1 Samuel 3

Where would we be without the Word of God? God reveals Himself to the whole world through creation. The heavens declare the glory of God. But we need more than His voice through nature. We need His special verbal revelation.

Throughout the history of Israel God spoke through His prophets about many important matters that they could never have known through their observation and reasoning. He also reinforced important messages that their hearts may have already suggested to them.

Eli the priest knew that there was a problem in his family. He had corrected his sons regarding their behavior but they would not listen to him. Then God sent a prophet to Eli to warn him that the priesthood would be taken away from his descendants and that both his sons would die on the same day. Those details could not have been known by Eli unless God had chosen to reveal them to him. God then reinforced this message through the young boy, Samuel, who was with Eli, ministering before the Lord.

God spoke to Samuel. This was such a new experience for Samuel that he did not understand what was happening until Eli began to perceive what the Lord was doing. Eli taught Samuel to say these words when He heard the voice of the Lord: “Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.”

The Word of God has come to us in person in Jesus Christ, the perfect Ambassador of the Father. He said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” We need to know the Voice of the Lord, and we need to respond with sincerity of heart as those who are determined to follow Him.

Hear the message that the Lord is revealing through nature. Pay close attention to what He is saying through providence. Attend to the voice of God in conscience, and the godly wisdom of those whom God gives as advisers and examples. But especially hear the final Word of God, Jesus Christ, as He is revealed to us in the Scriptures. Ask for, receive, and cultivate that settled heart that is ready to listen to Him and to obey. “Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.”

God's message through Samuel was not an easy one to say. Eli already knew it, but the Word that came through this dedicated young boy was a more focused confirmation of an earlier prophetic word and a direct rebuke against Eli for not restraining His sons. The iniquity of Eli's house would not be atoned for by the provisions in the law for sacrifice and offering. It was high-handed sin. Lives would be lost, and a part of the priestly line would come to an end.

Jesus came as the divine Word of God. He was also the perfect Prophet who heard the voice of the Lord and obeyed. He knew the Word for His own life. He knew what obedience would cost Him. His Father also knew well the divine plan that would eventually lead to the glory of a new resurrection kingdom. Jesus would be the Suffering Servant of God revealed in the Word of the prophets so many centuries before He was born. He would obey a difficult Word.

This was a Word that others were not willing to accept. But the Son of Man was led as the Lamb of God to the cross to make final atonement for our sins. None of the ceremonial sacrifices and offerings of the Old Testament had the power to atone for our sins before the throne of God in heaven. But the blood of the Lord's appointed Servant Jesus has cleansed us not only on earth but before the holy sanctuary of God on high.

The difficult Word of the cross received fully by Jesus has become for us a cause of boasting. Because of our merit? No. Because of the perfection of Christ and the supreme blessing of the grace of God that has come to us through Him. This is the message that we have heard, and this is the Word that we must obey.

1 Samuel 2

When all else seems impossible, remember that Jesus did what only He could do. He accomplished a salvation that no one else could have ever touched. He has satisfied the demands of a holy God for us.

This Jesus who is our Savior was also the One through whom all things were made. And it is through Him that everything will come to its proper conclusion. He is the Beginning, the End, and the Middle. His cross, His resurrection, and His gift of the Holy Spirit to the church lie at the center of the history of the universe.

Hannah could not have solved her own infertility problem. Much more than that, Hannah could never have yielded up her son to God's sovereign plan by her own power. She obeyed God and fulfilled her vow with a full heart by the power of God.

Man's power will not bring about God's kingdom. But the Lord will accomplish many things through the yielded hearts and lives of servants like Hannah, the mother of Samuel. His is the wisdom and the power, but He has chosen to work through us. Give yourself to Him.

Did Hannah know where she was leaving her precious boy? She had to fulfill her promise to the Lord. Samuel would serve in the home of Eli the priest. But God said plainly about this home: “The sons of Eli were worthless men. They did not know the Lord.” This would be the place where the Lord would begin to work in Samuel's young life. What can any of us do but trust God with all that we cannot possibly know or understand?

The adult sons of Eli abused the sacramental system that God had established for Israel. They were immoral men who had to be stopped. God spoke to Eli through a prophet who warned him that the Lord would not tolerate their brazen behavior forever. “Those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed.”

The sons of Eli were obvious examples of inadequate priests of God. But where will we find a priest who will be able to accomplish what we need? Who has honored the Lord fully and rightly with the perfect righteousness that He requires of those who would approach Him?

But now His beloved Son has come and has won for all who would receive Him the status of “sons of God.” Not only has our debt been paid, not only has the righteousness of Jesus been credited to us, but now we have bold access to a Father who says this to us in Matthew 11:28-30. “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

No one has to feel that it is impossible to have a life of holiness in the new priesthood of all believers. He invites us to come to Him and to receive the gifts that He has for us.

God has raised up for us a faithful priest. Samuel, Hannah's son, was a godly man, but he would die one day, and his sons would not be faithful to the Lord. Jesus lives forever to intercede for us. God has accepted His perfect life and has made us a part of His eternal household.

Genesis 8

In every era of the history of salvation, men have needed to know that God was watching over them, and especially when they were in need, that God remembered them. Noah and the floating sanctuary needed God. The waters of God's judgment had prevailed over the entire earth. Thousands of people had died. But God remembered Noah.

He also remembered all the beasts that would provide the new beginnings of the world that we live in today. God caused a wind to blow over the earth. As the dry land eventually reappeared, it was day three of creation all over again. God set the limits on the seas. They were once again put in their place. They could go so far, but no further.

Eventually the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat. Then the tops of other mountains could be seen. This was not instantaneous, but a natural process of a fresh start emerging for the new earth, and for the people in God's ark who would be recommissioned as His servants.

The story of the receding waters is told to us with the Lord's gentleness and with the wonder of the fullness of the created order under the dominion of God and His servant Noah. Ravens and doves are Noah's scouts. He reads their coming and going as messengers of a new day until the land is once again ready for mankind.

As there was a specific day when the rain had come upon the earth, and a specific duration when the waters prevailed upon the dry land, there is a day for Noah and all within the ark to come out again, and to feel the freshness of a new beginning. In the six hundred and first year of Noah's life, at just the right time, the Word of God came to Noah. “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons' wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”

So Noah did this. What a wonderful moment! Noah and his family could reflect on many things. God's Word was true. His holiness demanded our response of righteousness. God was able to deliver a remnant upon whom the Lord's favor rested. God had judged the wicked, and had given a new beginning to the man who heard the voice of the Lord. Noah went out, with all his family, and with all the families of the beasts that would repopulate the globe.

