10 things that are secret and 10 that are revealed

The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law. Deuteronomy 29:29
1. We do not know what will happen tomorrow and beyond but we do know that God knows and he is in control

2. We do not know when Christ will return but we do know that he is coming agai

3. We do not know who are the elect but we know they exist and we do know what elect people tend to be like after they are converted

4. We do not know how God can be sovereign and yet man is responsible but we do know both are true and we are responsible to the sovereign God

5. We do not know why one person is suffering and not another but we do know that there is a reason why a person is suffering or not suffering and God knows it

6. We do not know how God can be three and yet one or how Jesus can be both God and man but we do know that these things are true

7. We do not know how God created the world and sustains it day by day but we do know that he is the Creator and that he is in control

8. We do not know many things but we do know that everything is for God's glory and we must live with that end in view always

9. We do not know why God saves some but not others but we do know that all who trust in him are saved

10. We do not know how gloriously wonderful heaven will be or how horrible hell will be but we do know that we must reach the one and escape the other and that comes about through faith in Christ

Deuteronomy 34

I spoke on Deuteronomy 34 tonight. In the course of preparation I came across a careful paper defending the Mosaic authorship or at least defending its defensibility here. It is by Dr William D Barrick of the Master's Seminary. I thought it quite thought provoking. Dr Barrick's whole site looks interesting. See here.

Also see here.

An update

The trip back from Aber last Friday was long but uneventful. I came via Newport but just didn't have time to visit my dad. On reflection, I should have been up at 6 am not 7 am. There we are. It was imperative that I got back to London in good time as I had agreed to take the funeral of a lady (Betty Plant) who I knew from the BUPA care home I visit fortnightly. The funeral was at the Marylebone Crematorium in Finchley. There were only a handful of mourners. We wisely chose not to sing. There was a brief tribute by her grandson and a poem then I spoke briefly from Romans 6:23. Refreshments were served back at the grandson's home. One funny things was that I had heard recently that she had been to Lourdes, which made me concerned about whether she would really have wanted the sort of funeral I would do. Anyway, it turned out she was a cricket fan and the trip had been to Lord's! These occasions are not easy and I don't do them often but I feel one can just gently scatter the seed and hope for something. We had the clubs in the evening. Somehow I'd found time to prepare an Autumn quiz. Saturday was mostly taken up with preparations. However, in the morning four us headed up to Golders Green to give out a tract I'd prepared. It was called The power of God for salvation. One man tried to be clever and said he had his own power. As I pointed out that will soon run out though. In the evening we had the older young people around and I spoke from the call to remember your Creator in the days of your youth towards the end of Ecclesiastes. To make things interesting I put up some appropriate little posters, played some music (death by Ravi Shankar, young gifted and black, if I had a little time, etc) and had quizzes on age related diseases and guessing people's ages (I must replicate the latter quiz some time). Sunday was a good day as we carried on with Mark 11 and Romans 1. I had to spend a lot of time preparing in the afternoon a it has been such a busy week. The days following haven't been much less busy. On Monday there were lots of Jews about marking Yom Kippur. I was at LTS for the TSG, looking at Calvin's sermons on Acts (I only had time to read some of these beforehand but it was still worthwhile being present with the other 6 or 7 present led by Jeremy Walker. On Tuesday it was the committee for organising the next Grace Assembly, preceded by a trip to Brent Cross with my wonderful wife for a cuppa in the Krispy Kreme joint there. David Last will chair next May and Gerard Hemmings will be among the speakers. Watch this space. Then to round off Wednesday was another busy day with a trip up to the new library location in Bounds Green to help out with manning the place while the stuff that has been in storage was unloaded. Ian Densham did the lion's share as ever. In the evening we had a good turn out for the midweek meeting looking at Deuteronomy 32 and praying for GBM, etc.

