Time - The Currency of Heaven

Jonathan Edwards on loitering:

How little is the preciousness of time considered, and how little sense of it do the greater part of mankind seem to have! And to how little good purpose do many spend their time! There is nothing more precious, and yet nothing of which men are more prodigal.

Time is with many, as silver was in the days of Solomon, as the stones of the street, and nothing accounted of. They act as if time were as plenty as silver was then, and as if they had a great deal more than they needed, and knew not what to do with it. If men were as lavish of their money as they are of their time, if it were as common a thing for them to throw away their money, as it is for them to throw away their time, we should think them beside themselves, and not in the possession of their right minds. Yet time is a thousand times more precious than money; and when it is gone, cannot be purchased for money, cannot be redeemed by silver or gold. — There are several sorts of persons who are reproved by this doctrine, whom I shall particularly mention.

First, those who spend a great part of their time in idleness, or in doing nothing that turns to any account, either for the good of their souls or bodies; nothing either for their own benefit, or for the benefit of their neighbor, either of the family or of the body-politic to which they belong. There are some persons upon whose hands time seems to lie heavy, who, instead of being concerned to improve it as it passes, and taking care that it pass not without making it their own, act as if it were rather their concern to contrive ways how to waste and consume it; as though time, instead of being precious, were rather a mere encumbrance to them. Their hands refuse to labor, and rather than put themselves to it, they will let their families suffer, and will suffer themselves. Pro. 19:15, “An idle soul shall suffer hunger.” Pro. 23:21, “Drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.”

Some spend much of their time at the tavern, over their cups, and in wandering from house to house, wasting away their hours in idle and unprofitable talk which will turn to no good account. Pro. 14:23, “In all labour there is profit; but the talk of the lips tendeth only to poverty.” The direction of the apostle, in Eph. 4:28 is, that we should “labour, working with our hands the thing that is good, that we may have to give to him that needeth.” But indolent men, instead of gaining anything to give to him that needeth, do but waste what they have already. Pro. 18:9, “He that is slothful in his work, is brother to him that is a great waster.”

Second, they are reproved by this doctrine who spend their time in wickedness, who do not merely spend their time in doing nothing to any good purpose, but spend it to ill purposes. Such do not only lose their time, but they do worse; with it they hurt both themselves and others. — Time is precious, as we have heard, because eternity depends upon it. By the improvement of time, we have opportunity of escaping eternal misery, and obtaining eternal blessedness. But those who spend their time in wicked works, not only neglect to improve their time to obtain eternal happiness, or to escape damnation, but they spend it to a quite contrary purpose, viz. to increase their eternal misery, or to render their damnation the more heavy and intolerable.

Some spend much time in reveling, and in unclean talk and practices, in vicious company-keeping, in corrupting and ensnaring the minds of others, setting bad examples, and leading others into sin, undoing not only their own souls, but the souls of others. Some spend much of their precious time in detraction and backbiting; in talking against others; in contention, not only quarreling themselves, but fomenting and stirring up strife and contention. It would have been well for some men, and well for their neighbors, if they had never done anything at all. For then they would have done neither good nor hurt. But now they have done a great deal more hurt than they have done or ever will do good. There are some persons whom it would have been better for the towns where they live, to have at the charge of maintaining them in doing nothing, if that would have kept them in a state of inactivity.

Those who have spent much of their time in wickedness, if ever they shall reform, and enter upon a different mode of living, will find, not only that they have wasted the past, but that they have made work for their remaining time, to undo what they have done. How will many men, when they shall have done with time, and shall look back upon their past lives, wish that they had no time! The time which they spend on earth will be worse to them than if they had spent so much time in hell. For an eternity of more dreadful misery in hell will be the fruit of their time on earth, as they employ it.

Third, those are reproved by this doctrine, who spend their time only in worldly pursuits, neglecting their souls. Such men lose their time, let them be ever so diligent in their worldly business. And though they may be careful not to let any of it pass so, but that it shall some way or other turn to their worldly profit. They that improve time only for their benefit in time, lose it; because time was not given for itself, but for that everlasting duration which succeeds it. — They, therefore, whose time is taken up in caring and laboring for the world only, in inquiring what they shall eat, and what they shall drink, and wherewithal they shall be clothed; in contriving to lay up for themselves treasure upon earth, how to enrich themselves, how to make themselves great in the world, or how to live in comfortable and pleasant circumstances, while here; who busy their minds and employ their strength in these things only, and the stream of whose affections is directed towards these things; they lose their precious time.

Let such, therefore, as have been guilty of thus spending their time, consider it. You have spent a great part of your time, and a great part of your strength, in getting a little of the world; and how little good doth it afford you, now you have gotten it! What happiness or satisfaction can you reap from it?

