Old things New Podcast

Prayer

Reading: Job 2:1-6.

Meditation

In Job 1 we began to see that Satan has the power to inflict suffering on God’s people. We saw another angle on this in Ephesians 6, which says that, as Christians, we are engaged in a conflict with the forces of darkness. The Christian life is, in one sense, a spiritual struggle against these demonic forces. And in Job 2, we begin to gain some deeper insights into how this struggle works, and the causes of the suffering that come out of it.

Now, I ma...

Prayer

Reading

Job 1:13-22.

Meditation

Your suffering is bigger than your story. Satan’s aim in hurting Job was aimed at doing two things. First: he wanted to get him to deny God. Secondly: he wanted to get him to sin. If we respond to suffering by sinning, Satan gets a win. And if someone abandons their faith because of suffering, that’s Satan’s best game-plan come to life. But consider this: Whatever it is that you are suffering, there is something much bigger going on than just you.

Resp...

Prayer

Reading

Job 1:19-21.

Meditation

Our suffering is directed primarily by wisdom, not justice. That is ultimately true for believers, because there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:1). It is true, that there is a connection between suffering and discipline for us, and – for that reason – God’s justice is at work. But discipline is not the only reason we may be suffering. It may be that God brings suffering to us to teach us something, to cause us to grow, or to glorify himself in some o...

Prayer

Reading

Job 1:13-22

Meditation

Not a single hair can fall from your head without the knowledge and permission of your Heavenly Father. Though Satan is indeed a mighty adversary—powerful beyond human comprehension—he is not supreme. Behind him, like an eternal and unshakable mountain, stands the Lord God Almighty, who reigns sovereign over all. Can a pebble be greater than a mountain? Can a cup of water be greater than the vast ocean? Can Satan overpower God? There is no comparison. The Lord reigns. He is robed in majesty, migh...

Prayer

Reading: Job 1:13-22.

Meditation

In the third scene, it all unfolds: raiders kill his workers and steal his livestock, his barns and sheep are struck by lightning and burned to the ground, all his camels are stolen by another raiding party, his wealth crashes down to nothing in the space of a moment, and then a tornado rips into his house and kills all his children at once – seven sons and three daughters, all dead. Can you imagine if this happened to you? Let’s try and paint the picture.

You’...

Prayer

Reading: Job 1:6-12.

Meditation

What have you suffered in your life? Sickness? Injury? Family grief? Physical or spiritual harm at the hands of another person? We tend to think about these injuries in two basic ways. On the one hand we may think of them in terms of bodily harm (e.g. you carry a back injury). On the other hand, we may think about them in terms of human agency (e.g. someone said something very hurtful to you, or abused you in some way). What we don’t tend to gi...

Pray

Reading: Job 1:1-5.

Meditation

As little children learn to talk, there are a few common phrases and words that they typically say. Among the most well known are: “Mummy”; “Daddy”; “No”; “I want…”; and on it goes. If you have boys, “Truck” or “car” seem pretty typical, and they usually make a valiant attempt at saying “dinosaur” pretty early on (I’m not quite sure what little girls say – I grew up with three brothers and I have four sons!). There is one other popular phrase that comes along pretty early on as well: “It’s not fair.”...

Prayer.

Reading: Prov 2:1-4

Meditation.

We will not get wisdom if we give it a half-hearted effort; it requires diligence. People don’t just walk around and find silver lying on the ground. They have to dig, and work, and sweat, and go, and go, and go. They have to extract it from the ground, then refine it. Silver and treasure do not easily come by, and neither does wisdom. Again, you will not get it by accident. If we are slothful or neglectful in the scriptures, we will not find wi...

Prayer.

Reading: Prov 2:3.

Meditation.

We need to pray for insight desperately. And when I say need, I mean need. As in – we need air to breathe kind of need. Verse three of Proverbs 2 shows us something very important. You can study the Scriptures with the rigour of an academic. You can pour hours into their pages. You can become a biblical scholar whose entire life is spent researching the contents of the Bible. But without God’s help, you simply will not receive wisdom (verse six makes that clear).

If we woul...

Prayer.

Reading: Prov 2:2.

Meditation.

One of the things about mining is that it takes hard work. Sometimes you’ve got to bend your back into it and work. And it’s the same with wisdom. We must work hard in God’s Word to get wisdom.

