The Night I Heard God

The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. --Lamentations 3:25–26 (KJV)

Don't fret. Ward off anxiety. Relax in the Lord. Wait on Him. This is a comfortingly consistent theme in the Bible.

Psalm 37:7

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!

Micah 7:7

But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.

Psalm 62:1

For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. 

My wife, Phyllis and I were chatting just before going to bed a couple of nights ago. We were tired . . . a good tired. But really tired just the same. It had been a long day, though nothing momentous had preoccupied us. Phyllis and I both have the occasion in our calling to be in front of our laptops quite a bit. We are happy to have this "new" technology at hand. That night, I began to wonder how much such gazing and typing and searching and thinking had been affecting us? I wondered if this had jaded our ability to "hear" God in the silence, if so much "doing" had had the tendency to crowd out "being." I wondered if so much information at our finger tips has rendered meditation and original thought obsolete, or perhaps nearly so? 

There is a place for quiet reflection, for what the Psalmist says above, waiting "in silence" (62:1). In our noise-infested culture, I've come to know by experience that "silence" really IS "golden." Frankly, it was on Sunday night after a long and blessed day, that I had taken the trash to the curb, only to find myself marveling at the nearly absolute quiet. (That's unusual on Main Street even in the small town of Perry, NY!). I quite literally could hear the blood in my ears!? I decided there at 10:45 pm that I could not go in. Not yet. So, I looked around, calmly overcome by sereneness. No iPod. No electronic interference--ear-buds or TV. The three-quarter moon, the shadows in the street lights, a meandering skunk, . . . and the stillness. Ah, the stillness! Then I sat on the front porch . . . calm . . . tranquil . . . at rest.  And I heard God.

Yes, I think that's the way I'll end this post. . . . I heard God. 

I heard God . . . 

The Christian's Great Cause for Rejoicing!

“Let Israel rejoice in him.” — Psalm 149:2

Be glad of heart, O believer, but take care that thy gladness has its spring in the Lord. Thou hast much cause for gladness in thy God, for thou canst sing with David, “God, my exceeding joy.”

Be glad that the Lord reigneth, that Jehovah is King! 

Rejoice that he sits upon the throne, and ruleth all things! 

Every attribute of God should become a fresh ray in the sunlight of our gladness.

·       That he is wise should make us glad, knowing as we do our own foolishness.

·       That he is mighty, should cause us to rejoice who tremble at our weakness.

·       That he is everlasting, should always be a theme of joy when we know that we wither as the grass.

·       That he is unchanging, should perpetually yield us a song, since we change every hour.

·       That he is full of grace, that he is overflowing with it, and that this grace in covenant he has given to us; that it is ours to cleanse us, ours to keep us, ours to sanctify us, ours to perfect us, ours to bring us to glory—all this should tend to make us glad in him. 

This gladness in God is as a deep river; we have only as yet touched its brink, we know a little of its clear sweet, heavenly streams, but onward the depth is greater, and the current more impetuous in its joy. The Christian feels that he may delight himself not only in what God is, but also in all that God has done in the past. The Psalms show us that God’s people in olden times were wont to think much of God’s actions, and to have a song concerning each of them. So let God’s people now rehearse the deeds of the Lord! Let them tell of his mighty acts, and “sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously.” Nor let them ever cease to sing, for as new mercies flow to them day by day, so should their gladness in the Lord’s loving acts in providence and in grace show itself in continued thanksgiving.  Be glad ye children of Zion and rejoice in the Lord your God.

from Spurgeon's Morning & Evening Devotions for the morning of September 22

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Train Your Child to Love Church & the Lord's Supper

I have loved reading J. C. Ryle for many years. My all-time favorite is his wonderfully thought out Holiness. Please get it and read it! But the following is for parents and comes from his short booklet, The Duties of Parents. I recommend the J. C. Ryle site, HERE. Make it your favorite too if he ministers to you as he has to me.

“Tell your children of the duty and privilege of going to Church, and joining in the prayers of the congregation. Tell them that wherever the Lord’s people are gathered together, there the Lord Jesus is present in a special way, and that those who are absent must expect, like the Apostle Thomas, to miss out on a blessing.

 

“Tell them of the importance of hearing the Word of God preached, and that it is God’s ordained way of converting, sanctifying, and building up the souls of men. Tell them how the Apostle Paul commands us not to “give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but to encourage one another—and all the more as we see the Day approaching.” [Hebrews 10:25]

“It is a sad sight in a church when nobody comes to the Lord’s Table but the older people, and the young men and the young women all turn away. But it is a sadder sight still when no children are to be seen in a church, except those who come to the Sunday School, and are often obliged to attend. Let none of this guilt lie at your doors. There are many boys and girls in every city, besides those who come to Sunday School, and you who are their parents and friends should see to it that they come with you to church.

