Personal Reflections: A Dozen Memorable Events of 2024

 

Image: Preaching at the Salisbury Conference, October 5, 2024 in Salisbury, England.

The ending of one year and the beginning of another naturally lends itself to reflection. For the fourth consecutive year, here are a dozen memorable events from the year past (see 2021, 2022, and 2023 reflections) in rough chronological order:

First: I had two books published (or republished in new editions) this year: First, my book on the doctrines of grace, Before the Foundation of the World: Doctrines of God’s Free Grace (Broken Wharfe, 2024). Second, my simplification and abridgement of John Owen’s work on ecclesiology, Gospel Church Government (Grace Publications, 2024).

Second: I attended and participated in the 25^th Year Anniversary Banquet, Faculty Conference, and Graduation Ceremonies at International Reformed Baptist Seminary (IRBS) May 16-18, 2024 in Mansfield, Texas.

Third: I joined three brothers from a sister RB church in Virginia for a ministry trip to Costa Rica, May 30-June 3, 2024. I had the privilege of teaching in a Bible Conference at the San Jose RB Church and then preaching on the Lord’s Day at the RB church in Liberia. Thankful for Luke Peterson for organizing the trip.

Fourth: I had the privilege of teaching the children of CRBC in our summer Bible School on the great writing prophets of the OT (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Jonah), June 17-21, 2024.

Fifth: I enjoyed a week of vacation with family at Topsail Beach, North Carolina, June 24-29, 2024.

Sixth: I had the privilege of teaching the youth of CRBC using Peter Masters’ book Steps for Guidance in the Journey of Life  at our annual Youth Conference held at the Machen Conference Center in Highland County, VA, July 19-20, 2024.

Seventh: I has the privilege of serving as the founding chairman of the Reformation Bible Society and participating in our first annual conference on August 3, 2024 at the Liberty Mountain Conference Center at Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA, where I presented a plenary address titled, “How Did the Early Church Use the Septuagint?”

Eighth: Our family reached a milestone when my youngest son left home to begin engineering studies at Virginia Tech in late August, 2024.

Ninth: We hosted my friend Pastor Miklos Chiciudean (from Soli Deo Gloria BC in Budapest, Hungary) and his wife Kinga, September 26—October 2, 2024. This included attending the 2024 Keach Conference at Grace Baptist Chapel in Hampton, VA on September 28, 2024 where Pastor Miklos and Pastor D. Scott Meadows, from Calvary RBC in Exeter, NH, preached on the perseverance of the saints.

Tenth: I preached at the 2024 Salisbury Conference, October 4-6, 2024, at Emmanuel Church in Salisbury, England, addressing four conference messages on the theme, “Experiencing the Word of God” and preaching on the Lord’s Day. Our generous host was Pastor John Thackway and wife Margaret. After the conference my wife and I enjoyed a few days of travel in Cornwall (including Newquay, St. Ives, and Port Isaac) and Wales (Cardiff).

Eleventh: I had several book reviews and articles published throughout the year in Puritan Reformed Journal, Bible League Quarterly, Biblical Theology Bulletin, and the TBS’s Quarterly Record. These included, “Verses with ‘Zero-Support’ in the Modern Critical Text of the Greek New Testament,” QR No. 649 (October-December, 2024): 21-26.

Twelfth: I enjoyed a ministry trip to Grand Rapids, Michigan, November 18-21, 2024. I spoke at the annual conference of the Trinitarian Bible Society-USA on Monday, November 18 on the topic, “Why the KJV is still the best Bible in English: A dozen (or so) reasons as to why one might justifiably prefer to use (or continue to use) the AV translation of the Bible.” I also visited with some faculty, staff, and students at Puritan Seminary and did some planning/preparation for the 2025 Reformation Bible Society meeting, which will be held, DV, in GR.

“My times are in thy hand” (Psalm 31:15).

SDG!

JTR

The Vision (12.27.24): Thomas Watson: Eight Reasons to Forgive Others

 

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday afternoon's sermon on Matthew 6:12.

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors (Matthew 6:12).

Here are eight reasons to forgive others suggested by the Puritan Thomas Watson (1620-1686) in his exposition of Matthew 6:12:

1.      When we forgive others we resemble God who is always ready to forgive sinners.

 

Psalm 86:5 For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.

