Hi, y’all! My name is Joseph. Welcome to my blog! I kept a blog on Blogger for several years in high school and college with two purposes in mind: to magnify my Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, (who speaks life to me and leads me beside gentle rivers of living water flowing quietly from the rock), and to reflect upon and share ideas for stories, poems, prayers, and literary criticism.
I took a break from blogging when I moved to Phoenix for a fresh start (a dusty new birth, if you will), but I have since moved back to California with my bride and my heart set toward the pastoral ministry. Besides the two stated purposes in the paragraph above, I also plan to include regular updates from our time in San Diego. (How’s that for a zeugma?)
You’d be advised that the things I will often write about are hardly suitable for children, much less adults. I pray that my words do not turn bitter in your stomach, but rather would be sweet as honey. Taste and see that Jehovah is good!
“When all the nation had finished passing over the Jordan, Jehovah said to Joshua, ‘Take twelve men from the people, from each tribe a man, and command them, saying, ‘Take twelve stones from here out of the midst of the Jordan, from the very place where the priest’s feet stood firmly, and bring them over with you and lay them down in the place where you lodge tonight.’ ‘ Then Joshua called the twelve men from the people of Israel, whom he had appointed, a man from each tribe. And Joshua said to them, ‘Pass on before the ark of Jehovah your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of Jehovah. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.’ ”
Luke 3:2b-9 (cf. Matt 3:5-12)
“The word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,
‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of Jehovah,
make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall become straight,
and the rough places shall become level ways,
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ ‘
He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.’ ”
——————-
John the Baptizer is talking about the memorial stones that Joshua excavated from the Jordan River. (Neat. What’s the point?) Those stones were like a sacrament to the people of Israel–they were gravestones for the wicked and faithless generation that God disciplined and destroyed in the wilderness, a memorial to the great passover Jehovah appointed for Egypt via the Red Sea, a type of baptism into Joshua, and a parable that John now calls to mind: YOU are to make Jehovah’s path straight (remember how Jehovah made a straight path through the waters of judgment?).
But the sign of crossing the Jordan is more complex–it is the very creative power of God, breathing new life by the Holy Spirit into an inanimate creation. Jehovah is making all things new, and we see new birth in the form of a generation proceeding from the floodwaters of baptism from the Jordan, called to courage and holy warfare to enter the promised land. The Holy Spirit again hovers like a dove, but this time not over the flood waters of Genesis 1 or of Noah’s ark. No, the Spirit of God comes close to the scorched earth, but it is not yet time for God to touch man (remember Uzzah and the careening oxen of Israel, and beware disobeying Jehovah even if you think you can rationalize your sin!), but Jehovah stoops to rest on the shoulders of the priests, to write the names of the covenant breakers in the sand. Crossing the Red Sea was an act of judgment on Egypt and his “gods;” crossing the Jordan River was an act of judgment on Israel’s faithlessness to God through idolatry, grumbling, fearing the ripe-for-judgment inhabitants of Canaan more than Jehovah. Jehovah is fierce and jealous for his glory from his covenant people, for we can see that Jehovah does not show partiality– He destroyed the firstborns of unbelieving Egypt; but he destroyed the entire generation (but saved Joshua and Caleb) that grumbled before him in the wilderness. Stopping the floodwaters is also a sign of judgment, for the Jordan River is a picture of life–ever flowing, ever living. Ezekiel points to this as a picture of the conquest of Christ; that the river of life flowing from the temple can make even the Dead Sea teem with life. We are to see that Jehovah is the Lord of life when he stops the living water of the Jordan, for just as the unbelieving generation refused to come to Jehovah, the spring of living water, so Jehovah refused to pass over their sins, so they could not pass over into the promised land.
So John the Baptist’s threat to the crowds (especially the Pharisees and Sadducees, Matt 3:7) is VERY personal. They claim Abraham as their father, and John tells them to fuck off–Jehovah can (and already did!) wipe out the unfaithful descendants of Abraham. John points to the names of the 12 tribes and prophesies that God will raise up new, faithful children for Abraham in the form of the 12 apostles of Christ, who will infect the whole world with the indestructible life from the dead.
