Kindle Deals

Preaching? Simple Teaching on Simple Preaching by Alec Motyer ($3.99)

Systematic Theology: The Complete Three Volumes by Charles Hodge ($2.99)

Introducing the New Testament: A Short Guide to Its History and Message by D. A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo ($0.99)

Biblical Words and Their Meaning: An Introduction to Lexical Semantics by Moisés Silva ($0.99)

Lectures to My Students by Charles Spurgeon ($0.99)

How to Be a Christian in a Brave New World by Joni Eareckson Tada and Nigel M. de S. Cameron ($0.99)

There Is a Plan by Ravi Zacharias ($0.99)

Does God Exist? by William Lane Craig ($0.99)

Did Jesus Rise From the Dead? by William Lane Craig ($1.99)

Is Jesus the Only Savior? by Ronald H. Nash ($0.99)

Raised?: Finding Jesus by Doubting the Resurrection by Jonathan K. Dodson and Brad Watson ($0.99)

Best New Books and DVDs

The Pastor’s Ministry: Biblical Priorities for Faithful Shepherds by Brian Croft

In the Pastor’s Ministry, pastor and author Brian Croft looks to the Scriptures to determine the top ten priorities for a faithful pastoral ministry. These biblically rooted responsibilities help pastors determine how to spend their time and with greater discernment respond to the demands of the church. 

Compassion without Compromise: How the Gospel Frees Us to Love Our Gay Friends Without Losing the Truth by Adam T. Barr and Ron Citlau

In their role as pastors, Adam Barr and Ron Citlau have seen how this issue can tear apart families, friendships, and even churches. In this book they combine biblical answers with practical, real-world advice on how to think about and discuss this issue with those you care about. They also tell the story of Ron’s personal journey from same-sex attraction and sexual brokenness to healing. 

The Daring Mission of William Tyndale by Steven J. Lawson

In The Daring Mission of William Tyndale, the latest addition to the Long Line of Godly Men series, Dr. Steven J. Lawson traces this daring mission, which was ultimately used by God to ignite the English Reformation and would cost Tyndale his life. From one man’s labor, we’re reminded of God’s faithfulness to preserve His Word and equip His people.

The Trinitarian Devotion of John Owen by Sinclair B. Ferguson

In this addition to the A Long Line of Godly Men Profile series, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson offers careful reflection and insight for Christians today as he highlights Owen’s faith in the triune God of Scripture. We re reminded that regardless of our circumstances we can know God, enjoy Him, and encourage others.

A Survey of Church History, Part 4 A. D. 1600-1800

Join Dr. W. Robert Godfrey as he surveys the history of the Reformed church in the English-speaking world. You will study the Puritans from England to New England. You will also meet such notable figures as John and Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, and Jonathan Edwards, all of whom played major roles in the First Great Awakening.

See the first message for free at Ligonier.org

The English Reformation and the Puritans

In this 12-part series, Dr. Michael Reeves surveys Puritan theology and the work of the Holy Spirit when the Reformation flourished in England. Major milestones of this movement underscore the Puritan’s special place in history, as they displayed spiritual wisdom and discernment still benefiting pulpits and believers today.

Watch the first message for free at Ligonier.org

Lessons from the Upper Room from Sinclair Ferguson

In this new 12-part teaching series, Lessons from the Upper Room, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson paints a vivid picture of the disciples’ final moments with their Savior. Carefully walking through John 13-17, Dr. Ferguson reminds us of the centrality of Christ in all of life.

See the first message for free:

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On Friday night, as part of a fundraising dinner for our youth group’s mission trip, Shona and I won the “Most Interesting Honeymoon” award. “Interesting” is quite the euphemism; “worst” would be more fitting. Because there can’t be many honeymoons as disastrous as ours was. But having given everybody a bit of a laugh, I thought, it’s time to share this fiasco with the world and hopefully put a few smiles on some faces. Settle down, this may take a while.

The year is 1991, and my first mistake was to book a trip to Kenya. That was a mistake for a few reasons. First of all, Shona was finishing up her junior doctor year during which she had been working 80-90 hours a week for a full year. Probably not the best lead-in to a 5000 mile trip to Mombassa. She subsequently made me rip up photos I took of her in the plane because she looked like she was terminally ill.

