The Study Corner    

Genesis 30:25-43
“For you had little before I came, and it has increased abundantly, and the LORD has blessed you wherever I turned. But now when shall I provide for my own household also?” (Genesis 30:30, ESV)

Work. Most of us wouldn’t do it without pay.

Of course there are those willing to work for free because they really believe in the job, but they’re probably the exception. Our time and energy are limited resources, so it’s nice to get compensated.

Jacob, a normal guy just like us, found himself asking Laban to pay up for the years of work he did. Fortunately for Jacob, he was on Laban’s good side and had become somewhat of a “good luck charm.” Unfortunately, Laban was a greedy, selfish man and took advantage of Jacob.

The way this story ends reveals a slice of God’s character. Despite Laban’s sneaky tactics to cheat Jacob out of his rightful earnings, God repaid Jacob for his years of labor.

No matter what your road blocks, God can work around them, so don’t worry if you’re not getting what you’re due. God notices and will bless in His time and in His unique way.

Don’t get bent out of shape because your boss doesn’t notice what an asset you are to the business or how you’ve poured your heart into your work. Remember, you work is done only to glorify God, and don’t think that your service done to glorify God is a waste. God is well aware and will reward your faithfulness.

Below is an excerpt from C. H. Spurgeon’s account of his own conversion entitled “The Great Change-Conversion” from Volume 1 of his autobiography The Early Years (pp. 87-88):

I sometimes think I might have been in darkness and despair until now had it not been for the goodness of God in sending a snowstorm, one Sunday morning, while I was going to a certain place of worship. When I could go no further, I turned down a side street, and came to a little Primitive Methodist Chapel. In that chapel there may have been a dozen or fifteen people. I had heard of the Primitive Methodists, how they sang so loudly that they made people’s heads ache; but that did not matter to me. I wanted to know how I might be saved, and if they could tell me that, I did not care how much they made my head ache. The minister did not come that morning; he was snowed up, I suppose. At last, a very thin-looking man, a shoemaker, or tailor, or something of that sort, went up into the pulpit to preach. Now, it is well that preachers should be instructed; but this man was really stupid. He was obliged to stick to his text, for the simple reason that he had little else to say. The text was,—

“LOOK UNTO ME, AND BE YE SAVED, ALL THE ENDS OF THE EARTH.”

He did not even pronounce the words rightly, but that did not matter. There was, I thought, a glimpse of hope for me in that text. The preacher began thus—”My dear friends, this is a very simple text indeed. It says, ‘Look.’ Now lookin’ don’t take a deal of pains. It ain’t liftin’ your foot or your finger; it is just, ‘Look.’ Well, a man needn’t go to College to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look. A man needn’t be worth a thousand a year to be able to look. Anyone can look; even a child can look. But then the text says, ‘Look unto Me.’ Ay!” said he, in broad Essex, “many on ye are lookin’ to yourselves, but it’s no use lookin’ there. You’ll never find any comfort in yourselves. Some look to God the Father. No, look to Him by-and-by. Jesus Christ says, ‘Look unto Me.’ Some on ye say, ‘We must wait for the Spirit’s workin’.’ You have no business with that just now. Look to Christ. The text says, ‘Look unto Me.’”

Then the good man followed up his text in this way:—”Look unto Me; I am sweatin’ great drops of blood. Look unto Me; I am hangin’ on the cross. Look unto Me; I am dead and buried. Look unto Me; I rise again. Look unto Me; I ascend to Heaven. Look unto Me; I am sittin’ at the Father’s right hand. O poor sinner, look unto Me! look unto Me!

When he had gone to about that length, and managed to spin out ten minutes or so, he was at the end of his tether. Then he looked at me under the gallery, and I daresay, with so few present, he knew me to be a stranger. Just fixing his eyes on me, as if he knew all my heart, he said, “Young man, you look very miserable.” Well, I did; but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made from the pulpit on my personal appearance before. However, it was a good blow, struck right home. He continued, “and you always will be miserable—miserable in life, and miserable in death,—if you don’t obey my text; but if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved.” Then, lifting up his hands, he shouted, as only a Primitive Methodist could do, “Young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! Look! Look! You have nothin’ to do but to look and live.” I saw at once the way of salvation. I know not what else he said,—I did not take much notice of it,—I was so possessed with that one thought. Like as when the brazen serpent was lifted up, the people only looked and were healed, so it was with me. I had been waiting to do fifty things, but when I heard that word, “Look!” what a charming word it seemed to me! Oh! I looked until I could almost have looked my eyes away. There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I could have risen that instant, and sung with the most enthusiastic of them, of the precious blood of Christ, and the simple faith which looks alone to Him. Oh, that somebody had told me this before, “Trust Christ, and you shall be saved.”

The New York Times editorial borad apparently believes that an evangelical who takes Scripture seriously cannot serve in a role like surgeon general.

From C. S. Lewis:

“I am a democrat [believer in democracy] because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that every one deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true. . . . I find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost. Much less a nation. . . .The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.”

(”Equality,” in C. S. Lewis: Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces, ed. by Lesley Walmsley [London: HarperCollins Publishers, 2000,] p. 666).

“What the Reformation did was to return most clearly and consistently to the origins, to the final reality, God; but equally to the reality of Man – not only Man’s personal needs (such as salvation), but also Man’s social needs.

What we have had for four hundred years, produced from this clarity, is unique in contrast to the situation that has existed in the world in forms of government. Some of you have been taught that the Greek city states had our concepts in government. It simply is not true. All one has to do is read Plato’s Republic to have this come across with tremendous force.

When the men of our State Department, especially after World War II, went all over the world trying to implant our form-freedom balance in government downward on cultures whose philosophy and religion would never have produced it, it has, in almost every case, ended in some form of totalitarianism or authoritarianism.”

- Francis Schaeffer, A Christian Manifesto (Crossway: 1982/2005) pages 27-29.

Here is an interesting article from OldTruth.com relating to the Independence day celebrations in many churches. There’s quite a bit of good discussion on it:

“If you are in a church where the flag falls out of the ceiling on the Fourth of July, and an honor guard comes down the isle with flags for each branch of the service. And if you are singing God bless America on ANY Sunday on real estate owned by God. If this is the stuff you tolerate on the Lord’s Day, it’s not far off from Asherah poles” (idols in the Old Testament).

That was Michael Horton of the White Horse Inn who said that, on a recent program entitled Christless Christianity which dealt with the many ways modern churches get away from centering on Christ as their primary message.

Read the rest of the article…