Who Will Take the Son?

A wealthy man and his son loved to collect rare works of art. They had everything in their collection, from Picasso to Raphael. They would often sit together and admire the great works of art.

When war broke out, the son went to fight. He was very courageous, and died in battle while rescuing another soldier. The father was notified and grieved deeply for his only son.

About a month later, just before Christmas, there was a knock at the father’s door. He opened to find a young man with a large package in his hands.

“Sir, you don’t know me,” the young man said, “but I am the soldier for whom your son gave his life. He saved many lives that day, and he was carrying me to safety when a bullet struck him in the heart and he died instantly. He often talked about you and your love for art.” The young man held out his package. “I know this isn’t much. I’m not really a great artist, but I think your son would have wanted you to have this.”

The package contained a portrait of the son, painted by the young man. The father stared in awe at the way the soldier had captured his son’s personality in the painting. The father was so drawn to the eyes that his own welled up with tears. He thanked the young man and offered to pay him for the picture.

“Oh, no sir. It’s a gift, though I know I could never begin to repay what your son did for me.”

The father hung the portrait over his mantle, and whenever he had visitors he showed them the portrait of his son before he showed them any of the masterpieces in his collection.

When the father died, there was an announcement that his art collection was to be auctioned off. Many wealthy and influential people came to the auction, each hoping to go away with one of the great paintings.

On an easel next to the platform was the portrait of the son. The auctioneer pounded his gavel. “We will start the bidding with this picture of the son. Who will bid for this picture?”

Silence. Then a shout came from the back of the room. “We want to see the famous paintings. Skip this one!”

But the auctioneer persisted. “Will someone bid for this painting? Who will start the bidding at $100?”

Another impatient voice shouted, “We didn’t come to see this painting. We came to see the Van Goghs and Rembrandts. Get on with the real auction!”

The auctioneer was unmoved. “The son. Who will take the son?”

Finally a voice came from the very back of the room. It was the family’s longtime gardener. “I’ll give $10 for the painting.” He felt embarrassed offering so little, but it was all the poor gardener could afford.

“We have $10. Who will bid $20?”

“Give it to him for $10! Let’s see the masters!”

“The bid is at $10. Won’t someone bid $20?”

The crowd grew more annoyed and restless. They hadn’t come for that painting.

“Going once, going twice, sold for $10!” The auctioneer pounded his gavel.

“Now let’s get on with the collection!” shouted a man in the second row.

But the auctioneer laid down his gavel. “The auction is ended,” he announced.

“What about the paintings?”

“I’m sorry,” said the auctioneer, “but the auction is ended. When I was called to conduct this auction, I was told of a secret stipulation in the man’s will, which I was not allowed to reveal until this time: Only the painting of the son would be auctioned, and whoever bought that painting would inherit the entire estate, including the other paintings. The man who took the son gets everything!”

God’s Son died for us 2,000 years ago. Like the auctioneer, God’s question today is, “Who’ll take the son?” Because, you see, whoever takes the Son gets everything.

—Author unknown

http://endtimeinfo.com/2011/12/who-will-take-the-son/

The School of Suffering

http://www.gracegems.org/SERMONS2/Newton_suffering.htm

The School Of Suffering

by John Newton

I suppose you are still in the 'school of the cross', learning the happy are of extracting 'real good' out of 'seeming evil', and to grow tall by stooping. The flesh is a sad untoward dunce in this school; but grace makes the spirit willing to learn by suffering; yes, it cares not what it endures, so that sin may be mortified, and a conformity to the image of Jesus be increased. Surely, when we see the most and the best of the Lord's children so often in heaviness, and when we consider how much He loves them, and what He has done and prepared for them, we may take it for granted that there is a need-be for their sufferings. For it would be easy to His power, and not a thousandth part of what His love intends to do for them should He make their whole life here, from the hour of their conversion to their death, a continued course of satisfaction and comfort, without anything to distress them from within or without. But were it so, would we not miss many advantages?

