HIS PRECIOUS BRIDE

Short Devotional Thoughts on Christ, Martyrdom and Marriage

HIS PRECIOUS BRIDE

Short Devotional Thoughts on Christ, Martyrdom and Marriage

Jon Bonker

...For Katie, on her birthday November 9, 2011.

HIS PRECIOUS BRIDE: Short Devotional Thoughts on Christ, Martyrdom and Marriage

2011 Jon Bonker. All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-105-26010-0

Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible, copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org

Contents:

Introduction: Not fooling ourselves: Happiness in marriage is only found in Jesus Christ... 7 Part 1- A love story like no other: Testimony of Christopher and Mary Love... 11 Part 2- Christ and His bride: His Dealings with her: *Christ has given himself to His bride as her portion *Everything Christ does for His bride is for the glory of His Father *Jesus' covenant oath to His bride *Jesus wipes out of memory the past sins of His bride *Christ intercedes for His bride constantly *Christ deals in patient tenderness with His bride *Jesus delights in showing His bride underserved honor *Christ's jealousy for His bride *When Christ hides His face from His bride *Christ became a slave for His bride *Christ is always pursuing the deepest possible joy of His bride *Christ is always pursuing the deepest possible good of His bride Part 3- Christ and His bride in Ephesians 5: *He gave himself up for her *To sanctify her *To present her before Him as glorious *Nourishing *Cherishing Part 4- Our duties towards Christ as His bride: *Lovesick for our Savior? *Keeping ourselves pure for Him: Joy at the Marriage Supper *Submitting to Christ as our husband

33 36 38 43 45 48 53 56 58 61 65 68

73 76 81 83 85

89 93 97
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*Abiding in His love *Following Jesus outside the camp *Bearing spiritual offspring *A Closing Exhortation: Martyrdom, Marriage and Missions *Appendix

102 109 115 121 125

Intro: Can we please not kid ourselves?

Thanks for that Katie. Please don't ever stop reminding me of that okay? May those who undertake the mystery of marriage please never kid themselves into thinking that their spouse will make them happy. Don't do that to yourself. Don't do that to your spouse, and don't do it to Christ. Your allegiance belongs to One. And He has so sweetly ordained to design us in such a way that only He can satisfy our deepest cravings and longings. If you don't eat for a day you hunger, when you eat you are glad. But you know that having a full stomach does not have the power to satisfy your longing heart. And so it must be with marriage. Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever Ps.73:25-26. The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You support my lot...You will make known to me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever Ps.16:5, 11. I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt; open your mouth wide and I will fill it...But I would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you Ps.81:10, 16. Do not make an idol out of marriage. You belong to One. You belong to Jesus, and He is jealous for you as His bride. Your deepest affections must belong to Him alone. And it is there, when your deepest affections are set upon Him, that you will find the right kind of joy in your spouse. It is there that your marriage can experience unspeakable joy. I begin with letters between Christopher and Mary Love to remind us of this. They are to me unspeakably precious and incredibly instructive as to what marriage really ought to be. A man and a woman longing together to be with Jesus, and causing one another to long more for Him. A man and a woman loving one another enough to set one another's eyes not on each other but on the true Lover of their souls; and the only One who can truly satisfy. A man and a women, acutely aware
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of the imminence of death and therein, end of their earthly marriage, making it their delight to cause one another to hunger and thirst for the Wedding that will never end and satisfy our deepest longings forever. For, a day is coming...the day when we will be the bride of Jesus no longer. Because our betrothal will finally, finally be over and it will be the day of our wedding! The Marriage Supper of the Lamb... The Lord of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain; a banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow, and refined, aged wine...And it will be said in that day, 'Behold, this is our God for whom we have waited that He might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation Is.25:6, 9. But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom Matt.26:29. Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.' It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, 'Write, Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.' And he said to me, 'These are true words of God (Rev.19:7-9). I am not a married person, at least as I write this. I hope on that account you will not despise these few scattered thoughts about our identity as the bride of Christ. It is one thing to write and another to do; and even as I write I am constantly going back to Jesus and confessing how I fell flat on my face again. But I hope they will be a true and lasting encouragement to you. And I hope that if Jesus gives me a bride He will help this weak man, by the Holy Spirit, to not just write but really, really live in this way. This has really been my constant prayer as these were being written. If you know these things you are blessed if you do them. I am a weak person and struggle in many ways. But I want to glorify Jesus, and I feel He wanted me to write these things. And I pray that somehow, through these little pitiful thoughts, He might be
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esteemed in the affections of His people, that He might change me, and get glory for Himself. Please keep changing me Jesus. Help me Lord. Our true wedding day is approaching....Oh do we long for it? Do we long? May Jesus help us and give us grace, that this momentary marriage might truly and wholly be a preparation for our true and lasting one. And a picture for all to see of the value and preciousness of Jesus our Savior. As Jesus says, Be dressed in readiness, and keep your lamps lit. Be like men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast, so that they may immediately open the door to him when he comes and knocks Lk.12:35-36.

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PART 1: A LOVE STORY LIKE NO OTHER: THE TESTIMONY OF CHRISTOPHER AND MARY LOVE.

Perhaps some would say that Christopher Love was more of a political martyr than a martyr for Jesus. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was perhaps in a similar category. He was not executed necessarily strictly for being a follower of Jesus and preaching the Scriptures, but it was those biblical convictions that led him to take steps that ended in his execution. Christopher Love was described as a man of fervent piety, eloquent and popular as a preacher, and respected and beloved for his excellent Christian character. He was a highly respected and beloved puritan pastor, preacher, writer, and one who stood for his biblical convictions, even unto death. In judging the events that led to his execution, perhaps it is best to begin with his own testimony just moments before he lay his head on the block: Beloved Christians, I am this day made a spectacle unto God, to angels, and to men. I am made a grief to the godly, a laughing-stock to the wicked, and a gazing-stock to all; yet, blessed be God, 1 am not a terror to myself: though there is but a little between me and death, there is but a little between me and heaven. There are only two steps between me and glory: my head must lie down upon the block, and I shall ascend the throne. I am exchanging a pulpit for a scaffold, and a scaffold for a throne. I am exchanging a guard of soldiers for a guard of angels, to carry me into Abraham s bosom.

I speak the truth, and lie not. I do not bring a revengeful heart upon this scaffold. Before I came to this place, and upon my bended knees, I begged mercy for them who denied mercy to me; and I have prayed God to
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forgive them who would not forgive me; and I have from my heart forgiven the worst enemy I have in the world. Now, in the presence of God, I tell you, that as I worded in my trial confess nothing that was criminal, so I denied nothing that was true, that I may seal it with my blood. What 1 then denied and protested before the high court of justice, I now deny and protest before you. I am for a regulated mixed monarchy, which I judge to be one of the best governments in the world. I opposed, in my place, the forces of the late king; because I am against screwing up monarchy into tyranny, as much as against those who would pull it down to anarchy. I was always against putting the king to death, whose person I promised in my covenant to preserve; and I judge it an ill way of curing the body politic, to cut off the political head. I die with my judgment against the engagement: I pray God to forgive them who impose, and them who take it, and preserve them who refuse it. Neither would I be looked upon as owning the present government : I die with my judgment against it. And I die cleaving to all those oaths, vows, covenants, and protestations, which were imposed by the two houses of parliament. I have abundant peace in my own mind, that I have set myself against the sins and apostasies of the time. Although my faithfulness hath procured me the ill-will of men, it hath secured me peace with God: I have lived in peace, and I shall die in peace. But, before I draw my last breath, I desire to justify God and condemn myself. Though I come to a shameful and untimely death, God is righteous. And though he cut me off in the midst of my days, and in the midst of my ministry, because I have sinned, he is righteous, blessed be
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his name. My blood shall not be spilt for nought. I may do more good, and bring more glory to God, by dying upon a scaffold, than if I had died upon my bed. I bless God, I have not the least trouble on my spirit; but I die with as much quietness of mind as if I were going to lie down upon my bed to rest. I see men thirst after my blood, which will only hasten my happiness and their ruin. For though I am of a mean parentage, my blood is the blood of a Christian, of a minister, of an innocent man, and of a martyr ; and this I speak without vanity. Had I renounced my covenant, debauched my conscience, and endangered my soul, I might have escaped this place ; but, blessed be God, I have made the best choice: 1 have chosen affliction rather than sin. And, therefore, welcome scaffold, welcome axe, welcome block, welcome death, welcome all, because they will send me to my Father s house. I bless God, and without vanity it is spoken, that I have formerly had more fear in the drawing of a tooth than I have now in the cutting off my head. Thus I commit myself to God, and to receive the fatal blow. I am comforted in this, that though men kill me, they cannot damn me: and though they thrust me out of the world, they cannot thrust me out of heaven. I am going to the heavenly Jerusalem, to the innumerable company of angels, to Jesus Christ, the mediator of the new covenant, to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to God the judge of all; in whose presence there is fulness of joy, and at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore. I conclude in the words of the apostle, I am now ready to be offered up, and the time of my departure is at hand; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness; and not for me only,
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but for all them who love the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ; through whose blood I expect salvation and the remission of sins. And so the Lord bless you all.
My interest in Christopher Love was mainly sparked in reading the letters he exchanged with his wife, Mary, while in prison and awaiting his execution. To me they are unspeakably precious. And, though only short and few in number, I have found them to teach me more about what marriage should be, perhaps, than anything else I have read. So I begin by laying them before you. May God touch you through them the way He deeply did me. If you can get through them without shedding any tears you are much stronger than I am. The following are excerpts borrowed from Women of the Puritan Times by James Anderson. I will begin with the letters Mary wrote to the Parliament on behalf of her husband, which hint at the depth of love they had for one another. Then, we will finish with the letters exchanged between Christopher and Mary. Mrs. Love was a woman of a sorrowful spirit, as she describes herself, and this blow, so heavy and so sudden, fell upon her with crushing severity. Soon she was to be a desolate widow, left with the care of two children, and having the prospect of being confined of another. But could nothing be done to save a life in which her own was bound up? Was there no hope that the parliament would extend to her husband their clemency'? Many of its members professed great zeal for religion. Did not this encourage the hope that they would not be deaf to her distressful pleadings'? Her friends had expressed to her their readiness to give ample security that Mr. Love would henceforth conduct himself peaceably, and never act in any respect to the detriment of the government established by law. Did not this
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still more strengthen the hope that the parliament would commiserate his condition? Reasoning in this manner with herself, she resolved to petition the parliament for the remission of his sentence. The petition she presented was as follows :

To the Supreme Authority, the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England, The humble petition of Mary, the distressed wife of Christopher Love, That whereas the High Court of Justice hath lately sentenced to death her dear and tender husband, in whose life the life of your petitioner is bound up; in the execution of which sentence, your poor handmaid should become an unhappy widow, and the miserable mother of two young fatherless children, and, she being so near to her appointed hour, having sorrow upon sorrow, be forced, through inexpressible grief, to bow down in travail, and give up the ghost; and so, with one blow, there be destroyed both father, and mother, and babe in one day. Yet her spirit is somewhat revived with the thought that there is hope in Israel concerning this thing, when she considers that her humble petition is this day presented before so many professing godliness, who have tasted abundantly how gracious the Lord is, and who through mercy are called of God to inherit a blessing, and to be a blessing to the afflicted in the midst of the land. Therefore your distressed handmaid, throwing herself in all humility at your feet, beseecheth you, by the wombs that bare you, and the breasts that gave you suck, in the bowels of the Lord Jesus Christ, mercifully to interpose, that this
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fatal blow may be prevented: which act of compassion in you, will be to your poor handmaid as resurrection from the dead; and not only all the tender-hearted mothers of England, but even the babe yet unborn, shall rise up and call you blessed: and this will be to you a glory, and crown of rejoicing in the sight of the nation, when the blessing of them that are ready to perish shall come upon you. And your poor handmaid humbly conceives, that your mercy herein will be no danger to the state, for that your poor petitioner's friends are willing to give all-sufficient security that her husband shall live peaceably and quietly for the time to come, and never act anything to the prejudice of this Commonwealth and present government. Now the God of heaven bow your hearts to show mercy. And your petitioner shall pray, Mary Love.
On the 15th of July, a petition from Love in his own behalf, and another from Mrs. Love in his behalf, both praying either for the remission of his sentence or for its commutation into banishment, were read before the parliament. Mrs. Love's petition was as follows :

To the Supreme Authority, the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England. The humble petition of Mary, the wife of Christopher Love, condemned to die, That whereas your distressed handmaid hath in all humility, in the exceeding great bitterness of her spirit, poured out her very soul to this honourable house for the
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life of her condemned husband, which petition was mercifullv received and read in parliament, as your petitioner is informed, for which high favour she desireth to bless God and be thankful to your honours; and although she hath great cause to be very sensible of your high displeasure against her husband, for which she is heartily sorry; nevertheless she, hoping that your bowels yearn towards her in this her sad condition, adventures once more to make her humble supplication, and doth pray, That if your poor petitioner's husband hath provoked you so far as to render him utterly incapable of your full pardon, yet you would graciously be pleased to let your handmaid find so much favour in your eyes as that you will say of your petitioner's dear husband as Solomon said of Abiathar, Though thou art worthy of death, we will not at this time put thee to death. O pardon your perplexed handmaid, if she again beseech you by the wombs that bare you and the breasts that gave you suck, in the bowels of the Lord Jesus Christ, to reprieve him for a time, till she may recover her strength before he depart hence and be seen no more, lest at one terrible stroke in his execution the lives of him, her, and the tender babe in her womb be cut off, and two poor innocent orphans be left behind to begin and end their days in misery! And though he may not be thought worthy to breathe in English air (which God forbid), yet give him, O give him leave to sigh out his sorrows under your displeasure in the utmost parts of the earth, wheresoever you shall think fit to banish him! which, although it be a very great punishment in itself, yet your handmaid and her dying husband shall acknowledge even this to be a great mercy, and shall thankfully receive it at your hand. And shall pray, Mary Love.

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Mrs. Love herself again approached the parliament as a suppliant. While thanking them that they had added a month to the life of her dear husband, she implored them to commiserate her pitiable condition, and to commute the penalty of death, whatever might be the part of the world in which they might be pleased to sentence him to pass the remainder of his days.

To the Supreme Authority, the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England, The humble petition of Mary, the wife of Christopher Love That your poor petitioner hath great cause to say, blessed be God, and blessed be you, for your merciful vote of the loth of July (a day never to be forgotten), in adding a month to the life of her dear husband, which hath opened a door of hope to her in the midst of the valley of Achor, and made her glad, though she be a woman of sorrowful spirit; yet your distressed handmaid is overwhelmed with grief and anguish of soul, and cannot be comforted; when she remembers the doleful day, the 15th of August, so near approaching, her heart doth almost die within her, and she is as one giving up the ghost before she is delivered of the fruits of her womb. Wherefore your greatly distressed handmaid doth again pour out her soul with renewed and importunate requests, beseeching your honours to commiserate her deplorable condition, by putting on bowels of pity and compassion towards her dear condemned husband, that she may not grapple with the intolerable pains of travail and the insupportable thoughts of her husband's death in one day. Oh that the life of your handmaid and her babe might be a ransom for the life of her
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condemned husband! she had rather choose out of love to die for him, than for sorrow of heart to die with him. Now the good Lord incline your hearts to give him his life for a prey, wheresoever it shall please your honours to cast him. And your petitioner shall ever pray, Mary Love.
All these efforts failed to procure a pardon for Love, or a mitigation of the penalty. Cromwell returned no answer to the parliament as to the manner in which he would have him to be treated. He perhaps thought that it was necessary to select one or two of the conspirators as objects of punishment to inspire the royalists with terror, and that, Love being a prominent character, it was politic to leave him to expiate his offense on the scaffold. His silence left the doom of death still suspended over the fated minister. The heart is slow in renouncing hope, and from these repeated reprieves, Mrs. Love had not altogether lost it; but how difficult is it to bear that sickness of heart caused by hope deferred, that oppression of spirit which the uncertainty of what one's fate is to be produces, and to which the certain knowledge of what it is to be, however hard, is a relief. This state of miserable suspense Mrs. Love had however to bear, as best she could; yet not letting go her hold of hope altogether though indeed she often despaired she resolved, while the brief week of her husband's reprieve afforded opportunity, to make one effort more to save him from his impending doom. She again petitioned the parliament, beseeching them to commiserate the importunate cries and entreaties of herself and her children, and to change his sentence of death into a sentence of banishment to banish him to New England, where he might usefully employ himself for the
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conversion of the Indians.

To the Supreme Authority, the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England, The humble petition of Mary, the distressed wife of Christopher Love, Humbly That your sad and sorrowful petitioner, in the multitude of her fears wherewith her spirit is overwhelmed within her, after sundry applications and grievous disappointments, more bitter than death, cannot cease to follow your honours with strong cries and supplications, as the importunate Canaanitish woman did the Lord Christ. And that now at last you would suffer yourselves to be entreated, and let your bowels yearn within you, that so root and branch may not be cut off in one day! The great God hears the cries of ravens. O that God would open your hearts to hear the cries and heart-breaking groans of the mother with the tender babes, that cannot keep silence whilst there is any hope! Your desolate handmaid waiteth with all humility and earnest expectation (at your doors), beseeching you not to forget to show mercy to your poor petitioner and her tender babes. make not your handmaid a widow, and her children fatherless! but be graciously pleased to prevent this dreadful blow, which your petitioner trembleth to think upon, and earnestly beseeches you to change the sentence of death into a sentence of banishment; and whilst you are propagating the gospel in New England, let her dying husband, as a prophet from the dead, be sent to endeavour the conversion of the poor Indians, that so many souls may bless God in your behalf; and she shall receive it from your hands
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as a signal favour. And your petitioner shall pray, Mary Love.

