Shine

Meditation May 15, 2020

Matt. 5:14-16

You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

I need to introduce my thoughts on salt and light by saying that on these verses are my thoughts are musings. That is to say, I have some apprehension of where I think they are leading but I haven't yet managed to bring that into clear focus. Of this much I am convinced: While I am yet unclear on the ultimate meaning, I am convinced that contrary to commonly accepted renderings Jesus' purpose here is not to teach us that believers are to be moral guides for the world showing the world how it should live if it would please God. The point Jesus seems to be making is that as useless as salt that is not salty so also light that doesn't light. Salting and lighting is not being set forth as something we ought to be but as something we either are or are not. In reality, salt that isn't salty and light that doesn't shine are useless absurdities. So also the notion of a believer who does not have the characteristics, all of them, listed in the beatitudes. That is, after all, still the subject. A worldly person and a  merely religious person is simply a clump of dirt and an unlit lamp. I am persuaded that is the point although I don't yet quite know what to make of that.


It should go without saying that we are not “(t)he true light that gives light to light up everyone was coming into the world. (John 1:9) There is but one who can be identified as the true light. However, being in Christ, we are lit up (enlightened) by Him through His indwelling in the Person of the Holy Spirit and thus, we are the light of the world. God has chosen that, through those born from above who put their trust in Christ, He would make known to the world what it is that He has done for man, making of us His workmanship to perform the good works He appointed to believers (Eph. 2:10) one of which is to be the light of the world. If we may be allowed an analogy, we could say as light bulbs do not of themselves produce light but only serve as the means by which energy is converted to light, we are the light bulbs through which the True Light shines.  


Notice Jesus does not say we are “a” light but “the” light. Thus, while God the Holy Spirit may work when and where He will, ordinarily there is no light to the world except that we as believers shine as the light of Christ on a fallen world. One has said, “to put it plainly, if we aren’t shining, Christ isn’t flowing.” If that be the case, if we are not shining, Christ is not in us. There is no feigning to be ‘lit up’ by Christ. We are in Christ or we are not. If we are not in Christ, then in no sense are we light but rather darkness. On the other hand, if we are in Christ, we are shining and can no more choose not to shine that the moon can choose not to reflect the light of the sun.


When God made man, he breathed into him the breath of life and he became a living soul. In a similar manner, when God remakes man, when we become new creations in Christ, he enlightens us and we become shiners. One follows in course as does the other. Jesus does not say, I want you to be the light of the world or You should be the light of the world, or I would like for you to be the light of the world, but you “are” the light of the world.. 

Now, if you are a light, you are going to shine. To think otherwise is an absurdity. Think of the absurdity of trying to hide a city built on the top of a hill. What fool, He might have said, lights a lamp then puts a cover over it so that its light cannot be seen. To do such would be an absurdity. No one lights a lamp except that it may give light. The point of saying you are the light of the world is that you should be evangelists or less so that you should be moral guides but that by exhibiting the characteristics listed in the beatitudes, light, your are a living, walking, talking testimony to the grace of God in Christ, Because your life is so distinctly different from the world they cannot but see that which lights you up is far different from the darkness that, to put it in an absurdity, lights them up..

Therefore, Jesus does not say, you should or I would like for you or I command you “shine your light before men that they may see how they ought to live.” That is the way it is most commonly read or understood. But as it actually reads, Jesus is saying, being shiners (you are not ought to be light) “shine your light before me that they may see  your good works and glorify your Father in the heavens.” The point of our being lights in the world is not, it seems to me, that we may by life and word be preachers of morality and direct the world in the way that it should go but that we may shine forth the mercy of God in Christ Jesus. To be light as was to be salt, is to be the character described in the beatitudes, As surely as one is alive into whom God has breathed the breath of life, so surely does one shine into whom Christ has shined. To think otherwise is to suppose you could build a city on a hill and no one would notice.