Pay attention to that statement: “incline your heart to understanding.” This word incline means to stretch out, to strain. It’s like a runner at the end of the race stretching out to reach the finish line. We are to stretch out our hearts to understand...

Prayer.

Reading: Prov 2:2.

Meditation.

How do you spend your week? Where are the places that you go? What are the things you do? Pause and think about that for a moment, perhaps write down your answers. Now ask yourself this question: Where are you focusing your attention? What are the things that occupy your mind? Where is it that your eyes are looking most of the time? As we consider and answer these questions for ourselves in our own lives, we start to get an idea of whether or not we are focusing...

Prayer.

Reading: Prov 2:1.

Meditation.

What do you do with treasure? As I write these words, I’m visiting a regional Australian city called Ballarat, staying in a mansion-come-resort previously owned by a gold-prospector who struck it rich. Around the back of the property is a solid blue-stone store house where he used to keep his gold (at least I think it’s bluestone). Anyway, it’s sold, thick stone! The point is, no one was going to be easily breaking in to that store-house, because that’s what you do with treasure. You lay it u...

Prayer.

Reading: Prov 2:1a.

Meditation.

When someone has been sick, one of the things they need to focus on as they recover is building up their strength again. You can’t build up your strength without food. Our bodies need food to survive. Without nutritious food, our bodies waste away and eventually we die. There’s a spiritual parallel of survival as well when it comes to wisdom, and we see it here in Proverbs 2:1a: “My son, if you receive my words”. It’s as simple as this: God gives wisdom through his word...

Prayer.

Reading: Prov 2:1-5.

Meditation.

The climax of the first chapter of Proverbs is a clear and open call from Lady Wisdom, an open invitation to everyone to come and get wisdom for themselves: “Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks” (Pr 1:20-21). Everything we saw in our first series of studies in Proverbs 1 brought us up to that point. Here’s a brief overview of the flow of tho...

Prayer

Reading: Prov 1:32-33.

Meditation.

Wisdom is ultimate. The warning of today’s passage takes no hostages. If you ignore her voice, you will be destroyed. If you listen, you will have security and – ultimately – salvation. Why is wisdom so important? The reason why is because, in this call of wisdom, the gospel itself is laid out before us. Those who will not fear God, which is the baseline of wisdom, will be killed and destroyed. Those who listen, trust, and act will be secure. That is nothing less than faith in God’s word.<...

Prayer

Reading: Prov 1:24-31.

Meditation.

We ignore wisdom’s call at our own peril, and to do so invites certain destruction. It will do us good, then, to consider the way of the fool that we might avoid it for ourselves. The first mark of a fool is that they refuse to listen to wisdom. A fool, if they were to even read these words at all, would read and forget them before the day was out. A fool would refuse to listen, and would ignore the advice of wisdom. Now fundamentally, let’s be...

Wisdom’s Help

Prayer

Reading: Prov 1:23.

Meditation.

Have you ever needed help? Have you ever felt yourself to be helpless? I sometimes feel that the Christian life is nothing but a growing sense of my own helplessness. But, as we sometimes sing, our God is mighty to save. In Proverbs 1:23, God offers us four particular kinds of help through these words of Lady Wisdom.

First, wisdom offers correction: “If you turn at my reproof.” As we begin our quest to gain wisdom here at the beginning of the Book of Pro...

Prayer

Reading: Prov 1:22.

Meditation.

One of the very important insights that we gain from the Book of Proverbs is that, by nature, we are not wise. When we are young, our default setting is what the proverbs call: “simple” (see Prov 1:4). What this means, very simply, is that: unless you have gained wisdom, then you don’t have it. Wisdom does not come automatically. Let me put it even more plainly. If you have never invested yourself seriously into the Book of Proverbs, then there is a gaping hole in your life and there...

Prayer

Reading: Prov 1:20-22.

Meditation.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. So spoke Solomon the Preacher in Ecclesiastes 3. In one sense, you could describe our lives as a series of opportunities. When we are young, we have the opportunity to learn. When we have grown we have the opportunity to choose a vocation, a marriage partner perhaps. We have the chance to use the strength and energy of our youth; we have the chance to invest in our children when they are young. We have...

Prayer

Reading: Prov 1:10-19.

