If your Thoughts only Flow by Drops, You Can’t Pour them out in Bucketfuls

 If your Thoughts only Flow by Drops, You Can’t Pour them out in Bucketfuls

There is a book called John Ploughman’s Pictures published back in the 1890’s, or about the time my Grandpa Swayze was born. It was written by C.H. Spurgeon and was part of Moody’s Colportage Library. Spurgeon was a great English preacher, and a fitting contributor to the library.

Most of the books in the collection were more serious, but Spurgeon contributed two books in the voice of John Ploughman who was a simple farmer who had good common sense. Spurgeon would fill these chapters with figures of speech and come to the point that he desired.

The title above is one of these little phrases in the chapter, “If the Cap Fits, Wear It.” The title in itself is a wonderful piece of wisdom, in that we tend to go around fitting caps to other people’s heads other than our own. In the story, there was a rather foolish man who thought if he overheard something, it must be about him. He wasn’t too bright, and so the phrase in our title above: If your thoughts only flow by drops, you can’t pour them out by the bucketfuls.

I remember in seminary having to write long papers for several classes. I often had the sense that I was writing more words than there was knowledge in my head. I still have that sense when someone asks for a sudden bit of advice, and I have to say something on the spot. 

Good talkers and good thinkers are two separate things. Yes, they can rarely be combined in one person, but you should not assume that it is so. The number of good talkers far outnumbers the number of good thinkers.

Have you had the experience of noticing that some of the people who speak least seem to have had the most to say? I can think of a gentleman in our church that fits the category, and one of the early board members during the time on the Lake Ann Board. They could go a whole meeting with hardly saying a word, but when they did speak, everyone listened. Why? Because they had been thinking. Their words would seem to be only drops, pregnant with meaning, but it was because of the bucketfuls in their minds.

But we have also been in the presence of the person who continually chatters and says nothing, or nothing of value, or nothing true. It is as though they just cannot handle a moment of silence, so on they go, driving those around to seek shelter by suddenly remembering they had an urgent appointment.

Just as Spurgeon could steer his character, John Ploughman, to a point worth making, let me try and do the same.

Jesus, who took on human flesh and was born as a baby has always existed as the eternal Son of God. On earth, He came to live in perfect righteousness, fulfilling the Law at every point, and thus being in a position to offer for us the perfect and blameless sacrifice for our sins. That blamelessness extended to His words, all of them.

Jesus never wasted a word. He never spoke an unthought word. He may have been misunderstood, but the failure was on the part of the listener, not the Speaker. His words were backed by bucketfuls of wisdom and knowledge, more than the hearer could ascertain. In fact, we seek to read them and hear them over and over, so that we might glean more of the intended meaning. And we never get to the bottom.

On the other hand, as I think back over my own words, so many are wasted, so many wrongheaded, so many for the wrong reason. And that’s why we need a Savior - someone to do well what we so often do so poorly. Perhaps I could say along with Spurgeon, if the cap fits, wear it.

Covenant

Covenant

It is said that we live in a transactional age. I suppose that there can be “fair” transactions, that is, deals that are struck that are good for both parties. But often, transactions are enacted with carrots and sticks. You might agree to a deal based not on what you might gain, but rather on what you hope to avoid.

Covenants are not mere transactions. They are relationships. They are a special kind of relationship, one in which both parties have an expectation of “winning” in the end. Marriage-as-covenant is an example of this, whereby we pledge ourselves to one another for the good of both, being able to enjoy more and accomplish more as a united couple than alone. Of course, love is the oil that aids this relationship.

But I want to talk about the covenantal nature of the believer’s and the church’s relationship to God. Let me give you some Biblical background.

The form of covenants in the OT can be traced to a pattern of covenant used in the greater region at the time called “suzerain/vassal treaties.” There is a great king, and there is a subdued peopole. According to the terms of this relationship, the king pledges himself to be the king of this people whom he has spared, perhaps cared for, and will offer protection even as the people agree to the stipulations of the covenant, or following the king’s rules. God is not bound by this form, but He uses it, even as He uses human language, to accomodate Himself to us and our understanding.

Unsurprisingly, God is the Great King. God entered into covenant relationship with Israel, a slave people whom God would come to regard as His own people. The blessings of fruitfulness and security would flow to them even as they pledged to "have no other gods before Me” and to “make no graven images” and refuse to “take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” Included here would be the other stipulations of the old covenant found in Exodus and Leviticus (and repeated in Number and Deuteronomy).

