“The hope of the righteous brings joy,
but the expectation of the wicked will perish.”
but the expectation of the wicked will perish.”
Proverbs 10:28 (ESV)
I am
what is often referred to as a Calvinist. In fact I have been since
the moment I was born again from above. I do not wear this title proudly or
even gladly. It is simply an easy way for many to identify what it is I
believe. It is nothing more or less than an effort, on the part of many, to
understand me and those out there like me. It is no different than being
identified by your denomination or lack thereof. Often times when meeting other
believers we will utter something like this “Oh great. Where do you go to
church? Who do you worship with?” This is our way of coming to understand what the other person believes and how they practice those beliefs. It may be
pigeon-holing but it works; and more often than not, I am glad for it.
What
has become painfully obvious to me in the mere ten plus years that I have been
walking with Christ is that my particular theological and doctrinal views are
woefully misunderstood. Yet that misunderstanding and misconception are not
simply the fault of lazy anti-intellectual Christians but sadly the fault of
many Calvinists. Calvinists from within the “truly Reformed” camp, the
“Reformed Baptist” camp and the “Reformed Evangelical” camp have made it very
easy for our positions to be misunderstood and heartily rejected.
What is
the self-promoted and self-perpetuating problem I am speaking of? We are seen
as joyless. Joyless as defined in the dictionary - without joy or gladness,
unhappy - is a moniker we have taken on. Sadly it has almost become an
attribute of God by the way we present Him to others. I truly wish I had a dime
for every time someone I know personally said to me “God seems so angry the way
you talk about Him; no wonder you never have a smile on your face. If I
believed God was like that too I would be sad all the time.”
I own
this. I really do. I think many of us do. Paul Washer, a man I have met (I am
sure he has no recollection of the event, but I do) and a man I love and
respect as a brother in Christ, is one whose preaching led to me having a
conversation with a very dear lady in my family where she made much the same statement
as the one I quoted just above. Having shared several messages and thoughts
from Brother Washer this dear lady flat out stated she did not see any sense in
talking about the things I was passionate about because it just appeared to
make me angry and somewhat sad. At the time I was frustrated with such a comment, thereby proving that her assessment was more accurate than I wanted to
acknowledge. And I have noticed this in Brother Washer often: I know he is
loving and full of the grace of God, but you can’t hear that in most of his
messages.
The
issue is that we become so obsessed with the attributes of God such as His
wrath and His Justice that we often take our eyes off His Love and His
Grace. Oh we would willingly acknowledge that we know He loves and shows grace
and joy, but those things tickle ears in our perspectives. Everyone wants to
hear about His Love and Joy and Grace; no one wants to hear about Wrath. So we
go to the hard to digest and pointed attributes and drive them home like we are
driving the last nail in the transcontinental railroad.
Yet
this should not be for those of us who rest so peacefully in the arms of a
sovereign God. Is there any greater sense of joy than knowing that despite our
utter worthlessness and wickedness God in His sovereignty and for His own joy
chose us for salvation? Is there any greater joy-inspiring reality for those of
us who have so gladly embraced and adamantly affirm the working of a sovereign
God when we consider that “for the joy that was set before Him Christ endured
the cross.”? This not only humbles us
and moves us to genuine repentance but it also inspires us to hope and joy in
our Lord. As I quoted above Proverbs 10:28 states clearly that “The hope of the
righteous brings joy, but the expectation of the wicked will perish.”
What is
the hope of the righteous? No better yet, who is the hope of the righteous?
Is it not Christ?
Is it not our Savior?
Is it not our Redeemer?
If this is the reality for us, then
we should be experiencing joy. It should pour out of us. It should be erupting
from us in even the most dire of situations. No longer should those of us
embracing our sovereign Lord walk about as Eeyore-esque believers with looks of
despair on our faces as we ponder the depths of His wrath
and the profundity of His justice against wickedness. Instead the reality is
this: we should rejoice in the knowledge of His wrath against evil men and the
wickedness that they perform. We should find joy in His justice because we do
not ever have to share in it with the workers of lawlessness.
Christ is our hope and He brings us
joy, having endured the wrath of His Father on our behalf. The wicked do
not have this promise, and sadly many of those who do not acknowledge the
sovereignty of God in salvation do not have a guarantee of this hopeful joy either. Their salvation is contingent upon their performance and their merit, and
while this should be the most burdensome and weighty load, they seem to outdo
us in their expressions of joy. Maybe in a sense this joy they express is false
but they do seem to put us to shame.
Maybe I am only speaking to myself
here. Perhaps my myopic view informed by my own battles with depression and the
overwhelming and often crushing burdens of my own sin have caused me to
perceive this as a problem when it does not exist. Yet I want to stand and
scream from the tops of the highest mountains that this Sovereign God that I
serve is a God of joy and gladness. He, when at the darkest hour, crushed His
own Son to atone for the sins of all believers, still found joy in that moment.
If the One who could give up so much by sacrificing the One of infinite worth
could do so for His own pleasure in redeeming fallen and wicked men then those
who are redeemed should rejoice in the knowledge that He did so gladly.
I
will close with this quote from Matthew Henry as he commented on Proverbs
10:28:
“Religion
lengthens men’s lives and crowns their hopes. What man is he that loves life?
Let him fear God, and that will secure him from many things that would
prejudice his life, and secure to him life enough in this world and eternal
life in the other; the fear of the Lord will add days more than was
expected, will add them endlessly, will prolong them to the days of eternity. What
man is he that would see good days? Let him be religious, and
then his days shall not only be many, but happy, very happy as well as very
many, for the hope of the righteous
shall be gladness; they shall have what they hope for, to
their unspeakable satisfaction. It is something future and unseen that they
place their happiness in (Rom. 8:24, 25), not what they have in hand, but what they have
in hope, and their hope will shortly be swallowed up in fruition, and it will
be their everlasting gladness. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”
Soli Deo Gloria!
-Todd
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