When You Shouldn't Adopt

When You Shouldn't Adopt

Justin Taylor pulls out the piercing summary of Russel Moore's post Don't Adopt.

Like missions, I believe that everyone should be involved in the ministry. Not all are called to be a missionary, but if you are not sent, you are called to be a sender. In the same way, if you are not called to adopt (a joyful decision which should be weighed carefully), you should be about the business of supporting adoption through other means--financially, organizationally, emotionally.

Moore says, "Children shatter your life-plan. Adoption certainly does." I believe that this is so dramatically true that even couples going into adoption with the wrong mindset have great hope in redeeming their perspective of adoption. Even if parents start an adoption in a manner Moore speaks against, the job encourages repentance--repentance against selfishness, against consumerism, against simple romantic sentimentality. After all, none of us have a perfect understanding of parenting, adoption or the gospel. For those whom God has justified, we're walking the road of sanctification.

And that's where the real hope comes: out of understand God's adoption of his elect. When you see the rebellion of an adopted child against his parents, you have a deeper understanding of the chasm we've created between ourselves and God. Conversely, when we deeply and personally understand the unconditional love and redemption that God has poured out on his children through the cross, we can begin to love our children in the way God created us to. Adoption and the gospel positively reinforce each other, for when you adopt, you must live the gospel on a daily basis.

Ezekiel 34: Shepherding

Moving on to chapter 34 of Ezekiel (from the Ezekiel 33 quadilogy), God speaks a devastating judgment against the "shepherds" of Israel.

As I live, declares the Lord GOD, surely because my sheep have become a prey, and my sheep have become food for all the wild beasts, since there was no shepherd, and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves, and have not fed my sheep, therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: Thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them. (Ezekiel 34:8-10 ESV)

Instead of leading and protecting the sheep of Israel, these shepherds were feeding themselves on fat of the flock! Shepherds indeed. These men sound more like the wolves that Paul warns against in Acts 20:

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. (Acts 20:28-30 ESV)

And so the contemporary lesson can be easily drawn. Paul is speaking to the Ephesian elders, and in verse 28 uses the verb poimainō, which the ESV translates as "care", but more closely matches "shepherd." The real shepherds need to watch for the fake ones, the wolves. Rather than caring for or feeding the flock, they feed themselves on the flock. It happened the same way in Ezekiel's time that it can happen today, and the result is the same: it scatters and kills the flock. This is why Paul has character standards for those who seek the office of elder (see 1 Tim 3 and Titus 1).

The great news from all of this is that God says, "I will rescue my sheep from their mouths" in verse 10 of Ezekiel 34. Read the very next paragraph and listen for the redemptive plan:

“For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord GOD. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice. (Ezekiel 34:11-16 ESV)

Rather than point out the obvious, I will simply end with Scripture quotes:

• I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. (John 10:11 ESV)
• For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:10 ESV)
• the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. (Matthew 11:5 ESV)
• For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24:27 ESV)
• From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. (Revelation 19:15 ESV)

And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the LORD; I have spoken. (Ezekiel 34:23-24 ESV)

Daniel 6 and 1 Kings 8: Praying Toward Jerusalem

Growing up knowing the story of Daniel and the Lion's Den, I always wondered why Daniel faced Jerusalem while he prayed. It seemed more like a Muslim practice rather than a Jewish law.

When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously. (Daniel 6:10 ESV)

In reading through 1 Kings during this year's M'Cheyne reading, Solomon's dedication of the temple in chapter 8 brought Daniel to mind.

“If they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you are angry with them and give them to an enemy, so that they are carried away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near, yet if they turn their heart in the land to which they have been carried captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captors, saying, ‘We have sinned and have acted perversely and wickedly,’ if they repent with all their mind and with all their heart in the land of their enemies, who carried them captive, and pray to you toward their land, which you gave to their fathers, the city that you have chosen, and the house that I have built for your name, then hear in heaven your dwelling place their prayer and their plea, and maintain their cause and forgive your people who have sinned against you, and all their transgressions that they have committed against you, and grant them compassion in the sight of those who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them (for they are your people, and your heritage, which you brought out of Egypt, from the midst of the iron furnace). Let your eyes be open to the plea of your servant and to the plea of your people Israel, giving ear to them whenever they call to you. (1 Kings 8:46-52 ESV)

Solomon prescribed one instance when the people of God should pray toward Jerusalem: while in exile with a repentant heart. This is exactly the situation Daniel was in, and this is exactly the heart Daniel had.

Daniel knew his Bible exceedingly well. I'm embarrassed that it took me this long to notice the connection, and I long to have the heart of Daniel some day.

A couple of other things worth pointing out from these passages:

The context of Daniel is one where praying to anyone other than King Darius would result in the death penalty. The men trying to trap Daniel knew this was his practice, and he did not waver in righteousness during this persecution. There is some connection between knowing God's Word and faithfulness to him.