This is good for God, not that He needs anything, being Self-sufficient, but according to His desire to form a people for Himself. This is good for the people, because as sinners, they are a mess without Him and stand under His judgment, not His favor. They now become the beneficiaries of being counted as His subjects and His children. They are grateful for His grace, and express that gratefulness through obiedience.

Except they didn’t. And so it seems to be a covenant “on hold;” an interrupted covenant. Scripture seems to indicate that God will keep His promises to this people, but based on a New Covenant and according to the terms of this New Covenant.

In the New Covenant, the Great King sends His Holy Son to be the propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the people. Due to this sacrifice, the covenant is “kept,” not by the people, but by the Son. God keeps His part, and then, through the Son, He keeps our part as well.

There is one act that Christ does not undertake for us. That is our acceptance of the terms of the covenant, or believing in Jesus. There is not entrance into the covenant apart from faith in Christ.

But we must be clear about what is involved in this faith or receiving. It is true faith and a full receiving. It is not a gesture, but an embrace. It is not an add-on, but a replacement. Jesus becomes to us “wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption. (1 Corinthians 1:30 NAS95)

This receiving is described in two parts: “if you 1) confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and 2) believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9 NAS95) We do not believe with our mouths, but with our hearts, from which deeds of gratefulness flow. No grateful deeds, no faith; and no faith, no entrance into the covenant, which is your only lasting and eternal good.

Information

Information

I was born quite a few years ago in the industrial age. Some say we now live in the information age. It is not that there is no industry now, or that there was no information before - but information has become our common currency. It is interesting that we don’t know quite what information is, or how it works.

When I drive to Starbucks in the morning for coffee, I at times inform my group of buddies that it’s going to a bad day based on information that I just received. If the stoplights at Main and Commerce, and then Main and Liberty, and then Main and Huron, and then General Motors and Milford Road - if they are all red and cause me stop all those times, I can deduce from that information that it is going to be a bad day.

Good information is supposed to contribute to the truth of the reality in which we live. However people may disagree with one another, - and they certainly do disagree - but, there is really only one reality.

So let me just say that my friends at Starbucks know full well that I am mocking when I say that I can tell the dispostion of the day ahead by the redness of a series of stoplights. Information it is, but not good information. It is not information that contributes to an accurate understanding of reality any more than a horoscope. I am actually making fun of such absurd “knowledge” with the hope that they might think about where to find “good” knowledge.

To find information about reality, we must consult a trusted source. I believe in the providence of God, but I am not sure that God cares much about whether I have to stop at too many stoplights in my quest for that first cup of coffee. I don’t believe those lights are synced in any intelligent way - they are not “smart” lights; they are “dumb” lights. And they are in no way a source of information that should be trusted. So where do we go to find trusted information?

If you trust the information that shows up in the first few entries on your computer screen, you are a foolish person. The algorithms are designed to feed you first what they have deemed you most want to read; that with which you are most likely to agree. If you trust a particular talking head you have never met on a news/entertainment show, you are foolish, because you have no means of detecting the character or motivation of that person who is talking other than knowing that they are being paid a boatload of money to hang on to market share. They don’t know you as George or Phyllis. They know you only as market share.

We suppose that we get our “good” information from those we trust. But whom do we trust? That is the question, and that is the problem. We know that the world is filled with liars, but we think we have the tools to tell the liars from the truth-tellers. On what basis? Because they sound confident? One might more likely find the truth in someone who is humble. But that doesn’t sell.

Many people have heard of Jesus, but few trust Him. Why? Because they already have other networks of experts they trust. When the disciples chose to trust Jesus instead of the chief priests, it is that they found Jesus to speak into their hearts with a sincerity and truth that they could not escape. This also brought the result that they found the chief priests to be disappointing, even self-serving.

If information is to help us understand what reality truly is, then Jesus is the One best able to help us in that regard. He will stand in judgment of all other competing and contrary information. He will steer us away from liars, unless it is that we, despite our professions of faith, actually trust the liars more than we trust Jesus. If that is the case, I don’t know which reality you might think you are living in, but it is not real, and you are not prepared for what comes next.

I’m writing this article while parked a red light. It just turned green, so we can go now, and it is a good day, not because the light is green, but because Jesus is alive, and He is the King of the true reality that should matter to everyone. It is called the Kingdom of God.