At God's command Noah had built a holy ark. It had carried his household safely and delivered them to a cleansed world. It was time to forget what was behind and to stretch forward to make the whole earth a holy sanctuary for God. It was time to hear the Word again that God had once spoken to Adam. “Be fruitful and multiply.”

Never again would God ask Noah to build an ark. This great man would instead build an altar to the Lord. Why a place of animal sacrifice? Sin and death continued to be a part of life. A more permanent and fuller cleansing would have to come through blood.

The demands of God could not be satisfied by the death of thousands of wicked men and women in the flood. A righteous substitute would have to give His blood for us and win for us a better world than even the fresh new earth that Noah found when he came out of the ark.

Noah took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird, and he offered burnt offerings on the altar. Noah knew that there would be forgiveness of sins through the shedding of blood. He knew that we still needed a savior. God was pleased with the testimony of that sacrifice which Noah offered. This was the way for fallen man to start again; to plead again for the mercy of the Almighty through the offering of a sacrifice.

The Lord would not destroy the earth again by a flood. To judge man every day according to what he deserved would have meant continual turmoil. God knew about the evil in the heart of mankind. The Lord wanted the environment that He had created to continue. He wanted all kinds of creatures to fill the earth. He wanted seedtime and harvest for mankind, and seasons upon the earth.

One day there will be a new heavens and a new earth. That world is reserved for us even now in the present heavens. The King of creation and redemption has given His life as a pleasing sacrifice to God. He sits at the right hand of the Father, and He is coming again.

For now we find our safety in the ark of Christ and His church. A day will come when the covering of this ark will be rolled back, and we will walk out into the perfect Paradise of God. What no eye has seen and no ear has heard, these are the things that God has for His beloved people. Saved by His grace, we offer up our lives to Him every day as a living sacrifice, knowing that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is ours in Christ Jesus our Lord. The Lord God knows us. He will remember us on the day when Christ returns. We will walk upon a completely renewed earth.

Genesis 7

Noah walked with God in his generation, and God called him righteous. The way that God works righteousness among human beings who live after sin entered the world would await further explanation in the days of Abraham and beyond. What is clear from this passage is that Noah was alone in his generation as the man who would bring his family into the ark, which would be the only means of protection from the flood that was about to come upon the earth.

The ark was a holy sanctuary in a world that would soon face a deluge of the Lord's judgment. In a holy place, the distinction between clean and unclean becomes relevant. This is the first place in the Bible that the word “clean” is used. The number of animals of each species that Noah would bring on board the ark would depend on whether the animal was judged to be clean. Some of these would eventually be sacrificed to the Lord in the renewed world.

Two of every unclean animal would be brought on board, a male and “his mate,” but seven pairs of all birds. All of this planning, preparation, building, and gathering was necessary because of the event that was about to transpire. This event would seem most unlikely to a person judging likelihood based on his own experience or the reports of others. But to the man who walks with God, the Word is not a matter of what is probable. It is certain. Noah knew that in seven days God would send rain on the earth that would continue for forty days and forty nights. God would blot out every living thing from the face of the earth. The only place of survival would be in the sanctuary of the ark. Noah obeyed the voice of God.

Noah was six hundred years old when the flood came. His father, Lamech, had died five years earlier, and his grandfather, Methuselah, died in the year of the flood. Noah, his sons, his wife, his sons wives, and all the creatures went into the ark with the man who was righteous before God in his generation. When everything was inside according to God's command, the Lord shut them in. When that door shut, it would not open again until the waters of God's judgment had entirely prevailed upon the earth.

When God created the earth on the second day, He spoke the waters into their appropriate places, the waters above in the skies and the waters below in the seas. On the third day, His Voice commanded that the waters below would be contained to certain limits so that the dry land appeared. But in the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, something remarkable happened. From both the waters below in the seas and the waters above in the skies, the judgment of God burst forth upon the dry land. It rained, and the waters flooded the dry land.

When God sends blessing upon the earth, blessing will prevail. When God sends judgment upon the earth, judgment will prevail. The waters prevailed upon the earth. But the ark, the holy sanctuary that was the only place of safety, rose high above the earth, and floated on the waters.

The waters prevailed, and all flesh died. God blotted out everything in an immersion of His judgment. The ark was the only place of life. This was not a local disaster. This was a worldwide move of God that resulted in death of all that once was. The line of Cain was gone. Most of the line of Seth was gone. Those who were descendants of any of the other sons and daughters of Adam were gone. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark.

The waters prevailed on the earth 150 days, and Noah and the new world waited. This is the account of the flood, a worldwide judgment of God. The only place of safety was in the holy sanctuary of the ark that floated above the waters. Once God shut the door of that ark, there was no opportunity for anyone to get in.

How could people know that this kind of cataclysmic judgment would take place? A thing like this had never happened before. The only way to be adequately prepared for the event of the flood was through hearing the Voice of the Lord. Noah heard the Word of God and believed.

The Voice of the Lord is powerful. By His Voice God made all things. By His Word He sent forth judgment on the world that once was. That world is no more. A new age has begun.

Many centuries later, the Voice of the Lord became flesh in order to accomplish a powerful work of God's judgment and salvation. The flood and fire of God's wrath prevailed over the Son of God, the Voice of God, the Word of God, on the cross, and through His willing sacrifice, all those who would be found in Him have been granted His salvation, a new life in a new age of resurrection glory.

One day the Voice of the Lord will come again. This time the judgment of God will not be upon Jesus. He did that once, never to be repeated again. Now His judgment will be upon the world as we know it. The only place of safety against that Day of the Lord is in the holy ark of Christ and His church. He has faced the wrath of God for us through His death. Come to Him, and abide in Him forever.

Genesis 6

The death of mankind is not only physical, it is also moral and spiritual. One evidence of our deep trouble is that we are more interested in what is concealed than in what has been revealed. We may imagine that in heaven we will finally have the answers to all of our questions about the Bible and our own lives. Could it be that when our inner corruption is completely healed we will have no interest in what God has not revealed because our ears will long for what He has chosen to speak to us? I wonder. I suppose there is some irony there.

What God does reveal about mankind very early in the Scriptures is that the evil within our species was not just a problem among a few bad people. Cleansing the earth of all wickedness would not simply come from identifying a murderer like Cain, and then bringing him to justice. The problem of sin was deep and universal.