This petition, the last which Mrs. Love presented to the parliament in behalf of her husband, like all the others presented by herself and others, was of no avail. During the course of this week's reprieve, Cromwell still remaining silent, the parliament, taking for granted that he meant them to understand by this silence that he declined to interfere, would neither save the life of Love, nor delay his execution beyond the day appointed. Mrs. Love was in some good measure prepared for what was now to take place. She had been long familiarizing her self with the scene, and strengthening her fortitude by meditation and prayer. Her interviews with Love in the prison, to which, she was admitted, had also a very happy influence in bringing her mind into a state of resignation for this great affliction. Mr. Love, says the publisher of Loves Name Lives, having his wife frequently with him in prison after his trial was ordered, had thereby opportunity, as to open his very heart unto her, in reference to his own estate and condition, and the apprehensions which he had, both of it and of his sufferings (which accordingly he did, to her exceeding great satisfaction and comfort), so also to speak that to her, that might be, and that afterwards did prove to be, a great means of her support, under those trying and pressing afflictions which she did encounter. Mrs. Love had been endeavouring to prepare her mind for the worst, and as it was extremely doubtful whether these petitions would be of any avail in obtaining for him either a pardon or a reprieve, she wrote to him on the 14th of July,
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a farewell letter, full of Christian wisdom and consolation. The letter is as follows:

My dear Heart, Before I write a word further, I beseech thee, think not that it is thy wife, but a friend now that writes to thee. I hope thou hast freely given up thy wife and children to that God, who hath said, in Jer. xlix. 11: Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive, and let thy widow trust in me. Thy Maker will be my husband, and a father to thy children. O that the Lord would keep thee from having one troubled thought for thy relations ! I desire freely to give thee up into thy Father's hands, and not only look upon it as a crown of glory for thee to die for Christ, but as an honour to me, that I should have an husband to leave for Christ. I dare not speak to thee, nor have a thought within my own heart, of my unspeakable loss, but wholly keep my eye fixed upon thy inexpressible and inconceivable gain. Thou leavest but a sinful, mortal wife, to be everlastingly married to the Lord of glory: thou leavest but children, brothers and sisters, to go to the Lord Jesus, thy eldest brother: thou leavest friends on earth to go to the enjoyment of saints and angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect in glory; thou dost but leave earth for heaven, and changest a prison for a palace. And if natural affections should begin to arise, I hope that spirit of grace that is within thee will quell them; knowing that all things here below are but dung and dross in comparison of those things that are above. I know thou keepest thine eye fixed on the hope of glory, which makes thy feet trample on the loss of earth. My dear, I know God hath not only prepared glory for thee, and thee for it; but I am persuaded he will sweeten the way for thee to come to the enjoyment of it. When
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thou art putting on thy clothes that morning, O think, I am now putting on my wedding garments, to go to be everlastingly married to my Redeemer! And when the messenger of death comes to thee, let him not seem dreadful to thee; but look on him as a messenger that brings thee tidings of eternal life. When thou goest up the scaffold, think (as thou said to me) it is but thy fiery chariot, to carry thee up to thy Father's house. And when thou layest down thy precious head to receive thy father's stroke, remember what thou said to me, though thy head were severed from thy body, yet in a moment thy soul should be united to thy head, the Lord Jesus, in heaven. And though it may seem something bitter, that by the hands of men we are parted a little sooner than otherwise we might have been; yet let us consider, it is the decree and will of our Father; and it will not be long ere we shall enjoy one another in heaven again. Let us comfort one another with these sayings. Be comforted, my dear heart, it is but a little stroke, and thou shalt be there where the weary shall be at rest, and where the wicked shall cease from troubling. Remember, though thou mayst eat thy dinner with bitter herbs, yet thou shalt have a sweet supper with Christ that night. My dear, by what I write unto thee, I do not hereby undertake to teach thee; for these comforts I have received from the Lord by thee. I will write no more, nor trouble thee any farther, but commit thee into the arms of that God with whom, ere long, thou and I shall be. Farewell, my dear, I shall never see thy face more, till we both behold the face of the Lord Jesus at the great day. Mary Love. July 14, 1651.

My Dearest Beloved,

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I am now going to my long home, yet I must write thee a word before I go hence and shall be seen no more. It is to beg thee to be comforted in my gain and not to be troubled in thy loss. Labor to suppress thy inward fears now that thou art under outward sorrows. As thy outward sufferings abound, let thy consolations in Christ also abound. I know thou art a woman of a sorrowful spirit. My time is short; I have but a few words of counsel to give thee, and then I shall leave thee to God who careth for thee and thine. 1. While thou art under desertions, labor rather to strengthen and clear up thy evidences for heaven than question them. 2. Remember a faith of adherence or reliance on the Lord Jesus brings thee to heaven, though thou want the faith of evidence of assurance. 3. Labor to find that (and more also) in God which thou hast lost in the creature. 4. Spend not thy days in heaviness for my death. If there were knowledge of things below or sorrow in heaven, I should grieve to think my beloved should mourn on earth. 5. Lie under a soul-searching ministry. I know thou art not a sponge hearer, sucking in foul water as well as fair. God hath given thee a good understanding, to be able to discern things that differ. As the mouth tastes meat, thy ear trieth words. 6. Be conversant in Christian meetings and much in the exercises of mortification, in fasting and prayers, yet have respect to the weakness of thy body and thy present condition. 7. Have a care of thyself and babes. God will take care of thee and them. I can write no more; farewell, my dear, farewell, farewell. My dear, I beg thee to be satisfied. My heart is greatly comforted in God. I can quietly submit to the good pleasure of His will, and I hope thou dost so also. I am delivered by the determinate counsel of God; the will of the Lord be done. Read for thy comfort when I am dead and
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gone Jeremiah 49:11 and the beginning of 12; Isaiah 9:6-8; Psalm 5:6 and 146:9; 2 Corinthians 4:17-18; and Hebrews 12:6-7. These are the last words written by thy dying, yet comforted husband, Christoper Love. From the Tower on the Lord's Day July 15, 1651 (the day he expected to be executed) From the Tower of London.
The following letter was written by Love to Mary, without date:

More Dear to me than ever, It adds to my rejoicing that I have so good and gracious a wife to part with for the Lord Jesus. In thy grief I have been grieved, but in thy joy I have been comforted. Surely nature could never help thee to bear so heavy a stroke with so much silence and submission to the hand of God! Oh dearest! every line thou writest gladdeth my heart. I dare not think that there is such a creature as Mary Love in the world; for Kit and Mall, I can think of them without trouble, leaving them to so good a God, and so good a mother. Be comforted concerning thy husband, who may more honour God in his death than in his life: the will of the Lord be done; he is fully satisfied with the hand of God. Though there [be] but little between him and death, he knows there is but little between him and heaven, and that ravisheth his heart. The Lord bless and requite thee for thy wise and good counsel! Thou hast prevented me; the very things I thought to have written to thee thou hast written to me. I have had more comfort from thy gracious letter than from all the counsel I have had from any else in the world: well, be assured, we shall meet in heaven. I rest, till I rest in heaven, thy dying but comforted friend, Christopher Love. From the Tower, the Lord's Day.

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Love was bearing up marvelously under the strain. He had no hope of reprieve but was calm and cheerful in the knowledge that the Judge of all the world does well. He replied to a further letter from Mary, now lost:

Most dearest delight on earth, I was fast asleep when thy note came. I bless God I break not an hour's sleep for all my sufferings; I know they work for me a more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. I slept this night from ten at night, till seven in the morning, and never waked. My dear, I am so comforted in the gracious supports God gives thee, that my burdens are the lighter on my shoulders, because they are not so heavy on thine; or if they be heavy, yet that God helps thee to bear them. The Lord keep it in the purpose of our hearts for ever, to submit to the good pleasure of God! I bless God I do find my heart in as quiet and composed a temper as ever I did in all my life. I am, till I die, thy tender-hearted husband, Christopher Love. From the Tower, August 18th
On the day before his execution, Mary wrote to him the following letter:

My heavenly Dear, I call thee so, because God hath put heaven into thee, before he hath taken thee to heaven. Thou now beholdest God, Christ, and glory as in a glass, but tomorrow heaven's gates will be opened, and thou shalt be in the full enjoyment of all those glories which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither can the heart of man understand. God hath now swallowed up thy heart in the thoughts of
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heaven, but ere long thou shalt be swallowed up in the enjoyment of heaven. And no marvel there should be such quietness and calmness in thy spirit, whilst thou art sailing in this tempestuous sea, because thou perceivest by the eye of faith a haven of rest, where thou shalt be richly laden with all the glories of heaven. O lift up thy heart with joy when thou layest thy dear head on the block, in the thoughts of this, that thou art laying thy head to rest in thy Father's bosom, which, when thou dost awake, shall be crowned, not with an earthly fading crown, but with an heavenly, eternal crown of glory. And be not discouraged when thou shalt see a guard of soldiers triumphing with their trumpets about thee, but lift up thy head, and thou shalt behold God with a guard of his holy angels, triumphing to receive thee to glory. Be not dismayed at the scoffs and reproaches that thou mayest meet with in thy short way to heaven, for, be assured, God will not only glorify thy body and soul in heaven, but he will also make the memory of thee to be glorious on the earth. O let not one troubled thought for thy wife and babes arise within thee! thy God will be our God and our portion. He will be a husband to thy widow, and a father to thy children; the grace of thy God will be so sufficient for us. Now, my dear, I desire willingly and cheerfully to resign my right in thee to thy Father and my Father, who hath the greatest interest in thee; and confident I am, though men have separated us for a time, yet our God will ere long bring us together again, where we shall eternally enjoy one another, never to part more. O let me hear how God bears up thy heart, and let me taste of those comforts that support thee, that they may be as pillars of marble to bear up my sinking spirit! I can
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write no more. Farewell, farewell, my dear, till we meet there where we shall never bid farewell more; till which time, I leave thee in the bosom of a loving, tender-hearted Father, and so I rest, till I shall for ever rest in heaven, August 21, 1651. Mary Love.

Mr. Love returned her the following farewell epistle, the day of his execution:

My most gracious beloved, I am now going from a prison to a palace. I have finished my work ; I am now to receive my wages. I am going to heaven, where there are two of my children; and leaving thee on earth, where there are three of my babes: those two above need not any care; but the three below need thine. It comforts me to think two of my children are in the bosom of Abraham, and three of them will be in the arms and care of so tender and godly a mother! I know thou art a woman of a sorrowful spirit, yet be comforted. Though thy sorrows be great for thy husband s going out of the world, yet thy pains shall be the less in bringing thy child into the world: thou shalt be a joyful mother, though thou art a sad widow! God hath many mercies in store for thee: the prayers of a dying husband will not be lost. To my shame I speak it, I never prayed so much for thee at liberty, as I have done in prison. I cannot write more; but I have a few practical counsels to leave with thee: 1. Keep under a sound, orthodox, and soul-searching ministry. Oh, there are many deceivers gone out into the world ; but Christ s sheep know his voice, and a stranger
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will they not follow. Attend on that ministry which teaches the way of God in truth, and follow Solomon s advice: Cease to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the way of knowledge. 2. Bring up thy children in the knowledge and admonition of the Lord. The mother ought to be the teacher in the father's absence. Timothy was instructed by his grandmother Lois, and his mother Eunice, the words which his mother taught him. 3. Pray in thy family daily, that thy dwelling may be in the number of the families that do call upon God. 4. Labour for a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. 5. Pour not on the comforts thou wantest; but on the mercies thou hast. 6. Look rather to God s end in afflicting, than at the measure and degree of thy afflictions. 7. Labour to clear up thy evidences for heaven, when God takes from thee the comforts of earth, that, as thy sufferings do abound, so thy consolations in Christ may much more abound. 8. Though it is good to maintain a holy jealousy of the dcceitfulncss of thy heart, yet it is evil for thee to cherish fears and doubts about the truth of thy graces. If ever I had confidence touching the graces of another, I have con fidence of grace in thee. I can say of thee, as Peter did of Sylvanus, I am persuaded that this is the grace of God
29

wherein thou standest. Oh, my dear soul, wherefore dost thou doubt, whose heart hath been upright, whose walkings have been holy! I could venture my soul in thy soul's stead. Such confidence have I in thee! 9. When thou findest thy heart secure, presumptuous and proud, then pour upon corruption more than upon grace: but when thou findest thy heart doubting and unbelieving, then look on thy graces, not on thy infirmities. 10. Study the covenant of grace and merits of Christ, and then be troubled if thou canst. Thou art interested in such a covenant that accepts purposes for performances, desires for deeds, sincerity for perfection, the righteousness of another, viz. that of Jesus Christ, as if it were our own. Oh, my love, rest, rest then in the love of God, in the bosom of Christ! 11. Swallow up thy will in the will of God. It is a bitter cup we are to drink, but it is the cup our Father hath put into our hands. When Paul was to go to suffer at Jerusalem, the Christians could say, The will of the Lord be done. O say thou, when I go to Tower-hill, The will of the Lord be done. 12. Rejoice in my joy. To mourn for me inordinately, argues that either thou enviest or suspectest my happiness. The joy of the Lord is my strength. O, let it be thine also! Dear wife, farewell! I will call thee wife no more: I shall see thy face no more; yet I am not much troubled; for now I am going to meet the bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom I shall be eternally married! Thy dying,
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Yet most affectionate friend till death, Christopher Love From the Tower of London, August 22, 1651, The day of my glorification.*
On this fatal day, at two o clock in the afternoon, Mr. Love mounted the scaffold with great intrepidity and resolution. The ministers who accompanied him were Mr. Simeon Ashe, Mr. Edmund Calamy, and Dr. Thomas Manton. Upon the scaffold, Mr. Love, taking off his hat twice before the people, made a long speech to them, addressing them. Having finished his speech, he turned to Tichburn the sheriff, and said, May I pray? Yes, said the sheriff; but consider the time. Then, turning to the people, he said, Beloved, I will only pray a little while with you, to commend my soul to God, and I have done. He then prayed with a loud voice... Mr. Love having ended his prayer, turned to the sheriff, and said, I thank you, sir, for your kindness: You have expressed a great deal of kindness to me. He then asked for the executioner, who coining forwards, he said, -Art thou the officer? and being answered in the affirmative, he said, with his eyes lifted up to heaven, O blessed Jesus! who hast kept me from the hurt of death, and from the fear of death: O blessed be God! blessed be God! Then, taking his leave of the ministers and his other friends, he said, the Lord be with you all. He then kneeled down and made a short prayer; and, rising up, he said, Blessed be God, I am full of joy and peace in believing. I lie
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down with a world of comfort, as if I were to lie down in my bed. I shall rest in Abraham's bosom, and in the embraces of the Lord Jesus. As he was preparing to lay his head on the block, Mr. Ashe said, Dear brother, how dost thou find thy heart? Mr. Love replied, Bless God, Sir, I am as full of joy and comfort as ever my heart can hold. Blessed be God for Jesus Christ. He then laid himself down upon the scaffold, with his head over the block; and, stretching forth his hands, the executioner severed bis head from his body at one blow. His mortal remains were afterwards interred, with great lamentation, in the chancel of the church of St. Lawrence- Jewry.1

Taken and edited from Women of the Puritan Times V1 By James Anderson, pp325-45. See also Brook, Lives of the Puritans, pp.131-37. 32

PART 2: CHRIST AND HIS BRIDE: HIS DEALINGS WITH HER.

He has given himself to His bride

I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, in lovingkindness and in compassion, And I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. Then you will know the Lord. Hosea 2:19-20.

The Scriptures speak much concerning the Lord being the portion of His people. 'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul, 'Therefore I have hope in Him'2. For the believer, nothing in this world will ever satisfy his heart. He would rather choose Jesus over anything and everything this wretched world can ever offer. Like Moses he considers Christ and sharing in His sufferings greater wealth than all the treasures of Egypt. Like the man in Matthew 13, once a person truly sees Christ in all his beauty, He not only goes and sells everything he has that he might gain Him, but he does it with wild joy. The one who does not belong to Jesus wants to go to heaven because he imagines it is full of good things. But the one who has seen Jesus knows that heaven is found only in Him. Jesus IS heaven. He would rather bear hell itself with Jesus by His side than have to live without Him. And in this life Jesus is all he wants: Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth3. As Anne Dutton said it, O this is my strong consolation -that Christ is mine, and I have enough. I may lose all created sweets; but, since I cannot lose my God in Him I have an ocean of delights, of everspringing pleasures, which will be new and full unto ages without end!4 The question we need to ask ourselves as we begin is, Do I really know Christ as my husband? Because the Scriptures are clear, either we
2 3
4

Lam.3:24 Ps.73:25

Found online at http://www.gracegems.org/Dutton/sweets.htm 33

love the world or we love Christ, but friends, you cannot love both. What is it you love? What is the object of your heart's affections? Be honest with yourself. Is Jesus for you just a way to not have to go to hell? Or is He your everything, your life, the one for whom you have gladly left the world and all it can offer that you might follow and serve and love Him with all your heart, all your days? Because the Scriptures are clear: Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter5. And again, He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me6. Spurgeon says it a lot better than I can: St. Augustine was likely, very often, to pray, "Lord, give me Yourself." A less portion than this would be unsatisfactory. Not Gods Grace merely, nor His love. All these come into the portion but, "the Lord is, my portion, says my soul." More than His attributes, more than His love, more than His Covenant, is Jehovah Himself the special portion and privilege of His own Beloved ones. "My Soul, wait you only upon God, for my expectation is from Him." As God is our only portion, so He is our own portion"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."7. And, just as it is true that for a true believer, God is his portion, amazingly so it is true that the church is the Lord's portion. The Scriptures declare, For the Lord's portion is His people; Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance.8 Before the foundation of the world, God the Father solemnly promised to God the Son a bride and inheritance (Psalm 2:7-8). One picture the Scriptures give of the church is the very inheritance of the Lord. And another picture of the church is His own bride. The church is his very own inheritance and his cherished bride.
5 6 7 8

Matt.7:21 Matt.10:37 Spurgeon, Choice Portions, 1863. Deut. 32:9

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And just as we who are His have given ourselves wholly to Him, so He has given Himself wholly over to His bride. He has not merely given her good gifts, even good spiritual gifts. He has not only given to her justification, cleansing, eternal life, peace with the Father, unearthly joy, His full blessing and favor, fruitfulness...He has given himself to her, to be her portion, and for her to be His. And we would be satisfied with nothing else. As the beloved Puritan pastor Richard Alleine puts it: To some He gives a portion of gold, to others a portion of worldly glory, to others a portion of pleasures. With all these He deals as the father with the prodigal, He gives them their portion and sends them away. But while He gives portions to these, He is the portion of His saints. He makes over and settles Himself upon them, as their inheritance forever...O the unsearchable riches of the poorest of saints! Poor? Can one be poor when he has God for his portion? In want? What, when you have all things in Him. If He is your God, can you still be in straits? Would a few possessions from this world make you rich, yet the God in your soul leave you poor?...Is the almighty God sufficient for Himself and not enough for a poor worm like you? Anyone who thinks that anything less than God will be enough for his soul simply does not understand God. God alone is as much as God plus all the world. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord-God is their portion.9.

Alleine, Heaven Opened; p.11, 15-16 35

Everything Christ does for His bride is for the sake of His Father

The supreme answer that the Scriptures give to the question, Why did Jesus give himself up for his bride?, is incredibly important and lays the groundwork for everything else. If we miss it here we miss everything. And the answer is not, just, for her sake; or, to make her happy. There is a much higher and glorious purpose. Christ gave himself up to bear the full weight of wrath for His bride at Calvary, why? It is the same reason God does everything He does. Ultimately, Jesus did it for the glory of His Father. There is a song with the line, You took the fall, and thought of me, above all. I don't mean to be nit-picky or critical, but it is important for us to know that Jesus did not think about you or me above all when He came to the earth or when he bore the curse and wrath on the cross. Everything Jesus did was for His Father, for the sake of His Father's name and glory. The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood (Jn.7:18). His cry on the way to the cross was, Father, glorify your Name (Jn.12:27). Jesus now answers our prayers that God would be glorified (John 14:13). Romans 15:7-9 is packed with a theology of why Jesus came and gave His life for sinners: Therefore accept one another, just as Christ accepted us to the glory of God. For I say that Christ has become a servant to the circumcision on behalf of the truth of God to confirm the promises given to the fathers, and for the Gentiles to glorify God for His mercy... Jesus accepted us to the glory of God, he came as a servant to uphold the truth of his Father's Word and gave His life that the nations might glorify His Father. Jesus came for his Father and Jesus endured the wrath of his Father on behalf of sinners for the sake of his Father. Everything he did was for his Father. If He loved a bride, He did it for His Father.

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Everything Jesus did towards the church, his bride, that we will talk about here was ultimately for the glory of His Father. It is the foundation for understanding properly Christ's love for the church, and it is the foundation of our true joy. We must never forget that it is in first seeking the glory of our Father that we truly love the right way. It does not seem loving for Jesus to subject his bride on this earth to severe beatings, fierce persecutions and death. It's not because He doesn't love her. But it's not what we would naturally think of love. If my goal in marriage is just to love, I will not really be centered on what biblical love really is. That's why I have to be centered on seeking the glory of the Father, that my love might truly be the right kind, the kind He intended for marriage. I need to be radically God-centered if I want to experience any joy in my marriage. Marriage is not primarily about making me happier. Marriage is not even about making my spouse happiermainly, though if done right true joy will follow. Marriage is chiefly and supremely about glorifying God. Jesus gave himself for his bride unto the glory of God, and so must we. We lay our lives down for our bride, but we don't do it chiefly for her sake. We do it for our Master, because it glorifies Him when we lay our lives down for her. And we are to serve her, to our own hurt, ultimately for the Gentiles to glorify God for His mercy. There is a bigger picture here. We look forward to the New Jerusalem and the wedding supper of the Lamb, a wedding party like nobody's business!! (When I imagine it, I picture all the nations gathered before the Son of Man, dancing before them with all their hearts and all their souls...) God's plan is to fill the earth with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Hab.2:14). We look and long for the day when all nations will be praising Jesus, the worthy Lamb, slain from before the foundation of the world. God's purpose in marriage is weighty and full of eternal significance. I must serve, love, give of myself, in order that through our marriage the nations would glorify God for His mercy. I must do it for the sake of my Father.

