We are all restless by nature. Driven, perhaps even obsessed, with self-saving, trying to rescue ourselves through sweaty and relentless striving. It seeks its own relief. But what if the very act of striving leads us away from God? Our verse presents a striking contrast between God’s reasoning and man’s refusal: “In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not.”

The core issue is misplaced confidence. Like Israel, we tend to put our trust in our own wisdom. The context of this passage is a nation relying on political and military might, rather than in the Lord’s provision. And if we are honest, we are guilty of the same. We may not be running to Egypt for horses, but we run to all sorts of things that give us a false strength.

“In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.”

God’s words here are radical, and radical because they’re counterintuitive. Not by going and doing…but by returning and resting. The Hebrew word essentially means “to turn from, unto.” The flurry of human effort brings no help. But the soul willing to admit its weakness will find it. Sounds Pauline to me. This is good for a nation to hear, and also a soul. Do not mistake rest for inactivity. Resting in God is a deliberate convalescing into the hands of the Almighty Sovereign. It is the repose of trust, of faith, the laying down of all tools and arms, the ceasing of all our efforts.

In a world that honors the path of the bold and brave, God offers a road less traveled: “In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.” Quietness is the opposite of the anxious, restless heart. It is the heart stilled by the knowledge that God reigns over all, including my life. Confidence is in the character and promises of the Holy One of Israel. The soul that finds itself there, will experience confidence in the LORD’s immovability, trading the fragile coverts of Egypt, for the unshakable Rock of ages.

Yet, the most haunting part of this verse are its last four words: “and ye would not.” How often is true help cast aside by my refusal and unbelief? How often do I search my Egyptian ways, while passing by the very strength that could be mine.

The question for us is this: Will we return to Him (Time and again)? Will we lay down our stubborn self-sufficiencies? Take hold of the offer of His strength, dear soul. It is His strength! What better strength is there?

If we venture out alone, we are in trouble. But if we will return, we will find all help, because in returning and resting in Christ, we will be saved, either in or through, all our trouble. Both for time, and eternity.

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“That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: Whom having not seen, ye love”
(1 Peter 1:7,8).

When Jesus turned, and looked at Peter (Luke 22:61), I wonder how deeply He looked. Did he see Peter when He first called him, following Him along familiar shores and through the villages over the past three years? Then through to this night, then to Jerusalem, Calvary, the empty tomb. Then to the day of Pentecost, where Peter would stand before the people, and preached the Christ he is now denying. Did He see Peter going to Samaria, through Lydda and Joppa, and into the house of Cornelius at Caesarea, collecting all His saints. That look of love must have been a full look.

The New Testament doesn’t give us every road Peter traveled during thirty plus years of ministry. It does tell us that he was in Antioch. His first letter reaches believers scattered through Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. At the road’s end, greetings come from “the church that is at Babylon” (Chapter 5). The early church understood Babylon as code for mighty Rome. Think of the distance in those two names: Galilee and Rome. A fisherman beside the sea, now witnessing of Christ in the heart of the beast.

And in that great city, according to the early church’s testimony, Peter’s road finally came to an end. Under Nero he was put to death by crucifixion. The tradition preserved by Origen and Eusebius says that as an old man, Peter was led out to be crucified. He asked that his head would be toward the ground. He did not count himself worthy to die the same way as his Lord. We have no record of his final words. So we won’t pretend we do, or say what passed through his mind as he was crucified.

But we certainly can remember what Jesus had said to him on the shore of Galilee, three decades earlier: “another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not” (John 21:18). We are being told there, what the Lord spoke to signify what manner of death Peter would glorify God by. No angel helped him escape this time. He was carried “whither he wouldest not.” And Jesus’ words along that road were still, “Follow me.” “Feed my lambs.”

Now listen to what Peter wrote to the church: “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” Peter wrote to souls already “in heaviness through manifold temptations.” Palpable grief. He called it “fire”. Faith, fire proven, was precious to Jesus.

Perhaps, as we reflect on communion season, we can hear his words with a little more Peter behind them. Led through the door of sifting, failure, shame, through the door of pardon and restoration, to the open road of gospel strengthening. And history tells us that he would come at last to a door that did not open into another earthly morning, but that eternal day.

“The trial of your faith.” Dear one, what is it? Let Peter strengthen you. The Lord knows the storm swirling around your life: its dampness, its length, its darkness, touching that part of your heart most painfully. Some trials come all of the sudden. Others follow a familiar road through our days. We will be shaken more deeply than expected. We will discover our own little strength. Peter discovered that. Yet the faith for which Jesus prayed, would find praise and glory at the end of our sifting. “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).

Peter is speaking to us as a flock as well. The trial of our church’s faith comes quietly, through the voice of a world that asks for our heart, piece by little piece. We are pulled in a thousand directions until we can no longer know the certain sound of God’s Word. We begin to prize the gold that perishes. William Greenhill’s Stop Loving the World, is a searching little book for such a time as this. It asks us to consider, what of this world, has gained our hearts.

But Peter brings us further than a warning about the world. He brings us to a Person: “Whom having not seen, ye love.” He had seen Jesus. He had listened to His voice every day. In the upper room he heard Jesus, felt His look in the courtyard, and received His mercy after the resurrection. We have not seen Him with our eyes. Oh, to have that direct kind of assurance. Yet Peter says that we have a more sure word of prophesy (2 Pet. 1:19), than even His physical presence. By the Spirit, through the Word, we know the Savior who loved His own unto the end, bore their sins, rose again, and ever lives to keep you in safety.

What, then, will become of the trial of our faith? All I know is, like Peter’s, it has an end. Peter calls it: “the appearing of Jesus Christ.” The fire of trial will not burn forever, dear one. It has precious purpose. The gold we now love, will perish. Oh, Christ will appear, at our death or in the clouds, and the faith He has kept through every storm…will be unto praise and honor and glory forever.

Peter was taken farther than that young fisherman could have imagined; from Galilee to Jerusalem, from prison into the heart of Babylon herself, and at last to an upside down cross. Mile by mile, the Lord who prayed for him, kept him. He will keep us also: as single souls, as families, and as a flock together, loving the Christ whom we have not seen, until the day we see Him.

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My dear congregation,

Our preparation has been different. We have done a lot of digging. We’ve looked into the sieve and been tossed. We have looked upon our own weakness, the hidden places of our heart, and the painful work of being searched by the Spirit.

But today is the day we dine. What mercy.

Jeremiah says: “Though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion.”

We meet another powerful small conjunction, “yet”.

The grief, chastening, and searching are real. Yet He will have compassion.

No, dear soul, “He doth not afflict willingly.” Our grief has a sovereign purpose. He wounds and makes the heart know its need to bring His mercy near.

And notice the measure of it:

“According to the multitude of his mercies.”

Not according to our measurements (and we have so many). But according to His mercies.

Dear one, come to the Table having learned something new, deeper about yourself. Come understanding more of your poverty. How easily the heart can falter. Come knowing how much you need to be kept. And then lift your eyes, dear one.

The Lord has not brought you here to leave you mourning at the doorway of the feast. “Though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion.” Today the bread and wine administer that to your heart.

We have dug deeply this week. Today, let us feast.

“Yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.”

Your friend and pastor,

J. Lewis

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My dear congregation,

“None shall appear before me empty.”

“Wait, I thought we bring nothing?”

Don’t interpret these words as payment. What Israel brought to the feast was all of God. David prayed rightly, “All things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee” (1 Chronicles 29:14).

Israel brought back what grace had given.

This protects the feast from becoming a transaction. Admission is not for sale. He had already redeemed Israel from Egypt. Their offerings belonged to the life which redemption had purchased.

Still, the Lord would have no one come empty-handed. He would not allow His people to remember redemption, without some praise upon their lips.