People were having sons and daughters for many centuries, the earth was being populated, and evil was growing. Beyond the visible wickedness on the face of the earth, evil existed in places that people could not see, among those angels that had rebelled against the Lord. Angels can be referred to as “sons of God,” and so can men. The “sons of God” did something bad here. It could be that demonic powers were in league with those men who thought of themselves as beyond constraints, the demigods convinced of their own great renown. Like Lamech in the line of Cain, one woman was not enough for such heroes. They took for themselves wives, any that they chose. Whatever the details of moral decline, the Lord would not stand for it. The lives of human beings would be no more that 120 years.

There was much evidence of abuse everywhere, but the Lord always knows more than can be gathered before human judges who weigh evidence. He knew of the depravity of all the descendants of Adam in a deeper way. He knew that every intention of the thoughts of the hearts of men was only evil continually. So much so, that God expresses His own deep grief concerning the creation of mankind, and His determination to bring His eternal judgment against sin before the final Judgment Day that would one day come upon the earth. The Lord determined to save only a very small remnant from among the descendants of the line of Seth, and thus to blot out all the rest of mankind, the entirety of the line of Cain, and almost all the creatures on the face of the land. Only Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. The Lord showed His grace, or “favor,” to Noah, and through association with Noah, to his wife, his three sons, their wives, and the animals that would form the seed of a new world.

Noah was counted as a righteous man. He walked with God, listening to His instruction, and obeying the voice of the Lord. Like Enoch before him, and many others who would be counted as followers of the Shepherd of His chosen flock, Noah walked in the way that God led, and God counted him as blameless in that generation.

The earth around Noah was far from blameless. It was covered with the violence of the proud, who will use whatever force they have to grab what has not been given to them; to steal, to kill, and to destroy. Everything was polluted because of the moral and spiritual decadence of mankind.

Therefore God announced to Noah a plan for judgment and salvation. He revealed His own settled determination to make an end of all flesh. When any land is filled with violence, when the powerful use their force to abuse the people that they are supposed to protect, the Lord is not happy. He will not stand by forever when men and angels destroy the innocent and reward the guilty. He will take action.

God spoke to His servant Noah, a man who listened to God's voice and who walked in the Lord's ways. He instructed Noah to build an ark that would be a very conspicuous testimony to a coming day when water would cover the dry land in a way that had never happened since the days when God pushed back the seas causing the land to first appear.

God told Noah to build a vessel that would have its own story to tell. It would be a holy sanctuary in which those who believed the voice of the Lord could take refuge, together with their families. This ark was a Tabernacle, and Noah was a Moses who assembled it. It was a Temple, and Noah was its Solomon. It was a church, and Noah was the forerunner of the Messiah who would one day say, “I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

God told Noah exactly how to build this place of refuge to withstand the storm of the coming judgment. Christ, the Cornerstone of a greater sanctuary, has given us His Word concerning the ark of our day, His body. We do well to hear His voice, and build this great worldwide assembly according to His specifications. To be outside that ark is dangerous.

There is a judgment of God coming that is far worse than the flood. The very existence of the church throughout the world is a plea to all men that they should call upon the Name of the Lord, and thus take refuge in Jesus Christ in the assembly of His people while there is still time. He is the only Savior who is in accord with the specifications of God. He is our safe place of refuge for all who would pass safely through the coming distress and live forever in the new world of resurrection.

Genesis 5

God created mankind. He had His purposes in doing this. All of us fit into God's plan. We are not independent of Him, and our ease and immediate sense of well-being are not His highest goals. To have a realistic view of life, we must begin to look at the world from the standpoint of what God has revealed, and not merely from the view of our greatest curiosities and troubles.

According to what God has revealed, Adam and Eve had three prominent children. They did have other sons and daughters, but Cain, Abel, and Seth were the three that he has chosen to tell us about. Abel was murdered by his brother Cain, whose line of descendants would all perish in the flood. That line reached a point of great arrogance and evil in Lamech.

We are told that it is in the line of Seth that people began to call upon the name of the Lord. It is in the seventh from Adam in that line of Seth that a very unusual thing is noted for our consideration. Enoch, the seventh, walked with God. No explanation is given as to the meaning of this phrase, yet we understand that this is a good thing, true of Enoch, and later true of Noah, a blameless man in his generation, and true of the New Testament believers who have the Spirit of Christ at work within them. To walk in the Spirit is to live as child of God, loving Him, hearing His Word and obeying His commandments. This Enoch lived 365 years, one year for every day that the earth rotates around the sun. Then God took him home.

The words of God's original creation of mankind are repeated in connection with the line of Seth. Seth is a new beginning after the grief of one brother murdering another. In between Adam and Enoch we read of Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, and Jared. We know very little about them, only how long they lived before fathering the key figure who would be next in their line, how long they lived after that moment, and then the words that show us that God's warning to Adam was right: “And he died.” Death is now a sad fact in a broken world, even in a line of people that are being blessed by God. To ask that there be no death right now is to insist that there be no Fall of mankind. The Fall is a settled fact, but it is a fact that can be reversed, not through the erasure of the past, but through the giving of one perfect life as an offering to the Father.

God has done this for us in Christ. Early on in the story of our lives, we may suppose that we know how everything will turn out. We do not know whether we will marry. We do not know if we will have children. We do not know if there will be future generations that will come from the children that we are granted. We do not know how long our line will continue. Nor do we know how long we personally will live. These facts of our existence are in the hands of the Almighty.

We do know that we are living in a world where death and loss are real. But we also know that death has been overturned forever in the great Son of God, descended from Adam's son Seth. Jesus lives, and so shall you. How then are we to live in the world that now is?

We will be greatly blessed in this world of death if we live by faith in the Son of God, the Man of Life. Long before Jesus came, the Lord God Almighty was blessing people with consecrated lives in the midst of a broken world. They lived out their days for as long as God gave them breath. They had sons and daughters according to the Lord's sovereign will. They may have enjoyed certain things about their lives, and hated other things that they needed to accept as facts that they could not change. Through it all, they learned to call upon the Name of the Lord. They walked with God.

Enoch was among their number. He walked with God. His son Methuselah would live a very long life. Enoch had his 365 years, unusually brief for the list recorded in this chapter. But Enoch walked with God, and He did not die. One day he was, and the next day he was not. God took him. Years later God would take the prophet Elijah. This kind of end is very extraordinary. These men were translated for a new life in the house of the Lord above.