Will it give you peace of conscience, or any rational quietness or comfort? What is your poor, needy, perishing soul the better for it? And what better prospects doth it afford you of your approaching eternity? And what will all that you have acquired avail you when time shall be no longer?

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If you have liked this, you can also read Jonathan Edwards on Empiricism

Hezekiah and his faith

In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah. And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that David his father had done. He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan). He trusted in the LORD the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. (2Ki 18:1-5)

Hezekiah was one of the faithful kings of Judah during the time of Old Testament. He was described as the best of all the kings who ruled Judah. What made him so great? Let us look further and see how faithful he was during his era.

Hezekiah understood the gospel:

"O people of Israel, return to the LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, that he may turn again to the remnant of you who have escaped from the hand of the kings of Assyria. Do not be like your fathers and your brothers, who were faithless to the LORD God of their fathers, so that he made them a desolation, as you see. Do not now be stiff-necked as your fathers were, but yield yourselves to the LORD and come to his sanctuary, which he has consecrated forever, and serve the LORD your God, that his fierce anger may turn away from you. For if you return to the LORD, your brothers and your children will find compassion with their captors and return to this land. For the LORD your God is gracious and merciful and will not turn away his face from you, if you return to him." (2Ch 30:6-9)

If we look into the context in which Hezekiah became the king, we can see that Judah was in spiritual shambles. His predecessors were doing evil in the sight of the Lord. They were worshipping idols and were defaming God to such an extent that his father’s sin was much greater than a pagan. Yet, Hezekiah was faithful to God. He understood that he needed forgiveness from the Holy and righteous Sovereign God who controls everything in this universe. He rightly understood that the reason for the failures of his empire was the faithlessness of the people and sinfulness of his fathers. So he sought for the true forgiveness from God which is possible not by sacrifices but through broken heart and repentance. With this change in heart, he called for repentance of his people.

When people hear the true gospel, it always involves in action. History proves that. From the toppling of evil Roman Empire to the deliverance from the superstitions of Catholic Church, true Christians showed that true gospel produces actions radical to the course of the history.

Effects of repentance:

"Hear me, Levites! Now consecrate yourselves, and consecrate the house of the LORD, the God of your fathers, and carry out the filth from the Holy Place. For our fathers have been unfaithful and have done what was evil in the sight of the LORD our God. They have forsaken him and have turned away their faces from the habitation of the LORD and turned their backs. They also shut the doors of the vestibule and put out the lamps and have not burned incense or offered burnt offerings in the Holy Place to the God of Israel. Therefore the wrath of the LORD came on Judah and Jerusalem, and he has made them an object of horror, of astonishment, and of hissing, as you see with your own eyes. For behold, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this. Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the LORD, the God of Israel, in order that his fierce anger may turn away from us. My sons, do not now be negligent, for the LORD has chosen you to stand in his presence, to minister to him and to be his ministers and make offerings to him." (2Ch 29:5-11)

. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan) (2Kings 18:4)

As soon as he realised that his country needed to repent, he made the Levites to repent and turn to God. Repentance requires change from current practices and destruction of idols. He destroyed the 1000 year old bronze serpent which Moses made so that they will not be tempted to worship it. Moses, for the nation Israel was like Gandhi of the present India. Moses made the bronze serpent for the Israelites to remind them of their sins. But that souvenir had become a snare for Israel. None of the kings before had the boldness to destroy it and even great kings like David, Solomon never bothered about it. Yet he did it out of his theological belief, that God looks in the heart not our external sacrifices and actions. He had understood that renewal of mind (Rom12:2) is much more important than the national pride of Israel.

From this event in Scripture we can learn two things. When apostasy happens in society, generally it happens through two ways. Making the things related to Christianity as idols to be worshipped instead of the substance, Christ. It can be Mary worship, worshipping the saints, penance, prosperity preaching etc. And the apostates will call themselves as the true worshippers of Christ.

When a society understands the true gospel, it changes radically. The love of Christ will become the ultimate gift to be treasured. Everything else will be secondary and even to the point of leaving the things which were precious to them before. Before protestant reformation, European society believed that worshipping saints and participating in the sacraments were the things of priority. So their church buildings were very beautiful and magnificent. The kings spent most of the tax money in building splendid churches. After protestant reformation, reformers built churches which were not very great and beautiful. They realised that it can become a snare for the Christians in future. Instead they spent most of their resources in building schools and universities to educate Christians so that they can read and understand Scriptures and also apply their knowledge for the betterment of the society. This kindled the fire of innovation, science and technology. And Western Europe and USA became the blessed nations in the history. True repentance thus involves in radical changes in society. God blesses us if we sacrifice our comforts for the sake of Christ.