Dear communicant, we have the greater Passover, “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast” (1 Cor. 5:7,8). Our bondage was greater than Egypt, our enemy stronger than Pharaoh. Our passover required the blood of the Lamb of God.

What shall we bring?

Of course, we bring nothing. Faith buys without money and without price (Isa. 55:1). It looks as hunger looks on food, as thirst looks to water, as guilt looks to redeeming blood. Our hands are not empty. They are full of the righteousness of Christ. Perish the thought that your tears, feelings, or preparations purchase your place at the Table.

Still: “None shall appear before me empty.”

Our approach to the Supper is often so occupied with receiving, that we hardly ask, “what I shall render to the Lord?” Jesus gave Himself to His people; shall we not give ourselves again to Him? The Table receives no payments, but their is a beautiful exchange. Adoration. Love. Thanksgiving.

The bread and wine assure us of this. The bread says that His body was broken. The cup says that His blood was shed. What shall we bring? Bring your body, which Paul calls “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God.”

Perhaps you say, “I have nothing worthy of Him.”

The widow’s two mites were nearly nothing, yet Jesus saw her whole heart in them. The priceless thing was hidden inside the small thing. So it may be with a trembling one. Faltering, diminishing, without fanfare, saying “Lord, I am Thine.”

This is the final work of preparation.

Dear soul, Come without price, worth, or rival confidence.

Come bearing what His grace has given you. Show Him with thanksgiving, dear one.

“None shall appear before me empty.”

The Table is spread with the gift of Christ. Let there also be, hidden beneath the tablecloth, the gift of love to Christ.

Your friend and pastor,

J. Lewis

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My dear flock,

We return now to the three kings in the wilderness of Edom in a dry valley. Jehoram thought that the LORD had gathered them there, to deliver them into the hand of Moab.

Then the word of the Lord came by Elisha:

“Make this valley full of ditches.”

What a strange command. Ditches for what, exactly? There was no water to contain, or rain gathering above the hills. The ground was bone dry. Yet Israel was commanded to trench the valley in anticipation of something God would do.

In this we can see another type of preparation. When the LORD will bring water, His people are to make room for it. They could only open the ground. Only God could open the heavens and pour out a blessing. “Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you” (Hosea 10:12).

A ditch is made by taking something out. The ground must be broken up and cast aside. What was there must be removed before something else can fill it. This is a downward work. The deeper the hollow, the greater it speaks of emptiness.

Communion preparation must involve digging. The seed of the Word lands on ground trafficked by ordinary feet. No surface breaks, where feet have passed back and forth. Digging it is hard. We uncover stones, roots, and dirt that long lay fallow. Each thrust or heave makes the heart feel empty.

We dislike emptiness. We are quick to fill it with whatever we can. Spiritual emptiness is a wondrous thing at the Table. Our flesh wants to come to the Table, able to report some goodness, some acceptable progress. The Lord will have us dig all these assurances out.

A ditch has nothing to offer the water. Its use consists in its need.

“Make this valley full of ditches.”

Not one ditch, or two. Make this valley, the whole topography, full of canals. Perhaps that is why preparation must enter every part of us. There are ditches to be dug all over, where the promise of Christ has been wanting.

Prayer excavates. The law digs. Meditating on the sufferings of Christ furrow deeper still. None of these are water. They only receive what Jesus Christ alone can give.

If we are honest, there are communion seasons where we approach without sensible tenderness. We read and feel little; we sometimes pray, we heal ourselves lightly and shall we be surprised to discover dryness without and within. Here, the soul is tempted to leave the valley untouched, because it’s easier just to wait.

Dig.

Faith believes that in spite of the weather, grace will rain over our ditches. Our Savior will come, dear soul, and will not tarry.

“And it came to pass in the morning, when the meat offering was offered, that, behold, there came water.”

The water came with the morning sacrifice, far away in Jerusalem. A lamb was found and was laid and slain upon the altar. In Edom, empty ditches began to fill. The army looked, and the hopeless ditches began to fill with the mercy of God.

At the Lord’s Table we look toward the one True sacrifice. Christ has been offered once for sin, and from His riven side flows every supply of grace. We bring no water with us. Oh, to come parched to the crucified One, whose blood and Spirit slake us.

Do not expect by digging, what only Jesus can give. Take up the spade, dear one. Let it do its furrowing work. Break up your ground. Carry away the dirt of self-sufficiency, “till He come, and rain righteousness upon you.”

Leave the filling of your dry soul, to our well-spring, Jesus Christ…poured out for you.

Your friend and pastor,

J. Lewis

My dear congregation,

“Let them wash their clothes.”

It seems a rather small thing compared to what comes next. The LORD descended in fire. The mountain shook. The sound of a trumpet blasted from atop the holy mount. A great boundary was set all around it; death awaits all who touch it.

Yet, the Lord directs their attention to their clothing? Why?

Preparation of the heart is as much real as it is symbolic. Or, should be. Taking the time to draw water, fill the vessel, plunge the garment, scrub out all the filth, hang dry in the sunshine. Every household did this outward demonstration as spiritual renewal, “Be ready against the third day.”

Our appearance often reveals what our mouth’s will not. We say an occasion matters, so we don our best, care for our appearance, and appear before the honored. We say we expect to meet the living and true God, our Creator and Savior, soon. Will we arrive unprepared? Will we confess by attending, “This time is holy”, but our appearance answer, “It doesn’t matter very much.” The truth is, a believing soul may come in tattered or untidy clothes because of poverty, sickness, or dark providence. Without question. But we are talking here about carelessness, where carefulness is possible.

“Let them wash their clothes.”

The command reaches into every part before our third day (as it were), the Lord’s Day. The washing of garments begins long before the morning of the third day. There is mercy in the time God gave them. “To day and to morrow”, He says, ample space between call and appearing.

Communion week is such a call. Christ gave us notice last week, that His Table will be spread. The days between the Form and Table, should not be left vacant. A sensitive soul will receive them as a mercy. There is time to set life in order, finish what can be finished, and let the outward appearance begin to reflect the inward frame.

“But preparing outwardly can all be for show.” How true that is. The LORD knew this, and gave the command still. “Let them wash their clothes.”

“But the LORD knows my heart.” That’s the problem. He does, you do not. “Let them wash their clothes.”

Garment care goes much deeper than how we dress for church. Preparation has a form, a body, true. But, you will notice the washed garments could only carry Israel to the foot. The boundary was set. God is most Holy. Moses must ascend the mountain and mediate, while the people stood afar off.

At the Lord’s Table we come to a better mountain and a better Mediator. We need not stand afar off. Jesus Christ has magnified the law and entered the heavenly sanctuary. He clothes His people in the garment of His salvation. He has accomplished for His bride, a cleansing which no preparation could give. Still, she makes herself ready (Rev. 19:7). So, we cleanse our outward self, because a new and living way has been opened, for poor sinners, at an unimaginable cost.

Wash! “Put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem” (Isa. 52:1). Cleanse your ways. Set all your house in order. Render praise to the LORD for all His gracious benefits. Let us “Be ready against the third day.”

Your friend and pastor,

J. Lewis

My dear flock,

Visualize what our Lord is saying. A worshiper stands at the altar. Gift in hand. Everything appears to be as it should, until the conscience speaks: Thy brother hath ought against thee.

Jesus will not allow him to ignore that voice. Worship must wait. A gift cannot cover over the duties of love. The Lord who sees the offering, also sees the injury.

“Leave there thy gift.”

Why not, “take back thy gift, go, and be reconciled”? Because a left gift leaves an eye to the Lord’s worship. Reconciliation is part of worship. It belongs among the first principles of it. Our Lord will not let us draw near, while maintaining a breach. A gift, a prayer, a psalm, a tear, none can drown out the accusing, wounded conscience. We must go.