Methuselah, Enoch's son, would live on, and then another Lamech (not the same as the one in the line of Cain) would come. This Lamech would be the father of Noah, another man who walked with God. Lamech would teach us a second lesson of how we are to live in an age of loss and death. When he fathered Noah, he looked forward. He believed in a future day of “relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.” God did grant a powerful new beginning in the days of Noah. But even this great descendant of Adam and Seth would not be the one who would crush the head of the serpent.

Another man would come who would walk with God as perfectly as any man could. Jesus, the second Adam, has brought us a new age and a new life and has secured for us the kingdom of heaven. Through Him we have relief from all the pain that has come to us in this world where it is still said, “And he died.” Through His death and resurrection, the purposes of God are being accomplished. Through faith in Him, though we live in the age of death, we can still walk with God. And with our confidence in Him, we wait in joyful hope for the fuller coming of a day of perfect relief for the faithful in the age of resurrection.

1 Samuel 1

The books that we call First and Second Samuel and First and Second Kings should be read together as one account of the history of Israel from the end of the period of Judges to the time of the exile to Babylon. This four-volume story begins with the heartache of one woman, Hannah.

“The Lord had closed her womb.” Hannah was unable to conceive. But why? The Lord had a purpose in this. Hannah's husband, Elkanah, attempted to comfort the woman he loved, but to no avail. The turning point came when Hannah brought her sorrows to the Lord in worship in the spirit of complete surrender to Him.

This surrender came in the form of a vow. A vow was an act of worship under Old Testament practice that placed an obligation on the one who made the vow if the Lord answered the petitioner's request. Hannah asked God for a son. If God answered that prayer, Hannah promised to “give him to the Lord all the days of his life.”

What did those words mean? We only understand after the gift was given. God gave Hannah what she asked for. The Lord heard her prayer. Now Hannah had to give God what she had promised. When the child was weaned, Hannah went back again to the place of worship and presented her precious son before the Lord's priest, Eli. Samuel would live out his life in the Lord's house rather than being at Hannah's side. That was her vow to the Lord. At just the right time, Hannah kept her promise.

“For this child I prayed, and the LORD has granted me my petition that I made to him. Therefore I have lent him to the LORD. As long as he lives, he is lent to the LORD.”

This heartache, this surrender of what was most precious, and this peace that was beyond understanding in one woman's life is the first episode in this very moving history of Israel. The Lord God Almighty knows how to weave our greatest suffering and our prayerful consecration into an account that is much better with Him as Author than any book we could write.

That would be harder for us to accept if our God were detached from sorrow and from us. But is our Father in heaven detached?

The Father knows what it means to lose a son. Jesus made a vow that required His death on the cross for our sins. At the cross, where a mother had no choice but to consecrate her son to the Lord's purposes, there was also a Father who knows what it means to suffer. At that cross we see not only death, but death in our place, death for our eternal life with the Father and the Son. How deep the Father's love for us!

So we worship. Hannah worshiped. So did Hannah's son. The chapter closes with these words, “And he worshiped the LORD there.” He worshiped in a different place than where his devoted mother lived. But not forever. Only for a time. She had said that she would lend him to the Lord as long as he lived. Now they are together forever. Because of Samuel? No, because of Jesus.

Ruth 4

Boaz was committed to following the way of the Lord. Though he was honored by Ruth's indication that she would respond favorably to a proposal from him to be her redeemer, he knew that there was someone else who had the first right to make that proposal according to God's law.

Boaz had spoken very kindly to Ruth. He had interpreted her actions in the most favorable light. Yet he was aware that everyone might not see the young woman as he saw her. To some other man Naomi's land might have been worth purchasing but not if Ruth came with the land.

Marriage and inheritance issues were not to be settled secretly in Israel. Boaz had due regard for the role of the elders of the city and for the community where he lived. Most of all he wanted to honor God. In a respectful way he was able to expose before others that the man who had the first right of redemption rejected that right. He did not have to force that decision upon him. This other relative was brought to make that testimony with his own mouth. He did not want Ruth. He saw her as a complication to his existing family structure. He did not see her rightly.

When Christ contemplated our redemption, He looked upon His church as a worthy prize. How could that be? He saw her not as a person from an undesirable country, but as a glorified daughter of the Zion that is above. He saw her as she would be, without spot or blemish, perfected in holiness. Most men would not have wanted the church, especially when they learned the cost of her redemption. Even if any man had desired to give his life for her, he would not have been able to pay the price. The life that was required for our ransom had to be a sinless offering.

We have a vibrant hope through the death and resurrection of our Lord. He had the holy vision to see what would eventually come to pass and the righteous resolve to pay what was required.

Boaz wanted Ruth. She was not an extra complication. From their union came the line of kings that led to the only Redeemer of God's elect. On that day when Boaz declared his intentions before the elders the community of the faithful were able to see a glimpse of future blessing. They remembered the fruitfulness that had come from Jacob's marriages with Rachel and Leah and even from the surprising union of Judah and Tamar. They spoke good words upon Boaz and the woman who was worth more to Naomi than seven sons.

The people of God are called to share in the vision of Boaz. We are to see the church and her Husband in the light of glory and to rejoice in the love of our Redeemer. We are to gather together in covenant assembly and to name the fruit of this blessed union with the confidence that the Lord works all things together for good for those who are called according to His holy purpose.

The Lord has not left His people without a Redeemer. May the Name of Jesus be renowned throughout all the nations of the earth! He brings hope to those who think that their life is over. He gives fruitfulness to the widow who is beyond the age of bearing children. All hail the Son of David, the King of the ages, and the Husband of the church!

Ruth 3

How could Naomi ever instruct Ruth the way that she did in the opening of this chapter? These two women placed themselves at the mercy of one man. Could Boaz be trusted? Naomi believed in Boaz.

In an ancient world that we have a hard time understanding Ruth was making a bold statement that a woman today might speak in a very different way. She was saying with her actions that if Boaz would propose to her that she would be very pleased to marry him.

Ruth needed a “redeemer,” a close relative of her deceased husband, who would take another man's widow into his protective embrace. The wrong man would have been tempted to abuse this trust for his own gratification or to expose the woman to ridicule for the sport of a watching crowd.