But the story doesn’t end with Joshua or John, of course. He himself points to Jesus, who baptizes the believer with the Holy Spirit and with fire that always burns, but never consumes. John prophesies also about Jesus: “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire” (Matt. 3:11b-12). Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to remove hearts of stone and implant hearts of flesh, who teaches us how to be human again, how to think Jehovah’s thoughts after him. His Spirit dwells in the believer, for he says “out of his heart will flow rivers of living water,” and “[my Father and I] will come to him and make our home with him,” and “we are the temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them and I will be their God, and they shall be my people,’ ” and “for our God is a consuming fire.” Therefore, beloved, remove the sandals from your feet and circumcise your wretched, stubborn, stony hearts, for you are standing on hallowed ground, and the Holy Spirit hovers over you.
John the Baptist’s sermon is a stern warning–only if you humble yourself and, by the grace of God, see that YOU are the valley that must be filled, the mountain and hill that must be made low, the crooked that must be straightened, and the rough place that must be made level; only then shall you see the salvation of God. Repent and believe, that you may receive the good word of Jesus like good seed on fertile soil and be fruitful and multiply. John says that every tree which doesn’t bear good fruit is cut the heck off; Jesus provides the increase: “every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit,” (Matt.7:17) and “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.” (John 15:5-6) Therefore, it follows that Union with Christ produces fruit in keeping with repentance, and as that fruit shall surely abide (John 15:16), surely we will not be snatched away from Jesus (John 10:28).
Bear fruit in keeping with repentance, or you will be washed away by the floodwaters of the Jordan. Bear fruit in keeping with repentance, of you will be forgotten, like the names Jesus wrote in the sand that are washed away by two or three tides from his floodwaters. Bear fruit in keeping with repentance, or Jehovah will destroy you like the Israelites before Caleb, the Egyptians before Moses, the Canaanites before Joshua. Bear fruit in keeping with repentance, or you will be chaff that Jesus shovels out of Jehovah’s house forever.
So repent and believe and cling to Jesus! Hide yourself and build yourself on the Rock that gushes with rivers of living water! The flood is coming, but “many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it,” for love’s “flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of Jehovah.” (Song of Solomon 8:6-7)
Before I get too carried away with discussing Marquis de Sade and his beliefs about sexuality and love, I want to introduce you, O reader, on Sade the singer/band. From the UK. From the ’80s-90s. Ohhhhhh boy.
(In the spirit of full disclosure, her name is pronounced shah-DAY, but I’m going to juxtapose her song with de Sade’s writing anyways)
I heard Sade’s song “No Ordinary Love” (1992) initially as a cover performed by The Civil Wars, whose harmonies add to the depth of emotions the song mournfully conveys. However, I want to also talk about the official music video Sade originally produced alongside the song.
In the video, Sade envisions the familiar story of the Little Mermaid who longs to be with her sailor, but cannot. They are literally worlds apart! She sings as she makes a wedding gown and she suddenly has sprouted legs and lost her fish tail, and surfaces to find her long-lost love. Land-side, she now finds that her love is nowhere to be found (or, at least, not in the one place she looks–the nearby bar), so she gives up after downing 1 shot and dramatically runs back to the ocean to sit pensively drinking a bottle of water. And… fade to black. The viewer doesn’t know whether she will continue to hope for her love or return to her watery home beneath what appears to be a bunch of cargo ships.
The Marquis de Sade espoused a nihilistic worldview (not the only thing he espoused, if you know what I mean), and he therefore dispensed with all morality, especially regarding the sanctity of life and sexuality. “There is no God,” he says, “Nature sufficeth in herself; in no wise hath she need of an author.” Therefore, “we are no guiltier in following the primative [sic] impulses that govern us than is the Nile for her floods or the sea for her waves” (Aline et Valcour). In other words, sexual promiscuity and violence toward other people are entirely validated by his atheistic nihilism and Darwinian fatalism.
The lyrics of “No Ordinary Love” tell the story of unrequited, steadfast love at the end of her rope. The singer sings
“A love like that won’t last;
didn’t I give you
all that I’ve got to give, baby?
This is no ordinary love…
I keep crying;
I keep trying for you;
there’s nothing like you and I, baby.”
This type of love is familiar to the Christian, as Jehovah gave his whoring people many love letters in the form of the prophets. In particular, Jehovah spoke through Hosea to highlight the spiritual adultery both Israel and Judah committed. Jehovah is the jilted husband, who would love to reconcile.