Even though Daniel prayed toward Jerusalem, toward the temple (which God filled with his glory during Solomon's dedication), he knew that God was not limited to the temple or Israel. Someone who knew God's Word as well as Daniel would have also remembered Solomon saying, "Then hear in heaven your dwelling place their prayer and their plea, and maintain their cause" (1 Kings 8:49). No temple, nor universe, can contain the infinite God (1 Kings 8:27).

But God dwelled bodily, died on a cross, became sin for us that he might live within us and intercede for us. What is man that God is mindful of us?

Ezekiel 33: No Pleasure In the Death of the Wicked

In the fourth installment of this Ezekiel 33 trilogy*, it's worth looking at one verse used as an appeal at the end of the first post on this chapter.

    Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel? (Ezekiel 33:11 ESV)

Universalists look at this verse (and others, like John 3:16, 1 John 4:7-19) and set up a dichotomy for those who aren't. They say that God is all loving and wants no one to perish, and God is all powerful, and so will save everyone. The universalist makes the following arguments for those that claim God would send people to hell:

• God is all loving but does not have the power to save everyone, so then he must not be all powerful
• God has the power to save everybody, but he doesn't, so he must not be all loving

Either argument destroys the God of the Bible. So, simple logic leads them to universalism. For if God is not all powerful, then he is not God. We may as well be desist or atheists, for God has been emasculated. But if God does have the power and consigns some to hell, then he must be a treacherous tyrant, and such a spiteful, hateful God is not worth worshiping, right?

The problem is, their logic truly is simple. Reducing the character and attributes of God to trite conceptualizations will lead to absurd conclusions like universalism. God is deep, and our finite minds must wrestle through his revelation to have any hope of comprehending the glory of God. 

The first bad assumption in the universalist's logic is that all love from God is exactly the same. But personal experience alone should remove such notions. Every person loves their spouse differently than their children and friends and co-workers and complete strangers. The concept of love is not contained in one four-letter word. Aside from that, it is not hard to discover a particular love of God in the Bible (Matthew 5:45, Romans 9:13, Deut 9:6-7, John 21:20). Fully developing that theology would take a book, but at the surface it is easy to see that while God does have one kind of love for all, he has not chosen to have a redeeming love toward all.

That leads to the second bad assumption, that only a mean-spirited God would choose to punish people for eternity if it's within his power to save them. This is a delicate subject that would probably require a book of its own to think through. But a little can be thought through in this limited space. Romans 3:12 teaches that nobody deserves God's salvation. We really all deserve the eternal punishment of God (Romans 6:23), so that any are saved is a staggering miracle. But if some, why not all? Rather than spend too much space here, read Romans 9. It could be part of a great discussion, which could be started through the comments below.

Finally, it's not hard to see what Ezekiel 33:11 really means when understanding it in the context of God's character. It's not as if God is a masochist who laughs maniacally as he throws people into the lake of fire. No, there is no pleasure in punishment, but God is glorified as his justice is poured out in wrath.

We know. We have no excuse. We must turn back from our wickedness and live. Knowing what we know, why will anyone choose death?

* [Part 1- Part 2 - Part 3]

Ezekiel 33: Word of the Watchman

In what's turning into an Ezekiel 33 mini-series, this post examines an idea a theological point from the beginning of the chapter.

    The word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, speak to your people and say to them, If I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from among them, and make him their watchman, and if he sees the sword coming upon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people, then if anyone who hears the sound of the trumpet does not take warning, and the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet and did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But if he had taken warning, he would have saved his life. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any one of them, that person is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman's hand. (Ezekiel 33:1-6 ESV)

The Lord speaks a parable to Ezekiel, proclaiming the responsibility of the watchman to proclaim what he knows. When the watchman blows the trumpet, people in the land can take warning and have a possibility of salvation. If they ignore the warning, or if they hear no trumpet because the watchman forsakes his job, then they are surely lost. God then takes this parable and applies it to Ezekiel.

    “So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, O wicked one, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, that person shall die in his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul. (Ezekiel 33:7-9 ESV)

God's prophet is the watchman. The message is a warning from God to repent, and Israel must respond for deliverance. The parable and application in its context is straightforward, but the implications for our day are huge.

First, God uses watchmen to deliver his message. He used Ezekiel and other prophets to speak the word of the Lord. Now he speaks through his Son, His Word, and the church who proclaims the message of good news: salvation by the blood of the Lamb. The church must speak the Word of God, the gospel, for the world to have any hope of salvation.

Second, God does not say that those ignorant of the watchman's word cannot be held accountable. "That person is taken away in his iniquity." All are guilty, and each person stands on their own merit. We are guilty for our iniquity, not because we have not heard God's Word.

