February 2004 Archives

It’s hard to explain exactly what’s going through my mind right now, except that with each passing hour the dread increases. I’m feeling more nervous. I’m getting more anxious.

I have 7:00pm tickets for Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.

The closest feeling to this I’ve experienced was when I was in Jerusalem and they showed us where more conservative scholars believe where Golgotha is (with an Arab gas station built on top of it). But that still left much to the imagination.

When Jesus suffered, His whole being suffered. The most excruciating human pain imaginable was compounded with the spiritual separation from God, and the Father who said “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased” whose fellowship was enjoyed from eternity past… He poured out His wrath on the Son.

All this to show that He is just in showing mercy. And that He justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:25-26) This was God’s plan and we do ill to forget it.

So it is that tonight I am looking forward to my viewing of The Passion (literally, the suffering) with my whole being in turmoil. Physically, I’ve got the shakes. Emotionally, I’m a wreck. And spiritually, I know I should do this.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2)

Why should we look to Jesus?

Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. (Hebrews 12:3)

An interesting paradox, isn’t it? While my whole being seems to grow weary and fainthearted in anticipation, the very purpose of considering His sufferings, the terrible hostility against Himself, is to in fact strengthen me.

So, I’ll just sit tight until the showing, bring some Kleenex, and see what happens.

I was really struck by this hymn last Sunday, especially the very last line. I discovered there were more verses than I was aware of. Many times reading a hymn is better than singing it, just because we get too familiar with it as a song. Here is food for your soul; dwell on His glory, and that what His loving death accomplishes is to free you so that you might enjoy this Lord who is worthy of every crown that can be offered.

Crown Him with Many Crowns!
Matthew Bridges

Crown Him with many crowns, the Lamb upon His throne.
   Hark! How the heav'nly anthem drowns all music but its own.
Awake, my soul, and sing of Him who died for thee,
   And hail Him as thy matchless King through all eternity.

Crown Him the virgin’s son, the God incarnate born,
   Whose arm those crimson trophies won which now His brow adorn;
Fruit of the mystic rose, as of that rose the stem;
   The root whence mercy ever flows, the Babe of Bethlehem.

Crown Him the Son of God, before the worlds began,
   And ye who tread where He hath trod, crown Him the Son of Man;
Who every grief hath known that wrings the human breast,
   And takes and bears them for His own, that all in Him may rest.

Crown Him the Lord of life, who triumphed o'er the grave,
   And rose victorious in the strife for those He came to save.
His glories now we sing, Who died, and rose on high,
   Who died eternal life to bring, and lives that death may die.

Crown Him the Lord of peace, Whose pow'r a scepter sways
   From pole to pole, that wars may cease, and all be pray'r and praise.
His reign shall know no end, and round His pierced feet
   Fair flow'rs of paradise extend their fragrance ever sweet.

Crown Him the Lord of love, behold His hands and side,
   Rich wounds, yet visible above, in beauty glorified.
No angel in the sky can fully bear that sight,
   But downward bends his wond'ring eye at mysteries so bright.

Crown Him the Lord of Heav'n, enthroned in worlds above,
   Crown Him the King to Whom is giv'n the wondrous name of Love.
Crown Him with many crowns, as thrones before Him fall;
   Crown Him, ye kings, with many crowns, for He is King of all.

Crown Him the Lord of lords, who over all doth reign,
   Who once on earth, th'incarnate Word, for ransomed sinners slain,
Now lives in realms of light, where saints with angels sing
   Their songs before Him day and night, their God, Redeemer, King.

Crown Him the Lord of years, the Potentate of time,
   Creator of the rolling spheres, ineffably sublime.
All hail, Redeemer, hail! For Thou has died for me;
   Thy praise and glory shall not fail throughout eternity.

Crown Him the Lord of Heav'n, one with the Father known,
   One with the Spirit through Him giv'n from yonder glorious throne!
To Thee be endless praise, for Thou for us hast died;
   Be Thou, O Lord, thro' endless days, adored and magnified!

A voice says, "Cry!"
   And I said, "What shall I cry?"
All flesh is grass,
   and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades
   when the breath of the LORD blows on it;
   surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
   but the word of our God will stand forever. (Isaiah 40:6-8)

This is part of what Isaiah was told by God to comfort the people of Israel with. All flesh is nothing before the LORD. He merely blows and it fades. But His word will endure forever. He goes on in the rest of the chapter to convey more of His glory. Read it. Do you sense His mightiness? Can you even fathom His incomprehensible greatness, the strength of His might, the depth of His wisdom, the vastness of His presence? Does it not leave you in awe?

One of my favorite parts is vv. 16-17.

Lebanon would not suffice for fuel,
   nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.
All the nations are as nothing before him,
   they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

You could create the biggest sacrifice of all time... and it wouldn't be enough for Him. We are just nothing before Him.