Undealt-with sin against someone must be dealt with plainly, without excuses or explanation. Reconciliation can’t always be achieved, because the other heart remains closed. May the Spirit open it. Yet the disciple of Christ must be able to say that he pursued it willingly, humbly, as far as it lay within him.

Let this search you before Holy Supper. Every communicant that attends the table confesses, that they have ended, “unfeignedly all enmity, hatred, and envy, and doth firmly resolve henceforward to walk in true love and peace with his neighbor” (Form for the Lord’s Supper). Our whole hope, dear one, rests upon reconciliation. Jesus would not leave the breach unhealed. He came down to earth to bear our guilt, shed His blood, and make peace through His cross. Those who live by such mercy, how can they comfortably cherish enmity?

Leave your gift and go. Speak truth; confess the wrong. And if you are on the receiving end, forgive as you have freely been forgiven. Both return to the altar with a refocused heart, take up thy gift, and find fresh worship. How much did our own reconciliation with God cost our Savior?

Your friend and pastor,

J. Lewis

My dear congregation,

An army of locusts has devoured the land. All Judah’s fields are stripped. Vines give no grapes, trees yield no fruit. Even the beasts of the fields are lamenting that the streams were dry. The prophet saw something more dreadful: “The day of the LORD cometh, for it is nigh at hand.”

And what should Judah do, in light of that great and terrible day?

“Rend your heart.”

Everyone in Israel knew how to rend. Both hands would grasp the cloth atop the breastbone and pull to tare it out and open. A sign of inward grief.

Yet, man being what he is, can do all this, and his heart remain stone.

So much religion can occur in the show. His face grows solemn. His voice slows and lowers. His body enters a posture. There may even be fasting and weeping. And still, the heart is unbroken.

“Rend your heart.”

Because, a garment is easily sown back up! A broken heart, not so easily. When we afresh, see who we are in ourselves, we can’t return to our former selves, can we? We have seen what lives within. We know what has wounded us, polluted us, tempted us in our flesh. Something opens which we can’t sew shut. Streams of vile pollution.

We also confess the perimeters of sin more easily. General weakness, sin, and failure. However, for the child of God, the conscience has particular words. We know the sin that so easily besets us. General confession is whitewashing. Or, to go further (but not far enough), we rend our garments just a little bit. A small rip, a stitch or two. Our heart heals best, when we confess particulars.

Honesty is painful, so where is the balm?

“And turn unto the LORD your God.”

A good rending is “unto the LORD your God.” Many time, I have told you of a kind of self-examination that curls the soul inward on itself. There is a rending that does the same. All discovery is left inside our soul as a weeping wound. Joel directs that heart away, toward the LORD your God. The God of your baptism, your confession, and your faith. Dear one, the heart breaks first before God, and then breaks toward God. Why?

“For he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness.”

What blessed ground. God tells us what He is like, so that the broken hearted will taste who He is. Can you not see that this command comes from the heart of God who declares Himself gracious AND merciful? He knows we will mourn, so His mercy calls us to His tenderest attributes. Oh, we are so slow to believe!

Dear ones, our deepest hindrance may be our secret suspicion of God Himself. We fear what He will do, because we do not understand Him well enough to trust His Word.

The Lord says, “Turn ye EVEN to me.” As if to say, see in me my most gracious parts. I hold them out before you. I lie not. My anger toward your sin is slow because of my great kindness.

At the Lord’s Table we will see bread broken and wine poured out, which is the greatest of all great kindnesses. By partaking, we are reminded that our peace required more than an outward show. Our beloved Savior, gave His body and shed His blood for us. He carried all our sins with courage.

Can we cherish a rended garment and an unbroken heart? Or, this communion season, can we be satisfied with a broken heart that does not turn?

No, we will rend our hearts. We will come naked to be clothed upon of Him. We will tell Him all the truth He already knows.

The soul which rends Godward, will find mercy and grace waiting.

Your friend and pastor,

J. Lewis

My dear flock,

Five thousand men had been fed. Not one was turned away, for “They were filled.”

After this miracle Jesus said to His disciples, “Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.”

Why gather up the small lost pieces? Nature would gladly devour them. Plus, the One who had multiplied loaves, could easily do it again if needed. But the same One who gave freely, commanded it. Evidently, abundance did not render them worthless.

There is some simple application here.

In our times of extremity, we pray more earnestly. When deliverance comes, earnestness fades away. A providence keep us, a sermon touches us, heaven answers us...

then the moment passes.

Within a day or two, mercies lie ungathered over the ground of our soul.

Christ says, “Gather up the fragments.”

Grace leaves breadcrumbs.

Some breadcrumbs are only found after the plate is taken away. Little leftover blessings. Morsels you can only see now that all else is gone. They may seem small, broken off even. But the fragments are precious because of the Hand through which they passed.

Communion season usually begins by looking forward. Perhaps we should also look backward at our blessings. What became of what Christ gave you then? Where is the truth which appeared so clear? What became of the evil we promised to forsake? Where is the obedience I deemed so necessary?

“Gather up the fragments.”

This does not mean we should live upon the past, far from it. Old bread cannot replace present communion. Yet forgotten mercies can impoverish the hungry soul. We ask the Lord to speak afresh, while His former blessings are scattered all around.

The multitude returned the next day seeking Jesus for more bread. Christ called them out: “Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.” They remembered the fullness, and missed the message contained. Their stomachs remembered, but their souls forgot.

How easily this can happen to us all. We remember being moved while forgetting Who moved us. We remember comfort, but have forgotten the passage that carried it. We remember stillness at the Table, and lose the Christ who stilled us. Soon we desire the feeling again, while the means that produced, is left scattered behind us.

“Gather up the fragments” is an exercise of spiritual memory. Go back over your ground. Recover the text, the admonition, the promise, the unfinished thing. Ask what remains from former seasons.

Once collected, there were twelve baskets filled with fragments. The disciples began with less than one basket, and ended with one for each. Christ’s miracle left them carrying home more than they had brought. Isn’t that the Lord’s way?

We have received far more than we know. Some mercies are ignored because they are scattered. Gathered them all up together, and they may fill a basket. The fragment-gathering soul will find that Jesus has left many fragments to bless us later.

Before coming again to the Table, walk over the whole of the path you’ve taken. Gather up what remains. Gather the little evidences of His goodness and patience. Remember what He showed you of your sin, and what He showed you of Himself.

You may find that the road to the coming feast, is marked by crumbs from the feast before.

Your friend and pastor,

J. Lewis

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Dear congregation,

Elisha stood before three powerful kings. Jehoram among them, simply reminded the prophet of a house which had wearied heaven. Elisha was disturbed when he saw him. His words came out hot. Go home. “What have I to do with thee? Get thee to the prophets of thy father, and the prophets of thy mother.” (v.13)

But Elijah agrees for Jehoshaphat’s sake.

“Bring me a minstrel.”

That’s a strange request. An army was literally dying of thirst. Generals were waiting for orders. If there ever was an urgent hour, this was it. They were thinking, “Elisha is a prophet of God, so this should not take long.” Yet he would not answer. His soul within him needed to become still. So the prophet asks for music.

We are not told what instrument was played, duration, or what tune. We’re only told that music entered the room. The voices of kings were meaningless, the arguments were vanity. Elisha just stood there, listening. With such music playing in his soul, we read:

“And the hand of the LORD came upon him.”

Dear one, our soul must be quieted before it can know. If our soul had a window, we would see very quickly the layer of dust that stains our glass. Inside, thoughts run up and down. Inner conversations repeat, sins plead their case to our conscience. Now my soul is all a tither. I attempt self-examination, but all the kings are speaking, arguing and objecting. So many voices that nothing is clear, true. Our Psalter has a wonderful way of speaking for, and to our souls.

Dear ones, preparation for the Lord’s Supper includes soul music.