In the first place, we would not then be very conformable to Jesus, nor be able to say, "As He was, so are we in this world." Methinks a believer would be ashamed to be so utterly unlike his Lord. What! The master always a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief, and the servant always happy and full of comfort! Jesus despised, reproached, neglected, opposed, and betrayed; and His people admired and caressed! He living in the poverty, and they filled with abundance; He sweating blood for anguish, and they strangers to distress!

How unsuitable would these things be! How much better to be called to the honor of experiencing a measure of His sufferings! A cup was put into His hand on our account, and His love engaged Him to drink it for us. The wrath which it contained He drank wholly Himself; but He left us a little affliction to taste, that we might remember how He loved us, and how much more He endured for us than He will ever call us to endure for Him.

Again, how could we, without sufferings, manifest the nature and truth of the Christian graces! What place should we then have for patience, submission, meekness, forbearance, and a readiness to forgive, if we had nothing to try us, either from the hand of the Lord, or from the hand of men! A Christian without trials would be like a mill without wind or water; the contrivance and design of the wheel-work within would be unnoticed and unknown, without something to put it in motion from without. Nor would our graces grow, unless they were called out to exercise; the difficulties we meet with not only prove, but strengthen, the graces of the spirit. If a person were always to sit still, without making use of legs or arms, he would probably wholly lose the power of moving his limbs at last. But by walking and working he becomes strong and active. So, in a long course of ease, the powers of the new man would certainly languish; the soul would grow soft, indolent, cowardly, and faint; and therefore the Lord appoints His children such dispensations as make them strive and struggle, and pant; they must press through a crowd, swim against a stream, endure hardships, run, wrestle, and fight; and thus their strength grows in the using.

By these things, likewise, they are made more willing to leave the present world, to which we are prone to cleave too closely in our hearts when our path is very smooth. Had Israel enjoyed their former peace and prosperity in Egypt, when Moses came to invite them to Canaan, I think they would hardly have listened to him. But the Lord allowed them to be brought into great trouble and bondage, and then the news of deliverance was more welcome, yet still they were but half willing, and they carried a love to the flesh-pots of Egypt with them into the wilderness.

We are like them. Though we say this world is vain and sinful, we are too fond of it; and though we hope for true happiness only in Heaven, we are often well content to stay longer here on earth. But the Lord sends afflictions one after another to quicken our desires, and to convince us that this world cannot be our rest. Sometimes if you drive a bird from one branch of a tree he will hop to another a little higher, and from thence to a third; but if you continue to disturb him, he will at last take wing, and fly quite away. Thus we, when forced from one creature-comfort, perch upon another, and so on. But the Lord mercifully follows us with trials, and will not let us rest upon any; by degrees our desires take a nobler flight, and can be satisfied with nothing short of Himself; and we say, "To depart and be with Jesus is best of all!"

I trust you find the name and grace of Jesus more and more precious to you; His promises more sweet, and your hope in them more abiding; your sense of your own weakness and unworthiness daily increasing; your persuasion of his all-sufficiency, to guide, support, and comfort you, more confirmed. You owe your growth in these respects in a great measure to His blessing upon those afflictions which He has prepared for you, and sanctified to you. May you praise Him for all that is past, and trust Him for all that is to come!

The Way of Escape

http://www.raystedman.org/daily-devotions/genesis-1to11/the-way-of-escape

Read the Scripture: Genesis 6:13-22

But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you (Genesis 6:18).

When Noah came into the ark, God said to him, I will make my covenant with you. It was not merely the ark that saved Noah. That was the means by which his salvation was accomplished, but what really saved Noah was God's agreement with him. The word and promise of God—that is what saved him. Therefore, we too must look beyond the means by which we are saved to the great motivation that brought Christ to earth, to the promise of God that underlies everything else and makes covenant with us, a new arrangement for living. Whenever you see this word covenant in Scripture, do not think of it as a contract that God makes with people. It is that, in one sense, but it is primarily a new basis for life, an arrangement for living. This covenant here goes further than simply saving Noah; it is to govern his life and the life of the world after the flood is over. It requires but one attitude on Noah's part, that of obedience.