Sand in the Salt Shaker

Meditation May 14, 2020

Matthew 5:13

“You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, with what will it be salted? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot”

You are the salt…  You whom? Those he has just described. All those who are the blessed he has described in the preceding verses. Jesus in the beatitudes has given the characteristics of believers as a class, in the verse preceding this he has narrowed his address from speaking of His followers as a class to apply them personally and not abstractly to a class of people saying “when you, you who are before me, you who profess to be my followers, are persecuted etc.” Now, in v13 he continues with that personal application and expands on our role in the world as believers by which we bring on ourselves persecution. He is speaking to us personally, as an individual, as one he has called by name. I suspect I am not the only one who sits under the preaching of the word and think from time to time, no doubt too often, “Boy, is know some people who need to be hearing this.” Jesus at the point is saying Right, you. You will be persecuted; you are the salt and if the salt is saltless it is you. Well, that is getting a little personal. Yes. That is the intent.

Metaphors are tricky to translate and we must be careful we are not comparing apples to oranges. The salt common in the Mideast and around the Dead Sea was salty to be sure but in varying degrees depending on where it was mined, the degree it was admixed with other minerals and the extent to which it was exposed to the elements. It was not the table salt with which we in the west, and nowadays likely the rest of the world as well, are familiar. The salt they had was harvested, gathered, mined where is was found naturally in areas where the salt waters had receded leaving salt deposits. It was an impure salt being mixed with other minerals in which it was found in various concentrations. Exposure to the elements caused the salt to leech from the other minerals. That process would reach a point at which the salt was no longer useful. It had neither enough flavor nor enough preservative power to make it useful; yet, it was still of enough concentration that it was damaging to plant life. It was no longer potent for flavor or as a preservative but still potent enough that it was damaging where plants might grow (let that thought sink in). Consequently, it was thrown into the streets where it could do no damage and was thus trodden under foot.

Mr. Maundrell, who visited the area of Israel writes “you may see how the veins of it lie (i.e., salt); I brake a piece off it, of which the part that was exposed to the rain, sun, and air, though it had the sparks and particles of salt, yet it had perfectly lost its savour. The innermost part, which had been connected to the rock, retained its savour, as I found by proof.” (One could make a sermon from that bit of information alone) He goes on to say, “There is no place about the house, yard, or garden where it can be tolerated. No man will allow it to be thrown on to his field, and the only place for it is the street, and there it is cast to be trodden underfoot of men." I grew up on the Gulf coast of Florida where the beaches sands are as fine as sugar and as white as snow, The Gulf  waters are as slalty as a box of Morton's but the sands of the beach are tasteless grit and little living but sandburs and sea oats will grow in them. Whether or not those sands were every salty, I have no idea. Perhaps; perhaps they never had more than the appearance of salt. Those beaches always come to mind when I read this verse. .

Whether that salt can really become tasteless and completely lose its essential property, does not seem to me to be the question. It seems to me this is the point Jesus was making is that believers who do not live as believers, believers who do not manifest in their lives the iterated graces with which they are blessed are like salt that had lost its usefulness. In short, they are useless both to the world and to the kingdom. The point, it seems to me, is not on that for which salt may be used but on the uselessness of salt in which the characteristics of salt had become too benign to serve its purpose. Jesus is  simply made reference to a common occurrence, one with which his audience would be familiar, to make a point regarding the uselessness of believers who failed to live as believers.

Salt is obviously distinct. Whether as a flavoring, a preservative or waste ill-advised introduced into the garden, its effect cannot be missed. When salt is absent (or impotent, tasteless) it is distinctly obvious there is no salt. Thus, also the Believer in the world. Read again the eight characteristics of a believer.

Christians, you and I do well to admit it, are all too prone to be profuse with accusations and negative comments about the ungodly condition of the world in which we live. But check this out; the world is only doing what comes natural to the world. It has only its own heart which is only always wicked to guide it. When we see the world rotting around us, we should start asking ourselves where is the church? Why is the church not doing a better job? Have we become so bland we no long have any influence? John Stott asks the appropriate question when he when he observes that “when society does go bad, we Christians tend to throw up our hands in pious horror and reproach the non-Christian world but should we not rather reproach ourselves. One can hardly blame unsalted meat for going bad. It cannot do anything else. The real question is where is the salt?” 