“Bring me a minstrel.”

Sing the psalms this week. Elisha knew what stood before him. He listened until a Greater voice spoke. “As the LORD of hosts liveth, before whom I stand.” He was not standing before kings. He was standing before God. The music reminded his soul of that.

This is what psalm singing has done for generations of God’s people. It returns the soul to the Presence, before which all other presences must bow.

Isn’t it true that a Psalter can often prepare a heart more deeply than a hour of introspection? I don’t know about you, but my heart can chase itself in circles. A psalm centers my troubled soul, and gives me words to sing in my trouble. It places a tune within by the Holy Spirit. The heart that could not help itself, is carried, line by line into the love and fear of God.

During Communion week, we need to call the mistral. Close the closet door, silence the devices, and allow the soul to come down from its fever. Pick up the Psalter. Read it slowly as you sing. Will not the Spirit’s words sooth and calm you?

Do not hurry. Without Him, searching inwardly becomes introspection that only repeats the arguments of our kings. Elisha waited on the LORD. The truth came as the music ministered. Our great need is likewise.

The Lord’s Table is near. Before asking what is in your heart, become still. Know before Whom your heart is opened. Let the pleadings of kings fade. Bring the minstrel. Sing the psalms. Wait, dear one, until the hand of the Lord comes upon you.

Dear congregation,

For twenty years Israel had been missing the LORD. The ark had returned, yet Israel’s heart had not. The visible sign of God’s presence stood among them, while their affections were scattered among strange gods.

Then Samuel spoke: “Prepare your hearts unto the LORD.”

To prepare means to set the soul. Our hearts are like Hosea’s silly dove, flitting floating between Egypt and Assyria” (7:11). Many voices are calling, until we come into the presence of God. Gather up the conversations of your soul, dear one, and place them before His law and gospel.

But be more than serious. Seriousness can easily be worn like a garment. Preparation uncovers the soul. That’s serious. What have I permitted? Where is my heart leaning? What sin have I savored? What duty have I delayed?

Such questions uncover our Ashtaroths. At least Israel’s idols were visible. Ours are covered within. We offer to them, small sacrifices throughout the day. By week’s end, our altar is littered with our offerings.

“Put away the strange gods.”

“Unto the LORD” is iconoclasm. Idols torn from their perch. We must wield the search-light of the Spirit (so read the Word!), who uncovers what we have hidden. Every idol is strange among a redeemed people. It has no place within a Christ purchased heart.

Still, remember this: all empty places will be filled (Matt. 12:44,45). This week (and always!), fill it with Jesus. Break all strange gods at His pierced feet.

This is the very first work of our communion week. Ask what Christ’s salvation is worth to your soul. What does His blood deserve from a purchased heart? The way to His Table runs through holiness, dear one, and every rival must be abandoned along the way.

Prepare your heart, dear one. Walk afresh toward Calvary this week. Bring your bundled idols with you. Smash them at His cross. The heart is prepared best, when its offerings to strange masters cease.

“One is your Master, even Christ.” Matthew 23:10

Your friend and pastor,

J. Lewis

There is something strangely hopeful about giving a new Bible to a couple at the beginning of their marriage. Your story has only just begun. And yet we place in your hands, a Book that already knows how it ends.

That is one reason we want you to have it.

You are beginning a life whose chapters are still blank. God has already written all your days in His book. Some of your chapters will be so lovely, that you will wish to live them twice. There will be chapters you would gladly tear up by the pages, if heaven would allow it. You may not know which is which until you turn the page.

May this fresh, clean Bible in your hands remain beside you both. If is does, something curious will happen over the years. You will begin reading passages you thought you knew, and discover that they had been waiting for you to become old enough, or wounded enough, or thankful enough, to truly find them.

Psalm 23 sounds one way at twenty-two. It will sound quite different at eighty-five. “Children are an heritage of the LORD”, will read differently if little feet ever run through your home. “Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another” is pretty to admire. It becomes altogether different at eleven-thirty at night when somebody must say, “Please forgive me.” “Cast thy burden upon the LORD”, has a nectar that will remain hidden, until you actually have a burden too heavy to carry.

That is the wonder of this Book is, the words remain constant. We are the ones who keep arriving at them.

Year after year, providence will bring you to texts that were waiting for you. Somewhere in this Bible there are words you will one day need, and do not know it now. Somewhere in this Bible there are words you have only lightly valued, but one day will find them priceless. You cannot know these verses today. They are waiting for you in the future.

We usually give young couples the things we think they’ll need. A Bible is given for the life only God knows they will have. It is ready for your future joy. It is ready for your sorrow. It is ready for your sin. And ready for your holiness.

And if the Lord gives you fifty years, may this Bible look very different from the one I am holding now. May the spine be worn from opening. May the pages be wrinkled within. May there be handwriting in the margins, dates beside promises, names beside prayers. Perhaps a verse underlined because God once met you there. We read this together when we thought we could not go on. And you did go on. Grace carried you.

This Book has every text you will ever need. And every word eventually gathers around Jesus Christ.

May God keep speaking. And by grace, may you keep listening.

On behalf of your church family and consistory,

Pastor J. Lewis

Isaiah 24-27 is sometimes called Isaiah’s “little Apocalypse.” These chapters widen the aperture from Judah’s more immediate troubles and pan out to see the wider judgment of God upon the great powers of the earth. In the midst of the shakings of this world, we read of the preservation of His people, which will end in final triumph. At the time of this writing, the Assyrian Empire dominated the Near East. Judah lived under a great shadow that seemed too strong to resist.

Chapter 24 is mostly a chapter of judgment. In chapter 25 musical notes begin to appear. Then in our chapter, we read:

> “In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks.”

This sets our text like a jewel in the diadem.

Sung by a people in the midst of trouble. An insignificant, minuscule nation. As worlds shake and cities fall, they shall sing.

What safety is there for the people of God in this troubled world?

Verse 3:  “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, 
whose mind is stayed on thee: 
because he trusteth in thee.”

What comes to mind when we read the words “perfect peace”?

We might think of perfect peace as some kind of oasis. A quiet, settled place. Where troubles are all over. When all is calm, and the skies are clear. Where every problem has been resolved, every question answered.

“There,” you might say, “there, I would have peace.”

Perfect peace.

But that is not the setting of the text, is it?

Neither is it the setting around our own little flock. Pitching our tents up against this Vanity Fair, we live in a nation of rancor and violence. We know that perfect peace is not always our present experience.

But take heart, dear one. Perfect peace is found amidst the shaking.

We mostly look for peace in all the wrong places. Or perhaps we expect to find perfect peace at the end of our troubles.

When my circumstances improve, then I will have it.

We say to ourselves:

I will have peace when this trial has passed.

I will have peace when my health improves.

I will find peace when my children are settled.

I will have peace once this relationship is fixed.

Most spend years anticipating peace, always looking at some future time.

But that is not the peace mentioned here.

That is not a kept peace at all.

That is a longing for peace.

Verse 3 is striking because what we translate “perfect peace”, the original is literally, shalom, shalom.

Double peace.

“Thou wilt keep him in shalom, shalom.”

This peace, dear one, begins with what God does.

He keeps.

The keeping power of God is how His own are kept.

This is important to understand because in the midst of trouble we often look inwardly at the strength or quality of our faith.

Why can’t I trust more?

Why does my mind wander so?

Why am I anxious again?

Why am I afraid?

Why can’t I control my own heart?

These are deeply soulish questions that emerge in the day of trouble.

We do need to take time for self-examination. Especially to discover that we have nothing in ourselves to trust or boast in.

At times you feel like you are holding on by your fingernails.

The truth is, the LORD is holding you, dear one.

We also read these words:

“whose mind is stayed on thee.”

What is the mind?

It is the disposition of the soul, the orientation of the soul. Your frame, purpose, inclination.