A real blog

We are still committed to the idea of real blogging, which some of you certainly like. So, Wednesday, of course, was midweek meeting. I prepared during the day then slipped out in the afternoon to a nearby BUPA home where I speak from time to time. It is very difficult to make any impact as most of the residents are in quite a poor way. Anyway we try. The evening meeting was well attended (for us - that is in double figures). We have an Iranian in the congregation who is coming on Wednesdays now. He likes to pray in Farsi, which is difficult. I believe we should be able to say 'amen' so I ask him to summarise for us afterwards in English. We are learning the key words - Father, we thank you, etc. I don't want to stop him praying in Farsi as Islam will only allow Arabic and so if I say only English I seem similar. He had a friend with him this time and we hope to begin some Bible studies soon. We are going through Deuteronomy and this week we came to some of the most difficult couple of verses in the Bible (the law about a woman's hand being cut off - see Deuteronomy 25). I knew the visitor was likely to be there and so I could have left this out perhaps but I feel that we simply need to be honest. As it turned out going through Deuteronomy 24, 25 with people from the Middle East present gave things an interesting edge that would have been missing otherwise.

Thursday I was in the study for the morning then headed off, with Rhodri my son, to South Wales. En route we stopped off at a hotel near Heathrow where I'd arranged (through EP my publisher) to meet a man called Paul Butler, who is a producer for Moody Radio's magazine programme Prime Time America, which is syndicated across the USA. (His blog looks very interesting indeed). He was on his way to Uganda and wanted to interview me about two of my books, which I was glad to do. (He'd seen my video here). We found a corner in this nice hotel (it proved to be rather busy in the end) and he interviewed me on 'being born again' and on 'Proverbs'. I didn't enjoy the experience as I'm much happier in print where you can fiddle to your heart's content. When I speak. I tend to ramble a little. I'm also, on one hand, quite imprecise and, on the other, compensate sometimes by drowning my sentences in a heap of qualifications. Anyway hopefully he has enough material from the half hour to come up with two decent 8 minute pieces. We'll see. Rhodri and I then carried on our journey to Cwmbran where we were with the family for a few hours (more on that in a separate post). We were home around midnight.

Friday was set apart for more preparation for Sunday but I was quite tired and couldn't get much done. in the evening we had the regular clubs for children and young people. Numbers are up to around 15 (from 10) for the younger ones but down to under 20 (from 25) for the older ones. One of our deacons spoke (on the Pharisee and the tax collector). In the younger club they carried on with the mural they are doing and we played hockey in the hall. Gwion (just old enough for the older club) and Owain (only 8 but joined in fine) stayed with me as Eleri and Rhodri had gone to a meeting at the London Welsh School. The poet Ifor Ap Glyn was doing an evening for them. Ifor grew up in London and speaks English like a North Londoner. He has lived in North Wales for the last 20 years, however, and speaks Welsh like a gog. Eleri said it was an excellent evening with a good number present. She was in quite late so I put the boys to bed (for a change). Gwion was reading a Garfield book and so I read a book about sharks with Owain, learning that the whale shark is the biggest fish in the world and that (most) sharks must keep swimming or they'll die.

Christ our Refuge

blueletterbible.org

The Cities of Refuge were towns in ancient Israel where those guilty of manslaughter could claim the right of asylum. Outside these cities, the avenger of blood appointed by his family to avenge the killing of a family member was allowed to put such a person to death. In Scripture we read of six cities of refuge. Golan, Ramoth Gilead and Bezer were east of the Jordan, and Kedesh, Shechem and Hebron on the west. As the map above shows, most people were within a day of one or other of these places. The subject is referred to chiefly in Numbers 35, Deuteronomy 19 and Joshua 20.

Such arrangements may seem a little primitive to us but it is important to bear in mind that there is no evidence of any similar sort of arrangement in other ancient near eastern cultures. There is a degree of sophistication in Israel's approach to murder and manslaughter then and no doubt important principles of jurisprudence are contained in the idea and should shape legislation and practice in the nations of the world.

At the same time in the city of refuge we have a wonderful picture of part of what the Lord Jesus Christ does for sinners. As the Puritan Thomas Manton once put it “Christ is a believer's City of Refuge, or the alone sanctuary for distressed souls.” One 19th Century writer, a W J Armitage, so warmed to this theme that he went to town on it and wrote a book spiritualising all six cities of refuge in different ways to bring out various aspects of this truth (See here).