Meditation.

The world is on the road to destruction, they are plunging after sin headlong: “their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood.” The attraction of sin spurs them on and, as we’ve seen in our proverbs episodes, it is attractive. There is even a temporary sinful pleasure that comes with it, but the bottom is simply this: sin brings death. For those who follow after the enticements of sin there is simply no other outcome, as verses 17-19 clearly say. Let me then lay be...

Prayer

Reading: Prov 1:10-14.

Meditation.

One thing we need to recognise from this passage is that the enticements of the world are dangerous because, on some level, we find them to be truly attractive. They have a magnetic power to the sin that remains in our hearts. There is something in us, even as Christians, that answers to and desires to respond to these temptations. One of the reasons that we need to beware of worldly attractions, is because we may well find ourselves attracted. We must especially beware when we notice in...

Pray.

Reading: Prov 1:10-14.

Meditation.

In our last few meditations, we have learned a few insights into how our sinful nature generally works. It is self-centred, it is greedy, and in verses 13 and 14 we now also see that sin is evangelistic. God has made us to be social creatures. We are designed to live in community, and we naturally reach out to other people to connect, to love, and to live. That connection is designed to be a powerful force for good, but sadly our sinful nature can also use those connections to...

Pray

Read: Ecc 5:8.

Meditation

I rarely buy the newspaper, but just this last Wednesday (at the time of writing) I picked up two different papers, and let me share just a little of what I read. I warn you that these stories are troubling, but there is a point in sharing them.

A four year old Melbourne girl was admitted to hospital this week. Weighing only 9.3kg, she had suffered severe neglect at the hands of her auntie, who was her guardian. She was severely malnourished and could not have survived...

Pray

Read: Ecc 5:1-7

Meditation

We’re going to talk a little about vows. Now it must be said, this topic is not really something that comes up at all for modern evangelical or even reformed Christians. It is pretty much off our radar. That is not because we do not make vows, but more because we do not think about them.

In Solomon’s day, vows were a specific aspect of temple worship. There are multiple passages in God’s law dealing with vows, and there are multiple examples of vows i...

Pray

Read: Ecc 5:1-7.

Meditation

When we come to worship God, we come to listen, therefore our words must be few. That’s what we learned in our last meditation. But part of worship is about bringing our own offering as well. We must come and speak. Or, to be more accurate, Solomon instructs us to come and speak a little. He makes this very clear: the words of our mouths, even if they aren’t many, are not to be treated lightly. Reading again in verse 1, “To draw near to listen is better...

Pray

Read: Ecc 5:1-7.

Meditation

As Solomon opens up his words of wisdom on worship, he starts with this basic instruction: come to listen. Verse one says: “Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil.”

In the first place, we know that Solomon is talking about worship because he refers specifically to the house of God, the Temple of God. It was the centre of w...

Pray

Read: Ecc 5:1-7.

Meditation

In the words of John Piper: “Mission exists because worship doesn’t.” In John 4, Jesus tells us that God is seeking worshippers. The highest end for which we were created was to glorify God, to declare his excellence, to revel in his beauty, and to enjoy him forever. And yet, as we reflect on our own worship, how often are we truly so enraptured by God’s beauty that we would say we are reveling in it? Do we delight to declare and sing of God’s goodness? Perhaps we...

Pray

Read: Ecc 4:4-16.

Meditation

Now we have a peculiar little story in verses 13 through 16, it’s almost a parable. Solomon tells the story of a foolish old king who did not know how to take advice. We will open this up a bit more later, but for now notice the old king. What was the defining mark of this king? That he did not know how to take advice. He did not listen to people. He had cut himself off from good advice. And so the poor and wise youth was better th...

Pray

Read: Ecc 4:4-12.

Meditation

We’ve seen that envy and laziness as forces of individualism, but Solomon has two more insights to give. Reading from verse 9: “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. 10 For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! 11 Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? 12 And though a man might prevail against one who is a...

Pray

Read: Ecc 4:4-5.

Meditation

Solomon has another observation on individualism for us in verse five: “The fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh.” Now, like last time, you might be asking again: What has this got to do with individualism? Let me try and show you. Notice the description of this man. The first thing we see is that he is lazy. He sits, he folds his hands, and he does nothing. And as a result, he consumes himself.