So the word “stayed” becomes a very important to this keeping.

It means the one whose inward frame is steadied upon God.

Like leaning against a stone wall.

Steadied.

The mind and heart are steadied in the midst of trouble by His Word and by the means of grace. He is kept by God in shalom, shalom because he leans upon Jehovah.

Now we almost have the full picture of this verse.

But it brings up one unspoken question.

When my soul is in trouble, where is my resting place?

We all rest on something.

Do you know when, where, and how we find out what we are resting on?

When we are troubled.

When we are undone, when our entire world around us collapses,, when life begins to shake, toward what does our soul reach?

Just here, we discover one of the more difficult ways the LORD loves His people.

He tries them.

Like Judah was tried.

Because in each one of us there are false peaces that we must be shaken from.

Judah had them. So do we.

Jeremiah warns that there is a cry of shalom, shalom when there is no shalom:

“Peace, peace; when there is no peace.”

There is a peace that comes from ignorance.

There is a peace that comes from distraction.

There is a deadness or leanness of soul which often feel like peace because sin has dulled the conscience.

But let the trial come.

And it will.

To a person, to a family, to a flock.

And suddenly the thing we leaned upon gives way.

What then?

Whatever it may be, Isaiah commands in verse 4:

“Trust ye in the LORD for ever: 
for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength.”

Everlasting strength.

Do you know what that is in the Hebrew?

I think you do, but perhaps you did not know you knew.

The Rock of Ages.

And our minds immediately go to Toplady:

“Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.”

Christ is the Rock of Ages.

Stable. Sure.

Before we were born, He was God.

Before this nation existed, He was God.

“Before the mountains were brought forth...
 even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.”

After everything of this earth has passed away, He will still be God.

David said:

“When my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”

Dear ones, that is where perfect peace is found.

Shalom, shalom is found in the Rock of Ages.

And the Rock of Ages was cleft for sinners.

The very One who cannot be shaken became the refuge of His people through His sufferings. The blood that flowed from His wounded side, answers the guilt that has made us seekers, but not finders to peace.

Do you hide yourself in Him?

Sin keeps us from peace with God.

And here we must distinguish carefully:

We must know peace with God before we can truly know the peace of God.

“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

What disturbs your peace tonight, dear one?

Christ said to His disciples:

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.”

And again:

“Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.”

The people who experience perfect peace experience it in the midst of trouble and uncertainty.

Under our own long shadows.

So, perfect peace can live alongside our tears.

It can live amidst unanswered questions.

Because underneath His people are His everlasting arms.

And underneath those everlasting arms is the Rock of Ages.

“Trust ye in the LORD for ever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength.”

Your friend and pastor,

J. Lewis

If we mean to caution a fellow believer that a modern activity is unbiblical, we owe him more than an appeal to custom, or to our own discomfort with it. The testimony of the church across the centuries, fathered in the appendix to this paper, is old, deep, and unbroken. A consensus of that kind among the godly sends up an important cautionary flag. It is a historical witness. Scripture alone can bind the conscience. This paper asks a narrower question than weather dancing is wrong, right, or of things indifferent. It asks at its root, what does the Word of God say about it. Then it asks, do we have a duty as Christians to take into account the weaker brother when exercising Christian liberty? These are two fair questions to ask as we begin to see the encroachment of the dance upon the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I write as one who holds that it ought not be looked upon favorably. But I also write wanting the reasoning to be logical enough survive scrutiny, and warm enough that someone who disagrees, will recognize a pastor speaking to them not at them.

I. What Scripture Actually Says

The Old Testament’s description of dance consistently speaks of leaping and whirling bound up with exuberant, religious joy. Solomon speaks of “a time to dance” (Eccl. 3:4), and the New Testament has a similar expressions, as when the lame man healed at the temple gate went “leaping” (hallomai) and praising God (Acts 3:8). Both words belong to the same activity of someone given over entirely to gladness before the Lord.

Scripture primarily connects this leaping joy with worship and thanks for the great providences God has displayed. Miriam led the women of Israel in dance after the crossing of the sea (Exodus 15:20,21). David danced before the ark with all his might (2 Samuel 6:14). The women of the cities came out dancing and singing to celebrate David’s victory (1 Samuel 18:6,7). Who can forget the father of the prodigal marking his son’s return with music and dancing (Luke 15:25)? In each of these scriptural snapshots, dancing is an act of worship or of household gladness toward the goodness of God. Without exception, it was practiced by one sex at a time.

Strangely, no biblical passage records mixed dancing. Wherever dancing appears as entertainment, the “entertained” are never known for their godliness. Job lists it among the marks of the household that says to God, “Depart from us” (Job 21:11-14). Herodias daughter danced before his court, which lead to John’s decapitation (Matthew 14:6). At Sinai, the people rose up to play, and Moses came down from the mountain to find them dancing around a golden calf. Later, Paul will excise the passage and tie it to fornication! (Exod 32:19; 1 Cor. 10:7,8). A frivolous household, a lustful court, and an idolatrous camp. Not exactly a sparkling trio.

II. The Pattern’s Seven Conclusions

Read all the passages together, and we see seven emerging distinctions:

1. Dancing was a religious act, practiced by the godly and ungodly alike.

2. Among the godly, it functioned as an expression of spiritual joy for Divine mercy given.

3. Men danced with men, and women with women.

4. We have no instance of mixed dancing.

5. Where dancing focuses on entertainment, it was regarded as revelry.

6. When dancing was purely for amusement, it carried no association with God’s glory.

7. Scripture nowhere examples dancing as a form of entertainment practiced between the sexes.

Honestly recognized…a pattern emerges.

III. The Argument from Silence Answered

The discerning reader will ask if an argument built on silence can bear any real weight. Scripture’s silence about something is not a prohibition all by itself. If it were, we could forbid a great many customs never mentioned in it. So the case for mixed dancing being wrong should not rest on absence. It rests, or rather it should rest, on three lines of converging good and necessary consequences. Only one of which is an argument from silence.

First, the pattern itself contradicts neutrality. Every time we see dance as worship it is single-sexed. Other than that, it is recounted as belonging to worldly, idolatrous, or sinful company. That is a repeated moral pattern that needs to be looked at. When a pattern is repeated in the Bible, it makes sense to ask why.

Second, and more directly, the Bible does not leave the people unaddressed. The word rendered “rioting” in Romans 13:13 and “revellings” in Galatians 5:21 and 1 Peter 4:3 komos, the party-circles of the Hellenistic world.2 Paul does not condemn dancing by itself. He condemns the komos, where dancing was the recognized centerpiece. He does so in three separate epistles, listing it alongside drunkenness, chambering, and wantonness. This was the expression of the old life a believer had put off. Now, the gap between pattern and command is lessened. The impulse is called out and forbidden. Dancing was simply the vehicle.

Third, Exodus records a case that is paradigmatic. When Israel made the golden calf, “the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play” (Exodus 32:6), and what that “play” included was “the calf, and the dancing” (Exodus 32:19). Paul turns this historical event, and holds it up to the church at Corinth as a warning: “Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them... Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition” (1 Corinthians 10:7, 11). Scripture’s first extended narrative account of dancing outside the worship of the triune God is an ensample. that is, a warning.

Put all three of these strands together, and something closer to a precept appears. I do not think this proves that every conceivable form of mixed movement to music is, in itself and in every culture, wrong. I do think it proves that the specific practice (mixed social dancing as entertainment), is what Paul forbids. If this holds, the burden of proof shifts to those that disassociate the dancing from the scriptural data.