Second, while I’d travelled abroad many times, though never to Africa, Shona had never been outside Scotland. Yes, that’s right, I thought it would be a good idea to take my bride 5000 miles away from home when she’d never left her homeland before.

By this time you’re asking, “Why Kenya?” Good question. No good answer, apart from that I had a friend who had worked there for many years in the financial sector and he’d always been telling me what a great place it would be for our honeymoon. So Kenya it was. Brochure pictures looked amazing (no Internet then) and we also booked a three-day Safari for the second week.

A Mercedes On A Raft
After a 15-hour, three-flight trip, we eventually landed in the coastal resort of Mombassa in the middle of the night. The travel rep hustled us into a Mercedes taxi and off we went into the darkness. At one point we were on a massive raft built out of wood and barrels crossing a fast-flowing river. There were hundreds of people crammed on it with us and they were all very interested in the contents of the Mercedes. Eventually I got Shona to duck down and I covered her with a jacket as I smiled meekly at hundreds of very jealous-looking faces pressed up against our windows. Anxiety levels were beginning to climb.

Anyway, we eventually got to the beachside hotel, although “compound” might be a better description. It was surrounded by 10-12 ft fences with two layers of gate security manned by multiple men with scary looking guns. There were innumerable people around the entrance trying to get our money off us – either by begging or by selling. Shona back on the floor. Anxiety now moderate to high.

The hotel was really nice and the room was fantastic, but every time we looked out of the window, there were patrolling guards walking nearby, armed to the teeth again. Any attempt to get on to the beach was just about impossible because as soon as our feet left the compound and touched golden sand, hordes of beggars and sellers assaulted us (literally). Anxiety still climbing.

Five Star Torture Chamber
The room that looked so nice during the day then became a torture chamber as the live music nearby kept us awake until midnight and then the lawnmower awoke us up every morning before 6 am. After a couple of days we were pretty close to the edge of insanity. This wan’t helped when sitting in the hotel lobby one night we saw on TV news that a schoolgirls’ hostel 50 miles or so away had been attacked by a bunch of men with indescribable consequences. Anxiety in the red zone.

Then the hallucinations started. Yes, we were on anti-malarial drugs which began to loosen our grip on reality. We were both dreaming the most disturbing dreams, but I topped it off by waking Shona up one night screaming that someone had their hands around my neck. I was fully awake but in a life-or-death wrestling match with an unseen assailant. Shona was beginning to question who she’d just committed the rest of her life to.

Then the runs to the bathroom started. By this time we were both so paranoid and so sick that we didn’t want to be in the bathroom with the door closed. So there we are, two newly-weds, taking it in turns to run to the toilet with the other standing guard at the open bathroom door. Yes, if your marriage can survive that, it can survive anything.

Superman To The Rescue
We made one last try to salvage the vacation by getting our act together and deciding that we should learn how to scuba dive. I mean, why not? So we book a course in the hotel pool that would eventually lead to a reef expedition. The first lesson involved putting on all the tanks, mask, weight-belt, etc., and swimming to the deep end and back. I managed OK, then it was Shona’s turn.

When she reached the deep end, she panicked and pulled off her oxygen mask. However, the weight belt prevented her from getting to the surface. Then she really panicked. I saw her flailing underwater and shouted to the instructors who were smoking and drinking poolside, but they were totally disinterested and waved me away. At this point Superman Murray springs into action, running the length of the pool, before jumping in, grabbing Shona by the hair, and pulling a bedraggled gurgling wife to the side. Still nil movement from the instructors.

The last thing we tried was windsurfing (you can’t fault us for trying can you?) but we were both so weak by that point that we couldn’t turn the sails and we both started heading out towards Australia. We figured it better to drop the sails and try to swim back with the boards, expending our last reserves of mental and physical energy.

We went to eat that night but couldn’t even look at the food. Only eight more days of torture to go!

Homeward Bound
I looked at Shona, “Do you want to go home?” She burst into tears of relief. She’d been thinking that for days already. We phoned the travel company who said there was no way of getting home without paying thousands of dollars. But then they suggested that they send a doctor round to see if we could get home on the travel insurance. I hoped so, but felt hopeless.

The doctor arrived about an hour later, took one look at us, filled out two forms, gave us a few pills, asked for $50 and left. “That’ll get you home,” he said. We looked at the little slips of paper expecting to see something like “Insane” but the only word we could make out in the scrawl was “hyper-anxiety.” At that point, I couldn’t have cared if he had diagnosed me with multiple-personality disorder. I just wanted home and now we had our way out.

