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“Many people don’t know what’s wrong with their souls, and what’s wrong with their souls is that their souls have shrunk to the level of their concerns. They’re not concerned about the nations. We were made to get our arms around the nations, with God. When you pray ‘hallowed by thy name, thy kingdom come’, that’s meant to take your heart and make it as big as history and as large as the globe. And that’s a healthy heart.”

Watch the full sermon here, and then part 2 here.

Part 1:

Part 2:

This was not a repressed acting. This was a released acting. It was not acting in the service of imagination. It was acting in the service of reality. This was not rendering the imaginary as real. It was rendering the super-realness of the real as sheer awesome, breathtaking real. This was not affectation. This was a passionate re-presentation-replication-of reality. This was not the mighty microscope using all its powers to make the small look impressively big. This was the desperately inadequate telescope bending every power to give some small sense of the majesty of what too many preachers saw as tiresome and unreal.

It is as hard to explain how this sunlit land was different from the old Narnia as it would be to tell you how the fruits of that country taste. Perhaps you will get some idea of it if you think like this. You may have been in a room in which there was a window that looked out on a lovely bay of the sea or a green valley that wound away among mountains. And in the wall of that room opposite to the window there may have been a looking-glass. And as you turned away from the window you suddenly caught sight of that sea or that valley, all over again, in the looking glass. And the sea in the mirror, or the valley in the mirror, were in one sense just the same as the real ones: yet at the same time there were somehow different — deeper, more wonderful, more like places in a story: in a story you have never heard but very much want to know.

The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that. The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more. I can’t describe it any better than that: if ever you get there you will know what I mean.

It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed, and then he cried:

“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that is sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up, come further in!”

- The Last Battle

If you haven’t listened to Piper’s message called The Triumph Of The Gospel In The New Heavens And The New Earth, you should check it out.  Other than Prayer: The Work Of Missions, it’s the Piper message I’ve listened to the most.

-Ben

As far as any eye could see
There was no green. But every tree
Was cinder black, and all the ground
Was grey with ash. The only sound
Was arid wind, like spirits’ ghosts,
Gasping for some living hosts
In which to dwell, as in the days
Of evil men, before the blaze
Of unimaginable fire
Had made the earth a flaming pyre
For God’s omnipotent display
Of holy rage. The dreadful Day
Of God had come. The moon had turned
To blood. The sun no longer burned
Above, but, blazing with desire,
Had flowed into a lake of fire.
The seas and oceans were no more,
And in their place a desert floor
Fell deep to meet the brazen skies,
And silence conquered distant cries.

The Lord stood still above the air.
His mighty arms were moist and bare.
They hung, as weary, by his side
Until the human blood had dried
Upon the sword in his right hand.
He stared across the blackened land
That he had made, and where he died.
His lips were tight, and deep inside,
The mystery of sovereign will
Gave leave, and it began to spill
In tears upon his bloody sword
For one last time.

And then the Lord
Wiped every tear away and turned
To see his bride. Her heart had yearned
Four thousand years for this: His face
Shone like the sun, and every trace
Of wrath was gone. And in her bliss
She heard the Master say, “Watch this:
Come forth all goodness from the ground,
Come forth and let the earth redound
With joy.” And as he spoke, the throne
Of God came down to earth and shone
Like golden crystal full of light,
And banished once for all the night.
And from the throne a stream began
To flow and laugh, and as it ran,
It made a river and a lake,
And everywhere it flowed a wake
Of grass broke on the banks and spread
Like resurrection from the dead.

And in the twinkling of an eye
The saints descended from the sky.

And as I knelt beside the brook
To drink eternal life, I took
A glance across the golden grass,
And saw my dog, old Blackie, fast
As she could come. She leaped the stream—
Almost—and what a happy gleam
Was in her eye.

I knelt to drink,
And knew that I was on the brink
Of endless joy. And everywhere
I turned I saw a wonder there.
A big man running on the lawn:
That’s old John Younge with both legs on.
The blind can see a bird on wing,
The dumb can lift his voice and sing.
The diabetic eats at will,
The coronary runs uphill.
The lame can walk, the deaf can hear,
The cancer-ridden bone is clear.
Arthritic joints are lithe and free,
And every pain has ceased to be.

And every sorrow deep within,
And every trace of lingering sin
Is gone. And all that’s left is joy,
And endless ages to employ
The mind and heart to understand
And love the sovereign Lord who planned
That it should take eternity
To lavish all his grace on me.

O God of wonder, God of might,
Grant us some elevated sight,
Of endless days. And let us see
The joy of what is yet to be.
And may your future make us free,
And guard us by the hope that we,
Within the light of candle four,
Are glorified forevermore.

As I mention these five steps in Matthew 26:37 and following I want you to fix in your mind what it is that threatens your tranquility most, what it is that causes despondency or disheartened feelings to rise most often in your own life. What’s the shell that Satan drops most frequently into your life? And then as I mention these five steps that the Lord Jesus took when the bomb dropped in his life, I want you to translate them immediately into your experience, because they’re all relevant. Alright? There five of them.