The promise of God still stands; i.e. the land will be healed “when my people….” Father, you have not called us to judge the world but to be examples to the world, to be its salt. When we see the world rotting about us, grant us the grace to humble ourselves before your word, examine ourselves and turn from our wicked ways that you may come and heal the land.

Bad Things Are Said About the Followers of Jesus

Meditation May 13.2020

Matthew 5:11-12

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Jesus turns now from giving the characteristics of believers as a class or group, to speaking directly to his disciples or those gathered with them. What he says now they, and we who are His disciples, are to take personally. You, not they, will be persecuted. It is as if he is anticipating the “name and claim it” believers and their notion that suffering want, ridicule, need persecution etc. is the result of a lack of faith. No, in fact, Jesus is saying, it is just the opposite. Faith in Me, following Me is going to bring you persecution, it is going to result in people insulting you and speaking evil against you.

When that happens, Jesus say, “blessed are you”. He is not saying you are blessed because you are insulted and lied about but that you are blessed because you are my follower and being my follower has brought you slander. There is no blessing in slander and persecution itself but there is boundless blessing in being a follower of Christ. Being lied to and lied about, slandered, misrepresented and persecuted is not a blessing but when you received such for being a follower of Christ, you have reason to rejoice for it is a clear indication your faith is genuine and your standing with God is to be envied.

Thus, He says “blessed are you when people…falsely say all kinds of evil against you.” Notice that Jesus does not say “if” people say false things but “when” they say false things. It will happen. He has told us plainly that the world hated Him and they will hate His followers. Make no mistake about that. And make no mistake that it is not true accusations that are an indication that we are blessed followers of Christ. There is no cause for rejoicing if accusations made against you are true. If the accusations are true it is time then for a broken and contrite heart; not rejoicing. Some say the word “falsely” is not found in the best manuscripts. I do not quite get how they know one manuscript is better than the next but it really matters little in this instance for it is clear, whether found in the original manuscript (which we do not have) or not it requires no genius to get that falsely is necessarily implied whether actually included or not. There is a saying, an aphorism among the Jews says ‘being cursed, do not curse’; ‘being reviled do not revile in return’. The idea is to bear patiently the curses of others against you. Jesus takes that up a notch from simple patient bearing and says to His followers, if you are falsely accused, slandered, persecuted “for my sake.” Peter, remembering no doubt this teaching of Jesus, teaches us the same when he says, “But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened. But in your hearts revere Christ as LORD. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.” (1 Peter 3:14ff)

The lesson is simple, the sufferings in this life for the sake of Christ are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in heaven. (Ro, 8:18)

Peace That Passes Understanding

Meditation April 2, 2020

Psalm 4

As in Psalms 1,2, and 3, Psalm 4 draws a contrast between the wicked and the righteous. We find this contrast, in one way or another, throughout the psalms.  In Psalm 1 the contrast was between the righteous man and the wicked man, between the who is guided by the law of God and the one who spurns the law of God. The righteous man is blessed and stands in the day of judgment but the wicked man cannot endure the judgment.

In Psalm 2 the comparison broadens to include, on the one hand, mankind and its rulers and, on the other hand, the Man of Righteousness, God’s own son to whom God gives the nations and a rod of iron with which to rule them. Considering the justice of the King and the rod given, the psalmist “the asks why do the heathen rage and devise plans that come at last to nothing but judgments”; then gives the sage advise that men should Kiss the Son lest he becomes angry.