IV. Worldly Conformity

“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2). The word translated “conformed”, syschematizo, has to do with rooting out the outward pattern, the schema, of the age. Next, is the exhortation to be “transformed” (metamorphoo), by a renewing of the whole inner disposition. The understanding, conscience, and will that moves the affections. Calvin’s comment on the verse:

The term world has several significations, but here it means the sentiments and the morals of men; to which, not without cause, he forbids us to conform. For since the whole world lies in wickedness, it behooveth us to put off whatever we have of the old man, if we would really put on Christ: and to remove all doubt, he explains what he means, by stating what is of a contrary nature; for he bids us to be transformed into a newness of mind.

— John Calvin, Commentary on Romans

Nowhere do we read the Scriptures condemning styles, traditions, or the ordinary aspects of civil life just because the world uses them. It is more narrow, condemning a mind and affections shaped by the culture. Given what the practice was made to do, enliven a party, stir up romantic affections between the sexes, following this performative element to its root, do we not uncover its purpose?

V. The Company We Keep

“For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries” (1 Peter 4:3). The word “lasciviousness”, aselgeia, conveys a lack of restraint, a wanton and unbridled desire of the flesh. Thayer defines it as unbridled lust manifesting in wanton acts and manners, including indecent bodily movement and the unchaste handling of one sex by the other.3 So, Peter is not inventing a new category of vice. He is identifying the clusters in Romans 13 and Galatians 5, revelling (komos) alongside excess of wine and abominable idolatries. This is the whole structure of pagan festivity the church had promised to renounced. If the dance floor fits this description, then a believer need not search for the word “dance” in the text, anymore than he needs to find the words insider trading, drunk driving, or identity theft.

III. The Argument from Silence Answered

The discerning reader will ask if an argument built on silence can bear any real weight. Scripture’s silence about something is not a prohibition all by itself. If it were, we could forbid a great many customs never mentioned in it. So the case for mixed dancing being wrong should not rest on absence. It rests, or rather it should rest, on three lines of converging good and necessary consequences. Only one of which is an argument from silence.

First, the pattern itself contradicts neutrality. Every time we see dance as worship it is single-sexed. Other than that, it is recounted as belonging to worldly, idolatrous, or sinful company. That is a repeated moral pattern that needs to be looked at. When a pattern is repeated in the Bible, it makes sense to ask why.

Second, and more directly, the Bible does not leave the people unaddressed. The word rendered “rioting” in Romans 13:13 and “revellings” in Galatians 5:21 and 1 Peter 4:3 komos, the party-circles of the Hellenistic world.2 Paul does not condemn dancing by itself. He condemns the komos, where dancing was the recognized centerpiece. He does so in three separate epistles, listing it alongside drunkenness, chambering, and wantonness. This was the expression of the old life a believer had put off. Now, the gap between pattern and command is lessened. The impulse is called out and forbidden. Dancing was simply the vehicle.

Third, Exodus records a case that is paradigmatic. When Israel made the golden calf, “the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play” (Exodus 32:6), and what that “play” included was “the calf, and the dancing” (Exodus 32:19). Paul turns this historical event, and holds it up to the church at Corinth as a warning: “Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them... Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition” (1 Corinthians 10:7, 11). Scripture’s first extended narrative account of dancing outside the worship of the triune God is an ensample. that is, a warning.

Put all three of these strands together, and something closer to a precept appears. I do not think this proves that every conceivable form of mixed movement to music is, in itself and in every culture, wrong. I do think it proves that the specific practice (mixed social dancing as entertainment), is what Paul forbids. If this holds, the burden of proof shifts to those that disassociate the dancing from the scriptural data.

IV. Worldly Conformity

“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2). The word translated “conformed”, syschematizo, has to do with rooting out the outward pattern, the schema, of the age. Next, is the exhortation to be “transformed” (metamorphoo), by a renewing of the whole inner disposition. The understanding, conscience, and will that moves the affections. Calvin’s comment on the verse:

The term world has several significations, but here it means the sentiments and the morals of men; to which, not without cause, he forbids us to conform. For since the whole world lies in wickedness, it behooveth us to put off whatever we have of the old man, if we would really put on Christ: and to remove all doubt, he explains what he means, by stating what is of a contrary nature; for he bids us to be transformed into a newness of mind.

— John Calvin, Commentary on Romans

Nowhere do we read the Scriptures condemning styles, traditions, or the ordinary aspects of civil life just because the world uses them. It is more narrow, condemning a mind and affections shaped by the culture. Given what the practice was made to do, enliven a party, stir up romantic affections between the sexes, following this performative element to its root, do we not uncover its purpose?

V. The Company We Keep

“For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries” (1 Peter 4:3). The word “lasciviousness”, aselgeia, conveys a lack of restraint, a wanton and unbridled desire of the flesh. Thayer defines it as unbridled lust manifesting in wanton acts and manners, including indecent bodily movement and the unchaste handling of one sex by the other.3 So, Peter is not inventing a new category of vice. He is identifying the clusters in Romans 13 and Galatians 5, revelling (komos) alongside excess of wine and abominable idolatries. This is the whole structure of pagan festivity the church had promised to renounced. If the dance floor fits this description, then a believer need not search for the word “dance” in the text, anymore than he needs to find the words insider trading, drunk driving, or identity theft.

VI. What Does the World Say?

We should be satisfied to rest the case on Scripture alone. Yet it is worth noting that the world has never been shy about the underlying motive. Fred Astaire, speaking of his celebrated and comparatively tame dancing with Ginger Rogers, said openly that they “accomplished sex through dance”. The Encyclopedia Britannica’s section on the art of dance describes the end product of social dancing, across all time, as “physical pleasure in the activity of dancing and sexual awareness of a partner, whether embraced or half-consciously observed.”4 Collier’s Encyclopedia describes the social dance as, historically, the joint product of “physical exuberance and sex stimuli.”5 None of these sources write as a Puritan.

This is only corroboration, of course. A Christian does not need Fred Astaire’s point of view on social dancing. But when the world’s own definition matches the Bible’s (almost thought for thought), it should at minimum, cause us to reject the temptation to relegate the church’s position to old and crusty history.

Much of what prompts this question is the wedding reception itself in our modern age. Increasingly, a bride and groom are asked to consider hiring a DJ and opening a dance floor at some point in the evening. I want to say clearly that nothing in this paper is meant to cast doubt on the goodness of feasting, music, or bodily joy at a wedding. Scripture rejoices in weddings. The Song of Solomon is rather bold on a husband and wife’s delight in each other, and a wedding feast is Christ’s own picture of eternity (Revelation 19:7-9). Joy, music, and even movement belong at a wedding. The question is is what form? Is dancing the vehicle that our joy should take?

To any who remain unpersuaded, I would press one more point. Paul was willing to never eat meat again (a thing lawful in itself), rather than risk bruising the conscience of a brother (1 Corinthians 8:13). “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth” (Romans 14:21). Even the one who thinks this exegesis is more approximate certain, they should answer the deeper question of what is lost by declining this amusement? What can be done for the sake of the weaker brother? “Abstain from all appearance of evil” (1 Thessalonians 5:22) is a cautionary step, when you don’t need certainty to see the potential danger.

None of this is said to shame those who, out of ignorance, have allowed mixed dancing. Neither do we place this question on the same footing as the articles of the faith. It is to point out the biblical data, along with the near-unanimous witness of the church across the two thousand years of her history.

Conclusion

What do we make of all this? None of this proceeds from a distaste for joy or for the body God made. It comes from taking seriously that the same Lord who commanded Miriam’s timbrel, also commanded His people to no longer live, “in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness” (Romans 13:13), and that these are not two different gods speaking, but One God over all, blessed forever.

Friend, “The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light” (Romans 13:12). “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Ephesians 5:11). Our Christian heritage wrote as they did on the subject of dancing with these texts open before them. But also with a deep love for the souls entrusted to them. May the Lord grant us the same humility to receive correction if we need it, and the same courage to give it when asked.