I am disturbed by the ease with which many seek to use the Lord Jesus as a Savior to save them from going to hell when they die, but they have no intention of allowing Him to govern their lives while they live. But here the story of Noah is very clear. It was not merely the fact that God brought Noah into the ark that saved him; it was that Noah was obedient to a new arrangement for living. Noah obeyed God.

This is what saved Noah, and this is what saves us. It is not the fact that we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, thus agreeing that we belong to Him and will be saved when we die. It is the fact that we have received Him as Lord. We recognize His rights over us, His right to rule, His right to regulate, His right to command us and for us to obey. The heart is to respond immediately in obedience to all that God commands, as Noah did here. That acknowledgment of lordship is the basis of salvation. That is the basis on which we not only will survive the disaster that hangs imminently over our age, threatening to strike at any moment, but also the individual disasters of every life that can cut the ground out from beneath the house of life and demolish it, washing away the sands upon which we build.

We must, rather, establish it upon a rock that cannot be moved, which rests upon the most unshakable thing in all the universe--the Word of God. That is what created the universe. There is nothing more dependable than the Word of God. Ultimately, everything that is present in all the universe around us has come from that source. When we rest, therefore, upon the word of God, the covenant of God, we rest upon the most certain and sure thing the universe knows anything about. Heaven and earth, Jesus said, will pass away, but my words will never pass away (Matthew 24:35).

Lord, thank You for the New Covenant, which is a new arrangement for living, and which grants to me the freedom and power to obey You.

Life Application: God established a covenant whereby through obedience we can be saved and enter into a new Life. How does the story of Noah picture this new way of living?

The School of Suffering

The School of Suffering

By Joseph Tson

http://articles.ochristian.com/article2624.shtml

      The communist attack in Romania is a three-fold one directed toward individuals, churches, and pastors. The primary plan of attack on individual Christians is to make their life miserable where they work. Discriminate! Demote! Keep them at the lowest place. Continually tell them how they are not wanted there, that they are merely tolerated. Make trouble for them! Harass them! There are few in prison. The main threat is this constant daily trouble, harassment, and hate.

      Now I was a pastor to such people. I knew how much they had to suffer because they were always coming to me, their pastor. It was mainly this question of 'Why?' 'Why, pastor, why do we have to suffer like this? Why does God allow it? I had to study this issue of suffering. I had to give them an explanation, a reason for it.

      Personally, I have a problem with certain preachers who say, 'Come to Jesus and all your problems will be solved.' I do not find that message in the New Testament. I find a Christ who says, 'Before following Me, stop and ponder. You have to enter a narrow gate, to walk a narrow path with very few on it. You will be hated because of Me. I am poor, poorer than a fox. You must know whom you follow. And you must know that it involves taking a cross daily. A cross means dying. Make your mind up and only then follow.'

      The great book on suffering is I Peter. In chapter two, Peter is speaking of suffering for doing good. Then he adds in verse 21, 'To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.' 'To THIS you were called.' To what? We were called to suffering. You see, suffering is a call. It is not an accident.

      I had the extremely rare privilege, for my generation of Romanians, of going to study theology at Oxford University in 1969. I was aware, during the three years that I spent abroad, that when I returned to Romania, I would be facing difficult situations. I was preparing myself for the worst. One way I prepared myself was by going repeatedly to the Martyrs' Monument in the center of Oxford. Three giants of the faith, Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer, were burned at the stake there in Oxford during the Reformation period. Over and over I meditated on the words engraved there: '...rejoicing that to them it was given not only to believe in Christ, but also to suffer for His sake...' These three men went to the stake rejoicing that they were given the honor to suffer for Jesus.

      Now what is involved in suffering? What does suffering mean? As we go further in Scripture, we find three deep meanings. When I try to arrange them in logical sequence, I see that they are actually three steps toward Christian maturity. As we examine them, please try to locate yourself-just where are you in these stages.

      First of all, suffering is for our perfection. Peter speaks of this aspect of suffering. I especially appreciate his words in I Peter 2:5. He is speaking about suffering and in that context mentions that we are living stones, to be built one day into a spiritual temple. What does he mean by that? He has in mind Solomon's temple.