The response of Boaz to Ruth's declaration was full of righteousness. He was able to see and affirm the great good in her bold action. He then pursued a sensible and obedient plan that placed this entire opportunity before the Lord God Almighty. He wanted to marry Ruth, to be her redeemer and protector, but he would pursue this holy desire in a way that would be right before God and the people of Bethlehem.

In the morning Boaz made sure to preserve the good name of Ruth and to avoid any unnecessary exposure that could have led to destructive gossip. He also provided food not only for Ruth, but also for her mother-in-law Naomi. This kind care communicated to Ruth and Naomi what the older woman already suspected: that Boaz was a man who could be trusted. His intentions were honorable, and his follow-through would be wise and deliberate.

Before the foundation of the world, the Son of God knew you as a part of His holy bride. The best child of Bethlehem came to earth in very humble circumstances, but He brought with Him the riches of the righteousness of heaven in His own perfect person. At just the right time He made His eternal purposes known to the world in His sacrificial death on the cross. He came to redeem you.

Jesus would never take advantage of you. He sees you in the best possible light, even clothed in His own righteousness and fully cleansed from sin as His glorious bride. The boldness of your love for Him may seem outrageous to some, but if you seem to approach Him first, it is only because you have come to know that He can be trusted. The truth is that you love Him because He first loved you.

Genesis 4

The descendant of the woman would defeat the power of evil, but who would this descendant be, and how quickly would he come? Eve's first child would be the murderer of Eve's second child. Neither one could be the savior that all humanity needed. Life did not come through Cain or Abel. Death came through the horror of one brother murdering another.

The two brothers were different. The first child worked the land and his younger brother was a keeper of sheep. Two lives are captured in just a few words. Both were bringing something to the Lord out of who they were, out of what they could do. Yet the Lord had regard for one offering, the blood sacrifice, and not for the other, the grain offering brought by Cain. But why? We are not told. Only that God, who knows what is in a man, had regard for the man, Abel, and for his offering. And this same perfectly wise and righteous God had no regard for the man, Cain, and for his offering.

So now what? A teachable moment for a humble heart. But for a proud heart, envy, and eventually, a plan and an attack. God gives grace to the humble. If Cain had a heart willing to be low before the Almighty, he could have learned from his brother and changed.

The Lord offered him the way out: “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted?” There was also a gracious warning: “If you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.” Sin must be resisted. Cain chose instead the destruction that comes from nursed hatred and unbelief. Cain knew that God was real, but he imagined that he could hide his sin from God.

Cain should have been a protector and helper of his younger brother. He should have rejoiced when God accepted Abel and his sacrifice. He should have found room in his heart to learn from his younger brother. But he rose up against his brother and killed him. He pretended ignorance and spoke with disrespect to Almighty God. The Lord asked, “Where is Abel your brother?” Cain lied, “I do not know,” and then added the phrase that still makes its way into conversations all over the world where Genesis is known: “Am I my brother's keeper?”

God knew the truth. Abel's blood in the ground spoke a word of envy, hatred, and murder to the One who could never be fooled. Cain had loved the ground, but now Adam's punishment of thorns and thistles would be further experienced by his firstborn, and Cain would have to flee.

Does he express to God remorse for his sin? He speaks of himself and about his fears. He imagines that those fears are settled facts. He goes too far, assuming that God will not protect him. He believes that he will now be murdered. But the Lord has a plan for Cain and for his descendants, and he puts a mark on him that has some providential purpose in his continued existence. Then Cain did go away from the presence of the Lord.

We find indications of other people in this account, but we are not told of their origins. Cain feared that others would kill him. What others? Cain has a wife. Where did she come from? We need not answer these questions. Where God is silent, why should we feel obliged to speculate? The story of mankind proceeds on God's terms. We don't need to have an answer for everything.

The generations move along. Cain and his wife have Enoch. He built a city and named it after his boy. This line of Cain continues on for generations. Eventually a descendant comes who is given the name Lamech. He has two wives. That is the first we hear of such a practice. There are at least three clans that come forth from his children, and they are known by what they are good at. Noteworthy developments are mentioned in nomadic living, music, and metallurgy.

Lamech asserts his pride in his speech to his wives. When a man wounded him, he killed that man. God had told his ancestor, Cain, that if anyone took his life, he would be avenged seven-fold. Lamech says that he will be avenged far more than that, seventy-seven-fold.

The world has become a very dangerous place. Paradise seems very far away. We long for the arrival of the true Seed of the woman who will deal a death blow to evil. Yet we are reminded that when He comes, He will also suffer injury. But the blood that He sheds on the cross will speak a much better word than the blood of Abel. The blood of Christ declares a word of forgiveness before the throne of God for those who belong to the Lord. As those who have believed in the power of that blood, we move forward with forgiveness for others, not just seven times, but seventy-seven.

The line of Cain is gone from the earth today, entirely lost in the flood. But Eve bore another son, Seth. From that line would come Noah, and from the descendants of Noah, after many generations, would come the Redeemer. All who call upon His Name shall be saved.

Genesis 3

Everything that we see and experience today is not “very good.” What happened to the world? Why do we see oppression, poverty, and pain? How is it that death came into this world?

God did say something about death in Genesis 2 concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: “In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” That day came, and the futility and death that we see all around us is an indication that we are living in the day that God spoke of to Adam.

There was a crafty serpent involved in all of this. He spoke to the woman first and deceived her. He questioned the Word of God, and presented his own word as more reliable than the Voice of the Lord. Instead of executing judgment upon the serpent for insubordination to the glorious Creator God of the seventh day, the woman listened to the voice of an adversary, and Adam listened to the evil suggestion of his wife. The world has never been the same.

“You will not surely die,” this enemy claimed, and he suggested that God did not have their best interests at heart; that the Lord was trying to prevent them from experiencing all that life had to offer. Though the woman was deceived first, Adam was the one representative for all mankind. It was through him that sin entered the world. With sin came great misery and even death. More than just an isolated incident of human biological system failure, all of creation has fallen into a day of death.

That day of death includes a new awareness of nakedness and shame before Almighty God and one another. We long for better clothing than we can provide to cover our unrighteousness. We are lawbreakers. Where will we find an answer to our overwhelming guilt?

When God confronted the man and the woman after they had sinned, He came forward in the spirit of another day, a Day of Judgment that would now come upon the earth. That day broke into the world at this critical moment, and the man and woman were afraid, and they hid from the voice of God.