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Jesus' covenant oath to His bride

Jesus has bound himself in solemn covenant to his bride. He has sworn never, ever, ever to leave her. Not only will He never desert her, He wants her to know it. Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, 'I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you10. There is a beautiful passage in 1 Samuel 12, just after Israel had asked for a king, and by implication, rejected God himself from being King over them. Samuel says to them, Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil. Yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart...For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name's sake (vv20, 22). Herein is a wonderful truth. It is not just the truth that God will not reject His people. It is the reason why God will not reject His people. For His own name's sake. One of the most foundational reasons for this is found in Ezekiel 20:5-9: '...Thus says the Lord God, On the day when I chose Israel and swore to the descendants of the house of Jacob and made Myself known to them in the land of Egypt, when I swore to them, saying, I am the Lord your God, on that day I swore to them, to bring them out from the land of Egypt into a land that I had selected for them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands...But they rebelled against Me and were not willing to listen to Me; they did not cast away the detestable things of their eyes, nor did they forsake the idols of Egypt. Then I resolved to pour out My wrath on them, to accomplish My anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt. But I acted for the sake of My name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations among whom they lived, in whose sight I made Myself known to them by bringing them out of the land of Egypt.

10

Heb.13:5

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God had made solemn promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their descendants. He had in fact bound himself in holy, intimate covenant with them, swearing to them to be their God and give their descendants the land of their sojourning. God's solemn oath to His people was what Moses pled as he interceded for the people in Exodus 32:11-14: Then Moses entreated the Lord his God, and said, 'O Lord, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, 'With evil intent He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth'? Turn from Your burning anger and change Your mind about doing harm to Your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants to whom You swore by Yourself, and said to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.' So the Lord changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people. When did God swear by himself these promises to the patriarchs? The covenant God made with Abraham in Genesis 15 is the key for understanding why God deals with you in lavish underserved grace every day (if you belong to Jesus. God had made incredible promises to Abraham and his descendants. Among them, that Abram's descendants would be as the stars of the night sky, and that He would give to him and his descendants the land of Canaan, to possess it. Abram's response we have in v8, [Abram] said, 'O Lord God, how may I know that I will possess it? Abram was asking, Lord, how can I know you will make good on these unbelievable promises?? Then comes the answer from God Almighty: He said to him, 'Bring Me a three year old heifer, and a three year old female goat, and a three year old ram, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon (v9). God makes then and there a covenant with Abram, swearing by Himself that what He had promised, He would
39

most certainly do. In covenants, the person making the covenant was the one to walk through the slaughtered animals, as a testimony. They were saying in effect, Let me become as one of these if I do not make good on my word. And in v17 we read that it was not Abram who passed between the pieces, it was God himself. V18, On that day the Lord

made a covenant with Abram, saying, 'To your descendants I have given this land... After that the promise was so certain God spoke the promise to Abram in the past tense. Though Abram didn't even yet have any children, on that day God swore to him, To your descendants I have given this land.
God will keep all His promises to His people, because they are bound together in the promises He swore on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. These are things God has promised to do for His people, He swore promises to them. Since God has promised to do these things the truthfulness of His Word is on the line. Thus, God is honored in the truthfulness of His promises as He fulfills them to His people. God had made promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. So if you are in Jesus Christ, as many as are the promises of God, they are yours, always. Even when you fail Him He will never, ever fail you. Why? For the glory of His own name, because He has made promises and He will see to it that He keeps His Word. The cross is the blood of the new covenant that sealed all these incredible promises. David cried in Psalm 22 My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? There was another who cried these words; but there is a difference. David felt like God had forsaken him. But on that cold block of wood God the Father truly did forsake His Son. Why? The song says, The Father turned His face away, as wounds which marred the Chosen One bring many sons to glory. His wounds did indeed and truly will bring many sons to glory. That was the purpose for which He came: For I say that Christ has become a servant to the circumcision on behalf of the truth of God to confirm the promises given to the fathers, and for the Gentiles to glorify God for His mercy.
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Jesus gave up His body so that thousands of years later in the 21st century agnostics from the UK, Muslims from Bangladesh and Hindu's from India might glorify God for His mercy and become white-hot worshippers of the Triune God. But the line of the song (which I love) is only partly true. The Father did not turn His face away. You could say on that day the sun turned her face away, for the Scriptures show that for three hours darkness fell upon all the land. We know that among those standing at the cross were Jesus' mother, Mary Magdalene, the disciple John and his mother, and it's very likely they turned their faces away. But the Scriptures say But the Lord was pleased to crush Him11. All the wrath, all the anger of God for your every sin, and mine. He held nothing back. But not upon you. No, it was not Roman guards who crushed the Son of God. It was God Himself. On the cross the Father attacked, pulverized, and beat His Son to a pulp with all the rage of His anger. This is the gospel. God the Father forsook His Son completely and utterlyinstead of youWhy? to confirm the promises given to the fathers. Jesus came and suffered to make good on the promises God had given to Jacob and his descendantsall those who would hope in the coming Messiah. Jesus spoke the familiar words, This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood. The New Covenant and all its promises are made effectual in his blood. God the Father in forsaking His Son has pledged with utmost solemnity that He will never, ever, forsake youif you belong to Christ. His own name is on the line.
Did I forget Abram while Sara was laughing? Did I leave Peter when he had grown old? Did I forsake Jacob before he saw wagons? Or My servant Paul, mistreated and stoned? So let your heart revive like when Jacob saw wagons.
11

Is.53:10 41

Be thou dismayed at My presence no more. Take thee this vow that I'll always be with thee; and look to the stars and the sand on the shore.

And this is exactly why Jesus will always be faithful to His bride, even when she rebells and goes after other lovers. For I say that Christ has become a servant to the circumcision on behalf of the truth of God to confirm the promises given to the fathers12. He has entered into a very solemn covenant with her. This is the foundation of His love for her, and this is what gives her lasting security and causes her to love Him freely and never be afraid He will change His mind about her. It's not based on her at all; really it is entirely despite her. He will never stop loving her, He will never turn away from her when she turns away from Him, He will never stop doing good to her, He will never take away His affections from her, He will never hold a grudge against her, He will uphold her forever in His covenant mercies. Why?? Because God had sworn promises to all those who would trust in the Messiah. For the sake of His Father He came to see to it that those promises would be kept. And the new covenant in His blood is His pledge and promise that His love for her will never change.

12

Rom.15:8

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Jesus wipes out of memory the past sins of His bride

I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins. Isaiah 43:25.

Whether they were yesterday or 10 years ago. Because He has shed His own precious blood for them they are taken care of and He never has to bring them up again. He does not and never will hold grudges against her for things she has done to him. He will not lash out against her or give her the silent treatment when she continues to sin against Him and bring grief to His heart. The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness13. Our sins are more grievous than we know. We have indeed committed evil against the Lord. But Christ has shed His blood for you, He has made atonement for your sin! Look to Jesus your Savior! Put your guilty fears into the marks on His hands. And like John lay your head down on His chest with full trust in His forgiving grace. To not believe and receive His comfort and forgiveness for your sins now would be a greater evil even than what you did to Him at first. If you belong to Him, He has already told you a thousand times that it is over. He has wiped out your transgressions forever. I have wiped out your transgressions like a thick cloud and your sins like a heavy mist. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you14. There is a beautiful passage found in Zechariah 3. Joshua, the high priest is clothed in filthy garments standing before the Lord and Satan beside him, accusing him. What is the Lord's response? Whose side does the Lord take? The angel of the Lord says to remove his filthy garments from him and clothe him with festal robes. So they do. But we have to understand the context. Joshua was guilty. He was the high priest, the one anointed and called of God, spiritual leader of the people.
13 14

Lam.3:22-23 Is.44:22 43

And his time was perhaps one of the most important times in Israel's history. God had brought His people back from exile, He was giving them back their land. And the Temple was to be rebuilt. Cyrus king of Persia had authorized the project and would fund it. The foundation of the Temple was laid. But when opposition started to arise Joshua let the construction stop for nearly 20 years until it resumed again in the second year of Darius. In Zechariah 3 the construction had only just begun again. Satan has a good case. At the moment God's people had been waiting and praying for hundreds of years, the priest in charge totally dropped the ball. But the angel of the Lord doesn't take Satan's side. See, I have taken your iniquity away from you and will clothe you with festal robes (3:4). Imagine with me a godly couple who had been married many years. You are good friends with them and find sweet fellowship in their company. After knowing them for some years, the wife confides in you something terrible she had done years before. Imagine she had committed adultery against her husband. It was confessed, deeply and tearfully repented of, and the couple moved on together. And then she says to you something incredible: Not one day since then has he ever used that against me, not once has he ever brought it up again. This is the way Jesus Christ loves His bride. He will not bear grudges, He will not harbor unforgiveness, He will never entertain or treasure feelings of resentment against her. In His book it is wholly and totally finished. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us15. Jesus delights in loving His bride this way, because it brings glory to the Father. And as a husband every day I have opportunities before me to die to myself by wholly and utterly freely forgiving my bride as I have been forgiven.
15

Ps.103:10-12

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Christ intercedes for His bride constantly

Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord answered him and Rebekah his wife conceived. Genesis 25:21.

And we know this is likewise the office of our Lord, who intercedes for his bride day and night: who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us16. Though, in one sense He doesn't need to. Jesus tells the disciples in John 16, In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I will request of the Father on your behalf; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from the Father17. Jesus doesn't need to intercede; the Father hears our prayers because of the blood of the Son. But He does, gladly and earnestly. This is something Jesus is now doing constantly for his bride. It must break the heart of the Savior when ever we doubt his love for us. He must wonder what else He can do to prove it to us. Not only did He gladly give his life for his bride, taking upon himself the unfathomable nauseating weight of the wrath of his Father for you. As if that wouldn't be enough? His work and labor and love for you did not end there. He accomplished atonement, yes, but His priestly work is not finished. He is on His knees, so to speak, before the Father, constantly, laboring in prayer for you. Father, protect her from Satan's lies and tricks...Father, Oh Father, cause her to abide in Me...feed her richly this morning with Thy word...cause her to treasure You in her heart...cause her to hate every false way, and unite her heart to fear Thy name..... Samuel declared to God's people, For the Lord will not abandon His people on account of His great name, because the Lord has been pleased to make you a people for Himself. Moreover, as for me, far be
16
17

Rom.8:34

vv 26-27 45

it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you...18 For Samuel it would have been a huge sin to neglect to pray for God's people. Samuel isn't content with just knowing that God had promised He would not forsake His people. His theology doesn't lead him to inactivity, but to earnest, desperate, intercessory prayer. He set his heart to intercede for them. Indeed, God fulfills His sovereign purposes through given means. In this sense, it was Samuel's prayers for God's people that caused them to continue in the narrow path.
I love this excerpt about the life of John Hyde, missionary to India, concerning his work of intercessory prayer: God was enlarging his heart with His love. Once again he laid hold on God with holy desperation. How many weeks it was I do not remember, but he went deeper still with Christ into the shadows of the Garden! Praying took the form now of confessing the sins of others and taking the place of those sinners, as so many of the prophets did in old time. He was bearing the sins of others alone with his Lord and Master. 'Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.' According to that law we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. This John Hyde was doing. He was 'dying daily'...We were transported to Mount Sinai and to the sin of Israel in worshipping the golden calf. Up till that time Moses had not interceded for God's people. Why? Because he had not yet entered into the sufferings of God's heart over sin. So he is sent down among the sinners. Sin cost him the presence of God. Was he not being made a partaker of the sufferings of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world? Then he fasts a second forty days and forty nights (Deut.9:19)...When God said to Moses, 'Let Me alone,' He revealed the power of intercession. No! Moses 'stood in the breach,' and the wrath of God was stayed. He gave up the honour and glory of his own name and family for the sake of God's people. 'The church in

18

1Sam.12:22-23

46

the wilderness' was saved by one who shadowed forth our Great Divine Intercessor and partook of His Spirit.19.
The night of the first Lord's Supper had to have been almost unbearable for our Lord. He was about to undergo pain and torment and torture like no man had ever known. He was getting ready to take upon his own body a concentration of an eternity of hell's intensity for millions of sinners, in a matter of only a few hours. You and I will never, ever know the weight he felt that night. And yet this night he was interceding for his disciples20. Thus we also learn that Jesus interceded and now intercedes for his bride, not only on her best days, but the days she is rebellious and disobedient. Perhaps especially then. Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail...21 God's word tells husbands to love their wives as Christ has loved the church, and one way Christ loves the church is by constantly interceding for her before the Father. This is not optional, it is a command given by the Lord as part of fulfilling what it means to love our wives. Intercession is hard work. I should pray that Christ would enable me to nourish and cherish my bride the way He intended, the way that will give Him the most glory. I should plead that Christ would continue to feed her from His word, and to give her hunger pains for Christ and the marriage supper of the Lamb. I ought to pray that God would enable me to faithfully present her one day before Christ as a pure virgin for Him. And I ought to pray not only for my wife, but to intercede with her, before Christ for the sake of the coming of the kingdom. I ought to intercede with solemn pleadings that Christ would rescue and gather to himself His holy bride from among all the nations.

19 20 21

Carre, Praying Hyde, pp36-39 John 17 Lk.22:31-32 47

Christ deals in patient tenderness with His bride

Therefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God. Romans 15:7. You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered. 1Peter 3:7.

And this is one way Jesus loves His bride. He looks past her thousands of weaknesses, cherishing and nourishing her, and forgiving her from the bottom of His heart. And He corrects her only in love, and then only one frailty at a time, lest we be overcome with excessive despair. Perhaps this is most strikingly evident again on the night of the Last Supper. Jesus had set His face to Jerusalem. This was the purpose for which He knew He had been born. No man knows the weight he bore that night as He broke bread with His disciples. No man has ever felt what He felt as He uttered the sacred words, I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer....This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.22. Almost no sooner than He had said these things, perhaps still with the morsels in their mouths, we read, And there arose also a dispute among them as to which one of them was regarded to be the greatest23. Jesus is set to bear the awful weight of the wrath of His Father, and here are the disciples just hours before starting to argue about which one of them is the most big-time. Jesus' response? Gentle instruction. Then these words, You are those who have stood by Me in my trials; and just as My Father has granted Me a kingdom, I grant you that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel24 Did Jesus really say that? To who??? Yes, to those who had just
22 23 24

Lk.22:15, 20 Lk.22:24 Lk.22:28-30

48

committed what we might think otherwise an unpardonable sin. And to those whom Jesus knew would later all desert Him that night. And it's not like their weaknesses just go away after Jesus atones for their sin and rises from the dead. It is so amazing and comforting what we read just preceding the great commission: But the eleven disciples

proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some were doubtful. And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, 'All authority has been given to Me...25 Did you catch it? but some were doubtful. Isn't that incredible? Here is the risen Jesus, physically standing before them, already having appeared to them at least three times26. But some were doubtful?? And yet these are the men Jesus, even the very next moment, commissions to bring His gospel to the ends of the earth. Indeed, He bears with the weaknesses of his bride, and it is weak vessels such as us He uses to usher in His kingdom.
Richard Sibbes, a beloved puritan pastor, has a lot of wonderful things to say in regards to Christ and His gentle dealings with His bride. In his book, The Bruised Reed, he unpacks the tenderness of our Savior starting from Isaiah 42:3, A bruised reed He will not break and a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish; He will faithfully bring forth justice. These are just a few nuggets from his work which I love: "The church is compared to weak things: to a dove amongst the fowls; to a vine amongst the plants; to sheep amongst the beasts; to a woman, which is the weaker vessel"27

"In the seven churches (Rev. 2 & 3), we see that Christ acknowledges and cherishes anything that was good in them."28

25 26
27 28

Matt.28:16-18 Jn.21:14

The Bruised Reed, p.3

Ibid. p.21 49

"The husband is bound to bear with the wife, as being the 'weaker vessel' (1Pet.3:7), and shall we think Christ will exempt himself from his own rule, and not bear with his weak spouse?"29 "The Holy Ghost is content to dwell in smoky, offensive souls."30 "We must know for our comfort that Christ was not anointed to this great work of Mediator for lesser sins only, but for the greatest, if we have but a spark of true faith to lay hold on him. Therefore, if there be any bruised reed, let him not make an exception of himself, when Christ does not make an exception of him. 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden' (Matt.11:28)."31 "When we are troubled in conscience for our sins, Satan's manner is then to present Christ to the afflicted soul as a most severe judge armed with justice against us. But then let us present him to our souls as offered to our view by God himself, holding out a scepter of mercy, and spreading his arms to receive us."32

"A mother who has a sick and self-willed child will not therefore cast it away. And shall there be more mercy in the stream than in the spring? Shall we think there is more mercy in ourselves than in God, who plants the affection of mercy in us?"33
"we must consider ourselves as Christ does, who looks on us as those he intends to fit for himself. Christ values us by what we shall be, and by what we are elected unto. We call a little plant a tree, because it is growing up to be so."34 "The purest actions of the purest men need Christ to perfume them; and this is his office. When we pray, we need to pray again for Christ to pardon the defects of our prayers."35
29 30 31 32 33 34 35

Ibid. p.58 Ibid. p.33 Ibid. p.61 Ibid. p62 Ibid. p.7 Ibid. p.17 Ibid. p.18

50

Jesus is just not like us. We have encountered in Jesus Christ someone wholly different than anyone we have ever met. We are afraid to go to him so often after we continue to fail Him. Can there really be so much mercy in Him? How can He just keep loving and forgiving me when I am constantly dropping the ball and falling on my face? But oh, let us never stop running to Jesus with our sins and weaknesses! Because, the most amazing thing is not just that Jesus will forever bear with our failings. The most amazing thing is that He loves and delights in lavishing His tender kindnesses upon us, especially when we feel the smallest and most stained with sin. He loves showing us mercy again when we don't deserve it. It brings glory for Jesus to pour out His grace upon us, this actually brings Him glory! Consider the preciousness of Micah 7:18: Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in unchanging love. Jesus delights in showing unchanging love to his weak bride. Saints, we will never, ever be anything other than a recipient of the grace of God. This is the gospel. This is our God. I love how Spurgeon describes it: "My dear friends, if you and I had been without trouble, we never could have had such a promise as this given to us:"As thy days, so shall thy strength be." It is our weakness that has made room for God to give us such a promise as this. Our sins make room for a Saviour; our frailties make room for the Holy Spirit to correct them; all our wanderings make room for the good Shepherd, that he may seek us and bring us back. We do not love nights, but we do love stars; we do not love weakness, but we do bless God for the promise that is to sustain us in our weakness, we do not admire winter, but we do admire the glittering snow; we must shudder at our own trembling weakness, but we still do bless God that we are weak because it makes room for the display of his own invincible strength in fulfilling such a promise as this."36
36

Spurgeon, As Thy days, so shall thy strength be. Preached on August 22, 1858. 51

Jesus loves to bear with our weaknesses, because it magnifies the riches of His glorious, unending and undeserved mercy37. And as He is glorified through it, we are the beneficiaries. This is how Jesus has loved His bride, and this is how I must love a bride. To bear with weaknesses, look past faults, and accept one another as Christ has accepted us. Christ accepted us into intimate union with Him as wholly underserving rebel sinners; and He continues to accept us every day as recovering sinaddicts. And this is how Jesus commands husbands to deal with their bride in the marriage covenant. Jesus bearing with our weaknesses in tender patience is not the same as Him approving our sins. He is not okay with our sin. He did not approve of His disciples abandoning Him the night of His suffering. After Peter's denials Jesus confronted the apostle in a way that pricked his heart to the core. It was indeed a grievous sin. But that sin He dealt with that same night in his own body. And when He came to them again in the last chapter of John, He didn't need to say a thing (except to Peter). They knew what they had done. Instead, He made them breakfast. I love as I heard one preacher call it, Breakfast for Failures. That's exactly what it was. And that's exactly what the gospel of Jesus Christ is. It's a feast for failures, every day. Failure Christians, even failure missionaries and pastors. We have failed him, but He will never, ever forsake or fail his bride. Never. Christ accepted his bride the church even with all her weaknesses and failings, and He continues to accept her even as He cleanses her. Christ's continued love for his bride is not based on her merit or performance, but rather despite it. Though she fails Him, His love never, ever, fails her.