But not so fast. When we faxed the travel company, they said the only flight was leaving in a couple of hours and we were at least an hour away from the airport in good traffic. But, of course, it was the rush hour. Anyway, we threw our cases together, managed to get a taxi, told the driver we needed to be at the airport in an hour or so, and off we sped. At various points we got totally stuck in traffic; so he jumped the median a number of times, driving against the flow of cars and trucks, before jumping back over again. We were sure he was on our side.

Until, driving through a dark village, he took a sudden turn to the left, down behind some buildings, into what looked like an ancient, and empty, industrial estate. He skidded to a stop, jumped out of the car, and ran away into the night.

The End Is Nigh
We looked at each other. Our faces said the same thing. “It’s over.” Seven days of marriage and it’s all over. We’re about to get robbed, murdered, and our remains deposited in the jungle. We awaited our doom with amazing calm. We’d probably used up all our anxiety chemicals by that point and resigned ourselves to meeting in heaven again.

When, suddenly, out of the dark, our driver came running back to the car, pulling up his zipper! “Sorry, had to go,” he explained. We put off heaven for the moment and resigned ourselves to what remained of our nightmare.

We got to the airport with just 15 minutes before the flight took off. We sprinted into the terminal with our cases, skipped the angry line, and asked for our tickets. Surprise, surprise, no tickets. Phoned travel company who assured us the tickets were there. By that time the airline agents were totally ignoring the crazy European couple.

A Kenyan Angel
At that point, a Kenyan man in shirt and tie (who I think may have been an angel) came up to us and asked if he could help. We briefly explained and he assured us he’d get us on the plane. He grabbed one of our cases, said “Follow me” and started sprinting. He ran us straight through security then passport control without stopping or showing any documents. No one said anything or shot anything. Eventually we were stopped at the last security point where a mean looking guard demanded my wallet. He looked inside and saw all my Kenyan currency. He looked at me and I nodded vigorously. He took it all and handed me back my empty wallet.

On we ran. On to the tarmac and up to the waiting plane. The man who was helping us us told us to leave our cases at the foot of the steps and get on the plane. I thought, “We’ll never see these cases again,” but by that point I was past caring. We saw an open aircraft door, bounded up the steps, and entered to have the door closed immediately behind us.

“Tickets please.”

“Eh, we don’t have any.”

“No, sir, you cannot get on a plane without tickets.”

I babbled incoherently about what had happened over the last few hours, by which time the plane was taxiing. Thankfully it was 1991 not post 9/11, or else I might be in Guantanamo to this day; she eventually laughed and waved us away to find seats at the back of the plane.

We were at peace. We prayed and prayed and prayed, thanking God for deliverance, not knowing that one further obstacle remained.

One Last Obstacle
When we got to Nairobi, the British Airways desk for the London flight asked for our tickets. We explained how we had travelled from Mombassa without tickets. She was highly skeptical, saying “No one could get on that plane without a ticket.” I was going to tell her about the besuited angel, but instead persuaded her to phone the travel company who authorized the Kenya-London tickets again, and within an hour we were on the way to London.

Shona then remembered the pills that the Kenyan doctor had given to us. We weren’t entirely sure what they were but we remembered him saying something about “helping you to sleep.” So we popped a couple and the next thing I remember was waking up nine hours later over London, looking down at Big Ben and the River Thames. Never has a Scotsman been so glad to see England.

We phoned Shona’s parents who lived in the furthest away point of a distant Scottish island, and they persuaded us to spend the rest of our honeymoon with them. That’s right, I honeymooned for a week at my in-laws. Anyway, I figured things could only get better, and they did; much better. One thing’s for sure though, unlike most couples, our marriage has been far better than our honeymoon.

PS. Before the Kenyan Tourist Board sues me, I have heard of many people who enjoyed the best vacations ever in Kenya. 

A young man goes to Seminary bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Having sensed God’s call to the ministry, he’s not only excited about preparing for future service but also about growing in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. He expects that the next 3-4 years are going to be some of the best in his life.