In Psalm 3 this contrast has become more personal to David (The wicked seek David’s life. It doesn’t get any more personal than that.) and teaches us we as believers are to apply personally this contrast between the wicked and the righteous. God’s care is not for someone somewhere sometime but for you and I, for each of his own in their present need. God has not spoken to a generic someone but has said to His own, to you and to me if we have so put our hope in Christ “…you are mine. I have called you by name…I am always with you. I will never leave you or forsake you.” So, David say, remembering this “I lay down and slept….”

Coming to Psalm 4 we see David again resting under God’s protection. The occasion seems to be the same; i.e., the period in which David was fleeing Absalom. The first, Psalm 3 is clearly, it seems, a morning reflection and one that should remind us to begin our day with thanks to God for his protection during the night. Psalm 4 is an evening psalm, a bedtime prayer. In Psalm 3 David says “I lay down and slept.” In psalm 4 he says “I will both lie down in peace and sleep.” The reason is the same. He has cast his cares into God’s hand who, as David has learned from experience, will deliver his through his troubles. We must never forget God’s promise is that when we pass through the waters God will be with us so that they do not overwhelm us whatever may be the circumstance. Stephen, though the stones of his death were being gathered up, lifted up his eyes to heaven and exclaimed, “I see the heavens opened and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.” That has always been an amazing verse to me. He who sits at the right hand of the Father is on his feet lest even the floods of death should overwhelm and carry away one of his lambs.

Thus, David begins, Hear me (answer me favorably) when I call, God of my righteousness. We are reminded that the effective, fervent prayer of the righteous man avails much. Alas! What man is righteous? Every man who through Christ has been given the right to be called a child of God, Christ is the Just King who is both Just and the Justifier of the unjust, the God of my righteousness. Therefore, though the wicked cry for the mountains to fall on them and hide them when God draws near, we come boldly to the throne of grace and make our petitions known to God in full confidence he will grant to us his protection.

None sleep so soundly and sweetly as those who like a little child who lays with his head on his mother’s breast, lay themselves down to sleep with their head upon the Savior’s bosom. May God grant to us that as did David we may say with confidence “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

When Peacemakers Make Trouble for Themselves

Meditation May 12, 2020

Matthew 5:10

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

We come to the last of the beatitudes. The eight represent to us the characteristics of blessed people, the graces of a Christian. Having these graces, including being persecuted, are evidence that one is in an enviable relationship with God. We should not be surprised if the world looks at these graces and then looks on us as if we are bereft of our senses. They seem to be a collection of paradoxes. Blessed are meek, low in spirit mourners, hungering and thirsting, longing for that which they do not have while being persecuted? The world not only does not understand but cannot understand. “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.” (1 Cor. 2:14)

The world likes to assume that it is well disposed to God’s kingdom and will greet His children with open arms. Many in the world will even presume themselves to be citizens of the kingdom of God until they run abreast of the real deal. Until the world is confronted with the demands of God it likes to assume its arms are open, if not to the gospel itself, at least to those who embrace the gospel and certainly open for God to embrace them. But confronted with the real deal, the world bucks and kicks and speak evil of believers and say the God they serve is no such god. That is just the way it is and the way it will be. Thus, Jesus gives us this check, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness…” by which we may judge of ourselves whether or not we are being the genuine article or if there is that which we yet need to surrender to Him as Lord.

With this the beatitudes come with bookends as it were. They open with the meek who own the kingdom of heaven and they close with the meek, humble before the King and willing to suffer persecution for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. I once read somewhere that this beginning and ending of the beatitudes with the blessing of heaven is a literary device, it has a name I can’t recall, that means the material contained between the bookends , a unit, a totality and the various characteristics, although they may vary in degree in believers are nonetheless characteristics which belong to every believer. They describe different facets of the same gem. That being the case, we are obliged to seek to maximize each in ourselves as the grace of God empowers us.