1. Jesus chose some close friends to be with him. Verse 37: “And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled.” So he didn’t withdraw. He took the inner ring, his most precious and trusted friends, and he pulled aside with them.
2. He opened his soul to them. Verse 38: “Then he said to them, ‘My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.’” I can imagine their mouths dropping open, their King confessing his weakness. He opened his soul to them.
3. He asked for their help in spiritual warfare. Verse 38, second half: “Remain here and watch with me.” Another text says “pray,” and another, “Don’t let yourself come into temptation; stay here and fight with me. Fight with me.”
4. He poured out his heart to the Father in prayer. Verse 39: “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” It’s just fine to pray that the bombshell that has dropped into your life be taken away. That’s just right. Whatever it is that Satan fires at you, it’s just fine to say, “Take it away Father. You’re stronger than he is.”
5. But finally, he rested his soul in the sovereign wisdom of God. Second half of verse 39: “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.”

Piper, in Future Grace, add’s a sixth point:

He fixed his eye on the glorious future grace that awaited him on the other side of the cross.  “For the joy set before Him [He] endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2)

-Ben

I—(Incline!) The first thing my soul needs is an inclination toward God and his Word. Without that, nothing else will happen of any value in my life. I must want to know God and read his Word and draw near to him. Where does that “want to” come from? It comes from God. So Psalm 119:36 teaches us to pray, “Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain!” Very simply we ask God to take our hearts, which are more inclined to breakfast and the newspaper, and change that inclination. We are asking that God create desires that are not there.

O—(Open!) Next I need to have the eyes of my heart opened so that when my inclination leads me to the Word, I see what is really there, and not just my own ideas. Who opens the eyes of the heart? God does. So Psalm 119:18 teaches us to pray, “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” So many times we read the Bible and see nothing wonderful. Its reading does not produce joy. So what can we do? We can cry to God: “Open the eyes of my heart, O Lord, to see what it says about you as wonderful.”

U—(Unite!) Then I am concerned that my heart is badly fragmented. Parts of it are inclined, and parts of it are not. Parts see wonder, and parts say, “That’s not so wonderful.” What I long for is a united heart where all the parts say a joyful Yes! to what God reveals in his Word. Where does that wholeness and unity come from? It comes from God. So Psalm 86:11 teaches us to pray, “Unite my heart to fear your name.” Don’t stumble over the word fear when you thought we were seeking joy. The fear of the Lord is a joyful experience when you renounce all sin. A thunderstorm can be a trembling joy when you know you can’t be destroyed by lightning. “O Lord, let your ear be attentive to . . . the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name” (Neh. 1:11). “His delight shall be in the fear of the LORD” (Isa. 11:3). Therefore pray that God would unite your heart to joyfully fear the Lord.

S—(Satisfy!) What I really want from all this engagement with the Word of God and the work of his Spirit in answer to my prayers is for my heart to be satisfied with God and not with the world. Where does that satisfaction come from? It comes from God. So Psalm 90:14 teaches us to pray, “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”

-Ben

First Kings 18 is the famous story of Elijah vs. the Prophets of Baal… The prophets pray all day for fire and don’t get it.  Elijah prays a very simple prayer for fire and God sends fire that incinerates everything.  Pretty sweet story.  If you want to read something that might get you excited about reading the OT again, read this one.  First Kings 19 is Elijah running away from Ahab’s angry wife Jezebel, and ends with Elijah finding Elisha, who will eventually succeed him.

Chapter 20 is what struck me as odd.  Ahab is the King of Israel.  He’s fighting with the king of Syria.  Ahab was a wicked king who did not love God.  The king of Syria gathered together a bunch of other kings to go attack Ahab at Samaria.  They threaten Ahab then do something really stupid – get drunk in their tents.  So Ahab goes out after the kings, killing a bunch of people and causing the rest to flee.

Like any semi-intelligent commander, the king of Syria and his servants debrief what happened during the battle.  Here’s their diagnosis – fitting with their pagan, superstitious nature and not all that odd to us:

²³ And the servants of the king of Syria said to him, “Their gods are gods of the hills, and so they were stronger than we. But let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they. ²⁴ And do this: remove the kings, each from his post, and put commanders in their places, ²⁵ and muster an army like the army that you have lost, horse for horse, and chariot for chariot. Then we will fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they.” And he listened to their voice and did so.

See their solution: their god is a god of the hills, so fight them next time in the plains instead.  A few verses later, we see that this line of thinking leads to their destruction:

²⁸ And a man of God came near and said to the king of Israel, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Because the Syrians have said, “The Lord is a god of the hills but he is not a god of the valleys,” therefore I will give all this great multitude into your hand, and you shall know that I am the Lord.’ ”

That shocked me. It shouldn’t, but it did.

My thinking goes like, “these people are sinners.  And they’re not even Israelites.  They worship Pagan gods, they always have, and they probably always will.  This response is their natural, default response.  If I were in their position, I would probably come to the same conclusion.  It make sense.”

God’s thinking goes like, “these people are sinners.  With their every breath, they glorify things other than me.  This may be their default, but their default is sinful and thus deserves wrath.”

The difference?  God takes sin – each sin – much more seriously than we do. God takes us treasuring things other than Him seriously.  Every single instance of it.  He “gave over” a King and a “great multitude” because of a sin as simple as this, and it was completely just.  But we reduce it to “oh, that one action isn’t that bad.  I’m dealing with other sin right now.”  Or worse, like the Syrians, we think “there’s nothing wrong with this.  This is right and good and natural and consistent and normal,” blind to our own blindness.

-Ben