Notes

1. The relevant occurrences: Exodus 15:20–21; 32:19; Judges 11:34; 21:21, 23; 1 Samuel 18:6–7; 30:16; 2 Samuel 6:14, 16, 20–23; 1 Chronicles 15:29; Job 21:11; Psalm 30:11; 149:3; 150:4; Ecclesiastes 3:4; Isaiah 13:21; Jeremiah 31:4, 13; Lamentations 5:15; Matthew 11:17; 14:6; Mark 6:22; Luke 7:32; 15:25.

2. On komos as the technical term has an association with professional dancing, see the standard lexical treatment in Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament.

3. Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament.

4. Encyclopaedia Britannica, “The Art of Dance,” 1979 ed., vol. 5, 455–456.

5. Collier’s Encyclopedia, “Dance,” 1964 ed., vol. 7, 683.

Appendix: A Sampling of Historical Testimony

What follows is offered as corroborating witness only.

From “A Sermon on the Sinfulness of Dancing,” The National Preacher and Village Pulpit, 1867

Let not our youth and maidens deceive themselves. The social dance cannot make proper those motions of the body and that familiarity with the person which are universally condemned... In this view of the matter the Westminster divines placed dancing in the list of things forbidden by the seventh commandment. They understood its tendency and were not under the influence of foolish prudery.

A life of humble piety is a standing rebuke to sin; but is sin rebuked when piety is thus concealed? Let a church become addicted to this pastime. Let the pastor, elders, deacons, and all the members indulge in it, would she not be shorn of her strength and wholly paralyzed?

Thomas Watson

Take heed of mixed dancing. Dances are instruments of wantonness. From dancing, people come to dalliance with another, and from dalliance to uncleanness. ‘There is,’ says Calvin, ‘for the most part, some unchaste behavior in dancing.’ Dances draw the heart to folly by wanton gestures, by unchaste touches, and by lustful looks.

J. C. Ryle

Concerning dancing, or going to balls, I only ask Christians to judge the amusement by its tendencies and accomplishments... If dancing were taken up for mere exercise, if dancing took place at early hours, and men only danced with men, and women with women, it would be needless and absurd to object to it. But everybody knows that this is not what is meant by modern dancing.

Who would like to be found in a modern dance-hall when the Lord Jesus Christ comes the second time?

Wilhelmus à Brakel

Dancing has always been despised by the saints and held in contempt by civilized heathen. It neither proceeds from God nor is commanded anywhere; rather, it proceeds from the world and belongs to the lusts of the flesh and the lusts of the eyes (1 John 2:16), as well as to the unfruitful works of darkness (Ephesians 5:11).

Westminster Larger Catechism, Q. 139

The sins forbidden in the seventh commandment... idleness, gluttony, drunkenness, unchaste company; lascivious songs, books, pictures, dancings, stage plays; and all other provocations to, or acts of, uncleanness, either in ourselves or others.

Thomas Boston

Promiscuous dancing, or dancing of men and women together. This entertainment, however reckoned innocent among many, is evidently an incentive to lust, Isaiah 23:15–17... It is offensive to the grave and pious, is condemned by our church, yea, and has been condemned by some sober heathens.

Chrysostom (4th century)

Where dancing is, there is the devil. For God did not give us our feet for this end, that we might demean ourselves indecently; but that we might walk decently... Dancing is the devil’s invention.

The Councils

The fifty-third canon of the Synod of Laodicea enacts: ‘Christians when coming to weddings must not caper or dance; but dine or sup decently as becomes Christian people.’ The eighth ecumenical council (in Trullo, A.D. 692) enacts: ‘We also forbid and expel all public dances of women, as producing much injury and ruin.’

The Scottish Assemblies

The Westminster Assembly’s Larger Catechism, Question 139, declares lascivious dancing and stage-plays breaches of the seventh commandment. The Scottish Assembly of 1649, ‘finding the scandal and abuse that arises through promiscuous dancing, do therefore inhibit and discharge the same.’ The Assembly of 1701 revived the same discipline.

Matthew Henry, on Judges 21

The dancing was very modest and chaste. It was not mixed dancing; no men danced with these daughters of Shiloh, nor did any married women so far forget their gravity as to join with them.

R. L. Dabney

The Scripture has virtually included the modern dance in an express prohibition in three places, Romans 13:13, Galatians 5:21, 1 Peter 4:3, where it sternly inhibits the komos of the heathen... The dancing of females with males for social amusement would have been regarded as an act so inconsistent with decency that an instance can scarcely be heard of in reputable society.

Commanded Lovingkindness

“Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.” (Psalm 42:8)

My dear congregation,

The week of panting ends in daylight. Psalm forty-two has been night work almost the whole way: tears for meat day and night, the deeps calling to one another, the cast-down soul taken in hand on Saturday evening. Then comes verse eight, the one verse in the psalm where the storm calms, and it belongs to this morning.

Weigh that word command before you come to the table. Lovingkindness is under strict orders. We speak as if mercy drifts, only settling where the weather is good. The psalmist knows better. Mercy in this verse is a servant, commissioned and sent out under authority. It has many names on its list. The centurion understood the grammar: I say to this man, Go, and he goeth (Matthew 8:9). When the LORD commands His lovingkindness, it will arrive.

And He has commanded at a table before. When Israel sneered, Can God furnish a table in the wilderness, the answer came in this same verb: he had commanded the clouds from above, and had rained down manna upon them to eat (Psalm 78:23–24). The bread and the cup before you stand here in that kind of ordering. Lovingkindness was commanded to this house, to this hour, to your seat. The hart that has panted all week finds the brook this morning.

Then the verse looks past sunset: and in the night his song shall be with me. The communicant goes home with a tune assigned for the night watches. The mercy of the daytime becomes the song of the night. Praise Him, dear one. All of it flows to the closing name, the sweetest in the psalm: my prayer unto the God of my life. After the tears, the taunts, and the billows, the possessive comes home once more. Come, and eat, and take the song with you into the night.

Your friend and pastor,

J. Lewis

Preaching to Your Own Soul

“Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.” (Psalm 42:5)

Twice in this psalm, and a third time in the psalm that follows it, the writer stops everything and turns in on himself. He has been listening to his soul all day, its sighing, its arguments, its taunts, from both the flesh and the enemy. Now he stands up and enters the pulpit of his heart: Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Experimental preaching to a congregation of one.

It is Saturday evening, and there may be no better work in all the week than this: stop listening to your soul for a while, and preach to it.

Follow the psalmist’s outline. He begins with a question, so the soul might answer it. “Why?” On what grounds, exactly. Interrogated souls have a way of melting under question. Dejection in the dark is arrogant, with a swelling rage that fills the heart. Is that you tonight? Then sit your Saturday-night heavinesses in the pew, and make them give you reasons. Say to them, out loud, why? Most of that congregation will dissolve under Christ-centered examination. And the ones that remain, the real ones, the sin, the loss, the longing, the trial, every one of them has an answer lodged in the wounds of Christ. Do you not know, dear one? His sufficiency will be spread out before you in the morning.

Then comes the application: hope thou in God! He commands his soul as a master commands a ship. The child of God is at complete liberty to give his soul gospel orders, and see them carried out. And then comes the doxology of faith: I shall yet praise him. That word yet is the bravest little word in all the Psalter. The sky shows nothing this evening. Well, faith writes praise into the forecast, because faith reads the promise, in spite of the circumstances. Take the word yet to bed with you. Whatever this season has been, however the week of preparation has gone, bitter or sweet, shallow or full: I shall yet praise him.