“I would redeem them, but they speak lies against me.” (Hosea 7:13)
“How can I give you up, O Ephraim?…
My heart recoils within me; My compassion grows warm and tender.
I will not execute my burning anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim;
for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.” (Hosea 11:8-9)
“So you, by the help of your God, return, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God.” (Hosea 12:6)
“Return, O Israel, to Jehovah your God,
for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.
Take with you words and return to Jehovah;
say to him, ‘Take away all iniquity;
accept what is good, and we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips.
Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride on horses;
and we will say no more, ‘Our God,’ to the works of our hands.
In you the orphan finds mercy.
I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them.
I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall blossom like the lily; he shall take root like the trees of Lebanon;
his shoots shall spread out; his beauty shall be like the olive, and his fragrance like Lebanon.
They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow; they shall flourish like the grain;
they shall blossom like the vine; their fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon.
O Ephraim, what have I to do with idols? It is I who answer and look after you.
I am like an evergreen cypress; from me comes your fruit.” (Hosea 14:1-8)
Compare this to Marquis de Sade’s thoughts that “the only way to a woman’s heart is along the path of torment.” Sade and de Sade both err when it comes to love: Sade’s character drains herself in giving unconditional love in her unrequited relationship. Marquis de Sade recommends a love that consumes the other, for “one must do violence to the object of one’s desire; when it surrenders, the pleasure is greater.” It is true that neither an unrequited love or a lustful hedonistic dominating love are no ordinary loves, but what would an ordinary love look like? Ordinary literally means “in order,” and neither of these types of love belong in our world which yet reflects the creation ordinances of Jehovah, which include labor, rest, worship, and marriage. And God saw all that he had made, and it was good. An ordinary love should sing “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!” (Gen. 2:23a)
But we have fallen, and sin afflicts every man, woman, and child. We do not love that which God loves, and we have injured ourselves with our lusts. So now that which should have been inordinate and out of order, the Sades and de Sades of the world are now ordinary, and every man, woman, and child does what is right in their own eyes, and God destroys his people for lack of knowledge. He destroyed Israel and Judah for lack of love, for judgment begins at the house of Jehovah. But now we see no ordinary love in the person of Jesus, who lived, died, and rose again for us when we were yet enemies and fixated on loving our dead and sinful selves. Sade is only human to say “a love like that won’t last,” for no man, woman, or child could maintain a one-sided love. Marquis de Sade argued that his lust was entirely natural, but we recoil at the natural phenomena of black widows eating their mates, or some mammals that eat the runts of their litters. So nature cannot be our guide towards an ordinary understanding of love.
Jehovah pursues us with a love that is now increasingly foreign to a world that hates Jesus. The triune God of love is an ever flowing fountain of love. He is patient, kind, and does not envy, for his covenant love endures forever. Who is a pardoning God like Jehovah? He rejoices with the truth, and does not rejoice at wrongdoing. This God of love is not ordinary, and we can rejoice in the truth that he has loved us with an everlasting and unconditional love.
Let us therefore repent and believe and bear fruit in keeping with repentance for the glory of His name.
Jehovah promises judgment on the unfaithful Israel, but inexplicably still promises an immeasurable salvation of the children of Israel, to include the Gentiles, and salvation through/from death as St. Paul the Apostle would later preach.
Though Israel spurned Jehovah and took his name and his covenant and his blessings in vain, Jehovah still pursued her in love. “Behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness (back to the threshold, the honeymoon door, the inaugural ground), and speak tenderly to her… and in that day, declares Jehovah, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’ For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more.” (Hosea 2:14,16-17)
Jehovah sues the tenants of the land in chapter 4: “There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land; there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it languish, and also the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens, and even the fish of the sea are taken away.” (Hosea 4:1b-3)
The people repent and seek Jehovah, counting on his covenant faithfulness (“his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.” Hosea 6:3)
Jehovah calls them out on Israel’s habitual (emphasis on bitch) unfaithfulness, and calls for discipline. He states plainly that their sins surround them and are before his face, and though he would redeem them, they speak lies against him. They return, but not to the Most High. They repent only for grain and wine, and do not cry out to Jehovah from the heart. Jehovah says they try to play him, though he was the one who established them and loved them and provided for them.
