Hope in the Lord

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“Don’t put your confidence in powerful people; there is no help for you there. 
When they breathe their last, they return to the earth, 
and all their plans die with them. 
But joyful are those who have the God of Israel as their Helper, 
whose hope is in the Lord their God.”
He made heaven and earth, the sea, 
and everything in them. 
He keeps every promise forever.”
Psalms‬ ‭146:3-6‬ ‭NLT‬‬

A charismatic figure emerges in a nation and people are attracted to him, electing him as their leader. A familiar situation repeated many times over in ages past. And there have been many shipwrecked nations because they followed a man instead of following God. Great initial expectations are replaced by disappointment and despair. As David, the Psalmist, advises – putting our confidence in a person will not be helpful. And he points out that the grandiose plans the leaders have will die with them. A human being does not have the capability to always deliver on their promises, to provide help for everyone who needs it. When I read these verses I am reminded of the promises made by aspiring politicians when they seek election. Promises that often evaporate and disappear once their office has been realised. 

Thankfully, there is a “but” in this Psalm. When we put our hope and trust in God, we are 100% assured that He will deliver what He promises. Verse 6 finishes, “He keeps every promise forever”. But the meaning the Psalmist implies behind the word “hope” isn’t for something that might or might not happen. Like we hope it won’t rain today. Or the childish hope that Santa will bring a new train set for Christmas. The word “hope” in this Psalm implies an assurance that through our faith we will realise what we “hope” for. The first verse in Hebrews 11 says, “Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see.” 

So we align our lives to “the God of Israel”, our wonderful Creator God. He isn’t just a local “god” hovering over a nation state in the Middle East. As the verse says, “He made heaven and earth, the sea and everything in them”. Because of His credentials as the Creator of everything, we can delight in our relationship with Him; in the knowledge that He helps us, replacing despair of human shortcomings with joy in His God-comings. Powerful people don’t make it onto the significance scale when God is around. 

God’s Word, the Bible, is full of His promises. Too many to list here. But just one has popped into my mind this morning. “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” ‭‭Philippians‬ ‭4:6-7‬ ‭NLT‬‬. Having the peace of God within us in a world lacking peace is a promise God will never fail to deliver.

The Trembling Earth

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“The Red Sea waters saw them coming and ran the other way!
Then later, the Jordan River too 
moved aside so that they could all pass through.
The land shuddered with fear. 
Mountains and hills shook with dread. 
O sea, what happened to you to make you flee? 
O Jordan, what was it that made you turn and run? 
O mountains, what frightened you so? 
And you hills, what made you shiver? 
Tremble, O earth, for you are in the presence of the Lord, 
the presence of the God of Jacob.”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭114:3-7‬ ‭TPT‬‬

We read the historical and prophetic accounts contained within what we Christians call the Old Testament, and wonder about the nature of the events described. Are they accounts seasoned with traditional, word of mouth legends handed down from one generation to the next, or did the described events actually happen? Did the Red Sea really part? Did the Jordan River really stop flowing? And there are other events that took place in the Bible that seem against natural laws. Did the rock really release rivers of water when Moses struck it with his staff? Did the Jericho walls really collapse when the Israelites gave a shout and blew their trumpets? Did the ground really collapse and swallow up the family of Korah in the Numbers 16 account? Over the years I have heard two categories of response to these questions – one is the secular and liberal theology approach, that these Bible stories are just that, stories. Fictional accounts, or at least myths that some people try and explain away or discount by applying modern thought and archaeological research. But the other response is one of a fundamental belief in the infallibility of Scripture. A belief that these events really happened, just as they had been written. Sometimes people adopt a hybrid approach to these two extremes, accepting some accounts and not others. Others protest with the thought, “What does is all matter anyway?” 

This Psalm contains a fundamental, irrefutable theme – that God is the Creator of the Earth and everything within it. That He is able to make things happen in His creation because He is God. He is the all-powerful, ever present Almighty. And the palpable sense of awe in God’s presence manifests itself in the Psalmist’s graphic language of how the earth was responding, our world that we take to be fixed and immovable, but in his account frightened and shivering when God was there. 

As pilgrims in this life, we can trudge along, bounded by what we think are “natural laws”, or we can develop a sense of excitement that we are in the presence of Almighty God, our Creator who is able to do anything because he is all-powerful. Adopting an expectant feeling that whatever is facing us in our journey, God is there to help us, able to move the mountains in our paths. Without God’s intervention, the Israelites would have been recaptured or destroyed by the well-equipped Egyptian army when they encountered the Red Sea. Without God’s intervention, they would have been unable to pass over the Jordan River into the Promised Land. However, such miraculous events were not just for the Old Testament; Jesus Himself taught about the power we have over the natural world in Matthew 17:20, “I promise you, if you have faith inside of you no bigger than the size of a small mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move away from here and go over there,’ and you will see it move! There is nothing you couldn’t do!” Jesus walked on water. He stilled the storms. He healed the sick and raised the dead, and, amazingly, He said in John 14:12, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” Now that’s challenging. 

