by Eric Holter on April 25, 2004
“Praise the Lord!
How blessed is the man who fears the Lord,
Who greatly delights in His commands.”
Psalms 112:1
When I think of the blessedness of fearing the Lord I think of Jesus’ words in Mark 9 after he warns that it is better to remove a hand or an eye, if it causes us to stumble, than to enter hell with two hands, or two eyes. He concludes His warning with an analogy of salty fire. Ultimately, for those who do not flee from sin, they will encounter the unquenchable fires of hell. Such thoughts are, and should be, maximally disturbing to us. They should produce a deep dread and fear of hell – and of Him who puts people there. Ultimately, the fires of hell are an awful, dreadful, horrifying thing to contemplate. However, they can also bring a blessing. Jesus equates the fires of hell with salt. He says everyone, in a sense, will be “salted with the fires of hell.” For those who end up in hell, such salting will be an unimaginably and excruciatingly eternal reality. But for those who are turned away from sin by such thoughts, the salt is good, and it is good that we should have such salt in us. He warns that if this salt becomes un-salty that it would be no use to us. This salt, the salty fires of hell, are good for us – they can actually produce a blessing that makes us happy; abundantly happy, as this verse concludes.
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by Eric Holter on January 30, 2004
“In those days, I Daniel, had been mourning for three entire weeks …”
“Then he said to me, ‘do not be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day you set your heart on understanding this and on humbling yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to your words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia was withstanding me for 21 days …’”
“Then he said, ‘Do you understand why I came to you? …’”
Daniel 10:2, 12-13, 20
The time the angelic visitor was kept from getting to Daniel was the exact amount of time Daniel had spent crying out to God, praying and morning. I wonder if his question to Daniel “Do you understand why I came to you …” had in it a reference to the amount of time Daniel had spent praying? He came to deliver a vision to Daniel of the future, but did this question not only test whether Daniel understood the vision, but did it also point out the correspondence between the amount of time he prayed and the time it took for the answer to come? Was he pointing out to Daniel that his prayers were prompted by great spiritual battles, and that his praying was influencing the outcome?
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by Eric Holter on January 15, 2004
“O Lord, the God of my salvation,
I have cried out by day and in the night before Thee
Let my prayer come before Thee;
Incline thine ear to my cry!
For my soul has had enough troubles,
And my life is drawn near to Sheol.”
Psalm 88:1-3
This Psalm was troubling to read. The complaint of the Psalmist continues throughout the entire Psalm and is not answered. His cry, it seems, goes unheard. Unlike many of David’s Psalms, which contain equally impassioned cries for help, this Psalm does not end with a positive declaration of the Psalmist’s plea having been answered. David cried but ultimately said things like “Why are you in despair O my soul, and why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance, and my God” (Psalm 42:11). But this Psalmist does not testify to any answer from God, he remains in his distress. Nor does he give any hope from his past experience, he does not ask for a restoring to a previous better condition because he seems to have always been in distress, “I was afflicted in about to die from my youth on.” The experience of this Psalmist seems inconsistent with God’s promises to provide help and fill us with joy and gladness. Why would God seemingly pass this praying man over, and include his hopeless plea in his Word?
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