Third, the watchman bears responsibility for the message. Not only do they need to speak the Word of the Lord, but they will be judged on the basis of their faithfulness to that proclamation, "His blood I will require at the watchman's hand."

This has staggering implications for evangelism. God has prescribed gospel proclamation as the means for kingdom growth. We have the responsibility to preach the good news. That is the world's only hope. And we will be judged on whether or not we opened our mouths. God does not judge on the effectiveness of the message--the conversion rate or any such corporate nonsense--but pure faithfulness to say what God has given us to say. And even though the lost are lost because of their own iniquity, we have blood on our hands too if we do not warn them of the coming sword. We must be faithful watchmen.

    What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.
    According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. (1 Corinthians 3:5-15 ESV)

Ezekiel 33: The Righteous and Wicked

Yesterday's post looked at one aspect of God's message to Israel in Ezekiel 33. But this chapter is deep enough that it's worth spending more time in it.

And you, son of man, say to your people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him when he transgresses, and as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall by it when he turns from his wickedness, and the righteous shall not be able to live by his righteousness when he sins. Though I say to the righteous that he shall surely live, yet if he trusts in his righteousness and does injustice, none of his righteous deeds shall be remembered, but in his injustice that he has done he shall die. (Ezekiel 33:12-13 ESV)

The primary message from these verses is that God does not judge on the basis of a moral scale. "The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him when he transgresses." The sum of good deeds compared to the transgression does not cover up or clear away the deserved punishment. We cannot say to God, "But look at all the good things I've done!" For when we have a heart of sin, all of our righteous deeds are like a "polluted garment" (Isa 64:6). We have nothing to offer except used maxi-pads.

That leaves each person in a Romans 3:23 and Romans 6:23 state. But the fall is not the end of the story; God does not simply abandon us to our transgression. "As for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall by it when he turns from his wickedness." This is a most incredible and surprising sentence to come immediately after condemning the "righteous". If a wicked person repents, their wickedness will not be counted against them.

How can a person know if they are righteous or wicked, especially in God's eyes? Even these two verses in Ezekiel give clues. The problem with the "righteous" person is that he trusts in his righteousness. He considers himself good enough and reveals that his trust is not in God but his own works. Examining the other side of this, two things can be said about the wicked person. First, he's called a wicked person. There is an acknowledgement or confession of shortcoming and unrighteousness. After that, the wicked man finds justification in repentance, and the implication is that his trust is not in his good works, but something outside of himself. So it can be seen that it's a matter of the heart: what's the understanding and direction a person stands in? Does he believe himself to be a righteous man doing good for God and man (but is in reality walking in transgression), or is there a understanding of base wickedness followed by a turning away from self (and toward God)?

God's gospel message has always been the same. The gospel is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, but the Israelites who trusted in God as their Redeemer found salvation in the Savior.

Ezekiel 33: The Way of the Lord Is Not Just

This chapter of Ezekiel has so many gems to mine, but today the focus will be on one idea.

    “Yet your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just,’ when it is their own way that is not just. (Ezekiel 33:17 ESV)

The first thought that crosses the twenty-first century mind is how contemporary the message sounds. "The way of the Lord is not just" is a 2,700 year old way of saying, "How can I believe in a God who allows so much evil and suffering?" Though, the modern message is no more eloquent nor insightful.

Justice

The source of the problem is personal injustice. Because we're wicked, we cannot properly judge the way of the Lord. Israel had a choice to follow God, but they rejected him. In his judgment he punishes Israel for their disobedience. Instead of repentance, their response is to accuse the Lord of injustice. But they cannot see what true justice is precisely because they've forsaken it. Perhaps our own culture could learn a few things from this prophet of old.

Salvation

“And you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, Thus have you said: ‘Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we rot away because of them. How then can we live?’ (Ezekiel 33:10). God calls for repentance, and that message remains timeless. We find repentance in turning to Jesus, who bears the full wrath of God on the cross for those who believe in him. It is the justice of the Lord that saves us. So the wicked cry out against the justice of the Lord and miss that we can live because God is just.

Evil and Suffering

Nobody will be able to entirely answer the problem of evil and pain in this world. But this verse gives a hint. If man's way is not just, then it's plain to see that we are the source of evil and suffering. Our sin is the source of evil, but then we have the audacity to blame God for the pain that ensues.

But everything is reconciled in the cross of Christ, and one day he will return to judge the living and the dead. God has not made his final judgment, but he promises to make all wrongs right at the end. This delay in justice is a great act of mercy in itself, for if God were to bring final judgment at this moment, who could stand, who would survive?

God is calling for repentance. He says, "Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel? (Ezekiel 33:11 ESV)

Even today, God is calling for repentance. Look on the Lord Jesus Christ and live. For why will you die?