The title for this piece is one of my favourite hymn lines, a lovely description of the Christian life and one of the easiest truths to forget. The verse springs to mind because Wednesday evening is my church's prayer meeting and as has often been the case of late God was with us and I realised afresh the bountiful joy of the Christian life. For context here's the verse the hymn line is in: "Fading are the worldlings’ pleasures,
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It is easy today to take a negative view over the future of the church in Britain; it isn't exactly doing well at the moment. Inside the church then errors abound, reformed truths have been cast aside and the church seems to be trying to conform more to the world than to the likeness of Christ. We're exactly like the woman in Songs of Solomon: "I slept but my heart was awake. Listen! My beloved is knocking." We hear the knock of Christ, we hear the thud of our conscience but as we stir we say: "I have taken off my robe - must I put it on again? I have washed my feet - must I soil them again?" We care, but not enough to fully wake up, we want to change but we're too lazy to put good intentions into practice, we know we're not what we should be, we're also unwilling to be more than we are.
Looking outside of the church will hardly encourage us to hope either. Our government has taken the first steps to legalizing gay marriage, not that it is surprising, we lost the battle for marriage decades ago; the tide of secularism is rising and persecution of Christians is a reality closer than we want to think. Society is falling into a type of madness only found when departing from biblical truth, good is called evil and evil good. Yet despite the darkness of the day then we still have any reason to hope. Sure, looking upon things with the eye of sight gives us every reason to despair but the eye of sight is an uncertain, narrow, short sighted thing that has no foundation. If we look upon things with the eye of faith then we find a new picture, a sure and certain picture, and that of a God in complete control of everything. “The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will rejoice over you with gladness; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”
Zephaniah 4 v 17 Every so often I come across a bible verse that is so wonderful I can’t help but smile and the above verse is one of them. It comes at the end of Zephaniah, in the previous chapters there has been pronouncements of judgement on Israel for their rebellion and sin but in the last chapter a new theme is taken up and this theme is the love of God for his people. It had been on my mind for quite some time that was something about the Christian faith I just wasn’t getting. That is to say I understood well my complete brokenness before God, I grasped more fully than I had before the extent, depth and width of my sinfulness. I got that I was a sinner. That point was clear. I got as well that my heart was wayward, idolatrous and proud. To a large degree I could cry “What wretched man I am” and mean it. My heart was cold towards God and I was unmoved by what I knew should move me. And so I prayed about it. I asked God that he would teach me what I need to learn.
It never occurred to me that the very thing I needed to learn was nothing less than the very gospel that saved me. But I’ll get to that in a minute. First let me quote from Jerry Bridges’ book “The Disciplines of Grace”. The fact that the world is somehow ‘broken’ is a recognised fact. A flick through a newspaper will show that the world could be so much better than it is. Injustice, war, crime, theft, fraud, oppression, slavery, genocide and dictatorships are ever present companions in this world. The question that all political, economic, philosophical and religious thinking has to answer is how do we fix it?
Education! Say many. But the universal education of the population has achieved little of what was thought. Education was going to abolish poverty, make crimes a thing of the past and push society to greater heights. True, education is vastly preferable to ignorance but it can’t fix what is broken. Democracy! Say others. If only! The world has more democratic governments than ever before but utopia is still out of reach. Democracy is a god that has failed us. Atheism! Imply some. If only there were no religions then ‘right thinking’ men and women could live about their lives in peace and harmony. Bah, I say, are atheists really better people? Are they more moral? More tolerant? Less prone to lying, cheating, stealing, abusing authority? I think not. Good manners! Chivalry is dead, honour a forgotten concept, sportsmanship long gone, a sense of responsibility is dead. If only we had these like we had them in the past. And while these things would do some good they aren’t the be all and end all. Justice! If only criminals were hung and the law was enforced with an iron fist. Again, although preferable to our current system crime would still pay. People would still choose to break the law. All these things make up civilisation, all of them (except atheism) are good things, excellent things, concepts which are rightly valued and fought for. But they tackle only the symptoms of mankind’s real problem. As I mentioned in my previous post Mr Dawkins is under his own God delusion, a delusion shared by many others and in my worse moments by me. The root of this common delusion lies at both our lack of understanding of the full godness of God and the pride of our hearts which hampers us even further.
We do not like to think of how above us God is because to do so is to remind ourselves of how far we have fallen. There is only one way to correct this deliberate misunderstanding of who God is and that is to turn to the Bible and see what it has to say about the full glory of God or the ‘weightiness’ of God (the technical term for this is the transcendence of God.) It is easy in this day of small things to feel a little low, to feel as if God isn’t quite as there as you think he could be, to feel that the Christian life is just one slow slog towards nothing, to feel like it’s just not worth putting any effort in at all.
Stop right there. Read this. He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. 2 I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust." 3 Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare and from the deadly pestilence. 4 He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. 5 You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, 6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. 7 A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. 8 You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked. 9 If you make the Most High your dwelling— even the LORD, who is my refuge- 10 then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. 11 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; 12 they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. 13 You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent. 14 "Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. 15 He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. 16 With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation." That was Psalm 91, my favourite Psalm and a real encouragement when times are hard. I was going to pick up on a few verses and explain them in greater details but frankly I fail to see anything I can add. So read it again. And perhaps another time. Take the words to heart and mediate on them. Praise the Lord for his love, strength and salvation. God is good. Fact. If you’re observant you will also have noticed a new section called “Story Time!” in the navigation bar at the top. Feel free to check out the short story there. Oh, and because I know you probably didn’t read the Psalm again here it is one more time: Psalm 91 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. 2 I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust." 3 Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare and from the deadly pestilence. 4 He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. 5 You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, 6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. 7 A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. 8 You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked. 9 If you make the Most High your dwelling— even the LORD, who is my refuge- 10 then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. 11 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; 12 they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. 13 You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent. 14 "Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. 15 He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. 16 With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation." |
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