So what do make of all this? Are we feeling a sense of excitement building within us at what we can do though and with our amazing Heavenly Father? Or are we going to continue to tramp through a monochrome world, bounded and limited by our puny and inadequate natural abilities? We may not have the faith to make one of our local hills disappear, but what about stretching our faith to pray for the sick old lady next door, believing for her healing? Or believe God for …. (fill in your own faith need)? Tasha Cobbs sings a song, “This is a Move”. Let’s sing it together today – it’s on YouTube if you don’t know it. Here are the first two verses.

Mountains are still being moved
Strongholds are still being loosed
God, we believe
‘Cause yes, we can see it
That wonders are still what you do

And bodies are still being raised
Giants are still being slayed
God, we believe
Yes, we can see it
That wonders are still what you do

Difficult Questions

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“The Lord says to my Lord: 
‘Sit at my right hand 
until I make your enemies 
a footstool for your feet.’”
Psalms‬ ‭110:1‬ ‭NIVUK‬‬

Psalm 110 is another Davidic Psalm, full of prophetic and apocryphal language. The verse I’ve chosen today was quoted by Jesus during one of His conversations with the Pharisees; He used it to ask a difficult question of the religious leaders of His day, one that they couldn’t answer. The details of the conversation were recorded in Matthew 22. 

I read this Psalm, and find myself at a loss to understand at first how it will help the modern day pilgrim, in his or her journey through this life. There is obviously a time coming, prophetically laid out, of when Jesus, the Son of God, will rule and reign one day in the future. It will be a time of judgement, of battle, of triumph, of defeat of the forces that will be arraigned against Him. It’s encouraging to know the contents of a future chapter in the book of this world’s history. As I scan the verses in this Psalm, some nuggets of truth emerge. About God’s unchanging promise that His enemies will one day be defeated, by His Son Jesus ruling at the head of an army of His troops. About His priestly role, leading the spiritual future of His people. About judgement bringing about the justice God’s people can only dream of today. It is these thoughts that will sustain us when our lives are difficult and challenging. 

The Bible contains difficult questions, like the one Jesus asked of the Pharisees when He quoted this Psalm. And in some places the Biblical records and accounts can be interpreted in different ways. So how do we handle challenging Biblical and theological questions when asked by those around us? I’m sure some people lay awake at night trying to dream up traps to undermine us. A genuine seeker after truth should be answered and carefully helped to understand the answer to their difficulties; if necessary we must go away and research the answer with the help of the Holy Spirit; if we don’t know the answer we should say so. And we thank God for the apologists who interface the Bible truths to everyday life, and provide light in dark corners; such people we can refer our questioners to if necessary. 

In our everyday lives, we too can have questions about difficult-to-understand passages in the Bible. At such times, we keep close to our Heavenly Father, trusting Him to provide all the answers we need for our journeys. And we need to take our life-steps, with the faith that God knows what is best for us. Perhaps Proverbs 3:6 is a good go-to place today: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” Sometimes we don’t need answers to difficult questions – we just need God.

‭‭

Confident Faith

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“O God, my heart is steadfast [with confident faith]; 
I will sing, I will sing praises, even with my soul. 
Awake, harp and lyre; 
I will awaken the dawn! 
I will praise and give thanks to You, O Lord, among the 
people; 
And I will sing praises to You among the nations.”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭108:1-3‬ ‭AMP‬‬

David once again picks up the Psalmist’s pen. And he immediately bursts out in praise for his God, our God. It seems strange that we are linked to David through our loving Heavenly Father, over the centuries, over the miles. Linked with someone long dead but very much alive through his writings. David was a “man after God’s own heart” (1 Sam 13:14) yet spent most of his life warring with people both inside and outside his country. We have a parallel with this too, as we journey through life, warring with our sin, struggling with the increasing secularisation of our society, and facing into our own sets of individual “giants”. But David had a quality we would do well to grow and emulate – he had a heart that was steadfast and confident in faith, faith that he had a loving Heavenly Father, as close to him as a brother. And that relationship prevailed through all of David’s life, a life devoted in his service to God. It did not mean that David’s life was not without its challenges. He battled with people, he battled with his family, he battled with his sin. David was in many ways a larger than life character who encountered many giants, not just Goliath, but, and here’s the thing, he had a steadfast, unmovable and confident faith that God was there for him and would come through for him no matter what he was facing into.