We are told in this beatitude, that following Christ as we ought, we will be persecuted. The term was properly used of game, wild animal pursued by hunters. If we look at ourselves and this stings a bit because we have some difficulty pointing to a time when we, because we stood for the truth of God, found ourselves persecuted, we should take that to heart. It is not just a streak of luck we have never been persecuted; rather it is an indication we have been slack in taking a stand. First, we should be thankful for the sting for the dead feel no such sting. If we feel the sting, we are by the grace of God, alive to his chastening. Then we should take a hard look at why we feel more sting from this than from the venom of a persecuting world. It is a sad fact we must all face that in the current state of the church, when we take a stand as the real deal, when we begin to live Christlike lives, we will as often find persecution from the tongues of those who are supposedly God’s people as we do from the world. Nothing is more threatening to a coat-tail believer than a follower of Christ. Sincere loyalty to Christ causes chafing in the hearts of those who pay only lip service to the Savior. Stand for the truth and you will be persecuted, ostracized, labeled a zealot, called a radical and avoided. The former begets the latter. That is the way it is in the world.

Peter put the teaching of this beatitude this way: It is commendable before God if you endure suffering for good because this is what Christ who suffered for you has called you to. (1 Peter 2:19-21)

But let us well take heed that it is of those who suffer for righteousness sake that it is said the “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” It is not the reward of the contentious, the obnoxious, the troublemaker. To be righteous is to be like God, to embrace that which God embraces, to approve that which God approves. To be righteous is not only to confess with our tongues that all God’s commandments are righteousness (Psa. 119:172) but to have our lives in conformity with that which we confess. Righteousness is to love the Lord with all your heart mind and sour and you neighbor as yourself; it is conformity of your life to divine law. Righteousness is to suffer persecution without reviling those who persecute. It is to follow the example of Jesus who, when he was reviled, did not refile in retaliation nor threaten those who persecuted Him but left that to God who has said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” (1 Peter 2:23) (Ro. 12:19)

By living righteously, we set ourselves apart from the world. That is what it means to be sanctified; i.e. to be set apart. By righteous living we profess to the world that we are not of them; we do not belong to their worldview, we do not accept their religion, we profess there is but one name under heaven by which a man may be saved. That reproves the world; it condemns their lives, their practices and their religion and it stirs their anger against us and puts them in one way or another to persecuting us. It matters not that we speak truth or even that they know in the depths of their hearts that we speak truth. They will not hear truth from us. They are like Ahab who said of Macaiah, “there is still one prophet who can inquire of the LORD (and tell me what God says) but I hate him because he never prophesies anything good”; i.e. he always tells me the truth. Well, by word and life that is what the Christian does, that is righteousness and for that comes persecution. It puts us at odds with the world and the world at odds with us. It forces us to choose. It is told that a man came to Tertullian with this very problem. He was having business difficulties because of his stand for righteousness. “What can I do?” the man asked, I must live.” To that Tertullian replied, “Must you?” I have a friend in CA. I haven’t seen him for many years. I remember well when he was confronted with this same problem. He worked for an insurance company. They had promised him, because he told them at the outset of his opposition to abortion, that he would not be required to offer that. Later he learned the insurance package he offered contained abortion coverage. When Steve confronted them about this, he was given a choice between continuing to offer the insurance or finding another job. A real Christian never hesitates to choose loyalty to the LORD. So, though he had a wife and two children at home, Steve chose loyalty.

Those who live righteously and proclaim righteousness are salt in an open wound and we may rest assured it will cause smarting. If we find we never cause others to smart, we should take heed to Jesus warning, “Woe to you when all men speak well of you….”

Persecution is evidence by which we may judge we are living righteously and that we have found favor with God. It is not the means thereto but that by which we may judge that we belong to the Kingdom of Heaven. Sinclair Ferguson put it this way: “…conflict becomes the very assurance that our salvation is genuine. And so we can rejoice now as well as later in heaven.”

May God forgive us our moments of weakness and grant us the grace always to choose loyalty to Him.

Peacemakers

Meditation May 11, 2020

Matthew 5:9

“Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God.”