Fast forward a semester or two, or three, and the eyes are dull and the tail is sagging and dragging. The excitement has evaporated, as he forces himself into classes each day. He’s not only lost his enthusiasm for ministry, at times he’s lost hope for his own soul. Instead of growing in grace and knowledge he feels his soul shrinking and even backsliding. Sadly, it’s an all-too-common scenario for many (most?) seminary students.

Following the pattern of David in Psalm 42v11, I want to ask “Why are you so sad?” Then I want to ask, “Why is this important?” and last, I want to ask “What can we do to recover joy in seminary?”

Why are you so sad?

Before we can get out of sadness we need to figure out how we got into it. Here are the most common reasons:

1. Overwork: This is probably the most common cause and often the root of all the other causes. Sometimes over work is the professors’ fault. Sometimes it’s the student’s fault as he is perhaps aiming too high for his abilities or studying inefficiently due to internet distractions.

2. Lack of family time: Due to overwork, students lose contact with one of their greatest sources of joy – their wife and children. This causes guilt and resentment, and even alienation and conflict.

3. Lack of exercise: Our bodies were not designed to spend the majority of the time folded up in chairs. Exercise not only expels harmful chemicals, it also generates the production of happy chemicals.

4. Lack of sleep: Perhaps due to lack of exercise, our bodies refuse to sleep when we go to bed; they are just not tired enough. Or maybe we are choosing to burn the candle at both ends.

5. Lack of daylight: Long, cold, dull winters often causes SAD – seasonal affective disorder. Our bodies and minds thrive on bright light and fresh air.

6. Lack of money: This is a problem for every seminary student, but maybe especially hard for men who previously had successful careers and never lacked anything. It causes stress and strain on families, especially when students cannot give their kids what other kids are having.

7. Over-familiarity:  The Word is no longer exciting but rather mundane and boring. The original languages that we thought would become doors into epic passages of Scripture have become burdens and obstacles to enjoyment of the Word.

8. Impatience: This especially sets in about a year before graduation when students feel they are ready to go and can’t wait to get started in ministry. Sometimes it feels like they are just spinning their wheels going over things they already know.

9. Critical spirit:  All of these things mount up and produce a general negativity, discontent, and ingratitude, that darken all of life. Or it may be someone else’s negativity – your wife or maybe a couple of very negative fellow students that have infected you with their critical spirit.

10. Lack of devotion: Times of personal prayer, reading, worship are squeezed out; or the joy is squeezed out of them by all these other factors. We cannot thrive when we are depriving ourselves of spiritual fuel.

Why is this serious?

So, there are ten reasons why students may be feeling so sad, so down, so discouraged. But why is this serious? Why don’t we just accept this as an inevitable part of Seminary life and get on with it?

1. It damages our witness. What do visitors to seminaries see and sense as they walk through the halls and even sit in dull, lifeless, and lethargic classrooms? What do student families, especially their children, think about Christianity, based upon how their Dad comes home from the Seminary? What do the churches students are serving think of their seminaries when they see and hear their grim sermons?

2. It’s infectious. It doesn’t take more than a handful of negative and over-critical students to infect other students. Sadness is contagious.

3. It diminishes performance. In The Happiness Advantage, Harvard professor, Shawn Achor, presents scientific evidence to prove that although everyone thinks “If I succeed, I’ll be happy,” the truth is much more like, “If I’m happy, I’ll succeed.” He quotes study after study that demonstrates the personal and commercial advantages of happiness, and the damaging impact of sadness on performance.

4. It’s difficult to recover from. We may think, “Once I get out of seminary, I’ll decide to be happy again.” Sometimes it’s not that easy. With God all things are possible, but, like all habits, bad mental and emotional habits are not always easy to break.

5. It’s bad preparation for pastoral ministry.  Although perhaps the pressures of pastoral ministry may not be so sustained over such a long period without a break, the pressures are often far more intense and with far greater consequences than getting a B instead of an A. By learning to rejoice in the midst of trials during seminary years, students develop a vital emotional muscle for even harder trials ahead.

6. It endangers your soul. Nehemiah said, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” That word “strength” can also mean security. When we lose joy, we lose one of our great moral and spiritual defenses.

What can we do?

So, given the seriousness of sadness, what can students do to recover joy in Seminary? There may be one or two causes that we have no control over, but we can do something about most of them.

1. Admit the problem. Be as honest as the psalmist. Recall better days and compare and contrast with the present. Recognize and acknowledge the sadness. If you can’t see it, ask your wife if she can sense a decline.