 

2.      It shows that we have God’s grace in our hearts.

 

3.     The example of our Lord Jesus teaches us this.  What did he say on the cross?  “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

 

4.   If we do not forgive, it hinders our spiritual life and our participation in the ordinances of God.  An unforgiving spirit is “like an obstruction in the body.”

 

5.     God has tied his mercy to this condition.  If we do not forgive others, he will not  forgive us (cf. Matthew 6:14-15).

 

6.      We have the examples of the saints who had forgiving spirits.

Think of Joseph who forgave his brothers: “ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good” (Genesis 50:20).

Think of Moses who put up with the murmuring and complaining and rebellion of Israel.

Think of Stephen who when he was being stoned, followed the model of our Lord and prayed for his persecutors: “Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not charge them with this sin’” (Acts 7:60).

It is said that once when Luther had reviled Calvin, that Calvin replied, “Though he call me a devil a thousand times, yet will I love and honour him as a precious servant of Christ.”

 

7.      Forgiveness is the best way to give good for evil and to conquer and melt the heart of an enemy (cf. Romans 12:19-21).

Part of having a forgiving spirit is this knowledge that God is in charge and one day wrongs will be righted by him.  Watson and the other Puritans who were so often maligned by men who disagreed with them in faith and practice were fond of saying that there will be in the end a resurrection of names as well as bodies.

 

8.      Forgiving others is the way to have forgiveness from God and is a sign of that forgiveness.

 

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

Vision (12.20.24): We have found water (Genesis 24:32)

 

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 26.

Genesis 26:25 An he builded an altar there, and called upon the name of the LORD, and pitched his tent there: and there Isaac’s servants digged a well.

 

Genesis 26:32 And it came to pass the same day, that Isaac’s servants came, and told him concerning the well which they had digged, and said unto him, We have found water.

 

Genesis 26 is focused on events in the life of the Patriarch Isaac. As he sojourned in Gerar, Isaac resolved to dig up the old wells that the Philistines had stopped up and filled with earth (v. 15b), and then to give them their old names (v. 18b: “and he called their names after the names by which his father had called them.”). This led to tension with the herdsmen of Gerar. Isaac abandoned one well calling it Esek (contention) and then another calling it Sitnah (hatred (vv. 20-21). He moved to another place called Rehoboth (Room) (v. 22), and then he arrived at Beersheba (the well of the oath) where his servants set to dig again (v. 23).

 

This account indicates that for God’s people there will be times when the old wells of the fathers must be dug again. There will always be a process of revival, reformation, and retrieval. This is what happened at the time of the Protestant Reformation. The old wells had been filled with earth by the medieval Roman church. Rather than teaching the doctrine of justification by faith, they were teaching justification by works. Rather than pure and simply evangelical worship, they had added the traditions of men.

We must constantly go back to the old wells that supplied the needs of our godly spiritual fathers and call them by the names that those same fathers used.

We might also consider how this passage, with all its descriptions of digging wells and its climactic description of finding water, points us to Christ. A parallel passage that comes to mind is John 4, when Christ encounters the Samaritan woman at the well. This was “Jacob’s well” at Sychar (John 4:5-6).

 

Christ asks the woman to give him a drink and then tells her that he can give to her “living water” (4:7, 10). She takes his words literally and tells him he has no means to draw this living water. Then John says:

John 4:13  Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: 14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

The woman later leaves her waterpot to go to her city and tell her neighbors of this man she met at the well, saying:

John 4:29 Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?

A Christian is simply one who says, after finding the Lord Jesus (or, better, being found by him), “We have found water.”

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision: Two Nations, Two Manner of People

 

Image: Esau selling his birthright to Isaac, drawing by Rembrandt, c. 1640, British Museum, London.

Note: Devotional based on last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 25.

“And the LORD said unto her, two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels….” (Genesis 25:23).

Genesis 25 is a hinge point in this first book of our Christian canon. The baton is literally passed from Abraham to Isaac. Just as godly Sarah died and was buried (Genesis 23), so godly Abraham also goes the way of all flesh (Genesis 25). Abraham too had his death day.

The focus then shifts from Abraham and Sarah to Isaac and Rebekah to carry forward the covenant promise (Genesis 12:1-3). Just as there was the barrenness with Sarah threatening to stifle God’s promise, so there was the barrenness of Rebekah (“she was barren” v. 21).