This is something I love to revel in, to meditate upon: God as He is in Himself, the inherent beauty of His manifold perfections... "O to lie forever here, doubt and care and self resign," says the old hymn.

What has been noteworthy to me lately is how few there are it seems who find the simple fact that they are nothing and He is everything an incredibly and wonderful truth worth talking about and mulling over. In recent conversations I've had with people, I'm seeing a pattern. When I talk like Isaiah does, exulting in all His magnificence, it's almost inevitable that the other interjects with this statement: "Yet He loves even you and me."

This is a true statement. And Isaiah will mention the fact that those who wait on Him will renew their strength and rise up with wings as eagles. We do have a wonderful relationship in all this. And yes, this mighty God does go through great, unimaginable pains to demonstrate His love for us.

But yet I find that few have a capacity to join me in my reveling of the greatness of God. It's like everything centers around His love for me, to the near exclusion of the loveliness of Him apart from any relation to me at all. It's like someone who is given a gift certificate to a restaurant, and they spend the whole time thinking how special they must be to this other person that they don't even pay attention to their meal. Or someone standing before the Grand Canyon and thinking of little else but, "And yet I'm so special to be here and see this!" Can we not just enjoy the object for its own sake?

That's what I'm wondering. It's like there's no capacity for extended revelry in the glory of God as it is in itself. I can hardly talk for 30 seconds about Him before I get interrupted with a reminder of "Yet He thinks we're pretty darn special." His love is just one of His many attributes. I'm not about to go around saying that anyone who interjects the thought of God's love for us is who Edwards is describing in this next quote, because the psalmist himself observes the greatness of God and then ponders what man's relationship with God is, and how in the world God allows man to be crowned with enjoying His glory (Psalm 8). But I do wonder why few can stop and enjoy His glory without any relation to themselves.

This is... the difference between the joy of the hypocrite, and the joy of the true saint. The [hypocrite] rejoices in himself; self is the first foundation of his joy: the [true saint] rejoices in God.... True saints have their minds, in the first place, inexpressibly pleased and delighted with the sweet ideas of the glorious and amiable nature of the things of God. And this is the spring of all their delights, and the cream of all their pleasures... But the dependence of the affections of hypocrites is in a contrary order: they first rejoice... that they are made so much of by God; and then on that ground, he seems in a sort, lovely to them. ~ Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections

I do wonder if maybe the widespread problem is that people have not yet tasted and seen that the LORD is good and their whole conception of the Gospel is in God making much of them, rather than enabling them to enjoy making much of Him forever. It's so wonderful to be lost in Him, for just a few brief moments, to totally forget me and be completely caught up in Him....

That's just a thought I've had lately that's bothered me. Maybe you can relate, maybe you can't. Maybe you think I'm off my rocker. Well, that's why we have comments!

When God said in Genesis 2:18 that it is not good for man to be alone, did he imply that God's own fellowship was insufficient to satisfy Adam? What was it that was not good? ~ John Piper

This was a question I relayed to my little Desiring God study group on Thursday night from the book's study guide. Read it again. It's more important than you may realize.

Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." (Genesis 2:18)

"It is not good." Is God not good enough for Adam? Does this nullify something like what the psalmist said in Psalm 73:25-26?

Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

I will give Piper's answer and my own explanation in a minute. Feel the weight of this dilemma. Let it sink in, if you can. Is all of Him, in the words of Chris Tomlin's song Enough, more than enough for all of me? Or is there more I'm looking for, as Derek Webb asks in his amazing song Wedding Dress?

I relayed a life experience to my class I had two years ago this Monday. I was at the wedding of my great friend, Josh Williams. I had just started Piper's The Pleasures of God, which God used to open me up to new vistas of His glory I had never known. That week was life-changing for me, as He came down in power and drew me so close to Him as He revealed Himself to me.

My brother had gotten married a few months before, and my best friend Jonathan Carroll had gotten married a year previous. Together with Josh and I, we were a sort of Four Musketeers, if you will. Now, with Josh getting married, the three of them with corresponding better halves would do "couple pictures" and all that sort of thing. This isn't a bash on Josh, as this was his week to celebrate and I was thrilled for him and for the others. It did leave me a lot feeling like I was on the outside looking in.

But no matter, I had this newfound relationship with the Lord. The night of the wedding those of us in the wedding party took a trek over to Chili's and I tried to convey this view of God to my friends. For whatever reason, it felt like I was connecting with no one and everyone wanted to go on in a stream of triviality. I really just needed to be alone during that time, because there's a time for joking and being light-hearted.