“Do not allow them to grow up with a habit of making vain excuses for not coming. Make them clearly understand, that so long as they are under your roof, it is the rule of your house for every one in good health to honor the Lord on the Lord’s day, and that you believe that the healthy person who refuses to go to church on the Lord’s Day brings great harm to his soul.

“Do not be discouraged because your children do not see the full value of church and the Lord’s Supper now. Just train them to have a habit of regular attendance. Set it before their minds as a high, holy, and solemn duty, and believe me, the day will very likely come when they will bless you for your efforts.”

A Cure for the Anxious in Heart

I was helped by this devotion from Spurgeon. Yes, there are times when I have anxious thoughts going through my mind. I happened onto this and it caught my eye, the eye of faith. I pass it on for your growth and encouragement.

“He shall not be afraid of evil tidings.”

— Psalm 112:7

Christian, you ought not to dread the arrival of evil tidings; because if you are distressed by them, what do you more than other men? Other men have not your God to fly to; they have never proved his faithfulness as you have done, and it is no wonder if they are bowed down with alarm and cowed with fear: but you profess to be of another spirit; you have been begotten again unto a lively hope, and your heart lives in heaven and not on earthly things; now, if you are seen to be distracted as other men, what is the value of that grace which you profess to have received? Where is the dignity of that new nature which you claim to possess?

Again, if you should be filled with alarm, as others are, you would, doubtless, be led into the sins so common to others under trying circumstances. The ungodly, when they are overtaken by evil tidings, rebel against God; they murmur, and think that God deals hardly with them. Will you fall into that same sin? Will you provoke the Lord as they do?

Moreover, unconverted men often run to wrong means in order to escape from difficulties, and you will be sure to do the same if your mind yields to the present pressure. Trust in the Lord, and wait patiently for him. Your wisest course is to do as Moses did at the Red Sea, “Stand still and see the salvation of God.” For if you give way to fear when you hear of evil tidings, you will be unable to meet the trouble with that calm composure which nerves for duty, and sustains under adversity. How can you glorify God if you play the coward? Saints have often sung God’s high praises in the fires, but will your doubting and desponding, as if you had none to help you, magnify the Most High? Then take courage, and relying in sure confidence upon the faithfulness of your covenant God, “let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

Spurgeon, C. H. (2006). Morning and Evening : Daily Readings (Complete and unabridged; New modern edition.). Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers.

Ten Missional Prayers for the Church Today--James Emery White

1.  That pastors would see other churches in their immediate vicinity as a co-laborer, not as the competition.

2.  That members of churches would see themselves as ministers and missionaries, dying to themselves for the sake of the cause, as opposed to consumers who care most about whether they are fed, ministered to, or served themselves.

3.  That parachurch organizations would be parachurch organizations – meaning serving alongside the church while giving the local church the pre-eminence it deserves – and allowing the partnership to reach its full redemptive potential in light of the biblical mandate.

4.  That church planters would commit to being a) sent by a church; b) called by a community; and c) eager to go where no one has gone.  Instead of a) sending themselves; b) going to where they simply desire to live; and c) remaining blind to the reality that they’ll be the 11th McDonalds in a row of ten existing ones.

5.  That all seminaries would remember that they exist to serve the church, and that they would serve the church to such a degree that their students would be more on fire to serve and build the local church after they have graduated than before they entered.

6.  That those committed to discipleship, and rightly so, would quit pitting it against evangelism as if any emphasis on “reaching out” somehow takes away from “building up”, creating a false dichotomy that doesn’t exist biblically.

7.  That older generations would quit worrying about whether they are being catered to sufficiently, and would become more interested in whether they are passing the baton on to the next generation that is so desperate and hungry for mentoring.

8.  That the false dichotomy between a concern for personal or sexual morality, and social justice, would evaporate.  Instead, that we would see that being salt and light applies to both concerns: being as concerned for a culture of divorce as much as we are for the AIDS pandemic in Africa.

9.  That the pendulum between whether to share the gospel or engage in social ministry would also disappear.  That we would see them not as an either-or, but a both-and; we are to give a cup of water and the bread of life, feeding both stomach and soul.

10.That we would understand that lost people are not the enemy, but instead the objects of the Father’s heart – and thus, they should be the objects of ours.  That we would join the Father as He sets out to find His lost sheep, search for His lost coin, and look desperately down the road for His prodigal son.

