There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "…truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity–it is simply true and that is the end of it" – Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” – Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
Amid the rabble rout which hounded the Redeemer to his doom, there were some gracious souls whose bitter anguish sought vent in wailing and lamentations—fit music to accompany that march of woe. When my soul can, in imagination, see the Saviour bearing his cross to Calvary, she joins the godly women and weeps with them; for, indeed, there is true cause for grief—cause lying deeper than those mourning women thought. They bewailed innocence maltreated, goodness persecuted, love bleeding, meekness about to die; but my heart has a deeper and more bitter cause to mourn. My sins were the scourges which lacerated those blessed shoulders, and crowned with thorn those bleeding brows: my sins cried “Crucify him! crucify him!” and laid the cross upon his gracious shoulders. His being led forth to die is sorrow enough for one eternity: but my having been his murderer, is more, infinitely more, grief than one poor fountain of tears can express.
Why those women loved and wept it were not hard to guess: but they could not have had greater reasons for love and grief than my heart has. Nain’s widow saw her son restored—but I myself have been raised to newness of life. Peter’s wife’s mother was cured of the fever—but I of the greater plague of sin. Out of Magdalene seven devils were cast—but a whole legion out of me. Mary and Martha were favoured with visits—but he dwells with me. His mother bare his body—but he is formed in me the hope of glory. In nothing behind the holy women in debt, let me not be behind them in gratitude or sorrow.
“Love and grief my heart dividing,
With my tears his feet I’ll lave—
Constant still in heart abiding,
Weep for him who died to save.”
Spurgeon, C. H. (1896). Morning and evening: Daily readings. Passmore & Alabaster.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matt. 5:4).
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Human sorrow is a natural and healthy emotion, but beware of mourning over unfulfilled sinful desires.
Most people in our society have an amusement-park mentality. They spend much of their time and money on entertainment, wanting to enjoy life and avoid problems whenever possible. To them, Matthew 5:4 is a paradox. How can someone who mourns be happy? The answer lies in the difference between godly sorrow and human sorrow. Godly sorrow is sorrow over sin; human sorrow is sorrow over some tragic or disappointing turn of events (2 Cor. 7:8–11). In Matthew 5:4 Jesus is referring to godly sorrow, which is our topic for tomorrow. But we all face human sorrow as well, so I want to discuss it briefly today. Human sorrow is a natural emotion. Our Lord Himself was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3). Many things can cause this. We might mourn out of love, disappointment, loneliness, or physical illness. There is nothing wrong with that kind of mourning. It is a God-given relief valve for the pain and sorrow in this fallen world, and it promotes the healing process. Scripture gives many examples of human sorrow. Abraham wept when his wife, Sarah, died (Gen. 23:2). Through tears Jeremiah preached God’s message of judgment (Jer. 9:1). Paul expressed his concern for the church with his tears (Acts 20:31). Those are natural, healthy expressions of human sorrow. However, sorrow can also be caused by evil desires or by a lack of trust in God. King Ahab mourned to the point of sulking and not eating when he couldn’t have another man’s property (1 Kings 21:4). Some Christians mourn excessively when they lose a loved one. Forsaking the comfort of the Spirit, they focus only on their own grief. Extreme or prolonged manifestations of great sorrow are sinful and must be confessed rather than comforted. God is gracious to His children amid times of human sorrow. Ultimately He will do away with mourning and pain forever (Rev. 21:4). Rejoice in that promise, and be comforted by His wonderful grace!
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Suggestions for Prayer: Thank God for the ministry of the Spirit, who is the great Comforter or Helper (John 14:16–17). When sorrow occurs, lean on the Spirit, feed your soul on God’s Word, and commune with Him in prayer.
For Further Study: Read Psalm 55. How did David express his desire to escape his difficult situation? What was his final resolve?
MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1993). Drawing Near—Daily Readings for a Deeper Faith (p. 108). Crossway Books.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.” – Psalm 22:1-2
The image of the child pleading for his parent continues here in verse 2. And not the nagging speech of a naughty child either! For here is a child who is quite lost. In the words of Derek Kidner, It is not a lapse of faith, nor a broken relationship, but a cry of disorientation as God’s familiar, protective presence is withdrawn. This is a pleading from the heart.
We can equate what’s pictured here in verses 1 and 2 with a type of grief. There is tremendous sadness, a loss reaching to the very depths of his soul. However, this is no grief of the world.
Indeed, this is not a sorrow without hope. In fact, after this world would have given up any thought of rescue ages ago, this man is still looking up. Right when it couldn’t get any deeper, he actually reaches for the highest rock of all! That’s faith. Moreover, in no one else is it more perfectly shown than in God’s Son – the Messiah Himself? David could only ever be a mere shadow of the substance.
Suggestions for prayer
Pray, confessing that it was your sin that meant God’s Son had to undergo this worst of all grief. Thank our dear Saviour that he did all this looking up perfectly to the Father.
Rev. Sjirk Bajema currently serves the RCNZ Oamaru, in Oamaru, New Zealand. Over the past thirty-eight years Rev. Bajema has been privileged to minister with four congregations in Australia and New Zealand. Get this devotional delivered directly to your phone each day via our RP App. This devotional is made available by the Nearer To God Devotional team, who also make available in print, for purchase, at NTGDevotional.com.
The value of life grows in magnitude when we stare death in the eye. Death is obscene, a grotesque contradiction to life. The contrast between the vibrancy of a child at play and the limp, rag-doll look of a corpse is revolting. The cosmetic art of the mortician cannot disguise the odious face of death. The death of a friend or loved one robs us of a cherished companion and reminds us of our own mortality.
Death is no stranger to my household. I have hosted its unwelcome visit too many times. The two visits I recall most vividly are the times the black angel came for my parents. Both died at home—both deaths left trauma in my soul.
We chisel in stone the last words of epic heroes:
“I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country,” said Nathan Hale in 1776 before being hanged by the British as a spy.
“Oh my God,” gasped John F. Kennedy, as he clutched his throat in a car in Dallas on a fateful Thursday in November 1963.
“Et tu, Brute,” Caesar moaned, as he fell mortally wounded at the foot of Pompey’s bust in the Roman Forum.
I remember my father’s final words—how can I forget them? But what haunts me are my last words to him.
Death often leaves a burden of guilt to the survivors who are plagued by memories of things left unsaid or undone or of hurts imposed on the deceased. My guilt resides in the insensitive, nay, the stupid words I said to my father. I said the wrong thing, the juvenile thing for which death gave me no opportunity to say, “I’m sorry.”
I long for the chance to replay the scene, but it is too late. I must trust the power of heaven to heal the wound. What is done can be forgiven—it can be augmented, diminished and, in some cases, repaired. But it cannot be undone.
Certain things cannot be recalled: the speeding bullet from the gun, the arrow released from the bow, the word that escapes our lips. We can pray that the bullet misses or that the arrow falls harmlessly to the ground, but we cannot command them to return in midflight.
What did I say that makes me curse my tongue? They were not words of rebellion or shouts of temper; they were words of denial—a refusal to accept my father’s final statement. I simply said, “Don’t say that, Dad.”
In his final moments my father tried to leave me with a legacy to live by. He sought to overcome his own agony by encouraging me. He was heroic; I shrank from his words in cowardice. I could not face what he had to face.
I pled ignorance as I only understood enough of his words to recoil from them. He said, “Son, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
He was quoting the Apostle Paul’s closing words to his beloved disciple Timothy. But I failed to recognize that fact. I had never read the Bible—I had no faith to keep, no race to finish.
My father was speaking from a posture of victory. He knew who he was and where he was going. But all I could hear in those words was that he was going to die.