And now a little gem kept for the last evening of the week. Set the two refrains side by side. Verse five hopes in God “for the help of his countenance.” Verse eleven, the same refrain ends, saying “who is the health of my countenance, and my God.” Help crossed the distance and became health. The light traveled from God’s countenance to the psalmist’s face. He began by looking to God for help, and by the end, help had reached him and changed his countenance, and the possessive came home to his heart: and my God. That is what beholding Christ does. “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Tomorrow that countenance will be lifted upon you at His table, according to the old blessing: “the LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace” (Numbers 6:26). Dear one, sit where the light can reach you. Communicants have been known by their faces on sacrament eve. Moses came down from the mount not knowing that his face shone. So end the week as the psalm ends. Preach hope to your cast-down soul, command it to look up. Go to sleep with the last two words of the refrain on your lips, because by tomorrow night, God willing, you will say from experience: my God.

The streams are very near now.

Your friend and pastor,
J. Lewis

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Deep Calleth unto Deep

“Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.” (Psalm 42:7)

Verse six tells us where the author is. In the land of Jordan and of the Hermonites, the headwaters country in the far north, where the snowmelt comes off Hermon in falls, into gorges of rushing water. The psalmist stands in that water’s quarrel, and it reminds him of his present life. Flood answering flood. One trouble arguing with the next for supremacy. Some of you know those acoustics. Sorrows rarely come alone. Are there not days when the depths seem to be talking over you, arranging over your next grief?

Now find the comfort in the pronoun. All thy waves and thy billows. These waves have a source, a Name. Heaven has sent them. The psalmist looks above the flood and says these waves, I know. Nameless waves are a terror, but His waves are appointed, counted, weighed, and timed. In a sense they are servants on errands, servants that cease when the errand is done. Read the verb with thanks too: gone over me. Over, and gone, our troubles roll. The waves pass, dear one, the waters calm, even when you cannot believe it. Every believer’s billow has a nether side. He has already brought you out of many. He will not abandon you now.

Think also of who wrote this. The title of the psalm is part of its comfort: for the sons of Korah. Their father went down alive into the deep. The earth opened her mouth and swallowed him up in his rebellion, and then closed over him (Numbers 16:32-33). Scripture adds one precious side note of sovereign mercy: “Notwithstanding the children of Korah died not” (Numbers 26:11). Their line did not end at the pit. Generations on, the sons of that swallowed rebel were standing at the very altar he had tried to seize by force. And God had made them singers there. The children of the man the earth devoured became a choir of praise, kept at the door of the house from age to age. Only grace writes family histories like that. So when the sons of Korah sing about the deep, they sing as men whose whole generation was pulled back from its edge, and set to praising where their father fell.

Centuries later a runaway prophet prayed this psalm from the strangest closet in history: “all thy billows and thy waves passed over me” (Jonah 2:3). Jonah had Psalm forty-two by heart in the belly of the fish. And it held him. Dear one, encompassed in the dark, a greater than Jonas is here. Jesus took the verse all the way down. At the cross numberless waves went over Him. “I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me” (Psalm 69:2). There the deep of our guilt called unto the depths of His mercy, and mercy answered in the loudest Voice, and the floods that should drown us all, passed forever over our Redeemer instead.

So here is Friday’s preparation, with the table now in view. Bring your deeps with you. The shallow soul brings shallow needs and carries away shallow comforts, but the deep bring their deeps. This table was furnished for the drowned pulled to shore, and Everlasting Arms have been under your waves. Deep will call unto deep across that linen on the Lord’s Day. The deep of your need to the deep of His fulness.

His deep is deeper still.

Your friend and pastor,
J. Lewis

I Went with the Multitude

“When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday.” (Psalm 42:4)

The psalmist remembers. Far north in the land of Jordan, within earshot of Hermon’s floods, shut away from the sanctuary, he closes his eyes and walks the old road. He recalls the singing procession going up, the congregation thickening as he goes up the hill, the psalms growing louder as the LORD’s house comes into view. I had gone with the multitude. I went with them to the house of God. And that memory grips him. When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me.

There is a use of memory in preparation, and Thursday is a good day for it. Go back tonight to your own first Lord’s table you ever sat at, and how you got there. How, perhaps, your hands trembled. How your eyes were watered. That first communion season when the Word found you out. When your cold heart caught fire without warning. God Himself keeps such anniversaries over His people: “I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness” (Jeremiah 2:2). If He has not forgotten the day of your espousals, it ill becomes us to lose the memory.

Because to the soul that has wandered since, memory is more than the good old days. It’s a kind of road home, with the father waiting, and his feast of love prepared. The counsel of the risen Christ to the fallen in heart was: “remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works” (Revelation 2:5). The prodigal came to himself in the far country, how? By remembering the abundance of bread in his father’s house. And that memory carried him all the way home. If this communion season has awoken an old memory that shames the present, follow the memory home. The table this Lord’s Day receives returning rememberers.

Notice too, with whom he went: with the multitude. We have to admit that part of the sweetness in memory is the company that we enjoyed it with. He never once went to the house of God alone. And neither have you. Your pew has shoulders next to yours. The psalm rises best in a chorus, than ever by yourself. Because God has bound up the joy of His worship within the communion of saints. And just now, some of you are remembering the many of our number, now gone. There is a voice missing in our chorus, a hand held long, along this road. When you sit at the table Sabbath morning, remember that the communion of saints has an upper and lower part. Our table is in the lower end of the banqueting hall whose far end is out of sight, with a veil in between. They kept holyday with you once. They will keep the Eternal Day with you, world without end. Not long now, and all the elect will be behind that holy veil.

A holyday is coming. Three days from now you will, Lord willing, rise, dressed for a wedding, and go with a multitude (small as we are), to the house of God. And there, the thing your exiled, thirsty soul longs for, will freely be given to you. Do everything this week except take it for granted.

Your friend and pastor,

J. Lewis

Tears for Meat

“My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?” (Psalm 42:3)

Here is a strange diet. Meat in the old tongue meant food, and the psalmist says he has been living on tears like others live on bread. Day and night. Tears at appointed mealtimes, and tears in between. Some of you know the menu well. There are times when sorrow is served three-square, and you sit down to it because it’s all you have.

And over the exotic meal comes the old taunt: where is thy God? Does it come from within or without? The enemy has always asked afflicted believer this, with a particular satisfaction in it that it troubles them. If your God is so real, why this, why now, why you? Jesus’ enemies asked it in its most potent form at Golgotha: “He trusted in God; let him deliver him now” (Matthew 27:43). But it comes from within too. Which is worse. Unbelief will speak to your conscience at two in the morning, in your voice. And the question is never better asked, and knows no better time to ask, then over a weeping saint. Where is He, then? You prayed. You waited. Where is thy God?

But look closely, the answer is hiding in plain sight. Notice these tears have a direction. The psalmist weeps toward a face; the whole psalm is spoken to the very God he is taunted about. Grief without God falls in many directions. This man’s grief fell somewhere precious, and he knew it: “put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?” (Psalm 56:8). God keeps the tears of His people the way vintners keep wine. Personally known; remembered, bottled, labeled year by year. And not one drop has reached the ground. The mocker asks where is your God. The direction of your weeping answers, near enough to catch them all.

Yet look at what the tears did for him. They were his very food. They kept him alive until better fare came. Dear one, there is a kind of sorrow that starves the soul, the sorrow of the world that worketh death (2 Cor. 7:10). All bitter and no sustenance. And there is a sorrow that nourishes: grief over sin, longing after an absent God, the missing of love toward Christ at a time you can’t quite describe. Many a soul has lived on that diet. But only for a time. Until the good manna falls. If your preparation week seems to be more lament than loveliness, take heart; you are dining on psalmist food. And it carried him to the sanctuary.

Then remember who else ate at this table. He offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears (Hebrews 5:7). He wept at a grave in Bethany and over a city that would kill Him. Your Host this coming Lord’s Day knows the taste of tears for food, and He has pledged Himself to the mourners: “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4). Tears for food for now. Bread and wine on Sunday.

Your friend and pastor,

J. Lewis