James Emery White

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Don't Sell Out God for Substitutes!

For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

Jeremiah 2:13

A Cistern--designed to hold water in arid climates

I think it was my wife, Phyllis who first alerted me to these words, and she from Piper? The point is that this is a devastatingly powerful verse! Below, are words of Octavius Winslow (19th C). PLEASE do not read OVER these words. Land on them. Let them sink in. Meditate right here. Soak a while. Their truth is too current to side-step.

GOD speaks of it as involving two evils—the evil of forsaking Him, and the evil of substituting a false object of happiness for Him. Dear reader, the true painfulness of this subject consists not in the sorrow which your heart may have felt in seeing your cisterns broken. Ah no! the true agony should be, that you have, in your wanderings and creature idolatry, sinned, deeply sinned, against the Lord your God. This, and not your loss, ought to lay you low before Him. This, and not your broken scheme of earthly happiness, ought to fill you with the bitterness of sorrow, and clothe you with the drapery of woe. Oh! to have turned your back upon such a God, upon such a Father, upon such a Friend, and to have supposed that even a universe of creatures could have made you happy without Him, ought to bring you to His feet exclaiming, “God be merciful to me, the chief of sinners!” 

If you have the time, then please read the rest of the article from this online entry. 

Is it no sin to have said to God, as you have a thousand times over—”I prefer myself to You—my family to You—my estate to You—my pleasure to You—my honor to You”? Is it no sin to have taken the gifts with which He endowed you, or the wealth with which He entrusted you, and forming them into a golden image, to have fallen down before it, exclaiming, “This is your god, O my soul?” Oh yes, it is a sin, the guilt and the greatness of which no language can describe.

And is it no sin, O believer in Jesus, to have turned away, in your unbelief and inconstancy, from the glorious redemption which the Lord has obtained for you at such a price, and to have sought the assurance and the joy of your salvation from other sources than it? What! is not the atoning work of Jesus sufficient to give your believing soul solid rest, and peace, and hope, but that you should have turned your eye from Him, and have sought it in the polluted and broken cistern of self?

Oh, slight not the precious blood, the glorious righteousness, the infinite fullness, and the tender love of Jesus thus. No, you dishonor this precious Jesus Himself! Shall He have wrought such an obedience, shall He have made such an atonement, shall He have died such a death, shall He have risen and have ascended up on high, all to secure your full salvation and certain glory, and will you derive the evidence and the comfort of your acceptance from any other than this one precious source—”looking unto Jesus!” Look away, then, from everything to Jesus. No matter what you are, look away from self—to Jesus [emphasis mine].

What to do when we are this way? Read on . . .

Ask Him for a sense of His reconciled love—ask Him for the Spirit of adoption—ask Him for a filial, loving, and obedient heart—ask Him for a meek, lowly, and submissive will. Yes, pour out your heart before Him: God waits to grant your utmost desire breathed out to Him in the name of Jesus. He has given you His beloved Son—oh largess worthy of a God!—oh gift of gifts, priceless and precious beyond all thought!—what inferior blessing will He then, withhold?

Even the Devils Have Faith?!

Does It Shock You?

It comes as a shock to people that demons have faith! What do they believe? For one thing, they believe in the existence of God; they are neither atheists nor agnostics. They also believe in the deity of Christ. Whenever they met Christ when He was on earth, they bore witness to His sonship (Mark 3:11–12). They believe in the existence of a place of punishment (Luke 8:31); and they also recognize Jesus Christ as the Judge (Mark 5:1–13). They submit to the power of His Word. 

“Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord!” (Deut. 6:4) This was the daily affirmation of faith of the godly Jew. “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder” (James 2:19, niv). The man with dead faith was touched only in his intellect; but the demons are touched also in their emotions. 

They believe and tremble

But it is not a saving experience to believe and tremble. A person can be enlightened in his mind and even stirred in his heart and be lost forever. True saving faith involves something more, something that can be seen and recognized: a changed life. “Show me thy faith without thy works,” challenged James, “and I will show thee my faith by my works” (James 2:18).  

How could a person show his faith without works? Can a dead sinner perform good works? Impossible! When you trust Christ, you are “created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10). Being a Christian involves trusting Christ and living for Christ; you receive the life, then you reveal the life. Faith that is barren is not saving faith. The Greek word translated “dead” in James 2:20 carries the meaning of “barren or idle,” like money drawing no interest.

 

Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Jas 2:18). Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books.