What impertinence for me to reply, “Don’t say that!” I rebuked my father in the most valiant moment of his life. I tramped on his soul with my own unbelief.
Nothing more was said between us—ever. I put his paralyzed arms around my neck, hoisting his useless body partially off the ground, supporting him on my back and shoulders, and dragged him to his bed. I left his room and shifted my thought to my homework assignments.
An hour later my studies were interrupted by the sound of a crash from a distant part of the house. I hastened to investigate the sound. I found my father sprawled in a heap on the floor with blood trickling from his ear and nose.
He lingered a day and a half in a coma before the rattle of death signaled the end. When his labored breathing stopped I leaned over and kissed his forehead.
I did not cry. I played the man, being outwardly calm through the following days of funeral home visitations and burial in the grave. But inside, I was devastated.
How much value did my father have to me then? I would have done anything I could, given everything I had, to bring him back. I had never tasted defeat so final or lost anything so precious. That was 34 years ago, but it does not require a psychiatrist to recognize that I am not over it yet.
My mother’s death was different. Her death was tranquil, as she gained the exit from this world we all covet. She died in her sleep without a struggle.
Her last words to me were joyful. She said, moments before retiring to bed, “This is the happiest day of my life!”
She had lived a widow for nine years after losing her husband. Being a career woman she continued her work, investing her future joy in her children and grandchildren. Our first child was a daughter, bringing countless hours of delight to her grandmother.
My mother had two future goals she yearned to reach. She wanted to see my ordination to the ministry and she wanted a grandson who would carry on the family name, as I was the last surviving male on the Sproul side of the family.
My mother embarrassed me more than once with the pride she displayed about these passions. She would introduce me to her friends by saying, “My son is going into the ministry.” No Jewish matriarch was ever more proud.
The family name was almost a fetish. I had been christened R.C. Sproul III. I almost wish she would have named me “Sue,” both for all the teasing I endured from my peers about that Roman numeral and for all the scatological puns that the monicker “The third” can yield.
Mother made me promise that the tradition would live on, if my marriage produced a son. It was nonnegotiable; he had to be called R.C. IV. I was not sure whether I was trying to sire a son or to continue a dynasty, but who can refuse a widowed mother’s pleas?
What made my mother’s last day on earth so happy was the converging of dreams into one single day of glorious realization. While she was applying her makeup in preparation for going to work, I was pacing the floor of the expectant fathers’ waiting room in a hospital 12 miles away. I had been there before but still did not feel like a confident veteran.
The same man who delivered our daughter finally came to the waiting room, with green mask dangling from his neck, to announce the birth of our son. My wife was fine and the dynasty was intact. After sharing the most tender of moments with my wife in the recovery room, I hurried to the phone to relay the news to my mother.
Nothing would do but that my mother would go to the hospital to see her new grandson. I picked her up at her office and took her to the hospital nursery to see the orange-haired, prune-faced newborn infant she declared uncommonly handsome. After a leisurely dinner at a restaurant, during which she expressed her unbounded ebullience, we went to her apartment where I was invited to spend the night.
As we reached the entrance to the building, we found two packages stacked against the doorway. Once inside the apartment, she tore open the packages like a child on Christmas morning. The first package contained engraved invitations to my ordination scheduled only weeks away.
The second package was from Maxine’s, a stylish women’s dress shop in Pittsburgh which featured the latest fashions. It contained an elegant dress, undoubtedly the most expensive garment she had purchased since her husband’s death. She danced before the mirror holding the dress in front of her, taking waltz steps around the room.
She bought it for the ordination but wore it at her funeral. It was too much excitement for one day as one dream was fully realized and the other’s proximate certainty was confirmed by the symbolic presence of the invitations and the dress. Within the hour she protested that she was weary and wanted to go to bed.
We said our good-nights and she retired to her bedroom, but not before poking her head around the door to say, “This is the happiest day of my life.”
