The Vision (1.31.25): The LORD’s Provision for Fallen Saints in a Fallen World

 

Image: Ferdinand Bol, Jacob and Rachel, c. 1645-1650, Harvard Art Museums.

Note: Devotion based on last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 29.

Then Jacob went on his journey… And he looked, and behold a well in a field…” (Genesis 29:1).

Genesis 29 continues the inspired account of the Patriarch Jacob. He had been chosen by God to carry forward “the blessing of Abraham” (28:4). If Jacob was going to fulfill these covenant promises, then he must have a wife and he must have children. His father Isaac had sent him to seek out a godly wife (28:1), and the LORD promised Jacob that he would be with him (28:15). At the well where he “happened” to stop he will meet Rachel, just as Abraham’s servant had met Rebekah, Isaac’s wife, by a well.

Election is one of the great themes of this narrative. God chooses Jacob and Jacob must choose a wife. Providence is also one of the great themes of this narrative. God will provide for Jacob, his chosen. I suggested as a title for this chapter, “The LORD’s provision for Fallen Saints in a Fallen World.”

This is a post-Genesis 3 world, a fallen world. Jacob is a fallen saint, with remaining corruptions within him. Some of the things that transpire in this narrative fall short of God’s glory. God’s design was for one man and one woman to be united in a one flesh union (see Genesis 2:24), but Jacob will have two wives, sisters, Leah and Rachel, in his household, as well as their respective maids.

The moralist has a hard time with a passage like Genesis 29, because it is not some simplistic moral story in which the protagonist always behaves in an upstanding manner. We need to make again the distinction between the descriptive and the prescriptive. Sinful actions are recorded here but not promoted.

The overarching point here is that God is providing for him, and that provision began with him stopping at a well. As Solomon will later record, “A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). As one commentator put it:

We are too apt to forget our actual dependence on Providence for the circumstances of every instant. The most trivial events may determine our state in the world. Turning up one street instead of another may bring us in company with a person whom we should not otherwise have met; and this may lead to a train of other events which may determine the happiness or misery of our lives” (R. Cecil as cited by Currid, Genesis 2: 78).

And what will be the end of Abraham’s line through Isaac and then Jacob? From him will come David, and from David will come the LORD Jesus Christ (cf. Matthew 1:1: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham”). God is working out his plan of salvation across many generations. He will indeed provide most excellently for fallen saints in a fallen world.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

WM 317: Article Review: Has Evolution Changed Your Bible?

JTR

The Vision (1.24.25): And behold a ladder set up on the earth

 

Image: Nicolas Dipre, Le songe de Jacob, c. 1500, Avignon, Petit Palais.

Note: Devotion taken from sermon last Sunday on Genesis 28.

And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it (Genesis 28:12).

In Genesis 28 Isaac blesses Jacob and then sends him to the land of Padan-aram to find a suitable wife, who shared a common faith in Jehovah.

Moses tells us that as Jacob traveled through Beersheba “he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun had set…” (v. 11). It sounds coincidental, but God was directing his path.

Moses continues, “And he dreamed….” (v. 12). This was the time before the completion of Scripture. This is God speaking by special revelation. That he did so then does not mean we should expect he will continue to do so now. We now have the Scriptures written.

What did Jacob see in his dream? “And behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven…” It was a portal between earth (the realm of man) and heaven (the realm of God).

Moses continues, “and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.” Angels are messengers, taking communications back and forth between earth and heaven. We can imagine the prayers of the saints being lifted up and the sovereign replies and comforts of God coming down. Here is a picture of something unseen that happens when God’s people pray and worship. The ladder also anticipates the Scriptures whereby God speaks to men.

Yet it is more than this. It anticipates the incarnation of the LORD Jesus Christ.

Christ himself once pointed to this passage early in his ministry, telling his disciples they would remember it when they saw him on the cross doing his mediatorial work: “And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man” (John 1:51).

Paul would later write in 1 Timothy 2:5, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

The believer can confess concerning the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ, “and behold a ladder [is] set up on the earth.”

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

Broken Wharfe Podcast Ep. 30: Irresistible Grace and Perseverance of the Saints

 

JTR

The Vision (1.17.25): Gleanings from Sermons of the Great Ejection

 

Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution (2 Timothy 3:12).

The Banner of Truth is a publishing ministry that reproduces various Reformed and Puritan works from the past and present. One of their most popular series is called “Puritan Paperbacks.” This series is a great entry way to reading the classic Puritan authors of the past.

One of the works in that series is titled Sermons of the Great Ejection. In 1662 many of the finest preachers in Britain were turned out of their pulpits after the monarchy was restored.  This book is a collection of some of the final or farewell sermons preached by these men as their pulpits were denied them.  Some were expelled never to preach publicly again.

Here are a few quotes I jotted down as I read this work more than a decade ago:

“There is no way in the world to hold on together like suffering, for the gospel really gets more advantage by the holy, humble sufferings of one gracious saint, simply for the word of righteousness, than by ten thousand arguments used against heretics and false worship” (John Collins, p. 78).

