1 Peter 4:1-11 (ESV)

Stewards of God’s Grace

4:1 Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, [1] arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. 3 For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. 4 With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; 5 but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.

7 The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. 8 Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: 11 whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

John 6:60-71 (ESV)

The Words of Eternal Life

60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” 61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.)65 And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”

66 After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. 67 So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” 70 Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” 71 He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the Twelve, was going to betray him.

Song of Solomon 6 (ESV)

Together in the Garden of Love

Solomon and His Bride Delight in Each Other

Lamentations 1 (ESV)

How Lonely Sits the City

1:1 How lonely sits the city
that was full of people!
How like a widow has she become,
she who was great among the nations!
She who was a princess among the provinces
has become a slave.

2 She weeps bitterly in the night,
with tears on her cheeks;
among all her lovers
she has none to comfort her;
all her friends have dealt treacherously with her;
they have become her enemies.

3 Judah has gone into exile because of affliction
and hard servitude;
she dwells now among the nations,
but finds no resting place;
her pursuers have all overtaken her
in the midst of her distress. [1]

4 The roads to Zion mourn,
for none come to the festival;
all her gates are desolate;
her priests groan;
her virgins have been afflicted, [2]
and she herself suffers bitterly.

5 Her foes have become the head;
her enemies prosper,
because the Lord has afflicted her
for the multitude of her transgressions;
her children have gone away,
captives before the foe.

6 From the daughter of Zion
all her majesty has departed.
Her princes have become like deer
that find no pasture;
they fled without strength
before the pursuer.

7 Jerusalem remembers
in the days of her affliction and wandering
all the precious things
that were hers from days of old.
When her people fell into the hand of the foe,
and there was none to help her,
her foes gloated over her;
they mocked at her downfall.

8 Jerusalem sinned grievously;
therefore she became filthy;
all who honored her despise her,
for they have seen her nakedness;
she herself groans
and turns her face away.

9 Her uncleanness was in her skirts;
she took no thought of her future; [3]
therefore her fall is terrible;
she has no comforter.
“O Lord, behold my affliction,
for the enemy has triumphed!”

10 The enemy has stretched out his hands
over all her precious things;
for she has seen the nations
enter her sanctuary,
those whom you forbade
to enter your congregation.

11 All her people groan
as they search for bread;
they trade their treasures for food
to revive their strength.
“Look, O Lord, and see,
for I am despised.”

12 “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?
Look and see
if there is any sorrow like my sorrow,
which was brought upon me,
which the Lord inflicted
on the day of his fierce anger.

13 “From on high he sent fire;
into my bones [4] he made it descend;
he spread a net for my feet;
he turned me back;
he has left me stunned,
faint all the day long.

14 “My transgressions were bound [5] into a yoke;
by his hand they were fastened together;
they were set upon my neck;
he caused my strength to fail;
the Lord gave me into the hands
of those whom I cannot withstand.

15 “The Lord rejected
all my mighty men in my midst;
he summoned an assembly against me
to crush my young men;
the Lord has trodden as in a winepress
the virgin daughter of Judah.

16 “For these things I weep;
my eyes flow with tears;
for a comforter is far from me,
one to revive my spirit;
my children are desolate,
for the enemy has prevailed.”

17 Zion stretches out her hands,
but there is none to comfort her;
the Lord has commanded against Jacob
that his neighbors should be his foes;
Jerusalem has become
a filthy thing among them.

18 “The Lord is in the right,
for I have rebelled against his word;
but hear, all you peoples,
and see my suffering;
my young women and my young men
have gone into captivity.

19 “I called to my lovers,
but they deceived me;
my priests and elders
perished in the city,
while they sought food
to revive their strength.

20 “Look, O Lord, for I am in distress;
my stomach churns;
my heart is wrung within me,
because I have been very rebellious.
In the street the sword bereaves;
in the house it is like death.

21 “They heard [6] my groaning,
yet there is no one to comfort me.
All my enemies have heard of my trouble;
they are glad that you have done it.
You have brought [7] the day you announced;
now let them be as I am.