37

Eph.1:5-6

52

Jesus delights in showing His bride underserved honor

You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered. 1Peter 3:7.

As a Husband, I am to show my wife honor, because that is what Jesus has first done for his bride. Not only does the Lord love to show honor, He loves to lavish honor upon the utterly undeserving. Consider Abraham. God called him, not the other way around. God set His love upon him and then promised to crown him with incredible honor and dignity: And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great38. The Lord delighted in showing honor to barren Hannah in giving her a son; and not only a son, but one who would be great in the eyes of the Lord and a prophet among men. She sings, He raises the poor from the dust, He lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with nobles, and inherit a seat of honor...39. The Lord told David that He would lavish him with incredible honor in establishing his kingdom, to which David replies, What more can david still say to You concerning the honor bestowed on Your servant? For You know Your servant40. And David himself becomes an instrument of showing underserved honor in his dealings with Mephibosheth. This crippled man was brought before the king, trembling and fearful, being a descendant of the man that had tried so many times to put an end to David's life. Mephibosheth considers himself a dead dog, but David gives him the great honor of eating meals together with him in the king's palace from that day onward. As we read in 2 Samuel 9:11, So Mephibosheth ate at David's table as one of the king's sons. And this is a OT picture of how
38 39 40

Gen.12:2 1Sam.2:8 1Chron.17:18 53

Christ has honored us, his bride. It is indeed, not only honor, but to be sure honor that is quite undeserved. To understand the meaning of a dead dog in this culture you may have to live in the middle east or parts of Asia for a while!! Dog's are completely detestable, let alone dead ones. And is this not a fair picture of what we were before Christ raised us from the dead and seated us with him in the heavenly places with Himself? But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus41. Did He really take filth like us, wash us deeply with his precious blood, clothe us with festal robes of His own righteousness, and place us next to Him in the courtroom of the King of Glory? If we would merely be slaves in the house of God with what praises could we sing to Him. But to be the very bride of Christ? We have a picture of this back in our passage in Zechariah 3 with Joshua the high priest. We read that it is the angel of the Lord who takes away Joshua's iniquity and clothes him with festal robes. But it is the faithful prophet Zechariah who exhorts the host of heaven, Let them put a clean turban on his head! (v5). Zechariah had reason to look down upon God's high priest for the failures of his office, for neglecting the construction of the Temple at such a crucial hour. But instead of criticizing God's anointed one for his transgression, this man of God delighted in showing him undeserved honor. I don't think I'll ever forget how a dear brother once at least in a small way demonstrated this to me. I preached at a small church in a country in South Asia. I was living there and would preach time to time at this local church. There was another brother there from the States who had become my closest friend. We were studying language together
41

Eph.2:4-7

54

and would meet a good bit for encouragement and prayer. So, I knew that John could understand what I was saying as I preached in the local language that night. But I wished he hadnt, because at the end of the sermon I felt as though it was the worst message I had ever preached. I just wanted to go home and weep. The next week I came to the service, and John was to preach. But I was stunned when, instead of praying like he normally would before giving his message, John turned to me and asked me to pray for the message that night. I knew that John knew I had not preached the way I wanted; that I had blown the message the previous week. (At least I was wholly convinced I had). But John did for me that night what Jesus does for his bride always, he adorned me with undeserved honor. Jesus has adorned his bride with unbelievable and completely undeserved honor. And this is how He wants me to love a bride. To show her incredible honor. And not only when she deserves it. And further He calls me to go to great lengths to show it, at my own expense. For Jesus didn't just show his bride undeserved honor, He gave up His honor to her and put upon himself her shame and disgrace. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.42 He bore the shame of the cross and adorned us with the honor and splendor that was rightfully His.43 May God give me grace to do the same.

42 43

Gal.3:13 Heb.12:2 55

Christ's jealousy for His bride

Deuteronomy says that our God is a jealous God: For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God (4:24). Again in 5:9, You shall

not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God... One more time in 6:14-15, You shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who surround you, for the Lord your God in the midst of you is a jealous God...
What do we make of this? Was the early church heretic Marcion right in saying that the God of the Old Testament seems to be a different God than the God of the New Testament? Is Richard Dawkins right in citing verses like this to claim the God of the Bible is egotistic, snobby, archaic? We do have this concept in the NT as well. Paul warned the church in Corinth, Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? We are not stronger than He, are we? (1 Cor.10:22). James says boldly, You adulteresses. Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: 'He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us? (4:4-5). I think when the Bible talks about God's jealousy, it is the sort of jealousy Paul talked about in 2 Corinthians 11:2: For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin. I believe this is the same jealousy that stirred Paul as shepherd of the bride of Christ, he was jealous with the Lord's jealousy for the Lord's bride. I think we forget at times that the Holy Spirit is a person. That is, He can become sorrowful, He can be hurt, He can weep as it were over harm done to him. Scripture talks in other places about not grieving the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ is jealous for His people with the utmost godly jealousy. She
56

is His bride. He loves her with a yearning deep within His bones. Would a husband not be jealous if his wife, his wife who he loved more than his own life, had another in pursuit of her...who whispered lies about him, who stole away her laughs and affection and her heart? Friends, so it is with your Jesus. He is jealous for you; you are His bride if you are His. It is not a light matter when we so easily leave His presence and go have fun with other lovers. It breaks His heart. The puritan Samuel Rutherford wrote to one of his congregants from prison, "I know that other lovers beside Christ are in suit of you, and your soul hath many wooers. But I pray you make a chaste virgin of your soul, and let it love but one." Jesus wants you to be enthralled with Him, and Him alone. He wants to feed you with the finest of the wheat. And the finest of the wheat is knowing Him and sharing in his sufferings. What is it that would woo your heart away? The trinkets of the world? The praise and glory and esteem of men? Rutherford again, "Woe, woe to the mistakings of my miscarrying heart, that gapeth and crieth for creatures, and is not pained, and tormented, and in sorrow for the want of a soul's-fill of the love of Christ!...'Worthy, worthy is the Lamb, who hath saved us, and washed us in his own blood.' I would counsel all the ransomed ones to learn this song, and to drink and be drunk with the love of Jesus. O fairest, O highest, O loveliest One, open the well!44 O water the burnt and withered travelers with this love of thine!" Set your eyes afresh on your Jesus today. Sing to Him, give him your whole heart again. Soon we will stand before Him and wonder have little we loved such a King.

44

Rutherford, Letters, p.121 57

When Christ hides His face from His bride

Sometimes Christ goes away, or pretends to do so in order to see if we are affected and desire His presence so and hate His goings away. When He draws near with His kisses He shows His love for us...when we are broken hearted and smitten with lovesickness at his goings away we show our love for him. We get a glimpse of this from a few different places in Scriptures. In Deuteronomy 8 the Lord gives four reasons why the Lord took his special treasured people through all the afflictions in the wilderness. One of them is, ...that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. So the Lord took the drinking water away, then He watched. He took meats and raisin cakes away, then eagerly waited. He wanted to see their reaction; He wanted to know where their hearts really were. Did they love the raisin cakes? Or did they long for their God. Did they love sweet meats? Or did they yearn really for the meat that only their God could give them in His holy and precious Word. Did they truly long after their God? Or just the gifts that come from His hands? "I would fain learn not to idolize comfort, sense, joy, and sweet felt presence. All these are but creatures and nothing but the kingly robe, the gold ring, and the bracelets of the Bridegroom. The Bridegroom himself is better than all the ornaments that are about him."45 There is a similar passage concerning the Lord's dealings with King Hezekiah in 2 Chronicles 32: Even in the matter of the envoys of the rulers of Babylon, who sent to him to inquire of the wonder that had happened in the land, God left him alone only to test him, that He might know all that was in his heart (v.31). After the officials came to Hezekiah from Babylon, having heard of his miraculous healing, Isaiah tells the king that it is this country that will carry away all the treasures of
45

Rutherford, Letters, p82

58

Jerusalem. Hezekiah reacts wrongly, which is so unfitting for his character: Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, 'The word of the Lord which you have spoken is good.' For he thought, 'Is it not so, if there will be peace and truth in my days?'46 But the reason he reacted wrongly? Our first passage informs us that it was because the Lord had hidden His face from the good king. Why? That He might know all that was in his heart. Jesus does this sometimes with his bride. We have a fore picture in the story of Joseph. Remember what he does in his first dealings with his brothers. He disguises himself before them and plays the part of an enemy. But it was only to do good unto them; to receive them back to himself forever. Jesus also does something we think very strange in his dealings with the Syro-Phonecian woman in Matthew 15. She comes begging him to heal her daughter; He answers her not one word. She asks again; He tells her He came only for the house of Israel. She has the audacity to persist yet again, but He tells her, It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs (v26). What?? Jesus, why are you crushing this poor woman! Jesus knows exactly what He is doing. The woman submits to the harsh word, Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which all from their Master's table (v27). Then comes the word of healing. Jesus was testing this women, and He knew exactly what the outcome would be at the last. He knows best, and thus there are times He will hide His face; He will slip away, we are not able to find Him. He is testing us to see all that is in our hearts. We need to cling tightly to the truth that it is always for his bride's good that he does it: In the wilderness He fed you manna which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do good for you in the end.47 Jesus always seeks the richest and deepest joys for his bride. And He knows that the world's most precious storehouses of joy lay in Himself; and only in him. If he hides his face it
46 47

2 Kings 20:19 Deut.8:16 59

is not out of selfishness, or because he is bearing a grudge, or any other reason that would be sinful. He does it out of his love for us, and he does it for our best good. "I am a faint, dead-hearted, cowardly man, oft borne down, and hungry in waiting for the marriage supper of the Lamb. Nevertheless I think it the Lord's wise love that feeds us with hunger,

and makes us fat with wants and desertions."48 Often He does it to see what is in our hearts. Do we notice His absence? Are we brokenhearted at His goings away?
Will we seek him out as our lover? On my bed night after night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him but did not find him. I must arise now and go about the city; in the streets and in the squares I must seek him whom my soul loves.' I sought him but did not find him. The watchmen who make the rounds in the city found me, and I said, 'Have you seen him whom my soul loves?' Scarcely had I left them when I found him whom my soul loves; I held on to him and would let let him go until I had brought him to my mother's house, and into the room of her who conceived me.49 What do we do when he removes his presence? Do we yawn and get ready for bed? Seek and you shall find. Do we seek Him? That's not just talking about conversion. He hides himself to see how we respond, to see what it does to our hearts. Are we smitten with love? Can our poor hearts bear it no more? Saints, seek until you find, and when you find, hold on to Him and never let Him go.

48 49

Rutherford, Letters, p41 Song 3:1-4

60

Christ became a slave for His bride

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich. 2 Corinthians 8:9.

There is deep meaning in these words. Even if Christ had not died for our sins on a block of wood, the incarnation should induce us to awe. I think I have understood this better in part after having lived in Asia as a missionary for a few years. People are always telling you what a great sacrifice you've made by leaving your home country and coming to a place that is different and perhaps harder to live in. Perhaps it was after again having being introduced this way that I started thinking more about the incarnation in ways that I had not before. People honor me for just coming and living here. But that's not what Jesus did. Yes, Jesus gave up a place more glorious and fellowship with His Father more intimate than we can imagine to walk on this wretched earth. But that's not all He did. He didn't just give up intimate unhindered union with His Father and the Spirit to come live in the slums of a cesspool planet. On that cesspool planet He made himself absolute slave of all. If He had come and lived as a great king on the earth for 30 years it would have been a sacrifice more costly than we could understand. But He took up a towel and girded himself to serve as no man ever has. I mentioned I am living currently in a country in South East Asia. There is a servant culture here that we do not see anymore in the States. It is really interesting. If your family is more or less well off, you probably have at least one or two servants in the house, helping with cooking, looking after the kids, cleaning up the bathrooms, doing the dishes, etc. I am still shocked when I see 8-year old servant girls carrying the backpacks of 12-year old boys for them on their way to school. (The servant girls of course don't go to school; they just carry the bags for the privileged children). This is perhaps a small picture of the meaning of Jesus' words, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to
61

serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.50 Jesus did not merely become like a slave. He actually became a slave. Jesus became a little despised servant girl to slave away doing filthy and backbreaking labor for spoiled ungrateful stuck up brat kids like you and me. But I don't think that's a good enough analogy.
There is another story that illustrates in part the meaning of our Lord making himself a slave. It is the story of the first Moravian missionaries:

Two young Moravians heard of an island in the West Indies, where an atheist British owner had 2,000 to 3,000 slaves. And the owner had said, No preacher, no clergyman will ever stay on this island. If hes shipwrecked, well keep him in a separate house until he has to leave but hes never gonna talk to any of us about God. Im through with all that nonsense. Three thousand slaves from the jungles of Africa were brought to an island in the Atlantic and there to live and die without hearing of Christ. Two young Moravians heard about it. They sold themselves to the British planter then used the money they received from the sale, for he paid no more than he would for any slave, to pay their passage out to his island for he wouldnt even transport them. The Moravians had come from Herrnhut to see these two lads off, in their early twenties, never to return again. For this wasnt a four-year term, theyd sold themselves into lifetime of slavery. Simply that as slaves they could be as Christians for these others. The families were there weeping, for they knew theyd never see them again. And they wondered why theyre going and questioned the wisdom of it. The gap widened and the houses had been cast off and were being curled up there on the pier. And as the young boys saw the widening gap, one lad, with his arm linked through the arm of his fellow, raised his hand and shouted across the gap the last words that were heard from them. They were these: May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering.51
50

Matt.20:28

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This get's a little closer to understanding what Jesus did for us. There is one more description we could use, but I have to warn you it is very graphic. It is found again in the classic, Praying Hyde, and is a description from John Hyde, prayer warrior and missionary to India, about what it meant to him that Christ became a slave to all: Hyde continued speaking and weeping. 'I saw more. I saw that my Jesus became a dog, a Pariah dog, for me.' Is it blasphemy to use these words? 'Jesus became a dog for me.' Hyde said that he was thinking of the Syrophenecian woman, and how Jesus applied the contemptible word 'dog' to her and the Gentiles, and then, he said, the Holy Spirit led my thoughts to the truth that Jesus had died for the Gentiles, for these dogsthen it must be that Jesus had taken the dog's place. 'At first,' he said, 'this was too awful to think of, but when I thought of His life, I had to come to the conclusion that the life of Christ had more of the characteristics of a dog's life, than anything else, and that is what I have been doing,' he said; 'worshipping Him and praising Him for this.'...Then Hyde showed the similarity between Christ's life and the pariah dog of the East. Christ had nowhere to lay His head. That is how the dogs of the East live; they have no place which they can call 'home,' and Christ was homeless, and 'to think of Christ suffering all for me,' said Hyde. The dogs of the East have constant kicks and blows from men, and that is how men treated our beloved Saviour, driven away from men, receiving oftentimes great unkindness at the hands of men, cruel words, scoffs, blows, and at last cruelly killed. Shall I ever forget the tenderness of Hyde as he spoke of the sufferings of Christ. I remember nothing of the dinner that night, my impression is that we both sat on that bed for hours, speaking of Christ. I shall never forget it, and never forget the vision I had of the love of Christ, going lower and lower, suffering more and more, and all for me. 52
Quoted in Paris Reidhead's sermon, Ten Shekels and a Shirt, http://www.parisreidheadbibleteachingministries.org/tenshekels.shtml
51

52

Praying Hyde, pp.80-82

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This is what it meant that Christ became a slave. The infinitely invaluable King of Glory, took off his robes, left sweet intimacy with his Father and the praise of angels, and came to a wretched planet to become a homeless slave of wicked men and die outside Jerusalem on a garbage dump. He did it for the sake of His bride. And He did it while she was still an enemy. It's one thing to serve those who love you; it's another to serve those who hate you. Jesus became a servant-slave to his bride even as she hated him, cursed him, spit upon him, and crucified him. This is how Jesus has loved his bride. And He says to us now, You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.53

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John 13:13-17

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Christ is always pursuing the deepest possible joy of His bride

This is another facet of how Christ loves the church. As an imperfect husband, I will make selfish decisions. I will be tempted to seek personal selfish joys at the expense of my bride. But Jesus never does that. Christ, in everything He does, He does it for the deepest possible joy of His bride. If He draws near to her in affection and sweet intimacy, it is for her joy. If He at times hides His face from her so that she cannot sense His presence for a while, in the end it is that she might experience the deepest kind of joy. If He says anything in His word, it is so that in reading it her joy might be made full. If He gives her bread, it is so she might eat it with gladness and sincerity of heart (Acts 2:46). If He withholds it, it's so she might feast upon hunger pains for the final marriage supper. And often there is more joy in fasting than in feasting. If He gives her a spouse, it is out of love and for her joy in Christ. If He takes her spouse away, it is so that she might know deeper and richer joys in Christ. If He leads her as a shepherd in lush green pastures, it is so she might sing for joy to Him. If He calls her to follow Him with a heavy cross, it is that she might know levels of joy she never knew possible. Many saints have discovered that the sweetest untapped joys this world can offer are found in sharing deeply in the sufferings of Christ. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full (Jn.15:11). And this is true of all Jesus' dealings with His bride. He prays to the Father in John 17, But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves (v13). How much good it would do us to just believe this! That the Savior, in all his providences towards us, is designing a scheme that will work to satisfy our hearts with joy unspeakable beyond all we could ask or think.

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Paul modeled his ministry upon this principle. Not only that, but he found that it was in seeking the joy of the church that he experienced the most joy himself. He wrote to the church at Philippi, Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith (1:25). Paul's goal in ministry was to exist and spend himself for the progress and joy of the church. He says likewise in 2 Corinthians, Not that we lord it over your faith, but are workers with you for your joy... (1:24). Paul's heart was set upon spending himself for the joy of those he was ministering to. And this must also be our goal as husbands. In everything I do, I am to do it that my bride's joy might be made full. I remember my first trip back to the west after living for a while in south east asia. I arrived at Heathrow airport in London and had a layover for a few hours. My first thought was how incredibly plush and elegant everything was. I had forgotten such nice shops could ever exist at airports. But even more striking to me was what hit me next. Ironically, it was the absolute misery on the faces of pretty much everyone that walked past me. It was unbelievable. And it stood at quite a contrast with the kind of joy I had experienced in the faces of believers I had just spent time with, living in some remote villages we had visited. Believers who lived in small bamboo shelters and had no more to claim in this life that a few pairs of clothes, a few months worth of rice, maybe a few animalsand Christ. They put my joy to shame. I need to often remember that Christ came to make full the joy of His bride. And I need also to remember that, her joy can only be made full in Him. You will make known to me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever (Ps.16:11). The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly (Jn.10:10). As a husband, my calling is to make full the joy of my bride. And her joy will not be made full in the trinkets this world can offer. Oh that it would be my delight to set forth Christ to her; to set her eyes and affections on
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Him, and thus spend myself for the incredible privilege of causing my bride to know deeper and deeper levels of true joy and abundance as she experiences more and more of Jesus her Savior.