Notice too that Solomon draws our attention to this man’...

Pray

Read: Ecc 4:4-8.

Meditation

There is a prevailing sickness in our culture today. You will find this sickness quarantined behind closed suburban doors and high fences. You will see its symptoms in next door neighbours avoiding eye contact and a friendly wave. There are train carriages full of this disease all across our major cities each day. You notice it when you look up from your phone and realise that almost everyone on board is glued to their screen. This disease leaves people bedridden night after night as they sit alone, watching...

Pray

Read: Ecc 3:16-4:3

Meditation

Verse 21 is one of those awkward Ecclesiastes sayings. It’s one of those verses that makes Christians want to avoid the book altogether – and plenty, it would seem, do just that. I want to take a moment to explain it. Let’s just start by reading it together: “Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth?”

Straight away you are probably thinking, hang on, the New Testament talks about an afterlife. Is Solomon saying there is n...

Pray

Read: Ecc 3:16-18.

Meditation

Let’s face it, the last two meditations have been heavy going. And yet, even in this seemingly grim passage, Solomon gives us a spark of hope. As we consider this spark in light of the gospel, it bursts into full flame. Solomon has already shown us that injustice exists, that judgment is coming, and that none of us are innocent. But here is where he wants to take us next: Innocence is possible. And yes, that means innocence for you and me. Look closely at verse 17.

...

Pray

Read: Ecc 3:16-18.

Meditation

In our last meditation we faced up to the hard reality that injustice exists. Now, if the average western person was writing the script, our next play would be this: injustice needs to be dealt with. Makes sense. But if we want justice, we need to realise things might not turn out how we expect.

Qohelet does take us on a next step, and it seems counter-intuitive at first blush. We think: injustice exists, therefore God should stop it. But no, Solomon takes us somewhere else...

Pray

Read: Ecc 3:16.

Meditation

One of the most common objections to Christianity you will ever hear is this question: If there is a God, why does he allow suffering? Nobody likes it when things hurt. Perhaps people have raised this question with you before. There are unbelievers who deny God, and then the reason they give is because they think he should not or would not allow suffering if he really existed. Maybe you’ve asked this question yourself.

So what do we say? What is our answer? Why does God al...

Pray

Read: Ecc 3:9-13.

Meditation

Solomon says in verse nine that the deepest pulse of the human soul is the desire for beauty and joy and goodness. We long for it. We want to see it, and taste it, and touch it, and hear it. We want fulfillment and laughter, and wonder, and beauty, and joy. There is an insatiable, ravenous desire in every heart, longing to be satisfied with goodness and beauty. We are compelled to pursue it, and we always want more. The truth is that there is an...

Pray

Read: Ecc 3:9-11.

Meditation

Solomon has challenged our perception of the good life, showing us that life as a gift from God is itself a goodness to be thankful for. And yet, the question stubbornly persists, doesn’t it? Is there any good in life? We still want and desire what is good, and with the brokenness of the world around us, the question is pressing. And Solomon has more to say to us. Because believing in God is not just about some cold-hearted fatalism. No, what Solomon will go on...

A new perspective on finding joy (Ecc 3:10).

Pray

Read: Ecc 3:9-11.

Meditation

One thing we must always remember, says Solomon, is who is running the show. Take a look at verse 10: “I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.” Stop for a moment. Do you see what he did there?

Solomon’s very first response to the bigger question he’s asking here (i.e. is there anything good to be found) is to recall what life really is. Life is...

Pray

Read: Ecc 3:9.

Meditation

In the spirit of Ecclesiastes, let me pose a very un-cheerful question to you: If there was nothing good in life, would you really want to be alive? If misery was your only companion, would you want to be here? I think our honest answer to that question would have to be no. If there was no good, no beauty, no satisfaction, peace or joy, if there was only pain, and suffering, and misery and darkness, we would have no reason to live. You see...

Pray

Read: Ecc 3:1-8.

Meditation

There is a time to weep and a time to mourn. What we see here is that we must be prepared, because days of sadness will come. The goal of this life is not to be always happy or always comfortable, because there is a God-appointed time to mourn. Living in a fallen world means that we should expect tears and mourning at times. As Solomon says elsewhere, there will be many dark days. And so, in preparation for those days, we should not think of suffering as...