22 “Let all their evildoing come before you,
and deal with them
as you have dealt with me
because of all my transgressions;
for my groans are many,
and my heart is faint.”

John Piper, in a sermon, “Make a Case for Your Hope”

Picture this text as a sandwich, with a piece of bread on top, then a piece of meat, and underneath another piece of bread almost like the first one.

1. The top piece of bread says, “Don’t be afraid of your adversaries, don’t be troubled.”
2. The bottom piece of bread says, “Always be ready to make a case for the hope you feel inside.”

Now compare these two pieces of bread. The top piece says, “Don’t be afraid.” But in order not to be afraid you have to have some reason to be hopeful. The bottom piece says, “Be ready to make a case for your hope.” But in order to make a case for your hope, you have to have some reason to be hopeful. In other words, both of these pieces of bread are commanding us to do the same thing: namely, do what we need to do to have our hearts brimming with hope instead of fear.

And I think it is the meat sandwiched between these two pieces of bread that tells us what we must do in order to be hopeful persons instead of fearful persons. And that is: Reverence the Lord Christ in our hearts. How shall you not fear when the path of righteousness seems to lead only into darkness? Answer: Reverence the Lord Christ in your heart, and your fear will be replaced with hope. How shall you always be ready to make a case for your hope? Answer: Reverence the Lord Christ in your heart, and you will always have a reason to give for why you are hopeful.

John 6:44  No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. (this is in our reading plan today)

In reference to John 6:44, does God compel people to come to him?  R. C. Sproul gives some background on biblical languages that helps us understand:

That passage, of course, is very controversial. In an older translation of it, Jesus says, “No man can come to me unless the Father draws him.” The dispute about that passage has to do with the meaning of the word translated “to draw.” What does it mean? There are those biblical scholars and Christians who believe that it means to entice, to woo, or to seek to persuade. For them, then, what Jesus is saying is, “People, if left to themselves, are not going to seek me out; there has to be something added to their normal inclinations before they would be moved to come in my direction.”Jesus is saying that God has to do something. And the old translation is that he has to draw them just as the Siren voices drew Ulysses to the sea. They tried to entice him, persuade him, and woo him to come by being as attractive as possible in granting the invitation.

Some people hold the strong opinion that wooing is the very opposite of compulsion, that God doesn’t compel people to come to Jesus but he does entice them and encourage them and try to woo them and show them how attractive Jesus is so that they will incline themselves to respond to Jesus.
I once had a debate on this subject with a professor of New Testament studies who was an expert in the biblical languages. I was taking the position that God does more than invite and entice and woo. I think the word here is very strong because it is the same word that is used in the book of Acts when Paul and Silas are dragged into prison. It’s not like the jailer went inside the bars and tried to woo Paul and Silas, saying, “Come on, fellows, please come on in here.” He compelled them to go inside that jail.  I think the word there is strong, and I pointed that out to the New Testament professor.

Then he surprised me somewhat because he quoted the use of the same verb that he found in some other Greek literature where the verb was used to describe the human activity of drawing water from a well. And the professor went on to say, “Now, you don’t compel water to come up out of a well.” And I said, “But I have to say you don’t woo it either. You don’t stand up there and say, ‘Here, water, water, water,’ and expect the water on its own power to jump up out of the well into your bucket. You have to go down with your bucket and take that water.”  I think the force of that verb is to say that we are in desperate need of the assistance of God to come to Christ, and we will not come to Christ unless the Father brings us to him.