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Christ is always pursuing the deepest possible good of His bride

Though it doesn't always seem that way to us. I love the story of Naomi. She left her home land, the land of Canaan as a bright God-fearing wife and mother of two sons. But over ten years later she returns a different woman, a broken woman. With only one daughter in law, having buried both her husband and only two sons in a foreign land. To her daughters in law she declares, No, my daughters; for it is more bitter for me than for you, for the hand of the Lord has gone forth against me (Ruth 1:13). When she gets back her friends from home gather around to see the Naomi they knew and loved. She said to them, 'Do not call me Naomi [pleasant]; call me Mara [bitter], for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me (1:20). The Lord had dealt very severely indeed with her. But if only she could read her own story as quickly as we can and see how it ended. Oh, precious Naomi!! Indeed, God was not finished with Naomi; He had something incredible reserved for her; a privilege women of her day could only dream about. God was planning to bless her through Ruth with a great great grandson who would be the King and Shepherd of Israel; David, the man after God's own heart. And not just thatthrough her and through King David would also come the promised Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior of the world would come through her line. To top it off her story would be forever recorded in Holy Scripture, preserved by the Holy Spirit to give life and encouragement to all God's people for thousands of years. Naomi thought she had been abandoned by God, withered up and become unfruitful. She would never have been able to imagine how fruitful God would make her. Perhaps if Naomi could have seen the end of the story she would have fallen on her face in tears of joy with loud weeping blessing the One who had promised to be faithful. David himself was anointed the king of Israel and then spent years running for his life, isolated and living in caves in the wilderness. The Psalms are filled with the cry of a man crying upon the Lord in the midst
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of not understanding why God is dealing with him the way He is. Will the Lord reject forever? And will He never be favorable again? Has His lovingkindness ceased forever? Has His promise come to an end forever? Has God forgotten to be gracious, Or has He in anger withdrawn His compassion? Then I said, 'It is my grief, that the right

hand of the Most High has changed (77:7-10). In another Psalm, ...My eye is wasted away from grief, my soul and my body also. For my life is spent with sorrow and my years with sighing... (Ps. 31:9-10)... I will say to God my rock, 'Why have you forgotten me? (Ps.42:9)... Therefore my spirit is overwhelmed within me; my heart is appalled within me. I remember the days of old; I meditate on all Your doings; I muse on the work of Your hands. I stretch out my hands to You; my soul longs for You, as a weary land. (Ps.143:4-6). Where are Your former lovingkindnesses, O Lord, which You swore to David in Your faithfulness? (Ps.89:49).
Job went through what I'm sure none of us will never know. It seemed to him that God had deserted him: He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass, and He has put darkness on my paths. He has stripped my honor from me and removed the crown from my head. He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone; and He has uprooted my hope like a tree. He has also kindled His anger against me and considered me as His enemy. His troops come together, and build up their way against me and camp around my tent (19:8-12). But it was through the fire of his sufferings that the Lord in His goodness was refining Job of hidden reefs of sin in his heart which before were unknown to him. Jeremiah is called the weeping prophet because of authoring of Lamentations. I have a friend who used to ask people who quoted, Great is Thy faithfulness where that hymn's title came from in the Bible. It's found in Lamentations 3, at the end of perhaps the most intense description of a believers' suffering in the Bible: He has driven me and made me walk in darkness and not in light. Surely against me
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He has turned His hand repeatedly all the day...He has broken all my bones. He has besieged and encompassed me with bitterness and hardship..Even when I cry out and call for help, He shuts out my prayer...He is to me like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in secret places. He has turned aside my ways and torn me to pieces; He has made me desolate...only then does Jeremiah, surrounded only by black clouds of the Lord's displeasure as he looks all around, lift up his eyes with faith and I would imagine with tears and a perplexed, broken heart cry out, [Yet], Great is Your faithfulness.
We may never understand why Jesus deals with us at times the way He does. We may struggle to believe that He is truly always acting for His glory and our greatest good in His dealings with us. We may at times feel forsaken and abandoned by God. But we must fight to cling to the promises of the goodness of God. Has God forgotten to be gracious, or has He is anger withdrawn His compassion (Ps.77:9)? No. He has not forsaken you. He has not forgotten you. He has not out of anger left you, and He has not somehow unknowingly let hurtful things happen because He wasn't paying attention for a few minutes. But Zion said, The Lord has forsaken me, and the Lord has forgotten me.' Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you. Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands... John Newton, author of Amazing Grace, penned a lesser-well known poem that has become one of my favorites, especially in experiencing many of the truths he refers to:
I asked the Lord that I might grow in faith and love and every grace, Might more of His salvation know and seek more earnestly His face. T'was He who taught me thus to pray, and He I trust has answered prayer, But it has been in such a way as almost drove me to despair. I hoped that in some favored hour, at once He's answer my request, And by His love's transforming power, subdue my sins and give me rest.

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Instead of this He made me feel the hidden evils of my heart And let the angry pow'rs of Hell assault my soul in every part. Yes, more with His own hand He seemed intent to aggravate my woe, Crossed all the fair designs I'd schemed, blasted my hopes and laid me low. "Lord, why is this," I trembling cried, "Wilt Thou pursue Thy worm to death?" "This is the way," the Lord replied, "I answer prayers for grace and strength." "These inward trials I now employ from self and pride to set you free And break your schemes for earthly joys, 'til you shall seek your all in Me." 54

Our Jesus is not just sovereign. He is kind, and He is good. He is always good, though in times of darkness we may not perceive it: All the paths of the Lord are lovingkindness and truth to those who keep His covenant and His testimonies (Ps.25:10). And not only this, the Lord delights in doing good to His bride. I don't think we can quote enough the word He has given to us in Jeremiah 32:41, I will rejoice over them to do them good and will faithfully plant them in this land with all My heart and with all My soul. He takes great pleasure in intricately planning out how every minute detail in our life will work for our best possible good. Will we believe this? And as a husband, will I love my bride this way? Will I seek her good when it means my dyingto self or reputation or pride or having a higher hand? Will I make it my secret delight to lavish her with undeserved goodness, even at great cost to myself? For this is the way our Lord deals with His bride, and this is the kind of love that brings glory to God.

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Written by Newton in 1779. 71

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PART 3: CHRIST AND HIS BRIDE IN EPHESIANS 5:25-29.

He gave himself up for her

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church, and gave Himself up for her... Ephesians 5:25.

This is what Adam didn't do. The man said, 'The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate (Gen.3:12). Adam used his wife to protect himself from God in the garden. So it was with Abraham: 'See now, I know that you are a beautiful woman; and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, 'This is his wife'; and they will kill me, but they will let you live. Please say that you are my sister so that it may go well with me... (Gen.12:11-13). Instead of willingly putting himself at risk for his bride, Abraham used his bride as a shield to save his own skin...But Jesus made himself a shield with his own body, to protect us from His Father's wrath. Adam protected himself at the expense of Eve, but Jesus protected us at the expense of his own lifeblood. To protect himself, Abraham said, Take her, but to protect you and I, Jesus said, Take me. Jesus made himself a disgrace, dying naked in shame on a block of wood, a spectacle of mockery; in order to cover the shame that was due you and I. This is how I, as a husband, am to love my bride. He gave himself up for her. And he gave himself up for her freely, of his own accord. It was a wholly voluntary affair: As Jesus says in John 10, I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the
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sheep...No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.55
The call to be a husband is the call to live as a martyr, every day, for your bride. At the hands of others, to suffer for the sake of your bride...even at times at the hands of your bride herself, as it was with our Lord. Not only did He give himself for her sake, it was she who put him to death. Will you defend and protect her, not only when she honors you, but when she sins against you? Will you continue to protect her, at your own expense, as she puts to death your dreams, reputation, dignity, or pride? When she sins against you or disgraces you, will you continue to protect her and defend her? As Jesus did? Will you use her to defend and protect yourself, or will you give up yourself to defend and protect her? Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church. The Amalekites persecuted Israel as they wandered up through the wilderness to the land God had promised them.56 Because of this God had commanded to utterly destroy them.57 Agag was the king of the Amalekites during the time of Saul, and though Saul had let him live, Samuel carried out the Lord's command, slaying him in 1 Samuel 15. Somehow though, there was a descendant of Agag the Amalekite that lived. He shows up later in the book of Esther; he is Haman the Agagite (from Agag). This Haman is a terrible enemy of God and His people, and we rejoice in the justice given him at the end of the book of Esther he is hung on the gallows he had intended for righteous Mordecai. Haman got what he deserved. But Jesus didn't give His bride what she deserved. If He did she would have ended up just like Haman. Instead, Jesus made himself Haman for you. The King of glory, instead of giving you what you deserved, instead of hanging you like Haman, He became
55
56 57

Jn.10:11-15, 18

See Exodus 17 Deuteronomy 25:17ff.

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like Haman and was hung in shame for you on a cross. Instead of giving His bride justice, He bore the cost of that justice upon Himself in order to lavish undeserved mercy upon her. The call of the husband is to thus lay down his life for his wife. Lay down my wants, lay down my desires, lay down my pride, my selfishness, my glory, my life. And to take upon myself the heart of the apostle who said, Now we pray to God that you do no wrong; not that we ourselves may appear approved, but that you may do what is right, even though we may appear unapproved (2Cor.13:7). It is the call not to pretend to love so others think well of me, but to really love, even when no one is looking, and even when my bride doesn't deserve it, or even notice or care. This is what it means for a husband to love his wife the way Christ loved the church. Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth (1Jn.3:18).

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To sanctify her
...so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word... Ephesians 5:26.

Jesus laid down his life for her. But there was a purpose in it. There were things He was zealous to do, and couldn't do unless he gave up his life. He gave himself up for her, we are told, so that He might sanctify her... It seems, this is what His heart was set on all along. When a man proposes to a girl for marriage, the proposal itself is just a means to an end. He wants to marry her. He doesn't get jumpy about proposing or about the thought of being engaged. He wants to make her his. And there is only one way to do that. It is a means to an end. And we are told in Ephesians when Jesus gave up His life and took upon himself the whole wrath of God that you and I deserve, there were purposes to it. One of those purposes was to sanctify those for whom He suffered, His bride. He was zealous to cleanse and purify His bride, and for this reason he went gladly to the cross, if only thereby He might sanctify her. According to this pattern, this ought to be one of the most precious goals of marriage. As husbands, we marry the unique person God has brought to us, as He did for Adam, for the purpose of sanctifying our bride the rest of our lives. This must be our goal as husbands. It doesn't end with, we get engaged so we can get married. It continues: we become united in the holy act of marriage, in order that we might, through the power of Christ and the Holy Spirit, and by the Word of God, cause our bride to grow exponentially in holiness with Jesus. So biblically, we do not marry her, in this sense, because she is beautiful. Rather, we marry her to make her beautiful. In Hebrews we read that Jesus cleansed us through his blood: how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience...? (Heb.9:14). And again, By this will we have been sanctified through the

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offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (Heb.10:10). And here in Ephesians we read, the way Jesus cleansed his bride is the washing of water with the word. We are cleansed by the blood of Jesus, through the agency of His holy word. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you (Jn.15:3). And further, we are being cleansed by Him in the same way. We are not only legally guilty but also ritually unclean because of our sin, as the lepers in the OT who had to live outside the camp. Jesus sanctifies us by applying his atoning blood to our guilty hearts, and washing us from our uncleanliness by His
word.58 Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate.59 This was why He gave His life. Jesus gave himself for his bride so that he might through His blood make her beautiful, holy and pure. Oh, His heart was set upon this! This is why He set His face towards Jerusalem. Perhaps this was his dying comfort as He bore the unbearable wrath of the Father. He would give his life for this. And it was well worth it to him. Jesus didn't tell his bride, You should be more holy like Me. Oh, He longed for her holiness and purity. But to bring it about He himself bore the burden. Our Lord has said, For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in the truth.60 This was one way He loved the church. The meaning was, He set himself apart (as the same word is used in Jn.10:36) unto holiness. Christ, for the sake of his bride, set himself apart in holiness, that she also might be sanctified. In the OT, the Levites were thus set apart in holiness for the sake of the people. It is said of the Levites, My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him as an object of reverence, so he revered Me and stood in awe of My name. True instruction was in his
58
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Heb.10:22 Jn.17:19 77

Hebrews 13:12

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mouth and unrighteousness was not found on his lips; he walked with Me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many back from iniquity. (Mal.2:5-6). Notice the connection between their holiness and the holiness of the people. Robert Murray McCheyne once said that what the flock most needs from their pastor is his holiness. And this, as husbands, is what our bride needs most from us. She needs us to be set apart in holiness, wholly unto Christ. Will we trim the lamps of our hearts daily, as the priests did in the OT? Will we be men set apart for Christ, our Savior? She desperately needs that from me. Not my being perfect, but my fighting to be a godly man.
Paul says something very interesting in 2 Corinthians 8:7, But just as you abound in everything, in faith and utterance and knowledge and in all earnestness and in the love we inspired in you, see that you abound in this gracious work also. Literally, the love from us in you. The love that was abounding at that time in the Corinthian church did not just come from the Bible and the Holy Spirit. It came from Paul. It oozed from him and couldn't help but find a place deep within them as well. And it is the same principle here. As a husband, I must be set apart unto holiness. I must, by the grace of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit and through the word of God, be a godly man, for the sake of my bride. I need to soak myself in Christ so that my bride might truly be benefited. I need to behold the glory of Christ so that she might also be changed from one degree of glory to another. In short, I need to be desperately about the task of keeping myself intimate with Jesus. And I need to remember that this happens especially by the Holy Spirit through prayer. Paul was not a perfect man, but he was able to say to the Corinthian church, Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ (1Cor.11:1). I need to be a man living a life that is worthy of being imitated. I need to be a real, living example to my bride of what it means to follow Christ.

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There is a passage in Deuteronomy 10 again about the nature and function of the Levites. Scripture reads, At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to serve Him and to bless in His name until this day (v8). One of the duties of the Levites was thus to carry the ark of the Lord. We have a beautiful description of this in 1 Chronicles, well after Israel had entered and been living in the land God had promised them. In looking forward to building God's Temple in the place He had chosen, David set his heart to bring the ark of God home to Jerusalem, by the hand of the Levites. We read, David and all Israel went up to Baalah, that is, to Kiriath-jearim, which belongs to Judah, to bring up from there the ark of God, the Lord who is enthroned above the cherubim, where His name is called (13:6). David later again affirms this God-given calling of the Levites, Then David said, 'No one is is to carry the ark of God but the Levites; for the Lord chose them to carry the ark of God and to minister to Him forever (1 Chron.15:1). There are mistakes that were made, there were bitter providences involved in the journey along the way. But chapters 13-16 detail the grande task of king David, by the hand of the Levites, bringing the ark of God, the object where His name is called, home to Zion, her true home. Does this sound familiar? This is an OT picture of Christ bringing His church to glory. King Jesus is bringing home to himself those called by His name. And He chooses to do it in large measure by the hands of his appointed ministers, the Levites, whose responsibility is to carry the ark of God. Thus ministers are set apart by God to bear the awesome task of carrying the church home to safety. And this is a similar task which the Lord has entrusted to husbands as the leader and head of the family. He is to be set apart unto Christ for the sake of his bride and his family. He must be set apart unto Christ, a godly mana man who delights in the word of God and gives himself to prayerso he can truly lead his bride in the right way. He must

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endeavor to be set apart for the Lord in order that his bride might also, by the blessing of the Holy Spirit, be sanctified in the truth.

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To present her before Him as glorious

...that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless . Ephesians 5:27.

The summary of the passage here in Ephesians is this: Our Lord gave himself up for his bride, in order that he might sanctify her...in order that he might bring her to glory to be with him forever. He gave his lifeblood for her because he was lovesick to sanctify her. And His definite purpose in sanctifying her was to present her to himself forever, His bride holy and purewholly glorious. And this must be the goal for marriage in this short life. This must be my zeal as a husband, as it was Christ's. John the Baptist said, He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. So this joy of mine has been made full (John 3:29). He knew his place, and so ought I. Though it is true that for a short time God is so incredibly gracious as to grant the gift and joy of marriage, we must set our faces to that pure and holy end which consumed our Lord. The call to be a husband is the call to a life of martyrdom, and it is the call to a temporary stewardship. We must remember that our brides will not be ours always, and really they are never, ever truly ours. My bride belongs to Jesus Christ. She is wholly His. Nor mine. This story from the book, Tortured for Christ, is very precious to me in demonstrating these truths: One of our workers in the Underground Church was a young girl. The Communist police discovered that she secretly spread Gospels and taught children about Christ. They decided to arrest her. But to make the arrest as agonizing and painful as they could, they decided to delay her arrest a few weeks, until the day she was to be married. On her wedding day, the girl was dressed as a bride-the most wonderful, joyous
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day in a girl's life! Suddenly, the door burst open and the secret police rushed in. When the bride saw the secret police, she held out her arms toward them to be handcuffed. They roughly put the manacles on her wrists. She looked toward her beloved, then kissed the chains and said, I thank my heavenly Bridegroom for this jewel He has presented to me on my marriage day. I thank Him that I am worthy to suffer for Him. She was dragged off, with weeping Christians and a weeping bridegroom left behind. They knew what happens to young Christian girls in the hands of Communist guards. 61
Paul says of the church, For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin (2Cor.11:2). Though in one sense, Christ will present his bride to himself; in another sense, Christ delegates this incredible responsibility to human instruments. Yes, and this must also be my pattern in marriage. This must be my focus as a husband. I must keep at the forefront of my mind and heart that my bride belongs to Jesus, and that one day I will present her before Him. How will she fare on that day? Will she be a beautiful, wholly pure, elegant, lovely, a chaste bride? Oh that we might remember how jealous He is for her, truly should we not tremble? In one sense there is no way I have the power to present my bride before Christ as having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing. Only Christ can do this. But Christ has given husbands this unspeakably precious and weighty stewardship. Husbands must keep their hearts fixed upon this reality, that one day they will present their beloved to Jesus as His bride. And by the grace and power Jesus supplies by His Word and Spirit, live and deal with her accordingly. This ought to be my grandest goal in marriage. Let this consume all I do, this awesome thought, that one day, I will present my bride to Jesus oh that she might be wholly pure unto Him! Let it be Jesus...

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Tortured for Christ, p36.

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Nourishing
...for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church... Ephesians 5:29.