“Do not turn your backs on Christ; the worst of Christ is better than the best of the world” (Thomas Brooks, p. 48).

 

“Should there be a thousand devils, yet all those devils are in one chain, and the end of that chain is in the hand of one God” (Thomas Lye, p. 116).

 

“The man that is most busy in censuring others is always least employed in examining himself” (Thomas Lye, p. 117).

 

“The rod of God upon a saint is only God’s pencil, by which he draws his image in more lively fashion on the soul.  God never strikes the strings of his viol but to make the music sweeter.  Thus it is well with the righteous” (Thomas Watson, p. 144).

 

“Be as much afraid of a painted holiness as you would be afraid of going to a painted heaven” (Thomas Watson, p. 168).

 

“Christ’s doves should flock together….  Conference sometimes may do as much good as preaching” (Thomas Watson, p. 169).

 

“Keep yourselves from idols and take heed of superstition; that is the gentleman-usher to popery” (Thomas Watson, p. 173).

May we learn from these saints when we meet hardship in our day.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

Broken Wharfe Podcast Ep. 29: What is Total Depravity: Covenants, Sin, Limited Atonement & Dr Who

 

JTR

Vision Devotional Article (1.10.25): A Dozen and More Spiritual Disciplines for the New Year

 

Image: CRBC meeting house at midweek evening meeting (1.8.25).

Note: Devotional sermon based on last Sunday afternoon's sermon on 1 Timothy 4:8.

In 1 Timothy 4:8 the apostle Paul exhorted, “For bodily exercise profiteth a little [for a little time]: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.”

Here are a dozen or more spiritual disciplines we might pursue in the New Year:

First: Confess the faith (Romans 10:9; Acts 8:37).

Second: Pursue meaningful churchmanship (1 Corinthians 12:12-14, 20, 27).

Third: Get baptized and join a local visible church (Matthew 28:19-20).

Fourth: Attend and participate in the assemblies of the saints (Hebrews 10:24-25).

Fifth: Listen to in-person to preaching and teaching (2 Timothy 4:2; Acts 2:42; 1 Peter 2:2; 2 John 12; 3 John 13-14).

Sixth: Keep the Lord’s Day (Exodus 20:8).

Seventh: Partake of the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 11:24; John 14:15).

Eighth: Pursue meaningful Christian fellowship (Acts 2:42).

Ninth: Read and study the Holy Scriptures (Psalm 1:1-2; Romans 15:4; 1 Timothy 4:13).

Tenth: Memorize the Holy Scriptures (Psalm 119:11).

Eleventh: Give to the poor (Matthew 6:1-4).

Twelfth: Cultivate the practices of “closet prayer” and “constant prayer” (Matthew 6:5-15; 1 Thessalonians 5:17).

Thirteenth: Cultivate the neglected discipline of fasting (Matthew 6:16-18).

Fourteenth: Practice Hospitality (Romans 12:13; 1 Peter 4:9).

Fifteenth: Visit the sick and needy. (Matthew 25:35-36).

We have no desire to lay on our backs some kind of unbearable burden. We are not saved by good work, but we have been created in Christ Jesus for good works (see Ephesians 2:8-10). We refer to the things listed above as disciplines, because they are part of discipleship and they take effort to make them our habitual way of life. Just like exercise of the body (and even more) they richly reward those who will pursue them.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

Broken Wharfe Podcast Ep. 28: What is Total Depravity?

 

 

 JTR

BLQ Article; "The Preservation of Scripture: The Indestructible Word of God (Jeremiah 36)"

I was blessed to contribute an article for the 500th issue of the Bible League Quarterly (January-March, 2025).

This article is featured on the BLQ website and can be read online here:

"The Preservation of Scripture: The Indestructible Word of God (Jeremiah 36)"

JTR

Personal Reflections: A Dozen Interesting Reads (Listens) in 2024

 

Personal Reflections: A Dozen or So Interesting Reads (Listens) in 2024

Though I prefer old-fashioned reading of a book to listening I did break down and subscribe to Audible last year and this helped me get back on track for meeting my annual reading goals. I’ve recorded something similar the last couple years (2021, 2022, 2023). Here is a dozen or so highlights from 2024 (in no particular order):

1.    Keith Underhill, Planted by the Providence of God (Broken Wharfe, 2023).

This is three books in one: A memoir of Underhill, a pioneer RB missionary in Kenya; a history of the RB movement in Kenya; and a manual on church planting. Underhill shares transparently and forthrightly about time of peace and conflict, highs and lows, over decades of cross-cultural ministry. I’ve written an extended review which I hope will be published in 2025.

2.    Ibrahim Ag Mohamed, God’s Love for Muslims: Communicating Bible Grace and New Life (Metropolitan Tabernacle, 2015, 2016).