His mouth is most sweet,
and he is altogether desirable.
This is my beloved and this is my friend,
O daughters of Jerusalem. Song of Songs 5:16

As we read Song of Songs 5 today in our Bible reading plan, here are some words from C. H. Spurgeon commending Christ:

In these five words the spouse here gives you her summary. She had delivered a tenfold discourse concerning her Lord; she had described in detail all his various beauties, and when she had surveyed him from head to foot, she gathered up all her commendations in this sentence: “Yea, he is altogether lovely.” Remember these words, and know their meaning, and you possess the quintessence of the spouse’s portion of the Song of Songs. Now, as in this allegorical song, the bride sums up her witness in these words, so may I say that all the patriarchs, all the prophets, all the apostles, all the confessors, yea, and the entire body of the church have left us no other testimony. They all spoke of Christ, and they all commended him. Whatever the type, or symbol, or obscure oracle, or open word in which they bore witness, that witness all amounted to this: “Yea, He is altogether lovely.” Yes, and I will add, that since the canon of inspiration has closed, the testimony of all saints, on earth and in heaven, has continued to confirm the declaration made of old. The verdict of each particular saint and of the whole elect host as a body, still is this, “Yea, he is altogether lovely.” From the sighs and the songs which mingle on the dying beds of saints, I hear this note supreme above all others, “He is altogether lovely;” and from the songs unmingled with groans, which perpetually peal forth from immortal tongues before the presence of the Most High, I hear this one master note. “Yea, he is altogether lovely.” If the whole church desired to say with the apostle, “Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum,” she need not wait for a brief and comprehensive summary, for it lies before her in this golden sentence, “Yea, he is altogether lovely.”

From “TODAY IN THE WORD”

Despite evidence that indicates they are effective, abstinence programs continue to be a controversial approach to sex education in many public schools. Most abstinence programs do not use the Bible to convince young people not to have sex before marriage, but their strategy is based upon the old-fashioned biblical value of chastity.

Usually supporters argue that they do a better job of protecting young people from unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. One program in Tennessee, for example, was credited with helping the county drop its state ranking in teen pregnancies from first to sixty-fourth, accomplished in three years.

In today’s reading, we find another important benefit to chastity. It not only protects from disease and unwanted pregnancy, it also enhances the beauty of sex in marriage.

The groom praises the chaste character of his bride by describing her as a “garden locked up,” a “spring enclosed” and a “sealed fountain.” The practice of abstinence did not make her seem like a prude, but rather like a beautiful private garden. Old Testament commentator Franz Delitzsch notes, “To a locked garden and spring no one has access but the rightful owner, and a sealed fountain is shut against all impurity.”

The practice of chastity is not rooted in a hatred of sex but an understanding of its true value. The chaste person recognizes the beauty of moral purity. Abstinence did not make the bride less attractive to Solomon, it increased his longing for her. Moral purity enhances one’s enjoyment of sex.

Chastity is a relevant issue for single and married alike. Both have an obligation to control their own bodies that today’s verse describes as “in a way that is holy and honorable” (1 Thess. 4:4). For the single person this means abstaining from sexual activity until marriage. For the married person it means keeping the gate to this garden of secret delights locked to all but one’s spouse. Hebrews 13:4 warns, “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.”

Grace is wonderful. For us and for Jehoiachin. He was treated graciously:

1.  Brought him out of prison!

Ps. 142:7 “Bring my soul out of prison, That I may praise Your name;”

2.  Spoke kindly to him!

Ps.119:103 “How sweet are Your words to my taste, Sweeter than honey to my mouth!”

3.  Gave him a more prominent seat!

Ps.113:7,8 “He raises the poor out of the dust, And lifts the needy out of the ash heap, That He may seat him with princes; With the princes of His people.”

4.  Prison garments were changed!

 Zech.3:3,4 “Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and was standing before the Angel. Then He answered and spoke to those who stood before Him, saying, “Take away the filthy garments from him.” And to him He said, “See, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes.”

5.  Ate bread continually with the king all the days of his life!

Sounds like Mephibosheth!

Rev.19:9 ‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!’

6.  His provisions were supplied daily!

Phil 4:19 “And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”

1 Peter 3:13-22 (ESV)

13 Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? 14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, 15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. 17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.

18 For Christ also suffered [1] once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, 19 in which [2] he went and proclaimed [3] to the spirits in prison, 20 because [4] they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. 21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.