His own flesh, not here describing the picture of Christ as the head of the body caring for another part of his own body. But, in the sense of the oneness of flesh between a husband and a wife; as at the beginning: The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said, 'This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.' For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.62 Christ nourishes his bride, according to v26, by the word. He cleanses and he nourishes her through His word. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. (Jn.17:17). Paul also spoke in a similar way about his ministry towards the church in Colossians 1, which reads literally, Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me, in order to make full the word of God unto you.63 Paul saw his chief responsibility as minister of the gospel in this light, to make full the word of God unto the bride of Christ. And this must be my delight and pursuit as a husband, to nourish my bride with the word of God. The term for nourish is in the present tense, it is ongoing. Christ is constantly nourishing His bride with His word. He is constantly feeding her from the finest of the wheat. In that day, a vineyard of wine, sing of it! I, the Lord, am its keeper; I water it every moment. So that no one will damage it, I guard it night and day (Is.27:3). Christ did not nourish us once through His atoning death. It is a work He is always doing now
62 63

Gen.2:22-24 v25, author's translation 83

by His word through the mysterious wonderful workings of the Holy Spirit within us, opening our eyes to behold wonderful things from His law. As our bodies need food, our spirits need the Word of God, and Christ will not stand for His bride going hungry. She cries out, Sustain me according to Your word, that I may live... (Ps.119:116). She knows she needs this food, she is desperate for it, and Jesus gladly gives it; He will not disappoint her. And so, as husbands, Jesus calls us to love our bride by constantly nourishing her with His word, by daily feeding her with the finest of the wheat, and satisfying her with honey from the rock (Ps.81:16). But Christ nourishes his bride with His word in a very unique way. He does it in such a way that it leaves her both full and hungry, both satisfied and lovesick for more. O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; my soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, in a dry and weary land where there is no water...My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth offers praises with joyful lips (Ps.63:1, 5). There is deep satisfaction: He makes peace in your borders; He satisfies you with the finest of the wheat (Ps.147:14). But there are also hunger pains: As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God? (Ps.42:1-2). Thus, in loving a bride through nourishing her by the word of God, I am not only to satisfy her with rich food from God's word, ministering to her heart and causing her to be full with the love and comforts of Jesus. I am also to make it my personal goal to cause her to hunger more for her God. I ought to look at it this way, that one of my biggest goals in marriage is to constantly make my bride more hungry for Jesus; to long more for Him, and to be with Him.

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Cherishing
...for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church... Ephesians 5:29.

The word for cherish can be used of children whom a mother cherishes, or here, of a wife whom her husband cares for as his own flesh. In Greek literature it was used frequently in the sense of making someone or something warm.64 Though the word is only used twice in the NT65, we have the concept all through the Scriptures. Joseph so tenderly speaks to his frightened brothers, ...do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones.' So he comforted them and spoke kindly to them (Gen.50:21). This is a picture of the tenderness and care of our Lord, of whom Isaiah writes, Like a shepherd He will tend His flock, in His arm He will gather the lambs and carry them in His bosom; He will gently lead the nursing ewes (40:11). When the Scriptures speak of the church, God chooses to use the most intimate illustrations possible. Suppose a man never married, what might be the object of greatest value to him? Perhaps his own land and possessionshis inheritance? And this too is a picture God gives for His church: For the Lord's portion is His people; Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance (Deut.32:9). Without question, our God wants us to know who we are as the church and just how precious we are to Him. What is more valuable to a man than his bride? What could be more precious to him? Jesus did not save the church from the wrath of God in a vacuum of some mechanical unemotive procedure. It was in love that He came (Eph.1:4), it was for love for her that He gave up His life (v25)...it wasn't just out of dutiful obedience. He wasn't just doing a duty. This is the basis for the greatest commandment. We love because He first loved us.
64 65

Danker p.442 Here, and 1Thess.2:7 85

He is not asking us to do something He hasn't done first, and isn't doing now. We are to cling to Him because as His bride He clings to us, just as Adam clung to his wife. We are to delight in Him as those He first delighted in. Do you know that your love and affections and yearnings for Jesus are so pitiful and puny compared to the way He feels about you? He is lovesick, even when you aren't. You will also be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. It will no longer be said to you, 'Forsaken,' nor to your land will it any longer be said, 'Desolate'; but you will be called, 'My delight is in her,' and your land, 'Married'; for the Lord delights in you, and to Him your land will be married. For as a young man marries a virgin, so your sons will mary you; and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God ill rejoice over you (Is.62:3-5). Perhaps as the bride of Christ we don't always feel cherished; we don't always feel like Christ is caring for us. At times we feel neglected, whether it be in his provision or affection. We don't feel well provided for; we don't feel well cared for. We don't feel His warmth, we don't feel the kisses of His mouth. Lamentations 3 is probably the most graphic description in the Bible of God's severe dealings with his people, but at the end Jeremiah confesses, The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness (3:22-23). They never cease; they never, ever fail. But Zion said, 'The Lord has forsaken me, and the Lord has forgotten me.' Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you. Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands... (Is.49:14-16). Wake up and adore Him, saints of God!!! Why do you doubt His kindness and affection?? Throw away your evil sickening doubts forever and believe what Jesus has said unto you: For a brief moment I forsook you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In an outburst of anger I hid My face from you for a moment, but

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with everlasting lovingkindness I will have compassion on you,' says the Lord your Redeemer (Is.54:7-8).
This cherishing here in Ephesians 5 again is in the present tense. This is something Jesus is doing now, and something He will do forever. Just as He continues to nourish, He continues to cherish. Maybe you are tempted to think that at one point Jesus loved you but because of all your blunders He is now just merely tolerating you. You know He'll never send you away, He has bound himself in covenant to you, but have His affections for you died a long time ago? It's a lie. ...To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood (Rev.1:5). He didn't just love you once, He loves you. What would you think, husbands, if there was some wicked, sick man who would stalk your wife, and try to woo her affections away from you? And every day he would come to her when she was alone and tell her lies about you. He would whisper them to her. And he told her you didn't love her anymore and thats why you were doing so and so. And your wife didn't believe him at first but as he spoke with her day after day she started believing him, and it broke her heart. What would you do to him if you had the chance? Don't you know that's exactly what Satan loves to do? Jesus has never removed his affections for you, friends. How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I surrender you, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned over within Me, all my compassions are kindled (Hos.11:8). And this is how, as a husband I am to love my wife. We read in Proverbs 5, Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth.66 Not just to provide for her, and nourish her with God's word. But to care tenderly for my bride, to cherish her, to set my affections upon her and lovingly delight in her. Sometimes this will be easy, sometimes it will be difficult. But to ever not cherish my bride is a sin that needs to be repented of. God commands me to cherish and love her at all times. This brings glory to God. Even when she least
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v18 87

deserves it. Perhaps especially then, for that is exactly how Christ loves and cherishes His bride. To do this right we must be desperate for the power of God and the Holy Spirit. Without abiding in Christ we may cherish, but not the way He intends. We are to nourish her with the word of God; and we must cherish her not primarily with our fickle love and affection, but with the tender love of Jesus Christ, and by the power He gives. Our affections for our bride must indeed be subject to our affections for our Lord. But God has designed marriage in such a way that when husbands cherish their brides with the love and power He gives, it gives glory to God. I am to cherish my bride in tenderness and loving care to the glory of the One who has so cherished me.67

67

See Appendix for answering the question, How am I to cherish my bride in a way that looks like hatred in comparison with Jesus? How am I to love and rejoice in a bride in the way Christ truly intended for marriage? 88

PART 4: OUR DUTIES TOWARDS CHRIST AS HIS BRIDE.

Lovesick for our Savior?

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God? Psalm 42:2.

My first year living in South Asia I had the privilege of trekking through the mountains with a team of 20-25 national brothers and sisters, traveling to different villages and taking part in leading worship services for these remove village churches. Perhaps the most impactful event on that trip was what happened one morning as we were departing one village for the next. One woman as she said goodbye to us looked at me and started making motions with her hands. She had contracted a local sickness and had lost her power to speak. But with radiant joy beaming from her face, one brother explained to me, She is telling you, 'I'll see you in heaven.' I was touched deeply by her words. This woman's hope was wholly on Jesus and being with Him forever in His kingdom. And her lesson put a brand on my heart. Is my joy truly fixed wholly on my Lord, like this woman? We are, as the church of Christ, the bride of Christ. He is the groom, we are the bride. When Scripture gives this picture, it does not often say wife...but rather bride. We are not married yet. Yet. That will happen at the marriage supper of the Lamb. Jesus will gird himself to serve; and on that day we will be His fully. And Jesus is yearning for that day. At the last supper we read: And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He said, 'Take this and share it among yourselves; for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes (Lk.22:17-18). We are told that traditionally, for the passover meal, there were four cups of wine that were consumed during the course of the meal. It is very probable that, in our Lord's supper, the cup He had taken was the third cup. After this, our King
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and Groom announces that He will not drink of the cup again until the wedding supper of the Lamb. You better believe that Jesus longs to drink that last cup and make His bride His own forever.68 Every time we partake of the Lord's supper, we do not only look to the past at the cross. We do this. But we also set our faces and our hearts forward, to the day we will finally fully be His in a way we are not now. As many days as we live on this earth, Jesus' bride cannot be satisfied. Not if she is really in love. She wants to be with the Lover of her soul, and she knows that here she can't fully be the way she wants. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body (Rom.8:23). Blessed are the poor in spirit...blessed are those who mourn...blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness... Those who belong to Jesus, though they know what it is to rejoice, it is always a kind of rejoicing that carries with it a certain sadness. We are poor, we mourn, we long and hunger and thirst for our Jesus. For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life (2Cor.5:2-4). It was well said once, Grace doesn't make us less thirsty for God....69 The kind of grace that makes us less thirsty or less desperate is not authentic grace. That kind of grace isn't taught in the Bible, and it's not the kind that the Holy Spirit gives. If we cherish a theology of grace but actual thirstings, panting, and desperation for Christ and intimacy with Him are not a reality in our life, there's a problem. The lovingkindness that Scripture speaks of causes men not just to agree with
68
69

Mathison, p.213-14

Harris, Joshua. http://www.covlife.org/resources/3740705Earnestly_I_Seek_You 90

a theology of religious affections, but to often get alone with Jesus in secret and whisper to Him as to a lover: O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, in a dry and weary land where there is no water (Ps.63:1)... My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear

before God? (Ps.42:2).

Is that the cry of my famished soul? Is this world to me a dry and weary land, because I long to be with the Lover of my soul? Or is it just the same to be here without Him? 2 Timothy 4:8 says, in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing. To those who have loved His appearing. Do I yearn, and long, and pant...am I in torment and tears on the floor, that it has already been so long....and must it be another amount of years? Such long torturous years!! Friend, is that your cry? It has been said that we ought to check the validity of our conversion if we are apathetic about the time of our Lord's second coming. Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth (Ps.73:25). Is this your prayer to your Jesus? "Woe, woe to the mistakings of my miscarrying heart, that gapeth and crieth for creatures, and is not pained, and tormented, and in sorrow for the want of a soul'sfill of the love of Christ!"70 Our Master bids us in Luke 12:35-37, Be dressed in readiness, and keep your lamps lit. Be like men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast, so that they may immediately open the door to him when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master will find on the alert when he comes; truly I say to you, that he will gird himself to serve, and have them recline at the table, and will come up and wait on them. Am I anxiously and longingly waiting for him to come? Have you ever known a bride in your life, or a groom for that matter, who was apathetic about his or her wedding date? Has
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Rutherford, Letters, p121 91

any bride in the history of the world told her beloved that it didn't really matter if it was next week or ten years later? Can you imagine what it would be like for a groom, who loved his bride more than life itself...can you imagine what it would do to him to find out that she didn't really care about when they were to be married? Would not her friends wonder at her coldness? Would not the groom's heart burst with sorrow? Then please don't do this to your Jesus. Will you not long to have Him wrap His arms around you at last? Can you not long for that day? Can you really not care? While He can hardly wait? While He yearns for you with affection too intimate to express with words? And can you be so cold? Oh, let us long for our wedding day with our Jesus in His Father's house. Let us count the world a wasteland and long and eagerly anticipate the day He comes for us to make us His. "O Fairest among the sons of men, why stayest thou so long away? O heavens, move fast! O time, run, run, and hasten the marriage-day! For love is tormented with delays."71 Should we not pray thus to Him...Oh Jesus...this world is like a desert to me...apart from You there is nothing that I desire on this wretched earth...you know I just want to be with you...and Jesus, you know that I'd much rather just come home to You right now..oh joy of joys!!!....but if you want me to stay here away from you, I'll do it...I don't want to, but I could do it for You...But oh, I just want to be with You....

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Rutherford, Letters, p89

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Keeping ourselves pure for Him: Joy at the Marriage Supper

I've been to weddings where it is somewhat common knowledge that the bride and groom had not waited until marriage to share God's gift of intimacy with one another. I am not judging them, and if you are in that category please know that Jesus is such a tender and kind Savior for sinners who have fallen. He came not to affirm the righteous man but to give his very life for sin addicts and the worst of men. I encourage you, if you have not already, I beg you to run to Jesus with all your sin and all your hurt and all your burdens. Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Matt.11:28-29). And again, perhaps especially relevant for us, The Spirit and the bride say, 'Come.' And let the one who hears say, 'Come.' And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost (Rev.22:17). Jesus does not condemn you for your sin; He wants you to come to Him so He can heal you and forgive you for it. Indeed, He came to this wretched earth and lived, though a Great King, as a homeless man and lover and friend of sinners, and died on a garbage dump outside Jerusalem, among those mocking Him even as they slaughtered Him, so that He might rescue poor sinners from their sad and helpless condition. He gave His very blood for you because He loves you. Others may condemn, others may judge you for your transgressions; He gave His own life for them. And if you are a believer in Jesus now but have deep scars you carry with you from your past, please know this word is for you: What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy (Acts 10:15). He is able again to make all things new. I do believe that I have noticed significantly more joy in the faces of the bride and groom that have kept themselves pure for themselves and for their Lord on the day of their wedding. There is reward in keeping oneself pure. I believe this truth is also found in the Scriptures
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concerning the bride of Christ. To the degree we keep ourselves pure for our affectionate groom, we will experience rewardsin the form of deepening reserves of joy and ecstasy with Him; both now in this life, and at our holy consummation in His Father's kingdom. This was one of the first words spoken to Abraham, 'Do not fear,

Abram, I am a shield to you; your reward shall be very great (Genesis 15:1). It was the same word of which the author of Hebrews spoke, And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him (11:6). When the Judean king Amaziah was exhorted by the prophet to release the troops he had hired from the ungodly king of Israel, we read: Amaziah said to the man of God, 'But what shall we do for the hundred talents which I have given to the troops of Israel?' And the man of God answered, 'The Lord has much more to give you than this' (2Chron.25:9). The world and it's treasures would promise us one kind of joy, but it is an empty joy that is only temporary and leaves us miserable in the end. Jesus offers a joy that truly satisfies and lasts forever. This is what drove Moses to forsake all the treasures and pleasures of Egypt: ...choosing rather to endure ill treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward (Heb.11:26).
We read in Mark 10:29-30, Jesus said, 'Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel's sake; but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life. Have you ever really experienced this? I have lived in South Asia for just over two years now for Jesus' sake. Often I feel as the lowliest and worst of all missionaries, but I have found Jesus words to be true. When we lose for His sake, He gives it back, even in this life, in it's weight with gold. There is a joy too
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deep to express with words, found in Christ plus nothing. To the degree we keep our hearts and bodies pure for Him, we experience deepening reserves of intimacy with the Lover of our souls. I am not advocating a doctrine of grace through obedience. The blessing is apart from works, solely in Christ alone, wholly despite us.72 But Scripture does teach that true obedience, the kind the Scriptures teach, is indeed a means of grace.73 And what is true of this life is true of our experience at the wedding feast. I know it's not necessarily popular to speak of rewards in glory because of fears of what that doctrine could lead to. But Jesus is not ashamed to speak this way. He wants us to know that keeping ourselves pure for Him matters. That here we will know Him in increasing levels of intimacy and it will multiply our joy forever with Him at our union together. And whoever in the name of a disciple gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink, truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward (Matt. 10:42). Blessed are you when men hate you, and ostracize you, and insult you, and scorn your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man. Be glad in that day and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven (Lk.22-23). The beloved apostle in the context of his love-sufferings for his Savior says, For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day (2Tim.1:12). Every little penny we store up for Him will return a thousand fold. Nothing you suffer or endure for Jesus' sake will ever be lost. He has a book, remember: Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord gave attention and heart it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the Lord and who esteem His name (Mal.4:16). The Scriptures teach us that the way we live our lives here will impact the level of joy we can experience with Jesus now and forever. In glory every
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Romans 4:5-8. Among many passages that describe this are Isaiah 58:6-11 and 1Cor.9:23. 95

cup will be full and running over...but how we long and fight here for purity as His bride will determine just how big that cup will be. Will it be a tea cup? A bucket perhaps? Or will it be a swimming pool? Or an ocean?...Or a galaxy? I am coming quickly; hold fast what you have, so that no one will take your crown (Rev.3:11).

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Submitting to Christ as our husband

Your will be done. Matthew 6:10.

We read the familiar passage in Ephesians 5 concerning husbands and wives: Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord (v.22). It was the writing ministry of John Piper that caused me to begin to think of this not only as regards to husbands and wives, but as it relates to Christ and his bride, the church. As the bride of Christ, we are to submit to Jesus, our head, in all that He does. Helen Roseveare says it a lot better than I can: "To be a living sacrifice will involve all my love. My emotions and desires are to be actively dedicated to the Lord, with one burning desire, to worship Him more worthily and to serve Him more wholeheartedly. I relinquish the right to choose whom I will love and how, giving the Lord the right to choose for me. This is not fatalism, but a responsible act of my free will, and I must consciously seek to know His will and direction. I accept His law in His Word as my standard in this, as in all other departments of my life. Whether I have a life partner or not is wholly His to decide, and I accept gladly His best will for my life. I must bring all the areas of my affections to the Lord for His control, for here, above all else, I need to sacrifice my right to choose for myself. I dare not trust myself in this area. God knows that which will make me more wholly available to Himself for the fulfilling of His perfect law of liberty."74 This is so helpful for me as regards to thinking about prayer. Submission to an earthly husband does not mean that the wife does not voice her concerns or her longings and desires to her husband. In fact, she ought to. And He ought to listen carefully, take those things to his God in prayer, and wait upon the Lord for counsel as to what must be done. It is the same with us and Jesus. Jesus asked blind Bartimaeus,

74

Living Sacrifice, pp.116-118.

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What do you want me to do for you?75 He wants to know what's in his heart. Scripture says, Trust in Him at all times, O people; Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us (Ps.62:8). Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God... (Ph.4:6). As the bride of Christ we make our desires and requests known to Him, and then we submit to Him. We tell him what we desire and long for, but then with total and solemn submission we say, Lord, you know what's best...I do not. I do desire this, but I trust in You. We can submit to Him, of course, because He does know what is best, and we do not. And often we are confused and judge wrongly about what is the bestthat is, what will really give us the deepest joy and satisfy our hearts. Often we get ourselves in trouble when we begin to doubt him. Just like that poisonous snake in the garden Satan so easily deceives us into thinking we serve a harsh Master that does not really care about us. It's a lie. For the Lord God is a sun and shield; The Lord gives grace and glory; no good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly (Ps.84:11). He is a shield because He is constantly protecting you from anything and everything that is harmful. In that day, 'A vineyard of wine, sing of it! I, the Lord, am its keeper; I water it every moment. So that no one will damage it, I guard it night and day (Is.27:2-3). And His shield is a shield of favor (Ps.5:12). That is, your God is at every moment with every providence doing good unto you. I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them...I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul (Jer.32:40-41, NIV). That is, your God in everything that happens to you is delighting in what He's doing because it is for your best possible joy and good. It's true even in bitter providences. We know it's true, though that doesn't stop the tears. In the wilderness He fed you manna which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test
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Mk.10:51

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you, to do good to you in the end (Deut.8:16). So even in the bitter winter seasons, in the cold silence of death...we can say... Yet You are holy, O You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel... (Ps.22:3). We let the tears fall. And when they fall, they fall on Him too because He is holding us. His heart breaks more over our sorrow than ours does over the pain. In all their affliction He was afflicted (Is.63:9). The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. 'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul, 'Therefore I have hope in Him.' The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently for the salvation of the Lord...For if He causes grief, then He will have compassion according to His abundant lovingkindness. For He does not afflict willingly or grieve the sons of men (Lam.3:22-26, 32-33).
One time I was part of a medical team that had come to serve here in South Asia for a few weeks. I will never forget this story. There was one doctor, a surgeon named Dennis, an incredibly gentle man. A girl was brought to the clinic whose hand had swelled up to two or three times what it should be. They had medicine for the pain but that didn't mean it was enough. This doctor, over the course of a few days, drew out the infected fluid from the hand of this little girl. The whole time we were praying for her because the pain was so bad she was almost constantly screaming and crying, and seemed to me cursing the doctor for what he was doing to her. What she didn't realize is that he had to do it. If he hadn't operated, she would have lost her hand and probably her life. He knew that. It seemed that she hated him for what he was doing to her, but what he was actually doing was saving her life. Our dear young friend pastor Samuel Rutherford encourages us again: "whether God come to his children with a rod or a crown, if he come himself with it, it is well. Welcome, welcome Jesus, what way soever thou come, if we can get a sight of thee. And sure I am, it is better to be sick, providing Christ come to the bed-side, and draw aside
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the curtains, and say 'Courage, I am thy salvation,' than to enjoy health, being lusty and strong, and never to be visited of God."76 Jesus knows what is best for his bride. Our job is to submit, and to trust, and to know that He loves us and that what He does really, really is done not only for the glory of the Father, but in love, and for our deepest lasting joy. So go to Him, and tell him, ..I am afflicted and needy, and my heart is wounded within me (Ps.109:22), and let Him hold you and weep with you. Say with brother Job, Though he slay me, yet I will hope in Him (13:15). The beautiful old hymn expresses this in words I cannot...