2. Confess the sinful choices made. Some of the sadness may have been caused by wrong choices. Confess that you’ve aimed way too high and worked way too hard and the motive has not always been the glory of God. Confess undisciplined and distracted study through internet use that has unnecessarily extended study times. Confess the words of discontent and ingratitude that have brought you down, and others with you.

3. Challenge yourself and one another. When the Psalmist asked, “Why are you so sad?” it wasn’t so much a question seeking information, but a question to challenge and even rebuke himself. So challenge yourself, and call fellow-students to account as well. Refuse to be dragged down. Be an example, a leader, and an inspiration to others. Take responsibility to contribute to and cultivate a more joyful learning environment.

4. Work for joy. Joy usually doesn’t just land on our lap as a blank check. No, we have to work for it, we have to pursue it, and we have to use the means God has provided. Happiness is hard work. Part of that work is re-believing the Gospel, re-savoring the Gospel.

5. Seek accountability with your wife and children. Go home and lead your home back to joy. Confess your failure to lead your family emotionally and ask them to keep you accountable.

6. Accept lower grades for greater joy. Straight A’s with no joy, or regular B’s with great joy? That’s the choice some students have to face up to. Why not, even for a time, choose to increase spiritual joy even at the expense of reduced grades.

7. Exercise and sleep.  The science is conclusive. Vigorous exercise at least three times a week and a minimum of 7-8 hours a night sleep put premium joy-fuel in the tank.

8. Plead for patience. You’re ready to go and yet you’ve still got three months or more until graduation. Again, why not use this time to exercise and build the muscle of patience.  You’re going to need plenty of it in the ministry, so why not begin now.

9. Re-boot contentment and gratitude. Go home and tell your family about one positive thing that happened in Seminary today. Then find two things to be thankful for. Then three. Usually there are plenty but we’ve become so focused on the negatives that we’ve lost sight of the positives.

10. Hope in God. As the psalmist did, he re-focused and re-cast his soul upon God. Time in God’s presence puts a beautiful and healthy glow in his soul and on his face. And if your devotions have run into the sand, let me give you a tip: Don’t lengthen your personal devotions but change them. When we’re feeling spiritually cold, the temptation is often, “I need to pray longer or read my Bible longer.” But the answer is not to lengthen devotional time but rather to change it up.

Why not read a devotional commentary with your daily Bible reading. I often use Dr. Sproul’s commentaries in this way. Or why not listen to edifying spiritual songs as part of your devotions? Or why not pray through the student and faculty directory. Just freshen it up and you’ll often find your joy returning.

Conclusion

So, yes, you’re sad, and that’s a serious issue. But there are things you can do to change that. God has provided the means and promised to bless them:

“Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; For I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God.”

Last week I commented on a Daily Beast article entitled Dear Evangelicals, You’re Being Had.

On Monday, I received a note from a friend here in Michigan that I deeply respect, who, while agreeing with the problems of Evangelicals being too enamored with the political process and their naïvety about the ways politicians want to use them, also wanted to offer some gentle pushback.

While sympathetic to my main point about prioritizing heart-change more than law-change, he felt I painted with too broad a brush and had undervalued the good work that is being done by Christians in the political arena.

He didn’t ask that I publish his points, but I contacted him and he gave permission for a summary to be posted. Here it is below:

• Although many Republicans don’t give a rip about evangelical Christianity, a great many sincerely do.
• There are regular prayer meetings of Christian Republicans who serve in the State Capitol.
• I can think of one elected Republican who though not a Christian himself, yet has many around him who are and are trying to make the best decisions for the state and for the glory of Christ.
• In the last ten years numerous states have passed strong pro-life measures at the state level—invariably these have been passed in GOP-controlled legislatures.
• In Michigan right now there is a fierce debate about religious freedom and its relationship to the LGBT issue. It’s almost certain that our state would have more onerous restrictions on religious freedom were it not for Republicans.
• The State of Michigan requires abstinence-based sex education and each district’s sex education committee is required to have clergy participation.
• The Attorney General is a Christian and a Republican who took a big hit in the polls for upholding our state’s marriage amendment.
• The district court for this region (Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee) is the only one to rule thus far that a state’s marriage amendment is not unconstitutional. Our Attorney General’s office defended the marriage amendment in court. This would not have happened under a different administration.