      Now Solomon had a fantastic team of architects who calculated every stone needed in that building and planned for each one individually. He had 80,000 stonecutters in the mountains in the quarry, cutting and polishing every stone as it was planned. They were all brought to the building site and one day the signal was given 'Build!' And the temple was assembled.

      We are specifically told that there was no noise of chisel or hammer. Why does the Old Testament emphasize that? Because only then can we understand what Peter says. We, God's saints from all ages, are living stones, which one day are going to be built into a spiritual temple. What a beauty that building will be-with God inside! And as we are assembled together, there will be no noise of chisel or hammer. Why? Because the chipping off will have been done on this planet. Here God has His stonecutters, His hammers and His chisels working on us for that day when we will be perfected.

9 Reasons You Can Face Anything

http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/9-reasons-you-can-face-anything

by Jonathan Parnell | March 18, 2013

God’s sovereignty is a precious reality.

Now chances are this truth didn’t seem too precious when it first confronted you. The natural, fallen response to hearing we aren’t the ones in control is to white-knuckle our will and refuse to bow. Humans tend to like the idea that we are the captains of our own destinies. Motivational glib like that will pack out self-help seminars. But sooner or later, and hopefully sooner, we learn how bankrupt it all is. We are not in charge, and that’s a good thing.

Any peace and hope we have in our lives right now can be traced back to the fact that God alone is God, that he is the sovereign power behind everything. And this has future-creating wonder. God’s sovereignty, John Piper explains, is not mainly a theological problem with the past, but an invincible hope for tomorrow.

God’s sovereignty means the good he intends for his children will not be deterred. This means we can face anything. All his promises to us will be fulfilled. Pastor John lists nine such promises.

By the blood of his Son, God has promised infallibly...

1. I will meet all your needs according to my riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19).
2. My power will be made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).
3. I will strengthen you and help you and hold you up with my righteous right hand (Isaiah 41:10).
4. I will never leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews 13:5).
5. I will not let any testing befall you for which I do not give you grace to bear (1 Corinthians 10:13).
6. I will take the sting away from your death with the blood of my son (1 Corinthians 15:55f).
7. I will raise you from the dead imperishable (1 Corinthians 15:52).
8. I will transform your lowly body to be like my glorious body, by the power that enables me even to subject all things to myself (Philippians 3:21).
9. I will do this without fail because I am absolutely sovereign over everything and therefore, I can do all things, and no purpose of mine can be thwarted (Job 42:2).

This list is adapted from the sermon When Jesus Meets Disability.

"Gift?"

http://www.whitehorseinn.org/blog/2010/12/02/dad-rod-thursdays-gift/Dad Rod Thursdays – “Gift?”

Dec.02, 2010 by WHI Admin in Dad Rod Thursdays

How do we come to faith in Christ? How is that faith sustained and grown? How are we able to have a desire for Christ and to worship and glorify Him?

They’re relatively simple questions, but the correct answer is a tough one for sinners. It is tough because we sinners get no credit whatsoever. We receive our faith and its benefits—including the maintenance of our faith and any outward signs—purely as God’s gracious gift.

But we sinners don’t like that. The old Adam in us wants credit for something in regards to his faith and works. We much prefer to think that even if God comes most of the way to help us, that we are still “keeping our end of the bargain” in some way, as though we could in any way do even one single instance of it without God’s gifts.

The truth is that we don’t get credit for any part of our faith and Christian lives; just as the bones spoken to in the valley get no credit for rising up and getting flesh back on their skeletons; just as Lazarus got no credit for rising from the dead. That’s tough for sinners to swallow. So the old Adam in us works like crazy to find something… anything for which he can get some kind of credit.

We only bring one thing to the bargaining table in the courtroom of judgment: sin. The trouble is Christ Himself makes clear that the law demands that we “be perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect”. Sin once and it’s over. You can’t be “even-more-than-perfect” to erase the sin and then go back to being plain ol’ perfect again.

Dr. Rosenbladt tackles some of this in a sermon he once gave for Reformation Day, entitled, “Gift?”. It is a simple discussion between a sinner and God. But he minces no words when it comes to revealing exactly how much desire for God there is in the sinner’s heart. That is: none.