Without condoning all such spiritualising we ought to remember that Jesus Christ is the only refuge for sinners. The idea of God as a refuge, the one to run to in trouble, is everywhere in the Scriptures especially in the Psalms. In Psalm 2:12 we read of the Son Blessed are all who take refuge in him. The IVP Dictionary of Biblical Imagery suggests that the idea of refuge was very much informed by the existence of these cities and says that for the average Israelite provided "an image at once of safety, protection from pursuit, a renewal of life that would otherwise be doomed and a kind of salvation."

Such thoughts inform some of our hymns - Let me to Thy bosom fly ... Other refuge have I none; Let me hide myself in Thee, etc. Charles Wesley wrote this short poem on the subject

Our City of defence, to Thee, From the avenger, Lord we flee, Who in Thy Death confide; Justice divine pursues in vain The men who God Himself have slain, When sheltered in Thy side.

Jesus is indeed a city of refuge for all who flee to him. It is important then to do two things:

1. To flee to him. We are sinners. We are guilty. However, if we hide in him, we will be safe – in this case, even though we have deliberately sinned against God. He will keep us safe and we will be spared. If a person should leave the city of refuge then he had no protection. There is no protection for us outside of Christ. We must go on hiding in him. 2. Further, we must not only hide in Christ ourselves but be eager to see others saved too. Just as the cities of refuge were numerous, near to all and with good roads so we must do all we can to make Christ available to all through the preaching of the Word. They say that the roads to the cities of refuge were not only good but well signposted – that is how it must be today with regard to Christ. We must cry out to people 'This way! This way!' We must do all we can to bring them safely to Jesus. Matthew Henry says rightly (commenting on Deuteronomy 19:11-13) “It may be alluded to to show that in Jesus Christ there is no refuge for presumptuous sinners, that go on still in their trespasses. If we thus sin wilfully, sin and go on in it, there remains no sacrifice, Hebrews 10:26. Those that flee to Christ from their sins shall be safe in him, but not those that expect to be sheltered by him in their sins. Salvation itself cannot save such: divine justice will fetch them even from the city of refuge, the protection of which they are not entitled to.” The cities of Refuge were not designed to protect murderers and salvation in Christ was never designed to give sinners an excuse to go on in their sins. No, those who take refuge in him must break with their sins and be done with them. They cannot hold on to their sins. It is vital that we see that. Do we? Flee to Christ and turn from sin. One other anonymous verse I came across says

Six Refuge Cities all in one - For Christ is all in all! And they who are in Him, are where No evil can befall. But out of Him no Refuge is No other Name neath heaven To be the sinner s hiding place Hath God to mortals given.

Bio 12 Mary Rowlandson

In my reading I recently came across a reference to a book I was unaware of. Published in 1682 in America, it is called The Sovereignty and Goodness of God ... Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson.

Relatively little is known about Rowlandson (1637-1711). Wikipedia says she was a colonial American woman born Mary White in England and who lived in the frontier village of Lancaster, Massachusetts. She was the daughter of one of the town's founding fathers and she married Joseph Rowlandson in 1656. Her husband was ordained a Puritan minister in 1660. At sunrise, on February 10, 1676, during King Philip's War, the bloodiest war in American colonial history, Lancaster came under attack by a band of Naragansett Indians. She was the mother of three: Joseph, Mary and Sarah, and was among the hostages taken that day. For 11 weeks and five days she was forced to accompany her captors as they fled through the wilderness to elude the colonial militia, under what she describes as horrible conditions. In simple, artless prose she recounts the stages of the odyssey in 20 distinct "Removes" or journeys. She witnessed the murder of her friends, the death of one of her children, and suffered starvation and depression, until she was finally reunited with her husband. On May 2, 1676, she was ransomed for £20 raised by the women of Boston in a public subscription, and paid by John Hoar of Concord at Redemption Rock in Princeton.
During her captivity, Mary's youngest child, Sarah, died, while the remaining two were separated from her; nevertheless, Rowlandson continued to seek guidance from the Bible - the text of her narrative is replete with verses and references describing conditions similar to her own. She saw her trial as a test of faith and considered the "Indians" to be "instruments of Satan". Her final escape, she tells us, taught her "the more to acknowledge His hand and to see that our help is always in Him."
Until recently, it has been assumed that she died before her narrative was published. However, more recent historical research indicates that Mary Rowlandson re-married after the death of her husband and lived as Mary Talcott till January 1711, thus reaching an age of approximately 73 years.
The book, however, not only became one of the era's best-sellers, going through four editions in one year, but also earned her an important place in the history of American literature. Her book is a frequently-cited example of a captivity narrative, an important American literary genre used by James Fennimore Cooper, Ann Bleecker, John Williams and James Seaver. Because of Rowlandson's intimate relationship with her Indian captors, her book also is interesting for its treatment of cultural contact. Finally, in its use of autobiography, typology, and in its homage to the Jeremiad, Rowlandson's book helps the reader understand the Puritan mind.