Jehovah gives them the picture of the vineyard (as seen in parables by Isaiah and Jesus), that he planted Israel in the wilderness. Jehovah found Abraham, Isaac, and Israel as first fruits on the fig tree in its first season, but the faithful (?) extra virgin fruits would not produce fruit in every season.
Jehovah’s discipline will be exile and barrenness. Hosea 9
BUT! Hosea 10 is a flashback now to the original blessed and fruitful status Israel enjoyed in the radiance of the salvation of Jehovah. But the more they produced fruit, the more adulterous they became! They used their wealth to have affairs rather than tend to their own garden, their fruitful children and the kingdom of Jehovah.
Now the people of Israel grow more bold in their sin–now they disavow a need for a king, much less Jehovah who installs his Christ on his holy hill. Now they even take their idols’ names in vain (Hosea 10:3-4, cf Exodus 20:7), and just as the presence of Jehovah was taken away by the Philistines (Ichabod! 1 Samuel!), now their graven calves will be carted on calves to Assyria, where the idol-worshipping nations would soon follow.
Jehovah now turns the parable from vineyard to trained calf–for the people of Israel and Judah now resemble their idol–but even in the picture of a beast of burden, Jehovah points to his generous and steadfast covenant love: “Ephraim was a trained calf that loved to thresh, and I spared her fair neck” (Hosea 10:11), and even the discipline and admonition he proposes is righteous and fair: “but I will put Ephraim to the yoke; Judah must plow; Jacob must harrow for himself.” Both brothers are yoked to sin, and Jacob once again must strive with the angel of Jehovah. But can he expect the same blessing if he is not faithful in the striving? (cf Luke 13:24)
Jehovah gives the children of Israel homework: “Sow for yourself righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek Jehovah, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.” His people had left the ground fallow not as an act of worship (keeping the Sabbath), but rather out of idolatry the land had laid dormant. Spiritually speaking, the Israelites had committed the sin of Onan, and were robbing Jehovah of his fruit.
But… the Israelites did not follow the commands of Jehovah. Instead, Jehovah indicts them thus: “You have plowed iniquity; you have reaped injustice; you have eaten the fruit of lies.”
Jehovah recounts Israel’s childhood, and speaks of his tender care for the fledgling people. Jehovah is intent on the discipline his people well deserve, but he promises not to destroy the people. Instead, he promises to “roar like a lion; and when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west; they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes” (Hosea 11:10-11).
Jehovah indicts Judah and Jacob, and rehearses the history that he has, of wrestling with the angel of Jehovah at Bethel. He is given a reminder of the “memorial name” of Jehovah: “So you, by the help of your God, return, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God.” Jehovah warns again that he is the Lord of the living, and has seen Ephraim and Judah through thick and thin, through richer or poorer, through health and sickness.
Jehovah reminds Ephraim that he (Jehovah) loves to oppress a merchant who uses false balances, and Ephraim would do well to understand that Jehovah is referring to him as the unjust merchant. His sin will be found out, and his riches are perishable. Jehovah reminds him of his poor beginnings (dwelling in tents in the wilderness), when he was faithful to Jehovah’s appointed feasts, and he reminds Ephraim that Jehovah has spoken to the prophets and will judge his people whether they are guilty of idolatry.
Jehovah enters into his final decree of judgment in chapter 13. He accuses Israel of idol-worship, to the gross extreme that those of Israel who had so far calloused their hearts towards Jehovah and his good law that they had even conflated human sacrifice with kissing a calf! Because of this, all these horrors of Jehovah’s wrath are declared for them. They are declared to be chaff that flies away (cf Psalm 1). Israel sets himself against his helper, Jehovah, and forgets his maker, redeemer, healer, and friend. Jehovah likens Ephraim to a breeched son, who is stubbornly working against Jehovah his mother, even in the womb.
Because of Israel’s unfaithfulness, Jehovah pledges to destroy them. Because they exchanged the glory of the living God for images of beasts, Jehovah promises judgment in the likeness of beasts (Hosea 13:4-9). Even their children, the preeminent direction of the covenants of Jehovah pointing to the birth of Jesus, will be subjected to judgment, because Israel was unfaithful, and bore children out of sexual immorality (Hosea 13:16, cf. John 8:41)
Hosea 13:14 will merit its own study in the future.