Whateer my God ordains is right: His holy will abideth; I will be still whateer He doth; And follow where He guideth; He is my God; though dark my road, He holds me that I shall not fall, Wherefore to Him I leave it all.

Whateer my God ordains is right: He never will deceive me; He leads me by the proper path; I know He will not leave me. I take, content, what He hath sent; His hand can turn my griefs away, And patiently I wait His day. Whateer my God ordains is right: His loving thought attends me; No poison can be in the cup That my Physician sends me. My God is true; each morn anew Ill trust His grace unending, My life to Him commending. Whateer my God ordains is right: He is my Friend and Father; He suffers naught to do me harm, Though many storms may gather, Now I may know both joy and woe, Some day I shall see clearly That He hath loved me dearly.

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Letters, p.19

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Whateer my God ordains is right: Though now this cup, in drinking, May bitter seem to my faint heart, I take it, all unshrinking. My God is true; each morn anew Sweet comfort yet shall fill my heart, And pain and sorrow shall depart. Whateer my God ordains is right: Here shall my stand be taken; Though sorrow, need, or death be mine, Yet I am not forsaken. My Fathers care is round me there; He holds me that I shall not fall, And so to Him I leave it all. 77

77

Words by Samuel Rodigast, 1676. Music by Severus Gastorius, 1675. 101

Abiding in His love

Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love John 15:9. keep yourselves in the love of God... Jude 21.

The meaning of the words of our Lord and Jude's exhortation is not that we could fall out of God's love and therefore need to by our own effort and strength somehow keep ourselves in His good graces. Scripture is clear on this: Who will separate us from the love of Christ?...For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom.8:35, 38-39). Rather, the meaning is a vital clinging to our Savior's unchanging love for us. Abide in Me, and I in You (Jn.15:4). Jesus calls His bride to remain in intimate union with himself at all times. Richard Alleine describes this beautifully: As the head and the body, as the husband and wife, so Christ and His saints are mutually concerned. They are rich or poor, stand and fall, live and die together. The husband conveys to the wife a title to what he has; as the wife holds of the husband, so it is between Christ and His church. They have nothing but through Him. Their whole tenure is in Him as the Head. Whatever is His is theirs. Whatever is theirs is His. His God is their God, His Father is their Father, His blood, His merits, His Spirit, His victories, all the spoils He has captured, all the revenue and income of His life and death--ALL IS THEIRS! He obeyed for them, He suffered for them, He lived for them, He died for them, He rose for them, He ascended for them, and He has set down on the right hand of God to act for them. This is that Jesus who is given to us. This is He who by covenant is made over to all His saints."78
78

Alleine, Heaven Opened p.41.

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Abide in My love:
The first part of the verse reads, Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you. We know indeed there is intimate love between the Father and the Son. You are My beloved Son, with you I am well pleased were the words of the Father at Jesus' baptism (Mark 1:11). When Jesus is transfigured we read again that a voice came from heaven, This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him (Matt.17:5). In Isaiah the Father described His Son, the coming Messiah: Behold, My Servant in whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations (Is.42:1). What delight the Father has in His beloved Son!! It's almost like He can't stop saying that in the Scriptures...with whom I am well pleased...in whom My soul delights... John the baptist was given a glimpse and he bursts forth in praise, The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand (3:35). Jesus himself declares, The Father loves the Son, and shows Him all that He Himself is doing... (5:20). And Jesus says to his disciples, Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you... (Jn.15:9). The same affections with which the Father loves the Son, the Son also loves his bride. This love He supremely demonstrated on the cross. Jesus loves us not just with sweet words; but in deed and in truth. This love was wholly undeserved on our part. He gave himself for us not because we were so attractive and worthy somehow of catching His eye. We were filthy, wretched, rebel enemies of God.79 Thus, His love was never grounded upon anything in us, but according to His good pleasure and grace.80 And thus, His love continues this wayHis love for us does not go up and down like the waves of the sea as ours does. It began undeserved
79 80

Rom.5:6-10 Eph.1:5-6 103

and despite us, and it will always be undeserved and despite us. And it will never end. As Lamentations 3 declares, The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail (v22). This love never, ever ceases, it never fails. His love was displayed at the cross but it didn't stop there. The apostle John describes the Lord in Revelation 1 as, To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood (v5). The love that compelled Him to bear the cross is the same love with which He yearns over you now. And Scripture declares this same love will continue throughout eternity forever.81

Abide in My love....
Jesus commands His bride to abide in His love for her. Adam was to cling to his wife,82 and Paul makes clear in Ephesians 5 that this is a picture of Christ and the church (vv31-32). Christ clings to his bride in love. And He calls upon her to do the same: You shall fear the Lord your God; you shall serve Him and cling to Him....83 My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me (Ps.63:8). We are to cling to the One who clings so intimately to us; and cling to His love for us. We do this in at least a few ways:

In believing His promised love and affections...

John Owen has said well, Be fully assured in your hearts that the Father loves you. Have fellowship with the Father in his love. Have no fears or doubts about his love for you. The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him is not to believe that he loves you.84 And as is the love of our heavenly Father for His children, so is the love of Christ for His bride. Is it not a great sin to doubt His love and affections after He has gone to such lengths to
81 82 83 84

Eph.2:7 Gen.2:24 Deut.10:20; cf.11:11:22; 13:13:4

Communion with God, p.13

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prove them? What more can He say than to you He has said? What more could He do for you than what He has done? In the Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan's classic allegory for the life of the believer, there is an account where Pilgrim finds himself imprisoned by Giant Despair in Doubting Castle: Now a little before it was day, good

Christian, as one half amazed, broke out in this passionate speech: 'What a fool,' said he, 'am I thus to lie in a stinking dungeon when I may as well walk at liberty! I have a key in my chest pocket called Promise, that will, I am persuaded, open any lock in Doubting Castle!' Then said Hopeful, 'That's good news; good brother, pluck it out of thy chest pocket and try.' Then Christian pulled it out of his bosom, and began to try at the dungeon door, whose bolt as he turned the key gave way, and the door flew open with ease, and Christian and Hopeful both came out.85
We are to cling to His promised love and affections, though feelings or circumstances may appear to the contrary. We are to take hold of His promises as Pilgrim did the key in his chest pocket. Will you allow yourself to lift up your head and look upon all that you have in Jesus Christ? He has withheld nothing from you if you are His. Nothing. The Lord gives grace and glory; no good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly (Ps.84:11). Will you allow yourself to believe and embrace the promises He has made to you? They may seem to you to hard to believe, but I would plead with you to remember what another has put so well: "We are only poor for this reason, that we do not know our riches in Christ. In time of temptation, believe Christ rather than the devil. Believe truth from truth itself. Hearken not to a liar, an enemy, and a murderer. 86 There is a story about an early exploration voyage in the Americas. The ship had been sailing in the ocean for many days and the drinking water started to run out on board. Soon it ran out completely. The
85 86

p.155. R. Sibbes, The Bruised Reed, p.61. 105

explorers couldn't drink the salt water underneath them, and not long after they died of thirst. But they didn't have to. They had sailed right in to the Amazon Basin, the largest fresh-water reserve in the world. Ironically and tragically, as they died of thirst, underneath them lay billions and billions of gallons of fresh water. Oh, die not of thirst dear saints. Shall you die in Christ? Shall one in Christ ever be lost? Could Noah be swept away in the flood while safe in the ark? Would it be necessary for the Israelites who had put the blood on their lentils to fret about what would occur later that night? Did God when He crafted His master plan of redemption before the worlds existed, to redeem His sheep with the precious blood of the Son of His love...did He make a miscalculation? Did He overlook how sinful you could be? Is He now upon His throne anxiously wondering if the cross of His Son will really be enough or not? You know that is foolishness. Then listen to this word and do not refuse the comfort of your God: Comfort, O comfort My people, says your God. Speak kindly to Jerusalem;and call out to her, that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity has been removed, that she has received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins (Is.40:1-2). Shout for joy, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away His judgments against you, He has cleared away your enemies (Zeph.3:14-15).

In applying the blood of Jesus to our hearts...

We abide in His love only as we are applying the blood of Jesus to our guilty consciences. Scripture reads, For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the Living God? (Heb.9:13-14). How do you appease your guilty conscience? What is it that you use to cleanse your conscience when you sin day to day? Do you try to appease your conscience by trying to not sin willfully as long as
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you can? Do you try to sooth your guilty soul through more time in Bible reading or prayer? Greater devotion and resolve in missionary zeal? God's Word declares it is in Jesus' blood alone our guilty souls can find peace. Only in constantly applying the blood of Jesus afresh to our hearts can we rightly abide in His love. Consider the following counsel of dear men of God from the past: "No real good can come to thee, no healing to thy spirit, no fruitfulness to thy soul, from a perpetual living upon convictions of sin, legal fears, or transient joys: the Divine life can derive no aliment from these. But live upon the atoning blood of Jesus. Here is the fatness of thy soul found; this it is that heals the woundIt is the blood of Jesus, applied by the Spirit, that moistens each fibre of the root of holiness in the soul, and is productive of its fruitfulness; this it is that sends the warm current of life through every part of the regenerate man, quickening the pulse of love, and imparting a healthy and vigorous power to every act of obedience. And when the spiritual seasons change--for it is not always spring-time with the soul of a child of God--when the summer's sun withers, or the autumnal blast scatters the leaves, and the winter's fiercer storm beats upon the smitten bough, the blood and righteousness of Christ, lived upon, loved, and cherished, will yet sustain the Divine life in the soul" 87 "In all true prayer, great stress should be laid on the blood of Jesus All prayer is acceptable with God, and only so, as it comes up perfumed with the blood of Christ...never do we place a brighter crown upon his blessed head, than when we plead his finished righteousness as the ground of our acceptance, and his atoning blood as our great argument for the bestowment of all blessing with God. If then, dear reader, you feel yourself to be a poor, vile, unholy sinner; if a backslider, whose feet have wandered from the Lord, in whose soul the spirit of prayer has declined, and yet still feel some secret longing to return, and dare not, because so vile, so unholy, so backsliding; yet you may return, 'having
87

O. Winslow, Personal Declension and Revival, p.165 107

boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.' Come, for the blood of Christ pleads; return, for the blood of Christ gives you a welcome: 'If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." 88
"I am persuaded that I shall obtain the highest amount of present

happiness, I shall do most for God's glory and the good of man, and I shall have the fullest reward in eternity, by maintaining a conscience always washed in Christ's blood, by being filled with the Holy Spirit at all times, and by attaining the most entire likeness to Christ in mind, will, and heart, that it is possible for a redeemed sinner to attain to in this world." 89

88 89

O. Winslow, Morning Thoughts, March 30. Robert Murray McCheyne, quoted from Andrew Bonar, p.151.

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Following Jesus outside the camp

The young, brown-eyed girl looked up at her mother. What would her mom decide? Earlier that morning, the young girl's mother, their pastor, and twenty-six others in her North Korean village of GokSan were bound and taken before a screaming crowd of Communists. One of the guards ordered Pastor Kim and the other Christians, "Deny Christ, or you will die." The words chilled her. How could they ask her to deny Jesus? She knew in her heart he was real. They all quietly refused. Then the Communist guard shouted directly at the adult Christians, "Deny Christ, or we will hang your children." The young girl looked up at her mother. She gripped her hand knowing how much her mom loved her. Her mother then leaned down. With confidence and peace she whispered, "Today, my love, I will see you in heaven." All of the children were hanged. The remaining believers were then brought out onto the pavement and forced to lie down in front of a large steamroller. The communists gave them one last chance. "Deny this Jesus or you will be crushed." The Christians had already given up their children; there was no turning back. As the driver started the heavy piece of equipment, the singing from the villagers started softly. "More love, O Christ, to thee, more love to thee."90
I remember reading this for the first time a few years ago. I was with a friend preparing for a youth lesson. After we both read it, we just sat in

90

Extreme Devotion, p99: The villages of GokSan in North Korea 109

silence for minutes. I don't think I will ever look at a steamroller the same again. Jesus is infinitely more loving and tender a husband to His bride than any earthly husband. But He calls His bride to things we would not. He calls His bride to take up a cross and follow Him outside of Jerusalem. And we know where He's going. If you are not truly sharing now in His sufferings, you can be sure you have no portion in sharing in His future glory. Romans 8:17 makes clear, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. And again in 1 Timothy 3:12, Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But before we progress any further, we have to remember a few things. Firstly, He is only calling us to do what He has already done. Secondly, the cross we carry in no way compares to that which was put upon his shoulders. Thirdly, He only calls us to this for our very best good, and wholly in love. For, as it was with Him, so it is with us: it is in taking up the cross and reproach of Christ that the richest untapped joys in this world are experienced. This is why Paul calls it literally a gift of God's grace: For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake...91 Jesus calls His bride to follow her husband. A relationship with Christ begins with leaving all to follow Him, and it ends the same way. Jesus' first command to his disciples was Follow Me, and it was his last command as well. In the last chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus told Peter, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go.' Now this He said, signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, 'Follow Me!' (21:18-19). And this is the Lord's word to us.
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Philippians 1:29

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Jesus will lead us to places we do not wish to go. Will you follow Him? Will I follow Him? It is one thing to follow Jesus to prosperity, happiness, worldly comforts, and pleasant company. But that's not where Jesus is leading us. That was not the path He walked himself. He is leading us often to shame, scorn, persecutions, perplexity, hardships, mockings, discomfort...in short, up a hill called Golgotha. We may be willing to follow Him to green pastures. But will we follow Him to the executioners block? Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him (Jn.12:24-26). It is not only Jesus who hated his life in this world. It must be so for all who would come after Him. Jesus had set His face to go to Jerusalem. And Jesus is telling his bride that if she would have him, she must follow Him there. It is the same word we read about in Mark 8:31-35. After Jesus speaks of His own sufferings that would be accomplished in Jerusalem, He utters the solemn words, If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it. My Savior bore a cross, and so must I. If He is my husband, I must follow Him where He leads. And He is leading me to a lonely place outside Jerusalem, to suffer and die together with him. Will I follow Him there? It has been said, the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." 92 We are familiar with Bonhoeffer's quote, but the question is, is it a reality in my life? This precious martyr also wrote the solemn words, perhaps a little less familiar but no less
92

Costly Discipleship, p.89

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true, "The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ." 93 And later he earnestly warns us, "We confess that, although our Church is orthodox as far as her doctrine of grace is concerned, we are no longer sure that we are members of a Church which follows its Lord. 94 There is no in-between position! There is no such thing as sort-of following Jesus. Either we follow our Lord or we do not. For the rich young ruler there were only two choices before Him; a solemn decision was before Him. He walked away grieving. When Jesus said to the man in Luke 9:59, Follow Me, there were only two options before him. And so it is with you and I. Jesus will have all of us or He will have none of us. When Jesus taught, people either walked away from Him or left everything to follow Him. Paul talked about a certain group of people in Philippians 3. They were those who were enemies of the cross of Christ (v18). Their error was not a faulty view of the atonement. As far as we know their doctrine was excellent. Their fatal error lay in their refusal to embrace this cross as their own: whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ (vv19-20). We also must remember that it is one thing to say this and quite another to actually do it. As our Lord said, If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. Many came to our Lord as the man did recorded in Matthew 8, telling Him they would follow Him: Then a scribe came and said to Him, 'Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.' Jesus said to him, 'The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head' (vv19-20). The man's response is not recorded in Scripture. Perhaps he walked
93 94

Ibid, p.51 Ibid, p.55

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away grieving as the rich young ruler. Our doctrine may be well and good, but what of our life? Our speech may be smooth as honey, but where will he trace our steps? It is one thing to make a wedding vow and quite another to keep it. It is one thing to say with our lips we follow Jesus, and another to actually do it. Let us not be as the first son who boasted he would do his father's business and did not. Let us, by the power given by the Holy Spirit be doers of the word. If we would be the bride of Christ, we must follow Him. If anyone serves Me, He must follow Me (Jn.12:26). Jesus does not say, If anyone wants to go to heaven, he must ask Me into his heart. He says, If anyone serves Me, He must follow Me. We cannot follow our sin and Jesus at the same time. Who are you following? Whom are you serving? Whom do you really love? Upon whom are your desires set? Truly upon Jesus Christ? I plead with you to honestly ask yourself this. Because it is impossible for one to be saved from sins punishment in hell forever if he will not have Him save him from sins bondage now. Have you surrendered everything to him? Have you completely given over your whole life to Him? Until you love Him above all else there is no reason to think you belong to Him: He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it (Matt.10:3739). Beloved pastor Richard Alleine again puts it a lot better than I can: Will you take Him for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer? Though your Lord be a King, yet His kingdom is not of this world. He came not to minister to, but to minister. He came to serve and to suffer, and all those that will follow Him must suffer with Him. He did not come to divide lands and spoils and crowns and temporal dignities and honors among His disciples, but crosses and prisons and scourges and wants. You will join yourself to the Lord, but will you take up your lot
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with Him? You will live with Him and abide with Him, but do you know where He dwells, and what His entertainment is? Sometimes He has bread, and sometimes He is hungry; sometimes He has clothes, and sometimes is naked; sometimes He has a house, and sometimes He has none; sometimes He has friends, and sometimes He has none; He is sometimes used kindly, and sometimes used coarsely; sometimes it is Hosanna, and sometimes it is Crucify. Sometimes He is cried up as a King, sometimes cried out against as a devil. And as it is with the Master, so will it be with the scholar; as with the Lord, so with the disciple; where He is, you must be also. Can you say Where you go, I will go with You; where you feed, I will feed with You; where my Lord dwells, if in a tent, if in a cave, if in a dungeon, let me dwell with Him? Consider what you say, and be not overhasty. 95