As I said in my original article, “I don’t believe that Christians should give up the political battlefield – there’s still an important role there for some Christians.”

But in the light of my friend’s comments, let me also express my deep gratitude for the Christians who do serve Christ in the political process and thank God for the successes in Michigan as outlined above. I’m sure this is duplicated in other States as well. May God continue to bless these worthy efforts for the good of many.

We all have so much to thank God for, but we often fail to thank God for Himself; that there is a God, that there is such a God, and that such a God is our God.

The Psalmists lead the way here in helping us celebrate God’s God-ness. For example, in Psalm 103 the Psalmist celebrates God as the Savior-King, and as the Creator-King in Psalm 104. He praises God as the Father of His children in Psalm 103 and as the Creator of His creatures in Psalm 104. Let’s join Him in Psalm 104 as he thanks God for God.

1. Thank God For His Involvement In The World (1-4)
Although God is so high, so lofty, so transcendent (1), yet He is so involved, so near, so touchable (2). He uses the physical world to reveal Himself, the light being His clothing and the heavens His tent. Where we see the clouds, He is there; when we feel the wind, He is there.

2. Thank God For His Creation Of The World (5-7)
The Psalm roughly follows the day order of Genesis 1, and reveals God’s methodical, systematic, and beautiful organization of the creative process. Instead of being an equal competitor with the sea, as in contemporary Baal myths, He simply spoke the waters into being and into place.

3. Thank God For His Rule Over The World (8-10)
The pagan culture of the Psalmist’s day saw the world as weak and vulnerable, continually threatened by unpredictable and uncontrollable natural forces. In contrast, the biblical worldview is that God determines exactly where everything goes, He sets the boundaries of even the mighty seas, and makes sure they stay there.

4. Thank God For His Provision In The World (11-15)
God’s rain is presented as bountiful and beautiful. How can we ever complain about the weather again? The Psalmist celebrates the way God sends it, channels it, and gets it to the beasts, the birds, and humanity; and also to the crops and trees that feed them. And God doesn’t just provide functional food and drink for our necessity but even luxury food and drink for our enjoyment (15).

5. Thank God For His Protection In The World (16-18)
He provides His largest and smallest creatures with shelter in trees, caves, burrows, and various other forms of suitable housing.

6. Thank God For Regulating The World (19-23)
God regulates the seasons, the day/night cycle, and even the human/animal cycle by which humans use the planet by day and the animals by night.

7. Thank God For The Rich Variety Of This World (24-26)
Like the psalmist, we should notice and study God’s creativity in the diversity of His vast creation and turn our study to praise and prayer for creating such an imaginative range of creatures to learn about and admire. Nothing in the creation is to be despised; rather, we are to use each and every creature as a verse of praise to the Creator.

8. Thank God for His Goodness To The World (27-28)
The whole earth and everything in it needs God, and consciously or unconsciously depends upon Him. And He provides and fills with good, so much so that Luther once remarked, “The Lord must have a very large kitchen.”

9. Thank God For His Renewal Of The World (29-30)
For all God’s bounty and the earth’s beauty, the creative order has been invaded and disrupted with death. But even that is under God’s sovereign control. Yes, He takes life from His creatures, but He also gives it. As dogs die, He gives new litters of puppies; as birds fall to the ground, He fills new nests with eggs; as frogs lose their legs, new tadpoles start swimming, and so on. These are not just natural processes; God’s Spirit is involved in the powerful renewal of creation.

10. Thank God For His (Future) Redemption Of The World (31-35)
There’s another hint of the world’s brokenness here, with the reminder that God can start an earthquake or volcano with the merest glance of His eye. That’s why the Psalmist longs for the removal of every disruption, every invasion, every rebellion against His created order (34). He’s looking forward to a world without sin, to the new creation full of new creatures. He’s anticipating and hastening God’s greatest work, redemption, and its result – the new heavens and the new earth in which righteousness dwells.

Thank God For God
Given all this, let’s thank God for God. Let’s work hard at looking behind the stores, the trucks, the factories, and all the mechanized processes that now so easily interrupt and obstruct our view of our Creator at work in His creation, and turn each insight and discovery into a song of praise. God rejoices in His works of creation and providence (31), and we’re invited to join Him in this song (33-35).