God spoke first to the man, then the woman, then the serpent, then back again to the woman, and then finally to the man. Notice the pattern. His message to the serpent is at the very center of this story, and it demands our careful consideration. But in the order that these words appear ...

God questions the man. The man blames the woman. The gift of God that was the divine aid that helped him in his aloneness has now become his problem. He does not own his own responsibility for sin. He can provide no real covering for his wife. He is afraid, and he is very ready to turn the gaze of a holy God away from his own guilt toward the one who is the weaker vessel.

God then questions the woman. She blames the serpent. She knows that she was deceived, and she is very aware that she ate what was forbidden. But she too will not own her fault.

God does not enter into debate or conversation with the serpent. He rebukes the dragon behind the talking animal in this amazing hidden jewel at the center of the chapter. Two points: First, the serpent will be defeated and brought very low. Did he think that he would be exalted up to the highest heavens? He will be cast down into the dust of the ground. Second, defeat will come through a descendant of the woman he deceived. There will be an offspring of the woman who will suffer in order to crush the head of this evil one under his feet. Who is this promised descendant of the woman? How will he have victory over the evil one? How will he overturn the day of death that has come into the world through the sin of man? We will have to wait for those answers. They will come little by little and in various ways. For now, we must believe that the victory of God through a new man is as sure as the Word of God itself. What He promises will happen.

In the meantime, the world has suffered horrible change. Paradise is lost for the time being, whisked away from the day of death that has so stained everything. God now announces both grace and judgment to the woman. There will be children, but there will also be pain in bringing forth the next generation and discord in what should have been a perfect marital relationship of love and service.

God then turns to Adam and speaks grace and judgment to him. There will be food, but there will also be difficult toil and a battle against the ground itself. The ground will seem to win, as man dies and returns to the dust from which he was made.

How can we live in the day of death? Adam believed the word of God spoken to Him on that day. This is the way for us now. The just shall live by faith. God promised not only death, but life, and a Savior who would win the warfare between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Don't miss the promise of life in this chapter. Adam did not miss it. That is why he called his wife Eve, the living one. New life would come, and Eve would be the mother of all living.

That life would come at a cost. Man would need a better covering than what he could sew together for himself. It would require the shedding of blood. These clothes given by God had a story to tell.

Heaven and earth seemed so much further apart at the end of that day of death than they did at its beginning. People of faith would have to wait for the second Adam to come. It was necessary for the Messiah, the Seed of the woman, to shed His blood for us and to win the war of the ages. The good Man has come. He has won for us a new day of true life. We hear His voice, and we believe.

Genesis 2

The creation of God was all very good. There were three days of created realms and three days of created rulers over those three realms. Then came the seventh day. Above all the rulers in all the realms of creation is the one Creator, the God of the seventh day. He rests on His great throne as the Ruler over all. There should be no doubt that He will accomplish all of His great purposes. As a sign of His sovereign authority, He put His seal on the seventh day. He set that day apart from all the other days, as His day, the day of the Lord, the Lord's day.

In this second chapter of the Bible, God gives us a much closer look at the important events that fit within the sixth day, the day of the creation of mankind, who were made male and female in the image of God. There is more to tell in this story, and it will be important for us to hear it if we are to understand the society that God created on earth, our place in that order, and the Lord's intention to have a special relationship with His people over the course of the generations of mankind.

Man is presented as a creature of God within a given environment, the garden. God planned that man would cultivate the ground, making this good environment even more fruitful. Man was created out of the dust of the ground. There is an appropriate humility for us in this fact. If there is anything praiseworthy in us or in our labors, all the glory should be given to God. We have life because God, the God of life, has breathed into our nostrils the breath of heaven.

The garden was a paradise environment for man. The tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were in the midst of the garden, but we are not told immediately of their meaning. There was the water of life in that great place, and the glory of gold and precious minerals. It was the cradle of life for a bountiful heaven and earth. It was a gift for man, a gift that required man to be a good caretaker for the glory of the one Creator who is God over all and is forever blessed.

God gave a commission to Adam. The man was to work and keep the garden of Eden. The garden had a bountiful provision for man in the fruit of many trees, yet there was a warning. God would not permit man to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The penalty for disobedience was certain death.

The garden was truly lovely, and life was so close by in a second great tree, yet something was “not good.” The man was alone. There were many creatures, and the Lord showed them to Adam, and gave him the right to name them. But there was no help for man, no help like the help of the Name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. Though God was with the man, there was no one of his own kind who could be to him just the right expression of the heavenly aid of God. This was not good. Man needed a companion who would be like him, but who could also stand across from him as someone who was not entirely like him. He needed a suitable help for true and deep intimacy, fellowship, and fruitful togetherness.

Man would not solve this problem. God alone would provide. After showing man the depth of the need, and displaying all the other creatures who were clearly not the answer, God put Adam into a deep sleep. The Lord took something from man's side. From Adam's rib the Lord formed the woman.

When God brought her to the man, Adam was greatly pleased. He said, “This one! Now! At last!” She was from his own bone. His flesh needed to be opened up for her to be brought forth as the Lord's highest and best work of creation. She was the difference between the “not good” of the man's aloneness and the “very good” that came at the end of the sixth day. She was taken out of Man, but she was different from man. She was woman.

Because of this great need to correct the problem of aloneness, because of the bountiful solution of this problem in the sacrificial gift of woman to man, because of the obvious and celebrated rightness of this blessing, the world would never be the same. As of this moment there were no children, so there were no mothers or fathers. Yet there would be future generations, and the way those generations would move forward for the expansion of the number of mankind would be through the Lord's gift of men and women for each other as lifelong partners. A man from one family would leave his father and his mother and he would cling to a woman from another family who would be his wife, and the two would be one flesh. For now, for this first man and this first woman, everything was right. There was no sin, only the fullest good will, and no one had any reason to be ashamed.

One day sin would come into the world, and mankind would stand in desperate need of a much fuller sacrifice. One rib would not do for our atonement. A full life would have to be given for our sake. God the Son would come to His people as the Husband of a bride, and He would die the death that was necessary for the restoration of eternal well-being. In this willing sacrifice, He would show forth the fullness of marriage. Our Husband has now come to us, and He has rescued us from certain destruction. It is our great privilege to love Him and to serve Him with all that we are and all that we have. This restoration, an even fuller paradise of Christ and the church, is a central part of the purpose of our God. He is able to make all things new. We rest in His Son, and we wait for the fullness of the coming Day of the Lord.