And they brought seven bulls, seven rams, seven lambs, and seven male goats for a sin offering for the kingdom and for the sanctuary and for Judah. And he commanded the priests the sons of Aaron to offer them on the altar of the LORD. (2Ch 29:21)

Solomon sacrificed 22000 oxen and 120000 sheep for the Lord. When compared with that, Hezekiah’s sacrifice was nothing. Yet God blessed him for his faithfulness in the midst of the evil people. Thus he was called the best king of Judah.

And Samuel said, "Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. (1Sa 15:22)

Hezekiah understood this and came to the Lord with a broken heart. Thus let us also be like Hezekiah and turn to God and live a life glorifying His name. Then true blessing will come from the Lord. We may be surrounded by unbelievers who mock at us for our faith. But we should always remember that eternal blessing of God is better than the present earthly one.

“Lord, stamp eternity on my eyeballs.” – Jonathan Edwards

Marriage and God

This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. (Eph 5:32)

Cinemas are shot for the entertainment of the society. They reflect the worldview of the people. And most of them will have a plot of romance between a man and a woman which ultimately ends up in marriage. This shows that many people in our society like such stories. Even Christians would have heard many sermons on marriage. Many singles get into relationship with opposite sex before they are married. They would say that they are in love unconditionally. But as the time passes, blaring contradictions would be found in their lives. Many often, they break up. If they they get married, if you ask them after 10 years, whether if they are still in love like how they were in the past, many would say that their love has grown cold. I have seen people who got married by loving each other, applying for divorce.

I agree that marriage is a very important event. But the undue emphasis for this, as if marriage is the ultimate end of man, is totally unwarranted. Marriage represents the relationship between Christ and Church. All believers would agree with this. It is the shadow of the perfection from above, which will come to pass in future. Instead of focussing at this mystery, that is, Christ, the logos, the creator of this universe, who is God himself, took upon the weakness and fragility of human flesh, lived a complete obedience of the cross and gave His life for the sake of the elect, the saints whom He loved even before the foundation of this universe (Eph 1:4), many of us tend to give importance to the shadow, forgetting the substance.

Only when we understand this, we can have a successful marriage. Husband ought to love his wife no matter whether the wife reciprocates it or not, because Christ loves the church unconditionally (Eph 5:25). While we were yet sinners, Christ showed His love for us, by dying for us (Rom 5:8). This is called unconditional love. There was no reason for God to love sinful humans. In fact, we deserve hell and wrath of God. Yet He showered love upon us, without any reason out of His own pleasure. To love God is to obey His commands (1John 5:2). So if a husband says he loves his wife, he should show his love through his actions, even if the wife deserves nothing of that sort. This is called unconditional love. God’s love will never be decreasing for us, even while were disobeying Him. If God is loving us so much, how much more husbands should be showering love upon their wives, forgiving their iniquities. Remember the parable of the unforgiving servant (Mat 18:21-35). If husbands are not willing to forgive their wives and love them unconditionally, then God will not forgive them either, since the sins which they have committed against God is much viler than the transgressions of their wives against them. Likewise wife is supposed to submit to the authority of the husband like how the  church, the saints, submits to Christ (Eph 5:22). Husbands may not love them, as they ought to be, but still they have to do it.

We cannot do this without the power of God. Husbands cannot love their wives unconditionally like Christ. Wives cannot submit to their husbands like church. The simple reason is because we are all sinful. Even though believers are delivered from spiritual death, yet the old man is still residing inside. That is why we need the power of God to work out our salvation. That is the greatest hope of believers.

“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." (Php 2:12-13)

So because of this blessed hope, we can be assured that though we are frail, sinful and we naturally sin in our flesh, yet by the power of Holy Spirit, we can do this command of Christ in our marriage. Why, because we are to be sanctified, so that we will be without blemish when Christ comes. So God uses marriage to sanctify us so that we can glorify God.

Paul Washer said in one sermon that God ordains marriage in our lives for our own personal sanctification. We may not find a spouse who is totally compatible with our character, but God uses that to give us faith, endurance and longsuffering to bear each other’s transgressions. So if a couple doesn't understand this mystery, then marriage will be a miserable thing for them.

These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. (Col 2:17)

Marriage is momentary, only for this age (Mat 22:30). This is just a shadow of the substance. The substance is Christ. Therefore let us focus our attention to Christ, the substance of marriage. Only then, our earthly marriage will be successful.

If you have liked this, you can also read Why do you Fear?

O faithless generation!

And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them. And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him. And he asked them, "What are you arguing about with them?" And someone from the crowd answered him, "Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able." And he answered them, "O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me."
(Mar 9:14-19)

If you look into the context of this passage, we see that previously, Jesus was transfigured in front of his closest disciples and showed them His glory. And while coming back, some of His disciples tried healing a demon possessed child but failed. And then they were bringing that child to Jesus. Jesus rebuked them for their lack of faith in healing that demon since they had not fasted and prayed to God to give them power of the Holy Spirit to chase it. And also it is an insult for Jesus, since He was still with them in the world and He was not taken up into heaven. If a patient is purposefully going and getting treated from a junior doctor infront of a senior consultant, it means that the patient is ill informed about the seniority of the doctor or he is insulting the senior doctor in purpose by not trusting him. Likewise it would have been insulting to Jesus because of the lack of faith upon the Sovereign creator and sustainer of the universe standing with them to heal the child. So He rebuked them. He rebuked them for their foolishness.