I got back to my hotel room and decided to pull out my Bible and read. I found myself rejoicing more and more in what He was revealing to me, and alone in that hotel room I had a very familiar thought, but with entirely different motivations: I desired strongly for a wife, but it was mainly for someone who could not only understand my newfound joy, but rejoice with me! This was a fundamental shift in my desire to be married. No longer was marriage something that I was discontent regarding and was jealous of my friends, nor was the thought of a wife a complete end in itself, but it was a means I wanted so that I might enjoy God even more. I realized the most loving thing in the world for another person is to show God to them.

Now, with that in mind, hear Piper's answer:

It was not good for man to be unable to channel God's grace to others. We come to the fullest experience of God himself when we share what we love about him with others and find that very love increased. So Eve was not in competition with God as a source of Adam's joy. She was a means of increasing Adam's delight in God by what he saw of God in her and by what he could share of God with her.

That's exactly what I felt in those moments, and little has changed since then. I tried conveying with this at least once and twice before. For the first time in my life, I wanted to be married for His sake. And Stuart Schrader, a guy in my study group, made this profound remark: "In that moment, you were His bride. You were no longer the husband, but the bride." That gave me serious pause and is the foundation for this whole entry.

Marriage is a shadow, or a matrix, of a Reality. It is the picture, not the actual location. It is a MIDI version compared to a live performance of The Hallelujah Chorus. And if you are a believer in Christ, you have the Reality, the location, and the live performance. As Piper put it so touchingly in one of his sermons:

Marriage is a shadow of a reality. And if I do not have the shadow, it is no statement on my full participation in the reality being foreshadowed.

So if you find yourself, like me, feeling lonely this Valentine's Day, meditate on the fact that He is the Lover of your soul and that the desires you have for marriage are God-given. He gives us the One who invented marriage and the pleasures it brings. You are a Valentine Bride, someone He has invited to drink at the river of His delights (Psalm 36:8). He is the one in whose presence is fullness of joy and at whose right hand are pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11).

In the words of William Cowper, the bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will the the flower. Rely on Him, cast your cares upon Him, for He cares for you. He is not far off, but the Word is near you, the word of faith that I'm explaining. Bank on Him.

Lord, may we be transformed more into the bride You want us to be, by the power of Your great promises, through the revealing work of Your Spirit. O make us sensible and joyously aware of the beauty of Your holiness. You are indeed enough for all we need, and even the gifts You give us are meant to show us more of You. Give us the grace to wait on You. Do not leave us to weeping, but cause joy to come in the morning. May You be our Valentine.

Update: 03.06.06! Wow, apparently this is quite useful to some people. It still works, as far as I know, for the latest versions of Movable Type. I noticed a lot of misspellings in this, so I am trying to correct it and make it as concise as possible.

The Scripturizer plugin is an extremely useful tool for Movable Type users. It turns Scripture quotations into active links to Bible Gateway's website in whatever version you prefer. So, say I'm typing along in my typical format...

...which is why I fail to see how anyone of a non-Calvinist position can read Romans 9:16 and not grasp His complete freedom in the bestowal or withholding of mercy, which He exercises not based on anything in man.

Click on it and you'll see where it leads. I've chosen the ESV for my website, but you can substitute it for the Bible version of your choice (KJV, NIV, NASB, etc.).

I have had quite a fun time learning how all this works as a newbie. Because I've failed to find good documentation anywhere on this plugin, I thought I'd provide some myself in the hopes that others will find it useful.

First, upload the code
Go to the website and locate the code. Copy the code from the first box (titled, Scripturizer.pl) into a new text file in any text editor. Save it as "Scripturizer.pl" and make sure it's text-only (not .rtf, nor .doc, etc.). Upload this into your Movable Type plugin folder. Here's how I did it at mine:

http://www.robhulson.com/mt/plugins/Scripturizer.pl

Copy the next bit of text (titled, "Scripturizer.pm"), save it as a file and name it “Scripturizer.pm” Put this one in the following directory:

http://www.robhulson.com/mt/extlib/Sermonizer/Scripturizer.pm

Notice you need to create a folder/directory in the /extlib folder called “Sermonizer.” Did I mention that exact spelling is essential?

Change permissions to 755
Change the permissions of both files to “755” and they’ll be usable files. Don’t ask me why; I’m a newbie! A visual FTP client will let you do this, and if you’re telnetting in, you probably already know how to chmod.

Log out
The documentation recommends you log out of your Movable Type admin. I figure you might as well do it.

Change the templates
Log back in. Here’s where things get dicey! I screwed up royally by misunderstanding what’s supposed to go on, here. I’m assuming you just want to add Scripturizer to your body entries, not sidebars and all that. If so, you need to alter your “Main Index,” and underneath all that (hidden to my eyes), locate the “Category Archive,” “Date-Based Archive,” and “Individual Archive” templates.