Dr. Rosenbladt offers this caveat regarding this sermon: “Don’t let anybody tell you I don’t hold to Sola Scriptura. This is strictly a literary device, no more!” Below is an excerpt. You can read the entire sermon at New Reformation Press.

God:	I told you. I hate religion. Religion was your idea – not Mine. You have forgotten what Anselm said: “You have not yet considered the depth of your sin.”
Sinner:	But I want to show you I have. I really have. I know it is really deep. Talk to me. Teach me sanctification.
God:	I told you. You aren’t ready for sanctification yet. You just imagine that you are ready. You are arrogant and you don’t know it.
Sinner:	What do you mean? I am ready.
God:	You are not. If you were, you wouldn’t be talking like you are talking.
Sinner:	Well, what then?
God:	Just sit there. Sit there for a long while.
Sinner:	And do what?
God:	Consider the shed blood. Consider that the blood was enough. Think about the fact that it isn’t your repenting that has saved you. Think about the fact that it isn’t your faith that is saving you.
Sinner:	Can’t I just, as you said, just think about my sin and the depth of it?
God:	That is a start. But you like doing that. You like it too much.
Sinner:	This makes no sense. What are you saying?
God:	I am saying that you like atoning for yourself by feeling guilty. And you like atoning for yourself by thinking about your faith.
Sinner:	Well, what else is there?
God:	There is Jesus Christ – but you don’t consider Him. You are not used to gifts. You don’t think much about them. Gifts make you nervous and tense. You don’t know what to do, so you jump to trying to impress Me. I am not impressible.

Tags: Rod Rosenbladt

Memorize Scripture Sermon Jam

Every Moment in 2013 God Will Be Doing 10,000 Things in Your Life

http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/every-moment-in-2013-god-will-be-doing-10-000-things-in-your-life
by John Piper | January 1, 2013
“God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them.” That was one of our most widely spread tweets in 2012. So we want to say it again for 2013 and make this promise even more solid.

Not only may you see a tiny fraction of what God is doing in your life; the part you do see may make no sense to you.

• You may find yourself in prison, and God may be advancing the gospel among the guards, and making the free brothers bold. (Philippians 1:12–14)
• You may find yourself with a painful thorn, and God may be making the power of Christ more beautiful in weakness. (2 Corinthians 12:8)
• You may find yourself with a dead brother that Jesus could have healed, and God may be preparing to show his glory. (John 11)
• You may find yourself sold into slavery, accused falsely of sexual abuse, and forgotten in a prison cell, and God may be preparing you to rule a nation. (Genesis 37-50)
• You may wonder why a loved one is left in unbelief so long, and find that God is preparing a picture of his patience and a powerful missionary. (Galatians 1:15; 1 Timothy 1:12-16)
• You may live in all purity and humility and truth only to end rejected and killed, and God may be making a parable of his Son and an extension of his merciful sufferings in yours. (Isaiah 53:3; Mark 8:31; Colossians 1:24)
• You may walk through famine, be driven from your homeland, lose husband and sons, and be left desolate with one foreign daughter-in-law, and God may be making you an ancestor of a king. (Ruth 1–4)
• You may find the best counselor you’ve ever known giving foolish advice, and God may be preparing the destruction of your enemy. (2 Samuel 17:14)
• You may be a sexually pure single person and yet accused of immorality, and God may be preparing you as a virgin blessing in ways no one can dream. (Luke 1:35)
• You may not be able to sleep and look in a random book, and God may be preparing to shame your arrogant enemy and rescue a condemned people. (Esther 6:1–11)
• You may be shamed and hurt, and God may be confirming your standing as his child and purifying you for the highest inheritance. (Hebrews 12:5–11)

There are three granite foundation stones under this confidence for 2013: God’s love. God’s sovereignty. God’s wisdom.

Love: In the death of Christ on our behalf God has totally removed his wrath from us (Romans 8:3; Galatians 3:13). Now there is not only no condemnation (Romans 8:1), but now God is only merciful (Romans 8:32). Even his discipline is all mercy.

