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I have been blessed by our study using the book, "Big Truths for Young Hearts" and I hope you have been too! Before I move on to the next chapter I wanted to share a book I have been reading though and have been absolutely blown away by! The book is titled, "Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ" by John Piper. You can download a FREE PDF copy Here! The book is divided into short chapters (4-6 pages) followed by a closing prayer. You could use this as a morning/evening devotion and easily work through the book in just 13 days!
I am convicted that in order to teach our children Christ we must know Him well. This book will help you in that endeavor. Today I have attached chapter 5, "The Winds and The Waves Still Know His Voice" in an effort to extend our thinking from the last blog post, "God Controls All Bad Things in the World." Read and be blessed!
I am convicted that in order to teach our children Christ we must know Him well. This book will help you in that endeavor. Today I have attached chapter 5, "The Winds and The Waves Still Know His Voice" in an effort to extend our thinking from the last blog post, "God Controls All Bad Things in the World." Read and be blessed!
Chapter 5
The Waves and the Winds Still Know His Voice
(Taken from the book "Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ" by John Piper)
In July 1995, my
wife, Noël, two of our children, and I
huddled on the floor,
away from all windows, under the
direct path of
Hurricane Erin in Pensacola, Florida. One
magnificent old pine
tree sheared off the corner of our bed-
room as it fell.
During the eye of the storm we walked out-
side in a perfect
calm to see the devastation. Then, about
twenty minutes later,
we hid again against the backside of
the storm as it
brought down chimneys and crushed cars
under snapped-off oak
limbs as thick as hundred-year-old
trees.
It was a
heart-wrenching, worship-filled moment in the
face of raw,
unstoppable power. The losses were painful,
though nothing like
the destruction of Hurricane Mitch in
Honduras in 1998,
which took 10,000 lives—and which in
turn was small compared
to the cyclone that killed 131,000
in Bangladesh on
April 30, 1991, and left nine million
homeless. Beneath the
wreckage of such wind you have two
choices: worship or
curse.
It was wind that
killed Job’s ten children. “A great wind
came across the
wilderness and struck the four corners of
the house, and it
fell upon the young people, and they are
dead” (Job 1:19).
When boils were added to that, Job’s wife
said, “Curse God and
die” (Job 2:9). But Job’s response to
the death of his
children was different: “Job arose and tore
his robe and shaved
his head and fell on the ground and
worshiped. And he
said . . . ‘The LORD
gave, and the LORD
has taken away;
blessed be the name of the LORD’” (Job
1:20-21). And when
the boils were added to his grief, he
said to his wife:
“Shall we indeed receive good from God
and not receive
adversity?” (Job 2:10, author’s translation).
Both, not just the
one, are the work of God and the
ground of worship.
Later in Job, Elihu says it clearly:
“From its chamber
comes the whirlwind . . . the clouds scatter
[God’s] lightning.
They turn around and around by his guid-
ance, to accomplish
all that he commands them on the face
of the habitable
world. Whether for correction . . . or for
love, he causes it to
happen . . . stop and consider the won-
drous works of God”
(Job 37:9-14).
Psalm 29 considers
and celebrates this one wonder: the
thunderstorm. “The
God of glory thunders . . . the voice of
the LORD is full of majesty. The voice of the LORD breaks
the cedars.... The
voice of the LORD. . . strips the forests
bare, and in his
temple all cry, ‘Glory!’” (Psalm 29:3-5, 9).
It is the glory of
God to bare his mighty arm in wind and
thunder. “The LORD is great.... Whatever the Lord pleases,
he does, in heaven
and on earth. . . . [He] makes lightnings
for the rain and
brings forth the wind from his storehouses”
(Psalm 135:5-7).
“Praise the LORD from the earth, you
great sea creatures
and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and
mist, stormy wind
fulfilling his word” (Psalm 148:7-8).
Isaac Watts had his
feet on the earth and his head in heaven
when he wrote,
“Clouds arise, and tempests blow, by order
from Thy throne.”
Therefore it is not
surprising that when Christ came into
the world, all nature
bowed to his authority. He com-
manded the wind and
it obeyed. And when the disciples saw
it they wondered. And
then worshiped. “And a great wind-
storm arose, and the
waves were breaking into the boat. . . .
And [Jesus] awoke and
rebuked the wind and said to the
sea, ‘Peace! Be
still!’ And the wind ceased, and there was a
great calm. . . .
[The disciples] were filled with great fear and
said to one another,
‘Who then is this, that even wind and
sea obey him?’” (Mark
4:37-41).
Water obeyed Jesus in
more ways than one. When he
commanded, it became
“solid” under his feet, and he
walked on it. When
the disciples saw this they “wor-
shiped him, saying,
‘Truly you are the Son of God’”
(Matthew 14:33).
Another time, he commanded water,
and it became wine at
the wedding of Cana. In response,
John says, he “manifested
his glory. And his disciples
believed in him”
(John 2:11). Wind and water do what-
ever the Lord Jesus
tells them to do. Be still. Bear weight.
Become wine. Natural
laws were made by Christ and
alter at his bidding.
The composition of
all things was not only created by
Christ (John 1:3;
Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:2), but is also
held in being moment
by moment throughout the whole
universe by his will.
“He . . . upholds the universe by the
word of his power”
(Hebrews 1:3). “In him all things hold
together” (Colossians
1:17). Jesus Christ defines reality in
the beginning and
gives it form every second.
Fatalities, fevers,
fish, food, fig trees. Anywhere you
turn, Christ is the
absolute master over all material sub-
stance. With a word
he commands the dead to live again.
“Lazarus, come out”
(John 11:43). “Young man, I say to
you, arise” (Luke
7:14). “‘Talitha cumi,’ which means,
‘Little girl . . .
arise’” (Mark 5:41). He rebuked a fever and
it left Peter’s
mother-in-law (Luke 4:39). He planned for a
fish to swallow a
coin and then get caught with Peter’s hook
(Matthew 17:27). He
took five loaves and fed five thousand
men (Matthew
14:19-21). And he made a fig tree wither
with his curse (Mark
11:21).
Now we have a choice.
Worship or curse. There was a
group at Lazarus’
grave whose facts were right and hearts
were wrong. They
said, “Could not he who opened the eyes
of the blind man also
have kept this man from dying?” (John
11:37). The answer to
that question is, Yes. Jesus timed his
coming to Lazarus’
home so as to let his friend die. He waited
two days, then said,
“Lazarus has died, and for your sake I
am glad that I was
not there, so that you may believe” (John
11:14-15). Yes, he
could have saved him. Just as he could
have saved Job’s
children, and ten thousand more in
Honduras and
Guatemala by commanding Hurricane Mitch
to turn out to sea,
the way he did in Galilee.
Will we worship or
will we curse the One who rules the
world? Shall sinners
dictate who should live and who should
die? Or shall we say
with Hannah, “The LORD
kills and brings to
life; he brings down to Sheol [the grave] and raises
up” (1 Samuel 2:6)?
And shall we, with ashes on our heads,
worship with Job,
“Blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job
1:21)? Will we learn
from James that there is good purpose
in it all: “You have
heard of the steadfastness of Job, and
you have seen the
purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is com-
passionate and
merciful” (James 5:11)? Should we not then
face the wind and
stand on the waves of affliction and sing
with Katharina von
Schlegel,
Be still, my soul! Your God will
undertake
To guide the future as He has the past;
Your hope, your confidence let nothing
shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at
last.
Be still, my soul! The waves and winds
still know
His voice who ruled them while He dwelt
below.
A PRAYER
O Lord, the suffering
in the world is so widespread and
the pain is so great!
Have mercy, and waken the souls
of suffering millions
to the hope of some relief now and
unsurpassed joy in
the age to come. Send your church,
O God, with relief
and with the word of the Gospel
that there is
forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ
and that no suffering
here is worth comparing to the
glory that will be
revealed to the children of God.
Protect your church,
Father, from callous thoughts
about calamities that
leave millions destitute, and pro-
tect her also from
cowing to critics, like Job’s wife, who
cannot trust the
wisdom and power and goodness of
Christ in the midst
of inexplicable misery. Oh, help our
unbelief. Incline our
hearts to your Word and to its
assurances that you
“work all things according to the
counsel of your will”
and that “no purpose of yours
can be thwarted” and
that you are doing good and act-
ing wisely in ways
that we cannot now even dream.
Keep us in peace, O
Lord, and forbid that we murmur
and complain. Grant
us humble and submissive hearts
under your mighty
hand. Teach us to wait and watch
for your final and
holy purposes in all things. Grant
that we would
“rejoice in hope” even when present cir-
cumstances bring us
to tears. Open the eyes of our
hearts to see the
greatness of our inheritance in Christ,
and send us with
tender hands to touch with mercy the
miseries of the
world. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
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