Jehovah issues a final call to repentance with a promise: “I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them. I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall blossom like the lily…” (Hosea 14:4-5) Note that Jehovah emphasizes the truth of the claims Israel had made previously, that He is the Lord and giver of life, though previously they had “drawn near with their mouths, but their hearts were far from [him]”.
Jesus brings finality to this letter in his words to his disciples: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Apart from me you can do nothing.” Jehovah states this just as plainly: “I am like an evergreen cypress; from me comes your fruit.” Jesus is almighty Jehovah, who woos his bride with steadfast love, and even provides the means of grace through which we may potentially be fruitful. He is the blessing and the blessed, and in him we will bear fruit in keeping with repentance that are pleasing, acceptable, and our reasonable form of worship.
So, dear reader, will you repent? Will you bring words and come before Jehovah? Will you give up your dependency on your idols, which cannot save or satisfy you? Will you give Jehovah your sins as he hangs on the cross? The day of salvation is today; in Jehovah the orphan finds mercy. He will heal you and love you freely, if only you hide yourself in Jesus, for Jehovah has made a secret path through the Red Sea for you to escape certain judgment. He turned his angry face away from the King of Israel, and Jesus has blossomed from the grave like the lily of the valley, more beautiful than Solomon in all his splendor. Because of the power of his indestructible life, Jesus is the blessed man who is planted by streams of living water, who is forever fruitful in all seasons, whose fruit is for the healing of all peoples. Will you be found in him? His roots break through fallow ground in the sinful hearts of all kinds of people, and they spread out to Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. Will you be reconciled to him and dwell beneath the shadow of his wings? Will you enjoy his beauty, his fragrance, and the fruit of his communion, the blood of the new covenant, as famous and fruitful as the wine of Lebanon?
“The ways of Jehovah are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.”
9/29/2013 – OLD POST. I’m going to finish these old posts and datemark them back to their original date, before I had forgotten about this blog.
I wish to present two tunes that have similar sounding melodies to my ears: “Falling” (The Civil Wars) & “O, The Deep, Deep Love of Jesus” (text: Samuel Trevor Francis, melody: Ebenezer [Thomas John Williams]).
The Civil Wars’ song hauntingly describes the process of “falling” out of love with their spouse. This process is described as sleepwalking, drifting away, drowning in an ocean of uncertainty and guilt for staying in a relationship that consists “worrying about everyone but me, I keep on losing myself.” The singer calls the relationship as unreal and illegitimate as a walking sleeper would consider her dreamworld to be fading away, unbinding, and empty. The singer is asking, no, begging to be released from the relationship. The chord progressions accentuate this helpless and dispassionate plea to be released from whatever bonds their relationship had made. The verses and chorus alternate between introspective complaint and assumptive futile reconciliatory dialogue from the singer’s partner, and the music alternates respectively between slow rhythms during the sleepwalking partner’s introspection and fast-paced high-pitch chorus, representing domestic argument. The music accentuates the story of a downward spiraling relationship and leaves the hearer sad and without closure.
Francis’s hymn, on the other hand, describes a progression of expanding love that flows like an ever-widening river. Jesus’s “deep” love begins to be praised from the believer’s mouth as a recollection of His saving work in the believer’s life, moves on to a call to worldwide praise of Jesus’s continuing love in his unchanging intercession for the saints, and concludes with Jesus’s superlative love that is heavenly in this life and the next, because Jesus dwells with His people and will bring them to Himself. The melody “Ebenezer” rolls and repeats itself in an AABA pattern, similar to the pattern of actual waves which systematically ebb and flow in intensity. The verses of the song also follow this same advancing pattern of Jesus’s expanding love, first to the Jew and then to the Greek. The music spurs the singer on to the 3rd line of each verse, then pivots back to the repeating A pattern for the final 4th line, which reminds the singer that this world is not the end of life and music and joy in Christ. The story of redemption is the deep love of Christ, which plumbs downward into our immeasureable depths of sin, while also paradoxically lifting us to the heights of heaven. O Jesus, your deep, deep love “lifts me up to Thee.”
Where streams of living water flow... 