A tough-minded, independent woman, she never lost her faith in God while dwelling in a "lively semblance of hell." A modern writer has said "Her voice is singular — one of the first strong voices of a woman writing about her experience in North America — and her memoir became a model for later writers, who often wrote about periods of crisis that were also times of spiritual transformation." Below is the extract that struck me. There is more here.

By their noise and hooping they signified how many they had destroyed (which was at that time 23) those that were with us at home, were gathered together as soon as they heard the hooping, and every time that the other went over their number, these at home gave a shout, that the very earth rang again. And thus they continued till those that had been upon the expedition were come up to the Saggamor's wigwam; and then, oh the hideous, insulting and triumphing that there was over some English mens scalps, that they had taken (as their manner is) and brought with them. I cannot but take notice of the wonderful mercy of God to me in those afflictions, in sending me a Bible: One of the Indians that came from Medfield fight, and had brought some plunder, came to me, and asked me if I would have a Bible, he had got one in his basket, I was glad of it, and asked him if he thought the Indians would let me read? He answered 'yes' so I took the Bible, and in that melancholy time it came into my mind to read first the 28th Chapter of Deuteronomy, which I did, and when I had read it, my dark heart wrought on this manner, that there was no mercy for me, that the blessings were gone, and the curses came in their room, and that I had lost my opportunity. But the Lord helped me still to go on reading, till I came to Chapter 30, the seven first verses; where I found there was mercy promised again, if we would return to him, by repentance; and though we were scattered from one end of the earth to the other, yet the Lord would gather us together, and turn all those curses upon our enemies. I do not desire to live to forget this Scripture, and what comfort it was to me.

Like a river

"People say I'm like a river - cos I'm never standing still". That's a line from an old ATF hit. No-one's ever said I'm like a river but I do feel like one sometimes. Life is so busy at times. Today (Thursday) hasn't been so bad but yesterday I had three meetings - two in old people's homes that I take fortnightly plus our regular midweek meeting in the church, where we looked at the first commandment from Deuteronomy 5. Work with old people is not easy especially the second lot where there is little sign of comprehension. There are some encouragements though. The other week a lady from Monserrat prayed beautifully when asked. Then this week a Jewish man asked why it is called Good Friday and I directed him to Isaiah 53 which he seemed not to know. In between the two meetings I was reading the Raymond Franz book I have mentioned. I saw two JWs on the corner so I showed them what I was reading - although they didn't want to know. Just then a Jewish lady turned up. She's always giving me things. She had a load of kosher soap in her car, which she said could be used in the church. I didn't even know soap could be kosher!

The day before (Tuesday) had been quite busy too. I'd forgotten that I'd arranged to meet the LIP church planters down in Covent Garden. I remembered in time to get there late. We have a regular pastoral meeting where we can discuss things. Then in the evening we had a rather poorly attended Christianity Explored meeting and a better attended planning meeting for the Holiday Bible Club we hope to have in April.

The day before (Monday) I was down at the Evangelical Library to hear Professor Helm's talk on Packer's "Fundamentalism" and the Word of God. I discovered that I do have a copy but unread. It first came out in 1958 and I guess I was advised to get a copy (mine was printed in the USA in 1977) by someone in the previous generation. It is a stout defence of Reformed theology which was very much under attack at the time in connection with the Billy Graham meetings. Professor Helm felt that Packer probably hadn't shifted in his theology but certainly has in his tactics and approach. We had a decent number there. It's me next month on Baxter's Call to the unconverted. Anyway must dash, I'm taking a church member to hospital now. He's in for a day or two.