I was exhausted from the events of the day and quickly fell asleep in the next room. When morning came I knocked on my mother’s door and was mildly puzzled by the lack of response. I opened the door and instantly realized that the woman in repose on the bed was dead.
It did not seem possible. I walked to her side and clutched her wrist. She had been dead for several hours; rigor mortis had set in and her body was icy to the touch. The sensation was eerie, defying logic.
Sleep makes the passage of time seem instantaneous. In what seemed like the span of a few minutes, my mother had changed from a breathing, warm, excited person to a lifeless statue. I stood transfixed in disbelief, caught in the absurdity of it. Within the span of 24 hours, I passed through the emotions of seeing my son take his initial breaths of life and seeing my mother in the coldness of death.
The name of the second he called Ephraim: “For God has caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction.”
In Streams in the Desert, Mrs. Charles Cowman commented:
The hardest ingredient in suffering is often time. A short, sharp pang is easily borne, but when a sorrow drags its weary way through long, monotonous years, and day after day returns with the same dull routine of hopeless agony, the heart loses its strength, and without the grace of God, is sure to sink into the very sullenness of despair. Joseph’s was a long trial, and God often has to burn His lessons into the depths of our being by the fires of protracted pain. “He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver,” but He knows how long, and like a true goldsmith He stops the fires the moment He sees His image in the glowing metal.
We may not see now the outcome of the beautiful plan which God is hiding in the shadow of His hand; it yet may be long concealed; but faith may be sure that He is sitting on the throne, calmly waiting the hour when, with adoring rapture, we shall say, “All things have worked together for good.” Like Joseph, let us be more careful to learn all the lessons in the school of sorrow so that we are anxious for the hour of deliverance …
God is educating us for the future, for higher service and nobler blessings … Don’t steal tomorrow out of God’s hands. Give God time to speak to you and reveal His will. He is never too late; learn to wait.
Heavenly Father, teach me to wait. Let me learn the lessons You have for me in the school of sorrow.1
1 Stanley, C. F. (2000). Into His presence (p. 349). Thomas Nelson Publishers.
Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided: they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions. 2 Samuel 1:23
suggested further reading: Genesis 23
David shows here that his love for Jonathan was very remarkable, for he experienced great distress over his death. It is true that David’s expression of emotion was too vehement. It was not right for him to sink as he did into the depths of sorrow. Although his emotion was not perfect, the basis of it was good.
Let us note that the children of God are not insensitive. They are saddened by the death of their neighbors and friends, and they feel even more regret, bitterness, and pain over the loss of those whom God has bound very closely to them. This kind of loss will happen to the children of God, but the point is that we must control our feelings and hold them captive to God.
When we are told to patiently accept the death of our relatives and friends, that does not mean we should not feel the loss or that we must respond like blocks of wood, for God does not take away our natural feelings. But even as we are sad, we must not fail to continually bless God’s name and accept his will as not only just and right but also as good and salutary for us. We are to willingly accept what he sends us, so that on the one hand we are sad, but on the other hand we do not fail to bless God deliberately and of our own accord and not because of external constraint.
When at last we calm down after having lost control of our emotions, we can greatly sweeten our sadness by remembering that nothing can hinder us from going to God. That is what we must keep in mind.
for meditation: Calvin has been called a theologian of moderation, always balancing the concerns of this life in the light of eternity to come. Here he exemplifies this talent in the matter of sorrowing over loved ones. An excellent example of this can be found in Abraham, who grieved deeply over the loss of his dear Sarah, yet pressed on with the Lord’s work and agenda (Gen. 23:1–4; 24:1–4). When you have lost loved ones, or have faced some great personal trial, did you moderate your sorrow by contemplating the great joys that await you in the fast-approaching eternity of glory?1
1 Calvin, J., & Beeke, J. R. (2008). 365 Days with Calvin (p. 341). Day One Publications; Reformation Heritage Books.
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