready with delighted joy, to make it clear to Him that He is worthy of all our worship, honor, and praise…because He is.

Mistaken for Jeremiah

August 5, 2019 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

Jesus asked his disciples in Matthew 16:13, “Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?” They give a few of the popular options: John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or some other OT prophet.

Now, the fact that the Jews of Jesus’ day saw continuity with those prophets is striking, and we should pause for a moment to reflect on why they made this connection. The prophets mentioned proclaimed a coming judgment on Israel. They beckoned Israel to repent and be reconciled unto God, otherwise the covenant curses would come.

The modern American caricature of Jesus makes one think of Jesus as a pony-tailed hippy, tossing frisbee like a youth pastor, spreading a message of “love and tolerance.” But this isn’t the picture you actually get from reading the Gospels, nor is it the sense that 1st century Jews got. The sense they got was that Jesus was an OT prophet, tearfully calling them to repent of their idolatry, worldliness, injustice, and compromised worship and return to worship, serve, and obey the one, true and only God.

But while Jesus’ preaching echoed Jeremiah’s warnings of destruction and exile, thus causing the confusion, He presses His disciples to answer who they say He was. Peter’s answer is, of course, the bedrock answer for our faith, “Jesus is the Christ.”

Jesus calls us today to see in Him the fulfillment of all those OT prophets. He is the promised Christ, come to bring judgement on idolaters, but offer mercy to the repentant. This meal is a fellowship meal with Him. He speaks to us here that our sin has been judged––in His own body on the tree; and we are no longer slaves or exiles, but adopted sons and daughters of the King of Israel, and thus, we are more than welcome to come feast at his board.

So come in faith, and welcome to Jesus…