This is one of those lesson where our gut reaction is that the preacher has left off teaching and has begun to meddle. I think of some of my own utterances and cringe. I have been caught guilty. And many, if they will look honestly at their own utterances (Faceebook posts, will have to come to the same conclusion.  That is why we come to the Bible, is it not; i.e. to be corrected, to have I guide us, to be “a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”? (Psa. 119:105) Without that light we are stumbling in the dark, banging into things. A blind bull in a china shop is chaos; not peace.

God, the book of Hebrews, exhorts us to “Pursue peace with all and holiness without which no man will see God.” (Heb. 12:14) Many English translation read “follow” peace or follow after peace but the English follow in its common usage is to ambiguous and weak. Matthew Poole writes that the Greek word translated peace “imports such a fierce, unwearied, unsatisfied pursuit…and so sets out the real, earnest, biolent, unwearied, constant pursuit and labor after peace.” Diokete (translated pursue) is a present active imperative indicating a continual activity.

This is that of which Jesus speaks when he says “blessed are the peacmakers….” He does not say blessed are the peaceful, the pacific, but blessed are those who make peace, those who strive to be the founders of peace; those who labor to establish peace.

James, the brother of Jesus, reminds us that “righteousness is sown in peace by those who are peacemakers.” (James 3:18) It is worth noting we find that verse in the chapter that begins with the exhortation to tame our tongues. The sowing of righteousness is not abandoned for the sake of peace. Those who have been very long in any denomination of the church of God can point to a time in the history of that church that purity of doctrine was compromised allow the acceptance of a doctrine different from the established. That is fair in matters of indifference but regarding cardinal doctrines it goes to the contrary of establishing peace.  Peace is never bought at the expense of purity. But neither should we think purity at all costs is peace.

One has said, “If you are not a peacemaker, at least do not be a troublemaker.” When I was a boy, my mom would tell me, “if you can’t say something nice; don’t say anything at all.” Both these bits of advice miss the point of being a peacemaker which is not to be silent but to say that if you can’t say anything nice, think about it until you find a way to do so. The truth of God will divide, do not doubt that, but by the grace of God labor to see that it is the truth and not you that divides.

What is it we are to seek with such vehement diligence to establish? What is peace? The root meaning of peace in the Greek is to join together something that is divided or broken, to make it whole or a single peace again. We have the greatest example of this in God’s reconciling the world to himself in Christ. (2 Cor. 5:19) Peace was not established by winking at the sin and rebellion of man, by shrugging of his error as though it was of no real matter. Peace was established by God sacrificing Himself, if you will, in the Person of God the Son. We, of course, cannot make sacrifices of that sort but may well be called upon to sacrifice winning the argument in order to make a peace that saves a relationship and allows us to be heard again at another time.

Some years ago, I was working in California with some young men who had grown up together and who had over the years been in more than their fair share of mischief. Johnny came to the Lord and like all newly redeemed was excited to tell it (it is a shame that wears off) to his friends. Well, he was urging Christ on Kevin who was having none of it and began to get a wee more than just disagreeable. At that point Johnny ended the disagreement by saying, “I’m sorry for you that you can’t believe it. I will pray for you.” The wisdom of this kid, so he was to me, at only three days in the kingdom, impressed me enough that I can still recall the conversation and the scene. That is, I think, what Jesus had in mind when he talked of peacemakers. We do not compromise the truth but we speak the truth in love. Gill, when commenting on this verse, rightly notes that it refers to peacemakers “not between God and man, for no man can make his own peace with God…God, in this sense, is the only peacemaker but between men and men….”