1. Locate the tag <$MTEntryBody$> in each template.
2. Change it to <$MTEntryBody scripturize="ESV"$> (it's not scripturizer, and make DOUBLY sure there are only two $ symbols. Say "No" to <$MTEntryBody$ scripturize="ESV"$>!
3. Locate the tag <$MTEntryMore$> in each template.
4. Chage it to <$MTEntryMore scripturize="ESV"$> Again, no "r" in scripturize and only two $ symbols. Both of these tell Movable Type that when it pulls up data from an entry body or extended entry, Scripturizer should look for Scripture references.

Conclusion
Save each time you update the code. When done, rebuild. If you follow this guide precisely and don’t misspell anything, this ought to work. Let me know if it does. I hope this helps the MT community.

Special thanks to Joseph Markey for helping clear things up for me, and to Dean Peters and Jonathan Fox for creating this thing in the first place.

It's only 12:36am, and I think I've made decent time. I've brought over all the blogs I really want to (except for a few hidden ones -- which you'd better try to find them at my old site before they're gone), so you now have a public blog of my life since two years ago.

It's been an interesting plunge, reading what I had written previously. Something I had quite forgotten about but was refreshed to read was my entry back on May 10, 2002, called Of Olives and Dirty Floors. That was really a turning point from the "Rob of old" to the "Rob of today."

Anyway, you can search away or comment away to your heart's content. Oh, don't forget the RSS feed. That's one superfly thing, right there. Download NetNewsWire Lite for Mac and BlogExpress for Windows. Subscribe to a new source, and put this in:

http://www.robhulson.com/index.rdf

Voila! Now you can get highlights from the site without actually having to visit the site, and can see if I actually update it with a minimum of fuss. All this and the power of bleach!

Romans 8:28

I'm very pleased to announce the move of my website from phpBB to Movable Type. The site should load faster, work better, look cleaner, and will even wash your dog, too.

Okay, maybe that last thing was an exaggeration. But everything else is true.

I'm working to bring all my blogs, from the day I started blogging in February 2002 to yesterday, over to the new system. As much as I like phpBB for forums, it's not meant to be a blog tool. Movable Type just spanks it all over the place. I'll be adding a photo gallery soon.

Anyway, back to school and after that, finishing converting all my old robhulson.yi.org blogs. Then, on to the phpBB blogs.

Oh, and please try commenting. It should be a lot easier now.

I was positively thrilled to rediscover this song today. We sang this on Friday night during the God-Entranced Vision of All Things conference in Minneapolis, back in October. It celebrated the life of Jonathan Edwards. I had never heard the song before, and I was in the right place to be floored by it, singing at the top of my lungs 'till the tears started streaming with thousands of other voices.

Be Unto Your Name
by Lynn DeShazo and Gary Sadler

We are a moment, You are forever.
Lord of the ages, God before time.
We are a vapor, You are eternal.
Love everlasting reigning on high.

Chorus
Holy, holy, Lord God Almighty!
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain!
Highest praises, honor, and glory
Be unto Your name!
Be unto Your name!

We are the broken, You are the healer.
Jesus, Redeemer, mighty to save.
You are the love song we'll sing forever,
Bowing before You, blessing Your name.

© 1998 Integrity's Hosanna! Music

I used to wonder how God could be so vain as to create us for the purpose of hearing His own excellencies proclaimed back to Him. Then I discovered that it's in that act that my highest happiness is found. Therefore I gladly sing the above with no shame or timidity and say it's my ultimate joy.

And yes, Edwards has something to say about it.

I now proceed further, and say more particularly, that that kind of excellency of the nature of divine things, which is the first objective ground of all holy affections, is their moral excellency, or their holiness. Holy persons, in the exercise of holy affections, do love divine things primarily for their holiness: they love God, in the first place, for the beauty of his holiness or moral perfection, as being supremely amiable in itself. Not that the saints, in the exercise of gracious affections, do love God only for his holiness; all his attributes are amiable and glorious in their eyes; they delight in every divine perfection; the contemplation of the infinite greatness, power, knowledge, and terrible majesty of God, is pleasant to them. But their love to God for his holiness is what is most fundamental and essential in their love. Here it is that true love to God begins; all other holy love to divine things flows from hence: this is the most essential and distinguishing thing that belongs to a holy love to God, with regard to the foundation of it. A love to God for the beauty of his moral at tributes leads to, and necessarily causes a delight in God for all his attributes; for his moral attributes cannot be without his natural attributes: for infinite holiness supposes infinite wisdom, and an infinite capacity and greatness; and all the attributes of God do as it were imply one another.... Hence we often read of the beauty of holiness, Ps. 29:2; 96:9; and 110:3. This renders all his other attributes glorious and lovely. It is the glory of God's wisdom, that it is a holy wisdom, and not a wicked subtlety and craftiness. This makes his majesty lovely; and not merely dreadful and horrible, that it is a holy majesty. It is the glory of God's immutability, that it is a holy immutability, and not an flexible obstinacy in wickedness.