David was a pilgrim through a life set in a certain period of history. David faced into challenges we will never experience, but his faith in God carried him through.  We too are on a pilgrimage through life in our period of history, facing into challenges that we perhaps would rather not face, the clocking ticking away just as it did in David’s day. But just as God was there for David, He will be there for us too. We too can awake the dawn with our praises, thanking God for His wonderful love and grace. And we too can stand strong with a steadfast heart, with confident faith in our wonderful and awesome giant-killing God.

How Long?

Posted on by Adrian Clark

How long, Lord? Will you forget me for ever?
How long will you hide your face from me? 
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
Psalm 13:1-2 NIVUK

This is the “How long” Psalm. Just a few verses but profound in its message. “How long” appears four times in the first two verses, so it must have been a phrase significant in David’s mind when he wrote this Psalm. In the first verse he questions God’s silence and accuses Him of forgetting him. In the second he turns inward and asks the same question of his soul. He must have been an impatient and demanding man at times! 

We too get caught up in “How long” situations. How long will I have to put up with this illness? How long will I have to work at this job? How long will I …. (fill in your own problem). In Western society we are very much wired into expectations that we want delivered instantly. Instant coffee. Turn on a tap and water comes out instantly. Even though, rationally, we know that “instant” is not always possible, it doesn’t stop the expectations of immediacy from rolling in, nagging us with their strident demands. Some want to lose weight. Or learn a foreign language. Or play a musical instrument. Or get a University degree. Instantly! Right now! We want to download a film from the internet instantly and pursue the fastest broadband solution to get as close to instant as we can. We want an electric car (when we can afford to buy one!) to charge up – yes, you’ve guessed it – instantly. The opportunities for the demands of the “How long” generation are endless. Frustration builds and dissatisfaction permeates our minds and corrupts our very souls when “instant” cannot be delivered.

David wasn’t caught up with ancient Jewish gadgets though. Or the faucets in the palace plumbing. Rather, he was in a hard place, once again, because of his enemies. And obviously he was getting impatient with God for not dealing with them. Note that he wasn’t saying that the issue was too hard for God to sort out. He was instead trying to twist God’s arm into helping him out of his predicament sooner rather than later, as we can see in his demanding prayer in verse 3. 

The worldly spirit of urgency also has a pervasive influence on our Christian lives. We want an immediate answer to prayer. We want to see church growth straight away, by Sunday, or perhaps the next, God, if you can’t organise it earlier. But we worship a God whose timing in everything is totally spot on. Never too late. Never too early. 

Many years ago my daughter was hospitalised with a serious, and at the time possibly terminal, illness. The prognosis was grim. And around the world good Christian people prayed for her. A well known itinerant preacher with a proven healing ministry prayed at her bedside. The church Elders anointed her with oil. The family held a daily vigil, each day and most of each night. I personally rattled Heaven’s gates asking God to bring about a breakthrough. But one day halfway through her four months in hospital, I was summoned from my office in Glasgow to her bedside in Edinburgh, the medics fearing the worst. And half way along the M8 motorway I was crying out to God, yes – you’ve guessed it, “How long” God? And amazingly I heard this voice from the back seat say, “Trust Me”. God in His mercy heard my anguish and gave me something that has stayed with me ever since. A reminder that He is in control of all situations and His timing will be perfect. There were further crises in her remaining hospital stay, but we were eventually allowed to bring her home to commence a long, but successful, convalescence. God healed her, not instantly as we would have liked, but nevertheless He healed her. And those two words, “Trust Me” turned me from being a “Believer” into being a “Knower”. 

David finished his Psalm with a declaration of his trust in God’s love, in faith rejoicing in the coming rescue, proclaiming the goodness of God. We don’t know how long David had to wait for God to sort out his enemies. But perhaps, as David lifted his thoughts into Heavenly places, the importance of his problems dimmed, replaced by the comforting arms of his Lord and God, and that still small whisper, “Trust Me”

Yo-Yo

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“Be exalted, O God, above the highest heavens! May Your glory shine over all the earth.
My enemies have set a trap for me. I am weary from distress. They have dug a deep pit in my path, but they themselves have fallen into it.” Psalms‬ ‭57:5-6‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Psalm 57 is a “Yo-Yo” set of verses. David’s thoughts, captured in this Psalm, seem to bounce between praise to God and despair about his predicament. He’s on the run again, and Saul nearly catches him this time. You can just imagine him and his men holding their breath as Saul’s soldiers pass by. And we read that Saul was even within reach of David as he “relieved himself” in the same cave in which David was hiding.

