The Widow Who Rung the Bells of Heaven

I came across a very vivid quote on persistent prayer by E. M. Bounds:

"'Good Prayers,' says an old divine, 'never come weeping home. I am sure I shall receive either what I ask, or what I should ask. Prayer pulls the rope below, and the great bell rings above in the ears of God. Some scarcely stir the bell, for they pray so languidly: others give but an occasional pull at the rope: but he who wins with heaven is the man who grasps the rope boldly and pulls continually with all his might.'

That is the best kind of bell ringing--ringing the bells of heaven--making a sensation in the world celestial and pulling the power down upon the world terrestrial. Reader, do you know how to handle the bell rope, to pull it vigorously and constantly? We know some that do. Hell trembles when they seize the rope."
- E.M. Bounds

Think of this faith-filled, expectant, and persistent type of bell-ringing prayer in light of Luke 18:

1 And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. 2 He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. 3 And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, 'Give me justice against my adversary.' 4 For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, 'Though I neither fear God nor respect man, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.'" 6 And the Lord said, "Hear what the unrighteous judge says. 7 And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? 8 I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

The Complex and Complete Love of God

D. A. Carson in his book "The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God," speaks of the Scriptures laying out the love of God in at least five different ways:

1. The love of the Father for the Son (Jn 3:35; 5:20) and of the Son for the Father (Jn 14:31).
2. God's providential love over the entire universe (Gen 1:31; Matt 5:45, 46).
3. God's yearning, inviting, seeking, saving love (Jn 3:16; Ezek 33:11).
4. God's choosing love, his selective love (Deut 7:7-8; 10:15; Mal 1:2-3; Rom 9:10-12; Eph 5:25).
5. God's conditional love (Ex 20:6; Jn 15:10; Jud 21).

This has really made me think on a number of different levels. First, these are not five different "loves," but rather five different ways the Bible speaks of God's love. Second, I believe it has made things more clear as I consider this attribute of God in its complexity and perfection. Third, I am now more guarded against using so many different clichés about God's love.

For instance, do I always think of God's love as "unconditional" or are there instances when the Bible requires some condition to be met? And does God really love everyone the same way and to the same extent or is there a sense in which God's love for His children differs from His love for the unjust?

"Give thanks to the God of heaven, for his steadfast love endures forever." Psalm 136:26

Watching Over the Heart

Hans F. Bayer's refreshingly theological and practical work, A Theology of Mark, sheds light on "the dynamic between Christology and authentic discipleship" in the Gospel of Mark. In some ways, this work has captured all that I have been trying to say, as we are now in the middle of the fourteenth chapter of Mark.

In my study this week of Christ's repeated command for the disciples to be watchful (14:34, 37, 38) in Christ's final hour of agony in Gethsemane, I came across Bayer's chapter on "Eight Discipleship Qualities" and "Watching over the Heart" was one. The eight were stated as follows:

1. Surrender to God's Will
2. Faith in God
3. Prayer
4. Watching over the Heart
5. Humility and Service
6. Forgiveness
7. Withstanding Temptation
8. Confessing Christ

Bayer says, "These core character traits mark each follower as being shaped and transformed by Christ. They are to be understood as the fruit of Christ's impact, not as spiritual disciplines that followers of Christ emulate in their own strength."

Take "Watching over the Heart" for example...This means keeping a vigilant eye on the condition of your heart. We must constantly surrender ourselves to God's will, trust in Him, and pray to Him. We must be watchful so that our heart does not become hard and independent from God (8:17–21; 6:52). We must be watchful so that nothing inappropriate comes out of our heart (7:14–23). We must be watchful so we can radically cut sin and temptation out of our lives as God reveals it (8:33; 9:43–47). We must be watchful so that we don't fall prey to doubt (11:23). We must be watchful so that we don't carelessly mislead others (9:42). We must be watchful so that we don't have wrong attitudes toward our parents (7:10). We must be watchful so that we don't blaspheme the Holy Spirit (3:29).

Look at who Jesus is--He maintains a pure heart in the midst of all temptation (8:33; 14:36; see also Heb 7:5). Learning from His example and being controlled by His lordship in our lives, we should learn to ask ourselves: to what extent am I watchful over my heart in relationship with God? This is the very point the disciples needed to be warned of in the Garden of Gethsemane because their allegiance to Christ would soon be tested at Jesus' capture and crucifixion.

"Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation." Mk 14:38

The Friends and Foes of Christ

The streets of Jerusalem are packed with Jewish travelers from all over Palestine with their animals ready for sacrifice. It is now two days before Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the national celebration of Israel's deliverance from Egyptian captivity (Exod 12). The disciples of Jesus follow their Rabbi and Messiah in and out of the city in the final days before "the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again" (Mk 8:31).

According to Mark, there are two very different crowds in Jerusalem during this week: the "foes" of Christ and the "friends" of Christ.

In Mark 14:1–2, the foes of Christ "were seeking how to arrest him by stealth and kill him." In Mark 14:3–9, the friend of Christ is a woman who generously anoints His head with very costly ointment of pure nard. And in Mark 14:10–11, the foes of Christ "sought an opportunity to betray him."

This "sandwich" structure in Mark 14:1–11 is arranged in such a way that the reader does not miss the surrounding context of man's depravity in addition to the woman's costly devotion to Christ. The dark backdrop of the scheming, scandalous scribes and the satanically-driven Judas Iscariot sets this woman's beautiful deed done unto Jesus in clear focus to be admired and followed by all who would call themselves "friends" of Christ.

Many times what makes our good deeds "beautiful" (14:6) is when pure, unashamed, undivided devotion to Christ is surrounded by the foes of Christ hurling their insults and satisfying their sinful pleasures that lead them to rebel against His authority as the Son of God. Stand with Christ when men only stand against Him. Prize Christ so highly that you'd be willing to risk it all just to serve at His feet.

It Contradicts His Holiness, and He Must Hate It

Wayne Grudem on the Definition of Sin (Systematic Theology, 492):

"Finally, we should note that this definition ["sin is lawlessness" 1 Jn 3:4] emphasizes the seriousness of sin. We realize from experience that sin is harmful to our lives, that it brings pain and destructive consequences to us and to others affected by it. But to define sin as failure to conform to the moral law of God, is to say that sin is more than simply painful and destructive--it is also wrong in the deepest sense of the word. In a universe created by God, sin ought not to be approved. Sin is directly opposite to all that is good in the character of God, and just as God necessarily and eternally delights in himself and in all that he is, so God necessarily and eternally hates sin. It is, in essence, the contradiction of the excellence of his moral character. It contradicts his holiness, and he must hate it."

Does that make you see your sin any clearer? Hate your sin any more? Know your God any better?

You Choose: The Least Sin or the Greatest Affliction?

Jeremiah Burroughs (1599–1646) in his Puritan work, The Evil of Evils, proposes:

[I]t is a very evil choice for any soul under heaven to choose the least sin rather than the greatest affliction. Better be under the greatest affliction than be under the guilt or power of any sin...There is more evil in sin than in outward trouble in the world; more evil in sin than in all the miseries and torments of hell itself.

He illustrates:

Suppose that God should bring any of you to the brink of that bottomless gulf and open it to you, and there you should see those damned creatures sweltering under the wrath of the infinite God, and there you should hear the dreadful and hideous cries and shrieks of those who are under such soul-amazing and soul-sinking torments through the wrath of the Almighty. Yet, I say, there is more evil in one sinful thought than there is in all these everlasting burnings...

Do we think of sin as we ought? Do we realize just one wicked deed's wickedness; one sin's sinfulness; one evil thought's evil? When given the choice of sin or affliction, will we look to Christ in that moment? Will we see the great affliction that He endured for just one of our sins (and all the others)? Will we be content to share in the afflictions of Christ, choosing righteousness, and not choose to sin? Or will we choose the evil of evils: sin?

There Will Be No Riots in Hell

Alva McClain in his excellent work, The Greatness of the Kingdom (p. 25), says:

The strange notion that the devil is the king of hell has no basis in divine revelation. God is the King of hell, just as He is the King of everything else in time and space. And because this is so, that everlasting prison-house of the lost will not be the noisy and disorderly place that is sometimes imagined by the popular mind. There is no more orderly place than a well-disciplined prison, even under imperfect human government. There will be no riots in hell.

"The LORD has prepared his throne in the heavens; and His kingdom reigns over all" (Ps 103:19).