95

Richard Alleine, Heaven Opened, p.338-39

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Bearing spiritual offspring

The church is likened to the bride of Christ. And, though in that sense we have yet to wait our consummation with our heavenly husband forever in glory, one of our privileges now is to be used of Him in gathering spiritual children. This is not something we are able at all to do. We can not change the heart of any person. I have become especially aware of this in my place of service in South Asia! This is the activity of the Holy Spirit alone working in and through the Word of God. But God does use instruments to witness to and preach His Word by the power of His Spirit. And Jesus wants to use you and I in powerful ways to usher in His kingdom. We in ourselves have absolutely nothing to offer anybody. We are like the empty vessels in 2 Kings 4 that the widow collected. We are empty and have nothing to give. But this is actually the most fit place for us to be, for it is then that like Elisha's oil, Christ can fill these empty vessels with His Holy Spirit96. We come to Him empty and ask Him to fill us again, and He always will: If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? (Lk.11:13). Perhaps this is a picture Paul had in mind as he wrote 2 Corinthians 12, And He has said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.' Most gladly therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong (vv9-10). Paul could be glad about his weaknesses because they gave him opportunities to be filled with Jesus and His Spirit instead of self. I love also the picture we have in the gospels of Jesus commanding His disciples to do the impossible, to feed 5,000 men with five loaves and two fish. You give them something to eat (Matt.14:16).
96

I loved this insight of the widow's story gained from the classic Praying Hyde. 115

The disciples are completely unable to do this. Jesus then bids them, Bring them here to Me (v18). Jesus commands them to do what they cannot do at all in one sense, but what Jesus Himself can do through them by His power. He will perform the miracle, but He will use them as instruments. This in itself teaches us something really important. God is glorified not in our doing things for Him. He is glorified the most when we receive from Him. I think this is the lesson from Mary and Martha in Luke 10. Martha was preparing food for the Lord, while Mary was sitting at His feet, listening to His Word. The greek word used for what Martha was doing is actually the same word used in Acts 6 for ministry of the Word97. Martha was doing ministry; but she wasn't glorifying God. Martha was doing for Jesus, serving Jesus. Mary was receiving from Jesus. We tend to think that we glorify God by doing things for Him, but one of the wonderful and most precious truths of the gospel is that it is biblically nearly the opposite: God is glorified when we are the beneficiaries of His grace, His power, His forgiveness, His promises. Jesus wants us above all to not be doers for God but to live every moment as recipients of His grace. Consider 1 Peter 4:11, Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. God is glorified when we come to Him in weakness needing His power; when we come to Him as empty, needing a fresh filling of His Spirit. An artist gets praise when he can use pathetic and broken tools to paint a masterpiece. And it is when we come to Him in this way that we find ourselves, often to our surprise, used as instruments of His grace! Fruitfulness for believers is in one sense a promise that God gives. God has given to those who are Christ's the same promise He gave to
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Acts 6:4

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Abraham: And He took him outside and said, 'Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.' And He said to him, 'So shall your descendants be' (Gen.15:5). Jesus tells His disciples, You did not choose Me but I chose you and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain... (Jn.15:16). One of the promises in the New Covenant Jesus makes to His bride is the fruitfulness of His bride. And this is a promise, like all His promises, that is fulfilled totally and wholly despite us, just as it was for Abraham.98 I love the promise in Isaiah 60:4, Lift up your eyes round about and see; they all gather together, they come to you. Your sons will come from afar, and your daughters will be carried in the arms. Sometimes we don't feel very fruitful or useful. But one day we will stand in awe as He shows us all the ways that we were used of God despite all our foolishness. This is also something we ought to long for. Rachel's cry to Jacob was, Give me children or else I die! (Gen.31:1). Jacob could not give Rachel children, but God is able to open the womb and give one of the greatest gifts He could ever give us, spiritual children. This has been the cry of saints throughout church history, who, like their Master, were consumed with zeal for the Temple of the Lord. I love what is quoted of the puritan Joseph Alleine, that he was infinitely and insatiably greedy for the conversion of souls.99 This is the cry still of every true believer. They cry to Him, Give me souls Lord or I die!! Do I yearn that I would be fruitful for Jesus and bear Him spiritual children? Does this really describe me? Am I disturbed if this is not happening? Oh God please give us this hunger. Oh that we would be desperate to bring souls into the kingdom. I know that far too often I'm not nearly desperate enough.

As demonstrated in the headings of Genesis 20-21: 20, Abraham's Treachery. 21, Isaac is born. God's promise to Abraham did not rest on his obedience or devotion to God, but here is shown to be wholly despite it. God's grace is and always be wholly despite us and our foolishness.
98 99

A Sure Guide to Heaven, p.3 117

It seems to me that the Scriptures draw similarities between natural birth and spiritual birth. Not only in its supernatural work that God brings about in regeneration100, but also in other ways. There are especially two elements that I can see:

Fruitfulness and Intimacy with Christ. Intimacy is the first element in a natural birth, and it seems that Scripture teaches it is at least often so in spiritual birth as well. The most fit posture in being used of God in bearing spiritual children is intimacy with our Savior. It is when we abide in Him that we bear much fruit. Bonar says it so well, We may take the sermons of Whitefield or Berridge or Edwards for our study or our pattern, but it is the individuals themselves that we must mainly set before us; it is with the spirit of the men, more than of their works, that we are to be imbued, if we are emulous of a ministry as powerful, as victorious as theirs. They were spiritual men, and walked with God. It is a living fellowship with a living Savior which, transforming us into His image, fits us for being able and successful ministers of the gospel...Nearness to Him, intimacy with Him, assimilation to His characterthese are the elements of a ministry of power...Our power in drawing men to Christ springs chiefly from the fullness of our personal joy in Him, and the nearness of our personal communion with Him. The countenance that reflects most of Christ, and shines most with His love and grace, is most fitted to attract the gaze of a careless, giddy world, and win restless souls from the fascinations of creature love and creaturebeauty. A ministry of power must be the fruit of a holy, peaceful, loving intimacy with the Lord.101 Fruitfulness and Painful labor. This is that which Paul spoke of in Galatians 2:19, My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you . He wasn't just content to preach the gospel, he wasn't content to just give a good message and let come what will. He knew there was labor involved in the saving of souls. It seems his
100 101

John 3, cf. Ez.11:19-20; 36:25ff H. Bonar, Words to Winners of Souls, pp.12-13.

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reasoning here is, the salvation of the Galatians depended upon his labor over them. No labor, no salvation. He yearned for souls, and so he labored for them like a women in childbirth. He wasn't satisfied until he could hold in his arms a healthy little baby girl or boy, and he was willing to do whatever it took until that happened. He labored much through prayer. He labored much through study of the Word of God. He labored much in preaching. He labored to cause no offense in anything he did. He labored literally as a homeless man at times without food or shelter. He labored when at times it meant no sleep. I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.102 He labored and endured much scorn and contempt from even believers103 so he might bring spiritual children into the world. Charles Spurgeon likewise says the following about laboring for souls: The Lord Jesus Christ wept over Jerusalem, and you will have to weep over sinners if they are to be saved through you.104 Reckon, then, that to acquire soul-winning power you will have to go through fire and water, through doubt and despair, through mental torment and soul distress. It will not, of course, be the same with you all, nor perhaps with any two of you, but according to the work alloted you, will be your preparation. You must go into the fire if you are to pull others out of it, and you will have to dive into the floods if you are to draw others out of the water.105

2 Cor.11:27. See also 1 Cor.4:10-11, ...To this present hour we are both hungry and thirsty, and are poorly clothed, and are roughly treated, and are homeless
102

We know he took a lot of heat from the Corinthian church even as he suffered to serve them. Our own experience in sharing the gospel can explain I think what Paul meant in 2Tim.1:8, ...or of me his prisoner. We think, What Christian would ever be ashamed of the apostle Paul?? But maybe we forget that when with someone who is constantly telling others about Jesus, there are often scorns and jokes that come back. Paul lived as a fool for Christ.
103 104 105

The Soul Winner, p.43 Ibid, pp.124-25 119

Are you not willing to pass through every ordeal if by any means you may save some? If this be not your spirit, you had better keep to your farm and to your merchandise, for no man will ever win a soul who is nor prepared to suffer everything within the compass of possibility for that soul's sake.106 To give birth the new mother must pass through labor pains, and it seems Scripture teaches that to give birth to spiritual children there must be this element of painful labor as well. Is it worth it to me?? Do I know that kind of labor? God help me and give me a heart that weeps and labors for souls.

106

Ibid, p.126

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A Closing Exhortation: Martyrdom, Marriage and Missions

Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate. So, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come Hebrews 13:12-14.

There is a danger in speaking only of one husband and wife, as if our only task as husbands is to care for our wife. We are to love our wives as Jesus Christ loved the church, true. But we must, we must remember that this fits into the grande scheme that God is planning for all nations since before creation. Jesus has a bride. And it would do us good to remind ourselves often of this, that His bride is still out there. She is in darkness, she is in prison, she is being beaten and starving and cut and bruised and molested by Satan. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd (Jn.10:16). Jesus says, I must bring them also. I don't think we hear the longing in His voice. Or maybe we don't care to hear it. Think back again on that earlier illustration of the bride who was taken away from her husband on her wedding day by the secret police. Can you imagine what that groom felt?? If you've ever really loved someone you can. I just don't think we understand how desperate He is to gather those still yet lost. Do you know how He will do this? Do you know how He will bring the remainder of the lost ones of His bride to sit with you at the marriage supper of the Lamb? I bet you do! Yes, look in the mirror. It's as if, Satan is dragging His bride away, even as you read this. And with a desperate holy jealously the Lord looks straight at you like, What, you're not going to do anything??? Someone came to you, they preached Christ to you. Will you now sit in your paneled house while the Temple of the Lord remains desolate? What would you do, husbands, if you went away on a journey. And you left your bride entrusted to a good friend. And men came to her house and beat her and did terrible things
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to her, and your friend was sitting in the living room and just tried to pretend not to hear all the racket? Oh friends, oh friends. We need Him to infuse us with his hunger, by the Spirit. Paul wished he could to what Jesus did do. Jesus gave up His own position of son and peace with his Father to take upon himself the sentence of guilty, and to bear the full weight of the wrath of God, instead of you and me. Paul wished he could do that. He cries, I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh... (Rom.9:1-3). Paul is saying that if he could give up his own salvation for the sake of his remaining lost Israelite brothers, he would. He really would have. It's like what Moses prayed so many years before on behalf of the people, But now, if You will, forgive their sinand if not, please blot me out from Your book which You have written! (Ex.33:32). Does not that kind of love put us to shame? I know it puts me to shame. What would we endureor better yet, what are we enduring for His bride, so precious to Jesus? Are we even willing to give up one meal for her? To tell Him we don't want to rest or eat and be comfortable until she is safe and to plead with Him that He would bring her home? Am I willing to plead with Him by sleeping even one night outside my comfortable mosquito net here? The vast majority aren't willing to give up even one hour a week to pray for her at the prayer meeting. I guess we're just too busy. How we spend our time, how much money we are giving to Christ's cause in the world, how we are crying out for her in our prayers shows us where our hearts really are. We're glad Jesus bore the cross for us but we find it pretty unpleasant to bear any sort of cross of our own. And then we wonder why we're so miserable, so lonely and unsatisfied. I'll tell you why you're unsatisfied. Because the fullest, untapped joys that this world has to offer are found in Christ, and in sharing in the fellowship of his sufferings. As Moses teaches us, considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward
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(Heb.11:26). This is where the abundant life is, this is where untapped joy inexpressible is hidden, buried with Christ. Will we go to him and find it? Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate. So, let us go out to Him

outside the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come. Do you want your marriage to be filled deeply with true joy and life? I do too. Then let's both together remember the lesson that Christopher and Mary taught us, and thank God for their example. They clung tightly to this truth. They were ever conscious that this world was not their home, that their portion was not here. This city has no foundations. They made it their ambition to together covenant to seek the city which is to come. They purposed to set their hearts together upon Jesus and upon His heavenly kingdom. They refused to make a local idol out of their marriage. They understood Christ alone could satisfy their deepest longings, and in total abandonment to him were hidden the deepest joys. They purposed that they might whet the appetite of one another for the marriage supper of the lamb. And that's exactly what they did. Their hearts were set upon Christ, they made it their delight to cause each other to hunger and long more for Him and to be with Him. And that's where the depth of their love for one another came together. It is as Jesus says, He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. 107 We must lose our marriage for Christs sake, we must hate our marriage in this life for the sake of Jesus. And it is there we will find that we will gain it.

107

John 12:25 123

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Appendix
There is a very important question in regards to a husband loving and cherishing, and even rejoicing in his wife, as we have in Proverbs 5:18; and one that I personally have wrestled through recently. If Jesus calls me to hate everything else in comparison with Him, including a wife ( Lk.14:26-27), what does it mean to love a wife in the way God intended? I think in short, the crucial issue is that we are loving Jesus to such a degree that our love for our spouse looks like hatred in comparison. This would also be a wonderful prayer for those seeking one day to cherish a spouse; Lord, let her hate me in comparison with her love for you. At the same time, as we have seen, Jesus in His Word commands husbands to cherish their wives. There is a verse in Deuteronomy that sheds light on this as well: When a man takes a new wife, he shall not go out with the army nor be charged with any duty; he shall be free at home one year and shall give happiness to his wife whom he has taken (24:5). It is a command here for a young husband to give happiness to his wife. God is glorified when a husband gives happiness to his wife. And we would do well to remember again, what it is that will truly give her the most happiness. But there is a hint here of that tender cherishing about which we read in Ephesians 5. We read in Proverbs 5, Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth (v18). Octavious Winslow offers some excellent wisdom on this point, which I will quote here at length: The human heart is naturally idolatrous. Its affections once supremely centered in God: but now, disjoined from Him, they go in quest of other objects of attachment, and we love and worship the creature rather than the Creator. The circle which our affections traverse may not indeed by a large one; there are, perchance, but few to whom we fully surrender our heart; no, so

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circumscribed may the circle be, that one object alone shall attract, absorb, and concentrate in itself our entire and undivided love-that one object to us as a universe of beings, and all others comparatively indifferent and insipid. Who cannot see that, in a case like this, the danger is imminent of transforming the heart-Christ's own sanctuary-into an idol's temple, where the creature is loved, and reverenced, and served more than He who gave it. But from all idolatry our God will cleanse us, and from all our idols Christ will wean us. The Lord is jealous, with a holy jealousy, of our love. Poor as our affection is, He asks its complete surrender. That He requires our love at the expense of all creature attachment, the Bible nowhere intimates. He created our affections, and He it is who provides for their proper and pleasant indulgence. There is not a single precept or command in the Scriptures that forbids their exercise, or that discourages their intensity. Husbands are exhorted to "love their wives, even as Christ loved His church." Parents are to cherish a like affection toward their children, and children are bound to render back a filial love not less intense to their parents. And we are to "love our neighbors as ourselves." Nor does the word of God furnish examples of Christian friendship less interesting and devoted. One of the choicest and tenderest blessings with which God can enrich us, next to Himself, is such a friend as Paul had in Epaphroditus, a "brother and companion in labor, and fellow-soldier;" and such an affectionate friendship as John, the loving disciple, cherished for his well-beloved Gaius, whom he loved in the truth, and to whom, in the season of his sickness, he thus touchingly poured out his heart's affectionate sympathy: "Beloved, I wish above all things that you may prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers." Count such a friend and such friendship among God's sweetest and holiest bestowments. The blessings of which it may be to you the sanctifying channel are immense. The tender sympathy-the jealous watchfulness-the confidential repose-the faithful admonitionabove all, the intercessory prayer, connected with Christian friendship, may be placed in the inventory of our most inestimable and precious things.
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It is not therefore the use, but the abuse, of our affections-not their legitimate exercise, but their idolatrous tendency - over which we have need to exercise the greatest vigilance. It is not our love to the creature against which God contends, but it is in not allowing our love to Himself to subordinate all other love. We may love the creature, but we may not love the creature more than the Creator. When the Giver is lost sight of and forgotten in the gift, then comes the painful process of weaning. When the heart burns its incense before some human shrine, and the cloud as it ascends veils from the eye the beauty and the excellence of Jesus, then comes the painful proves of weaning. When the absorbing claims and the engrossing attentions of some loved one are placed in competition and are allowed to clash with the claims of God, and the service due from us personally to His cause and truth, then comes the painful process of weaning. When creature devotion deadens our heart to the Lord, lessens our interest in His cause, congeals our zeal and love and liberality, detaches us from the public means of grace, withdraws from the closet, the Bible, and the communion of saints, thus propagating leanness of soul, and robbing God of His glory, then comes the painful process of weaning. Christ will be the first in our affectionsGod will be supreme in our service-and His kingdom and righteousness must take precedence of all other things.108

108

From Morning Thoughts, Nov.14 on Prov.23:26: My son, give me your heart. 127

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Works Cited:
Alleine, Joseph. A Sure Guide to Heaven. Pennsylvania: Banner of Truth, 1960. Alleine, Richard. Heaven Opened: The Riches of God's Covenant Grace. New York: American Tract Society, (1665). Anderson, James. Women of the Puritan Times V1. London: Blackie and Son, 1862. Bonar, Andrew. Memoir and Remains of the Rev. Robert Murray M'Cheyne. Dundee: William Middleton, 1844. Bonar, Horatius. Words to Winners of Souls. New Jersey: P & R Publishing, 1995. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Cost of Discipleship. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. Brook, Benjamin. Lives of the Puritans V3. London: York Street, Covent Garden, 1813. Bunyan, John. The Pilgrim's Progress. New York: W.L. Allison Co. Carre, E. G. Praying Hyde. Bridge-Logos, 1983. Danker, Greek Lexicon, Third Edition. University Of Chicago Press, 2001. Dutton, Anne. From Letters on Spiritual Subjects, found at www.gracegems.org/Dutton/sweets.htm Harris, Joshua. Sermon: Earnestly I Seek You. http://www.covlife.org/resources/3740705-Earnestly_I_Seek_You Mathison, Keith; Given for You. P & R Publishing, 2002. Newton, John; I asked the Lord that I might grow, 1779. Owen, John; Communion with God. Pennsylvania: Banner of Truth, 2000. Piper, John; This Momentary Marriage. Crossway, 2009. Reidhead, Paris; Sermon: Ten Shekels and a Shirt, http://www.parisreidheadbibleteachingministries.org/tenshekels.shtml Rodigast, Samuel. Hymn: Whatever my God ordains is right, 1676. Roseveare, Helen. Living Sacrifice. Minneapolis: Bethany, 1979. Rutherford, Samuel. Letters of Samuel Rutherford. Pennsylvania: Banner of Truth: 1996. Sibbes, Richard. The Brused Reed. Pennsylvania: Banner of Truth, 2005.

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Spurgeon, Charles; Choice Portions. By Pastor C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, May 25, 1862. Spurgeon, Charles; New Park Street Pulpit; Sermon #210; August 22, 1858, Music Hall. Spurgeon, Charles. The Soul Winner. BiblioBazaar, 2008. Voice of the Martyrs. Extreme Devotion. Canada: Thomas Nelson, 2002. Winslow, Octavius. Morning Thoughts. Reformation Heritage Books, 2003. Winslow, Octavius; Personal Declension and Revival. London: Banner of Truth, 1962. Wurmbrand, Richard; Tortured for Christ. Living Sacrifice Book Company, 1998.

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About the Author

Jon Bonker finished his undergraduate studies at James Madison University, during which time he felt a call to labor overseas. After university study he completed an M.Div. at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, MO. He was ordained as a teaching elder in the PCA in 2009, which was the same year he left to serve overseas. It was a few years later that he began communication with Katie Dinwiddie. Katie is the most incredible girl Jon has ever met, and he is crazy about her. This book is the fruit of this relationship, and was written within a few months of their first correspondence. They were engaged on November 1, 2011 and will be married on January 7, 2012.

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