In today’s Western society it is difficult to relate to the dangers David faced into, almost on a daily basis, as he tried to keep out of Saul’s way. Most of us do not experience threats to our lives. But we do experience difficulties in which God’s help is just as important as it was in David’s circumstances. As I write, the fallout from Brexit and the pandemic are manifesting themselves in all sorts of societal problems. Security of food and road fuel supplies are under threat. Energy prices have rocketed. We are constantly being told that the NHS cannot cope with the demands being made of it. People are anxious and nervous about the future. Their worlds have been shaken and there seems to be no remedy in sight. So what do we do? We do what David did. Share our worries and concerns with our loving Heavenly Father, and concentrate of praising Him. Verse 5, “Be exalted, O God, above the highest heavens! May your glory shine over all the earth” is repeated again in verse 11. Why? Because that was David’s heart. No matter what he was facing into, the important bit was putting God in His rightful place.

So are we anxious today? 1 Peter 5:7 reads, “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.” Jesus said in John 16:33, “…Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” We have a choice – accept God’s loving care as He “overcomes the world” or worry ourselves into an early grave. Stark language I know but David went on to become Israel’s greatest king. What will we achieve as God’s overcomers?

Jesus Calling our Name?

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“They trust in their wealth and boast of great riches. Yet they cannot redeem themselves from death by paying a ransom to God. Redemption does not come so easily, for no one can ever pay enough to live forever and never see the grave.
But as for me, God will redeem my life. He will snatch me from the power of the grave.” Psalms‬ ‭49:6-9, 15‬ ‭NLT‬‬

The Psalmist was obviously having a bad day. He looked around his community, perhaps his nation, and observed that there were a lot of rich people, who arrogantly lived a life of luxury. But he pointed out that there was one thing that their money could not buy and that was eternal life. He said, correctly, that they couldn’t take their wealth with them to the grave and beyond. They could not, as one of today’s verses points out, pay God a ransom to keep them alive forever.

In the world today there is a growing business in cryopreservation, where rich people or their families pay large sums to enable their bodies, or the bodies of their loved ones, to be preserved in liquid nitrogen in the hope that advances in medical science would one day enable them to be resurrected from their frozen state and brought back to life in a Lazarus-like resuscitation. An added twist sees some just having their brains frozen, perhaps in the hope of adding their intelligence to a robotic entity. But all with a faith that one day they will suddenly find themselves lying on a slab, waking up in a new age. It begs the question, would I really want to wake up in this sin-ridden, war-striven, disease-ravaged world? Will mankind ever get its act together to save this world and assure a future for Planet Earth? And all by effectively cocking a snoop at God by saying we can achieve what is needed without His help?

But I can’t help thinking how stupid the cryopreservationists are. God Himself has given everyone the opportunity to live forever through His Son Jesus. And it won’t cost them a penny. Rich or poor, we can embrace a hope for the future purely by accepting that God is who He says He is, the Creator of everything. That He loved mankind so much that He sent His Son Jesus to die for us at Calvary, offering the breathtaking exchange of our sins for His righteousness. And the Psalmist records his personal assurance that God has redeemed him from death, from the power of the grave, such was His faith in his relationship with his Father God.

And the Psalm ends with the following, “So don’t be dismayed when the wicked grow rich and their homes become ever more splendid. For when they die, they take nothing with them. Their wealth will not follow them into the grave. In this life they consider themselves fortunate and are applauded for their success. But they will die like all before them and never again see the light of day.” Psalms‬ ‭49:16-19‬ ‭NLT‬‬

I don’t know about you, but I would much rather put my faith in the Creator of Everything, than in the hope that one day someone will wake me up from a frozen state. After all, why would they want to anyway?

The story of Jesus and His friend Lazarus is interesting. Lazarus dies and is buried and has languished, wrapped in his grave clothes, for four days before Jesus came to see his tomb. And we have the amazing spectacle set out in John 11, of Jesus commanding that the stone sealing the mouth of the tomb is rolled away. We then read in verses 43 and 44, “Then Jesus shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in grave clothes, his face wrapped in a head cloth. Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him go!”” These few words can never adequately describe the drama that unfolded before the observers. Gob-smacked would be too tame a phrase to describe it. Here was a man physically dead and starting to rot in the heat of that climate, and yet the power of God working through His Son Jesus was able to resurrect him from his dead state. Lazarus died and the next thing he knew was Jesus calling his name. Now I don’t believe for a minute that God has special favourites. He treats His children equally. As some have said, the ground is level at the foot of the Cross. So I sometimes wonder, after we die, will the next thing we hear be Jesus calling our name, waking us up to a glorious future with Him forever?