Sovereignty: There is no power in the universe that can stop him from fulfilling his totally good plans for you. “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2).

Wisdom: God’s infinite wisdom always sees a way to bring the greatest good out of the most painful and complex situations. “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Romans 11:33).

Therefore, no matter what you face this year, God will be doing 10,000 things in your life that you cannot see. Trust him. Love him. And they will all be good for you.

---

Recent posts from John Piper
:

New Year's Resolutions

http://paultrippministries.org/new-years-resolutions

New Year's Resolutions

Well, it's that season once again. It's the fodder for blogs, newspaper articles, TV magazine shows and way too many Twitter posts. It's the time for the annual ritual of dramatic New Year's resolutions fueled by the hope of immediate and significant personal life change.

But the reality is that few smokers actually quit because of a single moment of resolve, few obese people have become slim and healthy because of one dramatic moment of commitment, few people who were deeply in debt have changed their financial lifestyle because they resolved to do so as the old year gave way to the new, and few marriages have been changed by the means of one dramatic resolution.

Is change important? Yes, it is for all of us in some way. Is commitment essential? Of course! There's a way in which all of our lives are shaped by the commitments we make. But biblical Christianity - which has the gospel of Jesus Christ at its heart - simply doesn't rest its hope in big, dramatic moments of change.

Living in the Utterly Mundane

The fact of the matter is that the transforming work of grace is more of a mundane process than it is a series of a few dramatic events. Personal heart and life change is always a process. And where does that process take place? It takes place where you and I live everyday. And where do we live? Well, we all have the same address. Our lives don't careen from big moment to big moment. No, we all live in the utterly mundane.

Most of us won't be written up in history books. Most of us only make three or four momentous decisions in our lives, and several decades after we die, the people we leave behind will struggle to remember the events of our lives. You and I live in little moments, and if God doesn't rule our little moments and doesn't work to recreate us in the middle of them, then there is no hope for us, because that's where you and I live.

The little moments of life are profoundly important precisely because they're the little moments that we live in and that form us. This is where I think "Big Drama Christianity" gets us into trouble. It can cause us to devalue the significance of the little moments of life and the "small-change" grace that meets us there. And because we devalue the little moments where we live, we don't tend to notice the sin that gets exposed there. We fail to seek the grace that is offered to us.

10,000 Little Moments

You see, the character of a life is not set in two or three dramatic moments, but in 10,000 little moments. The character that was formed in those little moments is what shapes how you respond to the big moments of life.

What leads to significant personal change?

• • 10,000 moments of personal insight and conviction
• • 10,000 moments of humble submission
• • 10,000 moments of foolishness exposed and wisdom gained
• • 10,000 moments of sin confessed and sin forsaken
• • 10,000 moments of courageous faith
• • 10,000 choice points of obedience
• • 10,000 times of forsaking the kingdom of self and running toward the kingdom of God
• • 10,000 moments where we abandon worship of the creation and give ourselves to worship of the Creator.

And what makes all of this possible? Relentless, transforming, little-moment grace. You see, Jesus is Emmanuel not just because he came to earth, but because he makes you the place where he dwells. This means he is present and active in all the mundane moments of your daily life.

His Work to Rescue and Transform

And what is he doing? In these small moments he is delivering every redemptive promise he has made to you. In these unremarkable moments, he is working to rescue you from you and transform you into his likeness. By sovereign grace he places you in daily little moments that are designed to take you beyond your character, wisdom and grace so that you will seek the help and hope that can only be found in him. In a lifelong process of change, he is undoing you and rebuilding you again - exactly what each one of us needs!

Yes, you and I need to be committed to change, but not in a way that hopes for a big event of transformation, but in a way that finds joy in and is faithful to a day-by-day, step-by-step process of insight, confession, repentance and faith. And in those little moments we commit ourselves to remember the words of Paul in Romans 8:32

"He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us, how will he not also with him freely give us all things."

So, we wake up each day committed to live in the small moments of our daily lives with open eyes and humbly expectant hearts.

Story of Jonah