In our time, if we are teaching a doctrine or teaching which is contrary to one’s beliefs, then the common response of an evangelical Christian is, 'we should not offend his/her belief systems'. They say we should be very gentle with unbelievers. Many believe that we should not even tell the unbelievers that they are wrong. And they go to the extremes saying it is not loving if we rebuke them for their lack of faith in God of Scripture.

This philosophy is based on new age worldview, which believes in no absolutes. Truth is relative for them. So if they say that, we should not call others as wrong, then there is some sense in it. But it is really surprising for me to find many evangelicals having the same view.

But if we look in the Scripture, many times both in Old testament and New testament, we find prophets and apostles rebuking the unbelievers for their unbelief. In Old testament, we find prophets using words like ‘fools’ (Isa 19:13; 44:25, Jer 50:36), ‘stupid’ (Isa 19:11, Jer 4:22; 10:8; 10:14; 10:21), etc. In New testament times, we see John the Baptist rebuking unbelievers with words like ‘brood of vipers’ (Mat 3:7), Paul rebuking Galatians as ‘foolish’ (Gal 3:1). Now the smarter evangelicals would say, ‘we should follow Jesus, not John the Baptist’. Well, Jesus rebuked more than anyone else in the Scripture. Jesus used the words like ‘fox’ (Luke 13:32), ‘fools’ (Mat 23:17, Luke 11:40), ‘hypocrites’ (Mat 15:7; 22:18; 23:13,15,23,25,25,29) and rebuked them for their lack of faith (Mat 8:26, Mat 14:21, Mat 16:8, Mat 17:17).

And remember that prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah lived in a hostile situation, where even if they say negatively against the evil emperors, their lives would be at stake. But still they went to the extremes of it and they rebuked them harshly with severe terms like ‘fools’ against kings, emperors and officials. And infact, one of the reasons why Pharisees crucified Jesus is because they were offended by the words He used against them. So even then, they used severe terms like that because they were messengers of God and it is God who was rebuking the evil emperors. And as messengers of God, we need to tell the unbelievers exactly like how God calls them, because the light of Scripture (God’s word) is illuminated to we believers, not to unbelievers and we are the messengers of God now.

Now many will quote, 1 Pet 3:16, and say we should be prepared to give reason for our faith with ‘gentleness and respect’. But if you look in the context, we see that Peter is talking about submission to authorities. So in that context, he is referring to presenting the gospel to the authorities (parents, husbands, church authorities, government officials). To authorities, we need to present them the gospel truth with ‘gentleness and respect’ because God has placed them in that position, and we need to respect them not for the sake of them but for the sake of God. That’s why Paul asked for repentance (Acts 23:5) after he harshly rebukes the High Priest (Acts 23:3) for his unbelief. We cannot generalise this to all.

I am not telling that we should call every unbelievers whom we are encountering as fools, but if a person is consistently rejecting Christ out of his foolish sinful nature, it is our duty to show his unbelief to him and the foolishness in it. He may get offended, but that’s what Bible says (1Pet 2:8).

Instead, if we think that offending unbelievers because of the gospel will put them down and not ‘loving’, and we are preaching a watered down ‘gospel’ then it means that we are ashamed of the gospel. We are just trying to please men and God. But we can’t please both man and God. We should not be afraid of men. It will become a snare for us (Pro 29:25). If the prophets of the old and the apostles of the new testament were ready to risk their lives to use such indictments, we should not be afraid to use them either to preach the gospel. We may lose their friendship at best or may even lose our life at worst, but still we should be afraid of the One who can destroy both our ‘soul’ and ‘body’ (Mat 10:28).

Are we afraid of men or God? Are you thinking you will be hated by majority of people (including many ‘reformed’ Christians) for being faithful to Scripture? Let me end with the quote of Martin Luther:

“Of whom shall I be afraid? One with God is a majority”

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Jonathan Edwards on Empiricism

God is a spiritual being, and he is beheld with the understanding. The soul has in itself those powers which are capable of apprehending objects, and especially spiritual objects, without looking through the windows of the outward senses. This is a more perfect way of perception than by the eyes of the body. We are so accustomed and habituated to depend upon our senses, and our intellectual powers are so neglected and disused, that we are ready to conceive that seeing things with the bodily eyes is the most perfect way of apprehending them. But it is not so. The eye of the soul is vastly more perfect than the eye of the body.

If you have liked this, you can also read Time - The currency of Heaven