Panting

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for You, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” Psalms‬ ‭42:1-2‬ ‭NIVUK‬‬

I must confess that I have never seen a deer panting for water. Having said that I must also confess that I have never been physically thirsty to that extent either. But I have been in a place where I have been spiritually thirsty. A place where God seems far away, where circumstances have been overwhelming, where prayers are seemingly unheard and ineffective. A place where I have cried out to God for His grace and mercy. But I can also say that in time God has appeared to me with a solution to my distress. To my spiritual loneliness. To my thirsty soul.

Where are these spiritual deserts? They could be anywhere. In the middle of the night while tossing and turning in sleepless anguish. In a hospital bed fighting sickness or enduring pain. Reflecting on the news or some piece of information just received. During a conversation with workmates. Even in a church service. Whenever possible, during those dry times, I take a walk and ask God to speak to me, humbly trusting that He is there and able to pour out those streams of living water into my thirsty soul. And eventually He always turns up with words and thoughts full of love and reassurance. Just because my feelings tell me that He isn’t open for business that day doesn’t mean that this is a fact. It just means I need to search diligently for that spiritual oasis in the middle of the desert. Because there I will find God. It means that in the process of the searching I must clear out the blockages that are stopping me from seeing Him. Those proudful thoughts and attitudes. Those unconfessed sins. And then I must continue to search for God, believing in faith the verse that says, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” (‭‭Jeremiah‬ ‭29:13‬ ‭NIVUK‬‬). I will find God. He will pour out the spiritual water that I need in my time of thirst. And I will respond in a hymn of praise and thankfulness, refreshed once again.

Righteousness

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are attentive to their cry;
The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; He delivers them from all their troubles.
The righteous person may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all; He protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken.”
Psalms‬ ‭34:15, 17, 19-20‬ ‭NIVUK‬‬

Who or what is a righteous person? Does such a person exist? And why does he or she have troubles? These are questions that aren’t easy to answer, especially in a short blog post. From a Christian perspective, people are made righteous through their faith in Jesus. We believe that Jesus was, and is, the Son of God, both human and divine, and that He came to this earth with one mission – to manifest God’s love for mankind by saving them from the consequences of their repented sins, by His sacrificial death on a Roman cross at a place called Calvary. Jesus took onto Himself our sins and in return gave us His righteousness. The faith that we hold, through a continuing trusting relationship with God, in our righteous state, brings us to a place where we can cry out to God and He will answer us. The verses before us today don’t say that we won’t have troubles. But it does say that God will deliver us from them. Sometimes, this deliverance happens quickly. But at other times it will only come after we die. But the faith and trust that we have in God will sustain us through all our troubles.

In the news this morning is yet another story of a person with Motor Neurone disease who wants to end his life through assisted suicide. A person without hope for the future. A person without a belief in God. A person who thinks that only blackness awaits him after death. But a person who will find that there is a worse place to be than this life here on earth. God has compassion and love for all mankind and it must break His heart to see such a person in such a hopeless state, rejecting the very One who will deliver him from his troubles. As Christians we must pass on God’s love to everyone we meet, not just those in such dire needs, in the hope that they too will embrace our wonderful Saviour and find that His righteousness is available to everyone

God Talks to Me

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“My heart has heard You say, “Come and talk with Me.” And my heart responds, “Lord, I am coming.”” Psalms‬ ‭27:8‬ ‭NLT‬‬

What an amazing verse! That the Creator of the universe and all that is in it would want to talk to David, the Psalmist? Really? But God favours no one more than any other. David’s experience of dialogue with God wasn’t just for him – it’s for everyone. And note this – God initiated the conversation. So I have to face into the fact that my amazing God wants to talk to me. So how do I respond? “Sorry, God, but I’m too busy right now?” Or ”sorry, God, there’s a TV programme I need to watch?” I can invent any number of excuses. But the truth is quite clear – He wants to talk to me. There is only one response that is acceptable – “Lord, I am coming”. God knows my busy schedules. He knows what living on planet earth demands. But there will be times when He wants to talk to me and I need to turn up my spiritual receptors so that I respond in His timing, not mine.

God talks to me through His Word. Through a gentle nudge from the Holy Spirit. Through a comment from a fellow pilgrim in my community of faith. But He invites me to talk with Him. To join Him in an intimate conversation devoid of religious jargon. Full of honesty and grace. And He whispers with love and mercy, what I need to hear.

God is inviting you, my friend, to talk with Him as well. How will you respond?