Those who thus labor to establish peace, Christ says, will be called the sons of God. Some take this a God’s call and say “the idea in this passage…is synonymous with ‘to become’. To become a son of God is tantamount to entering God’s family as being saved.” I cannot agree with this understanding. To understand it in that way, it seems to me, leaves one in a position that he cannot escape having said that being saved, at least in this instance, is the reward for having been a peacemaker. The Bible is explicitly clear that it is not by works of righteousness that we have done that we are saved and become the children of God. (Titus 3:5)

The reward of being peacemakers is not that thereby we become the sons of God but that thereby we are recognized as being the children of God. John Trapp explains the verse this way: “Now therefore, although it be for the most part, a thankless office (with men) to interpose, and to seek to take up strife, to piece those again that are gone aside and asunder … yet do it for God’s sake, and that ye may (as ye shall be after awhile) be called and counted, not meddler and busybodies, but sons of God.” Men are not by nature the sons of God…Men become sons of God in the regenerative and adoptive sense by the acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour – and may judge of themselves as others judge of them such has indeed transpired because they are peace-makers. In short, do not become blessed, have enviable relationship with God established because they are peacemakers but because they have been blessed they are peacemakers and thus are recognized and may recognize of themselves God has indeed adopted.”

The point of Jesus teaching is that we, as believers, are go through the world among men, carrying peace in our hearts, on our lips and in our deed. If we do so, so rare will we be among men we will be like a city set on a hill or a lamp set on a stand in a dark night. Men do not much believe in our talk or our claims to belong to Christ but if we go about our daily living in a quiet but unrelenting pursuit of peace, men will say of us, “There is a child of God.”

May God grant us the grace to so walk before a wicked and perverse generation.

Thoughts from Psalm 3

One of the great omissions we often make in life, an omission that often causes us times of great anxiety and anguish, is the failure to recognize and keep an account of the acts of God when he has protected us. If you have to stop to think of such a time, that only proves the point. We too often, perhaps most often, when we have avoided some calamities shrug them off with a “Boy, that was close,” or “That scared me,” or “I was lucky, very fortunate,” etc. as if somehow willy-nilly fate had spared us a stray bullet. Then, when real trouble comes, we have no memories of a history of God’s dealing graciously with us.

In Psalm 3, we see David at a time when that could well have been his situation. (You can read the story behind this in II Samuel beginning at chapter 13 reading through chapter 17.) He was a king; yet, his son Absalom had risen up against him, drove him from his throne and his kingdom and was now pursuing him with an army of men seeking to kill him. We see something of David’s situation as he exclaims, “Many are those who rise up against me, those who trouble me have grown in number, many say there is no help for him in God.’

Martin Luther said once there is no temptation on earth or even in hell to equal the temptation of despairing of God’s help. Well might that thought have entered David’s mind. And it must surely have been a stinging rebuke because of David’s sin. I think it is not only for musical instruction David now enters “Selah”, rest, stop and think about this into his song.

It Perhaps David ran a list through his mind as he recalled his sins against God. Who among us can but think it is true that I have sinned and sinned greatly? It is true that on the scales of justice I deserve this. What else could a reasonable person expect for such conduct?

“But you Jehovah…” No greater disjunct has ever been uttered. “But God…” We see this disjunct in Ephesians 2. Paul begins “And you being dead etc. were the children of wrath…’ (and in the Greek text it comes in the 4^th verse) “but God….” I am pursued by my own son and multitudes who seek to kill me,  I have no armies with which to protect myself. They say “God will not help him.” That is what they say, “but you, Jehovah, are my shield and my glory; the one who lifts up my head.” Well might my head hand down in despair and defeat but you God lift it up. David knows this because he has kept account of God’s deliverances, He has not passed off God’s past works as luck or good fortune “I dodged that bullet.” He recall the past times that God has struck his enemies “on the cheekbone” and delivered him from danger, death and defeat. When David was but a shepherd boy, God had delivered the lion, the bear and Goliath into his hand and God had delivered him from Saul when he sought to kill him. So, now David, recalling God’s care over him can sing “they say…but you, Jehovah lift up my head.” Thus, I both ay down and sleep.

Whatever betides, there is no tossing and turning in the night for the child of God who keeps account of God’s care over him but as David says elsewhere, he both lays down in peace and sleeps.

Blessed is the man whose God is Jehovah.