This brief, clearly written booklet is the best and most accessible resource I have found on Christian understanding of and ministry to Muslims.

3.    Hercules Collins, An Orthodox Catechism: Being the Sum of Christian Religion Contained in the Law and Gospel (PBHB, 2020).

Collins was an English Particular Baptist Pastor who penned this Baptistic version of the Heidelberg Catechism in 1680. I used this beautiful hardback edition with KJV Proofs, along with the paperback edition published by RBAP in 2014, as a supplement as I preached through the Heidelberg Catechism at CRBC in 2024.

4.    P. Gardner-Smith, Saint John and the Synoptic Gospels (Cambridge, 1938).

Finally got to read this year this influential little book, which argues that the Fourth Gospel does not demonstrate any knowledge of or dependence upon the so-called Synoptic Gospels. I totally disagree with the thesis.

5.    Karen H. Jobes and Moisés Silva, Invitation to the Seputagint, Second Edition (Baker Academic, 2000, 2015).

I was greatly helped by reading this introduction to the status questionis in modern Septuagintal studies, in preparation for the 2024 Reformation Bible Society conference on “The Reformation Text and the Septuagint.” I was also helped by reading Edmund Gallagher’s Translation of the Seventy: History, Reception, and Contemporary Use of the Septuagint (Abilene Christian University Press, 2021).

6.    John T. McNeil, The Celtic Churches: A History, A.D. 200 to 1200 (University of Chicago Press, 1974).

I started reading this in preparation for a trip to Cornwall and a desire to understand better my own Celtic roots. Solid and intriguing history of Celtic Christianity from Brittany to Cornwall to Wales to Ireland and Scotland. This also sent me on a listening spree, including Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization (Anchor, 1996); Jim Webb, Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America (Crown, 2005); and J. D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy (Harper Collins, 2026), as well as reading Janet Backhouse, The Lindisfarne Gospel (The British Library, 2000).

7.    Pierre Viret, A Simple Exposition of the Christian Faith (Zurich Publications, 2013, 2017).

I appreciated this devotional instrument of discipleship, under the guise of a dialogue or conversation between two men, Matthew and Peter, originally written in French by Viret, the Reformer of Lausanne. I also enjoyed learning more about the author by reading Jean-Marc Berthoud, Pierre Viret: A Forgotten Giant of the Reformation (Zurich Publications, 2010).

8.    Nicholas P. Lunn, The Gospels Through Old Testament Eyes: Exploring Extended Allusions (Apollos/IVP Academic, 2023).

This book is a creative and fascinating study not of direct quotations or citations but allusions to OT passages and backgrounds in the canonical Gospels. It brought to light various connections I had not previously seen. I plan to write a review of this book, DV, in 2025.

9.    Richard J. Mouw, He Shines in All That’s Fair: Culture and Common Grace (Eermans, 2002); and David J. Engelsma, Common Grace Revisited: A Response to Richard J. Mouw’s He Shines in All That’s Fair (RFPA, 2003).

I picked up both these slim volumes for a song at the used section of the Baker bookstore while I was in Grand Rapids in November and got started reading them on the plane ride home. This is an old controversy among the Dutch Reformed that resulted in a cordial public debate between the two men, attended by thousands in Grand Rapids, in the early 2000s regarding “common grace.” Engelsma carries the day in this pamphlet war, IMHO.

10.                        Matthew Thiessen, Jesus and the Forces of Death (Baker Academic, 2021).

There are not too many academic NT books available on Audible. I found this one to be a stimulating listen and now must get the book to read. Thiessen challenges conventional readings of “ritual purity” in contemporary NT scholarship. I did not always agree with him but especially want to chase down his sources suggesting that Biblical leprosy (lepra) is not the same as Hansen’s disease.

11.                       Nicholas Orme, The History of England’s Cathedrals (Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2017).

I ordered this after my visit to Salisbury Cathedral in October. Not just a history of Cathedrals but really a history of Christianity in England. Of late I’ve also gotten interested in reading about Anglicanism. I’ve gotten a couple works underway but did finish last year Arthur Middleton, Reforming the Anglican Mind (Gracewing, 2008), as well as the somewhat related work, Brad Littlejohn and Chris Castaldo, Why Do Protestants Convert? (Davenant Press, 2023).

12.                       Stephen J. Nichols, R. C. Sproul: A Life (Crossway, 2021).

This was one of my beach reads on summer vacation last year. It was easy to read, full of anecdotes. Enjoyed especially the inside account of Sproul’s work in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. I had a harder time getting through Collin Hanson, Timothy Keller: His Spiritual Life and Intellectual Formation, 2023). At the start of the year, I finished Allen C. Guelzo, Robert E. Lee: A Life (Knopf, 2021) and had an animated discussion at a wedding reception with a friend who is also (like Guelzo) a Christian and a Lincoln scholar about the book’s presentation of Lee.

“when thou comest, bring with thee… the books” (2 Timothy 4:13).

JTR