Frogs from the Heart

And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt. (Exodus 8:6)

We live in a time when random chance is the rationale for things that plague our land. We will not consider that these things are a result of God’s anger as a consequence of our failure to worship and obey Him. The proverbist asserts “for out of thy heart are the issues of life”. Pharaoh refused to obey God’s command to let Israel go. And when the hearts of an entire nation, led by their president, potentate, or king, have turned against God’s people and God’s word; the text said, “And the frogs came”. J. S. Exell exclaims of this second plague, “Divine commands... are not to be got rid of even by braving out the penalty. They come back and back to us, and always with the old alternative, obey, or incur new punishment.” America’s prosperous river of crude oil has turned to blood; sexual immorality and abortion have plagued the land with the frogs of unwed pregnancy, delinquent young men, and disease. Did those frogs come from the river or did they come from the leader’s heart? In the words of Isaiah “You are confused by leaders who guide you down the wrong path.” When the leaders submit to God’s word, the frogs stay in the river. 

 

Rejoicing the Heart

The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart (Psalm 19:8)

Everybody wants to find true happiness. Yet we are prone to do that which does not result in our happiness. The biblical formula to true happiness is “Freedom in Christ + Faithfulness to God + Fulfillment of Purpose = Happiness.”

“Statues” refers to God's Spirit, His standards, His character. The joy here is a result of knowing God and pleasing Him according to that knowledge. I'm convinced that it is no co-incident that his statues precede his commandments in the next clause. One can never properly perceive His commandments without knowing his statues.

We assume that God’s way cannot possibly result in our happiness. How can turning the other cheek result in happiness? How can giving up your cloak to the same person who took your coat make you happy? How can going two miles for the person who makes you go one mile, loving your enemies, praying for those who despitefully misuse you, returning good for evil. How can these values bring about true happiness?

Today it is erroneously taught that the return on righteousness is health and wealth in this life. Yet this is so contrary to the life of Christ, His Apostles, and New Testament saints. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. Those saints seemed to go along rejoicing all the way.

The psalmist says righteousness brings happiness; it rejoices the heart. The end of a righteous act is always and without fail vindication and justification by God. Right will always win, but not always immediately. …And that’s our problem. We want the return on righteousness to be micro waved, faxed, emailed… However, this is not how the economy of God works. Doing right is a seed sown. Paul says, “Be not weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” Why is there a danger of fainting? The return requires temperance and patience. The martyred souls under the altar cried out, “How long Lord?” God did answer them, not by instantly avenging them, but by supplying them with white robes. That is, by granting their names to be great and noised about among the surviving saints as sure and faithful men and women of God. This seems to be saying, be happy in doing right for righteousness sake for now, knowing you are free from judgment, pleasing to God, having fulfilled your purpose. No righteousness will not rejoice the flesh immediately, yet knowing that even fleshly resolve is certainly on the way can and will rejoice the heart.

Converting the Soul

The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul (Psalms 19:7)

The Psalmist declares the law of the Lord to be complete, sufficient and adequate, converting the soul. It is perfect to manifest one’s guilt. It is perfect to bring one face to face with the ultimate Judge. It is perfect to shut one’s prideful boast. It is perfect to turn one against his existential error. It is perfect to bring one to the end of himself.

Everyone who runs into the law is not converted but there is no one converted that did not run into the law. No one comes to Christ on the upbeat; to the contrary, the sinner comes abused, broken, confused, degraded, and empty from the consequences of sin. And those consequences are the hand of God executing His law. What law? The soul that sins shall surely die. What law? The wages of sin is death. Who killed the man who jumps off the building, it is God: God’s own judicial determination in the unmovable law of gravity. And it is the same God that orders the consequential turmoil, trauma, or tragedy that is essential to every conversion.

Conversion means to be freed from ideas or doubts that bound one to a false course – to repent. Unconverted Peter asserted at the Mount of Olives, “Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended.” Yet only hours later, warming at the fire, the consequential denial of Peter’s presumptuous arrogance broke him. Why – Because god has a certain law for pride. Paul employs it when instructing Timothy, “Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.”

There are those who would say that the law is done away with. They would say it is grace today not law. What an error! For if there is no law there can be no grace. O but moreover, if there is no law there is no God. For God is the law; He is himself the standard; He is holiness itself. Thus the law is immutable, immovable, and irresistible. The law was not created the law was revealed. And what is revealed “is always”; and the only thing that “is always” is God. John states it aptly, “ …And the word was God.”

And the story of every Christian is that he ran into God’s law. God would not let us be comfortable in our sin. He would not let us find peace or contentment. Law penalized our sin until we came to the end of it. Law freed us from what we love when its pain was manifest beyond our desire for the wrong itself. …And we were freed, freed from thinking the bad is good; freed from believing that such death is life; freed to hear God’s voice; freed to receive the gospel; freed to know His love; freed to know his mercy and grace. Elsewhere the Psalmist says, “The entrance of thy words giveth light.” The hymnologist, said “I once was blind but now I see.”