Genesis 1

In the beginning… God. This had to be. Our present material universe could not have come to us from some supposed infinite regression of impersonal material causes. Something cannot come from nothing, and it will not do to suppose an infinite chain of somethings going back into eternity past. There must be an uncaused Cause; the Cause of all things, Himself being uncaused. This being is God, and we do not understand Him, but He has revealed Himself to us in what He has made, and especially in His Voice.

This God rules over everything, and in this first chapter of the five books of Moses, He is introduced to us. He is One, yet we read of the Spirit of God, and we have come to know the Voice of God, or Word of God, as a separate person within the one uncaused Cause. This God made everything out of nothing. He created and He ordered. Moses tells the Israelites about this great work of God as they prepare to go into the Promised Land.

This God is able to take what is “formless and void” and bring forth order and beauty. His work is described to us in three days of places followed by three days of peoples… three days of kingdoms and three days of kings… three days of realms and three days of rulers. In this way He prepares us for the announcement of a seventh day in Genesis 2:1-3, where this God rests and rules over all creation.

Day 1 goes with day 4, day 2 goes with day 5, and day 3 goes with day 6. These are the orderly pairings of realms and rulers. We begin with the kingdom of light and darkness, and we are told on the fourth day about the sun, moon, and stars that rule over these kingdoms as kings. We then hear of the kingdom of waters above and waters below, and we are told on the fifth day about fish and birds that fill these realms like invading armies establishing their dominion by force of numbers. We finally learn of the kingdom of the dry land, and then in day six we read about the animals that fill the earth, and then about man. Man will both rule and fill all of the realms of creation under the authority of God, the Lord of the Seventh Day. This is the order of creation according to the Scriptures given to Moses as the people of God were being sent into a new world by God’s command.

What would that gift of a new land be like? How would they bear up in their conquest when the people in that place had their own gods, and their own artistic images of their gods? Moses is assuring the Israelites that the God of creation, the God over all kingdoms, is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is their God. He said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. He set up the days, the seasons, and the years. He brought forth the vast oceans that teem with living creatures, and filled even the expanse of the skies with winged life. He made such a great variety of useful vegetation and wonderful animals of all kinds, each with lessons to teach us in their behavior and appearance, and with great aid for us as human beings, so that we might fruitfully live as those who would rule for God and would worship and serve the Creator.

He determined what was good, because He is God, and there is no higher authority above Him. This highest of all rulers made man in His image, male and female. The further details of this important act of creation, the creation of mankind, are left to the second chapter, which provides a close-up of the sixth day of creation. Here we see that we are to be image-bearers of the Almighty; the only image, but only an image.

What can it mean for man to be an image-bearer of God? Just as He is a great ruler, we must rule. As He is wise, righteous, and holy, we are to imitate Him, shining with the glory of the Original, the Source, the uncaused Cause.

God made everything, and God made us, and God saw that it was all very good. This is where it all begins, with the complexity and wonder of God. He knows what He is doing. He knows that into this world of life, death will come through an enemy. The first man, the representative image-bearer will fail God's test, and much will be marred in this great creation. But God also knows that at just the right time, He will send a second Image-Bearer, the Voice of God. The Word through whom all things were made will become Man, and will accomplish what only He can do to the praise and glory of the God who rules over all.

No matter what we may face over the course of our years on this damaged planet, we know that there is a King who rules over every kingdom. His purposes will be accomplished. He has secured the most perfect world for us now through the blood of His Son, the God-Man, Jesus Christ. The new chapter of life for the people of Israel entering the Promised Land was somewhere in the middle of the story. That story had a beginning, and it has an ending, but the God who wrote the story is from eternity past, with no beginning and no ending, and He has determined that we will be with Him forever and ever.

Ruth 2

Naomi's husband was gone. He had died in Moab. But there was a way in Israel to keep the Name of a deceased relative alive and to provide for the poor through the family of the departed, specifically through a close relative who would act as a redeemer. Naomi was under the protection of the young woman Ruth, but who would be a helper to Ruth, the wife of Naomi's departed son?

God in His providence led Ruth to a worthy man among their relatives, a man named Boaz. When Ruth went out to the fields to glean something for herself and her mother-in-law she came to glean in his fields. Gleaning was another provision from the Law of God for the poor in Israel. Harvesting was not to be so meticulous as to leave nothing behind for the destitute to gather.

Boaz began to act as a provider for Ruth even in the first interaction between the young needy woman and this older man. Not only did he make sure that she had food, he also took steps to ensure her safety. He also reassured her of God's love for her even though she was born a foreigner to Israel. He spoke blessing upon her seeking that a full reward be given to her “by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.” With these words he recognized not only Ruth's desire to be a help to Naomi, but to live in the care of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

When Naomi heard the name of Boaz that night from Ruth's account of the blessings of the day, her heart was strengthened in hope. “The man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers.”

A redeemer was the one to buy back a close relative, rescuing her from poverty. In an age where basic laws of hospitality had been so thoroughly violated among the tribes of Israel, the house of this redeemer provided a hand of help to an old woman and her poor daughter-in-law. He was able to see something different in her than lesser men might have seen.

We have a good Redeemer in Jesus Christ. He commands all His servants to bear burdens for each other. He is the Servant of the Lord and He leads His household by the light of His own sacrifice.

Anyone who would counsel others in Jesus' Name must follow His example. We need to look at people differently than others do. We need to see what others may not see and do what others would not think to do. We must bring the hope of the resurrection everywhere we go in the Name of our Redeemer and King.

Ruth 1

Ruth, the young widow from Moab, would not leave her mother-in-law, Naomi, the native of Bethlehem. Naomi had lost her husband and her two sons. The time had come for her to return home to Bethlehem, and though she sent both her daughters-in-law back to their mothers, one of the girls refused to leave her alone in her distress.

“Where you go I will go.” Loss like Naomi faced is a sad part of life in this age. It does not fall evenly to all. Some receive a larger portion of grief than others. A welcomed comforter can be a gift from God. Ruth pledged to be with Naomi in her misery.

“Where you lodge I will lodge.” Naomi was old. How would she provide for herself back in Bethlehem? Ruth promised not only to be in the same town as her mother-in-law, but to live with her. If Ruth could find food, she could share what little she had with her mother-in-law, and she could be near her when the house was dark and silent.

“Your people shall be my people.” Naomi would not consider herself a Moabite woman any longer. She would be a daughter in Israel living with her mother. Others might think of her as a foreigner, but she would not think that way. She would accommodate herself to a new life and culture, not as an outsider, but as an adopted child of the people of promise.