Just as Sarah bore Isaac, ending her barrenness, Rebekah will give birth to two sons, who will “struggle” in her womb (25:22).  The two sons will be the father of “two nations,” who will be “two manner of people” (25:23). One, Jacob, will be chosen of God, loved, and blessed, the other, Esau, estranged from the LORD by his own short-sighted hard-heartedness.

If I had to identify the greatest theme of Genesis 25 it would be “Election.” This is not a political term, but it refers to God’s sovereign choosing.

The infallible interpreter of this passage is not Matthew Henry or Matthew Poole, or any other merely human exegete, but the apostle Paul who wrote under the guidance of the Holy Spirit in Romans 9 :

Romans 9: ¹⁰ And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac;

¹¹ (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)

¹² It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.

¹³ As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

God chose to work his plan through Jacob and not Esau, before the brothers were even born. His choice was not conditioned on what they did or did not do. God’s choice of Jacob came about, “that the purpose of God according to election might stand” (Romans 9:11).

Paul used this record to illustrate God’s sovereign election in salvation. Who then is saved? Those whom God chooses. Neither of these two nations deserved God’s love. Neither earned it. Both deserved rejection. Yet God, in his mercy, chose to pour out his affections upon one.

There are two nations, two manner of people. They are the elect and the reprobate. The roots of this go back to Genesis 3:15 when the Lord told the serpent, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.”

There was a high Calvinistic Baptist movement in the South back in the 19^th century known as “Two Seed in the Spirit Predestinarian Baptists” who articulated this doctrine. I can’t say I affirm all their beliefs, but they did rightly say there are two nations, two manner of people. There are those who are born again and made sons of God. And there are those who deny and reject Christ. Our Lord said to the latter in John 8:44, “Ye are of your father the devil.”

The final question is this: Where do you stand today? Where is your citizenship? To which nation do you belong? Has God made himself known to you in Christ, not because of any standing in you, but only because of his mercy? Or do you still stand distant and reprobate?

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (12.6.24): The Thing Proceedeth from the LORD

 

Image: Valentin Serov, Abraham's Servant Finds Isaac A Bride, Rebekah (1894)

Note: Devotional taken from last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 24.

“And the man bowed his head, and worshipped the LORD” (Genesis 24:26).

“The thing proceedeth from the LORD” (Genesis 24:50).

Genesis 24 is a rather long chapter (67 verses). The old AV translators divided it into seven sections (vv. 1-6, 7-9, 10-14, 15-28, 29-31, 32-60, 61-67). In the fashion of Hebrew narrative, there is a good bit of repetition in it.

The focus of the chapter is an inspired account of Abraham, in his old age and after the death of Sarah, sending out the godly “eldest servant of his house” back to the country he had left to seek “a wife unto my son Isaac” (vv. 1, 4).

There are various spiritual lessons within this chapter. It has lessons on prayer and worship. This summer the youth of our church looked at a chapter from Peter Masters’ book Steps for Guidance in the Journey of Life which draws lessons from Genesis 24 on courtship and marriage. The overarching lesson of this chapter, however, is upon the providence of the LORD.

The Bible teaches us that there is a sovereign LORD, and he is directing the course of history on both the macro-level (Cf. Romans 13, no civil authority is in place but by his will) and the micro-level (Cf. Proverbs 16:33 “The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.” And: Proverbs 16:9 “A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.”).

The God of the Bible is Jehovah-Jireh (the LORD provides) (Genesis 22:14). In Genesis 24 the LORD, in his good providence, brings about the union of Isaac and Rebekah, and the keeping of his covenant with Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3). This theme is perhaps best stated in v. 50 when Laban and Bethuel (not exactly theologians!) declare, “The thing proceedeth from the LORD.” It is God’s will.

It is also noteworthy, that the godly servant of Abraham constantly prays to and worships the LORD as he seeks the fulfillment God’s providential plans. Before he sets off on his journey he prays (24:12: “O LORD God of my master Abraham, I pray thee…send me good speed”). In the midst of seeking a bride for Isaac, he worships (24:26: “And the man bowed down his head, and worshipped the LORD”). Having secured the agreement with Rebekah and her family, he worshipped (24:52: “when Abraham’s servant heard their words, he worshipped the LORD, bowing himself to the earth”). He worshipped before (v. 12), during (v. 26), and after (v. 52) the providential works of the LORD.

Let us be like that godly servant. Let us trust that the LORD is working all things for his glory and for the good of them that love him. And let us pray to and worship him, before, during, and after his accomplishment of all things.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle