The Mount of God - Part I - "The Threshing Floor of Ornan"

It is safe to say that all of history tells nothing but the magnificent story of God's redemption of His people. His Word is concerned at every point with pointing us to this grand story, and it does so in a marvelous variety of forms. We find the gospel fully in the doctrinal and theological treatises which comprise large portions of the Pauline epistles. We find it plainly in the proclamations of our Lord Himself. And we even find it in the types and shadows of the Old Testament.

Indeed, it is rather amazing how the gospel is hidden in nearly every corner of Scripture, and those who would prefer to hide from it and cling foolishly to their own self-righteousness are advised to handle the Bible carefully and at their own risk. Since these types and shadows are given to us in order that we might glean a more full and glorious conception of the gospel, the worthiness of their study is beyond question. And so a shadow as intriguing as "The Mountain of God" which flows like a tributary stream through Scripture, ought to woo our attention with ease. In the consideration of passages which deal with God's holy mountain, we will uncover a rather striking and edifying statement of the gospel.

Let's begin by considering King David's sinful census as recorded in 1 Chronicles 21. We may recall that David had been provoked by Satan to sin and number the people and that as punishment, God had offered him the choice of one of three plagues: famine, military defeat, or destruction at the hand of the angel of the LORD. To this he appealed to his understanding of God's merciful nature and chose the Lord’s angel. God's hot displeasure with His people is illustrated most strikingly in verse 16, "Then David lifted his eyes and saw the angel of the LORD standing between earth and heaven, having in his hand a drawn sword stretched out over Jerusalem." This is very certainly the plight of mankind, the angel of God's wrath which has been provoked against us stands between heaven and earth with sword drawn and stretched out over the nations, ready at every moment to mete out excellent justice.

David's heart-aching intercession for his people is met with instructions for him to build an altar to God at a particular site. The site is "on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite" (v. 18). We will notice that this is the very place where the angel stood once God had stayed his hand (v. 15). In obedience, David erects the altar at this location and offers a burnt offering there to the LORD as he calls on His name. "So," it says, "the LORD commanded the angel, and he returned his sword to its sheath" (v. 27). God's wrath was finally averted and propitiated by virtue of David's obedient sacrifice.

What is outstanding in this story is the simplicity of David's instructions. To avert the most dire of disasters, he is simply commanded to erect a common altar and offer an ordinary sacrifice. The only peculiar element in the command is the seemingly arbitrary location chosen by the Lord - the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. Why was the angel there? And why did the altar need to be erected at that very site? Regardless of the reason, David was so impressed by the experience that he immediately consecrated that site for the Temple, "This is the house of the LORD God, and this is the altar of burnt offering for Israel" (1 Chr. 22:1). David's word would later be carried out by his son Solomon, "Now Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the LORD had appeared to his father David, at the place that David had prepared on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite" (2 Chr. 3:1). So we learn that the place that the temple was erected by Solomon was at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, which was also the very location of the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

This begs the question: just what do we know about this Mount Moriah?

The Radical Cross (Foreword) - Ravi Zacharias

We often hear the phrase "the crux of the matter" or "the crux of the situation." The word crux comes from Latin and simply means "cross." Why has the word crux come to be associated with a critical juncture or point in time? Because the cross of Jesus Christ is truly the crux of history. Without the cross, history itself cannot be defined or corrected.

There is another word we often hear when we are in the throes of indescribable pain - the word excruciating. That, too, derives from Latin and means "out of the cross." Across time and human experience the cross has been the historical event that intersects time and space and speaks to the deepest hurts of the human heart.

But we live with more than pain and suffering. We also live with deep hungers within the human heart. These existentially gnaw at us with a desperate constancy. There are at least four such longings. The hunger for truth, as lies proliferate. The hunger for love, as we see hate ruling the day. The hunger for justice, as we see injustice mocking the law. The hunger for forgiveness, when we ourselves fail and stumble. These four stirrings grip the soul. As I see it, there is only one place in the world where these four hungers converge. That is at the cross. I dare say, therefore, that in this mix of pain and longing the divine answer is restoring and sublime. For within the paradox of the cross is the coalescing of our need and God's provision.

Some time ago, I spoke in Wales at an event that commemorated the 100th anniversary of the famous Welsh Revival of 1904. I listened many times to a magnificent hymn that was birthed during that revival, "Here is Love." The melody is almost haunting, the words capturing the paradox of the cross. Here is one of the stanzas:

On the mount of crucifixion,

Fountains opened deep and wide;

Through the floodgates of God's mercy

Flowed a vast and gracious tide.

Grace and love, like mighty rivers,

Poured incessant from above,

And heaven's peace and perfect justice

Kissed a guilty world in love.

This is the paradox of the cross: Perfect peace and perfect justice united in one death on a Friday afternoon some two thousand years ago. The thief who repented while hanging on the cross next to Jesus understood the paradox. No one else knew so well the physical agony of what Jesus was suffering in crucifixion. And the thief knew that he deserved it. He knew the fear of God. But he received the assurance of pardon from the blameless Man hanging beside him.

A.W. Tozer has been one of the greatest writers of all time on themes as profound as the soul's hungers. He well grasped the paradox of the cross. In his opening essay, "The Cross Is a Radical Thing," he exhorts the believer to resist the downgrading of the cross to a mere symbol. If the cross has become to us a humdrum ornament to our faith, we have not understood it, and we have not felt its offense.

Tozer's essays are truly needed in our day because he understood the death of Christ in both its timeliness and timelessness. The Apostle Paul captured this timlessness when he exhorted the Corinthian believers: "Whenever you eath this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes (1 Corinthians 11:26). All the tenses were captured there - the present, the past and the future. The moment Christ died was an actual point in time in the past. He presently offers to live within us and promised to return.

Combined with the tenses are our tensions. Many of our moder-day sensibilities are offended by the brutatlity of a Roman crucifixion, and some people have even become persuaded that the atonement is a remote and irrelevant doctrine. Even so, the unprecedented violence occurring all over the world daily testifies to the greatest barbarism of all - the crucifixion of Christ - and to its message to the human race. I would go so far as to say that until we see the price God paid for our peace in His own Son, we will be paying with our sons' and daughters' lives on the battlefields of our hates and brutalities, only to find peace ever eluding us.

Never has it been more obvious that this world needs redemption, and that redemption is costly. The cross more than ever, in our language and in our longings, is necessary to bridge the divide between God and us. Without the cross the chasm that separates us all from truth, love, justice, and forgiveness can never be crossed. The depths of mystery and love found in the cross can never be fully plumbed, but it must be the lifelong pursuit of the Christian to marvel at its costliness and to celebrate its meaning. That is why I commend these essays to you. Your understanding of the cross and your commitment to its imperative will be greatly increased. There is no more important theme than this one. It stands as the defining counter-perspective to everything this world has to offer. As you meditate upon this paradox that propels wonder and worship, may you be moved to sing with the hymn writer:

Were the whole realm of nature mine,

That were a present far too small.

Love so amazing, so divine,

Demands my soul, my life, my all!

Luther's Prayer at the Diet of Worms

This is Martin Luther's prayer the night that he was given to think over whether he would recant his 95 theses.

O God, Almighty God everlasting! how dreadful is the world! behold how its mouth opens to swallow me up, and how small is my faith in Thee! . . . Oh! the weakness of the flesh, and the power of Satan! If I am to depend upon any strength of this world - all is over . . . The knell is struck . . . Sentence is gone forth . . . O God! O God! O thou, my God! help me against the wisdom of this world. Do this, I beseech thee; thou shouldst do this . . . by thy own mighty power . . . The work is not mine, but Thine. I have no business here . . . I have nothing to contend for with these great men of the world! I would gladly pass my days in happiness and peace. But the cause is Thine . . . And it is righteous and everlasting! O Lord! help me! O faithful and unchangeable God! I lean not upon man. It were vain! Whatever is of man is totering, whtaever proceeds from him must fail. My God! my God! dost thou not hear? My God! art thou no longer living? Nay, thou canst not die. Thou dost but hide Thyself. Thou hast chosen me for this work. I know it! . . . Therefore, O God, accomplish thine own will! Forsake me not, for the sake of thy well-beloved Son, Jesus Christ, my defence, my buckler, and my stronghold.
Lord - where art thou? . . . My God, where art thou? . . . Come! I pray thee, I am ready . . . Behold me prepared to lay down my life for thy truth . . . suffering like a lamb. For the cause is holy. It is thine own! . . . I will not let thee go! no, nor yet for all eternity! And though the world should be thronged with devils - and this body, which is the work of thine hands, should be cast forth, trodden under foot, cut in pieces, . . . consumed to ashes, my soul is thine. Yes, I have thine own word to assure me of it. My soul belongs to thee, and will abide with thee forever! Amen! O God send help! . . . Amen!
- Martin Luther

A Call to Christian Mourning

Something which has become more and more troubling to me of late is the lack of seriousness in the Christian society around me. I don't mean seriousness with respect to godly living (although that is certainly an even weightier matter), but a seriousness in attitude and in the general perspective on life. I know that at times I have been confronted in my prayers and meditations with such a reality of hell and of the wretchedness and desperateness of the corruption of my own soul and of the whole creation that I have been totally wrecked and overwhelmed. It is not hard to pray when you come to this point, the hard thing is unbending your knees. I have always thought that, in spite of my better judgment, it must not be right to dwell too much on these matters since they lead only to a state of lament and, save for the grace of God, depression. And afterall, the Christian life is one characterized with joy and love, the fruits of the Spirit, not all this morbidness, right?

Yet, as I have been personally studying and meditating on the Sermon on the Mount, Martyn Lloyd-Jones asked the question that overhauled all of this.

How many times does Scripture record Jesus laughing?

Well, I guess the answer is that I can't think of any, and if he is asking this as a loaded question then obviously he has done his homework, and so the answer is that Scripture never mentions Him lauging at all. Of course, everyone knows that He wept - at the tomb of Lazarus, over the coming destruction of Jerusalem, and at Gethsemane. But apparently laughter did not characterize His life.

That's all fine, but rather than argue too much out of Scriptural silence, lets consider what it actually says explicitly about the nature of the Christian mindset with respect to joy and mourning. In particular, our Lord says most strikingly, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Matthew 5:4). So if we properly understand the Beatitudes to describe the character of a Christian, what he is rather than what he does, we must believe that an outstanding attribute of the Christian is a spirit of mourning. Look at them in order, they all address the spirit - a spirit of poverty, a spirit of mourning, a spirit of meekness. These characteristics all find their magnificent apex and culmination in Christ. We find Him mourning over Lazarus, not because he had died (for he would soon be raised), but over the tragedy of the fallen world. And similarly, we find Him, even in the heat of His indignation against impenitent Israel, lamenting bitterly over them with motherly affection. Christ's was a spirit of mourning. Indeed, could a compassionate God dwell in the midst of a crooked and perverse world with any other spirit than one of mourning and lamentation?

And it is not only this one example that leads to this conclusion. James commands sinners to, "Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom." And Paul commands bishops to be, "sober-minded," older men to be, "sober, reverent, temperate," older women to be, "reverent in behavior," young men to be, "sober-minded . . . in doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility" (Titus 1:8, 2:2-3, 6-7). The Christian attitude should be characterized by mourning, sobriety, and reverence. We might follow up Lloyd-Jones's question with, "How many times does the New Testament command us to laugh?" I have never found it. It does warn us to avoid course jesting (Ephesians 5:4). And it does command us to mourn. So how much time do we spend mourning, and how much in jesting?

Now, are we to conclude from this that Christians ought to wear frowns and constantly go about in sorrow and mourning? Certainly not, but we should realize that to be a Christian is not to be an idealist, but to become a super-realist. The true Christian stares the tragic realities of a fallen world in the face squarely and still finds joy - but only in Christ. The true Christian in his consideration of the true state of things is broken and exceedingly sorrowful, and yet is comforted by the "consolation in Christ, the comfort of love, the fellowship of love, and by mercy and affection" (Philippians 2:1). The Christian's joy does not come from burying his head in the sand and ignoring the falleness, perversity, and desperateness of the world - his joy comes exclusively from Christ.

My prayer is that this generation of Christians would be sober-minded, have hearts broken and burdened - that we would have our minds set on heavenly things, that we would esteem Christ's sacrifice and yearn for Him to receive His due glory for it. When we are truly burdened in our hearts for the state of our own hearts and for the state of all that we see around us, we will truly mourn, and when we truly mourn, we will truly receive Christ's blessing. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." Amen and amen!

Soli Deo Gloria

The True and Better Adam - Tim Keller

Jesus is the true and better Adam who passed the test in the garden and whose obedience is imputed to us.

Jesus is the true and better Abel who, though innocently slain, has blood now that cries out, not for our condemnation, but for acquittal.

Jesus is the true and better Abraham who answered the call of God to leave all the comfortable and familiar and go out into the void not knowing wither he went to create a new people of God.

Jesus is the true and better Isaac who was not just offered up by his father on the mount but was truly sacrificed for us. And when God said to Abraham, “Now I know you love me because you did not withhold your son, your only son whom you love from me,” now we can look at God taking his son up the mountain and sacrificing him and say, “Now we know that you love us because you did not withhold your son, your only son, whom you love from us.”

Jesus is the true and better Jacob who wrestled and took the blow of justice we deserved, so we, like Jacob, only receive the wounds of grace to wake us up and discipline us.

Jesus is the true and better Joseph who, at the right hand of the king, forgives those who betrayed and sold him and uses his new power to save them.

Jesus is the true and better Moses who stands in the gap between the people and the Lord and who mediates a new covenant.

Jesus is the true and better Rock of Moses who, struck with the rod of God’s justice, now gives us water in the desert.

Jesus is the true and better Job, the truly innocent sufferer, who then intercedes for and saves his stupid friends.

Jesus is the true and better David whose victory becomes his people’s victory, though they never lifted a stone to accomplish it themselves.

Jesus is the true and better Esther who did not just risk leaving an earthly palace but lost the ultimate and heavenly one, who did not just risk his life, but gave his life to save his people.

Jesus is the true and better Jonah who was cast out into the storm so that we could be brought in.

Jesus is the real Rock of Moses, the real Passover Lamb, innocent, perfect, helpless, slain so the angel of death will pass over us. He’s the true temple, the true prophet, the true priest, the true king, the true sacrifice, the true lamb, the true light, the true bread.

The Bible’s really not about you — it’s about Him, the author and perfecter of your faith.