“Your God will be my God.” Ruth would be a follower of the God of Israel. The Lord of compassion and steadfast love, the Lord of righteousness and peace, would be her Fear and her Trust. She would not bring the god of the Moabites with her into Israel. She would worship the God who created the heavens and the earth.

“Where you die I will die.” The commitment of the young woman would be for the remainder of her days, no matter what further tragedies or blessings came upon either of them. They would have to find hope in the Lord together.

Naomi did not look the same to her neighbors when she returned home to Bethlehem. This was more than the normal passage of time. Loss had made its mark upon her body and soul. She did not know how to live out the word “pleasant” anymore, which was the meaning of her name. She believed in the Almighty God of providence, but she knew that her life was now bitter. She talked as a woman who had a death sentence written on her soul by God. She had no hope. Yet the person of hope was with her even in the daughter-in-law who would not leave her.

Jesus is the Son of God over creation and over all providence. He is the Word of God's power, even before He was the baby in a manger in Bethlehem or the man on a cross. He is committed to those who don't remember how to hope. He will not leave His own in their despair and emptiness.

He will go with you where you go. He will be in your home when everyone else has left you. He will be your God. He will show you the way to walk for the remainder of your days. He will lead you back to hope when you cannot remember the way home to heaven.

Jesus will do more for you than Ruth could ever have done for Naomi. He will be with you beyond death. He will be the Man in your life forever.

Judges 21

One problem leads to another. The solution we believe to be the Lord's may have consequences that we did not intend.

Benjamin was defeated. But now the question that had escaped everyone's attention before was obvious. “What shall we do for wives for those who are left?” They did not want to see one tribe entirely blotted out of the Lord's people.

So they captured 400 young women from one town in Israel by destroying the city of Jabesh-gilead, and they stole 200 girls from Shiloh while they were dancing at a festival. These 600 were presented to the remaining men of Benjamin to give a future to that small tribe that had been so decimated in battle.

The unusual actions that were taken at this time to restore peace among the tribes were not the rogue decisions of a few fanatics. The whole congregation of the people of Israel under the leadership of the elders of the nation came up with these bizarre plans and accomplished them.

Somehow peace was restored.

The book of Judges ends with this final commentary that sums up the entire situation. “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” Even when an entire lawless nation comes up with a plan that has overwhelming approval, it can still be the strange collective product of individual godlessness.

As the generations moved forward a king would come. First Saul of the tribe of Benjamin(!) would be king, and then David the unexpected shepherd boy from Bethlehem in Judah would establish an everlasting dynasty. But the Lord was always the real king in Israel.

What does it mean to us today that Jesus is King? This Messiah has a human lineage from King David, but He is also the divine Son of God. In the one person of Jesus we have a King who is both God and Man.

Jesus leads His people with perfect wisdom. There are never unintended consequences with Him. Will we learn how to humble ourselves, to hear His voice, and to follow our King?

Jesus will never lead us to destroy a city or to capture young girls away from the protection of their homes. That is not His way. He leads by the light of His life and by the love of His cross. The path the He gives to His church may seem odd to others, but it is God's will for those who repent and believe.

Jesus' life was a life of holy submission to the Word of the Lord. His death was the perfect act of steadfast love. Through His life and death He has secured for us a place in a resurrection world beyond all the unintended consequences of the present age of death.

We have a great King. We need to stop our murderous flesh from following our own ideas of what seems right to us and to others around us at the moment. The people who hear the voice of Jesus will listen more than they speak. They will learn more than they teach. They will love with the love that is willing to follow the King.

If that way of life seems bizarre, it is not because it is lawless. It is only because the way of God may seem very strange to the sons of the earth. In the kingdom of Jesus Christ, cross-love is the new normal. May the Lord help us to walk in that life of love by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Proverbs 31

Growing up is not easy, and neither is being a parent. What does it mean to be mature? Is it being able to drink alcohol and experience pleasures that children are too young to enjoy? Surely the good life is more than partaking of what has long been forbidden.

A boy who would grow up to be a man of influence must learn the meaning of responsibility. To be responsible for the lives of others is serious business. It cannot be learned by stealing pleasures from the innocent and indulging in enjoyments that by right belong to someone else.

A man who learns how to deny his lusts and to pursue true integrity can be trusted to guard the lives of people that are in his care. Someone who never grows up will have a hard time seeing that his life is about more than himself.

The good man will have a heart for the weak and will defend the rights of the poor. He will know God as the Maker of all mankind and will honor every human being as someone created in the image of God.

Such a man learns from His youth what it means to sacrifice self for the good of those in his protection. That kind of young man becomes even better by the choice of an excellent wife.

There are many flighty girls who have seductive bodies and friendly eyes, but not very many of them would make good partners for life. The church is destined to be an excellent wife in glory. She lives in the confidence of her Husband, the Resurrected Jesus.

Our eyes need to be seeking out great blessing for this good Man and for all who are a part of His household. We know that we have His steadfast love and faithfulness. He has bound them around His neck and written them on the tablet of His heart. The wedding ring on His finger is inscribed with these wonderful words: “I for my beloved,” and the ring on our finger bears the reply, “And my beloved for me.” He will never leave us.

With this confidence, we are free to be the most excellent wife we can be for our glorious husband. If we rise up early in the morning it is with this in mind, that all that we do in this life we do for our Husband who is a very worthy Man.

When we care for our children and for our employees, we know that they all belong to Him, and our actions of love for them are an expression of our devotion to Him. When we dress ourselves and others respectfully, especially wearing the righteous garments of good deeds, we do so as those who have no intention of bringing any disgrace upon our good Man. When we care for the poor in His city, we feed the very people that He loves. When we work late into the evening and make good use of every gift He has given us, our highest desire is to please the Man who is already pleased with us for all eternity.

Our Husband calls us “blessed.” We are blessed.

If we have an opportunity to live out some small portion of the glory of this eternal marriage over the course of many decades among the people of this transient world, if we can be loving and wise husbands or delightful and respectful wives, we are doubly blessed. But even if the joys of a fulfilling earthly marriage elude us, we can have confidence in the love of the Husband of the church.

The weakest disciple of Jesus has this great Man as our Lord for all eternity. Serve Him with gladness today and always, and may the works that He has prepared in advance for you to do bring you praise forever in the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem.